01 Nov 08 Tristan & Zachary first Halloween pumpkin carving experience
At first Tristan and Zachary were somewhat disinterested in the pumpkin ritual as they were distracted by that (evil) TV and some usual crapola on Teletoon or whatever….
Tristan and Zachary’s first experience at carving and prepping a pumpkin was fun; ok, granted, it may seem a bit late to experience their first pumpkin carving but such is life. 
They had seen my Ace compression bandage earlier in the day covering my leg from thigh to foot over the vein stripping incision bandages… (no they didn’t see those yet)..
Tags: Food, halloween, Kids, Love, pumpkin carving, surgery, Tristan, varicose veins, Zachary
30 Oct 08 High metal ion levels in many table wines - new research from Kingston University in Chemistry Central Journal
Conflicting news anyone?
The director of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences at London’s Kingston University, Declan Naughton, , together with his colleagues Andrea Petróczi, Paul Barker, Theresa Hague and Paul Andrews, did an aggregated study of existing research papers to analyze the levels of metal contamination in wines. Most of the wines affected are the so-called common table wines. They tested red and white wines from 15 countries, and the wines with the highest Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) for metal concentration were from Hungary and Slovakia with a THQ as high as 300. A safe THQ of one is considered safe.
ICP-MS results for intact beverages in the concentration ranges of high (up to 1250 ppb); medium (up to 9 ppb); low (up to 1.5 ppb). a = above working range.
Hague et al. Chemistry Central Journal 2008 2:13 doi:10.1186/1752-153X-2-13
They also analysed apple juices as part of their research.
(more…)
Tags: Food, Health, research, Science, Target Hazard Quotient, wine
29 Oct 08 Jambalaya Fettuccini from Boston Pizza the day after … mmm…
Well, I just finished what was left of a (really large, in retrospect) portion of Jambalaya Fettuccini from Boston Pizza… It was a treat from Oma, err, my mama, after a busy day of continuing the varicose vein surgery convalescence and cheering on Tristan at his MAGH-3 / Novice hockey trials.
Anyhow, the Jambalaya was delicious!…..
I’m still looking forward to trying out the pizza at Boston Pizza, as it isn’t exactly a bargain price: $13-26 for pizzas…. and as a colleague had reviewed in the past, he found spending $25 for a pizza over lunch a bit pricey.
Soft drinks are $2.99 with free refills. They offer wine by the glass at about $7.50 per glass, or $30-35 per bottle. The wine pairing suggestion with the Jambalaya Fetucinni was the Two Oceans Shiraz – I had tried this during the Montreal Jazz Fest at the SAQ booth and liked it quite a bit.
Tags: Boston Pizza, Food, restaurants
28 Oct 08 October 28 : First snowfall in Montreal for 2008 - 2009 winter :)
Well, after a day of meeting with school staff for Tristan, then a couch-served yummy omelet with potatoes & onion, then nap, then novice hockey level evaluations and tryouts for Tristan… finished up with Jambalaya Fetuccini at Boston Pizza ….
and watching a bit of the Habs win againts the Carolina Hurricane in a close match that finished 3-2 for the Canadiens in a second overtime shootout…
it is now bedtime and * snowing * in Montreal … OK wet snow, perhaps we won’t get the 10-15cm that Ottawa got…. we’ll see if tomorrow is white morning
Tags: Boston Pizza, Food, Health, hockey, restaurants, Sports, Tristan, Weather
19 Oct 08 Levaquin, bronchitis, Passchendaele, vascular surgery and time with Oma & boys & the DFW / SO
So the Levaquin antibiotics seem to finally have gained the upper hand on the nasty (acute, as per the pre-admissions physician at the Jewish General Hospital said) bronchitis and accompanying fever etc that has hounded me for the last 3 weeks.
It was a great, relaxing weekend, with an early Saturday rise (somewhat) and the DFW/SO starting a well-needed re-organising of the boys’ rooms and cleanup in general. I had 3 eggs, 10 slices of bacon, 3 toasts with butter for breakfast (appetite is back) and 2 tuna/mayo/mustard sandwiches for lunch. After that it was finalising the cleanup and reorganising and furniture moving around, followed by relaxing and watching “So you think you can dance, Canada” (man, all of them in the top 20 can really groove!… all of them, but the blonde in the blue outfit, mmmmmmmm)…
Then some absolutely scrumptious Lamb Balti and Basmati before heading out for the 22:00 late showing at the ScotiaBank cinema of the new war & romance flick Passchendaele by Paul gross… it was great, if not quite in the “sequence” that we both felt it would be. The second half of the movie has most of the actual combat scenes and as it is a WW1 movie there is very overt and visually intense depictions of how close the combat was in the 1st world war….
(more…)
Tags: boys, Food, Health, Love, Passchendaele, surgery, Tristan, Zachary
