Welcome, Aunt Judy and assorted ramblings

Ladies and gentlemen, she's on!!

Welcome, Aunt Judy to the King Family Blog. Hopefully you'll be a contributor and not just a voyeur!

Snow, snow and more snow. That's the situation out here. We got off very, very lucky this year so I shouldn't complain. About a week ago it snowed for the first time since before Christmas. Didn't think much of it, figured it would melt in a day or two. Well not quite. Despite a nice Chinook a few days ago, the snow has stayed and it has flurried almost constantly since. So here it stays. At least it isn't too cold.

Not much else new. Lena is in Toronto this weekend for a course and coincidentaly, her aunt Carmel is here from Ottawa for a course! So she'll be staying with me tomorrow night and hopefully Lena will be home early enough on Sunday so we can maybe get a drive to Banff in before Carmel leaves.

Had a nice birthday week. Not sure about the rest of you, but I am crazy about Pizza Delight. Since it's a New Brunswick chain, it became a once or twice a year ritual when I came home from London or Calgary to visit. Well, turns out the only place outside of the Maritimes that there's a Pizza Delight is in Calgary!! There's only one, and it's way down in the deep south so no where near where we live or ever go. It was my mom who found out about while in PD in Saint John and let us now. Otherwise, we'd never have found out. So that's where we went for my B-Day dinner on Tuesday night since I was in school til 9 on Monday. It was great!! There was even a car with an NB license plate in the parkinglot!

I just picked up the anniversay edition DVD of Airplane! tonight at the mall. Hillarious! I sure hope all of you have seen this classic with Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Peter Graves. "...and don't call me Shirley". Brilliant. For my younger cousins, if you have not seen this movie, it's a must.

Had a final exam today and I think it went quite well. This guy always makes it out to be that his exams or tests will be long and detailed. So we get all stressed out and it always turns out to be so straight forward and simple. Or it may be that we get so stressed out that we're extra prepared. Either way, it went well. Hopefully we'll get our marks on line tomorrow.

My buddy Shawn and his wife just bought a house in Toronto, specifically, Markham. Not sure what he paid, but judging from the pics on his blog, it must have been a pretty penny. Property values in T.O are insane. They got a townhouse style home like ours, but with a contained back yard! And it's a fair size! And the house is less than 5 years old!

The housing market is growing out of control here and we could almost be to the level of T.O soon. We have only been in our townhouse for 8 months and we estimate that we have already made about 20% return on the value of the house! The deep north and south of the city are expanding at an unbelieveable rate. If you buy a map it's outdated and obsolete within 4 to 6 months. It's nothing but sprawling suburban development.

T.O is much the same right now I think. And to be in Markham probably notched the price up a bit by being a bit closer in to the city centre and not out in the sprawl...yeah, only about an hour and a half commute each way!! There is a link on the right to Shawn's blog if you want to see the pics of his new house! It's a few posts back so scroll down.

Hey, Dad, what's going on with the Leafs?? Last place in their division? They were doing well around Christmas.

Looks like their could be some labour trouble in the NFL. Probably not a strike situation like in hockey, but at the core of the dispute it's the same issues. Bottom line; tons of players are getting cut because teams need to get under the salary cap and star free agents won't get the money they want because of the abundance of players in the free agency pool. The next month or two leading up to the draft should be interesting.

As of right now, there's 7 days, 2 hours, 21 minutes and 35 seconds until the start of the 2006 Formula 1 season!! First race is in Bahrain on March 12!! Go McLaren!!

Well, it's late, so off to bed I go.
Ciao

Happy Birthday, Mike

I've heard of that game. Sounds like fun.
Speaking of birthdays. Happy 31st Birthday to you, tomorrow.
When I get off work I'll come home and have a Guiness in your honour.
Have a great day, bud.

Dad