Embrun usually has some great family day activities going on. We headed over to the hockey arena to go do some bowling. The information said that bowling started at 11am so we arrived around 10:45 to get a spot. Turns out that they had been open since 10am where you could sign up on the waitlist. Oh man! When we put our names on the list they figured it would be sometime in the afternoon before we got a game.
While we waited we went up stairs to see Junkyard Symphony. We didn’t end up getting any free popcorn. Maybe they only make it once an hour and we missed out.
But Junkyard Symphony was great! The lead singer said they had been around for 32 years. Their thing is that they have drum sets and robots and other instruments on stage all made out recycled items (think buckets for drums, etc.).
They were great at interacting with the crowd and they were quite hilarious. I would see this group again if I had the chance.
They had started at 11am and around 11:45 we got the call that bowling had a spot for us! So we left the show early and got our shoes and…hit the lanes? What’s the term for bowling?
Ezra says bowling is his favourite sport. Who doesn’t love bowling? I’ll tell you who doesn’t like it…the three of us when we got a bunch of gutter balls!
Ezra pointing out that he had the lead!
I had to post the final score just for historical purposes, not bragging rights.
It’s super nice of Embrun to organize free family friendly activities for the community. Always fun to drop by there and then stop over to A&W for some lunch afterwards.
Vero did a lot of great work on this video for Ezra’s kindergarten presentation. He had to choose a favourite game and explain how to play it.
He was NOT a happy camper on the Saturday when we tried to film it. We abandoned filming and tried again on the Sunday and he seemed to be a bit more agreeable. When he doesn’t get his way, he shuts down and you can’t please him, even if we’re trying to help him do a presentation.
Anyhow, Vero put a lot of work finishing up this video and it worked out great! I had a good laugh when Ezra said all the kids in the class watched it and were horrified with the opening bit where the pieces go across the floor. “Oh no, they will lose the pieces!” “Why weren’t they more careful with the pieces! They shouldn’t do that!”
We got walloped with 35 cm of snow on Thursday and another 40 cm on Sunday! I was out snowblowing and asked the kids if they wanted to try it. Sierra just wanted to make tunnels in the snow but Ezra jumped at the chance. I was holding the handles along with him most of the driveway but I snuck away for a few seconds to take this video.
I was planning on attending Uncle Richard’s 80th birthday party but the weather wasn’t cooperating so the party was cancelled.
OR WAS IT? Rick called up the boys and wondered if we would like to do a Don’t Fret livestream for his dad. Absolutely! It had been a few years since we had done a Don’t Fret session and I missed doing them.
It took me all morning to remember how to set up all my equipment and even then, something was weird with the sound when it came to an afternoon sound check time. I fiddled with some wires and knobs and eventually got a sound that folks said sounded good. I need to write down all my settings so it’s not a pain when you go to set it all up two years later!
I’m not sure if I’ve explained what a Don’t Fret livestream consists of before but the singers perform in a round robin fashion (2 songs each) and do that for a couple of hours. This livestream had Dave in Cape Breton and Troy in London playing. On my end, the kids showed up after bingo and played along to a few songs. I LOVE when this happens. I really enjoy how my kids get to see my family online and they get to perform for them. Proud parent right here folks!
Performing for a livestream is a different beast than playing to a room of people. Definitely quieter considering Rick mutes everyone! I also secretly call the Don’t Fret sessions the Silent Clapping Sessions because whenever I’m done playing a song you can see everyone clapping but everyone is on mute!
Sometimes a Don’t Fret livestream has a theme (think Christmas), other times it’s a free for all. When playing for folks I like to keep in mind how old the audience is and adjust my set list accordingly. Case in point, I would say that the 80% of the audience are my aunt and uncles’ age, then you have 15% of cousins around my age and 5% younger kids. If I’m feeling generous I tailor my set list to match those proportions. The old adage “Play them the hits they know!” Comes to mind. Sometimes I take a gamble and play a newer song and see if it catches on. I was excited to see my cousin’s kid singing along to The Weekend’s Blinding Lights the other night! Actually, it’s rare that I can actually watch the audience while playing as I’m focused on reading the lyrics or adjusting a pedal.
The sessions are recorded and I’ve never taken the time to rewatch them but I should in order to see folk’s reactions to the songs I’ve chosen. I really like archiving anything I do so I also videotape myself playing the concert as well as recording the audio. Do I have dreams of making a documentary of the Don’t Fret Sessions? Sure do. Do I have time? Nope. But at least I have some material to work with.
This particular night was a fun one as I hadn’t seen a lot of folks in awhile. I also felt that all of our song choices were great. I definitely flubbed a few songs but that happens sometimes when I switch up my setlist on the fly. Here I was thinking I would have a certain 8 songs prepared and then the kids come down so I pivot and play 3 songs they know. But I’m ok with pivoting and really, no one notices my flubs except for myself.
I look forward to future Don’t Fret sessions. They are fun and it’s a good substitute for playing together live. Speaking of which, Dave, Troy and I will all able meeting together to see Metallica in April…maybe we will slot in a live Don’t Fret session! Imagine that.
It was the big Vars carnival weekend and the kickoff night had bingo! Vero and the kids went to it as I had to set up for a Don’t Fret livestream. They seemed to have a lot of fun even though they didn’t win. Ezra said “I was one number away from getting bingo!”
I was originally asked to sing along with a couple of our friends sons but I was going to be out of town for Uncle Richard’s 80th birthday so that wouldn’t work out.
Luckily Sierra and her friends were available so they did a dance!
The night before Vero made this video we watched Double Impact with Jean-Claude Van Damme (or as Vero likes to say…Van DAMNNNN!) and she was inspired by the visual effects where he plays a twin in the same scene.
Sierra hosted a Valentine’s evening where we laid out some gifts on a blanket. Vero got an updated report entitled “An Analysis of Why You Are Great” (which was about 15 years out of date!), the family got some assorted chocolates and goodies, as well as a Lego bouquet of roses.
Let us know forget this awesome heart box that Sierra made for me!
I had an odd experience at Wal-Mart the other day. My buddy Matt tipped me off to these Lego roses. He said they were $80 but when I went online to Walmart.ca it said they were $55. I thought it would be a nice Valentine’s Day gift for the family to build together.
When I asked an associate to unlock the Lego cabinet for me, I did see the price was listed as $80 so I asked if I needed to speak to the cashier to get the price listed on Walmart.ca.
He told me that generally the answer is no and that I would have to order online, arrange to pick it up in store, pick a time which could be 2-3 days later because they have to wait for the order from Walmart.ca to come into their system and then they take the item off the shelf and put it aside for me.
This sounded quite odd to me. He also saw that this was going to be a Valentines Day gift so he went to the customer service counter to see if there was anything they could do.
They could not. I was bewildered to find out that Walmart.ca isn’t really the same as Wal-Mart the store. There was nothing they could do for me.
A miracle happened when the original associate came back and said “I talked to the store manager and they said they could honour the price!”. The folks at the customer service counter said “Great!” and I walked out of there with my new Lego set.
But the entire thing is strange to me…a colleague explained to me that these online stores are almost becoming their own company now and they have access to different sales and marketing pricing techniques. That’s fine and all, but in what world do we live in where the associates give me a hard time about buying an item that is listed on Walmart.ca (not some random reseller…I’m talking about the actual store’s website) and they can’t price match what’s on the website? Something’s a little messed up in this equation.
We haven’t had a large snowstorm this season until now. 35cm ended up dropping on us.
I’m not entirely sure why but I love bringing the kids to school on a sled during a snow day. The school buses are always cancelled and there less kids in school but we walk the kids to school every day anyhow so why not have some fun? Plus there’s a foot of snow to trudge through so I think Ezra would take about an hour.
Today the kids decided to try out the GT through the snow. It was slow moving and I was a hurting unit after dropping them off. There was just too much snow and I had to blaze a trail through a foot of it. I thought I would get a reprieve in the park where they usually plow early but they had not gotten to it yet this particular morning.
I remember my shoulder really getting sore at one point so I had to rethink the way I was holding the rope. I ended up just taking two ends of the rope and putting them over both shoulders which worked out quite well. The kids had a fun time.
I had a meeting at 9Am to rush back to so I dropped the kids off at the front door and headed back home. But in the parking lot across school I saw the neighbour and her three kids trudging along. One poor girl was trying to go through the foot of snow and was having a hard time. Even though my body was beat from towing 80 pounds of kids to school, I yelled “Hop on the GT!” and I towed her to school as well.
I swear two days later my body was still sore from all the sled pulling and snow blowing! And I hear this upcoming weekend will have a lot more snow coming our way. I can’t complain too much. I enjoy when winter really hits us and there isn’t a bunch of freezing rain and green grass. Spring will get here eventually…for now it’s time to enjoy the snow!
Sierra and I were playing with my new synthesizer, the Arturia Polybrute one evening. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it…I bought it used off of Reverb and it has some issues. But it’s been fun trying it out.
