Canada Day 2005

Hello all. This will be, for all intents and purposes, a short blog entry. This past weekend was spent getting ready for our upcoming vacation in Argentina, as well as spending some time with family, including a visit with Andrea, Patrick, and Helena (now 6 months old!), as well as a couple hours chatting with dad. We talked about blogs and other seemingly innocuous things. It got me thinking about my family history, and why I am who I am. The answer is fairly obvious, it seems. My father (who by the way, is indeed an inspiration to me) shares with both Andrea and I a never-ending desire to explore the world around us. I was talking about my upcoming 6-month odyssey in New Zealand, and I’m pretty sure there was a bit of pride on behalf of my father, seeing that the man I’ve become is truly linked to him in both body and spirit. In the ‘spirit’ of that, I invite you to read more about my father, and his youth, at his blog. Yup, at 65 years young, my dad is always ready to learn new technologies and their use. Last week, he gutted his old blog site, and started a new website on his own domain. The result is what I hope will become an archive of sorts for both his present-day, as well as past tales. Curious? Click on over to his blog for the latest stories. Most interesting (in my opinion), is his brief personal autobiography, as well as the developing short stories section.

Hooray! The bar is seriously starting to shape up into the beautiful oak masterpiece that I envisioned it will be! On the right you can see a shot of the current bar progress. All the main cabinetry work is done, and the lower bar counter-top has been installed. The sink was fitted in for the picture, but not yet fastened down, to make sure I don’t mark it up before finishing the other pieces. The counter came out really nice, and I think this will definitely be a bar worthy of pouring some high-quality spirits on. To those ends, Jody even gave me an early Easter gift, a bottle of Tanqueray No. TEN, a top-shelf gin, since she knows me affinity towards gin. I now have nice top shelf Rum (various aged rums), Vodka (Grey Goose of course), Gin (Tanq. No. TEN) and Tequila (Cuervo Gold), not to mention a nice Single Malt. All these bottles, along with countless others, will no doubt grace the liquor shelf soon once the bar is completed.

Welcome back to another addition of “Just what the hell has Steve gone out an bought now?”. My co-workers are always commenting that I obviously don’t have any children, as coming back from a weekend, I’m always sharing stories of long days training, or hard nights drinking, or even on occasion of new toys purchased selfishly for myself. This post will be about just such a thing I suppose. True, having no children likely does afford me a certain amount of leeway in my purchases that others don’t have, but I’m okay with that 🙂 From a very young age, I was raised with the understanding that if I wanted something, I had to buy if for myself. I never got fancy gifts as a child, but was always encouraged to find ways to get the things I wanted. That’s never really left me, and here’s a little post about my latest acquisition that I’ve been lusting after for some time. Read on about my new UMPC!