Guess who’s more popular than Angelina Joli these days:
So I splurged on an iPod Touch last weekend, its pretty cool. Now that I ride the bus, I’ve got a little over 1/2 hour of downtime on each end of my day, so its a good time for watching podcasts and movies. I downloaded a bunch of photograph and scrapbooking podcasts this week, and now I’ve figured out how to rip movies off DVDs and convert them to iPod format, so I’ve loaded a couple movies onto it as well, to watch on the bus this week. I’m very happy. :-)
Jayne is in the middle of writing her final exams now, she wrote two last week, she has three more this week and then she’s done, and she’s looking forward to it. She came home from school twice last week not feeling well, with a headache, a bit of a fever and really tired, went right to bed when she got home. The next morning she’d be ok when she got up, but the same thing again after school. She’s been worried about her exams, so I think she got herself a little stressed out and it was affecting her that way. She’s doing better now though, she’s a bit more relaxed (she says she thinks she did awesome on her exam on Friday) and she’s looking forward to getting them over with.
She was at her friend’s last night for a sleepover, and got to go with them to a family bbq at Bowness Park for police, fire and EMS (her friend’s parents both work for the fire department). Sounds like it was pretty cool, the HAWKS helicopter came in and landed and STARS did a flyby, and there were demonstrations by the riot squad, etc. She had a really good time.
We went camping this weekend with Chris ‘n James, Chris ‘n Deb, Kim and Hailey out at Porcupine Group Camp. It’s a little private campground with about 8 campsites, and groups can go in and rent the whole thing, so it was kind of neat. Things were a little soggy, as it rained quite a bit, but it did clear up Saturday afternoon, and of course Sunday once we were packed up and ready to go. But it was still nice, we hung out by the fire a lot, and Jayne and I went for a bit of a hike on Saturday when the rain let up.
I’ve posted a few pictures here.
Obama Wins the nomination!!
I just thought I’d let you all know, if you don’t already, that Alpha’s mother passed away Monday evening. Alpha drove out on Monday, and he and his sister Pennie were at the hospital with her. He’s been out there all week as have his sisters, making the arrangements and doing all the things that need to be done. I’m flying out tomorrow afternoon for the memorial service on Saturday, and then we’ll be driving back together.
Nemo had a little excitement this morning, I noticed him sitting on window ledge with his tail twitching like crazy, and when I went to see what he was looking at, there was a squirrel sitting on our fence eating an apple. The squirrel was ignoring Nemo completely, and didn’t even seem to mind when I appeared in the window with my camera, he just went right on munching, and when he finished his apple he left the core on the fence and ran down to grab one of the ant traps and proceeded to chew on it.
You may recall we had squirrel troubles a couple years ago, when they were getting up into the roof of our house, and we had the spot patched, so hopefully the repair work holds. If it doesn’t, I’m sure you’ll be reading about it on here soon!
Well, we’re back in the rain again, we should have sun again by Tuesday, if the weatherman can be trusted. I took Jayne and her friend swimming this afternoon, I brought my laptop and sat beside the pool surfing the web while they swam, and then I went in the hot tub with them for a bit until it was time to go.
We’re counting the days until our trip now, we’ve just got two months to go, so it’s getting pretty close, and pretty exciting.
I flew out to Castlegar yesterday to surprise my step mom, Faye, as she turned 75 yesterday. I brought flowers. I got the flight and car rental on points so it only cost me the tax. She was surprised and happy to see me. I also picked up the Obama ‘08 t-shirts her daughter, Teresa, ordered for me. I can’t buy them myself as you must be an American because it is considered a campaign contribution. She (and Faye) are from Texas. Teresa is up for the month visiting and I took the opportunity to “aquire” the Obama shirts I have been longing to have.
I also got a couple Obama buttons for phoenix and her girlfriend.
The flight to/from Castlegar is a nice short flight, but the planes are getting very old. The one on the way back was leaking copious amounts of orange oil throughout the whole flight. Of course it was right outside my window. Yet another plane I’m not going to feel comfortable on anymore.
I was telling Nancy at dinner tonight that they should have an airline that has nurses instead of flight attendants. Then instead of serving drinks, they can check on the general anaesthesia drips! I’d pay first class fairs to get knocked out before takeoff and woken up after landing.
In recent days Barack Obama has had a rough time as some of the “hillbilly” regions of the United States had their primaries. Most notably he got spanked last week in West Virginia. Well, the race moves on and one of the states up next is Oregon. Take a look at the reception that greeted him in Portland. WOW.
As Alpha mentioned in his post below, the weather this weekend has been absolutely amazing here, nice and hot the last couple days. Teresa and I took the kids to Calaway Park yesterday (opening day) and it was absolutely gorgeous. The kids had a great time, and after the issue of my keys somehow getting locked in my car was resolved (thanks honey for bailing me out!) I did as well. The line-ups weren’t too bad, although on the more popular rides they were longer.
Yesterday was also the 4th anniversary of Mom’s death, May is always a bit of a tough month between that, Mother’s Day, and her birthday on the 25th. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone that long already.
Today is going to be a bit of yard work and a bit of relaxing, maybe go see a movie tonight.
