Category — biking

Finally now that Spring has decided to arrive here in Calgary, we managed to get out for our first bike ride of the season. For the most part it was clear but there were some snow covered areas. 1-2 inches of snow is doable on a bike but over 5 is slightly more challenging and boarding on dangerous (ask Jeff). Biking in snow is a lot like sand, for all of you who that have gone biking in Moab.

Should be a great biking season. Bikes are tuned up and ready to go. They say it’s like riding a bike but I really have forgotten everything since last year. Can’t wait till the city cleans the gravel so we can start biking to work. I guess I’ll cut them some slack though since they are busy delivering recycling bins.

Happy Easter!

We were discussing how Christmas cards are so 2005, unless your Heather who makes a super awesome hand-made Christmas card every Christmas. So consider this an electronic Christmas card from Jeff & Lindsay.

Editor’s note: We really didn’t send Christmas cards in 2005….but you get the point.

Yes, we have a Christmas Theme and used the word “Christmas” seven times in the last three sentences. If you don’t like it, move along. Anyway, onto the year …

Editors note: Comments from Lindsay in Red and Jeff in Green.

January

We were flying back from Hawaii (from our honeymoon) on January 1st. Oh Hawaii…What a great way to ring in the New Year!

We went to Sun Peaks for our good Friend Dylan’s 30th birthday (what an old man). It was great times with phenomenal snowboarding at Sun Peaks per usual.

February

The highlight from February was one of the highlights of the entire year: I discovered and solved my migraine mystery. Turns out the thing that was causing my migraines all along was water (or a lack thereof). Not chinooks, hormones, or exercise. Who knew? (I did) If you are reading this and suffer from migraines try drinking a ton of water. I mean drink so much water every day that you pee constantly and feel like barfing from having drank so much liquid. (No seriously, I harped on this for a while)

My migraines caused me extreme pain and suffering for years. I was on every medication under the sun (vioxx, anti-depressants, anti-seizure medication, vitamin B, others…) to prevent my migraines. The medications caused terrible side effects from dizziness, to nausea to numbness in the extremities. Not to mention the potential long-term damage I may have done by taking so much Imitrex and Maxalt to take the migraines away upon onset. They are wonder drugs but not so wonderful.

Now I just drink lots of water everyday (more if I’m exercising) and I’ve had very few migraines. Of the ones I’ve had since February, I can attribute about 90% of them to dehydration.

Anyways, sorry to hi-jack this Christmas post…but this was definitely a highlight when reviewing 2008. I guess my wishbone wish came true!

Also to note was a nice visit from Larry and Brenda in February and my publication in Nature magazine.

March

I started a company! President Jeff just had such a great ring to it that it seemed like a good idea.

He was nice enough to make his loving wife the Vice President.

In March we also attended one of the funnest parties ever: Robert’s 50th. Hard to believe anyone we play ultimate with is even close to 50…maybe in age but not in spirit. I sure hope I’m still running around (or even walking around) when I’m 50 after playing the equivalent of “tackle football without equipment” (as our chiropractor calls it) for so long.

We also welcomed a new family member, our nephew Conrad, on March 11th.

April

as a side note here. Blog’s are awesome. Seriously. The year in review is so easy to do because you can just Michael J. Fox back into time and “remember” what we did. You would think I’d remember but you’d be wrong.

Some people who read this blog may be bored from the repetition. However, those who don’t care to waste their time on our babble can just read this and treat it like the Cole’s Notes of our life recently.

May

Major highlight #2 for Lindsay: Addition to our family. After a lovely visit to see Jeff’s brother and my parents in BC,

May saw our Cat-Dog Willow enter our life. She’s was so little and cute and won my heart over. For the record (ie: Wriggs) I still don’t like cats. I like Cat-Dog’s. We call Willow our Cat-Dog because she really like to be entertained, played with and has a full routine in the morning. Cat-Dog’s are awesome

We ended May with a trip down to Bozeman, MT to have a weekend-long shower. Where we learned the game psychiatrist! So fun!

June

Brief trip to Victoria for work, but other than that, June was really uneventful, except for our Garage Sale and the Toppers Heroes for Hospice Race!

July

We made it through our first entire year of marriage this month. So far so good. That sure flew by. Seems like just yesterday I was cleaning up from the wedding…er…so maybe I was. Still working out what to do with the dress….

Another significant event in July was Regionals.

August

After all the hard work to get to Nationals, we had a disappointing finish, but I guess if you can’t be top 8, you might as well win the Ninals!

I went on a trip to Toronto and had a wonderful visit with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and my mom (who came with me). Luckily all of my extended family (with the exception of my uncle in Australia) lives in Ontario so it’s like one-stop-shopping. I also visited almost every casino in Ontario…(when in Rome).

Went to Golden with some folks for a little disc golf at Infinity’s Sports Ranch.

Also had a second medical breakthrough – discovered I needed orthodics. Solved my ankle problems, back problems and sore foot problem. Guess it makes sense, the backbone is connected to the leg bone.

September

Great times had in September. Quick weekend trip to Fernie (thanks Terri!) for some mountain biking and relaxation. In case you haven’t heard, we also went to Japan. Amazing country, friendly people and a wonderful trip! Japan is seriously cool. Such a unique place and definitely recommended and high on list of places we’d like to visit (again). Highlights include Bullet Trains, Raw Chicken and Beautiful Gardens.

October

I started working part-time at my ‘real-job’ and part-time as President Jeff. We decided that it would be a smart move because I could get a lot more done and hopefully grow the company a bit. The one question I get lots is how’s the company doing. It’s doing fine and I love all the concern people have, however, this is also one of the reasons that I never told people about my sites for quite some time. You see to get indexed in the search engines takes time (makes sense that you just can’t throw something up and be highly ranked in google). So things I’m doing now is really for the future and so it can be slow going while things are growing.

The end of October also brought Halloween, one of our favorite celebrations of the year. This year Lindsay planned a 30 days till I’m 30 party. Man was it fun. Some of the highlights include meeting our neighbours in sock feet, Egg-up, 12 (or was it more?) people shot-gunning beer (including my Pa) and Anasol.

We went to Victoria for Pumpkin Pull. It was the first time I had been back in about 5 years. So much on the UVic Campus had changed but not much around the city felt different. It still really felt like home and was hard to leave.

November

Jeff turns 30! (I’m an old man now)

Oh and squash club is back in full force which is super fun!

December

We’ve been too busy writing this post to have anything exciting happen in December. Luckily we are snowed in right now and have time for blogging.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL THE BEST IN THE NEW YEAR,

LOVE JEFF AND LINDSAY (AND WILLOW)

No dead Bernie on our weekend, but it was a ton of fun. Terri, Jeff, Heather and I went to Fernie, thanks to Terri and the Toppers. Terri had won a free weekend at the Topp’s condo when we did the Heroes for Hospice scavenger hunt a while back.

I haven’t spent much time in Fernie at all (driven through it a ton) and it is fantastic! I forsee myself spending a bunch more time there, especially now that I discovered they have a disc golf course there. Jeff and I tried to play a course there years ago and then found out it was no longer open to the public. This weekend we were biking by some folks carrying discs and we asked them where the course is. Turns out it’s a full 18 holes with baskets! Unfortunately we didn’t have discs so we didn’t play but next time for sure. Instead we just lurked around the course, jealously heckling those that had discs and hacked and threw a frisbee around.

We got out biking twice. The bike trails are freaking fantastic in Fernie. I find the trails in Calgary only mediocre and it seems to go anywhere good you have to drive for an hour. In Fernie we left the car at the condo and could bike to the trailhead. We biked around by the aquatic centre on Sidewinder (exactly as it sounds…lots of fun switchbacks) and Broken Derailer. That wasn’t enough for Heather and Jeff so they headed up for another go. I was out of water and Terri had hiked 30km the day before, so we headed back and that’s when we discovered the disc golf course.

On the second day we started from Mount Fernie Park and headed towards a lodge. The trail had a ton of roots on it and was soooo much fun. I think I may have liked it more than Jeff as my full suspension was awesome!!!

It was such a fun weekend that I thought it was a long weekend. Lots of good eats (chips…yum!), good biking and good friends. You can read Heather’s take on the weekend too!

Here are some pics of the good times:

Getting ready

Terri braving the boardwalk

Jeff on the boardwalk

Driving down the highway with our reattached bike rack

Heather and biking funsies

The answer is 714 or 59.5 dozen eggs (or namatamago, as they say in Japanese since Japanese words will probably be all over this blog for the next month and you can learn along with us)!!!

Thanks to everyone who guessed. There was something wrong with the blog and a couple of people had to submit their guesses verbally.

Jeff was the closest at 62 dozen, but he had the advantage of seeing the stacks of cartons. Heather was a close second at 74 dozen. My dad guessed 1836 eggs, but he’s seen how much Jeff and I eat and I can understand fully how he came up with this number!

How did this all come about? Well, we have been saving all of our recyclable plastics since we moved in October 17, 2005. This includes anything from shampoo bottles and yogurt containers to plastic egg cartons. It is because you are unable to recycle plastics in Calgary, so we are saving them for the day that we can (I feel way too bad throwing them in the garbage). Curbside recycling has been in the works for years, but now they are saying 2009 or 2010. I won’t go on a rant here since I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted about it in an earlier blog.

We had once given a bunch of recycling to a friend whose apartment complex pays extra to ship their plastics up to Edmonton to be recycled and we also gave a bunch to Larry and Brenda to take to BC as our garage was getting pretty full. I apologize to those who made educated guesses since Jeff pointed out that we recycled a few egg containers at the apartment so the number is not completely accurate.

Powell came over last weekend before heading to Golden and said “wow, you guys really like eggs”…which is what inspired this random factoid. It’s true, we really do like eggs, especially poached. 3 on 2 is the best! 3 poached eggs on 2 pieces of toast. Brilliant!

In other news, we’re off to Fernie this weekend and pretty pumped for a bit of biking and a lot of relaxing.

Jeff went golfing tonight and shot 94 at Shaganappi, which is pretty decent since (unlike his retired dad), it was Jeff’s first time out this season. Just in the knick of time as golf season is dwindling down. I have been too busy at work lately to get out golfing, but I plan to go at least once before it snows.

Willow’s latest trend is to bring dragonflies into the house. She plays with them until they die, and then eats them. Not so nice, but that’s nature! Hopefully the trend does not continue for snakes, birds or mice…

Spent the long weekend in Golden. Stayed at Brad’s hostel (Kicking Horse Hostel). Saturday we headed up to Infinity’s sport ranch and finally met Mr. Solstice Bright Wizard of Destiny. He is busy renovating is house, but was able to fit in a few holes golfing with us. Got a chance to play the new holes, including a basket as well as the Packer’s Ace. No aces out of the 38 holes, which is suprising eventhough we all finished very low.

Disc golf was slightly delayed due to major incompitence. Two “idiot girls” staying at the hostel decided to take Tim and Kir’s dogs downtown golden (across the highway) for a walk. Then they decided to have breakfast and leave the dogs on their own in town. Maggie was able to make it back across the highway unharmed, thankfully, but Kody decided to stay downtown a little longer. After an hour of searching (2 cars, 1 bike and 2 people walking around town), he had turned himself in and we found him on the courthouse steps. He had a huge gouge on his leg and had been bleeding. Since there are no vets working on the long weekend, Infinity fixed Kody up until he could go see a vet back in Calgary.

Sunday also saw a few loopholes before heading out for a bike ride. First hurdle: 4 degrees. Brrrr. Didn’t plan for that. Second hurdle, busted valve while pumping up tires. Then, 1km into the ride, another flat!!! Decided to cut the ride short as the world didn’t want us biking. Played around on an ATV track which was fun.

All in all a fun weekend with friends.

Thanks to Conrad and Sara for checking on Willow while we were gone!

Happy Labour day everyone.

Jeff and I have started biking for the summer. It’s such a great way to start and end the day. Our commute takes us through a golf course and is downhill there and uphill back. It will help get us in shape for the ultimate season and we hope to bike every day this summer, but we might cheat on rainy days.

The good: Biking to work is awesome.

The bad: Today I stopped at a red light and pulled up beside a car on my bike. It was a car full of young punks and they had the windows down and tossed a Big Mac container out the window (an nearly hit me). That made me angry! I’m doing a good thing saving the environment and biking while they are littering and so ignorant and too lazy to put there trash in a can. So I say to them in a very sarcastic tone “excuse me, I think you accidentally dropped some garbage on the ground”…to which punk#1 responds “I don’t understand you”…of course you don’t….you’re a freaking moron!

They proceed to roll up the windows, drive away and say “have a nice day”. If I wasn’t on my bike and afraid that they might run me off the road, I contemplated throwing their garbage back in their car. Some days I wish I was a police officer. One side order of garbage duty and a fine to go with their Big Mac.

The ugly: As if that story wasn’t ugly enough…I picked Jeff up after work today as he stayed later than me to celebrate Trev finally becoming a doctor – Congrads Trev!!!!

As I was pulling into our garage, I heard crunch…and remembered that Jeff’s bike was on the roof rack. Huge oopsa! It turned out about as good as it could have. The racks completely ripped off but the car (maybe a few scratches), the bike and the garage seem intact.

The strange thing is that I looked into the garage and saw mine and Jeff’s bikes and thought that it was safe to go in….forgot to check for Jeff’s nicest bike, the cyclecross that was on the rack. You might want to try it to avoid doing what I did, otherwise you might end up with this situation (luckily ours wasn’t this bad!!!):

I found a great suggestion online here about how to avoid this in the future:

When you leave your house with bikes on your roof rack, put your garbage can (or any large movable object, for that matter) in front of your garage door when you leave. When you come back, the garbage can blocking the way will force you to leave the car, move the can, and walk back to the car, by which time you be able to see the bikes on the roof; hopefully, this rings a bell in your head.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately, but Jeff and I have been away vacationing in beautiful BC.

Our trip started off in the Okanagan where we played in an ultimate tournament, Sunflicker. It was a tryout for Bronco and we had enough people to submit two full teams: Bronco and OcnorB. The weather was perfect and both teams did really well. Bronco made it to the semi-finals and Ocnorb to the quarter-finals.

From Kelowna, we went to met our new nephew Conrad. Jeff’s brother Kevin and Tamara live in Princeton and have their hands full! New baby Conrad, cute Sage (who’s now 3 and full of energy), a rabbit, a guinea pig, fish, a bird, a cat and a puppy!!!

We stayed in Princeton for 3 nights. Played some disc golf on Kevin’s property (9 holes with tonal poles) and pretty much vegged out and recuperated from the tournament.

From Princeton we drove to Thrums (outside Nelson) to visit my dad and stepmom. There we went mountainbiking, disc golfing, played euchre and cruising along Baker street for the day. After a great visit, it was time to head to my mom and stepdad’s place in Genelle (outside of Trail).  We got to see mom and Doug’s new trailer…they warned us the they were trailer trash but it was anything but! The trailer was gorgeous and we made ourselves right at home. We went mountainbiking but it was stort-lived as I’m pretty sure I saw a cougar running through the bushes and totally freaked out so we left. Jeff, of course, remained calm and made me get on my bike and get the hell out of dodge.

We came back from BC with something. Do the quiz and then check back in a few days for the answer:

a.) a new full suspension bike for Jeff

b.) a kitten

c.) a new windshield

d.) a tent trailer

p.s. Happy Mother’s day to our moms Jackie, Susan and Brenda!

These past few days have been awesome in Calgary. Spring has finally sprung! (Well, until tomorrow when we’re suppose to get snow… but you know what I mean).

Anyway, today I woke up early and decided to bike to work. First ‘real’ bike ride of the year besides the whole messing around in our neighborhood rides. So, I’m riding along and just having a good time and starting to get hot. So I stop and unzip the sides of my pants.  Before I start riding I make a shoulder check for cars and see another cyclist coming up behind me. First thing that comes to my mind is

IT IS ON!

Seriously. I just gave’r up the next hill, around the corner up the other little hill.   Looked back.   Lost.     Good Race!

The funny thing about this is that I’m not a great bike rider cyclist or in amazing shape.  Apparently, I’m a competitive person.

I’m looking forward to when a real cyclist actually passes me.

Well, it’s April in Calgary and you know what that means.  Ultimate.  Snow.

Actually, last weekend was absolutely fabulous and were working in the garden.  Lindsay was cleaning up some flower stuff around the house and found this image below.  It’s a picture of a new tulip growing up through an old dead tulip from last year.  As you can see it’s using the old tulip for protection.  Was pretty neat to see!  You think I would have seen this in years past considering I’ve done the same task many times before.  However, I take the attack, destroy and clean approach.    I guess Lindsay’s approach might be a bit nicer.

Then this weekend we get a monster dump of snow.  Here’s a picture from a chair on our deck.   Ahhh, Calgary.

To kill the weekend away we’ve been doing stuff inside.  Like taxes and watching hockey.    No definite answer on the return (or having to pay) but looks like I might have to pay and Lindsay will get a return.  Good thing I didn’t buy a bike!   (yes, I’m jealous but will make do with mine.)

We got a huge dump of snow today here in Calgary. Apparently we got 23cm and broke a 96-year record. It made for a beautiful day. Snow all morning, sunny in the afternoon followed by snow again in the afternoon. It reminded me of BC… huge flakes; it’s like the sky opened up and puked out snow.

The strange thing is that nobody even saw it coming. Is it wrong to assume that weather people (I think they also call them meteorologists) only have one job? If you don’t predict a storm like this (or even call for snow today) shouldn’t you be canned?

This weather totally messed with my plans for tomorrow. Tomorrow is “bike to work day” and I just happen to own a new bike. How disappointing. Maybe it will melt over night. Or maybe I’ll bike someday next week and make my own “bike to work day”. It seems to have snowed every day since I bought my new bike. Sorry everyone!

Great night for staying in and watching the Sharks devour the Flames.