I’ve always been dark around my birthday, and was expecting this year to be more of the same. And yeah, the couple of weeks leading up to it were a pretty consistent pattern of down and downer. So I was very surprised about yesterday.

First, gorgeous day. Beautiful. Caught the ass-end of a sea lion playing in the water off the seawall outside of work. Had a remarkably productive and fun day at the office (very unusual) and got the nod to take off an hour early. Woo!

Jeff bought me my iPad last week, so that wasn’t the thing of it- it wasn’t how much he bought so much as how much he did for me. I told him late in the day I was cutting out from work early, and Jeff still raced home to clean the entire house, do the laundry and the dishes (if you knew him you’d know this is a HUGE deal) and on top of that, bought and wrapped a birthday present AND had a cake waiting for me. Again, if you know Jeff at this point you’d want to do a DNA test or check for a head injury. I completely love him for who he is, it’s just who he is isn’t usually as great at birthday stuff as he was yesterday.

Anyway, after a slice o’ cake and a sit we went out for dinner… We had a pleasant wander around downtown, and passed like three different TV and movie shoots, before stopping at The Elephant & Castle for dinner and beers. So very good.

I was planning on going skydiving this weekend – something big (and expensive) to celebrate my birthday and/or laugh in the face of mortality and/or distract me from said mortality and birthday…

Not necessary. Got my guys and my family and my home and a fantastic life out here on the edge of the water. I couldn’t ask for more.

Shortly before our moment of domestic violence.

Rum usually likes the vet – lots of cookies and dog butt to sniff. We usually haul him in once a week to put him on the scale, so when we walked up to the door he dragged me right in. He did start looking nervous though, when we bypassed the scale and associated cookies and went straight into an exam room.

After a few minutes, the vet came in – very nice lady who knows her stuff. Short version: more antibiotics, we’ll have to wash Rumble’s feet every day and she has to trim the hair between his paws.

That’s where it all hit the fan.

Rum’s a fireplug – 20 pounds of dog in a small, pretty muscular package. He also has a head that’s as hard and dense as a bowling ball. This will come up in a sec. So, I haul the little guy up on the stainless steel table and hold him steady while the doc takes out a pair of electric clippers and starts trimming the hair between his toes.

If you’d been standing outside the door you might have thought we were branding a mountain lion or something. The ruckus was insane. Even so, he held relatively still in my arms while the vet did his back paws. When we did his front paws, though, not so much. More noise from Rumble about how the world was coming to an end, and then when I bent down to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, he whips his little furry bowling-ball head up and cracks me really, really hard, right smack in the jaw.

I have a glass jaw from when I was in a fight as a teenager and had it broken for me. So I’m not even kidding when I say I saw stars and everything went black for a second. I didn’t fall down or lose my grip on him, but damn if Rumble didn’t almost lay me out on the floor of the vet’s office.

The vet jumped pretty good when she heard the crack of Rum’s hard little skull meeting my jaw, but she didn’t miss a beat, and we were done almost right afterward. She made sure I was okay, and then gave me the bill and an appointment to bring the damn dog back for a follow-up in two weeks.

So, today I got to pay for the pleasure of my dog knocking me around, and now have to look forward to another chance for it to happen again.

I’m bringing a sparring helmet next time. I swear after I caught it on the chin, when the stars cleared I saw a little doggie grin on the furry bugger’s face.

Yeah, I know, haha.

Seriously, I don’t think guns should be accessible by the general public except in the most controlled circumstances, and I HATE sport hunting. That being said, when I was in the military I discovered I had a minor talent for shooting, and while I haven’t had the opportunity since I left the army I’ve often thought about trying it again.

So, fast forward to a couple of months ago. Jeff found a package deal for an indoor firing range on Social Shopper and picked it up, and we just kind of kept it in our back pocket until we had the time and opportunity. As you can guess, that was today.

We got a zipcar and hauled out to Port Coquitlam (frigging FAR, holy cats) around noon, right after they opened. This range’s setup is my version of an ideal way to handle firearms: you’re buzzed in and then out when you’re done. All weapons stay on site, and you have your own rangemaster right there while you’re plinking away. Nobody gets hurt, because there is no opportunity for anyone to get hurt.

We were set up with our package deal for .22s, but I upgraded to a 9mm, and I requested the Sig Sauer P226 because I’d used it before. Jeff stuck with a .22 target pistol.  When I was in the CF I used the C-7 assault rifle, the C-6 heavy machine gun and the C-9 medium squad machine gun. However, I had limited handgun exposure and that was over ten years ago, so I wasn’t sure how good I’d do. Jeff’s experience was limited to a .22 rifle a few times when he was a kid.

Anyway, I did okay:

Jeff wasn’t impressed with his .22, and kind of gave it a pass after a couple of magazines- he took this while I finished out my box of rounds:

We had a good time, but I think Jeff will upgrade to a 9mm if we go back. So yeah, in conclusion I am a card-carrying anti-gun guy who enjoyed a day at the range. I think it’s a harmless hobby if it’s done right. And next time I’m totally gonna try the .45!

It’s been a tough day for reasons that I don’t have the energy to get into, and so we decided to skip the cooking tonight. I picked Jeff & the mutt up downtown and we walked home, and I dropped them off and hiked over to the McD’s for some healthy food-like objects. Got a bunch of stuff and started the hike back home… for a bit.

I was halfway across the intersection of Abbott & Keefer when some asshole in a Jeep decided that neither I nor the other people walking in the frigging crosswalk were gonna stop him from getting home right that fucking second, and drove right into me.

McDonald’s burgers… everywhere. As Jeff said later, the seagulls are gonna eat well tomorrow, if the rats don’t eat well tonight.

I’m not too clear about what happened just after, but I do know there’s milkshake all over the guy’s windshield and a big friggin’ foot-shaped dent in his driver side door  now. Mr. Dumbass, a middle-aged Chinese guy, decided to not stick around and tried to drive away, until I set myself in front of him and made a show of taking a picture of his license plate:

T'was assault with a deadly yuppiemobile.

Anyhoo, I called the cops, and a nice couple of young ladies stopped to give me their number and said they’d be witnesses to Jeep-guy’s douchery. While I was plastered all over the guy’s hood, I didn’t really get hurt, per se.  I’m sore and have a bitch of a adrenaline-stress headache, but I’ll live. Cops gave buddy a ticket for failing to yield, and since my witness didn’t see Mr. Jeep trying to flee the scene they couldn’t bust him on it. They weren’t impressed though- the cop shop is just a couple of blocks away and they know how reckless the drivers in this neighbourhood can be.

I gave my statement and hauled my ass upstairs, where I’m currently laid out in bed with a dog on me. It’s therapeutic.

That’s my story of adventure for the day.  I really don’t have a moral for the story except maybe, if you see a Jeep with the above license plate, STAY ON THE SIDEWALK.

Anyhoo. I haven’t posted in so very long for a pretty good reason- I got a new job, and have been so busy and tired and overwhelmed you have no idea… For the nitty gritty soap-opera details of why I changed jobs, stay tuned and I will dish shortly, it’s a pretty good story. How it turns out is going to be determined shortly. The bottom line though is that I left Fido on December 3rd and after a solid week of applications and resumés (thank you, Jeff) I was invited to join Intrahealth, a tech company whose product handles electronic medical records and such for doctors’ offices and the like.

It’s incredibly intricate and one of the most complicated computer programs I’ve ever had to learn and extremely daunting. For the first week I sat at my desk looking out across Burrard Inlet (oh my GOD what an amazing view these offices have) thinking I was way over my head and maybe I should go for lunch one day and scuttle, weeping, to the SeaBus. I haven’t so far, and the temptation to do so is fading every day I learn something new. It’s the old battle between id and superego- id is all “I DUNNO NOT SMERT ENUF GOT TO GO NOW”, and superego is quietly reasoning “it’s okay, shh, you’re picking this up slowly but surely” and id comes back with “DON’T CALL MUH SHIRLEY”. So far, superego is winning the battle. Mostly by using big words and pointing to shiny things.

So there we be. Hopefully I’ll have some better news in the coming days regarding Fido, and if not, you’ll still get the whole scoop on what happened.  It’s a good story, I’m just waiting for the end of it before I start to tell it. I promise you won’t have to wait a whole month for that either. In the meantime, here’s a picture of Jeff & Rumble, shortly after Rum was sprung from the groomer:

I'm getting Rum's attention by holding a cookie over the camera...

Sorry I haven’y written in a while- I left my job at Fido on December 4th (I had a problem with the Rogers/Fido corporate philosophy of theft and dishonesty), and spent about a week being unemployed, which is a week more than I’d ever prefer.  Anyway, I wasn’t really in the mood to share anything while job hunting, since it would tend to be a repeating theme of “fuck Fido & Rogers”, “I need to find a new job” and on and on.

Now that I’ve got a position with a new company (more money, better benefits, less stupidity and corruption) starting in January, I get to relax for a lil’ bit and enjoy the Christmas vacation.  I would have gone for some nametag temp job for Christmas but with less than 2 weeks until I start it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Plus, I’ll have my hands full in the New Year, and with Jeff’s Christmas holidays, I want to take advantage of the downtime while I can.  That means spending time with Jeff and more writing, so you can start rejoicing now.

Speaking of Jeff, it was our triple anniversary yesterday- 12/18/2004 was our first date, 12/18/2006 we got engaged, and 12/18/2007 we got married.  So much easier to remember everything on the one date.

To celebrate our anniversary this year we went to dinner at Brix in Yaletown, where we spent a lot of money on the fanciest dinner we’ve ever had.  My mom sent us a check for Christmas with the specific instructions to go out for our anniversary, so mission accomplished.

Dinner was amazing, steak for me and the eternal chicken for Jeff.  He wouldn’t even consider the pork, beef or lamb given his food ethos, but I ribbed him a bit when he said he wouldn’t eat duck, which I regard as pretty much a flying chicken with a paint job.

If you’re ever in Vancouver and have a hundred bucks to blow on dinner for two I’d definitely recommend Brix.  And if you’re not yet married, I’d definitely recommend that, too.  Not to Jeff tho- find your own!

It sounds much more dramatic than it actually was, really.

We were under the overpass at Carrall St. by the time Rumble did his “bidness” and on our way back when the two upstanding citizens walked into us – they were trying in a sad way to do the whole “let’s pertend ta be jus’ walking by and then rush ‘im when we gets close an’ takes his stuff” thing.

At six in the morning in late September it’s very dark so the streetlights there are on, and since we live next door to The Meth-iest Place On Earth™ Jeff and I are always on red alert. So I saw them coming a mile away and yes, I felt like a big man when I knocked them down and went “RRAAAWRRR!” at them and made them run away. The fact that they each were 90 pounds soaking wet kind of mitigates my heroism though.

Rumble was impressed though, he was dancing around and barking during our three-second throwdown. He was less impressed when I accidentally stepped on his foot, and added to the farewell “RRAAAWRRR!”

So, in conclusion; living on the corner of Substance Abuse Blvd and Gimme Your Money Ave. is always exciting but rarely dangerous. I’ll start worrying when the meth-monkeys start shooting steroids.

If you’ve read previous posts you know how I go on ad nauseum about the evils of P-90X and how I’m always getting up early and jumping around like an idiot in a vain attempt to be physically fit.  I apologize, but that ain’t changing anytime soon.  The jumping around part, that is- I’ll try to find other stuff to write about.

There’s on simple reason why I’m still writing about busting my ass with a 90-day program almost three years after first starting it; I loves me some food.

I like to think that I’m not neurotic about it; I don’t binge and purge or starve myself (ha!  If you know me and my lack of willpower you know what a joke that is) or live on McDonald’s and Ben & Jerry’s.  I just tend to… forget about the healthy stuff when I’m hungry, or within proximity of junk food, or you know, awake.  And damn, I love beer.

So, I decided to make a serious change; no more meat.  I’m still eating eggs and drinking milk, but no more steak, chicken, fish, turkey, nothing.  Maybe that way, I won’t have to P-90X until I die.

So yeah, I’d kick a bunny for a cheeseburger.  Or failing that, I’ll seriously consider eating the bunny.

The guys behind Fringe were downtown shooting a scene that looked like a follow-up to last season’s finale.  I didn’t see Pacey, but that fourth pic is either the female lead, whose name I can’t remember (I lie, it’s Anna Torv) but I call her Serious-Blonde-Lady-Who-Needs-Product-Desperately or at least it’s her stunt-double.  Either way, she seems very nice.

Like punchbuggies.

If you’re between the ages of 1 and 100, you know the game- give a shot in the arm to your buddy when you see a VW Bug.  No big.  Jeff and I though- we’re Olympic level punchbuggers.

I have just now decided that we need a new name for that.

Anyhow…  So, we have extra rules.  Double-hits if the Bug is close but nobody’s noticed it.  Double-hits if it’s a classic.  Also double-hits if I had a bad day or if Jeff said something snarky.

So, we have the game.  Yesterday, I was walking Jeff and Rum home from their office and spotted a lime-green Bug zooming down Helmcken Street, and gave Jeff the customary “punchbuggy green, no punchbacks” and gave him a shot in the arm.  He turned around  too late to see the Bug.

Jeff politely inquired to my about whether there really was a green Bug.  I politely confirmed my previous smack was correct and offered to kick him in the butt for doubting my honesty.

“Besides,” I continued, “when have you ever known me to fudge a punchbuggy?”

Jeff stopped and looked at me for a minute, with that old familiar look that says “there’s something truly filthy within arm’s reach of that phrase, I just can’t find it.”

I nodded.  “Yep.  Fudge a punchbuggy.  We gotta find something really rude to apply this to.”

Suggestions?  Maybe, “lie to you?  I’d sooner fudge a punchbuggy.”  How about “I’m so hungry I could fudge a punchbuggy.”  My favourite so far is “I was so drunk I think I fudged a punchbuggy.  Now I have to go to the free clinic and get tested.”

The English language is just poetic, no?

BTW, we also have a game where we kick each other in the ass every time we see a Porsche.  Not even kidding.