Surfergeeks

Well, this is my first day of no more work. At least for approximately 4 months. I’m on vacation now for 3 weeks after which I will start my Maternity Leave. It already feels weird. Sure, I’ve had vacations before, but I’ve always gone somewhere. This time, I’m just sitting at home. At least there are a few things I want to do around the house and now that I’m going to the Doctor once a week, I think I may actually still feel busy.

Of course, being off work makes that pending labour feel so much closer. It could be any day now that I have to rush to the hospital with contractions or because my water broke. I’m very nervous and excited at the same time. Right now, I’m at the point that all I want to do is hold the baby. All I think about is the baby in my arms (probably crying). Well, that’s a good thing, I think I’m finally ready for the baby to come, even if I don’t really know how to change a diaper or bathe a struggling infant.

Okee. Just uploaded a TON of new pics. (well, okay, maybe not a *TON* but a whole bunch) You’ll find most of them in the Toronto Zoo album. I also added a couple pics to the House album in the Settling In subfolder, as well as a few pics in The Family. Go check ‘em out. Link to the gallery is on the left hand side, near the bottom.

James Doohan has died. He was old. He had Alzheimers AND Parkinson’s. At the end he probably didn’t even know his own name. Still, a very sad loss. Especially to those of us who grew up on his infamous Scottish burr telling Kirk that he was “giving ‘er all she’s got!”

One to beam up.

Okay, so I finished Harry Potter last night at just a couple minutes after midnight. I wanted to post then, but was just too tired.

Without really saying anything since most people haven’t finished yet….Whoa!

Let’s just say I can’t wait for the final book. Too bad that it’s at LEAST two years out…

So I’ve started reading the latest installment of J.K.Rowling’s franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and must say I’m extremely impressed. I don’t want to give away any of the details but I do want to share my thoughts.

I’ve just finished chapter two and all I can say so far is “Wow!”. It’s no secret that a major character is killed off in this book and by the second chapter there’s already two possible candidates (well, as I read it anyway). Not to mention the characters in chapter two – is it obfuscation, or is it straight up? Guess I’ll find out later – chapter three is just around the corner.

Yes ladies and gents, it’s true! My car is alive. Once the fuel pump got the gas throughout the entire fuel system, the car fired right up after it’s 7 month hiatus. It’s still got a noisy muffler but that’s okay. That’s easy to fix. I don’t know if the electrical problem that I was experiencing last year was just due to the battery that was near death or if it is still a problem. I guess we’ll see what happens over the course of the next few weeks. {crosses fingers}

In other news, we do have the change table now thanks to Jen. Her & Mike were down in the T-Dot and had to go to Ikea so they picked it up for us while they were there. They also grabbed the bathroom shelf that we wanted too. Now I just gotta get my ass in gear and get those put together. I think that’s going to be a weekend project.

In yet more news, Nikki & I went up to Toronto as well this week. On Monday we drove up to meet up with Jen & Mike & the kids at the Zoo. It was a good day but due to Nikki being 9 months pregnant and all we didn’t really get to walk around too much. I’m looking forward to our next trip back there when the kid’ll be old enough to appreciate it (I’m hoping for around 4). We’ll see.

I figured I would give everyone a baby update. Not that there is too much new, but because Rob seems to have made all the posts lately.

I think almost everyone can agree, Rob and I have been pretty reclusive lately. We haven’t seen a few of our friends in a while (Jason we need to get together for some Magic or Starcraft soon and Battlestar Galactica is back on, but I think you work the night it’s on). It’s partly to do with we are finalizing the baby preparations–finishing the room, new crib etc, but also because I’ve been extremely tired lately. I’m not sure if everyone remembers how tired I was in the first trimester, but I’m even more tired than that now.

I’m exhausted throughout the day at work and I typically have a nap every night after getting home. And that’s not really the most of it. I had Friday off for a Doctor’s appointment. After getting home from it, I went to sleep for a couple hours. It was around dinner time when I got up, so Rob and I worked on that and started watching TV. While watching TV, I fell asleep again and slept for probably another hour. When I got up, it was still early (830pm-ish), so we watched a movie. Fortunately, I stayed awake for it, but when it was over, I headed straight to bed and was pretty much asleep instantaneously. That’s how I feel all day. I just want to stay in bed and sleep.

Well, in case everyone hadn’t heard the baby is kicking a lot. That is if Rob isn’t around. Almost every hour I feel movement. Mostly, it’s like he is streching or just shifting position. But everyonce in a while he kicks what seems as hard as he can and usually it’s right near or into my ribs. I’ve even been startled a couple times from the kicks. Partly taken by surprise and partly because it kinda hurts. It’s not an “ow” painful but more of a grunt painful.

As for not kicking when Rob is around, it’s been quite amusing. Rob has felt him move when he first started kicking, so it’s more of a joke we have together than anything else. Over the last couple of weeks, Rob has been trying to feel him move again, so when he starts moving, I call Rob over. Funny thing, the baby immediately stops kicking then and Rob doesn’t get to feel a thing. As well, the baby has a daily pattern. There are some times during the day he always kicks (between 8 and 9 am is one and between 3 and 4 pm is another, not for the whole hour, but at some point in those times), so during those times, Rob has been prepared to feel the kicking. Nope, the kid won’t kick then. Stubborn child. I can definitely tell he’s related to the both of us. Yeah, so lately no matter what we’ve tried, he won’t kick when Rob is around.

And finally, for those who haven’t seen me in person lately, I am visibly pregnant. There is no way to hide the belly anymore. It was just a month ago that if my clothes were baggy enough, you couldn’t be sure if I was pregnant. Now, it’s obvious, no matter what I wear. And it’s really only started expanding significantly the last week or so. It’s seems like over night, that I really didn’t look 7 months pregnant to, I’m definitely 8 months pregnant.

I guess Madrid was really upset they didn’t get the 2012 Olympics.

I used to silkscreen T-Shirts. My friend Travis and I started up a small silkscreening company back when we were in high school. The idea was to do some of the smaller contracts for various high schools. To call our venture a success would be a bit of an overstatement. I think by the time we shut everything down we had probably ultimately lost a bit of money. We did a few contracts – the two that immediately pop to mind were the Laurier S.S. Music trip and the South C.I. Red Feather shirts. One successful, one not so much. There were others too. No big contracts. A few hundred shirts tops. For some reason we were NEVER able to pull our shit together and finish the contracts ahead of schedule. Don’t get me wrong – we weren’t late either. We always ended up pulling all-nighters the night before the contract was due screening and curing like madmen, mainlining Coke (the soft drink, not the narcotic) to stay awake. We also had a small retail line that actually sold a fair amount of shirts down at Grand Bend one summer. Our personal favourite design we never sold any of beacause it wasn’t really a “Grand Bend” type of design but we each had a couple of the shirts for ourself. (It was the “Werewolves of London” design. Hella Cool.)

So, what was that it made me wax nostalgic over days past? This. Some company has released a special, dedicated printer that will print full colour T-Shirts using special textile inks. Man…the stuff we could’ve done if one of these babies existed back then. It’s expensive, but the TCO isn’t too bad as long as you could have a market for the shirts. A dedicated person could probably make back the cost of the unit within 4-5 months and be riding a small gravy train after that.

CBC is announcing that the Shriners have voted to leave their Children’s Hospital in Montreal. That sucks. Stupid Shriners. Maybe I’m biased. Well, actually, no maybe about it, I am biased. But still. That sucks. London was a far better choice. Especially because apparently the Shriners aren’t even going to build a new hospital in Montreal now. Instead they’re going to expand the current, outdated 80-year old facility. The kids win how exactly? Brand new state-of-the-art facility vs. busted-ass-old-as-hell-expanded-but-still-cramped facilty where the public chastize you if you don’t speak french. Yep, no contest…

I hope that Quebec separates from Canada now and the Shriners are now stuck with a “Shriners Children Hospital of Quebec” and not “Shriners Children Hospital of Eastern Canada”. Then when they need to spend another $100 million dollars on top of whatever they spend to “modernize” and expand the Montreal one they’ll maybe think, “Gee…maybe we shoulda went with London afterall…”