Nova and Poppy

Nova and Poppy have been taking lots of walks during the holidays. The picture shows them in the dog park on a cold morning after some snow. 

TV Wall mounted

Dad an I wall mounted the new 37" LCD TV that we got for Christmas. And Tammy moved the sofa table to put the Xbox 360 (also Christmas) and HD Terminal on it. I'm very glad, as the TV on the small table looked terrible, and I was a bit worried that it was not stable enough. Now I've got to find some sort of chord solution to make things look tidy. 

Parliment Hill - Christmas Lights

Mom, Dad and I went to the hill to check out the lights. It was very beautiful, but also quite cold. We've gotten some snow today, so at least it was a little christmassy.

 

More Christmas

Sharron dropped a few chocolates (all of them) on Christmas morning. She was pleased.


Also, a shot of the illuminated tree (very small, artifical and cheap from price club). And a shot of the Christmas booty all strewn around the family room just after opening.
 

New TV and Xbox 360

Photos of the new 37 inch LCD TV and Xbox 360 that Santa brought for Christmas. We're thinking of wall mounting it, so please ignore the hideous table and tv tray setup.
 

Christmas Day

Mom and Dad Anthony and Tammy's sister Sharron joined us for Christmas this year. Here are some photos from Christmas morning and dinner.

Dad has quite the spread.
Here Sharron is outfitting Star with her new cuddly bath robe.
Mom liked her "Grandmother" Willowtree ornament.
Tammy opens a gift as "Santa" distributes gifts from the tree. 

Sanitary demise

Apparently, infants wheeze less in homes with multiple dogs. No, we're not going to get another dog... but it does tend to validate my theory that we're supposed to eat the mud pies... not avoid them.

This anti-bacterial, anti-dust, Purel coated bubble world we're living in is not actually condusive to long term good health.

Eat the dirt my boy, it will put hairs on your chest.

No Battlestar

Grrrr. No Battlestar makes Stephen go something something....

Go Crazy? Don't mind if I do!

Windsor

The Windsor trip went well. Had a good time at the symposium. Photos of Windor are on flickr.

There was not really much to see. It's an industrial town, and the weather was grey and overcast. I took a walk down Dieppe Park by the Detroit River. The park was part of a greening project the city did, and had lots of war memorials, green spaces, and a few things to see. The Detroit skyline is very striking, particularly the GM building.
The water was green and the air was smelly and grey. Perhaps it's because I was just back from the beautiful city of Boston, but Windsor didn't seem to hold any charms for me.

Spiderman 3

Spiderman 3 has a new trailer - It will be comming out May 4th. Mmmmmmm, Spiderman 3.

Back from Boston

I had a nice afternoon strolling a few kilometers around Boston on Monday afternoon. I was in town for a workshop hosted by the Digital Library Federation regarding their Services Framework Working group. I'll probably blog more on that over at Enterprise Abstraction.

Boston is a moden city, but it seems to have managed to keep it's culture. Old combines with new in interesting ways. Modern towers dwarf older, interesting, architecture. There was something new around every corner. The public gardens were particularly beautiful, I think I managed to visit at just about the right time to get the full colours.

I managed to capture over 100 images in about 3 hours, many of which can be seen in my Flickr set. A few samples are posted here.






 

NovaTube

OK. Yes, I've become one of those useless basement take photos of my cat and blog it kinda people. But hey.... that's what web 2.0's all about, no?

Tammy in her - ahem - wisdom, decided to buy Nova some footwear. I don't know why. She just did. Here are the results in full colour video (via YouTube) for your amusement.

• Single bootie
• Two booties
• Test run with all four - Dog N'boots
  
• Slightly more confidence

That was $14.00 well spent.

House off market

It's been going on for too long. We're still looking to sell, but with the baby coming, and lots of other concerns, we decided to delist the house until spring (when hopefully the market will pick up). The lookie-loos coming in to look but not buy were starting to get to us.

So, wait for spring, and in the meantime, we'll get setup for baby.

Upcoming travel

For those tracking my movements (you know who you are -- echelon echelon)... I'll be off to Boston the second week in November, and to Windsor Ontario the week following. They've got me doing the Enterprise Architecture and SOA for libraries meeting circuit. Fortunately, it's a small circuit at the present time.

I don't get to spend much time in Boston unfortunately... it seems a very neat city with lots and lots of things to see.

Raiden X

This is an addictive game: Raiden X.

Nerd Score

I'm not too shocked. :)

Great Find

Well were else should I share this other then the internet! Sisters, Mothers, Friends....I found a very nice shampoo!

Hello Hydration

You should try it, I don't even have conditioner for it, however it feels so great I really can not get over how wonderful my hair feels after I have washed it.... And just before I had bought it at Costco I had switched shampoos so its not just the switching to a new brand that did it, it really is great.

Anti cute-overload

The universe is a funny thing. Symmetry seems to rule, karma if you will, the yin and yang, the light and dark. Finally, the universe has created the opposite of cute overload - a site that features photos of cute saccharine sweet animals.

All hail ugly overload.

Gatineau Park - Autumn

We made a visit to Gatineau Park this weekend -- specifically the Mackenzie King Estate -- to check out the fall colours. I'd never visited the estate before, and it was a good time to visit, since the rest of the park was entirely full. You couldn't get near Pink Lake... it took us 20 minutes to get as far as the welcome center for the park. I guess everyone had the same plan.

It was a beautiful day, and we had a nice walk around the grounds. There's still plenty to see there, so we'll have to go back.





 

Chapman Mills Conservation Area

Some photos of the Chapman Mills Conservation Area where we took a stroll a couple of weeks ago during a house showing. Lots of trees, plants, flowers and berries. It's just south of Ottawa, along the river. The trail is about 1.5 km long.



 

Atomium

The Atomium in Brussels, Belgium has been refurbished into some sort of hotel for kids. The Atomium was built for the 1958 worlds fair, and is meant to represent an atom of iron. I was there many years ago when it was just an interesting aging old worlds fair relic.

Talk like a Pirate Day

Tomorrow (September 19) be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Avast lubbers and mind ye the instructional video.

Yarrrr me hearties.

Bonavista

I finally saw the Nissan X-Trail "Bonavista" commercial that everyone's been talking about. Too funny.

Florence to Hit Newfoundland

Mom! What have you done?

See the CBC story with the funny title... well, funny if you're mom's name is Florence and she's living in Newfoundland.

Ze said it was funny

I must be the last person on Earth to discover Ze Frank. Description: Funny web guy. You've probably seen some of his stuff before, but his site has everything.

His video blog show -- the show -- is quite fun also.

25peeps

Click here to give my peep some extra popularity on 25peeps.com.

25peeps is a site where you put up a small photo (a peep) that leads people to your website. The goal is to keep your peep alive as long as possible.

Homemade Pizza and Blueberry muffin sauce

WEll, I have to post this, Shirley Bertha or Dorothy you will have to read this to mom......I called mom up after arriving back home from a crib-stroler hunt, that exausted me. I told mom how i was just craving to have homemade pizza.....mmmmm so good.... but i was too tired to stop at a store...... Well guess what mom was making ..... homemade pizza..... I then tell her how i stoped at Tim's as I would not have to get out of the car and then I could drive on home.......I ordered blueberry muffins and they were so fresh that they were actually hot..... at that point well I wanted that sauce that mom makes to go over them..... Guess what, Mom was making that too..... what are the odds.... the two things that I was craving Mom was making..... all the way back in New Brunswick....well Nova and I had a little rest and decided to get pizza fixings, and off we went... Nova guarded the car so we could get home with our pizza stuff..... and now we have it home made pizza..... Mmmmmm can't wait it looks so so good!

It just started to rain, I guess the weather man was righ

Last weekend in Pembroke

We took a day trip up the valley to Pembroke last weekend to attend the wedding of Mindy and Paul, one of Tammy's school friends. It was a pleasant 2 hour drive up the valley. We stopped along a river, attended the wedding in a Lutheran church with lovely stain-glass windows, and stopped to eat at a crappy restaurant on the way back at Logosland. Apparently the Logosland resort is the site of some kind of historical somethingorother having to do with Samuel de Champlain (one of his Astrolabes was found there apparently).

The area is beautiful.

Firefox 2 beta 2

Firefox 2 beta 2 is available for download.

Security vs Liberty

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Fall approaches

It's been getting really cool here in the evenings. We can even see that some of the trees are just starting to change colour at work. It will soon be time to take in the tomatos I guess.

Today we had a hummingbird in the back garden, enjoying the flowers of our bean plant. We only got a fleeting look at it as it flitted about.... and it was too quick to depart so no photo.

SMART-1 to Crash the Moon

Dad, ship up my telescope?

Amateur astronomers, grab your telescopes. A spaceship is about to crash into the Moon, and you may be able to see the impact.

The spacecraft: SMART-1, a lunar orbiter belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA).

The impact site: Lacus Excellentiae (The Lake of Excellence), an ancient, 100-mile wide crater in the Moon's southern hemisphere.

The time to watch: Saturday, September 2nd at 10:41 p.m. PDT (Sept. 3rd, 0541 UT).

This would be cool to see. Via - NASA

WE are still alive

This is a required posting, its been so long since the last posting i figured it had to be done. I think I have finally convinced Mom to come and visit me in Feb 2007. Will have to get the plane ticket soon. We are looking forward to December as Mom and Dad Anthony are comming to visit on the 20th of Dec.... the countdown is on! Then they will be back to visit baby early next year..... Its nice to know that family is on the way :)

This is for Shirley

Well Shirley has been crying that there were not all the right pics on the blog, so i think these are what you wanted to seee?