I've made some changes to the image galleries to make them run faster and present the images in the correct order.  This should make the two or three people that look at them very happy, enjoy!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Erin and I hosted Christmas here at the condo, with both our parents in attendence.  It went great, we used the party room of my condo building for dinner on both the 24th and 25th.  On Christmas Eve we had morrocan chicken pies for dinner, and on Christmas day we had a roast prime rib of beef.  To enumerate every single appetizer, side dish and desert would take a couple of pages, let it suffice to say that it was outstanding.  We had Christmas morning brunch right here in my one bedroom condo, lots of sparkling wine, a baked egg dish, and presents.  To all those who say you need a plywood box (house) in a god-awful suburb to have a family Chistmas, let me say, you're a moron.  Sleeping arragements were handled by having our parents stay in hotels just down the road, which worked out great as well.

Costa Rica was beautiful, no other word for it really.  We stayed near Playa Hermosa, which is about 10 mintues down the road from a town called Jaco.  The beach is enormous, gorgeous, and deserted.  This was easily the nicest beach I've ever been to, and Erin and I were often the only people for miles, literally!  As in, looking in both directions, you can't actually see another human being.  Weather was hot and sunny during the days, starting to cloud over around 4pm.  It might rain a little bit at night, but not much at all.  The little hotel thing we were staying at was really nice.  We had a whole villa to ourselves, we had one bedroom just for dressing, one for sleeping, and one for certain other persuits.  Food was mostly prepared at the villa, we had a barbeque, which worked out really well.  I could keep going for a while, but I think I'll stop there for now, it was a great trip, one for the books.

I've posted a bunch of pictures in the new gallery Winter 2011 (on the left).  Note that for the purposes of tedp.net winter starts after labor day.  The pictures are a little out of order, but I'm sure you'll get the idea.

This is one of the best things I've ever seen:

So this is what happens when I don't have anything to do on a Friday night, have had way too much wine, and Erin realizes she has a video camera on her phone.  Sorry about the poor lighting, but it was very impromptu.



Erin thinks this will get more views than the Rob Ford Transit Review.  Let's hope not.

So I had a bit of an interesting week last...

I was drilling into my ceiling to mount a hook for Erin's TRX (http://www.trxtraining.com/).  Unfortunately one of the holes happened to go right through a piece of rebar.  While I did have my eyes covered, a piece of steel managed to get lodged in my left eye.  I spent a few hours in the ER that night, and a few more hours in the eye clinic the day after.  Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage.

I also did my own "Service B" on the Black Torpedo. Mercedes wanted over $600 to change the oil, oil filter, cabin air filter and do a general inspection.  So I did that myself, including the engine air filter and a bit of broken plastic in the engine bay.  I also have a replacement fuel filter, but haven't installed it yet.  I did all the previous in my buildings underground parking garage, which is technically against the rules.  I figure the fuel filter might be pushing it a bit far, since I'd have to jack up the car.

Halloween party this weekend!

Thanks Brian!  It was a good one this year.

Erin organized a big surprise party in the private room at my local pub.  The place was great, it was like time stopped in there some time around 1971.  Including period magazines and comic books.  Kind of like the house you and your buddies might have lived in after university - if you graduated at the end of the sixties.  Anyway, lots of people were there, we had a ton of great food and great beer, we even had a magician!  It was, as they say, a kickass fuckin' time.  I'll try and find some pictures of it later.

Other than that what else is new.... Not much, married life is going well, Erin and I are thinking of some upgrades to the condo, with the first thing being putting in some kind of storage solution in the closets.  After that we might make some changes to the bathroom and/or kitchen.  I wrote a short story recently, and have been dabbling with some others.  It's really dark though, I'm not sure I'll post it here.  I replaced the third brake light on the Black Torpedo this week, it was cracked and Erin got me a replacement for my birthday, which was awesome of her.

Erin and I have decided to try as many pumpkin beers as we can this year and post reviews of each.  Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime this:

http://archieoutofcontext.tumblr.com/

Happy International Day of the Ted!