Paul-Lancaster

Crystal and I had the second appointment at the hospital today, all went well. We heard the baby’s heart beat again which was wonderful and everything else was good too. We now have the ultrasound booked for August 16th! Which is even more exciting.

It is soooooo hot in Ottawa, It seemed okay outside earlier on but I just can’t get the temperature down in the apartment right now, even with our big fans blasting the air around. I have to go to work now, and venture outside in the insane heat, should be fun.

I’m now the very proud owner of my own guitar after receiving an awesome birthday gift from Crystal. I even got to hear how good it can sound too when last night Max and Ren both had a quick strum. I love it, my fingers hurt a little now from playing today though, but I am goinig to love learning to play properly.

My birthday weekend has been good, Crystal and I went out for dinner with Max last night and then we went back to Max and Ren’s place and had a few drinks with those guys and Meeka. Crystal gave me my guitar and we sat out on the deck most of the night, I can’t wait until we get a place with a garden and a deck. When we got home I opened my package from home which was awesome too, full of sweet little goodies. Today we just chilled and worked on some more ideas for the T-Shirt website. We are hoping to launch it fully in the next couple of weeks! So watch this space for news on that.

After seeing Crystal’s Cluster Map on her Blog I decided to add one myself, a link to it is in my links list for anyone who wants to see where in the world people are visiting my site from. So while I am logged in I just thought I would add a quick update. The job is going okay, although I have to admit the first few days I wondered if I was going to take to it, there is just soooooo much to learn and I worried that my little brain might not be able to take it all in. Yesterday was a good day though, I got through the day without feeling stressed at all, so I’m pretty comfortable with it all right now.

Today was my day off though and I actually had a really productive day, I got the ball rolling on working out what Crystal and I will do to stay together when my Visa runs out in March. I ordered an application pack from Canadian Immigration that has all the details about sponsorship and so on. It is all so daunting though, working out what is the best route to take, and the waiting times for processing look so scary. I just don’t want us to have to be apart. We will work it out though!

I got loads of other stuff done too, including picking up an interesting looking package from the Post Office, thinking it may be birthday related I have resisted opening it until Sunday and even managed to avoid reading the customs declaration of contents label, those customs labels can be such spoilers.

I better get to bed now, I have an 8.30 am meeting at work.

I finally managed to get set up with a job here in Canada, working in an electrical store in the downtown mall, which I think will work out just fine. It took a while to go from the interview to the actual job offer, probably because of them having to check international references, but I finally got the call today! I’m excited to get back to work, and I can apply for a credit card now and start building a credit history in Canada, useful for when it comes to buying a car or house in the future.

Crystal managed to get some proper maternity clothes today, which is a big relief to both of us, the old pants were starting to get a little tight around the bump and I won’t even get started on the bra problems, but she is a happy girl now, which always makes me happy.

The T-shirt website is coming along great too, Crystal has a few designs ready to go and the website is coming along, although I have hit a bit of a hurdle with setting up the menu, in that the T-Shirt company we are working with won’t allow JavaScript on their system, and stupid me created a JavaScript menu, which means I have to redesign the website a little before we can launch it. We will have a launch date soon though so watch this space!

2006 certainly seems to be a year of growers so far, with the exception of cannibal Sea, every album on my list has taken me a few listens to get in to. Which makes me wonder about some of the albums which didn’t quite make the cut, albums like Show Your Bones, At War With the Mystics, Broken Boy Soldiers and Let’s Get Out of This Country, all of which I had high expectations for and wasn’t overwhelmed with on the first couple of listens. Maybe they will turn out to be growers too.

12. Anathallo
   – Floating World

11. Hawksley Workman
   – Treeful of Starling

10. Band of Horses
   – Everything All the Time

9. Broken Family Band
   – Balls

8. The Arctic Monkeys
   – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

7. Danielson
   – Ships

6. Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
   – The Loon

5. The Kooks
   – Inside In / Inside Out

4. Belle & Sebastian
   – The Life Pursuit

3. The Essex Green
   – Cannibal Sea

2. Islands
   – Return to the Sea

1. Mates of State
   – Bring it Back

So that is the first half of the year over with, there are so many albums on the horizon. The Shins, Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Razorlight, maybe Modest Mouse? and the new M.Ward is awesome too. 2006 could turn out to be a good year.

Canada day was a whole week ago now, and I still haven’t got around to posting a quick blog on it yet. Good times were had, it was crazy busy around parliament, soooo many people. I didn’t really know many of the artists who were playing at the free concert, except for Stars of course who were awesome, and we managed to get right near the front of the stage for them too. The fireworks were spectacular, without doubt the biggest display I’ve ever seen. It’s a pity the video camera we had ran out of tape before the end of them though.

I took photos on my 35mm camera, which I haven’t got developed yet, infact I haven’t found anywhere to develop them here in Ottawa yet, I’m so old school I wish I could afford a digital SLR! But I’ll post some photos soon, when I get them developed, if they come out alright.

A funny thing happened to me in McDonalds earlier in the day though, I was wearing my CBGB T-Shirt, I haven’t wore that in a long time, but being the only red and white shirt I had, I thought I would wear it for Canada day. So anyway I am sat there, and this guy comes up to me to tell me his band had played there, at CBGB’s and he gave me a CBGB guitar pick! I think it is a sign, I’ve been itching to play guitar for a while, I want to start learning all over again, I never took it that seriously when I tried before. So now I have the pick… I just need to get the guitar to go with it.

That is the speed of our little babies heartbeat, which Crystal and I heard for the first time today. It was AMAZING to hear it beating away The junior doctor, who was doing the scan, took a little time to locate it, but once we heard it there was no mistaking the distinctive racing beat. It was such an amazing life-affirming experience.

The nurse, doctor and the junior doctor who was helping him were all really friendly and reassuring too, so the whole first hospital visit was really pleasant. The next appointment is the first week in August and then we will be having the ultrasound at the visit after that, in a couple of months from now. I can’t wait for that.

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!!

Bright Eyes with Gruff Rhys
Bronson Centre, Ottawa ON – 12th June 2006

We ordered tickets for the Bright Eyes concert after returning home from the phenomenal Hawksley Workman concert at the same venue a month or so ago. Hawksley owned that venue that night, really getting the crowd involved in an intimate and memorable show. The Bright Eyes show however, never really lived up to the expectations, it was still a pretty good show though, the highlight of which for me was when Conor Oberst sang “First Day of My Life” accompanied only by a solo acoustic guitar. I kind of wish the rest of the show could have been more like that, with a low key accompaniment. Don’t get me wrong though, the band were great, switching it up between guitar, mandolin, keyboards, trumpets and drums, but it was at least half way through the show before Oberst even addressed the crowd, and even then only after a prompt from an audience member.

What made the night for me though, was the performance of Gruff Rhys! The Super Fury Animals frontman played an eclectic mix of tracks, accompanied by a crazy collection of props, including a tweeting toy bird, some kind of humming box, one of those tubes that you twirl around your head to make banshee noises and what looked like a kids voice changing megaphone. The fact that he sang the majority of his songs in Welsh didn’t even detract from the show either, it was a great little performance. Gruff also came out to join Bright Eyes for an encore at the end of the night too, much to the delight of the audience.

Gruff Rhys – Colonize the Moon MP3 (right click and “save as”)

As if it wasn’t hot enough already! Good job we got that air conditioner! I love you air conditioning, you are my friend.

I’d never watched Hockey before I came to Canada, but I’m now addicted. Tonight The Edmonton Oilers take on The Carolina Hurricanes for the Stanley Cup! After tying up the series at 3 games each, the underdogs Edmonton travel to Carolina for game 7. I’m actually more excited about this than I am for the World Cup after watching England’s first 2 performances.

Let’s Go Oilers, LET’s GO!