Movember comes to an end and so does my moustache

 Movember is an annual month long event where males register to a charity and grow moustaches to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer. So we formed a group at the university. As today is the last day of November, I will be shaving off my moustache tonight, but I did not want to deprave you of the opportunity to gaze upon the grandeur that is my moustached face. Here is a picture of the group of us from the university.

The Conference was a Thriller (pun intended, read below)

So I never actually filled everyone in on how my most recent conference went. It was the annual Aquatic Toxicology Workshop. Personally, although the turnout for my presentation was low I thought I gave a much better presentation than I did in B.C. The aquaculture section which I presented in was the smallest with only three presenters including myself. So I did not anticipate a big showing. However several St. Andrews Biological Research Station employees I used to work with came to support me. I am sure there was probably more pertinent talks they could have attended so it was a nice gesture.

The banquet was excellent. There was free wine from a Niagara winery I can no longer recall the name of. I had delicious walleye as my main course and apple pie a la mode for dessert. The best part however was that a professional Toronto dance troupe was hired as entertainment. Before the first course they performed a Bollywood dance. After the second course they performed a traditional Afrikaans dance number and for the third course they had a tribute dance routine to a medley of Michael Jackson songs. Following this they came out into the audience to wrangle unsuspecting biologists to dance the Michael Jackson Thriller dance of which I was one. There is nothing quite as amusing as watching inebriated scientists trying to learn Thriller. Anyway below is a picture of me learning the Thriller (I am the tall one in orange).

 

My next conference may be in Chile at the Universidad de Valparaiso. Although this is still entirely tentative. Chile is one of the largest aquaculture production countries in the world (much larger than Canada). My supervisor just returned and apparently they are interested in the research I am conducting. I guess we’ll see.

We finally finished the left over turkey I cooked three weeks ago. The turkey turned out fabulous but there was soooo much of it. I only bought a twelve pound turkey but it was more than enough for two. So I made turkey pot pie, turkey quesadillas, and turkey a la king. Needless to say I won’t be making turkey again soon. I’ve been making pies too; apple, pumpkin and lemon from scratch rather than a can. The lemon turned out a bit watery but otherwise good.

 

We didn’t do too much for Halloween last night aside from carve pumpkins. We stayed in and watched a scary movie (The Unborn) and snacked on Jenn’s homemade guacamole.  Yum!

  

Birthdays, visitors and road trips

October has been an incredibly busy month!  If I had been smart I would have been blogging as things were happening but I wanted to have lots of pictures and I’m really good about procrastinating. 

The beginning of the month my mom came to visit.  It is the first time I’ve seen her since Christmas so it was very exciting!!  The weather wasn’t the greatest while she was here but we didn’t let it get us down.  The first few days we spent around Kitchener, walking around our neighbourhood, Victoria park and of course we ate out at a couple of our favourite restaurants.  We went out to celebrate my birthday at a place called the Black Shop which had the most fabulous pumpkin cheese cake and mom even took the time to make me a Birthday cake!  We spent an entire afternoon in Niagara on the Lake and went on a Wine tour at Hillebrand.  Our tour guide was very flamboyant to say the least but he was very passionate about his job and there was a wine tasting at the end, one of many that we went to throughout the day.  I think we both had a great time and I’m already looking forward to going again in January for the ice wine festival.  It was sad to see mom go but I anticipate the time will fly by between now and Christmas. 

      

The Thanksgiving long weekend we drove up to Ottawa to visit with Laura and Ian.  The weather was fantastic and made for a beautiful drive, although, it didn’t quite make up for the holiday traffic.  Once there we had a wonderful time.  We toured around downtown Ottawa and got to see the locks  (in the Rideau canal) in action. We stopped in to see if Mandy was home but she didn’t appear to be around.  Laura and Ian cooked us a Thanksgiving meal of ribs and beer can chicken and we spent the evening playing games and drinking wine.  Laura and I even won a game of Pictionary which was an amazing feat since neither of us was very good at drawing.  (I think the wine helped). 

   

 

This weekend we journeyed out with the intentions to do some apple picking and to pick out some pumpkins.  We found a cute little farm with a u-pick as well as a winery!!!  (I’ve decided that I really like going to wineries).   Unfortunately we didn’t bother to pick because apparently the season was quite early and the majority of the apples were already on the ground so we opted to buy some already picked and and spent our time tasting a few of their fruit wines.  The pumpkins were very nice but we opted to go another day and pick up a few for cheaper at the Zehrs.  I am now looking forward to making a few pies, a crisp and Robbie is wanting to make apple sauce. 

The rest of the weekend is not yet planned but we’ll most likely go out for dinner and watch a movie.  Robbie is making a turkey dinner tomorrow so he’ll be busy in the kitchen and I hope to get out to the barn.  My good friend Crystal, whom I lived with while in vet school, is coming up next weekend for a quick visit which I’m looking forward to but after that I am hoping that the rest of the month is quiet!!

 

Make sure you chew your food fifty times.

Jennifer had to make another emergency trip to the barn this week because her horse was choking again. Not surprisingly since it practically inhales it’s food. Her friend Liz came up on Friday to perform some dental wizardry on the horse so hopefully he’ll chew his food a little better before swallowing.

I have been exceptionally busy in the lab this past week trying to get some great results for my conference in Toronto next week. As well as crafting an updated resume for the career night that kick starts the conference. It gives students a chance to mingle with government and industry leaders in the natural sciences over wine and hors d'oeuvres.

I have also started my guitar lessons this past week. I have been wanting to take my guitar playing to the next level so the lessons will run over ten weeks introducing me to some more advanced playing techniques. First order of business is changing the strings which I’ll be doing after I finish this blog.

I made tempura cod and chips this evening. The batter was delicious and browned nicely but it stuck to everything. Unfortunately the fish broke apart in my overzealous efforts to dislodge it from the steel mesh of the deep fryer basket. It ended up being more like fish hash ‘n chips. It still tasted good with my homemade tartar sauce. I also made gnocchi this week which was fairly labour intensive. It may not have been as pretty as the gnocchi you get at an Italian restaurant but we both agreed it was very good.

We are looking forward to seeing Jen’s Mom this week who is stopping in for a few days. It seems that whenever one of Jen’s family or friends stops by I am either leaving for a conference or tied-up with lab work. Oh well. It will all be done soon.

No, not garubula

Well I taught my first class of the semester today. Thirty-seven first year students. It was actually a breeze. Still wouldn’t want to be a full time teacher though. As I will be teaching roughly 140 students this semester I apologized to them beforehand as it is unlikely I will remember all of their names.

We had some unfortunate car trouble this week and needed to replace our alternator to the tune of $500.35. The car is almost 12 years old now so I guess these things are to be expected. I plan on getting a few more years out of it yet though.

In other news, I made duck l’orange the other night. My orange sauce was almost good enough to eat on its own but I don’t think I would ever buy a whole duck again. it is a greasy bird with less meat on its bones than a chicken. I was treated to Jennifer’s cooking today. She had the day off today and prepared a “golden fruit chutney” which had dried apricots, golden raisins and pineapple in it. She also made a homemade chicken curry and biscuits. It was all delicious. Tomorrow evening I plan on making parmesan and Swiss cheese polenta as well as chicken wings with a savoury chocolate barbeque sauce. Which brings me to a rather amusing exchange I had with a cashier today about an ingredient I was buying that she wasn’t familiar with:

Cashier: What is this?

Me: Arugula.

Cashier: I have never heard of arubula.

Me: No, not arubula. AruGULa, with a “g”.

Cashier (asking the cashier to her left): Oh, with a “g”. Cindy have you ever heard of garubula.

Me: No, not garubula. Arugula! A-R-U-G-U-L-A. Arugula.

Anyway I got my arugula.

R.I.P. Jenn’s Bike

While Jennifer’s bike may have been old and slightly rusted it was the only one she had. Unfortunately we awoke to find it stolen the other day. Our bike lock had broken earlier and we had yet to replace it. It is strange they wouldn’t have taken my bike, which was also unlocked. as it was the much nicer bike of the two. We are going to go and look at new bikes for her today. Being that summer is winding down, we are hoping the prices are dropping on them. Invest in a new bike lock that isn’t going to fall apart as well. In the meantime my bike has been brought into the spare bedroom. Apparently Cooper likes having the bike inside as he nuzzled his muzzle against the greasy chain.

I made slow-cooker rabbit cacciatore the other night. It was alright but I found that the rabbit tasted just like a gamier chicken. The hardest part was cutting out the various muscle groups from the rabbit torso. It required watching several “How to” videos online. I also fried up the heart, liver, and kidneys in some butter as a lunchtime snack. The heart was tough and chewy, the liver was a little rubbery but the kidneys were delicious. This week I am making duck although I haven’t settled on a recipe yet.

But the biggest news of the week is that I am going to be an uncle as Penny told me she is pregnant with twins! I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the doctor told them twins ;)

Great Weekend!

 

                     

We had a fantastic weekend of fun activities and wonderful weather!  We started out Friday night by heading to downtown Waterloo and taking in a few of the busker shows and sidewalk artists.  It was very entertaining and the best part of course was it was all free!  The best performer we saw was a young guy doing a flaming juggling act who normally performs with his wife but she unfortunately had broken her toe recently doing some sort of trick and left him solo.  He juggled torches and knives and put a flaming torch in his mouth as his big finale.  It was so nice walking around the downtown in such great weather, it wasn’t too hot and very comfortable in just t-shirts.  Its hard to believe that tomorrow is the first day of September!!  We ended the evening by getting ice cream at the Marble slab….so YUMMY !  I had birthday cake flavoured ice cream with cookie dough and Reese’s pieces and Rob  had sweet cream ice cream with raspberries and Oreo cookies.  We need to get an outlet in the Maritimes before we come home!!  http://www.marbleslab.com/

Saturday I had to work until noon but afterwards we packed up the car and drove north to Elora Gorge.  We met up with my friends Katie, Andy and Liz and spent the evening around a camp fire eating hotdogs and roasting up smores.  It was the first time that we got to use our new tent and it is great, it’s so big that Robbie can actually stand up in it!!  We also got to use our new solar powered lantern and my new sleeping bag!  We’ve decided that we definitely need to find time to do more camping and all we need now is a cooler. We used a medium sized tote which did the job but it didn’t stay cold for too long and you definitely need cold beer when you go camping!! 

The big attraction about the gorge is that you can rent tubes and float down a certain stretch of water.  Robbie got up early on Sunday and stood in line with about 50 other people at 8am for tubes!!  We couldn’t believe how much in demand these things were.  We all got outfitted with helmets, lifejackets and tubes and had the most wonderful time on the water.  There were actually a couple places where the water was quite fast with big rapids and then other places where the water was slow and more calm.  Robbie was ejected from his tube over the first set of rapids and one of our friends almost lost her shoes but everyone emerged unharmed.  You had to be careful in some places as  your bum could slip through the tube and in shallow water scrape on the rocks but It was so beautiful, we ended up doing it twice!! I wished I could have had a camera to take pictures of the gorge rising above us with the trees overhanging the water but then I would have most certainly lost my tube!

   

Camping and tubing

Jenn and I are going camping at Elora Gorge this weekend with a few of her friends. We are looking forward to the maiden voyages of our tent, camp stove and solar lantern. Plus the weather is supposed to be great. Elora Gorge is about 45 minutes North of us. As the name suggests there is a fairly large gorge with some mild rapids below. The best part is that you can rent tubes for the day to ride “the rapids” and a shuttle picks you up to take you back to the headwaters afterward.

Last weekend I attempted to make a soufflé for the first time but to turn a phrase, “it fell flat”. It was a crab soufflé. I accidently got a little yolk in with the egg whites so they did not stiffen properly despite my beating the heck out of them. It still tasted alright but it never rose the way a soufflé should. However I am undeterred and plan on making a chocolate soufflé next weekend. My potato latkes on the other hand turned out sublime. They were sooo delicious with syrup.

There is busker festival going on in Waterloo today and I was thinking that I might leave early today to see what there is to see.

Doctor do I smell burnt toast?

Thought I would start rolls yesterday in the bread maker before I left for the lab so that when I got home they would be ready. Ah the best laid plans. Little did I know when I got home Jenn had placed them in the oven to rise. And me being the blockhead I am, I forgot to check in the oven before turning it on to heat up a baked potato. Since the rolls were covered in a tea towel they went up in flames! But despite the rolls being dense burnt nuggets they were still quite good if you cut off the singed portion.

Jenn and I are actually getting much better at tennis. We can actually keep a volley going for a longer than a blink now. Plus we have finally managed to get back out biking again. My tire tube had a puncture which I fixed only to realize I had another puncture. But my patch jobs seem to be holding well.

I have yet another conference which I am preparing for now. Dr. Lee asked me the evening before the abstract submission deadline. So I spent a very late night writing that. But I finished it and will be attending the Aquatic Toxicologists Workshop at University of Toronto in October.

Tomorrow I am going to try my hand at making a crab soufflé. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Hope you are all having a sunny week because we are!

-Robbie

Zebras, lions, wallabies, spider monkeys, giraffes, hippos, rhinos…

A couple weekends ago Jenn and I decided to visit the Toronto Zoo and the African Lion Safari. Our favourite animals were the spider monkey, the black leopard, the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and lions. We also had the opportunity to see an elephant show while at the safari and Jenn has said she will get me one for Christmas. I’m not holding my breath. Anyway, pictures speak louder than words and we took lots. Enjoy!

 

 

Grand Bend and Burns

Last weekend Rob and I took a drive up to Grand Bend which is North West of Kitchener on the edge of Lake Huron.  It is known for its beautiful sandy beaches and the warm waters of the lake and it definitely lived up to its reputation!  The weather was great, nice and sunny with a strong breeze which made it deceptively cool.  The water was amazingly comfortable and easy getting in and the waves were huge!  They were bigger than any waves I’ve swam in at New River Beach and continuously pounded the shore line and everything (everyone) in the way.  I have never seen Robbie have so much fun as he did that day.  He must have spent a good 3-4 hours jumping and diving over the waves, he is like a fish!  I also enjoyed the waves and I had piece of mind as there were no jelly fish, clumps of seaweed or other notable sea creatures to be seen which I have always been very conscious of when swimming on the beaches of PEI and NB.  Despite this ease I could not compete with Robbie for time spent in the water and quite enjoyed reading a book on the beach.  I am now suffering from a bad (both in severity and stupid looking) sun burn on my legs despite multiple sun screen applications and am now thinking that I should only read at home, in the shade, or with pants.  Lesson learned; obviously in this day and age blonde people require 100 spf and must apply every 15 minutes!  We were both totally exhausted by the time we got home from battling the sun and waves but we are already planning on going back again sometime soon!

        

 

Here are also some pictures of my flower pots that I planted and keep out on our patio!

       

Picnic & BBQ

Jenn and I enjoyed a delicious picnic in the park on Thursday evening with one of my friends from school, her daughter and Mom. I made crab and cream cheese tortilla roll-ups  and we brought chips and watermelon while my friend Sophia brought some rosemary chicken, canola greens, mango and homemade bread. Every Thursday night during the summer they put on a free concert followed by a movie on a giant inflatable screen. This weeks movie was Percy Jackson and the Olympians the Lightning Thief. However we didn’t stay for the whole movie as it started to drizzle out and we had seen the movie before. I’d give it only three stars anyway.

                              

Last night we went to my friend Richelle’s place for her annual summer BBQ and the cheeseburgers were delicious. We played some new dice game that I really enjoyed followed by a guitar jam session in the living room. Richelle’s husband plays in a band and we are planning on going to see him play at a local watering hole tomorrow night.

In other news, Jenn’s ring arrived this week, but unfortunately she has to send it back to get resized as it was a tad too big. So she won't be getting it back for another 3 weeks or so. I tried to snap a picture of it but it came out a little blurry.

                                          

Today, I spent five hours in the kitchen cooking a labour intensive but delicious meal. I made homemade rolls, blueberry pie, quiche Lorraine, a pastry cinnamon roll, a cauliflower casserole, orange juiced pork chops and crunchy potato balls. I was hot and tired and the kitchen was a disaster by the time I was done but  Mom’s pastry recipe turned out superb. My only complaint would be that the orange juice was a little too concentrated in the pork chops. I did them in the slow cooker with undiluted O.J. from concentrate along with several other ingredients as the recipe called for.

                                           

I’ll leave you with a picture a gaggle of geese that decided they wanted to cross the road in front of us the other day.

                                        

Birthday ribs and raspberry trifle!

So another birthday gone by and I had a great day minus the four hours I spent in the lab. But following that Jenn and I took part in Kitchener’s annual beer and ribfest. It was a hot humid day but Kitchenerites were out in numbers. The line to get beer tokens was ridiculously long and as we had tried all of the craft beers before anyway, we decided to beeline it over to the ribs! Each of the six rib vendors had their trophies set out on tables from previous years ribfest winnings from across the province. Although the ribs were a little pricy at 9.00$ per 1/3 rack, they were delicious. I didn’t even care that my face was smeared with rib sauce.

 

Following ribfest, Jenn and I played some Frisbee in the park. We have been playing a lot of Frisbee and tennis lately. I’m the better Frisbee player but she is the better tennis player. The best part of the day was the massive raspberry trifle she had made for desert. It was delicious. So delicious in fact that I had it for breakfast the next day. As you can see, despite it’s size, it is already half gone.

Here is a picture of the beautiful wine rack that she got me. It is already full!

Aaaaand Jenn’s ring should finally be arriving next week. It was originally supposed to be 14k gold but was upgraded to platinum at no additional cost because that is all that they make that setting in. Here are some pictures of the ring I originally picked for her, but it’s profile was a little to high. The ring she picked, the diamond is flush with the band.