Songs of Chairman Mao Come To My Mailbox!

So I wanted the Matt Nathanson CD and I couldn't find it here or even buy it on the Canadian iTunes. Luckily I found it on eBay for a decent price. Today it came and to my surprise it was shipped from China! I looked it over very closely and I can't find any evidence that it is counterfeit... Weird world we live in when you buy a CD for $10 and it comes from half-way around the world... Some cool stamps too!
 

Fire Station #1

Here are a few pics from work. This is one of the fire trucks I got to ride on, the fire pole I slid down and the Fire Station where my office is on the 3rd floor. Not something I thought I would be involved in a couple months ago!

Jasper

Here are some pics from our mini-trip to Jasper. Eric was already 4 days old and he hadn't seen any sights yet!



This is Pocahontas. Can you see the face looking up?




The mandatory shot of Mountain sheep...



We took the gondola up near the top of the mountain



Jack and I hiked 3/4 of the way up from the gondola to the summit but after and hour of carrying Jack, we had enough.

More pics on Kirsten's blog

Announcing Eric Ian Anderson

We are proud to annouce the birth of Eric Ian Anderson, born July 22, 2006 at 8:46 Am. He weighed 8 lb 3.4 oz and was 20 inches long. Both baby and mom are doing great and are resting at home.

Date Night: Fishing!

Carey and I took our wives on a guided fishing evening on the Red River for a date night. Brenda, who has never fished before, naturally caught the first couple fish and was the least likely to handle any fish as you can see by the 5th pic. To be fair, Kirsten snapped the picture just as the fish flipped in the guides hands and Brenda jumped back ;)

Our guide Neil McMullin [neilmcmullin@shaw.ca] was awesome! We all caught a number of fish, with Carey catching the most at 13, twice he caught 2 at a time!

A subtle change

My good bud Grant has gotten himself into photgraphy in the past year. Got himself a decent camera and done some cool stuff.. check it out at http://yantskis.blogspot.com/ and http://www.dpchallenge.com.

Anyhow, I stole one of his pics (top one) and played with it to get the bottom two. I call it interpretive art, you call it plagerism...

Assiniboine Valley Railroad

Today we rode the Assiniboine Valley Railroad which is just 5 blocks from our house.
You may remember us talking about it last christmas, we decided to ride it in the summer time before we leave Winnipeg.

Ssssssssssssnakes!

We went to Narisse, Manitoba today to see the snakes! Aprox 80,000 red sided garter snakes winter in 4 limestone caves. This time of year they are coming out to mate. Click on the pics to see a larger, more detailed version!

My Uncle's Barn

I was going through some pictures we took last summer at my uncle's ranch in southwest Saskatchewan and I came across this one. I love this pic on its own merit, the little things like how the blue squeeze gate on the right somehow matches the blue where the window pane on the front of the barn was patched. But on another level this picture has a lot of meaning to me because I spent so much time on the ranch as a youth and it was all really good time. Everything in my life has changed, but the barn looks exactly the same. I have been through a lot of rocky patches over the years, but the barn beckons me back to a place and time that was carefree, exciting and unconditionally happy. Click on this picture to look it full sized, I did for a very very long time...

The Ruzter Trike

For the past month, I have been enthralled with the idea of building a recumbent bike, specifically a recumbent trike in the tadpole (2 wheels in the front) configuration. My great friend Grant and I have spent many a late evening discussing all aspects of trikes related to building design and astetics. It has been GREAT fun.

Then I stumbled across a series of websites with tadpole design information from Rickey Horwitz. These are, by far, the most compehensive sources of info I have found so far. The more I read the more I thought I could build one myself and the more I knew how I would build it. This week I made several small purchases of parts and tools that I would need to build the trike, so I guess I am actually going to try. I am starting a second blog to document what I am doing, show off my sucesses, make fun of my failures, but most of all just share with my friends and family. Wish me luck, I don't always have the best track record finishing these things, but finish or not my goal is to have fun and enjoy every single minute I am doing or thinking about this project. Now onto the blog! http://ruztertrike.blogspot.com/

Kirsten is talented!

Kirsten made this image with PhotoImpact and a "preset" for the silver filigree by Carol Oyl. I am really loving what we can do with this software...

Mimi

This is my version of Mimi, a monkey in one of Jack's books.

Grant has been tutoring me in doing graphics with PhotoImpact. Kirsten has already done some amazing pics too.

Mostly Harmless

My friend Grant made this cool globe graphic. I like the drop shadow. 

hmmm... That's strange

I am looking at a large broken off tree while Jack contemplates where exactly on the trail he decided to pull off his socks... 

Geocaching in Fishcreek Park

This is a scrapbook layout my wife made about an awesome day of geocaching on the Easter weekend, 2004, in Fishcreek park, Calgary. Grant and I both had record days, finding 12. As an added bonus, I introduced my sister Lara and son Aidan to the sport.

Checkerboard mesa, Zion National Park, Southern Utah

This was a virtual geocache we did while Traveling on our holiday. if you look at my sunglasses, you can see a reflection of my arm holding the camera.

Big Boy Clothes: a layout by Kirsten

Kirsten has started doing some digital scrapbook layouts!

Why Dads shouldn't give their children chiropractic adjustments...

Ouch!