Tag: christmas Posts

The following is guest post by my good friend, Keira Mellis, who happens to have a really amazing blog herself over at Keira-Anne.com. Also, we’ve received another donation, one that’s eligible for my free photo giveaway. Here’s a list of recent donations. Michelle Palazzo YOU – if you click here and pledge Also, to sweeten the deal, any person who donates $50 or more to the Union Gospel Mission will receive a free 8×12 photo of their choosing from my HDR gallery located at SmugMug. Since it’s rather apparent that our blogalicious friend, Duane, has such a deep love for the spirit of all things Christmas (and in particular the Christmas tree), I thought I’d share a few fun facts about Christmas trees I managed to dig up online. Notice That My Christmas Tree Is Still Up In The Background Most parts of pine, spruce and fir trees can be […]

Why? Why not.

Ahh, relaxation. Definitely enjoying it. I’ve been sleeping lots, eating lots, and watching a pile of movies. For the most part, my ass has been firmly planted on the living room couch, but I’ve managed to get outside a bit and see some relatives. Today is Christmas over at my sister’s house. Since my parents are split, today is Christmas with my mom’s side of the family. I have two gifts each for my niece and nephew, so I’ll bring one set over today and leave the other here at my dad’s for tomorrow’s round. Us adults don’t really buy for each other, but we’ve always sort of enjoyed getting the kids a few things. My grandma (or Baba as we all call her), is a cute Ukrainian lady that has been a huge influence on my life. I spent a lot of my childhood over at her place watching […]

Went shopping with my mom this afternoon. Shopping for toys. She wanted to check out the exercise bikes at Sears. I don’t think she has room for one though. I put that one on facebook, so go check it out there.

Well, I made it. I am currently sitting on the couch back in Chilliwack, debating going to sleep, even though I just demolished a two liter of diet pepsi. I spent most of tonight just watching TV and the odd movie. Everyone around here went to bed hours ago, but I kept myself entertained with Saw and Wrath of Khan on TV. I brought all my camera gear out here, but somehow left my cable at home. So for now, I won’t really be able to post any photos.. I’ll head out tomorrow when I wake up and try to grab a new one and snap a few photos from around Chilliwack. I have to do some shopping in the local mall as well, which should be fairly clusterfuck-like given that it’s the last Saturday before Christmas. Since this is a fairly small town and I knew most of the […]

I had a few people over sort of on a whim last night, and we all sat around listening to music and enjoying Christmas nachos. I’m not sure if this is officially year two or year three for the nachos, but I’ve been trying to up the ante each year to see if I can outdo myself. They Almost Don’t Fit I had a few Christmas decorations sitting around in boxes, so we all took turns throwing a few up on the tree. Keira helped herself to R2-D2, and I think I got stuck with Yoda. Good times. Only five more days of work and then I’m off for a while. I’m getting excited about heading back home for a few days and spending time relaxing with the family. My friend Jan will be visiting from Chicago during the break, so I’ll finally get to see him again (we haven’t […]

Last night I got together with some of my old high school friends for an evening of games and Christmas cheer. It was great seeing that old group again — we don’t nearly get together enough. We played “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader”, which was actually harder than we thought. That being said, I demolished the competition and walked away with the “you totally fucking rule” badge. The final winning question, answered by yours truly in a display worthy of it’s own Rocky film, was “What Year Was Toronto’s CN Tower Completed?” 1976 Bitches. 1976. Tonight I’m having a few people over on a whim to sit around and eat food, have a few drinks, and of course Keira’s amazing guacamole. I’m totally not prepared for this, so I’m scrambling around trying to clean up a bit and find enough bowls for munchies. Santa Raymi and Reindeer Phil […]

Chad’s party last weekend was the first of the Christmas bashes, but they are coming hard and fast starting tomorrow. I just picked up a new pair of dress pants and my altered jacket from the tailor, and tomorrow I’m spiffing it all out down on Granville Island. There should be a small little pre-party at my pad near False Creek, and then a small little ferry ride over to Bridges, which is a fairly nice seafood restaurant right on the edge of the marina. Kasia won’t be coming to my place beforehand because she apparently needs a gazillion hours to get ready before hand, so we’ll just have to manage without her. Should be about 100 people or so, taking over the entire upper floor, so it’s bound to be a pretty fun time. This year they up’ed the ante a bit and set up a dance floor along […]

This is a pretty important week in the life of Duane. On Tuesday I’ll meet up with my plastic surgeon which might potentially be the last meeting I have with him regarding this whole affair. My first meeting was about twelve months ago and resulted in two surgeries to my eye socket. I’ve spent this last year bouncing between doctors offices, getting eye exams, several CT scans, and will meet this week to probably wrap everything up. In terms of my vision, it’s still not perfect. I see pretty much everything perfectly below the midline (i.e. looking straight or down), but as I look up I tend to see double of everything. I have sort of naturally adjusted by automatically raising my head when looking up so the object I’m looking at is straight on, but it’s a fairly big pain in the ass for me, especially when it’s dark […]

Last night I made the long trek out of the downtown core and ended up near Metrotown, which surprisingly isn’t as far away as I imagined. Chad has a really nice pad out there, complete with an outdoor deck that would be just killer for summer parties and BBQing. Chad has a tradition at his party where everyone has to pick a decoration for the tree, and then proceed to make love to it somehow. Not sure how this came to be, but everyone eagerly began licking and kissing their decorations. After everyone had hit the beers in the fridge, Chad promptly dove straight into his massive scotch collection and started going crazy on that. After a few, he basically took position in his recliner like some dude out of masterpiece theatre and began to chuckle to himself occasionally. I was giving Raymi a play-by-play via SMS, and when I […]