I had my first sleepless night in a long time. It was definitely one of those wide-awake and worried nights but not for anything specific. I woke up around 2am and was still lying there reading The Beckham Experiment at 5:45 so I got up and went to the club to paddle. I felt pretty good all morning, propped up by coffee, I supposed, but it's hellish now and I have to go into a meeting.
I had my doctor's appointment. His diagnosis - Dupuytren's contracture. While paddling has nothing to do with the cause, he's suggested wearing a glove when I paddle might cut down on aggravation. Hmmm. Yeah, I don't know about that. Anyway, I'm not thrilled about it but he said it probably won't affect me much for a few more years. Most commomly, the ring and baby fingers curl in toward the palm so it shouldn't interfere with my paddling or playing the guitar. At the worst, I may have to opt for surgery in a decade or so.
On my way back to work, I returned Karen's call. She said she's coming down to paddle K1 this afternoon so we're going out for dinner after practice. I guess I'll find out what's up with her and chief.

So...those of us stuck in Ontario have decided we've just hit that point in the year where it's difficult to stay motivated in training. Add to that what's happening out in Halifax - without us!!! Anyway, in spite of nice weather, it was pretty quiet at the club. Oh, except for the exchange students from Spain and France. They were sure having a good time out in the dbs!
Last night, the women's team practice for 90 minutes out on the lake. I couldn't believe that Jessica actually flew in from New York! Doug was her coach for the junior national team back in the day (when Blake was also on it). She sat with us at Jenn & Trent's wedding and Blake and I took turns telling her what a great crew we were and how we'd love to have her come out.
After practice we went out for a team building drink. Not all of us know each other but honestly, I mostly sat with people I already know. I heard some funny shit like Sheila K. thinks this team, which includes many former national team paddlers, was put together to challenge the current national team. Baahhaaaha. For sure Gavin thinks it too. Dumb bitches. I stayed at the bar later than I wanted to but it was a really fun time.
I've got an appointment tomorrow morning for Dr. McL. to look at this lump that's growing in the palm of my left hand. If not for Mark O. I might not even notice it. Naw, I would. I've had problems with my middle finger for several months and then the past couple of weeks a lump appeared and just started getting bigger. More than anything, I just want confirmation that it's nothing to worry about. It's on my top hand so I'm hoping it's just something caused by paddling but considering I'm finally changing sides after 15 years of paddling right, does that makes sense? The worry for me is it's not on a bony part of my hand, otherwise I'd just think it was a bone spur. Fingers crossed that's what it turns out to be.

Oh balls. I couldn't make a decision on what to do today;

A) drive to Welland to watch WODs
B) go for a paddle
C) go to the gym

so I ended up...

D) lying in bed, reading and drinking coffee.

Just now, when I decided that a paddle is what I really need, there was a loud bang of thunder and the sky has turned completely black! Even a squirrel who was in mid-scamper has frozen on a branch outside the stairway skylight. Now the rain is pelting down, there's continuous thunder and lightning and I guess I should be glad that I didn't leave 20 minutes earlier. Being caught out on the lake in a thunderstorm of this magnitude is heart-stopping. Worse than going to the beach after watching shark week.
I can't even catch up on computer stuff. I've too many photos stored on my harddrive to risk frying it so I'm shutting down for now.
ciao.

So I went down to the end of the road. No lightning but I did get this interesting shot of a cloud formation. The lights in the bottom right corner are on the pier at the Petro-Canada plant.



Immediately after this, a pure blue sky emerged from the clouds. I went for a paddle and just played in the waves. Lots of fun, especially since there were very few Sunday boaters.
Earlier in the day, I'd gotten a call from the gym I just joined. They wanted to know when I could come in for my "personal fitness assessment" so I said today! Now in my experience, personal fitness assessment really means, " when can we do our sales pitch for personal training" but I have to say - this one took 90 minutes and they made me work HARD. Needless to say, it's the first time I've actually pushed myself since I stopped training and, good god, I've really let myself go! If they had actually tried to sell a personal trainer at that moment, I might have signed up. However, it also reminded me of how much I love training so I am suitably motivated.
The reason for joining a new gym is simple. I've been at Revolution in Oakville which has been awesome. On the plus side, Larry, Chanda and Eve have also been there and we trained together. However, Eve broke her wrist, Chanda and Larry were coaching sports at school so by the end of last winter, I was mostly there on my own anyway. On the minus side, it's in the opposite direction from work so if I don't get there by 6:00am, it's barely time to do a proper workout, no one else in the group needs to get up that early (teachers bah!) and I stress about traffic on the QEW. Especially in the winter.
The new gym is about 3 minutes from my work, is bigger (more cardio equipment), has a pool and a ton of classes (cardio, pilates, yoga, spin, kick-boxing). Oh yeah and it's a 24 hour gym! And, the other thing I forgot, school board employees get a huge discount so I get all that for about $350 per year. I am so looking forward to missing rush hour traffic every morning and being able to run at lunch all winter long (on a treadmill). No shame there.

I am holding back posts on a lot of fun, exciting, important events recently - mainly because I want to write about them with the appropriate attention and consideration. So. I keep waiting for a rainy day or quiet time where I can be properly engaged and it's just not happening.
Even little things, like the sparrow that smashed into my screen door on Sunday and spent the better part of the day sitting on my front porch with the upper and lower parts of his beak pointing in different directions. I instantly turned into my 8 year old self, trying to save the poor thing. I crumbed up goldfish crackers (other crackers are available) which he couldn't possibly eat - although that was actually before I noticed his beak issue. Anyway I was frustrated at not being able to DO SOMETHING when I noticed around 12:30pm that his beak was normal again. He pooped on my front porch and then flew away.

Last night was off for everyone so when I got to the club it was empty except for the summer camp kids waiting for their parents. I was just dropping my stuff on the ground when someone came up behind me. Expecting it to be Helen telling me she would be locking the club, I was completely floored to turn around and find DUKE! I guess I shouldn't be so surprised considering worlds are coming up. He looks great, relaxed and happy. He and his girlfriend flew in Tuesday night and they'll be heading to the coast in a couple of days. After a quick catch-up (fb has made it unnecessary for a hardcore dish when someone has been away), we jumped into our respective boats and paddled away.
It was quiet on the lake after the long weekend. Only a few sailboats out and that guy who lives by Imperial Oil cruising around on his seadoo. Kind of a boring paddle actually. My GPS died as I was leaving the dock so I couldn't even use it for motivation.
Talked to Attila for a couple of minutes when I got back, he's covering Pete's outrigger groups while he's away. I may dog-sit Lola while they're at worlds. After he left the dock, I had to avoid that annoying french dber who was dragging Pete's boat trailer around the road so he could make a better parking spot for himself. He was already parked and had already unloaded his oc-1, he just wanted to leapfrog up the curb by 6 feet. Such a crétin.
I had a quick shower and then headed over to Rachel's for dinner. Kaylynne was already there when I arrived. She filled me in on what's new and I was fascinated by her dad's new project - bee-keeping. They actually have a hive in their backyard which will start producing honey next summer. Plus she knows all kinds of fun facts about bees, like.... honey made from rhododendrons can be toxic and might make you stoned and/or sick. There's documentation that so called "madness honey" was used to poison, then kill off invading armies a couple of times in the Black Sea area, once in 401 B.C. & again in Pompey in 69 B.C. Interesting!
Ryan and Corry from Burloak arrived shortly after I got there and then Jess after coaching db and K.C. after she finished training.
Rachel must have spent the entire day cooking! There were 3 or 4 different types of salads, seasoned meatballs in a peanut sauce (these were especially amazing and, note to Rache, I need the recipe), chicken in a cream sauce and for dessert, toffee bars and zucchini bread. She is a fantastic cook and could easily switch from Stevens to culinary school. Agh, we were so stuffed! Anyway, it was a great dinner party and we laughed a ton! When I left around 10:30, Rachel was putting together care packages of leftovers for the guys to take home.
I want to do this again at my place before everyone leaves for CCA. Hopefully we can fit it in.

Eve turned up on BlogTO's Street Style which is a Toronto version of the Sartorialist. You may recognize the photographer as well.

Real Turf for Real Madrid

Too bad it won’t last. The natural turf will be pulled up and discarded by Sunday. Only the TFC, Real Madrid and a couple of pro lacrosse teams will get to enjoy it. And of course the fans will enjoy watching a game where the ball that doesn't make freakish skids and bounces across the field.

Thursday - wind from the south-west. My expectations were pretty high for good waves but as I paddled out in bathtub chop around the harbour, I started to wonder. I could see Stringer way out in the distance, coming towards me and we passed when I was about 2km out. As he went by, he yelled "keep going another 2km - it gets a lot better". He was right.

Friday, more of the same. I noticed a wedding party having photos taken in Memorial Park. 4:30pm seems so early for a weekday wedding but I guess this is what couples are forced into by the overloaded wedding industry.
The police were out in their zodiac and they waved as they headed towards the harbour, intent on chasing down one of the fishing boats. I had some fun in the waves and after about 10 km, headed in. I could see the marine unit pulled up along the pier wall, surround by people. There were no boats around - what were they doing? I could make out the wedding party I'd seen earlier. Those bass-turds, I thought, they're giving them grief for taking photos without a permit...but no, as I got closer it became apparent that they were having their photos taken with the wedding party. The groomsmen were posed in the zodiac as I went by. Ah, such nice guys!

Saturday morning and the lake was like glass. I haven't done a steady paddle for a few days so did 14 km. On my way back in, I passed a couple groups in OC-4s. One of them was having serious steering issues but as I changed my trajectory to avoid them, they'd adjust theirs to match mine. I recognized a couple of dbers in the boat but not the steersman who insisted I admire their new OC-4. I was just like yeah, nice boat and kept paddling. Still don't know if he was just that bad at steering or if he confused me for one of their members.

After that I packed up the car and headed to Sutton where I spent a fantastic day with a friend.

Sunday. Kind of overcast and not nice. Marisha, Karen and I were trying to get together but Karen couldn't work it out. Marisha and I decided to go to Sherway instead. Four hours and a couple hundred dollars later and I was home with some new shorts. While we'd been in the mall/bunker, the weather had turned beautiful! I was going to go for a paddle but I didn't have my gear with me and it was already 6:30. I convinced myself that it would be too late by the time I ate something and ended up staying in watching the season one finale of True Blood.

Oh yeah, because of the recent implementation of the law to ban talking on a cell-phone while driving, there's been a lot of media focus on the dangers of texting while driving. Here's a situation where a text message diverted a potential tragedy (neither of us was driving at the time but that's beside the point).
On Saturday, I texted Marisha to find out if she'd heard back from Karen about getting together on Sunday. She texted back that she had not but was up for brunch. We decided to talk in the morning. The next day, she told me that if I hadn't texted, the house she was in may very well have gone up in flames.
Here's how it happened. She and Carmen had gone to some friends' for a bbq. She'd dropped her purse in the kitchen and they were sitting outside talking when she heard the text message beep of her phone. Apologizing for not turning it off, she went into the kitchen where she responded to my text.
"Guys", she said, "something's burning in the kitchen."
The host responded that the bbq was right outside the kitchen window and she was just smelling the smoke coming through the open window.
"No", she insisted, "this is definitely not food and it's really burning."
They couldn't see any smoke but as they moved around the kitchen, the smell got stronger. Suddenly the frame of a painting propped on top of some cupboards burst into flames. They had recently put the picture up there to see how it looked, directly under some halogen lights. They put out the fire and moved it away from the lights, exclaiming they had to invite the person who texted her over for dinner sometime. I feel completely removed from any responsibility (but will take the dinner invitation!).

Exterior Design


The first time I came across the concept of projecting large-scale images was in William Gibson's 1984 novel, Neuromancer. Gibson, who coined the term 'cyberspace', is a genius at forecasting our socio-technological future and I find his work fascinating. His description of future-Tokyo's polluted, overcast sky serving as a virtual television or the drug-addicted artist who is able to project holograms due to electronic implants may seem a stretch but are no less prescient. Besides, who doesn't love to see the theoretical become reality? Just ask William Shatner.

Some day, when every surface has become a veritable billboard, this type of image projection might be the bane of our existence. At the moment though, it's serious eye candy. No joke, working on this stuff at companies like The Electric Canvas or Urbanscreen would be my dream career.

Anyway, they've been busy. Check out some of these badass visuals... (more on their websites)

Ahhhh, super fun waves on the lake tonight - south west and gusty. Things flattened out the further you went so I pretty much stayed in a 2km radius around the harbour. Caught some great rides. And about time too! it's been flat or offshore for weeks now.

I got off the water around 6:30 and didn't feel like making the drive home between workouts so went to Starbucks and got a strawberry-banana Vivanno (their protein drink) and then hung out at the club until the Stonehookers practice. (yeah this joke never gets old. Under memo on my fee cheque I wrote $250 for hookers.)

Now I'm tired and haven't had dinner. So happy cleaning lady was here today. House is perfect!

I met Ryan at the club at 6:45 this morning to go for a paddle. It was humid but sunny. Lots of debris in the harbour from the heavy rainstorms. We did about 4 km on the lake, came in to see if Chris' group was there yet, then did 2km more on the river.



Afterwards, we went to Helen's for breakfast. Ran into Eve on her way to Starbucks - so pleased to see her wearing the Stonehookers t-shirt I made! It looks really great. She's writing a paper for a course she's taking so couldn't sit with us for very long.

Since Jared's coming by to install a NEW GARAGE DOOR OPENER (hooray!) we're just hanging out at my place going through some photos I found in that closet I cleaned out yesterday. So fun since most of them date from when Ryan was born. I also struck geek gold when I opened up a box containing original Star Wars figures plus a G.I. Joe plus E.T. with extendable neck. I tried to hold them hostage for cash but it was too cruel teasing the nerd my son instantly turned into when he saw them.

We definitely got the best of the day by hitting the water early! From then on it was fractured by rolling thunderstorms. Jared arrived during a break in one. He said that those light blinking on the back of the motor wasn't a reliable diagnostic tool so he wanted to take a look inside before replacing the unit. He opened it up and pulled out the plastic gear. It was split in half. I wouldn't be needing a new motor after all. On the one hand, I would be saving a couple hundred dollars but on the other, a new motor would have meant a keypad outside of the garage. That would've been handy for running or biking - I wouldn't have to take house keys.

Jared had the unit apart and repaired in minutes. And the door mechanism is so quiet now, I can't believe it! If you ever need an automatic garage door opener or repairs, let me know and I'll give you Jared's number.

I took the boys out to the Pump for lunch and then they both headed home (Jared with a pair of TFC tix in his pocket and Ryan with a carload of furniture, photos and action figures). I carried on with "operation clean-sweep" - my plan to remove anything from my house that I no longer need/use. I've decided to tackle it one floor at a time. Once everything's perfect on the top floor, I'll move to the main one. All that really needs doing there is hanging some pictures and maybe getting some more plants. Oh, and cleaning out the dreaded Tupperware cupboard - containers without lids, lids without containers, old margarine tubs and empty Classico sauce jars. I just need one or two containers and have hundreds! I'm looking forward to that!

The basement is the real nightmare. The spare bedroom down there is filled with old furniture, both mine, Adele's and my parent's. Actually, more space is taken up by boxes of photos than anything - several generations of Currys obsessed with cameras and photography! There are even Daguerreotypes in there. Exciting!

That's one of the reasons I don't want to just arbitrarily throw out these boxes. There's some pretty interesting stuff. I found an 1800-something deed to some land in Apsley, Ontario in one box and some really old photos of Mooneys Bay in Ottawa. You never know - there may be more with some canoeing going on.

Anyway, there's that room and then the laundry room. I want to set that area up as a silk screen studio so will need to get rid of the dismembered kitchen cabinets that the last owner installed and create a darkroom in the cold storage at the back. Those have been my hiding places for all kinds of junk, "out of sight...". Oh and then there's the crawl space. I completely forgot about that. It's full of boxes. Ugh. That floor is a whole winter project!

Good point. Look at what I found in Now Magazine's Letters section;

Rethinking garbage

I ride my bike back and forth to work in Toronto and pass two of the temporary garbage sites. At first, the smell of the garbage made me angry with striking city staff. Their labour action directly affected my bike ride along the lakeshore. My focus shifted to the garbage when I saw the piles growing higher.
The temporary dumps present the most visible evidence of our “use once and dispose” culture and, more importantly, of our “out of sight, out of mind” perception of garbage. The temporary dumping sites are an opportunity to educate people about how quickly we accumulate garbage.
We need to rethink what we do with our garbage and what viable alternatives exist. Education and action could be the good that come from having garbage dumps in our city parks.

Marisha Roman
Toronto

Marisha says they edited it some but was pleased it made print. She also received a personally signed letter in response from Dr. David Suzuki! Who says they don't listen to the little people?

A couple of videos I meant to post. Big fan of the Beastie Boys, big fan of the Tour (and Lance).



I had to remove the Lance video because I couldn't disable the autoplay feature. sorry about that.

mmmlah. My mouth is frozen. I've had some gradually increasing pain in a bottom right molar so called up the dentist and luckily got an appointment for first thing this morning. Love Harley! I was worried I'd need a root canal but it turns out a 20+ year old filling needed to be replaced. He did a fantastic, painless, job of removing the old metal filling and putting in a new white one. In at 8:00am, out by 9:30. And he's convinced me to go to Crossfit in Mississauga with him some Sunday.
The freezing is all in the back of my mouth so my tongue feels all swollen up. I imagine this is how someone with a peanut allergy feels when initially exposed. I don't mind this as much as freezing in the front where your whole face feels rubbery and coffee dribbles down your chin when you drink.
yeesh, the freezings starting to come out and it really hurts.

So, I found the online manual for my garage door opener. The LED error code on my unit indicates a logic board failure. I was hoping that reprogramming the remotes would do it but no...I actually have to purchase the part and climb a ladder. Stupid house falling apart! Anyway, at least it's something I can fix. Love the internet. I want to marry it so it can fix everything in my life.
It started pouring rain just as I left work tonight and there was a massive backup on the ramp from the 427 onto the QEW westbound. It took awhile to work my way down to and across the Lakeshore, plus it was still raining as I went by the club so I went home instead. Since I have Doug's practice at 8:00 I went early and did 8km on the lake. There was basically a line running south off the end of the Ridgetown - east side of the line, in the rain - west side of the line out of the rain. Weird.
When I came into the dock, Chris was just going out in the motorboat to coach masters, carrying a deli tray of finger sandwiches, like he'd just come from a conference or something. I didn't care, I was doing back-to-back practices without dinner - I took two and they were delicious (buttery!).
Blake came to practice tonight so both crews were on the water at the same time. Ours is starting to come together even though we were missing a few people. After practice I gave Eve the Stonehookers t-shirt and asked Chris to give Matt the Cleese. When I came out of the changeroom, Chris had Matt's shirt on and said he was keeping it. By the time I got home Matt had posted a protest on FB so I told him I'd print him a new one. If anyone's a fan of silly walks or stonehookers, let me know.

I got out on the water a couple of times today - late morning and afternoon. In the afternoon, I ran into Mike out in the harbour on his SUP. There was a lot of chop but he's rock solid on the board. We paddled in together but he went back out to try and catch a ride on boat wash as the fishermen and sailors packed it in for the day.

News item that granite counter tops may have come from contaminated sites. "The cancer comes from within". yeah the fear-mongerers were calling the item something like that.

Went up to Chapters for a semi-annual book-buying blowout. I think I'm set for the rest of the summer.

Garage door is not working. Can't figure out why. To the internet!

I spent the day at Model Citizen with Julian making screens and printing shirts. The weather wasn't outstanding so I don't feel like I missed anything. Besides, we were in the basement most of the time and never knew what was going on out of doors.

I did my usual thing of forgetting I needed 2 designs laser printed on paper until yesterday afternoon but I was going to the TFC game and couldn't do anything about it at the time. I always do this, ignore jobs I have to do until the last minute and then rush around trying to cobble something together. Somehow I always seem to get away with it. I'm starting to think I do it on purpose because I enjoy the challenge of proving I can pull it off.


So this morning at 9:30 I called a Kinkos on Hurontario to see if they could do a couple acetates on short notice. The girl who answered the phone wasn't sure but said to email the images and someone would call me back. Great! Now I just need to come up with some art.

Okay, keep it simple....simmmmmpulllll...simple. Simple, plain graphics that are eye catching. Got it - one I've always liked is the adaptor you put in a 45 record to play it on a regular turntable. Easy! One down, one to go. I had already started working on one of a stonehooker so cleaned that up and added some text. But then I came across some images of John Cleese doing his silly walk. I thought it would look amazing all strung together so did that too and sent them all off to Kinkos asking them to let me know if I could pick them up in half an hour.
I had to leave the house at 11:00 to get to Kensington Market in time but I still hadn't heard from Kinkos when I stepped out of the shower at 10:50. I was starting to stress a little - I couldn't just show up empty handed.

As I was heading out the door, Kinkos called. They'd received my images and could have them for me anytime. I asked them to increase the size to fill 8.5 x 11 sheets and print 2 acetates and 2 plain paper of each. This was actually going to work out! Yeah, I would be a little late but I would have something to work with.

Julian called just as I crossed Bathurst & Dundas. He was getting things setup so we were cool. (See what I mean? I should be more organized and definitely shouldn't get away with this stuff.) Julian had already made the frames so we just had to stretch the fabric screen, coat it with emulsion and set it in the darkroom to dry. By then it was 2:00 so we took a lunch break... at Big Fat Burritos, my favourite!

When we got back around 3:00, we positioned the artwork, exposed it on the light table for 11 minutes and then rinsed the screen, blasting out the image.

I'm really pleased with how my stuff turned out - especially considering how last minute it was. I never did print the 45 spindle but will save that for another time. Maybe for cushions or something.

One of the guys at work found a two-way radio on the road outside our office. He brought it in and now we're listening to the various conversations going on. This is better than reality tv. We suspect it might belong to one of the striking union members picketing at the Etobicoke Civic Centre across the road so they're trying to come up with a dialogue guaranteed to piss them off. Dorks.

Aw, Danielle's so sweet. I shot photos at her "before prom" party - no big deal - and tonight I find a thank you card in my locker with two really generous gift cards - for Starbucks and Pier 1. So not necessary (but I love both)!

Had a great day which disintegrated at the end when I got an email from a friend who'd received bad news. But tomorrow - sun is shining.

Arrived in Toronto around midnight last night. I had a nice little trip to Halifax for Jenn & Trent's wedding - what a great time we had!! - and now I'm hunched over my third bowl of coffee, filtering through the photos so I can get them up on fb for Jenn. I'm still in my housecoat and haven't even unpacked my bag except to get my camera.
There must have been a power outage over the weekend because all of my clocks are flashing 12...12...12... And even though it's only an hour's time difference, I had no idea what time it was when I woke up. By the time I found my phone and saw it was 7:35am, it was too late - I couldn't go back to sleep. Way too early for a day off!