Tomorrow I start my journey through the HCG diet.  Today, I met with Teena at the Selkirk Clinic to discuss the specifics of the HCG diet.  I am excited and nervous at the same time.  The first two days are fun, eat as much as you can.  To quote from written instructions: “If you do not ‘pig out’ properly, you will not see the results you want.”  I am good at pigging out.  It is something that I am very good at.  On day three, the real diet starts;  500 calories a day.  To lose a pound a day, I am will to try.

So a little over a week ago, my doctor recommended to my wife that she and I try the HCG diet.  We were steered to the Selkirk Clinic in Maple Ridge.  I met with the Naturopath on Tuesday to discuss my health and medical history, and my wife and I are scheduled to meet with the HCG consultant on Monday.  Then it is off to the races; 40 pounds in 40 days.  It would be nice to show up for Christmas dinner 40 pounds lighter.  My favourite part of the diet is that I am not supposed to do any extra exercise whilst on the diet.  I will only be consuming 500 calories per day, and the rest of the caloric intake will come from the fat stores that are being consumed.  All the toxins stored in my fat cells are going to be released into my system, should be interesting.  I am looking forward to this diet.  It will be tough to eat so little, but I currently weigh ~320 lbs, and I am 36% body fat, so I have a great deal to lose to be considered healthy.

I went to a woodworkers guild meeting last night with my father.  It was quite a good meeting, as it was being held in one member’s new wood shop.  It was a beautifully laid out shop, with a dust-collector to drool over.  While we were there, my father and I cornered one member to discuss framing floor joist supports.  My father wanted to know how far apart to space the support braces to hold the joists in place.  I had suggested to my father previously that rather than cutting the traditional X shape cross member, we could simply cut a length of 2×6 14.5″ long and use a Kreg screw to secure them. My father felt that this would be insufficient. Whilst chatting with the guild member, I raised my suggestion, and he felt that this would be an excellent idea. I felt quite satisfied that I’d had a valid idea that my “experienced” father had dismissed. It’s always nice when you can show up your elders.

So I finally managed to get my ducks aligned and started working on the fort this month.  This project has taken far longer to get started than I ever imagined.

My father and I poured the concrete for the four corner posts a couple of weeks ago, and last weekend I had my brother over, and the three of us raised two of the 16 foot corner posts, and secured a stringer board between them.  By the time that I had chain-sawed the branches necessary to make room for the fort construction it was getting late in the day, so we did not have time to do more than the two posts.  But it was still progress.

This past weekend, my brother returned and we got an early start.  We had clearly learned from the previous weekend, because in 2 hours, we managed to accomplish more than we had in 4 hours the previous weekend.  I now have the beginnings of a real framework.  I have the four 16 foot posts, and a basic framework to start laying the floor joists.  My daughter is very excited.  She keeps asking me when I am going to finish.  It is tough to explain time to a 4 year old.  She knows the names of various measurements of time, but does not understand the difference in length between a week and an hour.

Unfortunately I think I am going to have to finish my attic storage platform before I can do much more on the tree fort.  I need to clean some stored junk out of my wood shop so that I can see my table saw again.  I hope to work on that this week.  Nothing good on TV to distract me, so I can hopefully do some work.

In October 2009, in the span of less than a week, I experienced the greatest high point one can experience, and one of the darkest moments one can experience.  On Tuesday October 6th, I received the information that the previous night,  my brother-in-law had experienced a stroke and was now hospitalized in a coma.  That was Tuesday, on Friday October 9th, my son Spencer was born.

My father had a series of strokes fifteen years ago, and is essentially fine now, so I believed that Al would recover.  “I believe” became the theme whilst Al was in hospital.  People wrote cards and letters centred around everyone’s fervent belief that Al would recover.

As the month progressed, the information surrounding Al’s stroke brought darker and darker news.  It was explained to us that Al did not have a stroke, as the episode occurred on the brain-stem and not the brain.  The damage to Al’s brain stem was severe.  Although the odds of recovery were bleak, everyone still believed.  Al was a fighter.  He would not allow the doctor’s to be right, he would prove them wrong.

On November 1st, I received the information that Al had a second episode, and had died.  I was devastated.  Al was a vibrant man, loved by the people who knew him.  He has two children aged 12 and 7.  “How could this happen?” I asked myself repeatedly.  It was not fair, it was not right, but it was what happened.  My sister had been barely functional while Al was in hospital, now collapsed into a wreck.  Her friends and family near where she lives had come to her rescue while Al was in hospital rallied even harder to help my sister.  They did the repairs in her house, cooked her meals, cleaned her house, and took her children for “play-dates”.   My sister is a very proud woman and had difficulty allowing her friends to help her in this fashion, but knew that she needed the help.  The celebration of life was the first genuine celebration of life that I had attended.  My sister rented a hall, and was going to set up 200 chairs, but her friends convinced her to set up 300.  Reluctantly my sister agreed.  She thought 200 was more than she would need, and 300 would look excessive, especially as they would sit empty.  When I arrived at the hall, it was already standing room only.  It is estimated that 550+ people showed up to express their love for Al.  The celebration consisted of several people standing up and telling their memories of Al while they played a computer slide show of pictures.  The tone of the event was joyous tinged with great sadness.  When the event finished, everyone started back to their normal lives, everyone that is except my sister.

My sister’s life was now in shambles.  She now had to try and pick up what pieces she could, and figure out how to fill in all the holes in her life.  She had lost her husband and best friend, and her children had lost their father.  It was a gaping wound in their hearts that a little bit of counselling would not fix.  Fast forward 10 months to today – Al’s 12 year old son tries to hide his emotions in typical male fashion.  Al’s 7 year old daughter is angry at the world, but especially with her mother.  My sister is still lost.  Her emotions are still very raw.  Many days she lacks the motivation to get out of bed, and when she does get up she finds it difficult to do anything.

This morning I found a posting on her Facebook site that she had written during the night last night.  It broke my heart.  Six hours later I still have tears in my eyes.  For the first hour I wept uncontrollably.  Her son is on a Scout trip that for three years Al had been planning and preparing the scout troop.  Al always had big plans for his future.  He had written down his goals for the next twenty years of his life.  Goals that now he will now never achieve.  My sister questions how this could have happened.  Hundreds of people were praying to God for Al to recover.  We all genuinely believed that he would get better.  The quantum power of those actions should have been enough to heal Al, but he died anyway.  So what is the point to prayer or belief?  This is the question that my sister is asking.  Her heart is not broken, it is shattered with the largest piece small enough to fit through the head of a pin.

In her posting my sister quotes the Alias song “I Need You Now”.  I was left thinking about a Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers”.  In the song, Garth sings that when you pray fervently for something and God does not answer, it is likely because God has a bigger plan for you, and granting you your prayer would hinder that plan. I do not pretend to know God’s will, or even if there is a God. I sometimes question the decisions that God makes. Why does he allow certain major disasters to occur and yet prevents some of the smaller events. Or maybe there is no God and everything is random. My business partner would claim alien intervention rather than God, and perhaps he is correct.
Maybe next time I will tell you all why I believe that God made a mistake and took the wrong brother-in-law of mine. He took the hard working, decent man, father of two, Scout leader, and left behind my other brother-in-law. A man whose actions have pushed my family to near bankruptcy, and caused massive marital problems between myself and my wife. He is a narcissistic man who expects that life will hand him a silver platter. He has an attitude of expectation, and does little to nothing to help the world around him. I guess God knew which man the residents of heaven would prefer to have. Not that I really expect my other brother-in-law to go to heaven. All I know, is that if I was given the choice to trade the places of my two brother-in-laws, I would not hesitate for one second in my decision.  I know that I will get in trouble with my in-laws if any of them read this post, but I am speaking the truth, and most of my in-laws do not actually know the real story of what transpired in Calgary this year.  Or if they do know, and they still speak to me the way they do I want nothing more to do with them, ever.

The Magical World of Harry Potter can be used as a theme for a fun and creative Halloween party.

Although J.K. Rowling has finished her famous novel series, Harry Potter, the popularity of the title continues.  With part one of the 7th feature film expected this fall, many kids are returning to the series once again.  And it is not just kids that are reading and re-reading the series, many teens and adults have a great love for the series.

This widely shared love of the series leads itself very nicely to a themed costume party.  Lots of decoration and costumes can be extracted directly from the world of Harry Potter. For example, ghosts, goblins, witches, wizards, brooms, hats, skeletons, spiders, cobwebs, and magic potions fit the theme of both Halloween and Harry Potter. Other decorative touches that are directly related to Harry Potter include items such as: Hogwarts crests, posters, owls, frogs, etc.

Harry Potter Halloween parties can be announced using Harry Potter themed invitations. These may include fonts and images found online that are related to the world of Harry Potter. Ensure that invitations inform your guests of the date, time and place of the party. To help you with preperations, ask your guests to RSVP, this way you will know how much to prepare. If you are having a children’s event, the parents of your guests need to be informed of the special arrangements that you have made for the party.

To keep the Harry Potter theme running throughout the party, you can plan many different activities such as: watching the Harry Potter movies, reading books, discussing details of the story and film, making Harry Potter-related crafts, playing Harry Potter games video, and looking at online fan sites.

Crafts do not have to be complicated. You can get everyone to do a Harry Potter style wand for them nothing more than a stick of wood and some paint.

Jackie & Dunlap at the Harry Potter Book Release

So I decided to buy my celestial steed today. It looks very cool. Hopefully in a few days I will be able to get my epic flying skill. I have 3335 gold saved so far, with 2000 of that collected since Friday. I finished Exalted Champion of the Alliance, and I am now following Zygor’s Icecrown Full Zone Quest Path, which is included in the Zygor Guide Dailies and Events Guide. I love this guide, I have been using it for a week now, and I have raised five factions to exalted status. I just need my reputation with The Argent Crusade to get to exalted for the Crusader title. Then I can look at getting Heirloom items and the new dailies. Although I do still want my Netherdrake Mount. Maybe once I finish all of that, I will start doing some dungeons. My Kirin Tor rep could use some work, there is only so many times you can do cooking and fishing dailies before you go insane.

But alas, I should stop playing silly games and get back to work.

WoTLK Dalaran – Sound Track

I am constructing a bed for my three year old, and I need to build a ladder.  As I was exploring how to build a ladder, I realized that the basic concept of ladder is remarkably similar to building a set of monkey bars for the jungle gym that I am going to build my children. I know that I am getting a little bit carried away with everything that I plan on building with my children, but it is good to have plans.

The concept is very easy.  You use a thick wooden dowel, I am going to use 1½”, but I know other guys who use 1″ or 1¼”, and some 2x4s.  Drill a hole through two 2x4s with the same diameter as the dowel every 14′.  Laminate a second 2×4 to one side of each 2×4 that you have drilled a hole.  Insert your dowel into the holes in the 2x4s to create the rungs. As you can see from the picture, you wind up with what almost looks like a ladder.  Now that you have the monkey bars, you need to suspend them off of the ground.  Use a similar technique to build a short ladder.  For the ladder, you want the rungs closer together, I would recommend 12″ spacing.  You do not need the ladder to go up very far, 3 – 4 rungs should suffice, but you do need the 2x4s for the ladder to go much higher than the rungs.  When you climb to the top of the rungs, you should be able to reach the monkey bars.  To attach the monkey bars to the ladders, what you do is make the outer 2x4s on the ladder longer than the inner 2x4s, and on the monkey bars, you make the inner 2x4s longer than the outer.  This way, when you go to assemble your full structure, the inner 2x4s from the monkey bars rest on the inner 2x4s from the ladder, and the ladder’s outer 2x4s overlap the monkey bar’s inner 2x4s.  I would send some thick carriage bolts right through to hold the structure together.  This will give you a basic set of monkey bars; you are going to need to secure them from tipping over, but that would depend upon to which structure you were attaching them.  If you want them free standing, I would recommend cementing them into the ground.

My wife and I are avid pet lovers.  During our marriage, we have had 2 cats, 3 bunnies, 2 dogs, 6 mice, 2 turtles, regular hamsters, dwarf hamsters, teddy bear hamsters, and two 55 gallon aquariums containing goldfish and tropical fish.  Our pets have given us a great deal of joy over the years.  Many fish have received a “burial at sea”, and the pet graveyard in the corner of my yard is getting full (hamsters and mice only have a 2-3 year lifespan).  It is rarely dull at my house.

Three years ago, my wife gave birth to our first child; my “precious angel” Sydney, and last year my “little buddy” Spencer joined us.  Needless to say it is getting crowded in my house.  My two dogs have taken the hardest hit since my children were born.  Going for a walk becomes a family event as my wife and I try to marshal two dogs and a double stroller.  Unfortunately with me now working twelve hour days 5 and 6 days a week, these kind of family events are becoming rarer and rarer.  My Staffordshire Terrier “Jake” needs a great deal of attention and affection.  In six years, he has stubbornly refused to learn how to walk on a leash.  He still strains against the leash, putting maximum tension on his neck.  I have tried traditional collars, “choker” collars, a head harness, and a body harness, and nothing works.  With the head harness, he does not pull, instead he struggles with the harness until he has finally worked it off of his nose, or he just sullenly trails behind me, clearly miserable.  At home, he is always underfoot because he wants attention.  Whenever we have any company, he goes berserk trying to get to the newcomer to say hello.  This would not be so bad, except that Jake’s method for hello is to climb all over you and lick your face until you drown.  Whenever we have company, we have to lock the dogs in our bedroom for the duration of the visit.  My wife has completely lost patience with Jake.  My three year old daughter, when asked, says that she does not like Jake.  Jake wants to run, but my yard is too small for him.  I feel horrible because I feel that I am not being fair to him, but when I stop to look at my options, I am uncertain what to do.  I do not have the time available to give him the attention that he needs.  If I try to find him a new home, am I being fair separating Jake from his buddy Simon (my other dog), or do I need to try and find a new home for both dogs together?  How does one even go about finding a good home for a dog?  Does it make me a bad owner to try and find a new home for Jake?  He was abandoned when he was about 9 months old.  My mother-in-law was sitting on her front porch at about 11pm one night when she noticed a van stop just up the road, a door opened and shut quickly and the van drove away.  Within a couple of minutes, there was a dog running along her front fence.  Jake spent one night at my MiL’s where he howled all night long, and then came to live with my wife and I.  For the first week or two he howled a lot, but now, after six years, he is an extremely happy dog.  I know in my heart that I cannot provide him the life that he deserves.  I know that he would find happiness with a new family.  But do I have the right to uproot him from his home and abandon him to a stranger?  I wish that I knew the right thing to do.

Children in Increasing Numbers are Becoming Addicted to World Of Warcraft!

<rant>

I have been seeing more and more parents claiming that their child is addicted to World of Warcraft.  Now I am a great fan of the game, and I wish I could spend far more time playing, but I have far too many responsibilities for that.  One of my responsibilities is to be a father to my two children.  As a father, I know that it is my responsibility to look out for the health and well being of my children.  In order for your child to become addicted to a video game, you as a parent need to ignore what your  child is doing for extensive hours every day.  Now I do acknowledge that teenagers do not want their parents attention, and actively try to avoid their parents, but let us be serious.  How can a parent not notice when their child is spending in excess of ten hours every day playing a computer game.  It is hard for a child to hide from their parents when they are sitting in the same spot for ten straight hours.  Blizzard has recognized that addiction is a real problem amongst their players, and are trying to make parent’s jobs easier.  Blizzard has parental controls built into every WOW account.  A parent can limit the number of hours, and days that their child has access to their WOW account.  Also, if a child is spending all of their time playing World of Warcraft to the detriment of their health and well being, where are they getting the money to pay the monthly subscription?  If they are spending ten to sixteen hours every day as many parents claim, there is not enough time left to maintain any sort of job, which would mean that these same parents are paying for their own child’s addiction, and then complaining about the addiction, and blaming (and suing) Blizzard.  If your child has a genuine problem, confiscate their computer.  Let’s see them play without a computer.  Are they seriously going to go to their friend Billy”s house and use Billy’s computer for ten straight hours?  Do you think that Billy’s parents would tolerate that?  Billy’s parents will kick your child out, and then call you to scream at you for being such an incompetent parent.

Parents, do your job, and stop blaming everyone else!

</rant>

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