Early this morning Suede and I got out if bed and headed out to the airport. I saw her off to Ottawa where she is visiting her sister and nephew who is only a few weeks old. None of us really wanted to get up af 4:45 am, but it had to be done. For the first time I can remember, while Suede and I were up doing stuff around the house getting ready for our day, Yoshi stayedon his bed and continued sleeping. He wasn’t completely underfoot and in our way. It was quite refreshing actually.
After some coffee and breakfast we left the house, and headed out to the airport. It was still very dark, and I quickly realized my plan to drop off Suede, then take Yoshi for a walk was just not going to work. There would be no light at all. Darn.
I stayed with Suede until she had to board her plane, the Yoshi and I came home. Hmm, something is really not right in the world when you go to the airport and get back home before 7am. Upon opening the front door to the house, Yoshi made a bee-line for his bed and went back to sleep. *sigh* I wish I could get to sleep that easily.
Everyone defines hapiness differently. Dogs are no exception. Recently, Coreman made Yoshi happy by posting about Oscar’s new bed that he got at Costco. This posting reminded me that Yoshi needed a new bed. Tuesday night Yoshi and I trekked out to Costco. While Yoshi waited in the truck, I headed in to make the big purchase. When I got back to the truck, Yoshi’s eyes lit up as I stuffed the big fluffy bed in to the back of my truck. Before I even got it settled he was trying to get on it to lay down. Ahh, the simple things in life make one happy.
Leaving Costco I made myself happy by stopping in at Tims for a tasty Canadian Maple donut. MMmm.
Once home I unstuffed the bed from the truck and placed it in the living room. Oh the luxury. Once in a while throught the rest of the evening Yoshi would let out a groan of delight. He was in pure heaven! Thanks Coreman.
Suede and I should know by now. When something goes missing from the kitchen, it hasn’t sprouted legs and walked away.
There has always been a prime suspect in disappearance cases in our household, and his name is Yoshi. He looks innocent enough, and most of the time he is on his best behaviour, but every once in a while he gets bored and goes counter surfing.
One day he ate most of a baguette that we were drying so we could make bread crumbs (I found piles of crumbs all over the house). One day he decided that our cutting board would be a good chew toy. Another day the wooden salad servers were a wonderfull play thing. A weird one was a drain plug that he chewed the rubber off of. Even weirder, he made the next drain plug disappear completely,and we still haven’t found it to this day.
One day while Yoshi was left outside he grabbed an ice cream pail that we used to store clothes pegs in. By the time we got home it had been shredded into teeny tiny pieces no bigger than a dime.
This all brings me to the latest. While making some pasta last week, I went to assmble our cheese grater. It is one of those hand held Star Frit vareity where you turn a crank,abd the grater wheel shreds the cheese. Problem was we couldn’t find the wheel.
Our housecleaner was in today and when we got home we found the grater wheel on the shelf near the microwave. What makes me think Yoshi took it? The dents and teeth marks in the plastic.
I don’t want to make Yoshi out to be a bad dog. Most of the things he has destroyed came about because we didn’t leave enough play things out for him during the day. It just amazes me that when I couldn’t find the grater I didn’t automatically suspect him. In the past he has mainly goneafter wood and plastic, not metal designed for shredding cheese! (makes me wonder how that felt on his tongue)
Woke up this morning to howling wind and rain pelting the window above my head. Eww. Hoping it would die down I tried to fall back asleep. When I awoke, it sounded even worse.
After breakfast I took Yoshi for a walk in the park. It was still blustery, and rainy, but dressing for it should make it bearable. Braving the wind we headed out the front door. Yoshi didn’t care; he wanted a walk in the baddest way. No big surprise, but we pretty much had the park to ourselves.
Meandering through the small park I stopped may times to watch the waves crash on the beach. I have never seen waves that big hit that beach before. Most were around 4 feet high, others were 5 feet tall. The logs that normally litter the beach were being tossed around in the surf. A deep thud could be heard each time a large wave impacted the rocks of the beach. Through it all the wind was blowing, and the rain was falling.
It was great!
At one location Yoshi and I were about 10 feet above a beach that was built out of boulders to prevent erosion. As each wave crashed a certain way, the spray was thrown up into the air, and the wind carried it towards the path I was standing on. A couple times I felt the spray mist over my face. As I turned to walk away I licked my lips and tasted the saltiness of the ocean.
On our way home Yoshi and begin to get a little perturbed by the sideways rain. It is a little difficult to watch where you are walking when the rain forces your eyes shut. Once in the front door, a quick towel down for Yoshi, and a quick change of clothes for me, and we were both content with our exercise for the day.
Today’s pictures fit this post extremely well. Regular readers of this site know that I have been getting into photography the past couple years. I have a Canon S30 which is now definitely starting to show it’s age. I managed to get a few good pictures out of it soon after I bought it. This intrigued me, so I took a course at Camosun College to learn more about photography, and ended up loving the course. The instructor suggested starting a photo club to get people out shooting regularly, so I did. Since the end of the class I have tried to get out every couple weeks to shoot, and it has been great. I now have an excellent collection of photographs that I love. Well, time has come for me to put to rest the S30. As good as it has been to me, it is getting old.
Yesterday the photoclub met for the first time in the new year. I chose the Chinese Cemetary in Victoria. What a gorgeous place. The cemetary has had a makeover in recent years, and is a wonderful place to go take pictures. We were also very lucky with the weather yesterday. The sun was out for quite a while, and it was very warm. What a wonderful feeling to be overlooking the ocean, the sun is out, the sky a warm blue. And yet we were surrounded by graves. Interesting juxtaposition.
More on the old and new. My trusty S30 was with me, but I did not use it. I am proud to say that retirement of the S30 occurred just after Christmas. I will continue to use it occasionally, specially when I am out riding, or just need something to conceal in my pocket. I am an owner of a new Canon EOS 20D. I got it just after Christmas, but this was the first real photoshoot I had taken it on. Wow! I am loving this new camera. Very awesome piece of equipment. I am starting to know the controls, and switching modes is becoming easier. I sometimes forget to switch back though, and that has lead to a few disasters already. Oops. I have 2 lenses for it, a 28-135mm, and a 50mm. I also bought a lens hood for the 28-135, and I think that it makes quite a diffence to the quality of pictures. *grin*, I am having lots of fun now!
I was left feeling a little drained the other night. Suede and I had our blood donation Weds night, and as usual it went smoothly. No complications of any sort. The one thing that is a pain now, was that since our Mexico trip, there is one question that we have to answer yes too, and not the standard no. When they see this yes answer, they have to ask a few more questions to make sure our blood is safe to use.
All in all I still enjoy giving blood. It is a (relatively) painless way to help society, and doesn’t involve an outlay of cash. On that note I have decided that I will not ever donate money to charities that cold-call me. I have donated to one in the past (lets call them CharityX), but then I noticed one time when they called that I had already donated to them recently. When I asked CharityX when my last donation was, they were able to quote me the exact date. That just sat wrong with me. It felt like they waited long enough for me to forget I already gave to them this year, then tried to hit me up again.
Back to the topic at hand. Blood donation good. Tele-solicitors bad.
I have started swimming with Suede on Tuesday nights after she walks dogs at the SPCA. The first time was a bit difficult. I wasn’t wearing goggles, and I can’t stand water in my eyes. Breathing was difficult, swimming was very hard. Every time I went to take a breath, I would lift my head out of the water, and this would cause my feet to sink. It was still good to be out in the pool, but it was very hard work.
Last week I borrowed some goggles from Suede. Much better. I could get my face in the water and stroke much better, but I couldn’t figure out the breathing part. I would hold my breath too long, then when I needed to breath, often I would be in mid stroke on the wrong side. I would get out of breath quickly, then need to lift my head out of the water to gasp in a few breaths. Again, this slowed me down a lot, and made swimming more difficult. Suede gave me a couple pointers, and I tried them, but couldn’t get the hang of it.
Last night was another progression. Each time I lifted my left arm out of the water I took a quick breath, then exhaled through the water when I stroked with my right arm. This worked great as long as I could keep the rythm. Anytime I got out of sync things fell apart, but I could see the light. Being able to breath made swimming a lot more enjoyable! Last night I swam 350 or 400m. I still find it easy to lose track of how much I have swam.
It is interesting trying new sports, and seeing how I can pick them up. Some are easier than others, but it is usually fun to try something new. Swimming sure is a good workout though. My shoulders are a little tight and sore this morning, so I know I must have been pushing myself.
My plan to go biking in the snow last weekend fell through. I decided that I really wanted to go, so I managed to convince a few other guys to go this weekend instead.
I had thought that the trail conditions would be alright considering how much ot had warmed the previous week, and how much snow had melted. My house had no snow whatsoever, so I figured that there would only be a few inches out at the trails.
I was wrong on how much snow was remaining. As soon as I got to the parking lot, I could see the ride wasn’t going to be as I expected. The trail reports from people just finishing didn’t sound good either. Hmm. I was still set on riding though.
We pushed up to C-Section, then I figured we should hike the road up, and hit Snakes and Ladders, a very fun downhill trail. Off we went, hiking up the road. We were the first people with bikes to go up the road. Hmm, not necessarily a good sign. At times the snow got so deep there was no point in pushing, so on the back the bike went. Ouch! Slogging up the hill was quite a chore. We decided to take a shorter route to Snakes and Ladders. This involved a steepish trail that went downhill. Again, we had first tracks, but no matter how steep it was, there was too much snow to get any good momentum going. When we reached the turnoff to Snakes and Ladders, we could see that there were no tracks heading up there, so we packed it in. We took the straightest, steepest trail down to the lower half, but even that invloved lifting bikes over and under blow downs. When you could get on the bike and pedal, we usually only got a few feet before sliding out, or just falling over.
Finally we got back to C-Section, and there had been a lot of riders on the lower half ot the trails. We took the fireroad back down to Skull trail, and that was a blast! Getting up some speed finally felt awesome, and you really just need to let the back end of the bike dance around instead of trying to control it. Zipping down Skull was awesome too. The snow had been packed down a lot, and some ice sections were encountered, but overall there was a lot of traction. Back in the parking lot we made plans to hit a local pub for some food to help warm us up. I had brought a change of clothes, but forgot socks. Doh!
Even though it was mostly hiking while pushing, pulling, or carrying our bike, I had fun. Yoshi had a great romp in the snow too. Would I do that ride again? Nope. Next time I will stick to the lower section of trails. Live and learn. I am very sore today though. It was a tremendous workout.
