Surfergeeks

Just made a post on my poker site, so I decided to make a post here too. They are completely unrelated topics though.

Rob and I decided to sign up Alex for one of the programs that London offers. For 2 year olds there wasn’t much choice. There’s swimming, but yeah, I’m not too big on that, seeing as we have a pool here and well, I don’t want to be in a bathing suit in front of strangers. So we were left with a choice between Arts and Crafts or Music and Dance.

Both sound fun, especially for Alex. He loves music and he loves getting messy. If Rob and I had similar schedules and/or didn’t both work, we would probably do both, but we had to pick one. So we figured he’d like to be messy over dance and put him in Arts and Crafts.

It starts Sept 29 @ 9 AM and is weekly for 6 weeks. I’m quite excited and looking forward to it. He hasn’t had much interaction with other children yet and this will definitely be a great experience for him. If anything interesting happens in the class, I’m sure I’ll update it here. Maybe we can get some pictures of it too.

So the little terrorist decided he would play with my mouse key. For those that don’t know – I’ve got a Logitech wireless mouse. To communicate with the computer this is a small USB key that plugs into the computer. He played with it one night and I discovered that it was missing the next day. I looked high and low for the damn thing and couldn’t find it. I shot off an email to support asking if it was possible to purchase a replacement key. They replied back and gave me the phone number for the parts department. As well, she also provided the phone number for the support department in case I couldn’t find what I needed through parts.

I give the parts line a call and the woman was very friendly. She was extremely polite when she told me that she didn’t have any keys for my mouse, and, even is she did, she wasn’t able to ship to Canada. The best thing she could offer was 20% off a new mouse. She then suggested that I call support as they may be able to offer 50% of a new mouse if they didn’t have any other ideas to help me.

I give support a call the next day and reach a rep by the name of Xavier. He asks me info about the mouse (serial, etc.) and ask how long I’ve had it. I have no idea so I tell him probably around a year. Could be a little less, could be a little more. I tell him exactly what happens and we have a little chuckle. He says that this probably wouldn’t be covered under warranty. I assure him I’m well aware that I hadn’t expected that. So he asks to put me on hold so he can see what he can do. A couple minutes later he comes back and tells me that he checked with his supervisor and got the go ahead to ship me out a replacement key – under warranty!!! I was completely floored by this gesture. If I hadn’t already been a loyal fan of Logitech mice, this would have sealed the deal!

So, Xavier, if you ever google your name and Logitech Support I really hope you come across this page.

Thank you Logitech!

So, as pretty much ANYONE who knows me already knows, we took Alex to African Lion Safari this past weekend. As those same people can already tell you – it was a MOST awesome trip. Nikki, my Mom, and I packed Alex and enough food to feed us (as well as a good portion of the wildlife housed at Lion Safari) into Mom’s van and away we went. We got there just after ten and parked. We headed over to buy our tickets for the guided bus tour through the Safari grounds. We didn’t really want to take the van through plus the bus tour has the added benefit of someone telling us exactly what it is we’re looking at. So off we go to buy our tickets. The first available bus wasn’t until 11:30 (which sold out while we were in line, leave 11:45 the first available). We huddled and decided that we would get tix for the 1:45pm trip as we wanted to see the 12:30 Elephant Swim.  Tickets in hand, we strike off across the parking lot for the “park” section. In there they offered some animal displays, a boat ride, a train ride, restaurants, shows, a play area and a waterpark splash area. Nothing really starts happening until 11am so we looked at some of the birds in the cages. (see the photo gallery for some test shots of an entirely new method of wildlife photography that I was playing around with)  After looking at a few birds we headed back to the boat and climbed aboard. It was a short little boat ride, about 15 mins or so and we got to see some monkeys and such. After that we went to the toddler play area and tossed the kid in the ball play area they had. He wasn’t really too sure what the hell he was supposed to do with those so after he winged a couple balls at another kid we pulled him out and let him play on the play equipment.

The elephant swim was pretty cool. After the swim we decided that we would eat lunch. After eating some of the far too much food we packed the van back up and headed over to the bus pick-up area for the trip through the safari. It was quite a hot day so a lot of the bigger animals (lions, rhinos, etc.) we’re being pretty lazy and just basking about. Alex was sorta like a T-Rex – if they weren’t moving he didn’t really see them. But the Baboons…he absolutely LOVED the Baboons. He was pointing and laughing at their antics. He was pretty good through the whole bus ride but did act up a little as we were getting near the end. Fortunately, there was another little kid on the bus that made Alex look like a complete angel. After the tour we went back into the park to check out the elephant round-up. Alex had a good time at that and the show was a good combination of trained elephant tricks and humour. We then headed for the splash pad. For those of you with good memories (if not, scroll down) you’ll recall how much he loved the splash pad at the Forks of the Thames. Yeah, take that times ten – easily. He LOVED this water area. And, like the other weekend, screamed bloody murder when we decided it was time to go. After that we pretty much decided that we would head for home. Needless to say, Alex was quite tired out and didn’t make it home without falling asleep but woke up before we got home.

The pictures are up in the Gallery. Enjoy!

Stupid Sun.

Hey everyone, just got back from African Lion Safari about an hour ago. Watch this space for a big write-up about it and even MORE pictures! Check back later tomorrow… But here’s a little teaser: it was a MOST awesome day!

EDIT: Photos have been added in the Photo Gallery.

I know that I haven’t posted much on here lately. Thing is, I haven’t really had much to say or much to write about. Not sure why really – just the way that it goes.

This past weekend is definitely worth writing about though. It kicked off on Friday when we (that would be me, Nikki, and Alex) headed downtown to Ribfest. We headed immediately for the ribs as we were all hungry. Taking a look at the available menu we decided on the new menu item known as the “Vegetarian Nightmare”. It’s made up of a 1/2 rack of ribs, 1/2 a chicken and some pulled pork. Yes, I can definitely see where it may give the odd vegetarian a nightmare or two. (I’ll leave it up to you to interpret the words ‘odd’ and ‘vegetarian’ pieced together like that) Okay, so, knowing WHAT we want, the hard part of course is deciding WHERE to get it. This year there were twelve companies offering up ribs. We decided that we would hit up last year’s winner, Boss Hogg’s. As that’s the only place we had ribs from this year I don’t know if they were the best again but let me tell you, they were damn tasty. After eating we then walked around the park checking out the various booths. One of the new offerings this year was an area called Desserts of the World. One of the companies taking part in this area was offering up a greek garlic spread that was hot and spicy. We tried a sample and really liked it so we headed off to a bank machine to get some cash to pick some up. On the way back to the booth we stopped at Gilligan’s and got some lemonade. We figured we’d get the big container of spread as it was a lot cheaper than the smaller containers. Getting home, I discover that we didn’t end up with the Hot and Spicy spread – instead we got their regular spread. Oops. This spread is also quite good though. I used it Friday night on Nikki’s steak and she said it was really good on the steak.

Saturday and Sunday were rather uneventful as I had to work both days.

Yesterday we headed downtown yet again. This time our destination was Harris Park for the 2007 edition of the London Libro Balloon Festival. Instead of driving I decided that we would walk downtown, pulling Alex in his wagon. It was a pretty decent walk and Nikki was pretty worn out by the time we got there. We found a shady patch of dead grass and parked our butts. Alex had a pretty good time while waiting for the balloons to be inflated. He met two little girls that were there with their parents. He’s such a player. As it turns out, the spot we picked was just about perfect as it was right where one line of balloons would be launched from. So they finally get around to inflating the balloons and Alex was in awe. At one point they had six or seven balloons inflating and he didn’t know where to point to next. He was so excited. He’d point as they’d go up in the air and then quickly look around to see which one he was going to point at next. Once T-Rex launched we, along with the thousands of others, started filing out of the park. I decided that we would stop off at the splash pad at the forks of the Thames so that a) we could fill up the water bottles and b) I could use a non-portapottie toilet. A bunch of kids (big and small alike) were cooling themselves off in the splash pad and we encouraged Alex go splash around. He was really hesitant at first but eventually gained courage to mix-it-up with the bigger kids. He had an absolute blast. He would get wet when one sprinkler or another caught him then he would squeal in delight and run back over to where we were sitting and point in the direction as if to ask “Did you see that?” and then he would dash back into the water. He also discovered the drain where water would puddle slightly before draining away and was happily splashing around in that when one of the jets of water managed to catch him directly in the face. We, being the great parents that we are, burst out laughing as he’s standing there with this stunned look on his face. I heard a couple other parents laughing as well. One mom was trying to get him to move out of the stream without actually getting in the stream herself. He shakes off the stunned look and starts laughing. At this point the sun is starting to fall so we decide that we would head home. Man was he unhappy when we left the splash pad. He screamed halfway up the hill. Only when he was pushing the wagon up the hill – which was a HUGE help to me pulling it up. Seriously. I was NOT looking forward to hauling him AND the wagon up. When he wanted to help I was happy. When he started pushing, I was happier! We finally get home at about 9:15 and I get Alex off to bed. Needless to say, he didn’t really protest at all. I think he may have been asleep before I made it back to the living room. Nikki thinks it was a stupid idea to walk all the way down there and back – that we should of drove. I disagree. I think the walk was good for us and good for Alex. By driving everywhere he misses so much as the world just whizzes by at 50+ km/h. Sure – it was a long walk and walking home at the end was uncomfortable as we were sweaty but definitely worth it in my books. Nikki says never again so I guess next time we do anything like this Alex and I will walk and she can drive down and meet us.

There’s quite a few pics from the weekend that I’ll get posted up within the next day or so.

Only a month to go until my BIRTHDAY!! Anyway, here’s my update.

By the end of this month, …I SHOULD be able to:

*kick a small ball forward - Daddy started teaching me outside, later when inside, I would try to kick her, she wasn’t too impressed, I guess I have to stick with balls.

…will PROBABLY be able to:

*combine words – a couple are “put back” and “in a minute”
*identify 6 parts by naming – pretty much, sometimes I mix them up.
*use 50+ single words – I’m sure I am, and sometimes when Mommy and Daddy say I new word, I repeat it right away.

…may POSSIBLY be able to:

*put on an article of clothing – Nope…sigh.

…may even be able to:

*identify 4 items in a picture by naming – I can pick out my family and I can recognize “kitties” too.
*use prepositions – Nope.