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.

25 Jul 2009

Vancouver Island Vacation

So, the last month or so we have had a few issues with our car... mostly due to our stupidity in not following our regular service and never having taken it in to a dealer..... after owning it for 3 years. Long story short the car cost $1360 to repair and it wasn't money we had. My father stepped in with the dough and I cancelled the first half of my vacation to work and pay him back. Kate and the kids went on without me to Vancouver Island and my parents home. We had planned to spend 8 days there and house sit while my parents were in Edmonton visiting my brother and his family. I hitched a ride over with my parents on their return Wednesday night and spent the last 3 days with everyone in parksville. It was a good visit and I feel refreshed.

Sebatian, my Father and I went to the Qualicum wine shop where my father has wine made for him. I coaxed a grumpy Sebastian out of the car and in to the 'stinky' wine shop. He had a blast in there... We bottled, corked, labeled and sealed my father's new wine; an Austrailian Shiraz. We stocked our own wine rack over this week as well.
Rigby, Sebastian, my Mother and I went to the parksville beach, dug in the sand and the tide pools. At one point we caught a shrimp in our pail. I can't stand them as food and I tell you, they are not appealling live either. The kids liked it and gave it a shell, some sand and a little crab.

The whole family spent the morning on Saturday at Morningstar Farm visiting the animals, Qualicum cheesfactory, Morningstar Creek Winery and more. The wine was fantastic, we bought bottles of Blueberry and Cranberry wine with an order to my parents to pick up some of the Peach wine in the fall. We also walked away with some super cheeses from the Qualicum Cheese works including a brie and hot n spicy concoction.
We also visited the St Marks fair which is my parents church in Qualicum Beach. Held every year it was a pretty large scale event. We had some mini doughnuts and Sebastian and Rigby both built boats from a craft section.
I painted the living room, living room ceiling, dining room, kids room, office and front door as well as some edging in the hallway prior to going over. It was pretty hectic considering I ALSO swapped the kids room with the office and worked.
Now I am going to sort my records from our office as we are moving them out to the player in the living room. Following this are some pictures from the ferry ride home today.




8 Jul 2009

Them there torches




My project manager brought in the two torches he owns from previous games today so we all did a little photo shoot with them.

From Left to Right....

Athens > Salt Lake City and Vancouver

7 Jul 2009

They make science fun!

I stumbled from reading an article about a Soviet attempt to land on the moon in 1969 and listening to the faded sound of men exploring the galaxy when I ended up at...

Just like my 4 year old they have an answer for everything.

Find out how much daytime is on your birthday or build a mouth! There are quite a few entertaining sections, some fun activities and even the ever popular test sections.

They led me back to the University of Manchester's astronomy sections where there is an interesting article from April 2007 (Just catchin' up on my readin') about Star Wars as seen by the hubble telescope. They have an artist's rendition of how this Red Giant feeding to the White Dwarf star (Which Just exploded!) would look. NowI was impressed; don't get me wrong. But. Something was nagging at me about this image, like I'd seen it before. Maybe I already read this? Nope.

It was on Star Trek.
Remember this episode? Where Wesley Crusher passes out and let loose a horde of super intelligent Nanites? And the Enterprise is sent drifting in to the path of that stellar matter! AND Dr Bob Kelso flat out phaserz the computer core?!?

awesome.

All power to the wolf

There was this post on a friends facebook about the Three Wolf Shirt... It was pathetically awesome! Three wolves in front of the moon on a t-shirt. Now I do think wolf shirts are the most pathetic and god-awful creation in t-shirtery... or T-shitery as it were. This whole page though makes up for it... one of my favorites from the comments (Besides the one that talks about the secret government project to paint the heads of regular eagles white to make the rednecks happy) is this one:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of The Wolf is Yours!, June 10, 2009
By Norm D. Plume (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
As I slid the shirt over my head, the first thing I noticed was obviously the comfort. They don't make fine cotton products like this in China. "Take that, Chairman Mao", I thought smugly to myself. As I walked out of my bedroom, she looked me up and down, then right in the eyes.

"What is that garbage?"

"Careful, honey," I replied. "That's pure American Wolf Power you're sneering at. The colors never fade, nor does the spirit of Lobo that dwells within me. This shirt proves it."

She shoved the plate of Pop-Tarts in my hand and walked away in a huff. Chalk up another victory for Old Glory and the American Power of Wolf Power.

Go see the site for yourself and enjoy.

The original 3 Wolf Shirt

I'm back baby

(Say it with a 'Bender Bending Rodriguez' twist)

Oh-K after going through a number of incantations, spells, hocus pocus and template sites I have chosen this new look for the Banablog. Comments are welcome on the look and feel as always and I may or may not stick with it depending on how I feel about it in 24hours or so.

I found this picture online the other day and was immediately suprised to see my old dog Brodie on the net. I had one of those feelings where I just knew this was her and was not able to shake it all day until I compared the Loldog to the archive of pictures I have of her. Yes it was her. I have now sent messages to the poster of the item to find out where the picture came from, if Brodie is still around and where she is living now? Or is she.

Strange where the world leads somedays.

6 Jul 2009

emergency template ditch

My template for blogger corrupted and apparently had a lot of ads through out it. Due to some creepy code by the designer. Jerk.

So until I get a new look... enjoy Simple Paper.