London Birthday

Since it was Maggie's birthday today, I figured that I would go out and surprise her at school with some flowers and chocolates. She had told me that there was a talk in the afternoon so I knew her schedule for the day. I had about a half an hour window to show up after her classes were done at 1200 and before the talk started at 1230. The plan was to show up at lunch time with the gifts. Fortunately, both were available in abundance as Valentine's day was around the corner. I ran some errands in the morning and was listening to the traffic reports to make sure that I would have no hindrance on the way to London. I had passed by the 401 and noticed that traffic was not moving on the westbound lanes. Unfortunately there was an accident in the middle of the city since 0700 which had brought the 401 to a standstill on the east end. I had hoped that by the time I had run my errands, that the accident would have been cleared out as any detour would probably take just as long as actually using the highway. Well, luckily enough, after I had finished picking up everything, the accident had been cleared and vehicles were starting to move. I decided to jump in because, it could not be that bad right?

Well, it was not too bad. I had factored in some buffer in case of traffic, and once we passed the accident site traffic was moving fairly well. At least for a few minutes. I heard on the radio that there may be some sort of incident on the eastbound lanes, but I figured that rubberneckers shouldn't slow traffic down too much going west. I was surprised when traffic came to a full stop in the express lanes. I had already passed the transfer lanes and was staring longingly at the cars that were zipping past in the collector lanes. Apparently there was another accident ahead that had blocked up half of the highway. It took another half-hour before I was able to get past that accident. It looked like a single vehicle car crash (pretty serious) but I am always amazed how one person's actions could affect thousands of people.

In any case, I continued west. The other issue I came across was gasoline. I had at least half a tank available according to my fuel gauge, and less than 250 kilometers against the tank. But with the extreme cold weather we've been having, the fuel mileage I could get on a tank of gas was a lot less than normal, and after 100 kilometers the needle was getting really close to the horizontal line. I had to stop for gas. In the end, I walked into the building at 1245.

I did not want to walk into the middle of a talk, as that would have been extremely embarrassing, but I was surprised to see so many people milling about. I realized that everyone was eating lunch, and pretty much as soon as I walked in, people recognized me and started pointing out where Maggie was. So I followed the direction, and the growing chorus of exclamative sighs (or whatever that sound females make when they see something that they find cute) before I found my wife eating lunch.

Maggie with her flowers and chocolates.

Yeah she was surprised. Pleasantly I might add. Also embarrassed.

So I was told a number of times from male attendees that I was making them look bad. I was told even more times from the female attendees that I should set up some sort of academy or seminar for their significant others. A possible business idea now that I think about it. *rubs chin*

Anyway, after the seminar and a quick nap, we had dinner at The Springs Restaurant (tasty) and I drove back. I think it is time for me to go to sleep..