Where the heck is Andrew Jay...

Fathers Day in Photos… And all about Geocaching!

2011-06-20T22:13:00.001-07:00

The boy has graduated from point and shoots.

Here is the shot he took

We started our day by doing some shopping. I needed some parts for my awesome Nitro Truck, so We ended up at PM Hobby Craft. There was a demo days for some rock crawler RC trucks and they let Andrew drive one. He was grins from ear to ear. When we checked out they were giving away free t-shirts and hats to all the Dads! Yay!

A couple more stops and we were headed out of town trying to chase the few blue patches of sky we could see. The end goal of the day was to find a nice spot for a picnic. We were a few miles out of the city and as soon as I turned on the Geocaching app, we had quite a few treasures to search for in close proximity. We started with a success.

The first score is deep in those bushes. It’s always an adventure…

We like all kinds of caches from long hikes to roadside attractions. This rock was significant for some reason, and a good place for a quick roadside find!

The best part about Geocaching, aside from the quality time with my family, is we don’t have to be anywhere in particular. The playing field is ‘Anywhere in the world!’ So, we spent the day chasing the the sun. Anywhere we could spot a patch of blue sky was the direction we would go. Cool huh?

Think he enjoys this?

We struck out here, but the scenery was worth it!

He found one. It’s a very convincing fake rock! You can actually buy containers from www.geocaching.com that are pretty unique. We have found fake sprinkler heads, fake bolts in a park bench and all manners of cache containers. Pretty cool. The more obvious the location, the more camouflaged the container typically.

Andrew and I walked up to the top of this big hill and looked around. We started back down and all of a sudden he heads back up to the top and says, ‘come take a picture of me daddy!’

Ok!… wow! Probably in the top 5 awesome pictures I have taken of him…

So. Geocaching. Are you curious? I found out about this hobby by reading camping blogs a few years ago. Basically it’s a high tech treasure hunt. Users of the website www.geocaching.com register a user name, then look up local caches. More on that in a bit.

Where do the caches come from? Anyone, really. I could place a cache somewhere. The stipulation is it should be close enough to your area that you can maintain it if it gets ‘compromised’ somehow. It could get waterlogged, or accidentally damaged, most of the time, people who find the cache will report it on their log report online that it is in disrepair. Caches can range in size from just big enough to hold a tiny little piece of paper to print your name on (bring your own pen), to very large storage bins, full of all sorts of stuff. The stuff in the larger containers usually contain items for trading. Cachers will drop a trinket or toy into the cache and remove another one of equal or greater value. We let Andrew do most of the trading. At some finds it’s a very important decision as what to pick. His favourite yesterday was this: A tiny little frog eraser. It really amazes me the items he takes, as it usually bypasses the bounty of toy cars and mini hockey sticks, instead choosing really unique items…

To the right in this photo, in the trees is a film case cache.

The next best part of Geocaching is where it takes us. We have seen more awesome parts of our province in the last 2 years, than we have in the previous 10, and that is saying a lot. Not to mention all the historical areas we are educated about through our awesome hobby.

This is a map from the Geocaching website of the area we explored yesterday. It is about 40 miles wide by 25 mile high. Not too big an area, however you get the idea of how many caches are available to be found. You could spend weeks searching in just this little area North of Calgary and still not get to them all. Every little dot on the map you see is another cache, there are literally hundreds to choose from. The red circles are the ones we found or attempted to find. The photo above and below the map were taken at the circles at the top of the page. There are almost 1.5 million Caches placed around the world, and over 5 million registered cachers…

This young group of longhorn steer snuck up on us while we searched for another cache. They seemed very curious but friendly.

Now, we use the Iphone app, just because it is the easiest for us. It is less accurate than say, a Garmin device as the Iphone uses a ‘software compass’ which means you have to be moving to get an accurate reading. A garmin device uses a hardware compass and will give an accurate reading even if you are standing still, which is better for stopping and gathering your bearings when in thick brush or tough terrain. The Iphone uses the geocaching website for all it’s data, so no need to preload any maps or caches, while a regular GPS needs to be loaded with info from your computer prior to setting out. When we started out with this hobby, we used the FR305 running GPS. It was very accurate and worked like a charm. The only drawback is you don’t have a choice of map views, or additional info that the Iphone provides (such as hints that sometimes are needed for a successful find. Hints we have appreciated like ‘Look up’…). We are going to start using both. The Iphone for all the general info, and the FR305 for the accurate and final approach at the cache site. If you have a GPS device, you can check it’s geocaching rating here.

Here are the links to the reviews of some of the popular running GPS devices

Garmin FR305
Garmin FR310XT
Garmin FR201
Garmin FR405

And your vehicle GPS device can be used as well! TomTom!

TomTom One

And then of course there are the Devices that are MEANT for this type of outdoor pursuit. This is the most popular Geocaching device on the market today. I will have one like this, one day…. one day.

Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx

All in all, it’s an incredibly fun hobby that anyone, of any fitness can partake in! What are you waiting for? Get out there!

And if you want to know more - Here is the full story straight from the website… (there is SO much more to this hobby that we don’t even scratch the surface, what with multi caches and travelbugs…. and on and on!

The Game

What is geocaching?

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

How is the game played?

At its simplest level, geocaching requires these 8 steps:

Register for a free Basic Membership.
Visit the "Hide & Seek a Cache" page.
Enter your postal code and click "search."
Choose any geocache from the list and click on its name.
Enter the coordinates of the geocache into your GPS Device.
Use your GPS device to assist you in finding the hidden geocache.
Sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location.
Share your geocaching stories and photos online.

There are many other levels to the game. Keep reading the guide to learn more!

What are the rules of geocaching?

If you take something from the geocache (or "cache"), leave something of equal or greater value.
Write about your find in the cache logbook.
Log your experience at www.geocaching.com.

What do I need to go geocaching?

The only necessities are a GPS device or a GPS-enabled mobile phone so that you can navigate to the cache, and a Geocaching.com Membership.

Where are geocaches located?

Geocaches can be found all over the world. It is common for geocachers to hide caches in locations that are important to them, reflecting a special interest or skill of the cache owner. These locations can be quite diverse. They may be at your local park, at the end of a long hike, underwater or on the side of a city street.

Are there different types of geocaches?

Yes. There are currently over a dozen "cache types" in geocaching, with each cache type being a different variation of the game. See the full list of Geocache Types.

How did geocaching start?

It's a very cool story, actually. So cool that it deserves its own page.

Ok, what else. Oh yeah, the K-100 relay on Saturday. Should be fun. And I took this photo in our backyard today, beautiful Solstice sun, while POURING rain!

Photo Photo

2011-03-05T11:35:00.001-08:00

These two have too much fun with their cameras…

Andrews first blog post

2011-02-23T22:37:00.001-08:00

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Happy Valentine’s Day to my Darling Wife!

2011-02-13T23:34:00.001-08:00

We said we were to make each other presents this year. I hope you like it

Click here to view video.

We gave Andrew a digital camera

2011-01-11T22:06:00.001-08:00

Yes, this is me sitting on the pot. The flash was a bit of a surprise.

December 19, 2010. Millions of Kids are scarred for life.

2010-12-20T07:38:00.001-08:00

Now, if you clicked on this link from google or wherever, and you are looking for Naked Santa in a G-string, in the shower, then GO AWAY! This blog is not what you are looking for.

That said, there is a photo of Naked Santa, in the shower, wearing a G-string. BUT IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK, you pervs. leave now pervs. NOW!

The rest of you; here is the whole story.

So, we buy this really cool advent Calendar from Walmart… “what?”.. An advent calendar? oh right. Ok here:

Advent calendar essplaned.

SO we buy this really cool advent calendar from Walmart for Andrew. The best part is it’s a Lego advent calendar. I don’t think you can find a cooler secular advent calendar out there.

So, on Dec 1st we opened the first door, not knowing what to expect. We got a freaking AWESOME snowman!

We were pretty stoked to see what was next. So from Dec 2nd to Dec 16th, all is good and great and generally pretty amazing little Lego gifts every morning. Here is the coolness!

Cool Toys! (the sword came with a little kid, that I posed elsewhere in these pics). The wagon in the middle is actually a train car, that we think has more coming in the next couple days. Isn’t that fire truck the cutest little Lego you have ever seen?

There was a Business man complete with Briefcase! and comb over!

A Table with chairs, and on another day a Lady with a Loaf of bread! Yeah! French Bread! The coffee cup came from another set. I thought it belonged in the staged photo shoot.

A Fireplace one day, then a sofa the next. Cozy huh? Serge seems to be really enjoying it!

An axe and a log sled (with Logs) I can’t remember where the hard hat dude came from. The rat actually came in the Lego Train we have.

Skateboard park and Skateboard dude, complete with helmet!

Puppy and cat, along with a food dish and 2 wieners. Lego wieners.

And my 2nd and 3rd favourite items! These are unreal cool aren’t they?

Ok, then on the 17th day, we get this. I didn’t know what it was. I thought shower at first, but it couldn’t be. Why on earth would there be a shower in a Lego advent calendar. Is it a street light? There must be more to it coming in the next day. must be. I was right.

On Dec 17th. Naked Santa. Seriously. His beard covers his moobs. And I think he is wearing a g-string or he is a sumo wrestler in the off season. Ok, so this little naked Santa, along with the scrub brush confirmed that the Dec 16th advent gift was actually a shower. Seriously, do kids aged 4+ really need to see this? Or are there a limited number of these that were specially made, like Wonka golden tickets!?

For your viewing pleasure. Naked Santa in the shower wearing a g-srting.

Wash, then rinse.

Santa is a prankster too! Here he is showing his good side out the window of the Lego train.

Ok, enough of that. Well, maybe there’ll be a naked Mrs. Claus and a Haystack coming out of the calendar in the next few days!

Don’t forget to share my viral video with all your International Friends. I’m trying for Japan, but I’ll take Poland, Australia and anywhere else! Help me push this sucker over a million by Christmas!

Thanks! Oh, by the way, I refused all the shoddy money offers that came with internet success. I just couldn’t bring myself to help sell the amazing pile of shitty products that wanted to advertise on my video. Very shoddy stuff indeed. Like I said on my facebook today, ‘It’s like winning the lottery, except there is no money’. Still, it’s been incredible fun!

Gone Viral

2010-12-17T00:50:00.001-08:00

A video I shot of the Calgary Hitmen Junior Hockey Teams Teddy Bear Toss, was featured in a story that hit the cover of Yahoo.com in the Us of A.

So. So far… 157,300 views. in the last 12 hours… wow.

Here’s the 5 minute video if you are interested…

O Canada

2010-12-12T23:54:00.001-08:00

My boy loves him a good hockey game, and what happens before every hockey game? Yup. the National Anthem.

*warning for low bandwidth users (you campers), this is just over a minute of video.*

This was at the Calgary Hitmen Teddy Bear Toss game, where everyone brings a bear and throws it on the ice after the home teams first goal. I’ll have the entire report and the full video up tomorrow hopefully… meanwhile, here is the report from last years game.

Here we go RIDERS, here we go!!

2010-11-28T13:54:00.001-08:00

*WoOt* *wOoT*

That’s right. A double woot.

Today the Saskatchewan Roughriders will atone for their 13th man debacle from 2009. You see, the Riders have a distinct advantage at their home stadium (and some away stadiums) whereby the crowd becomes an extension of the team. In Mercan rules football, you would call it the 12th man, as up here, North of the medicine line, we have 12 players on the field of play for each side, not 11.

So last year, the Grey Cup game was hosted in Calgary, and for all intents and purposes, when the Riders are here, it is a home game. Hence, we had the advantage of the thirteenth man. (the crowd noise is the 13th man. please keep up).

Ok, the short story is. Montreal had a 50 yard FG attempt for the win. They missed. It appeared that the Riders had won. But wait. Penalty flags… What for? Um to many men on the field. There was an effing 13th man on the field. Yep, you heard me right. 13th man on the field, when there is only supposed to be 12. Ya-huh. Ok. Dang. Move the idiot kicker 10 yards closer and give him another chance. Yeah, he made it. we lost.

We have been dealing with the 13th man jokes for a year now.

Guess what. Riders are back in the final again. Also, Montreal is back too!

Redemption will be ours.

AND I was at the game last week, whereby the aforementioned Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the hometown Calgary Stampeders. Heck of a game. Here is what it looked like to me.

Wow… McMahon Stadium looks CooooLD!

If the Riders weren’t in the game, I figure there may have been 20,000 people show up. WITH the Riders in the game, 33,000.

Almost there…

People still tailgate, even in this weather. There was a really funny smell coming from this group…

Just makes you want to book your next Caribbean vacation, doesn’t it?

Almost into the warm stadium. Not.

We made it to our seats. Dad had a large furry Muskrat die on his head on the way into the game. He said it was warmer than the hat he brought, so he left it there. Look! Ryders Eyewear, at the Riders game! Shaaa- ZAM!

Most of the Linemen were bare armed. There were a few times when the officials were looking at challenged plays that took 8-10 minutes. Those guys must have been ffffff freezing… gawd. This shot is just prior to kickoff.

This guy, James, was happy at the beginning of the game as the Stamps (red) went up 11-0 early on. Spoiler alert: he left sad. boo hoo.

I was hungry, so I buggered off down there (photo) to buy a couple burgers. While I was waiting in line, the Riders scored 2 touchdowns in the last couple minutes of the half to take the lead. Yeah! Then I tried to put some mustard on my hamburger, but the packet was frozen. It was the first time I put a mustardcicle on a burger. The Burger was pretty gross and it gave me Food Poisoning the next day. Remember way back when, like a week ago when I had Food poisoning for the first time ever? Yep, again. Dang. It was another tough day… oh well, it’s been a week now and I am finally able to eat a full meal again without feeling ill. sah-weet.

So. As I was heading back up to our seats, I thought this was a pretty cool spot to take a photo. The home team wears red uniforms. This is what I mean by the 13th man, all that GREEN at an AWAY Game! YEah!. Rider Nation is EVERYWHERE! However, as I was taking this picture, a dude totally wiped out down the stairs.

I casually flipped the little green camera over to record video. Here is the result… Fun stuff indeed. Not too many people were injured in the making of this video.

Even at halftime, people went back out to do some more tailgating! wow!

Here is Dad, looking impressed.

The Game itself was really good. For being so incredibly cold out, there were some pretty amazing passing plays, and not too many turnovers!

It got cold enough in the third hour to have to pull out the Balaclava. Dad had one too. This thing was a life saver.

This video pretty much tells the WHOLE story in 36 seconds! The Riders got a first down and can now run the clock out! *WoOt*

I just thought these two pictures captured the feel of just how cold it was…

And now, as a treat to you, for reading all the way to the bottom of this post, here is a little instructional video of how to dress for a Football Game in Canada in November. Dad and I both were VERY well prepared after watching this video, and we both really enjoyed ourselves! I don’t know who the model is in this video. Never seen him before. Just a random video I found.

Now don’t say I never gave you anything, dear readers.

The Riders will play for the Grey Cup today at 2pm EST. Wish us luck! Oh, and if you have to ask about anything Canadian Football wise, just wiki the Canadian Football League for all the answers. The bottom line is, the game is very entertaining on both sides of the border…

Weekend in the Mountains

2010-11-07T21:35:00.001-08:00

I had a race in Banff this weekend. You can read all about it here.

We decided to make a weekend of it and also make it a birthday weekend for my Dad. We stayed in my Sisters 2nd condo in Canmore, she is selling this one, and enjoyed a beautiful time with family!

This is at the race! A good shot of my Mom and I…

Andrew enjoying his ‘motorcycle’ There are a few days I really like having dogs. This picture was taken while walking them early on Saturday morning… Isn’t that something? Heading down to the river on a short hike… At the river… beautiful… Throwing rocks, don’t get too close!! Party Time! we have had the most incredible November weather. It was 70 degrees today. I mowed my lawn when we got home, it was getting too long. We have trees and shrubs budding out – man are they in for a shock. Open this Poppop! Holy cow, whatta party! Time for a swim! Too much fun!!! The cake was an Angel Food and we had fruit and whipped topping, yum! Andrew blew out the scented candle… BIL Dean, has his B-day coming up soon too! Dear Sis, trying to cut the cake… Dammit, just rip it! … I’m hungry. Canmore… looks pretty nice. I think this is actually the first family photo with all of us together. Traci, Me, Nan, Andrew, Poppop, Nicki and Dean. Yep that’s the whole team. Oh, and Scooby. Looking good! Will we be getting this photo back on a Christmas card? Traci and Andrew get a good one too!That’s a happy boy when he is running! One last shot of a nice looking mountain…

Goodnight!

Halloween!

2010-11-04T02:45:00.001-07:00

Andrew had a super fun Halloween! He was SO into it this year, man this guy is fun!

What’s in here?

This! Yeah!

Fun!

Funny!

Scary… and cool!

But the camera is sideways!?!

Better?

I dunno?

Going to Auntie Nickis! Hurry, she’s gots candy!!

Hey, don’t pull my tail!

Dang… thats a cute kid.

I’m ready to fill this bucket up!

Goodnight!

Another update!! wow Neil…

2010-10-28T21:46:00.001-07:00

Since I am sharing my other blogo-life with campers now too, how can it hurt that I double post every once in a while.

I’ll make it OK, by giving an Andrew Update. He is a runner now!

Ok, here is the post from over at my Running Blog…

1. I am still feeling worn down. Not really sick anymore, just tired. Going to try and get a good nights sleep tonight.

2. Over at Barefoot Neil Z on Facebook there is a BondiBand to be had. Like me first, then Like BondiBand. Then have 5 friends do the same and then put your name down in the comments of this posting. A BondiBand of your choice to the winner! I already gave one away today.

3. Ok, the statement below might come as a shock to some, as it comes from me. I am not a zealot when it comes to Barefoot running. I don’t preach to the masses. I answer questions when asked, I smiled when I get the funny remarks at races, I laugh with the jokes. I truly enjoy running barefoot and I do it for my very own reasons.

However.

You are not a barefoot runner, if you haven’t run barefoot.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I had this next photo queue’d up for the post yesterday, but I thought it might be too much of scenery overload, what with the Butchart Garden Photos. So here. One of my favourites of my favourites.

And another… My 3rd favourite of all time… If you click on it, it will take you to the original size image, just because it deserves a good, close-up look. especially at the lightning in the middle. It is freaking AWESOME! I stood up on a hill for hours snapping long exposure after long exposure, just hoping for something special. Success.

There are many others from that night that are ridiculous, especially a series of pics that include a airliner making his way around this storm… here is a taste of that series of pics.

Reader Mail!

2010-10-27T20:46:00.001-07:00

Sue and Doug are faithful followers here. Sorry I don’t post much anymore, but I will, I promise I will.

they introduced their lovely blog friends to my running blog because I run Barefoot, and said blog friend Nellie, has been dabbling in the Dark Art too! (barefoot running. keep up please)

So I thought I would post my Running post from today, as they are in here. Only fair I suppose and I get a toofer in posts! Good stuff!

Ok, here is the post, as posted at my Running Blog.

But first Funny Wednesday Foto…

This is actually the only good reason to own a convertible in Calgary:

Ok, on to running. I’m not. Still weak and tired after my terrible night on Monday. I did eat a full compliment of calories today, which was good as I could only get up to a third (700cal) yesterday. I am down 8lbs in 2 days as of this morning.

The *wOoT* moment of the day happened when I got this facebook message from Melanie McQuaid.

The *bOo* moment came when I was told they can’t ship Island Nectar to Canada, that I'd have to take a standard flavour. How can I argue at 96 Roctanes, really? Still, I thought this was my Loophole to get some of the tasty workout treats.

And my question is, who does the sour grapes award go to?

OK, on to Reader Mail:

Adrienne said...

Is Stanley park like the U.S.'s Central Park? Looks awesome!!

A: Yes, Stanley Park IS like the U.S’s Central Park. It is located in the City of Vancouver and is actually an Island and yes it IS awesome! It is not, however, pictured in the last post. The picture is of Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, Near Victoria. Here are a few other images from our visit there 3 years ago.

It still baffles me how incredible the place is… that is the Pacific Ocean right there…

Now, to get a little scale to the size of the place, see the people upper middle, left?

These photos are untouched. I couldn’t make them any better.

This one was ‘touched’ a bit… This one you can click on for larger, and feel free to take it! Let me know if you did tho, ok?

-Nellie and Jonathan said...

Well, I'll be flummoxed! I found your blog through Sue and Doug (Big Dawg) when they saw my blog post today about my barefoot wannabe run today :) You wanna see a newbie hoofing it?
Here ya go!
http://midlifecruiser.blogspot.com

A: (not really a question, but a cool deal nonetheless) Many of you know that I keep many internet places to hang out. It is because I ~~can’t typically keep friends for very long because I smell funny~~ love to blog about stuff, but typically don’t cross blogospheres too much. This one did tho, cross blogs that is. My Andrew Blog, follows a lot of RV’ers and I have made some good friends there. One such friend has a friend that tried Barefooting recently and this such friend steered said friend to my camping site, and thus over here! Cool story hey? Nellies blog is very funny too! worth a read. (they sold everything and now live out of their RV full time) They are in their 30’s…

Shelley said...

Good luck with the weight loss - you've got a good plan. Just know that apparently most people don't tend to lose much weight when training for a marathon (or a half marathon, as I'm discovering). But hey, anything coming off will be great, right?

A: I know that it is a common thought that it’s hard to lose weight during a tough training cycle. I am proof positive that it can be done. I lost 40lbs during the 16 week training cycle for my first half marathon. I was on Jenny Craig and all I did was up my calories on run days to keep me fuelled. The insatiable appetite that comes with training was quelled with copious amounts of water and fruit! I suppose it depends where you are in your weight plan, as I know it gets harder to lose, the closer you get to your goal. I have given myself ample time to get off on the right foot, prior to the main part of the plan, so hopefully my weight loss will be a natural and sustainable journey!

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Lose weight? What? Tired of being Ukrainian?

A: Never! I do love me a good perogy at Easter! (and why does the MS dictionary not have a spelling for perogy. Here are the solutions it comes up with. Spellcheck = Fail although ‘porgy’ made me laugh a little’

And finally an answer to my Gnome Problem…

A: Comes in this blog post from Reader Tiina of One Crazy Penguin. Thanks, I sent them in a cab with 6 bucks, a couple sandwiches and your address, let me know when they get there. On second thought, don’t!

And here, just because I’m feeling good today. Photo is Circa 1998. My wife is so proud…

10.10.10 part 1.0+1.0

2010-10-10T22:10:00.001-07:00

Well the day just kept getting better. I actually got a nap at about 1pm for an hour. I never nap. After that we got ready and headed over to my parents for Thanksgiving/ nutha b-day pour moi!

Turkey. I do love Turkey. But just a couple times a year. Otherwise I overdose and have don’t crave it anyway, so what the point of eating too much of it. My Mom and Dad make award winning turkey dinner. (I gave them the ‘versatile cooker’, for their prowess in the Kitchen!) Dad also made his brussel sprouts, but instead of whipped cheeze from a jar, he made a cheese rue. yum. I’m not a big fan of the little cabbages, but smother them in enough cheeze and I am all over it!

Oh, guess what the theme was for my today party? uh-huh! M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E… you know the rest. The boy had a hand in choosing the theme of THIS one too! haha!

We opened presents. I got an Asian Cookbook, a cool fit foods book and some cash!! The cash goes along with my other B-day cash so I can buy a pair of winter running minimalist shoes. As of today I am hoping to not have to buy them… we’ll see… cross fingers.

Andrew gets presents during other peoples b-days too… He digs it.

We ate, yum… too much. then we had cake, pie and more cake. Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Cake.

The boy sings the song really well now!

After all the excitement I pretty much sat in the Lounger watching my new Iphone 4. We watched Football and pretty much just watched Andrew play for the afternoon. A perfect end to a perfect day.

Oh, and remember the really messy Sky this morning. Well, Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. This came true and the wind has been howling for hours now. See the giant dog in the lower right corner. he wanted in out of the wind. he is a giant baby.

All in all, my 10.10.10 has been everything I had hoped it would be. My Family means everything to me!

10.10.10 part 1.o

2010-10-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

What can I say. I got up and went out to our meeting point for our run and was greeted by this. Like seriously… what did I do to deserve this.

Here are a couple other pictures I took on the way over to the run. These next 2 were taken from the same spot.

We finished the run, equalling 8 1.0k’s for a total of 8k. It was a perfect morning for a run, and a perfect morning for a barefoot run. These days are being counted as blessings as they will be done soon and I’ll be in shoes (of some sort). When we got done our run, the group had a surprise for me, as Marian had picked up a cake and candles!

How much fun can a guy on his birthday, really. I highly recommend the embracing of ‘your’ day, as it is WAY more fun than brooding and shying away. From this experience this year…. *WoOt!*

Thanks Judy, Jamie, Mariea, and Marian for an awesome birthday morning run! It couldn’t have been nicer!

I got home and Andrew JUMPED up and yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY! woohoo! Traci had breakfast ready! what a day and it’s only 10am!!

10.9.10

2010-10-09T22:58:00.001-07:00

Was pretty freaking amazing for me. I can’t wait until 10.10.10. I know there are a lot of other people that celebrate a birthday tomorrow. Like. Probably, well easily, 18 million people ( 6,697,254,041 people in the world divided by 365 days in a year, rounded down to the nearest million for the sake of brevity, or is it too late for brevity?)

Another cool thing about this October. It has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. Only once in every 853 years does this happen.

Other cool stuff about 10.10.10

The numerical form of a calendar date can create confusion when used in international correspondence, especially when the year is abbreviated into two digits. The numerical form of October 10, 2010 will be the same for all areas that read calendar dates by month/day such as in the United States, or day/month such as in Europe.

At the start of the new millennium, specific dates have become more popular and significant, especially as a day to get married. The abbreviated date of 10/10/10 or October 10, 2010 is believed to have more than just a meaning as a day to get married. There are other great significances to this date that can be somewhat surprising.

The calendar date of October 10, 2010 is believed to hold some significance because it has a numerical abbreviation of 10/10/10. We will have to wait another hundred years to write the date like this.

10/10/10 Significance

The date of October 10, 2010 (10/10/10) has become a widely popular date to get married because it only consists of the number ten. It is even more significant that the date 10/10/10 at 10:10am (10:10) or 10:10pm (22:10) to be a very lucky time. One reason for this comes from the story of George Inmad who had been deaf since birth. On 10/10/1910 at 10:10pm (22:10) he suddenly was able to hear with no explanation from the doctors. It was a medical mystery and the only conclusion they had was that he was very lucky. From then on, it is believed that you will have good luck if you touch your ears at 10:10am or pm.

Many organizations are using the ease of remembering this date of 10/10/10 to host large events so that people will associate the date to the event. The psychology of the number ten seems to give people a nice and comfortable feeling where many use the number ten as a reference or limit such as Top Ten lists.

Coincidence or Prophecy?

There are many coincidences and prophecies that are involved with the date of October 10, 2010. In mathematics, the date of 10/10/10 or 101010 is divisible by the number of days in a week, which is seven (7), which is considered to be very lucky. However, the date also appears to have a yin and yang situation where the date is also divisible by the number six (6), which is considered to be very unlucky.

Most predictions and opinions concerning the date of 10/10/10 are based on its mathematical uniqueness as a number. Some believe that on this day something either good or bad has to happen, however there is no scientific or logical basis for this belief. The belief that something good or bad will happen is based solely on faith and/or natural belief because we don’t know what the future entails.

While some believe that something good will happen, there are others who believe that nothing will happen, which is most likely the scenario. This is not the first day that the date has had this type of sequence or significance. In the past couple of years, we have faced different dates such as June 6, 2006 (6/6/06), which is a very negative number sequence, and August 8, 2008 (8/8/08), which is a very lucky sequence to the Chinese culture. However, nothing significant happened on these days and will probably be the case on October 10, 2010.

Global Events on October 10, 2010

Many organizations are taking advantage of the significant date of October 10, 2010 (10/10/10) by creating global events such as the Global Work Party, World Homeless Day and the 10-10-10 Initiative to help create awareness for their cause.

The Global Work Party is a time for people around the world to participate in an event that will help deal with global warming issues in their area. The day will join together thousands of communities to celebrate climate solutions by putting up solar panels, planting trees, cleaning up trash, installing wind turbines, digging community gardens, and more activities that will help deal with global warming issues.

On October 10, 2010, the Netherlands Antilles will be dissolved, with the islands being split up and given a new constitutional status. (ed note: Awww)

World Homeless day hopes to draw attention to the needs of homeless people by making the 10th of the 10th in 2010 to become an international day that provides opportunities for the community to get involved in responding to homelessness.

Whether the date is used to create more significance to its cause or by coincidence, the date of October 10, 2010 (10/10/10) will surely be a date that people find amusing and significant.

What did I do today, the day before 1o.10.10? I started off by looking up IronMan live and finding an app for my New Iphone 4 so I could stay up to date on IMKona while out delivering Fruit Baskets for my DW’s company Getta-Gift gift baskets.

Don’t tell Traci, but I had to rebuild a basket through the cello-wrap as it tipped over in the car. In my defence it happened as I was turning into the gas station to fill the empty tank on her car. If you read this Honey, I promise you it looked AMAZING. Once I got done rebuilding it. Man those baskets are top heavy aren’t they? Whew.

I drove ALL over the city delivering today. the first loop was 110kms. the second was only 60kms. So 100miles of fruit basket deliveries. That drive was a lot less fun mapping in Map My Run than I thought it was going to be. Belch. I think next time, I'll just bring my Garmin and set it on the dash.

It’s 1 hour until 10.10.10 starts. and about 1 hours and 2o minutes until 10.10.10 10:10:10. Cool huh? And did you know that 101010 is the binary digit for 42, which is kms for Marathon! great stuff!

I had a Surprise B-day party today from Traci and Andrew when I returned! Decorations, Balloons and it was Mickey Mouse Theme! Gawd I love having a 3 year old in the house! I got some Lightning McQueen Lego, some Injinji Socks and a GC for a sports massage from my awesome family. (2 guesses who the Lego was from?) We are over to my Parents tomorrow for Thanksgiving Turkey and another Birthday for me! Here are the photo results of all the love I get from my Family. You 2 are freaking amazing, and I might be the luckiest guy on earth!

Random awesome Pug Shot.

Andrew and I then went for a 2 hour walk/play around the neighbourhood as we are finally getting incredible summer weather here, and if we don’t take advantage of it, winter will be here and I’ll just be bitter.

Prayers…

2010-10-07T19:57:00.001-07:00

For Tioga George.

And how was your day?

2010-10-07T08:04:00.001-07:00

Traci choked on her coffee and spit a mouthful out all over the dash and windshield of my truck. Think: blueberry pie eating contest in the movie ‘Stand by Me’

She never got a single drop of coffee on her, as it was a very purposeful/ directional choke/spit because she was making a big delivery of 150 Thanksgiving treat buckets to a corporate client. Yep, not a drop on her tho….

On the way back from this delivery, we stopped at the Italian Bakery Deli for a fresh sandwich for lunch. As we are finishing lunch outside on a picnic table, I watch a elderly lady walk into the bakery, then walk back out. She heads back to her car but as she steps off the curb she trips. With a sickening thud she falls onto the road.

I Bolted over to her to help and this poor woman was just crying and crying.

‘Ok, ma’am, we’re going to look after you. We’re right here. Tell me what hurts’ – Traci, call 911 right now.

‘Ma’am, try to relax, you have taken a pretty good spill, we have called 911, tell me where it hurts’

‘My arm!’ still crying she tries to show me. keep in mind she is face down on the rough asphalt kinda twisted. At this point some dude says, ‘lets roll her over’

‘No sir, we won’t move her’ - ‘please just support her leg, DO NOT try to move her’ - ‘Ma’am, does it hurt anywhere else?’

‘My leg’ she shows me (near her hip, obviously). She is still crying, but gathering herself as we talk.

‘Ma’am, I know its uncomfortable right now, but we are going to wait until the paramedics get here until we can move you, I'm going to put my hand under your head, and take your glasses off. I've set them right by your purse and keys, what is you name ma’am?’

‘ Mary Theresa ‘

‘Hi Mary Theresa, I’m Neil. I saw you go into the Bakery and come out with nothing, what were you doing here’

‘I wanted to pick up a loaf of bread, but the line was too long’

Meanwhile, I had kind of checked her out, no blood, she had stopped crying, seemed to be gaining her spirit. Another guy showed up with a blanket and a pillow( a really cute little embroidered pillow) and we kind of supported her where we could.

‘Mary Theresa, you are doing ok, but we are going to wait for the help crew before you can move. Is there anyone you want us to call.

‘ummm… uh… my son’

‘One sec Mary Theresa’ – I scan the gathering crowd ‘YOU with the phone! (Traci was still on with 911), come here!’, ‘You are going to call her son’, the dude *snaps* to attention, OK!. She gave me the number (good sign for Mary Theresa, no bad head knock), there was no answer, ‘Is there another # we can call?’, there was and the helper dude left a message. I had noticed a ruby ring on her finger with a ‘50’ on it. ‘Mary Theresa, can we call your husband?’

‘He’s in a nursing home, that’s why I wanted to stop here, I was going to see him and I wanted to get him a loaf of bread’ (I know, heartbreaking)

‘ Can we call the Nursing home?’

‘Yes, but don’t tell them I fell, just tell them’ – she stops short of finishing the question and lifts her head up, twists it around very awkwardly and seemingly painfully)… to look at her watch ‘ Oh, it’s only 12:30, just tell them I can’t make it for my 1:00 meeting’

‘Mary Theresa… (I say in my best school teacher tone) the next time you want to know the time, please just ask me…’

She actually laughed.

‘What’s the phone number to the nursing home’

‘Oh dear, that’s a tough one, I don’t know.

‘what’s the name of the home?’ – she tells me, and I scan the crowd again. ‘YOU, is that a blackberry?’ – yep- ‘ Look up the xxxxxxxx nursing home, then call them, but don’t tell them she fell.

So she was feeling more comfortable, Traci went in and bought her the loaf of bread she came for and before the Paramedics could arrive, a Fire Dept Hazmat truck arrived and lent their assistance. I gave them all her info, then told Mary Theresa she was going to be looked after by the pros now and said goodbye. She kind of waved her hand at me and so I grabbed her hand and got the nicest little ‘thank you’ and little hand squeeze.

They had her on the stretcher by the time we left. I wanted to jump in and go with her, but there wasn’t anything more I could do. She had a pretty good sense of humour, at one point she says “oh my, we need to get off the road, we’ll all get ran over” I replied, ‘no ma’am, if they want to get to you, they gotta go through me, and that ain’t happening because I am a big man and they don’t want to wreck their car’. She got a chuckle there too. Oh, and Mary Theresa turns 77 next Monday (Thanksgiving up here, btw). Happy Birthday Ma’am!

That was it. I got a few compliments on how I handled everything, and one guy says ‘You’ve done this before’, I replied ‘nope, first time’, ‘You obviously took the class’… I did take the class, 3+ years ago, it was Baby CPR, but it had a basic component on first aid. It got me thinking about the incident in Fish Creek this spring and how there was a good team captain (a nurse out for a run) on that emergency, and I was glad I could help on this one…

I guess I listened well enough in that class! Amazing how having a kid will snap you to attention, because I never listened in school. Took me a few hours for the adrenaline rush to subside and even now, recounting the story, my heart rate has gone up…

Take care everyone!

Lake Louise. (A big pile of pictures…)

2010-09-26T21:43:00.001-07:00

Here is our day today. If you want to see some other amazing shots, go here to see pictures from my 16k barefoot run this morning.

We have lived in Calgary for 13 years now and we shamefully have never been to Lake Louise. Here is the resulting photos. The weather wasn’t great, but who wants perfect pictures you can buy on postcards anyway?

If anyone…

2010-09-21T22:27:00.001-07:00

… wonders where I am, I am over here. I’ll be back soon with some summer recaps and more regular postings. I have been reading your blogs!

Neil

Camping!

2010-08-22T14:08:00.001-07:00

We are camping again. We are really ruffin’ it. We don’t have hookups of any kind, however, a couple months ago, we upgraded to 2 ‘deep cycle’ 6 volt batteries and are on day 5 of this camping trip without having to connect to any type of shore power.

Yep, were ruffin it.

This battery revelation opens up a whole new world for us and our camping adventures. As long as our water tank is full and our waste tanks are empty, we figure we can go ‘Boondocking’ for at least 6 days at a stretch with no requirement for connections. That is super-duper news. Imagine all the mountain meadows, prairie lakesides and music festivals that this opens the door to us!

We are exactly 30 minutes west of our house. Right now we are pretty smothered in forest fire smoke from all the fires in British Columbia, but it sure makes for some nice photo opportunities.

It a really cool sight to see, when you look straight up, and there is blue sky, but anywhere else and it’s like the thickest fog. These pics are on the way to the camping area.

God’s country. truly.

On Saturday we were supposed to go to Millerville for the Farmers Market and Fair. Nope. The line up of cars was at least a couple kms long and we were in NO mood to get stuck in some ‘city folk’ crowds. We ended up in Okotoks for some breakfast and then back to the house (because we were so close) for showers.

After a stop at the house the board of directors were anxious to get back on the road and back to the mountains. Pump gas (as Andrew says it) first, then gone again!

Long time ago back story: 17 years ago I went to Saskatoon from my home in North Battleford to upgrade my high school Math and English marks so I could get into Architecture school. I got there and the first thing I had to do was look for a job. I found one, and it was a position selling coupons door to door. The story of the coupon sales cult company is probably a whole nother marathon of blogging to tell that story, but the one thing that did come out of this job was I met my good friend Randy. I have not seen Randy in 17 years, but we reconnected and have kept in touch through Facebook (He moved to England 13 years ago), and I just happened to know that he was back in Canada on a family camping trip. Turns out he was one mountain range to the north from us.

I gave Randy a call and we headed out to Bow Valley Provincial Park, just east of Canmore. He had moved from his campsite over to a day use picnic area on the banks of the mighty Bow River.

It was like we saw each other yesterday. Yammer yammer yammer… yakkity yak. The bonus is Traci and Randy got along very well and Andrew, after a little bit of shyness, was all over Randy t0o! It was good to see you Randy. I remember being very good friends with you back then and this little hour long visit confirmed why. I sure hope it isn’t another 17 years before we get to re-connect again.

If you click on the photo below, it will come up much larger (settings in Livewriter are very user friendly like that) . It is a pretty nice shot and if you want to download it for you desktop background or anything, feel free! The mountain on the far right is Yamnuska. I am going to climb it before the summer is out.

My DW enjoying the day

My DS enjoying the day

My DW and DS enjoying each other!

Randy and I…

Here are the 5’s enjoying some mountain air as well!

I was going to run the Prairie Link trail today, but I couldn’t find anyone to go with (there are lots of bears in the area and DW didn’t want me to go alone), so I am going to run 10k tomorrow in my Neighbourhood when we get home. I do have a date with follower and regular commenter Ellorneo to run this trail next Sunday. I saw a photo of Lorne’s VFF’s on the Vibram Facebook page and I requested a friendship with him. We have commented back and forth as well as facebooked, but never met yet. Should be a fun run! Here is the original Facebook exchange.

I thought it was a funny exchange. Glad I friended him now!

Really behind…

2010-08-16T10:46:00.001-07:00

…now …but it’s for a good cause. Me. I have been building a followership and trying to garner some sponsorships for my running hobby over at my running blog.

I’ll do another list and try to get through it in the next couple days.

Andrews Birthday. He turned 3 on July 24th. It was a very good day.
Camping. We went to Rosebud, Alberta for a rocket launch of all things! Shortest trip of the year, no less fun tho!
I now run barefoot! I’ll link over to it at the other one.
Traci has started a new business, selling gift baskets, and is taking a very cool government sponsored business start-up program for entrepreneurs. She is loving it!
Work is work.
I shot 82 on my one and only round of golf so far this year!
Had to take Rizzo in to emergency with a suspected hernia in her back (she is better now)

S’bout it! Seeya soon!

Best day…

2010-08-08T22:35:00.001-07:00

I posted this on my Run Blog, but it involves Andrew alot, so here!

It was easily 2 times more fun than any run day in my history, and quite possibly 3 times more fun.

I put my bib on and Andrew asked for one. Turns out, he had one too! he was SOOOO happy! All the kids got #1!

We left the house today at 8:20 and made a quick stop at my favourite sponsor, the Cranston Location of Good Earth Cafe. I walk in and Thelma goes “So, how did it go?”.. uh, I am on my way there right now… she said she thought it was yesterday, but nonetheless was excited that I stopped in to say hi and grab a coffee on my way there. On the suggestion of Traci, we got a picture. Nice! (she was so excited for me, her enthusiasm actually helped me get ready for the race!)

We made our way over to the Ronald McDonald House by about 9am for the Rock the House Run, and had an hour to relax and soak in the atmosphere. They have a pretty nice set up. Lots of space for everyone (500ish runners and walkers), have great free stuff including, water, fruit, cinnamon buns, ice cream, coffee, massage, kids play areas, stage with live entertainment, and a professional warm up guy. The warm up thing is actually very cool as I am super ready when he turns us around and the gun goes off.

Big Ron and Me

Little Ron waving at me (not really, but it looks like it)

Me with all kinds of nervous apprehension when we arrived

Ronald McDonald House, Southern Alberta

The vendor and start area

Here is Beezley (yep, he’s my token ‘One Name’ person that I know!).

He emcee’d the event and he is the morning show host at Calgary 97.7 the Mix FM radio station. He is probably more well known as the Arena voice of the Calgary Flames! On top of it all, he is a good family friend. Thanks for all your hard work at these event Beez! At one point prior to the start of the race, he was introducing dignitaries and some of the people who make the race possible, and then he says “AND we have a Barefoot runner, doing the 10k today! Way to go # 3320”. I then had a bunch of people coming up to me to say “Are you really running Barefoot?” in as many different ways as there were people asking! It was a lot of fun. I learned a long time ago to embrace and enjoy positive attention like this, and boy did I ever embrace it!

before I get to my race report. I’ll tell Andrews…

The boy has 19 different means of wheel’d transportation in the basement, shed, garage and backyard. One of them is actually a tractor that is battery powered. So does he ride any of them? nope. He runs everywhere he goes. From the time he could walk, he was running. He understands everything about running ie, fuelling, hydration, pacing and stretching. We were at Good Earth this afternoon and he just broke into an impromptu stretching routine to the amusement of the others in the cafe.

Poppop was running with him in the kids 1k, and I have been warning him that he better be ready to run the entire 1k as Andrew (in the right mindset) would run fast the entire way. Well… he was and he did! Andrews run is a fast walk for Poppop, however each time Poppop went into his fast walk, Andrew would say “RUN Poppop!” and so Poppop would run!

Each of the kids got an empty happy meal box and were to stop at stations all over the course to pick up goodies to put in the box. And, as per last year, he got a medal! *WoOt* He had an amazing run and was very proud of himself (As were we).

In the meantime, I was busy near the start yakking it up with runner after runner. I could tell there were lots more people interested, but were too polite (Canadian) to come up and start a conversation. If I wasn’t with someone, I would look them in the eye and smile, and they would come right over to talk at that point.

Traci and Nan were walking the 5k and made it back to the start line just in time for the gun. Traci got this picture as I took off! Nice one!

Because we had such an awesome warmup with Pete the Fitness Guy, I got myself into a really nice rhythm right from the start. I wasn’t over the timing mat yet and people started talking to me about my barefeet. This would continue on for the entire race. I figured I was going to be a bit (understatement) of a spectacle, so I figured I would make everyone feel at ease and smile, laugh and talk to everyone! I ran with a stack of free coffee coupons from Good Earth and handed them to the volunteers as I ran by, gave the good ol’ hang loose sign to all the entertainers and chatted with everyone, no matter if they seemed interested in a conversation or not. The entertainment was great and Traci got pictures of almost everyone on the 5k loop that were playing for us!

Oh yeah. it was a misty rain for most of the run, which was super fine by me! Thanks to all the entertainers, you guys were amazing!

I was in the mid pack, feeling really, really good as I ran a 5:20/km pace (too fast) with little or no hard breathing or any other issue. I just felt wonderful! I’m in there somewhere!

People are so amazing, I got every question imaginable about my feet. As I ran past people I could hear them say “That guy has no shoes!” or “you lost your shoes”. I would see someone stopped to tie their shoe and I'd tell the person running next to me ‘that never happens to me anymore’… chuckle.

I didn’t carry water, I didn’t carry food, I just wanted to run unencumbered. It was truly a great experience. I ran the entire course, save for a few walking steps at the water stations and a stop at the ‘Paint the Run’ booth where you were handed a paintbrush to swipe a canvas on the way by. I stopped and painted a footprint! hehe. Too corny?

My feet felt amazing for the first 4k, but I had a feeling my quick pace was going to bugger me a bit and it did. At the 4-5k mark I started to get a pain in my right foot, right in the ball of my foot. It pissed me off a bit as it was the spot where I stepped on the rock at the spray park (not running) a month ago, It is a deep bruise down there and it is a little bit annoying that it is lingering as long as it is. Ah well, we’ll just make some foot placement adjustments and viola, comfortable running again.

I must have chatted with a hundred people. Even the cops directing traffic were all chatty, when normally they don’t even smile or acknowledge you. I made the 5k turnaround at about 27 minutes (too fast, and I knew it), and so I knew I was just going to be hanging on when I finished. My first 5k highlight was stopping for a big hug and kiss from Andrew who came running out to meet me at the turn! Awesome.

The crowd thinned out, but it made it easier to joke around and chat with everyone doing the 10k. All the entertainers and course marshals were all cheering for me on the second lap as it seemed like they were even more amazed now!

The rain picked up a bit and the streets were completely soaked by now. I stepped on a rock that I couldn’t see on the darker wet pavement. I said to the people around me. “Dang, I just stepped on a rock”… they didn’t say anything. I could tell they were all like “Stupid jerk, running barefoot”. Or maybe I just imagined that’s what they were thinking…

Last year this run seemed SO long to me. I’m not sure why, but the rolling hills just about killed me then. This year, as I approached the finish line, I wanted to make the turn and carry on for another 5k. Earlier in the run I thought my too fast of pace was going to hurt me, but in fact I felt great right to the end. Sure I was fatigued a bit, I finished this race only 2 minutes off my Shod PR, so it wasn’t a factor of taking it easy, but I felt like I could have kicked it into another gear. I didn’t kick it into another gear, because I knew that was tempting fate with how good my barefoot training was going and I didn’t want to jeopardize that by being stupid and hurting myself. I love this too much to be an egomaniac. I crossed the line in 57:43 (chip time) and I got the biggest cheer I have ever received.

notice the lady behind me with the hula hoop? her and a dude that juggled 3 balls ran the 5k, hulahooping and juggling the entire way…

I used to be just a Clydesdale, nondescript runner, but now I was Barefoot Neil, the barefoot guy who ran the Rock the House Run! When I crossed the line I went straight to say hi to my family, grabbed a drink of water, then just stood in the center of the entertainment area and chatted with a steady line of people who were amazed I actually did it! Everyone was incredibly curious as to ‘Why’. I basically told them it was a choice by me to run with joy and an attempt to run pain free. They seemed to accept that, and seemed very happy to know a little more about Barefoot Running. I even spoke to a few of the fastest runners (40min 10kish, Hi Rob and Mike!), as they were REALLY curious about it. I found the whole thing flattering and was very proud to be there as the token barefooter on this day. I know barefooting is going to become more popular in the future, but for now, I am happy it was just me today, as I obviously enjoyed the attention.

My feet really seemed to heat up about 15 minutes after the race, so I put my 5’s on and that solved that right away. We hung out for as long as people wanted to chat with me, then headed out for home. We stopped at the Good Earth to let them know how I did, and as I regaled the race story to Thelma and the rest about all the people and the coupons handed out (I made sure all the EMS and First Aid people got free coffees too) and Thelma gives me a big hug! She seemed very happy with her investment and that made me happy. I say the following, not because I was a sponsored runner, but because it’s true. The Good Earth Coffeehouse and Bakery in Cranston Rocks! go there and enjoy the incredible atmosphere! I am so happy they came to Cranston!

I made the evening news too! Here is the full broadcast link. I am at about 14:20 to 14:30. not too smooth, but it was 9.5k and I was feeling it a little bit… lots too work on still.

What a day… I am so in love with my barefootness. Thanks to my darling wife for putting up with all this!

Barefoot mileage since June 29th : 87.2km
VFF mileage since July 7th : 11.8km
Shoe mileage since SOBF (start of barefoot): 5km (25:30 5k race PR on July 1st)

running product makers look at what you get! Please sponsor me!

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-07-28T13:32:00.001-07:00

Holy Shmoly!

2010-07-26T21:10:00.001-07:00

that was the scariest storm I have ever seen. I am standing out on the deck and all of a sudden the wind whips up and the freakiest clouds come flying over the houses. The clouds are moving a hundred miles an hour North to South AND straight up! wow! I went in the house, told Traci and Andrew to get to the basement and ran up stairs to get the cat. I got everyone settled and then went back up to watch! I went out to the camper to get the big flashlight, back downstairs and was amazed at how hard the hail was hitting the basement windows (that are below grade). By the time I got upstairs, the wind had shifted 180 degrees and was BLOWING! wow.

The hail spared no plant. Poor Traci is so sad. Mostly because of the Ligularia that was a day or so away from blooming, is now in tatters, stems broken in half and the blooms stripped of any new flower buds. dang.

It was over in about 4 minutes, but thankfully the plants were the only loss. A few clicks east of here was reported funnel clouds and an even bigger storm.

I couldn’t get a good contrast on the video phone, but just notice how fast the clouds are flying by.

See how you can just barely see the house across the path. then when the hail lets up it is there.

The boy turns 3 tomorrow…

2010-07-23T22:57:00.001-07:00

… wow, where did the time go.

I have been neglecting this poor blog because I am telling my running story over at www.becauseallthecoolkidsaredoingit.blogspot.com and it is taking up all my blog motivation.

I last blogged our second last day in Stettler. (aside from wordless Wednesday and the police takedown)

We got moved over to the nicer campsite for the last night, and it made us mighty happy.

The trip home, if driven straight through, takes about 2 hours. We took 7.

We were on the road for 15 minutes and we stopped in Stettler to do some shopping, and have lunch. An hour later we were on the road again. 35km from Stettler is a very neat little town called Big Valley. It is the end of the line for the Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions out of Stettler, and is historically a big deal for train history enthusiasts. It is a very nicely restored rail town, including the ruins of a very impressive roundhouse dating back to 1912. We spent some time walking around the town, but most things were closed as it was Monday. Not too much going on.

We left there and headed south through the edge of the Rumsey Natural Area, on our way to a reconnaissance mission to a campground at Toleman Bridge. Nice place. Lots of hiking and birding opportunities there. After a short stop, we carried on to the town of Trochu. Andrew was in desperate need of a playground and we could all use a break. We passed a school playground, but school was in session so we happenchanced on a spray park. Man that was fun. Andrew ran, and ran, and ran. He loved this place and it was just the ticket for everyone to cool off and burn off some steam.

We pretty much beelined it from there, as we were still an hour and a half from home and we had a dinner date at Nan and Poppops. Andrew did have a pretty wild freakout because we ran out of tissues to wipe his eyes when he cried. We gave him a napkin, but nope, it wasn’t good enough. Finally he cried himself to sleep.

On Canada Day we did a LOT of stuff. I ran a race in the morning. A 5k in 25:38 *woOT*. I got home and we took off on a great adventure.

First up was the Millerville Races! I taught my son all about how to lose money betting on the Horses.

He was sad his Horse lost.
Next it was a nice ride out into the country as Andrew took a well deserved nap. We were happy he slept as we were going to a baseball game that started at his bedtime and ended with a big fireworks show!

So we got home in good time for some relaxing, but we were all excited to get to the baseball game. We had amazing seats!

Andrew got to run the bases afterwards! so.much.fun!

Andrew really REALLY enjoyed the fireworks!

Nan and Poppop took the trailer to Cypress Hills for the following weekend, and they seemed to really enjoy the trailer and they got caught up on some rest and relaxation.

We went to Calaway Park. Calaway is a small amusement park here in Calgary. The last time I went was 1986. Not too much had changed, but when you go with an almost 3 year old, it is an amazing fun time!

We also looked at a trailer at Field of Dreams RV… here is our trailer of the future… I love the layout.

Andrew got a bike. He hasn’t ridden it since. he will. someday.

The weekend after that, we headed out to Okotoks for a 10 day stint at the Lions Sheep River Campground. We love this place. They treat us really well. It is safe, most of the time.

It is a very relaxing place, and while we didn’t have terrific weather, we ended up enjoying our time out there immensely. I never used to like Okotoks, but the more time I spend there, the more I like the place.

While we were camping, we went to another ball game (the Team we watch is the Okotoks Dawgs). As we walked into the game, a guy came up to us and says “Hey, We do this thing called the McDonalds Kid of the game, and the kid we look for is normally wearing a blue bucket hat, sunglasses, a striped shirt and Denim shorts” I’m like, “Hey, that’s us! That’s Andrew!!!” cool, so we had to go to the Dawgs Dugout after the first half inning and we got up on top and were introduced as the Kid if the Game! Andrew got an autographed baseball(these are US college kids, so who knows if they’ll become famous), a t-shirt and a Happy Meal Gift cert. He loved it!, I loved it!

AND if that’s not enough, Andrew, Nan and Traci went to the Calgary Stampede Parade. 350,000 people line the streets for this, the official kickoff to Stampede!

Traci’s most awesome action photo ever. This is the Canadian Version of the Blue Angels, called the CAF Snowbirds.

Good times.

My Favorite Andrewism

Each morning he wakes up and says “Nice Day!” then says “Time to get up!”
He says “Know what Daddy?” I say “What?” he says “ONIONS!” and laughs like a goon.
Zizzo and DinkDink are our dogs. Their names are Rizzo and Kenickie
He says anything followed by “Dat funny?”
After he eats all of his treat/supper/drink, he says “Me don’t like that”
If you look at him, and he is playing shy, he’ll say “Don’t see me!”
lots of things are “pitty awesome!”
“Don’t go to work Daddy”… breaks my heart. recently it’s been, “Stay home daddy”
He’ll be talking in his sleep, and it’ll be all mumbo jumbo and then “Hanny manny!” will blurt out… it’s one of his favorite cartoons.
“Wipe mine eyes” is his way of making up after a good cry.
“Me run fast” and then he does.
"Chocolate juice” is his favorite drink.
When he is going to sleep, he gets into a face down position and requests “rub mine back”

Oh, he is completely potty trained now… *Woot*

It’s quite the ride, i’ll tell ya!

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-07-20T23:36:00.001-07:00

Good Grief! A takedown!

2010-07-17T21:08:00.001-07:00

So, last evening this guy pulls into the campground in this little lowrider pick-up truck, sets up camp, then walks around carrying a lacrosse stick and a golf ball. Unfortunately I mistook him for a friendly doofus and engaged him in conversation.

Me: You have a golf ball and a Lacrosse stick.

Him: Yeah, I lost my ball in the river, and I found this one. I also lost my other stick so I have to play with myself now. (his words)

Me: uh, you can buy those you know.

Him: Yeah, but the stores around here are all really small and lacrosse isn’t very popular around here except for the pro team, a few minor teams and a junior league.

Me: uh, yeah. Just in Calgary tho, there is a SportChek.

Him: Hey yeah, we have those where I come from.

Me: uh, yeah go there.

Him: I never go there. they are our competition.

Me: Uh, ok, have a nice night. *avert eyes*

Nan and Poppop were here for supper with us, and when I came back into the site, I told them I didn’t like this guy, that he creeped me out.

We watched him most of the evening. He would take his shirt off and sit in the truck for a while, then get out and walk around the campground some more just wandering and staring at stuff. He walked past our site at one point and Rizzo our pug FREAKED out at him. Rizzo normally could care less about people, but this guy, she hated!

Fastforward to noon today. Andrew and I are at the playground and the guy come tearing down the access road in his truck, and to a small parking lot near the campground. I wanted to go tell the guy to slow the hell down, but before I could even start in that direction the cops had come into the campground with 2 cruisers and blocked off his access out.

The guy pulls up right in front of the cars and just sits there. One of the cops starts to get out and all of a sudden the guy backs up and goes around the parking lot 4 or 5 times then parks in front of the cop cars again. He then jumps out of the car and hops the fence and goes into the campground office. I was worried for the workers, as this place is staffed by the nicest volunteers and they were now potentially hostages.

One of the cops goes up to the door and peeks inside, with one hand on his holster. That was the point I said “Let’s go Andrew”, scooped him up and headed back to the Trailer. I put Andrew in the Trailer, told Traci there is a Takedown happening and then grabbed my Camera.

Really, do you think I WOULDN’T want to take pictures of this?

Anyroad, I don’t know how the guy got out of the office, but here he comes with the coppers hot on his tail. He is hooting and hollering, yelling noooo nooooo noooo! you can’t get me!!!!!

I don’t see the actual tackle (or submission) but I get around the corner to see the guy face down, shirtless in the gravel, Ouch.

They get him all cuffed up and march him back to the cop cars and as he passes by us he is chanting, ‘hup 2-3-4, hup 2-3-4’. Kinda made me laugh by then. Once they get him back to the cop cars he is back to resisting. They ask him nicely to get in the car, but he won’t, and stands fast.

All of a sudden he starts yelling “OOOOOUUUCCCCCHHHHHHHH” “OOOOUUUUUUCCCCCCHHHHH” at the top of his lungs, so apparently the cop got the cue that this was the time to take care of business, and (I think) buckled his knees, as he sort of dropped and folded up into the car.

Once that was done, the cops started looking through his truck and his campsite, as the guy told them his Methadone was in there.

In talking with the cop afterwards, this guy spent the night in jail last night, then when he got out, he was recklessly driving all over the place so they followed him here. He is a Heroine addict from BC apparently.

And this is how nice the people who work here are. They refunded his next two nights and gave the money to the cops to give to the guy.

Oh yeah, always trust the instincts of a dog.

Update: The guy checked in to the campground as John Smith, and he jokingly asked the lady in the office “Have the cops been looking for me?” uh… haha? Our villain was wanted on assault and drug charges back in his home, so he truly was on the run. Also in the news: the Okotoks police were quite busy this day, as they shot a guy dead in the evening in this quite little bedroom community, ending a domestic dispute call.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-07-14T12:30:00.001-07:00

Okotoks! Again!

2010-07-09T22:37:00.001-07:00

We stayed here 3 times last year for extended visits. We are exactly 21kms from our house, I go in to work during the weekdays and Traci and Andrew hang out and camp! We love it here.

The Calgary Stampede has started today. Traci, Nan and Andrew took in the parade on a very hot Friday Morning. Traci took this awesome shot as the Canadian Air force Snowbirds did a fly-by to start the parade this morning. 350,000 people crowd into downtown Calgary to see this parade.

WOOT!!!

2010-07-09T12:35:00.001-07:00

4 days ago, Andrew decided it was time to be potty trained. Not one accident since! Yay! Daddy went and got me some new shoes with all the money were saving!

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-07-06T21:06:00.001-07:00

Finishing the list…

2010-06-29T22:02:00.001-07:00

9. Walkabout

We had a nice walk around the campsite, pretty much stopping at all the playgrounds for Andrew. I can’t remember anything that stood out on our walk… so here are the pics.

I’ll take dat one!I never had a coffee from here, but they had some pretty fancy stuff on the menu… 25 cents a ride… Nice comfy seats while you wait your turn… The beach access…

10. Driveabout

I was still pretty grumpy about our living arrangements, so I decided a driving tour of the area was in order. we really enjoy exploring (as you know) and today was no different. We headed a few kms east to Rochon Sands and the connecting Prov. Park. Traci and I stayed here a million years ago, so we had an idea what it was like, and as we remembered it, it was still very nice. The only reason we don’t camp here is it is dry camping. We promised Andrew another playground and we found one here.

The playground had a bouncy bridge to get to the big slide and he didn’t want anything to do with it at first. After a while of up and down the small slide, I was able to talk him into coming across holding my hand. After a few trips like that, he went over part way on his own and then all of a sudden he looks at me and says “NO DADDY!” i’m like: What? he says “NO Daddy, you stay there!”. I went out one step onto the bridge with him and he freaks out. “DADDY! Andrew do it HISSELF!”… ok then… he just grew up a little more right in front of our eyes.

We carried on from Rochon, to the Village of White Sand. This place was really nice. Very well kept. The only one problem is access in on gravel roads. I guess I’ve been living in the city a long time, because, as Andrew would say, ‘I no like it’.

After out tour in White Sand we went around the east end of the lake (Buffalo Lake) to the Buffalo Lake Recreational Area, to have a look at the campground there. Nope. Never gonna camp there. 5 cattle grates, and a very rough road in, and then once you get there, it’s all unsecured and kinda unruly.

We travelled from there into the Town of Stettler. If you ever win the lottery in Alberta, this is where you have to go to claim your prize. Just so you know. Stettler is famous for railways and oil. It has a very cool train ride from this town to Big Valley. Apparently you get robbed along the way by bandits and generally have an authentic old school train experience. We will go there one day. Andrew spotted the big Steamer and he immediately wanted to ride ‘Thomas’. We toured town a bit, got a coffee from Tim Hortons and then started to head back to camp… then…

11. Andrew walmart

Andrew spots Walmart. “ Let’s go to big mollmart” he says. No sweetie, we don’t need to go there. “Let’s go to big mollmart!!!”. What do you need from Walmart? we ask. He sits for a moment, then in all sincerity he says “I need daipers.”

Fair enough, we went to big Mollmart!

12. Creepy handshaker

I debated putting this one up because it shows how dense I can be some days.

I made friends with the family next door to us (on the services side of the camper) and spent some time across the tailate getting to know them. Their 12 year old daughter was really smitten with the pugs.

The next day she was just sitting in their site so I asked her is she wanted to take the pugs for a walk. She did. It was getting dusky out and the sun was going down, and when she got back I was heading down to the beach to take some pictures of the sunset. She asked if she could come with me and I said sure.

Yeah. I have no idea what I was thinking. I didn’t even think about it until we got back.

I walked back into the site, realizing by then that it is not normal for grown men to go down to the beach with someone elses 12year old to take pictures of the sunset. Like seriously, am I that stupid?

It was fine, she was just a chatty 12 year old. I started to wonder what her parents must have thought though. I started to wonder why on earth they let her go with me, in this day and age. Anyway, I felt bad enough that I lost some sleep over it. In the morning I went over to the Dad and said “I need to apologize to you, I can be a Naive Dunce some days” He looks at me, I continue “You must have been pretty weirded out yesterday, and I just wanted to apologize for not checking with you, and/or saying no to your Daughter” He says “Well we sort of looked at her when she ‘told’ us she was going to take pictures at the beach, and we decided we were ok with it, as an afterthought we were a bit weirded out… but it’s ok.” ok… Our conversation turned to what this world has come to for us to having this conversation, and we parted ways. They were packing up and going home, so that was that.

12. sunset

Oh here is the results of the weird sunset photo session…

13. Other campground shots…

These funny pedal carts were all over the place…We took our ride on Sunday Evening! Andrew loved it! Mommy and Daddy were a sweaty mess after all the pedalling. Climb up wit me Daddy! This was the Full moon on Sat Night… Of course, here is the awesome site we moved too… Notice Traci sound asleep in the LaFuma on the right side… Andrew got to pet a Hursh… and one of the 3 little piggies… I think that one went to market… mmmmm pork. Turned out our weekend was awesome… even though I can be grumpy, and/or stupid some times…

An 8 year old kid…

2010-06-28T22:33:00.001-07:00

… made me feel better about myself… truly.

back story. Traci and Andrew were at the playground the other day and this group of older kids (8yo’s) were very nice and included our little almost 3 year old in their play. At one point one of the kids says to Traci “Man, i love this little kid!” and was very sincere about it.

Front Story. Yesterday we were at the beach building sandcastles and because the sand was so perfect for sandcastles we were being very creative. We had 2 bucket shaped sand domes sitting one on top of the other and were attempting a third. It didn’t quite work out and it fell over and Andrew had a ball stomping the ruins to smithereens.

Out of nowhere an 8 year old kid is walking toward us, and as he goes by he says, “great job on that 3 layer sandcastle, you guys almost had that!”, and he kept walking… I sort of smiled and said “thanks!” I looked at Traci and asked her if she heard that. Smiling she said she did. She said it was the same kid from the playground yesterday.

I had an 8 year old kid, in 11 words, making me feel good about myself, and just good in general.

It was a Far cry from this…

So.much.better.

2010-06-27T15:25:00.001-07:00

Oh yes… Traci said, no lets stay in our site, and then qualified it with, ‘Whatever you want to do’. 45 minutes later we were out of site 475 and into site 198. ooooohhhhhhh yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh. I feel soooo much better. (did I say that already?) Can’t wait for a fire tonight, because last nights fire was only about 3 feet from the neighbours bathroom… The clerk at the office still made it hard to move. I asked what sites are open and she said none. I asked her “really? there are no sites available on Sunday night here?”, Let me look again, she states. Oh, here are some! Imagine…

From this…

To this…

All in the same campground, all for the same price…good for us! Oh yeah, tomorrow is our 13th wedding anniversary.

Darn…

2010-06-27T10:29:00.001-07:00

I used the little update post from Yesterday, and just changed the title, thinking that it would post new and leave the old one there… nope. It is gone, can’t get it back… good thing it was just a couple photos and not much more… Lesson learned. I used yesterdays just so I had my list at my disposal…

First few items on the list

2010-06-26T22:00:00.001-07:00

1. Gravel road

I tend to take the road less travelled, and I know it drives Traci nuts most of the time. This time I lay total blame on my Palm Pre and Google Maps… It was only 8km, but still… sheesh.

And the boy was trying to sleep too. Poor guy.

2. Guy at gate

When we got the the campground we had to wait at the gate to get in. What I didn’t understand was, why are the people stopping 30 feet short of the little house and having the guy walk back and forth… very slowly. Anyhow, we got up there and he asks our name, I tell him and he goes “So it’s Neil and Debbie?”… “Oh sorry, that was last month wasn’t it?” hardeeharhar har….

3. Andrew Swimming

The boy loves him a good lake!

4. Scrunchy RV park

I was pre-grumpy coming here as I knew we were destined for the RV Park portion of the ‘resort’ I wasn’t surprised, it does kind of suck. I booked 3 months ago, but this place lets you book a year in advance, so all the nice serviced larger sites in the trees are taken up now for next year at this time. When the guy on our door side showed up, his wife directed him 2 feet onto our property, she kept telling him to move over further and further toward us. We were sitting in the camper watching all this and finally I had enough. I went outside and pretty much stared at them with the ol’ stinkeye until they got the hint and moved over. I really wish I didn’t have to be ‘that guy’ but there are fixed gravel pads to park on and he was fully 2 feet onto our already small plot of land. Oh well, one less social interaction to worry about this weekend. Turns out it was an ok thing as he got himself plastered drunk and staying in an idiotic stupor all weekend. (Traci actually heard the guy say “I moved the camper over because that guy looked at me cock-eyed”).. hehe, yay, my work is done here! Here is our view of his trailer from our patio…

5. disgruntled I

It’s true, I’ve been a bit sour, but sometimes doesn’t being a bit sour just feel right? I’m still having fun, but I'm just not my jubilant cartwheeling self! (ed. note: today I am jubilant and have done 3 back-handsprings already this morning)

6. Jackass neighbour

see #4 above.

7. Propane dude

One our tanks were out, so I took it over to the store to get filled. When the guy finishes filling it up, I ask how much is it going to be? He states “A buck a pound, so $30.00”. We head over to the store so I can pay and by the time I get there I have done some math in my head. Yep. “So, $30.00 huh?, but you are only allowed to fill the tank to 80% of capacity, so I should only have to pay $24.00”. The dude just looks at me… “It’s a 30lb tank, so it’s $30.00”. “Um, but you only put 24lbs in…”. “Yeah, but this is what we charge for a 30lb tank, and it’s based on what we pay our supplier for delivery and stuff”. “ok, but now i’m paying $1.20lb, where in town I pay $.75lb, so you are saying you have to charge $.55lb more that in town, 15 minutes from here?”

The guy had taken my money by then and had decided not to talk to me anymore. Did I tell you I was sort of grumpy still? I was making friends ALL OVER the place here at Old McDonalds Resort…

8. Storm

It was pretty awesome, really heavy rain, high winds. We use quite the system to keep our awning in place once set up, so I sat outside under the awning during the storm. It calmed me down…

Still to come…

9. Walkabout

10. Driveabout

11. Andrew walmart

12. Creepy handshaker

12. sunset

13. Other campground shots…

Camper crash…

2010-06-23T22:26:00.001-07:00

not mine, but a nasty one nonetheless. Loyal followers Sue and Doug ask “what happened to the camper?”

Well, he messed with a vehicle he shouldn’t have.

He turned in front of this sightseeing coach. This just demonstrates how little there is between the outside in many of our very thin RV’s. I saw a travel trailer get t-boned on the highway once. All that was left looked like a pile of matchsticks.

here are some nice cars, just to take your mind off the wreck…

And here is a baby goat.

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-06-22T22:24:00.001-07:00

My boy…

2010-06-21T23:09:00.001-07:00

… has a new best buddy. His first good bud in fact. The next door neighbour family has a 4 year old that really likes Andrew and the feeling is mutual. The other day Kieran comes over into our yard, walks up to Andrew and asks “Do you want to play Hide and Seek? … Yesth, replies Andrew. The funniest game of Hide and Seek ensues. They hide in the exact same spot each time, but are no less excited when they find each other.

Today Kieran comes over into our yard and Andrew and him have a hug before they start playing. They were so happy to see each other. They ran through the sprinklers, played on the slide and just had an great time. It melts my heart to see Andrew so well adjusted to be able to play that well with other kids. Andrew is all about sharing and cooperative play. He has as much fun sharing his stuff, as he does playing with it.

Laughing and running and just having a good time. It is also awesome that Andrew talks well enough to get along with the 4 year old. Man I love my little guy.

Fathers Day…

2010-06-20T23:12:00.001-07:00

… was amazing. Thank you to Mommy and Andrew for giving me an great day filled with picnics, hikes and terrific scenery. But this photo sums up my Fathers Day, and every other day with Andrew…

it was a 30’ drop straight down, and I told Andrew to crawl on his belly to the edge. Instead he crawled up onto my back. Safe with Daddy.

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-06-15T22:56:00.001-07:00

Everyone left…

2010-06-13T16:33:00.001-07:00

…except us.

Actually, I’m surprised at how many are still here. Probably only half the campers left, leaving a nice amount here. Beautiful, isn't it?

We weren’t going to go to town, but it was pretty windy, so we figured a tour was in order. Turned out to be a gas stop, pick up some cheese and crackers for our little master, and then a dairy queen burger for lunch.

Oh, here is where the fair WAS. last night. Amazing how fast the pick up and leave. Rent must have been due…

We got back to the campsite and headed straight for the beach. We enjoyed 2 hours of great fun in the sand and water. Lots of sky, water and sand. A recipe for FUN! We built these. He crushed them… “Build me more sandcastles!”… OK!

Yoda likes to be wrapped up. He says “Wrap me up!”

81…

2010-06-13T08:25:00.001-07:00

…degrees today. I am glad I am near a lake. As Doug and Sue pointed out in the comments a couple posts ago”

“…from snow to swim in how many days???”

Well, to be exact, 10 days since the last snow. 28f/-3c 10 days ago and snow. Today 81f/27c and swim! *woot*

Andrew was sleeping by 7:30 last night. We were going to have some marshmallows with him, but his eyelids were too heavy, and he was out before we could light a match. Oh well, Traci and I had a nice fire (no marshmallows) and just enjoyed the sunset (see last post) the birds (this is an amazing area for birds) and the flames. I am pretty sure I'm not alone when I say I really like watching a campfire.

Earlier in the day I took some time to catch the feel of the area with the camera. It wasn’t overly busy, but I am sure this place becomes a zoo on non Rodeo Days.

This is Lake Newell Resort. Real houses masquerading as cottages, This one makes me relaxed just looking at it. This is where the phrase “a boatload of people” came from. This is oil country afterall, Lots of BIG trucks. Took this right from my chair at the campfire. Yes… this.kid.is.peeing. A different perspective of the sunset. The girl on the left is actually sitting in a Kayak. Pleasant.

I spoke with the boss, and we have an extra day out here. So while we watch all the other people pack up and leave to drive on some very busy highways, back to where ever they come from, we will be on the beach. We have a wiener roast booked for noon, swimming all afternoon and then Tinfoil dinners over the fire for supper, then Marshmallows. We may even get a nice bird watching hike in. Sounds like fun, don’t you think?

Hey…

2010-06-12T21:30:00.001-07:00

..have a great Sunday!

goodnight.

Brooks is known for…

2010-06-12T17:01:00.001-07:00

…it’s meat packing plants and feedlots. But just 14km south of the small Southern Alberta town is Kinbrook island Provincial park. We had zero expectations coming in, but man are we surprised at how nice it is here. First things first.

Karma is a bitch. everyone knows that. Karma can also be awesome. We like to think we are pretty good people and we really try to be nice and considerate and all things like that.

On the Alberta reserve a site website, you actually pick your campspot. When I pulled up to the registration window, I knew where were going to be, and it was pretty much the last choice in the nicer side of the campground. I asked if there were any cancellations in better sites and she says “uh, you are in site 115, it’s pretty much the best site in the place”.

Ok, good for us. It’s not the one I selected, but something, someone, or somewhere was changed and we ended up here. Pretty much backing on the lake, a mere 2 minute walk to the beach. The site is large, private, grassy and level. It has a great firepit and a nice BIG picnic table. Yay for us. Karma rocks.

We got set up, made supper and took a couple walks. We were all pretty wore out from a very busy couple of weeks and so all of were sleeping pretty early. We were all just about asleep, when Traci gets up to investigate a sound outside and she tells me the sunset is amazing. ‘Should I go take pictures?’ I asked. Normally she isn’t all shoot this, shoot that, but this time she said, ‘Yes’ you need to go take pictures… I amvery glad I did.

I went out for a final walk with the dogs later and got this long exposure shot after dark too.

We were up at something after 7 this morning and all feeling quite good. Our plan was to head into the Brooks County Fair! Yeah, when we drove through the town on our was out here last evening, we noticed a sign saying it was the Brook Pro Rodeo this weekend. Traci says, ‘maybe they have a fair!’ Yep they do. So we had a nice bacon and egg breakfast, then packed up and went to town. We figured the fair wouldn’t be open yet, so a quick supply visit to Wallyworld would be first. When we got to town we were stopped in our tracks by… A Parade! *Woot* we parked the truck and sat on the curb and watched the last couple floats go by….

Ah well, we got to see a bit of it. So we hopped back into the truck and headed over to WalMart. Hehe, about 4 blocks away guess what we see? The start of the parade! We actually got set up on some bleachers and watched the entire parade as it looped it’s way back to it’s origin. It was very well done and as a real treat the Calgary Stampede Showband was here. If you get the opportunity to see this marching band, don’t pass it up. The rest of the parade had it’s usual suspects of advertisers and community clubs present and accounted for. There also was quite a contingent of fire trucks, race cars, old cars and muscle cars too!

Sidenote: I am in the camper typing away right now and I overhear Andrew tell Mommy “I’m having fun camping”

After the parade finished up, we were getting ready to go over to Walmart, but instead we happened to be in the Canadian Tire parking lot, so we went into there to get our supplies and saved our selves some time.

I had a ticket for the $50 million jackpot from last night so I stopped at a 7-11 to check it. I used the pre-check machine and it said I won $20.00 and a free play. I went up to the counter and the guy checks the ticket and then gives me just my free play. I was like, “um, what about my $20.00?” He goes back, looks at the stub (that he is supposed to give back to me) and says, oh, yeah, I guess i read it wrong. Damn, this guy was out and out trying to steal from me. I am debating reporting it, as there is quite the lawsuits going on with store owners and staff that are stealing from unsuspecting lottery winners. Sign your ticket, get your stub.

After that, we were off the the fair. Again with no expectations. We had the most fun we have had in a long time. We showed up right at opening, so there wasn’t much of a crowd at first, but it didn’t take long to fill up. Andrew was in a pretty foul mood because he didn’t know what a fair was, and just wanted to go back to the campsite. As soon as we got into the midway, the campsite was forgotten. First things first we got our selves some fried lunch from the carnys and sat in some shade and soaked in the atmosphere.

After we ate, I went and bought a book of 20 tickets for rides. Andrew loves a ride on the Carousel and so that was where we went first. I handed the guy 8 tickets (4 for Andrew and 4 for me, but he gave me back 4 and said parents ride free. Great! We enjoyed that ride immensely.

After the Merry-go-round we went straight for the giant slide. I wasn’t positive about Andrew wanting to go on this as it was quite the climb up on some pretty rickety stairs and the slide down was QUICK! Yeah. no problems there, we went on 5 times in a row, He LOVED IT!. Daddy was pooped! After the slide marathon it was time for Mommy to go on the Carousel too!

During our walkaround I kept Eying up this massive climbing and slide structure, but didn’t think he’d like it as it’s really high! After enough time and enough rides I figured it was time (and besides, Karma came back again and I found 12 more ride tickets on the ground). Don’t know what the other kid did to deserve losing them, but we win.

The first trip through was really slow and tentative, with a lot of positive self talk to get across the suspension bridges and ladders, but I managed to keep up to Andrew. Mommy and Andrew rode a monkey. hehe. Andrew wasn’t a fan of the monkey, but managed a ‘no pictures’ anyway.

On our way out, Andrew got to do a bit of fishing. It was a pretty funny game as he had to magnetically hook a fish and when he pulled it out of the water, it wriggled like crazy. Andrew loved it. He got to choose his prize and, obviously, it’s a giant dice!

That was it for the Fair, I was done, and I think Andrew and Mommy had their fill too. Back at the campground we ate, swam in the lake and generally took it easy.

Picture of the day… can a 3 year old really know how to meditate? obviously yes!

Now it’s time for steak and potatos! Yum!

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-06-09T10:08:00.001-07:00

Goodbye sweet smartphone…

2010-06-08T23:00:00.001-07:00

Rest in Peace my sweet Palm Pre. It was just earlier today that I said I was having good luck, not dropping you anymore. At approx 7:30pm last night you slipped out of my hand and did a little smartphone belly flop right into my Non-fat London Fog. Fully immersed you struggled and kept breathing, I rescued you to see that your touch screen was still on, but it was no more than 2 minutes of frantic lifesaving measures before the life finally flickered out of you. I love you little Pre, say hi to my Dell Dimension 1501 wherever you are. Tomorrow I shall smile again as I call in my extra insurance that provides me with full no questions asked no charge replacements, even if I do something stupid. my contacts may be gone, but my regularly scheduled backup lives on...

A great day…

2010-06-06T22:22:00.001-07:00

Here are the photo highlights. City, rivers, lakes, mountains, naps… tiny bunnies.

Andrew and Daddy went to see Martin run his 100th marathon this year alone. He is attempting 250 of them. He is raising money for Right to Play. Yeehaw!Nice fountain! Little man in a big city… more big city… looks good from this spot. Duck…Duck… GOOSE! This one kept coming so we got out of there. and went for a picnic! Cops were everywhere! (helping for a bike race, actually) I like birds up dere. I gotta blow my nose…

That is a nice picture of a wild crocus, if I say so…Sibbald Flats…gorgeous It’s ALL good! A nice trail we took… See we were here! Ugh… another climb… The colors are what attracted me… A really nice walk on this trail…Huh, imagine that… wow The Elbow River. I told Andrew that this was where Calgary’s drinking water came from. He asks, “who turned on the tap?” I said “God” He said… “oh…ok!”Does it get any better than this? Nope… just about perfect… He would have thrown every rock into the river if we let him! He loves to be outside in the BIG mountains! Man that is a BIG rock. He threw it, but it never made it to the river… Beauty in the wild… And lastly, this little guy showed up in the yard this evening. Andrew LOVED it, Traci wanted to adopt it. I said… (obviously) no. big meanie.

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-06-01T22:29:00.001-07:00

Traci and Andrew…

2010-05-30T20:35:00.001-07:00

… ran fast today! Traci ran her first 10k race today and did an amazing job coming in at 1hr 8 minutes! It was only a few months ago that she was resigned to running 5k’s and not very happy about it. Well, with the new club, and some focus and direction with a simple training plan, she not only met her goal, but exceeded it!

Last week she ran 9k in training in 1:09, so she had an expectation of 1:15 for 10k. Seems reasonable, right? Well, she blew it out the door and came in in 10k, faster than she ran 9k! *woot*.

Unfortunately, with my race, Nan’s race and all the other stuff going on, there are no pictures of Traci Running. We will be able to purchase official race photos in about a week, so look for that! Here is Traci and our friend Happy Dan trying to stay warm before the race.

She said there were a few hard parts, but she had a pretty good race plan and executed it well. Congrats again Mommy, you did amazing!

After all of our races were over, it was Andrews turn. He was registered in the Timbits Marathon, which is a 1.2k run for all the little tykes. He was soooo excited, it’s all he could talk about for the past few days and he didn’t disappoint anyone with his performance. Mommy took Andrew by the hand (or Andrew took Mommy by the hand) and they RAN. Mommy asked a couple times if he wanted to walk and it was a very certain “No, Run Fast!”

He ran 1.2k in 9:49 and he loved every minute. heh.

We were a very non-athletic family for a long time, and here we are on a cold Sunday morning, Me running a half marathon at 7am, Traci running a 10k at 7:30am, Nan running a 5k at 9am and Andrew running a 1.2k at 10am. We were home by noon, having completed more running for 1 family than most do in a month! Yay for us! Poppop is close to starting a walking program after his Knee Surgery a couple weeks ago, so that’ll be awesome!

Next run is our Club Fun run on June 19th!

Can you just imagine! May 27th, 2010… yuck.

2010-05-27T17:11:00.001-07:00

That is up 4- 8 inches for you merkans who read this. DAMN YOU MONTANA!

It never ends here…

2010-05-27T15:34:00.001-07:00

It’s like the movie groundhogs day. But today was a bit different. For today, I went outside and whacked my trees. That was new.

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-05-26T16:36:00.001-07:00

Wordless Monday…

2010-05-24T18:27:00.001-07:00

11 Bridges…

2010-05-23T20:52:00.001-07:00

If you follow this journal, even sporadically, you know that we like the Drumheller area a lot. You can read all about our adventures in the area by clicking any of the following links to past entries:

So that should give you a pretty good idea about what is here, what we like about it and just how nice the area is. Well after all the touring around we have done in past trips, we thought we pretty much covered it all. Nope. We had never turned right in Rosedale. This little stretch of highway was less than 10km long, ends in a tiny place called Wayne and it was famous for the 11 Bridges that cross the little river that winds it’s way through this scenic valley. All but the first bridge are 1 lane bridges, so you have to watch for oncoming vehicles and they are all wooden decked. It was a very neat way to spend a part of the afternoon. There were a few little campgrounds along the way, but nothing too exciting. It was a lot of fun to count along as we crossed each bridge, as Andrew was really into the bridges. Truth be told, there are 22 bridges along the way as every road crossing mirrors a rail crossing next to it.

The road ends in the ghost town of Wayne, where a 1920’s coal rush era saloon still stands. We went in and got an ice-cream for the little guy (and me) and enjoyed looking at some antiques and not so old antiques for sale in the little general store. That is bridge 11 in the bottom right. Notice the railway bridge on the left?

We didn’t spend too much time in Wayne as there isn’t much to do there, so we headed back to Drumheller as I had to pick up a couple bolts to fix our awning support. Turns out the weight of the snow made some damage, as it snapped the bracket rod that hold the awning leg to the camper. A couple holes drilled, a couple bolts and Nylock nuts installed and we are better than new.

Not much else to tell about today. The weather was pleasant (comparably) and we just lazed around, went for walks and had a nice day!

Andrew ran and ran and ran today! The donkeys are plum tuckered out… Notice how white the ground ISN’T! Another keeper picture! He’s always finding ways to smile!

We are homeward bound tomorrow, but the next trip is only a couple weeks away!

It’s been a day…

2010-05-22T23:47:00.001-07:00

… but i’ll start with yesterday.

We took off from the house at 10:30ish, thinking that we did pretty good, and had purged lots of stuff from the camper, to save space and clutter. We had a bunch of extra room and were feeling pretty good about it.

It was only 30 minutes into the trip when it started feeling strange. I had to transfer some money at the bank in Strathmore and because we use two different banks I just went to the one I was depositing and took out money from their ATM from the other bank. I had a stack of twenty’s amounting to $600.00 and as I was reaching to grab the deposit envelope I dropped the whole stack. Remember the scene in Bull Durham where the Helicopter drops 1000 dollar bills into the middle of the field? That’s kind of what it was like in the ATM vestibule. I picked up all the cash, pulled myself together, got the money into the envelope and gave the camera an eye rolling, as you know this is going on the banks Christmas party video for the staff.

I then walk across the parking lot to Tim Horton’s to get some breakfast. And this exchange takes place.

Me: I’d like a Sausage and Egg combo with an extra hash brown, 2 Sausage only sandwich combo’s and..

Voice from the back: We don’t have any hashbrowns left…

Her: Us, sorry, we don’t have any hashbrowns left

Me: Really? uhhh… dang. Ok. I’ll get 2 Sausage and Egg sandwiches and 2 Sausage only sandwiches…

Voice from the back: We only have 2 Sausages left

She walks away to the back, then comes out and says: We only have 2 Saus…

Me: I heard. Ok I’ll get 2 Sausage only Sandwiches…

Her: ok, wait, i have to delete this because I put in the Sausage and eggs…

Me: *waits*

Her: Ok, what was that now?

Me: Ok, I’ll get 2 Sausage only Sandwiches, and 2 Bacon and Egg Sandwiches…

Her: *walks to the back and has a conversation as the assembler already got the order to make Sausage and Egg… anyway*

Her: Ok, now what was that again?

Me: 2 Sausage only sandwiches, and 2 Sausage and Egg Sandwiches…

Her: Is That everything?

Me: nope. I need an Extra large double double, a Large French vanilla cappuccino, an apple juice, 20 honey dipt timbits and a Frosted Cinnamon roll.

Her: Uh, sorry, was that a Large Double Double?

Me: no. extra. large.

Her: ok.

So she gets the order put together and I head back out to the truck. We park in back as there is no long vehicle parking in front so I have to cross the exit to the drive through. I step out into the drive and there is this lady who is obviously putting her coffee into the holder and not looking up, and is in Second gear already only a few feet from the drive up window, so I run across and when she finally sees me and slams on her brakes, her and her friend have a huge laugh at my expense because I kind of look like I crapped myself scared.

I get back to the truck, hand Traci all the stuff and realize she never gave me the Timbits. Well. nuts. I go back inside, pretty frustrated and shove my may through the now enormous line and tell the other cashier that she didn’t give me my timbits. I got my timbits, headed back for the truck and almost got run over again.

This is cropped WAY in, as I thought it looked cool and showed how busy the freeway was. We stopped in Brooks for a stretch. Andrew hit the ground running! He found a stick

2 hours later we are in Medicine Hat and I have calmed down a bit. I decided we should shop at Superstore for our stuff as it would be the cheapest. It was probably the cheapest, but they didn’t have half the stuff we needed. Remember how I said we thought we did so good because we were able to purge so much stuff? Well, it was because we forgot to bring most of the stuff we needed. I didn’t bring the dog gates or the dog kennel, No deodorant for me, no toothbrushes, Boots, gloves, my sunglasses, winter coats(we didn’t think we needed these), I forgot the outside ground mat… etc etc… yep.

We get to superstore and, first of all, it is WINDY! man, we battled a crazy side wind the whole way and it was actually rocking the truck as it sat parked in the lot. We were wore out by the time we got to the entrance of the store. We spent some time there looking for our goods, found only half of them and ended up leaving with a plan to go to WalMart. Well WalMart was all the way across the highway, so why not try Peavy Mart? Well, because they didn’t have ANYTHING we needed. Ok, WalMart. Off we went across to WalMart. As we pull across the freeway at the light I notice that WalMart looks very empty. It was, because it was closed. I start to freak a little. Well over there is a Canadian Tire, maybe we’ll get what we need from there. As well turn to go to Canadian Tire, we spot the NEW WalMart and beeline it there. Did I say it was Windy? And with a rig, you have to park WAY out in the lot, so is was actually work to get to the doors again. I need a nap. We got what we needed, and as this was a Super WalMart, we had to walk the entire length of the joint as one thing on the list was RV TP. I got to the RV section and all I saw was 3 rows of empty shelves, and not a roll of the sandpaper anywhere. huh. suks. Just as a lark, I took a look at the end of the aisle, and low and behold, there was 2 4 packs sitting all lonely on the shelf. Now they were sold out.

We picked up some McD’d on the way out, jibbed the mainsail and walked back out to the Truck.

We needed some diesel by now and just outside Medicine Hat was a Co-Op gas station. I pulled off the highway, picked a nice pump that had an easy out access and pulled up to… “Pump out of Order”… Frick. Ok, so here we go backing up into the steady flow of mazdas and hondas to get moved over a bay where we could actually pump the stuff. got gas, got out!

On the highway, the wind really started to blow. Directly across us. There were a few moments where I looked in the mirror and saw WAY too much of the side of our trailer than I was comfortable with. Good thing it is a big heavy truck. I felt bad for the 1/2 ton trucks out there, pulling loads at least as big as ours… yikes.

When we turned off the highway toward Maple Creek and eventually Cypress Hills, we went straight into the teeth of the wind. Full on, full throttle, uphill. And what an uphill… hooweee. It always amazes me how high you go in a short time on the prairies. Maybe a mountain pass but not on the prairies. 2000 Feet of elevation gain in 20km, into a 80km headwind, with a 7000lb travel trailer behind a 3/4 ton diesel pickup. THANK god for diesel. I passed a couple SUV’s pulling trailers our size and you could hear their engines screaming as we passed them.

It’s funny, with the wind out on the prairies, I wasn’t worried about the campground. the 80 foot tall Lodgepole pines take the wind in the treetops, and none of it gets to the ground. We arrived, checked in and were set up in no time. the girls in the campground office said the weather forecast was shaping up quite nicely, and that was good, because the forecast was a bit foreboding.

It was really nice outside, if a bit cool, so we bundled up and sat around not doing much. I spent some time mucking around with the camera, and we all went for a walk to the playground and then just settled in for a nice evening.

We were all sleeping by 10:30, some earlier than others.

You know how you hear the rain on the roof of the camper? sounds like peanut shells hitting the roof? Well it wasn’t quite peanut shells, but a bit lighter. We opened the blinds to a skiff of snow. huh. Neat! a bit of snow in the morning, it’ll warm up and we’ll have a nice, if rainy, day. We didn’t bring any mitts for Andrew so we decided to go into Maple Creek for a bit of shopping. by the time we got ready, it was really starting to snow. we got out of the park, took a bit of a drive around and then headed down off the hill. This was an abandoned tent… Seriously?

remember the nice lake picture from a few posts ago?Yeah, it looks a bit different now.

We actually needed 4 wheel drive at one point, but soon after we started to descend into Maple, it quickly turned into rain and there was no more snow on the ground. We shopped a bit, didn’t find any mitts as it’s almost June. We did start talking about pulling out as there is only so much lemonade you can make when the weather gets so bad.

Less than 10 miles from the above picture, the landscape changed to this…

By the time we had a bite to eat, we had made up our mind to get the heck out of Dodge. Good Choice. We got back to the campground to see that we had 8 inches of snow on the ground. I don’t know how much longer we could have waited until the awning gave out, so it was good that we returned when we did. We didn’t take too much time to pack up, but wow was it cold and wet getting the outside done up. My fingers were f-f-frozen, my feet were soaked and everything I tossed into the back of the truck was covered in snow. Once out of the site, I had to back down the road a ways as there were too many steep slopes on the road ahead with rigs on both sides of the road. better safe than sorry I guess. It all worked out and we made our way to the general store in the park because I needed some straps for the awning frame as there was so much snow and ice built up the arms wouldn’t clip properly to hold the awning in place.

That done, we were in 4x4 and heading out of the park.

6 hours, 2 diesel stops(direct headwind), 1 Tims stop, 2 rest stops and we are in Drumheller where it is dry and cool.

Notice how clean the rig is? Nothing like a blizzard for a great car wash!

Dry being the operative word.I looked at the weather radar maps on western Canada and found a patch of no rain here in Drum. I called our favourite little park and they had a spot for us. I was pretty surprised but I wasn’t going to complain that’s for sure. Dinosaur Trail RV park is really nice, but they have a new section to their park that isn’t very appealing that I thought we would be in for sure. Turns out we ended up with one of the premiere spots in the campground. We pulled in and the place is PACKED. I go into the office to register and she says we get site 103. Really? How is that possible that we get this site and why is it available? She says that I called at the exact right moment. 30 seconds earlier or later and the site goes to someone else. They had a reservation no-show last night and the moment I called was 10 seconds after the deadline for previous night no-shows to arrive. They turned away other callers all morning, and I was the lucky lottery winner. The office staff were having a friendly bet about who would get this *gold* campspot.

Us.

We really did win the lottery on this one. I don’t know why, but the camping gods didn’t want us in Cypress this weekend. The struggles it took to get there were a sign that I finally listened to. Retired Rod commented on the last post that you have to make Lemonade with Lemons. 8 inches of Lemons is a bit too much, so here we are in Drum, really looking forward to a warm day tomorrow (forecasted) and just relaxing and enjoying the Board of Directors meetings all day!

I’m getting MARSHMALLOWS!!! *WooT*

Wow… Day two…

2010-05-22T08:43:00.001-07:00

Here is yesterday when we got here…

And here is what we woke up to…

The Board of Directors had a vote, and the results of that vote are: Have lots of fun anyway! *Woot*

I’ll try to get a full report from yesterday posted today sometime! Now I gotta go see a kid about a snowbank!

May Long update

2010-05-21T22:04:00.001-07:00

We are in Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan. We have a very slow connection so I’ll make this brief. It was a long travel day, the roads, stores and coffee shops were packed, the campground we are in, is not. Perfect. it’s quite cold tho, near freezing tonight.

It still amazes me that we drive on open prairie for 4 hours, and in the last 15 minutes we climb 1600’ in elevation to get to the area in next photo. crazy. Yes. it’s. snow. Aw.

Wordless Wednesday…

2010-05-19T07:22:00.001-07:00

Don’t tell anyone…

2010-05-18T20:06:00.001-07:00

…but we are going camping this weekend. *WOOT* finally. It’s been a brutally long winter but it’s all over now and I towed the TT home yesterday! We are off to Cypress Hills Provincial Park (Saskatchewan side) for the Long weekend. Stay tuned for CAMPING BLOGS! YAY!

Here are some photo highlight of the last time we were there, exactly 2 years ago!

Loch Leven The old camper I destroyed. Andrew… The view from Bald Butte Andrew… The most isolated lodgepole pine forest in the world. Andrew…

Traci’s Birthday part 1… April 24th

2010-05-17T22:23:00.001-07:00

It was a Winnie the Pooh Princess party for my princess. Andrew and I had been covertly running ‘errands’ for a couple of days prior, including picking out this amazing cake from Sobeys.

We also picked out some party favours and plates and stuff too. Actually, Andrew picked out the princess stuff at the Dollar store (after a veto on the ‘Cars’ stuff by Daddy). We had fun in the store picking out all the bits and when we got to the till I saw a Princess Birthday balloon. We bought it for Mommy.

If I would have known how happy she'd be receiving a balloon, i probably would have gotten her them much more often. Mental note, Traci LOVES balloons. Funny thing was it is supposed to be a singing balloon, but they told me it didn’t work so I got a hefty discount. The day after Traci’s Birthday, Andrew was running around with it and all of a sudden he got it to work. Andrew learned how to sing the Birthday song because of it.

Some awesome dudes got Traci flowers the day before.

It took a few attempts, but Andrew finally put the hat on long enough for a picture.

Anybody’s birthday is a fun day for Andrew, and most people we know let him help blow out the candles. We know this is going to cause a problem later on when he goes to other kids parties and ruins their special days by blowing out their candles, but we don’t care, that kid’ll just have to be faster than our sweet Andrew… hehe.

We went for a pleasant walk before supper as it was somewhat nice out. We thought this was a pretty cool image. Can you see the houses reflected in the water? Amazing how rural you can make an urban picture with a little cropping.

Spring is just around the corner… a really long corner… This was April 24th, and here it is May 17th and we finally got some warm weather just now… I think these are a willow of some sort. They bloom before they leaf…

I was taking some pictures of the pond and some birds when I was ‘Beckoned’ by the boy. Ok ok, I'm coming…

The long lens sure brings the mountains into our neighbourhood, doesn’t it? These are about 40-50 miles away.

Just another cool photo op… These houses actually have little covert gates built in them so the homeowners can park on the boulevard and slip through the secret door. Almost like a rotating bookcase, or Platform 10 and 3/4 from Harry Potter.

The little wrens were VERY busy. This bit of fluff was quite popular as just a few moments after I took this picture, he was bombarded by a number of other wrens until he dropped his stash and another one picked it up and flew away…

Here is our post dinner picture. We had Alaskan King Crab legs with garlic infused dippy butter, baby Back Ribs, seasoned greek style with an awesome sweet and sour sauce my family makes, with peas, corn and brussel sprouts (we all got our favourite veggies). I saved you the graphic close up picture of the bone bowl containing all the shells and bones, it was pretty gross when we got done with the carnage… but BOY was it tasty.

Andrew really shows how we all felt after this day… yep, it was definitely a ‘let the belt out a notch’ kind of supper… yuuuuum.

New to-do List

2010-05-16T21:47:00.001-07:00

Traci’s Birthday 1 – Our house

Traci’s Birthday 2 – Nan’s house

General Andrewisms… “settle down daddy!'” is once of them…

Poppop’s Knee Surgery

Mothers Day Race

Mothers Day Picnic

Thomas’s Day Out

Hope this helps a bit…

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-12T16:34:00.001-07:00

Seriously, Right…?

2010-05-09T21:07:00.001-07:00

Like in 20,807 photos taken with my Canon XTi, have you ever seen one as ridiculously good as this one? I feel like I won the lottery…