Summer fridays rule...

Coach has this cool concept of summer fridays, what it amounts to, is you work 10 hours a day for the first 4 days of the week, and then go home early on fridays!

Anyways last time around I promised photos!! Now time for me to figure out how this shit works... Jenn's friends post pics all the time, some seriously amazing photos are up there, makes me want to grab my camera, blow off the dust and try and remember what I know about photography...

The above is an example of a really bad picture... I've been shooting for about 4 years, very off and on... My previous life was a traveling consultant whereby I would be all over the country, sometimes around the world, and so had lots of opportunitites to shoot photo's and refine my talents (much, much refining is required...) but if you shoot 4,000 photo's a day you get lucky once in awhile...

Somewhere in there is Kyle... This was shortly after his 11th birthday... With my previous life I had to travel a lot, so much so, that I was not home for my birthday, or Jenn's for 6 years straight.. just had crazy bad timing. I was however usually able to make it home for the kids, but missed Kyle's Bday, so to make up for it I told him we could go anywhere he wanted to go! I however suggested we go Deep sea fishing (he loves fishing) in Florda, and he went for it...:) One of the perks of being a consultant on the road 60-80% of the time, is you have a ton of frequent flyer points, car points, hotel points so it was also relatively inexpensive.. Most expensive part of the trip, was chartering the boat for fishing (Hey good news there, dad gets sea sick...)

We had a lot of fun in Flordia, went fishing, and swiming in the ocean, it was good times, a good bonding experience, at least for me and that was the intention.

So yeah, occasionally I get lucky, I am definately not a natural at this. I walk around the world in a bit of a daze, I go about my business with the intent of getting where I am going wihtout much thought to the world around me. Probably why I fit in so well in New York frankly... but thats a topic for another blog... Whenever I pick up my camera I have to literally flick a switch in my head to change the way I view the world and be able to take some decent pictures...

This one is from the botanical gardan in San fran, I was there with a friend photographer who was busy out shooying me everywhere, I spotted this little flower floating perfectly in the small pond and thought hey cool and shot it... as soon as he saw it he got a little miffed with me, we were of the habit of not taking pictures of what they other shot...:)

All things considered that was one of my better days for photo's..

Our internet is hella slow tonight, but theres some samples of what you can do with an over priced camera and a lot of luck...:) My advise to anyone starting out, get a good beginner camera SLR preferrably as they will stretch as far as you want them to. I'd also heavily suggest taking some courses if you are going to take it seriously.. F stops, ISO, BW bracketing, all kinds of strange things you need to be mildly aware of, or your pictures can turn out like that first one, instead of

We're going to the Diva's BBQ tomorrow, I'll be snapping a ton of photo's there and put them here or on FB... each image took around 5 minutes to upload, feels like dialup, and the process is a little bit of a pain in the ass... more power to you ladies out there that post every day...:)

I like the new little widget that tells you who visit's...now I know I am blogging for a reason

Well, more eventful days... I've never really had an easy life, let me change that up a little, I have never had a SIMPLE life...:) I'd hazard a guess that 95% of the world would say my life has been easy.

But I have kind of specialized in being complicated... I think I get it from my mom..

anyways enough boohooing.

We put in a offer to lease on a place in Jersey.. no idea if it will be accepted, process if very different/strange as its almost like buying a house, you negotiate the move in date, the price, the down payment/deposit, everything.... and then wait to see if the landlord will accept it...

Its not what we were hoping for, 3 bedroom place so the kids will be bunking together but its in a good neighborhood and was all we could afford with the house still not sold.

Then we got an offer on the house! They offered 20% less than what we were asking... and they can't afford anything more than 15% less than what we are asking. What is it about tough economic times that brings the parasites out in people? To put that in perspective, houses down where we are looking run 500,000 for a 4 bedroom in a reasonable neighborhood.. that would be like me walking in and offering someone 400,000 for their house...

Thank god I have my family behind me, because if we agree on the price I believe we need to agree on, we will lose 25,000$ selling the house we already put 20,000$ in improvements in to sell.... In order to even make that a possibility I have to borrow all of the money from my parents so I can write a check to the bank to walk away from the house I paid so much for and did so much work on... Here I am, a grown man, working for a living for the past 11 years, and I had to cash in all of my RRSP (401k for you americans), steal money from my youngest sons college/schooling fund, and once all is said and done I will have a 25,000$ debt to show for it. Actually, its quite a bit more than that, but I can blame the other debts on things we actually enjoyed so not going into that here...:)

Anyways hopefully this move was the right things to do, hopefully Coach recovers before everyone else in this economic blah blah and we can start making some money... for now its going to be tough. But, as someone keeps reminding me, we're all together finally. I am working for a great company that my wife's friends all love, my boss is great, the team I work with is great, my kids are great... I really have more to be happy about than sad, but who the hell likes losing money? I know everyone is losing money right now, anyone watching their retirement savings are watching it do nothing but go down, but the only time that really matters, is if you need it right now...

If you don't need your retirement savings, leave it where it is, keep investing in the same investments and they will come back. The market always bounces back, it just sometimes takes awhile.. Luckily, I have no money in the market, one less thing to stress about...:)

OK, next step, posting pictures of the family, dogs, disney trip etc... this weekend I swear I'll get some various shots up on here and start making a concerted effort to make this more than just a wall o text.

Wow once again, letting the blog slide...

Well been an eventful couple of months….

We closed up the house up north, packed up everything consumable, gave away whatever we couldn't bring, and packed the kids, dogs and ourselves into the rented mini van and drove down to New York… what I normally drive in 6 hours, took us 10 door to door. We were on the road for 12 hours, but Jenn doesn't want me counting the first two hours because we were getting lunch, and driving her brother home, walking the dogs before we started for the border etc etc, but hell we left home at 10am, and the car was in the garage in NJ (empty for the most part) at 10pm, that in my books is 12 hours…>.>

Getting across the border, oh man was I terrified something would go wrong there.. Jenn had packed up a bunch of dry goods to bring with us, pasta, canned crap, flour, sugar and I was too paranoid to bring it with us… We breezed through the border.. I think it helped that the lady who was interviewing us loved Coach and wanted us to adopt her… We didn't even have to show the dogs papers that I spent 2 days getting, or really answer any questions… we just walked up, got the passports stamped and the visas put in, and off we went..

We moved down July 4th weekend, and I promptly threw my back out, spent 4 days being waited on hand and foot… I thank god it happened when it did, can't imagine my friends helping me as much as Jenn did…. Ever hurt your back? There is no pain as intense, except I am told child brith… Of course for the really luck ones, child birth doesn't last 4 fing days, but whatever… It hurt so bad I could not get out of bed, I literally could not lift my legs, was almost paralyzed by the pain and lack of mobility. That was some of the scariest time in my young life… I couldn't help but think what if this stays this way, what are we going to do..

Gavyn came in on Thursday (first day of the ordeal) and demanded Breakfast.. Jenn was busy trying to help me find a position that would allow me to stop screaming, and Gavyn wanted to know what was wrong with me. I asked him, have you ever seen Daddy cry before, Um nope, well that’s how much this hurts… he promptly turned around and left. I never take time off work for illness, my parents raised us to believe that if you didn't break a bone, or have a fever you didn't stay home.. I was out for two days, feeling guilty the entire time, but I just couldn't do it.. The first day, late in the afternoon I managed to get into the car and drive to the chiropractor, by using my hands on my legs to push on the peddles… talk about horrifically unsafe… Jenn came with me to help me into and out of the car, talk about a stupid plan… here I am driving with my hands on my leg to control the gas/breaks with my wife in the car.. Bad enough I should die in a car crash but to take her with me? Luckily nothing went wrong, and the chiro/massage really helped…

Other than that, we are in our luxurious 4 story town home, boy are the kids ever in for a surprise when we rent some other place that is a hovel because we haven't sold our house yet and we need to have somewhere to live….but while it lasts it sure is fun…!We're all getting a lot of exercise from the TV being in the basement and the computers being on the 4th floor..:)

I'm sure some of you have teenagers… Kyle is 14, and a fine upstanding young man don't get my wrong.. But there are times where I want to grab him and shake him until his head falls off… He never thinks, he just does stuff… he gets bored and eats, or finds a raspberry in the container of raspberries that are designated for a special desert, and tosses the entire thing in the garbage…. Or eats my secret stash of cashews in my office, not just one of them, but rips the bag open and spreads them all over the inside of my drawer..He was grounded from use of his computer for reasons that I can't even remember anymore, but he goes on my computer, his brothers computer, he gets up in the middle of the night and plays on my computer so we won't notice….he watches TV until all hours and sleeps until 1… I mean I remember doing some of this shit, but I still listened to my parents for the most part… he listens, agrees, then completely ignores us and does whatever he wants..

Other than grabbing him and shaking him until his head falls off, I'm running out of ideas… One thought we had was that we are going to have him use his money/allowance to buy food for himself, so he knows how much things cost… secretly I am going to go eat his food once he does that… to show him how irritating it is to be saving a half bag of chips for Friday night all week, to avoid the temptation of eating them so you can enjoy the guilty pleasure at the end of the week, and then when it comes time, to open the bag and find it completely empty.. Or just missing.. See how much he likes it.. Will have to do it randomly though so he doesn't get blase about it…I just don't know what to do to get through to him…

Nanyways, serious wall of text, but there you have it.. I hopefully will be able to write we sold the house for real this time, the next time I write… shh don’t tell Jenn.

Long time no talk...

Don't even remember the last time I wrote to my blog.. Its been crazy busy at work and I just fall asleep on the bus on the way home... Not much different about today except its Jenn's birthday today.

Happy bday girl!! You say you wish you were stronger, but I don't know many people who could raise three kids on their own while their absentee husband is god knows where in the world dooing whatever the hell it is he calls work. From meetings at the school, to late night trips up north to find a runaway son who doesn't know how lucky he is, to a husband who isn't even home for your birthday... You are the strongest person I know, bar none.

I miss you with all my being, and am counting the days to when you guys move down here. I don't know how the hell we"re going to afford it... But I'm ignoring that for now because I miss you all so much.

We lost the bid on the house, and our agent felt that our best chance of selling was to take care of some of the items from the inspection report like the asbestos in the attic. 10,000 dollars before taxes, which is 15% in mtl btw, to remove this shit from the attic... Of courde halfway through the find an issue... Just like everything else in this stupid house the guy who did the renovations did them half assed and we have a suspended ceiling... The asbestos has fallen through the first one, and is sitting on the second one...

now what? Its not buyer be ware in montreal. I can't just remove half and leave the rest, so I have to take care of it... 6,000 dollars more, before taxes... I have no idea where I am going to get all this money, the bank of mom has offered up but that's just humiliating... I love her, but she has had to bail me out so often that my dad looks at me sideways every time I visit wondering when I am going to ask for money no doubt...

Its not that bad of course, I have paid back every cent I borrowed each time, but still...

Anyways enough self pity...

Bummed on bday...

Happy tax day, er bday!

Just another day I know but sucks to be alone for it, for what the 8th year in a row Jenn? Anyways its only wednesday but this is the culmination of a shitty week.

Get to deal with a new batch of consultants that someone on high decided I needed... They are doing a great job of repackaging the work my team has done over the last month and showing our upper management all that "we" have done... Just awesome...

Got my taxes in... Jebbus... Nuff said there...

The offer on the house fell through, even if it was a shit offer it would have given us closure. Now we have nothing but a bunch of stuff we should fix to make the next offer (if there is one) smoother... Not things that will give us roi mind you, just things that will make it possible to sell the damn thing.. More awesome...

Meh, thought it would feel good to "talk" to someone, it really doesn't..

Been awhile.

I was reminded that it has been awhile since I last posted, we've been busy...

We got an offer on the house! Yay!

The offer sucked. Boo!!

We countered and they didn't run away screaming, yay!

They countered with a slightly less shitty offer, boo!

We had no choice but to accept, ya... Oh wait, boooo!

They want a building inspection, ok. The building inspection turns up vermiculite in the attic. Wtf is vermiculite? Apparently it contains asbestos! Booo! Its safe to leave and no law in quebec requires that you remove it, but.... It will cost 10000 to remove! Boo again!

Well water needs to be tested, ok. Comes back as hazardous! Boo!

Meanwhile jenn is down south with me for a week to look at houses! Yay!

We find one, it has been one the market for over a year! Can anyone smell a deal? Yay!

The day we look at it they drop the price! Yay!

Someone else makes an offer! Boo, forcing us to make our best offer! Boo so much for getting a deal!

The other guys offer is accepted! Boo some more!

U get the point. I know we have all been brainwashed into thinking that if we don't own a house we aren't successful and are just throwing our money away, but I would be 30 or 60k richer if we hadn't moved depending on how carefully I loolk at the numbers, and believe me, neither of those numbers are ones I want to dwell on for a prolonged period...

So we are waiting for the final decision from our buyer, who will no doubt try and make me pay for ecerything, not sure what I will do. Surfing the nj bus home to take jenn to the airport where a bunch of mean people will take here away from me.

Much as I love my foster family, the last week has been the most relaxing and amazing week of this adventure! Can't wait for jenn and the boys to be here full time.

Before I wipe out, these drivers don't drive any smoother when there is someone standing, ill sign off. Keep smilng, at the very least you can have the satisfaction of knowing that everyone around you will wonder what you are up to.

God I hate eating alone...

Possibly the only thing worse than eating out alone is going to a movie alone. Seriously, I'm not a shy person but sitting here with nothing to do but talk to you guys while I wait for my food is meh.

Just found out that as soon as I apply for my h1 visa I will not be able to leave the country... Guess I should have given the kids an extra big hug before I left yesterday, but at least things are moving afyer a 5 month pause. We are moving, wether we sell the house or not wheels up july 1! Wootness.

Its funny because my relo package includes a packing and move service, but jenn wants to pack for us... Not that the professional packers will do a good job... At least when jenn packs we know what is in the box...

Well boredom apparently does not equate to elloquence so I will call this a post and move on to staring at the wall, less depressing than watching the families eating around me.