The last four months

OK, OK!!! I know I haven't posted since July! I have been a little busy being unemployed then being re-employed again. After 18 years, I lost my position at McMaster (due to funding cuts). With all the disruption, the blog just didn't make it to the top of my list.

So, what has been happening recently? Well, here is a quick list of things that have been going on:

• We went on vacation to Atlanta (it was already paid for, so no way to cancel)
• went on a coal-fired steam train trip
• went to the World of Coca Cola (for Wendy)
• went to the Georgia Aquarium
• went Underground zip lining
• went on a Bourbon tour at Buffalo Trace distilleries (and a Ghost Tour)
• I got a part time teaching contract for the McMaster Bachelor of Health Science program
• I got a part time/occasional research technician contract in the Department of Surgery
• Parker learned to drive!
• School started again - grade 11 for Parker, university classes for Eric
• Did some hiking of the Bruce Trail
• Had my car damaged in the grocery store parking lot
• Hockey season started for Parker
• Wendy had the girls from work over for a class in string art

Atlanta trip! 

We took a driving trip down to Atlanta, Georgia for a holiday getaway with our friends Mel and Murray. We rented a rather large vehicle (Ford Expedition) so we would all fit in. Parker got his own row of seats at the back.

Off we go!

Our first overnight stop was in Cass, West Virginia at the Cass Scenic Raiload. The next morning we took a 4 hr trip up and down a mountain on the train to Bald Knob. Beautiful scenery and a great way to travel.

After another overnight stop, we arrived at Atlanta and stayed in a house SW of downtown (a VRBO). It was very hot there, but most of our Atlanta events were indoors. The first day we took in the World of Coca Cola - a museum dedicated to Wendy's favourite drink (on her birthday, no less)! All the Coke products you could drink!

The next day we hit the Georgia Aquarium. This was a fantastic place (I think Murray's favourite), with more to see and do than any other aquarium around.

Back stage tour

Whale shark

Whale shark

We headed to Kentucky for some bourbon... I mean sight-seeing. Of course, we had bourbon with every meal... or maybe it was more than one bourbon with every meal. Hard to remember.

A flight of bourbon, before dinner

Another stop was Underground zip lining! This limestone cavern has been converted to an entertainment area. Fantastic experience and a nice break from the 30C-40C weather. Almost the entire tour was in the dark, sometimes 100's of feet above the soft limestone floors.

Our trip to Buffalo Trace distillery was both informative and tasty. Our second tour of the day (and second bourbon tasting!) was a ghost tour.

Root beer

Those not drinking gave me their samples

The rest of the trip home was mostly driving, although we did do some shopping - and sleeping in. This is Parker in one of the hotel rooms in the morning.

Parker was desperate to go to Krispy Kreme, so we did so just before heading back to Canada.

Near the end of the summer, we replaced the flooring in our back room (bad carpet replaced by somewhat less bad laminate).

Before

After

Parker learned to drive at the end of August!

I don't look stressed... do I?

Parker started grade 11 after labour day.

A few images from our Bruce Trail hike.

My car, scraped on both doors.  About $2100 damage.

Parker's school photo

Parker on the Dundas Sharks

Wendy's string art evening

OK, I promise to post more frequently than once every 4 or 5 months.  Maybe in December...

The Puzzle Queen!

Wendy loves doing puzzles - almost exclusively the Springbok brand. She had an idea the other day that she wanted to do a time lapse video of herself doing a complete puzzle all in one sitting. Below is the video from today's puzzle session.

Here's the direct link to the video...

Is it a Wonderful World?

Some of you may have heard that I have been taking piano lessons since the spring. I finally got up the courage (and the spare time) to record one of the pieces I have been practicing.

Below is a YouTube video of me playing "What a Wonderful World".  Let me know what you think.

This is the direct link to the video if your browser doesn't play it directly. https://youtu.be/2-_tljmoDyE

Considering my recent change in employment status (anyone looking for an "unemployed 52 year old medical scientist"?). Now I am wondering whether I really should have selected something celebrating how wonderful the world is?  Either way, I played it at a rather melancholy tempo... that was a choice based more on skill, than on affect.

June so far

June has been a busy month, especially for Parker. In addition to his umpire job, he got a part time job as a dishwasher at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club in Ancaster (he was a caddie there last summer). He works some very long shifts, sometimes finishing just before 1 am... which means one of us has to stay up to drive him home. 

If that wasn't busy enough, Parker also is a player on a Dundas Minor baseball team. They play in several locations around Hamilton, so sometimes there is a little driving involved. Maddy seems to like to go to the games and really enjoys all the new smells at the ball park.

Adam hasn't been idle either.  He has some news to share...

https://goo.gl/photos/gnLkHFWJDCT8UqRP7

Click the link above if the video doesn't work

Yes, he bought all the gear to go with the motorcycle he purchased. Here he is showing off the gear.

He picked up the bike (a used Suzuki) this week and will be taking a motorcycle course this coming weekend. He has his M1 licence (motorcycle learner...) and the course he will take includes the road test that satisfies the government requirements. 

Wendy and I have kept busy as well.  We went with her mom to a family wedding (Wendy's cousin) in Zurich (Ontario). Here we are just after the outdoor service.

It was blistering hot, so we found shade wherever we could.

Wendy and I have been doing Tai Chi since last year, and we have finally learned all 108 moves. Here is Wendy doing some of the moves... I took pictures because I had to sit out at the end due to some joint issues.

https://goo.gl/photos/Ly9QGXnDM3qKKwFT7

Click the link above if the video doesn't work

Getting back into summer mode

After the variable weather that characterized our spring season, it finally looked like it was going to really become spring-like.  Our flowers continued to bloom and the crabapple tree on our lawn seemed to put on a good show this year.

Unfortunately, after many days of >30C weather, we got this...

May 15th should be nice, right?

We had cancelled our hike with friends along the Bruce Trail last week because the weather was uncomfortably hot... this week we cancelled because it was uncomfortably cold and snowing.

Things soon turned the corner and jumped into summer after that last gasp of winter. On the May long weekend, Wendy's mom took us to Stratford for our annual trip to a musical. This year was "A Chorus Line". I think Parker mostly appreciated the traditional Tim Horton's stop on the way there and the Dairy Queen stop on the way back!

Parker began his umpiring job for the Dundas Little League by jumping straight in and working his first time ever as plate umpire.  He did well, but was nervous about making mistakes. He looked huge in comparison to all the players, although that might partly be due to his equipment.

He also umpired a T-ball game and it was a lot less stressful for him.

Our garden really took off with the warm weather and we were able to harvest a good amount of rhubarb. The kids won't touch the stuff, so Wendy and I will have the eat the rhubarb crisp that I made.

Maddy certainly is enjoying the nice weather. Here she is in a hammock at Mel and Murray's place. She was mostly dry after a few dunks in the pool, and just wanted to rest after all that exercise.

March and April - summer, winter, summer, winter, etc.

Since March, we have kept as busy as usual and were able to get outside more.

Eric and Murray decided they needed to just get out and do something active, so they took a trip down to Niagara Falls for a day long photo safari on March 12th. They hit the Butterfly Conservatory, the Niagara Floral Showhouse, and went on Journey Behind the Falls tour. Here are a couple of Eric's pictures.

For a theme day at work, Wendy decided to have pink hair colour sprayed at the back of her head. That stuff got absolutely everywhere...never again!!

A few weeks ago Parker completely shocked us by asking if we could get him some....





...wait for it...

....JEANS!

After getting over the shock, we went out to the stores and got him his very first pair of jeans. Both Parker and Adam despised jeans (in favour of sports pants of various types). Not sure what came over him, but they look pretty good on him. Yes, he is getting taller - around 5' 8" now!

His very first pair of jeans

The weather in March and April has been, well, kind of changeable. We have had some summer-like weather and some decidedly winter weather recently. Our taking off the snow tires probably is part to blame for the cold weather bit...

Our crocuses decided to bloom in mid March - they actually wilted because of the heat soon after.

Of course, after the heat came the snow! Here are the same flowers a while later...wilted and frozen!

Not long after, we got yet another winter/April storm and this one 'almost' closed the schools. Below are a few pictures of it getting started.

Maddy was not impressed at having to plow through snow in the back yard. She was just getting used to playing on the grass.

Maddy, ready for spring...

Adam needed to shovel in the morning, as close to 6" fell overnight.

This week Eric turned 52 and Wendy took him out for dinner at a small restaurant in Dundas called Il Fiasco. Nice little restaurant right in the middle of downtown Dundas.

Maddy needed a haircut really badly, so this weekend she went for her spa day in Ancaster. Below are a few pictures to show how much she changed after a simple grooming. She was almost completely grey before she went.

Muddy feet from the back yard, just before leaving for her haircut

Once she returned from the groomer, she was an almost completely different dog. From grey to brown in just a few hours!

Not impressed to be feeling so "naked"!

Despite feeling chilly, Maddy is happy that the grass is no longer covered in snow. Unfortunately (and not unexpectedly), we are expected to get yet another winter storm (snow then rain) tonight, so it will be messy for her to go outside. She will at least be easier to dry off than before her haircut!

News since January!

It has been a while since I have posted - things have been as busy as ever around here. Sorry if this post is long... many things have happened since my last post in January! I have put them in chronological order, even though blog posts are typically presented in reverse chronological order.


Eric begins teaching again.
After a term off from teaching, the new Assistant Dean of the B.H.Sc. program asked me to take on the teaching of a required second year course called Inquiry II: Cell Biology. This course would have 5 instructors and 6 TAs. The 215 students were divided into 34 groups and we assigned 3 groups to each of the 4 other instructors. For myself, I took 22 groups! I also acted the lead instructor to introduce the course at the beginning of the term and have more or less been the 'head instructor' for the course. It is taught as an "inquiry course" where the whole thing is problem-based with the students determining the content. There are no lectures at all, just tutorial times where the groups present their progress on the project areas that I assigned. The premise this year is that each group is a small drug company that is developing a new treatment for a specific disease area (all groups chose their own specific topic, although I selected the general type of disease - cardiovascular, joint diseases, eye diseases, etc.). The underlying theme for my 22 groups is the cellular biology of "oxidative stress", so they are all investigating treatments that somehow involve either increasing or decreasing oxidative stress.

As an aside, the Assistant Dean has also asked me to be part of a pilot program to run courses during the summer this year. They have always wanted to try making the program run in at least 3 terms, and now they are ready to proceed. I will run the same second year cell biology course so some of the first year students sticking around in the summer will be able to get a jump ahead in their program and give themselves some more space in their schedules to take other courses in the fall term of their second year. This term ends in June - my contract is over in July, so I may not even be still at the university...!

Leah moves in.
My nephew, Dan, from Edmonton joined up to the Canadian Army and was off to St. Jean sur Richelieu Quebec for basic training in January. He and his wife, Leah, put all their things in storage before heading east (their lease was over for their townhouse, so there was no choice). After a short time at Dan's sister's place in Cambridge (Carrie), Leah moved into our home into the room that used to be Stanley's. Dan will be finished at the very end of March and is expecting to be posted to Borden for a while. That is the same base where Adam goes for his summer camp work.


Wendy goes on a cruise.
Wendy went on a cruise with her mom and her friend Melanie (the husbands got to stay home). They flew to Florida then board the Holland America Zuiderdam for a cruise to Half Moon Cay (Bahamas), Aruba, Curacao, Cartagena (Columbia), into the Panama Canal, and finally to Costa Rica before returning to Florida.

One of the highlights of the trip was that Wendy's mom went zip-lining! Here's the proof:

Hockey win for Parker!
On March 5th, Parker's Midget house league team (the Dundas Kings) won the championship game to end the season! The game was tied at the end of 3 periods and a 5 minute overtime, so the league rules have in place a tie-breaking series of 1 minute long periods (without stopping the clock) with decreasing numbers of players to decide on the game. They remained tied after the 4 on 4 players, then again after the 3 on 3, but Parker's team scored during the 2 on 2 period! Apparently the next period would have been 2 on 2 without goalies...

Dundas Midget House League Champions 2016

Hiking starts again.
Wendy and I started hiking again for the 2016 season. We went to our usual 5 km hike on the Dundas main loop.  Beautiful weather (eventually up to +16C) but the trails had a lot of hard-packed snow that had turned to ice. Normally not a problem, except when the air is so warm that the top of the ice turns into water. Treacherous!

A little wet...

A new bridge on the trails

What gives?
The weather over that last couple of weeks has been, quite frankly, strange. Three weeks ago we had +16C. The week after that we had -19C with a windchill below -20C (plus a lot of snow). This week we will have +19C with a humidex reading of 21C! What's with that? Even the crocuses are confused.