Category: Family

Lucas

As many of you know, there’s a new addition to our family: Lucas. Things have been very hectic here for the last few days. We had a health scare with our adult dog, George, but it seems we’re mostly through that now. In any case, I don’t really have time for a full post tonight, … Continue reading “Lucas”

As many of you know, there’s a new addition to our family: Lucas.
Lucas sleeping

Things have been very hectic here for the last few days. We had a health scare with our adult dog, George, but it seems we’re mostly through that now. In any case, I don’t really have time for a full post tonight, but there’s a short clip of their first meeting on YouTube

And here’s one more picture…
Lucas between Deb's feet
Yes, he crawled between Deb’s feet while she was cleaning up and fell asleep. 🙂

Psst… Track 8?

Not sure how many people downloaded the [HBDI]:four album, but for those that did if you were sharp eyed (eared?) you would have noticed it was missing track 8. I have since rectified this omission and the complete album can be downloaded by clicking on the album title on that page. The missing track is … Continue reading “Psst… Track 8?”

Not sure how many people downloaded the [HBDI]:four album, but for those that did if you were sharp eyed (eared?) you would have noticed it was missing track 8. I have since rectified this omission and the complete album can be downloaded by clicking on the album title on that page.

The missing track is called “New Dream”:

(If your browser doesn’t support in line audio. Click here to play or download it.)

Great Castle Wilson update

A couple of “mildly interesting” things happened in the last week: Deb and I stained the deck When we had the deck built last year, they told us to wait a year before staining it. So we did… It took Deb and I about 18 hours of work total to do it. The result isn’t … Continue reading “Great Castle Wilson update”

A couple of “mildly interesting” things happened in the last week:

Deb and I stained the deck

When we had the deck built last year, they told us to wait a year before staining it. So we did…

Picture of the deck just after we finished staining it

It took Deb and I about 18 hours of work total to do it. The result isn’t really professional but it’s good enough, and we’ve already seen evidence that it’s protecting the wood from the rain. We may put down another coat of stain at some point, but given how much work the first one was, that may have to wait until next year. 🙂

Carpets cleaned

We got the carpet in the living room professionally cleaned this week. The result is certainly a lot cleaner than it was, but I don’t think it’s done as much for reducing the “old dog” smell as we’d hoped.

It also gave us an opportunity to re-think the layout of the room a bit, so we removed a bit of clutter and swapped the couch and love seat around.

And on the list of downers for the week…

  • I scraped up one of the rims on the Fiat. I’m pretty pissed with myself, but at least that’s the “first scratch” out of the way.
  • The top tray on our dishwasher broke. Someone is coming over to look at it today. Hopefully it won’t be weeks before the parts are available.
  • George has already peed on the cleaned carpet. I think we understand what happened — we accidentally left the water dish out overnight. As long as it’s not a new trend I’m just going to chock it up to the life of a dog owner and move on.

Anyway as I am fond of saying “Oh, well”. If those are the worst things that ever happen to us, then we’re leading a charmed life.

Mine!

It just showed up on the lot, so it will take a couple of days to do PDI, detailing, etc. I’ll let you know when I get it home. Woo hoo!

mine

It just showed up on the lot, so it will take a couple of days to do PDI, detailing, etc. I’ll let you know when I get it home.

Woo hoo!

I know, I know. I haven’t been posting.

This is yet another of those posts that starts out by apologizing for not keeping up with the blog. Believe me, I’m more frustrated than you are that it’s been so long since I last posted. The thing is, my life has been busy, to the point where I haven’t even been finding the time … Continue reading “I know, I know. I haven’t been posting.”

This is yet another of those posts that starts out by apologizing for not keeping up with the blog. Believe me, I’m more frustrated than you are that it’s been so long since I last posted.

The thing is, my life has been busy, to the point where I haven’t even been finding the time to keep up with 140 character tweets, let alone full blog posts.

Anyway, here are some highlights…

New role at work

In addition to being the Eclipse Project PMC lead, I have now taken on a significant architectural role working on the “IBM DevOps Services powered by JazzHub”. This is a new property that provides project hosting, including online development (based on Orion), tracking and planning support, etc., which is intended to be the premiere environment for building applications that are part of the “IBM BlueMix” platform-as-a-service. What’s even cooler about this is that it can be used for free. Definitely check it out.

Just finished a Divertimento concert

*sigh*. Yes, it would have made more sense to talk about it ahead of time. Oh well. This was the orchestra’s 30th anniversary concert, and it was an awesome program:

  • J. Strauss — Die Fledermaus Overture
  • Mozart — Violin Concerto No. 5, K.218
  • Brahms — Symphony No. 4 Op. 98

The concert was sponsored by the Austrian Embassy including bringing in the soloist for the Mozart, one Daniel Auner, who is a truly excellent up-and-coming violinist. Even though we only had a single rehearsal with him, I felt like he helped us achieve a recognizably stronger understanding of the music.

I bought a car

A Fiat Abarth. I haven’t actually received it yet — It’s still being built — but I expect it will show up some time in the next couple of weeks. For now, here’s a shot of basically what it will look like:

red

It’s very small, but I verified that it will hold my cello case with the back seats folded down, so we’re good. Zero to 100 KPH in 6.9 seconds. I’m excited :-).

Divertimento Fall Concert

Just letting you know that the Divertimento 2013 Fall Concert is in just over a week: November 8 & 9, 2013, 8pm L’Église St. Thomas d’Aquin 1244 Kilborn Avenue Ottawa This is the orchestra that I play cello for, and I certainly hope to see you there. The pieces we are playing this time are: … Continue reading “Divertimento Fall Concert”

Just letting you know that the Divertimento 2013 Fall Concert is in just over a week:

November 8 & 9, 2013, 8pm
L’Église St. Thomas d’Aquin
1244 Kilborn Avenue
Ottawa

This is the orchestra that I play cello for, and I certainly hope to see you there. The pieces we are playing this time are:

  • Cardy — Kissing the Joy as it Flies
  • Wolf-Ferrari — Suite Concertino, Op. 16
  • Tchaikovsky — Symphony No. 4 Op. 26

The Cardy is a nice modern little piece built around the cycle of fifths. The Wolf-Ferrari is a bassoon concerto, with Ben Glossop as the soloist; it’s also reduced orchestra, which means I’m not playing in it, but that is fine with me given that the Tchaikovsky is definitely taking all of my energy — seriously, there are parts in it that that my cello teacher claims she would have difficulty playing.

Anyway, as usual, I can get tickets for $2 off the price at the door, but unfortunately if you want me to get you some I need to know by Thursday (i.e. tomorrow). [Apologies for leaving it so late]. The price at the door is:

  • Adults — $20
  • Seniors/Students — $10
  • Children under 13 — $5
  • Children under 6 — free

If you’ve got a printer handy, and you’d like to help us by putting up a poster, here is a PDF…

divertimento fall