by steelie -

In the last/next little while…

In the last little while I’ve been laying pretty low… been good but been tired.

—-
Little X was teething a couple of week ago… and as a result wasn’t feeling the greatest… and as a result wasn’t sleeping well… and as a result we weren’t sleeping well. He’s been sleeping in our room since he was born and we were planning to keep him in our room with us until he was 18 months — like we did with his older brother — unfortunately, his older brother was the only one sleeping well (fortunate for him, not so much for the rest of us).
And so, we opted to bump Little X’s moving date by a month with the hopes that him not seeing us when he wakes, thus expecting us to pick him up every time, will allow him to learn to fall back asleep on his own. It has been almost two weeks since he’s moved over and things have been much better. He still wakes up throughout the night but is able to soothe himself back to sleep half the time. :^D
—-
In other news, I ordered some Parkour specific shoes from California a while ago and they finally came in. There the Freerunner model made by FiveTen. Here’s their description of the shoe:

Remember the opening scene of the movie, Casino Royale? When James Bond chases a bad guy through a construction site, with leaps and tumbles to rival Spiderman? Well, that’s Free-running. We’ve designed a shoe that will help with Wall Runs, Tic-Tacs and Precisions. The non-marking Stealth® Phantom soles and tri-density EVA cushioning helps Freerunners gain the confidence they need to push their limits.


I was talking to one of the guys in their shop who does Parkour — actually, the only guy in their shop who does Parkour — and he was telling me that got to help them design it. His big thing was that he wanted a shoe that someone could wear everyday and slip into Parkour-mode at the drop of a hat. I’m wearing them as I write this and they are more comfortable to wear as normal shoe than my running shoes. I like them. A lot!

—-
Last weekend was my wife’s birthday. It was the first of her birthdays in a while that we actually had enough money, to buy gifts and go out for Birthday Breakfast at Cora’s — our favourite. I wanted this one to be special for her. Alas, she was hit with a bout of strept-throat which pretty much knocked her on her butt, which un/fortunately forced us to stay in all weekend. My wife had to sleep to get better but the time did all spend together was nice and relaxing.
I got her the Apple iPod Radio Remote which allows her to leave her iPod in her backpack and still have control over her play list. It also acts as an FM tuner and now she can listen to CBC radio on her iPod too. The boys each got her a Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of Amelie) movie. She loved everything. We also bought my wife an ice-cream cake. She loves them but usually skips them because I’m lactose-intolerant. The added bonus to this cake was the extra soothing effects the ice cream had on her sore throat.
The City of Lost Children
The City of Lost Children

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Next week is my first soccer match in almost two years… I am excited and frightened. I am in the worst shape of my life and am carrying around an extra ten pounds I didn’t have last year. Ugh. Oh well, I have to  get back into shape somehow. Might as well be playing soccer.
—-
Until next time.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

Will I shave my head again?

Sooo… a series if pictures were taken at both of my son’s birthday parties this past month and one of them caught me bending over (head towards the camera) helping Baby “X” open one of his gifts. And what exactly did this loving act of fathering reveal? That my hair is thinning.

That’s just… huh… wow… I mean…wow… um… just… yeah… super.

And now I find my self wondering… How long until I have a bona fide bald spot? How long do you grow/style your hair to conceal it? What will I do with my hair once it’s obvious? Will I go into some form of Trump-comb-over denial?

Ugh.

I had a feeling it was happening. And the flash from the camera reflecting slightly off my head through my thinning hair was the clincher.

I guess I should keep my eyes open for some funky hats in the near future… or perhaps I’ll just end up shaving my head again.

*sign*
—
steelie

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by steelie -

I’m not a bad father… just a bit tardy…

Almost two weeks ago I had my Dad-iversary. Yup, my amazing little “big boy”, Little “L”, just turned three years old. I meant to post about it then but after the the toddler party ran ramped through our house, it was my in-laws last evening visiting after two-week so, we all spent a quiet evening together.

Today seemed to be an appropriate day to go back and post about it because… well, my baby boy, Baby “X”, just turned one today. He’s so wonderful. He’s so cute.

I’m kinda sad-ish that we are not going to have any more babies in the house. However, I’m excited that we can now switch focus from starting up a family, to growing as a family. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone who might read this but I know it’s just going to keep getting better from here.

Daddy love you guys sooo much.
—
Dad (steelie)

X & L
X & L

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by steelie -

Three doors down…

Ok… So this marks the first time I’ve written started an entry on my Palm (an old one) on the way to work (I take the public transit ferry). I was going to wait but I wanted to start this post right away…

We had a “Happy Belated Birthday” party for Little “L” yesterday. It went really well… Probably 25 people total, including adults and kids. Little “L” got all kinds of cool stuff and he seemed to have a really great time… Family, friends, food, presents, fun. Yeah, it was a good time. Hectic. But good.

So, around seven o’clock (or at least I think it was seven o’clock… maybe a bit earlier) the last wave of our guests had left for the comforts of their homes, full bellies and tottlers in tow. At this point we had a lot of clean-up to do… there was wrapping paper and gift bags all over the place. Baby “X” was a tad “emotional” from the event. He’s pretty sensitive to (over-) stimulation but did way better than we expected… we think all of the noise and yelling had eventually became a “white-noise” blanket because he fell asleep for most of the time. Thanks, little guy… but now it was time for bed.

Eventually, “T” got Baby “X” settle down, asleep, and came downstairs to where Little “X” (still a bit hopped-up on sugar) and I, were playing with some new trains he got as gifts. All was well and quiet… which was nice because peace and quiet seems rare these days…

Then we hear a loud noise outside… “T” and I looked at each other… I said, “Sound like something got hit [by a car or something] or like a [full] moving truck hit a bump.” “T” thought it sounded more like a car pulling a trailer with a bunch of loose “stuff” in it had hit a bump… either way, I got up and looked out of the window, as far as I could see in either direction, but could see nothing. I just assumed it was that noisy trailer… “T” decided to go outside and look…

A mini-van had plowed into the front of the house four doors down.

Little “L” was still awake so I went out just onto my front porch with him. We could only see a part of the van from where we stood. We were only out for a short while because it was pretty cold and I decided I didn’t want Little “L” too get to distracted and wound-up before bed. So, we went back inside to play with his trains and the police cruisers started to arrive.

After about an hour, it was Little “L’s” turn to be off to bed… we let him stay up a bit later for his belated Big Day… All was calm and quiet inside the house… Curiosity got the better of me. I had to take some garbage out anyway, so to go down a few houses and get the scoop was no real extra effort. My across-the-street-neighbours were among the first on the scene and actually helped get the driver out of the van so they seemed to be the best ones to get the story from…

The driver was INTOXICATED (upper-case as in VERY). He came zooming by our house and crashed into / along-the-side-of the car in front of the house immediately to the right of ours, which had caused the driver’s van to veer off to the right but slowing it very little. From here, the van drove through the front steps of and crashed into the front porch of house four doors down.

Nobody was injured… other than the driver who reportedly hit his head on the windshield (there was a crack in the glass) but seemed — health-wise — no worse for wear. The woman who lived at the “drive-in” house (a man and two children also lived there) was sitting by the window right next to where the van impacted. The base of the front porch was shifted a foot to a foot-and-a-half, skewing the structure. Apparently the plaster walls inside have cracks all the way up to the roof. A local radio station  reported that there was $5,000 worth of damage done to the house… that estimate seems low… not from what I could see from the outside, more from the fact that I’m pretty sure that the house is from the same era mine is (1917) and that the internal damage is probably way worse.

The driver of the van didn’t have any vehicle insurance… I’ll let you know how that plays out.

This whole thing seems eery to me… selfishly speaking, if this catastrophe had to happen at all, the timing couldn’t be better… an hour earlier, this driver and his “deadly” van would have struck (and likely killed) numerous children between the ages of six months and 2 1/2 years, and their parents, who had all left Little “L’s” party at the same time.

Part of me feels like crying.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

I turned thirty years old today (AKA Birthday Rant)…

<rant>
As the title says… today, I turned thirty years old… and I’m actually very excited about it.

I’ve been very lucky in my life — luckier than many, I continue to discover… I come from a great family that has never been well-off but has always been supportive of everything I do and dream. I have a decent job that has afforded my family a house and car — the house is old and needs work and the car is used but I have a home and a means to get from there to most places I need to. I am in overall excellent health, and today, I have been granted the privilege of making it to my thirtieth birthday, still breathing with blood pumping strong.

I wanted to emphasize the word “privilege” because I feel that this is exactly what being alive is… a privilege.

I have heard/observed a number of people in the last little while complaining about life and how it sucks and how getting old sucks and how “thirty” is a good time to “check-out” because thirty is old and remember getting old sucks and blah fuckin’ blah blah…

Yeah… I’m a bit irritated by this type of talk… I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and I rarely force my opinion, thoughts or beliefs on anyone semicolon however comma “it’s my party and I’ll rant if I want to”.

There are so many people that die everyday, way before what seems like should be “their time”. Whether it be from terminal illness, war, unfortunate accidents or any number of other things their privileged life was taken from them. Again, I say privileged because at any given point someone who decides that they are having an especially shitty day/life could choose to end yours. The almighty Cancer could pay you a visit and make your last days miserable for you and your family. Someone could drop their coffee in their lap and react by jerking the steering wheel and redirecting their vehicle into a head-on with yours. I could go on but I’m starting to depress myself…

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live more than one hundred years… Over ten years ago I was having severe chest pains and doctors found a spot on my lung… I thought I would never make it to twenty, let alone thirty. Forget three-digits. Turns out it was nothing. I’m fine. And you know what? Until I got the news that I was fine, not once did I think, “Oh, thank God… I was afraid I was going to have to endure ‘thirty’. Man that would have sucked!” And I’m willing to bet that if you got hit by a car on the eve of your thirtieth birthday and the doctors told you that there was nothing they could do for you, you’d smirk and breathe that sigh of relief, “Whew! Thanks Docs. That was cutting it close, wasn’t it.”

I realize that there are people in the world who are so much worse-off than I am that I’m not going to pretend to be able to fathom an inkling of what their personal hell lives must be like. I am quite sure that many victims of war, grave sickness, abuse, poverty, etc… might whole-heartedly disagree with me but this is partially my point… The life you have right now is a privilege and any one of a number of people/illnesses/things can take it from you in a heartbeat.

SOOO… the next time you get all angsty about your life and getting old, take a good long hard look at the cards you’ve been dealt… and if you really want to complain about turning thirty or getting old, go to the palliative care wing of your local childrens’ hospital and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to trade spaces with you to have the chance to live to see their tenth birthday. Or even go to your local senior citizens' home and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to add a few more years to see the birth of their first great-grandchild.

Fuckin’ live, dammit!
Keep breathing and live.
</rant>
—
steelie

PS: Thanks to Julé, Jared and Jen for the warm birthday wishes. Thirty is awesome.

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by steelie -

Passive Activist…

Timothys_logo
Timothys_logo

So, at work we have a social event coming up commemorating a former coworker’s retirement and I’m doing my little bit by helping out with certain decorations and ordering the coffee from a local vendor… So far I haven’t had a chance to start designing any on the decorations yet. I did, however, manage to get down to Timothy’s coffee shop to place the order for the coffee…

Now, I used to go to this place every day — EVERY DAY — but stopped going recently because the daily coffee/tea plus treat I was getting ended up costing upwards of $45 a month… some months more than that I’m sure. I know that $45 is not much but when trying to cut down on spending to manage other monthly bills it actually works out to be a whole heck of a lot… try over $500 a year!

Either way, that was a bit of a pseudo-digression… the point of which was to say that it has been a while since I’ve been down for my “usual”. So when I went down today (with a co-worker), I was a bit surprised to see that I didn’t recognize any of the staff… I knew that school had started back up and I knew that some changes were happening so I didn’t think that much of it at first. I proceeded to order the coffee (four urns: 2 regular, two decaf) from a gentleman who was apparently the new owner. I off-handedly mentioned that I didn’t recognize any of the staff — kinda wondering about the back-to-school theory — and he indicated that none of the old staff was left.

As I finished up the order and started walking back to work, I thought to myself that this really sucks because I’d gotten to know a few of the workers really well…

Please keep in mind that I am quite sleep deprived so it takes a while for certain this to sink in…

The co-worker I had gone down with mentioned that the new owner was going to force all of the old employees to re-interview for their positions and impose a pay cut to those who continued to work there. Needles to say, the employees were… well… how can we say this… pretty fuckin’ livid. So on the first day the new owner was supposed to take over none of them showed up. Not a single one. This of course left Mr. New Guy in a pickle… he had to shut down the shop and hire a whole new staff.

Wait a second…

Things start to sink in…

I just ordered coffee from this guy after he treated these people — some of whom I had grown quite attached to — like crap!? Now I’m not to happy with myself… I get back to wortk and explain what happened to a couple of other co-workers, Mr. Miko and Julé. Mr. Miko said that I should cancel the order…

I wish I had thought of that…

So, I hop on board and decide that this is exactly what I’m going to do… march right back down to Timothy’s and cancel the order and inform Mr. Latte that we have placed an order with someone else. Mr Miko was quick to point out that while was all-fine-and-dandy (my words not his), this will not let Mr. half-caf know that we don’t approve of his business practices — which is of course the real reason for cancelling the coffee order — and that today, he (Mr. Miko) was a bit of a self-proclaimed “crank” and perfectly in the mood to let Mr. no-foam-with-a-dash-of-cinnamon know why we were cancelling the order.

[sigh] I’m not built to be confrontational…

And so he did… Mr. Miko marched down to Timithy’s and cancelled the order that I should have cancelled… said his piece, which should have been mine to say… and earned my appreciation and admiration, which should have been a quiet proud moment I shared with myself…

[double-sigh]

I could promise myself that next time I’ll do it but I never make a promise that I can’t keep… so I didn’t. I turn thirty on Saturday… that should be grown up enough… to bad I always feel like a terrified kid in situations like this…

I wonder if I ask for a backbone for my Birthday if it would arrive by Saturday…

How would you wrap that?
—
steelie

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