Tea Time

I feel a bit guilty for not planning a big "let's leave town on an adventure" vacation. But I must say that I really enjoy the times where we find ourselves sitting reading in the garden, surrounded by flowers, eating baked goods with jam whilst sipping hot tea. It's not the kind of vacation that we will show the photos to family, but the kind I enjoy with all the others. ;-)

Na na na na na BATHTIME!

It's funny how much routine has been picked up by Alice. Tonight she sang our "bathtime song" as soon as dinner was done. Yes, our bathtime song may resemble the 1960's Batman music. How did she know? Maybe we were talking about it earlier. Maybe it's because she's smeared enough food into her hair today to make it into a somewhat helmet like structure. Maybe she's just picked up on a lot more than I realize. Either way, it's amusing and interesting.

Field Report # 87

The opposing force seems to have a new weapon of late. Constant barrage that keeps us on edge and has prevented from us getting our rest. The colonel believes that it's because the OF's canine division is advancing over the Gum Hills. Our current tactics seems ineffective against the OF's technique of "Wet Noodle". We are doing our best, but I'm not sure how long I can hold out. This campaign requires constant patience, however I feel mine slipping too often. I often enact a "Time Out", perhaps more than I should. Overuse could lead to the degradation of the effectiveness over time.

My only hope is that the OF will regroup and fall back to their previous behaviour. We have plans for those. We have the tools. We have the personnel.

FSM willing, I'll be around to submit Field Report # 88.

Jim,
Jim First Class

The gritty truth about biking in the rain

I like biking. I'll even bike when I've got a good chance of getting caught in the rain. The rain isn't so bad, just wet. There are a couple of things that I don't like about biking in the rain.

1. The rain seems to drain stinging salts into my eyes. The other day coming home I had to keep an eye closed it stung so much. Maybe I have to do a much better job at getting the shampoo out of my hair?
2. The grit. I hate it. My shoes or sandals get gritty. My gear gets gritty. My bike seems like it has a sandpaper finish and it seems to take off any lube from the chain. It's gross.

Is it weird that I'd be okay with being soaked if I wasn't gritty? Maybe. But then at least I wouldn't be reminded quite so much how dirty I am. Ah well. Showers at the end of the day washes it all away.

Put the shine on

I was looking at my wedding ring the other day. Originally it had a "satin finish" around the band (which they warned us would wear off). Over time it's slowly become shinier and shinier, so much so that I can now see my reflection in it.

Without realizing it until the other day, I think that it has reflected how our relationship has gone. Bit by bit it's gotten a little more polished, a little more comfortable, but still very special. With other things when you take the shine off something and it becomes less than what it was, we have been putting the shine on. Better than new.

How about that? Not many things improve with age. Just wine, cheese, and us. :-D

Rings of Power

A Good Day

The weather today was horrible, but I left work a little early to get home between the rolling waves of storm. Played with Alice. Had pizza and beer. All in all a wonderful day. 

The commute has been challenging lately though and that will only increase. I think that it's time to look for another vehicle.

;-)

Too much entertainment

I love sci fi. I think that I read a lot of it. But there seems to be too much of it. I would love to spend a large part of my day reading fiction, but I can't (job and what not). The price of entertainment seems to be dropping all the time, while the choices go up. That's probably bad for the artists - at least the lesser known ones. It doesn't seem to be a quality issue either. A great book by an unknown author will languish until it comes out that the author also created the best-selling book series in history. I think that an artist is more likely to die without being widely known rather than not being able to create great art.

Too much entertainment is a pretty damn good problem to have. I guess it falls under a first world problems. :-/

Fantasies

I figure that I'm a normal everyday man. I have fantasies and I figure that's just natural. Today what I can't get out of my head is chimichurri steak sauce. The first time I remember having it was on a cruse ship with our friend Jen. I plan to buy some ready-made to have around the house, but I have a feeling that it won't be able compete with the memory of the fresh made one. Ah well.

Leet

Ah, post 1337. Ten years blogging away (not counting the lost posts of my youth). What do I have to show for it? A whole lotta posts.

And now a picture of my favourite people.

You seek greatness? It's just over there by the swing.

Getting there as fast, safely

I love biking. I love getting from place to place on my bike. I love being able to get to work, daycare, home, etc all by bike. I encourage others to bike.

I just don't encourage them to get into my way.

"In my way" is defined as anyone going slower than I want to go that day, and in a wandering "la la la... Oh! Something shinny!" kind of way. If you're biking slowly, that's cool. Just be safe about it and allow others to pass.

Since they put in the bike lane on one short section of street downtown, there seem to be a lot more people biking downtown. Most are fine, but you have some clueless people. To be fair I'm pretty sure that the people would be clueless in their cars too, but that's a different story. They've closed a tiny part of the bike lane for some construction work and today I saw 4 bikers that were ahead of me deal with it. All poorly. They didn't anticipate that they'd have to bike around the closure nor did they enter into traffic well. If a car has to jam on it's breaks as you try to "enter" the road at 90 degrees and instantly turn 90 degrees (again), going about 1 km/h, that's a problem. You're a problem and you're likely to get people hurt.

I like going fast on my bike, but I'm constantly playing through my head all the ways that I can get hurt. Not in a "I need to see a doctor and get some pills" kind of way (hopefully). More like a game of "Spot the Danger"™ where the winning prize is that you don't get hurt. Or dead. Finding myself dead would definitely be a downer on my day. I don't want that.

So, to review

1. Keep out of the way of people moving faster than you
2. Don't do stuff that will get anyone hurt
3. More people should bring me cookies

The greatest of these is # 3 cookies.

Datemas

It's important to go on dates. It's been easier to go on them during the day when we can both arrange to be off, yet have Alice in daycare. It's easier to get into movies as well. Is it weird to go out for a meal and a movie in the middle of the day? Perhaps. We probably would have spent a good part of the day biking if it wasn't for that meddlesome rain and the clouds too! It was nice to be able to see Star Trek in 3D - something that I thought that we had missed out on.

What's the point of this post? That I had a wonderful day and I wanted to remember it. Why can't I write an exciting and interesting post? I'm blaming the weather for giving me a headache.

Weaaatthhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrr!