From December 29th through January 4th this holiday season, the World Under 17 Hockey Challenge will be coming to town. A certain Mr. Colby Smith has been selected as an official for the tournament and will be coming to town for the festivities, all the way from B.C.! :) I'll be returning from Mexico on the 4th around noon - hopefully I'll be able to participate in at least some of the fun!
We just finished watching the AMAZING season finale that was the 93rd Grey Cup. I am soooo glad I decided to watch this game! Double overtime! Wow!
The game was made that much more interesting by the side bet that Sofi and I had - particularly since my team WON! One meal at the restaurant of my choice coming up!
Time and time again I rail against what over half a century of NDP rule has done to our province. It's still a fantastic place to live and work (if you can find a job); it's just too bad that nobody lives here because of their ridiculous policies. In yet another example of their supreme arrogance as they continually fuck up the province, they fixed a poll on their idiotic (not to mention completely partisan and paid for by the taxpayers) waste of money that is the Raise a Flag website. Calvert says the poll was manipulated, but that's a bald-faced lie: they just didn't like the results. If the poll really was broken and didn't represent the votes of the people, as they say, you would think they could just take it down with a message saying the system is going to be fixed to prevent such problems. Instead, they decided to just drop the votes altogether and present results showing the response WAY in their favour.
I build websites for a living and I live and breathe the Internet - trust me, there is absolutely no way the NDP can talk themselves out of this one. They screwed up big time and nothing less than an apology to the people of this province is in order. On the whole, it's conduct very unbecoming of a minister, Mr. Calvert!
I'm changing my voting habits as of this minute. Rather than vote for who I feel is the best candidate or belongs to the best (read: least worse) party, I will vote for the candidate in my riding that has the highest poll numbers that isn't a member of the NDP. I no longer care who's in office - it just can't be them. Fuck Centrism up its stupid ass, these SKoviets have to go.
Today was my first day back at work after my "vacation". I put that word in quotes since hunting isn't so much a vacation; it's pretty damned hard work. It's even harder when you get giant blisters on your feet after the first hour into your week-long hunting odyssey. For most of the last week and a half my daily schedule included getting up before 6AM and hunting (read: walking) from dawn 'till dusk. When the sun went down we either cut meat or had other hunting-related activities to occupy our time.
I picked up our rental truck on the Thursday after work and me and my dad drove down that night, which was an eventful drive to say the least. It was super windy and we were carrying precious cargo (Sofi, Hali, and I's Christmas present to my parents), which made it the slowest and most nerve-wracking drive to the cabin in history, mostly due to our own transportation incompetence. We made it there late but everything made it in one piece!
When the week was all said and done it was Thursday afternoon and we were driving home with all of our tags filled. I've got enough deer in my freezer to last us for quite a while and just as much meat waiting in Maple Creek for us to turn into sausage. I have lots of interesting hunting stories to share but they'll have to remain in the wild where they came from. I will say this: if you don't have it already, you've got plenty of time to pick up your hunter safety course so you can join us next year!
I was pretty much incommunicado while I was gone. Brad phoned me to enquire about the untimely death of Eddie Guerrero, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, and it was the first I'd heard of it. RIP Eddie :(
In other tragic sporting news, we watched the Riders lose for yet another season on the big-screen at the cabin last Sunday (hunting is illegal on Sundays for some reason). I had to choose between watching that game or going to see the Cyclones play, and I made the wrong choice :(
Other than playing hockey and watching a bit of UFC with the boys at Jerrod's parents' house on Saturday night, I wasn't up to a whole lot this past weekend. We had our regular Spanish class on Saturday afternoon and we went to my parents' house for supper on Sunday. I also finished watching the second season of 24 on Sunday - I can't wait for the next one!
This week my calendar is pretty open except for a CIPS luncheon (which I helped set up) on Thursday. It's less than a month until we head to Mexico for Christmas so related activities will start taking up more and more of our time until we leave.
It's been a long time, sweetie...
The weekend before last was jam packed with activity. I spent my lunch hour that Friday playing hockey and that evening Sofi and I enjoyed some fine pizza from Copper Kettle while watching a few episodes from the second season of 24. On the Saturday Kyla came over for her first Spanish class and the three of us had fun trying to pronounce strange (to some of us) words. That night was filled with more Spanish, as we went to an acreage outside of White City with a large group of Spanish-speaking folks and had a great time with good tequila and a huge bonfire. That night was also Brad and Steff's annual Hallowe'en party. Even though we showed up late and didn't wear a costume we still had a great time and so did everyone else, as per usual.
I didn't do a whole lot the next day other than study a bit for my exam. What little work I did paid off, because on Monday and I wrote my test and I am now a Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform, 5.0 Edition. It doesn't mean a whole lot considering I've been doing work far above that level for a long time now, but some people still like to see the paper! I celebrated by going to Best Buy and buying Star Wars III and the special edition of the Office Space DVD. I couldn't help myself and watched the Star Wars movie that night :)
I missed the last basketball game of the season that Tuesday, because due to a miscommunication in my family I didn't have a vehicle to drive there. It was no matter, however, because I got to see the end of the Habs game on TV and it was a thriller! We are doing WAY better than I expected this season and I couldn't be happier.
Last weekend was lots of fun as well. I spent Friday night at Bonzinni's with various co-workers enjoying frosty beverages and I had a good time. We had another Spanish class on Saturday and then Sofi and I joined our friends Dennis and Jessica at Kelsey's for supper. Afterwards, we went to the Rainbow and watched Wedding Crashers, which was a fun movie. We bid them goodbye after the movie, because I had to play hockey that night and my wife even came out to watch us. The next morning I watched another movie, The Warriors, which was a lot tamer than I expected but still a good way to spend a few hours - it reminded me a lot of Escape from New York. We went to my parents' house on Sunday night for supper. We also picked up a bunch of 24 DVDs that Zab had dropped off for us - thanks, buddy!
On Monday I finally turned the furnace on and found out that it didn't work. Let me clarify - I found out that the new programmable thermostat I bought didn't work. After some fiddling I discovered a broken wire and resolved the problem, so I was relieved. It now works like a charm :)
I've spent my last few evenings socializing with Nick, who made an impromptu and short visit to the city. Last night we went to BP's South with Mike, Joachim, and his buddy Peter, which was good times. Tonight after my CIPS meeting, I joined Nick at Zab's house to hang out and drink some beers with them and Tyler, Blair, and Jerrod. Nick's flying out tomorrow afternoon but I'm grateful for any chance to see the guy, even if it is just to bust his balls for a couple nights.
I'm leaving town on vacation after work tomorrow for the next week or so. I'm hopefully going to be hunting in the Maple Creek area for most of that time. This year I only got drawn for antlerless mule deer but we're also going to buy some white tail tags so that should be plenty. If anybody is interested in some deer meat, let me know. If you're a vegetarian, you don't know what you're missing. If you're against hunting, then you're just plain wrong. Don't just take my word for it, any biologist will tell you the same!