June 2006

Well it is for the NHL teams as Free Agency starts for the Unrestricted Free Agents. With names like Ed Jovanoski, Zdeno Chara, Teppo Numminen and Jaroslav Spacek among other blueliners the crop of free agents is quite plentiful. The level of talent for the forwards while not as high still some big names including Doug Weight, Patrik Elias, Bill Guerin, Jeff Freisen, Marc Savard are just some of the names that are available for teams in the market.

While my team Calgary has already traded for Alex Tanguay they still need some more scoring help. I do not think they will dig too deep into the free agent market as they have most of what it takes to go a long way in next playoffs as long as they get some scoring from the current crop as well as a couple of additions. It would be nice if Calgary could pickup another scorer without having to break the bank. Although I think he is an ass, Jeremy Roenick has indicated he wants to play for a Canadian team and if he has his head screwed on right he might be helpful on the scoring front. Should be an interesting couple of days as the teams make their moves.

I tend to not really do all that much on Canada Day (July 1 is Canada’s Birthday), although when I lived in Ottawa I used to goto Parlament Hill for the festivities. Since I have lived in BC for the last 20 years I have gone into Vancouver a few times over the years and spent a couple of Canada Days traveling around. Normally I just hang around and maybe have a BBQ or spend a quiet day with friends.

I am not a big fan of going away on long weekends as it tends to be a bit crazy if you are traveling especially because this weekend is so close to the 4th of July which is a huge travel time in the United States. So this year again I will be close to home celebrating Canada’s 139th Birthday spending the day with friends.

No I do not believe that but that is the statement that has been said on 2 separate Vancouver based sportscasts in the last few days. While I believe Roberto Luongo is one of the better goalies in the league he has yet to make the post season and has yet to lead the league and the game such as a Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur or Mikka Kiprusoff. Joining Vancouver which is a more talented team than Florida will impact his numbers but the Northwest division is if not the toughest close to the toughest division in the league. I do beleive that in the right environment Luongo will shine and will be the elite goaltender he has been touted as since his draft in 1997. I see Luongo as the future Olympic #1 goalie.

To hear that Luongo is the best goalie in the world (yes I am not exaggerating that was what was said) is a complete misnomer until he leads his team to the playoffs and continues to carry his team on nights when they do not show up. Time will tell whether he can be described as the world’s best goalie but at this point he needs to prove he is the best by carrying the Canucks far into the playoffs and be the backstop that everyone is talking about. Just saying that he is the best is not good enough, he needs to put up or everyone needs to shut up.

It is finally happening or at least the announcements are being made over the next few days. The Conservative government is announcing the acquisition of new equipment for the Canadian Military. As the Canadian military continues its deployment in Afganistan it has become plain to see that they are not effectively outfitted to ensure our solders are able to safely carry out the tasks as assigned by the government. The previous governments have given the military the bare minimum and expected them to work miracles. It is disheartening to professional soldiers to be asked to complete tasks with inferior equipment or without proper equipment.

As Canada wants to be a good citizen of the world the governments have progressively committed the military to more and more operations whether they be humanitarian, peacekeeping or anti terrorist our military requires the equipment to do whatever tasks they are assigned by the government. It is refreshing to see equipment which is a basic necessity of any miltary now on the block for procurement. Having our own transport capabilities on both the sea and in the air is necessary to ensure our troops can get to deployments in a timely fashion and resupply can occur when required. At this point Canada has to defer to the US or the Russians for our heavy airlift requirements.

The list of new equipment will include new supply ships which are hopefully troop and equipment transport ships. Medium lift and Heavy lift transport aircraft, the heavy lift will probably be C-17 Globemasters made by Boeing and currently in use by the US. New trucks for the army which are overdue and finally new helicopters which will be for troop and equipment transport. All of these are necessary and will ensure the miltary are better able to carry out their assigned tasks more effectively and more safely.

I guess the only concern would be a future government cancelling some or all of the the programs as we have seen in past with the helicopter’s ordered by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney and cancelled (with financial penalties) by the Liberals under Jean Chrieten in the early 90’s. Eventually the Liberals were forced to order new helicopters as they were required by both the navy and Search and Rescue.

I am listed on 25 Peeps check it out If you click on the link I get to stay on the site and move up

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So would you help a guy out Please.

It’s for a good cause.

Andrew Coyne wrote an excellent article on Hockey and why hockey is the best sport amongst all the professional sports. And before you want to complain just read the article and enjoy.

Check out Andrew Coyne’s excellent Hockey Article.

I was really looking forward to seeing The Pink Panther as I enjoy Steve Martin in most of his movies. While I was a little suspect with the inclusion of Kevin Kline as Inspector Dreyfus I figured I would give it a chance. As with most remakes I was severely disappointed by the attempt to remake a classic comedy. In the original, Peter Sellers is a genius in his portrayal of the bungling Closseau whose take on the English language is hilarious. The fights between Closseau and Kato were classic battles and made the original Pink Panther movies memorable. Also the continually bumbling Closseau drove his boss Chief Inspector Dreyfus played by Herbert Lom completely mad as Closseau solved case after case.

The remake misses on all counts up to and including the casting of both Martin and Kline as the main characters. A major flaw of movies which were originally made with an international audience in mind are they are now aimed at American audiences in an attempt to raise the box office. This impacted the casting and locales which includes a visit to New York City for no perceptible reason and it added no comedy value to the movie. The inclusion of Beyonce Knowles serves no purpose and she added nothing to the except to sing a song. Kevin Kline offers a very poor performance as a “Frenchman?”, his accent was terrible as well as his character.

Overall the remake is a horrible attempt to possibly bring a successful franchise back to life.

Yesterday, Friday I was in Vancouver for two job interviews in my continued search for employment. The first interview went very well and then I visited Uniserve to see a friend Tom whom I had worked with when I was with Uniserve. We had a nice lunch and were joined by Mike another guy with whom I had worked. After lunch I went for another interview which was not as positive as I would have liked. After the day in Vancouver I returned home and relaxed a bit before making dinner.

About 7pm I went downstairs to my TV room/living room which is carpeted and stepped on a wet carpet. At first I thought maybe my dog Tara had an accident as I had left her at home and it was all day. Normally she is alright when she is at home on her own and I usually never find accidents. As I moved towards my laundry room to get something to cleanup the wet area I discovered the area was quite large, in fact huge. I proceeded into my laundry room which was also covered in water. My water heater had decided to die a very unnoble death and spread water over a large area. I tried to turn off the shutoff valve which seemed to slow down the flow but not stop it. Even though there was some water coming out it was managable with some strategically placed towels. Needless to say I was unable to shutoff the water and I have never been sure where the incoming water shutoff valve was located. Tried calling Sears and Home Depot but no luck on reaching anyone who could help. This meant I had to wait until Saturday morning to see if I could get a new water heater installed. As I wanted to make sure the flooding stayed in check I was up and about several times during the night. Thankfully I have lots, well lets just say tons of towels to help with the mop up operation.

Come Saturday morning I called Sears and was called back almost immediately with a promise a sales person would contact me.I had barely hung up when the sales guy called and as soon as I explained the situation he said he would check and see if they could install a water heater today. I had already researched the model and type of water heater I would need so it was just a case of Sears checking to see if they had stock and someone available to install it. I received a welcome callback within a few minutes and the appointment was set for early afternoon. By 2pm I become the proud owner of a brand spanking new water heater.

While I knew I would have to replace the water heater, as it was old, before I sold the house I guess it had a mind of its own and decided it was ready before I was ready for it to go.

So even though it had to be done I am now much poorer as I try and figure out where I will get some money to pay for an very high unexpected expense which was not in my budget. Anybody know of a job keep me in mind. I will be hiding under my desk until I figure out a way to make some cash. Oh well I guess I still have my health.

I have been going through a lot of my things and getting rid of stuff….you know the rule if you haven’t used it in six months get rid of it. So I have been playing around with all the photos I have lying around. It is truely amazing how many pictures we collect over our lifetimes. As I went through them I began to think about why we keep the photos and what happens to them once we are gone. I have them to remember past travels, family and friends and things that occurred in the past. The funny thing is…how often do we go through them. Except to show them to friends and significant others I have not really looked at these photos for several years. I guess with the advent of digital photography we have gotten away from photo albums and storing paper photos, or at least I have gotten away from it.

So now do we all have CD’s with our photos and if that is the case how long will it be till having paper photos is a thing of the past. Just curious.

I found an easy recipe for Peanut Butter cookies on the back of the Kraft Peanut Butter jar. As I was in the mood for something different I decided to try a batch. But I went one step further and used Kraft Peanut Butter with Chocolate….what is better than easy Peanut Butter Cookies than Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies. MMMMMM tasty.

The recipe is simple,
1 Cup Peanut Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 egg
Mix together and roll into balls on a ungreased baking sheet at 325 for 15 minutes. Do not Overbake.

That is it…yes I know it is not like I need more sugar but I could not resist.

It took about 15 minutes and I was enjoying Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies.

I was driving home down Vedder Rd (which is the main North-South road in Chilliwack) and had another close encounter. Previous close encounter was a family of ducks, this time it was a single Canadian Goose.

It happened at the same place as the duck crossing in my previous post and as this is a main road with lots of traffic it can be dangerous. So I was thinking it would be cool to create some kind of crossing so the ducks/geese can cross in safety. I do not see a crossing guard as a possiblity although that would be quite amusing. Maybe a tunnel or bridge would work but then how would we guarantee that the ducks and geese would use the proper crossing place. I think that the ducks and geese can be quite independant so enforcing the proper crossing etiquette would definitely be a challenge. Oh well just a thought.

I wish I was an artist so I could draw up an artists rendition or even a comedic drawing to depict the duck crossing.

The original starring Micheal Caine was made in 1969 and set in of all places Italy and concerned the planning and followthrough of a plan to steal 4 million in gold. The movie is a campy comedy with a very memorable car scene with three Austin Minis. The remake made in 2003 starred Mark Wahlberg and cast other unforgetables, with the exception of Donald Sutherland and Jason Statham of The Transporter. The remake of course is slanted towards an American audience so the primary casting and story reflects this slant. Even though the title is the same as the original and there are Minis that is all that this one has to compare it to the original.
The story of the remake while somewhat intriguing misses when we take the location and move it to Los Angeles. Also killing off Donald Sutherland really did not add anything except to try and make a side story which really did not work. The whole addition of Charlize Theron to the story is a waste as she only wants revenge. The movie should have been called the LA Job, but that is not enticing to the audiences.

The original was done with some comic elements and was entertaining with the twists and misses during the caper. The stars were the Minis and the car chase. The movie has some funny elements and the writing is what you would expect but overall it is entertaining. It is worth it for a chance to see Benny Hill.

Overall the remake was a waste and in true Hollywood fashion another version to be titled The Brazillian Job is on the way.

I know it is dangerous but as I have lots of time to think I was revisiting some ideas that I have had floating around for a number of years. One the ideas is to unleash some of my literary ideas on the world. I do not see myself as a novelist but I have a few short story ideas which I think I will brush off. You never know maybe it could lead somewhere. If nothing else it will make me use my brain and imagination which I think has been getting a little rusty lately.

It is kinda amusing now I guess but I was having some problems with my Gallery about a week ago and while I was trying to get it working I ran into all my database issues. All of the issues appear to fixed and I am in the process of putting up all my photos.

Check out my gallery and come back often as I will be adding photos.

I had a Database problem this evening and lost everything for the last few days. I am in the process of reconstruction.

Isn’t technology Grand!

Sorry my Database was giving me grief so comments were not working. I have fixed them and they are working now. Thanks Honeysmack for letting me know.

Over the past few years as I have evolved I made some changes such as getting my eyes lasered and shaving my facial hair which I had worn (proudly or dumbly) since I was in high school. After shaving my facial hair off I was stunned by the reaction I received, all positive. So as part of my thought process I wanted to get a tattoo but the problem I always ran into was what to get tattoed onto my body. Well I think I have finally found something which I think will look good and also evoke some conversation. Since I was born in the year of the Dragon I thought why not the Chinese Symbol, it has significance and is quite unique. Below is the symbol I am thinking of.