July 11, 2005

We celebrated Matt's second birthday today. We waited until now because Keri and Amy both came up -- and they didn't arrive until yesterday. Matt didn't mind putting his party off a few days -- he was oblivious to the celebration, gifts and the cake (not the candles though). I think it spent a total of 3 minutes playing with his new toys -- the cousins got way more out of his toys than he did.

Matt did however speak incessantly about playing with dady's keys, in dady's car -- (or whose ever car he felt he had the best chance at). He constantly obsesses over the keys and cars of everyone he knows. I'm not kidding when I can identify every extended family member by either thier keys or car.

Gracie had lots of fun reuniting with her cousins today. She and Annie get along quite well. It's really good of Amy to make the long trip from Utah -- pregnant, with three kids, and without help (Brad will be joining us later in the week). Amy is a real trooper.

I'm already nervous about Gracie going to school. Of course I don't let her know that. I can't believe that in a few weeks, she'll be riding a bus from Tuscany to Varsity -- spending the afternoon at school, getting back on the bus and returning home, all without our supervision. I keep telling myself not to wimp out, that every other parent goes through the same ritual. Still... I'm nervous.

I had a nice conversation with Rick this evening about Objectivism. He's re-read An Objectivist Epistomology, by Ayn Rand -- and he's excited to say the least. I think I'm going to get a copy of the book and read it with him over the next several weeks.

I got a voicemail message from David Waite today saying that he won't be able to come to Calgary after all. He's got some urgent company business that needs his attention. Too bad -- we would have had lots of fun together. I'm sure we'll see him soon. David, if you're reading this -- we'll miss you!

July 3, 2005

We had a nice night at the Melchin's this evening. Gracie is still sick; fortunatley she's still quite lively -- just has a pretty bad cough. Matt is starting to come down with something -- he was quite fevered when we left.

The boys (Sean, Micheal, Rick and I) had an ejoyable gospel discussion this evening. I always learn something when we have these type of discussions.

After getting home and getting the kids to bed, I dove into some more ASP.NET 2.0 study. I get more impressed the more I learn. The new framework is really feature rich, as is the Visual Studio IDE. I'm really excited to get to build some real applications.

Last night Erin came down and told me that when she was putting Gracie to bed, Gracie was going in and out of sleep, when suddenly she sat up -- still half asleep, and said, "Birds don't chew -- they don't have teeth." Funny what must be going through her mind when she goes from wakefullness into sleep.

July 1, 2005

I’m writting this from Delbert Beazer’s house in Cardston.  We came down for the Hill Spring July 1st celebration.  We’re staying at Delbert’s house because the Hawthorne’s are staying at Grandma Wolff’s house, and the farm is way too crazy to consider staying there.  Besides, Delbert has a beautiful home — maybe he’ll let us stay here in the future.

We arrived last night, in time to put the kids to bed; Matt resisted for at least an hour.  We decided not to rush, so we missed the parade, and arrived just in time to see that the program had been interrupted by a 20 minute fire alarm episode.  The BBQ beef was excellent as always; Matt Burnham won the Rootbeer contest — personally I thought Eric Gibb had it locked up.

Matt and Gracie ran in races — they both did well.  Gracie is getting old enough to understand and be excited to run with all the kids.  She did great.  They both did great.

After going to Spring Glen Park, Dad, Matt and I got in the van and drove arond Police Lake for a couple of hours.  I really enjoy that part of Southern Alberta.  I’d love to own some property down there one day.

After Police Lake, we went back to the farm and Timothy and I took the four-wheelers down to the riverbottom.  The mosquitos were crazy.  The ride didn’t last that long — especially because my quad ran out of gas part way through the trip.  We collected the kids and drove back to Cardston for some Pizza’s and Cream — Matt was uncontainable.  What a relief to have them in bed.

Tomorrow we go to Waterton.  Shoud be fun.

June 25, 2005

I woke up this morning and took the kids to the run in the Bishop’s Fun Run.  I had planned on going alone (and actually running), but I decided to take the kids and let Erin have a break.

The run was quite fun — I put Matthew in the stroller; Gracie wanted to run on her own.  When the race began, Gracie took off with Makenna Kwasney, and they both ran about 600 or 700 meters without stopping.  In fact, Gracie got far enough ahead of me (about 60 or 70 meters) that I had to ask her to stop.  At the end of the race, Gracie and Matt got ribbons.  We all had so much fun.  After the run, a pancake breakfast was served.  The whole event took about three hours.

Erin and I went out this evening.  We saw Batman Begins — quite a good movie.

Hosting Multiple Websites with Windows XP Pro

This looks interesting...

23 June, 2005

I would seem we may have entered into a new phase of parenting -- the "kid goes to the park to play all by herself" phase.

I took Grace and Matt to the park tonight, much like many nights before, but this time when we went home, she asked if I would take her back. I replied, as I do most times, that she could go back by herself if she wanted to. Normally, this offer is never accepted -- but not tonight. She said she would go back, and her only request was for a cookie before leaving.

I watched her play from the kitchen window, then I took Matt downstairs to play. The whole outing wasn't more than ten minutes -- which, to be honest was fine by me. Matthew also had a first this evening -- he said his own name with enough announciation, that I could understand clearly. I was very impressed.

I've been listening to/reading "Winning", by Jack Welch -- I'm totally consumed. I very well read, especially in business books... to be sure, but this book is clearly excellent. I'm only half done and I can honestly say I'll going to be a better business person because of it.

June 21, 2005

I had lunch with Don Evans today. I've been reading a little bit latley about execution and winning, and I've come to the realization that I want to get better in my professional life, and I may need some external help. Don is a business coach, and he was kind enough to meet me for lunch to answer some of my questions about business coaching. He really helped me determine what is probably obvious to most people -- that I have to know exactly what I want before I can get it. It was a good meeting.

Gracie told me two jokes before she went to bed this evening. It was really cute -- she learned the jokes from a childrens website she was playing on today.

1. Q: Where does chocolate milk come from? A: A Brown Cow!
2. Q: What do you call a sleeping bull? A: A Bull Dozer!

She laughed, and was so proud of herself for properly delivering the punch line! She's so cute.

June 19, 2005

Fathers Day today.  I had a nice day — we all gathered at our house for dinner and didn’t do much.  Gracie gave me a mint Aero chocolate bar, and a Canada t-shirt as a gift.  She was so excited. 

Matt was ornery for a good part of the day yesterday.  He’s been very pleasant for the past few weeks, so it was kind of odd to have him so cranky.  He’s utterly obsessed with keys, cars, and car keys.  The first thing he says to us in when he wakes up is a question-esque listing of keys of everyone he knows, “Mimi’s keys?”, “Leela’s keys?”, “Lara’s keys?”… and so on.  To be sure, there is only a few minutes of his waking day where he isn’t holding someone's keys. 

A funny Matt word: “CamaLOWp”, which means either “cantaloupe”, or “candle out” (he’s taken to blowing the candles out) depending on what he’s pointing to.

On Saturday I got to spend some time playing with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 — awesome!  There is so much to learn — I don’t know how you can learn it all.

Name of SQL Express Edition Default Instance

When adding a connection to SQL Express (installed during the VS 2005 Beta 2 installation) you have to reference the default instance of SQL Express named:

.\SQLExpress

I've worked on this for more than an hour this evening.

Google Map Hacks (Plotting your own GPS Waypoints)

I found these resources while doing some investigation on plotting my own lat/long coordinates on Google Maps.

1. As simple as possible, but no simpler
2. http://stuff.rancidbacon.com/gmaps-standalone/

Update: this link seems to be the best summary:

1. http://stuff.rancidbacon.com/google-maps-embed-how-to/

June 16, 2005

I took Matt and Gracie to the park after work today. They both hung from the mokey bars -- Gracie ventured to swing from one bar to another (she only did it once, then got a bit nervous). Matt hung, and kicked his feet -- quite remarkable given that he's not quite two years old. He hung for almost a minute before needing some support.

Erin called us in for dinner -- meatballs, of which Gracie ate none, and Matt ate six; that's more than Erin and I ate together. Matt did the same thing a couple of nights ago when we had pasta. He ate an adults heaping plate (more than Erin and I together).

A telephone solicitor called this evening. I've determined that the best response to an unwanted telephon solicitor is simply to ignore him, and tell him about your day, talk about current events, ask him about his family etc. I don't really recall what this fellow was pushing, but it only took me about one minute to have him hang up on me. I wasn't rude, or insincere -- I just started telling him about what's going on in my life. Brilliant!

Melinda is here now doing her laundry. She's been kind enough to bath the kids and let Erin and I clean up a bit.

For the past few nights, Erin and I have been watching Pride and Prejudice in the evening before going to bed. I confess, I quite like the story, and I'm totally into the language. I wish I could speak as elegantly as Jane Austin writes.

GPS NMEA Spec

I found this link while researching GPS receivers -- looks like it may be usefull for working with waypoint data from a GPS reciever. I'm really keen to buy one.

June 11, 2005

Erin and I returned from Toronto yesterday. We were away for two (an a bit) days. I had some meetings in TO, and for the first time, Erin accepted my offer to come along. Grandma Wolff stayed with the kids for most of the time, and Cathy helped out too.

It's ironic that it seems that what Erin and I want most is some time without the demands of children, yet when we get some time away -- we think about them for most of the time.

Toronto was hot -- 30 degrees Celcius, for the whole time we were there, and the humidity made it feel much worse. The heat was hard on Erin, but I loved it. It's been so cold and rainy in Calgary for the past 10 days; I enjoyed every minute of the Toronto heat.

We spent a good deal of our time (when I wasn't in meetings) walking around downtown, and shopping at Eaton's Center. We had fun riding the subway (from North York Center to Union Station and back). On Thursday we spent most of the day wandering.

I was excited to take Erin to the "Movenpick" restaraunt. The name has been changed to "Richtree", but other than the name change, it's still the same place. Erin had a steak and roasted veggies, I also had a steak with a baked potato. We shared a Napolean for desert. We didn't get to Honest Ed's restaraunt -- we just couldn't make it work. Next time I guess.

On Thursday morning we flaged a cab and drove to Thornhill. We went back to our old house on 51 Lilac Avenue. I took photos of the old neighbour hood, including our house, Micheal Goldberg's house, Craig Fullford's house etc... One day it would be really great to go back with Mom, Dad and Kevin.

Being away was nice -- this trip was the first time Erin and I have been away together without the kids. It was just the right amount of time.

This is the route we walked today. We started at about 11:00 AM, and returned to hotel by about 5:30 (roughly six hours). We started at College and Young, and walked west to Spadina. We turned South on Spadina and walked through Chinatown. We turned East on Queen, and ate at a restaruant called Rivoli. We both had Pat Thai -- a Thai noodle dish.

Erin standing on the corner of Queen St. and John. You can see the Much Music studio and Speakers Corner in the background.

Erin standing outside the Finch subway station. Finch is the northernmost stop on the Young St. subway line in Toronto.

Looking west on Lilac Avenue (towards Darly and Adam Frankfurt's house).

48 Lilac Ave -- Micheal (across the street) Goldberg's house.

The entry way to 51 Lilac Ave. If you look closely, you can see the "51" inside the vestibule (which was added after we moved out).

Me standing infront of 51 Lilac Avenue (the home my family lived in from 1985 to 1990). I'm talking on the phone to Kevin.