Health has left the building

I went to my family doctor today for a follow-up visit for my vertigo. I should expect symptoms to last at least a week. My head feels like it's been in a vice the last few days and I have dizzy episodes at night as well as when I'm getting up in the morning. I've been taking medication to quell the nausea I'm experiencing as well. Aside from all this, I feel great!
My daughter was home from school today as well, because she is battling the flu. My wife was saying that she feels like she's coming down with something as well.
At least we will get this sick cycle out of the way all at the same time.
I didn't take any photos today so I thought I'd experiment a bit more with creative photography using a photo I took at Sunday's soccer game.
If you like the effect of my Soccer Planet, then check out the tutorial where I got the idea from.

Sick, Soup and Soccer

This weekend was not one of my better ones. I should have been at work this weekend, but due to illness, I spent all of Saturday in bed. I slept for 24 hours, getting up only for the washroom and some homemade soup. I couldn't stay up for long because I was having dizzy spells coupled with nausea.
I was stable enough today to venture out to see a doctor. I was diagnosed with vertigo and prescribed some medication to help with the symptoms. I always associated the word Vertigo with an old Hitchcock movie in the past, but doing a google search brought up lots of information on vertigo.
The weather today was sunny and cold, a great day for soccer, and I was up to seeing my daughter play the first soccer game of the year. There had been a long break in the season due to the lousy weather we had last year.
Below are two pictures: one from the game, and a blurry one taken while waiting with my wife at the pharmacy for my drugs.

Tilt shift miniature fakes

I've been experimenting with creating fake miniature environment photos. There are several websites online that give detailed instructions on how to create them. If you'd like to give it a try, then check out this tutorial.
I've tried a few experimental photos, and found that, for me, the ones that gave the best results were taken from while looking down at the scene at an angle. I don't have many photos like that, so now I must give myself a new photo assignment that will allow me to find opportunities to shoot some photos of things from above so that I can experiment a bit more with this technique.

Oh, how I love shopping!

I hope you detected a bit of sarcasm in the title to todays post. I usually find any excuse to escape from this activity. It just bores me to death, as I'm sure it does for most males. However, yesterday was different. We all decided that it would be a great day to go to Richmond to look around. Shopping in Richmond for me is a bit different than hate shopping and will your average shopping excursion. The sights and sounds of the area make me feel like I've been transported to another land. The population of the area is prodominantly Asian as are all the stores and restaurants. I'm usually the only white guy there, when we stroll the malls in Richmond. Don't look for a Taco Bell or Orange Julius in the food court either. That would be too foreign here.
We found an interesting store called Daiso where inventory is imported from Japan and every item costs only $2! We'd been there a few times before, and we always find something to spend our money on there.
My daughter also found a Japanese book store in the mall that sold tons of Anime/Manga books. The place had her practically drooling in the aisle, since she stated, "I've never seen this stuff for sale anywhere else".
We shopped, had lunch, lost our car in the carpark, found it after a bit of a walk, and then headed home. Overall not a bad day for someone who usually hates shopping.

Frozen Cacti

We've had freezing temperatures for the past week. I remembered that I had a couple of plants outside that I had forgotten to bring in. I went outside to check them, but sad to report, they didn't make it. I still have a few plants that have survived them.

I've never had much of a green thumb, so I'm surprised that the few plants I have left have survived as long as they have. The types of plants I now own do better when neglected, than if they are pampered. If you're not having luck with plants, then get yourself some cacti and jade plants and leave them alone for a while. You'll find out like me, that they're doing great on their own, and that the flowers have started bursting on them all.

Blogger is a Clogger

I think it may be time to hit the road around here.
This Blogger account has been acting weird lately. Load times are increasing slow and there are a few glitches as well. My post from Wednesday was duplicated three times in a row for some strange reason. I've deleted those posts. I've had this blog for almost two months now and have learned quite a bit about blogging and the blogger community. I've discovered quite a few great blogs out there that I read regularly, and have gotten some ideas from them that I'd like to implement on my own blog. I'm thinking of moving my online thoughts to another blog provider. I'm leaning towards Wordpress or Livejournal, but haven't made up my mind yet. Until I decide, I'll continue to post here. Anything I create will be for my own consumption and amusement, but if you have any advice, leave a comment or email me. I'm open to suggestions.

Weather you like it or not

Todays weather caught me by surprise. The snow began falling last night, but it got really heavy by this afternoon. By the time I went to pick up my daughter around 5pm, the roads were almost completely covered in ice. As we rode home, I tried to stop at the top of a hill and the brakes had no effect. I slid part way down the hill stopping only because I hit the sidewalk curb. It's a good thing that there wasn't anyone around or I would have had an accident. I made a u-turn at the hill, as I knew that with the ice, I wouldn't be able to negotiate the hill safely. We drove home by a different, safer route. I spent a couple of hours shovelling and salting our townhouse complex before dinner. I was keenly aware of the news reports that the emergency wards were filling with people who were hurting themselves shovelling snow and slipping on ice. I was extremely careful while shovelling and made sure I took not to put too much strain on my back.
My Internet service has been sporatic today as well. I wasn't able to log on earlier, and even now the Internet seems to be very sluggish on my computer.
The worst of the snow is over for now as I type this, but the temperature is supposed to drop down to -6 overnight. Hopefully tomorrow isn't going to be as bad. At least I picked a good time to take holidays from work.

Taking a break

I've finally gotten a break from work. Last year was a busy year it seems. I had started working at a new place, and was unable to take many holidays due to work shortages and the fact that most holiday times were already taken by those more senior than me. I accumulated lots of overtime as well that I banked through the year. My boss told me that I should use them up as they don't carry them over from year to year. I could have chosen to get paid out, but opted for some time off. I'm now off this week and really loving it! Although I'm not getting a chance to sleep in because I'm driving my daughter to school, and my wife to work each morning. I'm surprised that they didn't get me a cap and a T-shirt that had 'Chauffeur' written on it this Christmas. However, after dropping them off, the rest of the day is ALL mine.
So far, I haven't done much of anything. Everyone should take a do-nothing holiday once in a while!
I've put all the Christmas things back in storage and now it seems like there's a big gaping hole where the tree was. I'd love to rearrange the room, but I'm on holidays right now.
We have a high definition TV and I've watched a couple of movies. I've caught up on emails and surfed the net. I'm currently planning a wood project that I'm creating for my daughter. I'm only in the design stages for now. I was going to head down to Home Depot to buy some materials, but never made it. Details of this project will probably show up in a future post...if it turns out, and I'm not ashamed to post the final outcome. I'm not that skilled with woodworking, so this will be a real experiment on my part.
I practiced a bit on the guitar as well today. I'm self taught on the guitar and I've also self taught my ears not to criticize what they hear. My ears are on holidays too..I didn't want to torture them too much, so I didn't play for long.

The juice is flowing

Our electrician phoned to say that he had time available to drop by today and finish the wiring job.
He quickly showed me how little I know about electricity. It was nice watching an expert at work.
He quickly cut some holes in the drywall to fish through the newer, larger gauge wire through the walls from behind the stove and back to the breaker panel.
Everything went well, and we soon had our stove plugged in and pushed into place. A quick test confirmed that all the elements and range were working! We're having a hot home made meal tonight!

It's cool, but can't say the heat is on

Our appliances arrived today! The delivery went smoothly. The workers took the old and left the new. We had an electrician friend drop by to install the connection for the stove. Here's where we ran into some problems. The old wiring is 10 gauge size and we need to have size 8 to operate the larger stove. He has to return to run a new cable from the main box to the kitchen. Since he's a part time electrician (on his off hours from his regular job), he'll try to make time to fix it next week, as he didn't have everything he needed today. It was a bigger job than we all anticipated. When we get it working, we'll be able to test out the convection oven and all the electonic digital settings for ourselves. We'll have to be patient for now and make do with our toaster oven for fixing our meals in the meantime.
The fridge is working perfectly. Just plug and play. Play is exactly what my wife has been doing with it so far. She's been marvelling over it's features. She's been busy arranging the shelves and putting food away, each with its own designated space.
The appliances are both stainless steel made by LG. We got a great deal on them so I couldn't refuse buying the stove too. Here are the photos I promised, which show off the new additions to our appliance family.

The suspense is killing me!

How much longer must I wait?!
I waited all day for the new appliances to arrive today. In the end, I got a call from the delivery driver saying that they would not be able to bring them today. One of the workers got hurt and the snow was slowing them down and putting them behind schedule. He promised me a delivery tomorrow and will call again to confirm. I had already disconnected everything from the kitchen, so we ordered pizza for dinner tonight as the place is in a shambles right now.
I've also got an electrician coming by tomorrow to install the stove electrical plug. The old stove was hard-wired directly to the stove, which I don't think is allowed anymore, bylaws being more strict nowadays than they were 25 years ago.

Our New Years Disaster

This Christmas season has been a busy one for me. I worked graveyard shift right through the Christmas week. I also worked New Years Day as well.
Our New Years Eve plans did not go as planned. We were supposed to go out and usher in the New Year at our friends place, but changed our minds when we discovered to our horror, that our fridge had stopped working. We spent a couple of hours in a panic, moving some food to our chest freezer downstairs and throwing out the bulk of the food that had thawed out and was spoiled in the fridge. I wasn't going to take any chances with getting food poisoning.
New Years Day I went to work, while my wife went shopping to find us a new fridge. I joined up with her after work and we searched the remaining few stores that happened to be opened that day. We did manage to narrow our search down to a couple of models we both liked and I made plans to return the next day to talk to the salesman.
So, today, after some wheeling and dealing, I bought a matching fridge and stove for our place. I was lucky enough to get them at the commercial discounted price rather than retail due to a referral from a friend, who put me in touch with the sales person.
What you see to the right are the dead and dying appliances that we currently own. These are both at least 20 years old. The stove's clock and timer stopped working a couple of years ago. I prefer to use our small toaster oven rather than this poor excuse for an oven. You can't even see the fridge with all the magnets and stuff we've added over the years! Is it a fridge or a bulletin board?
They'll be delivering our new appliances on Friday, so I'll post some pictures of the new ones when they arrive. So you'll have to tune in then to see what I ended up buying. You'll be impressed when you see them, I'm sure of that!