April 28th.

Toronto sinkholes.



Ok, I'm starting to feel boxed in here. At Jane and Hwy 7 we've had a sink hole since February (they are still working on it), Finch Ave. is still down to two lanes from the washout of '05, we have a new sinkhole at Sheppard & Bathurst and finally it seems that a new one has opened up at Hwy 7 & Yonge St. Our city is falling apart. The only thing is that these areas have only been developed in the last 50 years. Why don't we have sinkholes at Bloor & Clinton or maybe Eglinton & Forest Hill? Was there major road work/maintaince done in those areas 40 years ago?
The Star and Newswire are saying that we should prepare for more of these problems as they cities infrastructure ages. But hasn't some of this infrastructure been in place for almost 100 years, why isn't it failing. Hell at least it seems that the province has been thinking ahead, they've even commissioned a report from the Water Strategy Expert Panel. This is great, in a year or five years, but right now Toronto's (North York's) infrastructure is failing, luckily no one has been hurt yet and property damage has been minimal. How long before someone gets hurt by driving into a sinkhole, or a house or apartment collapses. Lets start the work soon.

April 25th.

I wasn't going to post today, but since I had to do some site maintenance
so I decided I would put my foot forward with some opinions on the latest news.

Prime Minister Harper "nee Bush baby" has told us that the government will not honor our troops killed in Afghanistan with lowering the Canadian Flag at the Ottawa peace gardens to half mast and that the Canadian media cannot display images of flag draped coffins of these Canadians that we (yes we, we elected the parties that sent our people into a place where they can be killed, we are the final decision makers .. whether you agree to it or not, by voting or not voting we Canadians make our own decisions)sent to Afghanistan. I think Harper might want to rethink this.
[Update April 25 11:51 pm]: My Blag has a link to Rick Mercers peice on this. Read it, Harper re think this now!

In other news/opinions, Liberal MP's/ex NDP leaders are stating that they will be running for leader of the Liberal Party. The bloody vote is going to be held in December ‘06... Hell they held a federal election in shorter time then that. Look where that got them. Who gives a hoot until just a few weeks before the vote? Come on Canadian Media moguls give us a break... this is not news yet.

It sucks that a kid could be killed over bus tickets. His family is mourning as the killer runs around free and no one is willing to turn him in. This happened within two miles of my house. Once again this is to close to home.
Eldest rides the bus and subway to school every day, we've had to sit him down and tell him to hand over his tickets if anyone demands them. No heroics, just hand the tickets over. He has decided to bring his lacrosse stick home every night, it makes him feel safer. Is this how we really want to bring up our kids...? In fear of riding on a bus.

April 21st.

UPDATE #5 (May 15/06)
Position - Team - --------D -Wk -Mo -Total -Ij -Pt -R -W
1st -------*** **** ------2 -21 -38 -102 ----. -. -3 -^2
2nd -------Andrew C**** --4 -20 -27 -101 ----. -. -4 -^1
3rd ---------**** ***** --3 -22 -29 -100 -----. -. -3 -.

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UPDATE #4 (May 12/06)
Position - Team - --------D -Wk -Mo -Total -Ij -Pt -R -W
1st -xxx xxxx ------------2 -12 -29 -93 -----. -1 -6 -^3
2nd -Andrew C**** --------. -9 -16 -90 ------. -3 -7 -^4
2nd -xxxx xxxxx ----------1 -12 -19 -90 -----. -3 -6 -^3

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UPDATE #3 (May 10/06)
Position - Team - --------D -Wk -Mo -Total -Ij -Pt -R -W
1st ------Andrew C**** ----. -6 -13 -87 -----. -7 -7 -^4

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UPDATE #2 (May 1/06)
Position - Team - --------D -Wk -Mo -Total -Ij -Pt -R -W
1st --------Andrew C**** -4 -47 -74 -74 -----. -2 -9 -^9

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UPDATE #1 (April 25/06)
Position - Team - --------D -Wk -Mo -Total -Ij -Pt -R -W
1st ------- Andrew C**** -7 -7 --34 -34 -----. -7 -11 -^2

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43 year old loser's hockey pool picks .. I will try to keep it updated.

RK Player Team GP G A P
Regular Season 1 JOE THORNTON SJS 81 29 96 125
Playoffs
Regular Season 4 DANY HEATLEY OTT 82 50 53 103
Playoffs
Regular Season 7 RIC STAAL CAR 82 45 55 100
Playoffs
Regular Season 10 JONATHAN CHEECHOO SJS 82 56 37 93
Playoffs
Regular Season 12 BRAD RICHARDS TBL 82 23 68 91
Playoffs
Regular Season 15 BRIAN GIONTA NJD 82 48 41 89
Playoffs
Regular Season 179 JAROME IGINLA CGY 82 35 32 67
Playoffs
Regular Season 483 SCOTT GOMEZ NJD 82 33 51 84
Playoffs
Regular Season 181 DION PHANEUF CGY 82 20 29 49
Playoffs
Regular Season 262 SERGEI ZUBOV DAL 78 13 58 71
Playoffs

Team to Win the '06 Stanley Cup, the San Jose Sharks or maybe Calgary. I have to stop sitting on the fence on issues. I need to learn to commit.

April 20th.

The Toronto Star is reporting that Pat Quinn, coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, has been fired.

April 18th.

Happy Together, Somthing you don't see every day with my kids

Two days into the week and I don't want to be here... damn I have to find a new job.

We had a good Easter weekend. We slept in, went to church, took Eldest to his Box Lacrosse game on Saturday, cooked, wife and I had a fight (made up when I gave her a nice Easter gift), got together with family for dinner on Sunday and had for the most part a quiet family weekend.

Middle wants to go for tryouts this week. Tryouts, by definition if your not a hockey parent, is when your kid is put up against everyone else’s kid to see who is the best and who can make the team. Now this is not always true, kid "A" could be the coaches daughters friend and kid "B" could be someone unknown. So who makes the team? Now this scenario is not always true either. So Middle is going to tryout for a team in the North Metro Girls Hockey League. We will see how she does.

Eldest has made the schools U14 Field Lacrosse Team. Seems to be doing well at school, or at least the teachers are not complaining about his work not being done. He is going through that phase of the "World's not fair", "why me?". It's hard to handle but there is no other option. I remember going through this phase, it sucked, I was such a self centered shit head. Now my son is one.

Youngest got to wear her new shoes today. Pink skater shoes with two laces (one pink one white). She was happy.

Wife has to go to New York for a few days, now I'm unhappy.

April 13th.

Crocus in the Snow
On April 13th 2005 I created my first post. So I guess you could say that today is my first anniversary.

I created my blog as a way to keep a journal, to be creative in some way. I know I was suppressing my creative side. I'm so caught up in my family (not that this is a bad thing) and work that I didn't have time to reach out or be creative. This Blog and Flickr have helped me in this. (I do have to stop blogging at work) Sometimes I think of myself as a online Flasher waiting for a voyeur to come and read what I have to say or see the images that I've captured, but then I realize that everyone who does stop by is the same a me. Just trying to get by day to day.

Thanks for stopping by and here is to another year of being creative and having fun.

April 12th.

Well I have not posted, I mean really posted not just playing a meme or post a online quiz for a fair while.

Things have been going up and down since December. I fought for and got an outside commission based sale rep position for my company and when the guy I replaced is asked to come back by the owner, I get to go back to my old job with a thank you and a cheque. At least I wasn't fired. I think its time to look for a new job.

Eldest is once again being bullied, has been since October/November .. Grades going down, excluding himself from everything .. we just could not get him to open up to us. We finally got him talking. We've put a stop to it, talked to the principal of his school, talked to our doctor, the boys (grade 9 students who don't even know him) were caught on security camera hitting Eldest on the back of the leg with a tennis racket. He just won't fight back. He became so with drawn it was scary, he no longer wants to TaiKwonDo, he is going to quit hockey, he doesn't even want to go any further with his swimming. At least he has found a "girlfriend". He has opened up more since he started seeing her, they talk on the phone every few nights. They've gone out on a few dates. He wants to take to a concert in May. So things seem to be improving. I've talked him into getting his bronze cross, I used an example of what you get paid at McDonalds or what a Life Guard can make. He will be taking the course this summer. Eldest got on the schools under 14 field Lacrosse team, this seemed to boost his ego a fair bit to.

Middle is middle, 11 years old turning 20 .. getting very tired of her starting her projects at the last minute and either wife or I having to spend hours the night before its due helping her get the project done. She wants to go out for girls rep hockey tryouts next week. I will let you how she does. She had a awesome game on Championship day, her team was in the consolation game, it was a goalies match up, 6/6 tie by the end of the third .. they went to a shoot out. 5 shooters for each team. Once again, goalies match up, each one stopped every shot, until that last two shooters. Both players were one and two for the season in goals. Middles team member was #1 for the season in points. Other team scored on Middle, Middles team rang off the net. Great game.

Youngest is youngest, what can I saw. She is a joy.

April 7th.

Paul via: Cyber Chocolate has intro'd me to a Wikipedia birthday meme ..

Rules: Look up the date of your birthday in Wikipedia. From the date page, pick three interesting historical events that occurred on that date, two births, and one death. (I did 4/3/2 because I wanted to show Norton/Jordon and Armstrong)

February 17 1963

Here's what happened:
1500 - Battle of Hemmingstedt.
1864 - American Civil War: CSS H. L. Hunley is the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
1979 - The Sino-Vietnamese War begins.
1996 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

Here's who was born:
1912 - Andre Norton, American author (d. 2005)
1963 - Michael Jordan, American basketball player
1972 - Billie Joe Armstrong, American singer and musician (Green Day)

And here's who died:
1909 - Geronimo, Apache leader (b. 1829)
1919 - Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1841)

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few. But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Thanks Staci

As seen on Wimp.com Isn't this sad.

Just had a few doctors appointments, more things to make me a loser.

I have now a perscription for Progressive Lenses, it's a nice way of saying bifocals and my family doctor wants me to look into getting Orthpedic shoes. Hey maybe I not a loser, I'm just getting old.