Posts from — September 2007

Check out what was brewed straight from the Sill Espresso Machine; Two delicious cappuccino’s! Did you know that cappuccino’s are suppose to be half coffee and half milk with a bit of froth? And the froth is suppose to ‘insulate’ the coffee to keep it warmer. But all I know is that these cappuccino’s were tasty. It would be sweet to get a book like this one…I Love Coffee! : Over 100 Easy and Delicious Coffee Drinks

So you’re probably wondering why I have a coffee picture on my blog. Well, it’s a ‘friendly’ reminder to Heath that he needs to get us some coffee. You see he gets a free pound of coffee each week working at Starbucks. (I’ve often considered working at Starbucks just for the coffee.) Anyway, the plan was to email him everyday till he remembered, however, that sounds like a lot of work AND I keep on forgetting. So this seemed like the best alternative.

Yes, I realize that this whole post is about coffee so why not end it with a link (because Bob loves links) to a great webpage. CoffeeGeek.com everything and anything you would ever want to know about coffee. Isn’t the internet great?

Just got back from a Canucks-Flames pre-season game. Was pretty exciting considering it was exhibition and therefore didn’t count (and most people know how competive I am and how I don’t enjoy playing things for fun such as “no points Scrabble”). However, the Canucks did beat the Flames 3-2 and we always love when that happens. Especially since the Flames had out all their big guns (Iginla, Kipper-soft (NOT a fan, see rant below), Phanuef, etc) and the Canucks didn’t even dress Naslund, Morrison, Lulongo and no twins!

Speaking of goaltending, I have a few opinions to offer. The goalie for Vancouver, #41 Stanford, was in net tonight and played phenomenal. Kippersoff on the otherhand let in 3 goals and annoyed me all night with his glove. Whenever he catches the puck with his glove he loves to just wave it around and show it to everyone for about a minute to show everyone “hey guys, look what I have-a puck, can you believe it?”. I don’t know why it bothers me but it does. It just seems so arrogant and no other goalies do this as far as I’ve noticed. Now that I’ve pointed it out, maybe it will annoy you too! (end of rant).

We were able to go to the game tonight thanks to Jeff’s great boss Elise. She gave us her tickets. Jeff is wondering when my company Cybera is going to give us company tickets. He’s thinking that since he is a “WestGrid user” (an organization linked to my company) I should be able to take him to the game on the company as a client. I think he’s on to something! I mean, my last boss at the university hooked me up with the odd set of tickets and just as I was leaving Vermilion they were raffling off tickets…I see a trend in my workplace choices.

Both teams had their new jerseys on tonight:

I have to say that it seems like a lot of hype on the Flame’s end for not much change. As for Vancouver, my favorite jersey is still the old, white hockey stick jersey with Naslund’s name on the back (hint hint).

Today I’ve found the fastest way to get from Home to Work. Here are my options:

• Drive
  • Parking at Lot 10 and walking to my building
  • Estimated Time: 25 minutes
  • Cost: $2.75
• Bus
  • Walking to the end of the street, catching the number 98, walking to my building
  • Estimated Time: 30 minutes (plus it’s not what I would call “reliable”)
  • Cost: $2.25
• C-Train – Bus:
  • Walking to the end of the street, catching the “milk run bus,” catching the C-Train, walking to my buildling
  • Estimated Time: 1 hour +
  • Cost: $2.25
• Bike
  • Get on bike. Bike. Get off of bike.
  • Estimated Time: 24 minutes
  • Cost: $0

As you can tell biking is actually faster then driving. Lindsay and I left from home around the same time this morning, me biking her driving. I beat her to my building by about 1 minute or so. Now I realize that this might not be the fastest way to get around from other locations around town. But it just goes to show you that the old legs have some speed in them after-all. Now if you live deep south (a la: Terri’s Parents) I don’t think biking would be faster. Just a hunch though.

The interesting part is that we wouldn’t be having this discussion if we had teleportation. But really it’s not a “we” having a discussion is it?… it’s a “me” rambling on. I’m done now. Did I mention it’s Friday?

Well, the time has finally come… The little Honda is going on sale. So sad I know. She’s been a great little car for me and my family.

A little time-line to recap

• 1989: Parents bought the car brand new in 1989 (replacing a sweet gray paint peeling station wagon kinda like the one below… how could you sell that?)

• 1989 – 1996: Good times growing up in the car (ok, not actually in the car)
  • Best memory for whatever reason was traveling to the Kootenay’s for a Sill Family road trip and chewing gum so long that it disintegrated in my mouth.
• 1996: I buy my first car a 1978 Grey Painting Peeling Mustang Mach II

• 1998: I head off to University in Victoria and need a ‘more reliable’ car. Trade the Mustang for the Honda… (my parents were probably drinking or something that night)
• 2001: While “courting” Lindsay I lend her the keys to my house, passwords to my computer and most importantly the keys to the Honda (and we’re married now. Soooooo……I don’t wanna say it was the car but ask her!)
• 2002-2006: Move to Calgary and have a great time with the little Honda traveling to tons of Ultimate tournaments (13 in one season!)!
• 2006: The little girl is starting to have problems and while she’s in the shop we go off in search of another car. Turns out it was a $30 part and costs less then $200. The girl is still kicking! Don’t need that new car after all.
• 2007: Married. On the way back from the mini-honeymoon in Banff the little girl breaks an Axle and Ball joint right in the driveway.
  • how lucky is that? right in the driveway
• 2007: Order and receive brand new 2008 Toyota Matrix
  • Fix the little girl because she was right in the way of the garage (as you can tell in the picture below)

  

  • September 26th, 2007: The Little Girl is officially up for sale.

  Realistically she has nothing wrong with her. She’ll eventually need a new clutch and a new U-joint on the left side. But won’t every car need some fixes down the road? Lindsay and I just don’t really need two cars. So we might as well sell her before it just sits in the driveway for the winter.

  I must say though, it’s actually pretty sad (as silly as that sounds) because she’s been around for so long. Seriously, what else has been with me since 1989 and went to University, met the girl of my dreams, picked that girl up and moved to Calgary?

After having a VERY hectic last week we hit the road. Drove to Golden in search of a coffee. Stopped in at A&W. Yes, I realize that there is a Tim Horton’s on the left side of the highway, but I’m a big fan (might be an understatment) of avoiding left turns as much as possible… In fact, Lindsay makes fun of me all the time about not wanting to take lefts…
Anyway. While in A&W the people there were talking about their bonus checks. That’s right, BONUS CHECKS… for working at A & W. And. They were getting around $450 as a bonus check. So, you’re 16 working at A&W and getting almost 500 bones as a bonus check! When I was sixteen I was working at Chapters Viewpoint Restaurant for $4.50/hour and the only bonus I got was when I would steal a tortilla chip or two…

Anyway, we went to Kamloops had a nice visit with the folks. Headed to Vernon and showed up near the start of the third game.

That night we headed out for dinner and to the party and because I was driving I was the ‘responsible’ one. Lindsay had a good time, a bit of a Role-Reversal, as she so kindly reminded me once or twice during the evening.

So that night we slept in our car. The MOST comfortable sleep that we’ve ever had at the Vernon tournament. Which is for the record, the coldest place to camp. Anyway, the sleep was terrific.

In the morning we woke up and went to start the car, “reeeer…. reeeeer” Uh, that doesn’t sound good. So we had to call Toyota Roadside Assistance, which was actually quite good. Finally, the tow truck showed up and we got a boost. What happened? Don’t really know for sure. We must have left a cabin light on or something… That’s my guess.

So we arrived to the fields in the second game of the day where the score was 6-3 for the other team. Anyway, we ended up losing that game. So Lindsay and I were able to play about 3 games….oh well, we ended up getting back to Calgary at a decent hour last night.

All in all, the point of this tournament was to go on a road trip. That was totally successful and the car is awesome to drive. We had a good time, good visit with my parents and had a chance to test out the Toyota Roadside assistance…. check, don’t need to test that out anymore.

Well, it’s about time I post a blog before Jeff changes this website to thejeff.net

Instead of writing about anything relevant (Jeff seems to have started a trend here), I’ll tell you about our trip to Cochrane last weekend. Turns out when you get a brand new vehicle, you really need to baby it during the first 2000km, but really baby it during the first 300km. So, because you are supposed to vary the type of driving you do during the first while, we decided to hit the open highway and take a quick jaunt to Cochrane. Leading the busy lives that we do, we were able to squeeze it in last Sunday between errands, playing ultimate and golfing. While in Cochrane we stopped at a place to buy a hacky sac (our new “off season” sport) but got referred to the Hempire since apprently they have the best hacs in town.

Jeff and I get to the Hempire (note: total hippie shop) and turns out a girl from my high school owns it, along with 3 other “pot stores” (as she likes to call them). Doing quite well for herself actually. We get talking. She asks me “what brings you to Cochrane today?” to which I reply “just putting some miles on my car”. I should have said…just being a typical Calgarian, non-hippie, basically polluting for fun and adding to global warming with my carbon emissions because I have nothing better to do on this gorgeous fall day!

Which she also interrprets as ‘wow it seems Lindsay has no friends and hasn’t come very far since high school…let me give you my number and we can hang out sometime since then you can do something other than just drive your car around being bored’.

Point of this story: there isn’t one. This is a blog and I can write pointless crap.

Off to Vernon for an ultimate tournament this weekend. Great excuse to put more miles on the car and it will be the last tournament of the season.

Lindsay out.

I know that I was going to pester Lindsay about doing a blog post about her new job, but to quote a famous person

I need to save my nagging for more important stuff

Can you guess who the wise person that pulled that one out?

Anywho, I just thought I’d make a little brag post about how awesome I am. If you haven’t heard, (which i’d be surprised if you did) I was in the newspaper.

Which newspaper you ask?

The Gauntlet. What? you’ve never heard of it. It’s just the leading University newspaper (*cough*in calgary*cough*)

So why was I in the newspaper?

Well, mostly because how great I am. But also because of my ultimate frisbee abilities. Seriously though. Bronco, our competitive co-ed ultimate team was hosting a fundraiser for next year (Bronco ‘08 as I like to call it). We were hosting the event along with Crude another competitive co-ed ultimate team. Anyway, the Gauntlet decided to do an article on ultimate and take some pictures of us playing. As you can tell in the picture below I’m a superstar. That’s right. Although, Amber Pazarka, and that other chick really got in the way of that camera taking a picture of me.

You can read the whole story about why you should play ultimate at the Gauntlet website. Warning, and I think terri said it best, the story is ….

it’s rather pro-women (rah, rah, we’re an important part of the game, yadda, yadda) and they seem to be selling it as a good way for single people to meet someone in kind of a “we say we aren’t a dating service sport but by saying this we kind of are making ourselves one” way

I was fairly disappointed after seeing the online version because in the school paper version there’s a dude throwing. And let’s just say he doesn’t have “the best” form. But the best part is the caption underneath saying

Hizzah, this guy is totally ultimate!

Hmmm, what does it say about the sport if the school newspaper doesn’t take this sport seriously?

Well, maybe not for everyone. These apples below are straight from the Sill backyard! That’s right an apple tree is in our backyard. Last year we had 4 apples (maybe 5) and so we thought our tree was just for decoration. But NO! Check out all the apples from this year! In pure number I could probably give out two apples to all of my friends.

What the picture doesn’t really show is the size of the apples. And although I’ve heard size doesn’t matter … in this case it really does. (Wait, did I just burn myself? Did my parents just read that?). Moving on.

Check out the size of the apples. How cute!

In other news, Lindsay started a new job today so that’s exciting. And you’d think that this blog would be actually about her new job or something of that nature. But you’d think wrong. Maybe I’ll pester her tomorrow to make a post.

Well, we finally got our new car (with 11 Km’s on it) on Friday. And man, I must say it’s pretty! Lindsay and I are super SUPER happy about it. (and Heather was right, it’s a girl!) We haven’t named her yet but we might just go with little girl.

You can see the picture of the little girl at the bottom of the page… I think if you click on the pictures they get bigger.

So, we picked it up from the dealership on Friday afternoon after the quick orientation… which was quick, thorough and done by ASIMO the robot. Well, ASIMO is actually Honda’s robot but I swear Toyota has made a girl Robot version. Highlights include:

• Gas tank is right here on the left hand side of the car.
• CD player – This knob turns the sound up and down. The buttons with the numbers can be used to program different radio stations

Wow, thanks for the useful information! I was wondering how I was going to get gas into the car. But, she did give some useful information but would it kill her to make it a bit more exciting? Especially considering she basically has the best job in the whole dealership. Let’s see…

• Salesman – *sarcasm warning* yeah, that sounds like fun
• Financial person – no thanks, selling the extended warranty packages all day doesn’t sound like the best job to me.
• Person who gives tours to excited people with brand new cars – check!

So, today we took a little drive out on the Highway and went to Cochrane. Just to get out. Apparently we’re suppose to drive her at many different speeds and not for long durations for the first 2000 Km’s. And the first 300 should have a wide range including city and highway driving. So while we’re in Cochrane we picked up a hacky-sack. So now Terri, Heather, Lindsay and I are ready to be hacking masters as we all have our own footbags.

Anyway, without further ado. Here’s the little girl! Isn’t she pretty?

You heard it right big news today! And no the big news isn’t that the site looks completely different. That’s just me playing with the different themes that are available. I kinda like this one but I’m gonna guess it might be too ‘boy’ for Lindsay… I have a way of doing that.

But… I digress.

The big news is that we get our CAR today! That’s right our CAR!!!!!!!!!!! Vrooom Vrooom. We meet with the Toyota people at 4pm and get an orientation of the car and all that jazz. Then we’ll be driving away with our new wheels.

So what kind of car did we get?

What we haven’t told you?

Well, we picked up a 2008 Toyota Matrix. Built specially for us. We were able to choose, colour, options, add-ons, etc… Kinda fun.

I’ll take some pictures this weekend and be sure to post them ASAP! But in the mean time this is what we’ll be picking up in 3 hours (not that we’re counting the hours)!