I'm now 37 years old and it's becoming increasingly apparent that time is catching up to me. For awhile now I've just generally felt like crap, not to mention the various pains that seem to come from nowhere. Soon I'll be predicting weather changes by my aching bones and shaking my fist and yelling at the young punks to get off my lawn...sigh.

A bunch of my friends came over last night to help me celebrate. We started the day by going to see Ironman (see my review) which was wicked. Then everyone else showed up and we ate yummy chili that Chris made, had some wobblies, and hung out past 2am on the deck soaking in the warmth from the fire pit and talking the night away.

It was a fun time and a big thanks to Chris for making such a great cake and to everyone else for helping me celebrate!

Other than that both Chris and I are getting more and more excited about our European trip, now less than 100 days away. I can't wait to get away for a few weeks. I'm definitely in need of a vacation. For the most part we've figured out what we're doing in most of the countries that we'll be visiting. There's still some debate as to what the weather will be like in Finland and Russia. Alpha is of the mind that it'll be chilly as we'll be so far up north. From what I can tell St. Petersburg is roughly the same latitude as Fort McMurray is - and having lived there I know it can get hot during the summer. Oh well, I guess we'll find out who's right in a couple months.

The big news in the immediate family is that Michael and his girlfriend Kristian have bought a house and are moving in together. As if that's not cool enough, even better is that their new place is only a few blocks from ours. Chris couldn't be happier that her little brother is now in our neck of the woods (and even better within staggering distance). While they're coming to our neighborhood the people next door are apparently leaving. A few days ago we noticed that they had the 'Just Listed' sign on their front lawn. Frankly I'm not happy with this turn of events. As Chris said, it's a case of better the devil you know. I have my fingers crossed that whoever ends up next to us isn't putting in a grow-op, won't have a dozen kids, or won't have a dog constantly barking outside.

Thanks to Chuck, Jamie, and Alpha's help I finally got my Tron video game downstairs. The spinner wasn't working properly so I ordered a replacement circuit board off of eBay and installed it and now everything works great. There's still some other stuff to do before I consider my burgeoning arcade complete:

• Replace the Dragon's Lair Laserdisc with the Special Edition version and upgrade the ROM's to support it
• Order and install a replacement circuit board for my Galaga/Ms. Pacman game which will give me a bunch of new games such as Dig Dug and 1942
• Repair 'Rudy' on my Funhouse pin and install some hole protectors and possibly replace the LED display board

Of course there's still the bigger task of one day getting the basement finished. But in the meantime I'm happy with how things are. Here's a picture of my video games...

This past week has been extremely hard.

For those who weren't aware, my Uncle Warren passed away on the weekend due to complications from Cancer. I was in Regina this week to be with family and to attend the funeral.

Losing a family member is never easy, but this was especially difficult as he was really the last immediate family my Dad had left. I was and still am deeply concerned with how it's affecting him.

When I think of Warren the first thing that comes to mind was his gentle and easy going demeanor. He always had a calming effect on everyone around him. He was an amazing Uncle, Brother, Father, and Husband.

I'm not going to rationalize his death. That's just not my nature. I'm still hurting and angry at the world. My thoughts as always are with Naomi and the girls, and Dad, you know that I'll always be there for you.

Finally, whenever I am hurting I tend to drown my sorrows and push those around me away. I want to thank Chris for being there for me and for providing some much needed support. I don't know what I'd do without her.

This past weekend was crazy. With everyone else buying houses or developing their basements I was starting to feel left out. I was also tired of only having one electrical (ok two) outlets in my entire basement, located right next to the electrical panel. As much fun as stringing extension cords all over the place was, it was starting to get a bit old. So I bit the bullet and hired the guy who did the electrical work in Jamie's basement to improve the situation. He showed up Sat morning at 8am.

Of course that meant I had to move all our crap, er treasured nick nacks, out of the way, pull down the vapour barrier and insulation (which isn't fun breathing in), mark where I wanted the outlets and switches to be etc. So I did all this on Friday. Couple that with my new arcade game arriving the same day and me having to help the girl who delivered get it into the house and needless to say I was pretty exhausted this weekend.

But hey electrically speaking we now have a somewhat normal basement. In the end I had 8 outlets and two switches installed. The switches were needed so that I could power on my pinball and arcade games one at a time (powering them all on at once would blow the circuits). I also had him put in the wiring for future bulkheads which will have ambient lights. I was starting to get a bit depressed at the lack of home improvement progress, but this should do me for awhile at least. Once I get my new game downstairs and setup I'll take a bunch of pictures.

Now all that's left is to get rid of all the crap in the basement and hire someone to come in and finish it. No, it won't happen this year. I was hoping my employer was done offering me shares in the company, but nope, I got another offer a couple weeks ago. Chris read the fine print and found out that I'll likely have them offered for two more years after this one. Sigh. Once they're paid off I'll be laughing, but in the interim it sucks piling on more and more debt to finance their purchase.

What else? Oh, Chris finished her photography course that I signed her up for. I think she liked it and she learned lots of stuff. I hope so anyway seeing as she just ordered a new, fancy, SLR camera!

This past weekend was exciting as Chris & I narrowly escaped certain death! She happened to look out the back window and noticed the field behind us was on fire. She called me to come look and I saw that there was no one out there so I called 911. Not long after the fire department showed up and rolled into action. It was bizarre as it had just snowed that morning and although the snow had melted I assumed the ground would have still been wet. Apparently not. I found it fascinating to watch the fire move, it was like it was jumping from spot to spot. Normally I wouldn't have been too concerned, but the fact that the wind was pushing it towards us had me a bit on edge. In the end it was put out and we now have a nice big black scar out back.

Here's some pix of excitement:

 Remember! Only you can prevent Wildfires!

Chris is spending the week house sitting for Kim, who's off to Toronto on a business trip. At first I was looking forward to having the place to myself, but I swear she hasn't even been gone two hours and I miss her already. How sad is that?

Last night was pretty fun as Alpha, Nancy, and Jamie were over. We had a few drinks and played poker into the wee hours of the night/morning. Alpha definitely had horseshoes up his ass as he amassed quite the chip lead. But it was ridiculous as he'd seem to always have a slightly better hand than me - I'd have a straight and he would have a flush, I'd have Ace, Jack, he'd have Ace, Queen and so on. We all made sure to rib him as to why he couldn't play like that when he was in tournaments.

This morning the girls and I got to go see the spot where Chuck & Tracy's new house will end up being built. We also went for a yummy (but expensive) brunch. Ok, so maybe Chestermere isn't THAT far away. But it's definitely out in hicksville. On the way we saw horses and cows oh my! We even had a big 'ol tractor full of hay pass us. I'm sure that if we had wandered around town someone would have said in a southern drawl, 'you folks aren't from around these parts are ya?'.

What else? Oh yes, it's pretty apparent that our car's warranty is almost over. Almost like clockwork, things are starting to fall apart. I had it in the shop no less than three times in one week trying to get it fixed. Of course the first day they had it over 9 hours and didn't even get around to looking at it. But they assured me if I booked another appointment they'd give me top priority. Ridiculous! Why not give me top priority the first frickin time! Unless I'm mistaken that is the point of making an appointment! So after getting it in a second time, whatever they 'fixed' broke something else and I had to take it in yet again. Thankfully most everything was still covered by our extended warranty. That almost made up for my frustration.

However things still aren't right, so we'll have to make yet another trip in the near future. Oh well, I can't really complain. In the six years we've had it, we've only really had one minor issue that was quickly fixed. And this despite the car having been plowed into what, three? four? times since we bought it.

So as nice as it is not having any car payments, Chris and I are toying with the idea of getting a second vehicle. We have very simple criteria: it has to be cheap, come with all wheel drive, come in Orange, and not look stupid. I'm leaning towards the Suzuki SX4 as it's the cheapest AWD vehicle you can get in North America and I think it looks kinda funky. Chris however is leaning towards the new Toyota Matrix. I think the new models look stupid. I don't mind the 2008 models, but those don't come with AWD. Sigh. Maybe we'll just say screw it and get a Hummer instead.

Since Chris & I have been together there has been nothing but a constant stream of friends and family moving away from us. At some point you have to ask yourself why we bother staying here as well, maybe we should just move to the coast like I've always wanted. Oh well, it's not going to happen this year...

Chris & I went up to Edmonton for the long weekend. We spent Saturday night with Jay & Betty and Chris got to see their little boy, Nathaniel. She definitely has a way with babies because he was perfectly content spending most of the night in her arms. Yesterday during the day we hung out with Chris' mom on Whyte ave. and did some shopping. It's been years, and years, since I've wandered around that neighborhood. A lot has changed, but some shops which I used to frequent in my youth are still there. After that we went for dinner with my parents and finished up the night playing Yahtzee. Yes, Yahtzee. It was actually pretty fun, especially because I was the big winner. Mistopher & Deb, oddly enough, were in Calgary while we were up there, but we did manage to time our trips home and meet up in Red Deer for lunch. It was neat to see Deb's pregnancy starting to show and it was also fun hearing about Mistopher's life lesson. Apparently women who are self conscious about their pregnancy related weight gain do not appreciate being told that they are a 'chunky monkey'.

It was a fun, quick, and much needed get away.

When we got back today I walked out onto the deck and was instantly enraptured with the warmth of the sun beaming down upon me. So we hung out on the deck, faint memories of summer time fun coursing through our bones. We also took the cats out so they could join us in our sun worshipping. It was fun watching Mindy being a snow cat as she walked gingerly across the melting snow. Eventually I just had to go for a walk and take advantage of the spring like day. Kids were out riding their bikes, birds were chirping, adults were sitting on their porches reading books and drinking coffee, and I was loving every minute of it.

I'm sure things will soon turn to shit again, but for at least one brief shining moment I didn't have a care in the world.

Tis the season to be sick. It seems like I get ill at this time every year. I'm so sick (pun) of it! Basically I've either had a bad cold or the flu twice since just before Christmas. Not only that but practically everyone else I know was sick as well. I realize this is flu season, but you'd think the media would have picked up on the fact that this has got to be the worst I've seen since who knows when.

Chris was a sweetheart, taking care of me (I tend to be a big baby when I'm not feeling well) even though she felt like crap herself.

Other than being under the weather, the past few weeks have been pretty uneventful. I just got back from Edmonton where I was up there for a few days doing work related stuff. While there I got to see Jay & Betty's little guy. He's adorable! They are doing well, but as is typical with new parents (so I'm told) it seems like they're a bit overwhelmed. Jamie, Kim and Tracy, Chuck - feel free to Facebook him and dispense any parental words of wisdom, I'm sure Jay would appreciate it.

Chris is at the Roundup Centre right now at the Wedding Fair. She's there as part of her new business venture - she's partnered with Kim to host 'Passion Parties'. For those who don't know, that's when a bunch of friends get together to peruse the latest in adult entertainment and to hopefully buy various products. Chris is really excited about it and I'm hoping it turns out to be a success for her. So the next time you're over at our house, if you happen to see boxes full of vibrators, creams, and novelties, no, our sex lives haven't gone into overdrive, it's inventory for her business.

With the new year one's mind turns to resolutions. I've never been one to come up with a resolutions list in a given year, but there are definitely a couple of goals I've set for myself this time. The first one is I want to try and lose 20 pounds by the time we go on our summer cruise. Considering I lost 10 pounds while I was sick that shouldn't be to hard right? The second is I want to get moving on upgrades to the house. While I'm a bit worried about all the doom & gloom stories in the media, interest rates are low and set to drop even further, so now is an ideal time. First up is to get new windows and then I want to look at getting blueprints done up for the basement and depending on the costs involved get moving on those renovations.

Happy New Year!

It seemed like this years celebration just wasn't meant to be. First the place we all wanted to go to wasn't open yet, and then both Tracy and Kim were sick and couldn't come. In the end we ended up going to the local watering hole. And ya, I frankly thought it was gonna suck. While I wouldn't put it up there with say the New Years hottub experience, I did have a lot of fun.

Even better was that I wasn't hung over the next day - unlike a certain Christine Lee!

So do I have any resolutions this year? Not really, just the same 'ol stuff that I try to do every year. Try and work out more, get the basement done, love Chris even more (as if that's even humanly possible) etc.

I thought last year was pretty decent. Lots of stuff got done that was both beneficial and revitalizing. I finally put my financial future in the hands of an expert, got the car paid off, did a bunch of travelling, and what else was there? Oh ya, I also got married :)

Some pictures of everyone bringing in the New Year...

Here's hoping 2008 is an even better year than last!