Luke Duke and Halloween

It’s Joel’s Birthday today, so happy birthday Luke Duke. We started celebrating this past weekend with dinner at “Colosseo” on Corydon. If you have never been there it’s the Corydon equivalent to the Olive Garden except instead of all-you-can-eat breadsticks and salad you can have a tiny little $8 drink. I had to have one with Joel otherwise I would have called our waitress over to make sure the price was correct. That is my only complaint about that place. The fine Italian menu is quite large considering they only sell pasta, meat, and sauce. I had the cannelloni and so did everyone else to some degree. Sarcasm aside it was a wicked cannelloni and I would certainly go back!

Halloween is right around the corner. Of course I haven’t even thought of a costume and it doesn’t really matter because we are actually taking Lexi out this year. Thing is, I always get a kick out of the mom and dads who get all dressed up to go out with the kids. I respect that kind of thing. It’s fun. This year I am going to convince Shannon that Tron is going to be a huge hit this year and she should wear this. She has the shape…

Keeping on the Tron theme I am sure my shape will accommodate something quite similar and breathtaking…

Back To School

It’s official, I am going back to school and feeling a lot like Rodney Dangerfield in the process. I know that your never too old to go back but for me it’s a little like moving back in with your parent’s…oh, wait.

I received a letter from school last week outlining what is left to do to finalize this process. Much to my chagrin the Criminal Record Check (CRC) continues to be the most daunting of these tasks. If you missed a post it turns out that someone with my name and birth date has a criminal record making this process harder and much more expensive. Instead of paying my $36 and receiving said document by the mail in a couple of weeks, I paid $36 and was sent a letter stating I was being fined an additional $81 and would have to come back to have fingerprints taken.

It’s not really a fine but it might as well be. A cashiers cheque to the Receiver General Of Canada for $25 and another $56 to get fingerprinted. I don’t even get to keep the fingerprints. They get sent to Ottawa for processing and then when I am cleared I am told they will be destroyed, like that is a good thing. I guess it would make too much sense to keep them on file. Afterall I will need another one of these stupid checks in near future when I start applying for jobs and then I will have to go through this cash grab bullshit all over again.

I would think that most people who need a Criminal Record Check are trying to get a job or into a course of some kind. In most cases when people are looking for work or going back to school it’s because having little or no income is not working out to well for them. It’s ridiculous that because someone else with the same name and bday committed a crime that a person would be charged over 3 times the normal cost for a CRC. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

This does not improve my overall mood this month and I want my $4 back for parking too! At least when you commit a crime they come and pick you up for fingerprints.

Erin Is 15 Huh!

In four more days Erin will turn fifteen. I have known her since she was just over 1 year old so that makes me…fricken old.

The plan was to take her to Pizzeria Gusto because I have heard some really good things about it and we have both never been. We didn’t get there until almost 6pm and it was packed to the doors. An hour wait the hostess said unless we wanted to sit up at the bar. No thanks. So we decided to go to Joey’s Polo Park instead.

The worst thing about going to a nice restaurant on the weekend is having to wait. Unless you are there early (5pm) or later (8pm) the wait is inevitable. One thing I loved about Joey’s is that they bring samplers and wine to the people waiting. Not only do I think it’s classy, but it’s also brilliant. We sampled the Sweet Chili Chicken and ribs while we were waiting and ended up ordering Ribs for dinner and the Sweet Chili Chicken as an appetizer. Erin had also had a nice Lobster Stuffed Ravioli that she said was awesome. For desert we shared the Molten Chocolate something and we were just too stuffed to even finish it all. The waitress told us that Erin looks like the girl in “Life Of An American Teenager”, so we Googled it and I think she is right…

After dinner we went and visited my Grandma. We picked up some tickets to see “Social Network” and had some time in between and Erin hasn’t seen her in so long. I think we got her out of bed actually. She barely recognized Erin because it has been so long but once she realized who she was her face just lit up. I used to take Erin to see her lots when she was little. Now Grandma is little standing next to Erin.

From there we went to see the Facebook movie. During the night I counted 3 photo uploads, 3 status changes, 4 friend requests, and 3 or 4 private messages between us. One of us would post something to Facebook and the other would comment or “like it” just as fast as we could start another topic across the table at dinner. It seemed only fitting we were going to see the FB movie.

The movie was awesome. Totally made me want to get my ass in gear on spinminute.com.

It was so nice to hang out with Erin again. It’s interesting to think that Erin was the age that Lexi is now when we first started hanging out. That means I know first hand how fast little girls grow up. It also means that I know how little Lexi is going to need me when she is 15. One thing I was really impressed with was how much Erin remembers from that time. She can remember all the games we played and the little things that we used to do together. Things I feel stayed with her all these years because they meant something. Games that I play now with Lexi and she laughs just like Erin did back then.