Ohhhhhh.......

That's the sound of me sitting down after going non-stop for too long.

The jack and jill was nice and we had a good time.
Just before my wife and I walked in, she mentioned that we might not know many people there. The first person we saw at the door was a college teacher of mine from 1988.
She remembered me as I was a good student and out spoken at the time.
She was telling me that this teacher who I didn't take any s t from died a couple years ago.
The guy who died was this big Austrian man who physically tried t
o intimidate his students. He'd grabbed by the collar or threaten with poor marks if he didn't get his ways.
One time I was in an economics class at 8am and I put my head on the desk, resting my eyes, but wide awake. He threw his keys at me, I caught them and I took them to the Dean.
Others were scared, but I was a mature student who was also as big as himself.
He once was charged with road rage incident and he always would talk about it, thinking that people would be scared or impressed.
Anyways there is more stories that I could tell, but that's for another blog.
I feel for his kids, but a jerk is a jerk, dead or alive.

Anyways this teacher I saw there knew the bride, as I, and several others who were there. It was nice to see her!

The party itself was pretty good, but the groom looked like a deer in the headlights. At 24 and a decade younger than his bride, I think he maybe over his head. I hope their marriage is a long and happy one!

Day off

I took today off with the kid today.
He had to go to the doctor's and I had to get blood work done, so I booked the day off to hang as well.
I needed a day of rest as the weekend looks anything but...
First of all my mil's hubby's mother died this week, she was almost 90. Cancer took her and she died peacefully with 3 of her daughters at her side, at home. Her funeral is tomorrow in Fenelon Falls which is 1 hour and 20 minutes away from here.
Then we go to a party in the evening back here.
Sunday we are going to the travel show, I think by the Toronto airport.
Somewhere in there I want to put my son's room back together. My wife wants to shampoo the carpet first and mil owns one but they are not there for us to get it.

Anyways, I want to talk about something different.
This party we are going to is called a jack and jill. Some call it a buck and doe, stag and stagette, etc.....
Anyways this person getting married is a friend of my sil, age about 34, I think. This is her third kick at the married can.
My question, why?
One about the party and two about the marriage.
After two times I personally think that I would never do it again. For some marriage doesn't work, no matter what.
I like this lady, enough to go to her party, but why more celebration?
I may be cynical, but do we go to her 4th jack and jill 6 years down the line.
This lady is really good looking, always has been. From my sil I've known her for amost 20 years, when she was a teenager.
Anyone of my male friends who has seen her can't believe how hot she is. It seems that any of her ex'es always seems to be not good looking being beside her.
Now she is in her mid thirties and new hubby to be is younger then her. He doesn't even look like he is in mid twenties, actually like just out of high school. For the first time I ever seen her with guys, she actually looks old to me, because of him.
Getting back to marriage, I've known so many bitter peopls from it, I'm still surprised some are still getting hitched.
I still wish them happy lives, but.......

Halloween

A belated happy halloween.
My son was a mean clown and he scored tons of candy.
Last year it took him months to eat the crap. We actually threw some out and we expect to do the same this time around.
This year was the first time that my son went without us, of course freaking my wife out.
He went with 3 buddies and everything was good.

Relaxing Sunday afternoon

The weather is decent today so I'm going outside after this blog.
Chores include; Mow grass and rake, re-level patio stone, trim bushes in front, tidy garage, find and put on air conditioning cover, clean and put air in car tires, sweep and hose front porch, and then put all compost in the leaf bag for the town to pick up tomorrow.
In between I have to get dinner ready and do some laundry.
I love relaxing Sunday afternoons!

And my stinky Maple Leafs lost 8 to nothing to the Senators. Crap!

Have a great Sunday!

Oh well

It's ironic that we can plan a trip for whatever reasons, that can get wiped out by 48 hours by mother nature.
It just goes to show that you can't beat mother nature, even though that was one of the reasons why we planned the vacation n the first place.
It doesn't matter anyways, what is more important is that everyone in that affected area is going to be alright.
We have travel insurance!
Sil, when she got married this summer, her honeymoon was cancelled by the tour company the day before and they gave them an alternative place to go.(which they took)
The world looks at Canada as a frozen barren land, 12 months a year. Actually here in Southern Ontario nothing could be further from the truth.
When I got married many moons ago, it was 80 degrees out and it was October. We get around 4 months of snowy weather here, with the snow never getting to more than a foot at one time. In my 41 years on earth here, I remember only a few times where we received more than a foot.
The rest of the year is decent and the summers too humid for my liking.
Anyways, getting away from the Canadian winter for a week is a nice break. Makes the winter seem not so long.(and depressing)
We will go somewhere!

I worked 58 hours this week. That's too many!
I returned from my run yesterday to my depot. My afternoon boss asked me to move trailers around after I worked for 12 hours. I freaked at him and gave him a large piece of my mind.
I don't mind doing things around the yard to make extra money, but not because of lazy, selfish drivers.
I told him that I work hard(for a driver) and after 12 hours I should be going home to my family. They get their moneys worth out of me and then some.
We have drivers who won't do anything extra unless forced. I told him it was time to force.
I did what he asked, and some other stuff he didn't know about and I took my friggin time. He was really paying for those trailer moves.
I have a real problem with incompetence, selfishness and lazyness as far as trucking goes.
What is worse is that we have this guy retiring next week and his replacement is a lazy dog f 'er. An old manager who went back to driving, and he is bitter as well.
I'll growl at him and try and scare him off.
When I left last night, my manager meekly wished me a nice weekend.
I am now!

Now I'm off to the kids room to paint.

Yawn.....

8:41pm on a Wednesday evening and I'm going to bed in a few minutes.
I just can't seem to be awake no matter what I do today so I'm just going to bed.
Besides I don't have much to say for a change!

I've decided that once I get the time I'm going to update this blog. Well I have to figure out what to do first, without the help of a 11 year old son.

Good night all!

My neck and back

After the masssage yesterday my neck and back started to get really sore.
My wife thought I would feel alot better immediately, but I knew better. Some muscles that were not sore were massaged and that led to it being kind of bruised, for a lack of a better explanation.
We went out for our "date" which was a movie.(Elizabethtown) Thankfully it was one of these new AMC theaters, as I was in alot of pain and the seats are looking AT the screen, instead of up.
I had to go home right after, much to my wife's chagrin, she wanted to go out. When at home I iced my sore areas and popped a couple of pills. I then rubbed some cold ice oitment before sleeping.
Well I woke up this morning in around half the pain and able to do a few things around the house.
After this I'm resting and icing, again much to my wife's chagrin.

Elizabethtown was alright, like a 3 and half out of 5. Kristen Dunst was pretty good, but Orlando Bloom(better known as Legolas) was unimpressive.
The story goes that Bloom is coming back to his father's hometown in Kentucky after his father had died. He get's to know his father's past and all his friends and relatives as he is planning his funeral.
Kristen Dunst is a flight attendant he meets on the way there and they keep in touch and fall in love, blah, blah, blah....
Actually her character is abit flaky and one of the better aspects of the movie.
Cameron Crowe writes and directs, so that means the soundtrack is really good.(his wife is Nancy Wilson of Heart)
Wait for it to come out on dvd, but I'll buy the soundtrack soon.

A rather busy time

Our weekend up north was nice.
My Dad is feeling and looking good and has alot more energy. He's stopped drinking his 3 rum and diet cokes a night and my Mom is extremely happy for that.
Dad figures that he has saved about a thousand dollars already.
A mere 5 days after his angioplasty he was going for a walk with us.
He showed us a picture of his heart before and after. He showed us the blocked artery and how it looked now. Cool stuff. Sort of!

We had a lazy sports watching day on Sunday. Included was hockey, football, baseball and golf. No drinking though, which is fine with me, I don't drink that much.

On Monday we arrived home and my mil invited us over for dinner.
It's kind of funny that my mil's hubby can paint, wire a house and do basic carpentry, but can't cook.
He tries and thinks he does a good job, but....
The veggies were good, due to the season, but they just mangle the roast.
He's trying to tell my bil that he'll teach him how to cook a roast the proper way.
I'll teach him and I would help mil's hubby if he wasn't stubborn.
Anyways the roast was passable and we had a nice time.

The talk was who's doing Christmas dinner and they looked at us. We didn't tell them but I'm hoping to arrive at airport on Christmas eve or day from a tropical island.
Then we plan to go out for dinner on Christmas day. (Toronto has a large Jewish community)
Talk about anti-social.
Oh well!

Sense of humour

While reading Michelle's blog about jokes between her and her daughter, got me thinking.
My son and I prank each other all the time and my wife thinks we are childish, especially me. I am!
My son will walk by me and give me a wet willy.
I'll zing him with a bunch of elastics when he is reading.
He'll walk by and fart.
I'll burp when I go and give him a kiss.
Farting under the covers and then smothering one or the other is a favourite.
I could go on, but you get the idea....
We have a good time!

One of my favourites recently was to a guy I play hockey with.
His wife asked him to catch a mouse that was in his garage I believe. Put a trap up and then let the thing go in a field or something, that sort of thing. This 6'3" guy is afraid of rodents. Same guy who didn't stop playing hockey when going through chemotherapy treatments.
He didn't do what she asked.
Later that week he's getting changed into his hockey equipment and he is ready to put his skates on. He puts his foot in one skate and screams!
His wife put a fake mouse in one of his skates, much to all of our enjoyments.

Work,work, work and more work

35 hours in three days and tomorrow I have my furthest call.
At work they have their year end inventory and we have to have extra duties done by Thursday. I'm done!
Go on google, type the word failure and then hit I'm feeling lucky.
Good night all!

Sunday Evening

Quickly I'll go over my day;

1: Woke up and immediately made muffins
2: After coffee, started to re-organize kitchen
3: Made lunch for family
4: Built shelf for cupboard
5: Finished re-organizing
6: Made dinner for Sunday and Monday
7: Made bread pudding for dessert
8: Cleaned dishes
9: Swept floor
10: Made lunches for tomorrow
11: Got coffee maker ready for tomorrow
12: On computer at 930pm
13: Ice my back
14: Going to bed

At least my tv is in the same area as my kitchen. It was a great day for sports, as golf, football, junior hockey, baseball and auto racing was on.

Tired

I'm tired!
Yesterday due to the complete lack of knowledge my manager has for his job, I worked 14 hours.
He asked me when I returned to our depot, "how was my run?"
I told him it was one of the worse ones I ever had.
He thought I was joking. I wasn't!
I told him it wasn't a joke.
Today was better, but had to take my tractor in the shop for a new radiator. I get paid to take it, but it still takes time at the end of the day.

I watched this new show called "My name is Earl." I thought it was pure trailer trash and I love it.

Because of the impending hurricane, gas prices here are supposed to almost double tomorrow. There was huge line ups at every gas station this evening.
Talk about looters, these gas companies taking advantage of a dependent consumer. There is nothing we can do about it.
Time for bed and it's only 9pm.

Tuesday evening non hockey night

I'll be alittle less cheeky with this blog.

I have a slight hip pointer so I thought I would take the night off from playing hockey and watch the son start the fall session of karate.
Well isn't that wonderful!
Karate starts on Thursday and everyone left me here alone.
The kid went out to play with his buddy down the street and the lady went to the gym and then to a friends for an hour.
Hmmmmmmm............
What to do? Well I'll catch up on reading some blogs and I'll write this.
I have to have a bath so I can soak my hip and then stretch it. Then I'll ice it! I should just go to the chiropractor and get it massaged and adjusted, but I can't afford it just now.
Look what I'm writing about, I'm getting old. Hips!
When the kid comes home I'll hang with him and we'll read with either the tube on or some music playing in the background. He's a good kid!

My son and his friend were asking me about rock bands from when I was a kid. Seems that they are into the bands from the 70s and they are downloading some songs. Rush was the one most asked about.
Rush is a Toronto band and anyone who liked rock and is around my age, probably has a Rush story.
The first concert I ever saw was Rush when I was I think 13 years old. Up until I was in my early 20s, I have seen them around 4, maybe 5 times.
If I wasn't so broke and tickets weren't so bloody expensive, I might go see them or someone else.
This week U2 and then Pearl Jam played Toronto. Your looking at a few hundred dollars per concert.
My son asked if I would ever take him. I said sure, but I would have to take his mother first. He asked why? I said she would feel excluded and this way she would realize she hates loud concerts and after that she wouldn't care if she wouldn't go.

We picked up the travel magazines for our tropical winter vacation on Sunday. It looks like Mexico and probably just a week.
We have to determine a date and then we will book it. This has to be booked by some date in December for payment plans purposes.
I have a week off in December, the week before Christmas. My wife would like to go away that week, but I tell her that there is alot of winter after that.
My preference is late March, because I think we could pull off two weeks. My plan would be if we are going then for two weeks, then I would work through my vacation in December and leave my holiday pay alone for four months.
Four extra months to pay off a two week vacation, an extra weeks pay and more money to come home to after two weeks.
Sounds good to me!
I'll take a week anytime to be honest with you.

Butts

While waiting in line for that hamburger on Saturday(the one that the politicians ran out of) I was talking to a elderly couple, around late 70s. Nice couple, friendly and with an accent.
They told me they have been in town since the mid 70s, and raised their two grown daughters here.
They asked me if I knew either one of them. They said their names and nothing clicked. They spelled the last names and then it clicked. They were from the tiny Dutch community that settled on the east side of town.
I knew their younger daughter, as we were in quite a few classes together.
Why after all these years did I remember her?
I used to sit behind her so I could look at her butt. And she had a nice one from what I could remember.
Forgive me, I was a horny teenager then, and not blind.
I kind of felt guilty talking to this nice couple.
Oh well!

Anyways it got me thinking about friends who lives close by. They have 6 kids, 5 of which are girls, 3 of those teenagers.
My buddy has to deal with guys like I was at that age. I feel for him, I really do. I'm really glad I have a son.
I have other friends with daughters and they will have to deal with this soon.
I am really glad I have a son.

Getting back to butts!
When I was growing up, I used to get teased about the size of my butt. Picture this, a skinny 5'10" teenager with a bubble butt.
I've since grown into it, thankfully!
Now when I'm at best weight, I think my butt looks porportional to the rest of my body.
I think it actually looks good to some.(to me)
I think I was before my time!

A question. Do you notice when a man checks you out?
Today I was going in for a coffee and this lady was ahead of me about 20 feet. She had a nice butt with painted on jeans. There were guys outside having a smoke and they stopped everything when she went by.
She must have notice, as I did and I thought it was obvious and funny.
Would it bother you? It didn't seem to bother her.

Tonight I watched this Canadian show called "Corner Gas." It's the best Canadian show out there. It stars a guy named Brent Butt, honestly.

One of the best Seinfeld shows was the one where Kramer got licence plates with the letters "assman." There was a mix up with a proctoligist and the dmv.

Today I see on my work travels, young ladies who wear their pants to the point where their butt cracks are exposed. It seems to be like the newfound clevage. I call it a plumbers butt. Then there are the ladies who do this and have a rather large tattoo to show off. Wait till they get older, they will being wearing too many clothes on a hot summer day to cover up. They just don't believe in gravity.
One thing I do know, you don't see many men showing off their butt cheeks. Not intentionally anyways.
I generally like the look, but some aren't meant to show off butt clevage.
We have this friend a half hour east of here. Mid 40s, female and overweight and she wears these leather pants that she bought around 40 pounds ago. Plumbers butt city there! I like this lady, but please.....At least wait until dinner is finished.

A second thought, definitely not

More rock trivia from my head.
I'm listening to a ZZtop cd on my way to work and it got me thinking. Remember this was the band with the two guitarist with those really long beards and the drummer with no beard and short hair.
Well the drummer's name is ironically Frank Beard.
More useless rock trivia, but this time the music is good.
Their best cd's in my opinion are Deguallo and Fandango.(excuse the spelling)

This evening we went to "meet the teacher night" and there was a bbq as well. Nice man and I'm glad my son has a male teacher this year. He has had mainly women teachers up to now and this provides a slightly different prospective.
He was commenting on how our son answers and thinks differently than most of the others in his class.(in a good way)

A thought, maybe not!

While writing this, Whitesnake is playing in the background. What ever happen to these guys? Remember the video with the chick slithering all over the car? Tawney Kitaan(I think) was her name and she was charged with assault for beating up her husband. His name ws Chuck Finley, this huge baseball pitcher. That's way too much useless information in my head.
I could use that wasted space for something useful!

All that new hockey equipment and I can't use it tomorrow. Meet the teacher night and I miss these too much, apparently. There's always next week.

We just finished watching Sahara. Not bad and I'm glad I didn't go to the theatre.

my money

I received my quarterly safety bonus on Friday. Yeah!!!!!!
I decided to spend MY money on some hockey equipment that I need. I went and bought a helmet and hockey pants, costing a 150 dollars, and then I still got it on sale.
Next year I'm going to try and join a league, as I only play for fun now.
I still need shoulder and shin pads to be properly protected for a league.
When I told my son about joining a league, he said I would have to play clean because there would be referees.
Nice, my son thinks I'm a dirty player.(I am)

With the remainder of my bonus, the three of us went golfing today, a nine hole course just north of here.
My son did well for him, my wife was alright and I as pretty good. Straight drives on all but 1 hole and I shot a 45, which is good for me.
The weather was perfect as well.

Next year I'm going to invest my all my bonuses into my retirement plan. I figure it will help our tax situation and my future, abeit 20 years from now. It is fun to spend it as I want, but I'll have all new hockey equipment by then, which should last 10 years.

nice day

Well regarding my last post, that was just a rant. Today was a perfect weather day and we just hung around the house.
We got our outside chores done and did some relaxing.
A drink here and some reading was just the right tonic.

Yesterday we went to my cousin's about an hour and a half east of here, in the middle of nowhere.
Funny how a distant cousin can be your closest one. Anyways we had lunch with them and she was glad we were there.

Saturday we did our chores and then went to friends for pizza and drinks. Yum.......

Overall, a decent weekend.

Labour Day

Normally my politcal leanings are to the right of center, but these days it is swinging back to the left.
In my mind if things are difficult at work, I think that if unhappy, get yourself a better position in life. I mean, stop whining and get another job or go see management to sort things out.
Now with the cost of fuel spiralling out of control, taxes not getting lower and keeping household expenses from not skyrocketing, I'm starting to get pissed.
Inflation like that is kind of out my control!
I need a car to get to work. The governments here haven't expanded public transit properly in 30 years, so the train or buses are not a option.
I could get another job, but I lose my pension and seniority. I currently work weekdays and a dayshift which are really difficult to get, so basically another job means really crappy hours.
I may be whining, but being loyal and hardworking means absolutely nothing.
I can't wait for our annual work meeting come November. The dude in charge gives a "state of the company address." He will tell us about how poor the company is doing due to the rising cost of fuel and insurance. Meanwhile they are locked in at a lower fuel rate and they just past the cost on to the customer anyways. It's called a fuel surcharge and it's on every invoice.
As far as insurance goes, we the drivers are at a record low for accidents and infractions.
I need more money!
The company has to keep up with the industry standard or they will have a mass exodus.

How about that for a whine?

New Orleans

I fell kind of guilty complaining about alittle rain storm which put my phone and computer down for aweek or so.
Can you imagine living in the southeast USA.
The pictures and reports from that area are simply awesome in a negative way.
It just goes to show you that you can't screw around with mother nature with New Orleans being below sea level.
Nature can be powerful and cruel at the same time, and we as humans are a small part of it.
My heart goes out to everyone affected by the hurricane.
The one picture that stands out in my mind is when a CNN reporter was in front of a building and he reported that this building moved as a whole about half a mile to that spot.
This was a casino that had to be 30,000 square feet.

The day of the hurricane, before all of the carnage, they played a song here by a Canadian band named The Tragically Hip. The song, New Orleans is sinking. I haven't heard it since.