Archive for September, 2004

Good news, I finished chapter four yesterday afternoon and have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to write for chapter five. I mention that because even though I have the general story structure all written out I found that I had left some large holes that were hard to fill in chapter four and that kept me from completeing it for quite a while. Never the less, the writing continues.

I taped a program the other night called Empire of Dreams. It’s a two hour documentary on the making of the first Star Wars movies (Eps IV, V and VI.) I watched much of it yesterday and thought the funniest line was Mark Hamill’s when he was talking about what sort of things were bothering the financeers of the film when production was running late, “Of all the things to worry about — where are the Wookie’s pants?!”

I discovered that the flood damage was a bit more extensive that I thought yesterday. So, all the carpet and backing is coming out of the bedroom, the floor is drying and new carpet it being installed. I don’t mind living in the spare room — in fact, I realize that we’ve got it pretty good having a spare room that’s as comfortable as ours is — I just hope the carpet gets in there and has a chance to off gas before my parents come to visit next Wednesday!

Jenn and I arrived safely back at home in Ottawa yesterday — well, this morning. After Jenn drove through the biggest downpour (save the zero-visibility hail storm that stopped us on the way to London in June) I’ve seen in years, I took the wheel from Terrace Bay to the Soo. We were feeling good and it was only 4:30 p.m. We decided to keep driving and decide if we wanted to stay in Sudbury or continue on as we went. Outside of Sudbury we grabbed some supper and decided to continue to at least North Bay, and maybe continue through to home. At North Bay Jenn took the wheel again for a couple hours and we pressed on to Ottawa arriving just after midnight. I was glad to be sleeping in my own bed rather than in some hotel somewhere.

We found our bedroom floor strangely damp when we got home though, but as tehre was no immediate damage to anything, we slept on it. This morning we found that half our bedroom and a bunch of our storage room had experienced some flooding. Apparently Ottawa received a record amount of rain last Thursday and there was lots of flooding. We lost a pair of slippers and a couple of empty cardboard boxes — we were saving them for packing. Most of our stuff is stored up off the floor, so we were safe.

Anyways, had a great time in Thunder Bay (the time went too fast) even though we didn’t cram it full of visits with everyone we wanted to see. We did see just about everyone that we wanted to, had some good family time and job searching time too. We’re hoping to be back before the snow flies in a permenant way, but we’ll just have to wait and see how that works out.

Well, I hit a number of golf balls, a trees, a bunch of branches, a flag pole and a few black flies. It was the first time I’ve been golfing for a couple of years — since I moved to Ottawa, in fact. It was a good time. I went with my dad and my father in law. On the front nine all three of us shot a 54. On the back nine my father in law and I hit 55 and my dad hit a 48. The highlight of my game was a chip onto the eleventh green that stuck and rolled into the hole. I would have done better, but I left my lucky pink tee in Ottawa.

So, I figure I’d better write a quick update tonight, as I seem to have a spare five minutes.

The trip to Thunder Bay this past weekend went smoothly and quickly. Over all, it took an hour less than we had planned — we made it an hour quicker than we expected to Sudbury. Friday night we had a nice visit with Dave and Mia (and Ania and Solomon) and even though we got to bed by 10:30 p.m. we were unable to stay sleeping past 2:30 a.m. so we hit the road at 4:00 a.m. and made it to Thunder Bay that afternoon.

Dad and I broke out the lawn darts (or Jarts if you will) after supper and then had the bocce balls out later.

Yesterday, we took it easy, went to church, spent the afternoon with my mom and dad.

Today was the big BBQ — thirty eight people in all (if you count Richard arriving around 9:30 p.m. after everything was over.) Lots of food, lots of kids, a hacky-sac circle much like the old days — it was a good time. Thanks to everyone who made it out. It was a lot of visiting to do in such a short time though. It’ll be nice to take it easy the next couple of days.

Just in case you’re wondering, there will be no Rockin’ Comic caption contest this week. I think I’ll take this two week cycle off. Don’t worry, I haven’t run out of ideas though, the next one will be a really good one.

It started yesterday when I was outside installing my mp3 deck in the VW Bora. I noticed that it was a beautiful fall day — my favourite time of the year. Except it was still August. Then when I was walking out of ye old Future Shoppe I noticed that my shin was feeling funny. But I had the ever elusive 2002 VW Jetta radio antenna adapter, so I was okay. Then when I was picking up Jenn’s wedding dress from the drycleaner (yes, all you ladies out there, be appaled that it took us 15+ months to get it cleaned and boxed — hermetically sealed for all eternity, or at least until our daughters decide they don’t want to wear it) I looked at my shin and found a big scrape with dangling skin and ooze. Very odd.

Then, this morning, it is September and I cut my nose shaving. And I wasn’t even trying to shave my nose at all! Boy, did it hurt too!

Well, that doesn’t segue into anything, so I’ll just say that I’m hitting the road (with the mp3 player pumping out the tunes and CBC Radio One — and it makes the Jetta’s Monsoon system sound eleven times better) and hope to see some of you at the BBQ on Monday.