ActiveSteve

New Bike!

A few weeks ago I finally broke down and bought a full-suspension mountain bike, to help me hopefully improve my adventure racing. I ended up getting a 2005 Specialized Epic Comp Disc, which is pretty much the ultimate machine for adventure racing. No, it’s not the bike pictured here, this one is a shot of a genuine swiss-army issue bike taken in 2003 in Chur, Switzerland. Mine is prettier :-).
Anyway, this bad boy has air shocks front and back, as well as top-end hydraulic brakes. It also features Specialized ‘brain’ shock in the back. Essentially, the bike performs like a hard-tail on any smooth surface, but still reacts to bumps in the road. Fantastic for comfort and efficiency on all-day trail riding. Oh yeah, and I love the color too! Now normally, a bike like this goes for $3400 +taxes, but I picked this bad boy up for a steal at Tommy and Lefebvre. $2000+tax. It was being cleared out, and was a store demo. The beauty is that one guy had it all summer, and barely touched it. I did more damage in one 3-hour ride than he did all summer! She’s now dented, scratched, and has a ripped seat. Looks like a real bike now.

Why did I go so extravagant you might ask? Well, basically, I’ve been on the same Kona Cinder Cone for about 6 years now, and really needed to upgrade. The opportunity presented itself, so I took it. If I had waited till next year to buy a bike, I would’ve been stuck buying brand new, and couldn’t have bought such a nice one. So, long story short, now I’m all set to tackle bigger races, like my dream, the Southern Traverse in New Zealand.

My Latest Toy….

1 Comment

Alrighty, Kev was hassling me to post pictures and blog on this new addition to my workshop, so here it is! What’s that? You don’t see the picture? Oh yeah, that’s cuz I haven’t put it up yet 🙂 But while I have a couple minutes, I at least thought I’d write about it. Picture in your mind a big table saw! Yup, I went to the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant), and picked up a Ryobi BT3100 Table Saw to help out with projects at home. What a blast! Even though table saws have the distinction of being the absolute most dangerous workshop tool around, I got one! So if you see me with only 9 fingers in the future, you’ll know why!

Why did I pick this saw you ask? Well, several reasons. It’s belt driven for one. It’s modular for another. It has a very accurate rip fence. Also, I’m a research freak, so I looked into all the details on this one, and read many reviews. Seems this little beauty has won over the hearts of even ‘traditionalist’ woodworkers. Read: grumpy older guys set in their tool ways! Anyway, I even came across a website dedicated to this saw, run by its’ fans. Click here to check that out.

Heading to NY Again…

Well, Jody and I had such a great time visiting New York that we’ve decided to make a return visit in the next few weeks. Andrea is currently working down there representing Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs on their mission to the United Nations. Or something like that.
At any rate, we’ve booked tickets to head down there from Ottawa on the bus. It’s about 9 hours each way, and we plan to make the trip on the red-eye. So we leave Ottawa at 10pm Thursday, and arrive 7am Friday. Ths shitty part is on the return trip, we get back to Ottawa at 7am on Monday. Oh well, straight to work for us!
Another funny thing that I learned is that on Greyhound, you don’t actually reserve a seat, you just get a ticket, valid for up to 1 year. That’s a bit scary, but the guy assured me if we get in by 30 minutes before the bus leaves, we should get on. Here’s hoping! All that remains is that we get our camera back from the shop by then, We haven’t had out camera since Peru. The lens wouldn’t open anymore. Woes us…

Canada Day 2005

Alrighty, now that Kev has worked out some kinks in the mighty system, I’m ready to blog directly from within Flickr. Sweet.. Yes Boris, perhaps I will achieve Zen and use Flock eventually, but for now, gotta get my training wheels on right. At any rate, here you will see a picture taken last Canada Day (July 1, 2005). My band, named Comfort Station was playing at an outdoor party for a crowd of about 500. It was sweet. Anyway, this was a shot of the Comfort Stations at the Comfort Station gig. Check out the whole set of pictures on flickr.

Flickr Pics are Set Up!

Huzzah! After a long wait, we’ve finally started getting our pictures from the Peru trip online. At the same time, we’ll also be slowly adding pictures from the thousands we have from other trips, parties, activities and adventures. As you might have guessed, we’ll be using Flickr. We got a ‘pro’ account, so we’ve got plenty of storage space, and will allow registered contacts the ability to actually download the high-res versions of any of our pictures, should you wish to re-print them for anything.

To get to the goods, head on over to my flickr site. If you had my other Flickr site as a contact, you may want to remove it, since I’ll be porting all the pictures on it to this new account.

I’ve also decided that I’ll try to start adding content to this site on a regular basis, so if you’d like to bookmark it, or get feeds from it, I’ll try to keep you up to date! Jody will also have an account, and will perhaps add her thoughts on occasion as well.