We were all young once. I'll be the first to admit that i used to do crazy things--things that I shudder to think about now--climbing up cliffs in the Niagara Escarpment, swimming way out in Lake Ontario, and other 'not so smart' things.

I know that as kids and teenagers, we pretty much think of ourselves as invulnerable.

The thing is we really aren't.

And when it comes to trains, and playing chicken with, who do you think is going to win?

Here's the story--

We have the old TH&B line running behind our survey (housing complex for those of you unfamiliar with that terminology). This spur is still in use, according to us, about 8 to 9 times per day.

I get home from work last night and, during the course of conversation, Sandy tells me that during the day a train coming down the hill was whistling continuously as it passed the survey. I thought that was rather odd, having lived there for well close to two years and never having heard a train whistle yet.

Later that evening we went for a walk--our (hope to be nightly) constitutional has us walking up Quigley to the rail line, along the rail line to a little dirt path that goes behind our housing complex and then back home. It's a nice walk, especially whilst the sun is setting.

Anyway, we're walking along the tracks and we hear a train coming down the hill. Now the hill isn't Mount Everest or anything, but it's still quite the grade. Trains, by their very nature weigh well into the thousands of tonnes, and would be difficult to stop on a flat surface, yet alone rolling down this grade.

I see this kid, probably 13 or 14, sitting on the tracks. He's picking up the occasional stone and throwing it off into the forest. The train is coming down the hill and is about 30 metres from the kid. I start yelling, 'Hey Kid!' and pointing behind him.

He reluctantly gets up and walks off the track. Then, as the train is going by, he starts throwing rocks at it.

Now friends, this kid didn't look mentally challenged, or suicidal for that matter. What he was actually doing was playing chicken with the train--waiting until the last possible moment to jump out of the way. I know this because it's the same game I saw some people do when I was his age. Throwing stones at the train was just an added feature, I guess.

The thing is some kids were probably doing the same thing earlier in the day--that's what the whistling was all about. This kid witnessed, or partook in this 'cute' game and decided to continue it yesterday evening.

Here's a warning for you people that think this is a fun thing to do--that train'll kill you. You will be a little red spot on the wheels and the locomotive won't even have noticed the hit. Try standing beside a (non-moving) train sometime and take in how mindbogglingly huge they really are. Sure, when we're sitting in a car at a train crossing and there's a long consist going by, we don't really realize how big it really is.

As my dad might say--Someone should knock some sense into this kid, and other kids, before they get themselves killed. Playing chicken with a locomotive isn't smart.

 

 

So we did some shopping and planting this week. Thanks to Mark atTelstar Nurseries (and a few trips to the Country store down the street), we have things mostly under control. Yes we could have waited for the tulips to finish, but we jumped in with both feet first and put the vancouver geraniums, the marigolds, the pansies, the dusty miller and other flowers in the gardens.

I think it looks fantastic! I have high hopes that, as the summer progresses, it'll look even better!

We're off to a good start, though!

Thanks to Sandy for repeated runs to the store, and for taking care of the planters.

Since I want to expand my web capabilities, I've converted my blog to PHP. This'll screw up any link to my blog that you may have had from before. My apologies for that.

Beyond that, I also want to say to you spammers--give it up! In one day out of 250+ spam attempts, this blog of mine posted, wait for it, 0 entries.

That's right you spamming idiots--Zero, nada, zippo.

I have an idea--try doing something productive with your time instead of wasting bandwidth and resources, like pick up trash along the sides of the highways.

Anyway, there's a few notes.

it's around 10 p.m. and I'm home watching a George Burns special on Bravo!

They don't make 'em like him anymore.

This special was recorded at our very own Hamilton Place, by the looks of George's age, 20 years ago--he mentioned that he played 'God' twice, so it's between 'Oh God part 2' and 'Oh God, You Devil' Now let's go to IMDB.com to see how close I was...

K, first movie came out in 1980, second one in '84, so that places the special 25ish years ago--I was a few years off.

Anyway, I can watch this guy on stage all night long--love the little stories he has about Mitlon Berle, Danny Kay, Vincent Price, but especially his late wife Gracie. And his little songs about, well, almost everything--he doesn't need the voice of Sinatra--George sings the way George does, and it's beautiful. It's a pleasure to watch a true star in the history of entertainment.

He does his thing with such grace and style whilst not doing much of anything at all.

So that's my Saturday evening. The best part is, at this point in my life, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing.

Whilst reminiscing yesterday about the little movie we made, I started thinking about other things that happened 'in the past'.

Every so often something happens that you'd almost give anything to 'redo'. However, life doesn't have a 'Reset' button so we have to learn to live with regret. I have learned to live with regret and don't lose much sleep, for,as some say, life happens and life does, contrary to our sometimes wishes, goes on.

That said, along comes this wonderful thing called 'blogs' where I can 'publically' apologize for the idiotic things I've said or done. This is my first (and probably only) swipe at it so, well, as they say, 'here we go!'.

Anita (no, the other one), you cannot understand how truly sorry I am that I wasn't there for you when your father passed away. It was like I'm this guy who tries to be there for people when they need him, but the one time you really needed a friend, I was nowhere to be found. The only thing I can say is for that moment I was the antithesis of who I am.

Well, that was a harsh one.

Lets go to something a little lighter.

Anita (yes, the other one), at no point during our 12 years hanging out in school did we have the close friendship to warrant me joking with your husband the other year that you 'made my life a living hell thru school'. Was completely inappropriate. I have been known to put my foot in my mouth from time to time, but that one takes the cake. Your husband, however, was really cool about it (thankfully).

Why these two specific instances were on my mind today I have no idea, but they were so there you are.

I think that's enough for today... more than likely for good. Sometimes, as stated yesterday, it's wise to leave the past in the past.

I'm done here.

in the little town of Winona, I made a movie.

Actually, it was more of a 'we'--my friend Jake and I made a movie, and we had help from Ian, Pete, and Ron.

We made a 'moonscape' out of paper mache, cardboard and newspaper in my basement. We rented a VHS camcorder that could do frame-by-frame animation (for how else are you going to film those little LEGO guys walking around), and proceeded to make the epic called 'LEGO Wars'. LEGO Wars was a little story I wrote. The story focused around the good guy, LEGO Man, and the bad guy, Dark Dude and the antics thereof. It took place on a base on the moon. Honest, it was more exciting than I'm letting on here.

This was around the year 1984. I was in high school and making this movie was lots of fun.

I was reminded of this movie whilst hanging out in Zellers today. The reason was that Pete worked at Zellers back in high school and one time we took the finished movie on VHS and showed it in the 'Entertainment Section' at Zellers. Seeing the movie we made displayed across 30+ televisions was one of the most beautiful LEGO moments of my life (ranking up there with when my block stacker made 2 stacks of 6 blocks a few years back)

Of course, that movie has a few other memories. I was on the student council that year and convinced the rest of the council to let me show the movie to the rest of the students. Over the lunch break, we got a classroom, charged a 25 cent admission, and the interested students saw the movie we made.

As well, I mailed a copy of the movie to the then head office of LEGO Canada in Stratford, Ontario. Mr. Jack E. Chessman sent me a letter back, letting me know that he was very pleased with the movie and he showed the movie to the rest of the staff. He mentioned that they all loved it. He also invited me down to Samsonite for a tour of the company. I went, and actually saw LEGO bricks being produced--it was a wonderful experience.

The best part of the LEGO Wars saga, as my friend Gerry will attest, is when Mr. Jack E. Chessman sent a copy of LEGO Wars off to the LEGO head office in Denmark. A few months after that I received a letter from the LEGO legal department, talking about copyrights and wanting me to 'sign off' on stuff. This is where I coined the phrase, "I make an epic and they give me the legal department".

It's really quite sad that I actually don't have a copy of that movie at this time--I lent my copy to someone years ago and never got it back.

Eh, it's one of those things that is probably better left in the past--if I saw that movie today I'd probably be disappointed. So we'll just leave it there in the realm of memory. I think it's for the best.

So now I'm actually in front of a computer, and nothing.

I was going to talk about how the supposedly smart people put in the pressure sensors that changes the redlights in front of the white line that you're suppose to stop behind, but I just basically said everything I could about that one, and you can fill in the rest so that's basically done.

What else...

See? Nothing.

I'm going to start carrying a notebook so when inspiration actually hits me in the head, I'll be able to write down something and have something more poignant to say like, "Hey! This little euphemism is so apropos and when taken in this context... well, doesn't that rock your world??"

But not so much today.

News--well, that's depressing around the GTA, with the child abuse cases going on right now.

Sports--not so much me.

Weather--May... not much more to say.

So that's about it. Maybe it's just Wednesday.

Well, I'm relaxing after an eventful long weekend and the best way for me to do that, besides sitting on the couch and surfing the 'net, is to listen to John Denver.

There's just something about the voice, the guitar, and the melody that just seems to take the tension out from between the shoulders, and brings peace to the troubled mind.

One of my earliest memories was sitting around the little black radio we had in the kitchen, listening to John--back then he was a wee bit more popular and his music was on the airwaves much more than it is today. I'd sit there and listen to a guy, playing a guitar, coming to my ears via a one-speaker portable radio and was amazed.

Today I listen to a multi-channel hi-fi system and still am in awe by one guy and his guitar.

I personally believe that we lost something wonderful the day John died--the world is a little less harmonious.

Thankfully his music will always live on.

 

Finished the back deck today, moved the perennials around, and got some topsoil--waiting for the Tulips to finish. As well, redid the stone along the garden.

With all that finished, I'm going for a cupcake!

  

When I first moved in many moons ago, I noted that the back deck wasn't looking terribly good--the constant settling of the ground caused the sidewalk slabs to slope down away from the house. As a bachelor I really didn't think too much about it, but now that we're having company and such, it was time to fix it up.

So a trip to Home Despot and Hamilton Builders Supply was in order. Purchased the timbers and the screening (some call it gravel dust), and away I went at it.

Dug out a bunch of dirt, laid the screenings, got the level (Mike would have been proud of me), then nailed the timbers in place.

The toughest part was moving all those sidewalk slabs--it's been a while since this body had seen hard, physical labour and me thinks the muscles and bones doth protest too much because if it.

Anyway, job is mostly done--I miscalculated and need to go to Home Despot and pick up one more timber, but it's the long weekend and I've got some time.

That's about it. It was a fun job and it looks pretty good (if I do say so myself)

I was going to wait and get better pics, but I decided to put this up now.

No one else seems to share my passion for this wonderful, what is it--a fruit? vegetable??

Whatever it is, I love Rhubarb.

I've loved it since I can remember. I used to go out to the garden when I was a kid and just grab a stalk and start munching.

Some need to add sugar, some need to stew it, some need to throw it in a pie. Not me--though all those are pretty good--I love rhubarb right from the garden.

For whatever reason, I just thought you needed to know that.

In this day and age, when there's this thing called 'auditing', it's amazing how any company can do anything.

I'd vent but I can't talk specifics.

It's astounding when people 'talk smack' about our health care system.

If anyone has issues with the Canadian Medical System, you can leave this country. One of my relatives was hit by a transport truck two days ago, and her arm was basically run over.

I visited her in the hospital, and at no time during her stay did she have to pull out her cheque book. At no time did she have to worry about insurance. At no time did anyone come up to her with forms for 'dispensation of finances'. If that's not a relief on our daily activities, I don't know what is.

So all people saying that the Canadian health care system sucks and we should look to the U.S. of A. for a better version, how about you just move down there and see just how good it is.

It's astounding how wonderful my personal life is right now.

A beautiful woman decided to share her life with me, and we're going to do some 'minor' house renovations this weekend, like painting and fixing the back porch. It's the May 2-4 weekend and that's always a good one for Canadians, and she wants to putter around the house. Probably get the B-B-Q fired up as well

It's astounding how fast time flies.

There are just far too many things that I want to do and not nearly enough time to do them in.

But sharing my life certainly does help.

It's just astounding!

Especially when a loved one is in the hospital after being hit by a semi.

Yeah, sleep and me are not going to probably meet well this evening.

But I've been told that the surgery will probably be fine, so patience is the order of the day.

We shall see.

I'm perusing the wonderful 'net, trying to see if I can discover any new fascinating things I can do with my blogging software, when I stumbled across Haloscan.

I've heard the name before but just assumed that it woudn't work with Greymatter. Well, turns out on further investigation that Haloscan does, indeed, work with Greymatter.

Right now I'm using it for Trackbacks 'cause now you can actually see if there are Trackbacks for the entry instead of actually clicking on the link.

That said, any previous trackback pings won't work 'cause they were using some other software. I only had 3 pings, two of which were from my good friend, Rob A.

Kinda feel bad about that, but I can't seem to get them imported into this new version

So we went to see 'Crash' tonight. A very interesting movie that i might talk about sometime in the future, but right now I'm going to talk about the almighty 'Previews'.

Normally I get excited about the previews, because I might be surprised by the movies that will be forthcoming--I love getting excited about movies--I'm a pretty big fan, most of the time.

However, tonight, 5 out of the 6 previews were 'horror related'.

Seriously, is that all we get these days on the big screen? Horror movies by Wes Craven, et al?

So I decided to grab the 'Famous' magazine provided at Silver City. In this particular issue they have the big list of all summer movies and a brief synopsis and which stars get megabucks to star in 'em.

Let's have a quick boo at the list, shall we?

House of Wax--remake of that 'classic horror'--House of Wax

High Tension--'grisly French slasher pic...dubbed into English'--oh goodie

Dark Water--supernatural forces posess a building--and some say Star Trek reuses plot lines alot

The Devil's Rejects--the sequel to 'House of 1000 Corpses--A sequel. Yay us!

The Cave--scientists 'discover bad critters'--yeah, as if that hasn't been done before

K, so the list isn't that extensive. I didn't include 'Domino', a flick about a bounty hunter, and looks tres violent, 'The Island', about harvesting body parts from clones for 'real people', 'The Brothers Grimm'--possibly a 'fairy tale' about the brothers taking on all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly monsters...

The point is, it's not about me not getting the attraction to horror movies (I don't), but I have to still see the idiotic previews for them.

I'd rather see 10 previews of 'Herbie: Fully Loaded'

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't appreciate previews anymore.

Well, that's it. First time in 18 years we cannot look forward to new episodes of Star Trek.

Thankfully, however, the producers gave us one final episode--the 'birth of the Federation', and it was beautiful. And the last few minutes, with the various incarnations of the Enterprise and the voice-overs--honestly, the eyes got a little misty.

But that's it--the voyages of the starship Enterprise are now regulated to the status of 'rerun'.

However, Roddenberry's vision goes on.

Thank you, Gene

There are no more Sailor Moon episodes on this web site. They are gone. Please find Sailor Moon videos and discussion groups elsewhere.

I'm done.

- - -

Update March 17th, 2006 (Now the final update)

Wow. I thought I wouldn't have anything else to say. However, after the last few 'more colourful' comments on this blog entry, I've turned off comments. Please find Sailor Moon videos and discussion groups elsewhere.

I'm done.

- - -

Update March 14 (final update)

Well, our web server died and took some hard drives with it (as detailed in this blog entry).

One of the hard drives that was busted was the one containing the Sailor Moon videos.

I cannot retrieve the videos at this time. They are gone.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

- - -

Update January 31, 2006

Just a whole lot of bandwidth is being used to download the Sailor Moon episodes.

To curtail that, I've added passwords for the movies.

If you've made it this far--

username: sailormoon

password: moonie1

This will be changed in the future, so check back here.

- - -

Update January 25, 2006

Serenity and Ami are two wonderful fans of Sailor Moon.

In what I hope will be the last time I visit this issue, I've put up the vids. They will stay up. I'm not going to work on this anymore.

I've limited each user to 2 concurrent connections. This will stop the bandwidth hogs out there. As well, I've limited all connections to the videos to 40--If you can't download the video now, try again later.

Take care

- - -

Update January 24, 2006

Well, I was more than willing to leave these videos up for people to download. However, due to the sheer volume of e-mails that I'm receiving complaining about the slow download speeds and connection denied issues, I'm taking the videos off-line (again).

Over the past half a month, I've received many e-mails, and not one of them was 'Gee, thanks for hosting the videos', or 'I wish I could contribute some funds to your PayPal link, but I can't but thanks for hosting the videos anyways.'

No, what I got was, 'Can you give me the links to the videos so I don't have to wait' and 'why is your website so slow--I can't download the videos!!' and 'Your website sucks!! It's too slow!!'

There were some very nice replies to this blog from Sailor Moon fans (as you can see below), and I'm sorry to do this to them, but I don't need the griping e-mails.

So we're done.

Take care

- - -

Update Dec 28, 2005

In the continuing on again/off again relationship that I have with the folks that download the Sailor Moon videos, I've put them back up!

Here's the thing--I received a flurry of e-mails asking about them. People want them, they want them fast and they want them for free.

Well friends, life's not like that. I've put them up again, but limited you to downloading 1 at a time. As well, you will hae to share the limited bandwidth with all the other Sailor Moon fans--the more people that are downloading the videos, the slower it's going to be.

But that's the way it is until I can upgrade my service. And that isn't going to happen unless it's financially warranted. Right now, it isn't.

Bottom line--download to your hearts content. It'll take a while but there you are.

- - -

Update December 23rd, 2005

Wow! There are Sailor Moon fans are still out there!!

After bringing my little web server to its knees due to all the downloading and watching of Sailor Moon videos, I've removed them once again.

Seriously, 60 gig in a day (scroll down--check out the bar graph). That's monstrous!

So until I have money to upgrade my services (this is all free right now), that's about it, really.

Setsuna's/Sailor Pluto's Page

- - -

Update December 1, 2005

Well, turns out that it wasn't the sailor moon vids that were causing the issue, so I put them back up.

- - -

Update Nov. 30, 2005

Due to server limitations (i.e. I'm running on a very old server) and many people viewing the videos at the same time which is bringing this website to a standstill, I'm removing the videos (for now).

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

- - -

I swore I'd never do this

But as they say, 'It's my blog and I'll write if I want to...'

K, first of all, I was younger once, and, as such, was interested in things I'm not so much interested in at this time.

That said, at one time I was interested in a little cartoon (anime for the pure fans) called 'Sailor Moon'. As some people know, when I'm interested in something, I pretty much put time and effort into it. So I made my own little web page dedicated to my favourite Sailor Moon character--Setsuna (see Setsuna's page here).

My web page on Setsuna hs been up for numerous years, and every so often I'll get an e-mail from someone who is a fan of Sailor Moon and we'll end up writing back and forth a bit about the cartoon.

What many people don't know is that at one time the internet was flooded with Sailor Moon stuff, including fan-subbed episodes. I, being fortunate enough to have access to the internet at the time, downloaded all the episodes and burned them onto CD's. Then, many years passed and I decided to copy those episodes to my web server so you, the viewing audience, can appreciate Sailor Moon if you so desire.

Unfortunately, some of my CD's didn't work anymore, but I got most of them on my web server.

See this directory for the complete set of episides and video clips I have that pertain to Sailor Moon--

http://sparky.i989.net/smvideos/

If you so desire, download and view away--my earlier efforts might as well help those that are still interested.

Oh I did forget that many fans of the show made their own little videos by compiling a variety of clips and putting them to music.This was my favourite one--

Genie in a Bottle

Just thought you should know

So I saw 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' last night. Went with the significant other and close friends.

Two of us had actually read the book and are fans of the late Douglas Adams (yes he has his own website, even if he's deceased--a fact that I think he'd appreciate) so we knew what we were getting ourselves in to.

So here's my take on the movie based on a book that I've read at least once a year since the age of 15--

It was good.

(spoilers to come so for those of you who haven't seen the flick, you've been warned)

Honestly, not fantastic, mind boggling 'wowness' times the infinity of space, but it was good.

Seeing on the big screen ideas and concepts I've imagined, like Slartibartfast's planet building construction thing, was stunning. And the actual guide--extremely well done (though not nearly enuf on that, but more on that later)

The addition of the 'romance' between Arthur and Trillian--very nicely done. There was no real romance in the books, even if Trillian had Arthurs child (named Random) in book 5, but that's neither here nor there. So Trillian and Arthur building up a relationship in the vastness of space was great.

As well, another thing never covered in the books (that I remember) was Ford and Arthur's first meeting, and how Arthur saved his life, and that's why Ford took Arthur with him off the planet. That was a nice touch.

The spontaneous arrival of the sperm whale and the bowl of petunias in mid air--right from the book and was absolutely perfect.

The 'misses' of the movie--wasn't nearly funny enough. Seriously, there were so many 'quick hits' (a term I'm coming to dread but have to use in my daily business routines) where comedy could have been inserted. Examples--

The mice going for Arthurs brain--in the book, as well as the movie, Arthur is pretty much against the idea of the removal of his brain because he's 'still using it'. In the book, the mice say something along the lines of "Well, we'll just replace it with a chip that says 'when is tea time' and 'err..?'--no one will be the wiser". To which Arthur says, "Err...?" and the mice reply, "See??" I thought that was one of the funniest lines in the book, but didn't make it to the movie.

There could have been more with the guide--the guide was extremely well done with the visuals and all, but a few more additions, like when Trillian was being lowered into the cage containing the Ravenous beast from wherever--the guide had something to say about the beast (in the book)--"The ravenous whatever is the most fearcest creature in the galaxy.. blah blah blah.. when confronted by this beast, the smart hitchhiker will cover his or her own eyes because the ravenous whatever, even though it is the most fear inspiring thing in the universe, also thinks that if you can't see it, it can't see you, and will leave you alone..." (Yes Adams did write that better than I did--I'm going from memory here...) It would have, however, made a cute little 'guide visual' in the movie.

In the movie, the guide did touch on the trilogy of books--'Where God went wrong', 'More of God's mistakes', and 'Who is this God person anyway?' but didn't have the zinger later in the movie (when the babel fish appears), 'Well, that about wraps it up for God', with the accompanying back story of man proving black is white and getting himself killed at the next zebra crossing.

Marvin was, I'd like to say disappointing, but he really wasn't. Alan Rickman provided the voice and conveyed the general depression that Marvin is suppose to have, but the book had far better Marvin quotes. But that's just me--Marvin was still pretty good.

Bottom line is, I don't know if this movie is for everyone--there's no nudity, no swearing, and relatively little violence (real violence)--it's just a wonderful little film based on a wonderful book.

I hope it does well and we get 'Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe', 'Life, Universe and Everything', and 'So long and Thanks for all the Fish' (the one I'd really like to see, and it's got Fenchurch in it...)

So go sass that hoopy Hitchhiker movie--it has totally cool froods who know where their towels are.

Find links here to various stories--

LUGNET post on replicating robots

I've downloaded the movie to my local server, so you can watch it from here--

Self replicating robot ("right click, save as..." please--save my little web server some aggravation)

I've seen many similar attempts by various institutions, but this one, to me anyway, seems the simplest and the most elegant. I can't wait to see how the future unfolds for this type of 'building block' 'bot.

If I had a gazillion dollars, I'd see about mass producing a smaller version of these blocks--say about 2 inch cubes, and sell them to the general masses with software and autonomous behaviours. I mean, if the RCX sold well, this thing would be fantastic!

Recently I've upgraded my blogging software to Greymatter version 1.3.1.

So if there's anything awry, just let me know and I'll look into it.

On another note, as the summer approaches, I'll probably have less time to post entries, but I will have more pictures, so it's a trade-off.

Eh, what are ya gonna do?

Drop me a line sometime if you have any ideas for this blog o' mine.

Take care

Oh, and one reason for the upgrades is the better 'smilies'--

Tulips and Daffy-dills

In an ongoing effort to present to you, the very bored audience, the very best my gardening skills has to offer, here's some flowers--

      

The flower garden presents a welcome sight when we come home from work. So there you are.

Dark Grey Go-Cart

I ordered pieces from Bricklink to complete my Technic 948 go-cart collection.

 

Light Bluish Grey and a multi-coloured go-cart

All of them!

       

The original, and still the best...

A few more pics--

Traffic jam on the I-90

Temporary storage (until I figure out what to do with 'em all...)

In 1967 and 1970, two kids showed up in the world.

Thankfully these kids showed up to very understanding mothers.

So, here in 2005 (many years later) we, both Sandy and Dave, wish our moms, 'Happy Mother's Day'.

We wish this for all those times through the years when our mothers were our guides, our confidants, our teachers--our best friends.

For all the trials, for all the pain, for all the suffering, concern, consternation and worry we caused our moms during the 'growing up' stages of our lives. For all the efforts, for all the tears, for all the 'cleaning up our messes', for making all the boo-boo's better, we thank you.

For all the joy, for all the happiness, for all the love and support, we thank you.

We don't need a special day to let you know how much we appreciate the things you did, and continue to do for us, but we're just letting you know today, 'cause today is your extra-special day.

To our moms, Lynda and Jean, we love you.

Oh, and to all the other moms--you're appreciated as well.

Sandy and Dave

(Written by Sparky, edited by Sandy)

"Hungry?"

"Pretty much"

"Chinese?"

"Sure..."

Thus the mini-epic begins. We call up Amy's Wok over there on Centennial Parkway and order dinner. Then for the next 20 minutes we watch part of season 3 of the Gilmore Girls and then hop in the mighty Sunfire to head towards Amy's Wok. En route we note that the little country store on King Street has fresh pineapple! We love pineapple and thought that we'd hit the store on the way back.

Get to Amy's, get food, head towards home.

The traffic on King Street is pretty bad 'cause of the construction--traffic is reduced to 1 lane so it's a little backed up.

We're sitting there, and then she reminds me to turn into the store. There's a center turning lane so we use that to pass a few cars and turn left into the dirt parking lot. Drive up to the building, see the closed sign, say 'Grr!!' under our breaths ('cause we love pineapple), turn the car around and head towards the road. The thing is that there are a few entrances to the little store, and I thought, quite logically, I'd use the entrance closer to my house. Of course the traffic is still backed up and our little side jaunt into the store was a few seconds so I may have gotten ahead a few vehicles--not that I really cared.

A really nice driver let me back into the packed traffic and we head towards home. You can almost see my house from where all this took place, by the way--I give you that info for what was about to occur. I'm just about to get into the turning lane to get onto my road when I notice the Hamilton Wentworth Regional Police car right beside me. More importantly, I see the Hamilton Wentworth Regional Police officer waving me over to the side of the road!

Yikes!

Of course, now was the time when Sandy mentioned to me that her ownership and insurance were back at the house in her purse. This wouldn't normally be a big deal 'cause I am usually in the mighty Dodge, but of course this time we're in the mighty sunfire. Eh, I'm hoping the cop'll be understanding.

Here's a tangent--cop comes from the acronym for 'Constable On Patrol'. Bet you didn't know that.

Anyway, I'm usually first to talk about the wonderful work the Hamilton Wentworth police force does for the citizens of the area. And this case also shows that.

What I am in awe of is that I think out of the drivers in the world right now, I'm one of the more patient ones. Constable Guy comes up and says "You know you're not allowed to drive up the left hand side to get ahead of traffic..."

Oh, that's it? "Well sir, we turned into that little store back there but then we saw the 'closed' sign..."

He looked a little incredulous, but it's the truth.

"No seriously--we were going to buy pineapple!" I try to tell him, "Honest!"

He just kinda looks at me and then walks back to his car.

How do you dispute the pineapple story? Especially since it's true.

That's right folks, 38 years ago today; Dr. Aiken brought David Geoffrey Koudys in to this world. I'm sure he came in kicking and screaming, and for those of us who know and love him, I am sure the screaming was some sort of tangent.

I can imagine he was a cute, adorable little baby (easy to imagine from what he looks like today) with just a dusting of blond peach fuzz for hair.

Anyone reading Dave's daily BLOG entries knows that if anything weird, whacky or insane can happen to someone that someone will be Dave.

The shenanigans of Dave began very early on in his life. At the ripe 'ole age of about 4, Dave was found sitting on the QEW with cars passing him by. Yup, just wondered away from his house (which was very close to the QEW) and ended up on that big highway that runs from Toronto to Fort Erie. Seeing as he is still around, we know that that story had a happy ending.

I'm sure we all remember having favourite toys growing up. As we get older our favourite toys change, and then we get to the point where our toys become electronics, computers, cars, etc. Well, there is one toy that Dave just couldn't give up.....LEGO! He loves his LEGO. I for one, am very happy that he never gave up his love for LEGO, for if it weren't for LEGO I probably would not have met him. I'm sure there are many LEGO stories surrounding Dave but the one that comes to mind is the time his LEGO was boiled for disinfecting purposes. Ok, picture plastic in boiling water. What happens to plastic when boiled? Yup, melted plastic. Now picture a 10 or 11 year old boy with tears in his eyes watching this event unfold. Not a pretty sight. Yup, a lot of pieces were lost that fateful day but it is safe to say he still has PLENTY of LEGO.

Of course, who could forget the saga of the Mighty Dodge last September and then again in December? The truck pulled off the road outside Barrie for being "unsafe", a TV appearance for having an "unsafe" vehicle, fixing the truck up to make it safe again. Safety papers in hand - truck is safe and road worthy. Woo Hoo - but wait, December comes around and the Ministry has the truck flagged as "unsafe" again. Unsafe, safe, unsafe, which is it? Thankfully, all was straightened out the Mighty Dodge was once again safe and road worthy. Only to Dave this would happen.

There are many, many more stories about Dave that could be written but there just isn't enough time to write them all.

I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that Dave is a true gem. A man who is kind, thoughtful, sweet, caring, fun-loving, and just an overall awesome guy.

This is probably were I should say something about how much I love him and how my life changed for the better five months and six days ago, and how I can't imagine my life without him, but he knows that already so I won’t.

Happy 38th Birthday, Babe. May the upcoming year be filled with lots of love, happiness and plenty of fun! You deserve only the best because you are the best.

In what has got to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen--it ain't fancy, it ain't stupendous, it ain't earth shattering--it just is.

Special thanks to Wil Wheaton for pointing this out.

Storage shelves

I really haven't talked much about my LEGO hobby--not that I'm going to delve into it here--just enough to cover the immediate highlights.

First is the actual storage issues faced by many Fans of LEGO (FOL). Many ideas have been thrown around in the FOL community regarding storage of vast amounts of bricks. This is my (very inexpensive) solution--

$19.99 - $24.99 wooden shelves from Zellers and Chapmans Ice Cream tubs.

Done deal.

Oh, and any Rubbermaid (or such related product) that happens to come my way usually gets assimilated into LEGO storage containers.

  

And for building, I'm just using my home-built train modules (specifications provided by PNLTC) and work on top of those.

A work in progress--my train layout at this time

The blueprint

I used Track Designer to do a quick design for a layout. Note the additional loop that I haven't built yet--it'll be a mountain pass, so I kinda have to build the mountain first

The go-carts lining the stairs

And finally I have a very understanding 'significant other' who likes the LEGO displays strategically placed around the house.

So it's a start. More to come when I sit down and actually do stuff...

May have to build one out of LEGO in the future...

During our quick jaunt to see the liftlocks in Peterborough, Ontario last weekend, I also took pictures of this little train bridge.

  

There's something not quite right with this picture...

  

Again thanks to Jeff for being my chauffer whilst I took these pics

I've added a little additional functionality. To the right you may see the option 'Photo Blog' under a new heading--'categories'. Basically it's a link that performs a search for all photo related entries and lists them.

In the future, if this works well, I'll be adding other categories, like 'nature', 'politics' and what-have-you.

I hope to help you folks who frequent my little blog find what you're interested in, instead of slogging thru the entirety of my blog.

Anyway, thought I'd let y'all know.

And also the biggest!

In Peterborough, Ontario, as part of the Trent Severn waterway system, is the oldest and still the largest hydraulic lift lock system, and it's still operational (though, not in late April when I visited--sorry 'bout that)

(For those 'not in the know', the Trent Severn Waterway system is a series of canals and liftlocks that facilitates boat travel from Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay)

          

Looks like a castle from here!

 

Special thanks to Jeff for driving me around and letting me take all the pics I wanted!

I had forgotten (*gasp*!) that Star Trek's original pilot was filmed in 1964.

1964!!! Oh My Goodness!

As "Star Trek:Enterprise" winds down for the final episodes, many people have come out of the woodwork to offer their opinions on the various Star Trek Franchises thru the years.

Here's one I particularly liked--

The Tube By James Lileks

I completely disagree with his assessment of DS9--I thought of that particular series as a galactic 'space opera' and never really got into it. I did manage to catch the highlights--Sisko, et al, revisit the original series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles"--an episode that ranks pretty much up there. Beyond that, however, DS9 never really appealed to me--but the article is well written and quite honest.

Anyway, 'Enterprise' has a few episodes left. At this time, with nothing looming on the horizon, it'll be the first time that Star Trek's not on the air since '87.

I will miss it. Thankfully, with that wonderful thing known as 're-runs', I'll be able to catch up with The Great Bird of the Galaxy's wonderful vision of the future.

Live long and prosper.

Across Mississauga