The New Doctor Who

I downloaded the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who. I have to say, I quite enjoyed them. I think am becoming a fan of the series. It is a lot better than the original series. I only ever watched the first series a couple of times and I was quite little but I didn't think it was very good at all.

The new series is still pretty cheesey in a late 70's early 80's sort of way, but they make up for it with good special effects (especially when you remember how bad the effects from the old series were).

In anycase, if you have cable and a free hour when it comes on, if it even is playing in places other than the BBC I recommend that you watch at least one episode.

-Gary Milner

Getting A Move On

My parents came up the other day to help us get started moving. We took our couches and mattress to the dump. I have to say that they have quite the setup at the Spyhill dump in Northern Calgary. It looks more like a park than a landfill, at least the part where most people go. You drive in, have your car weighed, then you drive up a small hill, back up to the edge of the hill and then you throw your garbage over the edge of hill into giant metal bins. When the bins are full,they take them away and dump them in a location of their choosing. I'm sure this is a much more economical way of filling up the landfill.

When we got back from the dump it was time to move the piano. We had Steve Meldrum and Ethan Nelson help us. It was a good thing too, because the piano is very heavy. We invited them and their wives to go have a little fire with us in Bowness Park. It's been a long time since we have had a fire but with the great weather, we couldn't resist.

-Gary Milner

Satellite Photos

There has been a lot of internet discussion about the topic of satellite photos, memory maps and what have you ever since google release their google maps beta program into the wild.

Wired.com has an article about the interesting things that can be found in the satellite images. One imaging company notice that in the very first image they ever sold you could spot the presidential helicopters flying over Washington. Presumably with the president on board.

My brother Jeff has posted several interesting photos that he found online, including Disneyland, Bill Gates' house, and the White House, among other things. I thought that I would post some of the interesting photos that Tracie and I have found.

Tracie found this photo of an airplane taking off from the San Francisco airport. Actually she found the plane's shadow and I found the plane.

We found this photo of Niagara Falls, which is quite spectacular.

Alcatraz is quite interesting. You can see the boats in the bay, and what looks like a tourist ferry to the island, although we're just guessing about that.

Diamond Head Volcano in Hawaii, as well as the hotel where we stayed with my family when I was 11. I think it's called the Ilikai.

My house in Calgary for two more weeks and my brother's house in Lethbridge.

There are several hot springs visible in Yellowstone Park.

Here's an interesting one, this is part of the military base where I worked for several years. The circles are roads all set a certain distance apart. One time at the height of the cold war they set off a pile of TNT that was equivalent to a small atomic bomb.

Here is the Manicouagan Impact Crater in Quebec. Here is what NASA has to say about the Manicouagan Impact Crater.

The most personal of all the satellite images are the memory maps. Here is Tracie's memory map of Crescent Heights. Here is Gary's memory map of South Ridge. I even made a memory map of Raymond.

-Gary Milner

The Civic is Sold

I sold the Civic just now. I am very sad.

Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada,

When I write my first book of memoirs, I will use a photo like this one to help me remember all the stories of my childhood. There are so many that I couldn't hope to remember them all with out something like this to make them spring back to life.

Who ever the first person was to think of this is a genius. You can click on the photo to see all the notes that I've added so far. I may add more as time goes on. I have 17 so far, but each one of them could be several pages if I were to elaborate on them a bit.

-Gary

Costco Worst Store Evar

It seems that everyone just thinks Costco is the best store ever. Except for me. I think people are just trying to convince themselves that they didn't waste $50 joining a stupid club store where the prices are no better than any other store.

I don't like the way there are no displays. I don't like the way they ID you as you are entering the store (like non-members will are dying to get in or will be able to make it past the cashiers). I don't like the way they accuse you of being a thief on your way out and insist on marking you receipt. I don't like the way the cashiers accuse you of being a sneaky liar and insist on seeing your membership card. I don't like the fact that they don't have grocery bags. I don't like how long the lines are and how they don't have an express isle for people buying less than 300 items. I don't like the disproportionate number of stupid people who shop there. (Who stands in the middle of the narrowest isle with their cart eating an icecream cone?)

There are only two redeeming qualities. You can buy the super-duper-mega-family-packs there (not that I do, but I admit that it's one of their good points.) and they have lots of sample booths sometimes. (There were none today.)

-Gary Milner is disenchanted with Costco and wants his $50 back.

Spring Walk

Spring seems to be springing here in Calgary. It has been nice and warm over the last week or even a little more.

The tree in our front yard is convinced that spring has sprung, and leaves are starting to bud. Our tulips are growing and one of the other perennials that we planted last year is coming through, as well as some of the plants that Tracie's grandma gave us last year.

I fear it is a mean trick because it always snows twice after you think that it can't possibly snow anymore. It can easily snow in mid-April, so I'm sure that we are in for several major storms before summer officially hits.

We picked up our tickets from the travel agency today. The time of our departure is drawing steadily nearer and nearer. Three more months and we will be on our way to Hong Kong. It is all very exciting.

I need to purchase a laptop before we go so that I can have something to download my photos onto and then to upload them to Flickr with. I also want to copy all the pictures from my current computer over before I go, as well as backing up a few other things.

We've been watching the slideshows on Flickr about Hong Kong and Perth. It's nice to have such an easy way of seeing what the places you are going to look like.

-Gary

THE OLDEST KNOWN PIECE OF EARTH

According to a news article on cnn, scientists have found the oldest object on earth. Its a zircon crystal with the diameter of a human hair. They say it's 4.4 billion years old. Really?This little gem of information should be enough to tax the common sense of even the most gullable of idiots. First of all, how do you go about finding the one oldest thing on earth when it's only the diameter of a human hair. Then how do you go about finding out that it's 4.4 billion years old. That means they're saying it's 4.4 thousand million years old. It seems to me that it would be very easy to be out by a million years or so.

Got Blood?

Canada Blood Services doesn't suck anymore, unless you mean suck blood in which case they do. Tracie and I went in this morning and donated half a liter each. Since my heart blood are so much better than Tracie's I was pretty much passing out from blood loss before she even had the hint of a needle.

Towards the end of my donation, I asked the nurse how much longer it would be. (I could tell that things were going downhill fast) She said, "Two seconds." I figured that meant she was in the process of cutting off the blood flow and that I would be unhooked stat. What she meant to say was, "Another minute or so". In any case the two seconds passed in about two seconds and then after another ten or so I started getting really sick to my stomach and really light headed. The temperature in the room started rising.

Luckily the nurses at Canadian Blood Services are really on the ball. They quickly rushed over some cold moist towels and draped them over my head and arms, as well as turning on a fan. One of them said something to me, but I was in too much of a daze to understand what she said and I had to get her to repeat it and really concentrate on what she was saying. I don't really remember what she said though. It really surprised me how fast getting cooled off like that made me feel better. In fact, I had polished off a few cookies, some OJ, and half a coke before Tracie was done, and she didn't almost die from blood loss.

People need blood so go ahead and take and hour out of your day to donate some.

-Gary Milner

Ps. If Tracie contradicts anything in this post, you probably shouldn't believe her.

Silkscreen T-shirt

Tracie and I decided to silk-screen some shirts. I found a decent tutorial on-line, that was both clearly written and easy to do. Here is the link: How to silk screen a shirt.

It turned out well, we were able to make the screens and print the shirts in one morning. I'm really happy with how well our shirts printed. It is as easy as the tutorial says.

I still have to make my second shirt, and we will most likely be making more in the future. I've always wanted to do it again ever since I did it in the 8th grade.

-Gary

Going to China

Gary and I bought our tickets for Australia yesterday and we sold our house the day before. So if there was ever any turning back, there sure isn't now.

We leave the 17th of July and our first stop is Hong Kong. We decided to stay there for a week because we get a free stop-over with our tickets and Hong Kong seemed like as good a place as any. Then we head over to Singapore for another week and then we're on to Perth. On the way back, we stop in Singapore again and we're thinking of taking the train from there to Malaysia and Thailand.

We are very excited and July can't get here soon enough.

-Tracie

Three possibilities

1. No one read the blog today.
2. No one cares that we sold the house.
3. No one believed my previous post because the sale happened to coincide with April Fool's day.


-Gary

House Conditionally Sold

We conditionally sold our house this morning.

We're pretty excited.

The possession day is May 1.

Does anybody want to buy our car? If you do, leave a comment and we'll be in touch.

-Gary Milner