Posts from — May 2009

We are back safely from the Carolinas. Had a fabulous and relaxing time in Mrytle Beach. Stories and pictures coming soon.

After the conference yesterday, we went disc golfing. As Jeff is not attending the conference, this was his second round of the day. I’m glad he agreed to a second round (didn’t take much convincing) as I had been sitting in lecture halls and could use a bit of exercise and fresh (humid) air.

The course was really busy so I imagine I wasn’t the only one hitting the course after working all day. What a nice idea…having a gorgeous disc golf course that is well used in a nice area of town. Conversely to Calgary, they are not using disc golf as a means of cleaning up a neighbourhood . To think that Jeff played 2 rounds in Chapel Hill yesterday and didn’t see a single drug dealer or shady lurker!

After a fabulous round, we headed down to Franklin Street for dinner at the Carolina Brewery. I had to try the Blueberry beer at the Top of the Hill pub since they were out of the other day when we went. It was delicious even though the picture does not do it justice. If you look closely, you will see blueberries bobbing around in my beer:

On the way home we ran into a few guys from the conference and joined them for another pint. They are from Germany (Munich and Koln). Hopefully I’ve done my job advertising our Summit and pushing Banff so well that we get to do beers again in October:

Last night we were lucky enough to attend the eastern conference final between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Pittsburgh Penguins.   How did you get ticktets you ask?  Ticketmaster….  Two Saturdays ago just randomly wondering if tickets were available.

Anyway, the game last night was SUPER fun. We showed up about an hour early and found that everyone was tail-gaiting and there was tons of events happening…  We got right in the mood and had to do a self-shot to show.

The game itself was really cool too…  The fans are crazy and really do put the Flames fans to shame.  No I’m not joking or trying to insult the flames fans.  The place was as loud (or lounder) than any arena I’ve ever heard.  When the puck was dropped everyone stood standing and yelling for a good 2-3 minutes into the game.   Even when the Hurricanes were down by 2 when most arena’s go silent they just started yelling again. Oh and the interesting thing is that when the scoreboard said, “yell” or “make some noise” or whatever people just started going nuts.

Anyway, was a fun night and definitely a fun and cool experience. Oh, and I took a video of when “rock you like a Hurricane” came on and people went nuts…. I’ll post it when we get home.

Yesterday was our first full day in North Carolina.  We are actually staying in Chapell hill as the conference thing that Lindsay is at is in Chapell Hill.   For those that don’t know Chapell Hill is a college town…. and by “college town” I mean….  the town is the college.  Where the school starts and ends is a mystery to us… it’s just everywhere and massive.

Anyway, Lindsay had an early morning work meeting with someone and then we headed out to hang out for the day.  We hit the disc golf course at the UNC campus… which is amazing.   It definitely rivals Pender Island as my favorite disc golf course…  It just has everything from the tightly wooded holes.  To wide open long shots.

One hole 15 we were walking along and I was watching the ground move below me and these beatles (as I thought they were) we’re moving really weird.  It was a very sporadic run as if they were jumping along or something… after steping on a few I decided to investigate these bugs.  Turns out they were cute little tree frogs.  I kinda felt bad for stepping on them but then we realized there were thousands of them. The little froggie is centered vertically in the picture and just left of half horizontally….  see if you can find him.

Anyway, was a fun day and we even learned a bit about UNC and NC.   Did you know UNC was the first public university in the US?  In 1789!

After travelling for 15 hours yesterday, we finally made it to Raleigh. The trip so far:

-we got our bags! Nice teamwork Air Canada and United. That is twice in a row that Air Canada has impressed me (lost our luggage on way to Quebec City in February but they made up for it with a $200 cheque after writing them a nasty letter).

-Got to see Phoenix and Chicago by plane. Layovers in both cities. Chicago makes sense. Phoenix did not make sense: why travel west when you want to go east? Started off in mountain time zone, then to pacific, central and finally eastern. We covered them all yesterday.

-Tyler Hansbrough from the UNC Tar Heels was on our flight. He is tall!

-Was in the air for 8 hours. Left a bit of a larger carbon footprint than expected.

Just had a breakfast meeting and now Jeff and I are off to enjoy our day in Raleigh. Going to hit up the UNC disc golf course this morning in Chapel Hill. Might have to bring along a sweater as it’s a chilly day here 22 degrees and overcast

Just here at YYC waiting to board a flight on our way to RDU. Taking advantage of the free internet at the airport.

Nice early start (up at 5am) and a long day ahead of us as we stop in Pheonix and Chicago along the way.

Has been a hectic days leading up to the trip so getting away for a bit of sun (and work on the side) will be nice.

Had a great visit with my nana, mom and sister yesterday. Held a 30th bday bash for our friend Heather on Friday. Goaltimate and a BBQ. It was a fundrasing effort and after the BBQ we had raised $250 for the Cancer Society thanks to everyone’s amazing generosity.

Time to board!!!

Spent the entire long weekend digging trenches. It was definitely worth it. We now have very shwanky underground sprinklers installed. I huge thanks to the entire Kowalchuk-Dron family for the advise, and hours upon hours of manual labour.

The layout and engineering that goes into sprinklers is pretty cool and Jeff and I learned a lot. Especially with 5 different zones installed.

Luckily the weather held out. We got gorgeous weather on Saturday and Sunday. The weather was freakishly hot for the weekend (crap before and crap after). We have had a combo of freezing rain/ice/snow/wind/rain since. This (winter) weather is making putting the yard back together difficult. I’m sure our neighbours love what we’ve done to the place. It doesn’t quite this bad, but here are some pictures of the work in progress:

Foreman Paul

Trench along side of house

We were afraid that the pipes might freeze, so we have lightly laid sod over the pipes but still have to some of the trenches with dirt and sod. We hope to get it done before heading off to North Carolina next week. We are off to NC for a work conference and then heading to SC to Myrtle Beach for a weekend of sun and surf. The absolute highlight is that we managed to get hockey playoff tickets so are seeing game 4 of Pens (Sidney Crosby!) vs. Hurricanes!

Busy week coming up with a 30th bday party planned for Friday and the arrival of my mom and grandma on Saturday.

In other news, scored 2 goals last night in soccer. Then played goal for the second half and let in 4, so had a deficit of 2 goals at the end of the night.

….a goal!!!

It was a total garbage goal, but I’m happy that I finally got one. I think it was the only shot on net from my team all night as we were getting seriously dominated. Didn’t help that we gave two of our good players to the other team as they were short. Had to play 7 per side…I’m thinking we have a few Cyca’s on our team (fair weather players)

I took a shot right at the goalie and the rebound hit me and I pushed forward and it went in.(They don’t ask how, they ask how many). When Jeff was little and played soccer he got ice cream when he scored. My ice cream tonight was delicious!

p.s. A big happy birthday to those folks turning 30 this week!

Yesterday, Lindsay and I had been together/dating for 8 years…  8 years…. that’s a long time.  Although, it must have felt like a short time for her because she thought we were celebrating 8 days….  Anyway, we realized that my parents (who are in town visiting) have been together for 35 years which is 4.375 times longer or our grandparents who have been together double that.   Pretty amazing.

Anyway, in a somewhat related story I was just cleaning out some old folders on my computer and found a picture of us in Disneyland.  We were in Disneyland 5 years ago (to the week).  I thought I’d post it because Buzzlight year is awesome and we’re clearly trying to get rid of all the bad-guys!

Great times at soccer tonight. Was almost worth missing the third period of the Canucks game for…

Had 6 shots on net. Wide open shot and missed (darn left foot), had a header on a corner kick that hit the cross bar, and had a breakaway (went for the pass and my teammate hit the goal post). I feel like I was robbed all night, but if I keep it up, I’m sure to score sooner or later.

Jeff did a great job reffing and kudos to him for also missing the hockey game.

Tuckered out from soccer. Time to hit the hay.