One of the few pleasures I get out of making the salary I do is the healthy GST cheques that arrive. It may not be much, but an extra $80 every few months is a pleasant surprise.

The more I work the less the cheques are worth, and I assume eventually they will stop coming all together. Until that time comes though, I will look forward to those magical brown envelopes in the mail.

I got to thinking about the GST rebate cheque and the GST dropping by 1%. Will this mean that my GST rebate will decrease by 1% and get closer to $0? Only time will tell.

In my ever continuing quest to amuse myself when I drive I still continue to look at other peoples license plates. I have not played the license alphabet game since late January, but I still receive entertainment by just looking at plates.

I am always looking for a close cousin of my ECW- plate, but yesterday I saw a fantastic plate. Well the first three letters at least: FUA. Say it aloud. Get a tattoo of it. Those three letters are Canadiana politeness at its finest.

It has been, again, since my last update. I will blame it on the weather.

It was a full weekend all around. On Friday night Gord and I had our first boys night since early January. In addition to Little Caesars and XBOX we also added a guitar dimension to our evening.

Gord’s mother returned from Mexico with tequila that has a neck strap. Never consciously accepting tequila I ventured into the “One tequila – two tequila – three tequila – floor!” realm. Of course this was only after we had several stiff drinks to start the evening off right.

Somehow, between the drinking, Battlefront and guitar playing I acquired a mean case of the hiccups. I held my breath multiple times, patted my head and rubbed my stomach but the hiccups would not go away.

Rather than attempting to capture the moment in a picture, Gord was able to get a video. Head over to his site and witness the hiccup feat for yourself.

I was lame on taking pictures throughout the night, but here are a few from the Friday that was.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to Bauer and condo/house browsing. Jenna and I ended up west of 109th street in the 51st avenue area. You would never think it, but there were some amazing houses in there. Old trees that towered above everything else, unique architecture that did not feel like you were in suburbia and an all around beautiful neighborhood.

When we looked at show homes we accidentally started off our two hour trek by going into the $400,000 houses first. After you have seen those nothing really compares. A master bed bathroom almost seems like a necessity.

Somehow we managed to trim back our house appetite and get into something that would fit us best. Sadly, a lot of the decision as to “what would fit us best” was determined by the cost.

After deciding that living on our own was too much to think about we turned to Bauer and his life at CTU. Making our way through ten episodes (up to number fifteen for the season) we only have nine remaining and then we will be all caught up. It may be premature, but this season is certainly in contention with being the best. It is right up along side the current number one of season three.

I need someone to loan me a large amount of money. What reason? Well, for this. As someone who grew up loving the Back to the Future series this is looking at a piece of my youth.

If I could now just acquire an Ecto-1 then I would have my dream garage complete. I accept PayPal, mail orders and even cash. You know how to find me.

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads

Well, it has been a while since my last update. I had a pretty solid weekend. It really got in motion when Brad and I saw Alkaline Trio on Saturday night. It was my seventh show of the year and first one of the season at Starlite Room. Overall it was an entertaining gig and Alkaline Trio thoroughly rocked.

Alkaline Trio

They did not perform an encore, but instead blistered through an enthusiastic ninety minute set. I did end up recording the show, but we were located in the ‘licensed’ area and had a large group of rowdies near me so the recording picked up their conversations. Too bad really since it would have been a great sounding show otherwise.

The doors opened at five, and by nine everyone was heading home. I have been to shows where it ended early, but this one won by a mile.

Sunday was a picnic in the park to celebrate Kelly’s 24th birthday. The rain held off long enough to enjoy hot dogs, hamburgers and a surprising amount of vegetables.

picnic 1 | picnic 2 | picnic 3 | picnic 4 | picnic 5

Sunday also marked the day that Jenna and I started on season five of 24. Gord was kind enough to load all of the episodes onto my XBOX. We made it through five episodes of the season and it is off to a wild start.

24

We’re running out of time!

My favorite part of Whitemud Drive is between 111th street and 119th street. The north and south side of the road is lined with bricks. When I was younger I found this such an amazing creation. Even now I can not imagine how much time (and bricks) that took to pull off.

Recently I noticed something else on Whitemud Drive, and in that same area. Before the 119st/122st exit on the south side of the road (east bound lane) there is a door in the fence. From what I can see the door can only be opened toward the opposite side of the fence.

Who has control of that door? Is there a house on the other side? Or possibly a medium sized box factory resides on that property? When you bought the land was the magical door a selling point? If the door is locked, who has the keys? Do the property owners and the City of Edmonton share a key?

I am not sure how I would go about doing it, but I would like to get on the opposite side of that fence just to say I did it.

In the last day I have seen two license plates that are very similar to mine. On 170th street I saw EWC-717, which was only ten off. And then in Millet I saw EWC-705. That is so close we could be siblings. I am guessing the -705 plate came from Millet Registries as that is where I got mine, but that -717 one is a mystery.

I have noticed a license plate trend in Sherwood Park actually. There is a disturbing amount of DAD- plates in the Park. Once you start looking for them that is all you see.

Also, in case you missed it, I updated my previous post with a song from the Franz Ferdinand set.

And lastly, a big shout out to Jenna who turns the big 24 today.

I am not sure if it is broken. It hurts like something should be broken but I still have movement. The leader of my right foot and General of his little piglets has been seriously hurt in battle.

Over the weekend in Fernie my toe would slam up against the inside of my boot every time I was skiing. After twelve hours of intense skiing the toe took quite a beating. It hurt a lot after the first day, but there was no immediate bruising. It has been seven days and while the rest of my body feels fine from the ski trip the pain in the toe remains.

Over the last 36 hours the toe color has really taken a turn for the worse. I could go to the hospital, have an x-ray done and be told it is broken, but what would I gain? There really is no treatment for broken toes. Rest, ice, elevation and avoid big metal doors. I tried to buddy tape the General with the next in command, the Colonel, but that did more harm than good.

So, for now I live with the pain, baby step around any toe-eating objects and hope for the best. After some exploitative surgery last night (hot pin through the toe nail) it was discovered that the blue color is bruising, and not blood; so for now I have to wait and let the body heal.

Bruised Toe

Bruised toes are nothing new to me. About seven months, possibly more, I gently ran my left foot into the corner of a door. It hurt right away but after a few hours the pain went away. I thought nothing of it until I inspected my toe the next morning and saw that it was turning black.

After all of this time the toe is finally starting to shed the blackness, but remains as a constant reminder for my door incident. For a while I thought the toe would always be black because it had been so long since Gursky v. Door occurred.

You have all been warned. The doors are here to stay and will do whatever it takes to leave their mark. Be careful!

I am on the road. In fact, I am no longer in Alberta. By the time you read this Gord and I will have been tearing up Fernie.

There has been several inches of snow falling at Fernie for the last few days, and in the last week they have recieved 24 inches of snow.

I will be testing out my new Head iXRC 600 170’s and Nordica boots. These are my first new skis I have owned in well over a decade and look forward to feeling the parabolics carve in fresh powder.