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.

I just retrieved the 2006 Gold Book (copycat Yellow Pages) from my front lawn. Normally, I just throw it in a drawer but the photo on the front cover caught my eye - a paddler heading for the trestle. It's not the greatest photo but still...it's not a rower!

Toronto's new flatwater regatta course

I paddled on it twice yesterday and would estimate it's roughly 600m in length. Also, it tapers at the western end. When they published the width as 135m, they must have edited out, "at it's widest point". The lake was calm both times I paddled but it will definitely be nice to have this sheltered course at 5:45 in the morning when the waves are slapping the outside wall. It'll be interesting to see what kind of facilities they'll be putting in - Tower? Grandstand? I will try to find out.
I'm posting some photos of other courses for comparison. Don't be fooled by the perspective of the photos - the Toronto course is about 1/5th the size of these. In fact, you'll notice very few similarities between our course and these others.

Here's Malta Lake, the flatwater course in Poznan, Poland...

and Shanghai...

and of course Montreal...

CCA (CKC) has announced the 2006 International Tour Team composed of 27 paddlers. They'll represent Canada in World Cup competition in Poznan, Poland, May 12 – 14, and Duisburg, Germany, May 26-28, 2006.
More information is available at;
http://www.canoekayak.ca/eng_newsarticle.cfm?ID=281


The restaurant we grew to love while racing in Quebec has opened a store in Clarkson. The grand opening was last Monday. I had breakfast there the other day and it was GLORIOUS!

The inspiration for the movie Silent Hill is a real town. Guys, this town in Pennsylvania has had underground mine fires burning beneath it for the past 43 years! Am I the only person who hasn't heard about Centralia? It started when a trash fire was lit in an abandoned mine pit in Centralia in 1962. The fire ignited an exposed vein of coal and spread throughout the mines beneath the borough. All attempts to extinguish this fire have been unsuccessful. In fact, early on the governement drilled holes to check temperatures which actually provided a source of oxygen to the fire. The associated gasses and network of rich coal veins continue to feed the flames.
The story didn’t catch national media attention until Febuary 14, 1981 when the ground collapsed under Todd Domboski. A sinkhole about 4 feet in diameter and 150 feet deep had opened under him. The heat or carbon monoxide would have been sufficient to kill him instantly if he'd fallen right in but he grabbed onto exposed tree roots and was pulled to safety by his cousin.
An engineering study concluded that the fire could burn for another century or more and "could conceivably spread over an area of approximately 3,700 acres."

http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm

Paddler social notes:

Steve Miller and Amelia recently became engaged

Happy Birthday to Mrs. Sarge, Alyson, TB jr and Birdy

Plus I hear there's another tiny, perfect, paddler baby in the works (I rarely see the dad but will post names once I've talked to him)

The Senior men have finally returned from training camp and trials in Georgia. They leave for the World Cup tour May 8th - Poznan and Duisberg. I'm glad I've raced in Poznan - it's easier to picture things when we get the results. I will, of course, be checking out the Duisberg course on Google Earth.

Hommes - Men C-1 1000m 13:50- Course/Race #14 - A-Final

1 Mark Oldershaw 3:54.273

2 Dimitri Joukovski 3:55.781
3 Thomas Hall 3:56.057
4 Kyle Jeffery 3:57.906

Hommes - Men C-1 500m 13:50 - Course/Race #33 - A-Final
1 Mark Oldershaw 2:02.494

2 Thomas HALL 2:04.098

3 Kyle Jeffery 2:04.953

Full results can be found at 2006 National Sprint Team Trials 1

Quote of the day, "Tom Cruise is one spoke behind Michael Jackson on the freak wheel."

seen on http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com/home.php

This is the craziest amusement park ever. I thought it must be in the southern states but it's in England. And it's not just one - it's a nation-wide chain!

http://www.diggerland.com/visiting/webcam.htm

Pick any "adult goes home for horrendous family dinner" flick and that was my weekend. And, I'd like to point out, without the great wardrobe and hot male actors. I wish I was still a kid and could put soap on the toothbrush of one of my siblings...
...and just so this isn't a completely bitter and wasted post, how about sending me the worst/best way you got back at siblings when you were kids? I'll post the best ones without names...
- two guys have emailed that they snapped off the heads of their sister's Barbie-dolls (c'mon, that's completely unimaginative)
- another stabbed his little brother with pencils and told him he would die of lead poisoning
- one guy ate all his sister's epilepsy medication
- a paddler's mom told me about putting contact cement all over her sister's hand while she was asleep and then tangling it up in her hair. They had to cut it all off.

Proof: kids are mean...creative, but mean...

I gather from A Change is as Good as a Rest that the Sunfish & friends had a great week! The surfing looked like a lot of fun and cold! I was glad to see you changed your flops to booties before you hit the surf (I'm such a mom).

In the past few days, the Eagle Cam has become progressively more difficult to connect to... I guess the link is being forwarded all over and the server can't handle the number of hits. Hopefully they'll get funding to upgrade and keep the birds online.

4 days off - we don't paddle until 8:00am tomorrow...nice! I see a breakfast at Helen's in my future. NUMBER 69, YOUR BREAKFAST IS READY!!!

This is interesting...the Eagle Cam gives you a close-up, LIVE look at a pair of nesting bald eagles on Hornby Island in B.C. This pic is an archived screenshot. When I checked this morning there were 2 eggs in the nest. It'll be a lot more interesting once they've hatched.

http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife/

Congratulations to Marisha (the Dish) Roman! She's been named outstanding Canadian Aboriginal Athlete and winner of the 2005 Tom Longboat Award. She's going to be in Canada's Sports Hall of Fame!
So exciting - and we have a 4 day weekend to celebrate!

Hey, the nicest guy on the planet (and one of the smartest) is building houses! Greg Secko started his business awhile ago but now has a website and monthly e-newsletter. The first issue will be discussing decks and an interior painting technique but he'd appreciate any suggestions for future issues so email him! I've added his site address to the links at right.

I'm hoping Greg can do a makeover on my house as soon as I can afford it - great location but not-so-great house. I've decided it makes more sense to change the structure than move again.

Amy H. had their baby boy sometime around noon. I'm sure he'll be a cutie like his big brother Dylan.

New link to the right...

Happy Birthday Rudderboy

I went to the visitation for Uncle Lou last night and the funeral this afternoon. So many people were there - Lou's entire extended family! Clem, Jessie, Ian, Matty and Drake, the Howes family, the Millers, the Flemings, the Brailesfords, the Drakes, Conor, Doug, Dray, Petro, Steve and Amelia (newly-engaged), Jeff P., Rico, Matt W., Paskar, Sarge, Heidi, Sean.. not to mention the huge number of friends from other areas of his life. It was sad but as the group got bigger, it became more like a family reunion. It was so great to hear how everyone's doing and what they've been up to. Most don't seem to have changed at all - still smart, dynamic, interesting and so funny. Did the Muto's know what an effect Louis had on his friends? At first they seemed overwhelmed (in a good way) that so many of us from the club were there but they must have known how popular he was - even the memorial card said "Uncle Lou'" just below his given names.
I'm not one of those who is comforted by the religious ceremony. They're self-serving and don't particularly reflect the values of the individual but a few of Lou's friends spoke at the graveside and took off the churchy edge with some personal stories. His father was happy that they were able to find a spot for Uncle Lou just a stone's throw from the Credit River.
Drake brought a Missy singlet and his parents kept it with Lou after all the paddlers signed it. Howes drove out to Burlington and got The Black to display at the reception. Ian tried to bargain with Connie Lee to keep it overnight but she was pretty firm that it had to be back tonight. Mississauga doesn't have a great reputation when it comes to taking care of The Black. The C-boaters discussed the possibility of going through each crews' tags and putting frowny-face stickers beside kayakers names but decided against it. I guess everyone has changed a little!

Everyone laughs at my love of Google Earth but what's not to love? I've looked at race courses in other countries before and after competitions and checked out the courses that friends were racing on when I couldn't be there. Not to mention looking at the Tour de France course, seven wonders of the natural and modern world, checking out directions in a new city, etc. etc...
Lately, I discovered this tour that documents the movement of The Hayward Fault in California. It moves about .35 in/yr - half the rate of the San Andreas fault. You can download it here - http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/research/geology/hf_map/GE_helicopter.htm
Tip: (the Play Tour button is F10)
Once you've opened Google Earth and the tour, use the menu at the left to open photos that detail evidence of movement - shifted curbs, streambeds and the separation caused to Berkeley's Memorial Stadium (the red line is the Fault)...I've always wanted to live in California, maybe that's why I find it so fascinating...

Is there any ad campaign worse than the radio spots the City of Vaughan is running right now? That's the one where the guy is telling an exciting story and anytime the reference should be to a sophisticated, fantastic city, he says, "so they end up in the city of Vaughan". When his friend says, "Don't you mean Paris?" he laughs and says, "Oh, right. I get all my great cities mixed up". And the tagline is, "The City of Vaughan - low taxes and high lifestyle"

Are they trying to attract the grow-ops from Durham Region to Vaughan?

Spent the afternoon with the Dish and friend Laura at the One of a Kind show. I got some great stuff but Laura took honours for the most extravagant purchase - a fantastic, large-format painting for her living room by artist Danielle O'Connor Akiyama. I stuck to earrings and a great wool jacket. Anyway, the Dish told me that there's a photo of the Beav and me on the Underground Garage's homepage. I checked it out when I got home and yep, there's the two of us with Trailer Park Boy Julian. It's from my birthday which just happened to coincide with a Puma launch party. God, my arms are huge! But then I looked at the Beav's and, same. Digital cameras...they're like bikini store mirrors - all bendy and distorting - rarely flattering. Ugh, where did I get that horrible shirt? Anyway, here's the one of the Beav and Julian but I'm also providing the link to their site because it's a great bar to check out if you're ever in Toronto... http://www.undergroundgarage.ca/
What else? Paddled a couple more times - the water is already 11 degrees. It was stupid windy yesterday though. One of those swirly, change direction ones that can be so frustrating. We also found out yesterday that the Ontario team trailer rolled on it's way home from training camp. No one was hurt and no word yet on how many boats were damaged but so awful for Connie-Lee and Adam O. who were driving it home to be here for Bert's funeral.
Weird, this post started out about my weekend but seems to be mostly about trailers.

Friends of Lou: Please scroll down to March 24th post for info about arrangements.