We’re getting married at a nice little resort in Keene Ontario on December 6th called Elmhirst Resort.

We’re planning a weekend event with a BBQ and a wagon ride on the Friday, the wedding on Saturday and a brunch on Sunday.

Should be fun. I am looking forward to it

However, things stacked up against me on Friday and the weekend got off to a bad start. First I stopped by Timmy’s before hitting the road. The drive through was crazy busy, and it took about 20-30 minutes to get my coffee. Then when I finally hit the road, shortly outside of Barrie I hit a nasty snow storm. I shuffled my way along with the traffic through the snow storm and after a few miles was out in the clear, thinking I was now going to make up some time. Though lo’ and behold, that wasn’t to happen as not long after, I was suddenly jarred and my car would no longer switch gears (a thing I later learned to be called limp-home mode, basically the car got slammed into second gear). I pulled over and after putting the car in park, could no longer get it going. I called CAA and they towed me to Orillia, only to realize that it was Good Friday and nothing was open.

Standing outside of Midas, trying to figure out what I’m going to do, I thought I should call Jan and Rick and let them know that I was going to be late. Without hesitation, they offered to come pick me up, even volunteering to pack up dinner and come take me to my apartment until Midas opened and we could figure out whether my car could be fixed. That blew me away, they’re such great people.

2 hours later, I was headed back to Peterborough with them, and enjoyed a lovely evening and a great Ham dinner with them, we even watched my favorite movie “The Princess Bride”. The next morning, I got the call from Midas, and much to my chagrin I was informed that it was a Transmission problem. No quote, just that it wasn’t going to be simple or cheap. This really brought me down, not something that I was hoping to hear (was hoping it’d be something minor and that it’d be nice and cheap to fix). While I fretted and had the bank raise my credit limit so that I could afford to pay for whatever the service cost ends up being, Jan and Rick came to the rescue again. They told me that I was like a son to them and that they wanted to help me out, and volunteered to lend me the money to pay for the repair. Again I was blown away and awe struck by their caring, it really blew me over with their compassion, just seeing how much they cared and welcomed me into the family. They even lent me their car to go spend Saturday night with my mother and drove me back to Barrie today.

I only hope that the cost of the repair isn’t too bad, I’m hoping that it’ll be under $1500, but we’ll have to wait and see

I finally proposed to Jennifer. It took place Monday morning on top of the Smokey Mountains, near the Rainbow falls. We found this lovely alcove overlooking Gatlinburg and sat for awhile. Before we turned to leave, I dropped to one knee, turned to her and said, Jennifer, I have never, and will never love anyone as much as I love you, and could not think of anyone that I’d rather spend the rest of my life with. Would you do me the great honor of being my wife?.

She was a bit overcome at first, spent the first 10 minutes just saying “Oh my god”, but she said “Yes” and I’m so very excited. We’ll be married most likely December of 2009.

You can see some pictures from the trip HERE

I have to thank Jennifer for all the compassion and help that she’s given me over the last couple of weeks, I don’t know if I could have recovered so well without her

Here’s to a fresh and wonderful new year!

The Compu-SOLVE Annual Christmas party took place November 25, 2006 at Captain Robert’s Table at King’s Wharf Theater – Discovery Harbour.

Jennifer and I made the trip from Peterborough to Penentanguishene that Saturday for the party (we had attended the festival of trees in Peterborough that Friday

Overall it was a pretty fun time, started with cocktails then followed by a decent buffet supper. After we ate, we were treated to the management team putting on a game of Deal Or No Deal. Rob played the part of Howie Mandel, and gave us all a preview of what he’ll look like in a few more years after all his hair has gone

After the game, we were treated to a live band that played mostly classic rock music, and were fairly decent (although not always the best dancing music). Jennifer and I did get in a few slow dances together, which I thoroughly enjoyed, one of them to a rendition of Wonderful Tonight which wasn’t all bad

Overall was a fairly fun night, and if you’re interested you can find more pictures Here

Jennifer left August 5th, along with the rest of the Port Perry Angels Junior softball team to compete in the Canadian Softball Nationals in Montreal, Quebec. Having taken the silver medal in the provincials, just behind Pickering who were the defending champions (and the team that Jennifer helped to win the nationals last year), they were seeded as the #1 Ontario team.

I had booked the Thursday and Friday off for that week to head over to Montreal with Jennifer’s parents to watch her play. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the junior Angels were elminated from play on Wednesday, just before we headed over to watch them. We still hoped to see Jennifer play, since the senior Angels team had called her up to play, so we headed out early Thursday morning.

The trip over was fairly uneventful, and we arrived at the park at around 10:45am, just in time to meet Jennifer as she arrived. As it turned out, due to political circumstances involving one of the western teams complaining about the Ontario teams calling up eliminated juniors, we were unable to see Jennifer play (Though we did get to see some good softball, great job girls!)

That all aside, we decided to make the best of it and pay a visit to Old Montreal where we started with a wonderful carriage ride through the antique city. The tour guide on the trip was great, and we learned a good deal of lore about some of these ancient buildings, some of which had been there since the 1600s.

As we rode around, I couldn’t help but think of my ancestors walking the very cobblestones of the streets hundreds of years ago. It was truly an amazing feeling to explore a place like this with the one that I love. A truly wonderful sensation. We finished off our visit to this section of Montreal with a visit to a beautiful manor, that in the past has been occupied by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and Helen Keller, amongst others: And finally a stop for lunch at a deli for an authentic Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich.

Come Saturday, and with the elimination of the Port Perry Senior squad from competition in the Nationals, we were free to begin our trek home to Ontario. Along the way we stopped in the 1000 island region, where Jennifer’s parents kindly treated us to a boat tour of the islands.

It’s an amazing tour, and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting the region, you get to see a number of beautiful houses, as well as two authentic castles perched on the islands, that you can visit providing you bring along your passport.

If you are interested, you can view more pictures from both the Quebec trip as well as the 1000 islands In The Gallery

Spent a wonderful weekend with Jennifer at her cottage in Barry’s Bay. I had an amazing time, spending an entire weekend in one of nature’s most beautiful spots alongside my beautiful angel. We arrived just in time for supper on Friday, having met Jennifer at my mother’s where she had spent the afternoon making butterflies. On Saturday, Jennifer took me for a tour around the lake in her “Silver Bullet” boat, we had a little scare due to the choppiness of the lake that morning, but otherwise it was a great time out on the lake with my girl.

Following the boat ride, we enjoyed some swimming and sun on the dock, and that evening I prepared dinner for her family. I prepared grilled cross rib steaks seasoned with a herbed butter and served with double baked potatoes, sauteed wild mushrooms and grilled asparagus. I think it turned out fairly well, and it seemed that Jennifer’s family enjoyed it.

Anyway, I don’t want to ramble on with an itinerary for the entire weekend, just needless to say I had a wonderful time with my angel and I cannot wait to spend more time at the cottage with her.

My southern belle!!

I love her so

I’m hoping that she had as wonderful of a weekend as I did.

For those that are interested, more pictures from this weekend are available in the gallery

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this page and I thought it was about time that I did so. Jennifer came home about 2 months ago now, and we’ve been happily together since. She’s my angel, my everything, and I’m so excited, happy and lucky to have found someone quite like her.

Anyway, viva la Mac!!

* Extraversion – Introversion
* Sensing – Intuition
* Thinking – Feeling
* Judging – Perceiving

It’s quite accurate, and some high profile employers will run this personality assessment against potential employees to see if their personality will mesh with the organization.

For those of you who are interested, my personality type is INFP – The Idealist. Jennifer on the other hand, has nearly the same personality, she’s an INFJ – The Protector.

I’d suggest that everyone take the test and read your personality profile, you might just learn something about yourself!!