So the word is in, and I have Arthroscopic surgery scheduled for next Thursday morning bright and early. Torn cartilage for sure, and possibly a torn ACL. They’ll hopefully fix up the cartilage on Thursday, and see if the ACL is actually torn (in which case there will be a second surgery.) So that’s all there is to talk about the knee.

I’ve got a rant though, and those of you in Alberta might be interested (or maybe you won’t - I don’t know.) Erin’s got lots of relatives in Edmonton, and we usually make one trip per year (though it’s not looking like we’re going to this year due to not having any time off - then there’s the knee…)

Anyway, apparently they’ve got these new garbage can based photo radar units. I’m not a big speeder, I drive with traffic when in the city. When we go to Edmonton, I find myself staring at the speedometer constantly to make sure that I’m not speeding - taking my eyes off the road. I know that Edmonton uses photo radar as a cash cow, but the purpose of speed limits is supposed to be safety - not taxation. Even though I don’t think they can send photo radar tickets out of province, I don’t want to take the chance, so I focus on keeping my speed below the speed limit, which often is slower than the speed of traffic (presumably because residents know more about the tolerances on the various cameras or something.) which is also unsafe. I really hate driving in Edmonton, even though it’s fairly easy to get around town. The end result is that if we didn’t have relatives there, we’d likely never go back.

Let’s count it up. Making the roads more unsafe? Check. Driving tourists away? Check. Making people hate the police department? Check.

Yeah, sounds like a winner of an idea to me. Glad they aren’t going to legalize photo radar here any time soon.

Now, red light cameras - I have no problems with those.

Oh, and congratulations to Saskatoon for having one of the fastest growing economies in the country. Despite the fact that the Saskatchewan population dropped a bit (again) and is still hovering around 1,000,000 for the twelve thousandth year straight. By the way, I agree with Ramblin’ Dave - it’s not that big of a deal. Sure, more people means more tax revenue for the government, and a bigger economy. It also brings with it increased costs, and I’m not sold on the fact that we need to envy Alberta or Manitoba for their population growth. Just like I wouldn’t enjoy living in Saskatoon if it were a New York sized metropolis, I don’t feel the need to surround myself with even more people that I’ll never meet just for bragging rights.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Lisa, just because I don’t care, doesn’t mean I don’t understand.” - Homer

The knee seems to be getting better again, after a little bit of time with not much progress. The swelling is down significantly, to where it almost looks normal again. The range of movement is still pretty restricted though. For the time being, I get to drive myself to work because the bus is too far away to manage on crutches - especially when it’s -4 like it was this morning. I guess it’s just a good thing that it was my left leg, so I can drive an automatic (we swapped cars with my Mom temporarily because there’s no way I can drive stick in my current condition.)

It’s kind of funny, but I don’t get to shave much time off of my commute by driving. With all the construction around town, I’m pretty much forced to take the same route as my bus, so the only time I save is the walk to the bus stop and the time spent with people getting on/off the bus (which isn’t much because I take an express.) Yesterday I got home at exactly the same time as I usually do, mainly because the way I drove had construction (new since the last time I drove that way last week) and it slowed me down somewhat. I guess today I’ll have to take a different route again.

Not that anyone cares :P

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Mmmm… invisible cola.” - Homer

Don Adams, perhaps best known for his role as Howard Bannister on the CTV sitcom “Check it Out” died over the weekend. He led an interesting life, and was truly a throwback to a different time.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “HI. I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such self help tapes as ‘Smoke yourself thin’ and ‘Get some confidence, Stupid!’” - Troy Mcclure

Congrats to Jason for upgrading his site to Wordpress. It looks good. Now he just has to figure out how to turn comments on :P

Saturday was the official unveiling of PotashCorp Park, so I got tickets to the Huskies’ game. William, Dad and I went to the game, and enjoyed it. I was lucky enough to have gotten assigned seats in row 18. As it turns out, row 18 is the top row ;) So there I was hobbling up the steps on my crutches.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Conserve your precious hatred for the game!” - Apu

When I was getting my lunch today, I spotted a FedEx truck, and immediately saw the FedEx arrow. I had read that interview a while back, and ever since having it pointed out, I’ve been unable to avoid seeing the arrow. It’s brilliant logo design in my opinion.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Simpson, you idiot. You spent your entire years budget in a month. Your department’s broke.” - Mayor Quimby

I went to fire extinguisher training this morning, and if I weren’t on crutches I would have gotten to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher. Oh well - there’s always next time. It was about an hour and a half session, and was pretty interesting actually. I did get to fire off a water (type A) fire extinguisher, but not on a fire.

So, last night I played a poker tournament that went really oddly. I started it up, and was a couple of hands in when I figured it was time for bed. I don’t like just throwing in the towel. Anyway, I decided that I would play the rest of the tournament seeing virtually all flops - raised, unraised, regardless of what kind of cards I had. That gave me a chance to practise some post-flop play. Well, the people I was playing against were pretty poor. Not only did nobody notice that I called any pre-flop raise (and then would fold to a post-flop raise) but I wound up winning most raised pots by betting after it was checked to me - sometimes I hit hands, sometimes I didn’t. I know that if I’d been playing against me, I would have taken full advantage of the weak-loose big stack. As it was, I think I played all but four hands in the entire tournament. The key hand was with my new lucky hand, 6-9. The flop came down 7-8-8 rainbow, giving me an open ended straight draw. The other guy priced me in by betting less than a quarter of the pot, so I called. Sure enough, a 10 came on the turn. He bet, I raised, he reraised, and I moved all-in. He turned up Q-8, and didn’t hit one of his outs on the river. I suppose in theory he could have been holding a made boat, or even j-9, but I got the impression he was tired of getting pushed off of pots…Anyway, we were extremely close in chips before the hand, and after I won it, he was down to 20 with the blinds at 400/200 with an ante of 25 or 50. He doubled up on me three times before I finally got a hand that beat him.

It also marked the first time I ever saw another Saskatoon player at one of my tables, so I sent him some fake cash before busting him out.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Ralph, this better not be about your cat.” - Miss Hoover

For some reason, we’ve recorded two shows this week that were not what the listings claimed they were. One of them was on NTV - that notoriously unreliable channel - but the other one was on some “normal” channel. End result is that I did not see the premiere of “My Name is Earl.” No big loss, but instead they aired the American version of “The Office.” I’d heard that “The Office” was hilarious (long before it was remade in the USA) so I watched an episode of the BBC version a while back, and was decidedly unimpressed. I heard good things about the American version, but hadn’t checked it out. Anyway, I couldn’t even watch a whole episode of it, because I wasn’t enjoying it. What’s the opposite of enjoying?

It’s really too bad, because I think Steve Carell is hilarious, and a big talent. I just couldn’t stomach that show.

Being in a state of reduced mobility, it’s looking like TV will be my friend for a while. My next doctor’s appointment is next Friday, so hopefully I’ll find out more about what’s wrong with the knee then.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “The knee bone’s connected to the…something! The something’s connected to the…red thing! The red thing’s connected to my…wrist watch! Uh oh.” - Dr. Nick Riviera