This has been a great week. I had Monday off and slept in. Stopped by Starbucks and ran into two of my favourite people - Laurie and Sylvie (btw, are you both french?). We had coffee and just as I was about to leave, Eve showed up (in her new C-fit T). She was meeting Rachel and since L & S were leaving, I sat down with them for a minute. Rachel's little boy William is a sweetie with one of those heart-cheering grins.

I headed home to a big pile of laundry after that. yish. It would have been tolerable if I could've tuned into Ch131 while I folded but my internet connection was boned. Just as I'd get on a roll writing an email or watching True Blood it would crap out.

Monday night we had db  - a 6k time control. Dray came down to help out and ended up driving the motorboat and shooting video. Larry and Stringer also came out in their oc-1s. Eve & I were pretty insulted when we noticed Larry had a resistor on his boat. About 250m into it, he suddenly shot ahead and I thought, "Sheesh, make us feel bad - like you can't even paddle slow enough to stay with us." About 150m later I realized it was because he'd removed the resistor. The other crew was missing 2 paddlers and had a 2 minute headstart. We maintained a 52 stroke rate throughout the piece and caught the other boat before the halfway point so we were happy. No joke, I am so glad I do all that long distance paddling.

Afterwards we had Bud light lime and pizza while we watched the vidi. I was doing something retarded with my arm - I'd gotten a crimp in my shoulder during the first 10  strokes and never actually worked it out. Somehow in countering it, I tightened my bottom forearm and now it feels like mild tendonitis - probably a combo of mouse-working and paddling. We worked out our rooms for New York (New York!!) - Alyson, Eve, Rachel, Chrissy, Chanda and me in a 2-bedroom suite. Sweet!

Tremblant! What a great weekend at Stringer's. Jackie, Eve & I drove up together and arrived around dinner time. Marisha and Erin left later and arrived shortly after 11pm. Julie was coming up for Saturday only since she had to work at her C-fit gym.
In spite of the forecast the weather was great - sunny and just a bit cooler than Toronto. After breakfast, Eve and I went shopping and the others took a hike. They got lost for awhile but eventually found their way home and we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. Dinner was at El Diablo and we hung out at the bar to watch the end of the World Cup match - Chile v Spain.  Something I forgot from previous restaurant dinners in Quebec is if you enjoy curry dishes, don't order one in QC. They serve it with a very bland white sauce with a hint of some spice which could be cinnamon, possibly some other spice but definitely not curry.
The next morning was a slow start for everyone. We were waiting for Jules to arrive so didn't make any plans. At some point we got tired of sleeping, lounging, eating, sleeping so Jackie and I took a walk around the village. We saw some of the triathletes finishing the trail run portion. Some of them looked far too fresh to have completed the 56km or whatever the poster said it was so we decided that there must have been a relay portion. When we got home, we made the mistake of turning on the tv just in time to see a police car burning in the middle of T.O. and the group smashing windows, spraying graffiti and stuff. It was mezmerizing (even thought they just kept showing the same clip over and over).
Julie finally arrived and had brought each of us an awesome C-fit shirt. We prepared lunch, cracked open the wine and sat down to a game of phonetic scrabble (which doesn't always work between anglo- and franco-phone players). We went to the pool for a bit, watched a movie and were too wiped to go out again.
After a lazy day yesterday, we decided to climb the mont today. Pretty good hike. We are not dumb people but none of us brought water. Fortunately, there was a restauarant at the top and we rehydrated there. Eve and I decided to take the gondola back down - me because of my knee (climbing up is fine climbing down causes much pain and swelling) and Eve because one of the chemo drugs damaged her lungs and it takes some time to recover . I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the ride! It's so quiet and the view was everything you'd expect. Spectacular! It took us 90 minutes to do the climb, Marisha & Julie did the descent  in 45.
We ran in to Jackie and Erin just returning from the mini-golf. Damn, we wanted to do that to but it was getting to that time where we needed to pack up and head back to Ontario. Not before we had a little more time at the pool though!

We were planning to stick together on the way home but because of a quick on/off of the highway to check our directions, lost the other girls right near the start. We headed back through Ottawa while the other two sent crazy texts from Oka, Hawksbury etc...
Eve took over driving just before Kingston. We had just gotten back on the highway after stopping for gas, when we heard a clunking sound. Or I should say a clunk sound since it just happened the once. Within minutes there was a weird thrumming coming from the front end. Since I'd just had the car in for service on the front end bearings, I thought maybe it was something to do with that. As we went on though, it sounded more and more like a flat tire. It was pouring rain so we pulled off at one of those gas stations with a giant canopy over all the pumps. No flat but when I tested the lug nuts on the front driver's-side tire, found I could tighten them by hand. While the girls dug out the tire iron, I found the wheel locks. We tightened the nuts and did a couple of laps around the parking lot before testing them again. The pimply-faced kid at the cash register asked if we needed help but we declined and decided we'd just stop again a few km down the road to test them again. Whatever, it held and we were pretty pleased with our pit crew.

We should have tuned into 680 before we got on the highway. The DVP was flooded from all the rain and closed at the Bloor-Bayview exit where we wanted to get off. Since we couldn't see any red taillights I decided not to get off at Eglinton as Jackie suggested and carried on. What a dummy. Traffic seemed to be moving along just fine but then stopped dead. Eventually we got to Jackie's sometime around midnight.

Eve and I carried on down Charles where we witnessed a group of loogans fighting. Probably the longest drive home from Tremblant ever. We want to go again but I'm thinking of flying Porter if we do.

Interesting. So here's what everyone's talking about at the moment...
Earthquake registering 5.5 hit us today. Epicentre between Ottawa and Montreal.

Here's a photo of the devastation in Toronto...

Toronto Island weekend.

My car is out of commission so Eve picked me up at 6am and we headed to the Boulie to meet Ian and a few of the other coaches. So great - Ian had offered motorboat rides so we didn't have to deal with the gong show at the ferry terminal.

There were 8 of us so we took the whaler (Ian, Conor, Eve, Chelsea and me) and Steve took the zodiac with Konrad and Del.

As we were leaving, Ian pointed towards the Palais and said, " Wtf, there're people on the breakwall". Mostly he just noticed them because they had the 10-man dboat pulled into the breakwall with them. Clearly they'd untied it from it's mooring and used it to ferry themselves across the gap. It was a group of 20-something's partying on in their underwear. As we approached Ian said he'd slow down enough so Conor could grab the end of the boat and we'd keep going. We pulled up and Ian said, "What - are you retarded? You can't just steal a boat".

They were so proudly self-conscious of their obvious hip factor; up partying all night, in their underwear, watching the sunrise from the breakwall. Hell, that's just a weekday morning for a paddler and they seemed disappointed that we weren't more reactive to the nudity.

One girl in particular got cranky about us taking the boat after Ian said they could swim back. As we tied it back to it's offshore mooring one of the guys, let's call him "Drum Circle", started swimming back. After a couple of strokes he realized he could just stand up and encouraged the rest to follow. Crank Grrl whined over and over that she couldn't swim so Ian offered to call the Marine Unit to pick them up. She said yes, do that but Drum Circle knew he wasn't referring to a taxi service and said don't bother.

We left them to it. Ian called the lifeguards, Evan and Robert, asking them to check on the 10-man when they got down to Sunnyside since we were fairly certain they'd just untie it again. They did and the guys found the boat up on the rocks behind the Palais.

Seriously, private motorboat is the only way to travel to this festival. I'm spoiled for the ferry now. When we got over there, we had a tent, chair, tarps, all of our gear, everything we would need to survive 2 days on the Island. This was especially good since they had forecast massive thunderstorms for the entire day on Saturday.

Day one was beautiful and sunny and, as much as I was dreading this weekend, with the communting/parking/ferry stress removed it was actually awesome! I got to hang out with some friends I don't get to see nearly often enough, took care of my own crews and helped out with others and got to know my paddlers a little better.

Dave was really entertaining when it came to the ridiculous starter. They don't like to use CCA officials so they just get one of their friends to do it. She gave Dave a time penalty early in the day - maybe even first race - and he was not impressed. And it wasn't even a real time penalty - it was something like .5 of a second.

Eve's brother was there with a vistor from Taiwan. Adward was pretty cool about hanging around the Island all day but I have to say, it wasn't the most difficult thing. Especially since he's a photog. Lots of material there.

Day two and I slept through my alarm. Wow - I haven't slept through the night in weeks and the one day someone is coming to pick me up at 6AM I sleep until 5:58. Fortunately, I hadn't unpacked my bag from the day before. I just had to throw on some clothes and brush my teeth! Still, it meant wearing nasty racing jerseys worn the day before.

As we got to the Boulie we saw that zodiac going past the sailing club. As it turned out, Ian was waiting for us to get there and had given Steve and the guys the other boat. After we remembered that Del was going to paddle across with Pete, we packed up our gear and left. We caught up with the other boat just around the pretend ferry that goes to the Island airport.

Adam supports their Right to Play. You can too.

 Click here to support Adam in NXNE's Put the Boot In soccer match.

He'll match your donation dollar for dollar.

People who live in the PC/LP area are used to film shoots around the neighbourhood but we're not very often affected at the club. This week however, MCC and the Dons were completely blocked off  for a couple of days by a chain of trucks on the roadside and floating docks, cables and gear on the riverside. Filming was originally slated to start on Sunday but was shifted to Monday & Tuesday when they found out at the last minute there would be 100s of crazy dbers on-site.

They're filming a new series for USA network called Covert Affairs. Produced by the people who brought you the Bourne trilogy, it stars Piper Perabo ("Coyote Ugly," "Beverly Hills Chihuahua") as Annie Walker and Christopher Gorham ("Ugly Betty," "Jake 2.0") as Auggie Anderson.
She is "a young CIA trainee who is thrust into the inner sanctum of the agency when she is unexpectedly promoted to field operative. While it appears that she has been plucked from obscurity for her exceptional linguistic skills, there may be something or someone from her past that her CIA bosses are really after."
He is "a CIA military intelligence agent, blinded while on assignment, and Annie's guide in this world of bureaucracy, excitement and intrigue." Also on board are Peter Gallagher ("The O.C.," "American Beauty") &  Anne Dudek ("House," "Mad Men")




The synopsis and cast list didn't exactly grab my attention and the trailer is kind of Alias-lite but the pedigree of the production team makes me think it's worth a second look. Between them Dave Bartis and Doug Liman are responsible for bringing us some great films and tv shows; Swingers, The Bourne trilogy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Providence, Will & Grace as well as numerous Terry Tate/Reebok commercials.

Anyway, I'll definitely be checking it out - especially the episode with all the rowers in it. Who doesn't love to see how their neighbourhood looks on the small screen?


Did someone say Terry Tate?

The wind tonight is insane. I went to the club intending to paddle but Chris & Doug, who had just come off the lake, said don't bother. It's all over the map and I'm guessing gusts are around 60k/hr. I just checked the Port Credit weather station (link at right) and it says 27knots which is about 50k/hr.
I hung out at the club talking to a few people and I ended up feeling just as good as if I'd done a workout. Sometimes the club is not just about the paddling, you know? Seb heard me say I'd been looking at a VW and he offered to let me take his new Rabbit for a drive and check out the standard transmission. I wasn't going to but he's pretty pumped about having such a cool car so I took it around the block and you know what? It was really fun driving standard. I have to keep reminding myself though that there is nothing fun about clutching, gearing up and down, 1st to 2nd, on the QEW every morning.

Anyway, I coached db at Sunnyside from 7-8. (Also a great place to catch up with friends - until the team gets there, that is). There were only 12 from my P&G crew so we just did steady paddling and talked about the race this weekend. They actually have 2 crews but the captain this year is some crazy. Between the two, there were 22 paddlers but she wanted them to go out in 2 separate boats. Neither Conor or I can be bothered dealing with her anymore - she asks what we think and when we tell her, she presses her lips together, rolls her eyes and says in her eastern-bloc accent, "NUH".  It's all good though. After this weekend, it'll all be over!

There were police-with-lights and pylons blocking off Bexhill when I came home. Exciting! Having just heard this morning about the police emptying their service revolvers into two dogs in Lorne Park yesterday, I wondered what new drama was being played out in my backyard. When I looked down the road though, I could see two hydro cherry pickers set up in front of the giant trees on either side of the road - oaks or willows, I couldn't tell. I guess the wind had done some damage and they were taking branches down before they came down on the wires, a house or car or passerby...of course all of my clocks were flashing when I got home so I guess they hit something.

Burloak paddlers weren't able to paddle down to the harbour during their morning workout today. An early morning yacht fire left the air thick with smoke "and the smell of insurance fraud hung heavy in the air" (as Mallorie put it).
A witness in an apartment building that overlooks 16 Mile Creek at the Rebecca Street bridge saw at least two boats on fire shortly before 2 a.m. on Wednesday.
Total damages are estimated at $600,000. Halton Police detailed the damages as follows in a news release:

one destroyed boat - $300,000
second destroyed boat - $200,000
two damaged boats - total of $100,000

"The Halton Regional Police Service Arson Unit is continuing to investigate this incident. Anyone with information related to it is asked to contact Ext 8738 or by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477)"

Postal workers - reputation earned

I just found out that a time-sensitive legal letter I sent via registered mail on Friday afternoon has not moved from the original post office. The reason? Someone at the post office wrote a postal code on the envelope for a northern ontario town. I had written the complete address and it didn't include a P-something postal code. Even if I'd left it off by accident, Oakville On is fairly easy for someone in the Mississauga post office at Turtle Creek to figure out. So frustrating.

Such cuties! Meredith won a contest a little while ago and the prize was a ride to school on an Oakville F.D. truck. Today was the day and Alyson & Hilary got to ride along (imagine Alyson's excitement). You won't be seeing these photos on FB.

I woke up Sunday morning with a fever and defcon 2 nausea (just so you know, wikipedia defines defcon 1 as: "maximum readiness - reserved for imminent or ongoing attack". Defcon 2 is: "increase in readiness just below maximum readiness", referencing the Cuban Missile Crisis.  So yes, the analogy is completely appropriate).

More than anything I wanted to stay in bed with a wastebasket close by but I had a db crew that was racing at the club regatta. Chrissy was the other coach and would be there too but she'd hurt her back and I thought she might be feeling worse than me. Clearly though, I wasn't rational. It did not occur to me until this second that I should have just texted her.

I got dressed and drove over to the club. I passed Eve riding her bike on the way. Smart. I'd considered it but in the end was glad I had my car. There was a stream of cars crawling the streets surrounding the club but I didn't even bother looking for a spot. I just drove straight to Kane Ave., parked and walked back.

I found a race program in the breakfast room, checked my crew's race times - 9:20. ugh, so long to wait when you're in a feverish haze - chatted with Matt A for a bit and then wandered along the shore looking for my crew. Found them, talked for a bit and then headed back towards the club where I ran into Eve and Chrissy. I let Chrissy know that I'd be bailing and of course she was totally cool with it. Intent on getting home to bed now, I wandered up the path where I ran into Laurie who was guarding the mayor's parking spot in front of the club. She was laughing because Mayor Hazel was down at the legion tearing a strip off the policemen who were blocking their parking lot and not allowing paddlers to park there. Doug had just come over to talk and we watched the mayor waving her program at the officer's bellybutton (he was really tall & she's really the opposite of that). As it turned out, the legion had some event going on later in the morning so the blockade was justified. The officer came back with Hazel and took the mike. However, his announcement for dbers to remove their cars from the lot turned into him cheering for the Peel Police department db team who had just entered the marshalling area. Pretty funny.

We found Matt McC who was doing his volunteer hours so we stood around for awhile talking about his motorcycle trip from Land's End to John o' Groats (LEJOG) . Talking and laughing made me feel more human so I stuck around for a bit. Eventually it all got to be too much and I trudged back to my car, picked up a six-pack of diet coke and a fruit cup, then headed home.

I climbed into bed just after 9am and slept until 4pm. When I woke up I couldn't figure out the day or time or if I'd been out of bed yet. The db festival seemed like a memory from days ago. I ate my fruitcup, checked email, then crawled back into bed. I woke up at 7:15 on Monday morning with just enough time to shower and dress and brew some coffee for my drive to work.  Feeling more normal though, that's for sure.

Missy home regatta! I got up late and with a slightly queasy stomach after our night out. It was 7:15, early enough except I spent a half hour rummaging around, trying to find my racing singlet. I just had my hands on it a couple weeks ago and remember folding it up and putting it away somewhere thinking, well I'll never wear this again....Eventually, I found the one I last wore in 2002 and, wonder of wonders, it fits!

At the club I was at least early enough to get a parking spot in the school lot. It's overcast and windy. Wearing shorts was a mistake so I'm glad I threw my Lulu Grooves into the bag as I was leaving. No camera for some reason, I'm not feeling up to taking photos. In fact, I'm not feeling myself today at all, which I put down to the wide variety of beer brands we were tasting last night. Too much mixing with Conor as brew-director!
I sat on a picnic table with Rachel, Tamlyn & Courtney while the midgets-juvis-parents got everything set up. You know how it is, we figured we were visible enough if someone wanted to put us to work. I was getting cold and changed into my craft long-sleeve and settled down on the front steps. K.C. arrived - just home from World Cups in Szeged and Duisburg. She did really well in K2 1000m and the K1 5000m - improving with each race.

I was entered in C4 with Eve, Chrissy & Krista. Ok, our practice felt about a thousand times better than our race but it was great to be back in the boat together. Krista is a strong addition on the left (while Jess is at naval academy) and Eve was wicked at steering. Chrissy had hurt her back the day before, doing C2. We asked Rachel if she could take her spot but she's pretty sure racing with a bad wing, sorry clavicle, was a bad idea (we all know that when Rachel's going down the course, she can't not race). Chrissy turned up just before the race and said she felt surprisingly loose so, after testing it with a few strokes in the p-pool, decided she could do it as long as she backed off if necessary.
As we were pushing off the dock, a peewee/bantam C2 that was supposed to be in the race ahead of us kept getting blown back into the dock. One of the juvis pointed out that they'd been trying to take it away for over 5 minutes and he didn't think they'd make it so the coach pulled them back into the dock.
We got down to the start, did a warm up and held back, waiting for the C2s but no boats showed up. The C4s were all there though. Judy T. laughed and said, "You're all so prompt. I guess we'll start this race." Even still, none of us were ready for the start and our first couple of strokes were weak. We pulled it together without ever getting a good, long stroke going and finished second to a Burloak crew. We dissected the race like we were at national team trials of course, and even though it bugged us to lose we decided coming second to this stacked boat that trained all the time wasn't a complete disgrace.

After that I wandered around visiting. I'd told Kyle I couldn't stick around for war canoe - was heading up to Sutton for Susi's "Being Bad BBQ" - but still had time to visit.

I just happened to be talking to Nancy B. as her son Alan came down the course in his first ever K2 race. I could pick him out without any prompting. He looks a lot like Nancy and paddles really well ( no surprise) . Nancy was pretty stoked. They have a mini for him to use at the cottage and he's clearly comfortable a boat.

The Ride for Cancer had been going by on the bridge for the past 45 minutes or so and I was waiting for the end to pass before I went to Starbucks. I didn't want to be dodging bikes as I crossed the road. Eve had gone down earlier on the chance that she could wave to her Uncle Dick who was doing the ride in Eve's name and that of another friend with cancer. She missed him though. He was close to the front and one of the first to arrive in Waterdown where the spent the night on their way to the Niagara finish line. I finally got my second misto for the day and a breakfast sandwich. I walked over to the bank machine by the post office - I wanted to buy some of the new missy gear - and then settled on the wall by the river, under the bridge, to watch the kids warming up and eat my breakfast.

An older couple went by, husband on a scooter, wife walking. They commented on how comfortable I looked and asked if I was enjoying the races. It turns out their son is a former paddler - Archie Chase. I recognize the name, he did quite well, and we had a pleasant conversation while the various boats went past. Geoff waved from a pale pink boat he'd borrowed to race - no lie, it's exactly the colour of the controversial "flesh" crayon from a crayola box set.

Eventually I said I'd better go since the war canoes would be lining up soon and I didn't want to be a jerk about not being in the boat but waving to them from the start line.

I had to pick up my keys and stuff from my locker and ran into lots of friends as I wandered back along the shoreline. I chatted briefly with Larry who was busy coaching. I checked my phone messages and found out that the bbq was cancelled due to a massive rainstorm they'd been having all morning. With no reason to leave and the war canoe already leaving the dock,  K.C. and I decided to go have lunch at the Pumphouse Grill. Eve came by and met us.

After lunch, I did finally leave and go home. I did not feel well at all. I went to bed around 3:30pm and except for a drink of juice at some point, I slept until 7:15 Sunday morning. Okay, this wasn't the effects of beer. I am seriously sick.