Quiet weekend for all

It was a nice and quiet long weekend, so Wendy and I did a couple of hikes with Maddy in the Dundas Trail system. I took one of my old cameras because my good camera was missing (more below). The shots below may be a little better than from my iPhone, but not drastically so.

Got to keep taking photos of these, while they last!

Just an interesting pattern

Dandelions look more delicate as they age

Parker survived another grass cutting episode without any visible damage to anything. He did get freaked out somewhat by the 'frickin wasps' (his emphasis...) that were flying through the back yard. They appeared to mostly be bees, but he wasn't believing the biologist on that one. He spent a lot of time bogging down the engine on the lawnmower. In fact, I think Parker had to restart the lawnmower at least a dozen times - it stalled every single time he plowed into the really tall grass.  And there was a lot of it! I did say to him to go slowly, but he decided the pain of mowing the lawn would go much faster if he went much faster. No such luck.

Adam was away at a cadet Field Training Exercise (FTX) from Friday afternoon until Monday after supper. Below is a picture of Adam on top of a shelter that he build this weekend.  Below that is just a photo of him working in the office at cadets. Apparently an FTX is considerably more dirty than office work - he had to change before he could eat dinner on his arrival at home.

I should note that it seems like Adam really likes to use my good Nikon SLR camera... now I know where it was all weekend...

Adam on a structure he built

WO2 Seidlitz

Stanley was away from Friday until Sunday morning, but on Monday he really enjoyed having a day off from school. He stayed in his PJ's the whole day!

Tonight we were asked to go at the last minute to a concert at Parker's school. He claims he didn't know that there was a concert (with him in it) tonight. Luckily, the grade 8 jazz band was the first act and we were able to exit from the back discretely.  The principal even held the door open for us as we left. I took a few photos of Parker on stage (with the old camera again...). Some of these have him focused on playing his trumpet, and some are with, ahem, a little less focus.

Parker playing trumpet (centre, back row)

Parker with focus

Getting ready to play

Waiting to play

Still waiting to play

Tired of waiting

If you are interested in seeing and hearing a 36 second excerpt from the concert, that video is pasted below.

Lots of not much happening going on

I guess I have been a bit lax about blogging lately. For not much really happening, there were a lot of things that seemed to happen. Most of it this weekend.

We have been hiking a few times in the past week or so, and have been watching closely for changes that should prove to us that spring is really here. A few small flowers have come out to demonstrate that they indeed survived the winter.

Flowers along the trail

We even took a trail that we had never been on before (it is connected to the Dundas Main Loop, but we had never thought to take it). What we discovered was a nice little pond only a few hundred feet from the main trail! We had seen glimpses of it through the trees, but never ventured that direction. A bit marshy around this quaint little lake (it isn't named on the official maps that we have seen), but what can you expect? Sadly, no sandy beach was visible.

Unnamed lake/pond

On the way down the hill to the tiny lake, we found that the trail went directly through a fallen tree.  OK, I thought it was really cool (I don't get out much). Maddy didn't even bat an eyelash as they walked through the tree. Just a normal thing for her...

Maddy and Wendy walking through a tree

The huge moss covered rocks presented a nice view, so out came the cell phone camera again! Some day I will bring my real camera and take some better images. I promise.

Moss covered rocks

Adam finally took his Skid Control School course in Oakville.  He got this all day training course as a gift for Christmas and needed to wait until he had his full G licence. He apparently did very well (his report card looked better than when Wendy did the course a few years ago), and says he had a great time. Maybe our cars will feel less trepidation when he gets gets behind the wheel from now on.

Our gardens have been coming along nicely, with many flowers blooming from the bulbs planted last fall.

Pink tulip

White/pink ground cover

A few hyacinth came up in various colours

In the front yard. The deer don't like daffodils or hyacinth.

Fallen angel

 

Orange tulip

OK, I get it. Enough of the flower pictures.

This weekend our niece, her husband, and their 1 yr-old daughter came to visit.  It has been a long time since we had a toddler in the house - it took me quite a while to figure out how to set up the baby gate. Seems like the piano was a big hit!

Play time!

The lawn has needed cutting a few times last week - Parker has that job. While shopping, Parker texted me to say he was unable to cut the lawn because he needed me to "check the lawnmower". Not understanding exactly what was up with it, I expected that he just was unable to get it started.

On arriving home, I took a look to see what the problem was. Sure enough, he was right - I did need to look at it.  On getting ready to mow the lawn yesterday, he could easily have started it. That wasn't the issue. His problem was a little bigger.... it was attached. Really attached.

Apparently, Parker put the lawnmower away after using it earlier in the week, but he did not realize that the engine was somewhat hot. This normally would not pose a significant problem, except for the fact that the mower sits right beside the shop vac that we keep in the garage. You guessed it! The shop vac melted itself into the engine. It took me a few minutes and some considerable force to extricate the poor vacuum hose from the lawnmower. In the end, most of it came off (hey, what's the problem with a little extra smoke?). The vacuum hose itself, however, is toast...err... I mean melted...

Melted vacuum on the lawnmower

At long last, on our hike yesterday, we finally saw a few blooms from the long-awaited trillium. Summer is definitely not far away!

First trillium of the season!

Parker's new career!

Parker is finally doing something new, so now we can have a post about him!

Parker "aged out" of the Dundas Little League last summer and wasn't interested in continuing to play baseball in the next league up. He decided in the fall that he wanted to try umpiring.

Parker with his new official Official hat.

Last night, Parker went to his first umpire training clinic, and has at least one more before the season opens and playing starts on a weekly basis.

He has nothing else to do this summer, so we are very happy to see that he has finally secured something to do. We don't expect that the extra spending money will present a problem for Parker...

Parker received a hat, a shirt, and a rule book to study

Adam's at it again!

OK, like the last several posts, we are continuing our focus on Adam.

Today was the Air Cadet Ontario Provincial Committee debating competition, so we took Adam and several of his team members to Mohawk College for their debates. Just like last year, Wendy and I were volunteer judges. Twenty two teams of Air Cadets battled it out to the final two for the final debate. When all the dust had settled, Adam's team came in 3rd place! Not bad, considering the competition was from across the entire province.

Third place in the OPC Debating competition

Oh, and by the way - we didn't let Adam drive...

The cars have had a busy week...

It has been an eventful week... for our cars.

It started off with Adam being nice and taking an old Sony TV to the recycling centre.  He and a friend loaded it up in my car, then headed off to take it to its final reward. As he was ready to leave, I mentioned that I was worried it might fall over during the drive (all 150 lb of solid state old fashioned TV technology). He said it would be fine and that he would 'take the corners easy'. Famous last words.

On arriving home, I put the car back together and found this surprise inside.

6" wide damaged area inside the hatchback of the Scion

The TV had indeed fallen over and smashed the plastic-like interior trim on the inside of the back hatch. Adam claims it was upright when they arrived at the recycling depot. Since he was doing me a favour, I kept my cool.

After a bit of reflection, and considering that he said he was going to take the corners gently, I now know exactly what happened:

He didn't.

TWICE!!!!

After shaking my head at the fog of youth, I went on with the rest of the week. Little did I know, that Wendy's car would be the next target, on Friday.

Adam was on his way home from school (I think he convinced us he needed the car to set up some AV equipment at school in the morning). It was raining a bit, and most of the cars coming away from the high school area were, quite frankly, coming from the high school area. Starting to get that sense of what is going to happen? Sure enough, another student he sort of knew did not sort of stop and sort of smashed into the back of Wendy's prized Toyota Echo. Long story, short... the other car probably took more of a hit, but neither car came away the winner. Wendy's bumper got pushed down a little (doesn't seem too bad - below) but didn't crack like the inside of the Scion.

Bumper off its clips

The licence plate got a bit squished, and the bumper near it was scraped on both sides. Wendy is not amused.

Licence plate and surrounding area damage

Bumper to the left of the plate has a scratch

The worst of the damage seems to be the muffler area. This decorative chrome tail pipe is pointing more downwards than before (looking a little sad, perhaps?) and the muffler sounds, well, "broken". 

Sad looking tail pipe

Adam took the car to a repair shop today and they took a quick look at it.  Other than the cosmetic stuff with the bumper (probably not worth repairing), the muffler itself is cracked and needs replacing. The cost? Just the muffler will be around $400!

Adam will be paying for every cent of this repair from his own money. Wendy and I are hoping he was stunned enough by the event to have more respect for the lack of skills in those around him. This is a good example that even tiny little mistakes can cost big bucks. This is also a good lesson in what to do when a collision happens. He didn't have a clue! I guess they don't teach that set of skills at driver's ed. We are now making a list of things to teach Parker up front, when he starts taking his turn putting the cars in peril in a little over 856 days. Yes, I am counting every one of the days in the next 2 years, 4 months, and 3 days!

Gotta be prepared, you know.

Tacos for Easter!

With the warmer weather, there has been more opportunity to go out hiking. This weekend we did do a once-around-the-loop at the train station trails (which are much drier than in previous hikes), but we also went around our block a few times for extra exercise. I guess it has been a hard winter, even for the fire hydrants. This one has many layers of paint that are all peeling off at once. I thought it was almost Easter coloured and decided to take a few pictures with my phone. This hydrant is right next to a busy road, so maybe all the salt over the winter caused the paint to peel - the one in our front yard isn't peeling at all.

Peeling hydrant closeup

Peeling hydrant

Adam turned 18 this Easter Sunday. This year we found a cool make your own 3-D Easter bunny and Adam put it together in 5 seconds. 

Adam and his 3-D Easter bunny

Parker chose a solid milk chocolate bunny, mostly because it was heavier. He was having a bit of difficulty trying to understand what Easter was all about. His first bit of confusion came when he told us in the car that there was no school on Lucky Friday. We thought he meant that it was a lucky day since there was no school - but some further questioning clarified that he thought it was called Lucky Friday. He didn't seem to believe us that it was called Good Friday, and had more difficulty understanding how it could be good when it was the day Jesus died. His concern was mostly that it didn't make sense - why would the son of God die (he shouldn't be able to die with God powers), and why waste time rising from the dead when he shouldn't have died in the first place? Quite the conversation in the car...

Although it was Easter, Adam got to decide on what was for dinner on his birthday (a family tradition). He chose tacos. Easy to make and everyone seems to like them.

Showing off his videos from gliding last weekend

Adam had gone gliding with the cadets last weekend and had a few gigabytes of pictures and videos. Above he is showing everyone some of the videos on his laptop since his phone was too small to see. Adam also chose the birthday cake (ice cream cake from Metro - much better than more expensive DQ cakes!). We ate the whole thing in one sitting. Strangely, I made my own birthday cake a few weeks ago (a poppy seed cake), but nobody ate it except me. Took me a few days, but I finally ate the whole thing.

Yes, we found 18 candles for the ice cream cake

We now don't have too many more birthdays for a few months, and I expect that the weather will continue to improve so we can get out hiking at least once or twice each week. This weekend we will have to do it Saturday (rain or shine), as Sunday is booked solid with the Air Cadet League Debating competition at Mohawk College. Wendy and I are judges, and this year Adam is one of the contestants.

Even Google knows!

Well, I finally passed the big mid-life milestone. Today is my 50th birthday. Seemed like a pretty quiet day, but even Google knew my secret.

Even Google knows!

Most everyone at the lab is away in San Diego for a conference, so it was a reasonably calm morning. The big event for the day was to be the final class for the course I teach at McMaster. It was planned as a debriefing session and a pizza party, plus some unnamed special significance (as per Professor Rangachari - Chari for short)... a little worrisome. Wendy even decided to drop by the class to see what was up.  Yeah, I fell for that, too.

Soon after leaving my office with Chari, we came upon a 'gauntlet' of students lining the halls and the stairways. They all were holding up signs or pictures of my face plastered on cardboard. Each one of them gave me a different compliment (nice shoes, great glasses, I like the way your glasses sit on your ears, etc.). This is when I truly knew that something was up.

There were scores of these signs greeting me in the hallway

This compliment gauntlet went on all the way to the lecture theatre, and at some point during this walk Chari ditched me and headed into the room from a different direction. Once I entered, there was Wendy at the top of the room and about a half dozen students. The students made a big show (many are actors...) about their wonderment at where the rest of the class might be.  Well, in short order all 200+ students piled into the room and started a raucous rendition of Happy Birthday!  This was followed quickly by a number of chants and other fun stuff typical of the first year Health Sciences class  This was definitely the loudest birthday greeting I have ever had!!

The students got together and bought me a cake to take home - they suggested there would be nothing left if all 200 of them took a piece. After our debriefing session, the pizza and salad arrived and the whole thing devolved into a year end pizza party with lots of chances for informal discussions of how the course went for the students. Even a few selfies were taken. 

My take home cake!

What a great way to turn 50! I had a wonderful time and got to see how this group of scared just out of high school kids in September have grown into such bright, confident, and engaging young men and women.

Unforgettable.