Road Trip - Video Wrap-Up

In case you didn't get a chance to see all of my hot new vids from our recent weekend road trip to calgary - here they are!



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Well, those were super exciting weren't they?

Don't for check back for more exciting time-lapse content over the coming days.

Cameron - 36
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 20

And we're back.

That was a long day of driving.

I can't wait to have a little more food and hit the rack.

Cameron - 35
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 19

Lunch is just about done so we'll be heading back out shortly. Next stop Swift Current?

Oh and those vegetables didn't last more than a few minutes past Bassano. Too bad I ate most of them and didn't really share with Jeannette.

Cameron - 34
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 18

So we are in Medicine Hat and just about ready for lunch. I guess I'll be back behind the wheel shortly.

And because there was so much demand I've published another time-lapse vid, this time of our trip from Bassano to just outside Medicine Hat.

Cameron - 33
Neil - 0

Road Trip- 17

We just broke out our return trip vegetable supply. I'll be amazed if the tub lasts until Medicine Hat (I'll be a little disappointed in myself if it does).

Cameron - 32
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 16

So we're already on our way back to sunny Regina. Actually, we just pulled out of a gas station in Bassano, which is about 2 hours east of Calgary.

Next stop Medicine Hat?

Cameron - 31
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 15

So we're in Banff and it's so much more the tourist destination than I would ever imagined in my wildest dreams. I'm curious if we've even seen a single 'local.'

And what's with all of the stores that have nothing to do with mountain stuff?

But the mountains are really quite impressive, as was lake Louise.

Cameron - 30
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 14

So hopefully it's off to Banff today. And i am growing increasingly excited about the prospect of seeing some mountains from the middle of a mountain range. And maybe we'll see a glacier?

Cameron - 29
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 13

So we made to Calgary safely in time for a late supper. From the restaurant we made our way to where we'll be staying for the weekend.

After a little socializing we hit the bunks - and I was ready for some sleep after a gruelling four hours of work followed by a straight and flat 7.5 hour drive.

Now that we're in town our plans have started to come together and it looks as though we'll be taking a day trip to Banff so that I can see mountains and Lake Louise (the site of that famous figure skating special?).

Maybe more importantly, I've manger to sneak a peak at a few of the mountains already.

Cameron - 28
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 12

So we made to Calgary safely.

Instead o heading to Jeannette's aunt and uncle's house we went directly to the restaurant. At first I couldn't figure out why it was so busy on a Thursday night - then when I saw roses on tables I remembered that its valentine's day.

I'm zonked so this will have to do for the live-blogging today.

Cameron - 27
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 11

I thought we were in eastern Alberta rather than coastal BC, but the presence of motorcycles seems to suggest otherwise.

What's up Alberta, I thought you had a real winter?

Cameron - 26
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 10

Now we've managed to hit some winter construction. All of a sudden we lost all of the time we made on the last leg of our trip. Bummer.

I guess the good news is that I think we're below the 300 km mark.

And now we're heading out of Medicine Hat.

Next stop - gas station for some 1.05 gas

Cameron - 25
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 9

Just saw the world's largest teepee.

Cameron - 24
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 8

Just arrived in Medicine Hat.

Oh, and I just posted my longest vid yet!

Driver switch coming soon.

Cameron - 23
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 7

As we keep heading further west we keep encountering fewer and fewer wintery conditions, and the temperature keeps rising.

I guess I didn't realize until quite recently that winter tends to be a fair bit harsher in Regina than Calgary. While it's not likely to be quite as warm as a trip to a tropical island, it should be close to 15 degrees warmer.

In case you're curious, we're currently about halfway between Swift Current and Medicine Hat.

Oh and I just posted another hot 13 sec vid to YouTube. Aren't you all so glad tat I now have a better data package for my phone?

Cameron - 22
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 6

Jeannette has just successfully navigated us out of Swift Current, no small feat, while I have just made my first time-lapse video of the trip. Hooray! Aren't you excited?

The bummer is that because I'm doing this from my phone I can't post the hot 12 sec vid here immediately. Of course, if you find my YouTube account or my Twitter account you should be able to find it (and I know that you'll all be motivated to take these extra steps).

Cameron - 21
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 5

So we're in Swift Current and a little turned around.

That place is definitely a weird place to drive.

All road confusion aside it was nice to stop for a coffee, bathroom break, and a driver change (so that I can do more live-blogging).

Hopefully we only have about five hours to go.

Cameron - 20
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 4

Finally, we basically on the open road. Good thing it stopped snowing and blowing a few hours ago. Driving in that mess would have been a bummer.

Cameron - 19
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 3

Good thing Jeannette was also up for food because I don't know how long I would have had before I would have crashed otherwise.

Of course, the fast food place we decided to visit was in the midst of its daily high school rush - fortunately we have the choice of drive thru while carless teens do not.

Cameron - 18
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 2

Just waiting for Jeannette to pick me up and then we'll be on our way, though a quick food stop might be necessary - I feel half starved.

Cameron - 17
Neil - 0

Road Trip - 1

Sorry, a few days ago I listened to an interview with Tom Green on WTF so I have a few of his classic film titles rolling around my head.

Down to more pressing business, now that Jeannette and I have a new car we're going to break it in by taking a long-weekend road trip to Calgary to visit some of Jeannette's extended family.

Though we won't leaving for a few hours, this will be my last chance to post from my computer as will be leaving half-way through the work day directly from my place of work.  Of course, assuming all goes well and this 3G stuff works as it's supposed to in the open prairie, I hope to make at least a few quick updates from the road.

In case you're curious, I'm definitely a little bummed that we likely won't quite make it to the Rockies - I guess I'll just have to settle for the Ikea.

Cameron - 16
Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 7

Bummer, the crumb isn't anything like I hoped it would be. Fortunately the taste and texture are quite palatable.

I guess at the end of the day I do feel relatively comfortable that the extra kneading does make some difference - even if I can't quite quantify it right now.

Cameron - 15

Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 6

So both loaves are now out of the oven and on the cooling rack. Maybe in a few minutes they'll be cool enough to try.

Cameron - 14

Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 5

So the first loaf is out of the oven and on the cooling rack.

All things considered, I'm quite hopeful that the outcome will be what I was hoping it would be.

Let's hope the second loaf, which is currently in the oven, turns as well or better.

Cameron - 13

Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 4

So to misquote the Spiderman universe - "with great time comes great rising."

All of the ridges and imperfections that I created through the wet dough process have been removed through the power of rising.  Of course, now I need to 'scar' the bread (I can't remember the technical term).

One term I do remember is 'crumb,' and I think that there's a chance that this bread may have been allowed to rise long enough that it will have a crumb of the sort that I've been looking for for some time.

In case you're curious, the oven has been cranked and the racks re-arranged to allow for the steam tray. And generally the excitement level in the apartment is building.

Cameron - 12
Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 3

Well, it looks as though a few of the rough edges have buffed out thanks to the rising process.

Hopefully everything will be fine when we get back from our trip to the store.

Cameron - 11
Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 2

Much to my surprise, the rising process has been going quite quickly.  While I probably could have let the dough rise for a little more time, I just recently decided that I would move on to the next phase of the process.

So the thing I remembered as I moved on to the next process is that working with wetter dough is much more challenging than working with dough that kind of holds a shape and isn't incredibly sticky.  Maybe at some point I'll need to talk to Peter to get a few tips on how to work with this stuff, but until then I am probably going to basically stick to my 'grab a handful of dough and slap it onto the baking surface' approach that I've been using.

But they'll kind of buff out as they rise, right?

So now I'm back to waiting for dough to rise.  Hooray!

And we now have at least a post-a-day!

Cameron - 10
Neil - 0

Get your dough hooks off of me! - 1

There's no better way to up your number of blog posts than live-blogging a DIY domestic project (at least that's been my experience).

So down to the project at hand - a few years ago my mother gave me her old mixer.  With the mixer came a set of dough hooks.  And because I'm kind of lazy and set in my ways when it comes to bread making I'm never quite motivated enough to try making dough with dough hooks.

For the past few days I've been thinking that giving the dough hooks their shot might be worthwhile.  What if all of the extra kneading that I can provide through dough hooks actually makes a difference?

So this morning I finally got around to putting the dough hooks in the mixer and adding bread ingredients to make a very basic bread (and one that some people have suggested requires plenty of kneading but that I've never knead more than a few minutes).

Immediately it became clear that unlike when a spoon is used, the ingredients were quickly and evenly mixed.  With just a few more minutes the dough really started to take shape and look like dough.  And because the dough I was making is relatively wet this process was much cleaner than had I tried to do it with my hands or a wooden spoon.  Oh, and it was also much less wasteful.

So after the 'kneading' I was left with a dough about which I am quite hopeful: it's quite wet, it's evenly mixed, and it's been well kneaded.

Now I'll just have to see if the rising, baking, and consumption processes go as smoothly.  And, as you've likely already guessed, I'll be trying to keep you updated as I work my way through the remaining stages of the production of this bread.  Hopefully you fascination with the progress of this project won't cause you to spend you entire day in front of the computer hitting re-fresh again and again until you see the next update.

Back in a few.

Cameron - 9
Neil - 0

Not even a post a day yet

I just noticed that even though we're in the midst of what could be a hard-fought blog-off, we're not even up to a post a day - I'm sure our devoted reader/s (are there even any left?) expect more of us this late in the game.

I guess I will have to really try to ramp things up over the next few days as by the time the middle of the month rolls around I'll have a long weekend road trip and a move/painting to contend with.  And as much as Jeannette completely understands my strange dedication to regularly updating this blog, I'm not sure if she'd be OK with me putting down a box or a paint brush to advance my position in this blog-off.

Cameron - 8
Neil - 0

Why didn't anyone tell me paint is so expensive?

We just returned from our paint selecting excursion.

Not only was colour selection process much harder than I anticipated (mainly because Jeannette vetoed my plan for plain white walls and then also my plan for painting all four walls and the ceiling different colours), but the paint itself was also much more expensive than I anticipated.  Of course, it didn't help that I talked myself out of going for the cheapest of the paint lines that the company offered.

Anyway, we're back now and we have two different whites (ceiling and mouldings), a moldy green, a grey, and a light orange.  Oh, and also all kinds of painting related equipment like brushes and rollers.  At some point in the near future we will have to buy a step ladder.

The worst part of this is that I'm sure that once we're about half way through the job we'll realize that there's something important that we've forgotten (like maybe to buy enough paint) that will cause us to be stalled for some number of hours.

But when I'm not moping about the amount of work this will be and the risk of failure, I'm really quite excited that we'll finally have a place that we can paint and that within about two weeks we'll actually be able to start painting it.  The prospect is a little overwhelming.

Cameron - 7
Neil - 0

Paint shopping

It seems that in anticipation of the acquisition of our new house Jeannette and I will be at least spending some portion of the day doing some paint shopping.  The hope is that if we can have the paint on hand before we move in we will be able to shorten the downtime in a few rooms associated with re-painting.

Of course, one of the problems with this paint shopping excursion is that it's been a few years since either of us have done any serious painting - so we're a little out of touch with what's hot in paint application techniques and/or high-tech latex paints.  And though it doesn't worry me, Jeannette's a little worried about how the whole 'accent wall' thing works.

Anyway, if all goes well by the end of the day we'll have paint and appropriate applicators for three rooms (and we'll have also finalized colour choice for the three rooms we're planning on painting).

Cameron - 6
Neil - 0

They must be losing money

About ten years ago, back when I used to live in New York, I occasionally ordered items from a catalogue company. These guys sold quite a variety of goods, but probably would be understood to specialize in hunting and military surplus materials (not items that I tend to buy frequently).

Anyway, what is impressive about this company is not that they sell comically large magazines or cases of thousands of bullets, but after than ten years since my last purchase they are still sending me print catalogues. Maybe even more impressive is that they somehow managed to wangle my Newfoundland address even though I only would have had any of my purchases sent to my New York address. Because it's not worth following up this may just have to remain a mystery for the ages.

Cameron - 5
Neil - 0

More business

Despite the fact that today is supposedly my 'day off,' we've been 'on the go' since 8:00 AM this morning.

First we had early morning eye appointments at 8:20.  While we both had good eye exams, completing various tests, waiting for eye drops to kick in, and frame shopping all meant that we didn't leave until about three hours after we arrived.

We then had to go to the bank for an appointment.  Of course, because nothing is as simple as it should be, what I thought would take 10 minutes actually took 45 minutes.  On the upside, I think that I won't have to go back for another account switching appointment until March.  So at least that's good.

After that we had to head to the outskirts of town to have the car we purchased in August officially written off because of a relatively minor fender-bender.  Again, this took longer than we were expecting - but at least it's done.  Hopefully we're just about through with dealing with a super-low speed accident in which we were not at fault that took place over a month ago.

Next I dropped Jeannette off at home ran out to get a months-overdue haircut.  Fortunately, I was able to walk into the barbershop and sit down and have my haircut immediately.  By the time I was done at least two guys were waiting.

Now that I'm back I've been dealing with desk-based administrative errands.  Unfortunately, two of the people I've tried to contact have been unable to take my call so the situations remain unresolved.  Gross.

Anyway, we also have a few shopping errands to run later today.  So assuming all goes as planned we'll have spent close to a full work day fully on the go on my day off.  Yum.

Cameron - 4
Neil - 0

We've been busy

So part of the reason posts have been so infrequent over the past few weeks is that I've been incredibly busy (the rest of the reason has to do with me not really knowing what I should post about these days).

Much of the reason for the business has to do with two major purchases that Jeannette and I are just in the midst of finalizing.

The first major purchase Jeannette and I are in the midst of finalizing is that of a new house.  Not surprisingly, the purchase decision was preceded by a number of visits to prospective houses as well as trips around potential neighbourhoods.  Once we settled on a house there were back and forth communications with our realtor as well as various inspections that had to be arranged (one of which lead to some extra plumbing work) before the deal could be finalized.  Since the deal has been finalized (though we still do have to transfer the deed and all of that finicky legal stuff) we've had to continue to make house arrangement, plan for the move, consider paint and furniture, and deal with utility and insurance considerations.  All in all, it's been a fair bit of work and generally quite tiring (though may not quite as tiring as a mid-winter possession date).

While we were working our way through the aforementioned house purchase we had the pleasure of being backed into while driving slowing (I'm guessing we were only going about 5 kph) through a mall parking lot.  The accident has lead to us making several trips and calls to insurance company representatives and auto body shops.  It's definitely been much more of an ordeal than I initially expected.

Of course, one thing that soon became clear in the midst of this process is that we weren't interested in having anyone spend several hundred dollars more than the price we paid for the car just to fix one of the car's doors. Fortunately we think that we've finally managed to have the vehicle declared a write-off, though the final confirmation of this fact has been slow to come.  Maybe tomorrow? Please?

And in the midst this entire process we realized that we really couldn't avoid buying a new vehicle.  At first we considered not junker used cars but then soon realized that for only a little more we could have a new car.  So we then suddenly entered the new car market and soon settled on a model (it had the upside of being on the lot and available for a quick pick-up).  And then a few days after that we had a brand new car.  I can't tell you how much we've both appreciated having heated seats and a seat that effectively accommodates our disparate heights.

So somehow in the middle of our house buying process we managed to start and complete a car buying process (and two complete registration and insurance acquisition process - but that's a story I really don't have the energy to tell on what has already been a three-post day).  So we're now both completely exhausted and quite aware that this likely won't let up at any point between now and dementia.

Cameron - 3
Neil - 0

A Few Quick Notes 596

-After a few days in the -35 zone we've moved back into slightly more reasonable temperatures.  Though I don't think we actually made it above zero today, with the help of the sun it was warm enough that we actually had a little slush to contend with as we were making our way home from work.    Hopefully this will be frozen by the time I have to head back to work tomorrow morning.

-You know what's great about this time of year?  It's great that when I drive to work it's not pitch black.  It's strangely comforting to know that you're not arriving at work an hour before sunrise.  And it's not bad that the sun doesn't set until about an hour after the workday ends either.

-After work on Friday (at least I think it was Friday) I received a very strange robocall that seemed to be about electoral redistricting in Saskatchewan.  Just about the only thing that I could make out was that the call supposedly came from 'Chase Research.'

Turns out I wasn't the only one in Saskatchewan to get such a call and that these calls have now been the subject of a number of media reports, including this one.

-Somehow, after years of trying, I've finally managed to get Jeannette to listen to a few of my regular podcasts.  The new This American Life has now become a shared Sunday ritual (instead of one I shamefully engaged in alone whenever I could sneak a listen).  And over the past few weeks I've managed to sneak in RadioLab, 99% Invisible, and the always informative Inside Jobs Podcast.  For whatever reason I haven't quite managed to draw Jeannette into my Jordan, Jesse GO!/Stop Podcasting Yourself web.

-I made eight small raspberry tarts tonight.  Now that they're out of the oven I have no interest in eating them.  Maybe by tomorrow morning I'll rustle up some kind of willingness to sacrifice my health so that these guys don't end up sitting on the counter and spoiling.  

What a tough life I lead.

Cameron - 2

Neil - 0

You probably thought we forgot

Nope, we didn't forget about the annual Montifax blog-off, we just got off to a late start.

Anyway, to fill everyone in on the rules - this year (hopefully to encourage Neil to post) I've decided to give myself a 7 to 1 handicap.  So for each post Neil makes he'll have seven points and for each post I make I'll only get one.  And we keep going until the end of February.

And considering how busy I expect to be this month overcoming even one or two of Neil's post could be challenging.

No matter the handicap - we're now officially off and running.

Cameron - 1
Neil - 0