This weekend I picked up a Channel Master ClearStream 2 TV antenna and pointed it directly across the lake towards Buffalo. Since I live in downtown Toronto I'm able to pick up local stations and some American stations. Right now I have 17 digital high def. channels and around 10 or 11 analog channels. The analog channels are all duplicates of the digital channels and have so much ghosting that they are not watchable. I think that is because of the type of antenna I have, but I don't mind because I configured my TV to use only the digital channels. When I point the antenna in a different direction I lose some channels but get others. I think I might buy another cheaper antenna and have both attached to the TV so I get as many channels possible.

The channels I pick up are the same ones I usually watch on cable: NBC, CTV, CBC, Global, OMNI, City TV, Sun TV, etc. I need the second antenna to get stations like PBS. I will miss a couple things about cable such as American channels not dissapearing sporadically because of weather, and on-demand movies. There is no other service in Canada that offers on-demand streaming movies because they are not allowed here.

My four year old Miniature Schnauzer has had re-occuring vomiting issues for about a year now. We've been the vet many times, and the problem seems to go away as fast as it started only for it to return months later. The last two incidents were really scary and he ended up in the emergency hospital for stabilization and treatment. We discovered he had bladder stones, but not the cause of his vomiting. I fed him a special diet for several months to dissolve the stones but they did not go away. Then, the vomiting returned last week. He'd vomit maybe once a day every few days, but then it got more frequent until the last day when he vomited about 8 times and with traces of blood.

This time I opted for expensive endoscopy where they put a camera down his throat and up his butt. While he was out for that procedure I also had them do surgery to remove the bladder stones. They found that he had a bacteria infection in the bladder that altered the pH acidity level enabling stones to grow. The walls of the bladder were also swolen or something like that. They also discovered problems in his intestines. Bandit has severe Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The doctor says he can be treated with special diet, and we're going to put him on pills for at least 4 months. We'll try to wean him off the pills, but this is a lifelong disease. The cause is not known.

The last two episodes cost me around $6500 total. Thank God for credit, and that I am particular about leaving buffer space on my credit line in case of emergencies like this. What surprises me is that I've now reached a point where I think of it as "just money", and I don't care if it takes me years to pay it off. Bandit's life and comfort is worth it to me. I'd sell my car if I had to.

I got Bandit back from the hospital on Thursday. They said to expect blood in his pee, and for him to pee frequently. He pees very frequently, and it comes without warning. He ends up peeing all over himself in his bed and crate. If I bathe him, he does it again a short while later. For now I just check on him frequently or whenever I hear him moving around since I work from home. When he pees I clean it up right away, and try to dry his body. It is very concerning to see so much blood in his pee, and even blood chunks/clots coming out, but the doctor says this is normal. Today I think it was less bloody than before, but it could be another couple of days before his pee clears up. Poor Bandit.

2009 is the year of cloud computing, so here is a picture of me using NetBeans IDE in the cloud:

Almost exactly one year ago I sold my house, closed the existing mortgage that had a great rate of 4.84% (7 year fixed), then opened a much larger mortgage for my new Toronto condo. The fixed rates were up around 6% or 7% so I chose a variable rate mortgage. Since I was a long time customer they gave me a "Prime *minus* 0.7%" deal. I think I have the best rate in Canada! Telemarketers phone offering what they think is a killer rate, but none can beat 1.65% :)

I've been reading some real estate blogs and they think that the rates will stay around this point until near the end of 2010. Now a significantly higher percentage of my my monthly payments go towards principal instead of interest. I originally chose a 40 year mortgage so that I could afford this place, but now have only 19 years left!