We had our own close call with a stupid kid on a cellphone last week. It was during the evening last week. We were coming home from visiting with family. In my rear view I noticed a car that was speeding up and slowing down constantly. We were on a 4 lane street, and I was driving in the slow lane. The car beside me wasn’t going much faster than I was. Out of the blue the car that was alternating speeds sped up behind the guy in the fast lane, swerved hard into our slow lane to pass him, narrowly missing my bumper by a mere 2-3 inches, forcing me to hit the brakes.  My wife and I then observed him driving in the middle of the lanes, swerving back and forth and going a good 30-40 km over the posted speed limit. Thank goodness there were no other cards in his vicinity. We get to a (long) red light where he’s been stopped for a while already, I look over and see that he’s chatting away on a cellphone, completely oblivious to what’s going on around him.

I’m sorry, but is your phone conversation more important that the lives of my 2 month old son, my wife and my own? Not only are you blatantly ignoring a law, your stupidity, selfishness and carelessness put other people’s lives at risk. Yes, you, the 18-20 year old driving a black sedan down Innes in Gloucester/Orleans last Thursday around 9:30pm, I’m talking to you. Put down your phone, pay attention to your driving and maybe you won’t kill or seriously injure someone one of these days.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy! If time permits I’ll make one or two more of these.

Note: If you’re unsure what your screen resolution is, follow these steps to ensure you’re downloading the correct background:

• Windows: Right click any blank area of your desktop and click on Properties. Go to the Settings tab. Screen Resolution is listed at the lower left.
• Mac OSX: Click on the Apple logo in the top left corner of your menu bar and select “System Preferences”, and then select “Displays”
• Linux w/ Gnome: Click on System, Preferences and select Display

It was around 7:30pm when my parents came around to see how we were doing. As they were about to leave, the doctor came, checked my wife and announced and that we were about to have a baby. My wife and I were shocked to hear this. It had only been 2 hours since they broke her water and she was now fully dilated. The following hour and a half was a huge blur. I remember the nurses tasked me with announcing the sex of the baby.I urged my wife to push. It all seemed so surreal. I could see that a small crowd had gathered in the hallway. Along with my parents I could see one of my nieces, my sister and her husband and my inlaws. At 9:28pm my son finally came into this world. The nurses brought him to0 me but at first I couldn’t see the sex as the umbilical cord was in the way. After a second or two I could finally see and exclaimed “it’s a boy!”, and the hallway crowd erupted in cheers and claps. I cut the umbilical cord and they whisked him away.

Nicolas measured 18.5 inches and weighed in at 5 lbs 7 ounces. The next hour or so is still a blur. They cleaned him up, measured, weighed him, did the apgar test and applied the eye ointment before I could even notice it. I then got to hold my son for the first time and it was an indescribable feeling. Multiple emotions hit me all at once: joy, love, happiness, giddiness and amazement. Once able to do so, I introduced my wife to her son. I could see that she felt the same emotions that I was feeling.

After a while our visitors started coming in and gushing over our little guy. He got held by grandma and granpa. Our company didn’t stay long though, realizing that Erin needed her rest. That first night we both woke up often. Every little noise made us rush to his side. I would also find myself waking up and going to just watch him sleep.

We ended up having to stay a few extra days in the hospital due to his low birth weight and him being borderline jaundiced.We finally got to take him home 3 days later on the Saturday. We’ve had some rough nights and some adjusting to do but that’s insignificant to the joy that he’s brought into our lives. Even 3 weeks later I fall in love with my son every single time I see him, I hold him, change him or feed him. A chapter of my life has closed, but a new, brighter one has opened up, and so I’m loving every minute of it.

On the week of the 14th, at her daily OBGYN appointment, Erin’s doctor was a little worried about the lack of growth in her belly area. He sent her for a second ultrasound in as many weeks to get a better idea of the baby’s size. At the last ultrasound, the baby was in the bottom 10th percentile for acceptable weight (done by measuring various bones and organs), weighing in at 4 lbs 5 ounces.

Two weeks later, on Monday June 21st we went for another ultrasound, at which point they measured him at only 4 lbs 7 ounces. This put the baby in the lower 3 percentile. The ultrasound office tried to get in touch with our OBGYN to see what he wanted us to do. Unable to reach him, they suggested that we go to our hospital to the maternity triage and see what they suggested. Upon arriving, they hooked up my wife to a heartbeat and contraction monitor. After a couple of hours we finally saw a doctor who broke the news to us. We were to come back tomorrow or Wednesday so that they could induce my wife.  They suspected that the umbilical cord wasn’t passing enough nutrients and that the baby would have better chances of growing outside of the womb. This took us completely by surprise. Erin wasn’t due for another 3 weeks and we still had some things to do to get ready. Upon our return home that evening, we spent our time packing bags and trying to get ready for our hospital stay.

Early Tuesday morning the hospital called to ask us if we were ready to have a baby and to head on in. We rushed to finish off the packing we had left to do, made a quick stop for a tasty McDonald’s breakfast, ran a couple of quick errands and headed to the Montfort. We got there around 11 and by 11:30 or so we were escorted to the room where we’d be staying for the next 4 days. By mid afternoon they induced Erin for the first time. Her  contractions didn’t start until 12 hours later, and they were light and far between. Around 8:30am Tuesday morning they induced her again, but that didn’t bring about any changes.  It wasn’t until 6pm when they manually broke her water that everything would start happening.

To be continued…

Around 7-8 weeks ago, the street connected to ours underwent some surgery. The road repair crews dug up a section of 30 feet by 100 feet in a couple of days. Nothing too deep, they just removed part of the asphalt, around 2 inches in depth. Since the digging was completed very little has been done, but not for lack of repair crews being around. Two or three times a week they are out there, about five or six road construction workers, along with a couple of dump trucks and other repair equipment. They are there when we leave the house in the morning and they are still there when we get home from work. Yet looking at the street we see little to no difference compared to eight or nine hours earlier. Based on the current rate of actual work being done, I’m guessing the street will be back to normal sometime in 2013.

What the heck are these guys doing all day and why is it taking so long?. These workers are doing nothing but reinforcing the stereotype of city workers being extremely slow and inefficient. I would probably get a pink slip from my employer if I would be even 1/10th as slow performing as these guys appear to be. If they can replace a complete bridge over a busy highway in a couple of days, I cant understand why it would take this long to patch 100 feet worth of residential street.

I’ll take a few pictures tonight to show how little the area actually is, and how little work has been done in around 2 months’ time.

(Edited Jun 18th 12:23am)

Here are the pictures showing our municipal tax dollars hard at work!

It’s probably 99% ready, as I suspect that I’ll still be doing tiny little tweaks here and there. If you find any bugs, please let me know ASAP!

-The Management

Today was the first time I saw the bunny in our backyard since last fall. I recently was wondering where this rabbit went. Did he get too big to crawl under the fence? Did he get hit by a car? Did he find a cute little rabbit to shack up with? Sighting him this afternoon at least tells me that he’s still alive and still around. He even let me get close enough to take a few pictures.

How hard is it to do? With the invention of Splenda, it couldn’t be easier!  Being borderline diabetic myself, I’ve often done a straight substitution of Splenda instead of sugar in my dessert recipes with complete success. Since Splenda is not only a sugar substitute, its made from sugar, and you use the same amount of Splenda as you would sugar, making that substitution is a no brainer.

Now I only wish that restaurant owners and chefs would wake up to this fact and at least give us 1 diabetic friendly dessert option on their menus. In this day and age, I don’t think it’s a big thing to ask for.