Temp: 16 degrees
not rainy, but overcast.
Well, here we are - the last day of summer.
So, what kind of a summer was it? Thanks to my blog, here are some stats:
Average daily high temperature: 24.8 degrees.
Number of trips: to be determined...
Number of concerts: to be determined ...
Temp: 13 degrees
Finally a really rainy day, all day. First one since mid-May, and also the coldest day since mid-May as well.
A good eveni ng to stay inside and watch some of the fall season. Beer will most likely be involved.
Temp: 16 degrees
experiment in inflicting pain on ones self today... is that called masochism? Well, more like a semi-controlled experiment that turned into self-torture. My work was giving out free banana splits today as some sort of a promotion.. I knew that it was going to happen since last week, so I psyched myself up, and came prepared... or so I thought...
Everyone knows I discovered that I'm allergic to bananas (the hard way) about 8 years ago, right? Well, I haven't had any banana since then, and, well, I thought that this would be as good a time as any to find out if I'm still allergic. After all, I DID have my gall bladder out 18 months ago, and since then many foods have affected me differently, so who knows... this could be a good thing....
I started the day with an anti-GERD pill, skipped the morning coffee, which sometimes contributes to heart burn, and packed tums, gaviscon, and antihistamines with me... just in case...
I had the banana split at noon, and it was great! I felt queezy shortly after, but contributed that to all the ice cream. BUT, by 2pm, I was getting the cramps pretty bad. Duh, what was Ithinking! This isn't heartburn, this is a serious food allergy - did I really think tums was going to help? Shheeesh!!! By 2:30, I had to head home and curl up in bed, where I stayed until 5 when the cramps finally subsided.
No, this was no where near s bad as a gallbladder attack, but it sure wasn't fun either. And the worst part was that it was totally and willfully self inflicted. Lesson learned.
I'm still allergic to bananas.
Temp: 18 degrees
sun and clouds off and on, mostly clouds, but still warm enough. Rained hard at night, but not at all during daylight.
on the way to work, I hit 100,000 km oon my car. In November it'll be 4 years that I've had the beamer.
lost big at poker tonight - $38, which was all I had in my account, save $1... sucked, but it had to happen sometime.
Yeah, yeah, I know... the blog entries are getting pretty sparse these days, but, well, summer's almost over, and therefore, so is the summer blog.
Temp: 14 degrees
overcast and drisling all day. Watched Ultraviolet, went looking for chairs to match the oak table in half a dozen stores, but couldn't find anything 'perfect'
also got a haircut
watched premiere of Amazing Race - Fall season is here, so many new shows - I don't know if I can keep up with 'em all ... saving myself for Lost and Battlestar Galactica!
Temp: 20 degrees
Turned out to be a really nice warm day. Spent most of the day cleaning - finally finished the ceiling, got the oak table in, we cleaned the garage, weeded the front, straightened up out back, took in $36 worth of beer bottles, then spent it on dinner at a pub - 2-4-1 appies, so we got popcorn shrimp, tandoori wings, chicked skewers and nachos.
Watched "Stay" tonight on pay per view - very odd movie, interesting, but I'm ot sure if "got" it ...
Temp: 18 degrees
Wow - Summer's almost over - less than a week to go? ... almost time to turn the furnace on.
It's probably evident from my sparse blogging that I'm doing less exciting things and spending more time indoors playing poker or videogames or watching TV... I guess I'm slowly sinking into the autumn season, reluctantly as it may be. I swore I'd utilize every hour of summer to the fullest, and while I think it has been a pretty eventful summer, these last couple weeks certainly are winding down.
I've worn long sleeve shirts 3 days in a row now - first long sleeve shirts since May!
It's Friday - and I'mgoing to try to finish off ceiling once and for all tonight, then get the oak table in - which means we'll also need to buy new chairs...
I got my car into BMW for servicing of CV joint... oh joy, there's another unexpected $1200 out the window. But at least it's a safer car now, and you can't put a price on that, right? I got my mid-year bonus (er, they prefer if we call it "variable pay") yesterday, but between the new tires, new CV joints, credit card bills, and the new chairs we're going to have to buy, well, bye-bye bonus.
I Made a nice beef stew for dinner - and Carole helped! It was really good. I don't make stews very often, preferring rather to BBQ or roast any beef that we've got in the house, but we felt like stew tonight and had lots of veggies to consume, so stew it was.
Temp: 15 degrees
Cooled off a lot, and rained off and on most of the day.
Tonight is the Survivor Cook Islands premiere, so, oh joy, something to look forward too... Reality TV season is back.
I played my 5000th hand of online poker at Absolute Poker, still on my original $50 buyin ... that's over $1500 worth of bets from the fifty bucks now! I'm not sure if that's really good, or really bad that I've had over 1500 go through my wallet and and the end of all this time I haven't made a penny ... in fact, as of today I'm down $20. But that's poker.
Temp: 21 degrees
It was supposed to rain yet again, but totally cleared up. In fact, there was even a chance of hail, they said, but doesn't look like there's any chance of that now...
I was in for more physio today - the back is not too good today - instead of electrocution though, I got an ultrasound treatment - not much help if you ask me.
I hope I start to see some kind of permanent improvement soon - I'm too young to feel this old...
Temp: 24 degrees
Today was a pretty lazy day. I pretty much just played poker.
I'm up and down, but sitting at $18 now out of my initial $50 buyin.
That $32 loss though, has allowed me to play over 4300 25 cent hands so far ... that's nearly $1100 worth of bets off of a $32 investment, not too shabby if you ask me! You'd think I'd be a pro by now though, not down to my last $18.
It's amazing to think that $1100 has passed through my virtual online wallet, and that after about 50 hours of play, I'm pretty much back where I started - oh well, it's pretty cheap entertainment if you wanna look at it that way, but personally, I think I'd like it better if that $1100 worth of winnings/losings were in my pocket, not someone elses...
Temp: 24 degrees
I wanted to make spaghetti for dinner tonight, and was already browning a pound of ground beef when I realized we didn't have any tomato sauce, tomato paste, or canned tomatoes in the house ... yikes! How am I going to make paghetti sause??? To make do, I crushed one tomato, diced one and a half tomatoes, and added a can of tomato soup. I hope this works...
Argh, I guess I didn't plan ahead very well - there are barely any veggies in the house... half a green pepper, and onion, some chives, a couple pieces of garlic ... what the hell, chop 'em all up and throw 'em in. Assorted spices and herbs, well let's hope this is paletteable ...
Hey, well what do you know, it's awesome! Thank goodness I had noodles in the house!
I guess this is my cueue to make a shopping list and get to the grocery store!
Temp: 24 degrees
Lazy Sunday. The sun is out again and it's warm, but after Lynne and Brian left for the airport, I just lazed out on the couch, playing online poker, watching TV, and drinking beer.
The air is crisp and clear after the nice rain yesterday, and the sky is very blue, but to be honest I didn't go outside for more than 10 minutes ... Not much else to say ... everyone needs a day off, right?
Temp: 20 degrees
Carole's Mom and Brian stayed over tonight, they're on their way to Scottsdale in the morning, and we're the pitstop.
It POURED here today, though I hear it wasn't raining anywhere else but Coquitlam...
t was our friend Ron's 40th birthday party tonight, and everyone was supposed to go to a group outting at the PNE first (before the BBQ and boozin') , but we skipped the rides, thinking it would be as soaking wet there as it was here - when we got to the BBQ in North Burnaby at around 7:30pm though, it was nice out, and according o everyone, it only rained there for about 1/2 and hour today.
Fourty years old ... that's crazy! It's so surreal - my friends are starting to turn fourty... I dont think any of us even feel thirty yet! (well, aches and pains aside). At the BBQ were many of the people that were at Green Lake, and it was cool to see all of them out of the summer setting ... aka: with pants and shirts on, lol...
There was a BBQ, then a Karaoke party. Neither of us sang, but it was a lot of fun watching everyone else.
Today was a pretty good day - the rain was very welcomed, believe it or not. I've been looking forward to it - not only does my lawn really need it, but it helps clean all the smog out of the air too.
I guess we left the party fairly early, considering how late these things tend to go, and we were back home about midnight.
Temp: 24 degrees
Rain? 100% chance again today? That's what they keep saying ... but ...
Nope, it's cooler, but not even cloudy - a totally nice day.
Tonight was live poker tourney night - our first one in a long time! This one is a bit different of a format though, it's three short one-table turbo games for $10 each. So, with 16 people there, that's 8 people at two different tables, playing simultanious, but seperate tournaments. With the blinds increasing so rapidly, the games were both finished in about 2 hours (I came in 3rd at my table, I think Carole was 4th at hers), and then a 2nd game started.
I was 3rd again at my table (3rd doesn't pay - only 1st and 2nd), but Carole came 1st at hers! So she got to pocket $60 on that one.
For the 3rd game, we were both at the same table. I think carole was out about 5th, and I was, you guessed it, 3rd again. Sigh, always the brides maid, never the bride... it was a lot of fun though, totally worth the $30 I spent tonight, just for the entertainment value. And watching Carole finally have her first WIN was awesome - congrats honey!
On aother note, I was playing online poker at home shortly before leaving for the live game, and I had a bad beat to beat all bad beats... I was in a tournament that had a $8 buyin, and I was pretty far, there were about 60 players left out of the nearly 400 that had bought in, so you can imagine, the prize for winning would have been pretty decent too... but I was getting short stacked, and had to make a move or I would be bled to death by the blinds...
So, finally I picked up Ace Ten suited and I decided to make a play to pick up the blinds... I bet half my stack - $500, hoping everyone else would fold - which they did, except for one guy who re-raises me another $500, putting me all in. Well, I can't fold now! He's probably got a pocket pair, so it'll be about 50/50 chance of winning. I call all-in.
We flip the cards, and sure enough, he's got pocket fives. It's a coin-flip situation ... 50/50 odds.
The flop comes, and it's 10-10-Ace ... YES!!! I've just flopped a full house - Aces full of tens!!! Yeah!!!
The turn comes and it's a five ... ouch! My heart stops for a millisecond as I realize he's now got a full house too, tens-full-of-fives - but mine beats his, so wooohooo I'm about to double up and get back into contention!
Then the river card comes ... oh yeah, you guesed it. The ONLY CARD IN THE DECK that could beat me. The other five. My opponent gets four of a kind, and I'm out. Ack! Oh well, that's poker!
Temp: 25 degrees
It was supposed to rain today - 100% chance - but nope, there aren't even any clouds!
I think I mentioned a few days ago that the dentist said he'd comp me a free teeth whitening kit, so this morning I had to go back and get a mould made so that he could form some custom trays for me.
Then after work I had to go all the way back to West Van again, to pick up the final product.
I tried 'em out tonight, but no results yet ... I'm supposed to see a difference after a week or two.
Well, we'll see...
Temp: 26 degrees
Time to put brand new tires on my car again. Anybody remember The Story of the $917 Spare Tire? When was that... whoah, 2 years ago? That was really 2 years ago? I MUST have put new tires on since then... hmmm, maybe not! Well, in that case, I suppose it's not so bad that I needed new tires again.
I giuess I didn't mention it, but back on September 1st, the day I took off to fix the leak with my Dad, I also took my car in to a tire shop to get a balancing done, since I was starting to feel a shimmy at around 90km/h - well, as soon as the guy looked at my front tires, he explained in no uncertain terms why I needed new ones ... there was a wear pattern on one tires that was right down to the cords - in fact, wire was sticking through... "next layer is air" he said. Yup, that tire was dead alright, lucky I found this out BEFORE the trip!!! Karma I guess.
Fortunately I had two spare tires at home, so I got him to swap them onto the front wheels for the trip, until the new tires I ordered arived. It worked, the trip was fine, the temporary tires worked perfectly - but - because this is an all-wheel-drive car, I really DID need to put new tires all around.
I ordered some nice low profile, high performance Hankook tires - and today, I got 'em put on. They're nice. I like. It was $971 out of my pocket this time, but hopefully they're gonna last another 2 years!
Oh, by the way, I've now got over 99,000km on my car - I should hit 100,000 in a week or two.
Temp: 30 degrees
Tim has to work today, so we had said our goodbye's last night. We were up shortly after he left, and were out of the house by about 9:30. It was a long smoky drive, and there were a lot of accidents... all the crazy folk returning from the long weekend! Why on earth anyone would be in a rush to get home from a holiday is beyond me.
As we now knew, there were at least three big forest fires burning and visibility was low for a lot of the trip, but we still made good time, despite a near-fatal crash just west of Princeton, and a DEFINITELY fatal cliff plunge about 15 minutes east of Sunshine Valley. We also detoured to Coalmont for half an hour, just to see if there was any land for sale in the area...
So, all told, we were on the road for 9 hours, and home by 6:30.
Holiday's over, but the weather's just as nice here - well, down to 25 at 6:30, but I'm assuming that means it was closer to 30 in the heat of the day. Speaking of days, they're sure getting shorter now, aren't they? I'd say we're down to about 13 and a half hours of sunshine a day now...
Temp: 30 degrees
We're all up early this morning - not sure why, as last night was a late, late, drinkin' movie watchin' night, but since we're all up early, I made French Toast for breakfast. It wasn't really time to leave for the lake yet, so we watched RV and downloaded some cache info for nearby geocaches.
We then went caching, locating 1 on Red Mountain (we also explored the Red Mountain ski area), 1 in Rossland, and 1 in Trail, and then we head out to Fruitvale and finally located (I think!) my Dad's childhood house - then detoured south to the Pend d'Oreille recreation area, where we hung out for a few hours - I even went swimming - in a lake - for the first time since ... well ... I don't know when!
My grandfather used to talk about the Pend d'Oreille valley and had said that it was paradise on earth - the place where he wanted to buy land and retire (I'm sure my mom can provide more detail about what grandpappy used to say abou this place... mom???) and I couldn't help but to wonder if he had said these things before or after BC Hydro built the dam and flooded the valley ... don't get me wrong, it's gorgeous here - but I'm pretty sure that private land ownership is no longer an option, since Hydro seems to be experimenting with "optimal water levels" right now ... I wouldn't want to have shoreline property here now!
After returning from an awesome day at the lake, we debated where to go for dinner - At Red Mountain? In Rossland? In Trail? There were no shortage of options! In the end though, we went to a mexican cantina in Rossland that is, no kidding, in a gas station on the highway. Ironically though, even though this was a mexican restaurant in the middle of BF nowhere in the back of a gas station on the highway, with not a single mexican in the front or in the kitchen, well, it was damn good. The beans caught up with us a few hours later (Hey Tim, you ever eat all those leftover beans? At least you live alone!!!), but it was a dang good meal. Well, the strawberry margaritas were made from a mix (usually a letdown, but the tequilla was good, so I'll let it slide), and the service wasn't all that hot, despite the hottie with the Tramp Stamp that paraded past us every 3 minutes - but again, I'll let it slide... hey, I'm on vacation in the middle of BF nowhere, and in the last 48 hours I've had Samossas, Chimichangas, Tequilla, French toast, and believe it or not, while we had the sense not to stop, we actually passed a "Fresh Sushi" roadside stand at the side of the highway somewhere between Princeton and Keremeos - that was definitely worth a laugh and a half, so I'm in good spirits. And besides, this was really good Mexican!
Temp: 32 degrees
Tim didn't have much in the fridge, but I managed to scrounge up enough to make some bacon and eggs.
We then hit the road for our day-trip circle tour of Trail-Fruitvale-Salmo-Nelson-Castlegar.
It's dry here - it's amazing how much difference humidity makes ... I swear, 32 degrees here (confirmed by my car, Tim's deck thermometer, and the radio) feels no hotter than 24 or 25 back home. This is WAY more tollerable!
In Fruitvale, we tried to locate the house where Dad grew up, but weren't entirely sure we were on the right road... we had to be close though, there are only 3 roads! We'll have to call him tonight and get directions...
In Nelson, we parked by the lake ans walked the boardwalk from beginning to end and back again, stopping at the consession stand for ice-cream - good thing too, as they close for the season tonight! It's crazy, there are still 3 weeks of summer, and it's freekin' 32 degrees out, but I guess that once this long weekend is over and school starts, summer tourist season must be over! We sure picked a great day to be here though.
We drove back through Castlegar, and took a detour to explore the town a bit, since Tim had been told that this is where he'll have to go (the big city, lol) to do any serious shopping. The next closest city being Spokane.
Just before entering Trail on our way back, we detoured to a scenic bluff to locate a geocache that popped up on the GPS - my first find in the area! After that, we hit the supermarket for some "real" dinner and breakfast food.
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I BBQ'd steaks tonight on Tim's little hibatchi, but I must've picked up stewing beef by accident, cause the stuff was rock hard (though it looked great when raw). At least the corn, baked potatoes and chocolate cream pie were all good!
We watched some more movies tonight, like Loose Change. Holy crap, that movie's got a lot of insight on the 9/11 incidents that I've never heard beofre... sure, some of it is a little conspiracy-theory-ish, but most of it appears to be corroborated evidence. Very interesting ... the movie is actually available for free viewing online at the link above, I highly recommend everyone check it out.
Well, we've got more sight seeing and geocaching to do tomorrow, so it's bedtime (although it's well into tomorrow already)
Temp: 30 degrees
Hooo-weee, it's supposed to be a scorcher this weekend - what a perfect last long weekend of summer, and what a glorious day for a drive! Ah yes, this morning we head for Rossland/Trail.
We were on the road shortly after 6AM, to beat the long weekend rush, and were eating lunch in Osoyoos by 11. By then we had already stoppen in Abbotsford for gas, in Keremeos for apples and peaches (and a samossa, which Iate at 9:30AM because they just smelled sooooo good at the fruitstand!), and in Manning Park for a pee and stretch break.
There was a lot of smoke all the way from Hope to Osoyoos - we didn't know it at the time, but 2 major fires were burning just across the border, and all the smoke was blowing north - it was pretty hard to breath, until I clued in that my car has a an auto-detect and filter of particulates and external odours ... IF you press the little "auto-filter particulates and external odours" button, which I finally did.
By time we got over the Anarchist Mountain hump, the smoke was pretty much gone, and it was onward through Rock Creek, Grand Forks, Christina Lakes, then Rossland!
As we wound down from the Red Mountain Ski Area Summit (aka: Nancy Green Summit) we were only minutes from Tim's house...
Rossland is so cute! As I entered the town, I instantly remembered being here before - Tim and I had driven through on our way back from Nelson a few years ago - until just now though, I wasn't entirely sure if I'd been here before.
A few twists and turns, and we had arrived! I guess it was around 2:30PM - all told, about 8 hours of driving, but it went pretty quickly.
We chatted with Tim a bit, sat out on the deck drinking beer in the 30 degree sun, then went to a bar in Trail (5 more minutes down the mountain from Rossland) for dinner.
We watched a few movies after that, then hit the hay... we're driving to Fruitvale, Salmo and Nelson tomorrow!
Temp: 27 degrees
Stayed home from work (I had booked the day off) , and finally fixed plumbing with Dad today. The problem was a crack where the drain meets the 1 1/2" pipe, right before the trap - the pipe was about 60% cracked all the way around, but would only seperate when I was in the shower (not Carole) I guess the extra 100 lbs was just enough to push down on the basin enough to spread the crack ... sheesh! What an ordeal this has been ... but $40 worth of parts, and 2 hours of work by two guys who barely know what they're doing, and the thing was fixed. perfectly. FINALLY!
...now to patch the hole in the textured cieling ... maybe another day...