March 2007 - ActiveSteve

Uncle’s Log – 1 Year In

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?!

Life in General

Should I Kick it Up a Notch?

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Howdy all! Well, this past week, I attended a conference in Toronto called ICE ’07 (Interactive Content Exchange) as part of my new role in which I am doing research on New Media. This conference was a relatively small affair with about 440 attendees, most of which were owners and/or high-level company officials form some of Canada’s cutting edge New Media companies. It was a great networking opportunity, and I met many interesting people with whom to chat about technology, shilfts in consumer behaviours, and web trends. The bulk of the conference was panel discussions, not straight presentations, which I think was actually better. Of course, it meant I had to take a lot of notes myself, but it sparked some interesting debates. This was also an opportunity to learn more about some of the latest web properties fighting for eyeballs in the vast emptiness of what we know as the Internet. This has prompted me to step back a bit and re-examine my online presence and the tools I’ve been using to promote me. As you are all well aware, it consists mainly of this site, as well as all my pictures up on Flickr. Not a great Web 2.0 presence, is it? Well, read on for some of my thoughts on where to go next.

Race Reports

I Have a New Training Partner

Howdy all! Hope everyone is doing well on this first official day of spring! So, do you think that spring has truly sprung? Personally, I would say yes, on account of all the fine weather we’ve already had, plus the fact that we’ve changed all the damn clocks already. For a night owl, I much prefer the fall back than the spring ahead, but that’s a totally different story, isn’t it? I also know that spring has truly sprung because I’m realizing that I have to get more serious about my training again. I have a bit of a lull between races at the moment, so that’s as good a time as any to re-organize my training schedule and get things back on track. That generally means picking up my 5 times a week running plan again, and making sure I do as much biking and swimming as I can as well. In the past, I’ve generally done all of my training solo, utilizing my trusty Suunto heart rate monitor, and Gmaps Pedometer to get things going. It’s been a pretty successful plan, and luckily I have enough motivation to keep it up. However, over the winter months, I started doing a bit more group training. Specifically, I’ve been going to 2-3 spin classes a week, and running Sundays with a group of triathlete-types at what is affectionately known as ‘Happytime’ (1.5 – 2.5 hours running followed directly by 2 hours spinning). That’s gotten me a bit used to having some training partners. As such, I decided maybe I should buddy up with someone. As you have probably guessed by the picture already, this buddy now comes in electronic format! Perfect for a techie guy like me. So just what is this huge watch? Well, read the whole post to find out!

Race Reports

Valiant Effort at Champs

I can now say that I raced in the Canadian National snowshoe championships. In fact, I can also say that in my age category, I was the 3rd fastest racer in the Canadian National snowshoe championships! Yup, that’s right, I got third place. Sadly, the field wasn’t that huge, because truth be told, I had what I would consider a pretty mediocre race. Of course, I do have a valid excuse. It turns out that you really shouldn’t race hard for 7 hours the day before a race like this 😉 On the plus side, I dragged a camera along with me for the entire race to snap pics. If you’d like to see them, head on over to the flickr folder. But before you do that, why not read my little tale of pushing hard?

Race Reports

A Brick Work-out… AR Style

Winter is a great time of year, isn’t it? When else can you go from a balmy spring-like day to a massive snow dump in just under 24 hours? So began the weekend of double races for me! I had signed up quite a while ago for all three races in the Mad Trapper Snowshoe series, the last of which was to occur on March 6th. Luckily for me, the Raid Pulse Winter Adventure race was also scheduled for the same weekend, and I decided to go ahead and sign up for it as well. The idea of this race was to get in some good team dynamic building by racing as a team of 4 racers with my Hyper-Active team. Unfortunately, the race only accepted pairs of racers, so we signed up as a co-ed team of two (myself and Anne-Marie), and a male team (Steeve and Carl). The main goal was to see how we’d get along as a team racing together, in preparation for the longer summer races we’d like to race as a team. Anywho, this post will be about the first race of the weekend, the 6-8 hour winter AR race at Plaisance, Quebec, which is a town about an hour east of Ottawa on the Quebec side. Read on for more about that.