Fore!

It doesn’t seem to matter how long a weekend is, I always seem to need one more day. This weekend was not an exception. Even with the extra day for the holiday I don’t feel relaxed or rested or like I had enough downtime. Ho-hum. The Canada Day long weekend has come and gone. Happy Birthday Canada.

I lucked into a few extra hours of ‘weekend’ time as work closed early Friday. Shortly after getting home I got a call from bdot saying that she has awkwardly shifted her weight onto her foot and was considerable pain. By the time she got home (having to drive with aforementioned foot in pain) she was literally in tears. We were borderline going to Emergency. She decided to elevate the foot and relax for a few hours and then see how she felt. The foot looked bruised and inflamed to me. It was quite apparent looking at her feet side by side that something was going on. I ran off to the store getting her crutches, advil and a few groceries. By the time I got home she said the swelling had gone down and that a trip the Emerg wouldn’t be necessary. Phew. Bdot thought it was pretty strange that she felt the pain from her foot many hours after she hurt it. Very odd. I’m just glad she is feeling better.

Saturday we returned to Orangeville for a ‘wedding update’. Bdot’s wedding ring was cast (without the diamonds – it isn’t done) and ready to look at. Bdot is toying with the idea of wearing her ‘engagement’ ring with her ‘wedding’ ring. The wedding ring was cast to the exact height of the engagement ring… it seems like a lot of ring for one finger to bare. She’ll have the option of wearing them together or seperately. We’ll see how the rings look once the diamonds are in… I expect both options will look great and very blingy. My ring was suppose to be in but it arrived and it was wrong so our jeweler sent it back. It is looking like both should be ready in about a month.

Every trip to Orangeville seems to include a trip to the Chocolatier now. Naturally we need to do extensive research on which truffles to serve at the wedding. I think we should have it sorted out after three or four more visits. *grin* We also stopped in for a quick look at tuxedos at Tip Top… They don’t actually carry any in stock, so all we could do was look at a catalogue and compare them to the suits they actually had in stock. Ho-hum. Out for all the tuxedos in the book I think we like maybe two.

In the evening we chilled out and decided to watch a movie. We settled on Safe House. Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds star in an action movie about Ryan’s character who works for the CIA in South Africa maintaining the readiness of a CIA ‘safe house’. Ryan’s character complains about how dull his job is and that nothing ever happens and how he longs for the excitement of ‘field work’. Lo and behold Denzel’s character, a high risk ex-CIA rogue agent, pays Ryan’s safe house a visit. Then the quiet dull safe house erupts in gunfights and mayhem. The story follows the two as they fight with each other, those following them and coming to terms with the reality of the CIA’s role in their situation. The acting by both led actors was solid and overall the story and action was enjoyable. A decent but not exceptional film. A good excuse to eat some popcorn but doesn’t break any new ground and ultimately was pretty predictable. ⭐⭐⭐

Sunday was my family’s reunion in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The last one was held seven years ago! Phew. The attendance at this reunion was a little light, perhaps because of the holiday or the Euro Cup final. *shrug* I don’t see most of these relatives that often at all, so I try to make the effort when I can see a bunch in one place. The afternoon was eating and talking, talking and eating and booze. Some of the topics that came up : Yuengling Beer, Golf, Hockey, my cousin’s Vegetarianism, developing urine as a means to power cars, family who weren’t there, how good the food was, the walk across the Falls, Notre Dame Football and the strange haircuts on the dogs that were wandering around. Most of my cousins no-showed. So it was a fairly dull afternoon. It was good to see Peter, the only one of my cousins that did show. We left shortly after dinner…

We decided to stop at Starbucks in St.Catharines on the way back to my parents. Wow… it was a 24h Starbucks. I didn’t know there were 24h Starbucks. Hmm. Ordering a drink at Starbucks usually isn’t that interesting… but we ended up having a crazy little Asian prima donna order in front of us. (She actually cut in front of me to order as well…) She proceeded to order three large Green Tea Fraps NO MILK NO SUGAR and three breakfast sandwiches, all heated. She repeated the drink details over and over then had a dialogue with the poor Barrista over using cream in the drinks. The poor guy ended up filling the cups with a third cream… (bleck – we asked him later about it and he said that has never happened before and it would have been ridiculously sweet) then she had to pay… But first she insisted the sandwiches she ordered be bagged separately. There weren’t any bags up front so the barrista had to run to the ‘back’ to get them. By now there was a growing line of people waiting. To pay she held her credit card out, arm fully extended as soon as the barrista was at the cash. He hadn’t asked for payment yet as ringing in this order seemed to take unusually long. It was just bizarre. I don’t think I’m doing it justice. This whole drama went on for about 7m. After she left the Barrista apologized for the wait. The poor dude looked flummoxed.

My Dad’s computer has been having all sorts of issues. It is also painfully slow to use. So I thought about upgrading his computer’s RAM but I can’t seem to find RAM that fits… So I brought up one of my older computers that was collecting dust. That seemed like a good idea at the time. The plan was to put his existing hard drive in my older computer. Yes I’m aware this isn’t ideal… it became a bad decision when I realized I forgot the driver disk. Yes computers drivers… the difference between happy and sad, working and fail. So I tried getting drivers onto the computer for well over an hour… they didn’t want to work. I’m not sure why. Is there enough of a difference between files moved from FAT to FAT32 for them not to work properly? They didn’t. They executed but didn’t work. Very odd. It was a frustrating waste of time exacerbated by the fact the room felt like it was on the surface of Mercury. So I was going to leave my Dad’s old computer with a drive I brought that had Lubuntu on it. Switch drive, hit power, and his computer wouldn’t POST. His power supply was dead. So I had to transfer the power supply from my box to his old one… Bah… and on and on… I ended up getting it working and leaving my Dad with Lubuntu – which he has never used. He got a 2m tutorial then I had to leave for home because by then it was getting late. It will be interesting to hear how he fairs. A great test for linux useability… So far my understanding is that he is managing. *smirk*

Yesterday we endeavoured to satisfy our golf itch by heading to a practice range on the edge of Brampton called The Old Pro. Despite the nasty heat we chipped, pitched, putted and drove for close to 2 hours. My putting and low irons were decent, everything else was abysmal. We got some extra tokens because we both need a lot of practice. Right after getting home from golfing we ran the dog in Palgrave forest. It has been awhile since we were there. It was mercifully shaded.

Euro 2012 finally ended. I thought of it as being the battle of the Rolling around on the Ground like Bitches Cup final. I didn’t really care about who won, although it was pretty amusing to hear the Italians got spanked 4-0.

Sabres finally got rid of Roy trading him to Dallas for Ott. I’m pretty happy with that. I think the Sabres need the grit… I just wonder about scoring now. Maybe Darcy has another move or two yet…