Happy Day of Birth - Alika Kinara Beka
Firda and I are a proud new aunt and uncle of baby girl Alika Kinara Beka who was born in Indonesia on January 20, 2010 at 7:25 am (Indonesian time) to Indira Zaini Beka and Irvan Beka. The whole family is excited included her big sister Ayra Zarrani Beka.
Here's hoping we get to meet her before she is too big!
Mr. Buttons
My parent's dog, Buttons, passed away today. He was only four days shy of 16 years old.
While he wasn't a "childhood" dog for me he did hold a special place in my heart. Before he was my parents dog he was my maternal grandmother's dog. When she passed away my parents decided to take Mr. Buttons in. I believe he was around 6 years old when my parents took him in.
He had been having a hard time for the past couple of months. Having spells where he couldn't maintain his balance. The vets weren't sure what was causing these spells. Today something different happened. He started wheezing and struggling to breathe. They had an appointment with the vet around 11:30 today - but Mr. Buttons couldn't hold on and passed away on the way to the vet.
2010 - Here you are!
Happy New Years! 2010 is here! A new year! New possibilities!
How did everyone spend there new years? We hung out with a group of friends in Guelph, Ontario. It was good times hanging out with people we haven't hung with in while. It was so good that we didn't get to bed until 3 a.m. in the morning. That doesn't happen all that often anymore! We spent the night with our friends SMooSH and Loba in Guelph which was very nice of them to let us stay at their place.
New Year's Day we headed down to my brother and sister-in-laws house for our niece's first birthday. Even though we were super tired we still had a good time. In the last couple of months my niece's personality has really started to shine - she has also gotten to the point where she is understanding words and actions.
The day after New Year's Day we spent shopping - mostly thrift stores. We returned a board game present (which we got doubles of) and picked up another board game called Zooloretto (which is quite simplistic but a lot of fun), I also picked up an XBOX 360 to complete the trifecta of next gen consoles. If you have an XBOX 360 add me to your friend list - my handle is "ForestPirate".
Well off to enjoy the last day before I head back to work!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Firda and I just got back from my parents place earlier today. We spent the past couple days (since Christmas Eve) with my parents. We had a good time with the family - it would have been great if we both weren't battling a flu/cold. We are feeling much better today though still quite drained.
So how was everyone's Christmas? Did you all make out like bandits? We did pretty good this year. Video games, books, board games (Ticket to Ride, Dominion: Intrigue, Dominion: Seaside and the Agricola Expansion), a heating blanket (to preheat our bed before we jump into it), a dining room table (used from Kijiji) and a bunch of clothing.
It was also my niece's first Christmas. I think she enjoyed it - though she had to take a nap half way through the present opening. She turns 1 on New Years Day so we are planning to go down there for the party.
What else? We say the Olympic Flame come through Stratford today. We just got into town and had to park on a side street (since the relay route passed in front of our house). We had about a 10 minute wait since we got home and they ran by. It was a "blink and you'll miss it" type event but interesting to see nonetheless.
I also had a chance to do out for dinner with a bunch of old friends I haven't seen in a while including two dear friend who live in England now (Kaley and Nasser), two friends from Toronto who we haven't seen since likely the summer (Caiti and Ian), and my best bud Joe and the always cantankerous Tom :) Sadly Firda didn't feel well enough to join us but we had fun.
Well it's off to play Ratchet and Clank now! Happy Holidays everyone!
A Trip to the Middle of Nowhere
I'm sad that Sunday is almost at it's end. It feels like my weekend just started. Oh wait - it did just start. Why you ask? I was up in Northern Ontario from Thursday afternoon until Saturday night. For work of course.
Our client called us on Thursday morning to see if we could be on-site on Friday. After a rather frantic Thursday morning (buying plane tickets, reserving rooms, renting cars etc.) I flew out on Toronto for Thunder Bay at 2:30. I grabbed my rental car and drove 1.5 hours to my first motel in Nipigon.
The motel was relatively nice, in that it had a bed and a bathroom. It also had paper thin walls so I could hear the neighbours TV - even though it wasn't overly loud. Since myself and the gentleman next door were the only two renting rooms at the motel I asked the motel owner if I could move a couple of doors down. He graciously allowed me to move from my single room to a double bed room several doors down.
The next morning I woke up and got on the road quite early. I had a 5.5 hour drive to get to our client site and I needed to be there by noon. The drive basically consisted of driving east for 4 hours and then north for 1.5 hours. The east part wasn't too bad - the roads were clear and the driving was easy. The north part kind of sucked. Apparently it snowed the night before and the roads were still kind of messy. I took it slow but I still made it to the site 15 minutes before noon. One of the highlights of the drive (other than the beautiful scenery) was the "no gas station for 97 kilometers" sign when I turned onto the north highway.
I spent the night in the only motel in town, which was actually in a "mall". I use the term "mall" very loosely, but it was a mall. The mall had the motel, a liquor store (LCBO), variety store, library, community swimming pool, a restaurant, a bar and I believe there may some government administation offices (though I'm not sure). It was an interesting atmosphere since everyone seemed to know everyone else. It was a nice enough motel - the room was super warm but I had a good sleep and that was the most important thing.
Saturday morning I got up - hit the road and got back to Thunder Bay in about 5.5 hours. The road conditions had approved greatly since the day before so I made good time. I arrived in Thunder Bay around 1 pm and had a little bit of time to check out the town. I stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial just outside of town which was very nice.
For those of you who do not know Terry Fox, he is a Canadian icon. He was diagnosed with cancer in his teens and lost a leg to cancer. In 1980 he decided to start his "Marathon of Hope" while his cancer was in remission. The Marathon of Hope was a cross-country run to increase cancer awareness and raise money for cancer research. He started his run in St John's, Newfoundland and made it through five provinces and 5,373 kilometers before his cancer returned and he had to quit the marathon. His plans were to continue when he got better but sadly he passed away in 1981 from pneumonia. Every year the "Terry Fox Run" events take place all over Canada to raise money for cancer research and to continue the legacy started by Terry Fox.
Back to my story. I jumped on my plane back to Toronto at 4:55 pm - the flight took around 1.5 hours and I was home by 8:30. It was good to be home, but sadly I had missed most of the weekend by then. If it was possible I would have taken a day off this week but alas things are really busy right now and there is no way I can do that.
Oh well. Hopefully I will have some time off around Christmas (other than Christmas Day and Boxing Day) but I'm not really counting on it.
