Lots of interesting stuff!

Jennifer is home now. Home to stay! After six months of being in the hospital, my favourite daughter is now recovering at home. Jenn is sure happy about it. And so are the boys. Jenn gets to tuck them in at night and she’s there when they get up in the morning. How much we take for granted eh. She is still doing rehab to learn to walk, but it definitely looks like she is a survivor. Her blood platelets were low this week, but the latest check shows them coming back up, so that’s good news too.
NEIL CALLED!
Good news from Neil this week too. The restaurant Steamworks in downtown Vancouver is soooo busy. I got a text from Neil telling me that he met the president of Slovakia who was in the restaurant. That’s kinda cool. Neil says there are always famous people dropping by because Vancouver produces so many movies, but with the Olympics on, there has to be a lot more celebrities in town. The best part was as I was writing this on Saturday morning, Neil called! It was 9:00 a.m. in Timmins. I looked at the clock and said what are you doing up at 6:00 a.m.? He was just getting home after a 12 hour shift at the restaurant. “This town is totally rad” he said, but added he is getting tired of seeing so many drunken people in the streets. Neil said the inside scoop is that the Vancouver Olympics beer sales are more than Beijing and Salt Lake city combined. He said his restaurant, which is known for its local beer, is selling out on a regular basis. The other good thing is that he has a promotional budget, and with the restaurant packed to the rafters each night, he gets to go around buying free drinks for nice people.
Life is good in Timmins. It looks like we are losing our big copper smelter, but the newest gold mine in town, Lake Shore Gold, is going great and another mine, Goldcorp, just announced that they’re sinking a new shaft to go after even more gold.
PHOTOS FROM FRANCE
I have been busy converting old photos and old slides to digital. It’s moving at a snail’s pace because I am so busy with other things. But I found sound photos from the Royal Canadian Air Force base in Marville, France. There’s a pic of Dad with his police van, Mom and Ronald on the beach at La Havre (English Channel), some CF-86 Sabre fighter jets on the flight line, Gary's first communion and me with a couple of other kids… and I have no idea who they are!

Not a bad weekend despite the game.

It was something of a letdown tonight to watch Team Canada get dumped by Team USA in Hockey. U.S. Goaltender Ryan Miller is simply amazing. I called Jennifer because misery loves company. She said she stopped watching as soon as the Americans pulled ahead four goals to two. Other than the game, we all had a nice weekend, with nice balmy zero degree weather in Northern Ontario. Jenn said she was at the house for a couple of days and was pleased to be able to make bacon and eggs for the boys this morning. Now that she has a walker, she is able to stand up for short periods. How nice is that?

So what's new?

Jennifer and I chatted last night about the Olympics. I have to remember to call when a hockey game is NOT on. I could tell when she wasn’t listening. It was like talking to a teenager again. LOL. But we still had a good chat. Her physio-therapy is coming along nicely. Jenn uses a walker now along with her wheel chair. She says she can move across the room, but it leaves her pretty tired.
I have been slowly cataloguing many of the paper copies of photos that I have. I dread the thought of going through the negatives. I came across a few shots of my brother Ronald and myself from a few years ago where he was invited to do para-jumps at the North Bay Air Show. Knowing he was going to be in the Bay, he called me up and we spent some time together. At lunch you can see who is enjoying a beer and who is having iced tea. Ron then got me onto the plane so I could grab some photos at 13,000 feet over North Bay. Then he suited up in his gear and jumped out the plane! Good thing he paid the bill for lunch!

Neil was at opening ceremonies rehearsal...

I had a really nice chat with Jennifer today and we talked about Neil and the fact that he was at the rehearsal Monday for the Olympics opening ceremonies in Vancouver. We are both so jealous. But on the other hand, he will no doubt be super busy at work in the next two weeks as the world arrives in Vancouver.
Jennifer is still in the Intensive Rehab Unit at the Sudbury Hospital, but she has moved rooms … she is now in room 3-164. Anyone wanting to call and chat before 10:00 p.m. can call toll free at 1-866-469-0822.
Jennifer says she doesn’t expect to be in the hospital much longer. At some point within the next month, she expects she will become an outpatient. She says she is looking very forward to that day.

Old photos

Well I was able to find some old photos to put them on the scanner so I can have good digital images that will last. The paper copies of the photos are not going to last. I have a couple of “big hair” school pics of Jennifer and Neil from the 1980s and a couple of photos from Mom and Dad’s wedding. I am amazed at the quality of the 1950s photos which obviously used the big 5-inch negatives. The clarity is amazing. Oh well, something nice to look at. As I start sorting through all the papers I still have, I will begin digitizing the photos and posting a few. The colour slides will be a challenge. At last count, I have more than 9,000. Just click on the photos to see them in a larger size.

Just catching up eh

I have to learn to spent a bit more time here. Considering that I write for a living, one would think this wouldn't be a big chore. It's not. I get lazy. Well not THAT lazy. Actually I worked all weekend and took some time off Sunday afternoon to enjoy the football game, and a tall cold can of beer. I also found time to paint an old dresser. I was checking out one of the home decorating magazines and it mentioned that the "weather beaten" look is quite popular on old furniture. My painting skills are such that I tend to get the "weather beaten" look a lot. Actually it turned out okay, after some work with sandpaper and about four coats of paint. I had a quick chat with Jennifer on Saturday when the hockey game was on. I try not to call when the game is on, but Toronto had just scored it's fifth goal and I figured it was safe. Jenn is doing very well. She still has a long way to go in her physio-therapy, but what a nice turn around from this time six months ago. Oh, some other good news of sorts. My old photo scanner died out on me last year and I have been shopping around trying to find a nice half-decent scanner that can work with old slides and 35 mm negatives. No luck. On Sunday afternoon I dropped into Canadian Tire to get some sandpaper (for the painting) and on the way to the check out, I noticed they had a bit table marked CLEARANCE. There in the middle of the table, was a brand new Hewlett Packard model 4850 scanner, equipped to take slides and negatives. Cost $20. Perrrrfect. I had to stop at Staples and buy a new cable for it... $29. Normally it would cost about $200 for the whole rig. But it works beautifully. So in the next few months, I will be moving all my slides and negs to a digital format. Expect to see some interesting pictures here.

Cookies, whiskey and other stuff.

Jenn and I were like a couple of chatty little hens tonight when I called. It’s funny how we get talking and just go on and on and on. I forgot that I had put on water for tea and it was a good thing the burner was on low. After about 45 minutes of yakking, for some reason I remembered about the tea, so I jumped up and ran to the kitchen. All the water, except for about a teaspoon, had boiled off. So that was good for a laugh. But Jenn gave me hell for not being more careful. I will learn from it I am sure. Make the tea first then call Jenn. I decided that it was too late to make a fresh pot of tea, so as I signed off with Jenn I poured a nice glass of Jameson’s and because it was bedtime snack time, I added an oatmeal cookie. Well son of a gun, what a treat. Have your ever dipped a cookie into a glass of whiskey? It’s delicious. I should go into business… be like the Sham Wow guy, but just for whiskey and cookies. By the way, Jenn is doing very nicely with her physio therapy. She says she is now cramming in two sessions a day, but says some days she gets pretty tired. Maybe I should send her some cookies, and whiskey!