Category — Random

Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve even logged into our blog let alone posting anything. I really have no excuse considering we are still friendless. Although, I am working on that… I just found a league team for spring ulti league here in Kelowna. So that’s a first step.

So what have we been up to with no friends? Keeping busy with work, organizing the house, biking and traveling…. well, I’m not traveling but Lindsay has been traveling. Last week she was in Calgary for work and got to see her new Niece. She had a great visit and is proud to be an aunt and see how well Rana’s doing as a mom. Great work Rana and Matt! Now Lindsay’s in San Jose for a conference. So, Willow and I are home alone!

Onto the title of this post, landscaping! We are starting our landscaping project tomorrow. Our next door neighbor is a framer so he has connections with good contractors so we’re using his guy. We’ll be adding grass and a flower garden in the front. Around back we’ll be doing a rock-wall, flower beds, garden beds and grass. It’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out especially tomorrow as I’m the ‘helper’ for the bobcat driver. Anyway, here are a few before pictures for your enjoyment.

Front of the house

Right side of the house

Left side of the house

Back of the house

Well, this past weekend (sunday) was my 31st birthday and with it brought the 4th annual treasure hunt. Lindsay really out did herself this year and has now claimed the title of Wife of the Year. Well, this years treasure hunt was completely different then anything previous and HIGH TECH!

Lindsay went out the day before and marked a bunch of locations on GPS and also hid a clue in the area. So when I got up in the morning Lindsay gave me the details of the hunt and the GPS. The instructions said to follow the clues and that food and drink were to be provided!

So off we went from our house walking with the GPS. The first stop was something like 1.5 km’s west…. and we hadn’t had breakfast yet (a must in the Sill household) so I figured we were off to Tim Horton’s for breakfast. I was close… McDonalds. There I found a clue under the golden arches which told me to collect my free sugar water coffee. And to continue onto clue #2. After a short breakfast at McDonalds (yes, I had breakfast at McDonalds but hey it’s my birthday….). Here’s a picture of me with my clue! (day 29 of the mustache looks pretty sweet huh!)

Anyway, next stop was Tim Hortons (where I was suppose to have breakfast) here I got clue #3 . The clue told me to take the c-train to Dalhousie. There I found my way to Chapters and found the clue which said I’d get the book “the purple cow”. Back on the c-train and down to Kensington. There, I found a barber shop where the clue told me Terri was going to donate for my mustache and I’d get present #1 (more about el mustacho later).

From there we went to Riley park to find out I was getting a disc golf stool. very cool! Next stop the zoo. There I had to lurk in the bushes to find a clue which told me I would get a disc golf disc of my choice. The final stop was back to our house for the Treasure! The grand prize was some really nice Cologne… oh and prize #1…. a Mach 3 razor.

As for the mustache and Movember. I was able to raise a grand total of $526!!!!! Thanks to everyone who donated. I was amazed at the number of people who donated so thank you to everyone. I shaved the caterpillar (as Doug calls it) on Tuesday morning. Here are the before and after pictures. Unfortunately, my license ran out and I didn’t get it on my drivers license as I went on the 2nd. Looking back I wish I had because they have the same rules as the passport office that you can’t smile or have your glasses on…. nothing about a mustache though. So maybe again in 5 years… or sooner.

Warning this is going to be a rather random post.  Why?  Because it’s our blog and sometimes this is the stuff that we Sills talk about.  No seriously, some of our conversations should really be taped as they’re both funny and pointless.  As an aside: I wonder if the word ‘taped’ is going to become obsolete as people don’t tend to ‘tape’ things anymore.  Should I use PVR instead?   People should PVR our conversations… ?!?! Anyway….

One of my favorite episodes of Family Guy is the one where the family all gets ’super powers’.  Peter gets the ability to change into any shape, Stewie gets to use his brain to do whatever he wants and Meg is able to grow her fingernails really fast.   (I tried to find the Youtube video but couldn’t get it)

I was thinking the other day about my super power.  I think it would be the ability to grow one eyebrow hair really long.  Either that or having two different sized feet.

I’m still trying to figure out Lindsay’s super power.  My initial hunch is that it’s the ability to not absorb water very good … but that doesn’t really seem like a very superhero like power.  It could be the ability to walk really loud too but that’s been fixed with orthodics.  Upon thinking about this for longer (yes, I actually thought about this… and had a little help from Lindsay) Lindsay’s super power is her sense of taste and smell.  Yesterday I had a bannana in the back of our car in my bag and she asked by our car smells like banana.

Willow’s superpower is the ability to be relentless.  If she wants your attention she’ll get it.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that us Sills are a dangerous bunch we won’t able to see you or sneak up on you but we’ll be able to smell you and bug you relentlessly.

End random message…. Now back to regular programming.

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!

Who’s Luna? He’s the cutest whale ever (and I think Willow in whale form…way too friendly and clingy for an animal). Jeff and I watched the documentary last night and I highly recommend seeing it. It is a story of an orca whale living on the West Coast of Vancouver island who loves to make friends with humans. And the best news is that if you missed it you can catch it again tomorrow on CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/thelens/2009/savingluna/

Thanks for the great recommendation Sue — we loved it! So neat that you know the people who made it. I sure wish I met Luna. I imagine it was a lot like swimming with the dolphins in Hawaii.

If you tune in, be sure to bring some kleenex (and a dart board as you may need to get out some vented anger midway when you hear the ridiculous opinions of some people involved).

No I’m not talking about the weird cartoon in the Simpsons I’m talking about myself (Jeff… yes I haven’t blogged for a while but I’ve been rather busying with other online endavours).

Anyway, why the Itchy and Scratchy?  Well.  I have the Chicken Pox.  No joke.   Seriously, I’m 30 with the chicken pox.  So to answer some questions…

Have you ever had Chicken Pox Before?   Yes

I thought you couldn’t get the chicken pox twice?  That’s what I thought.

It all started on Saturday night. We were watching the Canucks game and I was really hot and started to get a lot of itchy spots on me.  Then Sunday went and played squash and had a TON of spots on me… We thought it was some sort of heat activated rash thing and that it was because we changed our laundry detergent.  Anyway, after not being able to sleep for a couple of night I went and saw the doc.  Turns out she’s seen 3 people that week (all around my age) who have had the chicken pox before with the chicken pox.  Crazy huh!

Funny story

When I was a kid I had the chicken pox BAD (like everywhere bad and worse then most kids).  Anyway, while I had the chicken pox I can remember lying on the couch yelling to my parents, “I wanna go to school”… my theory being that if I went back to school the itching would be gone.

I told the doctor who diagnosed me with this case of the pox and she laughed and said, “and you just never stopped going to school?”

Anyway, this time I don’t really need to go back to school or work but I wouldn’t mind the scratching to go away.  So if you haven’t had the chicken pox (and don’t want them) I would avoid seeing me for the next 2 weeks or so.

I guess lots of people must care about us as we’ve been hearing non-stop lately about how bad it is that we haven’t put our winter tires on. Sure, we’ve had a ton of snow in Calgary this year (for Calgary that is), and it’s been icy but to be fair, Jeff and I managed to stay in and work from home and avoid the roads. There was a period a few weeks back where we literally didn’t step foot outside for 5 days.

My biggest worry in Calgary is not how our car will react (especially with Jeff driving and we have all season tires that are pretty good), but what the other morons are up to. I swear people get in their cars after work and turn their brains off. We are constantly avoiding getting hit and no matter how good our tires are, they will do very little if someone forgets to check their blind spot or rear-ends us while talking on their cell phone.

You’ll all be glad to know that we finally got our winter tires on yesterday. Even the guy who changed them lectured us. Now how long do we keep them on to make it worthwhile? I’m thinking till at least August

Time for a new year and a new blog theme (although I must say that I was sad to see the Christmas one go since I really enjoyed it.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately but I guess we’ve been busy. Or perhaps we’ve been too busy playing guitar hero! It’s true – we finally broke down and got a playstation and guitar hero. Now that we have the new TV coming on the 14th, there was no reason not to get guitar hero.

Back to work this week…normally would be rough after having so much time off but luckily we have another vacation to look forward to soon: Vegas baby! Jeff’s company (Dynamic Blogging, not the University) is sending Jeff to Vegas for an Affiliate marketing conference. Being the President you get to make great decisions like this one. And of course the VP should go along for moral support!

Jill and Mark will also be joining us and I’m going to see my mom, stepdad, nana, uncle and my mom’s friends down there as well. Everyone decided to meet up there at once so it should be a blast!

Favorite TV show

Jeff and I are hooked on “30 Rock” right now. It’s a series about a TV studio and it’s a bit off the wall in an Arrested Development sort of way. My description doesn’t really do it justice. We canceled our cable a few months back since we don’t watch much t.v. in the summer. Instead we just buy DVD series and watch them. I have also started Grey’s Anatomy, a close second, but am only 4 episodes in but it’s pretty good so far. This will all change on November 11th when season 7 of Scrubs comes out. What perfect timing…I just happen to have that day off.

Favorite movie

Roam. Roam is a mountain biking movie in a series by The Collective. I know it’s not mountain bike season but this movie is fantastic. My favorite part about it is the trials riding by Ryan Leech (I have a huge talent crush on Ryan) and the soundtrack is definitely a highlight.

Favorite websites:

icanhazcheeseburger.com and http://lvcabbiechronicles.blogspot.com/ and all my friend’s/family’s blogs

Favorite song

“All these things that I’ve done” by The Killers. Great lyrics..”I got soul but I’m not a soldier”.

Favorite CD

“Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace” by The Offspring

Favorite new purchase:

Heated mattress pad.

Favorite sport:

Squash!! It’s time to resurrect squash club. I was very rusty having not played all summer, but playing 4 times this week really helped. Jeff gave me a squash lesson and taught me a few key things and retaught me everything I forgot over the summer. He does things by instinct that I have to learn. For example, he noticed that I don’t watch the ball speed/direction going to the wall, just what was coming off. So, if he hit the ball hard and fast against the wall, I wouldn’t have time to get to the ball and my reaction speed wasn’t fast enough. I never thought of that previously and it has improved my game immensely.

Favorite thing to do to pass time:

Playing with Willow. She is still such a kitten and it’s awesome.

Favorite picture:

We took this picture in Japan and it’s currently my desktop.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted so I could update you on Ultimate (going to Canmore for a ‘team bonding’ on Saturday). Or I could update you on our Kitty (who has MAJOR A.D.D). Or I could update you on how our Kitty has the loudest purr that I’ve ever heard. But I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to do some random stuff….

A friend at work / School is defending his PhD tomorrow. Let’s just say that he’s been at school working on his PhD forever for a while.

How about some Sill Blog Stats? Here are the top 3 ways people get to our blog through search engines.

1. The Sills
2. Heather Adams “calgary ultimate”
3. Back off get your own Sandwich
4. Friboug
5. redondo beach

Actually, if you add up all the different ways to “Back off get your own sandwich” we’d be at a lot higher number. Who knew that Sandwich theft was so high!

Now for the best random

• Wooden Frisbee
• Calgary “23cm”
• pictures of a sill volcano
• working at A&W?
• Innsbruck Strippers

Besides those random bits lots going on in the Sill’s corner of the world.