New Job Update

After a lot of back and forth and pressure on Bell to get the paperwork through, I finally started work last weekend. I've been told that for your first few weeks they load you lightly...1 job in the morning, 1 in the afternoon so it came as more than a bit of a surprise when I logged on on Saturday to find 4 jobs waiting for me. The seasoned guys I was training with usually only had 4 jobs on weekends, and here I am on my first day. Fun stuff. Managed to get through 3 of the 4, got help for the last one, and finished the day around 8PM. Long day, but a good learning process.

Sunday was much better with only 1 highly lucrative job, and I was done by 2 (or 1...stupid time change). I definitely have a little more confidence heading into this weekend and hope to start tackling more jobs and holding my own soon.

Other than that, not much to report...Jenn's birthday was last month, got her some Flyers tickets that she's been bugging me for and the game was last night. Wasn't much of a game, though, as the Flyers really didn't show up and both sides looked like they were made of glass (maybe 3 hits in the entire game?).

And so ends another update...god I live a pretty boring life.

Little Bit of an Update

Not much going on in my little world lately but I figured I'd throw an update out anyway:

Let's see, since August I've managed to land another part time job for weekends doing satellite installation around Carleton Place. Started training last weekend and hopefully I'll be hard at work soon. Doesn't leave a lot of free time, but we're hoping it'll help us save up some money for kids in the future (no maternity leave for the self employed sucks). As such, I needed a work truck so we traded Jenn's car in on a 2007 Trailblazer. Not quite the big ugly diesel pickup I had in mind, but probably a much better choice.

My day job is going pretty good, just got a "cost of living" raise which is apparently unusual for anyone here less than a year. Guess I'm doing a good job. Also just got back from a 2 day trip to Detroit...a bit of a waste the second day as the main problems were cleared up day one but with only a limited number of flights between the two cities on NWA, I couldn't bump my flight up. Oh well, at least I can do my job more efficiently now.

And I think that's about it for updates from my world.

Oh, and you can check out pics from the wedding I was in back in August here:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/kevin.kunka/AlTabSWedding#

Congrats!

As some of you know, I was in Thunder Bay last week for a wedding. The father of my best man got re-married on Friday and I had the privilage of standing as a groomsman in his wedding. Since we've been friends forever, it honestly feels like one big family, and I'm happy for Al and Tab, and wish them nothing but the best.

The trip started out as a Charlie Foxtrot (look it up on urbandictionary). Due to peronal commitments and limited vacation time, I needed to fly out Thursday and come home Saturday, and since I'm cheap, this is all on airmiles. I check out the Aeroplan website and there are dozens of flight options and I should be in TBay around 4 and leave at noon...looks good. So being an Elite/Gold member of Aeroplan, I called up the "Priority Service" number provided and book the flight. "That will be $150 in fees"...what? On the web it was $35 for the exact same flight. "If you can book it for that online, I suggest that you do so." Click. All I can say is that Aeroplan/Air Canada sucks. Back online and I book the flight...everything looks good, I click confirm, and I'm told this flight is sold out. As are the next 4 I try. The only one I get to work has be arriving in TBay at 9:45pm on Thursday and leaving at 6:30am Saturday...could it be any worse?

The answer, of course, is yes. There were a lot of fierce thunderstorms in Toronto on Thursday causing AC to cancel the flight before and after mine, and cram as many people as possible on our flight. Thank god I wasn't bumped off. Okay, it's still good. Then an announcement on the overhead that our flight will be delayed a bit. More time to read my book, yay I guess. We finally get onboard around 5 (on a 4pm departure), taxi out to the runway at 5:30 and promptly taxi back to wait for clearance which should be "in about 50 minutes". This is just fricken awesome. Thankfully we managed to get off the ground around 6:15 and we're on our way! For about 30 minutes, that is, when the pilot tells us there's a delay in Toronto and we need to circle for a while. Good times.

We finally landed around 8pm, about 30 minutes after my connection should have left but with the weather, it's obviously late too. Keep in mind that I haven't eaten anything other than a small salad at noon, so I grab a Coke and some chips and start munching while looking at the gate. I swear, it said 8pm departure and as I blinked, it changed to 8:20. 5 minutes later it was 8:40, and we actually got off the ground at 9pm. Looks like it's going to be a late night. Thankfully that was the last of the delays for the trip, and it was trouble free to Thunder Bay.

That night I called one of the other groomsmen, found out (finally) that we'd be meeting at 1 the next day to get ready for pictures and the like, and crashed for the night. Next morning (Friday) I got to see my grandparents (first time since Christmas 2006), tried to swing by my cousin's place (it was her birthday that Thursday), have lunch with my mom (the only time I got to see her), and headed off to Al's place to get ready. Turns out that getting the suits at Moore's was about as painful as the tux for my wedding...a couple of the guys had their reserved shirts sold on them several times. Funny stuff.

We did the pictures before the wedding, and man was it freakin hot. I guess it wasn't hot enough, though, as we had to take the pictures in a greenhouse. Talk about humid...we were ready to die. Then it was unloading stuff at the hall, getting everything ready, and next thing I knew, the ceremony was over and it was dinner time. Nice BBQ theme, awsome food (at least the two salads I had), and lots of drinking and dancing (open bars rock for everyone who doesn't have to be at the airport at 5am the next morning).

Around midnight I decide to call it a night since I've got literally 4 hours before I need to be up again, and say my goodbyes to the groom and bride. Turns out that they have to take down some decorations and return them that night after the hall closes, and everyone else is way too drunk to help, so Kevin to the rescue. It was also a good thing as the groom couldn't find the keys to their truck, so they would have been stranded. All said and done, I was home at 2:30 for a glorious 2 hours sleep before heading back to the airport.

One hell of a rushed trip, yes, but also a lot of fun. Congrats again to the lucky couple, and it just reminds me that Jenn and I will have to make a trip back sometime soon. If only "soon" didn't mean next year. Such is the price of having pretty busy schedules. I hope to get some pictures from the rest of the gang as my camera died on me a few months back.

No Post For June I Guess

Just a little update on the summer...not a whole lot going on. Work has been busy as has getting the house ready for the daycare leaving very little free time for anything. The house still rocks, we got the deck fixed so we can use it now (it was a bit wobbly), and that's about it.

My birthday this year was a pretty quiet affair...just stayed home with Jenn and had a lovely (and very low-key) evening which was much needed after all the stress at work (don't you love multi-million dollar demos dropped on your lap at the last second?). Maybe for my 30th I'll try another 30 shots...we'll see.

And that's pretty much it for info from my end. If I don't post up in August, someone kick me...I should have something to post by then.

Pictures!

Now can you leave me alone Mr. Estey? ;)

http://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.kunka

A little note on how the albums are organized:

Wedding Pictures - contains the photographers favourites in black and white, plus the prints she made for us.
Wedding Pictures 2 - contains the photographers favourites in colour.
All Wedding Pictures Part 1 - first 500 wedding pictures, good and bad, in colour
All Wedding Pictures Part 2 - last 496 wedding pictures, good and bad, in colour

The Photographer Called...

Looks like I'll be picking up the DVD with our pictures on it this Friday, so I hope to have a few more shots up next week (it's a busy weekend).

A little more detail on our day as I remember it:

The service was great. A lot of people turned out (mostly Jenn's side), and time flew by. Thankfully neither of us made any mistakes either. As bad as the rehersal was, we still managed to muddle through. Biggest surprise was that neither of us broke down in tears either...a struggle at times, but we managed. Jenn looked absolutely awesome in her dress, and I've never been more proud than when I said "I do". Not that I actually remember the words to the service, but I said something like that.

The pictures were a lot of fun...the rain that was called for held off just long enough for us to take all the pics, and it didn't start raining until we literally stepped under the awning at the hall. As a wise friend likes to say, timing is everything. Okay, so maybe he's more goofy than wise, but it still applies. The only downside to pictures was that the forecast was right about the temps...it was 15-18 degrees, and it felt a whole lot colder with the wind coming off the river. For the guys in their tuxes, no problem. The girls, on the other hand...

After pics we made our way to the hall, did our intro and receiving line. It was touching to see everyone who came out, and to hear the nice words that they had for us. I hadn't seen a lot of the family since Christmas 2006, and it was great to get a chance to talk again. Same for a lot of my friends...since we moved to Carleton Place, it's not as easy to get together for a drink or game of pool.

Dinner was fantastic, couldn't have asked for better food. Everyone we've talked to since absolutely loved the meal. The only "hiccup" of sorts is that to serve our own wine, we needed a liqour license. Once the wine was opened, the bar had to close and stay closed until the wine was collected from the tables. This kinda put a rush on the speeches, but everyone had a few (okay, a lot) of words to say. I have to thank my best man again for keeping it short and still leaving my mom wondering when she's going to hear all the things we did as kids. After dinner we handed out wedding cake to everyone, and it gave us a chance to stop by each table and say hi to everyone.

Now the first dance. I've been on the go, standing now for about 8 hours. Not much water to drink that day either. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a recipe for cramps, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. About half way through our first dance, both legs start cramping up bad. By the end of it, I'm ready to cry as the muscles are knotted up something fierce. Thankfully, the second dance is the Father/Daughter dance, so I got to stretch, chug some water, stretch some more, and get back out for the third dance. After that it, it was more chatting with people, lots of handshakes and well wishes, and a bit more dancing. Not a whole lot more to add.

When the night finally wrapped up at 12:45, we loaded up the SUV and headed for home. For some strange reason we decided to have everyone over at noon the next day for an open house, which meant we had to have the truck unloaded, gifts unwrapped, and the house clean (mostly) before we went to bed. Combine that with trying to get Jenn out of her laced up wedding dress and finding all the stupid pins in her hair, and we weren't in bed until close to 2am. I was really wishing we had pushed back the open house while we were setting the alarm for 9am the next morning. It was all worth it, though, as it gave us more time to spend with the family before they had to head back to Pembroke/Thunder Bay/Edmonton/etc.

So This Is Married Life?

A little recap for all of you who couldn't join us on our special day.

I'll start with the wedding rehearsal. With a good chunk of the wedding party being from out of town (Edmonton, Sioux Lookout, Pembroke), we were hoping to have the rehearsal the night before the wedding so everyone would be available. The priest, though, had other ideas. It absolutely had to be the weekend before, and we had to bring our "donation" to the church as well as for the priest with us. I wonder if he didn't base how good of a service he would be giving on the size of the donation. The rehearsal itself was a bit of a cluster, uh, well, it was screwy. Basically we were directed about the church for 20 minutes and left with no one knowing what we would be doing. Time well wasted indeed. I think the only good to come of it was to make sure that the best man and maid of honour knew how to find the church.

We were getting married on the 3rd of May, and knowing that it's still early spring, we were a bit worried about the weather. April was a fantastically warm month and as such we had high hopes. Checking the weather forecast, though, made us wonder what the hell forecasters actually do. It honestly would alternate between a sunny 24 degrees and 10 degrees with rain. I swear they just make this stuff up as they go along.

Between checking the above mentioned "forecast", the week before also consisted of a lot of little details like final meetings with the DJ and photographer, picking up tuxes and dress, and getting the rental in order. This is where my life starts to go to hell. We had originally arranged for a Suburban (big SUV, seats 9) so we could get most everyone in the truck and have as few vehicles as possible. The problem, though, was that you apparently (it was no where obvious on their website or on the confirmation) have to be 30 or older to rent one. Thankfully I was able to use my Aeroplan miles to book a slightly smaller but much nicer Acadian instead, and all was good. Once the Aeroplan website was back up, that is...it went down for the entire weekend beforehand and apparently you can't call in and reserve a rental when the system is down. Fun times.

Wednesday I got a call that my tux was in and to come in as soon as I could to try it on. Having done this before for grad and GJ's wedding, I was expecting everything to go smoothly. I got to Bayshore and was told to try on the pants and shoes. Uh, what about the shirt, jacket and vest? We'll get to that later...okay. Shoes and pants fit fine, jacket was good, vest was good and "you don't need to try on the shirt, I'll just check your neck and arms". 30 seconds of measuring later, I'm trying on the shirt and finding out that it's indeed too short. I was told that they would order me a new one and it'd be ready for pick up on Friday at the latest. I decided to leave the rest of the tux there so I could try it all on when the shirt arrived.

Friday rolls around and my shirt is in. We pick up the rental at noon and swing by Bayshore again. The guys see me and hand me my shirt. "Uh, where is the rest of it?" I ask. Never have I seen someone's face drop so much...it was obvious that they had no idea where my tux was. 15 minutes of futile searching later and I'm being told that I picked it up yesterday morning. Funny, I distinctly remember working on Thursday morning. Well, maybe one of the groomsmen picked it up. Did they sign for it? Cause if not, I'm coming in every weekend to pick up someone's tux. Another 10 minutes of yelling at the manager and I'm told they will rush a tux in for Saturday morning. As if I didn't have enough to worry about. I did make sure to take the shirt this time though.

That night was the rehearsal dinner (I know, the rehearsal was the week before) in Arnprior. This is the first time that Jenn, her family and my Ottawa friends have really met my friends from Thunder Bay, and I don't know that they will ever look at me the same. GJ and Jeff were in fine form, having pre-drunk for dinner to continue their apparent 3 day bender. GJ is as loud as ever, saying pretty much whatever popped in his mind (I think my family and I were the only ones not offended), and the beer flowed like water. When it came time to open the groomsman gifts, I was really wishing I had picked something other than engraved knives to give. I was picturing my best man and groomsmen getting in a knife fight in the parking lot later on. Thankfully I managed to pocket both before the stabbing started. At the end of dinner (well, when they started putting chairs on tables), the guys decided to head down to the local sports bar for a few more drinks. How we were ever served is still beyond me. Guess they don't have liquour inspectors in Arnprior. We get a couple of pitchers of beer, a Strongbow (a whole one) for me, and GJ immediately starts talking trash with the girls beside us, then calling their boyfriends a "bunch of pussies". Just what I need, a brawl the night before the wedding. Thankfully the other guys were more interested in drinking and having a good time than fighting. All in all, I think a good time was had, and the Ottawa crowd got to see where I got my patience from.

Saturday morning. All I have to do is pick up my tux, eat, and make it to the church by 1:45pm. Not too hard, right? I get up around 8:30, shower, shave and toss on some clothes. Get to Bayshore, try on the tux, bitch some more at the manager, head back home, call Jeff and arrange for them to swing by early for breakfast. While waiting, I remember that I haven't picked up a card for Jenn yet so I speed off to Hallmark and grab one. Thankfully I looked at hers first as there were only 2 cards for people on their wedding day. Get back to the house and keep on waiting...I'm starting to get pretty hungry so I crack open a bag of chips and start munching. 11am rolls around...where the hell are they? 11:30...12...12:30 the guys from Ottawa show up, and 2 minutes later I get a call asking how to get to my place from Arnprior. Keep in mind that it's about 20-30 minutes from Arnprior to my place...yep, we're gonna be late and I still haven't eaten really. We all get dressed, TBay shows up and zips through a quick tour/getting dressed, and we race off to the church. Even though we didn't leave until 1:35, we still managed to get there almost on time for flowers and a few quick pictures.

By this time the priest is getting pretty impatient and wants Jeff and I in the church. I'm not sure what for as this wasn't part of the rehearsal, but what the hell. I give the dude the rings, pre-sign the registry and wedding license, then back out front to wait in a "closet" for Jenn to show up. 10 minutes later and we're on...I don't remember too much after that other than looking over to see GJ ready to pass out in the pew. Awesome stuff.

Fast forward an hour and we're out of the church, pictures on the steps, off in the SUV for more pics (sadly no burnouts...I hate all wheel drive sometimes), more pics and even more pics (none of which I have so don't ask Brian), and it's back to the hall for dinner. Dinner was good, the speeches were awesome, and thankfully my best man left out all the stories that my family had been waiting years to hear. Not much more to add than that.

And yes, I will post more pictures in the future...this is all I got from Jenn's uncle.

The wedding party...I'm doing my best to look as good as Jenn

Testing...Is This Thing On

Since my one and only loyal reader is on my case to update, I figured I should dust this thing off and post something. Not sure what to post, though, as life has been pretty dull lately. Lots of shovelling and little else. I still haven't managed to take any pictures of the house all finished and decorated, or of the truck (now getting buried with junk in the garage), or do anything with the basement.

Lots of planning and stuff going on for the wedding but again, most is in place and its taken on a life of it's own now. The invites were mailed out last week and we're starting to get replies. Hopefully everyone replies quickly so we can send out the second batch (people we wanted to invite but there's a limit to the number the hall can hold). What else...got the tuxes ordered recently for the guys in town. Not much else to report.

Oh, speaking of weddings, and since this is a travel blog, does anyone out there have some suggestions on what to do for a quick honeymoon? Since it's a new job I only have 1 week's holidays by May, so we're thinking either postponing the trip or taking a couple of days (literally 1-3 days) for some place close like Montreal, NYC, Toronto, etc. Anyone have any ideas/recommendations? Flights aren't a problem (thank you Aeroplan) but hotel room costs are. We'd like to do this on the cheap if possible. Okay, I'd like to do this on the cheap, Jenn would like a 5 star suite.

Work is pretty good. I haven't mentioned it on here but I started a new job in January out in Kanata. Nice to be in a larger company (~200 people) but at the same time it's weird not knowing everyone or being the go-to guy. Also a lot of learning to do, it feels like I'm back in university or something with all the reading.

Not much else to add right now...I'll try to get pics of the house up this weekend (I know, I've said this before).