Monthly Archives: May 2007

Trip to Ottawa

A couple of weeks ago my ‘step’-Grandfather Ernie passed away.  Being a WWII veteran there was a military service followed by a family service at the funeral home in Ottawa.  That gave me an opportunity to visit with some Uncles, Aunts and cousins that I have not seen for 15-20 years.

It was a very interesting couple of days.  We stayed at my Uncle Roger’s place.  He has quite a few interests in common with myself of which cooking and computers are at the top. 

We won’t delve into the computer interests as that is way to boring.  But the cooking….

For the stay, Roger bought a 20lb shoulder of pork (for < $20 !!) and cooked it for over 24 hrs on his BBQ.  It was magnifique and there are 2 reasons for this: 1)  The Big Green Egg.  The world’s greatest smoker and grill (for the price you pay).  Now you’re cooking with flavour!

2)  Pre-mixed rubs from www.chefpaul.com The advantage is that they are well balanced and flavourful.  The disadvantage is that you’re subject to the amount of sodium put into them.

Potato Salad:  the secret is mustard seed soaked in rice vineger and the mixture added to the salad.  Use real mayonnaise and coarse seed Dijon mustard.

It was great to see some faces from so long ago.  Everyone looks pretty much the same as when I last met them and for some reason that felt reassuring.  Probably because I felt young again.

 It was fun taking the brother Luc out to the Elephant & Castle at the Rideau Centre on Friday afternoon.  We are able to check out some old stomping grounds.  I can’t believe how much I miss living there when I’m re-visiting.  But there’s no way I would ever want to be more than a visitor again.  Too expensive too overpopulated and too cold in the winter.

Interesting:  I flew up there for the 1st time.  1st time in the new T1 in Toronto:  very nice.  1st time in the Ottawa airport:  very small but easy to rent a car.  For about 150 it beats the extra 6 hrs I would have spent in transit by car not to mention that awful pass through Toronto on the 401. 

 Some closing notes:  It looks like my brother Luc’s hockey pool strategy may fall short this year.  He overloaded his picks on what he thought the 2 final teams in the Cup would be this year.  One of those teams are out and the other one has yet to lock in.  Good luck.

On another good luck note:  good luck to my uncle’s home team Sens as they have made it to the finals for the 1st time in over 80 years.  Let’s hope they pull it out and bring the Cup back to Canada and to the capital city.  Leafs and Habs fans should prepare to eat crow.

Pesticides

On the way into work today I was listening to 570AM talk radio and there was a review about a poll taken in the Region regarding pesticide use.  The region is split 50/50 on whether it should be used at all.  The by-law today is that pesticides are allowed to be used in April and May (a sign must be posted on the lawn 24 hrs in advance of application) and banned from June through August unless a certified lawn expert determines that there is damage caused by insects that warrant usage.

Even though the poll was split there is some hypocrisy out there.  Only 30 percent would rat out their neighbour if they were spraying in the banned months yet 80 percent said they would respect the by-law.  65 percent said that stores should remove the pesticides from the shelves in the banned months.

The coincidental thing about this is that this morning there was a pesticide sign on my lawn.  My lawn care provider came out today to fertilize and apply pesticide.  I personally am not polar on this subject.  I’m not convinced they are harmful, yet I’m not going to go out and swim in it.  I chose my particular lawn care provider because they use an organic based pesticide and are very meticilous in its application.  They don’t apply liberally, only on the areas required.  I have some faith in the professionals and trust that they are strictly regulated.  I don’t trust Joe Guy (except the one from Concord) will be careful with his pesticide usage and think that maybe the stuff off the shelf should be a little harder to get.  From my discussion with the experts, by government regulation, they are not permitted to apply the store bought stuff.  So why should spray happy Pappy get the privilege?

Vegas part deux

Way back in May Sonia and I went to Vegas to celebrate the big four-oh for Tara.  About 15 of her best friends went down as well.  I was pretty much the only guy there so I was able to go and do whatever I wanted.  That is, I was able to go and gamble. Continue reading

Big news in Fantasy Land

So,  I technically haven’t given up yet on my team.  But desperate times call for desparate actions.  Roger Clemens has come out of retirement and as a Yankee is an eligible free agent in the pool.  Disgustingly he will be paid on average about $1,000,000 per outing!  And the 44 year old will have the luxury of not having to travel out of town with the team for away games.  Only has to privately fly his way out to the parks where he is scheduled to pitch.

Regardless, this pitcher has remarkable value for my team and better yet a name that can draw some serious trade bait.  The problem is that this pickup is going to go for serious coin.  I need to figure out how much I want this guy and for how much am I willing to pay.  It will be a certainty that should I pick him up I will be hamstrung for any future pickups severely limiting my ability to pickup agents when players go down with injuries etc.

I’ll post the waiver results on Thursday when the week’s pickups are made….

Music invokes memories

We all know that hearing a familiar song can bring back very vivid memories.  It can happen at weird times and out of the blue.  Which blows my mind as to how our mind stores information (that’s mind-blowing-ly profound).

I’m sitting here reading email when ‘Goodnight Saigon’ by Billy Joel randomly pops up on my iTunes.  Instantly and vividly I’m brought back to a cram-session I had studying Grade 13 Calculus in my parent’s living room just a couple of hrs before the exam.  I even remember what in particular I was studying:  A proof for Pythagoras theorem.

That is how the mind works.  I can’t remember to call my mechanic (thanks for reminding me Billy!) on a given day or whether I’m supposed to pick up my daughter later today but I can remember this polaroid instance 18 yrs ago.

Which throws me off on a tangent:  A couple days ago driving home from Detroit after a trip to Vegas (more to come on that) I was on a certain section of I-94 when I remembered what I was thinking about on this same stretch of road 3 yrs ago when I last there (coming home from an earlier trip to Vegas).  It also has to do with music.  I was listening to Meat Loaf’s “Back Into Hell” sequel album to “Bat Out of Hell” when I started spewing out ideas out loud to poor Sonia about how I could string all these Meat Loaf songs into a musical.  We had just seen a show in Vegas called “We Will Rock You” that had a pretty dodgey plot strung together by dental floss in order to lay down all the Queen mega-hits and make some cool cash along the way.  Had also seen Mamma Mia a few weeks earlier so I was drenched in camp.
So I thought aloud:  this has got to be easy money.  Everyone loves Meat Loaf (both singer and food) and his tunes are made for this sort of thing.  I don’t want to give out too much but here’s the gist of the plot I had spun:  It has to do with a teenage boy and girl struggling through a heated yet difficult teenage romance.  They move apart as they finish school only to meet up years later (in their 30’s) after living their separate divergent lives:  one has made it big, one has fallen on hard times.  They may or may not rekindle that fire.  Lots of dancing, lights, screaming power chords, etc. and BAM!  insta-hit!
If anybody has Meat Loaf’s email please pass it along or have him get in touch with me.  We’ll do lunch and plan out our mega-smash broadway show.  I guarantee it would blow Mamma Mia out of the water.