Movember

It is November and it has been deemed internationally that men are allowed to grow moustaches without the mean, base comments and wives/girlfriends are not allowed to tell you to shave it off.

Ahhh, Movember.  I missed it last year.  El Matador Gigante and I were at Stella's one afternoon partaking in some nourishment and we noticed the oddest thing.  There were a heck of a lot of men walking around with moustaches...  At first we were puzzled, at times impressed, with the aplomb that some of the men were carrying their moustaches around - some of them looked good, the bartender at Stella's had a pretty sweet one.  We later realized it was November and the moustaches were the pink ribbons to bring awareness to prostate cancer.

Our ladies are probably more concerned about the prostate cancer than us - we're mostly happy that we can legitimately grow moustaches...no matter how pathetic or creepy looking they are!  This is why I do it - to keep the ladies happy that I am taking care of my health!

Check me out at http://ca.movember.com/mospace/903760/ and if you feel inclined to give me a donation that would be awesome - should be tax deductible.

To my male friends out there, let's grow out the moustaches.  If you need a donation to legitimize it, I'm willing to throw some money your way to get those naysayers off your back!!  I appreciate El Matador Gigante's donation to my cause (Movember-wise and mortgage-wise..) - Jenn appreciates it too!

Friends: 99% of you can grow a moustache that kicks mine's ass!  No excuses such as "But it's when I'm allowed to grow my winter beard! (waa waa waa)" (please use a whiny voice when you are reading that last bit - if you didn't go read it again).  At the end of November I'm sure Dug will make a composite group picture of us all together with our fine fine 'staches (he has a lot of time on his hands).

Canada Day & July 4th

We had Janet, Afra & El Matador Gigante over for dinner on Canada Day.  El M. Gigante had the idea to have seared ahi tuna.  So we bought some big yellowfin tuna steaks, encrusted them with Montreal steak spice and threw them on a very hot BBQ.  Unfortunately our goal of a rare tuna steak was not achieved as we followed the instructions we read on various recipes instead of trusting what we saw.  Oh well, there's always next time (mind you, ahi tuna is quite expensive...).  Either way, we had mostly medium-rare to medium steaks and they were fantastic.  We are looking forward to the next time when they will be rare...Mmmmmm.

After dinner we walked down to the beach to go see the fireworks.  The town of White Rock was firing them off of the pier or close by over Semiahmoo Bay.  We did not go to the pier but down a set of stairs that are about 2 blocks away from our place.  We wandered a little ways down the beach (distancing ourselves from the teens) and found a nice driftwood log to watch the fireworks.  The fireworks went on for quite a long time, but they weren't very well timed.  It was pretty much one firework at a time with a few fired at once for the finale, which didn't last long.  They could have shortened the length of the show to have created a greater spectacle as opposed to drawn out one.  It ended up that we were quite a distance away since the light-sound difference was quite large.

White Rock is right on the border and we can see Blaine, WA across the Bay. (Michael and I went to Blaine to pick up a trailer for him and that took 15 mins, not including the border wait)  Blaine also has the fireworks over the Bay so I think I'll wander down to the beach and take a look those.  Jenn says that the people have said they are better than the White Rock fireworks.  I'm not sure if Gigante will come over as it is on Sunday and he works the next day - it would make it a late night for him.

New Year's

This is the first New Year's eve that I remember from most recent times that I haven't skiied out to a hut/cabin to celebrate the new year (aside from when I was in Thunder Bay last year).  Seems like the usual suspects were spread out.

Not that we didn't have fun though!  Jenn and I went to see D.S. & N.K. and stayed with them for a few days at their new home in Whistler (D.S. = yuppie).  We dropped some coin and went skiing a couple of days, had fun - Whistler/Blackcomb are huge together and quite big on their own rights.  Jenn and I took the Peak-to-Peak at the end of the day with DS to experience the gondola and to ski down.  It was Jenn's first time and we were enshrouded in clouds, so she couldn't really see how high up we were.  Good stuff - hard to imagine that it is really only has two supports throughout the entire thing, not counting the ends.

We were later met up with El Matador Gigante & Zhan-ay as well as BG and the 'fra who made it for New Year's Eve.  Good times.  Had some sparkling wine, saw a pathetic firework display, a lot of walking in the snow, drank crazy BG drinks, a little Wii, lots of snowballs (mostly by BG, but us other boys kept up), DS pizza and breakfast, BG flambe (almost burnt down the new townhouse) & oysters...

Thanks to DS and especially NK who had to put up with us all the while still having to get up early to go to work on the hill.  And they gave up their bed!  Much appreciated!!

Oi - first day of work was rough...

Post Moving Day...

Well, we have moved to White Rock on the 23rd.  Burnaby is no longer our home and we have opted for a more traditional ocean-side villa as well as eliminating the need to cross any bridges to get to work.

With Herculean efforts from my parents as well as good Ole Faithful, El Matador Gigante and his big muscles and over-worked brain, we got most of it moved in one day.  It was my first time driving a 5-ton truck.  At first, when I saw the truck I thought that it was WAY to large.  When the lady at the rental place showed it to me I gaped - then when she showed me the cavernous cargo hold I thought for sure that all of our stuff was not going to fit even HALF of it - turns out...  The truck was a beast to drive; it was  5 - ton truck, 16 or 24 feet long.  With all of our stuff and some poor packing in anticipation of all of the space, it filled the truck and we had to put a few of our bikes in the RAV4.  It was a long day of moving.


Today, we took a break from moving a went for a walk.  I wanted to explore a new area so we went to a park that was on Google maps.  It had some stairs that went down to the beach through a ravine (not so much a ravine, but it was pretty steep, I guess).  It was a good reaffirmation of our decision to move down here.  We can't wait until summer and when El Matador Gigante comes down and we can have some mad wrestling matches.

Walking down the beach - we found some sand at low tide!

Jenn and my mom walking on the train tracks.

My Dad noticed this event etched in sand - a clam meeting it's demise at the hands of a seagull or two...

I'm too lazy to flip this around - tilt your head! Sunset.

Sittin' on a Patio

It didn't occur to me that we were sitting on a patio tonight at a restaurant while people in Calgary were told to stay at home unless they had to leave.  Then Marco Polo posted some documentation of the current blizzard events in Lethbridge...

Not only were we sitting on a patio, but we further deluded ourselves by going to a Jamaican restaurant:

Of course, Lethbridge will soon see balmy temperatures if history has anything to say about it - and everyone will be wandering about in their shorts and T-shirts...

Halloween (Halloween??)

I've been meaning to post about our adventures to a Haunted House that we went to just before Halloween.  Crazily enough, it was at a private house on Dunbar Street.  I had no idea what to expect but "El Matador Gigante" had heard that it was quite frightening.  It was a very rainy night - not drizzling but coming down pretty hard.  When we got there, the line wound around the block, half way down the other side.  People were standing there, many without umbrellas.  So, we figured that it must be good and decided that we would brave the line (we live in Vancouver, that's just the way it is...).  Hopefully we weren't just waiting to get to something that wasn't worth it (like when Bart & Lisa joined a queue at an amusement park thinking that it must have been something good because it was a huge line up - it ended up being a line up for the complaint department...)

We waited for an hour or so.  I thought that we would have to pay but it ended up being a donation.  It was really good.  I don't scare easily, but when we entered the clown room, well, there's nothing scarier than clowns...

The images above were from http://www.dunbarhauntedhouse.com

They had live actors dressed up in some really good costumes and masks.  The one guy who came by had an awesome mask, taller than ST or I and deep, booming voice - he was just there to tell us that it would only take an hour to get through the line!  The scarier Line-Visitor was a short little clown that would not say anything and just stand in front of you with some sort of weapon, I can't remember what it was.  Apparently this year they raised $42,300 for the three charities they donate to.

Check it out: Dunbar Haunted House, 2008 Gallery

More news to come, need to keep up with Marko Polo...

Apple Picking

We went to Abbotsford Sunday to go pick some apples.  Unlike the Okanagan Valley though, we did not find "U-pick kittens"...

It was a beautiful day at the Willow View Farm, it made for a lovely afternoon.

There were many varieties of apples, many I had not heard of before.  They were $0.60/pound, which apparently is a good price (shows how much I buy apples/pay attention to prices...).  All of the askew posts marked the name of the apples that were in that row.  If you click on the pictures above for a larger view you should be able to see the names and the apples on the trees.  It is clearer in the picture below:

Apparently you are allowed to graze, "to test out how the apples taste" apparently (so says SDT).  I never did see that written anywhere, mind you, there are only so many apples you can eat in the small amount of time that you are there.  We were sharing apples to taste them and we were all promptly full and had the "apple-sweats" as we lumbered along to gather our final pickings. Jenn beautifully demonstrates the eating of the apples below:

Our final haul.

There were also a few, very large, pumpkin patches with many different varieties of pumpkins:

 

The patch with the "Do Not Disturb" sign were very large, I think that Jenn or I could've sliced it open and snuggled up inside enabling them to survive a blizzard on Hoth...no need for Tauntauns! (I had to look that up)

We also figured out that Jenn was worth about $2 as a pumpkin (only for her head though).

Combining the information from the above picture and the one below is proof that Jenn is not a Knuckle-Head though...

Not only fun, but now we have yummy apples to eat!

Over and out.

Sewing Project (Part II)

The Zippers arrived yesterday but I had to go for dinner with ST - he took me off my task.  (Then, what do I see when I get there? He's using the force for evil purposes, throwing lightning and picking stuff up without touching it)

Today, it took me ALL DAY to get the pocket zippers so that they looked half decent (one side isn't actually all that great, but the hassle is so great I'm going to leave it).  One pocket turned out pretty good though, the other one merely good.  The good one is shown here : )

After this it should go pretty smoothly until the next zipper and when I have to sew on the hood.  I hope to get it done before I get a job (which I hope is soon!!)

Night Market

We went to the Summer Night Market in Richmond Saturday night with El Matador Gigante (a web site generated this for his first and last name. Let's go with Huracan Picante which was achieved using "Doctor LastName") and Zhan-ay. There were many stalls with cheap knick knacks and some interesting items...

A lot of Korean socks, a vendor with LED shirts that light up and respond to sound, Taiwanese DVDs, and many other "Canadian" type items. We went primarily for the food. I had some skewered meat and twisty potatoes with Huracan Picante...

You can see a few of the interesting stalls, one with Jenn in front of the "Waffle Ball" stall...

...or where we got the twisty potatoes...

Here's Jenn and I...

By the way, my generated name was "La Fenix Mejor", Jenn's was "El Griego Mas Macho". My teacher name (Mister Winkler) would be "El Kulo Famoso".

Gone Hikin'...

It was a beautiful weekend this past one.  El Matador Gigante suggested we go for a hike.

It may have been a bit early to go without snowshoes but it was packed enough that using snowshoes was just silly.  The pay off at the top was pretty good though...