Olympics are over

They are done.. I guess it is time to get back to normal television watching - ie, nothing. I have to now wait another two years before the Winter Games (Turin, right?).

Weather appears to be improving. Yesterday was wet, drizzly, but it cleared up around 6pm. Today looks as though it is going to be overcast, a high of 21 is predicted. Maybe a nice day to get out and take some photographs or something similar to that.

Short week for me, leaving on Thursday for the Okanagan. Hopefully the wireless router will work and I can have internet access while I am there. With no phone I have been unable to do any work while we have been in the house, but hopefully that will change. That will give me a chance to do other things, includng email, while I am up there for weekends.
This weekend starts my regular bi-weekly schedule and as fall/winter approaches I have to start looking at other things, including winter tires and getting things ready for the cooler weather approaching.
My next longer visit is at Christmas where I have the kids for a week, and then at Spring Break where I have them for longer. Looking forward to those times. Longer periods allow me to get settled into a routine. I do not really have a support network setup here, so it means I am on the go a lot, but it is nice to be able to spend some consistent time with them.
Heather met a friend at daycamp this summer, but unfortunately she lives in LA so there will not be too many playdays organized between them. Daniel did not apparently meet anyone with whom he clicked to that level.

In any case, that is a few months away.

Kinda a Bummer

This sudden fall weather is a real bummer. Saturday morning, almost 9am, and it is drizzly and wet outside. No blading today I guess.
It is also cool, compounding the downer factor.

Guess today will be the house day, do some cleanup, recycling etc etc, all of the things which we classify as a necessary evil in our daily lives.

But it is turning out to be a good decision I made yesterday to conclude my 1,200km. Else, I would have been waiting a few more days. I am sore though, it was a tough blade. It is also possible that the 15km I normally do is no longer enough, that I need to go longer distances to get the type of effect I am after (a mild seering pain, absolute exhaustion). I have been talking about this for a while, but when it comes to do it, I often chicken out. Time to just do it I guess.

Did it

Well, I did it. I don't know why I did it and sometimes I question how, but I managed to reach my goal of 1,200km today.

I was 21.5km short so I decided to lengthen my blade and reach it today. The weather appeared to be turning, so I felt I might not get another chance. The conditions were not ideal, cool and a headwind on my return journey, but I managed to do 23km.
Feels pretty good. Will see what I ultimately reach, guessing around 1,400km. My goal for next year will be 1,500km I think.

While I was out they were filming something at the Iona Beach recreational area. Judging by the For*d trucks, I would guess that it was a TV commercial, but hard to say. Not one of the better days to be doing that, unless they want those conditions. Will be interesting if the commercial airs, probably can recognize it when it comes out.

Like Fall

I managed to get out yesterday, Saturday, before the rain started to fall. As I was blading I noted that there were a number of leaves on the road. I think that this was caused by the sudden drop in temperature that we experienced between Friday and Saturday. The trees must think that it is fall now.
Sure felt like it yesterday. It was raining fairly heavy, a cool rain. Still only August I needed to remind myself.

We are sure having a disastorous Olympics this year. Only 1 medal in rowing, none in the pool. These have traditionally been our strengths, especially rowing where we dominated. I don't think that the answer is money, directly at least, but something more fundamental than that.

Cooler Day

The weather would appear to be changing. Much cooler this Saturday morning, we may lose our sunshine which we have enjoyed for some time. I am hoping I can get a blade in before it rains, if indeed it decides to do that.

This has been a long week. First week back after a week off, in the middle of a major project, we were working long hours to get things done. I was not a lot of fun this week.

From the personal side, it would appear that my ex has decided to re-start her difficulties. It has been a very challenging time, one which I had hoped would end in April when we reached conclusions on a variety of matters. It would appear, that she cannot live without the conflict and chaos and has continued to make things difficult. I think that there are people out there who thrive on chaos, I am not one; but it is possible that she is. So, the stability that our agreement offered was unimportant.
Really, it is how she approaches things which makes it so difficult. Rather than attempting to calm down and approach matters in a mature, calm fashion, she has chosen to bully and demand things. And, her demands are not reasonable, in fact, unobtainable. She also choses to bypass me in these, and call all of those people around me in an effort to get what she wants.
Very frustrating.
The latest, and most unfortunate consequence of this is my next scheduled weekend visit. She has now decided that she has the right to cancel my visits and has told me that this one is cancelled. She does not have this right, but it means that a confrontation will have to insue before things stabilize. This is all for no real reason, just her desire to make my visits as difficult as possible in a hope that I will stop. I won't, and the agreement that I have has clauses which will insure that I have a say in this, but I guess I will have to have them enforced.

Unfortunate, this is a bit of a negative posting. Been a tough week.

Beer

I enjoy a good beer. I especially like the smaller breweries, craft brewed. My local store carries some of what I like, but not all, sometimes I have to hunt around.

Tonight I picked up a Porter. Been a few years since I bought Porter, Okanagan Spring makes a particularly good one, but for a while they reduced its distribution. Now they have started to distribute to more stores.
Anyways, it is a stronger beer, 8.5%, brewed in the Old English style of Porter which was produced in London. A different taste, but enjoyable.

My preference would have to be Stout. Now, making that statement would immediately bring forward Guiness. While when I am out, I pick Guiness above all others, at home it just does not do well. They have these widget cans, and the beer itself comes from St James Gate, but I am not convinced that this is the way to serve Guiness. Having travelled Ireland, the way they serve it there is to pour it, let it stand, then top it up. The process takes about 5 minutes and it just tastes better. Pulling a can from the fridge just does not cut it.
There are a couple of good stouts which come out of a bottle well. My favourite, lately, is the St Ambroise from Quebec, which has a good strong taste. Kootenay also makes an Oatmeal Stout that is particularly good.

Of course, when I travel in the US, it has to be Sam Adams (or bust).

Olympics

OK....I admit it...I am an Olympic nut(ball). I love the Olympics. Ever 4 years, summer or winter I am glued to the TV watching the games.

Not sure why, but it seems to just bring out the best in the world. I wish we could get over this cheating thing, but when I hear of Michael Phelps being offered 1,000,000 for getting 7 gold medals, or was it for 8; point is the same.....that ruins the sport. Nor sure why the Americans seem to feel the need to place a price tag on their achievements, it is as if they are meaningless unless you can get something out of them, the achievement itself is not worth anything.
Is this not exactly what the Olympics DO NOT represent?

I think that the downfall was the allowance for professionals into the games. Therein came the 'Dream Team', who thankfully lost their first game. The whole point was to win, to smother the competition and put on a show. I think that this needs, begs for a review of this policy. It has obviously gone too far.
Maybe we cannot return to the way things were, when the Olympics were for amatures, but we need to tone it down. As for Michael Phelps, it would appear he cannot achieve his goal at this Olympics. He is an amazing athlete, I hope he will return and do well at the next Olympic games. Although it is much hard to achieve now, than when Mark Spitz set the record of 7 gold medals, it is certainly good to have these goals.
Did it not take 26years to break the long-jumping record set in Mexico City....maybe we will never break the records set by Mark Spitz, or the drug-enduced onces of Carl Lewis, but striving to achieve these will set our sites high...is that not the goal of the Olympics?

Year 2

Arrived home last night, run about midnight, the conclusion to my second year of summer activities. It was a good year.

Port Alberni was fun. The weather was fantastic, and we spent a good deal of time out at the lake where my parents have a number of friends. The kids spent considerable time jumping off the dock into the lake, which was very, very warm. My kids are fish, and love to swim.
We were very lucky as the people we were visiting had boats, in one case a small dugout canoe which was perfect for my son. He spent most of the afternoon paddling around, ferrying my daughter back and forth from the dock to the raft. I spent most of my day swimming back and forth from the dock to the raft as I did not want her out there by herself.
The highlight, for me at least, was that we saw the Mars (water)bombers take off a couple of times. There was a forest fire just up the island, so they were off battling that. They are amazing planes, and to see them take off right in front of you is an awesome sight.

The kids each were able to carve a bird, which is something that they really enjoy doing. They were very proud (rightfully so) and took them on the ferry with them when they went home. They were highly admired when people saw them.

In all I think it was a wonderful week, and a good two weeks for the kids. Now I am back at work.

I did my first blade today since July 29th. Yikes, it was rough. Didn't help that the wind was blowing in my face when I was on my homeward stretch, and that I went out to fast and hard, but it was a tough one. I am looking at sizing right now for my new blades, going to order them very soon, hoping to get some time on them before the season ends. I have about 135km left to my 1,200 goal, so I think I will have no issue making it, as long as the weather holds of course. It has been a good year, and I am feeling the (positive) effects of the blading. I missed blading while I was away from it for 2 weeks, glad to get back, although it takes a few days to get back into form again.

long week

I am tired...hoping that the touch of cold I am feeling is more because of the amount of work I have been doing this week, than a real cold.

The kids have had fun this week, these daycamps are fantastic. However, it takes a big toll on me. They do not start until 9:15am, then I race off to work. They end at 3:30pm, and race home from work. The daycamp is 20min away from home, so it adds 80min a day to my travel time. Then, because I do not get a full day in, I work when I get home and in the evenings. Because we were in the middle of a project, crunch time, I was working until 1am most nights, up early getting lunches ready. Man, you get tired after a while.
I guess if I were to do this for any length of time I would establish routines with other people who and would share the load. For me, I don't have any of these things setup, so it is ALL me. I don't mind, but it does wear you down.

We are off tomorrow to Port Alberni, booked a 12:30pm ferry. We will stop in Nanaimo, at the pool, and have a blow-off-some-energy. Hope Heather is feeling ok...she has been coughing a little, but not too bad. Going to let them both sleep in tomorrow while I get things ready to go, just have to pack the car and go.
Not sure how long we will stay in PA, maybe till Friday. Need to figure that out quickly and get our travel plans settled. Will head to Kelowna after that, finishing my two weeks. I cannot believe that it has only been 1 week, tomorrow. Yikes, feels like longer. The kids are tired, smiling and happy, so what more can you ask.

Lazy Days and Mondays

We layed a little lower today than we have in the past. We needed to get a few things from the store, so we headed out. I wanted to look at inline skates for Heather, so we could all go skating, but I was having some trouble finding some. Mainly I needed to get a couple of backpacks for tomorrows daycamps.
After we got home I made an early dinner and then we went out to a local wading pool. Interesting how the sun is going down earlier now, then even in July. Getting cooler as well in the evenings, especially when the sun disappears and the wind picks up. The kids had fun, and burned off excess steam. We picked up a new watch strap for Daniel today, the other one was bothering me. Funny how the strap was almost as much as the original watch. It should do him well, it is a velcro one, which should be nice and tight.
Also picked up Heather a new pair of shoes. Wanted some for Daniel, but cannot find any.

They will really enjoy the daycamps. Lot of work for me, running back and forth. Wish they had better hours, 9:15am to 3:30pm is not long enough for me to get settled at work. However, probably long enough for them as they are pretty darn busy. Last year, my mom came over to help, which was great as I did not have to run back to pick them up. This year I am going to try it, and just juggle my work schedule as best I can.

Oh well, back to do a little bit of work before shutting her down.

darn busses

Been a while since I took the bus regularly. When I worked downtown, or close to downtown; I used to commute daily by bus. It allowed us to only have 1 car, with one salary a mortgage and other household expenses, there was no way I could afford to run two cars. So, I took the bus daily to and from work.
Yesterday, the kids wanted to do the Skytrain. So we decided to head out to the pool via Skytrain and bus. This was all great, I checked on the transit web-site for the best routes, and distances, to make sure we were not walking great distances, and everything was a go. I bought some of the single-use tickets, and brought the books just in case.
We headed out. Well.....the instructions given to me were not correct, at least to where I was going. Unfortunately, there were two places named the same, and I did not clue in to the differences, so we took the wrong bus. When I figured it out, we hopped off and I re-checked the map and found the correct route and bus we should have taken. So, we lost quite a bit of time and did not get to the pool for a long time. This kinda changed my plans a little, so we ate dinner out before heading back home.
I think taking the bus is a mindset. You get used to adapting, and knowing what works and what does not. When I used to commute daily, I used to know when I had to make a mad-dash for the bus, or when I had time. With kids in tow, this is not quite as easy. Kudos to those people who manage without a car, and go everywhere and do everything by bus. It takes some doing, and you defintely get used to having a car.
If it was not so expensive, I might be inclined to take the bus to work. I do not live that far from work, but the way that the system is structured here, it is multiple zones, meaning my costs go up significantly. I also use my car after work. However, in the winter maybe I will consider it. I really does not lower my costs at all, the car insurance is about the same, and there is not significant wear and tear on the car with my commute, but it would be a good move overall.

I am not sure what we are up to today. I need to pick up some things for the week ahead, so we will have to hit a store today. Try and link that in with something fun. We have had a couple of late nights, so tonight has to be an early one. Tomorrow the kids are in daycamps, so they need some rest. Unfortunately, they are predicting showers for tomorrow and the rest of the week. Not sure what alternate plans the daycamps have, but they are well setup for this sort of thing and I am sure the the kids will arrive home tired and happy by the end of the day.

New day

Today marks the second day, first full day, that I have the kids in August. On Friday, after work I drove up to Kelowna. The traffic was snarly all of the way out of the city, the August long weekend being the busiest of the year for people escaping.
Traffic was busy all the way through, even in Chilliwack where I stopped to get something to eat. I usually avoid Chilliwack as it is so busy, and Friday was no exception. I made it to Kelowna at about 11pm.
I picked up the kids at 10am and we decided to head straight for Vancouver. I took the Kamloops route this time, I normally dislike this route as it can get very slow being single lane much of the way. We stopped in Kamloops and had a bite to eat and a quick relax before we headed out.
The kids decided that they wanted to go to the Coquitlam pool today. Their options were to skip the pool, and go to the fireworks which were happening that night, or one of three pools that we like. They chose the Coquitlam pool. We had a good swim, then headed back home to have dinner.
I am kinda glad that they opted out of the fireworks, not sure I would have made it. I was pretty tired after driving up the day before and the long day of work, as well as driving down the following day. The fireworks, not starting until 10pm, makes it a late night and a lot of people and traffic.
Will fill in details later, right now the park is calling us.