Well, I hate to disappoint so this post will be no different.

Our summer here in Atlantic Canada has been a pretty shitty one so far. Through to the end of July it’s been mostly miserable, wet, and unseasonably cool. To make the weather even more unbearable, the nice days we did have were coincidental to days that our son had to work. So our weeks consisted of a sentence of rain, drizzle and fog punctuated with a lot of complaining from our offspring. Then August came. The first week was a little cool, but since then someone turned up the furnace. It’s been hot as a one night stand for two solid weeks now, and it hasn’t been a dry heat either. As everyone knows, it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity. I was stupid enough to think we could get by without installing our air conditioners. It was fine for a while, but now… boy oh boy. Now I’m saying it’s not reasonable to put them up if we are starting vacation in a week or so anyway.

Speaking of segues, our vacation is a little late this year. We normally go during the first two weeks of August. But this year we are going during the first two weeks of September because our son is off to Memorial University in St. John’s. So we postponed our vacation by a month to bring him off to the gates of adulthood and help ready him for a year without dear old Mom and Dad.

The funny thing about segues is that Jody over at SteelWhiteTable.org also took his vacation in Newfoundland this year. While he was there he came across a souvenir that reminded him of me. Check out the hat in the picture… “Oh Me Nerves!” I don’t get it, but you never know what triggers an associational thought. I’m grateful Jody. Believe it or not, I don’t already have one, but I do have a couple of coffee mugs with that phrase on it and I have another friend that went to Newfoundland and bought a T-Shirt (for herself! Thanks Chrissy!) with that same phrase on it.

Our next-door neighbours moved out after nine years of putting up with sharing a wall with us. They decided that they would move all the way across town and change their phone number, names, and license plate. When they settled in, they immediately went on vacation at the opposite end of the country. I’m doing my best not to take it personally, although I have invested in Costco quantities of deodorant and breath mints just in case.

I played in a pool league this summer too. Played very well, my best season ever. We are in the midst of playoffs now… we’ll see if I manage to fall short of the championship (again).

Besides all that, we’ve spent a fair amount of time riding our four-wheelers, sitting on our asses, walking, eating like seagulls, dieting and generally being pissed off with enjoying each other’s company.

Now, as I look at the calendar, I can see that we have eight more sleeps before we leave to make the 2000 kilometer journey to our home town and the place where we will say “so long” to our son as he starts his own journey through the ranks of higher education and, hopefully, a full and prosperous life. Eight more sleeps.

The alphabet theme was such a good idea, I think I’ll try it. I won’t steal their idea directly though… I’ll start with Z and work my way backwards down to A. Stay tuned during the month of April (shit, if I started with A then April Fool’s Day could have been my first post!)

I started blogging on August 21, 2005. I guess you could call that a milestone of sorts. So, to celebrate, I`ve adjusted the look and feel of the site. I`ve also added a Random Post feature in the sidebar so you can painfully re-live the past!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

I’m terrible for laying stuff down and forgetting it. I can’t begin to tell you how often I’ve left the house only to remember I’d left the shopping list on the table because I’d laid it down to put on my shoes. Then when I go back in, I come back out with my list, but don’t have my keys. Couple this absentmindedness with a tendency to allow clutter to build up and you’ve got a recipe for never, ever finding a damn thing ever, at least not when you need it. On top of that, I’ve developed an ability to sometimes remember where in the clutter a specific utensil or tool is. So, when I do clean up and subsequently need that thing-a-ma-jiggy, it’s gone. Oh, shit. Where did I put that thing?

Last weekend, I decided to clean out my shed. I have a 10 by 16 shed in my backyard, but I could only reasonably use about 6 square feet of it. I literally could not step inside the door. After about 6 hours, I could actually see enough of the floor to know it needed sweeping! And, I only threw out three garbage bags of junk.

Nice. Neat. Organized.

Will I ever find anything ever again? I doubt it.

My place was no exception. While the damage around my house wasn’t major, it was still a little more intense than it usually is. Check out the slideshow below for a taste of my springtime woes.

That’s what’s in store for me to repair, aside from all the normal maintenance, spring cleaning and creative projects in the queue for this year.

Is it the same thing all around? What did winter do to your home this year?

You’d freak out. Right?

Well, this morning, 239 poor schmucks did exactly that. They checked their numbers and thought they won the second prize in Canada’s 6-49 lottery last night. This prize is normally about $130,000. But there are normally only about 2 winners, not two hundred and thirty nine winners. Because of the shared prize pool, these unfortunate fortunates will receive just under $1200 each. To add insult to injury, the folks who matched five numbers without the bonus number (third prize) will receive roughly $2200 each.

You’d freak out. Right?

Man. What a roller coaster ride that must be. You expect to walk away with at least a hundred grand, tax free, and end up getting only twelve hundred? How could that happen. Well, the winning numbers were 23, 40, 41, 42, 44, and 45, bonus number 43. It looks to me like a whole bunch of people hand-picked 40 through 45 as their numbers. Not a good idea, and last night’s draw proves it. Chances are, there are many others doing exactly the same thing. Can you imagine if the “23″ and the bonus number were switched? I did the math… the top prize would only have been around $16,000. Hardly life changing.

So, when picking numbers, avoid patterns or this could be you. This has been a public service announcement, brought to you by the makers of OhMeNerves.com

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, really. Lots of extra work, helping friends with computer repairs (and ultimately a computer purchase), readying my son for a class trip to Europe, vehicle repairs and maintenance, and snowstorms, snowstorms, freakin’ snowstorms.

Today, March 1, we are getting beaten yet again with another storm. Here’s hoping that the old adage is true. If March comes in like a lion, perhaps it does indeed foreshadow a meek exit of this, the longest of the winter months, in my opinion. By now, I’m usually pretty sick of snowflakes and am yearning for the thaw, the tulips, and the leaves. Not wishing my time away, but C’MON April!

But for now, I am looking forward to a morning date with a snowblower and an afternoon trip to see our son off on his adventure in Europe. In other words, a full day’s worth of reasons to cry. Oh, and after that, perhaps a few games of pool with my buddy Paul. I’m hoping he has reasons to cry after that!

This year, I have decided to make evolutions, not resolutions. I resolve to evolve my life. I’ll make an ambitious list, but I will promise myself to take deliberate steps toward achieving them in the long term. That way, I will not have failed when I give in to temptation, or when I forget to remember my list. I will simply steer back toward the end goal, constantly adjusting my heading like navigating a boat that is influenced by the tides, the currents, the waves and the weather.

I will share my list with the world now. Keep in mind that some of the items on my list are really tasks… big, ugly “to-do” things that have been haunting me for months or years. So…. here goes nothing:

• Health: I’m currently at my highest weight ever. 230+ pounds to be vaguely precise. While the weight/height ratio charts that I have seen indicate my ideal weight to be 175 pounds, my personal goal is to break 200. I’ll do that by actually making use of the elliptical trainer that I bought 8 months ago. I’ll watch what I eat. I’ll eat more healthy foods and less fatty, sugary things. Starting Monday.
• Procrastination: I’m always putting things off. I’ve been meaning to start an exercise/diet for months now and I keep saying I’ll start on Monday, but Monday never comes. I’ll force myself not to procrastinate. Starting Monday.
• Clutter: One of the things that drives me totally crazy is clutter. I’m also the most guilty cause of this around my house. My shed, my workshop (storage room), and my desk are all VERY good examples of areas of the homestead totally under my control that are also totally out of control. This year, I vow to take steps to clean them up. I’ll throw stuff away that I forgot I had. I’ll find a place for everything and keep everything in its place. Starting Monday or Tuesday.
• Scanning photos: This is another of those big ugly to-do items I mentioned. I’ve got all of my parents’ old photo albums and all of my wife’s old photo albums that I’ve been meaning to scan, digitally enhance, organize and catalog. This has been a pet project for a couple of years and I have made some progress in spurts. Once I get that procrastination thing under control, I’ll attack this one. Starting Wednesday.
• Learning to play guitar: A few years ago, we bought our son an electric guitar for Christmas. At the same time, I got an acoustic guitar. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be able to strum a few chords, howling out an off-key tune, sitting in front of a fire on summer’s eve. So far, I’ve been able to accomplish the off-key tune, the howling, and sitting by a fire-barrel on a summer’s eve, but my past intentions of learning to play the guitar fell victim to my procrastination addiction. So, starting next week, I’ll dust off the “Learn to Play Guitar” CD’s I purchased, and finally learn how to strum a tune. Hmmm… maybe I’ll start the week after that.
• Speaking of CD’s I’ve purchased, I also bought a bunch of “Learn How to Speak French” CD’s that are sitting amongst the clutter somewhere in the house. When I find them (once I defeat my procrastination addiction and my clutter affliction), I’ll start learning how to parlez francais, eh. Non?

January 8th may seem a little late to publish a post about New Years resolutions, but I kept putting it off. I’ll have to stop doing that, starting Monday.