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On this beloved day, I figured I would share with you some of my favourite memories of Carrie.  We miss you a lot and I know you are loving Germany, but it will be great when we get to see you again.

First up…FUBAR…my life was changed when you introduced me to this movie on a Saturday morning at Bayshore:

Let us not forget Fubar 2, which I have never actually watched with Carrie, but we all know is fantastic:

My love of Carrie knows no bounds, and I would have to say that Barcelona was the highlight of the Eurotrip.  Especially after a long day of biking:

But the Italians made up for it:

HOPE Volleyball is always a blast when Carrie brings out a billion of her friends to the event.  Here she is running away from them:

And let us not forget the Series:

She is also fantastic in the way that she allows me to be part of her family:

On this, your birthday, I want to say that you brighten all our lives and I hope the following video brightens yours.  Happy Birthday Carrie.

Years ago there was this quirky show called Veronica Mars about at father-daughter sleuth duo.  It was a fantastic series which ended after three seasons.

For the past six years there has been talks of a movie but nothing really happened.  Until yesterday…

Now, you already know my love of Kickstarter.  I think it’s a smart way to do business.  Why bother printing up a million copies of a book when there are only 20,000 people who want it?  Why not just print the 20,000 you need and not blow your wad of cash?

Anyhow, yesterday the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter started here.  They wanted $2M to get the movie made.  This is the largest Kickstater campaign for a movie…I sat there thinking “Man…that’s a lot of money to ask for, but how cool would it be if they got it?”

Within 24 hours, they got their goal and are hovering around $2.5M as I type this.  This is insane.  They must be ecstatic.  Heck, I’m ecstatic!  I love Kickstarter.  Bring out an idea that people want, and people will pay for it.

My only beef is that all the rewards for this particular campaign is limited to people in the US, but I figured after Day 1, they’ll figure out how to appease the masses outside that country.

My only worry is that they fall into the trap of “Oh my.  This campaign became larger than I thought and I don’t know how to mail out 50,000 DVDs.”  It’s happened before.  I’m sure there’s a term for it like the Kickstarter Effect, or Burn Out.

Either way, I’m pumped that the movie is going to happen and they’ll get some money from me once they are kind to the Canadians!

Or at least that’s how it feels after a workout! As in…I’m going to die…

It’s no surprise that I feel a little heftier from time to time and that’s not a big issue with me. I definitely am not what you call an ‘active’ fellow. But enough is enough! The winter has caught up with me so I decided to do something about it.

So this year’s grand scheme to get fit was to pick up a bicycle trainer…essentially a device that lifts the back tire of your existing bicycle off the floor so you can sit and ride it to your heart’s content…without actually moving anywhere! Saves on buying a stationary bike.

I found one on Kijiji nearby by house and after a sweet $100, I was in business. Thanks to Uncle Gerry for his consultation on this Cycleops Mag Trainer that I picked up.

Here is a recap of the past three days:

Day 1 – Saturday
After a day of renovations which basically killed every muscle in my body, I decided to also cap the evening off with a bike ride. I’m not sure where this idea came from, but perhaps it was the fact that while sitting in the basement, I’m staring at this bicycle I set up and it’s saying “Hey buddy. Are you going to give me a try or what?” In hindsight, it was very smart of me to set the thing up in the basement immediately and not just leave it out of sight.

The basement was already a balmy 72 degrees so when I jumped on the bicycle in my jogging pants and a t-shirt, I was pretty well a puddle of sweat within four minutes.

I decided that a good workout at this point would be around 42 minutes…or the exact time most TV shows are. So I popped in an episode of Friday Night Lights. The trainer makes quite the whine while cycling so I had to increase the volume to compensate. Not an ideal scenario.

Day 2 – Sunday
Sunday morning I hopped out of bed and decided to get on the bicycle right away. Two reasons: I had read somewhere that if you want to burn the fat off, a good time to do it is before breakfast. Interesting. Secondly, my legs were quite sore so I thought maybe warming up those muscles would help me out. It did! Let me tell you, for a guy who doesn’t read up on exercising, things were clicking in place!

Especially since I smartened up, got some headphones so I could listen to the TV, wore a ball cap so the sweat wouldn’t fall into my eyes, and wore some shorts as well.

Overall, the second day was a good day of improvements. My only issue was that I felt like I was dragging myself the entire time and I think it has to do with the fact that I was watching an episode of the The Killing which is a pretty morose tale of police detectivery. Not the most energetic stuff.

Day 3 – Monday
I decided that the only thing to improve at this point was what I was watching on the TV at the time. So I popped in a Metallica DVD that I hadn’t watched yet and this thing gave me the energy I needed! It was chock full of good tunes and gave me the energy I needed to keep going. Sure, my mind was wondering when the 42 minutes would be up (I didn’t have a watch and I was depending on Vero coming downstairs to tell me…I was also wondering if she was going to play a trick and not show up at all!), but overall, I had an easier time mentally than the two days before.

So after three days, my ass is still a little sore but not as bad as the start. But that just comes with cycling. I think I’ve mastered the little details and for the next while I’ll focus on watching concert DVDs that have fallen to the wayside of my Amazon purchases.

I think I did hit the nail on the head though with coupling TV watching with exercising. It just makes sense to me to hop on the bicycle instead of hopping on the couch. I think my only two improvements at this point would be to attach a speedometer, or at Uncle Gerry’s suggestion, get a heart rate monitor. Good suggestions all around.

I don’t feel any worse than when I started biking to work last summer…it takes awhile to get the body into shape so it’s easier to make the trek. I figure after a week, I will be good to go!

I popped in the Matrix on a whim last night.  At first I was not really paying attention…surfing the web, reading some stuff and then I realized that I was missing out on the coolest movie ever made.  Man, the film has been excited again.  I still remember the sequel having pretty well the greatest last hour of a film I have ever seen.

I received this nice documentary from Steve at Christmas time. It’s a nice hour long documentary taking a look at the making of Wish You Were Here through various interviews of band members, producers, artists…all in all, it’s pretty great!

I have never really watched a making of documentary so I’m not sure how it stacks up amongst others, but I thought it was great to see band members chat about what their thinking was behind each song, listen to some alternate takes of songs, see some live versions and listen to some instrumentation that may not have made the cut. They also talked about the fact that following up Dark Side to the Moon was a daunting task and they went in there unprepared.

By only beef is that the documentary definitely looks like it could have been included on the Wish You Were Here reissue last year. Why did they not put it in the package? Getting a little more out of the fans? Who knows. Either way, it was a great treat to watch for an hour, and the backstory on Sid Barrett was a welcome refresher on all things Floyd.

The subject line is what Dad said to Vero and I when we were leaving for Ottawa after spending Christmas with the family up North.  He said it while passing a treble clef sign to hang on the wall that we received for Christmas.  We all had a good laugh.  I think everyone loves to pull out some one-liners like that.

***warning: disjointed thoughts all abound…is it the new year, or is it the new beer?***

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m getting ready to go out but I felt the need to chat about the year gone by and Christmas holidays.  By any other measure, the trip was the same old success…get to visit family and friends, get to have a few beers along the way, get to revisit old haunts.  But we also had some new adventures as well…15 hours to get to Kapuskasing was a first…this was due to not one, but two accidents even before we hit North Bay.  All I care about is that we made it home safe.  I hope everyone else did as well.  We had a great time spent in Kap and Hearst and I loved playing on the open mic night with Randy, John, Mike, Lynn and especially Maureen.  It’s a fantastic feeling to sing along with your sister and I don’t think I’ve ever said that to her in person before.  If only I had my trusty binder by my side, I could have probably given John and Randy a two hour break!

As I look back on 2012, it’s hard to pinpoint specific events and that was the original intent for this blog…I have a horrible memory and I wanted to have a diary of everything that happened in my life.  But now it is somewhere where I drop in from time to time and jot down my current thoughts.  There’s nothing wrong with that I suppose.  I have a solid five years of entries to show my grandchildren “Hey, this is what your grandfather was about.”  It also fuels my fire to write, but I feel that fuel has been taking over in the past few years to write music.  I feel that I have written a few songs that I am proud of, some that don’t make the cut, and some that just need a little more work.  That’s the classic life of a songwriter of I suppose.  I have challenged Troy to embark on a songwriting challenge and write a song a month for the next year to see what we come up with.  I don’t care if they all suck.  I care that I try.

I have taken piano lessons since September and I’m proud of what I have accomplished.  Have I practiced as much as I should have?  Hell no.  In fact, I’m scared to go back to lessons considering I have had the last month to practice and only have tinkered a bit.  But I don’t care…I’m glad that I have made use of the instrument that Vero bought for me a few years ago to build up our chamber of music.  Next up: The kazoo!

2012 has been an incredibly trying year for a lot of family and friends, including ourselves.  Vero and I both were ‘affected’ by the potential of job losses at work.  Some of our friends lost their jobs, some of our family lost their jobs, but some of us made it through and we’re grateful for that.  Did we end up with what we want in the end?  Maybe not…I definitely did as I love my job, but some others just don’t have that chance in life.  It’s hard to feel lucky when we jump through one hurdle victoriously only to end up in another hurdle to overcome.  The thing is, we just have to constantly evaluate what’s important in our life…the most important thing to me in my life are the people within it.  I love going into work just to sit down for my first 15 minutes and respond to emails because I know someone is depending on it, or is seeking my opinion.  I then love chatting to whoever is around and basically treating anyone at work as I would a friend or family…finding out what they are up to in life, teasing them about something ridiculous that they did and offering support when it’s needed.  There isn’t many people that can say the people they work with are like family…I think I started thinking about this when my father and mother retired and I realized they spent more hours with the people they worked with than their own family (not by their own choice!)  I would be remiss to not point out that I actually love the work I do as well and I feel that I am making a difference in people’s lives.  There’s not many people that can say that.

I also cherish my time outside of work…it’s my most important time of my life…whether it is making beer with friends, debugging a faulty hot tub motor for an entire week while freezing my ass off before the giant winter has set in (and making triple daily phone calls to Dad in the process “Hi Mom, how are you…is Dad there?”), or catching up on some TV watching (which I’ve basically realized had taken a standstill to my piano lessons!)  Speaking of taking a standstill to piano lessons, JF, John, Martin and I got together one time in 2012 to play together as a group and it was amazing.  Did it happen again?  No.  My life was way too busy to get into it again.  Especially with piano lessons.  Will it happen again? Definitely.  The feeling was electric in the room.  John is a fantastic drummer AND music connoisseur and JF can outplay any lead guitar player we throw at him.  I’m still disappointed we never went to see Roger Waters that one night at a bachelor party in the summer and he was playing a few hours away in Quebec City!

Of course, people are reading this wondering when I’m going to talk about my lovely wife Vero.  In August, we wed and it was fantastic.  Up in Hearst, ON, it ended up being everything we dreamed about.  I secretly loved that it went down to five degrees because everyone out of town got a taste of what it is to live up North!  All kidding aside, Vero planned, double-planned and triple-planned this event to the nth degree and it went off without a hitch.  While she is sure is determined some times (read: tete de mule), it pays off in the end for the perfection she aims for.  I look back to the summer and still feel that this is the wedding that we both wanted and we both made happen along with some significant help from our family and friends.  But we did it on our own rules.  I’m proud of that and I’m proud that it adhered to the same principles of our current parties: Make sure everyone has a great time.  I love my wife and as I’ve said before…this is just another event in our lives.  I’m not discounting the seven years before that.

I’m excited for some future plans we’ve set out.  We’re planning to hit up Australia in September (which was diverted due to job cuts last September) and Vero is currently planning a trip with her Dad in Spring 2014.  Of course, people ask when/if children fall into our plans in the future.  Of course they do…just be patient.  Many things to accomplish (such as the art of woodworking which is a personal goal in 2013).  We’re also planning a complete bathroom renovation in February.  I must admit that while I feel a bathroom is fine with a toilet and a shower, the shower just isn’t up to snuff so “out it must go!”.  But in the same breath, Vero feels strongly about other elements so I feel the entire thing may be transformed come end of February!

What does 2013 offer us?  Well, unless the Mayans were off a little and the world is going to end in 2013, there’s a slew of weddings to go to (when will it end?), maybe a video project to finally be completed (our music video chronicling the great white north excursion in the song “705”) and I suppose we should plant a tree or two.

One final thought before I pass it off to New Years’s wishes…something that really struck me this holiday season…

We had Melissa’s husband Jeff stay with us on Christmas Eve as she had to have an operation on her appendix on in Kapuskasing on Christmas Eve.  I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to drive 16 hours up to Hearst only to have your appendix rupture the next day and then they have no surgeons in Hearst so you have to go by ambulance to Kapuskasing.  While Kap is a fantastic town, it’s still a hospital room next to some lady hacking her lungs out.  I am not one to dwell on misfortunes so I made the best of the situation and offered to take Jeff under our wing for the night and spread some Christmas cheer.  I brought him to the Townsons who offered us some amazing festive cheer and then we headed off to our house.  This reminded me of what Christmas, and more importantly, what my family (and the Townsons) are about.  I don’t even think that Mom flinched when I mentioned in church that Jeff would be staying with us that night.  I felt bad for not giving her the heads up, but at the same time, I think she understood that and did not mind too much.  A bed was set up for him and the famous Palmer family cheer was spread out to the all-encompassing family.  I feel that the Palmers are like some organism that just envelops everyone they meet and makes it one of their own…I’m talking about all the Palmers…and if you have met any of us, then you are a Palmer as well.  You know what I mean…countless tales have been told of how my parents are the coolest there ever was.  Maureen and I aspire to be those people who welcome anyone with open arms into their house and make them feel comfortable.  This is what we are made of and I don’t think we would settle to have anyone amongst us that didn’t act like that.  I personally aspire to be what my uncles, aunts, parents, grandparents and whoever else have been associated with the family…I aspire to be what they are…inviting to all.  Jeff appreciated the night spent with us and enjoyed the fact that he could shuffle off to bed when he was deadbeat tired after looking after his wife in the last day or so.  Sure, it was a shitty time for them…but people get through that.  I think Melissa appreciated that we could take Jeff int our house instead of having him in some old hospital room.  Melissa was up and at ’em a few days later when we visited for an excellent brunch with Michel, Carole, Miguel and Stephanie.  I also managed to sneak in a well deserved nap at the same time.  That’s what family is about as well…accepting everyone around them, no matter what their faults (in their eyes) may be…especially a lone soldier just wanting to catch a few winks while the guys go out and go on the ski-doo.  🙂

I want to thank my family for welcoming Jeff into the house during Christmas.

Was 2012 challenging?  Hells yes.  But I say throw whatever you got at me in 2013 because I’m always going to emerge with a smile on my face.

I don’t care if you’re with a loved one watching the clock strike midnight or with a giant group of people tonight…reflect on the year you’ve had and see the joy you’ve had.  Talk about it…tell someone three things you loved about the past year.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to phone whoever the heck you want at the stroke of midnight.  They’ll never get mad.

Well on that note…

Two weeks ago, I decided to put up the Christmas lights before Vero got home (read: she told me she would love to see the lights up before she got home) but when I went out to the garage I heard an awful racket coming from the hot tub.

Note: the things I will talk about in this post will mostly make me sound like I know what the heck a hot tub does, but let it be known that I had little understanding until AFTER two weeks of research along with my co-researcher…Dad. Also, this is mainly for historical purposes so it may not be the most entertaining thing to read.

When I opened up the cover to the hot tub, I found the circulating pump (Circ-Master by Aquaflo) was the source of the racket. I also noticed it leaking which explains why the water level would go down over the weeks. I turned the breaker off, engaged the cut-off valves to the pump, unscrewed the unions, took the ground wire off, unplugged the guy, and Bob’s your uncle.

Luckily for me, there was a sticker on it indicating that I should bring it to a store on Cyrville Road. Perfect! I gave them a call and they said to bring it on it.

As soon as I walked in there, I knew I was amongst experts. The guy at the counter took one look at it and said “Ah. You must have a leaky seal.” He explained that once the seal goes (every 3-5 years), the chlorinated water starts leaking over the pump. Turns out that it started to deteriorate the impeller blade on the pump as well. I left it in their good hands and returned on Wednesday to pick it up. $188 later, I’m walking out with a working pump.

Or so I thought. Plugged the pumped back in, attached the unions, flipped the breaker…nothing. Hmm…after some research I realized I never bled the line of the air pocket. Loosened a union, heard the air escape…still nothing. Hmm…

I called back and they said they test all pumps going out so it should be working. Next up is checking out my spa pack! The spa pack is the circuit board that runs the hot tub.

Everything checked out there. I ended up phoning Chinook Hot Tubs who were a great help in trying to debug the problem. They are always super helpful and I recommend them to anyone. Even though they thought it was the pump, they ended up finally suggesting maybe it’s a fuse that has gone in the spa pack. I changed the fuse but no dice. I even got Mike’s help in measuring the amount of voltage from the plug and it was outputting a solid 248V. So we knew the pump was getting power.

I have to say at this point, it was a frustrating experience. I spent a few hours in the cold on Wednesday and woke up early Saturday morning to sit in the cold winter chill (the wind was quite nasty that day!) to not have a damn thing work for me. I was fighting against time and the weather at this point…winter was coming and I needed to figure this out.

I ended up bringing the pump back in to get checked out. I figured that if it wasn’t the pump, it has to be the circuit board. Dad thought that maybe there is power going to the pump but a signal has to be sent to trigger it on. At this point, it could be anything but sometimes it’s the simplest things and I knew I had to go back to square one. Verify if the pump was working.

I chatted with the guy at the counter for a bit while the pump was being tested. The young guy brings the pump out of the back and says “Well, it works.” There went all the hope in the world. But then he explained…”Well, it works now. There was a loose wire in there.”

Hallelujah! I was so ecstatic. I don’t think they’ve had a reaction like that from a pump that works! I was dancing on the countertops, fireworks went off and cheerleaders threw confetti on them. At least that’s how I remember the moment.

I brought the pump back home, cleared out the snow around the hot tub that had fallen the night before and lo and behold, the pump worked on the first shot! Bingo bango, it works!

After speaking to Dad, I realized that while it was a pain in my ass, I learned a lot from this experience. It’s good to understand how things work (like your hot tub) and no one bothers to understand a device until it breaks. That’s just how the world works. At least in my world that is. I’m confident in debugging hot tub issues at this point, but I’m no expert. But at least I figured out a few things along the way.