Extreme Ice Cream

If I thought the cinnamon roll thing was craziness, I didn't know what I was talking about. After dinner with C&T, went to Ben&Jerry's with both 2 for 1 coupons. The waffle cones looked really good, and you could get two scoops. After some thinking, we decided we'd get 3 waffle cones and a cup, using our two 2 for 1 coupons, even though we knew it would be a lot, it wouldn't cost more than just the three cones anyways. Unfortunately most of the flavours I wanted were almost out. But in the end, we got our three cones worth, and they were huge! Way more than even the picture showed, how often do you get that?! And then after putting two scoops in the cup, he offered us a third scoop of something, so of course we accepted! So I had a huge cone in one hand and a heaping pile of ice cream in a cup in the other, while Chris and Tara each had their giant cones, it was about 9 large scoops in total! And then when we paid, the guy seemed a little stoned, he only charged us for one! Must have figured coupons were multiplicative not additive, 2for1 x 2for1 = 4for1! Craziness!

Started walking home, wasn't long before it started melting. People were jogging along while we were walking with more ice cream than anyone should really ingest. As we were crossing the bridge off of Prince's island, my hand holding the cup was now covered in melting ice cream, and we noticed we were leaving a trail of drips that could be followed, either like a hansel and gretel type of deal, or as a tracker following a criminal ("they stopped here for a minute, then headed in that direction... the scent is fresh, we must be getting close!") Soon everything was seeming hilarious! Chris suggested the curling club be renamed the "Hurry Harder Memorial Arena", and we couldn't stop laughing. I thought about all this ice cream, and the cinnarolls from earlier, and asked "How many Calories are you supposed to eat in a day?" He answered "All of them." Doesn't even make sense, but we couldn't stop laughing. Eventually got the cones finished and the cup below overflow level, and arrived home completely bloated on ice cream.

That's perhaps the most ice cream I've ever had in one session. And we still had some left over. 2 for 1 coupons, dangerous I tells ya.

Motto

Cinnzeo's motto is "the best tasting cinnamon rolls on earth." This suggests we may be able to find better tasting cinnamon rolls on another planet. I propose we mount an expedition! First stop, Venus! (I hear that's where all the chicks are)

2 for 1

There's a japanese restaurant across the street from work. but I don't find them that good. So I was only gonna eat half my order. So I used a "2 for 1" coupon, and ate half of both orders, thereby getting a full meal. Follow my logic?

In the hands of the wrong person, a 2 for 1 coupon can be as deadly as a gun... Went to cinnzeo, they have cinnarolls and pecarolls, so I decided to use the coupon to get one of each. But they didn't have any pecans, so the clerk offered to just give me caramel on top of a cinnaroll and charge me for the cinnaroll. She asked if I wanted big or small, I chose big, but big weren't ready, so she offered to give me two small instead, so I accepted. She picked out four, then totally drenched two of them in caramel. Oh my god, I'd have probably gone into shock if I had eaten them all at once!

I've got two 2 for 1 ice cream coupons for eau claire. And, Chris is in town! With his wife... so that's three of us... so chris and his wife can use one coupon, and I'll use a coupon to get two for myself :P

Actually I remember chris doing that once, seven or eight years ago probably, we were both working downtown and him me and batri met up in TD for lunch, and chris had two yogen fruz coupons so batri and I shared one and he used one for himself, and was going to make his coworkers jealous :) I didn't have my wallet, so I let batri pay, then I owed him $2 so when I got back to my office/wallet, I used a thick permanent marker to write "BATRI" on a toonie, but I didn't see batri again for months and eventually the batri toonie disappeared, must have spent it :) Maybe someday the batri toonie will make its way home to batri.

That would be interesting actually, to follow the travels of a coin. I was going to do something like that on my costa rica trip, I had a photo and I was thinking of leaving it in an airport with a note written on the back, and hopefully she would travel from airport to airport around the world, logging her destinations, and perhaps one day when she'd had enough, make her way back home. But I didn't do it.

Where they are

In follow up to the previous post, remembered I can see where any plane is at the current moment (but still won't know where it will be in the future) using FlightAware (flightaware.com) and punching in the aircraft tail numbers! Looks like STAR-3 is in the air between Iqaluit and Iceland, STAR-4 left flightaware's network long time ago (heading west from Alaska), STAR-5 just did a mission in Michigan after coming over from Maine, and STAR-6 has been flying out of Billings Montana. Neat!

Schedule

Looks like I'll be training and working on "STAR-6" Oct 14 to Nov 21. And on "STAR-5" Dec 22-?... no family christmas this year, but I guess I kindof knew that would probably happen.

Need to find out where those planes will be... STAR-6 probably USA, STAR-5 probably eastern Europe.

Beautiful evening

Went down to the sea container to pick up something I'd lost on festival weekend. Then took a walk and looked out over the reservoir. It was such a beautiful evening, even though I had stuff I needed to be doing, I sat down and watched the sun set for most of an hour. Warm summer air, a very gentle breeze off the smooth blue water, a few small clouds hovering above the horizon in an otherwise clear blue sky, a couple canoes and a lone sailboat slowly and silently moving about, the sun glowing as it finally drops behind the distant mountains.

Stories from the festival

Overall weekend was ok. Fun like all festivals, but busy, and weather was unpleasant, and we were consistently a fraction of a second behind where we needed to be. I did some steering along with the regular paddling.

Though there were many around, I realized afterwards I hardly spent any time chatting with some friends during the days. Though it was like that last year too, despite the extra free time and nice weather, as different people have different preferred activities between races.

Friday had the oil sands cup. We arrived and had plenty of time to set up the tent before the race, cause everything was already behind schedule cause of the silly starting block. Things looked neat though cause of the unusual (evening) angle of the sun. Out on the water, first experience with the starting block wasn't great, our steers "had trouble getting it in, so I had to pull out, and try again." Completed the first race and advanced to the second, completed it and were advancing to third, then discovered the third race was canceled for time, so we were disappointingly left with our second place finish, a fraction of a second too slow.

Had some steers and drummers meetings, by the time those were all done it was too late to go to globalfest fireworks, so some of us went to dinner. Did some good old fashioned chinatown sidewalk driving to try to grab a good parking spot (I first remember Arnold doing that actually, some years ago). Dinner was satisfying and renewed my faith in U&Me. I was substitute Sheldon and cleaned up.

Sat morning went down early, but was still slightly later than I should be. Then ran into a friend going the other way and walked with her and was more late, though it of course didn't matter. Paddled for my team, got the fastest 200m time of the festival (outside the national competition). Sometime steered for little dragons too, were in lane 7 beyond the race course so it was actually probably easier getting us set up. I found that drawing+prying was well over twice as effective as drawing alone. Second time paddling, fraction of a second behind Guardian. But overall we'd still be number 1 qualifier regardless of which method they chose. They changed the rules to use each team's best time instead of combined time, since so many teams spun out and would have had crappy combined times. Guess it's more fair that way. There was the mens race, we were second behind "team miscellaneous" as I called them. Finally there was the 1000m exhibition races. They said they were going to start slowest first, fastest last (to maximize opportunities for passing and collisions?), but they didn't (or perhaps because we were called "Topmade 1" instead of our regular name), so we started third. As we reached the turn, we had passed one team and were passing the other team. They actually admitted afterwards to pushing their turn a bit late in order to mess up our turn a bit. My comment afterwards: "Why fight against the inevitable?" We passed them as soon as we came out of the turn, and proceeded through open waters to the finish line. Had the fastest time for the 1000m races.

Was again among the last people leaving race site, and this time we went to Japanese for dinner. Ran into a few other people I know there. Started feeling a little nervous about steering. Of us five novice steers, two had spun out, and another did fine but was too stressed about it to steer again. It felt kindof like it was the Reservoir vs topmade novice steers, and the reservoir seemed to be winning!

Sunday again super early, again happened to walk with the same friend to race site. I like that parking area. Had 3 hours to wait before it was time to race. And while saturday had been a bit chilly, sunday was miserably cold and began to drizzle all day. At least I brought a lot of changes of clothing. In the morning, hung out with a fellow steers by the staging area cause some teams were in need of substitute steers. I almost got to drum a race while my fellow steered! But when they first called me to do it, I was nervous and said so and kindof backed off, then when I realized it would be really neat to be up front for once, and would probably never have that opportunity again, it was too late as a different team grabbed me to steer for them. Oh well. They were really impressed that I was asking them what their starts were and was going to echo their drummer and stuff (stuff I assumed every steers would do but apparently their saturday steers subs hadn't). They were like "Yesterday we had some guy who'd only done one race before and didn't really know what he was doing and spun us out..." and I was thinking 'should I tell them I've only really done one race before too? Nah!" Raced and got second (team my fellow was steering for got 1st though, grr, and again later in the when we both steered in the same race). Later they ended up getting bronze in div C. But I was too busy to steer them in that race. Later I steered for Really Ridiculously Good Looking Dragons (I guess that made me a really ridiculously good looking steersperson). People started converting large black garbage bags to rain poncho-vests. I had brought a whole bunch and was donating them to everyone, and wore one myself. Later on when the rain was a bit heavier I sported a white plastic bag on my head, and was no longer good looking enough to steer for them. (I had donated my touque to another teammate... I had only just put it on and realised what a big difference it made when she saw it and asked to borrow it!) But I still steered the parents team. During the semi final race I paddled in, we took a second place. To get to the Div A final you had to win one of the four semi finals or be one of the two fastest second places. We ended up being the third fastest second place, by a fraction of a second (though still almost 3 seconds faster than the #1 team in the previous semi final who did get to go to the div A final). Really disappointing, I really really wanted to be in the Div A final race like in lethbridge and vernon, even if we got spanked once we were there.

After a race, someone was shivering almost too much to talk. Was going to kick his butt (cause I knew he'd be stubborn) and make him change into some warmer dry clothes I had. But he disappeared too quick, and next time I saw him it was too late and he was shivering uncontrollably. People had him wrapped in blankets which is a loving act but unfortunately a pretty useless act as he was still wearing all the wet clothes. But everyone wants to help of course, which ends up as "too many chefs in the kitchen". I'd think with all the "outdoorsy" people within the teams though, we would have had a better response to the situation, but it can be a big step from knowing stuff to using that knowledge. Eventually paramedics arrived and took over.

While staging on shore for our consolation race, NAVY was singing away. They seem pretty fun, they like to sing and they have a whole repertoire of songs. We had nothing. Don't know who started it, but soon our team was all singing "Row Row Row your boat, gently down the stream!" to the cheering and applause of the others. Then someone got patriotic and soon all the staging teams were singing O Canada together. It was perhaps the funnest "staging" ever :) Unfortunately in the race, as was our theme, we ended up a fraction of a second behind NAVY. We should have had that one, we were much faster than them in the semi finals. Oh well. Interestingly, for the Div A final, it was the two second-place-in-semi-finals teams that took first and second in the final.

The sun came out for the final couple races of the day, it was so nice after spending a good portion of the day shivering. Mens race came after the Div A final for some reason, we took second to team miscellaneous. There were only two teams participating at that point, so we got a silver medal. As homer says, "Default? Woo-hoo! The two sweetest words in the english language: De fault! De fault! De fault!" The festival really splurged this year and printed the year on the medals! Most of us immediately scratched at it to see if it was a sticker, but it was actually engraved in! Was chatting with Andrew at the end of the day (still the guy I miss paddling with most from the old Topmade group) and we figure someone's still sleeping in piles of cash. He heard they spent $82000 on the starting block.

Stuck around to clean up. Eventually mostly finished and most people were gone. But, we discovered a couple flats of yogurt sitting in the field! Mmmm, field yogurt. It was still there a little while later, and it had been cool enough all day, a few of us decided to scavenge them! Some teammates thought we were crazy to take and eat food we found sitting around in a field. Four of us left with about 16 yogurts each.

Was recruiting people to go for dinner again. A couple teammates hanging around the beer gardens, a few running around and said they'd be right back. After Andrew left, I realized I couldn't see any teammates anymore. Waited a while, then searched the site, but once it started raining again I decided to leave. I was sufficiently worn down by the end of the weekend that I was primed to feel really upset about getting ditched. But I'm proud that instead of just feeling crappy about it, I took steps to fix it, and decided to search a restaurant someone suggested when I requested vietnamese (that's right, this weekend had the three major food groups: chinese japanese and vietnamese :P) and then would the cell number I've had memorized for years. Saw someone's car at the restaurant and saw someone else arriving, so it was the right place. Had a good time though the wall I put between me and exhaustion had crumbled. Remind me I owe someone money. Stayed there laughing and swapping stories till the restaurant kicked us out. Home, felt so good to have a shower and go to sleep.

Camp Okutta

An Adventure Camp For Kids!
www.campokutta.com





references:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/08/22/camp-okutta.html
http://torontoist.com/2007/08/camp_okutta.php

Weekend of temple

Spent pretty much the entire weekend at the temple... Friday about 7pm-10pm, sat 9:30am-10pm, sun 9am-8pm. It was "all souls festival", one of the three three-day festivals we do each year. But it seemed beefed up this year, not sure why, maybe just got some more specific directions from somewhere, and there was a 'special guest'. Saturday was crazy, I estimate I spent a total of about 7 hours kneeling upright. Never spent that much time on my knees in one day in my life! At some points I felt like collapsing down to sit on my heels or sit cross-legged, actually a little speech from arnold passed through my head, something along the lines of "I know you're tired, but there are 19 other paddlers who are also tired, they're not giving up and they're counting on you to not give up either." Obviously not quite the same situation, but it's still motivational. And if my 'seat partner' had 'given up' I probably would have too.

Had to miss the weekend's dragonboat practices though, I had an almost perfect record of only missing one practice (Canada day) so far. Oh well. (Also, with the regular season almost over, looks like I won't get to do my "11 practices in one week" crazy idea)

Anyways, I forgot to mention in previous posts that I'm heading down east for a week sept 1-10. The temple is having a supermega grand opening of the quiet cultivation centre in orangeville, there will be members there from across the country and the world, as well as a bunch of monks from Yuen Yuen, Chi Wo Tan, and Fung Ying Seen Koon in Hong Kong. Should be pretty neat. But still maybe not worth the expense just for that. So I decided to head down a few days early and visit with friends in Toronto and Waterloo (would visit Travis in Hamilton, but not much time and he's coming to calgary right after that). Should be lots of fun. And was actually easy to get time off work... leaving for the first week of a new job doesn't sound that good, but thanks to 'field averaging plan' it's not vacation or absence or anything.

If only working for intermap was this exciting

Dreamed again. Not sure how it started. First thing I recall is being somewhere in the field, and both STAR-3 and STAR-4 were flying nearby, and some jet fighter was shooting at them. No mega explosive missiles or anything, but even so our aircrafts are just sitting ducks compared to the fighter zooming around, not much they can do. I know they were both hit. Ok, then I think me and another guy (not sure if it was paul, or daniel, or vlad, or maybe neither) took off in a balloon in the hopes of escaping the area. I think the basket we were in got some holes punched into it. I think I then jumped out of the balloon with some hang glider contraption, but much cooler (not sure what happened to the person I was with). Somehow ended up in a small communications base on the side of a mountain. Lots of monitors, and a couple people working in there. I think it was dusk at this point. Some enemy helicopter was still around somewhere nearby. I think I was contacting the main base to let them know what was up and ask what to do. But before they could tell me anything, I looked up and out the large window, and saw the helicopter nearby slowly heading directly our way (think it reminds me of the helicopter at the beginning of Transformers movie, mysterious and intimidating). I said "looks like airwolf found us!" to whoever I was communicating with and immediately dove into a nearby hatch (not sure what happened to the com centre or the couple people there). It went down a long slide and such and ended up on the first or second floor of a hotel in town. Wasn't really sure what my plan was now. It was dark by that time. I think I headed outside, but I recalled hearing the evil guy (there was some main guy who was after me, and I think he had a kindof stupid sidekick) in the stairwell. I planned on him leaving the stairwell into the hotel while at the same time I'd go into it from outside a couple floors down and backtrack or something. But I think he heard me. Anyways, that's about all I remember. Come to think of it, I think there was a chunk of the dream with this guy after me at the beginning of the dream, and we were sneaking around many underground service corridors and up industrial elevators and stuff.

Dreams are awesome.

Sherbrooke

Coincidentally, before reading that PC points thing, I was already thinking of quebec. For some reason tonight was reminding me of my time in Sherbrooke during grad studies. Not sure why. Driving around town, going to the supermarket or restaurants in the evening.

One thing I've found myself missing often lately is when driving home in the evening (from dragonboat or whatever)... I miss having a full car. Not necessarily my car, just being in any full car. Nowadays everyone drives so everyone's by themselves or as a couple. But I liked when less people drove and a group of friends would go places together, like I'd meet siemon and friends at a restaurant and then all go to a bowling alley together in one car. Or even just getting or giving rides home. Well, it's probably not so much the having people in one car that I miss, it's probably what it represents, the going out places with some friends.

Crazy frenchies

"PC points are not redeemable against the purchase of tobacco, alcohol, prescription medicine, milk in Quebec, or any products or services prohibited by law."

milk in quebec?

feel like bloggin but not much to blog about

Forgot to mention I dreamed of steering dragonboat actually after the saturday festival. I don't remember much, but I remember at some point I ended up in the water, but I was still able to steer the boat from in the water, and I kindof liked it there, so I decided to stay, and we were cruising around glenmore with me in the water steering the boat. I remember going around the boats anchored near the canoe club. Yeah dreams aren't supposed to make sense.

Dan's back this week so I haven't been able to steer that boat, too bad, I liked it and hanging out with that team as well.

Got frustrated today about the office and society seeming so fake and also uncaring. But I was more annoyed on behalf of someone who probably wasn't annoyed so really it doesn't make much sense.

Played with circuit breakers at the condo. Is there any better way to find out what they're all for than to turn everything on and start flicking them to see what turns off? There's one that doesn't seem to control anything, and one room which seems to have no breaker.

Got a little letter at the condo. I was really excited, and really wondering who it could be from since it was neat 'girly' writing, but pretty much noone knows my condo's address. It definitely wasn't my cousin's writing. Daydreamed about maybe someone could have found out and been surprising me or something. Finally opened it, it was a 'thank you' business card from the mortgage broker. I was in the certain mood this afternoon that it really pissed me off. But it is a nice thing to do, even if it is more a business action (aka "please refer me to your friends").

Anyways should really go to bed now. Still haven't figure out why I got a queen size bed. The sheets on half of it remain completely smooth and untouched though I've been sleeping in the bed a couple weeks now. Just got the queen size cause that's what's 'expected' even if it's kindof pointless for someone like me.

BBQ to BBQ

A year, pretty close to.

This year's intermap bbq was nothing compared to last years though. But it was still nice. Most of the office came out. Ate a bunch. Played some frisbee. It wasn't nice weather (though I remained in denial and was the only one in shorts and t-shirt). Didn't get to play with a recumbent bicycle. And didn't meet anybody new.

Somehow messed up my knee a little. Human body seems pretty poorly designed and easy to damage sometimes. Do nothing and it deteriorates which is bad. Use it, and it gets damaged which is bad. Are sports good for your health, or bad for your health? I guess the body's pretty complex so can't complain too much.

Dragonboat sunday marathon

Arrived at the container, noone else was there, I got a little concerned it was cancelled or was earlier and people were already out or something. Let myself in and started putting the paddles away from yesterday's event. Soon people started showing up. Once enough were there including people with keys, I went out to get the dragonboat. Then we had our practice. Dropped a few of us off at sistership to bring it in. I decided we should race back to dock, but their 12 or so paddlers soon pulled ahead of me and Hamid, who were left completely exhausted after about 30 strokes. Debriefed and went out to steer the next practice. Only had enough people for one boat so we had to tow sistership back out again. Then we had 26 people on the boat, I think that's a new record. After practice, found Diva Dragons only had 9 paddlers show up for their practice, they invited me to join so I decided to go out for a third practice. It was tough with just 10 people paddling, trying to do starts and race pieces and stuff. After practice, just to say I'd been part of it all, I took the boat back out (also, noone at all was volunteering to go). Back at the container afterwards, Jay and I inspected the metal stuff that is supposedly going to be a starting-line contraption. We eventually figured out a couple possibilities of how it would be assembled, though neither really seemed like good ideas. Closed the container and headed home, I was really tired. I feel sorry for people who are expected to stay for the triple practice every week.

Jump in experience II

Since I wasn't in edmonton, I came out to the mini dragonboat race event today. It was put on by some calgary clubs since Sylvan Lake was canceled. Nice and informal, it was great for our club, since we had many new steers and drummers this year, an opportunity to practice in real races without the pressure of a big race festival. We had enough people to make an adult and a (mostly) youth team. I steered the youth for the first race while Carol steered the adults. It all went pretty well, nothing too exciting, though a couple boats crossed the finish in different lanes than they started. For the second race, Carol stayed with her boat but I got bumped so Matt could practice. This was the 'exciting' race of the weekend... one boat lost control and cut both our boats off... well not quite, the youth team probably could have kept going and taken advantage of the situation, but they paused for a bit. Adult boat had to check hard, and there were no collisions, but had some trouble getting back on track after that. I wish I'd been steering one of the boats for that, would've been fun! I was helping in the timing booth for that race so I got a pretty good view. I then went out with "wave runners", a team that needed to borrow paddlers from other teams. So weird paddling with a different team, with different rate, strategy, skill, etc. Also feels weird (and I noticed this in other festivals this year) to see people with carbon fibre paddles (which suggests they're a pretty comp team) but not really being a great dragonboat team. The guy in front of me wasn't even looking up for timing, but I felt I shouldn't be telling them what to do. I went totally intense for that race though, I bet my eyes looked like Roneel's :) Guy beside me (borrowed from our parents/youth team I think) stopped paddling for a couple chunks of the race, I didn't feel good about that. For the final races, I got to steer the adult team as Carol switched to paddling. Charlene tried to move me back to the youth but I didn't let her. I wanted the experience with a regular mixed boat. And I'd really rather steer for a regular mixed team than a youth or parents or masters team. So, for the final, we had three-in-a-row 250m races. 4 teams started, and each race one got eliminated and the rest returned immediately to start line to race again. In the first race I felt like I almost lost control right before the finish line! But I didn't. The boat felt really shakey that race, though it turned out the best time. I was also pleased with how I efficiently got back into position again at the start line. The next two races felt much better and were much easier to steer. Not much communication going on between drummer and steers though, I didn't get signals to call the powers, though I could join the "now" part. I felt like I should be saying more though, maybe just shout "come on!" or something...

Anyways, after doing todays races, I feel much better again for steering some races in calgary. The main things I'm still not sure about are setting up in the staging area / start line, since it will be more serious next time (and may have weird starting contraption), and having to organize whoever I'm steering for before/after their race (for that I'm mainly just lazy and would rather hang out with people than have to be chasing people down).

No Edmonton

Stayed at the dragonboat dinner too long, finally decided it wouldn't be such a good plan to start heading to edmonton at 11pm. Feel kindof bad to have ditched those plans. Oh well, just leave it till some weeks down the road. It was fun at the dragonboat dinner. Though of the 20 or so people who showed up after me, zero chose to sit by me, which I could interpret poorly. The Bolero restaurant was neat, they came by with big chunks of meat on skewers and cut bits off for you. Neat, especially if you're a big meat fan, but not so much my thing. Chatted till they were closing and we had to leave. I felt energetic for some reason, but noone wanted to stay out. Arnold said he's too old, and I realised afterwards that I was the youngest one there at the end, which is a little weird. Anyways, decided to look for a few people who were supposed to be dancing then going for bubble tea. I got no answer on the phone, but I felt like cruising around, so I decided to check out some bbt places anyways. Creep them out by just showing up without them telling me where. But alas I did not find them, and eventually tiredness hit and I suddenly felt sad and wanted to go home to bed. So I did.

Jump in experience

Discovered Dan was away, so started steering semi comp last thursday. Wow, one of these weekday evening practices is worth the whole season of sunday afternoon practices! Those weeknight steers must be pros by now! (yeah you know who that's directed at) It was such a different feeling... different weather conditions, different level of power in the boat, and other traffic on the water.

Last night's practice started with Sheldon taking a long time to get the boat back to dock since there was so much wind, waves, and current. There were whitecaps and everything. After loading the boat, Arnold said "have fun Scott" with an evil laugh before getting in to paddle. But it was fun! I know dragoneers hasn't had to practice in anything like that this season, not sure about other boats. Even 6 ft above the water, my sun glasses still show the spots from reservoir water being splashed and blown up from the surface. Could barely hear anyone unless they were shouting right at you. I told them "now all you need is some rain and it'll be truly awesome!" They didn't share my sentiment. Anyways, it was fine once we crossed to near the canoe club where the land blocked the NW wind.

Lost control once last thurs and once yesterday, both when doing a wide U-turn at full power, though both I almost completed successfully... I think yesterday's may have been fine if I didn't step on the paddle by my feet. Going down the lanes was not perfectly straight, though I didn't cross into other lanes.

Anyways, I'm starting to believe them when the coaches say I'm ready to steer a boat in Calgary Festival.

Our comp boat usually goes for a loop around the sailboats while Arnold/Charlene debrief the semi-comp. Since Jay wasn't around lately, I took them out. Again, what a different experience! It was like... butter. It's was so quiet and smooth (even when supposedly increasing power), I couldn't believe it. Made me feel pretty proud actually.

Still deciding

but better decide soon... what to do with the condo, considering my job.

The major issues:
1) The condo is costing a lot obviously. So it would be nice to have some supplementary income.
2) With a field position, I'll likely be away 60% of the time, and likely more if I don't spend all my non-work time at home. Seems a waste to leave the condo empty.

Solutions:
1) Just keep it to myself. I can do whatever I want with it, don't have to worry about other people treating it bad, or any of the frustrations of living with someone or trying to find someone. But as mentioned, it seems like a bit of a waste, and having something left after paying the bills would be nice.
2) Rent out a room. A good deal for the renter since I'll be away most of the time it'll be almost like having their own place. But, I'd want someone I can trust, not just a stranger, since I won't be able to 'monitor' them. Also, if they're there 100% and I'm there just 30%, it may feel like I'm the visitor dropping in, a little weird. Finally, I'm not sure if I really want to live with a roommate that much.
3) Rent out the whole place. Bring in a bunch more money. But likely more effort finding a renter, and a bit more risk involved. I dunno, I have no experience with it, but it 'feels' like a big thing to do. Have to move back with the parents while in town, not really something I want to do... though I kindof miss 'home' I don't miss the stink and I don't miss the 'status' of living with parents at this age. Instead of moving back with parents, could see if any friends would lend out a room for those shorter periods of me being here, for a rate less than renting a place full time (which would defeat the point), but that doesn't seem very likely.

Well, I think choice 2 is seeming the most likely, kindof a neutral ground. Just have to firm up that decision, and then try to find that 'elusive' roommate I believe I can trust. Better decide soon, school's starting in a month, it's primetime.

Standard-length Weekend

Still a little frustrated with people calling it a long weekend when I'm still in the office monday.

Saturday got out hiking with Rennie, Leiding and his friend. Did Lady Mac. It was farther than I expected to get to the incomplete tea house. We went a bit farther, but I think we took a wrong turn and the way was getting pretty sucky and would suck more on the way down. Combined with it being Leiding's friend's first time in the mountains and the rest of us not getting out often this season, we decided it would be smart to turn back. Found a pretty new ipod on the ground though, not really sure what to do with that, cause there was nothing marking whose it was (all we knew is that the owner is from Mountain time zone), and likely noone's going up to search for it, and if we leave it someone else is going to pick it up instead. So we took it down, left a note at the trailhead, otherwise i guess someone has a new ipod (i think rennie ended up with it, not sure it he even wants it). I dunno, do something noble like sell it on ebay and donate the money? Anyways, it was nice to get out there. Actually feel a bit sore after this one, but thankfully no ankle pain this time! (was wearing old boots)

Sunday after the usual temple and dragonboat practices, tried to make some food for Shannon's potluck. Still sufficiently hate cooking and am bad enough to end up pissed off and having nothing to bring and just go buy something instead. But it was still really fun to go hang out with a few dragonboat people and whoever else was there for the evening. Jokes about the BBQ side-burner, powdered donuts, how white I am, what we'll wear as steerspeople on race day, etc.

Vernon

Lots to say, long blog post coming up.

Was a good weekend of Dragonboat racing in Vernon. Good competition, some fun in the evenings, etc. Still nothing like Kelowna in previous years, or even some other out of town festivals. And one unhappy thing about learning something I really didn't want to hear.

Fun started with waiting for someone for over an hour after the rest of us had met up. And then someone locked her keys in the car, but while she was off getting spare keys using someone else's car, we broke into her car. Scarily easy actually. Anyways, the drive out was pretty uneventful, though we had an 'alarm' in the back seat go off whenever we took a corner too fast. Once at the hotel, they didn't have the cot in the room that we reserved. So the front desk tried to find one, but couldn't. So they gave us a whole separate room. We were just getting into bed when he phoned the room to tell us he found one and we had to take it and return to the original room. Annoying. Should've just let us stay, we'd already messed up the beds and such.

Race site was ok, a beach area, pretty crowded with team tents, a swimming area in the lake roped off, a few food places but not much. Got hot pretty early, especially in the sandy area. For warm ups we retreated to a grassy knoll. Took 2nd place in both our 200m races against some good teams. 200m is so short! Sometime in the morning someone confirmed my unhappy suspicions. But kindof cool that someone else noticed something was bothering me. oh well. Had some lunch, tried something that I didn't know what it was (Ciabatta... pronounced it wrong, to some teammates amusement, just like in lethbridge festival) but me having it encouraged some strangers to get it too. Later in the day had our 500m, another 2nd place. After the races, played around in the lake a while. With my shirt off, Arnold said: "Scott, I've paddled with you for like 8 years... and you're still sooo white!!" At the end of the day a bunch of people were going down to kelowna to find a steakhouse, I kindof wanted to go with, but I didn't feel very invited, and someone had made reservations at a local restaurant for the whole team. Even though it wouldn't be a team dinner, it would be nice to have most people there. The food turned out not that great. That's the other main thing that bothered me about the weekend: so much wasted food. At the dinner, portions were bigger than expected and quality was poorer than expected. I hate wasted food, but though I could finish mine and take some others, there's no way I can help finish several peoples meal or take it away, especially if it's not good. The next day at breakfast, same sort of thing seemed to be happening, though it wasn't poor quality, just people got more than they wanted. Annoying. Sun evening Jay and I got some food from the supermarket across the street, I got us some fruit and some cheese/onion buns and some deli ham and prepped those sun morning, so we had (what I considered) some decent food sunday.

The coolest race of race weekend was the 1000m exhibition. Cool enough to describe it all here. Start at the finish, go 500m, U-turn, go 500m back to start. Teams race simultaneously, but start 10 seconds apart. We were the third to go. So, team1 started 20 sec ahead, team2 10 sec ahead. We felt really powerful though... it wasn't long before we were catching up to those ahead of us. They started on our right side, but we moved across to pass on the left side (would be outside of the turn). I think team2 was doing that to prepare to pass team1. We were starting to pass team2, when suddenly up ahead we noticed (I was on right side and saw above left stroke) team1 had lost control and was coming across in front of us. Team2 and us checked boat hard, team2 stopped in time, but we still hit the team1 (though not hard). Called to check they were okay, they seemed to be, team2 started up again once their way was clear, and we did a few seconds later when our way was too. A whole new start. By this time, team4 who started 10sec after us had passed us all, but we were catching up to team4 and team2 again. Started passing them on the turn, I think all three of us were in the turn together. Awesome. We were passing on the outside. I think team4 didn't turn as sharp, or straighten out enough, and started pushing team2 to the right (where we were). Not sure if they collided. We kept our stance, and soon our lefts were clashing paddles with their rights. I heard some upset comments from the other boat, but thought "I better not hear those things coming from our boat!" I didn't, and we powered through it, and soon we were clear of team2. Were also passing team4 on their other side. In the open water, raced away and crossed the finish line first! About 4 secs ahead of team4, but since they had started 10sec after us, they still took first place. But it was still a really cool race, like voyageur crossed with dragonboat, and we felt really strong throughout, and it felt cool to be passing teams that had significant leads. I guess if they really wanted to avoid collisions, they'd line up the teams in order of fastest to slowest. But that would be less fun.

Sunday morning race was important, we had to come in 1 or 2, and we were against a team we knew we wouldn't beat, and a fellow calgary team who we are often well matched against. But we pulled together and sent Yahoo home. Too bad for them, but it was either them or us. (So that makes five 2nd place finishes). So from that, we got into the A-division finals! Were against gorging dragons, pacific reach, sudden impact, without warning, and calgary race club. Realized afterwards that all of them are trying out for nationals. Pretty cool to be up against that calibre of team. We crossed the finish line in 4th apparently (though some spectators said 3rd) but officially we came in 5th. Some sort of crap, since one team bumped another midway through the race, and they came in 5th and 6th, but someone complained and instead of reracing, they just promoted the the team that got bumped up to 4th place. Overall, it doesn't really matter, but it's still a stupid thing to do. So the official times show 0.4 seconds between 3rd and 5th.

Next cool thing to do was the waterskiier challenge! Get the boat out into the water, get a waterskiier on the end of a line behind the boat, and go for it. I'd like to see more videos of this, since I was still not wearing prescription after our grand finale, I couldn't see the other teams too well, and then of course when we were paddling, can't see what's happening with our waterskiier. Sounds like many didn't get their skiier up, or got them half way up and were rising and falling halfway. But we got ours up out of the water really quick! And then we were so smooth with our sprint stroke (rather than the jerky normal stroke) that he was even able to go one handed and do a silly wave or something. We ended up winning the waterskiier challenge, and that's really worth more to the club than anything else, cause it's free registration to next year's festival (like $1000 value).

While waiting near show to come in (no dock, just beach the boat), got into a water fight with CRC, then they capsized themselves, then ran through the shallow water to our boat to tip us. Seems fun, but is actually pretty stupid, when you have a boat flipping and people falling on each other and everyone holding a long wooden paddle, someone'll get hurt (and someone did get a paddle to the face).

Packed up and left pretty soon after that. Didn't get back into Calgary till about 3AM. The rest of the team was back around midnight. A few reasons: Stopped at Wal-mart to change and but something (instead of changing before leaving the festival for some reason). Stopped at Enchanted Forest near Revelstoke, had always been curious about that place! It was neat, lots of little fairy tale statues and buildings and stuff, and always nice to be set out in the forest. Would be a very different experience depending on who you're with, I was with a couple kindof crazy silly people, so it was fun running and skipping around and crawling into little houses and stuff. But we had to rush since we knew we'd be late back to calgary. Stopped in Revelstoke to eat at an actual restaurant instead of drive-through for some reason... took a while to search for restaurants, and then of course took a while to show up and eat (while waiting, our 5? yr old companion said to the waitress "excuse me, I'm starving here!", it was hilarious!). On the road was fine, it was just those things that delayed our return. I didn't do any driving on the way back... I generally feel kindof lonely at the ending of stuff like this where you're with people constantly for a few days, so I was happy enough feeling cozy and relaxed in the back of the van.

Wow Calgary was cold when we got back... were shivering! Though it was still 18C according to a sign I saw.

Well, that's a long blab, perhaps unnecessarily long, but whatever. It was fun.

Hungry

Finished dragonboat practice today, and was hungry.

Seem to always be hungry actually... Today, I had a medium bowl of allbran in yogurt and a medium bowl of vector in milk for breakfast. By lunchtime, I'd gone through an apple, a banana, and two granola bars. Had my usual rice and fish and veggies and orange for lunch, not too big not too small. In the afternoon I had another apple and a granola bar. Went home and was in a rush for dinner so I had a couple toasted crumpets and a ham and cheese sandwich. After dragonboat, being hungry, I had another sandwich. I had at least a litre of water in each of the morning, afternoon, and evening.

I dunno, should I get tested for a tapeworm or something?

Anyways, dragonboat was cool, I steered the semi-comp. Felt soo different from the parents practice. Really smooth when warming up, hardly needed the steering oar at all. Lots of power when called for. I'm not the straightest steerer, but did okay most of the times. Though I could feel if I started to lose it, I wouldn't be able to recover. As it is, I kindof lost it when doing a sharp-ish turn at the end of the lanes. But the boat was doing 100% at the end of a drill. Anyways, still need lots of practice. I'll miss a few sundays, so I'll try to make more other practices.

Steered the comp boat for a loop while semi comp was debriefing. That was nice too, felt so smooth and clean. Though the boat didn't respond when I called left side to check near dock (at least we didn't really need it). Apparently they couldn't hear me (though at least some heard me say "Doesn't feel like 80%" when they were supposedly doing 80%, hee hee). I was trying to be loud... guess I'm just too quiet of a person. If people can't hear me shouting, that would be a problem on race day. Maybe I need to do voice drills.