Scotiabank Children's Holiday Party

 Some fun moments from the annual Scotiabank event (Santa Claus, hamming it up, surprise gift). Just like the year before, Aidan didn't like the rides at first but he opened up after we met up with cousin Charlie whose mom also works for the same company.

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Preparing for winter

Sure sign to me that Winter is imminent is that I took the time to change the oil in the snowblower.   Tonight's forecast is 5-8 cm of slush and snow. 

Next week we'll shop for a Christmas tree and if it's not too cold, put up the lights. Why do I always wait until it's finger numbing  cold to do this?

Basement Reno Update

This project is taking alot longer than I expected especially because the space isn't that large and I have to shuffle things around in order to work.  I also spend a lot of time making decisions (maybe too much time), for example how far apart lights should be and what kind of lighting to use. In 2004 I built a single car garage over the summer but I guess that's what happens when priorities change. But it's all good. I have a vision of the end result so that's what I keeps me moving forward.

* Demolition is over. The new drywall is done. Electrical moved,  and new recessed lights are in.

(before)

Walls need to be painted. Flooring needs to be laid and baseboards and trim to follow. Shelves and bookcases are needed but they will be custom built and I can take my time with that.

Tonight Aidan is helping me saw a hole through the last piece of drywall. He says to me "Dad, maybe I should get my own house".  That made my evening :-)

Arggggh - IPOD is down!

My Third Gen. IPOD Nano 8Gb isn't working. 

I plugged it in to sync it to my iMac but I got an error message "You do not have enough access privileges for this operation".  Last week I updated to iTunes 8 as a recommended patch but I didn't sync it right away so I can't be sure that was it. I've had trouble in the past with iTunes upgrades though.

I also dropped it but I this is a solid state device so I don't think the impact would have caused it. It was working fine up until the sync.

Crappy thing is that I started taking the subway today and I was looking forward to drowning out the masses. Right now I'm low level erasing it, "zeroing it out" and hopefully I can reformat and restore it. Arrrgh, what a waste of time.

Car Returned

This afternoon, me and my little Mazda 3 parted ways at Gyro Mazda.  It was a good two years.  She was a very fun car that reliably  shuttled me and Aidan to back and forth from my parents house and work. I will miss the convenience of it but I won't miss the monthly lease and insurance payments. 

When I called my insurance company this afternoon to cancel the coverage, the lady on the other end said I'm gonna save $160 a month. Nice. I can live with the TTC and cold weather.

Yes, I still do have a 1996 Camaro that is quickly becoming a relic. But it still runs and it's a still fun to drive.  Maybe when GM goes bankrupt it'll be a collectors like the Bricklin. Bad example.

A few weeks ago Aidan chose two Red Platys at Pet Smart to repopulate the aquarium.  We had no idea that one of them was about to give birth. I'm sitting on the Kitchen eating dinner and I glance over to the tank and I see what I think are sea monkeys but are really babies.

From what I read, Red Platys like to breed. Maybe they should be called Red Players. Anyways, we have 4 surviving fish fry and they are doing well.

Remembrance Day 2008

Some clips of this day. Queens Park, Toronto.

Easy times

I was flipping past the Deja Vue channel and watched some old episodes of Silver Spoons, Facts of Life and Family Ties. They were great shows back then but I enjoyed them even more now. I suspect that it's because it takes me back to a simpler time in life.

Back then I didn't have to worry about :

• Work
  
• Rushing home to pick up kids an make dinner
  
• Rushing to get kids out and making in to work on time 
  
• Realizing that your RSP's are a lot less what they used to be
  
• Someone else's future
• Keeping a clean house
  
• Endless loads of laundry
  
• World events
  
• Getting fat
  
• Unfinished renovations
  
• Getting enough sleep
  
• Kids getting enough sleep
• Mortgage payments
  
• Insurance
  
• Wills
  
• Diseases
• Personal time...

... The list goes on.   It's a wonder why kids are in so much hurry to grow up. And it's no wonder why we age.

I guess the irony is the that I have no idea about what's on TV these days. The last time I watched a full episode of prime time TV was probably about 3 years ago.

Windows XP update

We'll it works. Here is a shot of Windows XP Professional operating within Mac OS X as an application.  

It sees the network, USB ports and all other devices. Cool.

Next thing to do now is install anti-virus. 

Windows XP

I bought a Mac to get away from Microsoft Windows but sometimes I have no choice but to have to run Widows applications. In particular, software like QuickTax and and Quicken don't have Mac versions (or no longer have them). Also there aren't any great alternatives out there. This I find strange considering the increasing number of iMacs purchased year over year. 

So keeping with the idea of a single home computer, I will be installing Windows XP to run along side the Mac OS. There are several options, Boot Camp, Parallels or VMWare Fusion. I opted for VMWare because I prefer not to run Windows natively to prevent catastrophic Windows viruses from wiping out my Mac. It's safer to run it from a virtual machine within the Mac OS, keeping filesystems from taking to each other. It also has a number of technical advantages over it's competitor Parallels.

So far, the install of VMWare and Windows XP Professional is running smoothly, check out the screen shot of the install running within Mac OSX. Crossing my finger that it all works.