Before you read what I write. Read who I am.

Originally from Alberta and in the last number of years having been living in Vancouver, British Columbia. We are now living in Woolwich, London where we inhabit a wonderful little 2 floor flat in the Royal Arsenal. The family has grown over the years from being just my wife and I to the family of four we are now. My work has brought us to London for the next two years where for the first time in ages we will live in the same house for more than a birthday. The experience is written below from then till now. With a view of the Thames from our windows and boat ride to work the new life begins.

13 Mar 2007

Just an additive.

Realistically it all boils down to sharing.

It is all about not segregating duties and sharing them instead. I did some laundry the other day, and it made me feel much much better about Kate doing laundry a few days later. She really just picked up where I had to leave off. I did some dishes, she had put some away. I had cleaned a diaper but not yet rinsed it and she rinsed it for me. She made dinner and I put toys away. I had never really seen life like this happening before my eyes… I just realized that as long as we are both helping out in whatever way we can the house runs smoothly and it’s clean.

Overall I want us to have a great place to live in and I would love it if we didn’t even have to think about the way its upkeep happens… if we just went about our days doing all the things we do and in the end of things the house was back together it would be perfect. Although, perfect never happens so we’ll have to just keep on trying.

Work work work…. What can I say about work that hasn’t been said?

Well, my MAC work has been heating up… the guys are piling on more and more issues and I am battling them the best I can. I think I am going to have to devote an hour or so a day to doing reading on the MAC forums and such so I can stay abreast of some of the more common issues. Also so I can learn the fixes of old issues… like I know now with XP and such. Really this is pretty tough… learning a whole new operating system, a whole new hardware system and on top of that learning all the tips, tricks and roundabouts on how to do things both competently and with ease.

I know that both will come with time but my main issue is that work expects me to take care of these problems ready or not.

I put together a quality email today that explained how I am going ahead with server maintenance on the Apple Audio server we have regardless of how much I know because it needs to be fixed. The issues need to be addressed and if I am not going to dive in headfirst and start to figure out the problems then who is? WHO I ask you, who?! No one. That’s who.

So sink or swim it’s up to me, I enlisted the help of one of our infrastructure guys and he is going to test some of the network issues and try to help out on the back end of things. I’m really glad, this is a big deal for the audio guys and I. Fingers Crossed here.

So I guess we’ll see where that ends up. On Friday and I take over my new luxury condo cube by the window and with the couch. YAY. Looking forward to that for sure. New Guy comes in to work a week Monday and I am excited about him being down here. He’s a great guy and I think that we will help each other out a lot.

Our Moving:

Well we are working towards a new place…. I am looking at a nice little house in a great spot for us… We view it on Sunday and with luck we can rent it out and move in ASAP (y’know, providing it’s not a hole) Fenced yard, 800sq feet, with 2 bdrms, kitchen, dinning room and living room. So with luck it’ll be nice and they’ll like us enough to hold it for a little while. Not likely in the market I live in but it’s worth a shot. Who knows maybe I can sell all my records and turntables, make $2500 and we’ll rent both places for a month. We’ve done it before that’s for sure. So again, fingers crossed here.

7 Mar 2007

Ongoing - ongoes

Here I am writing an entry on my new Macbook on the train today, I have a lot on my mind. Helping out at home more, looking after my pregnant wife, taking care of my customers at work and keeping the peace between two guys I work with long enough to get something done.


Home life is troublesome lately. It’s not that Kate and I aren’t getting along, and it’s not that we are fighting a lot. It’s just the thing we fight over. I say thing because it seems to be a constant issue. It’s me. My amount of help around the house and the lack of stuff I do to make it a better place to live in. How I don’t take the same initiatives to do things around there that I did when Kate was pregnant with Sebastian and how I am lacking on the duties that I regularly take care of (eg: Dishes). Now while I protest any attack on me and dishes, since I am almost always consistent about doing them and although I let it slide on the weekends I rarely ever forget or don’t have time to do them in the morning. When I do miss them however it’s the end of the world.

I can’t really argue this point though. I know in my heart of hearts that I am wronging Kate in the way I treat our house. I never feel at home in apartments, I think that has a small something to do with it. It seems that when we are in a house of our own I am dynamite dan around the place but when we get in to an apartment I am mopey and lagging on the duties of Dad and Husband.

I sat down and had an indepth conversation with myself on the train on the way to work today and decided that I am going to take new initiatives to make a better life for myself and for Kate. I will try to do this consistently instead of just a few days worth and then lagging out again. I made myself a sheet that I am still working on to outline what I need to do and when I am going to do it. I won’t let time get in my way because I am setting aside certain sections of the day just to do these things. Like doing dishes between 7 and 8, making my lunch for the next day between 8 and 9 and so on. I really hope this helps me because I loathe daytimers and have a very hard time sticking to a schedule of events that isn’t when I begin and end work.

We’ll see though…. One of the things I am going to do is use this laptop to track my activities and the things I did both during the day and the nights before hand. I hope that this constant tool (that I also consider pretty cool to be using here at the back of the train) will help out significantly. We’ll see.

Now that I've posted it.... I've made food for the next few days for lunch so I do not spend money... is that a start?