Mindy and David Go To White Castle

Saturday morning started brilliantly. When getting into the car to run a couple of errands my bad knee locked up on me. This happens a couple of times every year in the most innane ways and I guess since it has been about 6 months since the last time, I was due. Normally it means that I limp around for somewhere between 2-10 days and frim how it is feeling today (Monday), it should be closer to the lower end of this.

We went to a local tile and flooring place to select a vinyl floor for our kitchen. The tile we installed 5 years ago is having some problems and we both think that this will be both a better look and easier to deal with.

Needing to grab something for lunch, I commented to Mindy that there was a new White Castle "restaurant" (a bit of a stretch to call it this) in a neighbouring town and so to have something different, we thought we would eat there. Both of us had been there before but many years ago. Their reputation is for attracting the late night munchy crowd after a night of drinking and their burgers are quite small so they come in large numbers.


Anyway, we arrived and the place was basically empty. There was only one person sitting at a table (more on him later). When we get to the counter, EVERYONE in the place was staring at us - the two servers and the 10 or so people in the kitchen, simply waiting for us to speak so they could pounce on the order. It was quite strange. Walking to our table, Mindy noticed that the guy sitting at the table was clipping his nails right there and just letting the clippings fall on the floor. What she hadn't noticed that I pointed out to her was that he was an employee, proudly wearing a new White Castle shirt! I guess the positive way to look at this is that at least we can know they have clean nails when preparing your food. Now to the food - it was as disgusting as it looks, this place truly takes bad fast food to another level. I guess in some way we knew this would be the case...but it was well and truly confirmed. There was some writing on the food packaging with a number to call "Did we satisfy your crave" - a resounding NO would be the answer there.

Saturday night was all planned to watch the cricket. The timing was perfect as Mindy was going to a friend's house for a birthday party. Unfortunately the rain washed everything away, even more frustrating as we were in quite a good position in the game. My alternative was to watch a 4 hour documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was well worth my time and an interesting, behind the scenes type look at the man and his band over the past 30 years.

Sunday involved a birthday party for the kids to attend at a local gymnastics place. They had a lot of fun, Naomi throwing herself into the foam pit and loving it...Fiona being a little more cautious and sliding into it as easily as she could. Afterwoods, some friends came over for a holiday gathering where it became that Fiona was getting sick. She had a fever last night but seems a little better this morning. Hopefully it will not last too long.

Twenty20

I had not seen many Twenty20 cricket matches before last night but I must admit to being very entertained and quite enjoy the format. I hope that the administrators find a way to incorporate these games alongside the Tests and ODI matches as well and that this is not seen as being the end of other forms of cricket. The one sided result might have had something to do with the enjoyment factor but what is not to like about aggressive batting, good pace bowling, amazing fielding and miked-up players on the field?

Also, things look good for us having an amazing group of pace bowlers right now. Lee, Clark, Johnson, Tait, Noffke, Bracken and Hilfenhaus give is a lot of depth for all forms of the game. Now if only we can find a spinner...

Getting Medieval

This weekend, like most around this time of the year, was quite busy.

Friday night started with a movie - "Knocked Up". While we both felt that there were a few scenes that seemed rather awkward and unnecessary and that it could easily have been 30 minutes shorter - overall it was quite enjoyable and funny. Certainly recommended for an easy night's viewing.

Saturday involved a trip down to Delaware to visit some friends we had not seen in a long time. It was fun to catch up again and nice to see the kids have a good time playing with other kids' toys. Of most interest was the Care Bears plastic figurine set and the Scooby Doo action figures.

On Sunday afternoon we went to "Medieval Times", a themed dinner theatre show aimed at the kids. The action was a cross between a dramatic story and a medieval tournament complete with horse riding action, stunts and mock combat. The arena was divided into 6 sections for each of the 6 knights that were competing. We were sitting in the section for the Blue Knight, who won several early events and threw one of his victory flowers to Fiona in the crowd, much to the delight of the girls. However, in the final tournament, he was struck down only to have his life spared by the intervention of the princess. The Black-and-White Knight won the tournament only to be stabbed at the presentation ceremony by a traitor...good thing the Blue Knight was still around as he rode in on horseback and vanquished all of his foes! The kids were quite happy that their knight was the hero of the day. Quite a good end to a nice weekend.

Hockey

Last night I went to see the New Jersey Devils play the Boston Bruins at the Devils' new home arena. Even better - the tickets were free thanks to an old work friend whose company has season tickets. The seats were quite good, about 15 rows back from the ice. While we were not in the middle of the ice, we were actually at the good end of the building to see the action. At first I thought it was going to be a rough night - Boston scored 3 goals in the first period - but with 2 in the 2nd period NJ was certainly back in the game. Also, these 5 goals were all right in front of us...another bonus. The tying goal was scored in the 3rd period and that was how the regular time finished. In extra time, NJ scored the match winner for a nice 4-3 victory!

I showed my supreme knowledge of the sport during the game. On of the NJ players (#9) misplayed the puck a couple of times right in front of us. I commented to my friend - "This guy sucks" - he then proceeded to score the next two goals and get an assist on the match winner!

Fire!

We had our wood stove inspected yesterday and all went well...so last night we were able to enjoy our fireplace for the first time. Lighting the fire proved to be a little challenging as I did not really have enough kindling to get it going properly however ultimately things got going and the system seems to work properly. The stove itself gets quite hot to provide a lot of radiant heat as well as having a blower unit that circulates heated air in the room. I think that it managed to keep our downstairs floor at a nice temperature but it was hard to tell about what it did upstairs as it was not on for long enough. Today will likely be a good test of this as we plan to try to keep the fire going all day, which will prevent our gas heating system from kicking on (the thermostat is in the same room as the fire). I hope that enough heat goes up the stairs to keep that warm as well.

Mindy was laughing at how much I enjoyed this whole process. I guess I like playing with fire.

New York Stuff

Friday night began with a "family movie night". We had an animated movie on our TiVo - "Surf's Up", about a group of penguins who enter a surfing contest in Hawaii. I hated it, Fiona fell asleep but Mindy and Naomi thought it was OK I guess.

On Saturday, Mindy went into New York with some friends for the day. Not sure what shops she visited specifically but the last of the Christmas presents for the kids were purchased as well as some bowls I think...there was probably some more stuff but I really cannot remember. So, I had the kids for the day. Lunch was a trip to Subway with the Ryan family. The kids actually ate their whole sandwiches, so perhaps despite their protests about the choice of the venue, they have developed a bit of a taste for the food.

After this, back home for a "daddy-daughter movie afternoon". We actually watched "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" which none of us had seen before. They seemed to really enjoy it, Naomi especially got into it when she thought one of the kids was going to get eaten at the end. Certainly a much better movie than what we saw on Friday. During their bath I received a call from Daniel (a friend from Australia) where we reviewed the upcoming selections for the Aussie cricket team as well as his new water tank he was installing.

On Sunday we went in to New York again to go to the American Museum of Natural History. This is a great museum...we have gone many times (we are members) and still have not seen everything. Aside from the permanent collection, there are currently two special exhibits - "Mythical Creatures" and "Water" and we managed to see both. "Mythical Creatures" was quite an interesting look at the development and history of numerous such creatures over time - dragons; unicorns; yeti/big foot etc. This was OK - I think we would have enjoyed it more if we had more time to spend there but the kids were intent on moving forward. The "Water" exhibit was much better I thought. Again, I want to spend more time there and as we plan to return in a few weeks for another trip. It was an interesting look at how we waste and misuse water, kind of silly when it is apparently quite important for our survival!

In the evening we sat in front of our still-not-yet-burning wood stove (hopefully Tuesday) and watched a couple of episodes of "Most Evil". We have about 6 more to watch in the series which is probably about all Mindy could take I think.

Contractors

I hate dealing with home improvement contractors. With a couple of exceptions, everytime you want to get someone to come and do something at your house, you end up having to chase something up, deal with lateness and missed deadlines etc.

Our installation of our new wood stove has been no different. When we bought the stove, we were told that the permit approval process and ordering of our stove should take two weeks, then it is a one day installation. There were two components - the actual stove and the tile that we picked out for them to build a new hearth around it (both for looks and to ensure it met the building code). We selected our tile and they said they would call us when everything was ready. Two weeks went by so I called back. I was told that they had everything however they were waiting on us to select our tile. When I told him this had been done and he checked the file, he found this information and set up an installation date of this past Tuesday (another 10 days beyond the initial two week estimate). I made it clear that if there was an issue with getting the tile to let me know as I did not want this to hold anything up.

Anyway, Tuesday comes and they cannot find a box of tiles. Apparently New Jersey ran out of tiles over the past month. So they installed the stove but could not build the hearth. Mindy and I went out on Tuesday night, purchased a box of tiles and then rescheduled this for Wednesday. All seemed to be going well, only another one day delay it seemed. Then we were told that we needed to call the township to get a final inspection before we could use the stove...and they only do inspections on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mindy called on Thursday morning but they were already fully scheduled, so we have to wait until Tuesday to begin using it. So all-in-all, while it looks great and we are very happy with it, a two week estimate has turned into almost five weeks of dealing with these people to get this done.

Going to the tile place has also led to us buying some new flooring for our kitchen and sun-room. We were not happy with the tile and had been thinking of changing it, so seeing the options available, we made the decision to get this done as well. We decided to go with a vinyl fake-wood finish. I think this will be a nicer look and also supposedly quite durable as well. So I guess we will have more fun with contractors over the next couple of months. After this, a new back fence and we should be done...at least for a while.