So, to recap… nah - just kidding. You can go back and read the last two entries if you want a recap.

September brought nice weather with it this year, so we spent more time outside than usual in a Saskatoon September. Work was keeping me busy, and William was keeping Erin busy. Being a baby was keeping William busy. All around, we were pretty busy.

October brought Thanksgiving, and Grandma Nabe’s auction sale/moving into her new apartment. It also brought William crawling around - slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed. We got to see Auntie Sandra’s new house in Russell, and get together with my extended family on my Mom’s side for some good visiting time. Grandma’s new place is really nice, and I think she likes it too.

November was just last month, so, while I don’t remember what happened that was newsworthy, I’m too lazy to go back and read about it. Actually, we went to Jason and Mandy’s housewarming near the end of the month, which was fun. William has met Santa a couple of times since then, though I don’t think he cared for the experience too much.

It’s that scary time of year, when I’m not ready for Christmas, and we’re only a week away. In fact, I have no more work Christmas parties until next year, so there’s no excuse for not getting ready. I think Erin and I are doing some quick shopping tonight, then I’ll probably spend a good part of the weekend working on Christmas presents. By the time the 24th rolls around, I’ll just be looking to fall asleep.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Ho ho ho. Ho ho ho.” - Rooftop santa

And now, the exciting conclusion of “The Year That Was”

All three of us went on a road trip to Calgary at Easter, which was really nice. William travelled well, and got to visit with all of his Calgary relatives (except Tika, who was in Indonesia for her Dad’s birthday I think(?))

May brought Ultimate. This year wasn’t nearly as fun as the previous, and as a result, I’m still contemplating not playing again next year. The game was still fun, but the politics in the league, and on our team really sucked. June brought more of the same, plus the CFL started up.

I took a sort of break from this site. July started out with a mini-family-reunion at Kenosee, which was a lot of fun. We got to take my Grandma mini-golfing (ok, technically, she took us) and had a good time with that. Lots of cards were played, and I introduced some people to Cups. Looking back at my posts from Spring and Summer makes me feel all warm and un-Wintery…

Erin and William took off on an Alberta tour at the end of August, which was fun for them. I got some quiet time at home, but the house felt pretty empty most of the time.

This has taken a lot longer to write than you’d think. I am going to post it now, with another cliffhanger, and make you check it out Thursday (gone from the office tomorrow at lunch)

Tune in Thursday to see if I can actually make it through the rest of the year.

With December half over, it’s time to look back at the year that was, and to look forward to the year to come. Consider this my Christmas letter.

The year started out well, with Erin no longer going to work in the mornings. Unfortunately, she was tired all the time, and unable to truly enjoy her time to herself - something that’s been conspicuous by it’s absense lately. February brought two more weeks of the same sort of activity.

February 17th, William was born, changing the daily routine somewhat. We went from a two person family to a three person family, and had some adjustments to make. Changes are still underway (as they will be for the next 20 years, I’m sure ;) Looking back at the pictures it’s hard to believe the change that William has gone through in these past 10 months. He’s gone from a cute little lump that didn’t do much moving around to a boy who crawls around faster than it’s possible to believe without seeing it for yourself. He’s just days from walking, and getting lots of practice falling on his behind.

Anyway, I’ve been distracted. Where was I? Oh yeah - March. We didn’t do much in March, though I did manage to get Erin to approve the purchase of the projector. We’ve been quite happy with it, and honestly, I don’t know why people would ever spend four times the money for a screen that’s 1/4 as big, and fragile, and heavy etc, etc. It made the playoffs a lot of fun to watch. I think I got William hooked on hockey.

Gee - I think I should have prepared a little better for this, because I don’t really remember what all we did in April through December. I’ll have to continue my Christmas letter tomorrow after doing some research

Simpson’s quote of the day: “And remember when I let that escaped lunatic in our house because he was dressed like Santa Claus? Well that’s nothing, because you have a gambling problem!” - Homer

So, apparently there’s a new extension to the CDR levy. It essentially raises the price of hard drive MP3 players another $25 (if their capacity is greater than 10GB) Now, this may seem like a reasonable amount, when those MP3 players sell for more than $3-400 already. The problem that I have with it is that it’s “Guilty with no chance to be proven Innocent.” If you buy an iPod, you’re assumed to be a music pirate. While that may be true in a lot of cases, it’s equally untrue in a lot of cases. I know lots of people who have large collections of MP3s. Some of the people have “illegally” downloaded the majority of their collection, while others have legally purchased each and every CD, and personally ripped their own MP3’s.

In other words, they are innocent of pirating MP3s. They haven’t done it. Some of them even own large capacity MP3 players - the kind that will be hit by this levy. I was upset when the levy was initially instituted back in 1999, and I’m not getting any less upset this time around.

The vast majority of blank CDs that I purchase are used to store data. For example, pictures, which I take with my digital camera. Every time I burn a CD full of pictures of William, I’m paying $0.29 - some of which goes to Celine Dion, despite the fact that I actively avoid hearing her music.

It’s not a tax - it’s a levy. Being the copyright holder on my pictures, I think I want my cut.

Personally, I don’t buy a lot of CDs. I never have. I don’t listen to a lot of music, and the music that I listen to now is mostly Classical - CBC FM is great for that. The artists that I like, I support by buying their CDs - the ones that I don’t, I avoid listening to as much as possible. It’s pretty frustrating that I’m paying money to artists whose work I choose not to support, and have no choice in the matter.

So, to that end, I’m going to write a letter. Not an email, but an actual letter. I remember learning that sending letters to your MP is postage free, so the only cost will be the paper, and the envelope. I will draft the letter, and once it’s done, I will post the contents here, for the whole world to read, modify and send to their own MP if they so desire. I can be eloquent when I put my mind to it, so I have high expectations as to the quality of this letter. Obviously, this post isn’t one of my better written efforts, but it’s mainly because I don’t edit the posts - I type them as I think of what to type. The letter will be well written, well thought out, and state my points as plain as day. It will likely fall on deaf ears, but then, if I don’t write and send it, it won’t even do that.

Oh, and if you’re interested in further information on this new tax levy, check out the Press Release

Simpson’s quote of the day: “All right! Crime spree!” - Snake

Some time ago, while perusing the discount software bin at Staples to kill time while Erin did something that required customer service (I don’t remember what - all I remember is having time on my hands) I found a gem of a game called “The Incredible Machine.” I love Rube Goldberg machines, the concept of creating a working machine by stringing together a bunch of components that react on each other really piques my interest.

So, when I heard that the creators of The Incredible Machine have updated the game, and brought it into the present, and are selling it as shareware, I had to follow the magic link - May I present you with Chain Reaction. I haven’t played it yet, but it looks very much like The Incredible Machine, except it probably won’t require the machine to be act like an old 486, which is what TIM did…I’m going to have to check out the demo when I get a chance.

I mean, really - who ever played “Mousetrap?” Everyone I know just set up the trap and triggered it to watch the magic happen, then adjusted it to make it actually work, and triggered it again, etc.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “So you kids fancy youselves experts eh?” - Comic Book Guy

We’re busy working on getting the house ready for a Christmas tree - we have the livingroom gated away from the entrance, so we can put it up without William constantly taking it back down again. We haven’t done a tree for a couple of years, so it will be nice to have the house be a little festive again.

Change of gears - I watched the Simpson’s last night (the Sunday night new episode) and was quite disappointed. I know, it’s cliche to say that it’s gone downhill in recent years, but I used to be of the opinion that a bad episode of the Simpson’s beats a good episode of most things. That opinion has changed. The last couple of episodes have been so bad as to be offensively bad. I think I’m going to usurp the quote of the day today because of it.

Daily Show word of the day: “Trailerparkansas”

Well, it’s two Christmas parties down, two to go (sort of.) In reality, there are probably four more to go for me, three for Erin, and two for William - Wednesday is a “Social Club” Christmas lunch that Erin is coming here for (William too ;) then Thursday night is the PCS Children’s Christmas party. Saturday is the Cargill Christmas party, for which we are having Jim and Judy babysit - they did such a great job on Friday night for the PCS party - William didn’t even notice that we were gone.

Then, next Wednesday, it’s the departmental Christmas lunch social. Overall, a lot of food related events.

We’re working on getting our house cleaned up some, because it needs it, and we need a place to put a Christmas tree. We’ve decided to put it up in the “front” entranceway that we don’t/can’t use. The only problem is cleaning it out sufficiently that there is space for it. Somehow that area always accumulates stuff.

I got all caught up on categorizing photos, and discovered some holes - we have no pictures of William with two of his uncles, and none of William with his Grandpa Mitchell. It’s kind of strange.

Speaking of William - he’s been getting fed a lot more solids lately, and seems to be really enjoying them. He’s a really well behaved eater, and if he’s in his highchair, he hardly ever gets food all over the place anymore. Occasionally he closes his mouth before the spoon is in, which results in big globs of food on his shirt, but most of the time he does this little lunge move to make sure he gets as much food as he can.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oww! My face is on fire!” - Ralph