We're almost set for Christmas. Maricar got us our tree again, this time a little skinnier and it fits the house much better. Mom and Dad came over last weekend and we decorated the tree. Heather and I get each other a tree ornament every year, and we now have enough to make the tree look somewhat filled in with them (it's our 6th Christmas together).

Yesterday we went shopping in our neighborhood. We didn't end up crossing anything off our Christmas lists, but we did find a couple things for the house -- a big antique iron pot that fits nicely on the top of the linen cabinet in the bathroom, and another glass milk jug. I bought two old milk crates years ago that we use as end tables in the bedroom. They hold six milk jugs each, and I've only been able to find half so far. We got both at Highway 11 on Queen E, which has pretty good stuff at reasonable prices.



My sports team didn't do very well last week, going 0-3. On Sunday we ended up with no guy subs, against The Spinners. We were actually up by a point with 15 minutes to go, and then ran out of steam and eventually lost. On Tuesday we were up 7-1 and then lost. We also lost 1-0 this week in hockey. The good thing is the teams in our leagues this season are fairly even, so almost all the games are competitive where anyone can win.

We had steak for dinner on Friday, and had leftovers. So yesterday I made a Dagwood Bumstead sandwich, which turned out really good.

Heather and I decided on Chile for our next trip. The main goal is to do the W trek in Torres del Paine. It's become quite a popular trek, with limited accommodation, so we've actually had to plan and make reservations ahead of time. After the trek we'll travel around Patagonia and then up the coast of Chile back to Santiago.

The fall and winter Sunday Ultimate seasons overlap this year, so we have two games today. The fall game is at 2pm, outdoors at Downsview. It's the finals, against Ultimate Warriors who are a really good team. It's the last outdoor game of the year. Then later tonight we have a speedpoint game at Lamport, in the bubble.

I finally got in a hockey game on Thursday. I had pulled a muscle in my back a few weeks ago and so missed a couple games, and the schedule in November has been awful -- 11:30pm, 6:15pm, 11:15pm and a bye. We've been getting a lot of skaters out this season, usually 12 - 14, which means three sets of wingers and less ice time. I missed a tic-tac-toe play in the 2nd period, the puck went off the heel of my stick and then got caught up in my skates. Oh well.

We're getting yet another coffee shop in the neighbourhood, Bobette and Belle, where Hogar Home Decor used to be. From the signage that's up in the windows, it looks like it's more about artisinal pastries. It's a lot of square footage for a bakery / coffee shop.

We had 41 kids for Hallowe'en this year, which is about the same as previous years. There's a lot of families with babies in Leslieville, so in a few years I can see the number going up.

I swept up the leaves in the backyard yesterday, four bags worth. There's still lots of leaves on the trees. Hopefully the leaves will all be down and we'll have a sunny stretch before the first snowfall. A few years ago, it snowed just before everyone did the final raking, and it was a mess all winter with leaves clogging the drains.

Well I should get ready for Ultimate.

The condo on the southeast corner of Queen and Pape is coming along. This pic is from a couple weeks ago:



I finished the flagstone around the car at the start of October. I didn't leave much room to actually park the car, there's only about eight inches on each side of the wheels. I'm making a 6-point turn every time I park (I always reverse in). I want to put little curbs (3"x5"x8' ties), which will leave even less room. At some point next spring I think I will re-layout the passenger side, but make it 16" wide (it's about 24" now). It will depend on how good I get at backing in over the winter.

Hockey started up again, and I managed to pull a back muscle on the last shift of the game a couple weeks ago. Last week was a bye and I skipped tonight's game, but I'll be back next week.

We finally lost a game on Sunday Ultimate last week. We were down 6-1, then came back to tie it at 11-11, but eventually lost 14-12. We dropped too many passes that we normally catch.

We lost the championship on Tuesday (a few days after I pulled my back). We had two full lines of guys. The other line had a 10-minute point, and then a 15-minute point, which used up most of the clock (we have the field for 55 minutes, but by the time people warm up, we play for about 45 minutes). We ended up losing 8-6. Craig and I were only on the field for maybe 10 minutes. I much prefer having fewer players (in fact no subs for outdoors), but then it's more work for Trishia as captain to find subs for the games that someone can't make it. I can't wait until indoors starts, because we'll be playing speed point and get much more exercise.

I did more research on home automation. I think I'm going to buy an Arduino. The first application will be an outdoor thermometer, ideally hooked up to my iPhone. This will mean setting up the communication between the external thermometer to the Arduino, hooking that up to the LAN, and then writing an iPhone app to display the temperature. If that all works, then I can move to more complicated stuff like running the furnace. Eventualy it would be cool if I can connect the thermostat to my alarm clock, so that the house warms up depending on what time I'm waking up the next day. Anyways that's my little winter project.

Well I should go start dinner. We're having asparagus stuffed chicken with white wine shallot sauce, with new potatoes. Mmmm good.

I had plans to set the flagstone today but it's drizzling right now so I'm waiting for the afternoon. It's easier to level out the limestone screening when it's dry.

So the next home automation that I'm looking at is hooking up the thermostat, so that it can be controlled remotely. I surfed briefly and there's a lot more options today than there were a couple years ago. There's three components: temperature sensor, electromechanical controller, and a console. The options I looked at all include a fancy console, which I prefer that they didn't. I already have a remote console (also called an iPhone), so all I really need is the temperature sensor(s), and the controller (which ideally can be separate devices, communicating over the LAN). Anyways I'm going to search a bit more to see if these exist.

(There's a pretty cool page on a "killer app for IPv6", which I think only Lloyd may find funny).

There was finally some more construction activity on the condo on the southeast corner of Queen and Pape. Looks like they just poured some more cement, but at least the project's not completely stopped.

The little bugs that come around every fall have been back for a week. It makes it a pain to barbecue, which we use about three times a week. We try to just use the front door (for some reason the bugs only fly in from the back door), which for barbecuing means we're carrying our food around the alley to the back to cook, and then back around to the front. It's supposed to go down to 3C overnight this weekend, so maybe that will kill them off. I think though that it needs to drop to freezing to get rid of them.

It was a nice day yesterday so I took the afternoon off and went golfing with Craig at Lakeview. My short game was okay but not great, and I ended up with a 99. I've stopped using my driver (hitting with my hybrid off the tee) and I've been much more consistent in getting to the green. So now my score just depends on my chipping and putting.

A couple rivets had popped out of the bottom of my skates (which hold the blade to the boot), so I left them at the pro shop at the arena last week. Unfortunately the pro shop didn't work on them, so when I showed up on Thursday to pick them up before the game, they were still sitting there, and I missed the game. I'm going to give the arena a call on Monday to complain.

Tonight's Helen's and Nick's 40th birthday party. Helen plays on my Ultimate teams, and her and Nick (and their kids Sarah and Noah) live just up in Riverdale, about a 10 minute walk from us. It should be fun.

Anyways it looks like it may have stopped drizzling outside.

We went for dim sum last week, except our usual place on Gerrard had a big "closed" sign on the front window. So we stood hopelessly in front of the restaurant, when a man and his son walked by, and informed us that the place was closed for renovations, and that there was another dim sum place just down the street, which was pretty good. Which was the exact thing I suppose we were hoping would happen.

We tried the recommeded place, and it turned out really good, in fact better than our usual place. We went there again for dinner tonight because we couldn't decide on what to make, and it was great for dinner too. Who'd have thought. I can't remember the name of the place though. It's a bit west of Boulton on Gerrard, although that's not a very specific description for Chinatown.

A new bar opened up last week, called The Avro, on Queen St E, in the old Bergstrom place. We went for a quick beer to check the place out. It's pretty cozy, a nice place to drop in for a beer. I think it will do well.

The fall Ultimate seasons have started. So far we're doing well, we haven't lost a game yet. Most of the games are at Lamport, which makes it convenient to get to the games. The fall season is pretty short -- it's done in four more weeks, because then the domes go up on the fields for winter. I prefer indoors because it's speed point, which is a better workout.

I cleaned up the backyard where the car is parked, to put down flagstone around the back and side of the parking spot. It was getting a bit like a jungle on the passenger side. There were two old birch stumps that I had picked up at Kirk's years ago, which I had intended to turn into stools or side tables. We didn't like the look of them, and so they sat beside the parking spot for the last couple years. So I put them up on Craigslist for free. Some guy came and picked them up, along with four patio stones that came with the house. So this weekend I weeded and put down landscaping fabric, a few bags of limestone screening, and then Heather and I did the jigsaw puzzle of flagstone pieces. I still have to set the stones, which hopefully I can do next week if the weather is good.

Before pic:

Just got my iPad today. So far so good! Big difference so far in the typing. I can type at pretty much the same speed as on a regular keyboard. On the iPhone it was a bit of a struggle.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

It was a busy August! Maricar and Robin were married on August 14, (we were invited to both the wedding and reception on the Saturday, and the picnic on the Sunday). Shelley and Geron were married the next weekend, on August 21, in Thorold. Around the same time, Nalini and family were in town to visit. And then my high school friends and I went on a Carnival cruise, from Miami to the Bahamas and back, to celebrate our 40th birthdays, from August 26 - 30.

The cruise was okay. I'm not much of a cruise person, but it fit our schedules, and it was another country for me. Luckily for us we didn't get much rain, with a hurricane and tropical storm in the area.

I finally finished a book this year. I had been struggling through Jane Jacobs, and finally stopped that and started on The Three Musketeers. This is the first book I've read as a digital book, on Stanza on my iPhone. It's more convenient to hold the iPhone when in bed (considering the size of some of the books I've read recently). Also it's self-lit, so I don't need to have a light on. The only annoyance is that I prefer to read it in landscape mode, but when I'm lying on my side the iPhone is turned 90* from horizontal and the iPhone wants to flip to portrait. You can freeze the orientation in iOS4, but only in portrait mode. When I get an iPad I don't think it will be an issue, because then I'll be reading in potrait mode.

Our barbecue was looking a bit run-down, so I spray painted it today and it looks much better. I bought a can of heat-resistant spray paint at Home Depot for about $7 and gave it a couple coats this afternoon. Unfortunately I broke the thermometer trying to take it off, so now I need to replace it. Last month I replaced the grill and heat wave, from the friendly folks at Broilmate (I think it cost about $40, including delivery). The barbecue still works, so I don't want to buy a new one yet.

Stephane and Sab are coming over for dinner so I suppose I should start preparing the food. We're having grilled pork chops with quinoa.