On a trip down to Niagara for Easter weekend I noticed on the way back home to Mississauga that there were bug carcass all over the windshield. I guess spring has sprung if the bugs are on the highways. Go away rain!
We headed north to a resort in Horseshoe Valley this past weekend with Kevin and Heather to check out the colours of the fall season. It was a nice little weekend away.
There are tonnes of activities to do up there but we ended up doing some mountain biking at Hardwood hills and a few hikes on trails found in the local area on the Ontario Trails Council website.
We did a nice easy walk through Copeland Forest which was a bit later into the day after mountain biking. Since it is wild turkey season we made sure to be out of there before dusk. The next day after checking out of the resort we got lost trying to find the trailhead for the Barrie section of the Ganaraska Trail. We eventually found it thanks to Kevin’s blackberry and a helpful dog walker who pointed us up the road a bit more.
The treetop course was all booked up for the weekend. Next time we’ll have to call ahead a few more days in advance to book a spot.
I’m glad I put the mud guards on my Outlander. We took some awesome gravel back roads along some country lines and the hills out there are pretty challenging for any vehicle loaded down with 4 adults and all their stuff. The guards really helped keep the gravel from messing up the paint along the side of the vehicle.
Real maple syrup from Sugar Sweet Farms which is run by Brian Lempriere made it all worth while getting lost and having a fun drive in squares.
We took a trip down to New York City as tourists visiting a friend in the city. It seems like we went everywhere!
Visited the Chelsea Brewery and went on their free tour on Saturday after our flight in. Then went to a market to pick up a few things for dinner. Lots of trips through the subway, but we only saw one rat. We checked out the Brooklyn bridge just as the sun was starting to set and things were cooling off.
Sunday we were off to Liberty and Ellis Island. Lo did very good on the ferry over – not a tinge of green. Then we went to Stout NYC to watch the hockey game. We all had Team Canada gear on but it was a little nerve racking wearing a Team Canada hockey jersey in the heart of the beast. There was quite the cheer with 28 seconds to go in the 3rd – but the small group of Canadians were even louder in OT. To top the night off we we went to Babbo — which is Mario Batali’s restaurant for an over indulging meal of the pasta tasting menu. There were some substitutions for Lo’s allergies though – mmm lobster.
Monday the city came back to life as everyone returned after the snowy weekend. Lo and I wandered through central park and then did some shopping at some huge discount store called Century 21 — all I could think about was real estate and obviously we couldn’t afford any of that in NYC. The store was down near where the twin towers used to be so we had a quick tour of the area – they are building a monument there now. Then we took the subway back up to Grand Central station and wandered down to the piers. Then a quick walk up through China town and little Italy before packing up for the airport that night.
I returned from a vacation on PEI visiting family and relaxing with my family. We arrived after 19 hours of driving through 4 provinces and a few bathroom and gas breaks. Things were wet on the way to the island in Quebec and then the rain seemed to chase us across the country.
Mom and Katharine fell sick on Tuesday so that limited the people we could go visit, but it just meant more walks on the beach and nosing around the cottage getting some reading done.
We were able to go to my Great Aunt Vivian’s 85th birthday dinner at the New Glasgow Lobster supper hall. Most of us had the lobster meal, but a few had scallops.
I also was able to get out and do some deep sea fishing with the “Bearded Skipper“. We set out at 6pm into the open ocean from the North Rustico wharf. I pulled up a small mackerel and a decent sized cod was reeled up from the bottom. It was approximately 3-4 lbs.
You can find some pictures from the week here.
Penelope went in for some repair work today. She needed to have her control arm bushings replaced. Control arm bushings are little rubber hockey pucks that cost $20, but the labour to replace them is huge since the entire front suspension is pretty much taken apart to get to them. So after doing the replacement an alignment needs to be done as well.
$600 of work and just under $100 of taxes later she’s running great. I splurged a bit and did some fluid flushing and fuel system cleaning since this is an “off lease” car and it doesn’t look like the previous owner took care of her on the outside, so I can’t she that she’d be well cared for on the inside either. Better to do it now than find out when things go bad later.
Kurt and his family were kind enough to invite me up to their cottage on “Go Home Lake” which is kilometer 178 on highway 400 outside Barrie. Traffic was fine since we went through the back roads around Borden zigging and zagging our way north through the many lines and concessions – much better than being part of the 401 parking lot. Kurts cottage neighbours left at 8am Saturday morning and didn’t arrive at the cottage until 2pm. I’m sure I’ll take that route for the Sudbury wedding come the Labour Day long weekend.
There was lots of boating, swimming fishing and all around lounging around at the cottage. I of course got my normal sunburn, sadly on the top of my ankles which is a pretty sensitive spot by the way.
The lake was mostly making fun of my fishing skills, but I caught a sunfish and I pulled this monster out of a pretty strong current in the Rohmann’s bay.
If you have a windows mobile device or a pocketPC device with an internet connection and you sometimes require help navigating to locations this is the program for you.
An internet connection is required to update the maps, but there is a cache so if you figure out your path in the comfort of your home you can save EDGE GPRS charges.
This software uses googles API to access Virtual Earth. It’s also rather new and prone to crashing so don’t be surpised if it does not perform as expected.
Hungary is my first taste of Europe. I must stay it’s quite different from the electrical plugs to the food. But everyone is polite and nice, and smile at me when I say hello in my broken – I wouldn’t even call it “Hungarian”. I only know how to say “hello” and “thank you”.
I have some pictures of the trip. We ended up spending the afternoon in Vienna waiting for Ryan and my lost luggage to arrive.
Tonight we are going to Budapest for a “night on the town”. Likely be some more pictures tomorrow morning.
I’m back safe and sound from my trip and I think the interviews went pretty well. Of course there is always room for improvement, they wern’t perfect and I felt my energy starting to fall as the day went on but overall a great experience and I hope to be offered a position with the WinCE team and the automotive group. I think that is a really interesting department that I can get excited about.
I’ve posted some pictures from the trip, they are not that great as I was more worried about preparing for the interviews than taking photos. The ones from the plane were “washed out” so I tried to doctor them with The Gimp to do some white balancing.
I made it safe and sound, but the de-pressurization of the cabin after being above 35,000 feet for 4 hours really hurt. A lot. My ears have just cleared up now and I’ve been in town for over 3 hours now.
I already did a little exploring in the drizzling weather. I’ve never seen so many shops that do “nails” or drive though ATM’s in my life. Other than that Redmond is a lot like the Niagara region, lots of trees turning color (no ‘u’ since I’m in America) beautiful nature scenes, a little more hilly but I haven’t seen any escarpments yet.
I should have had my camera out this morning as I was leaving Buffalo. I had the window seat and we took off just as the sun started to come up. There were some amazing shots of the city at night and the transformation to daylight, and I missed them all. Good thing I’m a better software developer than photographer.
Tonight, I’m going to watch the ball game, do some research on the groups I think I’m meeting with tomorrow and try to get a good nights sleep in a strange bed and timezone.
