James Lind

Christmas has come and gone for another year, and once again I appear to have tricked Santa into believing that I have been a good boy! He must have been busy with other things!
A few things of note, as I didn’t take photos of all my gifts!

First a special thank you to my friend Samantha for the wonderful hand knitted scarf shown in the left picture above! It’s wrapped around me twice in the picture, and I would guess it to be at least ten feet long! I will actually measure it when i get up this afternoon. I can’t believe the amount of work that went into this…it must have taken over a year to do!

In the second picture you can see the variety of gifts that received! Several books on topics such as hockey, my favorite band U2, and Scotland where I hope to be this time next year! Also in that picture is the U2 DVD of all 18 of their videos as well as several bonus features! These gifts are all sitting on a very cozy blanket that I received as well. More details to follow later today!

It seems pretty obvious that I must have been VERY good boy…

Okay this is scary…I just talked about having a lost friend come back into my life (see post of December 8th), and she almost left me just as quick!
Chauntel was driving her truck to go snowboarding last Thursday and hit a patch of black ice! The truck spins 180 degrees and rolls over an embankment, twenty feet down, and comes to rest on it’s side in the creek bed below.
Luckily her and her passengers walk away from the accident unharmed, although she did lose her cell phone, which is a lot like losing a limb to Chauntel! But at least it’s a replaceable limb!

This did however cause me to pause and think about friends that we make on the internet.
I went to Las Vegas this past April and was going to meet up with an online poker friend for a lunch/dinner/drink or something. I sent her an email around mid March telling her the flight numbers, dates and details like that. I didn’t hear back, so I fired off one more email, telling here which hotel we were booked into and under whose name. Well, I was pretty bummed out when I never heard a thing from her; but I thought she maybe just got busy with work and stuff. Once I got back, I sent off another email just expressing my disappointment and hoping that we’d keep in touch til next year’s trip. Then about six weeks later, I’m in an online poker game and I find out she had a heart attack and died the first week of March! I was stunned! Shocked doesn’t even describe it!

And now I’m thinking…that could have been the same situation with Chauntel, if she hadn’t been so fortunate! I would never have found out, as we don’t have any mutual friends. So I’ve made a list. It’s a “PLEASE NOTIFY” list if anything should happen to me. I have mostly email addresses; but the odd phone number and I have it hanging on the wall right next to my computer. Mind you it’s a fairly short list as I don’t have a lot of friends! I also have left the password to this site, so that Nikki could post a message on here as well.

I know it sounds a little morbid; but when I start to think of the friends that I do have in places like South Africa, Romania, Scotland, Ireland, England, the USA, it just seems like the a good idea! Anyway, that’s my post of the week. If you want to be on my “PLEASE NOTIFY” list, just let me know. Actually, if you are reading this…you probably are already on it! I encourage everyone to make such a list; because I know that I would want to be notified if anything ever happened to any of you!

Take care everyone;  Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and have a safe and happy holiday season to everyone! Making a list and checking it twice…

Barney Lind, brother of Clyde and beloved companion of Nikki, Bradley and James Lind, left us today for a better place.

Born in Lynn Lake, Manitoba..Barney and his brother were adopted at one week old. After spending his first two years of his life there; he along with Clyde and James relocated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1996.
 
Barney made many friends in his lifetime in Saskatoon; but he especially loved it when Chisa came over wearing her black pants! Lol.

He always enjoyed his favorite pastimes…eating and sleeping! Just a rattle of the food bucket and you better not be standing in the line of fire between him and the food dish!

Barney went through a medical crisis about three years ago; but fully recovered quickly and was back to his old tricks in no time!

One of his new enjoyments was laying outside on the hammock…suntanning!

About two weeks ago however, a tumor was discovered that deprived him of one of his favorite pastimes…eating. After trying to combat this with a variety of medicines, with no good results; Barney has now left us for Kitty Kat heaven.

He will be sadly missed by all those who knew him.   Rest in peace Barney.

I found a lost friend this month! As you can tell by the picture, she’s glad that I found her! Apparently I’m still “#1″ to her! At least I think that’s what the gesture means???
We used to play ten questions via email a long time ago, then she got a new job where she didn’t really have access to a computer and we kind of lost touch.
But now, Chauntel has up and moved all the way from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City! Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum! But as the snow goes, so go the snowboarders! Lol.
Chauntel is a very beautiful woman, inside and out, and I am very lucky to have her as a friend. My wish is that we keep in touch forever! It’s great to have her back in my life, and I hope we get back to the ten questions game. It was fun, and a great way to learn about someone else!
Unfortunately, we’ll probably never get to see each other in person again; but it’s still nice when a friend returns…