Home Sweet Home!

Jon and I returned from Ontario Saturday evening after an exhausting week back east. We spent the first half of the week with family in Kitchener area and then took tuesday to head north to the beautiful town of Bancroft. Then we traveled to Toronto for the rest of the week. Exhausting...

We are glad to be back in Alberta and relaxing in our own place again. I think Patches is very glad that we are home again although he did enjoy his week with Auntie Mairi, Mike and Mic.

We are not glad to be heading back to work tomorrow but it is only 6 more weeks until vacation again.

Traveling to...

Ontario! So its not exactly an exotic location and its definatly not going to be sun and surf at this time of the year, but it should be a nice break from work.

In the next week we're doing a whirlwind tour of Banden, Cambridge, Bancroft and Toronto. I'm looking forward to Chinatown and Kensington - I haven't been in a few years. Should be a good visit with the family as well.

The ipod

Jon and I bought an ipod the other day. Now, I realize that most people have one (ok, most people I know do, not in a global sense) but this was a big step for the MacDonalds. Jon never made it out of the walkman era into the diskman era before it was already over.

We assumed that it would be a simple process to purchase such an item. We went to Future Shop, where we're sure they sell many everyday and must want you to purchase items like that, since that is how retail stores stay in business. I guess we were just naive because the staff there sure didn't want to help us purchase anything.

The major problem was, once we arrived at the store, we realized they were discounting all the ipods that had lost their boxes, or had been opened. And there is nothing we like better than a deal. So, instead of purchasing the pre-boxed-like every other ipod, we insisted on looking at the sale items. But we never found a sales clerk willing to open the ipod display case and let us look at them, any of them really. After trying two different sales clerks, who both said they couldn't open the case that they keep all the ipods in (if the sales clerks don't have the keys, then who does?), we gave up and left. I'm not sure about the other 3 people who had clustered around the case with us, presumably to buy an ipod as well. Perhaps they had better luck...

Next stop was Best Buy, where we found the same problem. This time though, Jon cornered a sales assistant who looked about 12 and intimidated him into finding someone who could open the case. They were quite insulted that I wanted to inspect the merchandise before purchase and seemed to think that I may actually have been trying to steal the ipods (the sales guy wouldn't actually let me hold the plastic bags that they keep them in, I could inspect from a distance). If the thing hadn't been so cheap I may have given up earlier.

End of the story is that we finally convinced the sales clerk to sell us a 1GB nano (last years model) for about $50. So, we're not quite at the cutting edge of ipod technology, but its a step up from our boombox.

Ouch, that hurt!

Jon and I spent the majority of the afternoon being poked, prodded and jabbed by the medical profession.

It started with a trip to the travel clinic for shots and other items. I thought there would be the usual two week wait for an appointment, so when I called last week I very surprised that we could get in so early. I hate getting needles but I imagine I'd hate getting HEP A more, so I allowed Nurse Evil to stab away. The good news is that we're in the clear for most everything now, with only tetanus, typhoid and yellow fever to be redone in the next 4-7 years. The bad news is that we both left the clinic with sore arms and poorer by $500. After spending that kind of cash we will have to travel a lot more!

We then went to see Jon's specialist where yet another doctor got to prod away at Jon. All is still well there (thank goodness) and we won't need to go back for another month. While we were at Foothills we stopped by the labs for a few x-rays (for Jon) and blood work for both of us (routine for Jon, some sort of torture my physician prescribed). It took two nurses (?) who appeared to have just graduated high school, to successfully remove 4 little vials of blood from me. Lucky for them I did not pass out during the procedure. I am hoping my doctor never recommends this again.

We spent the rest of the evening walking the dog and moaning about our sore arms. Thankfully, this is it for me for needles and Jon, well, he'll just have to toughen up.

Weekend in Review

Nicely, this weekend felt like it took a very long time. Friday I went for a run - Patches enjoyed racing up and down hills at the off leash park and I enjoyed not having to hold on to him. Jon completed a bowl with lid at wood turning class.

Saturday started out with a trip to Home Depot - every home repair project requires at least two trips to get everything. We also stopped by the carpet store near our house and Jon was given 8 free carpet samples. Using those and the wood we bought from the discount bin at HD, we managed to create a very nice scratching post for the cat. Project number two was a wine bottle drying rack.

We spent the afternoon geocaching near Bearspaw Dam and then relaxing on the couch with some spicy curry soup.

Sunday morning we went for a run - a little chilly but beautiful with the snow falling on the trees. We followed that up with a trip to Sportscheck where we purchased new winter jackets. I haven't owned a real winter jacket in years - hopefully it provides warmth for the next few months of winter on those long walks with dogger.

The rest of the day was spent bottling wine batch #1. We've got 15 bottles in bottles and another 15 in a mini-carboy "aging for improved flavour".

Other exciting weekend events including practicing Spanish for class on Tuesday night (we are currently learning numbers, dates, time and the weather) and grocery shopping.

Becoming Davis

This morning, as I stirred green powder into my orange juice, I had a vivid mental image of our friend Davis drinking spirulina smoothies and smiling at me from across the table with teeth coated in green slime. I then looked down at what I was about to drink and thought "I've become Davis".

Nicaragua Bound!

Its for real, we're heading to Nicaragua in April for 11 days! Volcanoes, a huge freshwater lake, a break from work... should be lots of fun!