Surfergeeks

Alrighty. I’m more rested now. As I mentioned in the last post, it was a brutal day yesterday. But, before we get to that, let’s step back to Wednesday night. Melinda was in town for a final night of drunken bowling at Palasad before packing up and moving off the the U.K. for two years to teach. I had planned on having a great time that night but then my Mom gets the call that the surgery is first thing Thursday morning. So I didn’t figure I’d be out too late now that I have to be at the hospital at 6am. Yeah, so we ended up basically closing the place. Never did get any bowling done though. Just sat around talking. It was great to see come current and former Stream people out. Being off on parental leave, I don’t see too many people. Tim made it out, as did John & Laura. Liz came out for a bit with her friend Terry. Kate drove in from out of town in absolutely horrible weather to have some drinks with us. Chase & Tony made it and brought along Tony’s girlfriend Michelle. We had an absolutely amazing time. And, for those of you that know Ledawit, NEVER let her hold your passport! (j/k Ledawit – the way I hear it, it was a shared responsibility!)

So, 5am rolls around and the alarm goes off. My mom picks me up and we head off the hospital to be there for 6am. We get registered and are sent down to another waiting room. After a few minutes there, we’re taken to the surgery “intake” room. There, my mom had to get into the gown, and into the bed. A nurse came along and took some blood, started an IV, etc. So about 7:40 or so they take her away and I wander back the waiting room to wait. Well, actually, I wandered up to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. After waiting for the cafeteria to open, I had their version of the Bacon ‘N Egg McMuffin and their version of a hashbrown. Meh. It was food. I needed food.

The surgery was expected to last between 4 and 4-1/2 hours. So I had a while to wait. I sat down and broke out the laptop. Unfortunately, no wireless signal anywhere in the hospital. Which really sucks. It would have been a lot easier to pass the time playing poker. So anyway, I read through Barry Greenstein’s book, Ace on the River. Excellent read. I also played some World Series of Poker video game. But, mostly, I waited. And waited.

Around 1:30 the Doctor came out and let me know that the surgery went well. He believes that the cancer was localized and that he excised it all. She was just being moved into recovery and it would still be a couple hours yet before she was awake. He recommended (and my stomach whole-heartedly agreed), that now would be a good time to grab a bite to eat. So I headed up to the cafeteria to make some phone calls and have some food.

After that, I headed back down to the waiting room so I’d be there when they called me. I waited. And waited. You know, this makes me realize, “waiting rooms” are quite possibly one of THE MOST apt named places on the planet. As we approached 3:30 every time the phone would ring, I’d expect the volunteer to call out my Mom’s name. Nope. Then he’s done at 4:00pm. They put the phone up on the desk and expect us to answer it. So around 4:20 the phone rings and some dude answers it. As he’s talking to the voice on the other end, I see my Mom rolling by outside the room. They stop and come in and retrieve me and we head up to her room. They get her all settled in and I get to visit for a bit. While, actually, I suppose I could have visited until 8pm as that’s when visiting hours end but my mom was still VERY much out of it. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was hard to understand due to the drugs. I left the hospital around 5:15 or so and headed home.

when I got home, I talked to Nikki for a few minutes, played with Alex for a few minutes, Called my Aunt & Uncle to let them know all went well, then went to bed.

I slept until about 11:00pm when Nikki came to bed. We talked for a bit then, being wide awake, I got up and caught up on the days ‘net activities before heading back to bed around 3am. Fortunately, Alex slept in today until 8am. So, I’m up. I’m still a little bit tired, but definitely more rested than I was yesterday.

Hey all, Just a quick note to let you know that my Mom had surgery today to remove the upper 1/3rd of one of her lungs to removed some cancer. Needless to say, it’s been a very physically and emotionally draining day for me. The surgery went well however and she is recovering nicely. I’m pretty wiped so I’ll post more about the day later.

Okay, here it is. The first Surfergeeks.net video blog. It’s rough. It’s REALLY rough. I didn’t edit it at all. It’s absolutely horrendous. I really should have edited it, but oh well. The next ones will be better. Let me know what you think.

EDIT: I’ve now got the embedding figured out so all you need to do is click on the play button below!

RE-EDIT: Now that I’ve got a new video up, I’ll change this to a regular link so that I only have one embedded video on the page at one time.

Video Blog #1

Hey all, got a new look up right now. Not everything is working quite right yet but I’m working with the creator of the theme to hammer out the one last little glitch. Once that get’s hammered out, I’ll bring back the photo on the right hand side as well as the movie reviews.

EDIT: [To respond to Jen's comment] NEVER. NEVER EVER. IN A MILLION YEARS. Have ANYTHING shipped UPS that crosses the border. They add on their own brokerage and customs fees and collect duty on EVERYTHING – even things that should be duty free. UPS SUCKS for cross border shipping.

Okay, we’ve had some interesting comments on my previous post from the usual suspects. As both Jen & Jason mention, I am very much aware of potential duties and GST on imports. I paid a shitload of duty when I imported Risk 2210. However, that said, EVEN factoring in the duties and GST – I would still be saving money on buying the camcorder in the U.S. and shipping it here. It would probably be in the neighbourhood of $150CAD that I would save. Also, thanks to poker, I have quite a few contacts down in the states that I could easily ship the camcorder to, have them re-box it, and then ship it up to me as a gift – thus bypassing import duties (I would still have to pay GST though – go figure). As for the DVDs (or books, or CDs), those will easily come into Canada without paying any extra duties (you *should* have to pay GST though). Amazon.com will only ships books, music, and DVDs into Canada. It actually says that right on their website. As for why Jen was charged a $10 duty on the swimsuit, that’s beyond me. I would have filed an appeal with customs in that case. Was the swimsuit made in the U.S. or Mexico? If it was, it should have definitely been duty free. Thanks to NAFTA, *almost* any product that is manufactured in the U.S. or Mexico should come into Canada duty free. To the best of my knowledge, even a foreign branded auto that was manufactured in the U.S. should be able to come in with no problems as long as a) you pay GST on the purchase and b) the auto conforms to Canadian emission standards.

Of course, the other option is to just drive over to the U.S. and buy the camcorder there. There are a couple problems with that though: Brick & Morter stores probably won’t have the product AS cheap as I can order it online. Also, I would still probably end up paying a duty/GST on the product (although there would be no silly customs “handling” charges).

I probably wouldn’t bother ordering the season of Everwood. If I *really* wanted it, I’d just fire up uTorrent and grab it that way. Far more convenient and cheaper (but slower).

Of course, the other drawback to ordering the camcorder from the U.S. is that I need to have the money up front to buy it. If I wanted to pay more, I could always buy it here NOW and finance it.

Today’s topic is US vs. Canada.

You’d think it would be pretty cut and dried – Canada should win hands down. And, for the most part, it does. Sure, it’s inevitable that Canada will eventually become states 52 through 57 but that won’t happen in the next four or five generations. And, after that, I don’t really care what happens – I’ll be long dead.

No, my beef relates directly to online shopping. I present to you the following two examples:

1) Season One of Everwood on DVD. I can head over to amazon.ca and pick it up for ~$69. I could head over to Futureshop.com and get it for ~$71. Or, I could head over to amazon.com – the U.S. version of amazon.ca (!!!) and get it for US$19. Yes – Nineteen dollars. Shipping to Canada you ask? Why, that’s $5.98. I could have got the shipping for free though the Canada portal – but that’s because it’s freakin’ $70!!!! So, let’s do some math: $19+$5.98=$25. Okay, let’s throw on 15% for exchange…umm…carry the two…oh, right: $28.75! Hmm…$28.75 vs. $79.80 (14% taxes)…

2) Canon Elura 100 MiniDV digital camcorder. This is the camcorder that I’ve decided I want to buy. It seems to give the best bang for the buck. Futureshop has it for around $700. This includes the starter accessory kit. I can get the same thing in the states for about $400-450. Again, factoring in exchange (AND any potential import duty) an it’s still a HUGE savings. Sure, the warranty could become a bit of an issue, but that’s easily worked around.

Needless to say, I’ll be ordering the camcorder from the U.S.. The funny part about the Everwood DVD is that Warner has stated that the ONLY way they will release more than season one on DVD is if sales are really good. Obviously, at $70 sales will NOT be really good in Canada.

Wiarton Willy (the second) died today. It was 9 years old. But don’t worry, Wiarton has assured us that they’ll have a replacement Willy by the time next Groundhog Day rolls around.

In other news, I’ve installed a little back-end program to the site that lets me see what kind of searches are bringing people to our l’il corner o’ the web. One of the searches from today was “Kilz primer hand cramps”. Okay, I get the Kilz primer bit – for those that don’t know – it’s an odour-stopping, stain-sealing primer. Absolutely terrific for covering up a smokers’ room and not having to worry about the stain and odour seeping through. And “hand cramps” also makes sense by itself. But What In The Blue Hell is someone looking for when they type in “Kilz primer hand cramps”????? But, for what it’s worth, if you type that into Google, our website is the 6th entry! Go us!

I’ve been playing alot of point and click or room escape puzzle games online. I really like the challenge of figuring out what I need to do to win. I actually stumbled on a game (link) that is very similar, but instead of point and click puzzles, you have to solve clues to figure out what the new URL is that gets you to the next level. The clues start off easy, but they do increase in difficulty. I’m not sure how many levels there are, but hopefully I get to the end.

Edit: And done!  Definitely a great puzzle, took me most of yesterday and this morning to complete.

Geez, everyday I get a little older.
By the end of this month I SHOULD be able to:

*stand holding on someone or something – yup, I think you’ve all seen it now too.
*pull up to standing position from sitting – yup.
*say mama or dada indescriminately – yup, but I much prefer mama.
*play peekaboo – Not really.

Will PROBABLY be able to:

*get into a sitting position from stomach – Yup, finally.
*play patty-cake or wave bye-bye – Still just clapping, no waving yet.
*pick up tiny object with any part of thumb and finger – And everything goes right into my mouth.
*walk holding onto furniture – I cruise and cruise and cruise all day.
*understand the word no – I do, but I really don’t think I need to listen.

May possibly be able to:

*stand alone momentarily – Yup. For about 5 seconds max right now and then I lose my balance.

May even be able to:

*indicate wants in other ways than crying- I really like crying, I don’t think I want to change that yet.
*play ball – If you roll a ball to me, I will roll it somewhere, but it may not be back to you.
*drink from cup independently – I want to try, and I drink from cups if my parents hold it for me, but the sippy cup thing confuses me.
*stand alone well – I want to but not yet.
*use immature jargoning (gibberish that sounds like baby is talking in a made up foreign language) - I really only like the words baba, dada, and mama right now.
*say one word other than mama or dada – Nope.
*repspond to one step commands – I will come if asked to, that’s about it for now.
*walk well – Not yet, but I want to be there soon.

Last night was a great night! We had an awesome BBQ with WAY too much food. Of course, I think that’s a staple of BBQs – way too much food. Once we made sure that everyone had enough to eat we made our way downstairs and setup for poker. We ended up having twelve people playing so we started with two tables of six, with the plan to merge to one table at 8 people.

My table consisted of myself (duh), Mooney, Brent, Brett, Mike C, and Mike H. Nikki’s table was occupied by Jason, Scott, Liz, Ryan, and Jeff O.

Mooney was the first to drop out of the game as his hand ran up against Mike H’s boat, kings full of aces. Ouch. Unfortunately, Nikki was the next to go as Jason sent her packing. After Nikki, Liz didn’t last too much longer either before she was sent to the rail. The final table was created when Jeff O was sent packing.

The remaining 8 gathered at our table and we started dealing. The order in which people fell rather eludes me at the moment but we ended up in th money when I sent Mike H to the rail, leaving Brent, Jason, and I to battle it out for supremacy. I double up the very short-stacked Brent a couple times to give him a playable stack. I then double up off of Jason and knocked Brent out shortly after that. Heads-up against Jason didn’t last too long. Without figuring out the exact numbers I probably had a 20:1 chip lead on him and finally knocked him out to win the Canada Day Poker tourney @ Rob’s! Woohoo!

So a big thank you to everyone that came out for either the BBQ or poker! And an even bigger thank you to our parents, who not only came out for the BBQ but also brought food!

As I mentioned, the entire day was incredible. Well, except for Alex. He’s got at least two more teeth coming in and they are bothering him a LOT so he was particularly cranky yesterday. Getting him to sleep was near impossible and didn’t happen until around 11pm. I thought that was hopeful that I’d be able to sleep in a bit this morning. Apparently his 4:30am wake-up call had other plans. I got him back to sleep at he slept until 7:30. He seems to be in a good mood thus far today though.