General

Since I've got your attention on these matters, I think I'll also share another source of inspiration that I've unearthed. I was going to tack this onto the end of my last post, but decided that it was important enough to get it's very own post. This inspiration comes from an unlikely source. Well, maybe not unlikely, but undiscovered by me until just today. It came in the form of a news article shared to me today by Larry, an old co-worker of Jody's from her CREA days. This article was about a fellow by the name of Randy Pausch, who just died today from pancreatic cancer. He was a university prof with a very distinguished pedigree in the world of virtual reality. So just what is the source of inspiration from him? Well that would be his 1hr and 16min lecture that he delivered in September 2007, which was his 'Last Lecture'. Basically, profs at Carnegie Mellon are given the chance to reflect on their lives and give a lecture based on what they would say if it would be the last lecture they would ever be giving before dying. Well, in an odd twist, Randy was actually doing just that. He had already been handed his death sentence resulting from the cancer diagnosis, and had to come to grips with it.

Well, since many of you may also follow Kev's blog, you'd already be aware that he made the jump and actually stood in line to buy a new iPhone. Of course, he's already written up a post about that, and you can read it in all its glory, should you be inclined. I myself chose not to make that leap. I'll be holding off on either buying an iPhone or a BlackBerry until my employer opts to make it part of my everyday life. This may surprise some of you, and it was indeed a conscious decision and thought, but I just can't justify spending $1000+ a year on that kind of service. Why? Well, I've got lots of computers already. I have a couple iPods already. I have a cell phone, a work phone, and a home phone. I have several GPS devices (car, wrist, computer, handheld). Do I need to bring them all together just so that I can use them on a whim while walking or in the bus or car? Nope. I decided I don't. As exciting as the new tech may be, I think I still ascribe to the belief that dedicated units are better. Surely Kev will disagree, and I respect that, but I decided it isn't for me. However, that didn't stop me from jumping on a bandwagon just the same, and forking over the same amount of money. What did I get? Well, the XBOX 360 of course! When the price for the 20Gb model dropped to $299, I couldn't resist any longer. Read on for a little story about that if you'd care to.

Howdy folks! Well, the October of relaxation just rolls along for ActiveSteve. The weekend after my nice relaxing trip to Mont Tremblant I had a few fun little plans lined up. The first such exciting plan was a Halloween shooter party on Friday night, followed by the Terri and Adam wedding on Saturday at the Beantown Ranch. Both events were a great time, and are a good prelude to my upcoming hiatus from Canada to the warm winds of New Zealand. I'll keep the story brief this time, because frankly, I've been spending my work days writing, and have plenty of other things to keep me busy at the moment. However, just to keep things consistent, as always, you can check out some of the weekend pictures. They're all from the wedding, as the Halloween pictures were inconsistent, and not particularly great. Explanation to follow.. read on :-)

Hey gang! Okay, so the title is a little misleading. All the same, this post is about a little trip we recently took to Mont Tremblant. This trip was a week and a half ago, and was Alix, Matt, Jody and I who spent the weekend there. The weekend was actually a thank-you prize that I received at this year's Quest for a Cure as a result of being the team that raised the most money for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Center. I was given a free weekend at a 2 bedroom condo at Hotel du Lac, a resort located across Lac Tremblant . The reason we had to wait so long to use the prize is that I've been too busy with races and such up until now. However, now that I'm on my month of fun, it was a prime time to get out there. If you'd like to do so, check out a whole pile of pictures we took over the weekend.

Howdy sports fans. Well, I guess this really isn't a sports-related post, as my season is sort of over for 2007, but there are sports and games involved. That is, if you consider drinking beer and schnapps a sport! Yup, Jody and I returned to our October tradition of heading to Oktoberfest in Kitchener-Waterloo. In the past 7 years, I've been there 5 times, and Jody has been there 4 times. Each year, a different crew of us head down to Alix's parents place, where we sleep in the basement, have a delicious Turkey dinner on Saturday, and of course head to the local sights and Festhallen for some Bavarian treats. Although there's not a whole lot to tell you about the weekend (you sorta have to be there to understand it), I'll still give you a little sense of the fun. Also, you can head over to Flickr to check out some pictures from the weekend. On with the tale.

Howdy all! Well, the full title of the post might actually be more like A Hard Night Drinking Leads to ... A Hard Day Biking, but I thought that was a bit too long for a blog posting title, and might be a bit misleading ;-) This little story is about a biking tour that I signed up to do more or less on a whim a couple weeks back. In fact, it was the day after my Iron distance triathlon that someone mentioned they were going to do it, so I decided I'd sign up as well. After all, in my mind, a 170km bike ride on a Sunday would be a nice way to spend a day, now that I knew I could handle those distances. After all, this was billed as a "Tour", not a "Race", with a sport group and a touring group. That was my plan, to just take it easy and tour. Well, things don't always go the way you plan, and if you read on, you'll read what I mean by that in the context of this event. If you'd like, you can check out a map that I put together of the bike ride. Sadly, there are only 6 pictures, as all the batteries I had brought were dead. However, you can go to flickr, and check out other pics that explain the story as well!

Well, a mighty congratulations goes out to Rob and Anna, who tied the knot just over a week ago at Watson's Mill in Manotick. I was lucky enough to be one of the four best men to take part in the wedding, and share in their special day. As a result, there was a fair bit of partying to be done as well, which included not just one, but two bachelor parties, as well as the wedding itself. And all this a mere week away from my Iron-distance triathlon! This post will share a bit of the fun that we had over the week before the wedding, as well as the wedding itself. The fun was multiplied by the fact that we had some special guests come from out of town that we hadn't seen in a while, which made it all the better. Namely, Tanya, Troy, Duane and Boris made the trip from their respective corners of Canada to celebrate with us. Read on to hear a bit more about this once-in-lifetime event for Rob and Anna. If you're so inclined, you can also head over toflickr to paw through the many pictures that we took.

Howdy folks! I'm sure if you're reading this post, you're expecting me to be writing about my latest race result, right? Well, much as I'd like to jump the gun and get right to it, I'm still a couple posts behind, so rather than just skip them, I'm forcing myself to at least write a few paragraphs on a couple things that happened before this weekend :-) As you're no doubt aware, I've been doing a lot of training lately in preparation for my Iron distance triathlon. However, in the last few weeks of training for any big event, you're supposed to do what's called a taper, which is when you reduce you're training volume. So this post and the next are about what I did during that taper. It's important to make sure that you take some time to recover and get yourself mentally prepared for the big race! Read on to hear about what I did a few weeks back.