Posts from — November 2009

First off, as promised in the last post, my sister and Matt are having a (drumroll please) baby girl! They’ve picked out a cute little name and I can’t wait to start buying little pink things. I went to the ultrasound and the 3D technology was very impressive.

We went to see Mayson and Carly’s new arrival today. They had a baby girl in October and named her Lindsay (after Carly’s cousin, not yours truly). She is super cute and very well behaved — given her name that may all change very rapidly . Jeff and I held her and I think I need to hit the gym since my arm was shockingly sore. Here we are with the happy family:

I spent the past week in Portland at Supercomputing. Yes, it is exactly as it sounds. All of the world’s nerds gathered at one location at once: Nerdvana. 12,000 nerds precisely. I spent my days in the Canadian booth playing air hockey with random stopper-byers and talked about high performance computing. The evenings were spent at vendor parties. I heard it wasn’t as good as past years but I’d be hard pressed to complain and it was impossible to tell there is a recession going on. Al Gore gave the keynote speech on Thursday. I was pleasantly surprised that my exhibitor pass got me in to see him. He was  predictable, lots of talk of climate change and the disastrous state of the world, but he was funnier than expected (global issues aside).

He influenced me to offset my carbon from my flight down to Portland:

I had never spent much time in Portland before this. The city is full of nice old buildings and great shopping (no tax!) and autumn is a great time to visit with the temperate climate combined with colorful leaves. I had no idea Portland has the highest vagrancy rate in the US. Hopefully the conference helped as it brings an average of $13M of revenue to the host city.

One random story from Portland. I had the luxury of having a glass of water beside my bed. At home this is not possible without paws in there knocking the glass over. I woke up in the middle of the night (dehydrated – see note above about vendor parties) and reached for my glass of water. Turns out I must have been sleeping on my arm and it was numb. As I was raising the glass to my mouth, my arm lost all feeling and I was unable to keep the glass upright and proceeded to uncontrollably pour the water all over the bed.

It is nice to go away, but it’s always nice to come home. Had a great weekend with Jeff and Willow. We watched movies, went to Aubree’s housewarming party, finally checked out the new Crossiron Mills mall (great work Sharma- it’s awesome), visited with Mayson and Carly and played some squash.

ps. Happy Belated birthday dad!

pps. Jeff’s mustache is really coming along:

Jeff has been busy growing a mustache in his extra time since I’ve been working lately. (Well, maybe he’s been working on his company lots too). Work is now slowing down but I was up in Edmonton last week and off to Portland next week for a conference. Added to the odd evening work function (AsTech Awards), he’s really been a good sport and keeping Willow company while I’m out gallavanting. Jeff is definitely in the running for husband of the year (HOTY). Cooking and even cleaning the house! I guess he’s really upped his game lately as his birthday approaches. I owe him a huge treasure hunt this year!

After the conference, Jill, Mark, Jill and I got away to Vegas for few days. When you are burnt out Vegas isn’t the best place to go as it’s not very relaxing, but it sure is fun.

The first day we went disc golfing. We played the first round as a group and then Jill and I went shopping and to the pool while the guys stayed to play several more rounds. It was a hot sunny day and then the weather went to crap. Went to the Hoover Dam the next day and to the outlet mall. That evening was spent at Penn and Teller. Great show. I always wondered if Teller was really a mute or not, and I got an answer at the show. He just acts as a mute but he can actually speak. They are magicians who show you a few tricks afterwards, which is cool.

New bridge being constructed at Hoover Dam

The next night we went out for a really nice dinner at Mix, on the 64th floor of Mandalay Bay. Expensive, but worth it! I got lucky the first night on the slot machines and Jeff did well at blackjack on the last day and made $150 killing time before our flight. For once we actually came home with money from Vegas.

Having just got back from Vegas, we had a pretty low key Halloween. I dressed up as an M&M and Jeff as Flash. We got about 60 kids. We carved pumpkins…Jeff had to buy the biggest pumpkin he could find and I bought a medium sized one. My mom grew one this summer and gave it to us, so it seemed obvious to carve a pumpkin in a pumpkin in a pumpkin:

We also made pumpkin seeds, but instead of roasting them and then just sprinkling them in salt, we soaked them overnight in a salt brine. By far the best roasted pumpkin seeds we’ve ever made! We also made a huge batch of pumpkin soup and pumpkin muffins. I don’t think carving pumpkins are the most ideal for cooking and baking, but the soup and muffins turned out pretty good.

Just had dinner with my sister and Matt. Next post, I’ll tell you if she’s having a boy or a girl and post some pics.

I’m officially taking part in Movember. What’s Movember you ask? It’s when men across the globe grow a mustache and raise money and awarness for Prostate cancer.

I wanted to do it last year as I had some friends doing it and it looked kinda like fun but I was too late. This year, I prepared all year long for my growing season.

Anyway, I have setup a Movember page for people to donate to my mustache. All donations are tax deductible. Oh and if it’s any incentive Lindsay does NOT like the stache.

What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to afflict Canadian men with 25,500 diagnosed and 4,400 dying from the disease each year.

Facts like these have convinced me I should get involved…. Plus, I get to grow a mustache and look like a 70’s porn star for a month!

To make a donation, you can either:
• Click this link http://ca.movember.com/mospace/325022/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account , or
• Write a cheque payable to ‘Prostate Cancer Canada’, referencing my Registration Number 325022 and mailing it to: Prostate Cancer Canada, 145 Front Street East, Ste. 306, Toronto, ON M5A 1E3, Canada.

Prostate Cancer Canada will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything but we’ll have some real posts up in a bit. Including more status updates of the upper lip growth.