Tried not to cringe too much reading about Earth Hour events this morning. Take for example pic #9 from thestar.com, with the nice bonfire. Hey, what a great idea. Turn off the lights, and burn some wood! Yay for Earth Day!

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Got out to Deerfield on Saturday, on one of the nicest golf days in March that I can remember. It was about 12C, with just a slight wind. Craig and I both shot 95, which is good for me but not so good for Craig. I was at the driving range on Thursday (we had a bye in hockey), and figured out I wasn't straightening out my left arm in my downswing. I think that helped my driver too, as I was actually hitting my driver consistently.

Also picked up the church pew earlier on Saturday morning. Craig gave me a hand. It mostly fit in Craig's car (hanging about three feet out the back), and we drove straight down Bayview from Sheppard. The traffic was pretty light at 9:30am in the morning.

After dropping off the pew, we went for breakfast, joined by Heather and Maricar. Tried out Leslieville Diner, a new place near Curzon. I had the eggs benedict, which was excellent. The crowd was a mix of long-time residents and new people, which was nice.

Today it poured rain for most of the morning, but by 3pm the sun was breaking out. I used the opportunity to cut the pew to size. It's now in several pieces, ready for refinishing. The original pew was 9'3" long; I'm going to turn it into a bench 4' long, and use the seat backing of the 5' piece as a headboard for the bed.

Well I better get started on dinner. We're having roasted halibut with a ragout of morels, fava beans and white asparagus (an LCBO recipe). I haven't been able to find morels (even dried), so I'm using black trumpet mushrooms; and green asparagus instead of white.

I just bought a 4-port switch to reconfigure the networking in our house (the wireless signal is pretty weak in the office). So we're going off the net for a few minutes (!) If you don't hear from us within the hour, someone call Rogers. We won't be able to, as our phone is VOIP.

I was looking on Craigslist for old church pews that I could turn into a bench. Found this one for $50:


It's 9'3" long, which is way too big; but it looks like it should be easy enough to take off an end, cut to size, and reattach the end. I think I'll need to sand it down and stain it a different colour too.

First I have to figure out how to get it from the church (up at Bayview and Steeles) to our place.

I'm looking to make a bench for the back door. With Heather's back she has to bring a chair over to put on her shoes, so I figured a bench would look good. Found a couple that I liked, one called a Basque Bench and the other an Ethan Bench. The Ethan looks nicer, but the Basque is a bit easier to make. Probably I'll make the Basque for now.

Most of the snow is now melted around the house, there's still a bit in the front yard (which faces north). I want to plant a tree (a red maple) in the backyard this season. We were trying to remember when the city planted our pear tree in the front yard; I didn't blog about it, but we think it was around the start of May.

Heather and I went for a short walk down Queen St today. There was a lot of street traffic, which bodes well for the businesses. Looks like a ice cream place may be coming in where the cajun place used to be.

We lost at hockey on Thursday 3-2, but it was a good game. We're starting to string passes together (historically a problem for the Rockets). I got a nice assist on Laurie's goal, passing it out from the corner to Laurie in front of the net who one-timed in. It was a relatively early game (8:15) so we went up for pizza and wings after.

Anyways I have to get ready for my Ultimate game.

It was nice to leave work this evening and still have it bright outside. I like having daylight savings time start earlier in the year.

We did get a new car last week, with the lease ending on our old car. We were looking at a Jetta, Prius and Mercedes B200, but ended up with an Audi A3. We got a really good deal, it's a good time to be a buyer in the car market. It all happened really fast once we signed with Audi. On the Monday morning, I dropped off the BMW, signed the lease-end stuff and got my plates (the license plate contains my initials so I like it). Was in-and-out of BMW in about 15 minutes. They even gave me a courtesy ride to the subway. Back in the office, faxed the details to my insurance company. They were quick and efficient; and at 5pm an Audi courtesy car came by the office to pick me up. Signed some more papers, and by 6pm I was driving home in the new car. I've had it for a week, it's pretty zippy. I really like the bluetooth connection for my BlackBerry, although I'm having problems trying to sync my address book.

Two of our house plants have been growing nicely, well enough that they needed repotting. I ended up getting two big pots from Canadian Tire, and a big bag of potting soil. They look really nice, I'll have to take a picture.

The Roy opens up today! I see they have updated their website, and there it is, on page 4 of the menu, Keiths!! I also see they have "Coronation Street" Sunday afternoon specials (! for Heather). It's not good for Heather's back for her to be standing around for long, so we may try to check it out on Wednesday (avoiding the opening night).

There was an article in this month's Toronto Life about people who bought industrial sites and converted them to residential. (The old firehall on Boston Av is a good example). So now we're looking around for a good site in Leslieville (or maybe Corktown) that we could buy and do the same thing.

Heather and I both signed up for organ and tissue donation. It's a bit of a process, but the ministry was pretty quick to send us back confirmation, and little stickers for our health cards. I still have one of the old original red and white cards without a picture. I wonder how long before they have everyone convert to the new photo ids.

Well we're having grilled pork chops with garlic lime sauce and tomato and black bean quinoa, I better get cooking if we're to eat today!