Pricier than expected

Back in September, I parked on a street near Concordia before one of my classes. A month or so later, a letter from the City of Montreal informed me that I'd parked next to a construction zone and had received a taicket, and that it was time to pay the $42 or go to court over it.

I hadn't found a ticket on my car, and I didn't recall any signage indicating a construction zone, although i vaguely remembered some of that flexible, soft-plastic, orange fencing set up on a nearby lawn. Maybe that was it. Regardless, I had no evidence with which to fight this ticket, so I had to pay. I couldn't fight the man over this and expect to win, unlike last time.

I asked Elvi to pay it online for me, which she did promptly.

Last week, we received another letter from the city, telling us that we lost our court case and now had to pay $95. Say what?

Our credit card shows our payment, but Elvi never received a confirmation e-mail. She called the city agents and they said that without the case number of the e-mail we did not get, they have no way of connecting our payment to our ticket, despite the fact that we got no other tickets last fall (as far as I know).

So we're screwed. We paid the $42 ticket in October and while the city has the cash, the authorities say there's no evidence for why they have the money. Now, we have to send them another $95.

I'm going to call VISA tomorrow and try to straighten this out. It's freaking theft.

Bonus ticket:

Friday night, the Montreal Juniors held a promotion for NDG hockey in which kids wearing their hockey sweaters got in free. My ticket cost $15. That's not a bad deal, and when you factor in the loss of Child Three's gloves (well, one of them) and the parking ticket I got for parking in a long, long line of other cars that also got tickets (there was a single sign at the end of the block), it's still less expensive than a Habs game.

Keeping tabs

We spent New Year's Eve and most of New Year's Day on the outskirts of Cornwall, Ont. Most of our time was spent watching kids play Wii or eating.

It's nice to do something special.

I found a job posting that fits me perfectly and I would absolutely love to do it, so I applied. I'm bound to never hear from them.

And now, to complete this random assortment of minor notes, allow me to present you with a copy of one of the very first five images to appear on the World Wide Web.


From Wikipedia:

Back in 1992, after their show at the CERN Hardronic Festival, my colleague Tim Berners-Lee asked me for a few scanned photos of "the CERN girls" to publish them on some sort of information system he had just invented, called the "World Wide Web". I had only a vague idea of what that was, but I scanned some photos on my Mac and FTPed them to Tim's now famous "info.cern.ch". How was I to know that I was passing an historical milestone, as the one above was the first picture ever to be clicked on in a web browser!

A shivery sigh released

For the tournament finals today, we faced a fellow NDG team. The pre-game player announcements alternated between players from each team. Our teams warmed up together en masse instead of each team in its own zone.

Then we got down to business.

We gave up the first goal early but soon climbed into a 2-1 lead. The Panthers tied it, but we went up 4-2. They scored and we put another in to go to 5-3 in the third.

Child Three continued his stellar play but couldn't stop the other team's superstar every time and the game was knotted at 5-5 as time dwindled. Our #3 worked his heart out and gave us the lead with two and a half minutes to go, but the superstar tied it a minute later. Overtime solved nothing, and to another shootout we went.

Our first shooter shot wide and Child Three kept things even with a quick outward stab of his right leg.

Our second skater beat Child Three's girlfriend rival through the legs on her butterfly (which she's awesome at, by the way). Child Three reached to make another good pad save to keep the lead. (That shooter is a great hockey player and an even greater kid, but just can't ever beat Child Three, not even during our practices.)

Our third shooter had a good shot but it was too centered and the goalie was able to surround it with her body.

The superstar had the other team's last shot - unless he'd score. He skated in and held his stick blade at about a 35-degree angle to the ice, which told me he was going to shoot high. Sure enough, he did - over Child Three's glove.

Our fourth shooter skated in off to the forehand side and skated across the crease to his backhand, with which he lifted a hard shot that rang off the post and into the net. That was the nicest shot I think I've seen all year from anyone.

Again, the other team had to beat Child Three or lose. The skater came in and took a shot that Child Three shifted to get in front of and blocked with his elbow. We won, and to do it we beat a team that hadn't yet lost a game or even tied one.

I still feel sick.

UPDATE: Elvi has some photos up. Here's the shootout-winning save:

Tournament time

Our NDG Novice B team is playing in the tournament we host over the holidays. (We're the Cougars in the results page I linked to.)

Having won our division in a tough game yesterday that pitted the two unbeaten teams against one another, we played a Boisbriand team today that had lost one game all year. That one loss, by the score of 4-3, was to our fellow NDG team, the Panthers, in this tournament last weekend.

Going into the third period, we were down 3-1. Boisbriand scored all their goals on rebounds or goalmouth scrambles. We had our rebounds, but often didn't have players in place to cash in. They did, and our defence wasn't used to playing against a team this solid in its hockey sense and capability.

The third period was fantastic hockey. Child Three's pads flashed out left and right to stop good opportunities, and we scored a goal on a breakaway. We tied it with only a few minutes to go.

We played a five-minute overtime that settled nothing.

Both goalies played marvelous games, although they had a huge gulf in styles. The Boisbriand goalie was a big kid who always tried a butterfly style, the kind that slides backward and ends up with the goalie sprawled belly down on the ice. Child Three is more upright and mobile, relying on angles and speed to get in the way of the puck.

Still tied, off to a shootout we went. The head coach sent me to counsel Child Three. He skated toward me at the bench, and I could see that his eyes were as big as saucers. "I can really feel the adrenaline," he said. I asked him if he felt shaky, and he told me he did. So did I.

As home team, we decided to shoot first.

Our first shooter, who'd scored our second goal, deked the goalie and had half a net to shoot at: 1-0.

Their first shooter came straight and let go a good glove-side shot. Child Three didn't catch it, but did get his elbow in the way: 1-0.

Our second shooter also tried a deke, but was stopped with a beautiful butterfly slide across the crease: 1-0.

Their second shooter swung wide and came across the slot. Child Three, on the ice to make a save, lunged for it but there was little doubt: 1-1.

Our third shooter - hmmm. I don't remember what our third shooter did, but it didn't go in: 1-1.

I had explained to Child Three after the goal that if a skater swings wide like the shootout scorer had, it's going to be a deke. If the shooter comes straight in, it's usually going to be a shot. Their third shooter came straight in and launched a hard shot about knee high. Child Three sprawled on his side and took it in the head to keep the shootout going.

Our fourth shooter challenged the butterfly with a shot at the five hole, which squeaked in: 2-1.

Boisbriand's fourth shooter came in and took another good shot about hip-high to the glove side. Child Three again leapt to get in the way and the puck disappeared. The referee skated over and signaled no goal. Child Three got up and the puck was underneath him. He'd made another head save, he explained later, although he didn't know where the puck had gone to.

Victory was ours today. We play our fellow NDGers tomorrow in the championship game. If this keeps up, I'm not going to live to 50.

Guests

The miniature poodle of discomfort is staying with us for a week again, but she hasn't peed inside the house (yet), as far as we know.

We prepared for our little guest by shifting furniture. We replaced our second malfunctioning TV with an ever bigger (used) one, and it came with a cabinet that fits it just right. The cabinet has its rear corners cut off at an angle so that the front is rectangular and the back half hexagonal (picture a home plate with the rear point sliced off parallel to the front edge).

The cabinet can fit in a corner, although I don't think it's meant to. Regardless, we put it in a corner, to the left of where our old TV was. We moved the piano to where the old TV cabinet was. We actually have a blank wall in our living room now. It looks much bigger. I wonder what Elvi did with all the photos that used to clutter the top of the old cabinet.

We did all this moving last Sunday, the day before we hosted a well-attended holiday gathering. By "we", of course, I mean Elvi. It was easier to move all the stuff than it should have been, and a brave choice to do all that before the party.

Maybe I should have a photo to show you.

In about an hour, Elvi's sister and her three kids will arrive from California to stay with us for a week. We will pick them up at the airport - again, "we" meaning Elvi.

Bonus snapshot:

Look, I can Facebook in the future:


At first, it seems like you can figure out how that error occurs, but with a little more thought, it becomes devilishly perplexing.

A very video Vednesday

The videos of Child Three's all-star game are up.

This took a bit longer than I planned, as I experimented with video formats and sizes. I'm not 100% pleased with the result, but I'll follow the "80% is good enough" principle on this one and call it done.

I had a little panic attack Monday when halfway through the editing process iMovie refused to accept clips from the camera. There was space on the drive I was using, but I transferred some large files off to make more room. That didn't help, so I tried to move them back and got a Mac OS X error message, error -36. A panicky half hour of research later, I opened up Disk Utility and repaired some errors in the directory. That was the problem, and it was smooth sailing - and editing - from that point on.

First period (Child Three rides the bench for this one):



Second period:



Third period:



If you want higher resolution versions of this, ask me for a DVD. It looks much better. Why do I use Google Video instead of YouTube? Because YouTube restricts uploads to videos up to ten minutes long and the hockey periods run longer than that.

Bonus video:

Two great tastes that taste great together:

Naches

Hockey Montreal held this year's Novice B all-star game at Rodrigue Gilbert Arena in Pointe aux Trembles. That's so far east (northeast for non-Montrealers) that every highway exit has a sign for a bridge. It was more than a half-hour drive from our home in the west-central region of the city/island.

I woke at 8:00 a.m., showered and fed Child Three, and we loaded his goalie equipment in the car. We set out at 9:15, given the light snow and threat of more. We got to the arena by 10:00 a.m., the time we were told to show up. We were among the first to appear, but soon everyone else filtered in. The two NDG head coaches didn't make it. Neither had a child in the game and the drive was long, although both were invited to coach in the game. Our head coach designated me his proxy.

I brought a video camera and filmed a bit in the dressing room. The first part of the morning was a skills competition. I was, of course, mostly interested in the goalies, one in particular, and I focused my filming on that - when I could focus. At one point the camera would no longer auto-focus or even manually focus, although it would still zoom in and out. The problem went away after I turned the camera off and back on, but I'd already spent some anxiety. I was able to to get some footage of the two NDG goalies chatting during a break - maybe discussing what they'll name their little goalie children after they hook up.

I filmed the skills competition from the bench, but there were four coaches back there and I could get a better angle on the game from higher up, so I left the kids and raced up into the stands.

Last year, I was head coach at this all-star game, which is divided into the East division against the West (we only play inside our division during the season). We got shellacked, something like 8-3. This year the game was much more even. The change in player age classification from one that matches the school-year date of October to the end of the chronological year seems to have affected the eastern half of the city as much as it did us.

There are three goalies on each team and one plays each period. The other NDG goalie, started and had only three shots, although she had to make three great saves. Child Three grabbed the second period and wrung its neck. He played superbly as the East team came on more strongly. He was so impressive, other parents looked envious as they asked if he were my son.

The third goalie came into the third period with a 2-0 lead, but let in a weak goal among some good saves. A short time into the third period, though, he pulled something in his hip or groin and left the game. The head coach tapped Child Three to go back in net.

If that kid put on a show in the second, he raised the roof in the third. Wow, did he play great. The crowd roared after some of his stops, particularly one in which he stretched and reached and deflected a sure goal headed into the top left corner. He didn't let anything past him and the West team won 2-1.

The organizers handed out awards for the skills competition following the game. Child Three won for best goalie, and you can click that image for a close-up of his medal. (I don't think his game performance entered into this decision, but it would have seemed odd to see any other goalie win that after his game.) Player of the game for the West was #40 on the Ahuntsic Bruins, who we saw in that game, and who turns out to be still six years old. I suspect that had Child Three not won the best goalie award, he would have won that award as well.

(I do feel badly for the other NDG goalie, who in a fair universe would have spent some time in goal in the third period, too.)

Most of my footage is still in the editing suite, but I did slap together a film of the skills competition. I'm not happy with the Google Video compression of the MPEG/MP4 (for some reason much worse than the conversion of the earlier QuickTime .mov files), so I will redo it once I get the game films online. In the meantime, here's the initial version.



Once the all-star game ended, we came home, relaxed for an hour plus, and headed out to play a game at the NDG Novice/Atom tournament. We played a hard-fought game against the Boisbriand Laser B2 and won 1-0 as our boys played their hearts out and butts off. Not bad, eh? An all-star game, an award for best goalie, and a shutout all in the same day.

And today, in league play, we took a convincing 3-2 win over the team that completely outplayed us to a 2- tie last week. Last week, we had four shots; this week, the skate was on the other foot.

Bonus Diddy:

Someone from Seanjohn.com visited 101 after a Google search for ""misunderstood artist" - for which thus humble blog ranks fourth in the known universe.

If I knew what I'm doing right with respect to Google Pagerank, I'd bottle and sell it and make a fortune.