update

The weekend...
...was kinda busy. Leah is in the last week of term, so she was writing papers all weekend. I did some laundry and some groceries. I also went to a party at my bosses (newly finished) house...
Two weeks 'til Christmas.

weekend

The weekend was a welcome break after a hectic week...
Some things we did (not in order):
Brunch at Starving Artist
Church at Newman
Groceries
Laundry
Watched people skating at city hall
Visited vet to buy cat food
Falafel sandwiches
Epic walk
Naps

tuesday update

The weekend...
On Friday night we went to hang out at Lisa's... well, it was at an apartment where she was cat-sitting. The owner is an antique collector, so the place was rammed with crazy stuff!
On Saturday we went to the Eaton Centre to buy some clothes for work. Afterwards we went to Hibiscus, and then stopped by the MOCCA gallery.
On Sunday, I went to church in the morning. Afterwards, we did epic quantities of laundry and then I went grocery shopping. That night we went over to Andrew and Esther's for dinner...

weekend

Not too much to report...
On Friday night we went out for dinner.
On Saturday, Leah went to the library, and I went down to Queen Street. I stopped in at the MOCCA, and was happy to find a really cool show of work by David Hoffos - check it out if you get the chance.
I also walked down Queen, stopping in at Rotate This, which was having a sale.
That night we did laundry, and then I worked on setting up my portfolio website... which is slow going and involves reading a lot of wordpress help docs.
On Sunday we went out for brunch with the Cumbys and the Woods. That evening I did some grocery shopping, and then after dinner we watched a movie called The Exploding Girl.

weekend

On Friday night, Leah went to Dorian and Lodwijk's housewarming party. I was pretty tired, so I stayed at home. I ended up using the evening to 'install' wordpress on my immigrantdesign website. I still have an extremely limited knowledge of how it all works, so it will likely be a while before I have a new portfolio site up and running.

On Saturday, we went to the dentist. That afternoon Leah did the laundry and I went grocery shopping. After dinner we went to the Woods' house to hang out.

On Sunday I tried recording some music. It was a bit frustrating, 'cause I think our netbook just can't handle it (time for a Macbook?).

That evening I finally bought the R.E.M. Automatic Box that has been sitting in Sonic Boom for months. I listened to it whilst making butternut/yam/carrot soup and apple crisp for dinner. We also watched the movie Julia after dinner, which is insane.

Blogging

That is all for the Berlin pictures... for more and better pictures by somebody else, check out Christine Lim's 31 pictures of October.

This weekend was Halloween. Which is also the end of October and the start of the beginning of winter (at least in my mind). To celebrate, it snowed an ever-so-small amount on Sunday morning, and this morning's temperature was below freezing.

Which means I am taking the subway instead of the bike. Which means I have to read more books (to stay sane). So I grabbed Til We Have Faces on the way out the door this morning. I have read it once before, but started it many times before that. We shall see how it goes - despite having a hard time getting into it, it is possibly my fave Lewis book...

In other news, I played guitar at church on Sunday - which was pretty fun. It is always impossible to really hear everything, so the only course of action is to just play...
Afterwards, we rented The Birds, in order to celebrate the day.

weekend

Here's the weekend update, for old times' sake...

Friday - I walked home after work, and then we went to D&J's for dinner.

Saturday - we biked out to little India to meet up with the Woods and the Huang/Bowsers for lunch. Except the restaurant we arranged to meet at doesn't exist anymore... so we ate at the new restaurant in its place. On the way home we got soaked.

That afternoon I went to the saddest Bloor street festival ever. It was pretty much rained out, and I felt bad for the artists and crafters who had rented tables, and for the bands playing to two people.

That night we went over to the Woods to hang out.

Sunday - we went to church in the morning, and then afterwards went to the Common. That afternoon we did laundry and grocery shopping. I barbecued a dinner, and then that night we watched It Might Get Loud, which was pretty decent...

And that is all.

wknd

On Saturday we went to Saving Gigi for breakfast, and then walked to the Outdoor Art Show. As usual, there was a lot of art, and some of it was pretty sweet. It was also hot and really packed, and I got sunburned.

That evening we went to the McG's - who are recently returned from Europe. It was good to see them and they showed us a bunch of pics and video from their trip.

On Sunday I went to church in the morning. Later we did laundry (mostly Leah did laundry and I watched soccer.) And then that night we watched SLC Punk, which was good.

long weekend

Hope everybody had a good Canada Day / 4th of July / Pride weekend...

I decided to work all of last week and take Monday off. On Friday I got off at lunch time - so overall it was a 3 1/2 day weekend...

Which I kicked off by going grocery shopping. On the way back from No Frills I stopped in at the library, where I watched the last 20 minutes of regulation play in the Ghana/Uraguay game (the quietest soccer fans are at the library!) When it went into overtime, I went home and put the groceries away, and then went to the local Portuguese bakery to watch the rest of what turned into a heartbreaking defeat for Ghana...

On Saturday I got up early and took the subway up to Yorkdale to meet Cyril and his boys and get a ride out to our church camping trip location, where we hung out for the day. We played soccer, volleyball, and ultimate, had a barbecue, lit a fire, swam in the lake (not me - it was FREEZING), and had a good time. I got a ride back with Andrew and Esther, and got home sunburned and tired at around 1am.

Sunday - I got up early and went to church. For the rest of the day I just hung out at home, and then that night I rode my bike over to Yonge street. I forgot that it was Pride weekend, so there were quite a few crazy revellers still out.

Monday - I did some cleaning... and then later bought some more groceries and went over to Andrew and Esther's for dinner. On the way home I stopped in at Value Village and bought a couple of shirts...

Also - the weather all weekend was great. It is HOT (it was 30 degrees in the living room when I got up this morning!)

That is all...
Leah comes home tomorrow!!

weekend etc

The weekend was an interesting one... The big news in Toronto was, of course, the G20, and the associated protests/anarchy/police presence associated with it. I was down on Queen Street on Saturday afternoon, taking advantage of some sales at record stores... when a bunch of cops on bikes started yelling at people to turn around and leave the area (I was just west of Spadina at that point). Anyway - I went home and listened to the news as some misguided blackbloc'd people vandalized this town.

I don't have too much to say about the whole thing, other than that hatred and violence seem more like problems and less like solutions. Also, all the protests (peaceful and not) seem to me to be highly ineffective ways of promoting a cause.

I also did some painting on the weekend (see above)... and hung out with some people after church on Sunday...

Also - last Thursday night was the last night of my sculpture class... I don't have any good pictures of my coffee cup carving, so here is a crappy pic instead. I am super happy with how it turned out...

weekend

We went for a lot of walks on the weekend - despite the weather not being all that great.

On Saturday morning we walked to the Peak Gallery to see my carving teacher's show. We ended up talking to the owner of the gallery for about an hour, which was cool. We also met his dog, Max.

That afternoon I went for a walk in the Annex. I randomly stopped in at Sonic Boom just in time for an in-store performance by Robyn Hitchcock. I don't really know his music at all, but it was pretty cool to see him play a few songs. The crowd was mostly older music-nerd types, although Julie Doiron was there too...

On Sunday morning I walked through the street festival in the Annex. That afternoon we tore down the wall that was partially enclosing the porch on the house. It went pretty smoothly, and the porch is now way more open and slightly less ugly.

That evening I went to church, and then afterwards we had dinner and went for one more walk...

weekend

On Friday I left work a little early in order to get my driver's licence renewed. Leah met me at the licence place, and on the way home we saw a crazy bicycle/car accident. Luckily everyone seemed OK - but it was pretty nuts - the driver was doing a U-turn in the middle of College, and basically just pulled in front of a courier. Somehow (it happened behind us, so we didn't actually see it happen) the bike ended up in front of the car, while the biker was on the ground behind the car...

That night we went to see Basia Bulat/Julie Doiron/Wilderness of Manitoba.

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key - with some laundry and groceries, and going out for coffee...

After church we went out for dinner with the Woods and Emily & Colin...

weekend

This weekend finally got sunny and warm. On Saturday we went to the Common, and did a bunch of grocery shopping. Leah also did the laundry.
In the afternoon, I tried my hand at postering the construction hoarding near our house - with a somewhat sketchy recipe of one part evaporated milk to one part water.
That night we went to see the Jessica Stuart Few at the Rivoli... check out their music here.

On Sunday I walked to the Annex to get some stuff at Midoco. I also read quite a bit of this book. Later we went to church.

skip a week

Last weekend we went to Kingston for an afternoon Your Heart show...

This previous weekend I worked on some semi-successful drawings/paintings.
Also, we had brunch with Don and Jessica on Saturday, and then dinner with some folks from church. Afterwards we went to a Great Lake Swimmers show at a Legion Hall. It was like a trip to a small Canadian town.

This cover is awesome

weekend

On Saturday, Leah took Mabel to the vet for one of her usual expensive checkups. She is not into this.
I made my way down to Queen and Spadina, to stop in at Criminal Records, for Record Store Day. There was actually a line-up to get in the store, which is weird enough, but especially weird at 9.30ish on a Saturday. I bought a couple of the Record Store Day special editions - vinyl reissues of R.E.M. and Tom Waits records - as well as a couple of other records.
That afternoon we went to Mike's party/barbecue. There were one million babies there.
Afterwards Leah and I roamed around the city on foot/streetcar.
On Sunday we went to the Common and to No Frills. Also, we went to church in the afternoon.

weekend

Friday night was the Your Heart album release show. I was pretty tired from a long week, but it was fun. Special thanks to the Billie Hollies and to Elissa & Joseph for opening.

Saturday was weird, 'cause late nights throw me off completely. In the morning we went to the library and to get some stuff from an art supply store. I also bought a used copy of the Athens, GA: Inside/Out soundtrack at Zoinks.
That night we went to see the dress rehearsal of This is What Happens Next, 'cause Kate has hookups like that.

On Sunday, I went to an elders' meeting while Leah went to play bass at St John's. Afterwards I worked on taxes while she worked on finishing her final paper of the year...

That is all.

Easter weekend

On Thursday night we went to a housewarming party, and then went to D&J's to watch the Lost Boys, which is still pretty awesome (I don't think I'd seen it since high-school).

On Friday we met Katherine for breakfast. That night we had a show at the Central. It went pretty well, and was a good warmup for this coming Friday's show at Supermarket.

On Saturday I went to Ikea to get some picture frames. It was sort of crazy (Ikea on a Saturday).

On Sunday, we did some laundry, and then went to Kensington for lunch. After Easter church, we went to Rancho Relaxo for dinner.

weekend

On Friday I stopped by Andrew & Esther's place, where a number of guys from church were getting together to play videogames. I demonstrated to all my lack of videgame aptitude, especially when it comes to first person shooter type games.

On Saturday Andrew had arranged with a friend of his for Your Heart to be the house-band in a student film project. So we (well, those of us who were available) got to stand on stage at some sort of high-school spring dance (actually a decorated church hall) and mime along to a recording of Love #1...

That night we watched Rocket Science.

On Sunday we went to buy a bike helmet for Leah, and then stopped by Holy Oak. After church we watched Stranger than Fiction.

hi/lo

On Friday night we went to D&J's for dinner. We also watched the September Issue, which was pretty interesting.

On Saturday we went grocery shopping. Leah had a lot of school work to do in the afternoon/evening, so I wondered around town, despite the weather being not as nice as it was during the week.

On Sunday I walked around and visited a few art galleries and coffeeshops. Leah worked on school stuff and had her first church choir practice.

After church, we went to D&J's for dinner again.

"We are creating a massive new entitlement," Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) said during floor debate Sunday.

As a society, we wouldn't want people to feel entitled to adequate healthcare. Especially poor people.

Also - why all the debate over whether this will cost or save government money?.. the message is that you should only help people if there is no cost - which is ridiculous.

And also (and I can't believe I am referencing Michael Moore) - our schools, police and fire departments are all 'socialist'... so what's with the red scare rhetoric?!

Too little too late

I have never tried to contact a government representative before. I realize that it is a little late, but when I found out that my Democrat Rep was planning on voting against President Obama's healthcare reform plan, I decided to send along a note...

weekend

On Friday night we went to Clinton's to wish Tim goodbye - he is moving to Winnipeg to work in marketing for the ballet.

On Saturday I got my hair cut, and then we walked to Crux to buy a book that they did not have. The weather was dreadful. That evening we went to the symphony.

On Sunday I went grocery shopping. We both played music at church, and afterwards Bradley and the Makins came over for dinner.

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Check out this video for SELF-CONTROL...

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Check out this project that Andrew and Karl came up with... and give them money if you can...

Check out this amazing graph of Edmonton water usage during the Olympic Hockey final...

Gentleness

Because of some or other reason (I assume it has something to do with the legal ramifications of being famous), Shad's video in the ongoing Fruit of the Spirit series is available for a limited time only.

weekend

On Friday night we went to Bradley's birthday party.
On Saturday, Leah went to U of T. I went to the Dufferin Mall for groceries. I also bought paint to paint the bedroom, which we finished in a couple of hours that afternoon (I guess there are some advantages to having a small apartment!)
On Sunday, Leah went to St John's to play bass. I went to Holy Oak for coffee, and then to Value Village. Afterwards I painted (canvases) and painted (walls - touched up a couple of spots with a second coat...)
Leah skipped evening church to read books for school. After church we went out for Korean food with D&J.




Blogger/Google is ending their ftp support - which will screw up ImmigrantDesign.com... this is a big hassle for me.

weekend

so...
...sometimes I don't really feel like doing this update, but for some reason I try to do it anyway. Why is that?

Friday... we went over to Brad's for dinner.
Saturday... Leah made granola for breakfast, and then we ended up going to Ikea, basically to buy a light bulb for the lamp we bought there last weekend. But this time we went to the other Ikea, so it was totally different. Also, we went with D&J, so that part actually was different.
Sunday... we went to morning church, 'cause Leah was playing bass and we had a meeting after church. That afternoon we went to see the Under Great White Northern Lights movie at the Royal. The movie theatre was pretty empty, 'cause I guess everybody else in the country was watching the hockey game. I guess the game was good but I'd rather watch the White Stripes tour Canada. That night, D&J came over to our house for dinner.

weekend

Friday - we went over to Andrew and Esther's to listen to the songs that Andrew has finished recording for his Autumn album. It is going to be a good one.

Saturday - we went to Ikea to buy some things for our bedroom. New bedding and a blind for the window, as well as some storage bins so that we can finally empty out the desk and get rid of it...

Sunday - I did the laundry and went to the grocery store before heading to church. Afterwards we watched the Lovely Bones, which I thought was sort of terrible.

Today I am tired.

Also...

...check out the latest in the Fruit of the Spirit series over at the Freechurch website. This week features Cyril 'Ill Seer' Guerette.

I am loving how these are turning out. They are all quality, and the variety is amazing...

Midweek weekend update

Since it was a long weekend, and Leah has reading week this week, we decided to make the most of things and go away for the weekend...

So on Friday I raced home from work, took a shower and ate dinner, and then we headed to the Greyhound station for the overnight bus to NYC.
Ten or so hours later we ended up at Penn Station at roughly 6.30am.

Our main reason for the trip was to visit Sue, so we headed up towards her apartment. We stopped on the way at Tom's Diner, for breakfast, and also because it was too early to do much of anything else.
We spent the rest of Saturday hanging out with Sue - we went to the Jewish Museum (Man Ray), ordered in some sushi, and then ended up going to a crazy four man juggling show starring Sue's building superintendent (!).

On Sunday Leah and I went to MoMA. It was really busy, but really amazing. Their collection is crazy, and I could spend a week in there. Afterwards we headed over to Trinity Grace in Chelsea. We were early so we ended up walking around before church. Leah bought some long-johns at American Apparel (the same ones that Janeane Garofalo recently bought there, according to the salesperson!)

Church was great, despite a monster headache that I developed over the course of the afternoon. Afterwards, we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner.

On Monday we headed down to Sue's office to meet her for lunch. Her office looks out at the Empire State Building across the street, which is crazy! Afterwards Leah and I headed over to Queens to the PS1 gallery. It is a really fun place, and we ended off the afternoon in the James Turrell room staring up at the art/sky...

Afterwards we headed back to Penn Station. We grabbed some dinner, and then got back on a bus and headed back to Canada...

All in all it was a lot of fun. Many thanks to Sue (and her gracious roommate, Molly) for hosting us. It was really great to see Sue and get to see a little of her new life!


After we got back we headed home and went to bed (I took Tuesday off...) That evening was a Freechurch coffeehouse event... Leah and I each played a few songs, and then Your Heart played a set... which was a crazy way to end off a busy and fun looong weekend.

The Weekend

On Friday night I was kinda bored. Leah was reading, and I ended up roaming around the Annex aimlessly. I found out later that there was a free Great Lakes Swimmer in-store performance that I did not know about at Sonic Boom.

On Saturday, we went to the dentist. It was relatively painless, and afterwards we went for coffee at a small cafe at Bellevue and Nassau. It was sunny enough to sit outside.
On the way home we stopped by Soundscapes and bought this CD, which is kinda crazy.

That evening we went to D&J's for a delicious dinner.

On Sunday we went to the Common, and then stopped by the Dufferin Mall for some groceries. Church was good, and featured an awesome video of me rocking out on the guitar. Afterwards we made curry for dinner.

Weekend Upchuck

On Friday night we went over to the D&J's to watch Whip It... which was pretty much what I exptected it to be - silly but kinda fun.
Then some time in the night Leah woke up and started puking. She was in pretty bad shape for all of Saturday. I did some grocery shopping, and after dinner we watched Throw Down Your Heart - a documentary about Bela Fleck travelling to various places in Africa, to play music with local musicians and learn a little bit about the roots of the banjo.
On Sunday, Leah was feeling better, but still not great, so I went to church without her! Afterwards, I made some soup for dinner.

Also, check out the video for PEACE - in which I try to play the guitar!

coming soon

Rare midweek update !!

Last night Leah and I went to St. Stephens to record a song for the Fruit of the Spirit series that is going on at Freechurch Toronto. It was sort of ridiculous, and I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Afterwards we watched Julie & Julia. It is pretty good... mostly worth watching just to see Meryl Streep act.

The Fake News

On Friday I skipped out on the Interior Design Show and went to Regis College to meet Leah for the annual Regis College CultureFest. We ate assorted foods with her classmates and faculty, and then there was a short program that was basically a talent show of sorts.
On Saturday morning I went grocery shopping while Leah did the laundry. I bought all the ingredients for a recipe to make food for a mass of people who were coming over on Sunday. Sadly, our oven is one that our landlord got a 'good deal' on - and the food was pretty much destroyed.
In the afternoon I went to watch Avatar. I had read enough reviews to have a fairly low expectation in terms of plot - so I was actually pleasantly surprised. Really, I went to see the 3D craziness - which I have to say was pretty amazing. Overall - I would definitely recommend seeing it (to anybody who actually hasn't seen it yet!) - I might recommend it even in 2D, but you really should see it in 3.
On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then had an elders' meeting. Afterwards, I went grocery shopping again. And then we cooked food again for all the people who were still coming over for dinner (which was delicious and fun).

In other news...
Check out Andrew singing for joy...

The Weekend

I finally finished a drawing/painting that I started FOREVER ago. Here is a sweet web-cam picture of it... There was a bit of a race to see whether I could finish it before Mabel could irreparably destroy it. I sort of won - but she definitely left her mark.

Also - on Friday night Leah and I went to the Linux Caffe for coffee. I haven't quite figured out the connection between coffee and an open-source operating system... but it is a pretty nice place. It is a bit like somebody beamed in a coffeeshop from the nineties.

On Saturday evening we went out for dinner with the McGhees and the Richters. They were eating their first real meal after a crazy 10 day cleanse/fast. We were just eating a meal. It was fun.

After church on Sunday we went over to the HuangBowser house for a pizza party.

weekend

Friday night - Leah and I went on an 'Annex Date'. The Annex is where we end up when we want to get out, but don't have anything specific we want to do. We stopped in at Kensington Natural Bakery, and then looked at CDs and books in CD and book stores.

On Saturday, I went on an epic trip to acquire a new sound system for our apartment. My style of shopping (especially for somewhat expensive items) is to try to look at every available option before making a decision. This meant that I ended up at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Bay Bloor Radio, and ended up at each store TWICE! (Once to see what was available, and then again to actually buy stuff, which was complicated by items being out of stock etc...)

Anyway - I ended up with a tiny Sony shelf system, and a separate turntable... Compared to our last cheap setup, this one sounds much better, and will actually play CDs every time you want it to, and not according to some mysterious timetable of its own choosing.

That night we ended up back in the Annex for dinner and a movie at the Bloor. I thought Leah would have lots of reasons to dislike Fantastic Mr Fox (talking animals, Wes Anderson...), but we both liked it.

On Sunday we did laundry, and some cleaning of the apartment. We also went to church, which was good. We are gearing up for a series on the Fruit of the Spirit - check out the first of a number of videos over at the FreeChurch website.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year etc.

So it is back to work after a full two weeks off. 7am seemed awfully early today.

What happened?
We went out to Middleton, Nova Scotia, to visit Leah's parents for Christmas. It was a good trip, and as well as visiting family, we saw a few of Leah's old friends who were around for the holidays. We also painted Leah's old room, which turned out really well.
We got back in to town on New Year's Eve... just in time to make dinner and go to bed.
Other noteworthy events included a trip to Hamilton to help the Cumby's paint their new house, breakfast with Sue, who was in town for a few days, the festival of lights in Kensington, and general hanging out with friends...

Anyway - hope you are all geared up for 2010..!