I am Remarkably Succesful...

...at avoiding writing about Iowa. Instead, I give you two recent pictures of Thomas. I can them 'Pride' and 'After the Fall'.

Keeping Faith with the Ancients

Normally I react to advertising and branding in a negative manner, punishing products that put forward ads I dislike rather than rewarding those that amuse me. Normally. In this case I am undeniably amused by the branding and have rewarded it by adopting this as my default bread…
http://www.dempsters.ca/WhatsNew.html

As early as 6,000 B.C. ancient civilizations recognized the nutritional value of whole grains and cultivated various grains that became staples in their diets. Today Dempster’s introduces a new bread variety made with a blend of a four ancient seeds and grains: Spelt, Kamut, Quinoa & Amaranth.

Ancient grains have unique & exotic flavours, distinct textures and are rich in minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, fibre and complex carbohydrates. These grains originated all over the world. Spelt is the oldest grain in Europe dating back to 6,000 B.C. Quinoa has been grown for over 5,000 years in the Andes Mountains and Amaranth has a long and interesting history in Mexico where the Mayans & Incans have been harvesting it for thousands of years. On the other hand, Ancient Egyptian farmers cultivated Kamut. All this knowledge and wisdom has been combined to bake a delicious loaf of bread bringing all the nutritious value of ancient grains to you and your family.

That’s right, I am fueled by the ancient power of Spelt, Quinoa, Amaranth and Kamut. And who knows, if Dempsters rings up and assures me that sacrificing a squirrel or two would ensure a mild winter and next years harvest I might just finish my sandwich and get to work doing the bidding of the Ancients. My only question is what grain was favoured by the denizens of R’lyeth?

A Couple of Book Reviews

I had hoped to write about Iowa by now. It will still happen, but 1st here are my thoughts on two books I recently managed to read.

Stephen Fry in America (the UK version)

I like Stephen Fry and have done so for years. If you have yet to see ‘Absolute Power’ I highly recommend finding it. That show is smart, fast and funny. Anyway, this was a good book. The premise is pretty simple, Stephen was nearly born in the USA and claims to have always had a degree of fascination with the place. To help scratch that itch, he sets off in an English black taxi to travel through every state gracing us with a page or five on what we finds. He finds great deal and likes a lot of what he sees, but not everything. There are places to which, given the choice, he is unlikely to ever return and places in which he reckons he could very happily see out his days.

As expected Stephen's insight is keen and his command of English strong. The two combine to make for an enjoyable read. And, if you happened to have already seen the TV series, go ahead and get the book anyway. While there is obviously common ground, each medium focuses on differing aspect of his experiences in a given state.

The Zombie Survival Guide.

I really enjoyed World War Z, which made this pretty disappointing. The Survival Guide lacks human dimension and rigor (but not mortis) that made WWZ such a tremendous piece of work. Instead it is fairly dull, repetitive and at times self contradictory. To be blunt, it should have been half as long.

Unexpected moment of parental amusement #2874

I had hoped to write about Iowa by now, but the house-plague has kind of stymied that idea. I will do it, most likely I'll break the subject into two pieces. ONce about Grandma and one about the rest of the visit.

Instead, for now, meet Lillian’s favorite new toy ‘Spyda’. It’s a giant cheap Halloween spider that I bought for myself, but which she claimed as her own before we had even reached the car. As you can see, she is rather attached. I wish I had a movie of the *one* time Thomas tried to play with Spyda. A mistake he is unlikely to repeat.





…I reckon I’ll have to buy another if I actually want one.

Sick as a Pig

Wednesday afternoon I took the kids to a free clinic for H1N1 vaccinations, receiving one myself.

Saturday: slept in until 10am (usually up at 6)and still felt rather ordinary. Back to bed at 4pm. Saturday night consisted of all the usual flu symptoms, fever/chills, nausea & vomiting, aches and pains.

Sunday: Better than Saturday night. All the symptoms are still there, but not as bad Spent entire day in bed. Sleep an hour, get up have a small drink of water, rinse and repeat. I even manage to eat some plain rice & pasta over the course of the day.

Monday: improving, but still arse. I ate some banana and now when I sleep I don't have discordant fever-dreams. I am also usually up for an hour and then asleep for an hour.

The moral of the story is that I have clearly been poisoned by inferior communist grade vaccine. Had I instead received proper freedom loving vaccine I am sure I would have been fine. What more, the vaccination probably would have made me more youthful looking and blasted my abs.

(BTW - thankfully neither of the kids has responded in kind)

I love Halloween

There are lots of reasons to love Halloween. Today, for me, its the dirt cheap costumes to be had after the event. Hello $20 worth of fun…

United Airlines is Dead to Me.

We went to Iowa, it was good, and we have returned. I’ll fill all that in later, but first a brief word about how the business and operations plan known as United Airlines (UA) is actually a house of cards made from turds that will never again enjoy my patronage.

The day before our departure I log onto the UA website to check in online. I enter our confirmation code, and their webpage spits me out. I enter our confirmation code, and it spits me out. I enter our confirmation code, and it spits me out. I ring their 1-800 number and wait…

“Sorry, you are traveling with an infant, so you are required to check in at the counter”

OK, that’s fine, but it would have been good to know an hour, and much frustration, ago. It’s a noon flight, and since we are flying internationally we need to arrive 3 hours in advance. That sees us driving across town in peak hour so I add some more time. The kids are kids, so there is some more time added again. So, I roll out of bed at 6am, with the family following soon after, in order to catch out noon flight. We make it to the airport just after 9am - as required - to check in at the counter with our infant (aka Lillian) – as required. All the check in counters are staffed, except United. Instead, United has a small sign that simply reads ‘Back at 10am, please use kiosks to check in’.

Of course we are traveling with an infant and cannot use the kiosks. We wait. OK, I actually fume, but it looks a lot like waiting.

At 10am a single suitable po-faced women arrives to open the counter. She takes our details and issues our boarding passes for the Ottawa/Chicago flight, but explains that she can only get three of us onto the Chicago/Des Moines flight. After I imagined some random violence and recalled a certain Southpark episode, I wondered how exactly she expected us to divide the 3 seats between myself, Jane (non-driver) , Thomas (3yrs old) and Lillian (non-seated infant). Luckily, when we arrived in Chicago the people at that gate were able to get us all onto the flight. So ultimately, we made it from Ottawa to Des Moines on time, as planned and together. And so did our luggage (2 bags), though they charged us $40 each way for the temerity of taking luggage.

I have been flying United on a semi-regular basis since I was in the 5th grade, and I remember it not sucking. So much for memories.