Trilobite

Holy cow! What a big tiger!

Celine will post details in a day or two.

All of our visitors went home the other day. Peter, Gina, and Mom were in Kingston for a few days to celebrate Christmas with us. We went out to lunch for sushi one day, ate Chinese takeout another day, and had our Christmas dinner at an Italian restaurant. This was the second Christmas dinner for all of us so we didn’t feel like going to a lot of effort with the preparations. It was really nice just to spend time with everybody. Celine came back from Ottawa on Saturday night and also got to see my family for a day or two before they left.

Banjo and I both got good presents: a stuffed dog and a headlamp (for night-time geocaching!). Peter and Gina brought up their wedding proofs for us to choose pictures for our souvenir albums.

Yesterday Celine, Banjo, and I went geocaching in Prince Edward County. We also planned to visit an animal sanctuary, but ran out of time. Hopefully we will get a chance to go back later this week.

So Banjo and I spend some time in Nepean over the holidays. Spend a lot of the time relaxing, but I did get around to see a bit. Banjo and I went to the regular green stretch – which was very slippery. It was very mild, but we still managed to find a bit of snow to play on. I took a walk downtown Ottawa walking by the Parliament and area. I tried to go shopping, but the boxing day crowds were too overwhelming. On our last day I took Banjo out to the Bruce Pit. It is a special dog-friendly park where they can run free. There was a bunch of dogs. Funnily enough Banjo enjoyed it best when there were just a few dogs and was practically running back to the car at the end where there were the most dogs. I am not quite sure what he thinks he is, but he is an excellent travel buddy.
Now we are back in Kingston with the Lehotay&Thompson crowd: chatting, eating, drinking and exchanging gifts….oh and taking naps. Time to go Snoozzzzze….!

Christine, Peter, Gina, and I came back to Kingston from Montreal last night. We had a good visit. I had nice long talks with Mesh and Victor, which made me happy. Grandma was going to make some beigli this year, but Dad and Joan told her to relax and they made some instead. All the beigli was equally good and the competition resulted in a draw. Photos: Hungarians, Grandma shovelling, beigli fillings, my beigli, Joan’s beigli

Last night we were planning to see The Return of the King, but it was late and we were pretty tired, so we played Settlers of Catan instead. Christine whooped and cheered when she won (she has been unlucky at this game in the past).

Mom is coming to Kingston today and will stay for a few days. It will be good to see her again.

Well, we are on holiday now. It is really nice to take it easy.
I don’t have much Christmas spirit, but I did a bit of decorating around the house on Sunday. I had to get a bunch of nice smelly green branches, little lights and candles. No tree this year. Tri-Art and Goosystems had a staff Christmas party on Monday night at the Amadeus Cafe. After shutting down the restaurant, some of us continued to the Queens Inn to see the Goo screen. We discussed the image, ate chips, drank beer, played games and shut down the pub. Tuesday came quickly and we had our last work day.
Michael and Christine caught a ride with Gina and Peter to Montreal last night. Banjo and I stayed in Kingston. We are doing nothing much more than relaxing….

Dad and Joan came for the night yesterday. They’ve just left for Montreal. Peter and Gina are on their way up to Kingston now, and Christine and I will continue on to Grandma’s with them later tonight. It turns out that neither Gina nor Joan made beigli, so Grandma is going to bake a couple of rolls after all. That means the competition is going to just be me vs. Grandma. I can take her .

A few things have happened in the past week and a half. None of them are more than mildly interesting on their own, but all together they are worth talking about. It probably helps that we have pictures.

The Christmas party at John and Eva’s was fun. We talked to a lot of chemists and computer programmers.

There is a Christmas decoration contest at the hospital. Our department will probably win.

I saw a mouse in the kitchen and disassembled the stove to clean it out. Then I set a trap. So far I’ve caught two mice, and had the cheese stolen three times. I released the mice at a nearby park.

Today a very nice couple came to pick up my desk and dresser. They gave me a bottle of wine to say thanks.

In the news: Wil Wheaton from Star Trek has just signed a three-book deal with O’Reilly & Associates to publish his blogs. Wil Wheaton also plays NetHack and goes geocaching. I’m scared now.

Dr. A offered me a new contract today. This is interesting because up until now it has always been Inka who offers me contracts (the money comes from a joint grant). He wants me to work in his lab two and a half days a week and in Inka’s two and a half days. I am currently only working for Dr. A two days a week.

I have been enjoying reading the Wikipedia on the web lately. I especially like reading random articles from it.

We are going to a Christmas party tomorrow night at John and Eva’s house. It should be fun. Christine had lunch with Margaret Atwood today.

There’s not much news here. Celine and I are still have our colds, and Christine has got one now too. Work is keeping all of us busy. A new version of NetHack was released yesterday, which got me pretty excited. Our first travel bug, Michel, has finally been set free after a year of captivity. I gave away my bookshelves but the desk and dresser are still waiting to be picked up. Nobody wants the two tables.

Hmmm, what else? I went to the factory and had a look at Celine’s computer, which is running GNOME and Wine. I had never seen Wine before and was really impressed with it. I think I’ll have to switch to Linux soon.

Well, nobody wanted to buy my furniture, even when I said they could name their own price. Today I posted a message to the forsale newsgroups saying I was giving everything away for free and somebody claimed the desk and dresser within 30 minutes. Later on somebody else wanted to pay me $20 to give the dresser to her instead of the first guy! Sheesh. People are weird. A third person said he wants the shelves.

Celine and I went on a studio tour on the Thousand Islands Parkway today and then decided to go geocaching and release a new travel bug we had just made. It was dark by the time we got on the trail and we had a bit of an adventure wandering around with our flashlights. My favourite part was when the snow-covered ground I was walking on turned out to be ice and I fell through it, soaking myself up to the knees in cold water. It’s a good thing we were on our way back, and very close to the car. Celine put the heater on and I warmed up after a couple of minutes. Needless to say, we won’t be going night caching in unfamiliar places anymore. We had fun though!

When we were on the studio tour we stopped at a place on the parkway called Darlingside and Celine played in the snow with Banjo. He really loves the winter!