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 them while juggling two jobs!).
You may also like
Gobble gobble. Oops, I guess that’s Thanksgiving, isn’t it? Okay, I’m really talking about Easter weekend for this post. The title is a bit misleading, since I already seem to have burned off the extra bunny weight, but boy, did I eat a whole butt-load of great food over the weekend. If there is one thing I can say about visiting my dad and his wife, it’s that you never leave with an empty belly. This visit was no exception. You see, on a whim about a month ago, I booked a fairly affordable weekend airfare for Nova Scotia, since I hadn’t been out to see him since he moved fully into his new house in Pictou . It took a while for them to off-load the old house, which meant there was a bit of stress on their end, but now that they’ve sold it and fully moved to the new place, they can now work on getting it set up the way they want it. I figured it would be a good chance to see it ‘in progress’. I’ve taken a number of pictures over the weekend, both at home, as well as around the area while running and visiting friends. Check ’em out if you want, then come back to read a short bit more about what I got up to over the 4-day weekend.
You know, winter wouldn’t be complete anymore without a hike down to Jim Doucette’s cabin for a good old-fashioned winter poker night in Calabogie! That’s exactly what we did the first weekend I was back from the Dominican Republic. The notice wasn’t totally last minute, but it was a bit rushed for me to make up my mind about going or not. As such, I decided this time around that I would only go out for supper and the games, and head back into town later the same night. After all, I had some pretty intense training to go to the next morning, and I knew that if I stayed over, it would mean only one thing… too much partying with the boys. So sets the stage for the second winter invitational poker tournament at the cabin. This post will give you a little colour around this fun event.
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.
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.