The only decent picture of Vero and Sierra. Most of the other pictures had Sierra trying to steal her hat!
I ended up finally bringing my Trooper outfit to work! It was a pain to do so…I had to make three trips since I couldn’t fit all the parts in one suitcase. I’m not sure how others transport their gear in one shot…a hockey equipment bag? It took about 20 minutes to gear up but it was cool to walk around the building dressed up like this! Our work team really gets into Halloween each year.
Etienne, Nat and I posing in the mall. I had a few people stop me to pose for pictures.
Getting ready for the main event!
Then the evening arrived and all hell broke loose. Sierra was NOT a happy camper that night. Even Mom and Dad arriving from out of town didn’t console her! She was crying the entire way to the neighbours house.
I’m glad I didn’t go all out on her costume this year! Her she is with her not so happy self.
We did end up scoring some good treats for her!
For historical purposes, I need to write down what happened with my comic book experiment. I decided to give out mini Halloween comic books this year but I failed to order them in time. I accidentally sent the order to Vero instead of my comic guy! Anyhow, he managed to find 50 Donald Duck comics so I thought they would be a hit. We offered up the choice “Candy or comic?” Out of 100+ kids who showed up, we ended up giving away 25 comics. Quite the failure of my experiment. However, I believe if I check out the price, a package of 25 comics are probably the same price as a 25 bags of chips so we may just switch it up next year and just give everyone a chocolate and a comic book.
We’re still all alive and well which is all we can ask for! The month of October has been quite productive with the deck. As of October 28th, we pretty well just need to put the deck boards on, some stairs and some guard rails. Mom and Dad are coming for a visit this coming week so I’m hoping to get the upper and hot tub deck done along with some stairs and hopefully some rails so we can go to and from the hot tub this winter. I haven’t even bothered looking into fixing the hot tub lift mechanism yet…that’s another project to do before the snow hits!
While Northern Ontario got walloped with some snow this past week, it’s been pretty nice here overall other than today where it’s pouring rain and expecting to have 100mm+! That’s a little crazy.
Sierra has been doing great in the past month. She still enjoys daycare and now has a partner in crime there to fend against the boys. However, I think these two girls are having way too much fun as there was not one, but TWO days in the past week where they were having fun with the toilet water!
She did have a dripping nose for most of the month though. I don’t think I’ve ever carried that much kleenex in my pockets in my life! I was thinking of just strapping down some kleenex directly onto her face at one point. I feel bad for the daycare provider who has to put up with that all day long. She managed to get rid of one cold within a few weeks but then caught another a few days later!
As of yesterday, we started trying soy milk on her to see if she would have allergies to soy like she did months ago. It’s a day later and we haven’t seen any major signs of distress but we will keep our eye on it.
The greatest Star Wars moment happened to us the other morning. We were getting ready and I kept hearing some Wookiee roars. It turns out that Sierra has found her book of ‘How to speak Wookiee’ and was loving the thing, even to the point where she insisted she bring it along for the car ride to daycare. It was a proud moment for us. Well, really me. We all knew that.
With a kid and a deck to build in my life, I decided to skip a few steps in the beer making process and pick up a Festa Brew kit of Oktoberfest lager. It was also my first attempt at making a lager so I hope it works out well! I’m a little concerned that I opened up the primary fermenter and saw some green stuff growing on top but the geniuses on the internet say that this may not mean the batch is infected. I transferred to the secondary fermentor and will let sit another six weeks and I hope it comes out fine! If it does, I’ll probably buy these more often if I don’t have enough time to make a batch from scratch.
Speaking of beers, I tried out this excellent one that Trish brought back for me from PEI. Two thumbs up!
Fountainhead
No lie, I found this in a boardroom.
Danielle and Gaetan came up at Thanksgiving to give us a hand. Here’s Gaetan’s helper.
We get a nice piece of artwork every week from the daycare.
Sierra loves when we pretend the bee is buzzing around and gets stuck behind the curtain and then comes out swarm her. She laughs every time.
Sierra telling us about her day.
We ran out of red wine in the house so it called for desperate measures. SURPRISINGLY this wine tasted great!
Enjoying the autumn weather
Our two saviours
I was trying out the depth effect on the iPhone. Pretty cool!
Trying out the slo-motion effect on the iPhone
That’s one happy kid!
I love how Sierra carries everything around
Swing time with Mom
Sierra sure loves her yogurt.
Gaetan and I have this uncanny ability to have each game come within 10 points of each other. We can’t get over how close our games end up being.
Sierra getting an early Halloween treat from Grand-Maman et Grand-Papa
Another successful Thanksgiving meal
Sierra must have told a really good joke!
Benoit, Etienne, his Dad and I went to see Roger Waters. Best Roger Waters show I’ve seen! It doesn’t hurt that I love their new album, but they had a really cool stage show that also looked great from our seats up in the 300 Level.
How cool is this screen?
Hanging out at the Vars spaghetti supper. Sierra was having the time of her life running around.
Andreane dropped in for a quick visit and that was the day that Sierra figured out how to touch a person’s nose! We spent a month trying to get her to do that.
Sierra loves splashing around.
Ms. Buckethead
Sierra was nice enough to get me an early Christmas gift!
While Mom was shopping for a few things, Sierra was trying to play hide and seek with me at Wal-Mart.
It was a great pleasure to have Nanny and Beth drop by for lunch on Saturday. It’s not often Nanny gets around Ottawa! Sierra took a few minutes to warm up, but then she realized Nanny was full of fun.
Sierra showing Nanny how much fun yogurt can be.
This little piggy
Surprising that we all looked towards the camera at the same time!
It’s the great pumpkin, Sierra!
She’s getting the hang of raking.
Etienne and I take a walk at work every day around the bridges between Hull and Ottawa. It amazes me that we can still find things we never knew about. This must have been something to transport wood down from Chaudiere Falls to the mill (which now is home to Mill Street Pub). It was pretty amazing to see that this thing is still sitting there after hundreds of years.
Take advantage of the time outside kid because winter is coming!
It’s not often I get on here and chat about stuff other than Sierra but I have to say this Fall has dumped upon me, the motherlode of good music so I figured I should let you know about some good tunes.
The National – Sleep Well Beast
This might be my favourite National album since Boxer.
Matt Mays – Once Upon a Hell of a Time
Matt Mays does it again with a solid rocker of an album. He spends a lot of years in between releases but it pays off as it ‘s all killer, no filler. Sentimental Sins and Faint of Heart are on heavy rotation right now.
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton – Choir of the Mind
Emily Haines is generally found in her band Metric, but once in awhile she puts out a solo album (this is her second). It’s a fantastic piece of work with piano and layered vocals. This is stuff I would like to attempt to write.
William Patrick Corgan – Ogilala
Ok, you all know I’m a big Smashing Pumpkins fan so I’m going to add a new Corgan solo album on the list. But it’s really good. Stripped down piano, acoustic tunes show off how Billy is an incredible writer underneath his usual layers upon layers of production.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Vietnam War soundtrack
I get excited every time a new Reznor/Ross collaboration comes out and I especially love listening to this album just driving down the country roads seeing the leaves fall.
Roger Waters – Is this the life we really want?
Could this be the best post-Pink Floyd album? Yep. Get it now.
Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder
I wasn’t expecting much from the new BSS album and it blows me away. It’s probably in their top three.
The Dears – Times Infinity Volume 2
Hey, speaking of albums that I wasn’t expecting much from and then it sneaks out with a ninja attack on my psyche and makes me want to listen to it every day for the rest of my life…
When I was in my teens, I remember starting to rent horror movies. I specifically remember renting the Halloween series (best series ever?) and watching Halloween 5 and it ended on such a cliffhanger that I had to run out and rent the sixth movie (which was kind of lame).
Anyhow, fast forward 20 years later and I still hadn’t gotten around to watching the complete Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street series. I was also trying to start from the beginning and then I would just give up once October 31st passed me by.
I realize that Freddy is burn victim, but how do you explain those really bad teeth?
No longer is that the case! I decided to just dive in where I left off (like any other sane individual) and see what the series had to offer in the later films.
My thoughts on the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise
First movie was awesome, second film was horrible. 3 & 4 picked things up. Then Part 5 and 6 got weird for me. This is probably where everyone else clued into the fact that Freddy had become a caricature of himself and was more funny than scary. I mean, they had him bring a kid into a literal video game where Freddy was playing the controls. COME ON! These films got pretty ridiculous.
AND THEN THEY TOTALLY REDEEMED THEMSELVES WITH A NEW NIGHTMARE!
Wow, this film had it all. I was scared of Freddy again. This was Wes Craven’s attempt at becoming meta…where he referenced the film series and had the film feel like it was in our world. A precursor to the Scream film series where he explored our love for all things horror. I was immediately satisfied with the conclusion of this series being A New Nightmare.
Of course, we all know that nine years later, Freddy Vs. Jason comes out and does a somewhat decent job of bringing the two franchises together, but it had some good laughs. ‘Dude, that goalie is pissed!”
My thoughts on the Friday the 13th series
Speaking about pissed off goalies, let’s talk about the lumbering machete wielding mute called Jason Voorhees! This series is definitely one of my faves…at least the first four films which make a really good story arc.
Then the fifth film comes around and kind of puts a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
Always a classic, easy Halloween costume.
But then they jump back and Part 6 is ok!
Then seven sucks.
The eight sucks even more. My favourite part of Jason Takes Manhattan is that he doesn’t even get to Manhattan until about 10 minutes before the end of the movie. What the hell!
The ninth movie should have been great. It’s the last in the series! Jason Goes to Hell! This sounds like a cool premise! Yeah no, this movie flopped. Wow, Vero was disappointed Friday night when we spent 90 minutes watching this film. Where I thought Nightmare on Elm Street went out on a high, Friday the 13th went out on an all time low. I don’t even think Jason showed up in the film more than 15 minutes! I haven’t even bothered watching Jason X which is basically Jason in space because I hear it’s even worse!
The remake was pretty decent though.
So there you have it…both series started out strong, Nightmare ended awesome and Friday the 13th kind of fizzled out. If I had to recommend to someone the most efficient way to watch both series, I would say just watch the first four films of Friday the 13th and watch Nightmare 1, 3,4 and New Nightmare. You’ll get the point of it all.
Now onto the Halloween series! I ordered that set on bluray the other week and am pretty excited to dive into that again.
Today’s Dad’s birthday (Happy birthday Dad!) but also a day that I heard Gord Downie passed away.
Of course we all knew it was coming.
Vero was at a play tonight so it was just Sierra and I after work. We walked down to the mailbox where I picked up my SNES Classic which we were both excited about. It was a beautiful fall day at 20 degrees and leaves on the ground.
She made it halfway home before realizing I was using her as a pack mule.
We got home and had some supper together while I put on my favourite Hip album, We Are The Same for Sierra and I to listen to.
She didn’t put up too much of a fuss tonight, even though she’s had a cold for three weeks. We had a fun time splashing each other with bathwater and after the bath, we laughed by putting a hat on my head, then putting a hat on her head, then back and forth forever.
All the while listening to his music.
It’s definitely not going to get any easier in life when the people we care about pass away with each season, but I guess we have just have to appreciate what we have while remembering what they gave us.
Set 1
Speak to Me
Breathe
One of These Days
Time
Breathe (Reprise)
The Great Gig in the Sky
Welcome to the Machine
Déjà Vu
The Last Refugee
Picture That
Wish You Were Here
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick in the Wall Part 2
Another Brick in the Wall Part 3
Set 2
Dogs
Pigs (Three Different Ones)
Money
Us and Them
Smell the Roses
Brain Damage
Eclipse
Back in the 1980s sometime, I cannot remember my exact age, I stumbled upon a Popeye poseable PVC figure at Gizzy’s convenience store. I remember wanting this and being told that I would have to save my money to purchase it.
This was a good lesson that Mom was trying to teach me. Save your money and you can afford the things you want in life! As a kid, I don’t remember really understanding it at first but the realization quickly came in the form of “Oh man, I have an allowance of 25 cents a week and it costs $1…this will take forever!” (in kid time, of course).
But I diligently saved up my coin and was super excited when the day came that I had saved up enough money to purchase Popeye the Sailor Man.
We went over to Gizzy’s and to my dismay, there were no Popeye figures left to purchase. There were only Olive Oyl. Who wants Olive Oyl?
I remember being disappointed, but I also remember leaving with the Olive Oyl figure so I guess I just thought my money needed to be spent on something.
It would be interesting to know if Mom even remembers this moment. I wonder if she felt disappointed to see that the figure I had saved my money for was long gone. Or perhaps it wasn’t that big of a deal.
This was a defining moment in my life as it shaped my actions today…I tend to need to get something THE DAY IT COMES OUT in fear of missing out on it. I remember collecting comic books and walking in -40 degree weather to the corner store on the Wednesday instead of the Thursday in fear of having an issue sold out on me. I still have a tendency to order things immediately when available on Amazon. I guess I can trace my behaviour back to this moment in my life.
I always wonder what I’ll do if this experience comes back to haunt me and Sierra asks to buy something in the store but we want her to save her money for it. I suppose my fear of losing out on this item will make me, the parent, purchase the item secretly in case they do run out of stock.
