Dealing for Tanguay. 20 July 2008. Scotiabank Place. One of the highlights of a very busy, and consequently very long, first round.

Posing for custom hockey cards with thanks to Upper Deck. 21 July 2008. A few minutes after stopping Danny Kristo in the corridor and welcoming him to the family.

I currently lack anything profound to say, but I do feel the need to express my extreme jealousy over a friend’s trip to Mozambique. He seems so carefree in his travel planning – wandering around the world at his own pace, checking off continents from a to-do list (I’ve already got Africa, having boated over from Spain during my undergraduate years).

In Cuba he wound up playing stickball with local children. In one of the European countries ending with ‘A’ (maybe Croatia, maybe Slovakia, maybe even Slovenia – the point is, he’s been enough places that it’s easy to forget the details) he got ridiculously smashed at a local pub on dollar pints – not a revelatory experience, but he sure made it sound colourful.

Maybe it’s just the way he writes (unfortunately he’s deleted the earliest entries from his travel weblog, citing poor writing), but everything always seems so fantastic.

Or maybe it’s just that I don’t appreciate the things I’ve done and need to stop using words like “jealousy.” I once had an anonymous comment left on my Facebook profile that read: “I’m secretly jealous/impressed by all the things you’ve done in your lifetime.”

In any event, while he’s off galavanting overseas, I’ve got priority seating for the NHL Entry Draft in two weeks.

Snow in April. 2008 Gatineau Park. One week later and it’s 26ºC out.

Elly. Shoveling. 2008 Gatineau.

The Ottawa region is about 30 cm away from having experienced its heaviest snowfall on record. We were in Vancouver for most of the week/weekend, and so missed out on the most recent storm, but had to dig out our windows (such that they wouldn’t crack under any possible pressure or absorb too much moisture from melting snow).

Our wedding trip. 2004 Akureyri, Iceland. Photo © my mother.

Terry. 2004 NCAA Tournament in Buffalo.