Father's Day

So here we are, June 21st, Fathers Day, and the weather forecast is calling for rain. It's amazing how quickly the forecast changes. Less than 24 hours ago, they were calling for clear skies and a high of 27 - not so much now. Hopefully the change in the forecast will not interrupt many family plans.

For me it has not interrupted plan with Pops, but it has changed my plans to stain the fence. Hopefully the forecast will hold for the next few days and I can get it done after work.

Free Tree Program

Today we are going to pick up our free tree. The Trees, Reforestation and Environmental Enhancement (TREE) Program is a four year initiative that aims to enhance the City of Ottawa’s urban and rural forests through the planting of 100,000 trees between 2007 and 2010. The TREE Program empowers Ottawa residents, businesses, community groups and schools to participate in planting trees to enhance and maintain the city’s forest cover and combat climate change.

We're hoping to get a Japanese lilac and we'll plant it in the back yard. It will be the cornerstone of a new garden. This is a great program and we're glad that we are able to participate.

Ultimate Game #1

So tonight was game #1 of our ultimate season. We came quick out of the gates, but were not able to hold on to the lead for long. We ended up loosing the game 15-7. Damn wind - at times it was very difficult throwing a disc - near or far. All in all it was a good learning experience for the team and I predict that we will have a win under our belt within three weeks.

Victoria Day

The alarm went off at 830am on Victoria Day Monday. We didn't have to go work, instead we had a packed day scheduled hunting some caches out off of Corkstown Road in Nepean. We met with my parents at 10am and were on the walking trail by 1045. We found five caches before we broke for lunch. We ate at the nearest Tim Hortons on March Road. After a well deserved break, we headed back to the trailhead and finished off the afternoon with four more caches.

It was a great day with Kris and my parents. Nothing beats a nice day in the great outdoors!

A Successful Weekend

Well we made it back after a fun filed weekend in Algonquin park. We left the friendly confines of our homes at 5am on Friday. From there we stopped for a quick bite to eat at the Renfrew McDonalds. Their new coffee isn't that bad. We arrived at the Portage Store at Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park at approximately 8:30am. We really made great time driving up from Ottawa. We got our permit and rented two canoes (Kevlar - Expedition Canoes - 16ft) and were in the water via access point 5 (link to free map of canoe routes in Algonquin Park) by 9:30am.

We headed north to the 295 meter portage into Joe Lake. From there we continued on a North East route through Joe Lake past the Arowhon Pines Lodge and into Little Joe Lake. Once we crossed Little Joe Lake; we came to the 165 meter portage and into the creek that connects Little Joe Lake with Baby Joe Lake. At this point we arrived at our second last portage. Before entering and crossing this portage, we made a quick stop at the Lost Baby Joe's Cache (Algonquin Park) cache. We were the first people to find this cache since September 13, 2008. It was a nice way to break up the paddling. We traded a Canadian Geocaching patch for my first travel bug (ERIN).

Once our break was over, we entered the 435 meter portage; which consisted of rough terrain (mud, fallen trees; moose droppings and those pesky black flies). The portage finished with us reaching Baby Joe Lake - a nice and small lake. At the end of Baby Joe lake our final portage (200 meter) stood in our way before hitting our final destination; Burnt Island Lake. This lake is huge, we scouted out a few potential camp sites and settled in by 2pm with the 8th one in. If you count the sites from the south west end of the lake you will come to ours. It was the sight on the point looking back at where we entered the lake. A beautiful view of the sunset. We did some fishing and I caught the only fish - a nice sized speckled trout.

Saturday morning brought, clouds and cool weather. Once we had breakfast we headed out to find the Burnt Island Lake Cache. This cache was on an island within the bay we were camping in. The cache itself was a camouflage painted .30-cal ammo can; and the swag inside was dry as could be. We traded the ShakasFour Courners Benchmark Micro Geocoin#2 for the Purr-fect Geocoin, signed the log and placed the cache back where we found it. We were the first people to visit this cache since August 30, 2008. Once that was complete we began exploring other parts of the lake. We didn't get too far as the winds picked up and it was quite difficult moving around in such light canoes.

We headed back to camp and had lunch and that's when the rain started. It rained from noon to about 7pm and it got cold. Thankfully we brought multiple tarps and set one up under some trees to stay dry. We kept the fire going all afternoon and allowed us to keep warm as well. Once the rain stopped we had dinner and sat around the fire for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning brought some flurries as we were eating breakfast and packing up. Such a nice surprise. (sarcasm here). Once we were packed up we were in the water by 10:30am and heading back to access point #5 via the same route. Due to our key observation skills on the way up, we were able to shorten the time it took to get back to the portage store by entering the water once we got around the dams at the portages. The water level was quite high as compared to the fall. We were in the car on our way back to Ottawa by 1:45pm.

All in all it was a great weekend in the wild and I would recommend Algonquin interior camping to anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

Algonquin Park

So, the boys are heading to Algonquin park tomorrow morning. I'm all packed, the GPS is loaded with the maps. Were aiming to be on the road by 5am and in the water by 9am. We then hope to be at either Tom Thomson Lake or Burnt Island Lake. Our final destination will be dependant on how the first portage goes. If all goes well we'll head to Burnt Island Lake. If it's rough, we'll then head to Tom Thomson Lake. We'll spend Saturday exploring (fishing, geocaching, hiking and drinking) our destination and then head back to Ottawa on Sunday. Hopefully the weather guys are wrong (as usual) and there's no SNOW or rain.

An update will come on Sunday.

Cheers.

GPS, Geocaching and Camping

With the fun Kris and I have been having with geocaching, I went out and purchased a new toy. A Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx. It's allowed for us to bring two GPS units geocaching. I've been really impressed with the 60CSx - the accuracy can't be beat, it picks up satellites very quick. This appears to be a great purchase! This is a great GPS for hiking and off-road. If you want a GPS for route directions, then I would recommend the Garmin Nuvi series. A good test got the 60CSx will be this upcoming weekend where the boyz and I will be heading into the Algonquin park interior for some camping. I'll let you know how that goes.

66%

That's the percentage of the house that is now painted. We finished off the main floor this afternoon - the dining room to be exact. I have to admit that this room looks to be our best room thus far. We're getting close to not needing to tape. We used Behr paint once again and it looks sharp. We'll continue to use this brand for the rest of the house. Only one floor left to go. Hopefully we'll be finished with painting by the end of 2009. :)

Long Weekends

I must admit, I love long weekends! This weekend, Kris and I visited my parents for Easter dinner and we took them out geocaching! We were able to find 2 within 500 meters of their house. I think it's safe to say that they are hooked on geocaching!

With today being Sunday, Kris and I went out to do some running around - little did we know that everything is closed on Easter Sunday - shouldn't that mean that I shouldn't have to go to work tomorrow? Because of everything being closed we went and found three geocaches close to home. This is becoming quite fun - I think we'll make this a regular weekend occurrence.

Geocaching Pt. 2

As promised, we went out geocaching today and it was a blast. We found two geocaches that were very close to home. We're planning to go out tomorrow and find a few more.

The process was quite simple: We loaded a few geocache's onto our Garmin Nuvi 260, pulled them up and boom, we were able to find the geocaches quite easily.

I think this will become a very fun hobby/activity.

Geocaching

I think I'm going to start geocaching. I'm going to head out on Friday to see how easy and fun it is to find these things. There are quite a few geocaches located within a couple kilometers from my house.

What is geocaching you ask?

Well, Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache's existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS device can then try to locate the geocache.

I'll let you know how successful I am on Friday!

Snow in April

Well here we are, it's April 7th and it's been snowing all day. I thought that snow wasn't allowed in April. :) When we went to bed last night the Weather Network and Environment Canada were predicting rain overnight and into the day. It's amazing how inaccurate the various weather men/women are these days. Are you to tell me that you have very little success when forecasting in a short time frame. I would expect that the 5 day outlook would be inaccurate but being inaccurate 12 hours from forecast is a little ridiculous. If my success rate was as poor as theirs I would be finding myself out of a job.

NHL Trade Deadline

I have to say that I am impressed with the moves that the Ottawa Senators made over the course of the trade deadline. I believe we finally have as close to a number one goalie as we'll ever have. Bringing back Comrie was a great move and the additional of Campoli has been impressive thus far.

My only fear of is that Leclaire will not return to the forum he was in last year in Columbus.

Lastly, I love the fact that Toronto picked up Gerber - enjoy his play and those rebounds.

Ottawa Senators

Tonight I will be heading to the Sens game. I'm not expecting much in terms of the team winning ( I predict a 4-2 loss) but with tomorrow being the trade deadline, I am expecting a few of the players (Neil, Kuba, Vermette) to be playing to keep their jobs. It will like they are auditioning to keep their jobs with the team.

Now you ask who should we acquire to become an improved team? I believe we need (in order of importance) a "puck-moving" defenceman; further depth up-front (top-6 forward) and if possible a veteran goalie. My wish list will be tough to fill with very little to offer besides the trading one of the big three (Alfredson, Heatley & Spezza). If we trade one of the big three, I would expect us to perform even poorly next year.

I'm very glad that Murray recognizes that this is now a rebuilding year and that the NHL playoffs are not reachable this year. This year is disappointing but we can't complain when we've been to the playoffs for the last 10 years or so. Here's hoping that we will return to the playoffs next year with a stronger team and one that will contend for the
Stanley Cup.

Painting

So it's been over 2 and a half years and we've finally gotten around to paining the kitchen. We went out to Home Depot last night and picked up our supplies. We've chosen a Behr colour, specifically a green colour (pic to follow once we're done). From the looks of it after the first coat; it's going to look fantastic! Kris and I have a very efficient system down when it's comes to paining. She does the edges and I do the rest. She usually gets a wall head start and then I play catch-up.

We've also begun painting an accent wall in the Dinning Room. We'll finish that room off, hopefully, next weekend.

Crazy extremes!

When I woke up this morning it was +2C, at its peak today it was +7C. As of 4pm, it's -2C on its way to -20C overnight. Talk about a change in the weather. The temperature is going to drop 27 degrees over the course of 6 hours or so. With all the snow that melted today, it's going to be an ice rink by the time the temperature stops dropping. It's going to be a fun drive home this evening! Oh, how exciting!

Ottawa Traffic

Why does this city have the worst traffic in all of Canada? Coming in from the south of the city seems to be the worst (although you could make a very compelling argument that coming in from the East or West is just as bad). Add in snow or rain to the mix and generally your trip will be double in time, at a minimum.

To resolve this issue, is it a matter of widening all lanes on major arteries coming in from the South, East & West? Is it creating another form of public transportation - like a subway or train line? A train would be great but most of the track that was available back in the late '80's & 90's has been removed. This would have been great for an East-West rail line and help resolve the traffic problems on the Queensway.

The answer isn't an easy one and is one that city counselors will have to put at the top of their lists to try and find in a timely and cost effective manner.

Winter, February, Wednesday, Hump-day, Mid-week

Although it's only early on Wednesday morning, it feels as though it should be Friday. As of late, the weeks have been dragging, maybe it's the winter we've had, or that we're constantly on the go and the desire to sleep outweighs the desire to be awake. My point is that I cannot wait for the warm weather to arrive as I'm sick and tired of this winter.

Where should we go for our next vacation?

Well, here we are, February 24, 2009, and for the first time in years, we do not have a vacation planned for the near future. I'm looking for ideas for our next trip. I would like it to be somewhere new and exciting and would be looking to take two weeks off work to explore this place. Any ideas?