Today is my mom's birthday! Like almost everyone older than me, she just turned 39 today. That means she has many long, happy years of bingo playing ahead of her! My mom was pretty sad when I moved out of Chilliwack, but she's been taking my absence like a trooper. I try and do a call with her at least once a week, and we catch up on all the excitement back in cow town. I hope she has a great day today, and that people at work treat her to lunch or something awesome like that. Happy Birthday Mom! ...

Yes, the rumours are true: today is in fact my birthday. Unlike other years though, I'm purposefully taking this one a bit slower. There are no bar nights planned or anything of that nature, and the highlight of tonight will probably be me eating a nice dinner in front of the TV while catching up on Lost. And that's the way I wanted it this year. Last night my dad took me to the Canucks game in Vancouver, and we had a lot of fun. I slept in a bit this morning, a little treat to myself, and am currently at a coffee shop about to do another day of work. Strangely enough, lots of things have already ...

I'll admit, keeping up with birthdays on my blog is pretty hard to do. I have a hard enough time remembering dates and making phone calls when they roll around, something I'm thankful my sister helps me out with. That being said, I missed blogging about one on Sunday, probably because I was so exhausted from Blogathon. It was my dad's birthday this last Sunday, and I just wanted to wish him a happy belated birthday from my website here. I managed to remember to call him on Sunday, but somehow this blog entry got missed (sorry bud). Hopefully we can get together for a quick drink sometime in the ...

Today is also my step-sister Alison's birthday. Strangely enough, I went through my Flickr photos and I don't really have any good shots of her, so I had to grab one from her Facebook profile instead. Tonight we're having a little BBQ over at my dad's house for her, which should be fun (although I probably won't be staying too long, as I'm pretty swamped with work). Happy Birthday Alison! ...

Today is my mom's 55th birthday, although she doesn't look a day past 30! Last night we gathered over at her place for some prime rib and to sit around and have a few drinks. When I gave my mom a hug at the end of the night she told me it's been about 10 years since I've been able to make it to her birthday, something that hadn't even crossed my mind until she had said it. But definitely one of the nice things about being back home is that attending family events like birthdays will be a whole lot easier for me. So have a great day today mom, and enjoy your birthday! ...

Today is Jason's 40th birthday. Jason's a good friend of mine currently living down in the San Francisco area. I used to be really bad at remembering birthdays, but now Facebook is pretty decent at reminding me. Have a good birthday, dude. Don't drink too much -- at your age I'm not sure your liver can handle it. ...

Today (Tuesday) is my niece's 10th birthday. It seems like just yesterday I was out working at UBC when I got the call telling me that my sister had gone into labour. I left work and made the trek back to Chilliwack, and made it to the hospital just in time to see the first few minute's of Jessica's new life. That photo is one of my favourites of my niece. It was probably taken when she was only 5 years old or so, but it was one of the first times I got to spend alone with her (I had been living out in Ottawa for a few years prior to that). I had told my sister that I was going to go to Burger ...

The first news of the day is that yesterday after work I picked up a new set of glasses. I still haven't finalized all the insurance papers that will let me get a refund on the first pair, but at least I'm no longer without a pair of glasses. The ladies at the eyeglass center were nice enough to remind me to remove them whenever I decided to step out, have a few drinks and then fall down. Unfortunately, in the process of falling the first time, I seemed to have gotten the world's largest splinter. To make it worse, it entered at the tip of my finger, and proceeded to go down the length of the ...

I've had an iPod now for probably at least two years. On my birthday, Des picked me up one of those iPod Minis back when they first came out. And as I sit here, on my couch, patiently waiting for it to charge enough so it will make the rainy walk to work, I thought I'd reflect a bit on the iPod. Since I usually walk wherever I go downtown, I pretty much take the iPod with me when I can. I'm sure I'm going to be part of that generation that goes prematurely deaf since I'm somehow genetically inclined to listen to my iPod on max or near-max volume all the time. In fact, if it could go louder, I'd ...