Coming Soon...

The

REGINA

MONOLOGUES

Mississauga Canoe Club - 2006 National Champions

Our paddlers won multiple medals and set 5 new records but more importantly,

THE BLACK IS BACK!

Junior Men C-4 1000m - John W. Black Trophy

Chris Abbott, Chris Edwards, Matt Abbott, Dana Morgoch

View all of my CCA/CKC photos here

Just a quick post - I'm having a fantastic time in Regina. I've had so much fun catching up with my family in Saskatchewan, I wish I'd planned a separate visit so I could spend more time with them! And I haven't even seen them all yet!
The racing is going really well - our club is currently ahead in points and we've got high hopes for scoring lots more today. In our women's C4 500m race we won the gold and set a new Canadian record in the process. We beat the old one by almost 90 seconds. This morning at breakfast my coach ran up holding out the Regina Leader-Post - our C4 is on the front page of the sports section! Anyway, more racing today.

Okay, I'm taking off for CCA in Regina. Here are two of my favourite commercials - one for a C4 and the other for a C2. It was that kind of a weekend. The C2 tagline translates roughly into "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Happy Birthday, Kris!

World Championship Results

SILVER MEDAL

C2 1000m A Final

Attila &Tomi Buday

SILVER MEDAL

C4 1000m A Final

Dmitri Joukovski

T-Hall

Andrew Russell

Kyle Jeffery

SILVER MEDAL

K2 500m A Final

Richard Dober

Andrew Willows

BRONZE MEDAL

K1 200m A Final

Karen Furneaux

This is one of the most impressive competition websites ever. Click the athlete's name to see events in which they're entered. Click on the event number to see lane assignments and results. The red clock above shows the time in Hungary (+6:00).

Dalton Richard (221)

James Russell Andrew (223)
Hall Thomas (222)
Jeffery Kyle (224)
Joukovski Dmitri (225)

Buday Attila (219)
Buday Jr. Tamas (220)

Beauchesne-Sevigny Gabriel
James Russell Andrew


Oldershaw Mark (226)

van Koeverden Adam (503)

Click here to view the entire Canoe-Kayak National Team

Gin 'n juice? Hell no!
Straight out of Lorne Park - keepin' it real, yo. Gonna have a tea par-tay...

new clocks:
Turquoise = Toronto-New York
Purple = Vancouver
Pink = Regina
Red = Szeged (Go Canoe-Kayak Canada!)

How annoying would it have been if I'd put up four of these little dudes...

As mentioned, I was at Wakestock on Sunday. I was looking at some gear at one of the vendor stalls and had a brief conversation with a lean, white-haired gentleman. Everyone seemed to know him and after he walked away I thought, "that guy is just like some old paddler dude". Well, Larry and Toby informed me that's exactly what he is - Jimmy Jones is an Island Canoe Club paddler from way back and a close friend of Bill Collins'.
From a review of Wakestock 2005, "Perhaps the highlight of the day was the wakeboarding performance of a rookie in the truest sense. When Jimmy Jones, a 75 year old local Toronto Islands resident saw Wakestock on TV he was inspired to check it out. By chance Jimmy met one of Wakestock’s organizers, Steve Jarrett, who offered Jimmy a lesson. Jimmy took him up on the offer and with instruction from Phat Wakes Wakeboarding School coaches Jay Ruttan and Dave Scott, Jimmy got up on his first try. Jarrett then pulled Jimmy down Wakestock’s pro wakeboard course in between pro rounds to the cheers of thousands of spectators. Jimmy waved to the crowd as he rode down the course and a frenzy of media photographers and filmers recorded the magic moment, which went on to inspire thousands more with the newspaper and TV news coverage it received across Canada."

This year he was featured on the front page of Monday's Globe & Mail. Damn! If only I had the morals of a Montreal girl, I could have scammed my way into the VIP tent with this guy!

I was looking for phone numbers of relatives in Saskatchewan and when I googled their name, found my cousin's blog, http://wolseleytc.blogspot.com/ . I haven't seen some of these relatives in over a decade, maybe two for others! Even though I'm Toronto born and raised, my parents made sure we stayed securely tied to our prairie roots. As kids, we were in Wolseley every few summers so it was fun to read stories about town and family events and see photos of the Swinging Bridge and Fairy Lake . I left a comment for my cousin and he emailed me right back. Hopefully I'll be able to get up to Wolseley for at least a day while I'm out there.

So the weekend was pretty packed! I dog-sat for Carrie so she could race for G&G. I introduced Lola to Hawkeye outside of the house. He wasn't too impressed but once I took them to the leash-free it was obvious that he was prepared to treat her as a family member. He ran interference between her and every dog she made contact with - which was basically every dog! Lola loves everyone and everyone loves Lola! Look at this face - what's not to love? Those two little fangs kill me.



After Carrie picked Lola up, I headed to Brampton to see Lori and John's new baby, Steven. He is easily the most beautiful (and tiniest) baby I've ever seen. Anyway, I got to hold him and he was a sweetheart the whole time I was there.

As I was heading home, I noticed a message on my cell. It was Johnny O. He'd had emergency wisdom tooth surgery earlier in the day. Poor guy was home alone, didn't have anything to eat and couldn't drive because of the painkillers. I picked him up a Gatorade and a Wendy's frosty but he couldn't even eat the frosty.

On Sunday, Ryan, Courtney and I took my dad out for lunch. Ryan's doing Life Drawing (nude models) and brought along some of his sketches that are up on eBay. I had actually bid on two of the pieces. I lost one and won the other. He says he would have just given it to me if he'd known but I don't mind. I'm pretty pleased that he's doing so well. Now I just have to figure out where to display "Black Male - Torso" because you know there'll be raised eyebrows no matter what! Hey, is it my imagination or is there a vague resemblance to Everton??



I ended the weekend at Wakestock. I love Toronto Island but it may not be the best location for this event. Site lines are really poor (except in the VIP tent to which I did NOT have access) but after watching a few athletes do their runs, I checked out the vendor village - lots of bands, great gear, skateboard competitions and wakeboard demos at the Oakley launch pool. I even wrote my motorboat operators licence while I was there. I had an awesome weekend!

I usually spend my lunch hour lying on the deck of the city-run pool across the road. When I got there today, there was a huge sign, "CLOSED BY the City of Toronto Public Health Department" on the door. Phew, glad I don't swim there, I'm just trying to even up my hideous spandex tan. Anyway, I figured I'd use the time to update my sorely neglected blog.

Things I did last weekend;

Sara L. was in from Halifax (so she could race with the women's team) and after I picked her up at the airport and we had breakfast at Cora's, we headed up to Bala for Blake's training camp. Fun times.
Since Sara's never been to Toronto we headed downtown on Sunday. First to the AGO for Andy Warhol Supernova. Good exhibit. Always cool to see an iconic image like Elvis I & II in person.


David Cronenberg was guest curator so each image was described in his funereal monotone. Perfect for this exhibit. The image that was most disturbing and my favourite was 1947 White. I can't find a decent picture of it. It was very beautiful and I can see why the image caught Warhol's attention in the first place.
After the AGO we went shopping on Queen Street, stopped for lunch at Sushi Place and in the evening we watched Run Lola Run - I'd forgotten what a great movie that is! Oh and my friend (and Jess's bf) Del fixed all of the dumb plumbing problems that have been plaguing me for the last year and a half. Thank YOU, Del!
On Monday, I paddled (Sara's retired at age 20 and went for a marathon walk instead). Around dinner time we went to see Talladega Nights to keep our minds off the next days' races. Good choice. Very funny. I will probably go see it again!
That's it for now. I'm kind of excited about baby-sitting Lola so Carrie can race downtown. I haven't had a puppy for awhile - Hawkeye doesn't know what he's in for...

Hard to believe that 24 hours ago I was stressing about how our races would go today. I've spent the last 11 months training on my own and with the crew for the race-off this week. The past 4 weeks have been focused on maintaining my physical and mental strength for a race with an opponent of (reportedly) equal or greater strength. And on race day we blew the Montreal team away. As they've claimed all along...they are just a club crew.
The first race of the day told the whole story. We buried them by a full boat length in the 1000 and that set the tone for the 200m and 500m races.

So, we've secured our berth for the world championships next year. What do I do with myself now? Well, first I'm going to have one glorious meal of "suicide" chicken wings. Then in a couple of weeks, we head to CCA in Regina to defend our national champion status in flatwater. After that, I'll spend the next 11 months training on my own and with the crew so I can secure a seat in the boat when it goes to Sydney Australia in 2007. Strange, but I do love this!

2007 World Championships

Sydney International Regatta Centre, Penrith Sept 16-23.

I don't know why I dislike Nicole Kidman, I just do. And that's why I find it really annoying that she's been cast as Diane Arbus in the new film "Fur" (due out November 2006).
Arbus is one of my favourite photographers. I even tried to emulate her crude printing style by filing off the edges of the negative carriers for my enlarger. I own a number of books about her that you're welcome to borrow but Diane Arbus Revelations is always sitting on the coffee table if you want to see some of her work. Anyway, somehow it just seems demeaning that she'll be portrayed by the former Mrs. Tom Cruise but I'm sure I'll get over it long enough to go see the film.

Oh Mel. Yawn.
Here's the mug shot from TheSmokingGun (that's a mug shot? Looks more like a head shot from his portfolio) and you can read/listen to clips from the police report over on TMZ.com

Things I learned today;

1) Gloria Vanderbilt is Anderson Cooper’s mom? Weird!


2) This is a Fisher. One climbed in our boat after practice this morning. Initially we thought it might be someone's escaped, pet ferret but Blake did some research and determined that it was a Fisher. Fishers do not eat fish, preferring instead rabbits and porcupines.


Anyway, Blake will never know he's on my blog because...


3) Blake "does not do blogs".
He does, however, eat fish.

Coincidentally, I have two items about Hungary this morning. One involves Chuck Norris, the other does not;


First the Chuckless one...
The national team is leaving for Europe today. They'll be competing at the World Championships in Szeged, Hungary (red clock). Good luck guys.
The CBC will broadcast the races as follows:
Saturday August 26, 2006 from 3:30 pm ET to 6:00 pm ET
Sunday August 27, 2006 from 11:30 pm ET to 2:00 am ET (repeat)

Also, a new bridge is being built over the Danube just north of Budapest. A voting site has been set up to select a name for the bridge. Currently leading the poll with almost 10,ooo votes is Chuck Norris , beating out popular Hungarian humourist Geza Hofi and the state founder, Szent Istvan.
Vote now, vote often.