Month: January 2009

On Saturday, the moment had arrived for Vero and I to go cross-country skiing!  I had managed to acquire an old pair of three-pin boots from someone at work.  Actually, I haven’t even met this person.  My friend Steve was asking his father about some spare ski boots and his office-mate heard him and said that they may have a pair I could use.  They were a perfect fit (although I think the leather needs to be broken in a little on the left side.  It was quite tight!) and we were good to go skiing!

We headed to Orleans to pick up the skis from my garage and applied some wax to them.  We decided to head out to Mer Bleue to do some skiing as the National Capital Commission indicated they had some trails there.  I assumed that it was down Mer Bleue road but alas, this was not the case and it’s around Anderson Road.  This may put a kink in my ‘skiing every day after work’ plans and may have to find another trail to hit up.

The parking lot was full so we parked on the side of the road.  Some poor soul had the same idea but went to far into the snowy shoulder and the vehicle had tipped into the snowbank a little.  It was gone by the time we got back so I guess the tow truck had come and left.

We strapped on the skis and headed down the dusty (snowy) path.  Right away, I noticed two things: the trails were not groomed and my skis were WELL waxed!  Vero and I couldn’t figure out if the trails are generally not groomed or if it was the simple fact that it had snowed a lot in the past two days and perhaps the NCC hadn’t got around to grooming the trail.  I’ll have to ask a few people around town if they know.

The trail is quite nice.  It’s in the woods and once in awhile you can get a good view of some wetlands in the distance.  There are a few options of trails to follow so we decided to go all out and take the #50 trail which I had read was around 5 kms.  We moseyed along and I must admit that I was having a little trouble with my skis.  I couldn’t put my finger on it.  Sometimes my left boot was just hurting my foot but most of the time, my feet would push off to the side of the ski.  I can’t figure out if it was the non-groomed path, or perhaps it was the width of my skis being smaller than my actual boot (which would lead to the back of the boot pushing off of it).  I also thought about how I cannot skate and wondered if my technique is…lacking.  🙂

Vero hooked me up with a sweet candy half way through the trek which gave me the boost I needed.  I must admit that I didn’t feel like I was getting that much of a workout so I couldn’t figure out if we just weren’t going fast enough or if I’m a well-oiled machine considering I’ve been jogging for the past few weeks!  I’m going to assume it’s more of Column A.

At one point we had a choice of trails to go on so we decided to keep going on #50 which also had a sign to our Parking Lot.  Unfortunately for us, this trail ended back up at the road and we had to trudge up the road on the side and it was quite a nuisance.  There were cars zooming next to us and we were skiing through some slush.  At the end I ended up dropping right into the snowbank and had to remove my skis and walk the last 50 meters to the car.  I looked at the map the next day and realized that if we across the road, the #50 continues.  We will have to remember not to take that bit of the trail the next time!

All in all, we had a great time going out for a ski.  It’s a nice trail and even though it wasn’t groomed, it wasn’t all that bad.  We cannot complain considering we had to pay nothing to use it (unless you think of our taxes paying for it).  There are a few other trails around the area so we’ll go check a few of them out.

iplaying: Toast (Performed by Me!)

You know when you were young, and your parents went away and you had a lot of fun and maybe some mischief?  Maybe a party, or maybe a full-out fight with your sister when she wouldn’t eat the burned ravioli that you made her for lunch.

You also remember how it was that your parents called and said they were returning a day before expected and you’re looking around the house and wonder how a landmine of destruction went off in the past two days?  Then you put away your differences because, in the end, your petty squabbles are nothing compared to the wrath of your parents coming home.

That’s how I feel about the OC Transpo strike being over.

The Federal Government didn’t even have the CHANCE to meet and talk about legislating binding arbitration…just the mere thought of them getting together had the city and the bus union officials scrambling to say “Ok, ok!  We get the point!  We’re done with our battle!”  What the heck?

I had some real faith in the process…I knew it was a hard one with two opposing factions with very diametrically opposed views.  But I had faith that the process would work itself out.  Now I realize that this could have been averted weeks ago with the mere mention of the Federal Government stepping in.  So I have lost faith in the process and find all parties involved laughable.  If anything, stick to your guns and wait for the legislation to send you back to work!  I would rather be forced to go back to work instead of admiting defeat at this point!  What was the point of holding a vote two weeks ago saying you want to stick to your guns and strike longer?  For those out there that believe they weren’t admitting defeat but FINALLY helping out the poor citizens of the city…take a closer look around you.  This strike would have lasted until June without intervention of the parents.

The talk around the office for the past few months have been ones of frustration, dismay, tiredness…but when I came in this morning, we looked at each other and there was a sense of a lackluster finale.  Someone put it perfectly “We didn’t win anything, we just got back something that was lost.”  In fact, if anything, we just lost something out of this whole thing.

I doubt I’ll be returning to the bus routes anytime soon…at least for the first few days.  Word on the street is that no express buses will be running.  I can only imagine how packed the regular routes will be without the express buses running.  Plus, I have visions of front page newspapers showing riots in the streets.  I am a fan of public transit, don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy taking the bus in our fine city and generally do not have any complaints about the routes or the drivers.

The end result of this charade has left a bad taste in my mouth.

You’re talking to a CHEO Lottery winner right here.  When I got home on Saturday I perused the mail.  Lo and behold, there was a gift certificate for $125 to HBC…so Zellers, The Bay or Home Outfitters!  Score!

Not too shabby for our first foray into purchasing lottery tickets for an organized charity.  In the end, the ticket cost four of us $100 and we got $125 back.  Carrie, Mike, Vero and I will be heading out on a grand shopping spree with our gift card soon enough!  The opportunities are endless if you think about how much my $31.25 will buy!

Saturday, Vero and I headed over to Home Depot in the afternoon to take advantage of their ‘Ultimate Flooring Event’.  Unfortunately along the way, Vero’s car fan conked out and it was quite the cold drive.  Fortunately the next morning when I amassed my tool belt to go out and fix the problem, I was smart enough to turn the car on first and voila!  The problem had fixed itself!  I have that effect on certain mechanical devices (but alas, not my hard drive!).

We first measured the main floor (371 square feet for historical purposes) and drew out a nice little diagram.  Then we headed to Home Depot and perused a bunch of the selections.  It wasn’t until we found out that the ‘sale’ stuff was at the front that we saw things more to our liking.  $0.75 – $1.50 a square foot!  Yes sir!

Not knowing a whole lot about laminate flooring (other than the tips that Uncle Greg, Dad and Matt had provided), we waited to chat with a representative.  It took us a good twenty minutes to talk with someone but she was very helpful and in the end, Vero and I loaded up 20 cases of laminate flooring into the car which cost $0.99 a square foot.  Not too shabby.  It is now sitting in a nice pile in the living room as I didn’t know if it would hold up in the cold garage and I didn’t feel like stacking it down in the basement only to have to return it upstairs at one point.  Considering the transit strike is still in full effect and I’m still living at Vero’s, I doubt we will see the laminate get installed before the Spring.  It’s probably a better time to install it anyhow considering we have to haul out nasty, dusty carpet and it would be nice to have the windows opened.

After that, Mike and Vero napped while I read some comic books and then we rallied up the troops to go out to the Whiskey Bar.  Now, our original plans were to go skating on the Canal, get a Beavertail and end up at the Mayfair Theatre where they were showing some monster movie that was filmed here in the National Capital Region AND starred our favourite villain, Freddy (aka Robert Englund).  Unfortunately the temperatures dipped very low so no one wanted to go skating.  Vero’s cousin had called us to let us know they were headed to a dance club so plans shifted.  Trish, Vero, Mike and I first went to the Starfish Vietnamese restaurant (which is close to Vero’s) and it was some decent grub.  I would go again.  We then had a beer at her place and then headed out early to the club as we didn’t want to be stuck in a lineup.  There was no lineup at all so we went in and grabbed a booth and chatted with friends and eventually went up dancing once in awhile.  Carrie showed up with a few of her friends so I spent time meandering back and forth between groups of people and chatting.

Let me tell you something about dance clubs…it reminds me so much of this episode of How I Met Your Mother in which a bunch of the characters express their distaste with these clubs because you can’t hear a thing people are trying to say and the entire episode has subtitles.  I wish I had subtitles the other night!  I definitely couldn’t make out 99% of what people were saying so I just went along with the moment.  There was a funny moment where I was standing by the bar and a girl stumbles into me and says “I’m trashed, are you?”.  I proceed to say “Not really” but she continues to chat it up, all the while stumbling and having the zombie look to her.  I managed to spy a few of her friends and pushed her towards them so they could take care of her.

Hey, speaking about zombie looks, I have to say that I came up with this cool dance move which I call the Vampire.  It’s when you lift up the collar of your shirt and hide behind it like vampires do behind their cowl of their cape.  Mike and I perfected this move and it was a hit.  I distinctly remember Michael Jackson’s Thriller coming over the speakers and everyone started into a choreographed routine which incorporated the vampire dance move!  It was great!  It was like all those films where every high school prom somehow has a professional dance troupe within it!  For those who were at the club with me and wish to comment on the truth of this past paragraph, please refrain and revel in the fact that YOU were part of it!

We ended the night with a sub-par schwarma (definitely should have walked another block to Marroush).  Mari-Eve was asking what this ‘schwarma’ business was all about.  I find it interesting to note that schwarmas are definitely not engrained within the Northern Ontario culture.  I have mentioned on many an occasion that if I were to open up a business within Kapuskasing, it would be a schwarma joint.  I would make a killing.  They are so delicious and I think we would put Thong La’s out of business as a late night dining area.

All in all, a decent night was had but I’ve realized that I have officially retired for the scene during the winter months (if not all year long).  My old bones can’t take going outside of the house on a cold January night to come up with new dance moves for the masses (although I’m sure there will be films made of me at one point – the creator of the Vampire dance move.)

*update* For some reason, I had forgotten that Trish added a lot to the vampire move.  The vampire move is only at 50% power if it’s performed solo.  But if you add a woman who is pretending to scream, it is a full-out 100% dance move power!  Sorry to Trish for forgetting to mention!  Considering this the public apology!

It is with great sadness that I report the following…unless a miracle of technology occurs, my 320GB portable hard drive is dead.

Unfortunately, all my pictures since 2001 were on this drive.  I did manage to back up my pictures from 2007 and 2008 onto another drive before it died, and I do have 99% of my pictures up on Flickr, but alas, I would think that I have lost any videos that were on the drive as I had never got around to uploading all the videos.  Plus, I’m sure there are a few pictures that I never managed to get up onto Flickr.

I have a vague recollection of doing regular backups of my pictures but a quick scan of my bedroom didn’t produce any results.  I’ll have to do a thorough scan the next time I’m over there.

I did read a few things I could try…one method of getting a hard drive to work again is to freeze the drive to that the mechanical parts retract.  I don’t know if this will work or not.  Mike and I tried it for a few hours at home yesterday with no success and I left it outside overnight and this morning it wasn’t working again.

Another big loss for me is the mass amounts of music that I had on the drive that (chances are) I never had backed up.  Sure, I have all my CDs which probably account for 80% of the music that was on there.  This is one reason I love buying CDs still.  If all my music was solely digital, I would have to go through the pain of downloading all that music again.  Unfortunately, I can say with great confidence that the remaining 20% were some good downloads…mostly live and rare tracks from my favourite bands…some live concerts that I attended in the past and are quite hard to find on the Internet again.

So what have I learned from this?  Well, I’ll keep trying to get the hard drive to work…I’ve even checked out some videos on Youtube on disassembling the hard drive and replacing the heads.  That will be my next solution.  It does require that I hunt down the exact model number of my broken hard drive to get the parts out.  This may be…ridiculous to achieve.

I have learned that it’s quite ridiculous to hold out on backing up information for the sole reason of ‘saving a few bucks’.  I knew the drive was failing a few months ago.  It just wasn’t working from time to time.  That should have been the point that hammered me over the head and said “Go spend the $100 and buy a new drive and transfer your data.”  In the end, instead of doing that, I am not without precious bits and bytes and wondering why I would have even waited to make such a purchase.  It’s silly, and there’s no excuse.  Just because it’s Christmas and money is needed elsewhere doesn’t mean a damn thing when it comes to pictures and other important data being lost.

Here’s my main point for all you faithful readers out there:  If there is important data on your hard drives, make it point to do regular backups, whether it be onto DVD, another hard drive, or uploading photos to Flickr.  The Flickr option may be the best option when you analyze the fact that a DVD may degrade over time as well as a hard drive.

If there is stuff on the drive that you really don’t care if you lose or not, well don’t fret too much about backing it up.  But it really doesn’t hurt to pick up a $100 external hard drive nowadays and use it solely for backing up information.  Especially if you have a Mac, they have the Time Machine backing up software which is supposedly amazing.

I vow to get my data off the drive no matter what but I’m sure there will be a stopping point.  I don’t think I feel like spending $500-$1000 to get my data recovered.  But I’ll keep my ears open for people who have tried different things to get their hard drives working and I’ll make an effort to get it off myself.  Hopefully in the future you’ll see a follow-up posting saying I was successful!

Last night, Mike and Rob picked me up from Vero’s and we headed over to Pub Italia on Preston.  What a great pub with a great selection of beers.  We met up there with Matt, Carrie and Joe who was in town for training all this week.

It was good to see these guys again…the Algonquin Alumni group if you will.  Nothing earth-shattering occurred during the night but I had some good Classico pizza filled with olives and Rob and I discovered we shared an appreciation for Erdinger wheat beer from Germany.  What a great tasting nectar of the Gods!

The weekend ahead of me is wide open.  I am planning on hitting up Home Depot tonight for their ‘Ultimate Flooring Event’ sale to pick up some laminate for the main level fo the house.  I have asked a few people about their knowledge and opinions of laminate flooring and I hope to find a decent deal tonight.  I doubt I will install it anytime soon (considering I don’t even live at the house anymore!) but I’m sure I can find a weekend to do it in the future.

Other than that, I’m hoping that the ski boots I seemingly have acquired will show up today, but there are no guarantees.  Turns out a colleague of mine’s office mate had a pair that I could snag so I’m waiting for them to bring them to work.  Hopefully it’s soon!

Here‘s an article to read.  It’s about a woman who walks 18km each way to get to work during the Transit strike here in Ottawa.  That’s a six hour walk people.

I was going to post up my Holiday wrap up posting but alas, it’s on my Macbook and it’s not around right now so that will have to wait.

What I can talk about is life at Vero’s.

Before I start that, perhaps I should send out a public notice that the Christmas cards are on their way.  There was a mishap with the printer before Christmas so only a handful got out.  Be patient.

Now…life at Vero’s.  As you may or may not know, because of the Ottawa transit strike, I am currently living at Vero’s place.  The reasons for this is that her place is down the street from a shuttle service that brings me to my office building in Hull every 30 minutes.  This is what I like to refer to as “the cats meow”.  Speaking about cat’s meowing, I see that James and Ferda may have adopted a cat.  While I hate cats in general, their’s appears to be quite awesome.

My daily routine is pretty sweet in comparison to others stuck in this transit strike.  I wake up around 6:24, get ready, head out the door at 7:00 (which used to be 7:10, but more and more people are finding out about the shuttle service so if I don’t get there early enough, the thing is packed and I have to wait 30 minutes for the next one) and walk down the block to the lineup for the shuttle.  The first couple of days were hectic as there wasn’t much of an order being maintained but quickly everyone realized that in a civilized society, everyone lines up for the shuttle service.

If the shuttle is full at 7:15, then it may leave and bring us to work.  Otherwise, it waits until it either fills up, or leaves by 7:30 regardless of how many people are on it.  The shuttle takes around 10-15 minutes to get to work so it’s really not a long trip at all.

After my work day is complete, I head back to Vero’s on the shuttle and usually arrive at 3:45 which is excellent timing to take part in my new guilty pleasure…Star Trek: The Next Generation.  I haven’t watched this series in years so it’s nice to find the show on at 4PM.  After watching the show, I take a snooze until Vero gets home which is generally 20 minutes after.  Then we make supper together.

Generally, there hasn’t been TOO much going on while living with Vero.  We are both hooked on the show ‘How I Met Your Mother” which I would like to argue is one of the funniest sitcoms since Friends was on the air.  So I manage to convince Vero to watch a few episodes in the evening with me.  This is quite hard sometimes as Vero tends to not care to watch a gazillion episodes of a show in one sitting, whereas that suits me just fine.

Other than that, I have class on Mondays and Wednesdays now which takes up a few nights, and other than that, we have watched a few films or played a board game or two (which I kicked her ass in).  I think we have both come to realize that we should be looking for more things to do in the long term rather than simply come home and watch TV at night.  This past weekend, Vero picked up a squash racket so we will look around the area for gyms that we can schedule a squash court.  As you may remember, Maren was gracious enough to give us a lesson one time and we both enjoyed it.

We have been hoping to go cross-country skiing but we have been hindered by my lack of finding some ski boots.  I can’t even find a new pair of boots in this town, let alone used ones!  I have become annoyed as the season is passing us by and am in 100% searching mode right now.

Saturdays have been the day where we return to Orleans to hang out at the homestead for a day.  It is strange to go back to my house one day a week and then return to Vero’s on the Sunday when we do groceries and our laundry for the week.  I am living out of suitcase right now.  Mike must be lonely back at the house (ha!  Let’s be honest here, he is the king of the castle and he is probably walking around naked in the house.  I know I would.) but it’s nice to see him whenever I can.

Living with Vero has also been interesting in that it gives us an indication of how living together shall be.  It has been a good opportunity to demonstrate to her that I am not a slob like she secretly believes I am.  I do my fair share of dishes and keeping the place tidy.  So far, it hasn’t been bad between us but at the same time, it’s an odd circumstance and I’m sure a few things would change once we actually live together.  For example, if I leave a beer bottle out on the table, I’m SURE I’ll pick it up as soon as I’m done with it!

Also, it looks like a decent routine is starting to be established.  I can’t kid myself when it comes to the following point…I really don’t care to cook.  I’m unimaginative in most aspects of cooking.  There are a few things that excite me (like anything that involves grilling meat), but other than that, I can’t be bothered.  So it’s nice to see that Vero doesn’t mind cooking and I don’t mind washing dishes so that may very well be the routine we will establish by the time we are old and gray.

In more news about myself, here’s a few things off the top of my head to keep you up-to-date with what’s specifically going on in my life:

• I have started two more courses at University of Ottawa this semester.  One is Introduction to Macroeconomics which actually seems quite interesting.  The other is Images in Communication which also seems interesting.  This involves subjects such as analyzing art, film, TV, etc. and to see what a variety of symbols, images mean in the context.  Our group project is probably going to be based on musical bands tour posters throughout the ages which should be fun.  This is the last stretch of school.  I only need these courses plus another one in May to complete and I’m done my Communications degree!  I have contemplated what I shall do with all my free time afterward.  I am thinking I would either take one course a semester to keep the mental juices flowing or volunteer my time somewhere.  I haven’t really come to a firm decision on this front so I’m sure I’ll think more about it once I’m done.
• I am actively looking for a new hard drive to put into my Macbook.  I have narrowed down the search and think I have found a good deal on a 2.5″ external drive which stands at 500GB of storage space.  I plan on splitting the case open, putting the drive into my laptop, then taking the old hard drive from the laptop and putting it into the external casing.  I read about this process a few months ago and was excited by the prospect.  One reason for the need of space is that one of my hard drives is pretty well a goner.  This upsets me a little as this particular hard drive has all my pictures and music on it.  I have a feeling that if I crack the case open and hook it up directly, I will be able to transfer all the data…but I can’t do that until I pick up another hard drive.  We’ll see what develops on that front.
• We went over to Benoit’s place on Thursday and I got to see his awesome media center in action.  He picked up a drobo which is some form of server…it houses three hard drives (each 1TB in size) as well as a fourth 1TB drive which somehow acts as backup.  Or something like that.  Either way, there’s a lot of space to serve up his media.  His media (movies, TV shows, etc.) can then be viewed on his snazzy big screen TV.  Mike and I just installed the Mediastream skin on the Xbox Media Center and it’s pretty slick.  I enjoy it although there’s a few odd things that happen when a file isn’t named the standard way.  Either way, it’s pretty awesome.
• Vero and I helped out Chantelle with the assembly of her new desk last week after my class.  It was a fun time seeing the ladies work away at building a drawer whereas I finished 80% of the desk in the same time!
• I had a nurse come to the house on Saturday to take a blood and urine sample for life insurance purposes (as I am buying some term life insurance).  Even though it was cool to have a nurse come see ME for once, I had a good laugh when Mike was commenting on how the washroom smelled like pee and then I checked the garbage bin and sure enough, she had thrown out the urine cup in the trash and not in the plastic bag of trash that she had filled up with odds and ends!
• On Saturday night, Eric, Annie, Mike, Vero and I played the Game of Kapuskasing which was all kinds of fun and Vero won.  Vero isn’t generally a fan of board games (she says she would rather speak to her friends than play games with them) but she enjoyed winning this one and rubbing it in our faces considering she was the only player who was not from Kapuskasing!