So I finished teaching my first section of Critical Thinking and finally had a chance to slow down a bit. To celebrate the occasion, we went for a weekend camping trip. We didn’t really rough it, but we had fun nevertheless; we played some games, sat around a fire, went for walks, and slept. Here are some pictures.
It’s been a while since we posted some pictures. Enjoy.
Things have been so busy around here that I’ve completely forgotten to include a little smack talk in my blog. (This post is aimed at someone who lives in Calgary, but the rest of you can listen in if you want to.)
First, a concession. I guess a certain somebody called it right when she said that the Cavaliers would be in the Finals. I never thought they would make it past the Pistons, but here they are. This being said, they have been getting whupped–by my Spurs. Having a one-man team is apparently enough to get you out of the east, but it isn’t enough to compete with anyone out west. In fact, this Cavaliers team is the worst team that the Spurs have faced in the playoffs thus far. I was much more worried about the Nuggets and the Suns (and the Jazz for that matter) than I am about the Cavaliers. The Cavs may get lucky and pull out a win tonight, but if they don’t, they are going to be swept.
Go Spurs!
So we’re back in Manitoba. I’ve changed gears, but it doesn’t seem to be a slower one. I’m teaching a course called Critical Thinking at the University of Manitoba. The course covers some formal and informal logic, teaches students how to recognize and evaluate arguments, and how to avoid errant reasoning. It’s been fun–I think–but it is wearing me out. I decided that I would try to present my lectures with the use of Powerpoint. It makes for a nice finished product, but it adds a significant amount of time to my preparation. The nice thing is that, when I teach the course again in two weeks, I’ll have all of the lectures prepared.
Anyway, we’re enjoying the Manitoba weather and attractions. Just this evening, we went to BDI for ice cream. I think that when we return to Massachusetts, we’ll take BDI with us.
So we have safely arrived back in Manitoba, it feels good to be back on Canadian soil once again. Our travel was uneventful as all good driving days should be. There is something to be said about the events that make a good story, but I am more then happy not to have a new story at this time. We are making our selves at home in our house with my brother and sister. We can be reached through our old phone number if any of you still have it around.
We’re on our way to Manitoba. We’ll see many of you soon.
Pam and I were sitting in our living room chatting after I got home from the office when Pam suddenly exclaimed. I looked out of the window to see what Pam was excited about. This is what we saw. There’s actually a third cub behind mama at the moment. This family of bears is at least a mile to a mile and a half from the nearest edge of town. What are they doing here? Good thing L wasn’t playing outside on his swingset. A UPC truck came into the parking lot just as the picture was taken. The sow and the three cubs climbed over the chainlink fence into the neighbour’s backyard.
On a completely unrelated note, here’s another picture of L.
My (or should I say ‘our’–Pam is as much a fan as I am) Spurs eliminated the Suns in 6 games. (Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Ivy!) There was controversy along the way and I hate for my team’s victory to come against the Canadian Steve Nash, a great player who I have a ton of respect for, but victory is still sweet. We are now one series closer to another championship.
So I made a promise that as soon as my computer was home and I could download some pictures off of the digital camera I would post a backlog of my quilting projects since I have been in Massachusetts. I do not classify myself as a quilter. A “Quilter” I think would have more creativity and inspiration than I possess, but I do enjoy seeing projects take shape. I think I spend more time dreaming about projects then actually working on them, because of this I have only 2 quilts to show for my time here. Both of these quilts were actually started in Manitoba with Quiltpixie and Geekchic.
This quilt started as a mystery quilt organizied by Quiltpixie. We were given instructions about what kind of fabrics and quantities to buy, then we showed up for the weekend and quilted. I made significant headway on the top of this quilt, but did not finish it. I ended up making it larger then the instructions originally called for and added some borders, making this a nice queen size quilt.
From October until June of 2004/05 I drove up to Stonewall with Quiltpixie and Geekchic and we did this Block of the Month (the blue and yellow squares). When I discovered that I was expecting I made them into a baby blanket. I used iron on transfer for the bambi squares (it works well but do not use it on something that you intend to wash).
After my initial experience with machine quilting a large project, I chose to hand quilt both of these pieces. I am not a purist I machine pieced the tops, just quilted the sandwiches together.
So the computer came home from the shop yesterday. It is still in it’s skeletal form, but I can do some things with it.
