Canada Day 2005

To finish off my marathon of blogging today, I thought I’d share with you a picture of my completed bar. As most of you know, I’ve been working away for the better part of 5 months on my bar project. It was an on-again off-again sort of affair, with me putting in any free time I could find into the crafting of this mega piece of functional furniture. Well, all the hard work has paid off! The bar is officially complete! The only thing left to do now is decorate the back wall with some pictures. I’ve filled in the cracks and varnished them over. I’ve also stocked the shelves with delicious booze, hung all the stemware on my recently-completed stemware rack (designed and built by me), bought a new blender for the bar, and I’ve even fixed the door that Matt broke over the weekend when he was watching Jonah! (I knew it needed fixing before though, so I’m not mad) I’ve got to say, I’m extremely proud of my accomplishment. When I started this project, I had a stack of papers, a stack of straight boards, and a dream. I’ve had to teach myself a lot about woodworking, and endure the inevitable slip-ups that go along with it. At the end of the day, I won’t even hazzard a guess at my total project cost (especially when you factor in the tools I had to buy!). Needless to say, you can’t really put a price on it. I suppose a carpenter could custom build a bar for you, and a solid oak bar like mine would cost you thousands of dollars. However, it would never be the same as knowing you built it yourself, with your own two hands. I know every detail, every flaw, every grain in the wood. It’s a cool feeling. To see the whole progression of the project, you can of course head over to the bar folder on flickr. I guess I like the sense of ownership and accomplishment on completing a big project. In the past, those projects would have been our deck, the shed, the roof, and the CDs I’ve recorded and mixed entirely on my own in the studio for my past bands, the Picklecatz and Comfort Station. Looking forward, I’ve got my 6-month bike odyssey in New Zealand and the Southern Traverse to look forward too. I don’t like sitting still too long without something big on the go I guess. I think I’ll take the next while off though, and try to actually enjoy this bar. Anyone up for a drink? 😉

Hey gang, just wanted to let you know that my new domain is born! I finally broke down and got my own domain name, to more accurately reflect the direction this site is going to take. Please say hello to https://activesteve.com! Over the next few months, I’ll be totally re-formatting this website to become my more ‘professional’ race-oriented site. I’ll introduce a new style, some new features, and hopefully sub-sections. You’ll still get the same riveting tales, but differently organized. I’ll keep personal and travel tales in one area, and all race-related goodies elsewhere. This is all part of my re-branding strategy that I’ll be undertaking in order to better market myself in hopes of securing some sponsorship deals for next year (no, not CDN Gov. sponsorship, but real ones!). With all the racing and travelling for races I plan to do, including NZ, I need to start soliciting people for help! In the meantime, if you’ve got links to this website, you might want to rename them to activesteve.com, in order to make sure the traffic gets attributed to my ‘official’ site from now on! Thanks, and please stay tuned for the exciting changes (as long as I can find the time to implement the

Well, keeping the ball rolling, Jody and I completed Phase II of our basement renovation projects. Media Cabinet, check. Painting, check. With the carpet on its’ way, we had to get cracking on working on the next part of the project. We wanted to make sure we got all the ceiling, walls, doors and trim painted before the new carpet went down, that way we didn’t have to be nearly as careful. As a result we started the prep work on Friday night, and worked through till Sunday to get it all done. Never one to do things half-assed, we started off by filling in all the old holes and sanding everything smooth so that the paint would stick well. We also taped off the critical things, so as not to bung things up too badly during the paint process.

Then, we hit all the surfaces with two coats of our paint (Behr Premium Plus – color Raffia Cream for those interested). One might have been okay, but two coats on the walls just made it that much nicer, and presumably more durable. After that, the baseboards and doors were all given two coats of glossy white paint. The end result is quite stunning, and should be even better once the new carpet goes in.

I ask you this; Is there anything better than a nice relaxing weekend camping along a river in the summer? Well, although we only managed to get out for a single night of camping over the past weekend (and entire summer so far!), it was really nice. Jody and I headed out to Calabogie to camp on Jim’s property along the Madawaska river last weekend, with Jonah in tow. The idea was just to get away from the city for a quiet night on the river, with a nice campfire, some camp chow, and watery fun in the river. Mission accomplished. Although I had grander plans, which included night biking trips, maybe trail running, and hiking, we really didn’t move too far from our campsite. The only trips we made were up the hill to the cabin to visit our ‘neighbours’, Jim, Allie and Xavier. They were up for the weekend getting some additional work done on the homestead and just generally enjoying their property. Who can blame them? After his recent trip to Utah for Primal Quest, I would imagine Jim thoroughly enjoyed his beer, cigar and scotch under a starry sky by the campfire. I know I did 😉