Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 24, 2008
Got the car back from the shop on Sunday. Another $600, but its running beautifully now. I gave them a list of things I wanted done, and they did them all. I drove it home, and loved every minute of it.
Monday evening I was detailing the interior, and as I was rubbing Armor-All on the dashboard something happened. I fell in love with it again.
I’m not sure if its the curves, or the way it crouches on the ground like its ready to pounce. Maybe its my stereo, that I never quite got installed properly, or the race car-like suspension. Maybe its the manual transmission, and the way it makes me feel like when I’m driving, my car and I are in tune with each other. Maybe its the way it hugs corners, and practically begs for me to open up its little engine on the straight-aways.
Whatever it is, when I was done, I had to take it out for a spin. And I had to drop the hammer going up a hill so I could rocket over the top of it… And a cop had to be sitting there in the dark, just waiting for an idiot like me.
Fortunately, he was a nice guy, my driving record has been immaculate for years, and when I explained that I just got it back from the shop and was putting it through its paces, he was very understanding. The ticket was for 95 in an 80 (that’s kilometers) but I was doing much more than that.
It came as a reminder that as much as I genuinely dislike driving the big family wagon, and reminisce about the days when Nic and I could cruise around in our little hot rod, young and stupid and free (and with really high insurance payments), my life has changed. I wasn’t ticked off at the cop who busted me, I was embarrassed because I knew better.
Its time to get rid of my race car, and grow up… some more.
So, we have a car for sale! I’m selling it for $3000. Its probably worth more than that, but the clutch is getting soft, and will eventually need to be replaced. Its up on Kijiji, and there’s a sign on the window. We’re in no huge hurry to sell it off, but the truth is, we don’t really use it. Now that I work from home, I don’t do much solo driving, and the car seats fit poorly in it, so the SUV does most of the family cartage.
Drop us a line if you’re interested!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 23, 2008
I’ll write something when we decide what we’re doing with things. I’m waiting for more information, so there’s nothing interesting to write. Instead, please enjoy this picture of the sprout growing out of our daughter’s head…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 19, 2008
Stop getting married. Just elope. Its nowhere near as good, but I feel it would be easier on our routine. Thank you.
OK, I wouldn’t really wish that, marriage rocks, and weddings are fun. But I’m still going to be glad when this year’s nuptials are all over with! Only one more to go, but Nic’s in the wedding party. I’ve recently become aware that its a lot more work for a girl to be in a wedding party than a guy. Save for the 1 or 2 days prior to the wedding, and possibly writing a speech, there isn’t a whole lot for a groomsman to do. For brides and bridesmaids, on the other hand…
Anyway, we do have a pretty nice routine now. So nice, in fact, that I’m starting to understand why people don’t travel as much as I think everyone should. Its just really, really comfortable here.
I set my alarm so that I’m downstairs and at work around 7am. Sometimes its 7:15, so I add that on to the end of my day. I spend an hour catching up on e-mail, making my task list for the day, managing my calendars, and reading a few tech blogs to keep up on things, then I take half of my lunch break. I do my devotions, my morning stretches, have a quick breakfast with my family (or at least shove food/coffee in my mouth at roughly the same time as them) and grab a shower, then its back to work for the morning.
At lunch time, I take my remaining half hour to eat with everyone, then take the kids for a walk down to the mailbox. Yesterday we had lunch on the back deck, with the birds chirping, the hot tub burbling, and some mellow music playing over AirTunes.
I work all afternoon, finish out my day, and I’m out from the bat cave by 5:00pm at the latest, unless there’s a late meeting. I never have to worry about how bad the commute will be.
Evenings are usually pretty relaxing. We’re a good two weeks behind on our TV content, which is a good place to be. If we don’t spend our kid-free time sipping something bubbly in the hot tub, we usually watch a show a night, on our own schedule and commercial-free, since everything is downloaded for us automatically and for free/cheap. We’ve had a steady, but not too rapid, flow of visitors out to our place to spend the occasional evening playing board games, or relaxing in the hot tub with us. Neither of us was blessed with the spiritual gift of hospitality — but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy trying!
Wednesday nights are Alpha at the church, and while that’s proven to be more… interesting than we’d anticipated, we get a free meal, free babysitters, and an opportunity for community and challenging discussion. Sunday morning’s church service is a little longer and a little more traditional than what we’re used to, but the people are friendly, and its important to us that our kids grow up with church as a part of normal life. Sunday evenings will have a service a little more geared to our demographic, where the music is better, and there are more people our age to get to know.
I’m finally at the place where I’m starting to look forward to my projects list. Its hard to know where to start, because even though our house is “perfect” there’s still a fair bit I want to do. But I’m not going to push myself so hard that these things become a chore. They’re just supposed to be atomic little challenges to tackle if I get bored (which I’m known to do.)
Money is a little tight at the moment — having a baby, moving to a different country, buying our first house, and doing significant repairs on both vehicles, all in a 6 month span is bound to be a bit challenging. But our cash budget is back in effect, and our non-fixed costs are pretty low, now that we’re both home on weekdays. And small town life is pretty predictable, so its just a matter of waiting it out in the comfort of our home and neighbourhood while things settle down, before we go after some of our other financial goals. (Although, going to weddings does somewhat challenge the budget!)
In short, I’m not really sure how it gets much better than this. Someday we’ll need a slightly bigger place, and it would be nice to consolidate our multiple aging vehicles down to a more comfortable and practical ride. We’ve definitely got some travel goals (Europe ‘09, Asia ‘11!!) we’ll be working toward. But the fact is, we’re really, and truly blessed and content here. Some of you haven’t visited us yet. You need only to drop us a line and let us know when you’re coming!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 15, 2008
How to describe last week? It was fun, crazy and long. We’re glad we went, we’re glad to be home.
My good friend, Jon, married his fiancee, Virginia, on Saturday, at an amazingly beautiful wedding, planned almost entirely while he was at sea, aboard a submarine, and his fiancee was hundreds of miles from home. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of work left to be done last week!
There’s so many random parts of the week that are worth recording, but I’m not sure I can pull them together in any cohesive prose, so I’ll just throw out random paragraphs and some associated media, and hope you can figure out what I’m talking about.
Virginia’s mom works in a U.S. Army Arsenal, where they decided to throw an out-door wedding. The grounds are quite historic and beautiful, but the restrictions on getting on-base made for some interesting predicaments. First of all, there was the giant tent they rented for a dinning hall. It was 60 feet long, cost them $1800 to rent, and it was delivered, the day before the wedding, by a team of Guatamalens… who were pretty quickly denied access to the base. That left the truck driver, Jon, me and his cousin — Jon’s only family member who made it to the wedding — to figure out how to set-up the giant tent. As you can see from the pictures, we got it done, and it looked great!
Jon and Brooke in the tent we built
On the day of the wedding Nicole and our local babysitter, Shannon, had Ben, Abi and Alivia (our friend’s Brooke and Jason’s daughter) at Brooke’s mom’s house where we were staying. As they were packing up the vehicles to drive to the wedding, Alivia decided to ride a plastic train down a flight of stairs, where she smashed her mouth into the ceramic tile floor. You can read more about it on Brooke’s blog. Fortunately, she lost only one baby tooth — but the ensuing worry and drama was obviously a lot for everyone to handle moments before the ceremony was to start.
Ben sharing ice with Alivia for her fat lip
Nicole had arranged a complicated plan to drive an American vehicle onto the base, and hopefully avoid any questions of her nationality (as I had somehow managed to do all weekend.) They arrived late, and were questioned at an abnormal length by the guards, who figured out that Nicole wasn’t American. We had to send the mother of the bride to escort her on-base — you know, in case my little blond mother-of-two-babies was actually there as a spy from the ominous Canadian military.
Neither of these girls was a spy (they’re both American)
Eventually everyone arrived, the weather having cleared by late morning, the sun was shining, the pastor got there (without needing to be kidnapped), the bride was radiant, the groom efficient and dapper, and the party got started.
Ben loves to dance. At even the slightest hint of rhythm, he’ll put his arms up and wiggle around to the music. He was in his glory at the reception! Although we had some trouble convincing the babysitter to dance with him, he had no issues with going solo. At one point, he fell over — which he does often — but didn’t want to stop, so he started break dancing! I don’t know who taught him those moves, but it certainly wasn’t his dad!
As I mentioned, virtually none of Jon’s family made it to the wedding. The reasons for this are varied, some more interesting than others (and more valid) so it fell to me and his cousin (who turned out to be a very decent guy) to support and encourage Jon through the wedding. Being on the groom’s side, fortunately, allowed us to avoid most of the drama the ladies seemed to cook up, and mostly we were just charged with ensuring that Jon’s carefully laid out schedules and to-do lists were executed on plan. Oh, and I managed to pull off that speech, hopefully without sounding too much like a stammering idiot. Jon deserved every word of it.
We stayed with Grandma Nancy — Brooke’s mom, and one of the sweetest ladies in New York — and her husband Tim — one of the coolest guys in New York. Their house is best described as Grand Central Station. People just sort of roll in and out, eating very well along the way. This week’s activities made it even more of a mad house. Also, I don’t believe Jessie has ever cleaned her shower. Still it’s a big, warm and loving environment, where the kids felt right at home. It was a blessing to have such a nice place to crash at the end of our long days. And Ben got to hang out with his girlfriend Alivia a lot, so he was happy.
Work was crazy, by the way. I guess my boss wanted to capitalize on my presence — either that or he’d forgotten I existed until I got there — because I found myself juggling three different issues, in a number of meetings (some superfluous, others very worthwhile.) It felt good to be back in the thick of things for awhile, and I think I’ll have to make sure that happens periodically.
At any rate, we came, we saw, we conquered. It was a great wedding, at the end of a great week. We got to see many of our friends and “adopted” family in New York, and I got to honor and support a great friend.
Definitely top secret spies. Ever seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Ya, that’s us…
It was good… but we’re not going back any time soon. Both the Wises and their vehicles are about road-tripped out, and aside from possibly taking a short hop (relatively) over to Cleveland, we intend to stay close to our new home base for the near future. A new house and a new community are a lot of work, and we want to do our best at it… plus, we’re sick of driving. All trips from now on are going to be significant enough that we have to take a plane!
All the best to Jon and Ginny! Hope you’re having a great honeymoon in Jamaica! Jon, if you’re reading this, close the MacBook, unplug the travel router, and get back to the beach!
Lots more pictures in Flickr…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 12, 2008
This has to be the craziest week ever.
Seriously.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 10, 2008
I found this map once before, but it got lost in my sea of unorganized bookmarks. In Canada when we want a sweet carbonated beverage, we’d ask for a pop. Here in New York, if we asked for a pop, no one would have a clue what we were talking about. Now that we live in Canada, we’re having trouble not calling it soda.
Check the map to see what name they use elsewhere in the States. Seems “soda” is a bit of a minority…
In other news, the Large Hadron Collider came online today (and the world didn’t end) leading to some really cool pictures. Maybe we can hear something about the science now…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 05, 2008
The saga continues, as we take the little car in one more time for some repairs. This is the last significant money we plan to spend on my Saturn SC2. Next time she drops, we’ll be putting her down. Its been a good car, taken us well over 200,000 hard kilometers over the past 7+ years, and until now has barely cost us a cent beyond normal maintenance. And I love driving it…
The other Saturn, our SUV, who’s already taken a beating to the tune of about 100,000 km since we bought it just shy of 3 years ago, is about to do probably its last haul with the whole family to New York. After some running around tomorrow, including a wedding shower for our family car mechanic (who’s already saved us thousands) we’ll be packing the whole crew up, and heading for the Interstate again. My good friend Jon is back from his submarine and is getting hitched. I haven’t yet written my best-man speech, but I’ll get on that during the 8 hour road trip.
It’ll be good to see our New York friends, but its a little bit tougher leaving home now that we… actually have a home. Life is finally getting good here, and it seems disruptive to leave it just as we’re settling in. But its only a week, and hopefully it’ll be worth it…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 03, 2008
Yesterday, after work, I was sitting out on the back deck, enjoying my recently installed AirTunes setup (streaming music, wirelessly, from the computer upstairs to the speakers I mounted on the wall of our house, controlled, wirelessly, by my iPhone) when Benjamin slid open the patio door, and toddled out with one of my shoes in his hands — a shoe nearly half his height.
He proceeds to pull my slipper off my right foot, and hang my left shoe off my big toe, and then walks away (closing the patio door behind him for once.) A few minutes later, he comes back out with the other shoe, and once again pulls off my slipper and carefully tries his very best to put the shoe on my left foot.
When he’s done, he gets up from his squat, inspects his work with pride, smiles up at me and says:
WWwwwallllllk?
Of course, I couldn’t possibly say no to all that effort, so we went for a walk.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Sep 02, 2008
One of the side-effects of unpacking (and of packing) is that you’ll inevitably come across all sorts of crap you didn’t even remember you had. I’m infamous for purging possessions whenever we move, but there are some things I just can’t force myself to get rid of. I have boxes of notes, keep-sakes, tapes, mini-discs, floppy discs, and trinkets from high school. Nicole’s not so much on the notes, but she has tons of photographs, and she can tell you when and where each of them was taken.
One of the side-effects of old photographs is that they make you feel old! Something about how a picture that’s barely 5 years old has already started to fade and discolor a bit, making it look like something you dug up in your grandma’s attic — even though its a picture of you, and you remember it being taken, and it wasn’t that long ago!!
The thing is, Nicole and I have been together a long time. This year’s anniversary, like most of the previous ones, kinda flew by without much pause for recollection. As is the norm for us, we were too deep in the middle of some massive life change to really stop and celebrate how far we’ve come. But as I was digging through boxes at lunch time today, looking for something or other I’d lost, I stumbled across piles of photo albums, with pictures taken what seems like a life time ago. And I had to stop and marvel at this journey.
While we’ve been married 7 years, Nicole and I have been together over 10. We met in high school, married before we were done college, and haven’t really slowed down since. Click on for a few discolored, somewhat faded pictures, that make us look like the couple of old married people we really are…
Read More…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Aug 29, 2008
I think its finally safe to say that the place feels like home.
Nicole’s priority has been the kitchen and living area — we’re resigned to the fact that the main floor will be constantly covered in toys for the foreseeable future, so we aren’t putting any of our nicer furniture up there. We got a old CRT TV that Ben can bang on while he watches Super Why, and we’ve basically left the floor space open for running, stomping, dancing and rolling.
My priority has been the basement — my Bat Cave. Its going to be a kid free zone, which means its safe to keep our nice things down there. The good TV and the home theater equipment are in there, and surround sound is great to have in a decent sized room. My office is a pretty much perfect space, with a giant desk and lots of storage space. I’m re-thinking putting a wall up, because I like the extra room — and I like the fact that I can sit on conference calls from the couch! There’s a little work I want to do on the built-in TV cabinet, but since I was originally planning to rip it out, the reduced scope of the project is pleasing. The walls need some touch up paint, and the ceiling needs work in a few spots… but the room is still pretty much awesome.
The hot tub turns out to be a lot of work — not that I’m complaining. Getting the bromine, alkalanity, hardness and pH balance just right is really, really hard! We’ve already had to dump all the water once because it went all misty looking, and we couldn’t get it clear again. I’m told its an art, not a science, so I’ll just have to keep working at it.
Our bedroom is tiny… almost too small to fit everything in there, in fact. But that could have something to do with having the largest, heaviest dressers ever made! We inherited them from Nic’s grandma, and we really shouldn’t complain, because they were free and better than nothing, but it is kinda tight in there. As long as Nic doesn’t get pregnant again, though, we can squeeze in there fine.
We haven’t met any of our neighbours yet, although we’re doing our best to look friendly and open to it. It woulda been nice if someone had come by and told us about things like garbage day (which we missed, and now have to keep a giant smelly bag of diapers in the garage for another week) but I suppose people don’t do that kind of thing much these days. I know we will if someone moves in near us!
Overall, home ownership definitely comes with some new challenges, but the rewards are totally worth it. I maxed out my stereo watching Star Wars the other night, and there was no one around to bang on the walls and tell me to turn it down!
New York in a week, Alpha kick-off when we get back, and a whole bunch of cool fall evenings to be spent in the hot tub under the stars. Life is good 
