The Engleson Files

When looking for a place to rent, or buy, the kitchen is a huge focal point in your decision making process - you need a nice kitchen. From the looks of the Waterford’s showroom, it seems as though they have put a great deal of care into this idea as well. Above, you see a picture of our kitchen space right now, and below is what is it supposed to look like after all is said and done. If I do have one complaint it is that the colors are a little dark for my liking, but all in all, it looks like it will be a great place for Master Chef E to whip up some KD!

To continue on our theme with Magnus’s wonderfully growing Chinese skills, today’s installment has him singing two songs that he has learned while at school. Again, we are so proud of his development in Chinese and hope that he can somehow maintain this as he grows older - although, sadly, I fear that he will not (I mean, Penticton doesn’t even have a Chinese restaurant!)

Had a great discussion the other day in room 302 (my office) about the Alaskan Panhandle and how it is an absolute travesty that this section of land is not apart of Canada. In the modern day it causes so much conflict between Canada and the US in aspects such as fisheries and parkland, and really, when you look at the simple geography of its location it should be British Columbia; I’ve always hated that little section stemming down into our territory! I say this whole controversy needs to stop right here and right now people. We need rally up a giant posse armed with curling brooms, club anybody who stands in our way and take back what rightfully belongs to us - let the Panhandle become apart of the Dominion!!

Click here for the dreaded history of how the Panhandle came to be.

Tonight on SCTV Sports, the great roaring game will take center stage and deliver red-hot (or should I say: ice-cold) curling action to your living room! Yes, starting tonight, and every Monday after, SCTV Sports will show the best of the best in curling and provide the most accurate game analysis ever seen in the business - curling will never be the same again! Monday Night Curling 8pm Mountain, 7:30pm Nfld.

Here’s a great little song from a great little album - enjoy!

Over the past couple of weeks during our morning cab ride to school we have been laughing at a story that occurred to me a long time ago while playing soccer. I was not as young as I am in this picture, but pretty damn close (I believe I was in grade 6 at the time). Anyways, one weekend my soccer team from Princeton played in a big tournament at McArthur Park in Kamloops, BC. Dad and I drove up to Kamloops together and stayed with some close friends on the Saturday night. On the Sunday afternoon after all our games were finished we were asked by the organizers to go to another area of the field for a medal ceremony. I can remember telling Dad about this and then going with my friends to go and collect our prizes. So, after a half-hour to an hour, I returned to the parking lot and readied myself for the 3 hour trip back home with Dad - but he was gone. My teammates were all parked in another parking lot a little ways away and had no idea of my plight. I walked around yelling for Dad, then, panicked, I ran over to the other parking lot to see if any of my teammates were still around, but they were all gone too! Dad had went home without me. Now, if any of you know Kamloops you know that McArthur Island is a long distance from anywhere in that city, and my friends lived all the way up in the Aberdeen area. So, gaining my wits about me I decided to hitchhike. I stood on the side of the road for quite sometime in my soccer uniform and cleats before a decent citizen stopped and took me up to my friends house. Now, the other kicker was the fact that our friends were gone for the weekend, so I had to break into their house as well. Craftily, I was able to get one of the ground floor windows open and I then crawled inside and phoned Mom in a crying panic, “w-w-where’s Dad?” Now, Dad wouldn’t have been home by then so I could only imagine what surprise awaited him as he arrived home - “so, where’s Craig?” In the end, Dad thought I went home with some friends and just decided to leave on that premise; I stayed the night with our friends and then took the bus home the next day and was able to miss a whole day of school. All was well.

I reflect upon this story a lot these days and wonder just how much shit Dad got in that day, because now, after being a father myself I could only imagine Kristin’s response to me, “Your child is where?!” I cringe at that very thought. Yes, you just gotta loves Dad’s and their methods of parenting. Thanks Dad, it is a great story, but I pray to God I do not replicate it!

The lure of James Bond movies to the male species has been well documented over time, and as a member of this particular race I concur with the hypothesis: Bond movies are cool. There is just something about traveling the world with a license to kill and bumping into dozens of scantily clad women along the way that is appealing. Now, I grew up watching all the James Bond movies and do enjoy them thoroughly. While I feel Sean Connery is the true/pure James Bond, I do hold a slight soft spot for Roger Moore since he was the Bond of my time; I think the Pierce Brosnan days were a joke but feel the latest Casino Royale held some old school Bond traditions, which gives me hope again. Anyways, with all this said, one aspect I love about James Bond movies is the bad guy(s). I think a classic Bond villain should: be classy, aristocratic, devilishly articulate, have a really cool plan to screw up the world and be well-dressed. In the end, the bad guys make the movie, and along the way Bond has had some real duds to go up against, but has also had some real cool ones - here is my top three cool Bond villains:

Number 3: GOLDFINGER - his name says it all, and he meets the criteria to a tee!!

Well, here’s our most recent picture of the little girl. As I stated earlier, Svea just finished going through the dreaded Rosiola Virus. I know I was supposed to remember Magnus’s ordeal with it as well (but I didn’t) and it is nice to see Svea come away unscathed as well. As of right now, our little Svea is crawling around the apartment like a mad fool and is now beginning to walk around the furniture a lot more. It was right around this time Magnus took his first steps, but we have a feeling she is a good month behind what her big brother was. Anyways, she’s happy and that’s all that counts.

Wow! What else do you need to say about Peter Puck, just watching this little clip floods back memories of watching hockey as a child. For hockey fans of my generation Peter Puck was the number one guy. I can specifically remember watching games as a child and not really knowing (or caring) about who was playing, but would just wait to watch Peter Puck during the intermission. There is no question the little guy is a classic Canadian icon.

The other day Mom and Dad checked out the new digs and took some pictures for us. The picture up top is our living room as of right now. As I stated earlier, the ground floor level will be ready to go (as they say) as of March 22nd and our mortgage will kick in soon after. The picture below is the view from our main balcony and I think once all the grass and flowers are in it should be a fairly nice view - and hopefully a great little place for a quick game of bocce!

For those of you who don’t know, Air Asia is one of these no-frills air companies (aka WestJet, but with even less gimmicks) that has dirt cheap air fares that service much of Asia. For our upcoming holiday we have begun to search for cheap air fares as we begin to plan to get from China to Thailand to Burma and then back to Thailand. One excursion that we have to do is go from Bangkok to Phuket, and thanks to a tip from Adrian Conradi on Air Asia.com we found this exact trip for 9 Baht - yes folks, 9 Baht…that is $.27 cents Canadian per person! Needless to say we have purchased these tickets and are now safely in Phuket. Not too sure if we will find deals like that again, but for now, God bless Air Asia!!

Well, over the past two nights Svea has kept the entire family up due to her constant screaming and care needed to get her through the dreaded Night Fever. Her temperature is very high and she is just, basically, in a foul mood altogether. Needless to say, Kristin has not slept a wink but we are hopeful that the little girl is on the mend and all will be peaceful again. Damn Night Fever!

Well, it is not quite as cold as this thermometer says, but damn, is it cold outside today! In typical Dong Bei form, the northerly Siberian cold front swept in in a matter of minutes and froze everything in its path. While it is a beautiful sunny day, the wind just cuts through every ounce of clothing you got - thank god it is National-Turn-On-Heat-Day in the Middle Kingdom, it’s funny how they can always predict this!