2013 Family year in review video

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas!

We put together and posted a YouTube video with highlights of what our family has done this past year. Check it out at: http://youtu.be/eBD-yzKgq4o

For our annual Christmas letter, you can download the pdf here.

Happy New Year!

Photos from December 2013

I have posted a few photos from December 2013 to my online album and will add more as I take them.

Merry Christmas!


Here's the direct link to the album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110052724444343595009/December2013

Power finally went out

Just after 2 pm (while I was freezing my butt off in the arena for the second time of the day), the power went out at our house.  Still just raining, but there are patchy outages all over the Hamilton area.  We were able to make dinner on our gas stove and ate by oil lamp- and flash-light. Our two fireplaces are keeping the house warm (about +3C outside), but we decided to drive up to Wendy's parents house to play cards. They have power - useful to charge up the cell phones! Some sources suggest we won't get power back until mid-day on the 26th.

Lots of trees down (and a few soon on their way down) on the drive this evening. The ice is certainly thicker up closer to the Hamilton airport.

Ice storm of the century? Piffle!

All the weather reports suggested that Hamilton was going to be at the epicentre of a massive ice storm overnight. Well, it didn't quite turn out that way. OK, there is some ice on Wendy's car, but other than being slippery, there doesn't appear to be much going on. It is starting to get windy, but we haven't lost power - yet. Just pouring rain and +2C. Hopefully it will continue to melt as the morning goes on.

I have updated my stained glass page

I finally had time recently (due to a cold) to update and post all of my stained glass images.  I hadn't done anything since we had been to Iceland, and the page was way out of date! Click over to the Stained Glass page to see what is there.

I added all of the Christmas glass pieces that we made for fundraising (we still have many of these if anyone is interested!) and the one larger piece that I was commissioned to make earlier this year.  Perhaps I will get back into making glass pieces for fun over the next few weeks.

Parker has a YouTube channel!

Parker is really interested in making videos and posting them on YouTube.  He has his own channel (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfWGTzNLnTzJb4xgAYacT_A) and has posted a few already.

He mostly posts videos of himself playing Minecraft (a computer game he loves) but he hasn't really had much luck getting sound to work.  He recently posted a video of himself jumping in snow, and that is posted on his YouTube channel.

Welcome to our family blog

Seidlitz Family 2013

Welcome to our new family blog!  We moved our old family website over to this blog site so it would be easier to up. Instead of posting pictures on web albums then having to repost them on the site, this blog should make things a lot more efficient.

If you are jumping to this page via a redirect from our old website, most of the information that was on that site should be somewhere on this blog.

Please update your links to the new site:

http://seidlitzfamily.blogspot.ca

Door opener issues

OK, now that we have decided to get a new garage door after Adam's interaction with the old one, today all of our garage door remotes (including the one on the wall outside of the garage) stopped working.  Perfect!  It is now cold outside and we have to get out and open the door by going inside and pushing the button.  We can't pull the emergency handle inside and leave it like that (using the door old style) as that would leave the garage unlocked.

The information on the Chamberlain Whisper Drive website suggests that there might be interference with the signals, but I haven't been able to trace it - I even turned off all the power to the whole house except that one circuit.  I will turn off only that circuit and run an extension cord to it, but I expect that might not work.  Chamberlain says one of the most frequently ordered parts is the main receiver logic board (US$106), so I will have to also consider that.

It couldn't have done this in the summer when it was warm enough to play around with the thing...

Photos from November 2013

Just a few photos taken during the month of November. Many of them are from a hike that we took along the Beaches in Toronto with our friend Penny.

https://plus.google.com/photos/+EricSeidlitz/albums/5942853216832440721

Adam had an ooops!

On heading out to school this morning with Wendy's car (which he wasn't really supposed to take), Adam little accident. As he was backing out of the garage, the door came down and crunched the rear spoiler.  Quite the noise!

Since the spoiler is made out of plastic, it kind of crumbled.  We've looked to get a replacement and the best price so far is about $750.  Not going to happen...

We will have to look at repairing it some how, as removing it isn't an option.  There are two large holes with bolts that hold the thing on, and it would likely cause a lot of rusting if we removed the whole piece.

Piano arrived!

We bought a used piano at a great price for our living room and it came in this week.  Parker has been taking lessons for a long time and it was finally time to get a real piano - he has been using an electronic keyboard in his room since he started playing. Wendy and I are considering learning how to play as well.

We had to rearrange our living room, and decided to give up one of the TVs in the house.  The living room can now be for reading and listening to music, and, of course, watching Maddy play.

The piano is a Heintzmann (made in Canada in 1968). We got it from Case Van Geest House of Piano's in Waterdown. Great condition!

Photos from October 2013

Here are a few photos from October 2013.  More hiking pictures and a few from Halloween.

https://plus.google.com/photos/110052724444343595009/albums/5941394223368696049?banner=pwa&authkey=CIqE__arhZ2NGQ

Eric gets promoted...sort of...

After a 2 year contract as a Research Associate - Academic at McMaster, I was recently promoted to a staff position called Research Scientist. Aside from being the first job title that I have ever had that actually made sense, it isn't much of a promotion.  A significant pay cut, being put into a union, and getting only a 1 year contract isn't much to get excited about. Maybe when I renegotiate next year, things will be different...

Pie, anyone?

Every year the Bachelor of Health Sciences program raises money for charity with a "pie in the face" of the associate dean. I usually keep well back from the carnage (they do it during the class that I teach) but the associate dean had other ideas this year.  He offered to match donations if myself and Chari (who teaches with me) would agree to become targets.

We agreed, and the rest is history...

Check out the YouTube video of the event.

Manitoba Trip 2013

Here are some pictures from the trip that Parker and I took to my parent's place in Manitoba this summer. Many family members came out at the same time to have an unofficial reunion.  We also were able to help my parents pack their house, as they were moving in mid-August into a home in Portage la Prairie.

https://plus.google.com/photos/+EricSeidlitz/albums/5914549791265089873?authkey=CKPKk5nlg9WiVA

Kitchen renovation 2013

We are finally finished renovating our kitchen!!! After almost 18 years of living with a 1964 kitchen, we finally ripped it out.

If you want to see all the photos from this renovation project, click on this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/+EricSeidlitz/albums/5870150223261738609

To see a blog that Wendy created during this project (with text and photos), check out this link:

http://seidlitzseasons.blogspot.ca/

Eric gets a new office

After the lab moved down to McMaster, office space became a critical important issue.  I had been sitting in a temporary desk for almost a year prior to the move, but my boss (Gurmit) and I needed a place to sit now that we were at the main campus full time.  Although not many places were available, it was decided that we could temporarily set up show in the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care (in the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discover - MDCL).

There isn't anyone sitting at the front desk, but maybe in the future...

My desk is on the right, close to the microwave

This works out well for us, as it is a nice office space with a kitchenette, and we are basic science pain researchers.

No more basketball

It had never fallen over before...

There was this big wind and rain storm that hit our area last night - we were prepared and put everything away that we could.  All was fine until late in the evening when we hear a huge crash out at the front of our house.

This is what we found.

It took both Adam and I to remove the basketball net from my car but were surprised that the ONLY thing that got damaged was the windshield!  There was already a stone chip from the week after I bought the car (repaired, but always irritatingly visible), so I latched onto the bright side of the situation in that I would likely have to get a new windshield.

Perfect aim

In the morning, we checked it out more closely.  No question, a new windshield was needed. We did find one tiny area of paint on the edge of the hood that needed a touch up (~3 mm long paint chip), but that was the extent of the damage.

Yes, I think it is broken.

Will be selling the basketball net in the near future...

Commuting

Finally!  After a long and drawn out process, the lab I was working in at the Juravinski Cancer Centre has now moved down to the main campus at McMaster. I now work in the same hospital building as Wendy!

If you want to check it out, the lab website that I manage is singhlab.ca.

The best part of the move (aside from the more exciting academic environment) is that Wendy and I can now commute to work together.  Instead of the 25 minute drive up the mountain, Wendy and I have a WHOLE 6 minute commute to work! I am also now unable to get away with not bringing my lunch to work. :(