Thursday, August 26, 2010

The 'C' Word

From the "Here we go again" department:
Please say a prayer for my kid sister Angie. She was just diagnosed with breast cancer. I was in total shock when Terri told me. Lou and Terri are both doing sort of okay at the moment. Both are trying to deal with their own health issues as best as they know how. But to have this bomb dropped was very devastating to the family. Don't know how extensive or how far along the tumors are, but from what I can tell, there is hope for her. So, just another crap nugget for my family to deal with... But deal we will. Ang was a mess when she found out but seems to be grasping things a little more sternly than she did earlier in the week. It does put some wacky thoughts in your head though... hmmmmm.... My ol' man lost his battle to this disease, Lou has had it, Terri has it, now Ang.... how much longer till...

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Way To Go, Eh?

Ahhhhhhh... Canada! (well, okay Windsor, which really doesn't count!)

When last your caped crusader inked an entry on this blog, I was concerned about getting in order:

- my birth certificate
- photos for my passport
- a letter or ticket of some sort to explain my reason for going to Windsor
- my application to get my passport and get it sent back in time for the trip to Canada.
- money to exchange for Canadian currency.

Well, it was an adventure to say the least. I called the bureau of vital statistics to find out info on getting my birth certificate. I go on my day off and head downtown to get it. I pay the fee and fill out the info and turn the form in to the lady behind the counter. She goes to pull my certificate up and tells me that my certificate is not legible enough for it to be acceptable for my passport application. I'm thinking 'oh wonderful'. Then she tells me that she has to call Columbus (state capital) to get a new done up copy of it and have it sent up... I tried to keep my sense of humor and let it go. I wanted to get this done all in a matter of about a week. So the new certificate comes in and I go to the passport place up in Detroit, three days before I needed my passport. I get there and I go to the wrong building. Then I go across the street to the proper place and go and register and go to the window where the kid was who was going to administer my oath. I take the oath and he fills out the information and then tells me that even though I plunked down the extra 60 bucks for expediting, my passport wouldn't be ready until the day that I NEEDED it to go over the border. So I took an extra half day off from work and drove back up to Detroit to pick up my passport, and then drive a few blocks further to the Tunnel to Canada. It has been almost a decade since the last time I went north of the 49th... The home of Poutine, Tim Horton's donuts, Canadian Tire (a department store with a very tiny tire section) and of course HOCKEY. Well, that night was for food and basketball. I ate gluten free pizza and boy was it good. I go to the game and my gal pal was watching the game from home because she wanted to see if she could see me on tv. I love that woman I tell ya... she is way more than I deserve. She texts me to tell me that she saw me in a close up shot (I was sitting behind the Western Ontario bench) and what was I doing? Texting her of course... I'm such a dork!

Sunday, August 01, 2010

ID Please...

I'm about to do something I've never done before in all my years of nuttiness. I'm going to go get my passport. Well, actually, I'm getting my passport card which is for Canada and Mexico land travel. I'm going to go over the border to Canada to watch an exhibition basketball game between the University of Windsor and the University of Kentucky. These days you need passport or passport card to travel between the U.S. and Canada so I'm going to blow over a hundred bucks for an ID card to travel 40 minutes from my house to go watch a basketball between two schools that doesn't actually count towards anything. Makes sense, don't ya think? I guess that will encourage me to go over the border more often like I used to when I was younger. But most of my free time, what little I have, is spent going to see the gal pal. But I'm looking forward to seeing how this process of obtaining this ID is going to play out. How long will it take? How much paper work is involved? It should be humorous, I hope!