Hooray! The bar is seriously starting to shape up into the beautiful oak masterpiece that I envisioned it will be! On the right you can see a shot of the current bar progress. All the main cabinetry work is done, and the lower bar counter-top has been installed. The sink was fitted in for the picture, but not yet fastened down, to make sure I don’t mark it up before finishing the other pieces. The counter came out really nice, and I think this will definitely be a bar worthy of pouring some high-quality spirits on. To those ends, Jody even gave me an early Easter gift, a bottle of Tanqueray No. TEN, a top-shelf gin, since she knows me affinity towards gin. I now have nice top shelf Rum (various aged rums), Vodka (Grey Goose of course), Gin (Tanq. No. TEN) and Tequila (Cuervo Gold), not to mention a nice Single Malt. All these bottles, along with countless others, will no doubt grace the liquor shelf soon once the bar is completed.
Welcome back, sports fans! I’m happy to report that ActiveSteve has had another successful racing weekend out in the snowy hills in Quebec. Yup, this was the second of four snowshoe races that form the Mad Trapper snowshoe series. This time, I was racing the “hilly” course, which was about 10km of pristine trails with lots of ups and downs. The weather once again was pretty much ideal for a race in the snow, albeit a bit cold. For those who don’t care to read the entire post, my results were pretty much exactly as they were last time, with me coming in 5th place overall, although at least this time I didn’t have to run it out with a competitor at the last second. I brought my camera out, but sadly, the batteries weren’t charged up, and I only got one shot of me at the finish. Luckily, my friend Andrew had his too, so I managed to steal a few of his shots to add them to a folder of winter pictures that I put up on flickr. In order to make up for it, I created a map with my GPS. Of course, it’s not quite as dramatic as when I make the map with pictures, but at least you can see where I did the race, and get an idea of the terrain. Once you’re done getting through that stuff, read on for the whole story.
Welcome back to my first official post of the racing season. I’ve been putting off posting in any great detail lately because things have really been up and down for me the past few weeks. Since being told that I have a recurring injury, I’ve been doing my best to recover from it and strengthen my left leg. I thought things were going great, and was about to post to that effect last week when BAM! I relapsed quite badly and was told once again not to run. Not a good prognosis, given that I was slated to not only run, but race, in three days’ time. To remove any suspense, I did indeed race, but tried to go easy on myself. I grabbed 5th Place in the male category, and the rest of the details will follow below.
If you’ve been paying attention to my blog, you will have noticed that the Mad Trapper snowshoe race was actually not listed as my next upcoming event. As a result of my injury, I had removed it from my ‘official’ events stream. However, after a few good weeks of recovery, I registered anyway (actually, I registered for all 3 events!), hoping to go for it. Training runs with Grant and alone had been going well, with fairly little pain coming back. However, after a full training week, and seriously upped mileage on my feet, the pain eventually came back strong. The only way to lick it is to rest more. So, I’ll do more biking, swimming and weights, but less running for the remainder of January. But enough about that, what about the race, you ask?
Yup, as the picture suggests, I’ve now turned into one of ‘those’ people. I’m a pod person. I’m now the proud owner of a new toy, in the form of a 30 Gig, 5th generation video iPod. I came to own this little beauty in a spontaneous, roundabout kind of way. Last week, I showed up at work, and we were having a silent auction at lunch to raise funds for charity. There was quite a few unimpressive ‘prizes’ like logo’ed shirts from phone and broadcast companies, some dvds, cds, and sports tickets, but there was also this nice little iPod. Of course, I was well aware that it would fetch quite a few bids, and I wasn’t even convinced that I wanted it. In the end, I put in a bid of $250… and won! Overall, I’d say I did get a reasonable deal. They sell for $300+tax online and in stores, so I saved about $90.
