Oops

Well this is pathetic really! Not a single post since August.

But what's the point of beating myself up over it? I know those of you who have gone through the process of buying a house will have some sympathy for me. There is so much to do. I bet I've used ten times the daytime minutes my phone plan allows. Calls to the lawyer, the mortgage lady, the bank, the realtor, the cable company, utilities ...... and Devyn has done more than her share of these calls.

I don't look forward to seeing my phone bill next month. But it will likely be the least of my worries......

Anyhow....

The real reason I wanted to finally get on here is because I've finally taken the photos from the Rider game off of the camera.

There was a little storm threatening and we weren't sure if there would be rain or snow. A tremendous rainbow came out.

It's tough to tell from this view during half time. There was a regular season attendance record with more than 65,000 fans. Another quick note about the picture above - those lines of people on the field are 50 years of Eskimo Cheerleaders. There were teams from years past. One of the lines had the cheerleaders from the '60's. It looked walking into my grandmas place at supper time - 200 old ladies with poodle cuts.

Here's the happy couple early on.

I'm not so sure Dev's having as much fun as I was. haha - Really I think it was more the weather than anything. It was chilly, and I certainly wouldn't call Devyn the most devoted football fan. I pretty much begged her to come with me.

And this last pic will show you who won. There were SO many Roughrider fans! I think it would've been close to 50/50 actually. Lots of fun!

Part 3

This is a little den or office right off the kitchen. The backyard with a huge fire pit. May have to "remember, remember the 5th of November" and celebrate Guy Fawkes night in style in our new backyard.

And these next three images are pictures of a totally separate basement suite. I don't know if we'll look for a tenant right away, but it would sure help to bring in a little extra cash. Needs a little bit of work, but it's actually quite a nice one bedroom apartment really.

Second set of pics

Ahhhhh, I really wish blogger was a little more user-friendly. It's a royal pain in the ass to upload pics and organize them in any order.
Anyway...... Here's the ensuite bathroom.
A little peek at the main bathroom.

Here's the basement. I think they did a pretty nice job with the colour selection.

Another look at the basement. I know it's hard to visualize the layout, but I am sure you can get an idea.

And my personal favourite - the spiral staircase. Apparently the lady told Devyn there was s salesman that went through the neighbourhood in the '70's or '80's selling these particular staircases. There's quite a few houses on the street with these silly things.

The stairs are right in the front of the house as you walk in the front door. One of those unique little quirks that I think we'll grow to love in the place.

It actually works!!!!

Here's the place we are in the proceess of buying. Bungalow in St. Albert built 1970.
Here's the living room as you walk in the front door.
Little dining area off the kitchen.

The kitchen. Totally upgraded, with a crazy tap. Not sure if you can really see it.

Another angle of the kitchen.

This property is hereby SOLD

Well, I'd say it's as close to a done deal as you could imagine. I think I can safely declare me and Devyn home-owners.
Last Friday Dev and my dad went to look at a nice little bungalow in Braeside. They liked what they saw and I went to have a peek on Friday afternoon. We went ahead with an offer and the lady accepted.
So then we needed a home inspection which was completed on Monday. 4 hours later we still liked what we saw. Then the financing went through Tuesday and we released the conditions. This is where I saw the statement, "this property is hereby sold". So I think it's pretty safe to say this deal will go through and me and my beautiful wife will be moving into St. Albert on October 23rd, 2009.
I will look through the info I have laying around on the computer and see if I can't get some pics up on here. Yahoooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Drumheller Part Deux

This first shot is some kind of wild death pose. The thing dies and it's muscles or nerves cause it to be contorted in this way. I'm betting the person who uncovered this was pretty pleased.
Here I am being a little silly, but those are the jaws of a dinosaur. Yipes!

I loved the look of these things. I sometimes like doing jigsaw puzzles,and couldn't stop thinking about finding these bones laying in the dirt and piecing them together to come up with this. Amazing really.

I am not sure any sci-fi writer could dream up anything as scary as this one. Look at the skull on it!!!! I'm glad I wasn't around to see these dinos running around. We may not be at the top of the food chain if the dinosaurs were still kicking.

The museum had three tanks in this wall. One had a fish we still can see in our rivers called a Sturgeon. They have spines on them and I've often thought they looked somewhat pre-historic. Well these things were some kind of Mexican fish that had legs. Hahahah The name started with an "A" but I can't remember what it is. They are just hideous.

EFMF

Another Folk Festival is in the books, and as usual it was splendid. I never grow tired of looking at the beautiful Edmonton skyline from the hill. It's beautiful.
We don't get to see each other often enough, but we get lots of time together at the FF. Craig Metcalfe was in town from Toronto. He's seeking shelter under Dev's scarf. Jeff Stuart beside him.

Devyn was worried about a sunburn as usual, butt his time went to great lengths to avoid it.

We also had a great time with Carly. Laughing as always.

And here are the Hawaiian dudes, Hal and Uncle Garry.

The music was wonderful too, but I don't really like taking pics of the bands for some reason. Half the time I can't remember who I was watching. Some highlights were Sam Baker and Gurf Morlix. Tift Merrit, The Great Lakes Swimmers, Old Man Luedecke, Shane Nicholson, Alana Levandoski, Loudon Wainwright III and Danny Michel. Among others.

Hoodoos .....alright?!

Here are the pics from our August Long Weekend in Drumheller. Funny thing, there aren't too many, and none of Dev.
This was a suspension bridge that took you across the river toward an abandoned coal mine. I was diligent in reading ALL of the plaques and signs.

This is the river that we walked across on the suspension bridge...... also the river that ran along our campground. We bought some really sweet inflatable little raft thingies and they were so awesome!!!! We would float down and walk up along a sand bar, then float down again. It was perfect.

Something is out of sequence it appears. This is back to the old coal mine. It looked like a western movie. I can hear Ennio Morricone and Clint Eastwood in those spaghetti westerns of the 70's.

And Sarah, here are the hoodoos. It was crazy busy so we didn't get any better shots. Oh well.

Woah!

Such big plans and no action. That seems to be the trend with this blogging. I brought my camera to Saskatoon but didn't pull it out of the car. I would've had some terrific shots of the beautiful Moon Lake Golf Course. Allan has golfed there for ever, and I just think it's the nicest course around. (This is where I should put in a couple of pics, but alas....) We had a great time with the couple he usually golfs with.
I had a legit birdie attempt on a par five hole, and proceeded to three-putt and take a bogey. Such is the game of golf. It was into the 30's and we were roasting out there. Then to grandma's for supper. The soup was incredible. As was the rollkeuken and watermelon. I think I had about twenty of the things and went to lie down on her floor. I was exhausted. So we went out for a couple the cold beers at the Senator, one of our old stomping grounds and ate some more.

As for the earlier round at the Goose Hummock we had a terrific time, the golf was rough, the pics would've been equally pleasant and they don't exist either because I forgot the camera.
So I know some photos would make this far more interesting, but you can use your imagination:)
This weekend look like we'll head down toward Drumheller to look at some dinosaurs.

Late wedding card

At work this morning people were passing a card around and when it skipped past me I figured someone was up to something. It did not take long to realize they were passing a wedding card around for me and Dev. Several people came up and asked me what my wife's name is. Some simple math in my mind and I knew what was going on. So they called everyone out to the middle of the place and gave me a card and a little cheer. Most did not even know I was married. Others knew it was happening but thought it was sometime ahead. Guess we didn't leave a lot of notice.

So there was a few bucks in the envelope and a really nice home made card one of the ladies made. Most people signed it wrote some funny stuff and it was actually really nice. And pretty out-of-the-blue too. This morning was the first time in two weeks a carried a route after being held inside for various jobs in there. It was really nice to be walking again.

Pembina Extravaganza

Here's a shot of our fantastic weekend of camping at Pembina River. We got a spot at Cody's Uncle's place. He lives on a ranch right on the river. It's was a splendid place to go. In the shot above you can just see the edge of the hammock on the right side of the shot. The river is to the right, and the bridge is a train bridge crossing the river way above us.

If you turn directly behind from the train bridge shot you see our camping set-up. There's a giant horse arena that is hanging by a thread. When it rained for about three hours on Friday night we holed up in there to stay dry.
We had a tractor to haul our stuff down to the site. I'm sitting on it in the shot above. The Suburban came in handy once again. Why do I need so much stuff for a week-end? On a side-note there were four or five peacocks in the shed behind the Sub.
UFC 100 took place on Saturday night and we wanted to watch it. So Cody ran a cable from the house to the super-sweet motor home. The image is quite small, but there we are sitting in-front of the TV that is plugged into the side of the $330,000 ride. The fights were great, and the RV was incredible. I was only in it for 5 mins, but those were 5 minutes I will never forget. If only my house will look that nice one day. hahahahahah.
This is the inside of the rickety old arena. It was wild in there. We managed to set up a game of poker in there during the rains on Friday night. There were bats in there and we were using a lantern to do a bunch of ridiculous shadow-boxing. The four of us had a terrific time. I will dig though and try to get some pics of all of us and some of the other scenes, but for now that's all I can find. If I can, I will be going back there for sure!

The Ponies

Well it was a very productive Sunday at the horse races. I didn't win a penny but a good time was had by all.
We even corrupted Devyn's parents a dragged them along. (In fact, they picked us up a brought US there). But whomever was to blame, none of us really complained.
Here's me with the new in-laws trying to pick out the horse we think will make us rich.
Here's the action. Too bad it wasn't a close race where we could see one nose out the other at the finish line. I have no idea which one of the 8 races this is. Maybe that's Cerveza Tom bringing up the rear..... there was a horse named after my own heart.Here's a pic Dev took of me trying to look like I knew what I was doing. All the hard-betting fans carried the program in their back pocket.
They were really beautiful horses.

Try again

It's funny to think I've neglected this for so long. I guess I've had reason to do so, but I've found an interest this morning after looking through a few things on the computer and thinking of the changes that have taken place in my life recently.

I looked at Sarah's blog and how diligently she's been posting things from her trip back home. I am amazed at the thoughtful inclusion of so many little stories and people who came to see her and Alvin. It was pretty humbling to have those two around for my wedding. I was lucky enough to be there on their big day back in January and couldn't be happier that they were there with us.

So how the hell do I get back into this? I think if I keep it short and sweet and try to do it more regularly - there will be plenty of interesting things to post. I've often wondered why anyone would read this. I'm not doing anything as exciting as living in Zambia..... or enjoying my "mis-spent retirement" with all kinds of trips and adventures like Uncle Willy. (Your Canada Day reflections were really funny)

I have realized however, there are countless things in a persons day-to-day lives that are awfully interesting and there are actually a handful of people who want to see them. Thus I've decided to carry around my little camera when I go golfing with Trevor or Allan. I'll take it when I go to the Canada Day fireworks. I'll take account of our big Wii bowling games.

Thanks for the thoughtful stories Sarah. I'm glad I was able to be with you for most of those parties and visits. Golf, Wii, Dukovac BBQ etc. It was a whirlwind, but I too enjoyed every second.

Let's just hope this isn't like the last post. Big ideas but no action. By the way the Neil Young concert was incredible ;-)

Neil Young

I got my tickets to Neil Young for his April show in Edmonton. I missed the chance to see him during high school, but have loved him for such a long time. So when I heard he was coming I knew I'd have to bite the bullet and see him this time around.
So I spent $100 and will be sitting in the crowd finally watching the Canadian legend in person. I can't wait.
Otherwise, I have found a renewed urge to roll through the Africa pics again, so maybe there will be a couple more blog posts re: Africa...... but lets not get ahead of ourselves..... I did just download 647 pics from my dad onto my computer a few minutes ago. There's lots of material to look through.

Vic Falls Part Deux

The above pic is my favourite picture of the 400 + photos I came home with. I can't even say with any certainty which one of us took it....

This is what I mean by saying a machete might have been useful. 650 metres straight down. And it was so hot! Did I mention that it was terribly hot on our trip. I can't understand why I don't get any sympathy from people I tell. I wasn't in Edmonton in January I guess.
We had to cross a creek and I swear it was the only day I wasn't wearing flip-flops. I just didn't give much thought to the creepy bugs that could've been hiding under those rocks. I was like a free pedicure.

Above us in this picture is that big bridge leading to Zimbabwe. To the left of the shot is where the falls are crashing down. It was beautiful down there.
The dude is a Brit we met at the hostel. The girl was from the Netherlands. Both kind of nice. We had a nice afternoon together. Never saw them after, and will likely never see them again.

Victoria Falls January 25-27, 2009

We stayed at the same place my folks stayed when they were first there. Fawlty Towers. It was a hostel, and wasn't too bad. We had a little private chalet type thing which was nice. I think my days of sleeping in a dorm room style hostel are over.

Here we are at the big falls. Mosi beer in Africa is named after these falls. Mosi-oa-tunia meaning The Smoke That Thunders.

I couldn't get over the beautiful lush forest. Everything was super green and there was lots and lots of water being rainy season and all.

The bridge leads over to Zimbabwe. And you can bungee jump off of there. Needless to say I didn't do that.
And this was certainly the highlight of the trip to Livingston. We saw a sign the said, Boiling Pot 650 metres. I didn't realize it was that steep. And right through the jungle. I could've honestly used a machete. But it was well worth it.