Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Hopefully you had a good Christmas, and everything has gone well thus far. New Years is almost here, let thou partying begin.

Christmas Eve I went shopping for my Mother. I bought her a real nice house coat, this nightie thing, two packages of socks and this spinning ornament thing I bought from Walmart that has a cross and a small clock on it.

Anyway, my Christmas started off pretty subtle. Yet, pretty different than most years. I went to church Christmas eve for the first time of my actual adult life. I’m not sure if I ever went while being young but, it happened. I went. But, it was more of a rush than anything because I had to get my best clothes ready, have a quick shower and go at 11pm. But, it ended up I went to the wrong church, and I didn’t really know until the choir started singing, and everyone started joining in! It turns out I went to a Polish-Catholic church instead of the Roman-Catholic church I wanted to go to. Actually, a Baptist church would have been to my liking but I didn’t really have enough time to do my research to find the closest one here. I was already on the computer searching around for a church to go to, but, I just wanted to go to the Roman-Catholic church just past the Polish-Catholic church, but ended up at the Polish one instead. But, I said to myself, they all do the same thing anyway, just in different ways, and languages. It would have been nice to sing with the actual Christmas songs too. But, a few of the tunes I could make out what they were, or well, the music anyway.

So following Christmas eve and church, I finally came home at around 1-1:30am. Went to bed, and woke up at around 10am Christmas day, my Mom was already up and the turkey was already in, and she was busy cutting up everything for the very good meal we had. But before jumping to the meal ordeal, I’ll tell you what I got for Christmas.

Christmas was alright, I wasn’t expecting too much anyway, and it turned out quite fine. The things I mostly received were:

• 3 or 4 Pajama pants
• Bunch of Boxers
• Sweater
• Razor
• Shaver(already have one =S)
• Battery Operated Toothbrush (ZING)

I think that’s pretty much it, and I’m surprised I even got that much. I wasn’t expecting anything because my Mom she can’t really afford anything, but she got me some stuff anyway. And, I was expecting a good meal more than anything because I knew there would be one just like every year. After dinner I helped my mom clean up, and my bro came in we got him a plate to eat, and a plate for the next day. Then, my other brother and his wife Angela came over with their kids, and they’re doing alright I guess.

Day after Christmas I don’t think anyone came over, we just had a day of rest, didn’t really do anything other than take it easy just like any other day.

The next day my one sister , her boyfriend and kids came over for dinner, and that was a relatively huge meal, and it was nice to have so many people over for something like that, and for a visit. It’s always nice to get visitors, and have the them appreciate what was done.

Anyway, my other brother came over with his wife, and the baby. And they got me something which was quite cool. I wasn’t expecting anything from anyone, and they got me a history of Jazz book, and an Eric Clapton album called, “The Cream of Clapton”. I was totally surprised they bought me something, and felt kind of bad that I didn’t get anything because a gift received always means a gift given. But, I told them next year will be different for me at least. By that, I mean, I will give them a gift. In theory I did give them a gift because my mom and I baked a plate of goodies, and made a tape for each one of my siblings but I felt bad that I didn’t go out and get anything.

I think that is pretty much it, everyone has came over except 1 person and I hope she comes over soon. =)

All in All, it was a really good Christmas. Almost everyone came over, and it was cool. It was nice to see everyone during the holidays and they’re not quite over yet. Well, not to my standard anyway. When New Years is over and everyone has a huge hang over, and 2008 comes in with a headache and the tree comes down during the first day of 2008. That’s when the holidays are over, and everything is smoothed out.

Which comes to my new years resolution. I’d like to find a steady job this year, and help my mom out as much as I can while paying my credit card, and school loan off. I will try my best. Which means when the tree is down, I will be going around putting my resume out trying to find a steady job. A lot of things need to get done around here, and when things become relevant to the eye I will be happy. I want my mom to live a stress-free life, and it will happen. I also want to live happy too, which means this year will be the year of the gf I think. =D

I’m sick of being alone, and I want to find a nice girlfriend, or at least a nice girl which could turn into something a bit more than a friend.

Anyway, I think that’s it
Have a good one
-Justin

Snowstorm

Winter has finally arrived, and I or we have as a city have been affected by it in a huge way. It was actually quite a nice snowstorm, and I’m sure a lot of snowboarders, skiers, outdoorsman/ woman are happy. It was a rough one indeed, at least it’s over.

I believe it was Sunday at around 2 or 3am it started to snow, actually, it was a lot more than snow. But a lot of rain, sleet, freezing rain, and the like. By the end of it all, it looks like we got about two feet of snow. I could be wrong due to inaccuracy since I don’t really measure things too often. But, I can assure you, we got a lot for a first real storm of this years winter.

At around 9am – 11am I was debating whether the snow should be done, but the storm was still going full-throttle but with heavier gusts of wind now coming from the north where Lake Ontario is. I think a storm from Lake Erie/ the USA started it all. People were reporting a lot of ice, and sleet. Fortunately we didn’t get any ice, and I’m glad. We just got the storm from Lake Erie, and the occasional gusts from Lake Ontario, or Hamilton Harbour. Whatever you want to call it. With that being said I think two storm occurred because of the fronts and lake effect snow.

I go to peer outside, and my neighbour is in his garage. I figured he was getting ready to shovel out his driveway which is essentially pretty big, and it’s a shared driveway. So him and I share it, but I have room for 3 or 4 cars, as does he on his side. There’s two driveways just no median of separation.

I rush out there to get the snowblower ready, and it figures. He was just getting a wooden device ready to in the back of his truck to put stone or salt in the back because we all know, a pick-up truck is quite irritating in the winter if it’s not weighed down proper in the back, and most pick-up trucks are rear-wheel driven. This truck is about the size of a Chevy S10, quite nice actually.

I started clearing in front of the garage with the shovel, and to my surprise the snow wasn’t even that heavy. I figured it would have been a lot heavier because of the rain/ sleet/ and pellets all converging at separate times of the morning. By the time I got the door open, and the extension cord all ready to start the snowblower, I figure it was probably around 2pm. I was figuring it would have had a rough start, but, a few tweaks of the choke, the throttle, and the electric start and it came to life with a bang, ping and a tang from the muffler. It was successful, the snowblower started properly. Was it too good to be true, was it going to perform how it was perceived? I think not! I had the snowblower running for quite some time at a standstill to warm the engine up so it wouldn’t putter along, then soon enough I opened my side gate, wrestled with it in the snow passing my air conditioner, and out the gate I went only to conquer a few more feet of wrestling, and finally hit the sidewalk. Quickly I started snowblowing the sidewalk, went around the corner of my house and did about 5 houses extra, turn around and do the otherside of the same sidewalk. Then, I went around my corner again, and did the old Italian ladies corner house too. I came back around my corner again, and started doing the driveway doing my neighbours driveway first, or at least started.

Prior to the confrontation while getting my snowblower out, he said he had to go out and get some stones for the pick-up. But, due to my lack of snowblowing 3 quarters of the way done his side, the snowblower started to choke out from condensation in the gas. So, I readjusted the extension from the porch, plugged it in and it was success. It started again but with a little bit more pop, and ping. At this point I was delirious of the damn thing blowing up due to the pop, and pings. But, I kept doing it anyway. After all, the neighbour had to do stuff today. But, due to the snowblower acting up, that one quarter didn’t get done so I figured, “well, let’s just let it cool down for a bit”. So him and I started shovelling a fair bit, he moved his truck and we got rid of the majority of his snow. Then, thinking, “he needs to go out, we should start the entry way to the driveway”. So him and I started doing entry way. My brother showed up in the process, and told me he was going grocery shopping, and my neighbour asked if he had any gasline antifreeze, to no avail. he said no. But, offered to go get some at the gas station. Just before his arrival from the gas station, the entry way was finished, but, he had to go do the groceries. And, of course that task is a lot more greater. You can’t bite the hand that feeds, you have to supply the chain when you’re a family man. By chain I mean your production of life, your sustaining perception, and your reason to live. Not that I’m saying, if you don’t have a family, there’s no reason to live. There are many reasons to live!

So, after dragging the snowblowwr back to the garage just to let the antifreeze settle. I went back into the house for about 20-25 minutes.

Finally, after that short wait, I redressed my upper body with dry clothes and conquer the quest again with the neighbour. I open the garage door, reconnect the electric start cord, and off we went again. It died a few more times after a little while. But, then, he was like “I have some new gas in the garage, let me see if that helps. Sure enough, after twenty or so minutes it wasn’t choking anymore. But this time, his part of the driveway was clean, and I was working on my half. Which was another story waiting to be prescribed just like your medication at the pharmacy waiting for you when you’re sick.

The snowblower chute, and it’s the epitome of chuting all that snow. The auger is the contraption that feeds the snow, while the chute delivers that snow to another home on the side of your curb, or on your lawn. The darn thing broke! Well, not the actual shoot itself, but the cable adjustment connection did. So, now I can’t adjust the chute’s shooting length of the pre-occupational snow to make it post-occupational, possibly the new home. Now with the use of a damaged adjustment cable broke, the snow flies all over the place now and not just one direction.

So after that, I finished a small bit of snow I needed to finish and it was all good except from the snow being consistent at a lowered pace in falling. The driveway, and the rest of the sidewalk was re-covered. I just said screw it, and told the neighbour to go in, which he did, and I finished shovelling the freshly layed snow from the driveway, and sidewalk both on my side, and his.

What a day that was! I can successfully say it wasn’t a good one because the four hours we spent out there, if the snowblower was working proper I could have finished that driveway and sidewalks then some more in probably two hours. But, ah well, the snowblower serves its justice and did the job. I just need to get it fixed now.

After packing everything up I headed in, came on the computer for another hour and said screw it, I’m going to lay down because I didn’t have any sleep that prior night.

So, I woke up, look outside, and the city did an awesome job plowing the roads, but, what about my stinking sidewalk? The selfish bastards re-covered it again, and now I have to re-shovel. Not only will I re-shovel, but I will phone them, and give them some of my thoughts.

–J