Archive for February 20th, 2008

Halfway through, here's what's on the radio:

    - The Oscars go this week and Paris Hilton has been banned. Lol.

    - Need some grape juice for the weekend?  Check out this new Wine Wednesday feature.

    - Get ready for a spooky total eclipse of the moon tonight.

    - Gas is soaring. Again.  Some say expect $1.50/l this summer.

    - Our little guy, Zacharie, loves books by Sandra Boynton.  Here's a fun story about the author.

    - Who's buying Britney Spears' perfume?  Everyone in Britain.

    - There are campaign signs up and down Granville St in Vancouver, yet no election has been called yet.  What do the people in Shaughnessy know that we dont?

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

In August, 2003 I ran the Iceland Marathon as a member of Team Diabetes.

I raised $5000 and got to pound my way through 42k around Reykjavik. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Since then I’ve continuously received email updates from Team Diabetes and have been tempted to do runs in Brazil, or Rome, but the schedules never worked with the time off I can take from work.

Today I got an email update from Rebecca Taylor with a marathon that fits my schedule and fulfills another lifelong adventure dream.

As you may have seen on the Team Diabetes website, Easter Island in June 2009 has been added to the schedule as an alumni-only event. The Easter Island event offers full marathon, half marathon and 10K distance options.

Are you kidding me? A marathon on Easter frickin Island? SIGN.ME.UP. Maybe.

Because here is the fine print. The fund raising requirement is $7500. $2500 of it is required by June. That’s a lot of money. I’d need a lot of help.

I firmly believe in the Team Diabetes cause, education can prevent us from getting hit by it in our adulthood, and many children have no choice having to live with daily insulin shots. Being a new father, I am all over preventing diseases that Zacharie could face.

So. I have a question. Would you be prepared to help? Late last summer I scraped together almost $1500 in less than a week to do Lance Armstrong’s Tour of Courage. That was huge.

So I need to know, would you all step up again? I’d need to average $500 / month for the 16 months between now and the run. Now that doesn’t sound too tough.

So I need to know if you’d be interested in helping out.

Maybe a $50/month donation between now and then? Would you add a donation badge to your own blog? Would you help collect prizes for raffles and Easter Egg hunts? What would *you* do to help out?

Comment below.

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A new feature here on TBAB, Wine Wednesday!

I’ll talk you through something Jen and I have had in the past week with enough time for you to grab yourself a brown bag of the stuff in time for the weekend!

This week’s pick is Penfolds Bin 2.

The Penfolds website says:
Bin 2 is a multi-regional blend drawing fruit from warmer vineyard sites including Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek.

The two varieties complement each other well, making an easy drinking wine which is not overtly concentrated, but has plenty of fruit, texture and flavour length.

Originally failing to find favour in Australia the 1980 and 1981 vintages became an immediate commercial success in the United Kingdom.

We had it twice this week once with Chorizo Lasagna, the other with Chocolate Cupcakes.

The Penfolds Bin 2 is a Shiraz Mourvedre blend making it peppery, smoky and smooth.

The lasagna is my own recipe. Just a can of basic tomatos with chorizo sausage meat instead of ground beef. I dont spice it up beyond that, the sausage meat has it all done already. Layer it with noodles, ricotta and smoked mozarella and you are in heaven. The pepper and mustiness of the wine just wound it’s way through the layers with ease.

I LOVE this wine with the cupcakes - REAL cupcakes, with thick creamy butter icing. Take a lipsmack of icing and cake, a swig of the Bin 2 and swirl the whole mess together in your mouth. Heaven. Absolute heaven.

Penfolds Bin 2 is $22.99 at your favourite BCLS.

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I’m going unplugged.

I wish it was a reference to some acoustic version of Guitar Hero, but alas I’m referring to my connection to the internets.

For the better part of a month, our internet connection with Shaw has been spotty. Not the fastest, and dropping off frequently. The drop off means getting under the table, resetting the modem, resetting the router, waiting. Climbing back up, seeing it’s not working and doing it again. Even once it starts working, 15 mins later I’m crouched down doing the reset dance again.

We’ve called Customer Service a couple of times, once getting a credit for 5 days service because of our troubles (nice!).

BUT… (there’s always one of those)

The last call was resolved with Shaw suggesting we exchange our modem for a newer model, free of charge (nice!). Jen went and did that today, brought them home and plugged everything in.

Dead.

Nothing.

Zip.

She calls tech support and they have her under the desk doing all sorts of cable origami and nothing works. So they’re going to send a tech out to us (nice!).

On Sunday (ouch!). Today is Wednesday. 5 days with no series of tubes connecting us to the world.

At first I thought this would be great. A chance to format the hard drive that is my life. Get off the grid, take a breath of fresh air and re-evaluate how I have let technology monopolize my life.

The problem is, I’m not the only one it monopolizes. Work doesnt phone me when it needs something, it emails me. Friends don’t call, they Facebook. I don’t phone my parents and chat, they get updates on Zacharie through this blog and his photo blog.

With no internets, that all disappears. Gone.

Thankfully we have 2 neighbourly neighbours who leave some ports open so the whole ‘hood can get online. It’s not the most reliable of connections, so it’s nothing I can depend on to get serious blog / audio / video / research work done. Instead I’ll be able to just hop on the open port and get in a couple of email checks to stay in touch with work, but that’s about it.

For 5 long, hard days, I will be off the grid (sorta).

I’m looking forward to it (sorta).

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?