Kev

Someone at work today asked me why I say “howdy” all the time instead of “hello” or “hi”. Frankly, I really had no idea why I have chosen this form of greeting, and confess to have never put any thought into it before. I didn’t think it was that important, but the person at work figured I was from out West. Then it clicked. Ev answers the phone and starts email with “howdy”, and he hopes that’s ok with me. Apparently it’s more than ok with me, as I seem to be emulating him.

That’s not a bad thing, and besides, “howdy!” sounds all friendly-like.

Oustanding show by mother nature in the wee hours this morning. The temperature and humidty rose quite nicely this morning, helping to create some very loud thunderstorms. Great light show, buckets of rain in a very short time, and the house was shaking from some of the nearby strikes. The speed with which the storm passed through was pretty impressive as well. It went from dry and silent to soaking and noisy in what seemed like 10 seconds.

Speaking of storms passing through the area, Mr. Black is in town tonight. I wonder if that means there will be a beer or two involved?

Ok, I think I got the basics of the template done, and the site appears to be similar to what it was before. NTS: It’s a bad idea to create a div named “body” – there’s one defined in every doc already. Good thing I only beat my head against that and a “(” where a “{” should have been. Oh well, live and don’t learn, that’s my mantra.

In any event, now I can say I have some useful software in place that’ll allow for a peanut gallery, and I won’t have to use a text editor to cruft this together all the time. WordPress is pretty cool, but I’ll need to incorporate some hacks in order to make it do what I want. Right now the only links on the right that are dynamically generated are the archives, and I’d kind of like all of them to be managed through the link manager. Maybe this weekend…

And coop, I will update this. No, really. Stop mocking me!!!

I have some posts to backfill from the last couple days, but since it’s almost midnight and I’ll be up at 6am, it’s time to get some sleep.

Today was a good day. In fact, today was an outstanding day. I thought about work for all of five seconds, then got down to enjoying the prefect weather.

I started with an 18km run with Sylvie, which took us on a nice route from Alta Vista up Main, over the Pretoria Bridge, down Queen Elizabeth past the tulip gardens to Dow’s lake, through the Arboretum, down to Hog’s Back, and back up the Ottawa River to finish off where we started. Syl wasn’t enjoying the first 45 minutes or so, but the last 70 or so were excellent. No wind, 12-14 degrees Celsius, and clear, blue skies.

Running was followed by shower number two for the day at 10:00 or so, which was a good thing for anyone close by.

James and I headed over to the Pump for some eggs bennie and it was excellent as always (although they forgot my damn side of bacon!). Food in the belly combined with the 2000-odd calories burned earlier conspired against me, and I snuck in a half-hour on the couch before practice.

We had our first Turftoads practice at Jacque Cartier park, and had a very decent turnout. I think everyone realized our first game was scheduled for Wednesday, and figured it might be a good idea to get some throws in. We focused on practicing Zone D and a dump-swing O, and had a fairly good scrimmage. I thought I’d be dead, but at the end of our two-hour practice I was the only one still bouncing around without sucking wind.

I ran out to dad’s place for a belated birthday dinner (mine, not his) and fixed his BBQ while I was there. We had an excellent Szechwaun dinner at the Rideau Restaurant in Kanata (highly recommended – really good, cheap food), with very spicy General Tao’s chicken, some really different veggies in the Buddha’s delight , and a good shanghai noodle mix.

I finished off the day with a visit with Robin, who is off to Thailand for a month in the next couple weeks. A nice chat over coffee is a great way to close off a kick-ass day. I tried to watch Pirates of the Carribean, but it just wasn’t happening, so I went to bed. Someday I may even clean my room.

Who knew I’d have a completely happy day? I think the key was thinking about work for all of five seconds before saying “fuckit”. 🙂

For the first time since… well, the first time I visited in 1976 and got a guided tour of the shiny new CN Tower after riding around in a police car all day, I’m enjoying a stay in Toronto. There are places where there are real neighbourhoods, not just suburban sprawl and an antiseptic downtown. Next time I’m down, I know what part of town I’m going to stay in.

In previous visits, my employers were in Missisauga or business was right downtown. As a result, I stayed frequently at the Sheraton Centre or Hilton (I still call it the “Hotel Toronto” from when we stayed there in 1976, and Trader Vics is still in the basement) downtown, or one of the lego hotels by the airport. Those two neighbourhoods are not exactly people friendly. This time I stayed a little farther North, closer to Bloor. A little out of the way, but I got to take the subway (it was clean, which is not what I have grown to expect out of a subway system) and walk to Shaver’s place for drinks.

The walking is what made the city rub off on me a little. I walked up Yonge to Bloor, then West to Brunswick. What a great area of town. Yonge has a bunch of head shops, adult video stores, subject-specific bookstores, and a number of smaller shops carrying a variety of things. Bloor has all the big-name stores, including a couple of my favourites. Walking out of the shopping district around Varisty Stadium/Spadina exposes you to neighborhoods where people live in real houses/buildings, not glass cylinders, and there were plenty of cool restaurants, pubs, patios, and life on the streets to make it interesting.

As always, it was good to see Mike and Tyla, and I enjoyed a frosty beverage and a Scotch with them in their apartment. We spoke of cats falling off a roof, stupid-big TVs, good tequila, pretty new LCD monitors, and a whole bunch of other things that were mostly unrelated to work.

I’m actually looking forward to going back and exploring, and I know where all be staying next time around. Hopefully work won’t get too bent out of shape at me for not staying at a “preferred” hotel (corporate code for “we get discounts at the end of the year, but won’t credit them against your travel budget”). Not that I’d really give a shit about what they’d say, anyways. 🙂

So it’s a lottery, and the odds of getting in are around 1-in-2, but I’m still pretty stoked that I’ve been accepted to run in this year’s marathon in New York. It’s a pretty cool route through all five boroughs, finishing off in Central Park. Hopefully Walt and Lee will still be there, and I can combine a mini-vacation with a really long run over the weekend.

Training schedules for preparing for a marathon are pretty daunting, and I think I’m going to be enlisting the help of the local Running Room through the marathon clinic and support via run club. I know I can do it, but with the humidty and heat here in Ottawa over the summer, it’s going to be a huge challenge.

If I can complete NYC, it’ll mean running a marathon within 13 months of starting to run. That’d be pretty cool. I’m all set for race weekend in three weeks time, and have run 20km multiple times without dying. So, I’m about halfway to where I need to be.

Thanks Jon. As usual, you’re one of the few that has the balls to say it. Outstanding clip from the Daily Show. I heard it on the radio yesterday, and found the clip today. The video was originally posted on Lisa Rein’s site..

I’m back home courtesy of WestJet, who did a flawless job carting me out West and back. It was bootiful out, so I raked my lawn and filled 5 of those big paper yard waste bags. The depressing part is after all of that I’m only a third of the way done. I don’t think anyone’s done anything to the yard in a while, so more raking followed by seeding is in my immediate future.

The Sens could’t buy a goal again tonight, and they really need to find a way to crack Belfour open. Lalime was not terribly impressive, especially on Sundin’s goal. I am super glad to see Joe doing well, as he is one of my fave people to watch come playoff time.

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.

Update: I get a silly number of hits from Google on how to actually pronounce Siobhan, and have even received email asking why I don’t explain how considering the title of this post. Fair enough. It’s pronounced “shiv-awn”, like Chevonne, but with more of an “ive” sound instead of “ev”.

Update 2: I also got feedback in the comments from another Siobhan as follows:

I’ve heard it pronounced both ways in our Dublin office, so I’ll put both pronunciations up here. The first pronunciation is the predominant one, as the latter pronunciation seems to be a regional dialect. There are a number of references to the latter pronunciation out there, so I’ll add it. Thanks for the additional info, siobhan!

Update 3: Shivie says

and you know what, she’s got a really good point. 🙂 thanks, Shivie!

Now you know and now, back to the original post:

Wedding’s done, and it was hella fun. The ceremony was at 14:30, and was accompanied by music from the Star Wars soundtrack. It was short, on time, and tastefully done (even with Kj being one of the objects of attention). Laura looked phenomenal, and even Kjell looked respectable, which is the way it’s supposed to be.

I got to spend the aft chatting with Rachel at the King’s Stag drinking cheap ($4.25) pints of Guinness, and we headed to Darrel and Siobhan’s room (#666) to meet up with a bunch of old Ingenia crew and their families. Where did all those kids come from, anyways? We had a beer there, marvelled at the way parents can balance a kid, their food, a beer, and a diaper bag simultaneously, and then departed back to the pub as Siobhan had a hankerin’ for a Kilkenny, and we reluctantly *cough* decided to join her.

The reception and dinner was great, and I got to know a bunch of my friends wives and kids a little better, along with catching up on where everyone was. Good times, and we managed to close the place out.

Congrats guys, and thanks for inviting me out, I had a great time.

The rest of the day will be spent crucifying chocolate bunnies, and taking in the gorgeous weather. Twenty degrees and sunny, I’m glad I’m here instead of the left coast where it’s overcast, damp, and near freezing. Tomorrow it’s back home though, so I must go and waste the day away with the family properly.

Jell-o and McQuade picked me up this aft for Jell-o’s final pint as a single man at the Ship & Anchor on 17th. Kj’s first words after getting underway from my sister’s place in the suburbs were “I have no idea how you’re getting home.”. That’s the best part about friends – you don’t really care because being able to have a beer with them more than makes up for having to figure out the details of getting home later. The beers were cold, the local scenery outstanding (mmm… hotties in tight clothing is a sure sign of spring), and I finally got to meet Ev (I have met him before, but only for a short time at McQuade’s wedding a couple years ago) and chat with him awhile.

Kj, for the record, hailing a cab in downtown Calgary is not a trivial task. I did get home, but it was a pain. Thankfully, I had consumed beer, so it didn’t matter.

We picked Rachel up at the airport and took in some excellent Indian food for the Good Friday meal. Half the table was meat-free, with my sister and I filling the role of godless heathen. We’re okay with that.

The evening was spent at a bar of questionable lineage watching the game. I don’t recommend Players for it’s ambiance, cleanliness, or quality of food, but for watching a Calgary Flames playoff game, I can’t think of a place I’ve been with better atmosphere. The place was a sea of red brandishing flags, towels, air horns, and those bugle-thingees you find in abundance at CFL games. Whenever Calgary started up ice the place erupted in cheers, every shot taken had people on their seats screaming, and every save by the Flames – no matter the difficulty – was applauded roundly.

It was a unique experience, and I now understand why attendance at Flames games has been over 90% per year despite the fact they haven’t made the playoffs the last seven years. This place loves their hockey, so it’s not just Kj being a freak. The folks in Eastern Canada who have to be given permission/told by the scoreboard to make some noise could learn a lot from the fans here. I won’t hold my breath, though.