Happy New Years !!! PART ONE

Well first off I want to wish every one Happy New Years!! I hope its better than last years.

Been a while since I posted so I will start with Christmas. Was a very nice Christmas this year starting off at our place getting up in the morning and opening gifts. Every one was very happy with what they had received from Santa... except Al of course. Hes not a very happy person and sometimes it drags me down then we kind of get into it a little. Al has been on a kick about poor him bad luck bad Karma. I keep telling him there is no such thing as Karma that your decision and actions are what determines your results of the days happenings. Funny thing is, its never his fault. He turns left in front of someone and gets hit but its not his fault (his story). Had to be the other guys fault, speeding, drinking, dumb... and so on. The fact that Al got the ticket for illegal turn and the cop only listened to him for 30 seconds and to the other guy for 15 minutes and wouldn't investigate is because Karma and everyone else is against him. He even went to ICBC (BC insurance) to try and get them to investigate but they wouldn't cause he was in the wrong. Al was turning left, saw the guy was coming but Al was either too slow or misjudged the speed of the oncoming car and got T-boned. I feel bad for Al cause his car although drivable needs alot of work. Its a nice little car although I would never own one. For a single young guy you would have thought he would have got something sporty or a truck. I think its a Cobalt or something like that.

Anyways back to Christmas ....
After doing our thing we got dressed and packed the car to go to Adam and Mary's to see our little Gwen. Now when ever we go Al his his own schedule that he thinks we all have to follow. First off he needed a phone card so he could talk to his gf in Finland. I told him no stops once we get on the road. The weather wasn't bad but we had a lot of snow up to the day before. He decides hes going to run down to 7-11 and we can pick him up. 2 minutes later he is back because now his feet are cold and wet because of the snow. We finish packing the car then we drive him to 7-11 before hitting the hwy. The drive was better than expected and we made good time. Mary's dad was there and we all exchanged gifts and sat around watching tv while Patty and Mary finished making dinner. Patty had cooked the turkey the day before. We all took turns holding Gwen and chatted then sat down to a wonderful turkey dinner. When supper was finished Al decided it was time to leave but I had other plans. Patty and I drove into Victoria because I wanted to take some pictures. We went downtown to the parliament building and the Empress Hotel. Patty had a new camera she was trying out so we both had a lot of fun taking pictures. It was nice being out, just the two of us. We drove back to pick up Al and Ben but I had to tease Al a bit by saying we should all play monopoly for a while. Adam and Mary do have the world edition where you use a bank card instead of cash and I have wanted to try it. But we didn't we headed home for a good nights sleep.








Most of that week was relaxing for me as Vic Truss was closed. I had to do some shoveling and salting every day and had to work at Wal-Mart boxing day but other than that nothing much. On the 30th I took Al to a hockey game in Nanaimo. The World under 17 Tournament. Finland vs USA but it wasn't very fun for Al because his team got creamed 12 - 1. Al met some people from Finland and chatted to a nice young girl from there that we had met outside the arena. Its about 10 days before he leaves for Finland. It was a fun game to watch as there were some very good players on both teams but USA was bigger and faster but Gold went to one of the Canadian teams. One other thing that came out of the game is I ran in to Jeff Barnes who worked at Alcan with me and had moved out here around the same time as me. He just recently moved back to the Island from the mainland and is living in or near Nanaimo. I gave him my email address but have not heard from him yet although he was having computer problems.