paulyblog

We take posession of the house today!  I am so anxious. We are going there at 5:30pm tonight.  We will start by priming all the walls that we want to paint, then we will pick out the colours.  We got a bunch of paint cards last night so we will compare them with our washroom tonight.  I am also going to paint the computer room and the upstairs storage room.

My shed looks so big now that there is practically nothing in it.  I can’t wait to put my toys in there.

We don’t have to worry about cleaning anything either because they did all the cleaning already. They even shampooed the 2 carpets!  Bonus!

I will put some more pictures online as soon as I get some.

Jenn, Life

la·zy (lz)adj. la·zi·er, la·zi·est

That’s right, lately I’ve been pretty lazy. I haven’t wrote anything in the blog since I left for Ottawa so I will begin from there. (You better get comfy, it’s long)
The Ottawa trip was a lot of fun. This time we got to stay longer than a couple of days. We left on Friday June 30th right after work. By the time we made it to Ottawa it was past 3AM. I don’t speed much anymore since my record is now clean (I learned the hard way).

Canada Day was lots of fun. We went downtown, there was a gazillion people. There were people setup on the streets playing music, doing tricks, selling crap and trying to talk to you about Jesus. I still can’t believe how much money some guy made by taking a step ladder and doing a back flip off of it. The crowd around this guy was huge. When he finally jumped I was like “that’s it?”. I thought something cooler was going to happen. He could of set himself on fire or something. Then I would of paid money to see that. Apparently there was about 300,000 people in that part of town that day.

After we walked around the crowded streets we went to the Aulde Dubliner in the market to drink some beer. We ended up taking over the patio and drank beer for over 6 hours. We saw all kinds of people in those 6 hours (just look at the guy in the blue latex suit). I also got a funny video of a bum doing a cartwheel. Of course since it was Canada Day they had special menu’s out. To give you an idea how special, some chicken nachos were $17. It made for an expensive afternoon (new home owners). It was nice an sunny pretty much the whole day until the fireworks. It started to drizzle when it was time for the fireworks but they turned out good anyways.

On Sunday we did what we usually do when we go to Ottawa. We hit up Ikea and the Costco’s. Yeah I know but we don’t have those stores here. We needed some stuff for the new house so it turned out good. Last year when I went I only bought a brush to wash the dishes (best damn brush though). On Sunday night we were going to check out Barrymores for 80’s night but after waiting in line for close to an hour we decided to leave. We went to Social and sat in the courtyard for some drinks instead. It was a perfect night for patio drinking.

On Monday we went to the Museum of Civilization. I’m not big on museums but it was alright. The main feature was Petra - Lost City of Stone. They also had expositions about the history of Canada, First Nations People, Canada Post, Nursing, and Ice Skating. We also saw “Kilimanjaro - To the Roof of Africa” in the huge Imax dome. That was pretty cool. Later that afternoon I helped my cousin build a deck off the back of his house. It turned out pretty nice. I can’t wait to drink beer on it now.

On Tuesday we headed off to Sudbury right after eating breakfast at Denny’s. I’ve been to Denny’s twice now, it’s great. In Sudbury we went out for supper with Jenn’s friend Anya since it was her birthday not too long ago. Then we did some more shopping.

Wednesday was back home!

So in the last week I ended up spending quite a bit of money on shopping, restaurants and beer. It was alright though because we are on holidays. It could of been worse, we could of been in Calgary at the stampede spending way more money. I think buying a house was a better choice though.

Tomorrow I start eating better, exercising more and getting stuff done. We have less than 2 weeks left until we have to move. I still have so much packing to do, I am not looking forward to it.

Canada, Fun, Jenn, Life, Useless

Mini-putting, batting and bowling.  Those are all things that I haven’t done in the longest time.  Well except for Saturday.

We started off by hitting up the mini-putt.  I did pretty good and ended up beating Jenn.  After that we tried out the batting cages.  I remembered why I don’t play baseball, I can’t hit worth shit.  Jenn was smart and tried the soft ball instead of the hard ball.

We went to see Nacho Libre for the matinee and I was rather dissapointed with it.  I figured it would be a lot funnier but it wasn’t.  If you haven’t seen it yet, wait until it comes out on DVD or even better, wait until a friend rents it and go watch it there.

After supper we went to a friends, drank some beers and went bowling.  Bowling is really not my thing.  I usually can’t hit 100 points but this time I was really drunk and I think the beer helped.  Our first game everyone was laughing at me because I only had 26 points after the 5th frame.  At the end of that game I got lucky and got 2 strikes in a row and ended up beating my good friend.  He was pretty mad because I beat him and I suck.  The funniest part was I killed him again the next game.  Out of 10 frames I got 5 strikes! I finished with a 184!  I warned him that when I hit my 8th beer I am an awesome bowler but he didn’t believe me.  The best part is I have the pictures to prove it!  I don’t think I will ever let him forget how much he sucks at bowling now.

After bowling we did the mistake of going to get poutine at the worlds best poutine place.  It’s always so tasty (loaded with cheese) but you always end up feeling like you’re gonna die after.  I’m sure there has got to be over 1000 calories in one poutine.  We went back to my friends new house and drank more beer.  I got to bed it was past 3:30am.

 
Fun Saturday.

Fun, Jenn, Life, Useless

Who would of thought trying to buy a house was such a pain in the ass! I hate it. I hate it to the point where I almost don’t want the house anymore. The sellers are trying to sell it to me private to save the 6% from the realtor. The thing is they want more for the house than what they would get from the realtor if they would list it with them. I don’t fucken understand that.

If they list it with a realtor at the price they told me they would have to get an offer the same as their listing price to make approx $800 more than what I am giving them right now without going through a realtor. If someone was to offer them $3000 less than their asking price once it’s listed with a realtor they would lose $2000 on that offer vs. what I am giving them.

My offer was fair, they wanted to take stuff out and bring the price up. I’m ok with the stuff they took out but I am firm on the price. I don’t like getting screwed.

I’m going to bed.

Life, Useless

I did it. My first half marathon, completed.

We left at 6am Saturday morning with the bus from the local sports store. I hate taking the bus. I thought we were going to travel in a coach but it was more like a city bus. The toilet stunk before anyone even used it. It was a long ride but it went by fast. I bought JPod on Friday night since Raymi’s been blogging about it for a while now. I read a hundred and some pages. When we got to Ottawa we got lost for about 20 minutes. We finally made it to the hotel at about 4pm. Jenn had to run at 5pm so it was a big rush. It was rather stressful but Jenn ended up making it in time for the race.

On Saturday night we went to the mall to get some sun glasses because I forgot mine at home. I also bought a pair of shorts since mine don’t fit anymore. We drove around for like an hour trying to find a place to eat. Believe it or not, I had a hard time finding a place that had pasta. We went to St. Hubert in Gatineau thinking they might have a few pasta items on their menu but we were wrong. We ended up going to Dinty’s, I had some spaghetti and chicken. I went to bed around midnight. Taking the bus makes me tired.

Sunday morning was the race. I woke up at 6:57am to Jenn yelling “What time is it!” thinking we had slept in because the sun was bright and early. We got ready and drove to City Hall where the start line was. It was kinda hard to get there because all the street closures. The full marathon started earlier at around 8am. Too bad we didn’t start that early. At 9am it was already +15 celsius. The half marathon started at 10:15am. I was nervous but I felt good. At the 5km marker 30 minutes had gone by. My heart rate was just below 170. It was a good start, I didn’t leave too fast. At around 7-8km that’s when I knew it was going to be a killer run. My heart rate was getting up there. It was in the 180’s and it stayed up there. We passed a few water stations where I stopped to get a drink and splash some on my head and face. It was +37 celsius when factor in the heat from the pavement and the humidex. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At one point we crossed a bridge and the sun was just killing me. There wasn’t a whole lot of shade to run in. I found that the hardest part. One of the water stations was out of water, at the next water station I drank way too much and started getting cramps. When we got back to Dow lake at around 14-15km I had to start walking. I couldn’t handle the heat anymore. I would walk a bit, run a bit, walk a bit, run a bit. The last 3km was the hardest. The crowd was cheering on the runners. You started seeing more and more people dropping to the ground. Paramedics were all over the place taking care of fallen runners.

I crossed the finish line in 2:22 into the race. My official time was 2:18. My goal was to run it in 2:00 but that didn’t happen. The heat is what killed me. I didn’t have a chance to train on hot days. I think the hottest day in my training was about +18 celsius.
When I finished the race I drank 2 full bottles of water. When I tried to sit down on the curb I almost fell over. I was exhausted. In the resting area they had cottage cheese, bagels and gatorade. The were also giving free massages but the line up was huge.

We went for lunch at Oregano’s in the market. They were still having brunch at 2:00pm. That’s the first time I had bacon, eggs and beer. The service sucked. The guy was rude and not helpful. We won’t be going back there.

After lunch it was time to head back to the hotel since the bus was about to leave. I showered quick and we were off close to 4pm. We made it to pembroke where we stopped at the truck stop for supper. It was actually pretty good and the service was great. We were able to get the race results with my laptop from a wireless network from the truck stop. Everyone on the bus was around me asking for their time.

By the time we got into town it was about 2:30am. I was really tired and it was impossible to sleep on the bus because it was very uncomfortable. I got to bed at about 3am. Jenn had to work today at 9am. I don’t know how she did it. I slept in until 1pm. I was so sore this morning when I woke up. I had a hard time getting to the shower. It’s ok because I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow evening.

I installed the air conditioners this afternoon because it was +31 celsius. I hate the heat.

I think I might do the Toronto Marathon in October. By then it should be a little cooler outside. Tomorrow night everone that I trained with are going to East Side Marios for supper. I wonder who will want to do the Toronto Marathon with me…

Jenn, Life, Running

Monday was 4 years with Jenn (long and painful, just kiddin’).  I’ve been pretty busy this week and forgot to blog about it.  I got her some flowers and a kick ass vase.

We went to Montana’s for supper, it was actually Jenn’s pick and bonus for me.  The food was pretty good, we ate so much.  They ran out of Texas Bold sauce which really sucked.  That’s the only sauce I ever get for my ribs.  I didn’t know which other one to try.  I ended up getting the apple butter sauce which wasn’t as good.  Everyone’s been telling me to try the wings since they are so good so I did, they were pretty good.

After supper we came back home and watched 24!  It was pretty awesome.  I wish I could just watch the entire series at once so I could find out what happens!

Jenn, Life

Last night was our annual tax party.  At the end of every tax season we have a tax party and all the food and booze is included.  It was fun, there was tons of appetizers.  I had some back ribs and mashed potatoes.  I squeezed in half a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. In between all that there was also many Molson Canadians.  After supper a lot of people went home but about a dozen of us went out on the patio. Edmonton won their series, that was amazing. We stayed there until midnight which probably wasn’t the greatest because Jenn wasn’t feeling too good last night.  I should of went home early to take care of her because she always takes care of me when I am sick or not feeling good.  Sorry Jenn.

Note: 2nd time I have some XANGO before going to bed when I was drunk and 2nd time I am not hung over in the morning. One of the many uses for XANGO 

Jenn, Life, Xango

Help! We need 5 more motivated individuals from Canada or the United States to join our team of people on a pretty exciting business project.  If health, research, business and teaching people is something that interests you please contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting to see if you are right for our team.

Life

It’s the first time it’s happend to me. I got screwed on 2 items that I bought from the same bastard on eBay. In February I bought 2 posters (this one and this one) on eBay. I paid the $31US, and waited for them to arrive. A few weeks went by so I decided to e-mail him to see what’s the status of the shipping. He replied saying that he was in the process of moving and all the items would be arriving soon. So I waited some more. I figured I would get the posters anyday. This was 2 months ago now! Last week I decided to file a complaint with Paypal since they are the ones I used to transfer him the money. I always noticed the little caption on all the Paypal auctions saying that you are protected for up to $1250 CAN. Today I found out it’s crap! Here is the response from Paypal….notice the bold text.

“PayPal has concluded the investigation of your buyer claim.As our policy states, we conducted this investigation on a best effort basis and made no guarantee of funds recovery.Complaint Details
——————————
Transaction Date: Feb 27, 2006
Transaction Amount: -$31.00 USD
Your Transaction ID: 7M063088TP356080B
Seller’s Transaction ID: 6P780864N32788842 Case Number: PP-157-293-636 Seller’s Name: Kevin Beyer Seller’s Email: musiccds@iserv.net
——————————

We regret to inform you that we were unable to recover funds from the sellers account, as the seller’s account balance is $0.eBay’s Standard Purchase Protection Program reimburses buyers for eligible transactions where an item was purchased on eBay and either not received or was received but significantly not as described. Reimbursement is guaranteed up to a maximum of $200 (less $25 to cover processing costs).
Multiple Item Auctions (Dutch Auctions) are covered as a single transaction.

We value your business and regret that you have had this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, we recommend that you read our Security Tips on our website located at: https://www.paypal.com/buyertips

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at any time.

Sincerely,
Genevieve
Protection Services Department
PayPal, an eBay Company “

When I got that e-mail I was effing pissed that they advertised the hell out of how safe Paypal is and they can’t even get back my $31 back!

I went to check the sellers rating right after and it looks like I wasn’t the only one he did this too lately. So tonight I filled a complaint with eBay directly. Not sure what will come from that but I sure as hell won’t let the bastards (Paypal and Kevin Beyer) take my money without a fight. I think I will also give CIBC Visa a call tomorrow to see what they can do. What a waste of time.

That’s how easy it is to get screwed on eBay and there isn’t too much you can do about it. Too bad it wasn’t as easy to get the money back, like Paypal makes it look.

Life, Matt Good, Web

Tonight Jenn, Danny and myself went to Iroquois Falls to take my dad and his girlfriend out for supper.  We went to the Silver Grill, it’s a chinese restaurant.  The food was pretty good.  I’ve been eating all kinds of crap lately.  Tomorrow I have to start eating a little healthier.  I need to cut back on restaurant food and start making some good meals.  I’ve also been pretty lazy lately.  I haven’t run since Tuesday. The path of least resistance has been the one I’ve been choosing.  Tomorrow morning that changes, I need to run 16k at 10am.  I hope the weather is better.  It’s been raining for a few days and my roof leaked in the living room.  The damn landlord still hasn’t fixed it (since last fall).

Life, Useless