Knitting Project: Arm Warmers

Earlier this month I knitted the tall boy some arm warmers, to use up some yarn I had after the small boy's hoodie (yet to be documented), and for those long video-gaming sessions in the basement... they turned out nicer than I thought they would!

Things I learned today

1. Never order a large portion in Belgian Fries, delicious though the food is (Large chili and fries, and a medium Tunisian lamb sausage poutine in the picture above).  Even better, order a medium to share between two.
2. I have a tendency to dress the little one too warmly.
3. I also tend to dress myself a little too warmly.
4. A tall Starbucks drink is generally enough, a grande is a little too much.

Today has revealed a trend for overdoing things, that's something to keep in mind!

First time in the Lion's Den

OK, so it was a ball pit and not a lion's den but I was still a little anxious as I deposited our small boy at the entrance and watched him edge his little besocked feet down the steps. As is his usual practice, he spent a little while watching the other kids before deciding his course of action, which was to stand and throw balls at the walls - I bet he loved that, as he's not allowed to throw anything in the house. He was the smallest kid in there, but somehow everyone else seemed to flow around him (I think he might have somehow slipped into bullet time) as they dove headlong into the balls, or careened down the spiral slide. Or maybe the other kids were just careful of the little guy :)

Sewer pipe drum #1

My schoolteacher friend is making 9 taiko drums for her students. She is using sewer pipe shells, and tonight we worked on the final stretch for drum #1 - a drum I have dubbed "Obstinate": it took us about 45 minutes to actually get the pre-stretched drum head over the end of the pipe. Apparently it had shrunk a little since the first stretch. We had to strain to pull the edges apart, prise the mimis over the lip of the drum and whack it with mallets to get it to fit again - hard work! Lesson learned - leave the pre-stretches on the drum shells until they are completely dry. By the end of the evening we'd run out of time and decided to leave it stretched on the rack until the next session - we needed slightly different screws and washers anyway - round-headed, non-countersunk screws, and flat washers (stronger, more contact with the skin).

Of course, we had to sign the inside of her drum!

My own drum project is currently on hold as I am trying to get hold of some tacks locally... soon, soon it will boom!

Pre-Cataclysm fun in WoW

As my arbitrary constant counts down the days until the release of Cataclysm for WoW, we've been investigating the changes in the pre-Catacylsm patch. His dwarf shaman legged it to Elwyn to join my human hunter and we've been exploring like crazy, munching through the new quest lines and wondering at all the changes to the areas we've come to take for granted for the past few years.

It was different right from the start of Northshire Abbey, the kobolds and wolves have been replaced by Blackrock spies and something else I can't remember right now, the fields across the river where there used to be a grape-collecting quest are now aflame and need to be be extinguished. There are two new flight masters in Elwyn Forest alone - one at Goldshire and another at the Eastvale Logging Camp and as if that's not enough, the first time you travel from Goldshire to the Logging Camp you get to ride on a Stormwind charger. Don't even talk to me about how little it costs to buy your first mount, and at level 20 to boot.

We were really impressed by the main quest arc in Westfall. There's a shock discovery as soon as you enter the zone - murder most foul! - and many of the quests tie into the storyline nicely. I was surprised at the nostalgia I felt when we saw how much Sentinel Hill had changed, and I'm sure those feelings will recur as we get through more of the vanilla-WoW zones in the days to come.

There were many nice touches of old, familiar NPCs having moved on in the years preceding the Cataclysm, Guard Parker is now a Watch Captain, and his sweetheart Darcy is now his wife and they have a child; Lieutenant Fangore got a promotion as well... so far so good, looking forward to the rest of it!

Sansho Daiko gig #1

Today we played two songs to celebrate the opening of a karate tournament. It was our first gig in our new incarnation as Sansho Daiko and we were debuting not only our name, but (perhaps a little unwisely) our new costume! Our costume development has been a little rushed and although it all turned out just fine today, we had a few improvisations and substitutions - the important thing is though, that nothing fell off during the performance.

That reminds me of a show I did with my previous taiko group - we were opening the CIBC Run For The Cure in the stadium and were rushing to get dressed while a dignitary gave a speech. I glanced up at the jumbotron and saw quite clearly myself and my friend in the background of the speech - not indecent but certainly not the most appropriate backdrop!

First date in over a year!

Unbelievably, it was only on the day before my parents returned to the UK that we came up with the idea of leaving the little one with them, and going for a date night - what a waste of 5 weeks of grandparents! We turned up at their place, unloaded our son and his accoutrements and waved goodbye to him as we ran out the door...

Our afternoon of freedom started with lunch at the local White Spot - they must have sensed our aura of toddler parentness even without our toddler being present because we ended up seated in the midst of people who all seemed to have babes in arms or kids in high chairs, so even though we were celebrating being able to eat our food at a decent temperature and pace, we still spent most of the meal talking about our little boy and all the things he does which (we think) are adorable.

After lunch we went to see Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I read the book when it first came out and most of the details of the story had already fallen out of my head by this time, so the developments were as good as new to me and I enjoyed the movie a lot despite the darkness of the events.

When the movie finished, we wandered around the mall a little more to take the time to marvel again at the lack of stroller and diaper bag before heading back to sweep our little man off his feet and give him a big hug. Date night done!