I Don't Like Mondays!
Well all I can say is the Boomtown Rats obviously didn't go to a job they enjoyed. It's Monday and I get to spend all day on a computer, what more could I ask for. Got some interesting projects under way at work. I also have to make sure to get Kosmo in for his blood work today or tomorrow as his medicine runs out in a couple of days and they won't renew the prescription until the bloodwork is done. We did have an appointment, but something came up and we had to postpone. Talking of Kosmo he's been a bit lackadaisical the last couple of days. I assume it's because he's been out in the sun with us a lot more, something to watch out for though. Time waits for no m.........
My Weekend!
An unusually late blog for me today. Saturday was pretty uneventful. Had to go out and buy a couple of paving stones to site the pump on for our new swimming pool, which by the way is turning out to be much more expensive than we first thought it would be. Story of my life. For the pool we have to have an outdoor power outlet wired in, we can't use an extension from the existing outdoor power socket. We also have to get a water truck to fill the pool up, as they installers have to test it before they leave. Also we have to get separate house insurance coverage for it and also a permit from the local council. I'll be glad when it's in keeping me cool in the coming summer months, but it seems like it's a money pit at the moment. Apart from that was a lazy Saturday.
Today me and Alanna watched the F1 race in Germany, not a bad race apart from the fact Schumacher won again. Went out briefly today to sign the final agreement for the pool and got a coffee on the way home. Pottered around the house doing a few odd jobs and also reading Donald Trumps book, The Art of the Deal, you never know a few things might rub off on me :-) Launched some new software on Programmed Integration and am currently working on the Windows version of Bakesys, my successful Bakery Management software. So you could say I packed in some thins this weekend.
I also managed to catch up on my email. I had loads of replies to do to emails I'd received in the last few weeks.... shame on me. Tiffany, if you're reading this, I sent you a reply, but it bounced. I also replied to another cousin Gina who's doing her BA, which is no mean feat. Her daughter Emma is also doing a degree, better her than me, it's been a long time since I was in school :-)
Oh well my nice warm bed is a calling, time to reboot this weary body ready for the morning. Night!
Happy Birthday to my Darling Wife!
I just wanted to wish my beautiful wife a wonderful birthday. Things are such a rush in the mornings on a work day, but at least it is the end of the week. This morning was also a bit sluggish for me as I was up later than usual last night playing with the reincarnated Napster, that has just been officially launched in Canada. So far it's pretty neat. I'm on day 1 of a free 7 day trial. At $9.95 a month I can listen to hundreds of thousands of tracks on demand. I only have to play extra if I want a physical copy of the song on my hard disk. Having broadband, this isn't that much of a draw back and I'm sure there are ways around this ;-)
I've also been working on a new program I'm launching on my site, http://www.programmedintegration.com. It's a program to help you find stuff on your hard disk. When you have as many files as I do, this is really useful. Oh well back to the grindstone.
Hello Campers!
Back to work yesterday after the very long weekend. It's always good to get back to the grindstone and have the opportunity to sit in front of the computer for long periods of time. No my friends that's not sarcasm, that's me being sad. I love my job and any excuse to get me in front of a computer is a good one.
Been taking some more video on our new DV cam and will try to string something together in the next week or so. It's funny, you think one you get one you won't be able to stop filming. I suppose it's because we bought it for a specific reason and that reason isn't here yet. Not good enough really, I must do better (mmm that appeared on a few school reports).
American Idol was won by Daffy Duck......... no not really, it was Fantasia Barino, but close enough. I have to admit though she was the better singer overall. Me finks that Diana will just slink away never to be heard of again.
Licensed to Thrill!
Well strike me down with a feather, I actually got something for free. Went and upgraded my G2 drivers license to a G license, with the aid of my UK license and I wasn't charged a bean. Now this is unusual when it comes to government. We even have to stump up about $150 for a license for our swimming pool, but I won't go into that now. Anyway I should get my nice new shiny plastic license in a few weeks. There was however a down side. I had to say good by to my old UK license. He wasn't due to expire until 2036, but he's gone to the big license place in the sky. For anyone who hasn't seen the old style UK license, they are quite a site. It's basically a piece of paper about 10 inches by 7 inches. There's tons of writing on it and they it confused people when I showed it abroad. At least I have my memories :-)
What Happened to Summer?
Another day begins and I've yet to see a spot of sunshine. It poured down most of yesterday and looks like it's going to do the same today. I suppose it's too much to expect summer to start all at once and it is still only May. As mentioned yesterday I'm off work today and am going to be out and about doing various bits and pieces. Hopefully I'll get some time tonight to potter on the puter, but maybe not.
Hey the American Idol final is on tonight. I know I shouldn't be watching this crap, but what can I say, it's compulsive viewing. If Fanstasia wins it, god help all of us. Yes she can sing, but her voice is just so annoying. As Simon Callow once said, she sounds like a cartoon character. He seems to have changed his tune now, but you can rest assured you'll always get the real deal from me. Blimey, what do I sound like?
Happy Victoria Day!
Well another Victoria Day polished off for another year. It seems funny celebrating a national holiday of someone who died over 100 years ago, but hey it gives me a day off work :-) Actually I say that but I did in fact spend most of today on the computer playing with ASP.NET. For all of those of you who know nothing about computers, see ya tomorrow :-) ...
Still here? OK, well ASP is a way of writing dynamic web pages. That is a web page that you can actually interact with one way or another. If you've ever been to Google or Yahoo, then you'll have used one of these technologies and probably not even have know. Anyway ASP.NET is a Microsoft initiative that really is incredible. I've been working for a week or so writing a system for handheld computers. Anyway after a few hours I managed to leverage most of the code I'd written and use this for the basis of a web version of the same system. For anyone who up on this stuff, it's very powerful to be able to use the same code and be able to use it on different computers or operating systems. There's nothing worse than having to keep starting from scratch. Anyway I'm still a fledgling ASP.Net programmer but loving every minute of it. If I get the time I'll try to knock up a fun app to show you what it can do.
Anyway off to bed I go. Got lots of running about to do tomorrow. Off to the dreaded Department of Transport and Department of Health for new licenses and a new driving license.
Mornin'
No post yesterday, but for a good reason.... I was exceedingly knackered. Sherri woke me up at 4:30am with real bad pains in her stomach. We were really concerned as these were pains she's never experienced before. She'd tried to bear them for a half hour or so, but finally she could take no more and woke me up. Consequently I got dressed and took her to the hospital. Can you believe we were there nearly 7 hours. At times it seemed like we were in a hospital social club. During that 7 hours we saw 2 nurses, 2 doctors and the ultrasound technician. We were comforted to see the babies briefly and their heartbeats. Anyway as things panned out, it looks like Sherri has a ton of trapped has in her bowel. She's been burping like a Meeks, but she's been unable to pass wind anywhere else. Anyway when we finally got home, I was famished. After we both had something to eat, we dozed on the sofa, but by the time 10pm came we were both very very tired. Sherri's still in bed now, and I don't think I'm gonna wake her until midday.
Apart from that I finally managed to get hold of my cousin Dennis. He's a slippery bugger to track down sometimes :-) I told him our news as I hadn't told him before. He's been not too well lately, so I wanted to see how he was first. Anyway both he and his wife Clodya were overjoyed at the news.
So what does the day have in store this fine Sunday morning. Well me and Alanna have just finished watching the F1 race and it was great to see Michael Schumacher NOT winning again. Jensen Button gave Jarno Trulli a run for his money, but a first place on the podium still eludes him. Probably gonna do some grocery shopping later and then veg out for a bit. We have a nice long weekend her. Monday is Victoria Day and I've taken Tuesday off to get my full Canadian driving license as well as a new Health card. Sherri's Health card also expires so it's important for her to get that sorted too. That about wraps up my Sunday morning. I'm hoping the next few days are relatively uneventful.
The End of the Week is Upon Us!
Sometimes TV sucks. Last night with over 200 channels to choose from we couldn't find a thing. Around 9 we finally ended up watching a biography on Ted Nugent. I must admit I knew next to nothing about him or his music except for the fact that for many years Liv Tyler grew up believing him to be her father, a fact that wasn't mentioned in the programme at all.
I'm gonna keep it short and sweet today. Got to leave a bit early to take the girls for Timmy's before I drop them off at the bus stop to catch their bus to school. Mmmmm now maybe I'll have a nice doughnut with my coffee today :-)
I Hear Heartbeats!
Our appointment with the OB/Gyn went really good yesterday. We actually got to hear the little babies heartbeats. They're still fairly quiet and the doctor had a hard time finding them, but she eventually did and it was like music to our ears. Sherri will probably kill me for saying this, but she's suffering terrible gas at the moment. It's the eco friendly variant, but it's still very uncomfortable for her. Anyway the doctor recommended a few things she can take, so hopefully they will help.
We got home around 4 yesterday and after finishing my Timmy's coffee I decided to go out and mow the front and rear lawns. Let me tell you, if you ever have the choice of buying an electric or petrol mower, get the petrol one. I HATE CABLES! God it always manages to get in my way. Anyway laws are now done for at least a couple of weeks.
Having mowed the lawns I now have the weekend to myself (famous last words). I've got a few computer things to do for my Dad which I need to get in the post soon. I've also got some ideas for new software and want to release some new stuff I've been working on. In between all that Kosmo has to go back to the vets for his checkup. He has to have some blood work done to make sure the medicine here's taking, isn't having an adverse effect.
Back to the Docs!
Off to the OB/GYN today for the wife to have a checkup and for the Doc to tell us how things are progressing. It will be about 4-6 weeks from now before we have another ultrasound and we can't wait. It's incredible to see the difference between now and a few weeks back when the babies were just little specs. Now they are recognisable as little babies. Both my wife and I are waiting for the enormity of it all to sink in. We've waited so long, that it's hard to believe it's happening for us. It's a beautiful sunny day here, summer is coming and life is good. Oh no, that will mean Mr Barbecue will be strutting his stuff tonight, never mind, I'll cook dinner first ;-)
When Google announced Gmail, their online email service, people at first thought it was an April Fools joke. The main reason for this, apart from the announcement happening on April 1st, was the fact that Google said each user would have 1 Gigabyte of storage space. To put this into context with similar services, Yahoo offers 3 Megabytes which is 300 times less. Anyway there was much skepticism, but let me tell you, it's real and it's great. I'm one of the early adopters, having been invited to the program because I'm a regular Blogger, another service that Google also owns. I'm using Gmail primarily to manage my email newsletters and usergroups and for this it's been great. One of the real star features is the ability to thread your email. This means you can track a complete conversation with someone else in an easy readable format without hunting for previous emails. Anyway it's hard to believe this service is going to be free. Yes Google have taken the opportunity to add their own adverts to the email that you read in an inconspicuous panel on the right. Hey I can live with that. I'd even go so far as to say, if they decided to charge a small fee per year, I would definitely sign up. I've already sent out my 2 invites to other users to join. I don't imagine it's going to be much longer before Google launches this service to the masses.
Meeks' in Living Colour!
Well I finally managed to have a play with our new video recorder over the weekend and here's the results. The first link is if you have broadband (i.e. fast internet connection) the other is if you are using a modem. Please be patient, it might take a little while to buffer (for it to load enough to start playing).
Video for Broadband Users
Video for Modem Users
I noticed the music has a funny sound quality, but remember this is just a first attempt. I'm still having lots of problems with the actually editing. The free software I got with the camera fails to load. Microsoft Movie Maker is great, but doesn't allow me to edit the video the way I want and also crashes if I try to add captions or titles. EditStudio looked really good, but I can't work out how to edit. I was going to try the software from Pinnacle, but they don't have a trial version to download. Finally I downloaded a solution from ULead and just when I had it installed, the camera battery ran flat, so I'll have to wait a bit later to play with that. Anyway enjoy.
....Oh year and we bought an 18ft swimming pool :-)
Good Morning Campers.
The weekends here and it's beautiful outside. Not as hot as it has been but that's good, I prefer a gentle introduction to summer. It's still warm enough for shorts and t-shirt which is nice, especially when you consider it's only May. One downside is the bloody lawn needs cutting again. I only cut it last week. I'm sorry there's no way I'm cutting the grass every week, every 2 weeks is fine with me.
I'm been playing with out new digital camera and everything is working great, except the software I have sucks. All I want to do is download the video and selectively choose segments to use and remove the audio if I want and replace it with an MP3 soundtrack. I'm sure I'll find something to do that. Apart from that, getting the camera to work was just plug and play. Move over Tarantino, there's a new director in town and this town ain't big enough for the both of us :-)
So what's the plans for today. Have to take the car in for it's first service. Then it's off to St. Laurent for a bit of shopping. The wife wants to pick up a replacement for the Mothers Day gift I got he... one she already had :-) I also wanna get my hair cut now that summers here. Time to say goodbye to the last vestiage of brown hair, a left over from when the wife dyed it in October. Then it's a few beers and maybe rent a couple of DVDs.
Short and Sweet!
Can't be bothered to write much today. So I won't :-)
From Blobs to Babes!
Wow what a day. We went for another ultrasound yesterday and those little tiny blobs that we've been looking at for so long have now become ickle babies :-) It was really funny, the babies were situated one above the other, it looked like they were on bunkbeds. No word of a lie, the one on the top looked like they were waving (I wouldn't be surprise if that one was a boy), it was really quite unbelievable. We've got a doctors appointment next week and another ultrasound about 4-6 weeks after that. This is really beginning to seem real now. Unfortunately the ultrasound pictures we got a copy of, weren't a patch on what we saw on the monitor. Oh well maybe next time.
Oooops, I Nearly Forgot.
Last night we went out and bought a new MiniDV Camcorder, so you know what that means? Yes lots of video clips on our website. We actually bought it to film the twins when they're born, but I'm sure I can put it to a good use before that. The good thing about MiniDV is that you can just connect the camera to the computer. As the image is stored digitally on tape, there is no loss of quality when transferring. Once on the computer I can create DVD's to send to family and friends. Anyway I'm hoping to do a decent test tonight, so watch this space.
I'm Knackered!
I woke up this morning and called for Kosmo our dog. He tried to jump up on the bed and missed. I think he hit his head and the next thing I knew he went into a seizure. Consequently that was the end of my sleep. Apart from walking around like a looney, he was fine once the seizure was over. It still un-nerves me when it happens. I know he's not in any pain, but he looks so helpless when a seizure occurs. Anyway I got showered and dressed and Kosmo managed a big bowl of water and some dried food before I left with our youngest to drop her off at the bus stop. The working day has begun.
Another Pleasant Valley Monday!
Wow what a pleasant evening last night was. After getting home around 5:30pm we had dinner and sat around for a bit, before deciding to go to Walmart to pick up a couple of chairs for outside. Actually we also need a patio set for the garden, but we'll probably pick that up later this week. Anyway Walmart didn't have what we wanted, so across the road we went to Crappy Tire. 10 minutes later the car was loaded up and back home we went. Of course on the way home, we couldn't resist the temptation to pop into Timmys to pick up so Ice Caps and a coffee for me. Got home around 7ish and sat out for about an hour, before I decided that the mosquitoes were having too much of a good time feasting on me. Must pick up some mosquito coils today. Also we are off today to pick up a digital video camera. With the babies coming and all, I want to document as much as I can and also make some movies available on the web for my family in the UK to look at. Watch this space, some interesting experiments on the way I'm sure.
Happy Monday!
Well I must say, even though I hardly touched the computer all weekend, I didn't miss it that much. Saturday was a nice relaxing one. I had my first real lie in since Christmas. I finally woke up around midday when the wife cam to wake me from my mortal coil. I did a few odd jobs around the house and also put together our new lawn mower with the intention of using it on Sunday. Apart from that took it nice and easy. Sunday was Mother's Day, but before I woke the wife up, got to watch my F1 race. Michael Schumacher won again, oh well you can't win em all. Made breakfast for the Wife and gave her, her cards and pressies with the kids. I finally got to thinking about cutting the grass and looked out the window. Guess what??.................. It was sunny (doh!). Mowing the lawn wasn't that bad, apart from our new lawn mower conking out after 2 minutes. Looks like a 5V motor isn't all it's cracked up to be. As it happens things weren't quite that bad, it was just the trip fuse that needed time to settle and one I'd reset it, everything was fine. Actually it was so fine I decided to mow the law without a shirt on. Now this was great for the missus, but not so great for my back and neck, I got burnt like a good 'un. Can you believe it burnt in May :-) Oh well off I pop, time waits for no man.
Let it Rain, Let it Rain, Let it Rain!
Well summer is definitely coming. Yesterday was Kosmo's chance to get prepared for summer. A nice bath and a shave later and I must say he looks like a very skinny pup. It's amazing how much bigger he looks with his fur. As we had a few hours to kill we also went to Home Depot and Walmart to find a lawn mower. Anyway we ended up with one from Walmart for $239, where as the most reasonable one we could find in Home Depot was $300 and it was enormous. So guess what this happy camper is going to be doing this weekend......... unless it rains of course :-)
Feeling Kind of Blah!
At present the wife is tucked up warm in bed and feeling very blah. Hey it can't be easy having two mini Me's in your belly constantly wanting something to eat. My wife was also off yesterday feeling similarly bad. She said all she did was eat. It wasn't like eating was stopping her feeling hungry, it was just something (or some ones) in side here telling her to eat. Hey if your body tells you to do things like that, who are we to question it. As longs as she doesn't start having these strange yearnings for boot polish, ice cream and pickles, or cement. Yes that's right I did say cement. I can remember in England listening to LBC (a talk radio show) and women were calling in with the weird things they yearned after during pregnancy. Now the smell of petrol seems harmless enough (assuming that you're not snorting the fumes), but the women that called in saying she used to eat powdered cement, now that was too strange. How in the hell did she know what cement tasted like to want it in the first place. Oh well what do I know.......... "I'm just a man!" :-)
"Can You Pass Me My Black Shoes"?
As Madness would say "Our House, in the Middle of Our Street", is a very, very, very nice house (oops that's a Bread Song). With 4 people however it can get a bit overrun with, errrr stuff. This morning, the Wife was trying to find her shoes in the hall closet. I went over to try to find them too and even though I pulled about 6 or 7 pairs out, I couldn't find them.
Why we have in excess of 10 pairs of shoes downstairs in the hall closet, I don't know. Maybe it's the overrun of winter into summer, as there's a few pairs of my winter boot taking up a ton of space. Anyway after I fished out that pile of shoes, she strolls over and says "Ah there they are". I think the reason I couldn't find them is because the description was a bit vague. "Can you pass me my black shoes?" she says. In that closet this morning, that's like trying to find black shoes in a black room, with black lights, black walls and a black carpet. Not to mention the fact that there was about 6 pairs of black shoes. Oh well I suppose being a man didn't help either. That's my excuse for everything when I can't wriggle out of something, "Hey I can't help it, I'm a Man!", that's' my story and I'm sticking to it.
My Wife Left ME!!!
Hey I bet that caught your attention. No she didn't leave me for good, just for a night to visit her friend. Anyway this gave me the chance to do a lot of coding over the weekend and to continue work on a language editor called Kosmo. The name thing is a long story, or rather it's too much hassle to write about today. Anyway I had a nice relaxing weekend and feel refreshed for the week ahead. Saturday's weather was great, but now we are bag to overcast and gloomy. Anyway I have to go, lots of work to do today. Toddle pip.
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