paulyblog

Winter has arrived in Northern Ontario.  We have been dumped on once again with tons of snow.  Last year was the same and I think part of it has to do with the fact that I sold my Polaris RMK snowmobile exactly one year ago today.   It’s alright though, that was a good thing because with the money I paid off my student loans and bought a snow blower which came in handy.

This year however I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a second hand snowmobile.  Yep, I got my dad’s old Polaris Indy Lite 340.  The thing is a 1991 and only 340cc but it’s fun as hell to drive!  I took it out for a ride tonight to make sure it was working fine.  It started to bog a bit but once I filled it up with some supreme gas it was good to go for the rest of the night.  I can’t wait until we get more snow.  I’m actually looking forward to going ice fishing with it.

Apparently we are supposed to get another 5-10cm of snow tonight.  Should make for a fun winter!  I gotta go shower now, I smell like gas.

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Pita Pit is now opened here.  I remember the good old college days where we would go out to the bars in downtown Sudbury and afterwards walk over to Pita Pit to get a chicken caesar pita.  Those days are long gone now but we finally have a Pita Pit of our own here!!  I was patiently awaiting for it to open and last Thursday was the big day. We had a pita for supper Thursday night, a pita for lunch on Friday and a pita for lunch on Saturday.  Now I am all pita’d out.

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The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic.  I’ve been all over the place.  Last week I was doing some training in Ottawa for work.  It turned out good though because I got to stay at my brothers place since he recently moved there in September.  The training itself was alright, not super extravagent or anything but alright.  Most of the stuff that was covered was stuff that I already knew and the rest of it didn’t really go in depth enough.  When I was in Ottawa I also got a chance to meet up with my cousin Pat and my friend JF.  It was nice to see them again.  My brother’s place is pretty nice.  Him and his girlfriend did a good job painting it.  It was great to get to see them.

This week I was in Fort Albany for work.  It’s the first time I’ve ever been and it’s actually not too bad of a place.  The place we stayed at was very nice and clean.  They overbooked the rooms though so a few of us had to share our rooms with other people from our office.  It wasn’t really a big deal.  I saw some dead geese in the entrace of the place we were staying at one night.  I guess the locals went hunting and caught a few.  I was just surprised at the size of them.  I didn’t think they were that big.  My last day there I had 8 eggs left over so me and co-worker decided to make a huge omlette.  It was great!  We put mushrooms, red peppers, oinions, tomatoes and cheese in it.  It was so massive.  The best part of the trip was that the plane actually came to pick us up and the weather was decent to fly in.  No getting stranded this time.

I gotta go to ball hockey now.  Game starts in 12 minutes. Crap!

Useless paulyblog, personal, travel

It’s official, I am going to see AC/DC in Toronto.  November 7th, my brother and I will be making our way down to Toronto.  I was lucky enough to score some floor tickets.  The trick was to join the AC/DC fan club for $40.   When you join the fan club you get to purchase tickets from a different pool that is available to the general public.  It was worth every penny.  I’m pretty excited, can’t wait to go.

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A week after I got back from my Eastern Canada trip we decided to go to Vegas.

Friday, August 29th, I get an MSN message on my blackberry.  It’s my old roommate Scott from college.  He was just killing time.  He told me he was in Denver waiting for his connector to Vegas.  I was eating a slice of pizza at the local pizza place.  As our conversation progressed he jokingly said “you guys should come to Vegas”.

I’m bad for impulse purchases and spur of the moment decisions.  I said sure, well be there tomorrow.  After our Pizza we went shopping downtown and I decided to stop by my office to check flights online.  I checked out how many Aeroplan points I had and checked to see if it would cover my flight from here to Vegas.  Luckily for Jenn and I to go it was 50000 points.  I had 40000 but was able to buy the extra 10000 points for about $300.  The total price for flights for both of us was $685.

Jenn and I both kind of looked at each other and started to smile and laugh.  I told her “well if you want to go, call your boss to see if you can get Tuesday and Wednesday off” since Monday was a holiday (Labour day).  She called but her boss wasn’t home so she left a message.  Her boss called her back at around 8pm and said it was ok to go.  I did the same and also go the ok.  We booked our flights and started packing at around 9pm.  By the time I got to bed it was 11:30pm but couldn’t fall asleep until around 2am because I was way too excited.  My mind was thinking at 100 miles an hour, I was trying to think of things that I forgot to pack.

My alarm clock went off at 4am.  That was rough.  We were at the airport at ten after five and on the plane to Toronto at 6am.  From Toronto our flight to Denver only left at 3ish because of mechanical problems.  That was kind of scary but the plane got us there.  We made it to Vegas at 7:30pm.  That was a long day, especially 7:30 Vegas time is really 10:30 our time.  We tried to get tickets for the 11pm Chris Rock show so we could go with the rest of the people that we met up with but they were sold out.

While in Vegas we went to see two Cirque Du Soleil shows.  The first one was Mystere and the second was Zumanity. They were both really cool.  I would go see another Cirque Du Soleil show any day.  We went to a bunch of casino’s and checked out the strip.  We went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay.  That was better than whe I expected.  One night we checked out Studio 54 at the MGM Grand.  It was a good thing that my friend Scott had VIP tickets because the lineup was huge.  It was $30 cover for Jenn and I to get in.  $20 for me, $10 for her.  When we got in, I ordered a beer and a drink for Jenn.  I gave the bartender $20 and he gave me a receipt.  Beer was $8 and drinks were $12.  I was sober at the start of the night and drunk at the end.  It was an expensive night.

Towards the end of our trip we decided to rent a car to go check out the Grand Canyon and the Hoover dam.  Kyle and Ian came with us and Clint and Scott stayed back since they had already been.  We went to the West rim of the Grand Canyon since it was only 2.5 hours away.  The Hoover dam was wicked.  I’m really happy that I got to cross on the dam before the bridge opens up.  I took a bunch of pictures.  The Grand Canyon was pretty incredible but I found it a little expensive.  Parking was $20 but once in the parking you had no choice but to get on the bus to go to the lookouts.  That was an extra $30 something per person.  Before leaving on the bus you also had to buy your tickets for the Skywalk at an additional price of $30 something per person.  So for parking and admission it cost me $155.  The biggest disappointment was that I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera on the Skywalk to take pictures.  They were the ones taking the pictures and tried to sell them to me for $100.

Overall our trip to Vegas was excellent.  We spent a lot of money but it was worth it.  Next time I think I will spend less time in the malls because I did end up getting all kinds of clothes.  Maybe I will waste more money at the Casino.  I’m happy to say that I didn’t lose any money on gambling.  Actually Jenn found $100 chip on the floor at the hotel we were staying at, Planet Hollywood.

I think we will go back to Vegas next year.  We enjoyed it.

Pictures to follow.

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This weekend was pretty cool.  We got to play Amazing Race.  A co-worker invited us since they were looking for an extra team this year.  The guy who set it up spent months of thinking and weeks of planning to get this race organized.  He did an amazing job at it.  I mean we had to dig through sand piles, go into a loon shit infested lake and race all around town to get clues.

The race started at 10am and finished around 8pm.  It was a long rainy day.  We drove way faster than we should have and probably pissed off tons of people but it’s hard not to when you see your competitor is right behind you.

Some of the challenges were pretty cool and some just took too long to do in the pooring rain.  Overall the race was wicked.  I hope to be invited again next year.  Who knows, maybe I will organize something like it in the future.

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It’s 2AM and I can’t sleep.  I am in the same boat as I was last night.  Actually it was the same exact thing as last night.  I was super tired after supper and at around 8:30PM I passed out for 2 hours.  Now I can’t fall asleep.  I was lucky enough to pull it off on Monday.  I passed out at around 8PM, woke up at 11:22PM and fell back asleep until morning.  Lately I have been super tired and I’ve been having a hard time to fall asleep.  It might be because my mind is wandering all night.  I have so many things to do, so many things on my mind and don’t have enough time to do it all.  So when I go to bed that’s all I really think about and the things that I haven’t accomplished.  I need a break

I talked to my dad today about our August trip.  I will be going to Ottawa, Trois Rivieres, Quebec, Gaspe and maybe Moncton with him.  He wants to go check out the Grand Prix Molson in Trois Rivieres with me.  He remembers when he was younger and went to the Grand Prix with some friends and would like to do it again.  After the Grand Prix Molson we will spend a few days in Quebec city.  So far we don’t have it all planned out but I will do that in the weeks to come.  I think I might have convinced him to take my our (mine and Jenn’s) Civic for the road trip instead of his truck.  Gas is at $1.40/Litre here and my Civic get’s 50 MPG.

I am kind of looking forward to morning as we are supposed to go canoeing down a scenic river nearby.  I hope it doesn’t rain.  I don’t want to cancel this excursion.

I will try to sleep again.

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We picked it up last Friday.  It was pretty cool to buy our first car.  The official mileage after the pre-delivery and inspection was 11km.  Now it’s at about 150km.  It rides nice, way better than my older 96 Civic.  The best part is the MP3 CD player.  I doubt I will ever need a satellite radio again.  Jenn has been making MP3 CD’s like crazy.  The fact that you can fit about 200 songs on one CD is pretty cool too.  I won’t need a dozen CD’s anymore.

Last week we were also supposed to buy a 2000 Nissan Xterra.  On Friday I went to the bank to get a bank draft for the price of the Xterra and the safety certification.  I was told by the dealer that all it needed for the safety certification was a few lights and the safety would only cost $205 plus taxes.  It sounds too good to be true since I remembered the brakes pulsing during the test drive.  The person in the service department assured me that the brakes were fine to pass the safety and that the pulsing was probably due to fact that the vehicle was sitting on the lot.

On my way to the dealer on Friday I was called back into the office to help someone with an e-mail server problem and I didn’t make it to the dealership before closing.  I was alright with it because I was told the safety certification still needed to be completed before the vehicle could be licensed.  I also was second guessing myself and wanted to take the weekend to think about it.

On the weekend Jenn and I went back to see the Xterra and decided that we would get it.  The price was right, it didn’t need much to safety and we were in the need of a more reliable vehicle.  The weekend went by and this morning I went to the dealer and dropped off the bank draft.  The vehicle was supposed to get its safety certification and I was to be called once it was complete.

This afternoon I got a call from the head of the service department and was told that the person that had done the safety check last week didn’t have time to complete it because he spent too much time lubing the gear for the 4wd because it wouldn’t go in 4-low.  That’s when I was informed that the front brakes, rotors, wheel bearings, pinion seals, and a few more critical things needed to be done for the vehicle to be safetied.  It went from $205 to an extra $500 for the safety certification.  The dealer did give me a good price on the work that needed to be done but I just couldn’t spend an extra $500.

I was already cutting it close since I was using the money that I needed for my basement repairs and this would have made things way too tight.  I was hoping to get most of that money back by selling my 2 older vehicles but I haven’t gotten any offers on them yet.  I just couldn’t risk being stuck with 4 cars.  Disappointed, I picked up my refund at the dealer this afternoon.  I wish I would of known this earlier on because I really did want the Xterra.  It got my hopes up.

I am doing my basement wall in 2 weeks. I hope I sell one of my vehicles by then.  Now I am not sure what one to get rid of.  I have wheel bearings coming in for the older Civic.  Once the wheel bearings are installed the car will be good to go.  The S10 is in rought cosmetic shape but it runs like a dream.  Doesn’t burn an ouce of oil.  It has never given me any problems.  I will clean up the rust and give it a coat of tremclad rust paint.  I guess I will just have to wait and see which vehicle sells first.  The one that’s left will be the one I end up keeping.

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It’s official!  We bought a new Civic.  After many test drives, comparisons, and research we decided to go with the Civic LX.  Why?

Local Service
I don’t want to have to tow my car 4 hours away if something goes wrong with it.  We don’t have a VW and Subaru dealer here.  I know that the service at the Honda dealer here is awesome.  On various occasions they have bent over backwards for me to get me all fixed up.  I have spent a lot of money there and they realized that.

Value
I know that Civics hold their value.  I know that Civics are reliable cars.  I will get 34 mpg in town and 50 mpg on the highway.  The price was reasonable for the features I was getting. The Corolla with the convenience package didn’t come with cruise control and it wasn’t available as an option.  You had to move to the enhanced convenience package and that one was the same price as the Civic LX and didn’t come with aluminum rims.

Availability
The model and colour that I wanted was available.  I got lucky because they only got it this weekend.  The Corolla was another car I was considering but they are so hard to find because they are new.

Financing
The  Honda has bi-weekly financing which lowered the monthly payment.  The reason why it’s lower is because there are two months a year that have 3 pays.  So you actually make two extra bi-weekly payments per year (which lowers the payment).  This option is not available from Toyota and Volkswagen.  It was available with Subaru.  The interest rates were reasonable. I am paying 2.9% interest for 60 months.  The new Corolla was 5.9% interest and the Subaru was 4.9%.  I am sure the interest rates will drop in August some time because the new 2009 Civic will come out but I wanted one now

We get it on Friday.  They will install the automatic car started and tint the windows.  I saw it at the auto glass shop after work.  It will look sweet with tinted windows.

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Ok, this is strange. Who abandons a plane?  Apparently in late 2007 a Boeing 727 landed at Hanoi airport and has been unclaimed ever since.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Why are we only hearing about this now?  The worst part is the plane might have to be sent out for scrap if nobody claims it.  They think that the owners of the plane might have abandoned it since it possibly cost too much to repair. I bet there’s a huge parking ticket stuck in the wipers of that bad boy.  Maybe planes should have license plates like cars…..at least they would be able to find the owners….

Useless News, paulyblog