How Do I Know You?

I don't spend as much time on Facebook as I used to. I've pretty much maxed out on friends (I seriously don't know any more people) and I don't like all those stupid applications that you can add to your profile. All I ever do now is check for mail, see if anyone has posted new pictures, and... well actually that's about it. I like to look through people's pictures. I'm not a weirdo stalker or anything (or am I?) but by looking at all the pictures I feel like I'm actually part of my friends' lives, sharing their experiences and adventures with them - even those friends that live in Saskatchewan or California or Taiwan. Okay, I'm a bit weird like that, but isn't that the whole point of posting pics anyway? Another I do when I have a bit of time is browse through people's friend lists. Maybe they've added someone new that I know or maybe I met some of their friends at a party recently. One time, I was looking through someone's friend list and I saw a name that looked familiar but I couldn't remember if it was from elementary school in Regina, junior high in Winnipeg or high school here in BC. Does that mean I'm old now?

Just Because It's Free, Doesn't Mean You Need it

Do I really need a GPS unit? I usually just drive around the lower mainland and if I know I'm going somewhere I'm unfamiliar with, I'll check out google maps beforehand. I always thought a GPS was for one of those drivers that gets lost all the time or can't read a map. But then again, I have some friends that are generally pretty competent drivers and they say their GPS is great and they love it. Is it something that will just distract me? Maybe Celia needs it. Maybe neither of us need it. Here's the thing: I don't often get lost, I usually just drive in the lower mainland/fraser valley, I don't travel much, and I have google maps on my blackberry. If the GPS is free, should I get it anyway?

Finally!

The other day we were cleaning up the closet. The twins were playing around all the stuff we had, basically making more of a mess than what was already there. All of a sudden, Lucas stands up and takes a few steps. What the...? No prompting, no encouragment, no nothing. He just got up on his own and walked a bit. Woohoo! Since then, he's been doing this regularly. He still prefers to crawl - I guess because he's pretty fast at it - but he'll try to stand up on his own and walk a bit. It's pretty cute to see him standing there unaided. I think Amelia noticed too because when he's standing she runs up to him as if she's thinking "finally, we can play!"

Time to Kill

I have some vacation time at the end of August but I'm not going anywhere. I plan on painting my house. Anyone want to help?

I Have a Headache

About a month ago a friend of mine started complaining of headaches. She said she was convinced it was a tumour but all joked around about it. Seriously, how many people do you know have had brain tumours? Anyway, things got a bit worse and she went to the hospital and as it turned out, she had a brain tumour. She had surgery and is still in the hospital recovering. We talked to her today and she's doing okay but she is obviously very scared and nervous about the long-term outcomes. Without getting into any kind of detail, she's been having some problems that would prevent her from working and her daily activities would have to be restricted. We told her that it was brain surgery and the recovery would last longer than a couple of weeks and would definitely involve a lot of rehab and patience. I mean, surgery on your leg can take months to recover from so you can't expect to fully recover in the first few days after someone has been digging into your brain. Anyway, we tried to be positive but we were all pretty scared too. What if our girl never came back to "normal"? Anyway, pray for her please. She's a very sweet girl and my friend.

I Guess it's True

There are 2 other guys named Oliver in my office - more than any other place I've been.  I guess nerds are named Oliver.

Circus of the Sun

Last weekend we went to see Cirque du Soleil. Holy crap. That's all I really have to say. Those people are frickin amazing. I like jugglers. Don't ask why, I just like to see people juggle. The jugglers at Cirque were awesome. Anyway, the show was like an orgasm for the eyes. I don't think my eyes have had that much fun ever.

Movie Review

I haven't done a movie review in a long time. Probably because I haven't seen a movie in a long time. I actually have 2 reviews.

Sex and the City with Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattral, Kirstin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon

How come the only one that shows nudity is the lesbian?


Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr., and Gwyneth Paltrow

I was never a big fan of the comic but the movie fuckin' rocked. All this movie needed was some naked chicks (not lesbians).

Brings Back Old Times

This past week I've gotten almost no sleep because the twins are sick. First they were throwing up, now they have stuffed up noses and coughs and they're probably both feeling pretty lousy. It's like when they were newborns, we're getting up every 2-3 hours during the night. I'm so tired at work I can't even concentrate on anything and I'm falling asleep at my desk by 2pm. Yeah yeah, you're probably wondering why the hell am I on my computer blogging when I could be getting some sleep. Because I feel like it, smartass.

Now for the Other One.

It has begun. This evening, Lucas looked up at us and threw up. I knew it would happen. I was warned that when one twin gets sick, the other will get it too. Amelia just got better and now Lucas is puking all over the place. Poor guy. I hope it only lasts 24hrs like Amelia. He didn't even complain, he just puked and sat there while we cleaned him up. Then he went back to sleep like nothing happened.

Poor Baby

My poor little girl is sick. Yesterday evening she suddenly threw up her entire dinner. I haven't seen her throw up that much ever. Then, the whole night she couldn't hold anything down. She threw up anything she tried to eat or drink. This morning I stopped trying to feed her and she was down to just breast milk and a bit of water. She's so lethargic and grumpy now. So far, she's been able to take some pedialyte and breast milk and keep it down but hopefully she makes it through the night without puking. She must be starving. Lucas has been so helpful too. He hasn't been very needy while Amelia has been sick so he's been playing on his own while I've been looking after Amelia. What a good boy. All this happening with my girl and I've got a crappy crappy cold too. I've been coughing like crazy, my nose is all plugged up (and yet runny at the same time), and I just feel crappy all over. This weekend isn't going to be a good one.

Lucas Walking Update:
still not walking.

My eLife is Now my iLife

I don't know if I mentioned it already (I guess I could just read my own blog), but I us a Mac. iMac 24" 3.06GHz 4GB RAM nVidia 8800GTS. Ya, you heard me. I switched to Apple. Okay, not 100%, I'm actually typing on our Windows PC right now, but that's because we fight over the mac all the time. I have one word for it: itsfuckingawesome. iTunes was always kinda cool but once you use iPhoto with it, it gets better. I haven't even had a chance to play with the other stuff because yet because I'm still playing with iPhoto. For all you people that are now saying, "well I still need to use MS Word and Excel for work," - get with the program, you can do that with a mac and no one would know. Anyway, just so you know, a 24" monitor is fucking huge. My first computer used to have a 15" CRT monitor that took up half the desk and... sorry, I'm not really going anywhere with this, I just wanted to reminisce about how far we've come. 24 fucking inches!! Jeebus, that's big. (that's what she said. hehe).

Okay anyway, just to get even more entrenched into the Window-less world, we both got iPhones. Don't ask where we got them, just know that we now own the coolest phone in the world. Don't try to tell me your phone is just as good because it won't work, I'm in love with my phone. It's like having the newest phone and the newest iPod all in one. Wait, that's exactly what it is.

About 2 more hours and then it's happy bday to me. Last Thursday I told my boss I would be calling in sick. I think it's just so damn considerate of me to give 5 days notice on my sick days, don't you think?

Happy Birthday

I just want to say Happy Birthday to my wife. It's her first birthday as a married woman and hopefully it is a good one. Unfortunately, we can't go out and really celebrate like we used to but that's what we knew when we had our kids. Personally, I'm don't think I'm missing anything. I like staying home with the kids.

There once was a woman named Celia.
She was mom to Lucas and Amelia.
She bought a new house,
and said to the mouse,
"don't touch my kids or i'll killya."

I Miss

I miss:

• Sleeping at 1am and staying in bed until 11am.
• Playing video games all afternoon.
• Sleeping all night long.
• Going out for dinner and sitting in the restaurant for 3 hours.
• Saying, "let's go to the pub after work!"
• Going to movies.
• Having a day off and doing all the things that I needed to get done.

A couple of days ago a friend of mine told me she was pregnant. Congratulations to her! I'll tell you who it is later. I don't know who still reads this, but you probably don't know her.

Baby Story

Now that my major project at work is done, now that we've moved into our new home, now that the renovations are almost done, now that the kids' birthday is past, now that the wedding has come and gone, and now that Celia is back to work I wonder what I'm going to do with all my time. Actually, now that Amelia is walking and Lucas is right behind her, all my "free" time is spent watching the kids. It's okay though because they're more fun now than they have ever been. They play, they talk in their baby language, and they get into all kinds of trouble. Just one story:

Usually in the mornings, they play while Celia and I take about 20 minutes trying to wake up. We can usually hear them banging away in the hallway but one morning they were awfully quiet. I got up and hunted them down and found them standing beside the toilet having a grand old time splashing away. I had to fish out one of their little stuffed animals and we had to wash both of them up right then and there. Gross.

It Had to be You

One of the things that Celia convinced me to do for our wedding is to take dance lessons. I wasn't sure I wanted to but she really really wanted to so I said "fine, we'll do it." Anyway, it turned out to be a tonne of fun. We found this dance school called Dancing for Dessert and our instructor, Magda, was awesome. She choreographed a whole routine for us (not too difficult seeing as we had to learn it without knowing how to foxtrot) and taught us the whole thing in 7 lessons. When it came to performing at the wedding, it wasn't perfect and some may say it wasn't even well done, but who cares. We had a blast doing it and for me, it was one of the most memorable parts of the night.

All Done

The day was a big success for us. The ceremony started a bit late but other than that, it went off without a hitch. The kids were so cute. Amelia walked down the aisle (with help) and Lucas was super cute in his little tuxedo. Celia looked incredible. We took some pictures after downtown and hopefully they turned out good too. It was freezing cold but we're all stars so we toughed it out and finished the shoot. The reception went well too. It's funny, I was nervous about the ceremony but I held it together and after that I was feeling a lot better but still a little stressed about our first dance. Our DJ started the song in the wrong spot but that's kinda our fault for not telling him about it in advance. We messed up a few parts of the dance but we were able to improvise a bit and finish it with a little style. Very fun stuff - we plan on taking more dance lessons. Anyone want to join us? I had a few drinks so I was a bit tipsy but not drunk. Well, I had enough to drink that I was giving away drink tickets like they were free but now that I'm sober and looking at our bar bill, I'm regretting it a bit. Just a bit though because I had a really good time and I hope everyone else did too.

The Big Day

We've waited a long time for this. It was supposed to happen last year but the twins were born a bit early and changed our plans. In 2 days I'm finally getting married. It went from a very very small ceremony with next to no reception to a very big reception and back to a decent sized one. The past couple days have been stressful for me because I'm a real last minute kind of guy and there's a lot of work to do. It's pretty much finished now (it better be if I'm blogging) and tomorrow I just have to print and fold but I think we'll have some help with that... We'll see though. Anyway, the next time I post I'll be a married man. All you ladies that are now thinking you've missed out on a good thing, well don't you worry. It's not that good and you're not missing anything. Ask around, I'm not lying.

Anyway, thanks to anyone and everyone that helped out and special thanks to anyone that has helped look after my children while I've had to work on wedding plans.

What Did You Expect?

"Medical marijuana users are on the hook for more than $500,000 in unpaid bills for government-certified weed... Newly disclosed statistics show that Health Canada has sent final notices - and sometimes dispatched a collection agency as well - to 462 registered users since government marijuana first became available in 2003." - Dan Beeby, THE CANADIAN PRESS

I'm all for alternative drug therapies and this is no exception. If it works, it works, right? But seriously, what did you expect from a bunch of pot-smokers? I remember commercials a few years back about a couple of dead-end guys that lived at their parents' house and didn't have jobs because they just sat around and smoked dope all day. And now you "sell" legalized marijuana and expect them to pay for it? This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while.

Bow Your Head

Last Tuesday, April 8, 2008 my tita Nene passed away. She's not my real aunt by blood or anything but she might as well have been. She struggled with cancer for a long time and now she is finally free. Some people ask me if I was close to her and although I didn't see her a lot, I still think I saw her a lot. She was a one of those cool aunts that you liked to run into at the mall or enjoyed talking to at family parties. She was important enough to me that she would have been one of the principal sponsors for my wedding. I grew up with her around (I have a picture of her at my 3rd or 4th bday party - I'm sure she was at the earlier ones too) and last fall she was still able to come over to my house and help Celia with the twins when I had to go back to work, and I'm so glad that she was able to make to my twins' first birthday. It was hard to see her at the end because she was always so strong and independent and at the hospital she was so weak and thin. I'm sure she was suffering towards the end so I'm happy that she doesn't have to suffer any more. People always ask what her daughter is going to do now. I don't really know, but I'm pretty sure that tita Nene taught her to be strong and smart so I'm sure she'll be okay.

In honour of my tita Rose/Nene, let us all bow our heads and say a prayer. She'll be missed by many. I'll make sure my kids know who she was.