Touch You Last

So yeah… dodgeball. Here’s what I want to believe: that I’m just not as nimble as I was when I was thirteen years old. But talking it over with Jorge this morning, we came to the agreement that perhaps I wasn’t nearly as awesome at it (back in the day) as I like to think. Little kids—even the sporty ones or the overgrown, brutish ones—can't throw particularly fast. Playing against grown-ups can be like trying to dodge cannon fire. That said, I don’t want to oversell our competition. They were okay. Far and away the best thrower was on our team. But I would have to say that eight of ten throws, coming in my direction and with any decent velocity, hit me pretty squarely. There are two flaws to my dodging strategy: I start the dodge before the ball has even been released During the dodge, my limbs move like crazy but my core stays in just about the exact same spot Holy hell, did I play some lousy dodgeball. But it’s not all bad news. We won, and by a good margin, which is always aweso...

The Fall season of our All-Sort-of-Sport league launched on Tuesday, and it’s a pretty busy time, what with all the kicking ass and taking names. Sport One was floor hockey, which I went from dreading, to being ambivalent to, to anticipating, and then (after we won our back-to-back games) totally loving. The first team was good, and they owned us in the beginning until we got our act together. The second team was really quite terrible--to the point where every member of our team got a goal, even yours truly. After wiping the floor with team two for the first short while, I think we did a very good job of letting them sneak in a few goals without letting them know we were letting them sneak in a few goals. It was 20 – 10 by the end, so kudos to us. Two observations I come away with from that game: I’m a wuss – At the onset I thought everyone was being hyper-aggressive. I remember thinking, “Geez, guys—dial it down a notch!” As the game went by, the feeling total...

I'd like to say we spent every free minute of the past month working on the house, and that I was waiting for things to be perfect before the grand online unveiling, but... no. After the un oldtimey-ing was complete (thanks largely to Sarah's parents--the best hard labour a marriage can buy,) we unpacked a little more, tidied some, but then took a break. At the time, I felt that we'd gotten pretty lazy, but in retrospect we were also on the go a lot of the time. But this weekend, we've got nothing on the docket so we should get some good work done. But without further ado, here's the house. The ground floor, anyway (just because that's where the most dramatic changes have taken place). Main Hall This one feels a bit like one of those weight-loss before/after sets. The before pic is poorly lit, the angle is all cockeyed, and the camera is pushed in close to make it just that much more claustrophobic. The main hall was the last room we painted. Living Room I...

We're in Edmonton right now. We just came back from the temple portion of our friends' ( Deepa and David) wedding. Lots of Indians and lots of Brits, and while I wasn't disappointed on the sari front but the Brit's disappointed me with their lack of fancy dress hats. Sarah's been here since Thursday morning and I flew in last night. We're currently driving an electric blue Dodge Nitro --not by choice, FYI. Sarah'd reserved a compact, but they were all out, and since we're in Alberta, they've got SUVs coming out the wahzoo , hence the Nitro . It looks terrible, and drives worse, but it's a fun experience. In other news, the house is looking pretty good. I'll post some pictures soon, now that my time is my own again. Word to your mother, Dave