Day: February 22, 2010

Sunday afternoon, Mike came over for a few bevvies while we watched the Olympics biathlon trial. I had a hard time believing him that they can finish a 15km course in about 30 minutes but lo and behold, it was done. Dang, those guys ski faster than I used to bike to work!

Rob then dropped by and Mike, Vero, Andreane and I hopped into the van to head out to Navan to check out a house I had my eye on. It was an…interesting listing. In that it said that it was a low price due to the outstanding renovations needed to the place. The pictures looked decent so I wondered what really needed to be done. Here is the listing so you can take a look: http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=9137490

We arrive and walk in and I’m thinking it’s not all that bad. But it is once you start walking through and realizing all the little things that need to be finished but more importantly, the shoddy craftsmanship of the work that has already been done! My favourite example of this is the fireplace in the basement which doesn’t have a chimney, but some form of insulated flexible piping system for the smoke to go up into. Hmm… There were also other questionable design elements such as the two bedrooms which shared the same fireplace so you could technically see into the other room if you just looked through the fireplace!

In the end, we said goodbye to that pad. The area was quite lovely though…exactly what Vero and I are looking for…a quiet street, some privacy, etc. But it wasn’t meant to be.

We were driving through Orleans and saw another open house sign so the six of us decided to drop in to take a look. Now, I’m going to put it out there right now…I think all open houses should have the price listed on the sign outside. Because otherwise, we may be wasting your time. So for example, if I would have known that this house was selling for $575K…I probably wouldn’t have bothered this individual! But here we were taking a look inside and in the end I said “Well, I think it’s a little big for us at this moment” but really I didn’t like his backyard. He did say “I figured as much” and I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that. Either way, we went on our way and that was the end of Excursion #2.

As stated before, we’re just going around places to see what they have to offer so we can form a clear picture of what we want. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much inspiration from either of these places other than the fact that the first place let me know what I *don’t* want!

On Friday I went over to Stephen’s pad to watch some Black Dynamite. This is quite the killer film and it’s the fifth time I’ve seen it. It never gets old. It reminds me of how I could watch Napoleon Dynamite and never be bored. Wait a second…is there a link between the two films through the word Dynamite? Interesting.

While I was over there, I beheld the Winter Olympics in all its high-definition glory. I was quite impressed to see the frost on the whiskers of the bobsledding team. Incredible! It was definitely a different experience from watching it on my rabbit ears back home where there are some instances where it’s hard to see where the puck is on the ice!

We did have some excellent wings as well. The jerk sauce wings were my personal faves. I especially loved how Stephen we were waiting for the second batch to be done and when the oven chimed, we went to find wing-goodness but only to find that we had forgotten to put the wings in the oven! Silly.

All in all, a great night with great friends.

Saturday I headed out to Aylmer for a surprise birthday party for my colleague Marie-Annik. It was held at the Knights of Columbus hall and was a decent setup. Around eighty people were there and Marie-Annik was definitely surprised when a quick stop into the Knights of Columbus hall to have a beer with her boyfriend turned into a surprise party of epic proportions! Juan, Eric, Mina and Nat were along with me and we chatted about everything ranging from weddings across the world and what Eric should not do while in the Dominican for a week.

We were fed like kings…there was a great roast beef buffet offered to everyone. Kudos to the organizers! There was also an amazing slideshow prepared by her brother. I will definitely need to get some tips on making a killer presentation.

I had to leave half way through the presentation as I was heading to another birthday bash for Christine out in Kanata. I raced down the Ottawa River Parkway to get to Mike and Mel’s place in record time. We watched the Olympics for awhile and then headed out to Darcy McGees for the night. It was a nice evening out for a few beer and watching Ultimate Fighting. This was the first time I had ever watched Ultimate Fighting and it was interesting enough to keep my attention but I’m not sure if I would go out of my way to watch two guys kick each others asses. Melissa had this amazing system of predicting the winner which involved a cross between how good the guy looked, how much of a neanderthal did the guy resemble, and how cocky they were. Amazingly, she was right every time. She also told me about how every football team has members called Smith, Jones, Jackson, Brown and something else I can’t remember. I had a good laugh when she amazed Superbowl watchers with that fact one year.