Junior Hockey and Frank Gehry

The best part about the week in between Christmas and New Year's is the World Junior Hockey Championship.
Over the last three years I have become a regular viewer of this tournament. I started watching it three years ago because hometown hero Andrew Ladd was picked for the team, and he was going to get to play with current NHL points leader Sidney Crosby (perhaps you've heard of him?). Since then, Canada has won 2 Gold medals and is going for their 3rd.
At the world level of competition the U20 team has won 15 games in a row. They have outscored the opponents (the rest of the world) by a margin of 105-25 during those 15 games.

Canada beat Germany today. They don't even have to win against Slovakia on Sunday to make it into the semi-finals. Canada is already in the semi-finals. However, they're obviously going to try and keep the win streak alive.
Oh yeah, and the American team is again the most overrated team at the tournament. Last year they were supposed to be "The Team To Beat", but they totally sucked. This year, they were supposed to be "The Team To Beat", but this year they're worse than last year. I hate it when the media hypes up a team like that.
But hey, I like Americans. I just think their hockey team is overrated.

The Pic of the Day comes from a request during the last round of comments. Steph asked if I had gone to Spain or Chicago. Are they the same? I have a vague notion of who Frank Gehry is, but I just found out he designed this building, the EMP in Seattle. I do know that the building looks cool and crazy and what's inside is awesome and educational, musically.
Hey Steph, if you're ever in Seattle you have to visit this place. It's just so interesting, every music lover should shell out admission at least once in their lifetime.

Yup, I dropped the L-Bomb

Christmas is a fun and busy time.

Christmas Eve - Church twice (morning and evening), 2 afternoon open houses, one evening open house, and a late night comedy watch at my house (Russell Peters is hilarious). Drinky drinky!

Christmas Day - 8am start to making Brunch, scattered present opening, family brunch, more scattered present opening, dinner with Lindsey's family, a rare Turkey Dinner Nap, home again home again, jiggedy jig.

Boxing Day - Clean up clean up, everybody everywhere. World Junior Hockey! Canada shut out Sweden woot woot! H family cousin open house. I had forgotten to mention any of these cousins to Lindsey, so she got to know all 23 of them really fast. My little baby cousins got so big! Amazing how quickly kids grow up when you're not around them. Canucks beat Calgary. Hooray for hockey.


Pic of the Day
Lindsey and I made each other similar gifts for Christmas. Hers looks far more fabulous than mine, but hey, I'm a guy. She's the crafty one. She made a photo album and put in all of the feet pictures that we've taken over the past 6 months. I love it.
Also in this picture is my new bedding. I love Christmas!

Christmas Post 2006

Christmas is nearly here and I still have a couple gifts to buy. This is, by far, the least organized Christmas I have ever prepared for. Usually I am so on the ball that I offer to get help my Mom out with things. The main reason of which is that I get to write the H Family Christmas Letter. But not this year, no sir (and madam), I have a life this year.

Lucky for me, I also have an awesomely flexible schedule that has 2 to 3 hour gaps where I am able to run around and get the last minute stuff done.

This is not to say that I am dreading Christmas. In fact, I enjoy everything that I've done in the past few weeks leading up to the oh so special day.

- I made a Christmas Music CD using free MP3's posted on blogs.

- I discovered my enjoyment of indie rock and Christmas Music can be combined into an awesome mix CD of free MP3's posted on blogs.

- I ate some yummy Christmas goodies from Lindsey and 4ever29.

- I visited with friends. A lot of new ones and, of course, the steady usual ones.

- I was introduced to Peppermint Schnapps and Hot Chocolate, a combination that everyone must enjoy, at least once.

- I saw the Canucks beat the Wild with a controversially allowed goal. It should have been disallowed, but what can I do about it?

- I saw my friend Holly perform in the Electra Women's Choir.

- We tried to organize a trip to see the Stanley Park Christmas Train, but downed trees and other wind damage cancelled our excursion. Oh well, there's always next year.

- Lindsey bought us the best Christmas CD box set EVER!...

Which brings me to our Pic of the Day. Behold all that is contained in Sufjan Stevens 5 CD Christmas Box Set recorded over the past 5 years. It's freaking awesome, and it will forever be in Christmas CD rotation.

Bonus Pic of the Day. Our Christmas Tree. See how unprepared we are? There are still no presents wrapped in our house. As long as they're wrapped by the 24th, right? Plenty of time...

Merry Christmas Blogland.

The things Wii did

This weekend was a lot of fun.

On Friday we were supposed to go to the Stanley Park Christmas Train. But due to the unfortunate circumstances the weather brought to the Lower Mainland, the train was closed for the weekend. Stupid wind, blowing down trees and ruining our Christmas Train event. Instead, Linds and I ate a Festive Special at Swiss Chalet, bought some wine and gucamole supplies, rented a video and packed it in for the evening. It's what everybody else was doing instead of coming with us, I'm sure of it. Because, if they weren't hanging out with us, then they were obviously doing something far better than staying in doing nothing, right?

Saturday was packed with theory, which I'm not getting into because it's not worth explaining. The highlight was taking Lindsey to her very first NHL game, the Canucks versus the Wild. It as a pretty good game, but the Canucks weren't playing very well. At least they won. My favourite part of the evening was on our walk into the arena...
Linds - I'm so excited right now.
Me - I think you should go to the bathroom before we get to our seats.
Linds - OK... why?
Me - Because you might just pee your pants in excitement.
And then we laughed, obviously.

Sunday we were all over the place, from Albion to North Vancouver, and a few places in between. I got some Christmas shopping done, we had hot chocolate and seafood dip with friends, I went for Chinese food with the H side of the family. And then we visited with more friends. Oh yeah, and I got to play the Nintendo Wii last night! This thing takes video games to the ultimate level of fun. You actually move around to play the games, it's so awesome. I want one.

Our Pic of the Day comes from the hockey game. We take feet/shoe pictures, it's just our thing. Linds got some new shoes, but mine are looking less white and more yellow these days. Either way, the game was awesome and I'm so happy the Canucks won, because one's first NHL game should be a positive experience.

The "I just ate this" Pic of the Day

Lindsey made a whole batch of these things. I saved mine until today so I could show my sister and her bf (aka my landlords). Then I ate it. Chocolate covered almonds make great and tasty penguins. And of course I love the cupcake aspect of it. But doesn't it look great? I mean, it sure tasted great, but doesn't it look delicious too?

In Mike's Backyard it's raining really hard

Cool. It's raining outside and I've got to go pick up the daycare kids from school in an hour. Now, I like the rain. In fact I think I've grown so accustomed to it raining here on the Wet Coast that most of the time I'm not even aware that it's raining.
That is... until I have to walk around in it. Lucky for me I have a sweet Nissan Canada golf umbrella. I borrowed it from my Mom last Spring so I could walk the daycare kids to school, and she hasn't asked for it back yet. This thing is huge. One could fit 2 adults and 3 kids under it if one were so inclined to walk close together.

This week will pick up, for those who check in for interesting things to read about. I've got some cool things going on this weekend that I am really looking forward to doing. And one of them is hockey related.

Here's the Pic of the Day. It was taken right before I started writing this post. You can't tell, but it's raining pretty hard right now. Hopefully it lets up soon and we have a bit of a break so we can walk the kids back to the church. So many of them come unprepared for rain, and wet kids are usually grumpy kids.

Pic of the Day is a doozy

My weekend was as busy as ever. Actually, Saturday had me downloading a whole bunch of songs that I found through blogs, which when you look at, isn't being all that busy.

I love the Internet. It educates me musically and entertains me regularly with sites like Youtube.com, Allmusic.com, Homestarrunner.com, and Quicktime.com. How could anybody be bored when they have the Internet!

I'm currently getting ready to go shopping with, as it turns out, my whole family. All 6 of us. I have no idea how that happened. I thought I was going shopping with just my Mom and sister. Now it's the whole clan. At least now I can ask each of them what they want without any confusion.

I don't have much more to say. This is just a stupid crazy month.

Here's the Pic of the Day. They're actually selling a Christmas decoration called a 'Frosty Dangler'. Does anyone else think this is an entirely inappropriate name for a Christmas decoration? Not only that, but you can 'Hang it anywhere'. Yikes people! I'm still giggling about this one. But then, I can't even say duty without smiling.

hee hee hee... duty

TV is sucking me into it's vortex of inactivity

I don't know how people can blog everyday. I just don't seem to make the time to blog everyday. Maybe my posts need to be shorter. Yeah, that's it. I'll just do little blurbs about nothing, because that's all I've got at the moment.

There hasn't been any Canucks games, all I've really done is watch shows on DVD and schedule time for the ones I watch in their current seasons. Here's what I might be watching on any given night.

Heroes - Now that I've caught up on the season, I'm hooked.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - This is my first "Sorkin" show and so far it's been very interesting.
Gilmore Girls Season 7 - when a new episode is on.
House Season 3 - I haven't seen the first 2 seasons, but I think I get the idea. House is a jerk but he's good at solving medical problems.
Grey's Anatomy Season 3 - I really like this show. I saw sporadic episodes from Season 1 and 2. But as soon as I saw a guy blow up in that 2nd Season two-parter I was all in, baby.
Lost - They're on a lengthy hiatus right now. I hope they come back guns blazing. That would be awesome.

Gilmore Girls Season 2 DVD - Linds and I are about halfway through it. We hope to be caught up by the time they've decided the fate of the show after Season 7.

Scrubs Season 2 DVD - This is a show we've heard a lot about, but never took the time to see. Now that we have friends who own the seasons, we're catching up.

Justice League Unlimited Season 1 DVD - I just love this show. Period.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 3 DVD- For those moments when drama is just too much and you need to see just how random some people can be.
Fraggle Rock Season 2 DVD - Dance your cares away, worry is for another day.
The Muppet Show Season 1 DVD - We're stretching this one out until Season 2 comes out on DVD.


Wow, I watch a lot of television.

Here's the Pic of the Day. Lindsey bought me this book and couldn't wait to give it to me for Christmas. It's awesome. I flip through it during Canucks games.

It'll Xavier your Rudd

Today I did a lot of nothing, again. Fortunately my good friend MRW sent me a link to download this cool word game. It's totally for kids, Bookworm Adventures Deluxe. I had the time to make it through 2 of the 3 worlds. It's a very addicting game, the basic gist of it is this... Make words using the 16 letters given so you attack the bad guys. This is not as easy as it sounds. Once you use a letter you can't use it again unless the game gives it to you. I started out making mostly 4 letter words, but now I've upped my creative juices to using more 5 letter words.
But the game is not the point of this post.

Lindsey and I went to see Xavier Rudd at The Orpheum tonight and it was an amazing show. I knew very little about Xavier before I went, other than the fact that he can play the didgeridoo.
Well, is that ever an understatement as I was to learn tonight. He's got this whole set up in the middle of the stage that includes around 6 bongo type drums, 3 didgeridoos, 2 gongs, 1 wood block, and around 15 or so cymbals. Not only that, but he played at least 6 different kinds of guitars. The most amazing thing was when he was playing the didge while either drumming or strumming. The man can't be human!
All in all it was a great show, the last show on this particular tour. My favourite part, other that having my mind blown by musical talent, was his intro guy. This big bellied aboriginal man with a long scraggly beard and a long scraggly mustache came out with his tribal gear on and a santa hat. Then he cracked jokes as he played Jingle Bells on the didge (and boy that man could play the didge). I wanted to see him as part of the show, instead Xavier played a song written about the man's sister who died as a result of alcoholism.


Updated at 1pm!
The Pic of the Day is from the Xavier show. It took a few tries, but blogger finally decided to upload it. It's blurry, I know. It was taken from the balcony without a flash. During the encore performance he brought out a group of six kids between the ages of 6 and 10. They sang backup on a song about a ship. It was awesome! There were so many cool things this guy did, more people need to know about Xavier Rudd. Check out his setup, he can barely move in there.

Oh yeah, and the 10 points is going to be split right down the middle because Michelle guessed two things and she was only half right. We had Tacos and Fajitas. So that means the other 5 points go to Saranate who guessed margaritas but mentioned fajitas. Sorry Nuttina, we love the quesadillas but we didn't have them the other day. That's usually our Sunday lunch.

A Case of the Mondays

Oh how the hours creep slowly by when I have nothing to do. Honestly, I'd rather be working on days like this. Lucky for me I have an awesome girlfriend who brings me joy.

Anyone watch the Canucks game tonight? You didn't miss much. They lost, were totally shut out by Edmonton, and three players left the game with injuries. Talk about a bad game.

On the plus side, here's the Pic of the Day. Guess what we had for dinner tonight from these fixings? (Lindsey made the guacamole on the lower left.) 10 points to whomever can guess first!

I've got a funny feeling

Oh man, everything was hilarious to me just a minute ago. I love being at that moment where you know you're tired, but everything someone says is funny. It's better than being drunk, because you can just fall asleep and wake up without the headache. Laughter really is good medicine, except if you really do have a headache.

My friend Holly (the one in the Elektra Women's Choir) came back from California a couple weeks ago. She went down to celebrate American Thanksgiving with some family that live down there. She brought me back some avocados, which I am extremely thankful for, and excited about. I asked her to bring one back for me, and she brought me three. The reasons for my excitement are simple. Lindsey and I love making guacamole. More accurately, we love eating it. And for some reason the only avocados they ship up to my corner of Canada are dinky little things no bigger than a minute. The avocados that they have in California are at least twice as big. That means twice as much guacamole! Woohoo!

This brings me to the Pic of the Day for Dec. 3rd. It's Lindsey holding the big avocado halves, right before they get made into guacamole. If we had a dinky avocado from the grocery store I would have shown a comparison shot. Maybe I just got a good idea for another Pic of the Day.

PS - I've decided to count from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed as one day. Never mind this midnight-is-the-next-day junk. The next day happens when I wake up. Screw you, clock.

So far - off to a bad start

You know when you mean to do something, and then you end up having too much fun doing something else, and you forget to do the original thing that you meant to do in the first place?

I meant to blog everyday in December, but as you can see from the clock, it's not Dec 2nd, it's the 3rd. What can I say? I live an exciting life.

Today was supposed to be a "relax, don't do it, when you want to go to it" kind of day. And it was for the most part. I did some scanning for my dad because his scanner is on the fritz. I'm only half done and I've already scanned 33 articles and pictures, all hockey related. Then Linds and I caught up on this weeks episode of Grey's Anatomy after having Tim Horton's chili.

The evening was when things got busy. My friend is in the Elektra Women's Choir, which, depending on who you talk to, is kind of a big deal. They've been around for 20 years now, and are known the world over for singing excellence.
Q: How much do I know about choir?
A: Not much. I've known my friend has been in this choir for about 7 years now, (including the 2 that I've known her for) and am only just beginning to grasp the prestige this choir carries. She's kind of a big deal, she has many leather-bound books and her place smells of rich mahogany.
Anyways, I went and saw one of her concerts for the first time ever tonight. It was good. This choir is really really good. Who knew I have a friend in the Elektra Women's Choir?

The reason for the late post is that we went to Cactus Club afterward and ran into Lindsey's Long Lost Cousin (LLC) whom she hadn't seen in 8 years. And we also saw some of Lindsey's friends from The Ranch. It was totally random and strange, but it was a lot of fun. I'm going to have be short on details because I really need to get to bed soon.

Here's the Pic of the Day for Dec. 2nd. It was taken by the one and only 4ever29 during the Christmas Café kitchen clean-up. Gus kept coming into the kitchen area looking for a cold drink, as the mask made things 10x hotter than normal. Oh, and Gus is blinking in order to add to the mystique of Gus' identity. It's hilarious that some people can't figure out who Gus really is. I know, but I'm not telling!

Christmas Café and Pic of the Day

Alright, so most of you who read my blog didn't really enjoy my love of super heroes post.
Too bad. I don't blog for you, I blog for me. But thanks for the greetings!

Now that it's December I'm going to try and blog more. I don't know why, I'm just going to. That way I won't feel so overwhelmed when I try and think of a post.

Christmas Café is going on at Burnett right now. 2 years ago I volunteered for Parking because my Mom said they needed help, and I was on my 4 days off. This year, I'm actually attending a service regularly, and my rise to recognizability has been fast. So I kind of feel a need to volunteer, for everything. This year I'm in the Kitchen. It's fun.
Here's a useless bit of information: My team leader this year is married with children to my team leader of 2 years ago. They were married with children back then, too. But I didn't even go into the church 2 years ago, so I didn't meet anybody.

After my stint in the Kitchen (which was really the Nursery) was finished I went out for a late dinner with Lindsey and our friend Shannon. We babysit for her, which is kind of a big deal, because she doesn't let just anyone babysit for her. You've gotta pass the test. It's a series of written exams, physical exertion tests, and a 2 hour interview. We totally nailed it on the first try. We're actually looking after her kids next Friday. But I digress... We went to Quiznos and the girl there made us feel like we weren't supposed to be there, even though they didn't close for another hour. I'll never know why people with no "People Skills" ever apply for work in the customer service industry.

Tonight is another Café night, so I'll let you all know in tomorrow's blog if something cool happens.

Here is the Picture of the Day for December 1, 2006. This is what we did at Daycare. They made a slide and some forts. This giant pile of snow is from when they cleared the parking lot for Christmas Café. That's the slide they're going down.

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Oh yeah, this end part is for Phats. I still read your blog. I even read the boring sports posts about college ball, which I promptly forget because I'm saving that part of my brain for Hockey Trivia. But if you're really such a comment whore, then I'll be sure to put a Hi-dee-ho in for you after I read. Sheesh!