What a great weekend - fantastic food, black-clad-sexually-ambiguous-Queen St. waiters performing Happy Birthday for me, sunshine, puppies, singing and dancing, a boyband, making fun of Tom Cruise, a BBQ, more puppies and most of all spending time with my wonderful friends and family! More on that later. I'm fat and happy and exhausted!

XXV. Intern. Kanu-Regatta Duisburg 2006
Result

May 26-28

C1 men 500 m A final
1 - Andreas DITTMER 1:49.673
2 - Maxim OPALEV 1:50.351
3 - Florin MIRONCIC 1:50.385
6 - Mark OLDERSHAW 1:52.291
7 - Martin DOKTOR 1:52.379
9 - Thomas HALL 1:54.199

C1 men 1000 m A final

4 - Richard Dalton 4:17.227

C2 men 500 m A final

9 - Attila Buday 1:45.983

Tamas Buday Jr.

C2 men 1000 m A final

4 - Attila BUDAY 3:59.161
Tamas BUDAY JR.

C4 men 1000 m final

4 - Kyle JEFFERY 3:38.387
Dimitri JOUKOVSKI
Thomas HALL
Ian MORTIMER
K1 men 500 m A final

1 - Adam VAN KOEVERDEN 1:38.797

K1 men 1000 m A final
1 - Adam VAN KOEVERDEN 3:41.421
2 - Ben FOUHY 3:42.173
3 - Eirik VERAS LARSEN 3:45.133

K1 women 500 m A final

1 - Sofia PALDANIUS 1:52.497

2 - Josefa IDEM 1:53.339
3 - Karen FURNEAUX 1:53.861
5 - Emilie FOURNEL 1:53.965

K4 men 1000 m A final
1 - Steven JORENS 3:07.515
Andrew WILLOWS
Ryan CUTHBERT
Richard DESSUREAULT DOBER

CR men 200 m Relay 4 x 200 m

1 - Mark OLDERSHAW 2:59.265
Ian MORTIMER
Kyle JEFFERY
Thomas HALL

2 - György KOLONICS 2:59.661
György KOZMANN
Marton JOOB
Attila VAJDA

3 - Yang WENJUN 3:00.809
Xiaojie MA
Huang SHAOKUN
Wang BING

The national team is doing really well at World Cup II in Duisburg. Just heats today but Atti & Tommy, Kyle & Morty, Richard, Mark and Adam have been top 4 in everything. Not bad guys!

So maybe our get-togethers aren't so spontaneous these days, that's the reality when we're all so busy. Our new system is working great though and this Sunday Jackie has arranged for the women to get their Boygroove on. Winner of the 2005 Fringe festival, Boygroove satirizes the boyband phenomenon in the tradition of Spinal Tap and FUBAR. Good call, Jackie - this'll be great!

Aw mulch. Clem's birthday at the Mulchison on Friday is mulched. She has to go to Mulchigan to promote...whaddayacallit...that protective covering of organic matter placed around plants to prevent the evaporation of moisture, the freezing of roots, and the growth of weeds.
Hopefully we'll revisit the Mulchenhagen mulchebration on a later date. Maybe even have one big mulchday party for Clem, Jackie and me. Bartender, a round of Michigan Mulch Volcanoes please.

South Park explains Scientology...Sorry guys, I had to remove this clip because it stopped working. Obviously Tom Cruise found out about it and blocked my blog.

We did our Saturday morning practice in C-1 and then headed out to West Rouge (Frenchman's Bay) in the afternoon. The Dish, the Beav, Mrs. Chief and I went out in two OC-2s. It was a great day for outrigger! There was a strong westerly wind so we headed for the Rouge River and took a quick tour up to see what's new. Marisha and I both grew up in the area so it was a nice little nostalgia break. The trip back was a lot of fun as we were able to ride the rollers in but I'm looking forward to getting some actual coaching so as to do it more effectively. I'd forgotten what a blight the nuclear power plant is on the horizon but I guess we can thank it for water temperatures that are slightly higher than other parts of the lake. The whole trip took about 90 minutes. Afterward, Mr. and Mrs. Chief fired up the bbq and we had a little birthday celebration for Karen. Birdy and Ryan dropped by and made it a party. I should have gone to On the Curve afterward, Kim Inglis was in town for a princess reunion (Andrea's stag & doe) but I was wiped out.
Sunday was pretty uneventful except that I found out they've opened a French Connection at Sherway!! A quick visit and I'm poorer by a few hundred $$.

Oh, brutal. I just finished watching (or I should say fast-forwarding through) Brokeback Mountain. What a crummy movie. If you haven't seen it by now, my suggestion is don't waste your time and money...

I don't know if I'm having a meltdown of some kind but today I seriously considered two completely new paths to pursue. On the one hand, the Sunfish and I put together a concise business plan for opening a surfer hostel in Tofino. Okay, she actually came up with the business plan and I said stuff like, "Yeah, let's do it" and "I like surfers!".

On the other, I'm checking out trips on a website that Kaylynne sent me today, http://www.gvi.co.uk/index.asp
Work at the Jane Goodall Institute in Africa? Or maybe monitor the jaguar populations and help maintain ancient Mayan sites in Belize? Yes please!

Cat's postcards from California

The Hills

The Scientologists??? Damn you Xenu!!

So Mr. Purr is flying to Los Angeles and somehow got himself bumped up to first class. His wife, the lovely Doina, has made him promise to wear pants and swear he will not pretend he has a bomb in his carry-on luggage. Plus, he is under strict orders to maintain a distance of 20 metres from any celebrities that happen to be on the same flight.
We all expect to hear on the news tomorrow that a flight was turned back to YYZ because of some disturbance.

Canada was 4th overall in points at World Cup 1.
Points by discipline
4th in Canoe
4th in Kayak - women's
4th in Kayak - men's
5th in the medal standings
Individual points;
Adam is 1st in men's kayak
Karen is 3rd in women's kayak
Emilie is 4th in women's kayak
Rich is 5th in canoe and
Mark is 6th in canoe

Oh wow-the Sunfish, over at a Change is as Good as a Rest, went surfing this past weekend and has a huge shiner as a result...nice one!

Huh. They've discovered a polar-grizzly bear cross in the NWT but , oh... too bad, an american trophy hunter shot it.

And hey, why do you guys care why Beyonce's with him anyway? Like that's the only reason she's not dating you?

So anyway, they're still racing in Poland. Here's a rundown of today's Finals...
Adam - Gold in K1 500m
Karen - Bronze in K1 500m
Emilie - fourth in K1 500m
Emilie - Gold in K1 200m
Karen - Bronze in K1 200m
Attila &Tamas - sixth in C2 500m
- fourth in C2 1000m
Morty, Kyle, Tom Hall and Tamas - sixth in C4 500m
Morty and Kyle - just missed the A final in C2 1000m
Attila, Tamas, Dmitri andTom Hall- fourth in C4 1000m
Rich - third in C1 1000m
Mark - sixth in C1 500m but seriously, look at the names in this final...
RESULTS Race No. 97 C1 500 MEN
1 DITTMER ANDREAS 1:52.106
2 BARASZKIEWICZ PAWEŁ 1:52.2500.144
3 OPALEV MAXIM 1:52.5020.396
4 LIPKIN NIKOLAY 1:53.6901.584
5 DOKTOR MARTIN 1:53.7681.662
6 OLDERSHAW MARK 1:54.7582.652

Results from Trials in Montreal
Day 1
K2 1000 A Final - 3rd Geoff Clarke / Christopher Mehak
C2 1000 A Final - 4th Christopher Edwards / Dana Morgoch
- 5th Christopher Abbott / Dustin Shaw
K2 500 A Final - 2nd Genevieve Orton / Tanya Thomson

Day 2;
C1 D card Final
1st Christopher Edwards 2:01.536
2nd Dustin Shaw 2:02.734
3rd Dana Morgoch 2:04.667

K1 Junior Final - 2nd Kaylynne Parkes

K2 500m Final - 3rd Geoff Clarke/David Therrien




Oh yeah, and I got most of my hair cut off today!

There's so much going on this weekend...
National Team Trials II in Montreal and ICF World Cup I in Poznan, Poland (yellow clock).
Trials begin tomorrow - good luck to everyone racing - but World Cup started this morning and Canada is burning up the course on Malta Lake. Mark Oldershaw's performance is up to everyone's expectations. They're just in the heats right now but so far we're placing top three in everything - C1: Mark, Tom Hall (500m) and Richard Dalton (1000m), C2: Dmo & Rich, Tamas & Attila (500) and Kyle & Morty (1000m), as well as Adam, Emilie and Karen in K1.

The only photos on the site at the moment are of the coach's meeting. Hey, there's Nathan! I have time to sit a watch the results because I'm stuck at home waiting for the gas company to come and install a new meter. There's nothing worse than booking the morning off (they said clear a window between 9 & noon) and then forgetting about it. I could have slept in, gone for a liesurely paddle, had breakfast at Cora's and still have been back in time for the gas dude. Instead, I skipped the workout, clawed my way out of bed at the last possible second, sat in rushhour traffic, listened to the asshats at work talk about how Beyonce is only with Jay-Z for his money while watching endless Shakira video loops ("Look! She's singing with her boobies!") until, fortunately, my boss remembered I shouldn't be there. If I hadn't rushed home, it would have been life without gas until I could arrange for them to come back to re-light all the pilots (their phone message said within 48 hours). Phew.
So, what else. Last night, Marta invited me to an art exhibit at Cawthra Secondary. Those kids are incredibly talented! It was a complete multi-media show with live performances, food as art (that turned from exhibit to buffet after the opening speeches), video etc...Marta had 3 installations - all well-conceived and executed with great visual appeal - a sculpture (with sound), a painting that I really loved and a performance piece that involved plastic sheeting, coloured water and rubber boots. There should have been one more piece but it mysteriously disappeared after she agreed to sell it to a teacher (even though she hasn't seen the cash yet.) Aside from a future in kayaking or modeling (no lie, Marta is Scarlett Johansson's double), Marta could easily pursue a career in art. It's been years since Ryan was in high school and I really enjoyed seeing what's going on out there. Thanks Marta!

It occurred to me last night that the original Star Trek may have been the inspiration for a lot of Lululemon's fashions

On a side note: it's crazy how many Kirk-Spock manlove sites popped up when I did a search for uniform pics. I'd have thought it would be a fringe group but it's an established Trekkie sub-culture.

I saw this on another blog and it totally cracked me up. Bruce Stringbean and the S Street Band singing "Born to Add". Whoever wrote the song must be a serious Springsteen fan. This line is killer, "And we scream into that bitter night. Hey! three plus one makes four." Classic Street...

This past weekend, I went to see My Best Fiend, part of the Hot Docs Film Festival, with JS and T-bone. Fantastic, very funny film about the friendship and working relationship of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. An added bonus was that Werner Herzog and his brother (and sometime producer) were there. Herzog spoke briefly before the film but sadly there was no Q & A afterward.
It was really great to get out with the ladies. We went to Sarah's for falafal and chicken shawarma afterward where I got to hear the details about the Sunfish's alleged crime spree at Canadian Tire...
I guess it was truly a girls' weekend. After practice Saturday morning, almost all of the women's canoe group took R.M. shopping for her prom dress. So after breakfast at Helen's, we headed to Bloor West Village. As always happens, the dress you really want isn't available in the right size but Trixie is going to order it. In any event R.M. looked great in everything she tried on so she has options. After we dropped underage R.M off at home, we went and met the coach for a beer at the Pump & Patio. The rest of the weekend meant more films to see - Look! Up in the Sky (a history of Superman) and Billabong Odyssey (surfers...uh huh.)

Today my site clocks over 1000 visitors since March 4!

Nice. Mazda Canada has supported the national canoe-kayak team for over a decade. I'm not sure when this print ad came out but I've come across it in a few publications . Anything that raises public awareness of the sport. Maybe I'll check out a Mazda for my next new vehicle...

Happy Birthday to my
good friend J.P.!

I like my new clocks but will like them better once I figure out how to display the city names.
L to R:
TORONTO-NEW YORK
VANCOUVER
POZNAN
DUISBURG
I'm really looking forward to going out with the girls on Friday night - Hot Docs and dinner and lots of catching up to do.

Super terrific karaoke...
that's right, this is what we do when it's 4:00am and the bars are all closed.