Month: February 2009

IMG_0029, originally uploaded by palm0014.

On Saturday morning I woke up and made myself some bacon and eggs while waiting for Mom and Dad to return from Lynn and Sue’s place. I checked the conditions of the Rideau Canal and we had the green light! As of 1PM, the Canal would be open.

We headed downtown and Mom and Vero strapped on their skates. Mom had not skated in thirty years so I was quite interested in seeing if she still had the chops. I walked up the Canal a bit to find Rick and Troy and I could see Connie was having a bit of trouble getting used to her skates. We went back towards my parents but there were some horrible patches of the ice where it was literally chopped up and people had to walk over it. I had to pick up Tracey’s niece and navigate her over it at one point.

By the time we made it to my parents (about 100 meters away), Connie had to bail out and shortly after that Troy had to as well. I can sympathize with them…I really can’t skate and I remember when I attempted to skate a few years ago how my feet were sore within five minutes.

The rest of the afternoon was splendid…the weather was great and the wind didn’t pick up too much until we were in line for a Beavertail at the 1.4km mark. Aunt Dinah and Uncle Richard met up with us and mentioned that the ice was quite bumpy past that point so we decided to stick it out around the area we were in.

After what may have been an hourlong wait in line for a Beavertail, we walked back towards downtown and Vero and I headed up to Troy and Connie’s room in the Chateau Laurier for some scotch. We then headed down to Darcy McGee’s for a quick drink which turned into another evening out there. Vero and I ordered some bruschetta bread which was decent but by the time everyone ordered some supper, we weren’t hungry at all. However by the time we left the restaurant we figured we would try and find a quick bite to eat and ended up stopping into McDonald’s on the way to pick up my parents.

We had a good laugh at my parents that night. We had their car and they ended up getting a ride back to Lynn and Sue’s. Mom called and asked if we could pick them up at some point. I looked at my watch and said “How about 10PM?” and she said “Oh! I didn’t realize you would pick us up that early. How about 11PM?” Clearly they were having a great time and Vero and I felt like parents picking up our kids!

The next morning we went shopping for a pair of skates for Mom which proved unfortunate but then we headed out to the new Princess Auto store off of Hawthorne. I never knew this place had expanded! It was huge and Dad, Lynn and I spent a good two hours there perusing their wares. I really enjoy a visit there as they have great deals.

Afterwards we went to Lynn and Sue’s place for a quick drink and later in the evening Mom, Dad and I headed down to the Canal to see a light show which showed a history of the Rideau Canal and a bit of Canada’s history. It was quite interesting as they projected it on the Government of Canada Conference Center (the old train station) and they incorporated elements of the building into the show. For example, there are four pedestals and at one point in the show they had silhouettes of people dancing on top of the pedestals! After the fifteen minute show, we walked up to Parliament and then down to the Chateau Laurier to look at the historical photos and then Mom and Dad dropped me off at my second home which is Vero’s place.

It was great to have a bunch of people up for Winterlude this year and I’m sure they all left impressed!

P1060860, originally uploaded by palm0014.

This year Winterlude was quite the extra special treat as a good chunk of the Palmer Clan ended up in Ottawa for it.

On Thursday night, Mom and Dad rolled into town which gave me reason to take Friday off to spend with them. After a few beer, I convinced everyone to walk over to The Works, a great gourmet burger joint right in behind our place. Mom found it quite pricey ($13 for a burger!) which I must admit it is, but it was a stellar burger nonetheless. I had the Jamaican Jerk which did not disappoint.

We walked home in the winter wonderland which Ottawa had become after a deep thaw which gave us patches of grass all over the place and ice on the roads. Poor Mom slipped at one point but we managed to save her from the wolves.

On Friday the day was bright but there was a wicked wind when we headed out through Orleans to do some shopping. The first stop was to find a good, cheap breakfast joint around 10AM. Unfortunately the Tartan Pub and Grill was closed so we headed to Tim Horton’s at the Wal-Mart. They didn’t have any eggs for the B.E.L.T.! We then headed back down to the other Tim Horton’s which was the pay-off but it was quite the messy place to eat in.

Afterward we headed to Home Depot where we learned a little about what styles of toilets to purchase. We were on the hunt for some toilets and sinks to put into the cottage down in Gaspe. After Home Depot, we headed down to BMR which is the same type of store they have down in Gaspe. We were amazed to find a pedestal sink for $40+ instead of the $100+ we were finding at Home Depot! I couldn’t get over the price of the pedestal alone being $13! Can you even make those things for less than $13? BMR has now become a spot in the back of my head if I need anything for the house.

We then headed out to Le Baron where Mom bought a hat and I spied this ENORMOUS frying pan. I’ve never seen a frying pan that large before. Dad said you could probably fry a dozen eggs as well as a dozen burgers at the same time!

A quick stop over to IKEA was what the doctor ordered. I treated the parents to some great hot dogs. Yes, I am a pretty nice guy. Those are some expensive hot dogs at IKEA.

Along the way, we stopped by the restaurant within IKEA and Dad was astounded at the prices within. $2 for a pasta dish! 50 cents for a hot dog! $1 for a breakfast! We started walking away but he couldn’t hold himself back and laid down $2 for a pasta dish. Really, it’s no worse than what I would have prepared for lunch myself. Some pasta in a plate with some sauce poured over it. It’s not a bad meal at all! I’m going to try out their breakfast one day.

After IKEA we headed home where Mom and Dad got ready to head over to Lynn and Sue’s place. I went out to Sobey’s to pick up some stir fry ingredients (and some great bruschetta bread!) and Mike, Vero and I dined while watching How I Met Your Mother.

We headed out around 9:30 towards Darcy McGee’s where everyone was meeting up. We headed downstairs and I spied Rob, Matt, Karilee and a bunch of others hanging out downstairs. I chatted with them for a bit but realized I should try and find my cousin’s table to see if they could come downstairs. I found them upstairs and many handshakes, hugs and beer were passed around. There was no way we would move their table of 15 people downstairs for I spent the majority of the night upstairs but headed down once in awhile to chat it up.

For historical purposes of this entry (as my grandchildren will want to know), the price of a pint of Guinness was $7.75.

It was a good night at Darcy McGee’s. I was glad to see Troy and Connie finally make it up to the fabled event. It’s fabled in our mind…in the end, here’s what Winterlude usually amounts to:
Friday: Go to Darcy McGee’s and close out the place.
Saturday: Nurse the head, go to the Canal, get a Beavertail, go back to a pub for rest of the night.
Sunday: Leave.

There’s nothing much to it! Friday night, we did in fact close down the joint. However, there were some laughs along the way.

When I arrived there I had to hold my tongue with one of the waitresses. I spied two empty chairs at a ‘reserved’ table. Let’s keep in mind here that we are in a pub here, not a restaurant in Paris. I nabbed two of them for my lady and myself with the notion of returning them if the ‘reserved’ party should show up. The waitress came up to me and said “Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘reserved’?” I had to hold my tongue and say I was sorry and would return the chairs. I swear five minutes later a group of people who had been standing around for awhile nabbed the tables for themselves! Oh well.

Around midnight, the date changed to February 14, so I hauled out a photo of Vero and I and proclaimed my love for this woman. I also showed it to a few people around the pub and let the guys know that she was off-limits. I thought this was pretty funny.

We ended up bringing back Rob, his uncle-in-law Serge, and Rob’s cousin Cheryl back in the Tempo. Vero swore that the car wouldn’t even make it up Trim Road as she had the pedal to the metal and it wasn’t moving too fast!

We said good night to the crew staying at Chateau Laurier and headed home ourselves a few moments afterward.

iplaying: Change – Thornley (Tiny Pictures)

If there is a belief in balance, then there needs to be a new element of madness.

Years ago, an element of madness would be to speak to yourself…on the street, in a store, etc.

Now with Bluetooth wireless headpieces, I come across people asking a head of lettuce where they want to go dancing, or ranting about relationships at a bus stop.

We cannot call these people mad any longer.

So what shall be the new element of madness?

Back in October, I talked about an article outlining how I can upgrade my internal 80GB hard drive inside my Macbook to a whopping 500gb!  Here’s the entry I’m talking about.

For the past few months I have been keeping an eye on the prices of a 500GB drive and finally stumbled upon a good deal.  Last week, I noticed that there were some drives available on the Costco.ca website for $170 so I managed to get to Costco in Gatineau with Ferda (real reason: their delicious hot dogs!) but there were no drives in that size available.  Boo.  Then on Sunday, Eric and Annie graciously offered to go to the Costo in Gloucester with me but I couldn’t find the hard drive there either.  What the heck?  How do you offer something online, as well as have it in stock in major metropolis like Vancouver and Toronto, but somehow fail to offer it up in Ottawa?  Bah.

Then I started reading about price-matching.  I had known about the idea of price matching but had never tried to do so myself.  I then saw that newegg.ca had the drive down to $152.  That’s more like it!  I printed off the pertinent information and Vero graciously brought me to Best Buy last night.  I found the Western Digital My Passport 500GB drive and headed to the cash.  It was around 6PM so there wasn’t many people around the cash which probably aided my case.

I asked the cashier about price matching and she said “Most certainly we price match, depending on some factors.”  I showed her the price of $152 for the drive from newegg.ca.  She then said it didn’t account for shipping.  I then produced a sheet indicating that the shipping would be $13.  Success!  She said that’s fine and started punching numbers into her calculator.  Here’s some advice to all those who want to price match at Best Buy.  The 110% is a flawed logic, or at least one that I didn’t understand.  Essentially you can get it for the price that you show them (aka, the $52+$13 from newegg) and then they figure out the difference between their price and the competitor’s and then they take 10% off of that difference.  I was thrown off of this for a bit as I thought I was supposed to be getting another couple of bucks off but she explained it’s a percentage of the difference.

Nevertheless, it came out to $163 before taxes and that was pretty well the same price I would have got it for from newegg.ca, only the difference was that I have the drive in hand vs. having to wait for it to be shipped.  PLUS the cashier said that if I found a better deal in the next thirty days, I can get the difference, even if I found newegg.ca was offering free shipping!  I shall be a hawk looking for a better price than $163 in the next thirty days!

I walked out victorious!

Vero and I then headed back to my house so I could pick up some tools.  Vero was not impressed with this leg of the trip as I had originally asked if it was “alright to go home and pick up some tools” in which she thought I was talking about her place!  I found a precision screwdriver and grabbed the new tool kit that Vero’s parents gave me for Christmas and headed back to the house.

Warning: From this point on, it gets boring for those not interested in the swapping of hard drives.

I get home, and first off, start following the instructions from that great article mentioned above.  A great public service was made by this individual who outlined the process!

First step was to make a copy of my laptop drive onto the external drive.  This was the most painful portion of the process as the copying process took 3 whole hours.  I was not expecting this.  When it was done around 10PM, I booted the computer back up using the external drive as my boot drive (just to test it out) and it was successful!

I then went to town on cracking open the external hard drive plastic casing to get the hard drive out.  This was quite annoying as I didn’t know the inner workings of the plastic case.  After ten minutes, I finally managed to slide the hard drive out.  I then carefully pulled away the plastic/rubber fittings and pulled the SATA/USB interface chip (which was quite tough to get off.  Give it a good yank).

I then took the battery out of the laptop and proceeded to yank the hard drive out of it.  I hit my first snag in that it needed a torx screwdriver but there must be a precision set of torx that was needed because the set I had was too large.  I didn’t want to admit defeat so I took some needle-nose pliers and turned the screws that way (strangely enough, the same exact way the person writing the article did it).  I then swapped the hard drives and put the laptop back together and brought the laptop over to Vero for the moment of truth.

The chime came on and a blank grey screen appeared.  Hmm..this wasn’t looking too well.  However, after thirty seconds, the Apple symbol appeared and presto!  It worked!  I shut the computer down to try it again and sure enough, it took about 30 seconds but it worked!  My thinking on the long boot up times may be that I have moved from an 80gb drive to a 500gb drive so maybe it cycles through some hard drive check and it takes a lot longer.

Either way, the project was a success!  I then went back to the old 80gb drive and placed it back into the external plastic hard drive case and now I have a nifty little 80gb external hard drive.  Let me tell you something about the Western Digital Passport drives.  They are TINY!  Because they hold a 2.5″ drive inside of them, those things can fit inside my pants pocket if I wanted to!  It also runs off of one USB cable so I don’t have to bring a power supply anywhere with me.  This will be extremely handy for those times I want to pass the drive over to Benoit and say “Fill ‘er up!”

So in the end, it took 3 hours to copy the entire 80gb, and about 45 minutes to perform the surgery.  I was extremely impressed with how easy it was to do.  Heck, Apple isn’t stupid.  They know people want to upgrade the hard drives.  They even have a tutorial on their own website on how to do it!

I really think this will be a great advantage in editing videos now.  Before it was daisy-chaining over to the external USB drive which was slow but now I’m anticipating it to be quite fast.

If you are the feeling the crunch with the small laptop drive that you have, swap it!

Next steps in the computer world are to track down a match for my burnt out Seagate Hard drive (no luck yet) as well as pick up another hard drive to act solely as a backup to all my files.  I’m not getting burned twice!  Plus, Apple has a nifty backup software called Time Machine which makes backing up…fun?

Whenever I get a chance, I like to tune into the newly bought out ‘Bear’ station…now Virgin Radio.

There’s one thing I’ve noticed…they play A LOT of Tea Party tunes!  I’m talking about every time I turn on the radio there are Tea Party tunes on there!  Plus I heard some OLP, some Matt Good…and we’re talking vintage tunes here.

The only reason I can think about is either a) They know good music or b) Virgin Radio has policies which enforce MORE Canadian content than the minimum.

If that’s the case, I say ‘good on you’ Virgin Radio.  Good on you.  You’re showing the people what music is all about.

In my calendar it indicates that it’s Katie’s birthday today so I’m going to have to assume that it’s correct! I know she was having a grand birthday event this past weekend so I’m sure that she had a great time with friends.

Katie is one of those rare gems out there that not only is fun to be around, but has a caring soul while at the same time is intellectually stimulating. Heck, why not go for another quality and say she’s pretty darn good looking also.

Dang, I almost forgot her #1 trait…she is a spectacular cook. Honestly, you have to somehow get her to cook for you. The only reason I bought Smashing Pumpkins tickets last fall was to stay at Katie’s to sample her fine cuisine.

Anyhow, I hope you have a marvelous day and let’s all throw out some Happy Birthdays to Katie! Also, I know you love that picture.