Today we take Violet to see her ENT doctor for the finial check up before her surgery next month. I have tried to write about the coming surgery on and off all day. I wanted to write about how we decided that this is the right choice for our little girl, about how the thought of her going under general anesthetic for the first time makes me nervous, and how I was dealing with it. Now I’m not sure why I couldn’t find the words, perhaps as I get closer to the day I’ll find the words. Or perhaps I’ll find myself sitting down in the waiting room right a post about it.
What has been going through my mind all day is something Melissa posted on Facebook last night. It seems Kindergarten registration for violet begins in January. It seems so strange that my little first is starting full day kindergarten in less than a year. Her fourth birthday is less than 2 months away. I can’t help but wonder where my baby girl is going. For months she would complain when I call her my Baby girl, of course the complaints disappear when she wants daddy to carry her. Of course then I look at Jacob, who’s all exited by the prospect of having a few friends over for a Video Game party tomorrow while Mommy and Violet are at a baby shower. My baby boy has grown into a big boy.
It’s strange how it goes in spurts, for a while they stay tiny not seeming to grow and then you blink and they are running around, then taking and then they are off to school. Watching Jacob now, it seems to have slowed a bit, but you can see how his tastes are changing. From his love of Mario to his growing love of all thing super hero, still there are days I miss my little baby sleeping in my arms. Of course the one thing as a parent I can’t change is that my kids will grow up, all I can do is be there for them and let them know that I love them with all my heart.
Today the our neighbors to the south celebrate thanksgiving, a day of food, family and football. It’s also a time to look at what you have and be thankful. I was thinking a lot about that tonight. Thinking about how thankful I am to have my little family. Of course looking at the American thanksgiving from afar, it’s hard to see it as a holiday for giving thanks any more. With all the Black Friday sale ads, that seem to take over the airwaves in the weeks leading up to it. I don’t understand how it got so big, so quick. I don’t remember hearing about Black Friday 10 years ago. Maybe it was there and I just didn’t see it. I do know that way to many Canadian retailers are jumping on the bad wagon. What’s worse is how early the retailers are opening. It used to be that they’d open at six the day after thanksgiving. Now I’ve seen them opening as early as 8pm on thanksgiving. Thank just seems wrong. I know they are supposed to have great sales, but I can’t help but think that it’s only on a few items that it’s really worth the trip. Most things wont be such a great deal, It will look like one but when you do the math you will see it’s a scam. Just because it’s on ‘Sale’ doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. But I’m sure tonight and tomorrow morning thousands of people will head to the stores to cash in on the savings. I just hope nobody get’s hurt this year. It seems so senseless when you hear of people being trampled to death, or paper spread in the throngs of bargain hunters.
The Start Menu
It’s funny for years I’ve tried to use the start menu as little as possible. When I use windows seven I only open it to search for apps that I haven’t pinned to the task-bar. I don’t search through the lists of all the programs, it just seems a wast. Even before Windows Vista brought the Start Menu search to windows I used an application called
Launchy to give me the search functionality. Now with windows 8 I actually find myself using the start menu. Of course calling the tiled interface a Start Menu is a bit of a stretch. What it is a representation of the Information and applications you use most often. It’s how Microsoft brought the simplified phone to the pc. As with most of the new features in windows 8 this would have a greater impact on touch based tablets than desktops.
Continue reading “Windows Wednseday: Look and Feel”
This morning the Toronto Blue Jay’s capped off an eventful week of changes with a morning news conference. After a disappointing season where the teams pitching staff was decimated by injuries, the fans were watching Alex Anthopoulos to see if he could address the need for starting pitchers and some new bats. The off season had a ominous start for the Blue Jays and there fans, when the news of that second year Manager John Farrell was leaving the Jays to Manage the Boston Redsox. So now Anthopoulos had to address the whole behind the bench as well as on the field.
After a few minor moves the Toronto GM shocked the baseball world by doing a 12 play trade with the Marlins. The Jays sent a bunch of young players to the Marlins and in return addressed most of there needs in the field with All-star shortstop Jose Reyes, right-hander Josh Johnson, left-hander Mark Buehrle, catcher John Buck, infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio and cash. What’s amazing he did it without stripping the cupboard clean of the teams best young talent. He wasn’t done there, before the trade was even approved by the commiseration office he signed free agent, left fielder Melky Cabrera to a 2 year deal, a bit of a gamble considering that Cabrera served a 50 games suspension last year for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.
I expected this mornings news conference at the Rogers Centre to be the Jays officially announcing the trades and signing, but instead it was the announcement that they were bringing back John Gibbons to manage the club. It was a bit of a shock. His name wasn’t on any of the lists appeared in the media as possible candidates for the job. But there he was sitting next to Anthopoulos talking about how he had his Dream Job last year coaching a AA team in his home town and that he’d left it to come here to coach.
So what does all this mean for the average Jay’s fan? Well it means that the powers that be in the Blue Jay’s organization have decided that this is the year to take the next step in the pursuit of the playoffs and to finally getting back to the world series. If the team stay’s healthy they should be able to compete in the competitive American League East, and even if they have some injuries their increased depth should help the team stay competitive. Going into last season there was a lot of hope surrounding the Blue Jays, they were a young team with a lot of potential that didn’t hold up for the entire season. Looking at the team now, they have added proven players that should take them to the promise land. Of course the Marlins thought that these same players would take them to the post season this year only to finish the year 69-93 last in their division. So the question we have to ask ourselves is the young core of the Blue Jays good enough to benefit from this influx of talent. Or will next October come around with the Jay’s on the sidelines. That’s not something that can be answered today. That can only be answered on the field. What I do know is that It should be an exciting season. The only problem I have is that it’s still November we have 3 months before spring training and 5 before the season starts and we can find out just how good a team Toronto will have.
Today after a meeting at Violet’s preschool, I was walking home and I saw a few houses with Christmas Lights up. At first I was surprised that they were up so early, but then Sunday was the Santa Clause parade and this week is Thanks Giving south of the border so I guess it’s really not that early.
As the clock ticks closer to midnight I find myself trying to think of ways to stay awake. I should be thinking about climbing into my bed next to my wife, but there is one little obstetrical to that. You see, young violet doesn’t like to sleep. She fights it when ever she can. Which would be fine except that she goes and goes and goes, until she stops. When she stops, she stops. She’ll fall asleep where ever she is and goes right out. Today she fell asleep as I was cooking dinner around 5. This wouldn’t be so bad, except she sleeps for 2 hours and then wakes and doesn’t want to go back to sleep. So I’m left sitting here as the day ends wondering when she’ll get tired again and head off to bed. Depending on how late her nap ends up being, most nights I can get her in bed between 1 and 2, but on days when the nap is later, I sometimes find myself dozing off on the couch before she runs out of steam. When that happens she either falls asleep on the living room carpet or heads up to her own bed without mentioning it.
Tonight is going to be a late night, but I’m not sure how much I can take. I’m already feeling quite tired after a long day. So I ask myself do I feel like a coffee? Or maybe a walk to the 24 convinces store to get a bottle of Pepsi Max.to fight my growing desire for sleep. As much as I would rather be curled up in bed, there is something to be said for the Father Daughter time the two of us get to spend on a evenings like to-night, I just wish we could enjoy it earlier in the evening because after a long day like today I’m not really sure how long I can last before I need to head up to my bed for the night. Perhaps if I’m lucky I ca get ere her to head up to bed around 1 or 2and it wont be too long of a night.
Once again I sit here with nothing to write. I stare at the screen and no words come to my head. As I start typing this I realize I don’t want to be writing this at all. I don’t want another post about how hard it is to write each and every day. But here I am continuing to write that exact thing. I mean do I really need to post today? I have already posted my picture of the day. So I have continued my streak of posting every day. That now stands at around 1144 days in a row. Sure 1052 of them are days where I’ve posted a picture. But even that can get hard specially after doing it so long. But this month I upped the game this month it was to be 2 posts a day. One photo, one written. So far I’ve managed it with only a limited amount of rambling, but tonight I just don’t see how to continue. I’m just out of words. Sure I’ve spouted out almost 200 worlds already, but do I press publish? Do I use this another post that lakes a real direction on to my blog. Sitting here as the day slips by I’m torn, so I ask myself; If I don’t will I continue for the rest of the month? Will I have the commitment to continue with my new themed posts? Or will failing to post today be the first step in going back to just posting a picture every day, and the written posts going back to the once every few months that they have been. Of course I could just push publish, and let these words head out onto my blog. It may not be the best post but it is a written post. It’s just over 300 words, so my challenge for this month of NaBloPoMo would be satisfied and my hope of posting twice a day would be intact.
So I ask my what should I have done, was pressing publish the right choice or should I have pressed delete?
I remember the day that I went from a non-reader to a reader. I remember having no interest in reading books, to burying my nose in them for hours at a time. The book was Jack of Shadows, I was in grade 9, I don’t remember why I picked up that book, I just remember that my mom read me the first chapter and then I read the rest. Reading was always a struggle for me, it took me years to learn and it wasn’t till that book that I became confident in my ability to read. After that book I went on to read other books, first Isaac Asimov’s Robot series, then I moved on to foundation. I remember sitting in English class reading one of his books when the teacher gave me an article about his passing. It talked about him writing right till the end, and that his last book, ‘Forward the Foundation‘ would be out the following year. That was the first Adult hardcover book I bought myself, I wonder if I still have it.
Continue reading “Re-finding my love of reading”
Today was skating night with Jacob’s parent teacher Melissa and I had to miss it. So the kids got to have an evening out with their Nana and Papa. To top it off we gave Jacob some money so he could take everyone out for dinner. They all had a good time. I’m so glad that they get to spend so much time with their grandparents.
At work to day I found myself replacing a dead hard drive in a clients computer and re-installing windows. OF course this is an older computer that’s running Windows 7. I inserting the disk and watching the progress bar go for what felt like an eternity. It was a start contrast to the two installations of windows 8 I’ve done over the last few weeks. I had hopped to do a post about the process, using my the upgrade of my work computer as the basis for screen shots and just a source for the overall feel. Unfortunately when the time came to do the upgrade, I found myself doing two or three things at once and forgot about documenting the process.
So instead of a thought out review of the process I thought I’d share my thoughts of it compare my move to windows 8 with the setting up the windows 7 on a fresh hard drive. Before you say an upgrade isn’t the same as a new installation, I should say that on both my computers I did a clean install not an upgrade. So there is a pretty good base for comparison. Of course today I was using a Dell system restore disc so so of the options were already selected for me.
Continue reading “Windows Wednseday: The Setups”
