Kevin's Ramblings…

I went into the office to work today, I think it was only the 6th time this year. It wasn’t bad, a sort of more relaxing day than what I am used to. 

Next week, I think I have to head to Red Deer for a day and at the end of the week, I’ll be in Lethbridge for 4 days. The dogs are going into boarding. I’m not using my regular place, they are boarding with a person who cares for them in her home. Hopefully they like it and hopefully the person caring for them returns those likes. Blondie is a pretty mild mannered dog, Hera though is pretty high energy, she is a pup after all. I’m sure they’ll do fine.

Friday night is the BDO golf event, should be good. I golf about once a year at the most. I am sure I’ll suck, per usual. Saturday is the Stamps versus Ottawa Red Blacks game, I’m not going, I gave the tickets away to a co-worker. I was in a charitable mood I guess.

Not much else going on, same old. A month from now my trip to Ontario will be here, I’m looking forward to it.

Anyway, today was hump day so the weekend is that much closer. Enjoy.

So, this was my birthday weekend. I turned 44 yesterday. I don’t feel 44 though, I don’t think. How does one feel when they are 44? I feel, and act, much more like a 19 year old, I think. It was a low key birthday. A birthday isn’t a big event for me really, so, I’m another year older. We all get older. Who cares.

I used to have what I called a Birthday Festival. It would start the Friday before my birthday and end the Sunday after. So, this year it would have been a 3 day event and as long as, what, 10 days at the longest I guess. I did it more to drive family and friends nuts than anything. That’s part of my charm.

So, yesterday, I took Blondie and Hera to the dog park and dropped by the campaign office. I didn’t want to do door knocking, it isn’t my favourite job. I like the walking part, that’s fine. I really don’t care for people I don’t know, especially for ones who might have vastly different political opinions from my own. So, I did a little paper filing at the office and cooked up assuages for volunteers on one of the largest BBQ’s I’ve ever seen. After that, I went home and did one of my favourite Saturday afternoon activities with the dogs – we napped.

So, a low key day. No birthday cake (I’m off cake anyway), no candles. i did get a lot of posts on Facebook from friends wishing me a Happy Birthday, that’s always good.  My sister says they will take me for dinner when I visit Ontario. Maybe I can swing the Keg, yeah, that would be nice. The Keg in St. Catharines is in an old warehouse and is quite nice. I am sure my sister will read this and will say no way, or something slightly less polite.

Anyway, nothing much planned for today. Trip to the dog park is in order soon. We might head to the river as well for a swim. To clarify, the dogs will swim, I will not. Back to work tomorrow and it is a 5 day work week. I’ll survive though. Only another 3 or 4 weeks until I’m off for 2 and hit Ontario for a bit.

Enjoy the end of your weekend.

Back to back three day weekends, not a bad deal at all. The weather is supposed to clear tomorrow as well. We’ve had an odd, for Calgary, week of thunderstorms, rain, hail and more rain. We’ve had flooding downtown, some of the underpasses were not passable on Tuesday. I don’t think we had any major issues Wednesday and today we only had light rain. 

My dogs need a good walk. Tomorrow, I plan on heading to the dog park, presuming the weather is nice. That’ll tire them out. We do typically walk daily and hit the park a few times a week but I’m not much for walking in the rain. 

Not much else planned for tomorrow, maybe lunch with a co-worker. I might be convinced to have an afternoon nap as well.

Saturday is my 44th birthday. Nothing other than politics planned. I’m not concerned about birthdays, it is another year older, big deal.

But, if you want to bake me a cake, awesome. Thanks in advance 🙂

So, it is August already.  The summer has flown by.  Coaching baseball tends to do that. I am busy so days and evenings go by quickly.

August tends to be a little slower.  It is slower at work, which is sort of a nice break. Some days, it is a bit TOO slow and the days drag on a bit. I am doing a flex schedule this summer at work so I get every other Friday off.  I work an extra 50 minutes per day so I start my day earlier. It is a pretty good deal and I am glad that it is offered.

So, this week is a flex day week.  I was off on Monday for Heritage Day so I only have a 3 day work week.  No plans for Friday.  I’d say I will sleep in, but I know I won’t.  I will likely take the dogs down to River Park, weather permitting of course and will let them swim in the Bow. I have not seen how Hera likes the water as yet. Blondie loves it so I am sure Hera will follow her in.

No weekend plans.  No football this weekend, the Stampeders are on their bye week. I would like to do a bon fire one of these nights – was going to last evening but we had some nasty thunderstorms roll through.

I do have some campaign stuff scheduled.  Saturday is also my birthday.  No plans on that – I would guess that my sister and brother in law will fly in to take me to dinner at Hy’s downtown.  🙂

Fall Ball will start at the end of the month so that will be good.  I am still putting together a coaching staff for the team.  I will be able to be there except for when I visit Ontario for a couple of weeks. Some of the guys who coached this summer will be able to help out, so I think we are covered.  I want to see what sort of talent is coming into the league for the draft that will happen in February.

Anyway, I guess I will take August one day at a time and see what comes up.

As I have written, my truck is currently on the fritz.  Since it is off baseball season, I really don’t need a vehicle all that much at the moment, so I am waiting until I return from Ontario in September before I get it looked at.

In the meantime, I am using Car2Go for my travel needs for groceries and what not. It is a good service, you pay by the minute for the use of a Smart Car. On long weekends, they run a special, $60 for any 24 hour period.  Not a bad deal really, it included everything, including gas.

This past weekend, I had one from Saturday morning until Sunday morning.  I used it to drive to the football game on Saturday night (also got a parking ticket, parking too close to a yield sign, have to find out if I pay it or if I get billed by Car2Go for it) and then used it for running around on Saturday and again on Sunday morning. I had several stops to make so using a taxi wouldn’t have been cost effective.

They are funky little cars, only hold two passengers. I wouldn’t want to drive one on the highway, but in town, they are pretty good.  They don’t take up a lot of room, they turn on a dime and you can park them anywhere. A great way to get around for sure.

Thanks Car2Go. Made getting around this weekend a little easier.

Today is day three of my three day weekend. Nothing on tap for today really. I do have some stuff to do around the house though. I want to setup my computer desk for my personal computer. The office has been going for a bit now, a few weeks anyway. I moved my smaller desk into my living room but thus far have been too lazy to set everything up.

I have an older laptop that I can connect, with a docking station and an older desktop computer that used to be a server. It has dual Xeon processors, makes it pretty quick, but it also won’t run Windows 7. I doubt it will run Windows 8 or 10 either. So, it is stuck with XP, not that this is a bad operating system, the main issue is that it is no longer supported by Microsoft. Ubuntu is another option, although, my main purpose for that computer is games, older games. Ubuntu won’t do that. Guess I will see what becomes of it. 

The laptop is now about 10 years old. I am not even sure what operating system it has on it, likely Ubuntu as well. I don’t think I’ve had it turned on since I’ve moved to Calgary. The battery doesn’t hold a charge at all any more and HP doesn’t make replacement batteries for it. So, having it on a docking station is my best best. I think it has 8gb of memory, a real work horse for its day.

It looks like it may rain today. If it does, that’ll mean that the lawn won’t be cut, not that it really needs it yet. I could do some whacking of weeds as well. Guess I will play that by ear.

A nap is also on tap. I went o bed late and woke up around 530 so that isn’t enough beauty sleep for me.

Well, happy Civic Holiday or Heritage Day or whatever your province calls it. If you are outside of Canada, I guess it is a normal Monday for you. Enjoy it anyway 🙂

My phone gives me a reminder at 8am and again at 8pm to give Hera her pills. She takes medication twice a day to prevent seizures. I was putting the pills in pill pockets, but the pill pockets were a little expensive, about 30 cents each. So, I’ve switched to a quarter Kraft Single. She takes her pills really well. Zeus, for instance used to spit them out. Hera gobbles them up.

Not to leave Blondie out of the equation, she gets a piece of cheese as well. I’m sure she’d lodge some sort of complaint if Hera got a cheese slice and she didn’t. To ensure that I don’t forget, although I’m reminded, I purchased a 7 day pill box. I fill it up and it has morning and afternoon trays for pills. I guess the one positive is that I’m using this for my dog, as opposed for myself.

I bought a three month supply of Hera’s medication. It works out to a little less than $40 per month, more than I originally thought. Oh well, she’s worth it. 🙂

The three day weekend is 2/3 over, or nearly anyway. I tired the dogs out again this morning, early, with a trip to the dog park. They slept most of the morning away and joined me for an afternoon nap. Same plan for tomorrow, dogs like a consistent routine. I like consistent naps.