What the hell?

Regular readers of this blog will likely know that after several months of planning and searching I just recently bought a new pair of shoes for day-to-day use. For the past three weeks, or close to it, I have been wearing these shoes on an almost daily basis. For the most part I found the shoes to be comfortable and have been pretty pleased with my purchase, at least until today.

This afternoon, as I was putting my shoes and preparing to head out, I noticed that one of my shoes appeared to have some cosmetic damage on the outer layer of the shoe. At first I assumed that I must have some how damaged the shoe, maybe on of my visits to the nearby rock throwing beach. Then, just a few moments later, I noticed an almost identical tear on the equivalent location on the other shoe.



These developments kind of frustrate me, particularly after such a long, drawn-out shoe shopping process. On one hand I am inclined to try to return the shoes (though I don't really have a way to get to Bayer's Lake) because of the apparent design flaw. I think that it is reasonable to expect shoes to last more than three weeks before they start to fall apart. On the other hand, I am somewhat disinclined to do much of anything because of my general laziness and lack of interest is most matters aesthetic. In the end, more than anything else, that I can't easily make it to Bayer's Lake will likely shape my course of action and mean that I do nothing, except buy another pair of shoes sooner than I expected. What a bummer.

Big Shopping Day

On Tuesday night, after a series of delays, Neil and Rebecca returned from their trip to Regina (and Winnipeg). To get back from the airport they decided to rent a car (which is about the same as taking a taxi and only about $18 more than taking the bus). The side effect of them renting a car to get back from the airport was that we then had a car for much of the day yesterday.

After a little discussion we decided to head to the Bayer's Lake shopping district yesterday morning.

We started our expedition off with a trip to an office supplies store. Almost immediately upon entering the store Neil spotted an eReader that interested him (though the staff was less than helpful and seemed anything but interested in making a sale on a $200 item). Eventually we made our way towards more pedestrian items like printer paper and file folders (I ended up buying 2000 sheets of paper and 100 file folders). I also acquired a second 2-drawer filing cabinet. Rebecca selected a new computer mouse. It was all pretty exciting. I did not acquire two plant watering devices for $9.99 (though I was tempted).

We next made our way to a sporting goods store as I was interested in acquiring a new pair of shoes. Almost immediately it became clear that we were basically the only customers in the store. That this was the case allowed me to have the almost undivided attention of the saleslady, who was quite helpful when it came to retrieving shoes for me to try. After trying on a number of pairs of shoes Neil or Rebecca alerted me to the fact that there was a sale that would mean a second pair of shoes could be purchased for 50%.

At first this seemed unreasonable (who needs two new pairs of shoes at the same time?), though eventually I found two pairs of shoes that interested me. In the end the two pairs of shoes that I ended up buying were not only some least expensive shoes that I tried on all day, but also the most comfortable. I guess I should point out that the second pair of shoes that I purchased were cleats (for Summer Ultimate).

If my memory serves me correctly we then made our way to Dollarama, where we all purchased a few items. I ended up purchasing quite a number of supplied for my gardening related activities. I bought a few trellis structures that I am looking forward to have the plants grow on (as well as a few stakes and pots). The other neat thing that I found were individual plant water bulbs (similar to those available at the office supply store) for $2 apiece.

We eventually made our way to a kitchen store where Neil and Rebecca were able to acquire a few items with a gift card. I am particularly impressed with their egg poaching set (which was over $100 off). While there I picked up a new wooden spoon (it has a thicker handle than many of my other wooden spoons).

As far as I recall this was basically all of the shopping we did at Bayer's Lake. Eventually Neil and Rebecca made their way to the Halifax Shopping Center (and its Dollarama). And we made a return trip later in the evening before the car had to be returned (I purchased a few more garden related items).

All-in-all it was a pretty productive shopping day. Now I just need to find places for all of the newly purchased items.

A Few Quick Notes 338

-I guess today was a pretty nice day, if a little humid. Strangely, I really don't remember to many of the meteorological features that I must have experienced today.

-Neil and I had another Ultimate game on Sunday. Given that neither team had enough players at the beginning of the game, I don't know whether we won by default, won by points, or lost by default, or lost by points. Anyway, I guess I could check the HURL website if I really wanted to find out how the score was reported.

For the most part the game was pretty good. Unfortunately, the other team had at least one, and maybe two, rather intense players who made things a little less fun. One of the guys on the other team wasn't particularly careful with his body and managed to hit both Neil and I (Neil's lip is still bruised) and run into another player on our team. The most impressive part of all of this was that he wanted to call a foul on me, apparently for hitting his post-throw hand with my upper-chest.

-The other big Ultimate related news is that while I was putting my cleats on before Sunday's game one of the plastic components broke. While I was able to finish the game with few problems, I will obviously need to find a way to secure for next game.



Now that I look at the design I can see that having the eyelets in this piece of plastic is a horrible design decision because if it goes the entire cleat becomes non-functional. I now feel lucky that I have managed to get 4.5 seasons out of this pair of cleats.

-A few days ago, either Friday or Saturday, I dropped my bike off at a local bike shop. I was asked by when I wanted the bike ready and indicated that I was willing to go with whatever was most convenient for them. I was then told that I should stop by on Monday to pick the bike up. On Monday, which happened to also be Natal day, I made my way to the shop by walking through a largely closed and empty downtown. Not surprisingly, the shop wasn't open on Monday.

When I went back to the shop today I learned that not only was my bike not ready, but that they hadn't even started yet. Apparently they are a little behind because they weren't open on Monday. Anyway, I am hoping that it will be ready by tomorrow, though I am not a little more skeptical of this shop's proposed timeframes.

-A few days ago I mentioned that a young woman (and occasionally a young man) is allowing her puppy to defecate in the grassy area across from my desk. The woman then, typically, departs without cleaning up the puppy's droppings. At first I thought public shaming on Montifax had been working as yesterday I saw a bag in action. Unfortunately, today I noticed that the woman and dog were back without even a bag in sight. I guess thinking that a largely obscure blog could have such power was a bit presumptuous on my part, but it would have been pretty cool if that was why someone started to clean up after their dog.

I guess if I wanted to get particularly aggressive about public shaming I could start photographing or videotaping the incidents and then posting them here for all to see.

-For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the bike shop, these past fews I have been downtown and then decided to walk home along the waterfront. I have noticed that compared to earlier in the summer there are really quite a lot of buskers. Today was a particularly busy day for street performers. While I am normally pretty supportive of such things, a number of these performers really should give it a rest. One guy in particular, a piper, was not only massacring Amazing Grace, but also drowning out performers in one block radius.

-On a related note, the piping on the waterfront really gets to me as it fall into the faux-Scottish thing that is going on here in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia should emphasize its own culture and be proud of it and stop the second rate imitation of Scotland's culture.

-I finally harvested a few vegetables from my balcony container garden. I used all nine pea pods and three beans in a stir-fry that I made for dinner tonight. While I will give the pea pods a pass, I was rather disappointed with the beans. Presumably I should be able to conduct similar harvests in coming weeks.



-I should also note that the tomatoes are continuing to grow. The one that is the largest is now almost as large as a small grape, or something in that vicinity.



-A few days ago I re-potted most of my tobacco plants, meaning that I now have only one or two plants per pot, instead of the 15-20 that I had in the paper pots. Interestingly, the plants in the only paper pot that I have not re-potted are now the largest. Though, as you can below, this doesn't mean that they are particularly large yet.



At this rate I don't think my plants will be particularly large by the end of the summer.