Various and Sundry Events

This past weekend turned out to be rather busy for Rob and I. Friday night we went to a Kitchener Rangers hockey game. (OHL). This was organized by one of my co-workers, and the total group was 32 people, which included a number of spouses, friends and kids. We have a temporary employee at work, Marleen, from Germany. She's here to learn how some of our operations work, so that she can go back to Germany and set up some similar groups of people. She came in September, and is in Canada until Christmas, and then she is apparently spending another three months in North Carolina with my American counterparts. Anyways, she's on a mission to experience all things Canadian, and apparently an OHL hockey game fit the bill. Rob and I have never been to a Kitchener Rangers game, although we had been to games in London and Sarnia before. It was actually a really good game, and for the 3rd period, we switched seats with one of my co-workers, who has season's tickets. His seats are down low, just off center from the visiting team's goalie. Considering the score was 3-1 for the visiting team (Niagara Ice Dogs) going into the third period, actually until there were less than 3 minutes to play in the third, and the Rangers won 4-3 in OT, Rob and I had the better end of that deal!

Here's the Ranger's celebrating their Overtime goal. (Source: http://www.kitchenerrangers.com/).



Then, this past weekend, there was a major software migration for one BBH's customers. This migration has been 10 months in the making, with countless trial runs, testing, patches, the works. Quite the exercise in frustration, actually, and many lessons on how NOT to do project management and customer management can surely be learned. The bulk of the work over the weekend was to be done on the Saturday, thankfully, and I was oncall for Saturday, but not for Sunday. I was rather worried about the whole thing, so to amuse and distract myself, I did some baking. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and chocolate decorations. Chocolate, you see, is great for celebrating, or to console yourself in the event that you're having a trying day. I didn't know what Monday would bring, but I knew chocolate wouldn't be despised!



It turns out the migration went fairly smoothly. I did end up having to go to work for about 4 hours late Saturday afternoon, and thus missing most of Mark & Rachael's engagement party. Leaving the office at approximately 8:00pm and being greeted by over an inch of snow wasn't that exciting either. However, the migration did go through, the customer is now using the new software, and there were only a handful of issues to deal with today. I brought 33 cupcakes to work this morning, there were less than 26 people there today, and I didn't bring a single one home, so it seems the chocolate was appreciated by all!

This coming weekend we're having Part One of the A. family Christmas get-together. Some people seem to think the D. family is a bit strange, but I think the A's take the cake this year. Part One is this Saturday, where we'll enjoy a delicious but odd, meal, celebrate Mom's birthday, and the nieces & nephews will do the gift exchange. Then in January, we're planning Part Two, an adults-only night out for dinner, where we'll do the adult gift exchange. Yes, you read that right. November and January, and nothing in December! Statistically speaking, I suppose we've hit it right on - a month before, a month after, on average we're right in the middle! (Now that's some D. family humour for you! :) )

All joking aside, it will be good times on Saturday and in January - Rob and I are so thankful for both our families! I think actually some of us will be getting together on Christmas Day too, so the comment about nothing in December isn't quite true, but it made my story more interesting!