Adventures of Prairie Girl and Code Minkey

The first decade...

2007-04-26T13:55:00.000-05:00

It was 10 years and one day ago that I met Michelle. While some people seem to think that Michelle and I write revisionist histories of our lives I am posting this to confirm the truth of how and when we met. We met at the Bytowne Tavern on April 25, 1997. It was a friday and the Ottawa Senators had just beaten the Buffalo Sabres 4-1 in Game 5 of the first playoff series.

Michelle came over to the table to say hello to Alette Willis (ever a trouble maker) who proptly said "Oh Jason Michelle is from Winnipeg she can answer your questions about Duff's Ditch". My fascination with all things engineering had led my curiosity to the floodway that continually protects the 'Peg from the annual flooding of the Red. My fascination with the the floodway soon gave way to a fascination with Michelle and now we are happily married, living next to the Red River in Winnipeg a full decade later.

Thanks Alette.

The fox has kits again...

2007-04-15T12:28:00.000-05:00

Within the last couple of weeks we have seen mama and papa fox readying the den. Lately papa is no where to be seen, and mama is often tailed by three little kits. They play various games. Mama tries to get them to follow her, and occasionally one of the kits will decide: "it's chase my tail time" or "let me practice my stealth moves" (as the kit hunkers close to the ground). It has been very amusing. What has been less amusing (for the kits), but amazing for us to see, are two majestic bald eagles. They have not been seen this weekend, but last weekend they were very interested in all the fox activity. Meanwhile, the ducks are having a great time being sped down the river with the exceptionally fast moving current. Since the ice jam has begun to clear in Selkirk, MB, the river has dropped by over a foot.

It is a veritable National Geographic out our back door...

Happy Robbie Burns Day

2007-01-25T09:33:00.000-06:00

May you all raise a pint of ale to celebrate the day.

Cheers The Canadian/Scottish Code Minkey

Gude Ale Keeps The Heart Aboon

1795
Type: Poem

Chorus-O gude ale comes and gude ale goes;
Gude ale gars me sell my hose,
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon-
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon!

I had sax owsen in a pleugh,
And they drew a' weel eneugh:
I sell'd them a' just ane by ane-
Gude ale keeps the heart aboon!
O gude ale comes, &c.

Gude ale hauds me bare and busy,
Gars me moop wi' the servant hizzie,
Stand i' the stool when I hae done-
Gude ale keeps the heart aboon!
O gude ale comes, &c.

copied from: http://www.robertburns.org/works/509.shtml

Let's hear it for running water!

2007-01-25T08:57:00.000-06:00

Monday morning Michelle got up and moments later I hear: "There's no water". I panic, it has been 1 year since the frozen pipes incident and that's all I could think of. Turns out that the water main had frozen and burst. With our recent warm weather (highs of -7), the break thawed and water gushed into our neighbour's front yard. We went two days without running water. Daily morning trips to my sister's to shower other inconveniences abound. Today was our second morning with running water... truly miraculous.

Let the rehab begin...

2007-01-24T21:12:00.000-06:00

Happy day folks! Saw the doctor today and the bone is all healed. After 10 weeks (tomorrow) no more crutches, no more braces...just lots of physio and rehab to build up the muscles. Ahhh...the pain will feel good if it means full freedom!

Aerobics – a full contact sport for Prairie Girls!

2007-01-07T17:36:00.000-06:00

Many of you already know that I broke my leg on Thursday November 16, 2006. It was two days before I was scheduled to leave for Ottawa to attend my good friend Rae and Chris’ wedding, spend a nice weekend with friends, and sit through 2-days of meetings doing grant reviews. While attending a BOSU (BOth Sides Up) class, I lost my footing and twisted my leg causing a fracture of my fibula just above my ankle. After seven weeks in a cast and a walking boot, I am finally free…well sort of! I am now wearing an aircast (an ankle brace) and am learning how to walk again. Yippee! You never fully appreciate the little things until they are gone – wearing shoes that match (and are of equal height!), no longer being called new nicknames (the Gimp, Peg-Leg-Pete, Hobbles – some of these names I even coined myself), being able to open my own doors, sitting without (always) having to elevate my leg, driving. Oh the list is endless. Therapy is beginning, but I am doing well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR – 2007!!

2007-01-01T15:30:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year to Everyone. After a long hiatus and a mild revamp this academic odd-couple is back online. (From Prairie Girl: Jason's odd…I'm unique). Rather than overwhelm with stories of our downtime we will recount our tales from 2006 in a series of short entries over the next while. Of course our planned break was to be a month long in July that has since turned into a half a year so it may take a while to cover our rather eventful grieving period.

From Prairie Girl: I found that every time I would go to the blog, I would see Moe's sweet face and get all weepy. So, I am writing this in Word and will be sending it to Jason to post. I have already planned a number of entries so count on at least weekly tales.

From Code Minkey: Grieving continues, but I blame my absence from blogging on lots of work and procrastination. Between us we continued home renovations, bought power tools, gardened, visited Sweden, injured legs, taught engineers and med students, applied for grants, and wrote papers, drove the Prairies, read lots and I managed some programming.

The New Year looks exciting and we hope everyone enjoys work, fun, friends and family.

Farewell to Moe

2006-07-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

As you all know our family included a great character and friend named Moe. After nearly six years with us Jason and I said farewell to our little cat yesterday. In the end his giant personality could not overcome his frail little body. Fortunately he suffered little. We miss him dearly and words cannot describe the loss of such a great friend. Our thoughts are somewhat captured in the following poem:

They will not go quietly,
the cats who've shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survive.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a meow at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them....
and always will.
~ Linda Barnes ~

We love you Moe. Mom & Dad.

The Crest is Here!!!

2006-04-21T09:50:00.000-05:00

Today the Red River is cresting in Winnipeg. But the view from our house is not that great. So the graphs of the water level in the river indicate that the river went up and then fluctuated with the river's highest crest occuring around April 7-8.

The story of the floodway is different. The peak of the river crest only occurred because the floodway took the rest of it. It is only a guess that the floodway is peaking but unless we get alot of rain that is a really good guess.

Surviving My First Turkey Dinner: An Internal Clash of the Cults

2006-04-17T14:04:00.000-05:00

A wise friend, Peter Drost, once remarked: "Families are like cults." His thesis was this: You grow up within your family cult and all of the strange idiosyncratic things they do seem normal to you. You only begin to see the 'weirdness' when you bring in an outside party - i.e., a significant other - who begins to point out all of the things that seem very 'strange'. Of course, this works both ways. This overall process becomes more acute when you marry the significant other and begin to create your own blended cult. (Some may wonder where Jason fit in all of this below, but that will have to be the subject of another post.)

My Mom is a great cook. She has always made great family dinners. I can't recall a single instance where the roast didn't meet her expectations or, heaven forbid, eat a dry turkey. She has done this for many years with varying degrees of help from immediate family members. Because she has survived these feasts, and now has grown children who can take on the baton, she no longer worries about the headaches and hassles. She just gets to eat wonderful meals.

This Easter, I invited some of my family to dinner. I still don't have enough places for everyone to sit so I only had my parents and my sister and her family. In total we were 7 adults and 2 very quick moving kids. I busily shopped in the days leading up to the event. On Friday, I busily cleaned the house and tidied many things that hadn't yet been dealt with since we moved in. On Saturday (the day of the dinner), I finished any remaining cleaning, final trip to the grocery store for items not yet purchased, and prepared the turkey and fixings (potatoes and veggies). Fortunately, my sister volunteered to make her stuffing and dessert, so that was a huge relief. But, I wondered how long should I cook the turkey??

I did what any over-educated woman does, particularly when her husband is a computer scientist, I looked on-line and over-thought the whole affair. I searched various websites and noted that each one had a different length of time posted to cook my 12 pound turkey. Moreover, there were multiple ways of preparing the bird (tenting vs not, shallow pan vs slightly deeper roaster, etc.). In my family cult, my Mom would put in her bird sometime in the morning and forget about it until it was time to carve. I figured I would do this, but...

The web 'experts' stated a 12 pound bird should only require 3.5 to 4 hours to cook, and slightly less if you don't pre-stuff the bird. I even learned that given the new turkey breeds (they are bred to have more white meat than dark) require less cooking time than the 'old' breeds. Cooking times also vary based on size of pan, whether the bird is covered in foil or not, etc. The danger throughout all of this: the dreaded dry turkey!

Wanting to eat dinner at 6PM would dictate a 2PM start. I compromised at 1:30. While the turkey turned out extremely juicy, and had attained the recommended internal thermometer reading of 185 degrees F, it looked anemic. This is because, I combined my Mom's approach of covering the bird but didn't include my Mom's 'insert in morning and ignore until ready'. I worried that if I removed the foil too early, the bird would dry out. I was bringing in my family cult and my new computer savvy cult (i.e. the Jason influence). After a bit of broiling, the skin obtained a nice golden colour. I nonetheless caused myself infinite grief and stress over something so minor. But the reality is, I wanted to "succeed" in producing a smoothly run operation similar to that provided by my Mom for countless years, and has been provided by my sister in the past.

In the end, the dinner was great and fun was had by all (at least that's what they tell me).

I did introduce something from Jason's cult - butternut squash. While available in Winnipeg, I had never eaten butternut squash before meeting Jason and experiencing a big family dinner at his Mom's. From that moment on, butternut squash became one of my all-time favourites with any fowl feast.

The butternut squash verdict by the Driedger-cult household: "it will never replace turnip for me". NOTE: In the Driedger-cult household, turnip has never (to my recollection) been served with fowl - only with roasts of beef or pork, so I don't fully understand the response.

Passing the 'stupid' human test - A Moe Update

2006-04-12T14:57:00.000-05:00

All of you who know me, know that I dote on little Moe. In fact, some have gone so far to tell Jason and I that we need kids of our own since we have obtained a 'dangerous' level of animal-parenthood. (For evidence, please see Moe's webpage). Well, since we have been back in Winnipeg, Moe has created all sorts of new adventures for us (see earlier posts in January on 'Moe the Cat and CSI' and 'Further to Moe the Cat and CSI'). We now add to the adventures...

For all of Moe's life with Jason and I, Moe has only ever eaten dry cat food. Pretty boring stuff if you ask me, but it kept him happy and eating. Over a year ago, we noticed that Moe was eating less and less, and couldn't get him interested in wet or dry food. After a battery of tests (read: spending lots of $$$) Moe was finally diagnosed with Feline IBD. Ever since then, Moe has been given medication to treat his problem. But, with a new move to Winnipeg, Moe decided to stop eating, or to only eat 10-20g of food a day. Being understandably concerned, we finally found a great vet, who did three important things:

1. She too doted on Moe (and earned huge points in my book!)
2. She immediately changed his meds to something more appropriate for cats.
3. She gave him an appetite stimulant.

Moe improved substantially. He started gaining weight and becoming much braver. He will now actually will come out to see folks when they come to visit, and he won't even hide too much from my young nephews.

This past week Moe stopped eating altogether. Worried, we quickly made an appointment with the vet. Yesterday evening, while we were preparing supper, Moe was constantly meowing at us. (For those who know Moe, this is quite a feat). This went on for at least 45 minutes. It was incessant. It was adament. It's meaning was completely lost on us.

Earlier in the day, I gave Moe a double dose of his appetite stimulant medication because I feared that the dose we were giving was no longer effective. Afterall, for two days straight, he barely ate 10g of food. By the time I got home last night, I didn't think the appetite stimulant was working at all.

What we missed, and didn't clue into until late last night, was that the stimulant not only was working, and working well, but that Moe was starving! We figured Moe not eating was a sign that the pill wasn't working. Moe's constant meowing was trying to tell us he just no longer liked his dry boring food options. After opening a can of wet food for him last night, he gobbled up the food. He is now making up for lost time.

I'm sure that everytime Moe walked away last night during his Lassie-efforts to get us to understand what he needed, he was probably thinking 'stupid humans'.

The flooding in the South

2006-04-12T08:43:00.000-05:00

If anyone is interested in flooding Winnipeg is not the place to look at the moment (fingers crossed, small prayer for no rain). But In North Dakota there have been lots of locales with too much water. The situation in southern Manitoba is not good and getting worse through the weekend.

On another note the fox had five pups and had a fresh kill in her mouth this morning.

Michelle in the news part 2

2006-04-07T14:32:00.000-05:00

In case anyone is interested in following along to the actual interview - you can follow the following link at 5:30PM CDT. Make sure you click on CBC Radio One 990. I just finished speaking with the reporter, Margo Watt, and it looks like it will only be the interview portion for about 5-7 minutes. Originally Margo indicated that she might open the phones to the public, but with all of the events in Winnipeg this week (read: the rising Red River), other things may take precedence. Ahh...I guess I will get my fifteen minutes of fame in very small increments.

The first crest

2006-04-07T13:29:00.000-05:00

The opening of the floodway is causing a crest in river heights. However, with the brunt of the water is still to come and the water crested this morning above the '96 levels. It looks scary but hopefully it won't be bad.

The river is high ... the pups don't care...

2006-04-06T17:21:00.000-05:00

Here is the latest shot (8:00am 04/06/06) of the river.

The following two pics are the poor attempt to get a shot of the mother fox and her pups and then the pups alone. I will need to use my non-digital camera and some high speed film for the early morning light.

Michelle in the news

2006-04-06T09:12:00.000-05:00

I was recently in Saint John, New Brunswick at the 12th Canadian National Drinking Water conference. (I think this has been the only conference that I have attended where I was asked by strangers "are you with *the* conference"?)

For the first time since I can remember, I was actually in a session where I didn't feel like "one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn't the same" - or "now for something completely different". It was great! I was the 4th speaker. The previous three presentations touched on similar issues regarding risk communication and public perceptions of risk but raised different nuances based on their drinking water studies. I was presenting some preliminary analyses from the focus groups that my graduate student and I conducted in Ontario to see what the public thinks of their drinking water. Following the presentation, I, and Andria Jones from Memorial University (one of the other speakers), were interviewed by CBC Radio Saint John. Upon my return to Winnipeg, I received an email from Mike Just who stumbled across the news story.

Well, Mike wasn't the only one with lots of time on his hands to see the story. I will be interviewed again on CBC Radio Winnipeg this friday (April 7) between 5:30PM and 6:00PM. Of course, journalists are paid to surf the web. Mike is paid to work on improving security systems on the web. Hmm...maybe my story on drinking water could become a security issue of importance. Stay tuned...

Life with Jason, Moe, and 4 Fox Pups

2006-04-06T09:01:00.000-05:00

Jason has mentioned that he is going to change the title of the blog to life with "Jason and Moe" since I haven't made a contribution in so long. What can I say? Jason is so much better at creating stories.

Since yesterday, we have discovered some things about the fox and her pups. The two little blobs that I saw yesterday are really four little pups. Jason saw them suckling their mom this morning while I was off giving our cat his pills. He has tried to take some photos and will share his story very soon about the looks he was getting from the mother fox.

We have also become completely mesmerized by watching the speed of the river and the number of very large trees floating amidst the smaller ice floes. The floodway was officially opened yesterday, one day earlier than projected. But, we haven't yet seen a noticeable difference in the height of the river.

Tonight I am going to go out an purchase some rubber boots so that we can start to explore our very wet landmass, also known as the backyard. We'll have new adventures to report very soon.

(see - Jason is much better at this).

New babies at the Morrison/Driedger place???

2006-04-05T09:36:00.000-05:00

This morning Michelle awoke and went to check the river level. She immediately exclaimed: "the fox has pups!". After running and getting her glasses she cooed "they are soo cute!". I quickly ran around the house to try and find the camera, which was in my office at work. After that I squinted and looked through michelle's lens to two fuzzy blobs playing with a larger fuzzy blob near the opening of the fox's den. By the time I got my contacts in they had vanished probably not to reappear until this evening. I will try to get pics later this week.

Oh and the river is high (17.84 feet) at James Avenue. A friend has pointed out the Canadian river gauge site. Accept their disclaimer and look for the Red River gauge at the James Avenue Pumping Station. If that puppy goes too high the whole city has to look out. The flood forecaster is now looking at North Dakota and has upgraded us to a 1996 level flood. which would be the 4th worst in the last 100 years and the 6th worst in known/estimated history.

River Pics

2006-04-03T09:54:00.000-05:00

This is the river last Thursday (river hieght at James Ave was 3.38ft)

This is the river on this fine Monday morning (river hieght at James Ave is 12.63ft).

The Question: When will they open the floodway?

Possible Answer: The crest in '96 was 19.4 ft. The crest in '97 was 24.5ft. Niether of these levels are really acceptable so they will probably open the floodway before the river rises another 7 feet ~ 1.5 Days from now by my estimates.

The US has more money...

2006-04-02T11:50:00.000-05:00

It is a shame that the US information on flooding is sooooo much better than Canada. The site on river gauge status in the US is cool.

North Dakota is flooded

2006-04-01T10:13:00.000-06:00

My prediction on Wednesday was made in jest but it was accurate. The water levels in Fargo are now more than an inch higher than the crest last year! In Grand Forks the crest was 40' in 1997. In the last three days the readings have been:

03/30/2006|18.71
03/31/2006|25.96
04/01/2006|33.06

The rise of 7 feet from Thursday to Friday was a shock that made the news here. Another 7+ feet today will have people running scared. An AP wire report states that the dyke to protect Fargo to 1997 levels is only 85% complete. This is not surprising as building protection for Manitoba against the next big flood is still underway. On that note the Red River at James Avenue is just reaching its typical summer level. I'll keep you posted on the river's encroachment towards our home.

The Flood is Coming...

2006-03-29T09:38:00.000-06:00

The river ice behind our house is almost completely thawed. While the grass is still not visible I began to wonder: What are the river levels? There are two items to watch: the levels in Winnipeg that say if we are flooded and the levels in Grand Forks North Dakota that say if we will be flooded. So far we are above the median and the flood forecaster is saying things like: if we get xx millimeters of precipitation in the next xx days then we will reach the 1996 flood levels. No one is talking 1997 levels yet but it will rain today...

Still Winter Here!

2006-03-20T12:14:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I spoke with some Ontarians who said "most of the snow is gone here". Below is the view from my back yard and a picture of me shoveling the roof this past weekend! Note that most of the tracks are not human but are critter oriented... the fox den is just out of view of this photo.

A change in tone

2006-03-08T09:27:00.000-06:00

Since I started my position the chair of my department has been very good in saying that I should discover what I want to do, who I want to do it with and ease into this new position. Two weeks ago there was a change in his tone. Suddenly he was saying I should apply for my first grant now. The grant is for infrastructure but the application requires that I describe what projects that infrastructure will allow me to accomplish. Thus I have to describe in detail what I will be doing fo the next five years by the end of this month.

I should not be surprised. The two months of relative freedom to explore have allowed me to settle in while trying to work on the CIHR grant I am a co-investigator on. However, most academics must hit the ground running and I will need infrastructure. Given the pace of beaurocracy I won't see a dime of these funds until at least a year from April. Well such is life.

This means I am busy, trying to initialize a collaboration with NRC's Institute of Biodiagnostics, wherein I will be a guest worker there. They are going to write a letter of support for the project and possibly dedicate magnet time (aka MRI time). I am also establishing a dialogue with Monteris Medical who do MRI-guided laser surgery on brain tumours to discuss possible collaboration. Finally I am discussing collaboration with University of Manitoba's Joint Replacement Group who do x-ray stereography to evaluate post surgical status of hip and knee replacements.

All of these projects are exciting and involve alot of applied computational geometry, measurement, optimization and imaging. I believe this is exciting work and the opportunity for innovation is great but I have to convince experts through the written word. Not always my strength :-)

Fire Challenged

2006-02-20T09:00:00.000-06:00

Over the years my attempts to build fires have failed miserably for a variety of reasons. As a child my parents did not use their fireplaces and I was not allowed to build fires in the fireplaces my parents owned. However, my family did enjoyed regular outings to the campground where my grandparents had a trailer and a firepit. The firepit itself consisted of two wheel rims welded together with the centers cut out and holes cut in the bottom to allow air in. Starting fires in the firepit was easy, it involved putting in wads of paper, some smaller sticks on top of that and a couple of logs on top of that. The firepit held everything together and you simply lit the paper through the airhole. That was a good experience as we simply grabbed wood from the wood pile and through it in as necessary.

As I got older I tried on several occasions to build fires on my own without the firepit and the trusty woodpile. These attempts usually produced a lot of smoke and no flames. The recipe went womething like this: buy wood from some guy at the park / location where I was staying. Use some newspaper and whatever twigs / sticks are lying around. Place all materials in a heap with paper first, twigs second and logs last and light with matches on the ground, usually where a fire had happened before. Once the flames of the paper have gone out I may have had a tonne of smoke or I had to find more paper and matches. Usually a master firestarter, like Peter (read: Pyro), would come along and have a roaring blaze going in very little time. Usually I was unable to replicate the success of the firestarter on future attempts and I never caught on to my major problem: damp/wet wood and no heat sink. Peter finally criticized my choice of wood purchase several years ago and I tweaked into these issues.

When I moved into the River Road house I was excited to build fires. Finally I had a fireplace insert and I was going to make serious fire. The cheapskate Tom Steka who owned the place before had burned almost an entire cord of wood between the beginning of Oct and the end of Nov and left me with almost no wood. Still, I was determined and brought in a few logs to try and burn. I let them sit inside to aclimatize before burning and then tried to burn them. I also carefully read the fireplace insert manual and talked with the chimney sweep before trying to build a fire. My first attempts were awful. I had lots of smoke, little fire and a log did not burn for long. I was of course wary of "over fueling" the insert which the manual had said could be an issue. Frustrated and certain I had green (i.e., not dry) wood Michelle and I ordered a 1/2 cord of seasoned (i.e., dry), split birch. The fires had been so bad and smelly that Michelle was almost ready to have the insert as decoration only. That is when I heard that my brother-in-law Jonathon is a master firestarter (read: Pyro).

Certain that I would not put in enough wood (because of the stupid warnings) and that would I be unable to establish a long term fire (15 hours+) I called in an expert. Jonathon, Amy, Lyvia and Jack all came over a week ago to start a fire and visit for a while. Jonathon laid down two logs ("rails") running into the fireplace insert from the door and about a foot apart. He then put paper between them and across the paper (on the rails) he put kindling and then a couple of logs on top of that. As instructed by the chimney sweep we opened the draft fully and burned a piece of paper near the flue to establish a warm flow up the chimney. Then Jonathon lit the paper and closed the door.

I have followed this recipe for a week now and it works fabulously. I actually replace the paper with birch bark as it burns faster and hotter than paper (less smoke too). The key to a good fire is to have split, seasoned logs with good kindling and material to light. It also helps to have a good bed of dry coals and possibly a heat sink. The coals heat up quickly and get the fire going, while the heat sink (rocks, tire rims, ceramic insert bricks...) heats up slowly and allows the fire to keep going. Once hot, a good heat sink and coals can burn wood slowly and doesn't need much oxygen to keep going. I am not yet a master firestarter but I am getting there. I am considering a firepit for the backyard I just don't know how to tell Michelle.

Furnaces & A Cold, Cold Winnipeg

2006-02-13T09:09:00.000-06:00

So everyone enjoys ribbing Winnipeggers by calling Winnipeg by its alternate name: Winterpeg. Winnipeggers generally accept this and actually use the name as though it deserves to be on a roll of honour. As I mentioned in my article on The Great Flood of '06 the weather this year has been warm. In fact it has only been cold twice since I arrived into the city. however it has been cold in the apartment 3 times...

The day I arrived was during the beginning of the warm spell, but the apartment was cold. When I got to the house I went into the apartment and it was colder than it should have been, how odd I thought. We raised the temperature on the thermostat and the furnace kicked in. I was resonably vigilant and every time I checked the temperature was normal.

That was until the temperature dropped to an average daily temp of -23.9 on Jan 22^nd when the pipes froze and subsequently thawed. Again when we went into the unit the temperature was too low at 33F with the thermostat set to 50F. The furnace ignited while I was standing there pondering why it was too cold. That is when I discovered the electric heater in the first floor of the apartment and subsequently turned it on.

Last Wednesday, Feb 8^th, was the second cold day outside since my arrival. The average daily temp was a shivery -16.6C and I did not get home until 8:30pm after a long day and then a nice massage. When I pulled into the garage Michelle's sister was immediately there saying: "it's cold in the apartment". My thought was to restart the furnace and call a furnace guy in the morning. But the restart instructions include a warning that if you smell gas after shutting everything off (including the gas switch) and waiting 5 minutes then you should not restart the furnace but rather call in a repairman. I smelled gas so we waited for a repair guy.

For the record it was 55F in the apartment, the little electric first floor heater was nicely producing heat and the smell of gas was only apparant near the furnace. My sister-in-law did not want to move the kids into the house so they all stayed in the apartment and waited, and waited, and waited. The first repair company had a tech call us 1.5 hours after we called, only to learn that he had never heard of a Rudd furnace and that they wouldn't have the parts. What a waste!!! The second company advertised the furnaces they fixed and the guy showed up around 11:30.

The ignitor was reliable and there was sufficient gas pressure so no problems there (the smell of gas was probably my over-reacting). It turns out that the furnace could no longer consistantly sense if the ignitor was successful. So after the furnace turned on, it would check "did it light?" and get no response. The furnace then shuts down for an hour and tries again. This isn't a problem if it isn't cold out and the sensor is working at 75%. But when the temperature is low outside and the sensor doesn't work a number of times then it gets cold in the apartment.

I was up until 12:45 and I learned more about electronic furnaces than I had known before. Oh and last Friday I had a 1/2 cord of wood delivered so we don't have to rely on the house furnace as much. My story about being fire-challenged will have to wait until tomorrow.

The Fonzie Apartment

2006-01-31T08:22:00.000-06:00

The apartment above our garage is now inhabited, and both Evan and Peter gave good guesses as to the inhabitants, however neither was correct. Apartments are ripe with possible pop references including one of my personal movie favorites is the Billy Wilder classic "The Apartment". But that has nothing to do with Garages and the definitive "above the garage apartment" that belonged to the Cunninghams and was inhabited by Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli (aka The Fonz). Just like the Cunninghams we have also invited someone to stay in our apartment for an undetermined amount of time. In fact we have invited an entire family to stay in our aparment!

Michelle's sister Laurie and her S.O. (read: common-law partner) Rick are currently building a house that is not finished. Despite promises and plans for the house to be done by today (Jan 31) The house is currently missing some windows, all of its drywall, all of the flooring. While the basement is warm and has its windows there is no way into the house without some form of ladder. Anyway because of promises and plans they had to move yesterday and they had no where to move to, so a couple of weeks ago Michelle and I offered that they could live in our apartment for the interim. Oh, of course Laurie and Rick bring with them their three children: Matthew (2), Aidan(5) and Sydney (15). Yes our apartment is a bachelor and the fridge they brought is in the hallway! But then cramped life with your precious belongings is better than hotel life ($$$) and fewer belongings.

For those of you who think moving is fun most of us believe that it is more akin to organ removal without anesthesia. This was reinforced yesterday by the exhaustion and troubles faced by the end of the night. It seems that not all of the outlets in our hallway work! So the location of the fridge seemed in doubt until we managed to work something out.

The adventure of home ownership continues...

For the record there seem to be very few pictures of the Fonz's apartment (this is a challenge to anyone who thinks they know the web and how to search it ;-).
The included photo was all that I found.

Update on the Flood...

2006-01-30T15:06:00.000-06:00

So the plumber finished his task on Friday. Indeed the shower cylinder had blown apart and then it was time to "check the system". Checking the system is an advanced proceedure whereby I walk back to the house, into the basement and turn on the water for 30 seconds. If the water continues to flow then the leak is not fixed and hopefully the plumber has had enough time to find the problem. Truly modern day. So with the faucet fixed I went to check the system and since the water meter did not stop ticking I waited a full 30 seconds before turning it off. When I got back to the garage the plumber told me there was another leak in wall. So he tore a small hole (read 1' by 2') in the garage drywall. Sure enough the pipe had burst at an elbow near the shower and had been emptying into the wall, and subsequently into the garage, the apartment or back down the conduit into the basement. Once that was fixed I went back to the house to check the system again.

Again I was dissappointed when the water meter continued to happily click away for another 30 seconds. I was about to climb the stairs from the basement when I heard the plumber burst through the front door saying in a panicked voice: "Did you turn it off??". When I meekly said "yes", he promptly replied "thank god" and left the house. When I caught up to him he said there were two more leaks and there was now water in the garage.

It seems that the garden hose in the back of the house is on a line of pipe that starts in the wall right by the shower (where the elbow had burst). The pipe comes out of the wall and travels along the ceiling of the garage where it travels down the back wall of the garage, through the wall to a tap on the exterior wall. The two breaks had occurred in the pipe against the ceiling and with the elbow repaired they had gushed. I then made the executive decision to fix that entire line, which included a rupture near the tap that had occured previous to our ownership.

With all of that done the plumber left happily and I was left with the 1'x2' hole in my wall that probably makes the shower a little colder.... but the other news about our apartment will have to wait. The teaser is that someone is moving into the apartment today! No it isn't Michelle or I but someone else... any guesses?

There were a total of 3 new pipe breaks, a destroyed shower cylinder (the thingy behind the tap) and one old pipe break were the water had been turned off.

The Great Flood of 06

2006-01-25T10:05:00.000-06:00

I declare that as of Tuesday January 23^rd I am a Manitoban. The reason for my declaration is that Michelle and I were forced to divert our first flood since moving to the province. A flood that I hope is the great flood of 06.

The story begins on Sunday, which at -30C was the coldest day of the winter so far. Nothing truly spectacular happened that day except that it was cold and we finished the hardwood flooring in the bedroom! We went to sleep (in the office) knowing that we had done a good job and we were glad the house was warm.

On Monday we awoke a little late and a little tired and I noticed that for an inexplicable reason the winterized garage doors were open. This is odd because I had been out to the garage once but specifically remembered closing the door. Of course the door remote was in my pocket and I could have set it off putting on my pants that morning... we have no idea how long the doors were open. The temperature was still rising at -10 and by the end of the day it rained.

After work on Monday we voted, purchased our bedframe, borrowed my sister's wet-vac and I then tried to remove the last remnant of odor from our front room carpets using baking soda, soap and hydrogen peroxide. After an hour of work I was glad it was warmer out and I was contemplating what the next endeavour would be now that the floors in the bedroom were done. We watched as the conservatives only took a minority government and went to bed tired as usual.

That night is a blur, one maybe two trips to the bathroom but nothing out of the ordinary. When I awoke I took out my earplugs (an addiction I am trying to kick) and heard then gentle click, click, click of the water meter in the room below the office. That is when I realized with horror that Michelle had not used the bathroom recently and where the heck was water running?!? I startled Michelle awake and we started running around the house looking for running water. We found nothing until I went to check on the hot water heater and that is when I saw water coming to the drain from room with the electrical panel.

Running into that room I spotted water coming up from the floor at the spot where the water goes out to the apartment above the garage. This horrified me. I shut off the water to the apartment and the water meter stopped clicking. The water from the floor did not. Michelle went to the garage as I used my sister's wet-vac to stem the modest tide in the basement. Michelle returned with word of disaster: "This is nothing compared to the apartment". The tile entrance way, the bathroom and the garage floor were flooded about a 1/4 inch. It looks like the shower unit (at the front of the first floor) froze and the tab pushed out and then broke. When the apartment warmed up (it was 0C when we entered) the shower started spraying and water went down the pipes to drip on the floor, into the conduit back to the house, and sprayed out of the shower. Not a single square centimeter of drywall is affected! The water is shut off and the plumber will attack tomorrow (Thursday). It took 3+ hours to vacuum up the flooding and I am hoping that is the only issue we have with water in the house for a while.

One less headache...the hardwood is laid

2006-01-23T13:04:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update - this weekend Jason and I managed to get the hardwood floors laid in the bedroom that we hope to soon take residence. The walls are in desparate need of painting and we will still need to lay down the baseboards...but all of these are (hopefully) easier steps than leveling the sub-floor and laying the actual hardwood. Unfortunately, I had the digital camera at work, and so we weren't able to take a picture of Jason's wonderful job on the sub-floor before it became transformed. Pics of the hardwood soon to follow.

I'm sure that Jason will have some stories to share...but here is my take of the experience:

1) Doing renovations with a spouse is a trying experience for both parties - as any couple will attest.

2) While doing renovations, spouses are nicer to each other when a third-party is present. For several hours on day 2 - my brother Paul was there to help. With the three of us working, we managed to get much farther along than Jason and I alone could have hoped. We each had our task - mine, to set up the next few courses of wood; Jason to tamp each piece into place; Paul - to use the power nailer to get everything that Jason couldn't tamp into place to fit as snuggly as possible to the other boards as well as to identify when some of the boards needed to be placed just a bit differently so that later on we would be much happier with the job.

3) Each spouse has his/her own particular expertise that they bring to the event. In our case - my ability to eye-ball relative "straightness" of lines, laying out wood so that it looks pretty, being able to identify that 'this will drive me crazy (and hence you crazy) in the future if we don't fix this little problem now', and (most-importantly) being able to recognize Jason's skills and therefore be content with being a go-to-gal (i.e. getting what is missing in the room); Jason's ability to accurately measure, engineer creative solutions to difficult areas, natural propensity to research things in advance both to be informed as well as able to implement useful hints, and pure endurance to spend that much time on his knees and crawling around on the ground to get everything in place (particularly since my knees just can't do that concentrated effort). All expertise is valid.

4) The parable - give someone a fish and their hunger will be sated temporarily; teach someone to fish and they will never go hungry again...plays out in the carpentry world. While I may have initially owned more power tools than Jason, he had the knowledge, experience and practice with them. When Jason patiently showed me how to do something (albeit the 'patience' occasionally seemed more like frustration - refer to point #1), he found that the time spent was much more fruitful later on in the job because he could just say "we need the wedge here" and I knew exactly what to do. (NOTE: the 'wedge' was a really creative solution that Jason read in one of his books that shows you how to get one piece of board to fit more snuggly against another piece of board - particularly when one of the boards is slightly warped.)

5) It's a great source of pride in doing the job ourselves (mistakes, problems and everything) but next time...hire it out.

On this job, I became much more proficient at using the drill, the table saw, the brad nailer, the power nailer and the air compressor. Most importantly from this job, Jason and I are still friend.

I'm sure there is more to write, but that's it for now.

7th Annual Cancer Survival Party

2006-01-20T09:46:00.000-06:00

Okay...now I'm really out of sequence. I forgot to mention the one factor that got Jason and I to get the house in the best shape yet! We hosted our Annual cancer survival party on January 14. For two days before the event, Jason and I spent a great deal of time trying to put all those items that had come out of boxes into their rightful spaces. But, we ran out of time, and have at least managed to relocate the dumping ground from the cedar room/spa room to the basement. We entertained about 17 friends and family at the house. It was a wonderful time. We got to use our new-to-us wet bar and eat, drink and be merry. It was very fun. Except...

We still have a problem with the heating in our house. There is a large crawl space underneath what we call the "river room" - which is really the living and dining room. I typically find this room very cold. Unfortunately, one of our guests got so cold (she has absolutely no body fat) she had to leave early. Jason and I are now moving this area of the house higher up the priority list to get someone in to clean out the crawl space. Then we can insulate some of the areas that likely haven't been insulated yet. I think this should make a big difference. We will have to wait for spring to work on the roof (a problem we knew was present, but can't deal with it until the snow goes away). Sigh...will it ever end?

Further to Renovations

2006-01-20T09:35:00.000-06:00

So...we are finally at a stage where we can start laying down the hardwood that we have purchased into our bedroom. I can't wait. Jason has spent a great deal of time with some help from a friend, Brett, to lay down 1/2 inch thick pieces of spruce plywood. I was able to help a bit over the last couple of nights. Jason and Brett did the majority of the nailing. Let me tell you, I tried to wield the 20 ounce hammer and nail in a couple of times...I don't think I am even as strong as a very weak man! It took me multiple whacks (and my whacks just weren't strong enough). At least I had Jason laughing at my attempts. I discovered that I was much better at pre-drilling in screw holes and then drilling in the screws. That was much more fun, but hard on my knees. Even with the wonderful knee pads (originally purchased to save our knees from our snow-boarding lessons last year), it wasn't quite enough.

Wednesday night - the night that Moe re-offended and landed himself back in the re-training room - Jason applied the last of the "goop" to fill in the cracks between the boards and to level the room appropriately. Well, I guess "level" is a relative term for this room. I don't believe Jason has mentioned it, but this room used to be 2 rooms. One half of the room is one level, and the other half shows a half inch down slope. To help things even further, part of that half is only a quarter-inch off.

Let's just say that we were very happy when Brett came by with his fancy laser level and we mapped out the various heights of the room. I think the hardwood (which we will begin laying tomorrow) will look much better now.

If only I could get in there to paint...with all of the sawing of wood, I didn't want sawdust on my freshly painted wall. Now Jason wants to keep the ugly peach colour until the wood is layed so that he doesn't have to worry about damaging the wall. More on this soon, I'm sure...

Further to Moe and CSI

2006-01-20T09:25:00.000-06:00

Well, that little Moe of ours continues to foil our best efforts. On Wednesday of this week, I had made an appointment for the carpet cleaners to come reapply their stuff to remove the last of the smell. It was heavenly...well, at least heavenly after I was able to air out the fumes. By evening, the carpet was dry and I was anxious to get the room set up again. (Note: We had just gotten cable a few days before and I really just wanted to relax in front of the tv. As a secondary note: apparently we had free cable but didn't notice. Oops). I digress...

I had gotten everything ready and was just waiting for Jason to finish applying the "goop" to the upstairs floor. (see Further to Renovations in next posting). So, while I waited, I was sitting in my IKEA chair with my feet up and a blanket around me watching...yes, you guessed it...CSI. Moe, the cute cuddly feline, was exploring the room and sniffing everywhere. I was watching him more intently than I was watching the show. Moe would sniff, and then he would leave. He would return, sniff in places and then leave. After a while I figured he just couldn't find the spots that he remembered marking. I thought "Great! problem solved". Ahhh...silly human that I am. I begin to relax and watch the program on tv. Sure enough, I notice Moe adopting a particularly familiar stance - one that he uses when in the litter box. I immediately get up, see that he is peeing on the carpet and scare him out of the room in mid-pee. Thank goodness his peeing stopped while he was running away. Amidst a series of curses and scoldings, Jason asks innocently from upstairs "What's wrong?" Amidst more curses and scoldings, Jason realizes what Moe has done. I sopped things up and applied vinegar and water. Sadly, the combination of Moe and the vinegar made my room, which had just moments before smelled pretty, smell gross.

Given my anger and frustration, Moe was immediately placed back in his isolation room. He is still there. I didn't need the black light to help me find the spot this time. Jason and I will be going to purchase moth-ball crystals (which my vet handout said was a good thing to discourage cats from re-offending) before we let Moe back out. Even once we do, I think we will restrict his access. In the last few days that Moe has had free range of the house (with the exception of the carpeted room), his behaviour has been exemplary. Sigh. Hopefully moth-balls will work.

Further to Internet Access Challenges

2006-01-20T09:22:00.000-06:00

My silence on this whole process is deafening (at least to me). Jason has done an excellent job of keeping things posted, but for me it has been more of a challenge. I have to travel a considerable distance within my building to get to a computer and the Internet. Hence, I do this infrequently at best. I only remember that I should have entered something into the blog after I am in my car driving home. Sadly, my car doesn't have computer access. In any event, this is back on my radar screen. Expect many more entries from me.

Moe the Cat and CSI

2006-01-17T08:35:00.000-06:00

So Moe the Cat became a Manitoban before I did. Moe travelled to Winnipeg in late November and lived with my in-laws and their two cats. The other two cats are also persians and they are both much bigger than Moe, who was probably the runt of his litter. Anyway while Michelle was with Moe everything went well and then Moe spent three weeks with my in-laws and the "other cats".

The "other cats" turned on moe and blockaded him in a room. My mother in-law rounded on them and defended Moe and eventually Moe used his cuteness to wile his way into the daily lives of everyone including the "other cats". By the time Michelle returned to Manitoba and was preparing to recieve the furniture Moe was feeling at home in my in-laws house. That's when I arrived and a day later all three of us moved into the new house. At first Moe kept running around (largely to avoid us). He quickly settled in and during the first day he ate food and used his litter box.

Then Moe found a closet that was to his liking and he hid among our clothes while we worked on painting and other miscellanous tasks. While painting the front room I watched as Moe walked up to the fireplace in the front room and peed in the stone wood box beside the fireplace. We cleaned the area and put something there to stop the peeing in that location.

We quickly also noted (or rather Michelle did) that Moe stopped peeing in his litter box. After 2 days of this we started to worry. By day 3 or 4 we started to smell something in the front hallway. We did what we could but we didn't know where he was peeing exactly. Examining the area around his previous infraction did not help and that is in the room next to the front hallway. As the smell slowly increased we got upset and angry. We bought dettol and washed the front office/bedroom that really smelled like cat pee.

Not having the internet to check things out we directed others to make searches for us. This didn't really work but seemed to indicate that something like a blacklight from CSI -- might work. We finally snapped (not having internet to check things out just further frustrated us) and Michelle stopped at Home Depot and bought an Incandescent Black light. We tried it and it failed miserably.

We called several pet stores and one happened to have something called a "Spot Spotter" that had been sitting on their shelves a very long time. At $30 it seemed like a steal. We bought it, pumped 8 "AA" batteries into it and Voila! it worked. For the record it is a UV blacklight in a purple case and looks exactly like the ones they use on CSI. We discovered that Moe had never peed in the front hallway or in our bedroom. He was peeing in the carpet in the room with the fireplace. There were 9 spots and we don't know if they were all Moe. Perhaps an earlier pet, before the previous owner. We then started to by cleaning products and used dettol and vinegar and water solutions. This chemical soup caused such a stench that we called in a professional to use an antimicrobial on the carpets that should kill anything smaller than a pinhead for months to come. Of course it removed most, but not all, of the smell and after waiting the customary week they will apply it for free as soon as we call.

We also put Moe in an isolation room for a week. We went down for twenty minutes to an hour at a time, we included his favorite toys, scratching post, food and litter box. We have barracaded off the room he offended in and he is happily using his litter and eating well. We currently allow Moe into the fireplace room while we are there but we keep the CSI light handy in case we suspect anything more.

Moving day, our bedroom and renovations...

2006-01-11T09:07:00.000-06:00

Our furniture was to be delivered on Dec 22^nd, with Michelle supervising while I was proctoring my last exam in Ottawa. Our plan was to live with two bedrooms of furniture in our smaller front bedroom. The logistics of that plan would enable us to quickly renovate the downstairs, which would largely involve painting. After the downstairs was set-up our cramped quarters upstairs would "force" us to renovate our larger bedroom.

To understand why we felt the need to renovate the room only requires a description of the original state of the room. When we moved in, the larger bedroom had a stage. This was a raised area taking up a quarter of the original room that was not large enough to accomodate a queen sized bed. The closet had mirrored sliding doors and the wall surrounding the closet was also mirrored. The baseboards, window and door casements were all painted a horrible peach colour with the non-mirrored walls painted a pinky peach that was equally hideous. The only "tasteful" guess for this particular combination of decor is that the person wished to sit on an elevated bed and look out the windows at the river. Non-tasteful guesses have mainly included video cameras.

Our plans fell apart when our 1934 stairwell could not accomodate our queen size bed. Michelle adapted quickly using our main floor office space as a bedroom. Unfortunately this means our office stuff is now in the basement rec room. This cascade has moved up the need to renovate the bedroom because both of our offices at U of M are currently under construction. For me the situation is not too bad because I have a temporary space in the associate Chair's, rather grand, office while he is on Sabbatical. Michelle is not so fortunate and needs a space a home because at work she is still without a computer or an internet connection in her temporary space.

Thus we painted what was necessary on the first floor and immediately tore up the stage and removed the baseboards in the upstairs room. We also purchased solid wood flooring and I am preparing to buy and secure the necessary underlay. Of course that is worthy of another entry.

Let me say one thing about moving and renovating: I have never had a full appreciation for those who have renovated thier homes. Painting, putty work, drywall repair, general fixes, and demolition are all individually painful. And for the record I am speaking of being in physical pains and being mentally exhausted.

Still I love my house and the property (20+ minutes this morning to clear 3cm of snow covered with a very light crust of ice temp: 0 deg C).

Proving Canada is a Really Big Place

2006-01-06T13:56:00.000-06:00

To prove to anyone that Canada is a really big place I recommend having them walk west off of the U of M campus. nuff said.

Becoming a Manitoban

2006-01-06T13:27:00.000-06:00

For the record I have been an Ontarian since I was ten days old, previous to which I was barely concious and an Albertan. Growing up I lived in Windsor, London, Burlington, Hamilton and Ottawa with heavy emphasis on Burlington and Ottawa. With that number of moves in my past and such a large variety of cities under my belt I was not overly concerned about moving again and felt I was prepared for Winnipeg. On December 23rd I bravely set off on a one way flight to Winnipeg. At approximately 3:30 pm (CST) the plane crossed over into Manitoba and a strange though occurred to me... "Am I a Manitoban yet and if I am not then when will I become a Manitoban?". From that moment on I watched for signs of my induction into Manitoban life.

By geography it was at 3:30 on the 23rd that I became Manitoban.

It was not until the plane landed that the pilot of the airplane said "... and if you are from Winnipeg: Welcome home". A dubious welcome at best.

Several days later (the 27th I believe) I obtained Manitoba's most revered membership and identification: a Safeway Card. Unlike anywhere I have lived before, Manitoba (and Winnipeg especially) believes that there must be a discount on something before it can be purchased. This coveted membership card enables me to get points when I buy groceries, obtain discounts and perhaps even get coupons to get more money off at safeway gas stations. Note: that all gas stations I have seen give 3.5 cents per litre off the listed price!

On January 4th I gave up my Ontario Driver's License for a Manitoba Driver's License. This event replaced my oldest provincial identification so perhaps that was the moment I became Manitoban. (Don't get me started on Insurance, Driving here or perception of the amount "traffic").

Of course I will have to wait until three months after I have moved here to get a Manitoba Health Card. In the meantime I hope I don't need a hospital, because it isn't until sometime around April Fool's Day that I officially become Manitoban, at least according to the province.

Keeping a blog without an Internet connection

2006-01-05T11:39:00.000-06:00

Just a comment to anyone that might be listening... don't start a blog and then move. The problem is that you don't have reliable internet when you move somewhere. Certainly we arrived in Winnipeg safely and our relatives here all have internet connections, but it is an uncomfortable thing to ask someone to use their computer to enter your blog. This is exasperated if you already have to ask people to visit their house so you can use their computer to enter grades. So the blog has been out of date and there is a lot of news and events in our lives but they have had to wait until now because it has taken 2 days of work (Tues and Wed) to get a connection to the internet here at work. Oh and I did bring my own laptop, it just took 2 days to find the right person to register the MAC address and thereby enable my internet capabilities. More soon.

The first few days in Manitoba...

2005-12-20T19:30:00.000-06:00

On December 18, 2005, I (Michelle) officially became a Manitoban...again. Well, actually, it became official when I got my Manitoba driver's license on December 19. Ironically, the Manitoba Department of Transportation still had me on file, so I regained the 5 merit points I had when I left Manitoba in 1997. These merit points are great because it means your driver's insurance is much cheaper. Jason will only be given 1 merit point and will accumulate a new merit point for every two years of unblemished driving.

By the way, my arrival on the 18th marked the first time in 10 years that I haven't had a specified "departure date" from Winnipeg. It's one-way ticket all the way.

December 19: My Dad and I started to paint the two main rooms before the furniture arrived. My Dad has been fantastic. He had readied the majority of the painting surfaces - taping, patching, priming. All I had to do was buy the paint and show up! Trust me, buying the paint and showing up is the easy part. So far looking good - 2 ceilings fully painted by the end of the day, and the office has been transformed from a dull cream to a lively "Dusty Road" (aka warm beige).

December 20: My Dad and I taped, cut in, and used a roller to paint a 16x24 room. What a chore. Sore muscles gallore. Got a chance to view part of the accent colour on the wall...hmmm...may have to make a change there.

December 21: Jason's sister, Amy, and I got the house cleaned up for the movers on the 22nd. Amy also helped me shovel lots of snow off the driveway. Yes...a snowblower is definitely in our future. In the meantime, we had to make do with a couple of excellent shovels from Home Depot. Did I mention that Jason and I had received a number of wonderful gift cards from friends for the Home Depot? Well...they are all spent now. Sadly, it doesn't take long.

Our current state...

2005-12-20T15:45:00.000-06:00

For those of you that don't know Michelle, Moe and I have taken jobs with the University of Manitoba. After more than 10 years away from Manitoba, Michelle has secured a fabulous Assistant Professor job in the Department of Community Health Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Manitoba. They wanted her for the position so badly that the University also hired me (Jason) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biosystems Engineering. We are both looking forward to starting our positions on January 1, especially since the entire hiring process has taken years! I'm not kidding -- years -- really!!

Before January 1, I am finishing courses at Carleton, Michelle and Moe are already in Winnipeg preparing our move into the house and all of our belongings are somewhere in transit between Ottawa and Winnipeg. Life is interesting...very interesting.