They’ll Let Anyone Graduate These Days

I finished the last exam for my MBA program on April 22, but my graduation ceremony wasn’t until June 11 --- about 1.5 months later. It is only fitting, therefore, that I have decided to post the pictures from the convocation ceremony in mid-July. I guess I just couldn’t wait any longer.



Some of my classmates didn’t attend the ceremony – about half of them were missing. There were times while they were reading out the countless names of undergraduate business students that I wished I had not attended. However, in the end I was glad that I took an afternoon to formally mark the completion of my degree. The speeches were nice – with people telling us how great we are and how we’ll change the world – but mostly it was nice to wear sweet robe and feel like I’d accomplished something kind of difficult.


The Masters students get to wear a slightly fancier robe with fake sleeves. You have sleeves, but you are supposed to stick your arms out the slits instead. It makes you look like you have 6 limbs… kind of. It would only fool some people though. For example, I wasn’t fooled for very long when I saw them at first.


I had some fans in the audience rooting for me (R, Scott, R’s mom). I didn’t even think of sending out announcements or anything, so I don’t think anybody really knew it was coming. Heck, if I hadn’t had an email from one the other students reminding us about a post-convocation celebration, I might have forgotten it myself. Because it’s halfway through June, most people are probably knee-deep in their new lives could potentially forget about it or pass up the opportunity for these quality photos.


Not me. I am an MBA and I am a dedicated to getting sweet pictures of stuff.


Scotty was not quite so dedicated, and hurled the cap on the ground every time we tried to put it on him. We managed to snap one decent shot just before lift-off.

Favourite Treehouse Shows

Two years ago, I had no idea about kids shows, except that Sesame Street was probably still on the air and Barney seemed a little too fruity for me. Oh, how things have changed.

Our TV is tuned to channel 70 for Treehouse TV almost all day long. Treehouse TV is the network devoted entirely to programming for preschoolers like our little man. While he is familiar with most of the programming he always had some clear favourites. So have I. My favourites have stayed pretty constant, but his have changed over time as his tastes have become a little more sophisticated.


For example, in the beginning, his favourite show seemed to be The Mole Sisters -- starring two moles who mostly giggle and roll around with the help of low-budget animation. I think they are both voiced by the same lady, so the moles are indistinguishable from each other.

I thought he would be most interested in shows with singing and dancing and lots of things to watch -- something like 4 Square -- but he seemed to enjoy the idle frolicking moles.

Besides making gorilla and owl sounds, one of Scott's first recognizeable "words" was "choo-choo", and the boy has been a train fanatic ever since. Given his love of trains, you would think he would be crazy about Thomas and Friends, that classic show about everyone's favourite tank engine on the Island of Sodor. I like the show well enough, but I have to admit that the action is bit slow, since the remote-controlled trains have limited expressive ability. Still, he loves to play with his Thomas trains, so we thought he would love the show.

However, Scotty surprised me again, opting for fare such as "In The Night Garden" (although I must point out that the Linky Lonk is basically a train, so you could argue that it's a show about a train... kind of). The star of the show is Iggle Piggle, but Scott's clear favourite is Makka Pakka, the short, chubby rock-polisher. In fact, Scott will frequently clap his hands together and say something that sounds like "makka pakka". He has also taken to making little humming or cooing sounds that he never made when he was younger. We figure it's an homage to Makka Pakka.

Now, personally, I prefer The Backyardigans over all other Treehouse programs, mainly because I think it's well produced and very, very clever. Scott doesn't care much for Pablo and friends, but he will occasionally humour me by watching, particularly if there is a train in the episode. He'll watch an episode of anything that includes a train.

A train episode is what made him a Dora fan. We noticed that an episode of Dora the Explorer was going to have a train in it, so we recorded it. He probably watched nothing but that for a few days straight. That's how he is with things he likes. He wants nothing but that until he wears it out. I think he gets that from my side of the family (ie: Grandpa and motorcycles, uncle J and remixes, etc). He also became a Diego fan, but it was Dora first -- thanks to Azul the Train (does anyone else wonder if the blue train was a ploy to win over Thomas fans? I suspect so).

With all this talk of train shows, there is one that we have left to the end -- and for good reason. This show is like a part of the family. While interest in others have waxed and waned, this one has stayed strong through it all. This one is Chuggington. We have changed diapers to this show, brushed teeth to this show... it is part of the daily routine. We have our PVR set up to tape the latest episodes every Saturday and Sunday, and I am not surprised to see that we have more than half of the 52 episodes recorded. I think we may have deleted that ones that were kind of boring, but we never get rid of any that have that superhero of the train world, Action Chugger.

The day will come when Scott grows out of Chuggington, and that will be bittersweet.

First Nightmare - Monkeys

We woke up at 2:30am yesterday to the sound of Scotty screaming. When we got to his room, we found him wimpering and still partially submerged in what must have been a nightmare. As his speech became more defined, we heard him moaning, "Too many monkeys. Too many monkeys. Monkeys too big." We're not sure what else was happening in the dream, but we certainly understand how a surplus of oversize monkeys could make someone very uneasy -- especially somebody as little as Scott.

comments:

the mama said...
Poor little guy ! I remember when my brother, D, was having a nightmare about bats--he thought they were chasing him. He came down the hall into my room in the middle of the night (still asleep) ducking and swerving because he was sure they were after him.

Tara said...
I've been having the same nightmares, but with cockroaches. I know Scotty's pain.

Eric Jakob said...
That is great. Its fun isn't it?

David and Cheryl said...
Our kids are forever tormented by "Crazy Frog" in their slumbers.
As for poor little Scotty, Bruce Wayne used to have nightmares about bats and that became the precursor for him becoming Batman. Looks like you may need to accept the inevitable.
If he asks for a utility belt this Christmas, it is a done deal.
- The Walkers

D said...
So, he's destined to become MonkeyBoy, avenger of evil? I doubt the wardrobe would be even half as cool as Batman. Fur accessories are not typical superhero fare.

Grandma Walters said...
Okay, which one of you have been reading him his bedtime stories??? My nightmares were always bulls chasing me. I still cringe to even see one in a pasture way off!

Last Recital?

As with every spring since about 2003, R had a singing recital last month for her voice students. This time was a bit different because it was probably the last one for a while -- she's going to take a break from teaching with the baby coming. R is excited for the break, but I know it was sad for her turn her precious students over to someone else (he has referred several of them to a friend of hers who is also a teacher). We'll see if she misses it enough to come back to it in a few years.

The Ultimate Roller Coaster Ride

This blog has been silent on the topic of additional children for a long time, and it has been completely idle for the last 2 weeks. Silence might mean one of two things:
-You have nothing to say
-You have too much to say

For us, it is a case of the latter. The last few weeks and months have been full of changes, but nothing compares to the last two days, when our little apple cart was roughly upturned.

When I started my masters program, R told me that there was no way she was going to have another baby until I’d graduated. She wasn’t explicit about whether that meant she she could be pregnant before graduation, as long as the baby didn't come until afterwards. For reasons beyond our control, there was no baby and no pregnancy until all the exams were over.

Not quite a year ago, we asked our doctor to refer us to the Regional Fertility Centre to help us to have another child. She faxed a request to them and we were told that we would be contacted. Several months passed with no word.

Several more months passed. We asked the doctor if she’d heard anything, since we sure hadn’t. She contacted them again for us. Finally the RFC contacted us for a consultation. Because we had moved from Ottawa and had changed clinics, we couldn’t jump back into another treatment cycle without stepping through their procedures. Tests were ordered, time passed, and we had another meeting with our doctor. While the RFC generally recommends IVF (because of its higher success rates), we pushed to do IUI again, since it had proved effective for us before. The waiting times for IVF are several months, but we were able to go into an IUI cycle immediately.

In our experience with fertility treatments, this was probably the first time ever that the waiting period for something was shorter than we expected.

We began a cycle in April and after several weeks of self-administered shots and frequent trips to the radiologists, we were faced with a difficult decision. The hyperovulation medications had been overly effective, and R had 3 full-size follicles poised to release (desirable) and 3 more medium-sized follicles that could also release (undesirable). In these circumstances, the chance of a multiple pregnancy was about 1 in 3, approximately double the average rate for IUI (15%). Having been informed of the risks, we decided to ahead with it anyway.

Few children can say that they were present for their siblings' conception. Scotty may get to be one of the few, since he came along to the clinic on the big day – May 11.

You are supposed to do a home pregnancy test 17 days later and call the clinic with the results. We did a test 13 days later with the most sensitive home test that I could find. I remember it was a quiet Sunday morning. R came out and gave me the tester because she didn’t want to look at it. A negative test is one pink line – a positive test is two pink lines. I saw one thick pink line and one fairly faint line.


Yup. Pregnant.

It’s hard to compare our reaction this time around to the first one back in September of 2006. I remember R calling me at work back then and the sudden blast of relief that gushed over me. It was so wonderful. This time was weird. We just looked at each other and we said something like, “OK, but how many are in there?” Your standard test kit doesn’t have an additional little dial that says “Singleton – Twins – Triplets – Quadruplets – Madness.”

We were excited, but mostly we were uneasy. Optimism crept in with time, but we still felt like we should refer to the unborn as “the baby or babies."

It turns out our unease was warranted.

Producing too many eggs in one cycle can make a woman feel quite ill. In fact, there is considerable danger if the symptoms of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) are quite severe. R experienced a mild-moderate case and some symptoms may persist through the first trimester. Then the pain in her side started.

The pain has been kind of mysterious, but she was quite worried that it might be an ectopic pregnancy -- perhaps a tubal pregnancy. She was frustrated that the RFC was not particularly interested in following her case because they have set up all their schedules for IVF and IUI doesn't quite fit in. For example, the clinic does an early ultrasound for all IVF patients to check for ectopic or multiple pregnancies, but they would not requisition one for R, even though her risk of these conditions was roughly equivalent.

Finally, our family doctor came through for us with a requisition to get an ultrasound for a date that fell just after the 7 week mark. That date was the day before yesterday. I came to the radiology lab to attend the appointment, but their policy does not permit guests into the room to see the monitor until the exam has been completed. After 25 minutes of sitting in the waiting room, I started to get uneasy. Suddenly, instead of getting called in to witness the little heartbeat like 2006, R came walking back out.

She wouldn't tell me anything until we could get out into the hallway. My worst fears swelled up in my throat, but she seemed composed. When we were beyond the glass doors, her composure disintegrated.

Through tears, she told me that they hadn't called me in because the case was too complicated and they were going to have to send the results to our doctor, and we would get the information from her. However, after some prodding the technician had confirmed that three implantations had been observed, but there appeared to be an empty sac and another measured a week smaller than it should have with no observable heartbeat.

We left unsure how many babies, if any we might expect. R was in confused devastion and I was following a close second. You see, the technician had congratulated Rachelle on a pregnancy, but she hadn't given any details of a successful implantation or mentioned a heartbeat. We needed more details before we could completely pass judgement on the situation.

I went back to work and R went home to a restless afternoon as she consulted with her circle of confidantes. At about 5:30, she called me to say that our doctor had just phoned her with the results. The doctor reiterated the report about empty sacs and the phrase "no sign of gastrovascular activity."

No heartbeat. By week 7, you should certainly have a heartbeat. The doctor recommended another ultrasound in 2 weeks to follow up, but she made it clear that the probabilities were low that the test would reveal a viable pregancy.

That was it. As far as R was concerned, she thought that it was over.

I still hadn't given up -- but that is typical for me. Things just didn't add up. The technician had congratulated R on a pregnancy and had mentioned three implantations, but all the embryos were described as being inviable. Why would you congratulate someone on an inviable pregnancy? Needless to say, it was a somber mood in our home Wednesday night.

Thursday was a dark day. The plumbing company that was supposed to come back and fix a leak in some earlier work that they did for us got their appointments mixed up and left R hanging around the house all morning for nothing. She was not impressed when I spoke to her on the phone. The plumber finally did arrive in the afternoon.

I called her to check how the work had turned out, asking if she had given the plumber a piece of her mind. To my surprise she dismissed the issue completely. She said, "I don't really care about the plumber, because I just had a wonderful phone call."

My heart jarred to life suddenly.

R had engaged the services of a midwife when treatments started, to see her through the pregnancy and to be her advisor and advocate when the system leaves her uncertain. Her midwife obtained the ultrasound report and clarified everything. Embryo #3 showed a healthy heartbeat of 155 beats per minute. Size was right on target.

This phone call was exactly like 2006 -- all the relief, the jubilation. I was very nearly overcome with all. Over the course of 24 hours we had been through quite the rollercoaster:
-pregnant (need a bigger house)
-pregnant with triplets (need a much bigger house)
-probably miscarrying multiples (don't want to think about houses)
-pregnant with 1 (need the bigger house again)

With each piece of news our life looked to be taking a new direction. We anticipated that this would likely be our last pregnancy, since the treatments are quite a long and painful process. Faced with a miscarriage, we really didn't know where to go next. Suddenly, the way had opened up for us again.

Personally, I have had to mourn those other two embryos as the #3 and the #4 children that I'll probably never have, but I am so, SO happy to have that one little heartbeat in there. Hopefully, they'll let me see you next time, little buddy.

comments:

Linz said...
Ultimate roller coaster ride is an understatement. I was just on it with you reading that post. Oh my goodness oh my goodness. I am so very happy that you are pregnant.

the mama said...
Your dad and I were SOOOOOOO happy to get your second phone call with the wonderful news ! We had been so sad for you both the night before. Oh, what a difference a day makes !! CONGRATULATIONS !!!!

Lisa said...
Crying in Naperville...we are so happy for you! Love to all!

Jennie & Jeff said...
WOW, you guys must be emotionally drained. CONGRATS!! We are excited for you.

Julie Airmet said...
Congrats guys!!

ReeSesPcS said...
Wow! I'm amazed at all you have had to go through. Congratulations! That is SO exciting and I hope R doesn't have to go through too much pain for it all. You guys are an inspiration! We're happy for you!

Kage said...
We are thrilled for you, and sorry about all the drama. I had to read your post a few times to completely understand......

Jamie said...
What a relief. The ups and downs can be the hardest thing in the world to endure. Sounds like upward and onward! We're SO happy for you!!!

Jessica said...
Congratulations!!! I am so happy for you guys. Keep us posted and keep blogging!

margo said...
wow...crying in mccall as well. We are thrilled that it turned out like it did. we've seen those ups and downs and our heart goes out to you. so happy that it had a happy ending. :)

jenjakob said...
Congrats D and R!!! So happy you'll have another little munchkin. Can't wait for all the updates for this one!

David and Cheryl said...
That's wonderful news for you three to have a new addition to your family! We're extremely happy for you.
- The Walkers

Anonymous said...
Congratulations! What wonderful news and what a lucky baby on the way to have you for parents. Scott is such a handsome little boy too by the way.
Wishing you an easy breezy pregnancy. You'll love the midwifery experience.
-Olsens in Ottawa

Grandma Walters said...
Derek, thanks for sharing that most tender, spiritual, and finally uplifting narration on this new little baby. I hope you do get to "meet" that wee one on the next visit. We know how dear Scotty became to you both over all the blogs over the months! Please keep us all posted again now that "it" is really on the way. We are so happy for you! Love, Grandpa and Grandma Walters

sheri said...
GREAT NEWS!!!! So happy for you three!!!
(P.S. my word verification says "diesheri". Why would somebody want me dead?)

Planes and Trains At Calaway

This is why we moved back to Calgary

(to be with family, not just for Calaway Park).

June in Calgary

Everywhere I have lived, people have claimed that their particular city of residence has the craziest weather ever. I'm got going to go so far as saying Calgary is the craziest, but I am not going to say that it has the best weather, either.

Weren't we just swimming two days ago?

A Boy And His Backyard

Summer is SO much better than being cooped up a tiny house all winter. It's too bad the water from the house is cold as ice. We have to fill the watering can with hot water from the bathtub to stave off hypothermia. Maybe if we left it filled with water a bit longer, it would get warmer. However, the pool is usually filled with dirt and leaves by the time Scott is finished playing in it.



Cute, cute, cute.

Better Shots From Calaway

BigJonnyG sent me these photos from Calaway Park, which are far better than the ones I took on my phone. This shot of Scotty with his hands in his pockets is now one of my all-time favourites of him.

Scotty saw me putting my hands in my pockets that morning and copied me. We just need to hope that he shows better judgement than I did at his age -- on several occasions I tripped while walking with my hands in my pockets and ended up with quite a number of nosebleeds and other injuries. Yesterday R noticed him doing something else I do -- cracking his toes by crossing the big toe over the index toe. She thought it was cute, and not so immediately dangerous as the pocket-walking.




comments:

margo said...
I love that hands in the pocket shot..he looks like such a tough guy....then you read what's on his shirt. love it.

Grandma Walters said...
Hey, sons copying dads is good in many ways. Also sisters copying sisters. Made "potty training" much easier!!!

the mama said...
I love this picture too ! He reminds me so much of you at that age. Wow--they have really upgraded the rides since the early days of Calaway Park.

JwRiDe said...
i'm with margie...sweet hands-pockets pic

These Mediocre Video Clips Are Not Mine

My friend McBourne was having some trouble embedding YouTube videos into a blog post, so I tested the code he was using on my blog and we worked out the problem. Since I've already gone through the trouble of putting the code in here, I figured I might as well post it and we'll see whose blog gets a larger audience response.

He said that the theme of his post is something about the videos being fairly mediocre and somewhat out of date, but he figured he should post them anyways, rather than letting them slip another few months. I joked that I end up a lot of video clips that are much worse -- the ones where you're trying to take a photo and you've turned the camera sideways for a portrait view and don't realize that you've left it on the video setting. Those videos are usually about 3 seconds long and the script is generally runs something like, "What's going on-- oh, it's on video. Rats."

Anyways, here are his sledding videos from Family Day. Feel free to leave comments.

Boys And Bikes

We had a Saturday practice ride with the Scouts and Ventures to help prepare for our 5-day bike trip this summer. As you can see in the picture, there are lots of bikes and boys of all sizes.



If you look especially closely, you can see one very little boy hovering around his dad's big green bike.



I have pulled him in a trailer a few times and he just loves it. Usually, he's strapped in there comfortably with a drink and some snacks and just sits back and relaxes. You don't even hear a peep out of him, but if I look back at him he just grins at me.

Our Little Six-Footer

We've heard a few times that you can get a decent approximation of a child's future full-grown height by doubling a height measurement taken at 2 years of age. Well, when Scotty turned 2 stood him up next to a tape measure to predict the future. He was just shy of 36 inches -- which is also the minimum height for several rides at the local amusement park.


Based on this crude estimator, Scott will be about 6-feet tall. We've also heard that the best time to measure is actually a bit later than the 24-month mark, so maybe my guess from last year of 6'2" will still hold water. Since Scott is holding pretty steady above the 85th percentile for height, that seems reasonable.


As for weight, Scotty started stepping on the scales with me on a fairly regular basis the last few months and I was surprised to see him pushing into higher percentiles for weight. We thought the weight would be going the other way, since he's been a lot fussier about eating foods lately.

Opening Day at Calaway

We all have season's passes to Calaway Park, the amusement park just west of Calgary, and we hit it on opening day (which also happened to be the only decent day in the May Long Weekend).


Scott had a buddy to accompany him on all the little kiddie rides because we hooked up our neighbours up the street (J&J Whitey), and their little boy B is only a month older than Scotty.


Heritage Park sells $20 tickets for a 20 minute ride aboard a steam train dressed up like Thomas the Tank Engine, which we thought was a little pricey for an experience a 2-year-old might hardly remember. When Scotty spied this little blue train ride at Calaway, he immediately shouted out "There's Thomas!".


I think he probably enjoyed this ride aboard "Thomas" more than he would have appreciated the larger-scale (and more expensive) ride at Heritage Park. He was sad that he had couldn't ride in the lead engine, settling for a lowly passenger car. At least he still has something to look forward to.


At 36 inches high, Scotty was turned away from a few rides for being too short. With his hands tucked into the pockets of his camo pants, I would have thought him too irresistably cute for anyone to turn him away. The shirt says 'I [heart] Mommy'.


Why does the sight of a carousel make me want to sing the song from Teddy Ruxpin?


Although the temperatures were less than sweltering, J and his son G braved the infamous 'log ride' and got fairly soaked just before we called it a day.


It only took us 10 minutes to drive back to our house from the park, so we're planning on hitting it several nights a week over the course of the summer. By the end of the season, we anticipate Scotty will break the 38-inch mark, allowing him to branch out into a few more rides.


Plenty more sunburns to come!

Plumbing Emergencies Are Always On Weekends

See that van out front? That is the plumber coming to our place for an emergency service call because the drains in our basement were backing up.



See that enormous tree? That is the cause of the problem. Apparently, the roots had grown right through the pipe that goes from our house to the street. The plumber was able to use some fancy technology to send a camera down to investigate and send a auger along to bore it out. He also said that we should get it bored out every 2-3 years (and he mentioned that it's close enough to the edge of the property that city might come and do it for free).

That makes me wonder. Will I actually remember to schedule this with the city in 2-3 years, or will I just wait for another weekend emergency?

Happy Mother's Day

On this Mother's Day number three,
We love you, love you, mommy dear.
We shout it on your day in May,
And love you more each passing year.

WE LOVE YOU!
-Scotty and Scotty's Daddy

Birthday on a Budget

My sister throws unique birthday parties. Theme parties. For example, her son is really into Indiana Jones, so she made a cake shaped like a hat and created satchels and whips for all the guests. We cannot compare with her and her themes.

My cousin makes really high-quality birthday cakes. Museum-caliber works of art. The cakes are so good that she's gone into business. We cannot compete with my cousin and her cake-making.

My sister-in-law likes to host big parties. She booked the church and served up dinner for a large number of guests for her daughter's first birthday. It was not on the scale of a wedding reception, but it was a far cry larger than any party we've ever thrown. We cannot match my sister-in-law on matters of scale (but we did steal her balloons).

We know our limits, but we also know our strengths:
We excel in the deal department.

For Scotty's 2nd birthday, we got him piles and piles of loot for a low, low price after several months of careful acquisitions (we also took him swimming for 75% off).


1. Little Tikes Vacuum Cleaner (Kijiji): He has a little popper that he likes to push around the house whenever the vacuum comes out, so got him his own little vacuum, complete with dustbuster. I have a standing query in Kijiji.ca for anything made by Little Tikes, so we picked this up from a lady 5 minutes from our house.


2. Thomas the Tank Engine train rack with Lights and Sound Percy (Kijiji): Another Kijiji subscription tells me about all the Thomas gear that comes up for sale. A lady in a neighbouring community sold us this rack for Scotty's trains and cars for less than half of the retail price, plus we got this Percy engine that makes a a chugging sound when you roll it along. Two Replacement batteries would be $4 each at the store, but I got 10 of them for $1.75 on ebay.


3. Toy Garbage Truck (Chapters/Airmiles): We get Airmiles from shopping at Safeway, but rather than endure the frustration of trying to book flights with them, we traded some in for gift cards at Chapters. Since Chapters has recently started selling toys, we were able to order this toy garbage truck -- Scotty loves to watch the garbage truck come by our house. His pronunciation of 'garbage truck' sounds a lot like 'Scotty truck'. He took this toy to bed every night for 2 weeks after his birthday.


4. Knapford Covered Bridge for Thomas the Tank Engine set (Chapters/Airmiles): We bought his bridge with gift cards as well. Chapters has a train set kids can play with, and Scotty has always loved the bridge. We loved that it didn't cost us anything.


5. Tricycle (Kijiji): A friend down the street tipped us off to a Kijiji ad for this brand-new tricycle that someone was selling. I didn't have exact change, so instead of a loonie, the lady who sold it to me gave me a toy dog with a big gold chain that sings hip hop music if you squeeze his paw. I don't care much for the dog, but the tricycle was a good buy.


6. Unofficial Chuggington t-shirt (CafePress.com credits): Scotty's favourite show for a while now has been Chuggington -- the British animated program about three young locomotive 'trainees' who are learning how to pull mail cars and passenger cars, etc. We have nearly every episode ever made recorded on our PVR. The show seems pretty new and the merchandising efforts have not made their way to Canada yet, so I had a shirt made up on CafePress.com, where I had $14 of credit from the sale of my Settlers of Catan design. Free custom shirt!


7. Thomas the Tank Engine musical couch (Kijiji): The piece de resistance was this couch, which I bought back in January from a lady in Edgemont. It has buttons to play the theme song and toot a whistle, as well as a throttle that turns some plastic wheels with appropriate sound effects (no, the wheels do not make the couch move). You can fold the side down for couch mode or velcro it upright for serious train-driving.

Those are the presents that we got him, but he also scored some sweet loot from his Grandparents, including a huge plastic road/rail set of Polish manufacture (Wader Toys) and the Disney/Pixar move "Cars", which he watches several times each week (he calls it 'car show').

The anticipation of holding these toys for so long made the big day that much sweeter. Time to start acquiring items for Christmas. I've already picked up a few items on ebay...

Happy Birthday Scotty

Beware of the Training Pool

You can do a lot of damage to yourself in a a kiddie pool only 60cm deep.

We have a family membership at the YMCA near our house, so we take frequent trips to swim in the pool. Back in January, Scotty transformed himself from a very static "stand-and-watch" swimming style to a hurricane on two legs -- streaming chest-deep through the water like a torpedo, with us scooting around in tow. It is very awkward to try to move quickly in 2-feet of water if you are 6 feet tall, since you are working from a seated position the whole time.

In one instance, Scott took a stumble and I lunged out to the side to catch him. I mean, heaven forbid that he should ever dunk his head! I managed to buoy him up without much more than a mouthful of water, but I smashed my elbow on the floor of the pool. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

Two months later it was still sore -- but sore in a very strange way. If I was a wearing a long-sleeved shirt or jacket, bending my elbow would pull the fabric against the joint and cause tremendous pain. I finally got an x-ray and they determined that I had cracked a piece off of the end of my elbow.

It's getting better now, but I am going to start wearing more protective gear in the pool from now on.

This MBA is Done Like Dinner

Monday night I had the last exam in my 2-year full-time MBA program at the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business. Although I thought I had the upper hand, the program had one last surprise in store for me.

The exam was scheduled from 7pm-10pm on Monday night, but the class was normally held from 6:30pm-9:15pm, so halfway through the exam I got mixed up and thought that it ended at 9pm. This nearly gave me a heart attack at 8:45 when I looked at the clock and thought that I only had 15 minutes to finish a third of the exam. I didn't figure it out until 9:01 and the professor still hadn't stopped the exam. For a while there, I thought I was going to fail.

But don't worry -- I'm quite sure I passed (95% confidence).


You can't just go to sleep after such a monumental event, so fellow graduate SM and I headed out for Chinese food at Sun's on Center Street. We didn't order the jellyfish heads, the pig's ear or the deep fried intestines, so everything was pretty tame.


After that exam scare, my stomach couldn't handle anything too crazy.

-D, MBA

Hunting Easter Eggs at Home and Abroad

 

 

 

What Boys Do In Winter - 2009

Two years ago I posted an entry entitled "What Boys Do In Winter":


A few years have passed, and the faces are different, but boys are still boys:



This video was from a recent overnight trip to the Kananaskis Lower Lake campground about an hour west of Calgary. The daytime temperatures were decent, but it dropped to -26C during the night. As is typical with winter camps, discomfort and the call of nature rouses you out of bed before you would really prefer. To shake the boys out of their groggy haze and to give them something positive to remember about the camp, we went out in a clearing created by a frozen pond and played British Bulldog and Capture the Flag in the deep, deep snow.

The games gave way to random sequences of violence for the benefit of the camera.