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Hockey filled holidays

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Well this 2008/9’s holiday season was full of both work and lots of fun for all of us here! We worked hard but played harder.

At work, we had less OR rooms open, so natural we had less staff working! This doesn’t mean that the work load on each of us there was any less. Just like any other work place during slow times, there were times when we had nothing to do (just waiting for the OR patients to arrive) and at other times it was fast paced and chaotic (when we were inundated with patients)! Then after all the craziness, came the fun!

We eventually got up and drove to my home town of Brantford early that Christmas morning to celebrate with my family. We ate a lot of GREAT food, had a few eggnog based beverages (NOT too many) and then hours later we headed back off to T.O. We brought back with us my brother and his son, with all his new hockey equipment in tow from his cache of this year’s Christmas gifts from the family!

The weather was great, around -3 (C) with light flurries. It was about 9:00 PM, we had a quick drink, got our gear ready and then headed off to the local out door rink at Dieppe Park! Once we arrived, we put on our equipment and headed off to the pleasure skating rink, to get our ice legs ready, before hitting the hockey ice pad.

The hockey rink had around 8 guys on it once we arrived. Once we skated onto it, the guys asked us if we wanted to join them on their teams for a game? After they said this, my nephew’s eye’s just opened wide with excitement! The look in his eyes said, finally playing some REAL hockey, on a traditional out door Canadian ice pad!!!

These guys were around 17-20 years old. My brother and myself being of, shall we say developed years, were a little worried about how our performance would be, in front of the little guy. As it turned out, we did great. We still had some decent rushes in us and had some nice tape to tape passes (really we did, ask the little guy!) that night. After 12:30 AM, 3 hours later, we decided to call it quits.

The next morning my joints didn’t feel all that bad, to my wife’s surprise, and we then proceeded on back 2 more times that day! The following day we also managed to get back out there 2 more times, but now the aches and pains were starting to set in.

While my they were here in Toronto, we also met up with more family and friends. We even talked my cousin and his son into heading out onto the ice for a laugh!

After a couple of days here, our guests headed back to their home in Chicago. Now it was time for some ice … not the one at the rink or the ones in a drink … if you know what I mean!?

Hopefully you all had a blast! Happy Holidays everyone.





Montreal Tickets – Concerts, hockey games and more

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I just got off the phone with a buddy of mine, and he said he just picked up some Montreal Canadiens Tickets and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him. Ha, ha. He knows that I’m an avid Toronto Maple Leafs fan and they will not be playing the leafs that night to boot! Oh, those crazy Les Canadiens de Montréal fans.

As he babbled on endlessly about the history of these guys, I just sat there and had to bit my tongue, or as the French say peu ma langue. He went on about his many visits to promised land and how beautiful their new Bell Centre stadium – he loves it.

As the conversation went on, a little bit more then one sided in my mind, I had to ask him where he got the tickets. Then after hearing the clicking of his mouse he said 2tickets.ca. He said he was searching this afternoon and happened to stumble upon their site. He asked if we had a computer on nearby, he is more then well aware that we are always on line, and wanted me to check out the site.

As luck would have it, my wife was on the notebook and our little puppy had to go outside to … you know … do her thing. This allowed me to check it out and it is a very interesting site.

On their main page you see easy to use tabs so that you can easily search for tickets for concerts, shows and sports. I’ve been to a couple of sites this guy has sent me to and they are often too flashy, hard to navigate and leaving you frustrated after a while. Not this one.

I noticed Madonna Montreal tickets and a bit lower down I saw Celine Dion Montreal tickets. I brought it up, but there was one of those pregnant pauses in the conversation. I thought my mother would love to check both of them out. She is more hip then you think.

I went to see how easy it was to sell tickets and it was really straight forward and with no distractions going on this page. I guess I’m just one of those people who like things simple.

The Sports tab was easy. If in Montreal, I’d love to see the Alouettes de Montréal (Montreal Alouettes) at their new stadium. This site has simple seat viewing that even my dad could figure out, nice.

Great deals on concert tickets and more at Viagogo

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Looking for a neat and inexpensive way to buy concert tickets, then check out Viagogo.

I came across this site after responding to an e-mailing from my cousin in Waterford Ireland last week. These guys have a surprising amount of concert listings and tickets on their site. If your reading this blog in Europe, then check it out. Viagogo would be helpful to you or even if your planning a trip to the UK if you’re interested in going to a sporting event, concert or the theater while you’re there.

Now my cousin John and his wife like the beat of Janet Jackson tunes and wanted to buy some Janet Jackson Tickets for her live show in the UK this summer. He said that he was asking around so I thought I’d look into it for him, two mouses are better then one, ha, ha!

Where they live, they have to pay for all time spent on-line and that seems like a bit of a pain. No wonder they don’t write too often. I told him I love being exposed to different styles of music because as a musician, you can always find nice little hidden gems in songs that you can use once in a while to change the feel of a tune. It good to keep you ear open to impress other types of music lovers while playing live!

While on the Viagogo site, I came across some other shows that I’d love to see! The one that honestly caught my eye was for Stevie Wonder Tickets! I’ve love every aspect of his song writing technique since I was a little kid. The chord progressions are out of this world and some of his horn work just makes me wanna get up and dance (even though I’m pathetic at it!). I’d love to see and hear the song Duke live before I die, honestly how about you?

As for a festival, hands down would be Leeds! Leeds Festival Tickets will not last for long that’s for sure, check out the line up for the main stage alone! New Yorks Mindless Self Indulgence (yes I do like techno), Pete and the Pirates’ for my love of tasteful pop related music, TIGER ARMY (oh those crazy psyschobillies) just to name a few. If we had a few extra bucks kicking around or won a small lottery we’d be there!

I also found some other venues that I’d love to see in England while visiting the relatives in Ireland. Like going to the Globe would be a big one in my eye. They have tickets for events at the Globe on the Viagogo site so that’s great! The Globe, BTW, is the theatre that Shakespeare held some of his plays in and it was recently rebuilt just like the original one. I love the look of it, I’m a bit of a lover of architecture. There isn’t a bad seat in the house according to my brother who went there after my father, brother and I went off together to Ireland a couple of years ago. Go to the site and check out the seating there, it’s fabulous!

Viagogo looks like the leading place to go for ticket and shows in Europe these days. If you also have some tickets to unload because you can’t make it to a concert, sporting event or the theater for one reason or another then this site allows you to sell your tickets. This is one of the many useful features that I’ve found while checking out Viagogo! It’s great if you’re in a bind.

So my cousin in Ireland got back to me and said that he hadn’t been aware of Viagogo, so I told him you learn a new thing everyday! I sent him a link to the Stevie Wonder show and I hope that he goes to that one. Besides, if he does go, I wanna get him to scoop me up a concert “T” and a program to boot. Wish me, I mean him, luck!

Keep on Jammin’

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