Last night Heather went out for dinner with Nadine and Sue so I went out for a drink with Craig at the new Bier Markt (at King W and Portland, in the old Amsterdam location)

It took me forever to get out. I dropped off Heather at Sue's around 7:30pm, and got stuck in the AC/DC traffic getting back home. My flat tire indicator went off; at first I was excited because they're under warranty and a free replacement (my tires are getting worn and I'll probably have to pay for new ones when the lease is up in April -- the warranty doesn't cover wear-and-tear). I was also low on gas, so stopped in at the gas station at Lakeshore & Carlaw. They were out of regular and so were selling premium at regular prices (my car requires premium so it was a bonus for me). Next checked the tires, which were just low on air (most likely because I hadn't inflated them for winter). Got home and turned on the barbecue for my steak, except it was out of propane. So went and got that filled up. Finally had dinner, cleaned up and caught the streetcar.

It was almost 11pm by the time I got to the Bier Markt. We had a few pints & chatted away. Ran into Paul McGeachy who was there with friends. A little bit after midnight, headed up to Tattoo to meet up with Heather et al who had ended up there after their own little adventures. There was a $10 cover charge, which we didn't want to pay at that hour. I just walked in, showing my wrist stamp the Bier Markt, and it worked! Craig tried a couple minutes later but got busted, and Sue had to go get him in. Saw Marissa who was also there with some of her friends. Streetcarred it back home a little after 2am.

All the excitement was a little too much for Heather's back; she was in a lot of pain today. We'll be sticking with just dinners in the future.

...

Went up to my suit place (Testa Uomo) with Trishia and Dave this afternoon. Dave was looking to get a couple suits and so I went with them as a referral, so he'd get the 50% discount. After went to Kitchen Stuff Plus to get a spatula (my old one broke over Christmas), and tongs. Bought an automatic soap dispenser (we've been looking for one). I'm not too impressed with it though -- the sensor part doesn't work very well, and there's no way to manual trigger it to dispense.

While we were in PEI, Jonathan hired a chef to cook dinner for 8 of us as a wedding anniversary gift for Janet, including showing us how to make the recipes. The dinner was excellent. We had appetizers of bacon-wrapped scallops, oysters three ways, mussels; main of rack of lamb, and sticky date pudding for dessert. Mmmm good.

I was going to make the rack of lamb for dinner today, but with Heather's back out, we decided to wait a couple days. There's a sauce that goes with the lamb, and I was googling around on how to make my own chicken stock as a base for the sauce. Tomorrow's my first attempt at the chicken stock.

When I got back to work after the holidays, I was telling a couple other directors about the chef. They both had said one of the best team building exercises they had done in previous jobs was a cooking class. Well as luck would have it, we have an offsite coming up at the end of January, and by coincidence the team building is at dish cooking studio! We're voting on the menu right now.

I created a twitter account a few months ago but have never used it, but I've started recently. The idea is to use it when I have something brief but not enough time for a proper blog entry.

We bought a TempurPedic mattress last week to replace my old doublebed. We looked at a few places, and Shoppers HomeHealthCare had the lowest price by far, and then took another 20% off because we asked about the senior's discount! Bargoon. It's supposed to be delivered in the next 5-10 days.

Also got another PC Green Box for free from Loblaws. They're pretty handy carrying cases -- I use it for my tools, to carry my stuff to Ultimate etc.

Anyways I should get ready for bed.