All Painted Up - 9 Days until move

Down to single digits now... the excitement is building along with the unending rain here. I will start doing my clear-weather-please-stop-raining-for-just-one-day-dance now.

Here is a brief tour of all the rooms in their vibrant colours:

First off is of course Liam's well documented room of blue plus bear heads. This choice was the easiest as it most closely resembles a room we have in our place today.Next door to that we have the room which will start out as the office, but will later become a second children's room just in case we decide to have another devil-beast. Claudia wanted a colourful house, and yellow is the gender neutral colour of choice.
Next door we move to our bedroom, which is a purplish blue colour on the back wall, with the rest of the walls in white. It is the smallest bedroom, and it is on the north side of the house which does not get that much sun, so I wanted it as light a colour as possible to help make it feel a little bigger and lighter. A few people have asked why we decided to take the smallest bedroom, when the mummy and daddy would traditionally take the largest? Well, we thought that basically we only spend a few moments per day in our room, sleeping and getting dressed, wheras Liam will be in there playing with toys, and generally spending a lot more time. So we too a room to hold clothes and a bed, children get space and sunlight. The biggest room after the living-room is the office in the basement, where I think we will spend the most time (after the living room of course.
Now we go downstairs to the living room and we can see the famous RED WALL. This is the colour that started the whole phase of Claudia wanting a colourful house. She saw a red wall someplace and got it in her head that she wanted a bright red wall too. Well here it is, and is it ever red...
Just around the corner (It is all open) is the Kitchen. Now all the tiles are in and we just have to wait for the installation of the cupboards and counter top.Well, that covers the living space. I will put up some photos of the nice tiles in the bathroom once they are all finished. I am sure you are on the edge of your seats.

Haircut - 10 Days until Move

Liam has now had his first haircut and the hippy look is over. It was a long time in coming and I think that I was more worried about how he would behave than I needed to be. Since he is such a little terror smashing around the house, I assumed that there was no way he was going to sit still for anything, much less a stranger with scissors and clippers going to work on him.

However, all was fine and you can see the little guy looks much more groomed now. We took him to my barber, since I knew he had a couple of little kids that are always running amok in his shop. I correctly guessed that he had some experience cutting the hair of crazy kids.

Here he is with his new haircut, playing a fun new game called pour things from one cup to another.

Exciting Developments - 11 Days until move

I now have pictures in a Museum.

The Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland has exhibit called "TOUS PHOTOGRAPHES! /

WE ARE ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS NOW!" about The rapid mutation of amateur photography in the digital age. It is done in collaboration with HP (where I learned of it,) and also some newspapers, magazines and universities. Essentially they take submissions and then display them on a rotating basis, each image for a short while.

I thought is was cool and submitted a few pictures I took that I liked, the neat thing is that when the museum displays your photo, they send you email with a picture of how it looks. So here are people looking at my images in the museum:


There, now I am famous... Well, mixed in with the many many many other people and pictures that were shown, but still. That is the first thing I have ever produced that was shown in a museum, so I still feel like it was an accomplishment.

ADDITION:

Here at the request of Dave in the comments are the photos in the original format I have posted some of these in the past:

Bear Heads again - 12 Days until move

This weekend I went over to the house to paint the famous bear heads on the wall of Liam's room. We have these in his current room and we like them, so he gets them again. My mother seems to not approve and think that they are too babylike, but we say a resounding "Meh."

Liam's constant companions in the house are Oompa the bear and Bobby the bear, so it seems appropriate. Besides, we like bears too.

Here is the freshly painted blue room, a blank canvas for bear head glory:Next, I made a line of tape and checked it was straight with the level so I did not make ramping bear heads. The bear head stencil came with his "Steiff" linen, so it matches the head on his blankets and changing table:
Then after a little bit of work, a nice border of teddy bears surround the room for some bear fun.

Later on, if I want to punish him for something, I can start to paint evil eyes and blood dripping fangs on the bear heads. Then he will start to feel like he is surrounded by vicious animals, waiting to attack. If he keeps throwing stuff at me, this day could come sooner than later.

For now, he is surrounded with cuddly teddies.

My Big Promotion - 15 Days until move

I can hardly believe that there are only 2 more weeks until the big move. I brought the first actual moved items to the house last night. Two shelves for the basement. Since I have to go over there many times anyway, now that the basement is done, I will make sure the car has a few boxes in it every time I head over. That should ease a bit of the pain on the final moving day.

We spent about 3 hours or so packing up the office last night too. So many books and binders and things, they fill up boxes fast and it is a lot of trouble to make sure the boxes are not so stuffed that they can no longer be lifted. It seemed to go fine though. I think I am going to need a lot more boxed for the est of the house.

In other news, my massive "promotion" was announced. I am now the Product Manager for Business Communications Media for Europe. Snazzy. It is a small portfolio of products covering stuff like overhead transparencies, laserjet paper, brochure paper, and special inkjet paper. I am practically drunk with power. It should be a nice change from all of my chart making duties. On the down side, it makes my life even more like the TV show The Office. I think I should spend my time trying to invent new products, like the overhead transparency death ray, or brochures pre-printed with "Smilin' Gord Smith" on them.

Here are two products from my new world of paper.

Delays are starting - 16 Days until move

Well the time crunch is on and there is some pressure being felt! The tiles man was supposed to do his stuff last Friday and he has still not started! Time is ticking away and we are getting a little nervous! If the tiles guy is not done, the floors guy cannot start... etc etc etc...

What makes the whole thing even worse is the typical German customer service. Phone calls are not returned, reasons for delays are not given. We have made it abundantly clear that we MUST move in on March 10, so there better be some real action in the next days.

I don't have anything else to say today, so here are some neighbourhood chickens:

A good video - 17 Days until Move

I was just listening to my glorious iPod on the way into work this morning, when I was thinking a bit about music videos. I watch MTV fairly often and I notice that they hardly show videos anymore, it is all MTV shows now with the occasional Britney Spears crap thrown in when the show is not quite 30 minutes long.

Anyway, I was thinking that I had not ever seen a lot of videos for my favorite songs, so I decided to go onto You Tube and type in a few band names and titles to see what was there. First song I typed in is the last thing I was listening to as I reached the office today: The Bluetones "Slight Return." First of all, the song is pure genius, but the video is pretty darn good too. I especially like the singer's slick dance moves in the school at the very beginning.

It seems that You Tube is a far better source for music videos than MTV. Pretty much every song I cared to look up was on there and it was all on demand, no waiting for commercials or for the silly TV hosts to talk a bunch of garbage.

So here is the bluetones video, I recommend it highly. A fine band that I very much used to enjoy.



And as a special treat, here is a video of Liam dancing along to Spongebob on TV. I know the quality is horrible, but it was the best I could do on a second's notice. Much like Gord Smith, he bursts into dance without warning and I was lucky to capture this.

All the Bears - 18 Days until Move

Another game Liam has come up with in the last couple of days involves taking as many bears as he can, placing them in a little cart and pushing them around the house. Then he takes them out of that cart and places them in a second cart.

Then he yells at me.


Liam plays quite a lot with his bears, which I suppose is not really a surprise given the sheer volume of bears that exist in the house. The funny thing is that not too many of the bears were specifically for him, there were probably 20 bears in the house before Liam came along. I gave Claudia a bear for a Christmas or Birthday a few times, and people had sent bears along as gifts on various occasions.

End result is that we live in a bear sanctuary and when Liam is in full swing, there are few surfaces in the apartment that do not have a bear on them. I use bear as the generic term for stuffed animal, some of them are monkeys or rabbits or dogs or whatever. Bears and Monkey are best though.

Dudeball - 19 Days until the move

Here is a game that Liam and I are playing pretty much every day at the moment. I have called it Dudeball since I play it with the dude.

Essentially, it combines some of Liam's favorite things.
1) Throwing
2) Sitting in a basket
3) Balls.

It works fairly simply. First he lets me know it is time to play by running up to me and yelling BAAAAALLLLL as loud as he can. Then he takes my hand and pulls me in the direction of the living room.

Liam then gets our our shopping basket/carrier and climbs in.

I have to give him the three balls that are his favorite.I sit on the floor over by the couch, and he will then throw the balls to me out of the basket.Finally he indicates victory.
Dudeball.

The Masterpiece - 22 Days until move

Here is the first "drawing" produced by Liam the wonderbaby (click for full size image.) This was done yesterday at his day care. I had intentionally not given him pens, pencils, crayons, or any other drawing tool intentionally until now as I selfishly thought of our walls and furniture.

As you can see from this glorious piece of art, I was not exactly missing out on anything with this approach. I know he is one, but lets face it, he has no skills. I asked him what this was a drawing of, and he looked blankly at me for a few seconds before running around the house yelling "baaahhhhhhhhhh" and then sitting in a basket. So it seems that Liam is some sort of post-modern interpretive artist. This drawing signifies the plight of the tiny people, which can also be shown with an anguished yell and a self imposed confinement.

Study this art and let me know what else you think this could be.

extra post

I just read this and laughed out loud at my desk.

We have a Front Door 23 Days until move

Well, the temporary front door has now gone and the proper front door is in. It looks funny since the rest of the outside is still all the rough brick. I am still very happy with the door we chose though. It is full of bluey goodness. Here it is from outside and then inside.The first layer of paint was also done for the halls, ground floor and the basement. The basement was actually completely painted, it is starting to look much more livable.On the one hand, I cannot believe it is only 23 day until we will move in, on the other hand, these next 23 days cannot pass quickly enough for me. The waiting has gone on so long that most of all, I just want to get into the house and finally not have to think about what has to be done.

I know that we will still be moving and doing little odd jobs here and there for the next year or so after we move in, but it will be so very different once we are there.

Happy Valentines Day - 24 Days until the move

Yup, it is Valentines day. Hooray for the card and flower industry.

It is also Mike Ponter's Birthday. Hooray for the Mike Ponter industry.

Here is a picture from our wedding, look how happy we look when no one is throwing the food on the floor.

Stair are in now - 25 Days until the move

So, the stairs are in the house now, and that is a relief. Until now, there has been a temporary stair that was a sort of fold up circular stairway that was really treacherous. The rest of the stairwell was just blocked off with a board across it, so we needed to be quite careful not to plummet.

Here are the stairs from top to bottom. Check out how the pictures line up, pretty slick.
OK, I was doing another google search for some of the crazy characters from York and I was not successful. So I will give the task on to those reading this. Have a try to find out any information you can about RIC BULLARD. I really want to know what became of this guy. Tell me what you can find out! Paul Pace is also a good project.

Team Canada - 26 Days until Move

On my last visit to Canada, I bought Liam a hockey sweater. I went with Team Canada so he could have the partner look with daddy. Although, my team Canada sweater is an older style, and the home version. Also, mine is a huge size since I wear it when I play and it fits over goalie equipment. So I can't exactly wear it around the house unless I gain about 100 pounds to fill it out. Maybe in a year or two...

Anyway, the smallest one I could find for Liam was 24 months, and he is just big enough to fit into it now. I think it looks cute on him and he likes it since it has a big patch on the front he can touch.

It is not all party time even with a new exciting shirt though. He is always begging for cookies, and I refuse to give him any. I think he is too little for cookies and cakes, he can eat fruit if he wants a snack. This made me unpopular...
Lucky for me, he has a short memory. We played a little bit of ball, and then I put him in his PJs, gave him his bear and a drink and let him watch cartoons. Then All was forgiven.

House Update - 30 Days until move

Hello there,

Only 30 more days until we move, I can hardly believe that they have built the house so quickly! The ceiling is up now and most of the little cracks and gaps in the concrete have been sealed off.

First here is a pic of the upstairs bathroom. The tile laying dudes will start in the next day or two. This will be blue and white.
Here is the room that will be the office at first, but will potentially become a children's room if we ever decide to have another devil-beast. You can see that there is still some dampness in the wall next to the window. This will have to be dry before we can move on to painting.
This one is the view from the kitchen, looking through the dining room spot and part of the living room. Both glass doors open on to the balcony, although at night there is not a whole lot to see out of there.

Finally, the giant heat pump has arrived and is installed. I am really hoping that it is not always going to be quite as loud as it is right now. I am going to attribute the high noise level to the fact that the openings to the ground are not sealed off yet and it is cranked up to full to help dry out the concrete. GIANT DUCT HOSE.