Dad's Wedding

My trip in Winnipeg has been a lot of fun, and I will write a proper entry about it soon. But the main reason I took the time off work, bought the plane tickets and an expensive three-piece suit, and then flew down was for my Dad's wedding!

During my last visit for Xmas my Dad announced to the family that he'd proposed to Andrea, his girlfriend of about 10 years! I can't believe it's been 10 years! I still remember when he first started telling my brother and I he was seeing a new woman. A girl at work had introduced them, that girl was my now-step-sister, Ashley.

Neither of them are religious, and they weren't looking for a major ordeal, so they had their wedding at a very nice restaurant named Bailey's. It was a beautiful wedding, friends and family, and it was a great time. My Dad was beaming all night, I'm so happy for him!

I had a decent role in the wedding, which I wasn't expecting. As the first born son I was at the head table. It was my Dad and Andrea, with me at my Dad's side and Andrea's best friend at hers. I held on to the ring, was part of a small procession including the 4 head table members led by Andrea's Dad on bagpipes. I even signed as a witness! Derek brought his new Digital SLR camera so I took some photos. Using it made me realize I miss photography, though just as a hobby. The photos are on my USB but I won't be able to upload them until I get home in Halifax.

It was a great night, everyone had a blast, and everything went perfectly. We took a limo to and from the wedding. My Dad gave a great speech that blew everyone away, with some great jokes. The food was amazing, I had a steak, and much alcohol was consumed. Family came in from all over the place including my uncle Keith and aunt Sandra and their kids Jordan and Abby.

The next day I went for lunch with my Dad and Andrea before they left for their Honeymoon road trip together. The previous night they'd stayed at one of the nicest hotels in the city, and they'd gotten a complimentary room upgrade to the biggest nicest room in the hotel, with candles and rose pedals spread all over the room. So happy for them. Andrea is great, and I'm glad to have her as a member of the family. Her son Andrew is cool, and now my step-brother. We're going to try to go for drinks before my trip is over.

Self Portrait

Took a self portrait the other day and think it turned out really well.  Makes me miss photography.  I still need to get new gear, sold my old stuff about a year ago.

Finally Here

I moved in to the new place on Thursday!  The move was pretty painless, Ryan, my new roommate, helped.  The new place is SO much nicer.  And the area is waaaay better too.  The first night after moving in we ordered some pizza and rented videogames.  Life finally feels real here.  I’m not some shadow of myself trying to survive.  I actually had fun, and felt like myself.  Maybe it’s because until now my weekends were sitting alone in my apartment, not speaking a work until I was back at work on Monday.  Making a new friend and living with someone is 2 birds with one stone!  Over the weekend we caught a movie, and Ryan still hadn’t checked out downtown so we did that as well.

While we were downtown I did some window shopping and found some nice clothes I want get, namely a really nice jacket.  And now that money is freed up, I’m looking into joining the gym down the street from work.

		New Place! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I seem to be caught up on all my expenses as well, so I FINALLY have money again.  It was pretty bad for a while with all the initial moving costs (remember I moved TWICE).  But money is freeing up and I have actually quite a bit of spending money left over on each check now.  I finally get to see the money of my new job.  And I’ve decided I’m going to park my car.  I finally got around to calling to switch my car insurance to Nova Scotia and they wanted to charge me 250$ a month!  I paid 150$ in Alberta.  I rarely use it as it is, like maybe three times a month.  And that’s usually for grocery shopping, and Ryan said I can just tag along with him when he does his grocery shopping.  The odd time I do need a car I can just pay for a cab.  There’s no way I’ll use 250$ a month in cabs, so I’m still saving money.  Still, I love driving, never thought the day would come when I voluntarily gave up the right.  We’ll see though, I can always change my mind and insure it later. 

In the meantime I don’t mind taking the bus.  The view from the bus stop outside our place is amazing!  We living up on a big hill so we get an amazing view of Halifax.  Especially at night when all the city lights are glimmering below.

The one downside of not driving is no road-trips.  But I suppose I can rent a car, it’s not too expensive.  Next Spring I’ll probably do that so I can go on a mini-roadtrip to Prince Edward Island, it’s only about 4 hours away.  I’ve always wanted to drive across the Confederation Bridge.

But ya, life is feeling so much better out here.  Having a friend and roommate, living in a nice place in a nice area, and having spending money again all add up to make things much more manageable.  Life was pretty dark for a while, but I’m really beginning to enjoy life out here.

So on that note, I leave you with a video tour of the new place!

Gong Show

Yesterday seriously sucked.  It was my errand day so I was already not looking forward to it.  But I didn’t think it’d be too bad…

The plan was to go grocery shopping, create an account at Blockbusters and rent a game, come home and play the game while doing laundry.  The grocery shopping and game rental went fine.  But the laundry would end up being my whole day.  First I gathered up all my clothes and lugged it down to our seriously ghetto laundry room.  I poured the detergent in and put in the clothes only to discover the stupid thing wouldn’t turn on.  I had to wash the laundry now that it was covered in detergent.  I know clothes can get stained if detergent is put on it and then not washed.  So I lugged it all back upstairs and figured I had no choice but to hand-wash my clothes and then drag em back down to the dryer.  So I chucked all my clothes in the tub with some detergent and cold water.

It took about 2 hours of grueling scrubbing and ringing out.  Once washed ALL the clothes I drained the tub and began the long process of rinsing.  I held it under the tap and kept ringing it out until there was no soapy bubbles left.  I noticed the water looked really inky and that worried me.  I generally washed my clothes together in the machine, but maybe hand washing was different somehow?

Once it was finally rinsed I brought it all back downstairs.  It was insanely heavy now that it was wet.  I loaded all the clothes into the dryer, and tried to put in the 1.50$ but realized it only took quarters.  So I had to get in my car and drive a few blocks to a gas station to trade my loony for quarters. 

Finally got back and put in the 1.50$ and started it up.  An hour later I went down and the dryer was just finishing.  When I opened it up the clothes were still literally dripping wet.  They were warm, but wet.  And because they’d been sitting in there wet the whole time, the white shirts had been having the inky water drip through it the whole time.  I could immediately tell they were ruined.  So I hauled the heavy wet clothes back up 3 sets of stairs and had to hang all my clothes all over my apartment.  Socks on the window sill, jeans hanging over the shower rod, everywhere.  I left all the windows open and used my fans to help.

The whole day was an absolute nightmare.  I ruined 3 white shirts, fortunately none of them were my favorite.  My favorite 2 white shirts weren’t in the wash this time, thankfully.  What was supposed to be an hours of errands followed by a relaxing day of videogames ended up being 5 hours of stress.  And this morning I checked the clothes, and while they are drying, they feel stiff like cardboard, so I don’t know if I’ll even want to wear them without washing them properly first, as I don’t know if I did any good, or if they’re just all inky now.  What a horrible day.

Fortunately the game I rented, Singularity, ended up being really fun.  Was up until 3:00 AM with junk-food and pop playing it.  Today, after this entry, I think I’m going to go on a coastal drive and check out the ocean.  Hopefully this doesn’t turn into some other horrific ordeal!

Grrrrr

Look how cool I was…  =P

New Glasses

I ordered some new glasses because my current ones get somewhat uncomfortable sometimes.

In the end I decided to return them.  Not quite my style.

I Have A Mother-Effing Boat On My Mother-Effing Shoes!

New shoes I bought while in Winnipeg.  I like em!

 

Dragon Age Avatar Clothes

Dragon Age Avatar gear was released a few nights ago.  I bought the Dragon Age shirt that I own in real life.  Check it out!

Blood Dragon Armor For Dragon Age AND Mass Effect 2

James did a bunch of work on the Blood Armor project, which has now been shown in both games in this trailer!

Got My New Glasses!

I’m pretty happy with them.

New Glasses

I found a great store online for buying designer glasses for cheap.  I broke my glasses a few months ago.  They are still wearable but one side is all supported by a single screw, and it’s only a matter of time before it breaks, so finding this site was good timing.  I bought a really nice pair of designer glasses for 120$, after tax, shipping, lenses, everything.  I don’t even have to pay till I get the glasses, so no risk.  I should get them in about 3 weeks, since it takes time to cut the lenses, put them in the glasses and ship them.  Since they’re so cheap, I may get a different pair in a while, and start having different stylish glasses I can pick depending on my mood!  So here’s the pair I ordered today:

It’s got a cool cityscape design in black and red along the sides.  I’m excited to get them, and in another month or two, like I said, I’ll probably order a different pair!

Dragon Age Shirt!

My free Dragon Age shirt from Bioware for working on the project.  Pretty spiffy I think!

David After Dentist

I want this shirt.

Loot

Mass Effect apparel is now available for your Xbox Live avatar!  I bought some of it, because, and I think this is awesome, I actually own it in real life.  I own the shirt my avatar is wearing.  Bioware gave them out before they hit stores, and I managed to snag the last medium.  So go on Live and pick up the digital version!

New Vest!

Welfare Costume Ideas

So Kyra and I decided we should hang out Halloween night and get drunk with friends, so if you're reading this and have no Halloween night plans, you're invited. Midnight-ish, cause we both work till close first.

Costume is gunna be mandatory, so I'm trying to think of cheap costume ideas since I'm broke. I could go as a cowboy again like I did last year, it's all clothes I own worn in a very specific combination with a borrowed cowboy hat. I could also go as a 50's gangster with clothes I own, again worn in a specific combination, just need a fedora. My last idea is to dig out all my old clothes from when I was a teenager and go as 1999 Dale, all black baggy clothes, chains, black nail-polish, etc... Lol, though I think it's a funny idea, I'm honestly not too keen on reminding myself of that style... Thinking 50's gangster most likely.

Won't be as good as when we had our novelty portrait last year though.

A Fun Day Off!

Had today off, and so far it's been great!

Woke up this morning and took the bandage off my tattoo. Put some vitamin E on it and took a shower. So far looks pretty cool, though it's only half done, and no red yet. But at least it's the bottom half that's done so when I wear a normal tee you can hardly tell it's not done. My next appointment is on October 18th to finish it up. It's been years since my last tattoo, I forgot how addictive it can be; I'm already thinking of what to get next. Kyra wants to get a tattoo some time soon so I'm gunna go with her and possibly get one at the same time. She's made me promise to let her break my hand while she gets it done.



Today Andi and I hung out for the day. We went to Dal's for lunch, and then she surprised me by getting the bill, which was cool of her. From there we headed to Value Village and tried on Halloween costumes, clothes and accessories. Lauren always finds cool things there.

Tonight Kyra and I might go see a movie. Tropic Thunder is playing, but she's seen it. I'm thinking Dark Knight, cause she's never seen it, and I can never see it enough. Loved that movie. After that I think it's computer games with Chad.

And with that, I leave you with a picture of my purchases from today: