Here kitty kitty kitty......

Ok, so I have been MIA for quite some time now. I had a lot of photos to upload...then my work load doubled....plus I was new car shopping as well as planning a vacation down south with a group of long time friends. I must confess that it's a bit overwhelming to have well over 3,000 digital photos to sift through now. I am offically shelving the photo a day for 365 days deal. Sorry folks, I bit off more than I could chew I'm afraid. I will now go back to the regularly scheduled program.

Christmas is upon us, in fact I only just finished decorating the tree this morning. I gave Cheetah, the cat a few days to get the  tree climbing phase out of his system. It seems to have worked....for now. The real test will be this evening when he wakes from his catnap and sees all the shiny ornaments hanging within reach of his inquistive paws.
The weather outside is frightful.....if you live pretty much an hours drive away in any direction from where I live in the banana belt of Southern Ontario. Here in balmy Stoney Creek we had wind and rain the other day when everyone else was getting a major winter storm. Parts north of Toronto got upwards of 100cm of blowing snow...that's over 40 inches for you folks in the U.S.
today we are getting rain, once again. I'm thinking maybe I brought the warm breezes back from Jamaica with me...ah but even I know it can't last forever. Eventually the white stuff will be upon us... even here.
That  said, maybe it's time to start thinking about heading to Mexico next........

Ice Cold Mighty Niagara Falls

I think everyone is busy these days which means not much time for blogging. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I spent last weekend in Niagara Falls attending a weekend dinner theatre put on by the casino called Nathan & Nina's Wedding. It turned out to be a very entertaining two day event, mixed in with some gambling and much needed relaxation. Since I wasn't allowed to take my camera into the casino I didn't take a lot of photos of anything but the falls this trip. As soon as the weather is a bit more tolerable I will plan another outing just for photography.

Feel the power of the water flowing over the edge!

The Canadian Falls.

The American Falls at night. Every few minutes the colour of the lights changed .

The Canadian Falls in the early morning.







The American Falls at night, very pretty.



Ice on the American side.




More ice on the American side.....

Friday Lunch with the Guys

Every Friday my co-workers & I try to go out for lunch. The question starts sometime after 10am. Where does everyone want to go...Dim Sum...Indian Buffet...Thai....? Today we all decided on Mediterranean Food. So we snuck out of the office a bit before noon because we knew that if we didn't...
1. We may have a hard time finding a parking spot....and...
2. The restaurant gets really busy, especially on a Friday.

We get out to the parking lot and all of us pile into the Peter bus. This is the name we called Peter's old van. When he finally bought his new Toyota Matrix we continued to call it the Peter bus. You see he's the only one that can fit all 5 of us in 1 vehicle. Most others either have really small cars or they have baby seats to contend with.

Anybody familiar with the city I work in knows the downtown is mostly made up of one way streets. This wouldn't be so bad except today Peter made a bad choice. When we got to the first main intersection we could see that the train barriers were down and a train was slowly making its way through. So Peter turned right which was a good thing because we were turning onto a one way street and a right turn at least had us going in the correct direction. Then he does a left and this was where he made a bad choice. Instead of going straight through he turned left again. Now we are on another one way street and we are going the right way. The problem is the train. We now are stuck watching this train painfully crawling by. We can't back up or turn around, so we are stuck. Waiting.....

I look over to my right and there is a huge park. "So is this bus a four wheel drive?" I ask. Peter wants to know why I want to know this. I pointed to the park and told him if he could just get over the first snowbank we could cut over to the next street which by the way has an overpass over the tracks.

Well now it's open season on Peter while we wait for the 100 plus rail cars to pass. The guys start giving him a hard time about how he never cleans his car. They picked things up off the floor in the back seat and tried to identify the the brewing science projects and would then chuck it over their shoulders into the rear compartment. Lets see... hmmm.... plastic container with some mystery leftovers in it. Chuck. A spoon. Chuck. Empty water bottles and full, half frozen ones. Chuck... chuck... chuck....

Then they find the beef jerky package. Now, I might add that this beef jerky package was first discovered about 6 weeks ago on a similar road trip on a Friday afternoon. The package in question turned out to be that very same one. Ewwww! We all remembered Peter telling us back then NOT to open it. He had placed a banana peel in it a few days before and said he hadn't got around to throwing it out yet. So the guys are now holding it up for inspection to see what, if anything, was growing within. Ewwww! miniature composter. Then I heard a thud as it bounced off the back window. I told Peter as a matter of fact that bananas give off gases as they decompose and if it explodes in his car he will be invaded by the largest fruit fly infestation known to mankind. I made this up but Peter is just so gullible. By now the train is stopped and it looks like it might start going back from where it just came from. Holey moley so much for leaving a bit early. We have been waiting for what seemed like an eternity already. We continue to poke fun at Peter pointing out that his new car has not yet lost it's new car smell.The train finally got far enough down the tracks and the barriers go up.

We get to the next corner and end up in the same discussion as the last few Fridays. You see there is this billboard we pass by, and at first we thought it was a joke. It's a bright yellow ad for a brand new cereal. Diamond Shreddies So of course by now we have all seen the commercial on national television, so the joke really was on us. Let the comments begin. Great marketing strategy. No it's not...yes it is... just think of how many people will run out and buy Shreddies now thinking it's something new. No they won't...will too.... not...will too...uh huh....

When we got back to the office after lunch I was walking up the stairs when Peter took me aside and in a quiet whisper asked me if fruit flies came from maggots....told you he was gullible.....