Bugs Palace!

Summer is over. Well, maybe not technically until the 21st, but with school back in and my hours back to normal, it may as well be over. Still hot as hell out there, and I’m ok with that!

Summer may be over, but we made the most of it! Three trips to Wonderland, Wild Water Works, Camping at Knights Beach, GoKarting, multiple rounds of mini-putt, CN Tower, Ripleys Aquarium, Hornblower cruise in the falls, journey behind the falls, 4d falls movie, Ontario Science Center, multiple beach days, a few car shows, Keith Urban concert, and lots of other day trips. I’d call that a busy summer. All that and we have tickets to go see the Yankees @ Blue Jays in 2 weeks!

Along with all the days trips we also were busy with swimming lessons for the kids and Joe’s baseball team. Best part of it was the fact that I didn’t miss any of it! With me officially being down to 1 job, I had a lot more free time this summer to make it out to all the kids/wifes events and really make it a great summer. And it didn’t hurt having a couple free nights to go on a few much needed dates – just the wife and I. Add to all that a near perfect summer weather and it will be a really hard summer to beat!

On a date this past weekend, Shannon and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. We celebrated by spending the day – just the two of us – in the falls. We did a bunch of site seeing and wandering around. We checked out the shops and had an amazing dinner at Brasa. Far more food then we needed, but nice for a change! I surprised Shannon with a couple little surprises. The most notable being a Cheese Head hat and a pair of tickets to see the Packers play in Green Bay next month! She was more then a little bit excited. It’s been a long 13 years full of ups and downs, good times and bad, but in the end one thing still stands true – I love this woman with all of my heart. Here’s to a lifetime filled with more amazing anniversaries and equally amazing days in between.

Only real downer of an update is the screw up I did a week ago. While moving cars around I stupidly got the bug too close to my Subaru. Put a pretty nasty dent in the rear fender of the bug. Thankfully nothing more then a small scuff mark on the WRX, but the bug will need a new rear fender. This will have to wait till spring likely. Planning on picking up a fender this winter, and taking the damaged fender and new one out to Paul and let him do his magic trying to make the new one match the old one as best as he can. Amazingly he had some of my old paint left over. With luck, no one will notice the difference.

Subaru update; small scratch on the bumper is going to be left as a reminder not to be stupid 😉 Or until I have some spare cash to respray it. Stereo system is all in, just need to build a sub box and properly mount the amplifier. Not sure when I’ll get around to it. Only other thing is to move my existing gauges to an A-pillar pod. While I’m at it, I will be adding an oil temperature gauge. As much as I love the heat outside, I’m almost looking forward to snow boggin’ in the WRX this winter.

And I can’t forget to wish my Momma a very Happy birthday! Love you Momma!

WRX update – going well so far. Stickers have been taken off – with the exception of the little waving dinosaur on the back window. The kids love it, so he can stay for a little longer. It got it’s first oil change and clean bill of health from my mechanic. Next up the stereo has to go in. I’ve got nearly everything to install, just waiting on a new power wire as the one which came from the MINI is far too short. Can’t wait to get the SAT radio installed. FM is killing me slowly. Friday the visor is getting tinted.

Jeep update – Going well as well! Shannons new wheels and tires are all mounted up and installed. Looks fantastic rolling around on 33×12.5’s. Amazing how much a properly spaced out set of wheels/tires can affect the look of a vehicle. Sadly had to do the rear brakes last week. Damn thing was down to metal on metal. Friday the front doors are being tinted along side my Subaru. Should really finish off the look – for now at least.

Thruxton – is coming along too. I finally got my exhaust (Tec Tracker 2>1) and it sounds amazing with the baffle out. Too bad I have to ride all week with the baffle in as it requires a tune so that it won’t lean out too much. So baffle till Saturday at which point  I will be getting up and in line at Sturges for a first-come-first-serve appointment. With any luck by 10am Saturday the baffle will be out and the noise will be at full song!@. Only real issue I have is a slight miss-fire like symptom which I believe is due to the air-injection removal. I’ve read that the new tune I am getting will sometime sort that stuff out. Not a lot of faith in that, but it’s gotta be done anyways. Failing that, I’ll book it in to be checked out. I’m guessing ive got some sort of air leak.

Beetle update – hasn’t moved in about a month 🙁 Between the the new daily driver and riding as much as possible the Bug simply hasn’t gotten much love. It doesn’t help that the last couple times I drove it – the engine was having some issues. I am 3-4 years over due for replacing the carbs. The stocker that’s on the car now just doesn’t make for an easy ride. Constantly bogging down and stalling if you don’t pay attention. I still intend on getting my damned bumpers installed this summer and then hopefully over the winter I can seriously look for a nice dual-carb setup to get the old girl back in ship shape. Hopefully replace/rebuild the starter and upgrade the exhaust too.

Normal blog update coming soon. Just thought I’d give myself an garage update to look back on. Handy to have IMO

Well, after what I believe is 18+ years of working for ALNC computers, I have given my notice and as of Thursday June 30th, I have officially retired.

I met Randy and Lynda back when I was buying my first computer. I was 16 or so at the time and this is in the days when computers were in the +3000$ range. Most shops looked at me like a dumb kid and shrugged me off assuming I had no money. Truth was I had a pre-approved loan to buy a computer. Randy didn’t care how old I was. My money was as good as anyones and we worked out a deal on my very first PC. A DataTrain 460-T. It was a blazing fast intel 486DX4-100mhz, 8mb RAM, 1mb Video, 850MB Maxtor HDD, SoundBlaster 16, and a USR 14.4modem. I was in heaven. I debated if a modem was needed at the time, but Randy assured me that it was a good thing to have. He was right.

I spent every waking moment on this machine. That modem Randy recommended got me into BBS’es (think text-only internet, without the internet). I played online games and chatted with people from all over the 905 area. Eventually even started my own BBS called Bugs Palace. I learned to survive on 2-3 hours of sleep per night.

With my addiction for computers being strong, I found myself in and out of ALNC a bunch of times over the next 1-2 years getting help from Lynda over something I screwed up, buying upgrades, adding more space etc. The day I went to buy my DVD burner (Hp 9200i for the curious geeks); Randy caught me off guard and asked if I wanted to try working there. I was accepted as a Networking and Hardware student at Mohawk starting that September but really didn’t know much other then my tinkering on my trusty pc I bought from ALNC. I figured I want to be in computers, what better place to go!

I worked ‘part time’ (35-45 hours per week around my college schedule) my first three semesters of Mohawk and eventually did a full-time stint for 8 months for my co-op. I found my calling. I’m not one to brag, but I’m pretty good at this computer troubleshooting and hardware thing. After college I got a job working at a software company (I was ‘head-hunted’ by another ALNC employee to work with him). I was reluctant to go elsewhere, but did and learned a great deal there as well. I still couldn’t give up my time at ALNC so I dropped back to “part time”. So from 1998 until now I have worked a regular shift at ALNC without ever stepping away fully. Part time, full time, back to 2-4 nights a week. You name the schedule I’ve done it and I am the tech I am now because of it.

I learned more in the first 2 months at ALNC from Lynda/Randy than I learned during my entire time in college. The shifts I have spent working along side them have taught me skills in both computers and also how to deal with customers from every walk of life. They have been some of the best, most educational, challenging – yet entertaining times I’ve ever had. I will forever be thankful for the chance they took giving a green kid a job in their family store and helping me learn as I went. I know I wouldn’t be the tech I am now without their direction and patience. They treated me as family from day one. I have gotten to know nearly their entire family over the years and have stayed good friends with their children Katie, Cheri and Albert (and now grand-kid(s) too!)

I will always have a warm spot in my heart thinking about disk-copying shareware, eating panzerottis, listening to Boston far too loud after the mall had closed, re-arranging the store when Randy was away, and simply knowing I always have another family I can consider my own.

So Randy, Lynda and the rest of the Chapple crew, I love you guys! Thanks for everything!

Jamie