The Streak Continues

I was just sitting there at work, trying to make some progress on the projects that I currently have on the go when the phone rings. “Bell Payphone” is what the Caller ID Display was showing. It was Tina, she was out in New Hamburg with the girls and she couldn’t get the Van started. “What’s the problem?” I asked, quietly dreading the response. “There is no power, no lights, no radio, nothing” is the response I get. As I am at work, without a car, we decide to call a tow-truck. The Tow-truck driver came out and gave Tina a boost, the Van started but it was acting funny. As the Tow-Truck driver was unsure of what the problem was and we aren’t familiar with any of the garages in New Hamburg we decide to get the van towed to our Mechanic in Kitchener. It turned out to be just the battery but by the time we had paid for towing charges, diagnostics and the battery, the bill was in excess of $300.00. That was last Thursday just 3 days after I had met with the wreckers to have them pickup the old car.

So today when I was at work and the phone rang and the caller ID Display once again read “Bell Payphone”, I immediately started to get nervous. It was Tina again and there was indeed another incident with the van. She was coming out of the Mall when she noticed a man standing next to the van writing up a note saying that he had hit the van and that he would cover the damages. So after discussing it with me she decides to take it to Cory’s work to get an estimate. The estimate came out to nearly $1000.00. Tina had called the guy back to give him the estimate; he had said that he would call us back in a couple of days once he had a chance to gather the money. This stranger has shown a bit of honesty by sticking around and writing up the note; I just hope he follows through and doesn’t make us chase him for the money.

On a brighter note, I think I have found the perfect second vehicle for us. Last Friday, on the way to the Cottage there was a Tow Truck parked at the end of the Driveway with a big “For Sale” sign on it.

Anybody Who Owns His Own Car Deserves It

Alan King wrote a book in the early sixties titled “Anybody Who Owns His Own Home Deserves It”. In the book, which is ripe with sarcasm, Alan proceeds to tell the reader of all of the joys (and expenses) he has encountered since he has become a home owner. Well in slightly over a year I had several pitfalls that are starting to make me question the whole car ownership concept.

Last summer coming home from the cottage we had an accident in which the family van was totaled, thankfully no-one was hurt. My son was driving and it was an at-fault accident so while we got some money from our insurance company, we didn’t get near enough to replace the van. For those of you that are concerned about the Insurance Company, there is no need; they have increased my rates so I am sure they will get their money back with interest.

Last fall when Tina and the girls were at the Mall the car was stolen. As the car is more than 12 years old the police assured us that in all likely-hood we would get the car back within a couple of weeks. They suspected that it was stolen by a bunch of kids out for a joyride. Almost exactly 2 weeks later the car was located a couple of miles from the house. It was indeed taken by some kids out for a joyride, when we got the car back it was full of used drug paraphernalia and fast food wrappers. After spending several hundred dollars to get the car fixed and the ignition replaced, the Parking Tickets and 407 tolls started rolling in.

Last winter the car took another hit as Cory slid the car into a Hydro pole. Once again we were lucky that no people were hurt, unfortunately the car wasn’t so lucky. With Cory’s track record it is a good thing that he is apprenticing to become an Auto-Body Mechanic. So off the car goes to his work so that he can work on it during his slow periods to try and save us a couple of bucks on repairs. After spending more than $1000 dollars to get the front end fixed up, we get the car back only to find that the transmission took a beating and is not performing properly.

Instead of spending another $1500 - $2000 to get the transmission fixed we chose to let it go and take our chances. So last week when we got the call from Cory saying that he was on the expressway and the car had broken down we fully expected the problem to be the transmission. We had the car towed to the garage, where we learned that it wasn’t the transmission, it was the engine. A 12 year old car with a blown engine and a bad transmission just isn’t worth fixing so off to the wreckers it went.

So now I am in the market for a new used car, which is always painful for me as I am not the type of person who gets excited by cars. I think of cars as expensive necessities that I would love to be able to live without. Maybe I should just forget the whole thing and get bicycles and bus passes for the whole family.

Also the next time you are at the bookstore keep an eye out for my brother’s new book titled “Anybody Who Owns His Own Boat Deserves It”.

From Korean Weddings to Niagra Falls

I know I have said before that I like digital photography. I like the fact that I can take as many pictures as I want without having to buy film or pay for development. The only drawback I have found so far is I tend to be taking a lot of pictures of the same things. When I first got the camera it was spring so I took pictures of the kids riding their bikes; now that summer is here, it’s the kids doing water sports. There are only so many pictures of the same thing that a person needs. Other popular photo subjects have been; boats, sunsets, landscapes, and cottages. I have decided to show a couple of the many pictures I have taken and tell the stories behind them.

This is a picture of Lucas and his new bride Sohyun on their wedding day. For the church service Lucas was in a tuxedo and Sohyun was wearing the standard white wedding dress. For the reception Lucas and Sohyun got changed into more traditional Korean garb. The service was a standard Presbyterian service that was preformed almost entirely in Korean. The only thing that I understood was when Lucas stated his vows in English, but the overall feel of the service felt familiar. It was at the reception that things started to get interesting.

The meal was buffet style and nothing was labeled, and as I don’t get out much I could not recognize anything. I am not afraid to try new foods and I think it is important to keep an open mind but I do have a seafood allergy so this kind of felt like playing a game of Russian Roulette. With a couple of lucky guesses and some good advice from friends I ended up making it through the meal without incident.

Shortly after dinner there were some announcements and karaoke, all of which was in Korean. There’s something about watching a group of about 25 middle-aged Korean women singing Karaoke. Towards the end of the reception they changed their clothes again and preformed another ceremony. I have no idea what it was about, and I haven’t had a chance to ask Lucas about it yet but it was interesting to watch none the less.

This picture of Niagra Falls was taken this spring when Cory’s hockey team went to the Alliance Cup in St. Catherines. Tina wanted to support Cory in his tournament and the girls have never really been on a family vacation to anywhere other than the cottage so we decided to combine them and do both. Cory got a room and hung out with his teammates in St. Catherines while Tina, the girls and I got a hotel room in Niagra Falls.

In between running back and forth to St. Catherines to watch the games we tried to do a few tourist type activities, but no matter what Tina and I wanted to do, all the girls wanted to do was return to the hotel and go swimming. The morning this picture was taken the weather was cold and overcast which made the girls want to get back to the hotel even more. This was just after I got my new camera so I wanted to stay until I got the perfect shot. Did I mention that I have a tendency to take allot of pictures of the same thing? I think I took more than 400 pictures that weekend. Cory’s team ended up getting second place in the tournament.

This is a picture of my niece that I took on Easter weekend. I don’t really have a story to go with this picture I just like the picture so I decided to post it.

A Little More Choke and You Would Have Started It...

The title for this Blog Entry is almost identical to a Blog entry made by Moloquin. His links are on the side if you are not easily offended I suggest you check it out, if you are easily offend stick with my family friendly blog. I read his blog entry a couple of times, and I still haven’t figured out what the title has to do with the actual content, but that is not unusual. Most of the time when I read his blog, I can’t figure out the relationship between the title and the content. I figure that either means there is no relationship, or his method of thinking is on a higher plane than mine, either way its fine with me.


That’s all fine and dandy, but why would I be using it now as a title for one of my Blog entries. There are a couple of reasons, the first is I wanted to say thank you. When I read the title to his entry I immediately thought back to when I was a kid and was visiting my grandfather’s farm. I could almost picture me sitting in his lap trying to start the John Deere Tractor that to me must have seemed like a big green monster. I would be working the choke and the ignition switch and he would be working the clutch and the brake, as my legs weren’t long enough to reach them. I can almost hear those very words rolling off his lips, “A Little More Choke And You Would Have Started It.”.

So Moloquin, thanks for the memory.

The other reason I am using it is, this Blog has definitely been stalled lately. I need to do something to get it started, let’s try applying a little choke and see if that works.

Happy Birthday to Me

Ok so my birthday was actually more than a month ago, but I like to stretch it out as long as I can. For me, my birthday really started about 2 months ago (a month or so before the actual date), when I started dropping hints about what I was hoping to get. Cory and Tina got together and they came up with the idea of getting me a new digital camera. A great idea, only they wanted me to pick out my own because they know that I am fussy when it comes to electronics. I don't want junk that I am going to have to replace in a few months, and I don't want to spend a fortune just to get a bunch of bells and whistles I will never use.

I spent the next couple of weeks looking at fliers, trying to get a feel for what was available and at what price. A couple of weeks before my birthday I ended up going to Future Shop and picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ4. It is a nice little camera for the money, it is a 4mega-pixal camera with 12x Optical Zoom. The one option that I went for that was probably over-kill was the 2 gig memory card.

It has all of the same features that most other cameras have. You can set it for mountains, for close ups, for parties, for portraits, etc, etc. Then there is the "Simple Mode" or "automatic" setting. If you don't know what you are doing set the camera to this setting and it will figure it out for you. Now I am not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but I am not an idiot either, I can figure out if I am shooting a portrait, or a landscape, I can tell if it is light or dark. However when I try to set the camera manually to the way I think it should be for the picture, my pictures always turn out lousy. Whenever I set it to "Simple Mode" the camera takes a descent picture. It’s almost like the camera is mocking me.

Anyway, the whole reason I started talking about this camera was to state how much I enjoy digital photography. It is a cheap way to experiment with photography. I have just finished downloading over 130 pictures that I have taken so far this weekend. I couldn't imagine what the cost of getting all of those pictures developed would have been if I was using film. That is the first message I wanted to get across, Digital Cameras are good. Below is a sample picture, it shows my kids splashing and playing around in some very cold water on a cold day. You will notice my niece on the dock is actually wearing a winter coat under her lifejacket.

The second point I wanted to get across was, Stretch Your Birthdays. It is not often that you get a chance when everybody is focusing their attention on you, so when it happens enjoy it and make it last. Here are a few pointers to help you get started.

1. Start Early - Get people thinking about you early by dropping hints about what you would like to receive as a gift, or the type of cake and meal you would like.
2. Celebrate Late - If you are having a celebration with extended family and friends always try to put this off as late as possible, I try to aim for two weeks later. Your immediate family will always celebrate with you near the actual date anyway, so when your party does comes around it will be like having a second birthday.
3. Avoid Competition - This is the hardest one of all, but it is the one with the biggest payoff. Everyone in my family has their birthdays between August and December, except me, mine is in April. So after Christmas the next thing people have to worry about is my birthday, and I can stretch it out without it running into anybody else’s. My brother was born a few days before Christmas that was poor planning on his part. My daughter and my niece were both born on the same day 2 years apart. There again that is another case of bad planning.
4. Keep Mentioning It - Always try to find a reason to mention your birthday. Try starting a conversation by saying "remember at my birthday, when so and so did...". Or find a reason to mention it in a Blog.

Someone's in the Kitchen with Daddy

Someones in the Kitchen I knoooow...

I hope that anybody who reads this blog gets that silly tune stuck in their head and they spend the rest of the day humming it, and cursing me for putting it there.

Well it's Mother's Day weekend, so I voulenteered that the girls and I would help in the Kitchen. Our task is not all that mounumental, just make a simple pasta salad but we will make a production out of it none the less.

Step 1. Make a list of required ingredients. "Tina, what goes into a Pasta salad? Okay, great would you mind writing that down for me, Thanks.".

Step 2. Go to the store to get the ingredients. "Tina, would you mind running down to Sobey's to pick up a couple of things for me? Great, on your way home would you mind stopping at Timmy's and grab me a coffee?" Boy I sure hope Tina appreciates all of the work that I am putting into this.

Step 3. Boil the water. Okay this doesn't sound so hard, I thank we can handle it. All we need to do is put water in a pot, put the pot on the stove and turn it on. "Tina, what pot should I use, oh the big one with the handles on the side, great, where do we keep that? Thanks, now when you make yours how much water do you put in?" Okay now all I have to do is put that pot on the stove and turn it on. Back burner, power 4. "What do you mean it should be on the front burner power 6? Who's making this anyway, me or you?" Okay move the pot from the back to the front, adjust the temperature.

Step 4. Add the noodles. "Tina, how many noodles should I put in? 3 Cups okay great, now where is the measuring cup?" I got the noodles in, that wasn't so hard. "What do you mean I should turn the temperature baxk to 4, that's where I was going to set it in the first place, make up your mind!"

Step 5. Drain the noodles. "Tina, where do you keep the cullender? Oh, its right where you got the pot from." I probably would have seen it if I had got the pot myself. Now grab the pot, shit that's hot. "Tina, where do you keep the pot holders?"

Step 6. Let the noodles cool. Great finally a chance to relax. "Tina, can you please watch the kids for a bit? I am going for a nap, all this work has tired me out."

This goes on for another 7 or 8 steps, but you get the point so there is no need to go through them in detail. The above story is an exagerated version of the truth. The net result was a Pasta Salad was made, Tina ended up doing allot of the background work, I did the upfront work and then took all the credit.

I don't think I am alone in this, I think this is how it goes pretty near anytime a guy tries to get close to a woman's domain, and I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing either. I got to show Tina that I am willing to make an effort, even if it was a lame one, and it gave Tina another oppertunity to feel superior and to feel needed.

I hope she enjoys the supper I am going to make for her tomorrow night.

Note: The Salad shown is not the actual salad, it is just a picture I grabbed from the internet.

Lions and Tigers and Bears … Oh My!

Ok, so it’s not really about Lions, Tigers and Bears, it’s more about Crickets, Bunnies, and Mice, but using a line from the Wizard of OZ should get me a couple of bonus points with my wife, and who couldn’t use the extra points? Besides that, Crickets and Bunnies doesn't sound near as exciting as Lions and Tigers.

Let’s start with the cricket. Cory owns a couple of Bearded Lizards which he keeps in his room, once a week he will go out and purchase a few dozen crickets to feed to them. This week he let one get away from him, and the little bugger has made its way to the basement, which just happens to be where I sleep. I sleep in the basement because I have a hard time falling asleep, and little noises like kids coughing (or crickets chirping) tend to keep me awake. So needless to say there have been a couple of nights where my sleep has been limited. I would love to catch him and tie his legs together so that he can’t keep making that awful chirping noise, but alas he has outsmarted me on every attempt I have made so far.


This weekend I went to the cottage with my father. We normally use the long weekend as the opening weekend but Dad was concerned that there would be plumbing problems due to pipes freezing through the winter. He wanted to make sure that if there were any problems we got the fixed before everyone got there on the long weekend. Once again he was right; there were a couple of places in which the pipes did in fact split. After a couple hours of looking for and patching leaks we finally got the water on.

Later that evening as we are drinking a couple of beers and barbequing some steaks to celebrate a job well done, nature calls. Since we are at the cottage and it was nature that was calling I decided to go visit my favorite tree to answer her. As I am doing my thing, I start to hear this squealing coming from a pile of downed branches, not too far away. At first I thought maybe it was a baby bird that had fallen out of its’ nest. I looked up but I didn’t see any nests for a bird to fall from. It’s probably too early in the season for baby birds anyway, but I was too intent on listening to the squeals to think logically. I finished what I was doing and went off to investigate; I was shocked by what I had found.


There was a baby rabbit; he was just a tiny fellow, probably only 4 or 5 inches long. That in itself is not so shocking, what I couldn’t believe was what he was screaming about. Attached to his hind leg was a mouse. Now as small as the rabbit was, the mouse was still a lot smaller, it was only about the size of the rabbit’s foot. I have no idea why a mouse would pick a fight with something so much larger than itself but there he was, and believe it or not he was winning. My first thought is where’s my camera, oh yeah its out front by the barbeque. Who would have thought I would need it to answer a call from nature? I have seen my share of nature shows, and I know they all say the same thing, observe nature, but don’t interfere. So the first thing I do is get a stick and interfere. A quick tap on the mouse with the stick and he let go. I then went back out front to get my camera and came back to see if there was any evidence of the fierce battle I had just witnessed. The mouse had disappeared but the Rabbit was still there. I figure he hadn’t had quite enough trauma for one day so I got right down on the ground there with him and started taking his picture. Doesn't he look happy about recieving all this attention?