The Blog-Files

My Warranty Has Expired...

Well...that's it. I'm just over one month into my 36th year on this planet and my 35 year warranty on my body has expired. "Expired?", you ask, "what do you mean by that?" Let me explain.

I've been a fairly active individual in my younger years. I played hockey up until the age of 12 or 13, I played badminton at quite a high level for many years, I played racquetball, squash, a little tennis, I jogged and did 8 and 10K races. I most recently have been playing floor hockey, which I do once a week and have been for a couple of years now. I also have a 2 year old boy, which means I have to do repetitive, 30 pound lifting throughout the day. Through all these activities I have had my share of injuries, mostly bruises or blisters, but nothing very serious (this is the point where I would "touch wood", if I was at all superstiticious, which I'm not). However, now that I have reached the magical age of 35, I have notice a few "nagging injuries" or "aches and pains", which, although not serious, I find quite annoying.

Here's a brief rundown (pun, totally intended) of my symptoms.

1. A sore knee. Now, unfortunately, in two separate places. I have a slight pain and a little swelling on the front, right hand side of my knee. This injury has happened in the past while jogging and only went away when I stopped jogging. I probably have to do some strengthening of my knee to reduce further injury. This will be difficult because I also have a light pain in behind my knee that only hurts when I do any sort of deep knee bend. It doesn't hurt all the time and actually just feels "weak" when I bend it and try to stand up.
2. A wonky neck. I have noticed some stiffness in my neck area. Occasionally, coupled with minor jolts intense pain that quickly subside.
3. A sore middle back. This is undoubtedly bed related as it usually only occurs after sleeping on the bed in Alexei's room. It is far to soft for me. Sometimes when I wake up after sleeping there, I have a very sore right shoulder as well.

I do spend a good portion (about 85%) of my day at work on my feet walking on hard-tiled flooring. I have some fairly good shoes but I'm thinking about getting orthotic inserts. I also am due for some long awaited vacation time. I will have about a month off of work starting around mid December, which I will use to R&R all my injuries. Floor hockey is also ending for the holidays as well, which should help the process. Perhaps, if I slept a little more, that would allow my body to heal itself, but I get so little time to myself these days that I kind of treasure the quite moments. The moments I can sit here and be conscious of my aging body and post to my blog.

Alexei-Speak

My two-and-a-half year old son's speech development is coming along quite nicely. He does, however, have an interesting dialect. I assume all young children have an accent that only their parents can understand. When you are around people that haven't heard your child speak you have to act as a translator. You get a lot of, "What did he say?", from people who aren't clued in to his pseudo-words. I thought I'd post a little Alexei to English dictionary of my favorites.

He also does some things I find amusing. He likes to name everyone that is in a room or sitting at a table. He often starts with himself and then works his way around the table. He was at playgroup the other day and was having a "nak" when he thought he would name all the kids around his particular table. The only problem was, he doesn't actually know any of their names. He remedied this in this manner. He started by pointing to himself and saying "Lexi" and then "Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby" all the way around the table. He uses "Baby" to describe any other kid he doesn't know, even if they are older or bigger than he is.

This also occurred in another situation that was fairly comical. While at Kindergym, he was sitting on top of the slide waiting for the child who had just slid down to get out of the way. The child took too long and so Alexei spouted "Look out, Baby!" and then proceeded to slide.

These are the occasions that you want to remember, but as you are inundated with things to try and remember, you end up forgetting. So hopefully, by sharing them, you can remind me when I'm older.

Hot Dog Solutions

Let me just start off by saying that I know this isn't really that important but it has become an annoyance and is a very solvable problem. Now, anyone that shops for hot dogs knows that they come in all different sizes and product content, be they turkey, beef, pork, chicken or a mixture thereof. Not to mention the other unmentionables that one might find in their favorite wiener. I have recently be seduced by a certain kind of hot dog made by the people at Maple Leaf. They are called "Top Dogs Singles" and the come individually packaged and cook neatly, with no mess, in that package, in 20 seconds. Meaning that by the time you get the mustard on your bun the dogs are ready to go.

The problem, however, now that I have found my perfect hot dog wiener, is trying to find a corresponding bun. It really shouldn't be an issue to match up the perfect wiener with the perfect bun. The main problem lies in the quantities in which the separate products are sold. Buns are, traditionally, sold in dozens. I don't expect that to change as bakers are usually stogy, old, curmudgeons who haven't come up with any new ideas since the now famous "sliced bread". So it is left up to the wiener makers to bridge the gap. Oh sure, you can find an occasional package of wieners with 12 inside, but they are far from adequate as they are usually to small to fit in any decent sized bun. The next most popular wiener at the supermarket is the "BBQ Style" which usually come in packages of 8. Not only are they too large, so as to throw off the all important bread to meat ratio, but in order to match buns to wieners you need 3 packages of wieners and 2 dozen buns. My dilemma is that the "Top Dogs Singles" come in packages of 10. So lets figure this one out, with a lowest common multiple of 60, that leaves me having to buy 6 packages of wieners and 5 dozen buns. As you can imagine this is completely unacceptable as I have neither the fridge space nor the freezer space to accommodate this volume of food.

We really need someone to step up and provide a complete hot dog solution. Providing "complete solutions" is all the rage these days. The iPod/iTunes Music Store digital music solution is one that sparked my desire for a wiener/bun solution. One of these wiener companies should really get in to the bun market and perhaps co-brand a complete hot dog solution. The alcohol people figured it out a few years ago, sell the booze "pre-mixed" and you sell more booze.

I really don't expect anyone to come up with a solution to this culinary Gordian Knot, but if they have time to come up with ways to make ketchup purple, then why not? I suppose I could always "go bulk" and buy my buns "a la carte", but I shouldn't have to. There is far too much put on the shoulders of the consumer already, with sorting through the 4000+ items in a typical grocery store, to have to count their individual wieners and buns. So c'mon, wiener makers get your act together, solve my problem! This whole thing has made me hungry. I'd get a hot dog....but all I've got is buns.