I have been so busy lately that I have been remiss in updating the Blog. Well hopefully that changes today and I can add a little more of what has been happening with the family.

A couple of weeks ago there was a little race along the St Lawrence, a race involving some of the fastest boats on the water. The Annual Kingston Poker run was held with fine weather and smooth sailing. I have managed to capture a few shots of the speedy watercraft whose speeds could reach in excess of 225kph(140mph). I guess with a couple of engines pumping out 450 horsepower each it should have no problem.

Last week we spent some time down in Niagara visiting the family and Karin’s sister and family were visiting from Nova Scotia. After not seeing them for two years is was sure a surprise to see how the neice and nephews had grown. We also took the opportunity to visit a number of the Niagara wineries while we were there and brought back a fine selection of vintages. Of course we have not had the chance to sample them yet, but rest assured they will be enjoyed…oh yes they will be enjoyed.

This past weekend Heather took part in her end of season Soccer Tournament. She is one tired little girl and is now taking a well deserved rest. So another season is over and soon the bells of the School halls will be ringing. Oh! the most wonderful time of the year.

Until next time.

This past weekend Buddy and the rest of the family attended the Acaciagold Golden Retriever Reunion party. Buddy and all of his siblings and relatives and friends all had a wonderful time frolicking in the water and waiting for the burgers and hotdogs to drop. I have included a gallery of the party with all of the guests and families.

Thanks once again to Pat and Tom for inviting the family back for a visit. Click on the image to see the gallery.

I also have galleries of previous Reunions. See the 2005 Reunion.

Karin received something that has not been seen in daily transactions for some time in Canada. She had a couple of French tourists come into her store and paid for their purchase with the out of service Canadian Dollar Bill. Knowing that I like to collect currency she quickly traded the dollars for Loonies. She was able to get two dollars while a friend bought one of the others.

This brings me to another blurb on currencies. There are some neat coins that are in circulation now. A number of the quarters that have been produced by the Royal Canadian Mint have been made with colours in them. Beginning with the Poppy quarter last year they have gone on to make many other coloured coins. I have even seen the Ottawa Senators imortalized in coin.

Here is another bitch session about the price of gas. I just love it when the cost per litre is 101.6 in the morning and then goes up to 110.9 in the afternoon. Somehow I don’t think that there was a delivery of gas that forced the price to go up almost 10 cents/litre in one day. Like come on. what is with that? It seems that we the general public is getting screwed again by the gas companies.

I do not know about you but I am tired of the fixing of the prices. There is no way that this is a legitamate price increase. Not when it jumps that much in one f$^%%ing day.

Well another Summer vacation is over and I had to start back at work after being off for two weeks. Some of the time we spent on the beach and camping and the rest was spent doing some things around the house. As usual though the camping ended with rain. The last night we were at the campground it rained cats and dogs, however the rest of the time there was fantastic.

It all started with a Buskers festival in Kingston. We managed to take in a couple of the street performers and thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment. The kids did as well. Who knows they may become acrobats, yo-yo champions as well. There are some pics available on the site as well. Be sure to check them out. Kingston Busker Festival.

We spent the majority of our time on the beach and the little fella (Soggy Doggy) really enjoyed the beach. It was great as they had a portion of the beach that was cordoned off for the dogs. It was really funny watching him bounce through the waves expecting to be swimming almost as soon as he hit the water, however he was able to touch for some time due to the sand bars. He tried to run but of course the water was just a little too deep to fully get up to speed, however he did certainly work up an appetite racing around. As well there were other dogs there and he made lots of friends, both canine and human. Not to mention a couple of other Golden Retrievers as well. There are more pictures of the beach and the dogs available at the home page. Dogs on the beach.

It was also Karin’s and my Anniversary this past week and we decided to take a little cruise around the Thousand Islands. I have posted a couple of the pictures on the site as well. The Thousand Islands Dinner Boat Cruise.

Vacation ended with a Baseball tournament with my team. The only problem after a season where we were finishing at the top of the standings, we choked in the playoffs and went down two straight. My only consolation is that I was able to contribute to the runs in the first game although I could not seem to get anything going in the second game. This was a far cry from my 800 plus batting record for the season. Oh well! better lick next year.

 Until next time.

I have been taking some shots of my Golden Retriever to see if I can improve on my camera picture taking skills. My old camera died on me and I have been trying out a Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 camera that I borrowed from work to see if it is the kind of camera that I want to get for myself. I find that it is always difficult to get that perfect shot. One of the nice things about using a digital camera is that you can keep only the pictures that you want.

Well I did just that and then I did a little work on it with Paintshop Pro. Here are the results. Just click on the picture to see a bigger image of him. I think that this is a priceless picture and I plan to upload this to the site and display in on his page.

I added a picture frame and captioned it. This is not the only picture of him that I took today but it is one of the nicer ones. As well I will be building a screen saver for him, one that is dedicated to the little guy that lies at my feet even now as I type.

The Second shot I think is better than the first. It really shows off the colours in his stuffy and contrasts greatly with his golden coat. I plan to practice some more shots in the future once I get a little more familiar with the camera.