Norah Jones has free MP3’s of a live performance at The House of Blues. I got some of her MP3’s a long time ago via a less than legal P2P thing, and liked them so much that I asked for the CD for Christmas. Seven months later I’m still listening to the CD, which says something.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “A cup-holder! Bart, we’ve got to stop and get a cup!” - Milhouse

Last week’s lunch hours were spent on “A Taste of Saskatchewan.” Wednesday and Thursday, I braved the heat and walked down to the riverbank in search of food. It was good, as usual, but the portion sized varied quite a bit (also as usual) It just makes it tough to decide what to eat, when you don’t know if something is enough of a mean on it’s own or not.

We spent the weekend in a pretty quiet mode. Friday night, Bryan and Darren came over for dinner and “Shanghai Knights.” Some people prefer it to “Shanghai Noon” but I thought the original was better. They were both pretty good though.

Saturday, Erin went to a stagette. She was gone for five hours before I was forced to call her home to feed the boy. He drank all the milk she had left, and was screaming inconsolably, so I broke down and made the call. Oddly enough, by the time Erin came home, I had him calmed back down. We were kind of stuck outside though, watching traffic drive by. I’d tried taking him outside a couple of times with no success, but after calling Erin, he apparently could tell she was on her way, and he calmed down fairly well. It’s just a good thing we live on a relatively busy street, since whenever there were no cars for about a half minute, he’d start to get wound up again.

I feel bad, since it seems like the only time I write about William, it’s to tell tales of how he’s screaming at the top of his lungs. Honestly, those times are fairly rare. He’s a very happy baby. He greets me almost every morning with a big smile, and a couple of giggles, ang he greets me with the same when I come home from work. He really is a lot of fun to have around.

Sunday, I played a little bit of “Dark Cloud 2″ then we made a trip to Canadian Tire to get a pressure washer - we gave the car a thorough washing. The next step is to wash the house so I can get it ready to paint it before the summer is up. As much as I hate painting, it will be nice to have the house a non-yellow color.

This coming weekend, we’re heading to Edmonton for Erin’s Uncle Murray’s birthday bash (he’s 50 - shhhhh) Should be a good time - William will likely get passed around quite a bit.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’ve gotta get out of this rut, and back into the groove.” - Homer

The last two days I’ve gone to “A Taste of Saskatchewan” for lunch. Good food, though I don’t know if it was worth the long walk in the super hot sun (causing me to arrive back at work sweaty and smelly.)

Not much else new with us though, other than the broken laptop, which Erin talked about on William’s World. It looks like we won’t be able to get a replacement cord until sometime in August, so no computer at home until then - well, very little computer anyway. I think we’re down to an hour and a half of battery life remaining.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “If I break, buy a new one!” - Krusty The Clown doll

Ok, here’s the free food story. It’s not very good, but you asked for it :-P

Saturday morning, before leaving for Greenwater I made a quick run to Canadian Tire for some tent pegs (which we didn’t end up using — don’t ask) and a new hatchet (our old one was getting treacherous.) While I was up there, I also decided to stop at the IGA to get some ice and apples.

Bryan was working, and I was hungry, so I asked him what was fresh. I wound up getting an apple strudel too. So, I’m in line at the only open cashier — ok, I say line, but really there was no line, in fact I was probably the only customer in the store at 8:30 AM on a Saturday — Anyway, I’m in “line” with my three items, and a guy comes up to me and says “do you eat hotdogs?” I slowly nodded and said “yeees.” He said “we’re not carrying these anymore, and their the last box - still in date and everything. Do you want them for free?” So, I wound up with a free box of “Top Dogs” which were actually pretty good hotdogs.

You have to understand that I used to eat hotdogs by the dozens. It wasn’t unusual for me to come home from school and eat 4-6 hotdogs (microwaved) as an after school snack. What’s amazing to me is that I was skinny while practicing this behaviour. Anyway, I’m a bit picky about what kind of tube-steak I eat. Some kinds are nearly inedible to me, while others are scrumptiously delicious. I was wary of these “Top Dogs” but I needn’t have been. Make no mistake, they’re not actually the best hotdog I’ve ever eaten, but they were pretty good.

So, I’m getting my free hotdogs rung through the till, and the bagger offered me a free brownie to go with my free hotdogs. They had a big stack of them - I assume they were day old or something. Still pretty tasty, and free. What the heck. So, to recap, a bag of ice, four apples, an apple fritter, a box of “Top Dogs” and a brownie for under $4.00. Not a bad shopping trip overall.

I told you it wasn’t a very good story.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Well, he’s kind of had it in for me, since I accidently ran over his dog. Actually, replace ‘accidently’ with ‘repeatedly’, and replace ‘dog’ with ’son’.” - Lionel Hutz

We went camping Saturday night to Greenwater Provincial Park. The drive out was a little longer than we expected, and we wound up arriving about five minutes before we had to be there to participate in an Ultimate demonstration. The park itself is quite nice, very well treed, well kept up too. We stayed in the “group” sites which were really just a bunch of regular camp sites in close proximity. Our site, while small was completely surrounded by Saskatoon bushes. They had been picked clean when we got there, but by Sunday morning, there were enough berries to satisfy my breakfast hunger ;-)

William was good, until about 8:30 or 9:00 (I think) when he started screaming and wouldn’t stop. He got so wound up that nothing would calm him, even a drive around the park. Erin’s pretty sure he’s cutting his first tooth, though we’ve been thinking that for a month now. Ice wrapped in a receiving blanket made a pretty good soother once we thought of it. He slept, Erin slept, I went and hung out with the rest of my Ultimate team until around midnight, when it looked like a nasty thunderstorm was rolling in.

It did.

We had the foresight to put up the tent’s fly, and put the whole thing on a tarp on the highest ground in our site, so we stayed nice and dry. William slept through all the lightning and thunder and raining and pouring. I didn’t sleep great, mainly because I was sticking to our new air mattress.

Speaking of which, don’t buy a Coleman Quickbed - they can’t be inflated by mouth, and a “Queen” sized air mattress from them is a half foot shorter and narrower than from any other company that we looked at (only find that out in small writing on the side, despite the depth measurement being right on the front.) Overall, I’m not impressed with it, and when it springs an unpatchable leak (like all vinyl air mattresses do) we won’t be replacing it with another Coleman.

Anyway, the weather was gorgeous during the day, bright blue skies, light breeze, comfortably cool in the shade, but plenty hot in the sun. I managed to avoid getting sunburned, except for the back of my right hand (which I apparently didn’t put enough sunblock on…) Quite an accomplishment for a pasty guy like myself.

Oh, and remind me to tell you the free food story sometime this week.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Quadraphonic sound, a waterbed, and now a strobe light. Gentlemen, say hello to the second-base mobile.”

It was the best of calls, it was the worst of calls. It was the Evenflo email tech support, it was the Evenflo phone tech support.

Erin emailed Evenflo to get advice on something to do with William’s car seat. She offered to attach pictures to an email, so that the support person could see what she was talking about. The person who responded told her to call the 800 number.

The following is a dramatization

Erin: “1-800-whatever that number is”

Evenflo Tech support: Please call back during business hours

Erin: “grumble”

weeks later, when Erin has a chance to call during business hours…

Erin: “1-800 whatever”

Evenflo Tech support: “Hello?”

Erin: “Hi, I’ve got a question about one of your car seats.” Erin then proceeds to pose her question

Evenflo Tech support: “Do you have email? Could you email me pictures? The email address is ‘addressFakedToProtectTheSilly@evenflo.com’”

Erin: {thinks to herself} “That’s the same person who told me to call the 800 number…I’ll reply to that email instead of typing in the address again”

That’s the end of the story. Evenflo Tech support was never heard from again.

I suspect by the time we do hear from them, William will be in a new car seat, since he’s rapidly approaching 17 lbs (if he isn’t already.) In the mean time, Erin is going to MD Ambulance this afternoon for their car-seat clinic, to get her question answered by them.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “…apparently the bake sale to raise money for the car wash has been cancelled due to confusion. Well, that concludes this morning’s announcements, I’m Seymour Skinner and stand by to resume learning in 5—4—3—2—1.” - Principal Skinner

The weekend was really good, though we didn’t do much.

Friday night, we went to mom & dad’s for supper, like we always do. It was my “birthday supper” so I picked Potato Pizza (not really pizza at all, more like lasagna) and Trifle for desert. Afterwards, we played some games (Deadwood, and Save Dr. Lucky.) Then, we watched the end of the Riders loss to the Alouettes (pretty bad way to lose a game - wide on a last second FG attempt for the win.)

Saturday, Erin, William and I went shopping for a new car seat. We’ve got some time still, but it would be good to get the next car seat before it’s absolutely necessary. We didn’t buy a car seat, but we did get an air mattress for this weekend’s upcoming camping trip. Saturday night, we went to Erin’s aunt and uncle’s place for her uncle’s birthday supper.

Sunday, my mom came over and helped Erin work on the curtains for the livingroom. They’re basically done now - just requiring the bottom hem, and a couple of hooks for the ends. They look really good, and block the light great. While they were doing that, William slept on my lap, and I played Dark Cloud 2, which seems pretty good so far.

All the rain this weekend made for a nice time to stay indoors, and not having any travelling to do, or weddings or whatever was nice too. I’d be nice and relaxed if William hadn’t woken up screaming at 11:30 or so last night. :-)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Arr, I’m in a lotta trouble now. Hey, I’ll give ya a hundred bucks if you’ll take the blame.” - Captain McAllister