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The End is Nigh

Good Thing We Get to Start Over Again Tomorrow

That’s the wonderful thing about our species. We are so fixated on redo’s that we created a cyclic calendar.

Seriously.

Some medieval jackass probably screwed up things with his wife and invented a calendar to allow himself to achieve redemption.

But enough about my theories of history…

What was this year all about?

Challenges.

Moreso than any other year, I would say.

Certainly last year, the year of Two Thousand and Suck (as coined by Dave), was a challenging year.

But this year was insane.

Let’s review things that I have learned…

  • When they say that contractions are a certain amount of time apart, they are referring to an average, not that every contraction is exactly five minutes apart.
  • If your first baby arrives after four hours from the onset of active labour, you should consider preparing to have your second child at home.
  • The strongest friendships weather any storm. Even ones thrown at you by the devil himself.
  • Sometimes you find a new friend where and when you least expected it. Most likely closer than you might have imagined.
  • While friendship is the glue that binds us all together, WhyNattes is the solvent that melts away life’s problems.
  • Having a child makes you want to live forever.
  • No matter how little you change when you have a baby, almost everyone will treat you differently. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes this is bad. Just be ready to be considered different.
  • Life is never as bad as you think. And while it could always be worse, being passive about improving it is stupid. You need to get your hands dirty.
  • I never get to see the Biologist, Turtle Woman, the Mife, the Blife, or Farley and Company very often. But we’re all still close, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
  • I do get to Manchu with Shatton on a regular basis, which is awesome.
  • Achieving a Black Belt is more about sacrifice than hard work.
  • Achieving a Black Belt while landscaping your back yard is not only tiring, but probably idiotic.
  • Grandparents are fueling the housing market. Seriously, if you have ever had the thought where the hell are we going to put all of these presents?, you’ll know why the suburbs are so populated.
  • Toronto Thumbs is awesome. And not just because I write for it.
  • No matter how awesome your spouse is, if they get you a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, they will become creatures of legend for the duration of your natural life.


Not really a long list, but I don’t want to get all teary-eyed on you.

This has been a year of learning and wonder. I wish you all the very best for the New Year.

May you make all of your dreams come true.

Keeping it Simple

Just a simple wish that all of your wishes come true, everyone.


Unless, of course, your wishes involve harming people.


Then you’ll have to deal with me.



🙂

Mission Complete

Acknowledgement

I finally achieved my goal of completing my gradings.

It was a long road, but I feel good about it.

I didn’t really get a chance to thank all of my friends for their support and their inspiration. It means a lot to have people who are in your corner.

I especially wanted to thank my two ladies for being so patient with me over the summer. It’s not easy to put up with someone who is at the Dojo five days a week, no matter how well they schedule their time.

Charity Case

Riddle Me This…

What’s that size of a school bus, weighs over 1,950 lbs, has 60 legs, and has over 150 feet of bicycle chain?

Why, the Heart and Stroke Big Bike, of course!



The Cause

At the end of this month I will be participating in this event with some of my workmates. I joined them at least year’s event (my first time), and it was a great experience.

This event is put on by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada to help raise money and awareness about heart disease.

Every donation helps, no matter how small. With 1 in 3 deaths in Canada due to heart disease, it affects us all. It’s important to band together to make a difference.

I don’t normally canvass on here, but I thought I would try out the online pledge form.



The Effect

So if you’d like to sponsor me for this event, I would really appreciate it! Below is a secure online donation page. An electronic tax receipt will be sent to you if you choose to donate. Here is the link…


Click here to sponsor me!


Thank you so much!

Smeagol is Free!

It’s About Time

Last night, I transferred the last MSN Spaces entry into this WordPress blog.

I can’t believe it’s taken a year. That’s insane.

I suppose that most of the problem was due to the fact that WordPress doesn’t have an Import function for MSN Spaces. I know it can do several other Blog formats, including the comments. But not good ol’ MSN Spaces.

My original rationale for using MSN Spaces was because I didn’t have to have an extra password. It used the same information as my Windows Live Messenger ID. Yeah. It was supposed to be easier.

Unfortunately…

  • …for quite a long time, many of my readers had problems commenting on my site because they didn’t have a Windows Live account.
  • …MSN Spaces’ WSYWIG interface was idiotic. You could type the exact same thing in twice and come away with two completely different bits of code.
  • …MSN Spaces is the MySpace of the blogging world. Most of the people that visited my site didn’t have anything meaningful to say, instead choosing to leave weird ASCII art and pimp out their own blogs, which usually involved several inane lists and photos of themselves in various states of undress.


So I decided to move.

I am also a stubborn jackass.

I figured I needed every entry transferred over because I am a perfectionist. This involved…

  • Extracting the HTML code for each entry.
  • Stripping it down and recoding to actually format my blog the way I like it.
  • Creating a new article using that HTML and timestamping it accurately.
  • Copying all the comments over one at a time.