Cam I Am

Last night, I was driving to North Vancouver where a couple friends of mine from Ontario are camping.  I left Maple Ridge, and headed down the Mary Hill Bypass.

So, I’m driving along, listening to my daughter tell me about something that happened at school earlier that day when down the road I see a person wearing a yellow jacket walk out into the middle of the road, point at me, then to the side of the road..

Oh crap!  I’m being pulled over..

Anyone who knows the Mary Hill Bypass could probably agree how easy it is to speed down that stretch of road.  While the limit ranges between 60-70km/h, it’s easy to do 80-90…

The officer comes to the window, tells me that he’s pulled me over for speeding.  Then he asked if I knew how fast I was going.  I sheepishly reply that I thought it was about 85 km/h.  He says that was close, it was 86.   Then he asked if I knew what the speed limit through that area was.  Embarrassed, I reply that it is 60 km/h.

Double crap!   The first thing I think when he goes to write the ticket is that my wife is going to be pissed with me.  (Yes, she is!)  Then, I have to explain to my 6 year old what is going on.  I tell her that I’m getting a ticket for speeding.

“Are you going to jail?”, she asks.  I quickly reply, “No..  I certainly hope not!”.   Then she wanted to know if it was a special ticket. 

“Yup..  An expensive special ticket”, I answer.

A few questions later, she had all the answers that she needed to be satisfied.  The officer comes back to my window, presents me with the ticket and I’m back on my way.  As I continue down the road, paying very close attention the the speed limit, I pass by another speed trap.  For the remainder of our trip, my daughter read out to me what every speed limit sign says.

So, I’ve learned my lesson.  Unfortunately, it’s going to cost me $196.00…

I know two people who are going to get extreme pleasure from reading this.

It seems that over the years I’ve changed my preferences on a couple things..

First, it seems that I prefer to drink Coke more than Pepsi.  Yes, Mark, I know what you are going to say:  I told you so.  It all started with me deciding that Coke tasted really good with sushi, instead of Pepsi.  Then, partially because of the choice we have from the vending machine at work, it seems that when I am presented with a choice, I’ll usually choose Coke.  I’m not proud, but there..  that’s off my chest.

Secondly, I seem to be much more accepting of country music.  Yes, Colleen, it’s true.  I remember years ago, when I still lived lived with my parents, our neighbours would have it cranked up most summer days. I would retailate with whatever I had going, and eventually played Weird Al’s “Don’t Play That Song”, and they eventually learned to keep their music to themselves.  These days, I listen to some now.  I’m now not in denial that Shania Twain and others are actually country.  

I’ve been saving this post for almost four months..  I dread the comments to come..

In the last couple days, I’ve received some news that I’ve been expecting and dreading.

First, I finally had my appointment with the neurosurgeon (that I’ve waited for 7 months) to determine that I do need back surgery, and that it should happen within the next couple months.  This is welcome news and not.  I need my back to heal, and clearly other methods have not worked.  There are risks involved, but the outcome could be very good.  I don’t have an exact date yet, but I should have that within a few days.

Second, I saw my doctor..   I’m off work again, probably for another 4-5 months.  This poses all sorts of problems such as money and plans that my wife and I have made.  I had only been back to work for 3 months after being off for six months because of my back.  The other problem is that my wife and I were planning to go on a vacation (without the kids) to Chicago.  We haven’t been on a vacation in over 10 years, so anyone could imagine our disappointment.

Other than that, I’m managing.  I’m glad that I’m off of the serious painkillers, but I haven’t found a reasonable substitute.  I’m hoping to see my doctor next week again to find something.

After several months of seeing the message “WordPress is out of date” in my admin panel for my blog, I decided to upgrade.   The last time I did it, the message didn’t disappear, so I left it.

A couple days ago, I thought that I’d try upgrading again.  I read on a friends blog that he had trouble upgrading and warned not to use the “Maintanence Mode” function.  So armed with this information, I carefully backed my blog up.  In the instructions, Wordpress advises to be carefully how you do it, and suggests that you replace the contents of the directories, rather than the whole directory.

I didn’t take this approach.

I just replaced everything.  And it seemed to work!  As far as I can tell (with the help of a friend), the site appears to look the same as it did before to anyone who visits it, and the admin panel has been updated to a more user friendly interface.

So, maybe it was luck.  But everything seems to have worked out fine. 

So why all the warnings?  The last time I tried to upgrade I had nothing but problems when I followed WP’s instructions.  Yet, when I tried it my way, it works fine.

Picture this..

You go for a night out to watch a movie.  You spend the money for a couple tickets, the popcorn, some pop, and maybe some M&M’s.  You go into the theatre, watch the show, have a good time.

Ordinarily, this is an outing that costs a few bucks. 

You walk back out to your car to discover that your car has been keyed..  Wait..  so is the car next to you!  Wait a second!  Every car in the parking lot has been keyed!

Unbelieveable?   You would think so, but this happened in Coquitlam on the weekend.

 Here is the little blurb from News 1130’s website.

Continue Reading »

The last 3 weeks have been busy!

I’m back to work, and enjoying it!  Yes..  I actually I’m enjoying being back!  Okay, the commute sucked this morning with Lougheed Hwy being a ice rink, but other than that, it’s all good!

It’s been hard adjusting to a regular routine, but I think that Colleen and I are starting to get the hang of it.  The kids had no problems with being watched by our neighbour (who also has 3 daughters!).

Last week, I went to Lizzy’s school for a meeting to update the parents about this “possible cancer cluster”, but I’ll save that for another post..

That’s about it!  I thought that with me being back to work that I’d have more to say..  it just seems that I don’t have time to write much of anything now.. 

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope that 2008 will be a great year for you all.

I’ve been trying to find the time to write this post, but with all the activity over the holiday’s, it’s been hard to find the time just to write anything..

So I’ll put it all in one long post here! 

On Christmas Eve, we made plans to go over to my wife’s uncle (my uncle-in-law?), for brunch.  Around 9:30 in the morning, my neighbour came over and knocked on my door and asked what I was doing later that morning.  I told him of our plans, and then he said “that’s too bad.  I have an extra seat available on a one-hour flight over the Vancouver area”.  I looked at my wife, and she said that it was fine to skip out on brunch.  My friend Mark has been telling me for quite some time that if I came back to Oshawa again, he’d take me on a flight, but I haven’t been back to Ontario for years now..  This was a great opportunity for me! 

My neighbours Steve and Caroline and I drove out to the Pitt Meadows Airport (YPK)  and were introduced to the pilot.  He took us out to his Cessna 182, a little 4 seater plane.  Fortunately, it was a nice clear day, so I’d be able to see a lot! We took off and flew around the area including Pitt River, Pitt Lake,  and Stave Lake.  After that, we flew over Mission, Abbottsford, Langley, White Rock, Surrey and then back to Pitt Meadows.  I have to say I enjoyed it a lot.  The landing was a lot smoother than the commercial airlines that I have been on.    I’ve got a lot of photo’s on my Facebook Profile, but here’s a couple pictures from the trip!

This first picture is over Pitt Meadows or Maple Ridge.  I believe that those are cranberry fields below, but I’m not sure.

This next one is a picture over Stave Lake..  well..  the water level is low now.. 

The third picture is me! 

This shot is of Vancouver Island off in the distance, but I was impressed that I caught the propeller in this shot…

Next is a shot of us landing..

And last, this is a shot of my standing next to the plane.. I wish that my neighbour wasn’t talking to me as he was taking the picture!

So, that was a pretty good start to Christmas Eve..  The rest of the day was fairly typical of our family.  We had a good day together and after dinner we started a new tradition for us.

For years, I have never really liked the idea of opening a gift on Christmas Eve..  I have always thought that we should wait until Christmas morning.  But my wife had a really good idea.  She thought that every year, we should let our kids (and us) open a gift..  but they will always be new pyjamas!   This way, they would look nice for Christmas morning pictures.  So, the kids opened them up and were more excited about the PJ’s than I thought that they would be..  they put them on, and shortly after went to bed. 

Now, the part I have left out is that my in-laws had given us a gift to open on Christmas Eve as well.  For about a month, I was looking at this wrapped gift, wondering what it was.  The only clue I was given is that I would want it the night before Christmas; I would be disappointed if I opened it the next morning..

Well, I opened it after the kids went to bed..   It was a video camera!  I was very happy indeed. 

Christmas morning came and the girls opened their gift.  Considering the year that we’ve had, we did quite well!  Elisabeth was excited about the Wii that we bought her.  Another gift that seems to be a hit with all three of them was a toy vacuum cleaner.  Naturally, it doesn’t actually actually clean anything, but it makes cool noises and talks to you!

We had some friends over for dinner, and had a great day.. 

On Boxing Day, we celebrated my wife’s birthday.  Even though her birthday is on the 27th, we thought that we’d have a night where we went out with friends for dinner for her birthday, and leave the 27th for a family type of night. 

New Year’s Eve was not so exciting.  We celebrated with the kids at 9pm, watching the ball drop in New York..  after that, it was off to bed for the kids, and Colleen and I stayed up to watch TV..  Colleen was asleep by 11pm, but considering she was up since 4:30am for work, I’m impressed she made it that late.  I stayed awake (playing with the Wii!), woke her up at midnight to wish her a happy new year, and then we both went to bed..   Not very exciting, but was fun.

Yesterday, (Jan 1st!), we went to see our friend Sharie who just got home from the hospital from having a baby!  (Congratulations!)..   After a couple hours, we went to Richmond to go to a restaurant were we were invited to celebrate another friends (Socheary and Vince) baby girl.  I don’t know much about Chinese culture, but it seems that they have a big party for a baby (and parents), when they are one month old.  Either way, the 10 course meal was very good and I finally got to meet their baby girl.

So, in case I forgot to say it, congratulations to Sharie and Keith on the birth of your little girl, Taylor, and congrats to Soch and Vince on Ashley’s birth/one month celebration!

Well..  I think that is about it..

It’s December 10th already…  and I think that I am pretty much ready for Christmas..

On the weekend, my wife and I went to Shaw’s Annual Christmas Party.  This year it was held at Canada Place, in downtown Vancouver, with over 1900 people attending. It’s one of those events that I always look forward to.

The food was good, the live band was very good, and the wine?  Well..  let’s just say that I had my fair share…  (Okay..  I had way too much..  but I wasn’t aware that a couple people were adding more into my glass when I wasn’t looking)..    Fortunately, my wife was driving..   

The weekend before, we went to Shaw’s Annual Kids Christmas Party.  This was at Crash Crawley’s in Coquitlam (an indoor playground, for those of you who don’t know).  Breakfast was served, kids played for hours, and they even got a picture with Santa! 

At home, it appears that everything is nearly in order.  We still need a few things, but I think that will be easily handled.   We won’t be making a mad rush to the store on the 24th to buy gifts and a turkey. We’ve done most of the shopping (for gifts anyways), our Christmas cards ready to be mailed, and our tree, lights, and decorations are up..  

For a change this year, I will be cooking dinner.  Hopefully, I will not have a repeat of the last turkey dinner that I cooked a few years ago.  Dinner wasn’t ready until midnight, and our friends kids had fallen asleep waiting.. 

All things considered, this should be a great Christmas.  Ever since our first daughter was born, Christmas has been a very happy, exciting, even magical time of year.  When I was a kid, I remember how much I couldn’t wait to go see Santa at the Oshawa Centre, just to tell him what I wanted for Christmas.  I laugh about how my younger brothers and I would rountinely get busted trying to sneak down the stairs at 3AM on Christmas morning to see if Santa came..

It should be a great Christmas for us..

Well, I’m happy to announce that I was able to track down a Wii!!  It took two days of constantly calling countless stores and searching through all the ads on Craigslist, but I found one for a price I felt was reasonable.. 

And I picked it up tonight, including his original reciept from Future Shop..

So, even though I’m sure he’ll never see this..

Thank you Ian in Cloverdale..  you’ve made my kids Christmas!

Well, I thought that I’d post a few “Cable Guy Stories”…  I posted one quite some time ago about a customer who didn’t get my job title quite right!  

I’ve told a number of people this story, but one of my brothers, Andrew, has requested that I post it on my blog.

This happened back in early April..  I was working in Abbotsford at the time, installing digital phone service for customers..

I pulled up in front of this house, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell.  After about a minute, this guy answers the door.  Here’s how the converstion went..

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Me: “Hi, I’m here from Shaw Cable to install your digital phone”

Customer: “Okay….”

At this point, the average person would invite you in..  Not so much in this case..

Me: (After several silent seconds) “Okay, well I have to install this device in your house”  (I now show him the digital phone terminal)

Customer: ”Okay…”

Me: “Would I be able to have a look around inside?”

Customer: (several seconds of a blank stare) “Sure..  But that thing has to go in the house?  Are you sure that it can’t go outside?”

Me: (getting a little sarcastic here!) “I’m sure..  it would be fine until the first time that it rains, then it would short out!  I need to install it in the house near an electrical outlet, cable outlet, and a phone jack”.

Customer: (a long blank stare) “Um..  we have a problem..”

At this point the customer turns around, and goes into the house and up the stairs..  I don’t know why this guy is looking stunned at everything I say, but I follow him up into the house… 

Customer: (we are now in his kitchen) “Well, here’s the phone jack… (a long pause follows), and the cable is in the living room.”

There is another period of silence..  I’m still waiting to hear what the “problem” is, and aside from the very 70’s decor in the house, I’m failing to see a problem.  At this point, I restate that I need all three requirements together, but tell him as long as I can have it near an electrical outlet, I can install phone and cable.  He stares again, as if I’m a martian or something, and then says that he should call his wife..  He calls her and it seems that the conversation went about as strange as the one that I had with him.  In the end, his wife tells him to have it installed in the basement, in a storage room.  He takes me downstairs and opens the door to a room that is completely dark and is full of boxes and other things.  With the door open, he just stares at me.

Me: “Is there a light in there?”

Customer: “Um, no…  we use this.” 

With this, he turns on some light within the room..  I’m beginning to wonder what this guy is on..

Me:  “Okay..  is there cable and power in here?”

Customer: “No..  is that going to be a problem?”

Me:  “Well, in order for this to work yes..  I can install it in here, but I’d need to have all of these boxes moved so that I could run the lines to where I need to”

Customer:  “Well..  I’ll have to reschedule again.”

Me: “Okay..  for next week?  What works for you?”

Customer: “In May” (keep in mind this happened in early April)

Me: (getting frustrated with this guy!) “Okay, I’ll have the order cancelled and you can call in to re-order once you are ready.”

This is where it gets interesting!

Customer: (leading me to the front door) “Okay..  You’ll have to excuse me but I’m recovering from…. (long pause)..  exercise..  I’m not a professional or anything, but I’m recovering from….exercise..”

I’m thinking, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?  Recovering from exercise? And your not a professional?  AT WHAT?  Exercise?  Is that why you seem to have the ability to react as fast as a snail on a skating rink?

With that, I left..  Believe it or not, I’ve shortened the story to spare you all..  In total, I spent 20 minutes with this guy…  It was a very long 20 minutes at that..