Peanut Mixing

For many years now we have been buying natural peanut butter. The kind with just peanuts as the only ingredient. The kind that separates when left sitting for a while.

I don’t mind the separation, and I don’t mind the mixing. What I do mind is the spillage that results because the jar is too small. Mixing a full jar of peanut butter and not spilling some of the peanut oil over the side is impossible. A forever oily jar is a pain too. Surely it can’t cost that much to make the jar a tiny bit taller to aid in the mixing?

Fireworks Can

Last night Sox and I headed out and watched the Canada Day fireworks. Though they were nice, we were once again surprised when they ended. Of course I took some pictures 🙂 Some day when we take the kids to see them I won’t be taking pics, so why not do it now while I can.

Double Reverted

Last night’s Ulti was a double header.

The first game the other team had no subs, and only 2 women. They ran out asses off. Holy smokes did they ever work hard. It threw us off our game for a while. The breeze was slight last night which made throwing pretty easy, but the other team thew on the zone quite a bit. I chose to play a handling role for the first game and quote enjoyed it. Their cup was doing a good job, but then we started working them hard. On one particular point their pull was perfect enough to put us in the back corner of our end zone. The pull was so good though that the cup almost made it to me by the time the disc landed. I made a quick swing pass, then there was a forward pass. The three handlers, and a couple of our mids then marched up the field with the disc. Dump, swing, look for a mid, dump swing, forward. We got to their end zone line pretty easily and their cup was getting worked hard. We got that point and we made it look good too.

They played zone a few more points, but we worked them so hard they reverted to man coverage. Once they went man, they actually shut us down pretty well. Some of the points were pretty long and both teams were feeling it. On one point the disc was tossed to the end zone and my mark and I were chasing it down. I was trying to grab it or block it and he was trying to score a point. I looked over my left shoulder and spotted the disc going right. As I swung my head around I got a little disoriented, and ended up tripping over my own feet. As I stumbled I tried to stay vertical but that was to no avail. Down I went onto the hard ground, and off my mark raced to catch the disc for a point. He was only 5 feet away from me, and if I hadn’t tripped I know I could have prevented the point.

Nearing the end of the time slot the captains called a cap and we had two more points to play. We ended up splitting those and instead of settling for the tie, we played a universe point. We lost 🙁 It was a fun, hard fought game and I did enjoy it.

The second was vastly different. The other team didn’t have enough people and forfeited. We split up the people and played a game for fun. It wasn’t all that fun. Many people weren’t playing hard since the game didn’t matter. I felt like the team I was on was looking me off for passes quite a bit. I felt like I barely touched the disc at all.

To top it off I had a crappy interaction with one of my team members who was on the other team, let’s call him D. For two plays D was handling close to my end zone and was looking to score. For both those plays my check broke away from me and was open for a short pass when the stall count was above 5. Both times D looked him off, and instead tried to score. His flick was bad and he ended up throwing it high, resulting in a blade that nobody could catch. I brought it up with him and mentioned that next time it would be a good idea for the short, safe pass to reset the count. I was trying to be helpful.

Instead he got all pissed off, and got in my face. He yelled “Are you criticizing my play?”. I was taken aback at how quick his demeanor changed and replied that I was trying to be helpful. That incident put a damper on the rest of the game. At the end of the night I was tired and sore, and none too happy. Not how I like Ulti nights to end.

Regularly Rough

I almost don’t need an alarm clock any more. My daughter regularly started yelling Mum at 6:30 on the dot. Normally this isn’t a problem, but last night I was up late due to a double header at Ulti. Whenever I play late, I rarely sleep well. So, add up a crappy sleep, less than normal, toss in Amy waking at 6 needing to pee, then wide awake and ready for the day at 6:30 and you get one parent that was having a rough morning.

Thankfully I had a 2 hour nap this afternoon that was quite refreshing.

Telus Ridiculous

I know it will never happen, but I would love it if Telus could explain something to me.

I pay $30 a month for 1GB of data for my smartphone.

I also pay $7 a month for caller id.

The data transfer for caller id is absolutely negligible for Telus, yet they charge me 1/4 the price of a GB of data? That doesn’t make any sense. I also know it is not difficult for them to turn on caller id. It took the guy 30 seconds to add it to my account and it was active immediately.

I guess the differential is due to the value of the service, but this seems a little ridiculous to me.

Arranged Return

Sox and I had a little vacation. After everything that happened at the end of March, Sox was going to surprise me with a two night stay at our favourite cabin at Point No Point. Unfortunately they were pretty booked up and we wouldn’t have been able to get in until September.

Instead, when we heard David Usher was coming to Vancouver, we booked a trip to Vancouver and arranged my Mom to watch the kids. The concert then got cancelled, but we chose to go anyway.

We headed over on Thursday afternoon. The ferry ride was interesting too since it was full of people heading over for an Iron Maiden concert. Great people watching on that boat. In Van we checked in at the Metropolitan and figured out what we wanted to do.

Thursday night we headed out for all you can eat sushi at Shabusen. It was a cool restaurant that also does Korean BBQ. You actually cook it yourself at your own table. Each table had a mini BBQ pit set into it. The sushi was good and we definitely ate our fill. After dinner we walked for a bit, then took in a movie (Iron Man 2).

Friday we had a quick bite of breakfast then wandered around doing some clothes shopping. Sox had more luck than I, but I still managed a few new pairs of shorts, and some shirts.

Lunch was some awesome panini’s at a coffee shop close to the hotel. An afternoon swim and then it was dinner. We walked down to Gastown and had dinner at Steamworks. We had the fish tacos appy that was amazing, and my burger was excellent. Lots of cheese, sauce, and toppings. We walked a little in Gastown then went back to the hotel Later in the evening we went down to the hotel restaurant for dessert. Wow, it was awesome.

Saturday we packed up and went down to Granville Island for breakfast and some more shopping. Then it was off to the ferry and a return home.

The great thing about going when we did was that today felt like a bonus day on the weekend. We had a weekend in Vancouver, but one more additional day before work was perfect.

Run Free

We’re looking after Digger, a friends black lab for a few days. We’ve known Digger all his life and he used to come to the Voice Mob office since he was a pup. Digger and Yoshi were great friends. Once they worked out their dominance issues, they played well together and got along famously.

Having Digger around is causing me to think about Yoshi a lot. I am missing him so much these days. The more reminders, the more I think about him. No reminders and it is one of those out of sight out of mind.

Seeing Digger on the beach today reminded me of some of the great times Yoshi had on the beach. Long Beach was a favourite of Yoshi’s. He could run and run and run with no boundaries and the most perfect sand ever. Running with his tongue flapping about is such a great memory of Yoshi. He always seemed happiest when he could get out and run like crazy.

When KaptainK (Diggers owner) got married, it was a surprise wedding. Her daughter, and her fiance’s kids were there, and so were Sox and I (before we had kids). The wedding was gorgeous. It was supposed to be on the beach, but we ended up at a house overlooking the ocean in Ucluelet. We were camping that weekend and were leaving the day of the wedding. We packed the truck up and drove to Ucluelet for the wedding. We left Yoshi in the truck with the rear slider window open. After the wedding we were going to head to the location for the pictures, and as I opened the front door, there was Yoshi. For the first time ever he had got himself out the rear window. Not only that, but then he walked across all our camping gear and jumped out of the truck! Thankfully he hadn’t gone far.

The day wasn’t done for him though. It turned out to be a sunny day and the pictures were being taken down on one of the beaches. The beach was a couple minute walk from the parking lot and we couldn’t leave Yoshi in the truck, especially after he escaped from the truck once. We took him on his flippy leash down to the beach and tied him up to a log. We left him in the shade and walked a ways away to have some pictures taken.

A short while later Yoshi broke his leash and came running at us in full gallop with a huge smile on his face. I could just that he was thinking “I’m free, I’m free” and he galloped at full speed with his tongue flapping around. As mad as I was, I could see how happy he was to be free.

I love these memories.

Connected Vision

Last night I had a bit of a rude awakening. I woke and headed to the bathroom for a pee. I was only a couple steps out of the bedroom when WHAM, my head connected with the linen closet door that had opened all on its own (I wonder if the cat had a role in that). The door was at a 45 degree angle to the hall and I managed to connect right with the edge.

I woke Sue with the noise (sorry about that), and it took me a couple minutes to work the stars out of my vision. Back in bed it took me a while to get back to sleep.

When I got up in the morning, I saw a small scrape on my forehead where I hit the door. Mental note: close the linen closet door all the way when I am done.

Model Destroyer

The coolest thing we saw and did last weekend was the model boat show. These models were extremely detailed. I can’t imagine how many hours went into creating them. Elliot was spellbound by them and loved sitting next to the pond watching them drive around in the water. Amy enjoyed them as well, but not to the extent of Elliot.

I had lots of fun with my camera, a polarizer, and some decent lighting to make some interesting shots.

This sailboat was actually wind driven. There was no motor on this one.

This next ship was a model of a Canadian destroyer. Some cool features: two spinning radar dishes, a Sea King helicopter whose rotor blades could spin, and the turret on the front not only turned, but also had a 35 shot magazine and could fire pellets!

I think my favourite was this aircraft carrier. Very detailed and lots of fun to take pictures of.

This working sub could actually dive below the surface and motor around a bit. I wondered how he controlled it underwater since radio waves don’t travel so well through it.

Midway Draw

After dark a friend and I wandered down to the midway to take some night shots. I was surprised at the lack of people at the midway this year. I seem to recall it being packed until closing on previous years. Perhaps there was just too much going on around town to draw a big crowd.