Out of gas.

Darcy woke up early this morning. Like an hour and a half early. 5:30 am. Screaming. She calmed down after a minute or two, but then at 6:00 am she was screaming again and you could tell there was no hope for her going back to sleep on her own. I went in to turn on her music box, that usually settles her right down, but she was moaning in pain from her teeth. So I picked her up and we went to the couch in the basement so that at least Sue could get some sleep.

I have never been clung to as hard as Darcy clung to me this morning. It was really sweet, but broke my heart to hear her in so much stinking pain. She was asleep on my chest as soon as we hit the couch, but she moaned in her sleep for at least twenty minutes.

So now I am out of gas. Too bad I'm going to be out until after 9 pm tonight.

Oh, when I picked her to say good bye this morning, she didn't want anything to do with me. As hard as she was holding on to me earlier, now she was trying just as hard to get away from me. Nice.

Mark your calendars - Dec. 3rd, 2005.

This will be Sue's big day. Across Canada, the Running Room holds an annual Santa Shuffle . It's a 5km run as well as a 1 km elf walk. People do fundraising and then the proceeds go to the Salvation Army. Last year the youth band that I'm involved in was the entertainment during the race. We sat outside, in early December, on metal chairs, holding brass instruments, for about an hour, playing Christmas carols. It was a nice day, but it's worth repeating that we were outside, sitting on metal chairs, in December! There's no way to keep warm doing that. Soooo...

Sue has picked this race as her 5km race. Hopefully the temperature doesn't fall too far below zero and there's not too much snow on the ground. If that's the case, then I know she'll make it through and I guarantee she'll be a lot warmer than I was last year.

While the Santa Shuffle will be Sue's big day, there will be a competitive event taking place at the same time. The first, possibly annual, DigiPrint road race. My good friend and co-worker Chris (who incidentally introduced Sue and I) has challenged myself, co-worker (soon to be marathoner) Jake and all the other staff members, there are only nine of us, to a 5km race. Now it's more then just a mere race for bragging rights. Since we are deeply involved in a tech field, we all suffer from 'tech envy'. For example, when one of us buy a new Mac iTem, the others drool enviously over it for a few weeks until someone buys something new, and so on... For our inaugural event an iPod nano is up for grabs. The cost will be offset according to how many of us DigiPrinters participate. Everyone puts in their share, I win the race and go home with a nano. Pretty sweet deal.

So far, three of us (Chris, Jake and myself) have committed to the race. Lorne, the owner, is still contemplating the idea (but he's had his nano for like three weeks already) and Jerry, the smoker, is on vacation, so we haven't heard from him. Yes, the trash talk has been fierce. Each of us with our own good reasons why we'll win. Chris has just over ten weeks to train. He's not out of shape, he plays tennis regularly and was a stellar runner in high school. His best 5km was easily under twenty minutes. Unfortunately for Chris, tennis ain't running and, for him, high school was 18 years ago. Jake is running a marathon and plans to, "keep up with Nick and then go ahead at the end." Unfortunately for Jake, training for a marathon requires a lot of SLOW running. While he can do the distance on one foot, I have my doubts about him being able to keep up a fast pace. I, on the other hand, have been running this distance with ease since the mid-June. I have also been running it at a reasonably quick tempo and I'm ready to up that tempo.

Place your bets & watch for updates.

PIXI Dust

When people ask me what I do I just answer, "I'm a printer." Actually, I run the digital print department.

But what is digital printing? It's the next wave of print technology. Each year Xerox holds an awards competition for "Printing Innovation with Xerox Imaging" (PIXI). It is done throughout the world, this year we, DigiPrint, won the bronze for Monochrome & Highlight Colour.

This competition was for North and South America, printers from both continents entered and we were one of three Canadian companies to be recognized. Our owner, Lorne, and sales guy, Chris, went to Chicago this past weekend to accept the award. It is a really big deal in the print world. Xerox pulls out all the stops and throws quite a party. It's like the printing Oscars.

This is the second time in three years that DigiPrint has been recognized at these awards. In 2003 we received an Honorable Mention in the short-run digital category.

Brother down under

Two Oceans

My brother Eric has gone down under for a couple of weeks. The closest I've been is Cape Town, South Africa. First in January of 1997, then again for July and August 1997.

This picture was taken from the top of Table Mountain. From this shot you can see the Indian (left) and Atlantic (right) Oceans. The Cape of Good Hope is in the middle.

Check it out!

Hey, I'm published!

If you've read my race report then you're not going to see anything new here. This site allows anyone to submit an article for review. If it's deemed worthy, it gets put on the site. I actually learned a lot of do's and dont's from reading other peoples accounts of preparing for triathlons.

The world now gets to gaze upon me in 'performance attire'. Hooray!

Shameful

We caught the end of "Return of the Jedi" on TV the other night. You know the part when Luke is back with the Ewoks and he sees the vision of Ben, Yoda and Anakin? Well, in the version that I'm used to seeing, Anakin is of course an old man, just like the one we saw five minutes earlier when Luke takes off Darth Vader's helmet. Then Anakin dies.

George Lucas has committed a crime with a new edit at the end of "Return". Instead of having the old man Anakin appear with Ben and Yoda, the young Anakin appears. Hayden Christensen has now been inserted into a movie that was made when he was two years old. I said to Sue, "What's he doing there?" If I hadn't been laying in bed, I would have fallen on the floor.

George, you totally struck out with Episode I-III, why would you do and ruin VI as well?

Big Brown Jug

This will have special significance for some more than others.

Back in the day, when all six Titcombes lived in Lachine, we went through a lot of food and drink. So, to make things last a little longer, M&D mixed powdered milk into a big brown jug with regular milk. If you were lucky enough to get to finish the jug, you got the special honour of trying to avoid chunky, un-dissolved milk powder. Uhh, I still get shivers. That in itself is a whole other post.

I think this must have been at least a four litre, one gallon, jug. It was big, it had to be. After dinner, we'd all have a glass of milk with dessert. Let's say that Stef had the jug. Someone would ask her to pass it. She's lift it with one arm and get half-way to the person and then it began. A controlled epileptic fit, isolated only to the arm with the jug. She was shaking madly. "Hurry! Hurry! You guys, I can't hold it!"

Good brothers that we are, we'd make her wait a little while longer. The shaking would get a lot worse. Sometimes, if the jug was full enough, she'd start splashing milk out the top. Oh yeah, she shook like CRAZY! Finally, WHAM her arm would give out and the jug would slam back down the two inches she had it off the table.

We cried over the spilled milk, but only because we were laughing so hard.