Activesteve.com is Born…

You know, for all the complaining people do about how cold and miserable the winters are around here, I must disagree with them. Take for instance a great weekend that I had on Jan 21-22nd. That weekend had all the trappings of a classic Canadian winter outing. A group of 13 of us guys got together to snowshoe out to Jim Doucette’s property out by Calabogie Peaks for a night of Poker, Cigars, beans and booze. What could possibly make for a better outing I ask you? The cabin, although not completed yet, was plenty comfortable for us. I hauled out a proper poker table, and Jim brought out a ton of food. To make the outing even better, Mother Nature blessed us with a dump of like 25cm of fresh snow. Were it not for that, it might have been a slush-fest. Instead, however, we were treated to a nice peaceful trek in the snow (and of course an associated shovelling of a path to the outhouse!). When we got out there, Jim put Darcy, Kevin and myself to work getting things ready for the rest of the crew. Once 3 other people showed up, I declared a shift change, and the 3 of us went out for a great little snowshoe around the area. Kev took a bunch of pictures throughout the weekend, and you can check them all out in his Calabogie Poker Night set.

Welcome to the new face of ActiveSteve.com. Although the old website design that I had been working with was fine, I thought it was time to present a new face for my place on the web. You’ll notice that this new site boasts a number of new and interesting features. On the top, you’ll notice that you can select different background colors to suit your taste. You can also make the main text area wider or narrower, as well as select a larger font spacing for ease of reading. That’s just for starters. You’ll also see that I’ve put in a neat-o menu along the top to access sub-content areas of this site. You’ve now got an easy way to check out the other great features of this site, including my events section, a section highlighting all my race results, and links to view posts specific to racing, travels, and general posts.

Wow, it’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost a year since I became an uncle (and subsequently Godfather) to the cute Helena Murielle Meyer! On Friday, April 13th, she’ll be one year old! So how exactly has all this changed me, you might wonder? Well, on the global scheme, I’d have to say that it hasn’t really changed me too much, but it has certainly added a bit of extra joy in my life! Of course, the group of you who have already jumped into parenthood are no doubt fully aware of this concept of new joy, but for a guy like me, well it’s a new experience. Anywho, to learn more about my thoughts and experiences one year into this gig, read on.

When Helena first arrived, I’m not sure what I was expecting. I suppose I thought that right away, I’d have a little niece to play with and be entertained by. Well, that really isn’t the case for the first few months. Each time I would go and visit Helena, invariably, it would basically just be a visit with Andrea and Patrick while Helena slept. The nice part about that was that Helena wasn’t too noisy or fussy. She was quite content to sleep away the time. She also wasn’t exactly growing at a very rapid pace. For quite a while, she stayed tiny, which had her mom and dad a little concerned. They had her on a rigourous diet, having her eat all the time pretty much. She started putting on a little weight, but was still at the bottom of the charts as far as size was concerned. But really, does that surprise anyone? Have a look at both parents, and tell me what you think?!