Activesteve.com is Born…

To finish off my marathon of blogging today, I thought I’d share with you a picture of my completed bar. As most of you know, I’ve been working away for the better part of 5 months on my bar project. It was an on-again off-again sort of affair, with me putting in any free time I could find into the crafting of this mega piece of functional furniture. Well, all the hard work has paid off! The bar is officially complete! The only thing left to do now is decorate the back wall with some pictures. I’ve filled in the cracks and varnished them over. I’ve also stocked the shelves with delicious booze, hung all the stemware on my recently-completed stemware rack (designed and built by me), bought a new blender for the bar, and I’ve even fixed the door that Matt broke over the weekend when he was watching Jonah! (I knew it needed fixing before though, so I’m not mad) I’ve got to say, I’m extremely proud of my accomplishment. When I started this project, I had a stack of papers, a stack of straight boards, and a dream. I’ve had to teach myself a lot about woodworking, and endure the inevitable slip-ups that go along with it. At the end of the day, I won’t even hazzard a guess at my total project cost (especially when you factor in the tools I had to buy!). Needless to say, you can’t really put a price on it. I suppose a carpenter could custom build a bar for you, and a solid oak bar like mine would cost you thousands of dollars. However, it would never be the same as knowing you built it yourself, with your own two hands. I know every detail, every flaw, every grain in the wood. It’s a cool feeling. To see the whole progression of the project, you can of course head over to the bar folder on flickr. I guess I like the sense of ownership and accomplishment on completing a big project. In the past, those projects would have been our deck, the shed, the roof, and the CDs I’ve recorded and mixed entirely on my own in the studio for my past bands, the Picklecatz and Comfort Station. Looking forward, I’ve got my 6-month bike odyssey in New Zealand and the Southern Traverse to look forward too. I don’t like sitting still too long without something big on the go I guess. I think I’ll take the next while off though, and try to actually enjoy this bar. Anyone up for a drink? 😉

One year old that is! Yup, just over a week ago we celebrated Helena Murielle Hill Meyer’s first birthday. The actual birthday fell on Friday the 13th, make what you will of that fateful day. However, to celebrate, Jody and I actually joined Andrea, Patrick, and a group of their friends at Patty Bolands in the market. They had decided that rather than drag everyone to a baby’s first birthday, which admittedly isn’t usually all that much fun for the adults, they opted to have a ‘surviving one year of parenthood’ party. The actual birthday girl was being babysat by her grandparents who made the trip up from Prince Edward County to help celebrate. I had been in Toronto for most of the week on business, so I showed up a bit late for the fun, but still managed to see some of the friends and the Godmother. The mother and father seemed to be having a good time, so we left them at the bar and headed home around 10pm after having a bite to eat. Read on to hear about the rest of Helena’s birthday weekend.