Pixie, the amazing escape artist

Just as I suspected might happen yesterday, Pixie got out of her collar by the time I got home. I was going to put it back on her, but she really didn't want it back on. At least now she seems her regular self again, except for her shaved belly.

Pixie, the radar kitten.

Pixie has become a miniature radar, and she hates it! She was sent to the vets on Monday to get fixed, and I picked her up last night. Because she now has two stitches in her belly, she has to wear an 'e-collar', which is the professional term for the cone, to stop her from licking the cut, and possibly taking out the stitches. She was not happy when I picked her up (she doesn't like being in her carry cage) and was even less happy riding home in the Jeep (which is very bumpy) from North Gower. I then found out that she was so unhappy for part of the trip, because she needed to use the little kittens room. As soon as I let her out of her cage, she immediately went in search of the litter box.

The vets told us that we needed to keep her in a confined space, with no running or jumping for 14 days! I don't think that it's possible at all for a kitten not to run and jump. I kept her in the bathroom for the evening while Amanda I were out for the evening, and I felt really bad leaving her in there, cause we have a really small bathroom. When we got home, we let her out and I proceeded to make fun of her and lots of pictures, just because she looks so funny!

It's really funny watching her trying to get into an area she normally can get into, but can't now because of the cone. She will try, then walk around in a circle and try again. Eventually she'll give up, only to return later and try again! Sometimes she can into small spots (like in between the couches, or behind the toilet) but then can't turn around, so she has to back out. I think she's a little depressed also, cause sometimes we'll find her just sitting on her hind legs, with her head held down a bit (either cause she's depressed, or cause the cone is heavy for her). She'll just sit there like that, ignoring our calls, not even looking at us, until we go over and pick her up.

I was actually surprised this morning when we woke up and she still had the cone on! I figured she would have either found some way to wiggle out of it, or it would have gotten caught on something while she was running around all night and ripped off of her. I'll be even more impressed if it stays on all day of her being alone.

Here are some shots of how funny/pathetic she looks:

Want a Wii

I've kinda wanted a Wii for awhile, cause they look fun, but I had never actually used one (let alone seen one for sale anywhere!) until the other night. We went to a pot-luck dinner for Tricia (from Amanda's lab) because she got a new job and was leaving the lab. After dinner we watched some of the hockey game, then we got out the Wii. It was awesome! We played Wii sports bowling and tennis. The bowling was fun and pretty easy, but the tennis was a bit harder trying to figure out when to hit the ball. After finally playing one, I now really want one. If only I could find one for sale somewhere...

Snow!

I woke up to a big surprise this morning. When I looked out the window, all I saw was white! It was snowing!! A lot! And not just little snowflakes, but big fluffy ones. It had obviously been snowing for awhile, because there was lots on the ground. I was excited, cause I have fun driving in the snow with my Jeep. I had to go down to the quarry first thing when I got to work, so I had some fun driving around there (making sure no big trucks were around of course). They're calling for more snow this afternoon and tomorow morning. I can't wait!!

Concert Friday, kids Saturday, pool party Sunday

Back in August I was looking at the Scotiabank web page and saw that Fall Out Boy was coming to town in November. I got really excited, and was hoping that work would get tickets for the box. Two weeks before the concert I sent an e-mail upto Nancy (she does all the draws for the tickets) asking if she knew if we had the box for that concert. She replied saying that she didn't know yet, and she would send out the usual e-mail if we did. The next day she sent out an e-mail saying we had tickets for Fall out Boy!! I put my name in right away, and couldn't wait till Monday to see if I had got them. Monday came around, and I got the tickets! Then later in the week, Angie didn't want her tickets, so she offered them to me, and I invited Cat and Jeff. We got there around 7, and I was surprised to see that the box had changed since last time I was there. They had completely renovated the inside. It looks way fancier now, and has a bigger fridge for drinks! The concert started off with Cute Is What We Aim For, a band I had never heard of. They were actually really good. Next up was Plain White T's, a band that I like. They were really good also. At the end of their set, I got a Plain White T's t-shirt (surprisingly enough, it wasn't that plain, but it was white) and a Fall Out Boy one also. Then Fall Out Boy came on, after a lot of stage prepping. The tour was called 'The Young Wild Things Tour', and the artwork used on stage was from the 'Where The Wild Things Are' children's book, but with the band members faces edited into the regular characters bodies. It was very well done. They had videos for every song they played, the majority of which were based on the Wild Things theme, and even one involving Happy Tree Friends (a very morbid internet cartoon that involves cute cuddly forest critters meeting horrible deaths while doing everyday activities. Check their site out if your curious, but not if you have a weak stomach www.happytreefriends.com). The videos didn't really have anything to do with the songs at all, but they were still good. I have some pics and video of it that I'll post later. After the concert we went to McDonald's for dinner, then headed home.

Saturday morning I drove Amanda to a math teachers conference at Ottawa U. I then went home and did laundry, then went back to pick her up from the conference later. We did a bit of shopping in the new shopping area close to our apartment called the Ottawa Train Yards. It's mainly womens clothing stores, with a few other stores thrown in (like a shoe store, an eyeglasses store, a golf store, a dollar store and a Subway). Later in the evening Angie dropped off her two kids for the night while she and Robin went to the Bon Jovi concert. We did usual babysitting stuff with them: watched TV, played games, ate pizza for dinner and pancakes for breakfast. I think they had a good time, and they were well behaved, but one night is enough for awhile.

Sunday we watched more TV with the kids, then I went a returned a DVD player I got a couple weeks ago that suddenly stopped working. I also finally picked up some new wipers for the Jeep, and some new headlights, after they both died on me last Friday night night coming home form work (well, not both at once. One was already dead from a couple weeks ago, I've just been too lazy to fix it). After I got home, we got ready to head out to a birthday gathering for Amanda's thesis prof Jeff. A bunch of people from the lab met at Doleys to play pool. There ended up being about 15 people show up, so we got a few tables going, and had a great time. After that, a couple of us went to the Keg for a birthday dinner for Jeff. It was great! I had the prime rib classic, with cheesy ranch garlic mashed potatoes and a caesar salad. I'd never had prime rib before, and it was delicious! After dinner we went to Jeff and Sabrina's place for some delicious ice cream cake!Yum! After that we went home and watched more TV.

So I think this weekend coming up might be the first weekend in awhile where we don't have anything planned. No...wait......never mind, I forgot, it's games night time! Our once a month get together where we play various board or card games. It's always a fun time!

Disaster at work!

Apparently this morning there was a huge disaster at the office. When the first people came in to work, the coffee machine wasn't working! We had a few problems with it yesterday, when it would just start pumping out hot water for no reason, thus leaving the coffee in the pot watered down and crappy tasting. Somebody came it to 'fix' it, but they didn't really. It was working fine for the afternoon, but apparently died over night. They decided this morning that the guys back in the garage didn't need coffee as much as the office workers, so we stole their coffee machine. They weren't pleased at all, but as somebody said; 'I'd rather see 8 guys without coffee, than 25 people without coffee.' That is very true, especially since some of these people get very irate when coffee hasn't been made for awhile, and they need to wait 5 minutes for a fresh batch to be made. The repair guy was just in again, and instead of trying to fix the machine, he just brought a new one. Order has been restored to the office once more, but for how long?

Pixie, the mischievous devil kitten

Yes, Pixie is still the devil, but he must be getting bored inside the body of a cute little kitten. When we came home from Kingston on Saturday, we searched around for her, but couldn't find her. We started getting worried, but then she started to meow. It was coming from the bedroom, but as much as we looked, she couldn't be found! Amanda finally tracked the scared meowing to inside the bed. At first I thought she meant like under the covers or something, but no, Pixie was inside the bed! As soon as she knew we found her, she switched from scared little kitten, to crazy playful kitten, and started playing with us running our hands over the box spring. She had either made a hole herself, or found an existing hole on the bottom of the box spring, and climbed up inside. Amanda was freaking out, and was ready to cut the whole thing open to get her out, but I decided to look for the hole, and try to get her out that way. I found the hole pretty close to the edge of the bed, and put my hand up, which was immediately attacked by Pixie. She continued to play with my hand while I tried to grab her, with no luck. Amanda discovered a few days before that she likes treats now (she wouldn't eat them when we first got her, but that might have been because of the cold she had), so I got her to grab them from the kitchen. I once again stuck my hand up (which was again attacked) into the hole, but this time with a treat for her.I let her smell it, and try to eat it, but I slowly pulled my hand out the hole, and she followed. It was kinda disturbing watching her come out the small hole, cause it looked like the bed was giving birth to our kitten! Amanda had a talking with her to never go in there again, but I doubt it will work, so now every time we leave for the day, we make sure the bedroom door is closed. That now leaves her the kitchen, living room, bathroom and hall to run around in.

Then, last night we couldn't find her again, until I looked in the bathroom. There she was, sleeping in th sink! She just lay there looking at me, being super cute, so I had to take some pictures! Here's one of them. Isn't she super cute? It's hard to believe the devil lives inside there.
This morning, the devil came back, and hid the cuteness away. At around 6:30 we woke up to a crash. I immediately knew it was Pixie, so I went into the kitchen to investigate. Last night we had pork chops, that I cooked in a glass dish in the oven. Amanda was busy with school work last night, so she soaked the dishes, leaving the glass dish on the counter, full of water. I guess Pixie decided that she didn't want regular water this morning, so she went for the soap and Diana Sauce flavoured water. Unfortunately, she must have gotten over eager, cause she somehow made the dish fall to the floor. Surprisingly the dish didn't break! Which is good, cause we use it a lot. It did leave a not-so-nice mess of dirty water all over the kitchen floor though, soaking out mat we have under the sink. I didn't even bother starting to clean it up yet, cause I wanted to show Pixie what she had done, and rub her face in it a bit. I didn't have to do that though, cause it looks like most of the water had landed on her, cause she now looked liked the proverbial drowned rat! I still picked her up, showed her the mess, yelled at her and threw her into it. She ran off, not to be seen for awhile ( I later discovered that she went back into the bed). I then moped up the mess, and threw the mat outside on the balcony, and went back to sleep.

She's also gotten into the habit of randomly attacking our legs. We can be walking around, not even that close to her, and she will just decide that our leg has to die! Usually its one of those 'stand on two legs and hop onto the leg' type of attacks, but sometimes she'll launch her whole body onto your leg, realize it's way to big for her, and then run off. You can never tell when she might attack, so we're always on our guard. Do they make Ritalin for kittens?

Long day on Saturday, a bit slower on Sunday.

Saturday was a really long day, but it was a fun day. We had made plans last week with Amy and Julie to go see a play in Kingston, so the day started with us heading down to Greely to meet them. We then drove (well, actually Amy drove. Thanks Amy!) to Kingston using the back roads, which I have never done. It's not that much different than taking the 401, other than you go through more towns. We got to Kingston around 12, and went to Amy's boyfriend Mark's place. We stayed there for a bit, then headed out for some lunch at Taco Bell. After lunch we went to church where the play was being performed. We didn't know that it was going to be in a church until a couple days beforehand (originally I think it was supposed to be in a theater, but something was happening with the theater, so it was moved to the church). The play we saw was 'You're a good man Charlie Brown'. I admit I was a bit unsure going into the play about how they would make a live action musical out of a comic strip, but they did a really good job! It was weird seeing Charlie Brown played by a 40 year old man though, but he did a good job. The play didn't really have a main storyline, it was more individual sketches strung together, just like a comic strip. The play was very well done, and I kinda want to find a video of the original Broadway production.

After the play, we went to Montana's for some dinner, then dropped Mark and Amy off at Mark's place, and Julie drove home (thanks Julie!). We got home around 9:30.

We then got ready, and headed over to Ottawa U, where we went to a going-away party for our friend Steph. Both Amanda and I worked with her during our Subway years, and she's going to Thailand for awhile, so we decided to go to the party. It was in the residence room of another one of our Subway friends, Jess. Other than those two, and a third Subway friend (Catriona
) there was nobody there we knew. It was still a fun time though. At one point, all the people that lived in the res room ( I think there were 4 or 5 of them) had left to go clubbing, leaving behind about 10 people, none of who lived there. We left the party around 1am and headed home for some much needed sleep.

Sunday we got to sleep in a little, and I watched a bit of T.V, but then we were off again! We went to Carleton and Amanda fed the locusts, then we went to Amanda's parents place. Once there, we headed to the Third World Bazaar with Amanda's mum. It was the final day, so it was pretty busy. It was pretty much the same stuff as always. I saw a few things that I wanted, and one thing I really wanted! It was a statue of Yoda made out of scrap iron. It was about 8 inches tall, and really neat looking! I was going to get it, but it was $150!! I think if the Bazaar wasn't closing that day, I probably would have gone back the next day to get it. I don't think Amanda was too impressed with it though. Maybe it'll be back next year.

After that we went to my parents for dinner with them and Cat and Jeff. We didn't stay too long there because Amanda was going to a choir concert later with some of the people from her lab. I drove her to that, which was downtown, then went home and did nothing. So it was a pretty busy weekend, which was nice because there wasn't a lot of sitting around thinking of something to do. On the other hand though, it was so busy that I didn't have time to the laundry like I normally do on Saturday mornings, so now I have to do it one night this week.

Party last Friday, Comedy for a Cause last night

Last Saturday Amanda and I had our first party at our new apartment. I was an awesome party! Thanks to everyone for coming out. We had about 20 some people come, which we were worried that it was going to be a tight fit getting that many people into our apartment, but it actually worked out really nice. We had a wide range of people there, from school friends, family and work people. Everybody seemed to have a good time, and we only had security come up once from a complaint. It was around 10:30, and I just happened to be near the door when the security guard knocked, so I answered it (beer in hand of course). At first I thought he was saying that the party was too loud, but finally realized that it was just out on the balcony we were being too loud. I told him I would quiet it down, and he said that the actually party didn't have to quite down until 11, cause apparently thats the noise curfew in the apartment. When he left, I realized that there hasn't really been anybody out on the balcony, except for two smokers. The funny thing is that we got louder as the night went on, but had no other complaints! Alex was kind enough to bring his Xbox 360 with him, and Guitar Hero 2, which is a fun game. I discovered that I am a horrible guitar player when I drink! Also I discovered that I really want to get an Xbox 360, and any Guitar Hero game, but I don't have the money yet because it needs to go to more important things, like rent and gas to get to work. One day though I'll get one. Pixie absolutely loved the party! She wasn't really scared at all and was out looking for attention all night long. She got tons of attention, and didn't spend much time outside of people arms. So overall the party was a ig success and nothing got broken which is always a good thing!

On Sunday we were at Amanda's parents house for dinner, and Amanda was looking through the newspaper and just happened to spot a very small blurb on a comedy event with Mike MacDonald. The name sounded really familiar, so I checked it out online on Monday, and it turns out that I've seen him a bunch of times on Just for Laughs, and a couple other shows on the Comedy Network. He was headlining an event called Comedy for a Cause, something thats been happening for the past three years. All the proceeds from the tickets go to ALS society. It was held at the Bronson Center, which I've passed many times on the street, but have never been inside. Looking online it sounded like a small shopping center, with some businesses and a theater. Walking into it, my first thought was that it was a high school. We didn't see a whole lot of it, because the theater is right in front of the main doors. There were three opening acts (four if you count the MC). The MC and two of the opening acts were good, an the third was ok. Mike kinda started out a bit slow I thought, but quickly picked it up and was putting on a great show! He was probably performing for a good hour and a half, which passed by quickly. All in all it was a very good night out for a Tuesday.

Long time no post.

So I realize that it's been quite awhile since my last post. It's not that nothing has happened for awhile, it's just that I don't always feel like writing when I get home from work, and it's sometimes hard to write at work. But today I don't have a whole lot going on at work, and I'm waiting for things to finish, so I figured I would write! It's been so long that I can't remember all the things that I've done, but I do remember some of them.

Two weekends ago, Amanda and I decided we would go downtown for dinner, and meet up with some friends later on. We took the bus, and wandered around for awhile looking for a god place to eat. We decided on a Shawarma place that I don't remember where it is. We got a dinner plate which included a shawarma, roast potatoes and a drink. It was very good! After that we wandered some more, and then went to Oh So Good (a dessert place we were introduced to by Yemisi. Read about it in my previous post about that night). It was about 9 o'clock when we finished our dessert, so we called our friend to see when they were coming downtown. He told us that they would be leaving shortly. So we wandered around the market some more, and made our way to the Rideau Center for a bit. We started getting impatient around 10:45, so we called again, and they were just leaving, so he told us to meet them at the bar they were going to; the Dominion. We had never heard of it, and didn't know where it was, so we did more wandering until we found it. It's a small bar next to Bare-Fax and Clasixxx, two streets north of the Rideau Center. The bar is pretty small, and I would classify it as a punk bar. There are two pool tables as soon as you walk in, some tables, and then the bar at the back of the room. Behind the bar was a big guy, with his hair done in 5 massive spikes sticking up and a leather jackets with hundreds of spikes in it. Typical punker. It actually wasn't that bad of a place. It wasn't very crowded, as it's not a very noticeable place. We grabbed some drinks, and waited fr our friends. While waiting, we saw an old friend from elementary school. We talked to him for a bit, then continued waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Finally they showed up around 11:30. Then we just drank and talked and met random people, and had a good time. Getting home wasn't that fun, because it was after 1 and, like always, I forgot that the Transitway buses don't run from their usual spot, so we trecked upto the bridge, only to have to trek back down to Rideau street (the Rideau Center was closed by now, so we had to walk around it) all in the rain. Then we got to the Hurdman station, and walked to our apartment, still in the rain. It was still a fun night though.

Work has been pretty busy too. A couple weeks ago the boss decided he wanted a new laptop (nothing is wrong with his old one, it's just more than a couple years old). The criteria for the new laptop were: it had to be the best available, and no price limit. The task was given to me to look up a suitable laptop. I started by visiting the Lenovo website . The first thing I saw was the Lenovo ThinkPad Reserve; a laptop with a leather casing. Not just a leather case for it to go into, the leather was actually the case! I thought it would be perfect for him! Looking more into it, the Lenovo page didn't have much on the actual laptop, other than it was encased in leather. Looking around the net, I discovered that the actual laptop wasn't really that great.Especially not with the $5000 dollar price tag on it! Doing more research, I discovered that the price was more for the support, which was pretty impressive. You basically get one guy that's assigned to your laptop, and they help you through the initial setup, the look after scheduled maintenance and any problems you might have. Also, if your traveling to major cities around the world, and something happens to your laptop, they will get somebody to come out and take a look at it (and before they leave, they do some cleaning to the leather) within the day. Also, depending on where you are, they will fly somebody to your location just to fix the problem. This service is available 24x7. There were only 2 things stopping us from getting this laptop: it only has a 12" screen, and it's a pain to attach it to a docking station (because of the leather) and the laptop was only a little bit better than the one he already had.
Next I looked into quad-core laptops. After much searching, I discovered that they aren't available yet. The only one I found was coming out sometime next year, and would cost roughly $10,000!! It was also top of line in everything though.
After much time spent customizing laptops (both for myself, and for the boss) online, I decided to look into the Lamborghini and Ferrari laptops. I was expecting them to be similar to the Reserve; looks great, but not much else. They actually weren't bad laptops, and the price was better than the reserve ($2000-$3000). I thought surely one of these would be good for him, as he owns many nice cars. Apparently though, he doesn't like Lamborghini or Ferrari cars!
So now I had to do more searching. I headed back to the Lenovo page, went past the Reserve and looked at their regular models. I narrowed it down to two models: the ThinkPad T61p and the ThinkPad X61. They are both nice laptops, but I wasn't sure the X61 would make it, because it's more of a travelers laptop (with the small 12" screen). The choice was made, and it was for the ThinkPad T61p. The only thing wrong with it was that it came with Windows Vista. That wasn't too big of a deal because we were just going to downgrade it to Windows XP. After a couple weeks, it finally arrived, and I got to be the first to open it up. It looked just like all our other ThinkPad laptops on the outside, but it was al different on the inside. This was my first trial of Windows Vista (I've been staying away from it until the drivers issues are fixed more). We decided that we would actually try it out to see how it would work. I actually really liked it. It took a bit of getting used to at first, but then I started getting the hang of things, and was installing and testing out our software on it. I only came across one program that didn't work: VNC (software we use to remotely connect to peoples computers to fix problems). I discovered that the problem was that the free version we were using didn't support Vista, and was easily solved by buying one license. Then we tried getting the laptop on the domain, and using roaming profiles. Turns out it's not easy to do. It took us about a week to finally get it figured out, after much searching online and playing around with things. After we finally got it on the doamin, we ran into many other problems (with printers, and some more remote connection software), but two weeks after we got it, it was finally ready to be given to the boss! I haven't heard how he likes it yet, but I haven't heard any complaints either, which is always a good sign.

Well, thats all for this post, but coming up very soon is a post about the party last weekend!! I'm going to try to write more often on here when stuff happens, instead of writing about it later when I don't always remember!