A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

This past Tuesday night was very exciting for me.  I asked Michelle to marry me, and she accepted (like there was any doubt).  I’m sure most of you who are reading this have already heard the news, so I’ll just give you the details of the events leading up to the big moment.

A few weeks ago Michelle and her mom spent a few days in Edmonton at a lingerie trade show.  I saw this as my chance to go ring shopping.  I went to GMG Jewellers and explained to a salesperson what I wanted in my ring - a hybrid of my vision and what Michelle had hinted to me over the last few months. After looking at a few different designs, I made my decision and told them to go ahead and build it. I would return in a few weeks to pick it up.

The next day I told Ryan that I had just bought an engagement ring. Since Michelle’s birthday was coming up I thought that I would propose on that day. I wasn’t sure if this was a cheesy idea so I ran it by Ryan. He didn’t think it was, so the plan was set - I would propose on Wednesday, October 8th.

I was told the ring would be ready on September 17th. The day came and went without me picking it up. I didn’t want to get it too early fearing that I wouldn’t be able to stick to the plan. Another week passed, and September was coming to an end. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was too excited and picked up the ring on Tuesday, September 30th at lunch time, with the intention of doing it that night.

This was a busy week for us so it didn’t leave me many options. Tuesday nights we have ballroom dancing class and always go out for dinner afterward. We had previously agreed to go to a new Indian restaurant on 8th Street that night. However I had decided that I wanted to propose downtown along the river, and since 8th Street is nowhere near downtown I cleverly said that I was craving sushi and suggested the Samurai (which is right on the river). She agreed and my plan was underway.

While we were eating our sushi I kept mentioning how nice an evening it was and that we should go for a walk along the river, especially since we rarely do this. This is where my plan fell apart. Michelle was completely against a walk, stating that we needed to get home because she had a bunch of tests to mark. I tried to change her mind but was unsuccessful. I didn’t want to be too persistent because that would have been fishy (no pun intended).

As the conversation changed to Michelle’s trek up Mount Fuji while in Japan my mind was racing, desperately trying to concoct a contingency plan. Needless to say I still don’t know anything about her climb. I must have been pretty convincing since she didn’t suspect that I wasn’t listening to her.

After leaving the Samurai, and failing one more time to convince her to go for a walk, we made our way back home. The easy thing to do would have been to postpone the proposal. However I started the day telling myself that I would be engaged by the end of the night, and damn it, I was going to make it happen.

While Michelle was catching up on her email in the kitchen, I placed the ring in the middle of the bed, and dimmed the lights. I went to the kitchen and said that we should practice the dance we learned that evening. As we danced, I led her to the bedroom where her ring awaited her. The rest is now history.

See everyone next October.

My good friends Kipp and Steph got married this past Saturday in Saskatoon. This was a wedding that I had been looking forward to for some time, and I am pleased to say that it lived up to my expectations. The wedding was at the United Church on 3rd Avenue and was short and sweet. I think the ceremony was under thirty minutes, and since it was pretty hot outside with no air conditioning, this worked out well.

We had a fairly large chunk of time between the ceremony and the reception so a bunch of us went for drinks at the the Freehouse to kill some time. I’m pretty sure I’ve had Caesars here before, but I don’t remember them being so delicious. These were the greatest Caesars of all time. Five-thirty quickly approached so we headed over to the Victorian where we had dinner reservations for twelve.

This is a fairly upscale establishment and I was looking forward to eating here for some time. The twelve of us made quick work of some huge appetizer platter, which made it difficult for me to finish my steak dinner. I managed to clear my plate except for a quarter of a new potato. I just couldn’t fit anymore food into my gut.

Even though cocktails weren’t scheduled for another thirty minutes, we figured we had better make our way to the reception at Louis’. For some reason Louis’ misquoted how many people they could seat for the reception. Kipp and Steph advised us that we be there early if we wanted to ensure we got a seat. We were the first guests outside of the wedding party and immediate family to arrive, so we had our pick of seats.

We spent our time mingling with the guests during cocktail hour.  I wasn’t sure what to expect with the reception in Louis’ (not Upper Mub) since I had never seen one held here before.  I am happy to say that it looked really good, and was a nice location for a wedding reception.  It’s pretty convenient to have the full bar and DJ booth at your disposal.

The program started at nine o’clock and was emceed by Kipp’s sister Regena.  The program, like the wedding was quite short, with a toast to the groom and bride, as well as the welcoming of Kipp and Steph into their new families.  The program ended with the bride and groom addressing their many guests.  It was all nicely done.

The rest of the evening was a great time filled with lots of visiting, spirits, and dancing. The DJ was kind of funny, and was having a little trouble keeping the dance floor full. When I went to request a song I mentioned that I used to DJ at Louis’ back in the day. He quickly called me into the DJ booth and said something like this:

Dude. You have to help me. This is only my second time DJing and I don’t want to screw this up for the bride.

I gave him a few suggestions and a list of songs that I figured would work out well. It seemed it helped him out a bit and people started to make their way to the floor. I’d like to think it was my song list, but there’s a pretty good chance it was just because people started to fill up on drink.

Michelle and I were there until the end of the night, which ended shortly after two o’clock AM.  There wasn’t many left at this time, but it was pretty cool to see Kipp and Steph there right until the end as well.  I don’t think you see the bride and groom stick around this long very often.  After saying our good-byes and thank-yous, we called it a night and grabbed a cab home.   What a great wedding.  Thanks Kipp and Steph!

You can see more pictures from the day by following the links below:

• Kipp & Steph in Black & White (Thumbnails)
• Kipp & Steph in Black & White (Slideshow)
• Kipp & Steph from the Community Camera (Thumbnails)
• Kipp & Steph from the Community Camera (Slideshow)

If you’re interested in a nice character home built in 1928, and are looking for a nice quiet, rural lifestyle, this house may be for you. No, I don’t own a house by this description, but my parents do. They have decided to put their home in Wilkie up for sale in hopes of moving to Saskatoon. The house is listed privately right now and can be viewed here on saskhouses.com.

I have to admit that if the house does end up selling, I will miss my trips back to Wilkie. But I do welcome the idea of my parents moving to Saskatoon. The amount of cooking my mom sends back with me when visiting Wilkie is out of control. I can only imagine the limitless amounts of food I will get if we live in the same city.

Be sure to check out the listing here. You can also see more pictures of the house here.

As many of you know, Travis and I share the same birthday - April 13. We generally don’t do anything to celebrate this historic date, but this year we decided to round up a group of friends and go out for a nice evening filled with food and spirits. The plan was to go to the Freehouse, but I had trouble booking a table for 20 since they already had a couple of large groups reserved. The Barking Fish was our contingency plan, and I was eager to go since I had not yet been there.

Dinner was great, and the atmosphere was exactly what we were looking for. We spent the majority of the evening at the lounge, and due to a majority ruling, we ended up at Whiskey Jacks - a place I am not a fan of. Being good sports, we followed the crowd to the bar, but could only take it for a few minutes before Michelle and I decided to call it a night. The evening was great and I’d like to thank everyone who came out to celebrate my birthday. You can check out some photos from the night by following the links below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr
• Thumbnails on Picasa
• Slideshow on Flickr

Michelle and I were at Persephone Theatre tonight seeing At the End of Her Rope, and we couldn’t help but listen to the coversation of the people behind us.

Kid’s Aunt: Pretty soon they’re going to be able to medically create earthquakes.
Kid’s Mother: You should never try to play God.

I fear the day of medically induced earthquakes. Just another scientific discovery that will be used for destruction.

Just over a month ago I posted about my dire housing situation. My landlord had sold the condo I was living in and I needed to be out by the end of March. Well I thought I would give a quick update on that whole situation. Two days after finding out about my place, Michelle and I looked at a house in Erindale in Saskatoon (actually about a five minute walk from Curtis’ new condo - yeah, the imaginary one). A day after that we made an offer on that house and it was accepted. Michelle wasn’t even in Saskatoon at the time - she was out winter camping (yeah, winter camping) with her school so I was sending text messages to her with updates such as:

• We’re putting in an offer on that house we looked at.
• They rejected our offer. We countered, and they accepted.

I believe the response I got was something like:

• OMG

We got all of our financing in order the following week, got Michelle’s condo on the market, and that was that. Her condo sold in no time and our possession date was set for March 18th. So in less than a week I went from being fairly content in my rental condo to being a proud new homeowner. Here’s a picture of Michelle entering our house for the first time. As you can see, she was very excited.

We hired movers for March 28th as to give us enough time to pack. As usual, packing sucked, but it did give us a chance to toss out some of our stuff. I managed to go through my clothing and fill five giant garbage bags to donate to Community Living. I also was able to get all of my recycling sorted out, and man, do I have a lot! I’m gonna be a millionaire when I take that stuff in for refund. Well maybe not a millionaire, but I’d be surprised if I can’t pay off our mortgage.

The movers did an awesome job and nothing got damaged. I cannot stress how well worth it is to hire pros. If you got a move coming up I highly suggest you go this route - it’ll be worth every penny. Unpacking started immediately and went on for days. The kitchen proved to be the real dilemma due to limited cupboard space, and our ridiculous amount of kitchen stuff. We had to go and buy a pantry to ease some of the pain.

I was able to put up with the mess for a couple days, but I finally hit my threshold and went on an unpacking rampage. Everything is more-or-less in order now except for the basement where Michelle’s dad and uncle are fixing some drywall. They are scheduled to finish up in the next couple days so Michelle and I plan to paint down there this weekend, and look forward to finally getting everything organized. Thankfully my brain is able to dimiss the chaotic state of the basement because it is in a “renovation” state. We also plan on installing hardwood on the main level in the very short term, but once that is all done, we’re good to go. None of this work was actually needed, but it was something both of us wanted to do.

So somehow Michelle and I have become one of those couples that have home projects on the go. I’m not sure how that happened, and I’m equally unsure how much I am actually going to be involved in these projects beyond the planning stage. My renovation skills are limited and I’d prefer to have things done properly. Why just the other day I screwed up the installation of a toilet paper holder (it actually wasn’t my fault - the wall was being childish). Luckily Michelle’s dad was there to save the day. I redeemed myself by installing the towel holder without incident.

I haven’t taken many photos of the house yet so stay tuned for those in the upcoming days. And let me take this moment to officially invite you over for a visit. Now that things are less chaotic here I’ll be a much better host.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m soon to be homeless. As in, without a home. On the streets. In a van, down by the river. I was informed a couple days ago that my landlord is moving out of the city (I’m not sure where), so he is selling his rental properties in Saskatoon. The property has been listed as of today, and apparently there is already a couple of people going through to look at it tonight. It’s not going to take long to sell.

So what does this mean to me? Well I have a minimum of thirty days from the selling date to vacate, so at least that gives me a little time to figure something out. I guess not all is bad since this will be the kick in the ass I needed to buy something. I did in fact officially enter the buyers market yesterday after going to view a house in the city. I have my realtor uncle on alert to find me a good deal in this ridiculous market. It’s just going to be really annoying while realtors show my current place. I’m allowed at least 24 hours notice prior to a viewing, but that doesn’t really help much when the viewing is in the evening. I would have appreciated a little more notice that it was going up for sale. At least then I could have gotten out before it actually hit the market. Well I guess if I’m laying on the couch in my underwear everytime they show up they’ll try and schedule during office hours.

I was in the networking section of Future Shop the other day, standing by a couple of guys looking at routers.

Younger Dude: So wireless-N is the fastest right now?
Older Dude: That’s right.
Younger Dude: Yeah, but is it going to be too fast?

We all know how annoying fast internet connections can be.

It wasn’t long ago that I blogged about attending Noodle’s stag. Before we knew it December 31st had arrived, and we found ourselves at his and his lovely bride Krista’s wedding. Having the wedding on New Years Eve sounded like a great idea, and it proved to be an awesome time.

The wedding was at 4:30pm at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Saskatoon. Luckily I was still on vacation so I didn’t have to worry about checking out of the office early. Travis was Adam’s best man and from what I hear, Krista kept him quite busy with wedding duties. As far as I can tell, he did a pretty good job. Gordo, Todd, Kipp, Steph, Jason, Cheryl, Michelle, and I had the privilege of attending the nice ceremony (play slideshow below).

We were in and out of the church in just over thirty minutes, and then headed straight to the Radisson for the rest of the festivities. Since we’ve had previous experience of being unable to find a taxi on New Years Eve in Saskatoon, most of us decided to just stay at the hotel. We checked in and made our way to cocktail hour.

The room was done up incredibly well, and was quite beautiful. I was impressed. All eight of us were seated at the same table where we enjoyed each other’s company, and the program prepared by the wedding party. Roast beef was the main course of the meal, and it was delicious. I ate too much for dessert, but I figured I was allowed since I was on holidays.

The rest of the night we spent dancing and performing other shenanigans. I gave everyone a little taste of my mad break-dancing skills that I mastered over twenty years ago. As with most weddings our crew attends, we danced until the DJ shut it down. Since we used so much energy over the evening, we ordered some delicious pizza in Kipp’s room and completely devoured it.

This was definitely a New Years Eve I will remember forever, and would like to thank Adam and Krista for letting me share the day with them. I wish them all the luck in their future together, and wish everyone else the best in 2008.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr
• Thumbnails on Picasa
• Slideshow on Picasa

This past Friday was the stag for my buddy Adam, also known as Noodle. His wedding is New Year’s Eve so a group of his friends decided to go and tear up the town for his one last hoorah. The evening started with fifteen of us having a nice dinner at Earls Restaurant. As much as I enjoy the atmosphere and food at this joint, the service was terrible. It was difficult to understand why a table of fifteen guys would have trouble ordering drinks at a stag. By the time we finished our meal we didn’t have much time to get out of the restaurant and to our next destination at TCU place for the Just For Laughs show. After our waitress had to ask three different times what each of us had, we finally got our bills and hit the road. The service made me feel like I was in Alberta. Luckily the company at Earls was great, and overshadowed the poor service.

We ended up being late for the show, but only missed a little bit of the host’s opening stint. The theme of the show was Relationships : Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places, and it was hilarious. Including the host, there were six acts and all were really strong. The comedians performing were Greg Behrendt, John Wing, Fiona O’Loughlin, Louis Ramey, Kevin Brennan, and Tom Papa. The easily enjoyed the final three acts the most.

Once we finished up at the show, we made our way to Winston’s Pub where we would unwind and finish off the night. After the guest of honour and most of the crew headed home, the remaining five of us tried to find a cab, but no one would take us because we had one too many to fit. In all of our wisdom we decided that it was a better idea just to get a hotel room while we were downtown. We were denied rooms at The Besborough, The Ramada, and The Sheraton - even after Todd tried explaining to them that we were a famous rock band from Los Angeles.

We finally managed to find a cabbie that would take the five of us in his car after a little coaxing and bribery. The evening wound down at my place as we ate pizza and reflected on the evening. If the stag is going to be any indication of the Adam and Krista’s wedding, it’s going to be a great time. I also want to throw out a big “thanks” to Travis for organizing the evening’s events. You can get to photos from the evening below.

• Thumbnails
• Slideshow

This weekend my good friend Jason turned the “Big 30″, so he and his wife Cheryl put together a little swaree to celebrate the occasion. Guests were to arrive at their house for drinks and hors d’oeuvres at around 8:00 Saturday evening. There was also golf scheduled for the afternoon, but due to terrible weather, that didn’t happen. I wasn’t planning on golfing anyway since I’m a fair weather golfer, and I was pretty sure the weather wasn’t going to cooperate for this time of year. My predictions were dead on.

There was a good turnout for the festivities including our crew, and Jaosn’s many teacher and Rosetown friends. From my observations, everyone had a great time and were fairly well behaved…except Todd. It was good to speak to people I hadn’t seen in a while, and to celebrate this big milestone in Jason’s life. You can see some photos from the evening here (slideshow) and here (thumbnails). Enjoy.

My “cousin” (not really, but may as well be) Seshni got married to Scott this past Saturday, so family from all corners of the globe congregated in Saskatoon. My sister Yavini and her family were still here visiting, and my brother Veyantiz and his family travelled in from Sherwood Park, Alberta.

The wedding was a traditional Hindu celebration, and my mother performed the ceremony. It’s not often you get to see a non-Christain wedding around here, so it was quite a nice experience. There was a big break between the ceremony and the reception so the time was spent catching up with all of the relatives. The reception was a great time since so many people didn’t duck out early. I was hoping to take a lot of pictures at the wedding, but it didn’t happen. Feel free to check out a few I did take below.

We all headed back to Wilkie on Sunday and my parents’ house became Grand Central Station. The house where five of us used to live was now filled with twelve (including five under the age of seven). Despite the chaos, it was a pleasure to finally see the cousins together. The two oldest, Janak and Chiara were inseparable, thowing comments back and forth at each other (eg. “You’re the greatest cousin ever,” while the three youngest (all under the age of three) were not quite as “diplomatic”.

With all the kids playing together, I was no longer treated like a “human jungle-gym” (well, not 100% of the time, anyway) which was a nice break for my limbs. We spent a lot of the time in the backyard, and took them out to the park a few times as well giving me a prime opportunity to fire off a bunch of shots.

• Seshni and Scott’s Wedding - Slideshow or Thumbnails
• Ruane Kids at the Park - Slideshow or Thumbnails
• Cousins Hanging Out - Slideshow or Thumbnails

Day two saw Chiara, Mira, and Liam get a little more comfortable with their new surroundings, so they started to get a little more brave with me. For some reason, Chiara likes to call me the “Muffin Man”, and as a reaction to my beard, Mira told me that I had a “silly face”.

Since it was still so hot, and the house was trapping the heat like a greenhouse, we spent a lot of time in the backyard. Mom and dad have been working their butts off in the yard this summer so it has been a prime space to photograph the kids. If you’re interestested in seeing more pictures of them, check them out here or here.

Today was an exciting day since my sister Yavini and her three kids were flying in from Chicago. It had been a while since I had seen my oldest niece Chiara, and I hadn’t even met her younger sister and brother - Mira and Liam. I met my parents at the airport since it was going to take two cars to transport everyone and all the baby gear back to Wilkie. While we were waiting in the airport we had a pleasant surprise when some of our relatives from Vancouver (who arrived in Saskatoon on Wednesday) decided to come greet everyone as well.

Since the kids had been couped up on the plane for four hours, we decided to go back to my place to grab a bite to eat and just chill, letting everyone regain their senses. For those of you who have never been to my place, it is far from “kid friendly”, plus I am a completely insane neat freak. As you can imagine the children flew through there like a hurricane, and my blood pressure probably shot up by about twenty points as we needed to rearrange my living room on the fly. Needless to say, it was all worth it to finally get a chance to spend some time with them.

After a couple hours we jumped in the cars and headed for Wilkie. Once we arrived we knew that the extreme heat coupled with no air conditioning at my parents’ place was going to be hard on the kids, so we went outside and ran through the sprinklers. They turned out not to be so brave since the water was “so cold”. I did however use the opportunity to spray my mother with the hose nice and good.

Since the four of them were up at 3:30 in the morning to get to the airport, they were all pretty tired so the evening was pretty low-key. After some delicious dinner, the lot of them hit the hay. I managed to fire off a few shots while the kids were outside, and you can check them out here or here. They’re pretty cute…..just like their uncle.

It had been about two weeks since my last post and I was desperately trying to come up with a topic. Well, I’m happy to say that while a few of us were over at Kipp’s last night, a topic worth posting about was born. I decided to leave around 1 am, and made my way to my car, surprised to notice that there was broken glass all around the rear tire.

“Strange”, I thought, since I didn’t remember parking in a big pile of glass. Then I moved my head up a bit and saw that my rear left door window was broken. “Strange”, I thought since I didn’t remember my window being broken when I left the car.

Jason and Cheryl were leaving at the same time, and when it finally hit me, all I could say was, “My car got broken into”. After repeating this a couple times since neither of them would believe me, I took a look inside to see if anything was missing. I’m pretty anal about leaving nothing in plain view for that exact reason, and this time was no different. There was nothing taken - just the broken window.

I decided to walk down the road to see if there were any other cars that suffered the fate I had. Sure enough Todd’s rear left vent window fell victim as well. The glass was still intact, but completely spidered with a small hole visible. It looks like the culprits used a pellet gun as the weapon of choice for their crime spree.

This morning I called Speedy Glass to get an estimate and make an appointment. It was actually not as expensive as I was thinking it was going to be, but I can definitely think of of better things to do with $250. On the bright side, I finally had something worth posting about.