Aleen and Michael’s Blog

With the winter months upon us, we’re missing the activity we had all summer long.  Last year Aleen kept mentioning that we should get a treadmill but we were hesitant thinking that we would not get good enough use out of it.

This year though, Aleen was really adamant and so we saw in some flyers some sales on different treadmills.  Canadian Tire had a really nice one, a Horizon 9.1, with a 2.5 hp motor and a lifetime warranty on the frame and motor.  It was reduced nearly 40% in price, so after doing some research and checking it out in the store, we finally decided to buy it.

They delivered it to our house and also built it and installed it.  We’re probably going to build a little gym in one of the rooms downstairs, so this works out well.  So far so good.

So on Friday the draw was held for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, France, Uruguay
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Ghana, Serbia
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

Overall, the draw didn’t present too many surprises and most groups are even except for a couple that are a little stronger or a little weaker than others.  Italy got the easiest group and I would say Brazil got the hardest.

Germany’s group could be a little tricky, as all the teams are strong, but I still think Germany will make it through.  At least facing strong opposition early will wake them up and get them into the tournament and should be good preparation for the later rounds.

Only six and a half months away!

I noticed last year with the new car — Mazda 3, my traction in the snow was awful.  I would turn corners and the back end would just slip out.  Then one night coming home in a snow storm on the highway, I was driving 40 km/h going straight and the back end just started fishtailing it and I had to swirve back and forth trying to avoid hitting the guard rail and the cars in the lane next to me.

After that experience, I vowed to get winter tires put on the car for the first time ever.  Also with Aleen driving the car, I needed to make sure it’s as safe as possible.  I decided on a set of General Altimax Arctic Tires (http://www.1010tires.com/tire.asp?tirebrand=General&tiremodel=Altimax+Arctic) that I bought at Consumers Tire.

I already notice a big difference on dry.  Much softer and absorbs bumps a lot better.  Now I’m just waiting for some snow.

Odd story.  I came back from holidays and on my first day back in the office, I come in and on my desk in my cube is a Smurfs First Season DVD!!  No note or anything.  I emailed my team and my friends at the office to see who dropped it off, but never heard back from anyone.  I took it home and started watching it, but I have no clue who gave it to me and no one has ever mentioned it to me.  Weird!

We’ve been in the house for a year and a half now and we wanted to start BBQ’ing and having people over in the summer.  But without a proper backyard setup that makes things a little difficult. 

This year we decided that we would build a patio.  We bought the BBQ a month or so ago, but now my Dad and brother-in-law are helping us build out the patio.  Because our grading in the back has quite the incline and is not very level, we have a bit of a chore ahead of us to create a level surface.

We spent the past weekend, digging out about a foot and a half of top soil and sod and replacing it with a proper stone/dirt foundation so we can eventually lay the paving stone.  It was unbelievable the amount of labour involved in that all.  We had to bring in a garbage bin that sat on the street and we actually filled it up.  Then we had two small dump trucks worth of stone dropped off on our drive way, it looked like a mini construction site. 

The weather on Saturday wasn’t the greatest either, as it constantly rained on and off which made everything a bit of a mess, but we needed the breaks.  I’ve never done so much shovelling in my life.  I was pretty sore on the Sunday.  We’re so fortunate that my Dad and brother-in-law know their business, they did a great job!  Now we just need to pick out the paving stone and arrange for a date to start laying them, can’t wait!

Before:

After:

Me working the plate compactor:

At the top of our house, at the peak, we have a fake semi-circle window made up of hard plastic.  Two weeks ago when we were leaving I mentioned to Aleen if it looked crooked.  Then yesterday when we came home around 5:30pm, the window had fallen forward 90 degrees and was hanging on by the flat edge.  Behind it, the weather tarp and wooden braces were exposed.

Not knowing how heavy this window was, we were worried that it may fall and do some damage to the roof or gutter, let alone maybe a strong wind picks it up and it falls all the way to the ground and does some damage to someone or something below.

I called Mattamy’s after hour service on Saturday, which closed at 5pm on weekends and left a message.  Sunday morning we got a call back and they were trying to figure out how they were going to get up there to fix it.  The window is about 30 feet up from the ground, but with 2 smaller roofs they could climb up roof by roof to get at it.

Anyhow, 2 guys came and tried to re-attach it but it wouldn’t stay, so they just took it down and on Monday someone will come back and re-attach it properly.  Thankfully, there is no precipitation in the forecast so we should be OK to have this exposed until then.  Lets hope the weather man is right this time.

After holding out for a while we finally caved in and bought a Nintendo Wii.  My sister and niece’s bought one and they keep saying how much fun it is.  We were at a friend’s place the other weekend and played Rock Band and had fun with that too, so we decided to add some entertainment to our house too!

We have only played Wii once like 2 years ago when it came out at Roger’s Cup, where Aleen and I played tennis and it was so much fun to actually play a video game as if you were playing for real.

Anyhow, I set it up last night and we played for most of the night.  It came with the sports pack so tennis, golf, baseball, bowling and boxing.  Wholly crap was I getting a workout.  I played boxing and I was ducking and weaving like crazy, it was intense.  While playing tennis I was going for a overhead smash and I hit Aleen in the arm by accident, hahaha.  Then I took out the overhead light with the controller on a backhand follow through.  This morning my shoulder hurts, too funny.

Ever since I can remember I used to always get these random chest pains from time to time, out of nowhere.  It wouldn’t happen often, but when it did I was always worried it was something with the heart.  It felt like something was stuck or that a bubble was there that needed to burst.  It was always on my left side hence why I thought the heart.  Deep breathes would be painful and so I would do quick ones and try to expand the area.  Usually after 5 minutes or so it would disappear.

Last night I woke up with the same problem, only this time it was for 30 minutes and still the pain wasn’t going away.  I got up and tried walking around, but I really had pain breathing.  I checked online and found a few articles that seemed to match what I was experiencing.  The possible name is Precordial Catch Syndrome, the symptoms were near exact:

“Do you ever get a piercing pain in your chest, usually on your left side under your rib, which almost feels like a bubble ready to burst?”

“PCS episodes happen most often while sitting or lying down, and being inactive.” 

Anyhow, I decided to do some light movement, like walking on the spot, knees up with proper breathing and sure enough after 1 minute the pain went away.

For more information try these:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precordial_catch_syndrome
• http://www.failedsuccess.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/precordial_catch_syndrome_chest_pain/

So after some debating for the last few months (and certain circumstances) we finally went out over the holidays and bought a new car.  After driving the Jetta for the past 7 years I liked the look and feel of a car in that size.  I had a few other cars in mind like the Audi A4 but the price of such cars is just too much at the moment given the house and wedding all in the last year.

I had my eye on a Mazda 3 for the past year as I really like the sporty look of the car.  It had all the extra features that I wished my Jetta had.  I was quite hard nosed on owning a German car always, but aside from a VW there isn’t much to chose from in the price category I was looking at, so I had to make the jump to Japanese.  I would go American too, but they really don’t have any offerings either.

Anyhow, we took a test drive and loved the way it handled.  The pickup when you step on the gas is a tremendous difference from my Jetta, which had a feeble engine.  This engine is a 5-speed automatic 2.3L 156hp.  It has pretty much the same features as the Jetta, except it has 17 inch alloy rims and a sunroof.  And it was much cheaper than what I spent on the Jetta.

Since we’re still on holidays, I haven’t driven that much but when I have it still feels weird driving in a new car.  But I should get over that real soon.

After waiting 2 months since the wedding, Aleen and I finally went on our honeymoon last week.  We went to St. Lucia and stayed at the Sandals Grande. 

The island is very tropical and mountainous.  Lots of green and the roads are narrow.  The sights were great and the resort was wonderful.  The beach and pool were relaxing and the overall service and food was great.  We definitely needed a vacation.

I’ll post a trip report later on, but in the meantime we posted the pictures here.