Author: gfox (old content)

Different Skills

Last night Sox and I had a night out. We had tickets for Cirque’s Dralion. So far, Sox and I have enjoyed the Cirque shows we had gone to. Each one has been completely different from the last. The topper was O, which we saw while in Vegas.

Well, O was the topper until last night. Dralion was amazing. As the show progressed, their abilities kept making me more and more astounded. My favorite was the tramploning where it looked like they were walking up the walls. Incredible.

They ended the show with jump rope. This was not any kind of jump rope though. They had 3 ropes on one person, they had 5 people in one rope. They even had a 3 person pyramid in a jump rope. Mind blowing.

One thing I liked is that they played up their skills more than any other show I’ve seen. Many times when a performer finished a stunt they would face the crowd and raise their arms, or wave at the crowd, or do something to show their enthusiasm.

The clowns they had played an important part, and were funnier than other shows. The guy they picked from the crowd (who turned out to be one of the cast) played the part wonderfully. One of the skits the clowns did was a definite mock of the regular performers. At the end of the show all the performers came out.

At the end of the show all the performers came out. The thing that stuck out was that the same group of performers were in all the skits. This was very different than other shows where the performers were very specialized for what they performed. This made the show more incredible.

I can’t wait for their next show here in town.

React Longer

I gave blood on Thursday (donation number 51), and although it went fine, I had a ride planned and I was a little curious how my body would react. I didn’t get enough sleep last night, so that compounded a feeling of dread for the ride.

Turned out that I was worried needlessly. My earlier training has left me much stronger and more fit than I expected. Even with the loss of blood, my legs felt strong. The only indication I had of something being up, was any time we hit a steep-ish hill, my heart rate skyrocketed.

My plan was to head out for 1.5 hours, which is what I pretty much hit. I was tired when I got home, but I know I could have gone longer. I didn’t eat anything on the ride, so if I had, I could have easily done another hour.


View June 25 in a larger map

Total Distance: 39.45 km (24.5 mi)
Total Time: 1:52:51
Moving Time: 1:37:03
Average Speed: 20.97 km/h (13.0 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 24.39 km/h (15.2 mi/h)
Max Speed: 52.48 km/h (32.6 mi/h)
Min Elevation: -11 m (-35 ft)
Max Elevation: 74 m (242 ft)
Elevation Gain: 348 m (1140 ft)
Max Grade: 9 %
Min Grade: -10 %

Changes Broke

I’ve had this stupid cough for a while now. I feel fine, but whenever I an vertical I go through some coughing fits every now and then. Annoying to say the least.

Still I’ve been active. I played ultimate last week and this week, as well as riding on the weekend. 

Today’s game was a good one. Hard fought, lead changes, big huckster, zones, hard D, non stop action. 

I played hard tonight and was happy with how I played (for the most part). The only times I wasn’t were the times when I gave up too early. On one point I thought that a long huck had been caught in the end zone, so I backed off my check. Sure enough the catcher wasn’t in the end zone, and my check broke away to catch the point. 

Thankfully I played well the rest of the game. I was handling quite a bit and my catches were strong. I even made a great interception that later resulted in a point. One point when I wasn’t a handler, I even managed to catch for a point.

Nearing the end of the game we were down a few points. We tried to mount a comeback, but we couldn’t get it done. We lost the game.

Next week we have a double header as part of a mini playoff.

Overhaul Crisp

Last week I had my road bike in the shop to get cleaned up. It hadn’t seen any love in a while, and after the abuse I put it through for the Tour de Victoria, I knew it was time.

A major overhaul was ordered, and some new brake pads requested. 

I got on the machine for the first time today, and wow, it felt brand new again. A new shifter cable was installed, making shifting crisp and quick. The brakes were dialed in, and the whole bike was clean, clean clean.

I should have done that a long time ago.

Downside Spokes

Saturday I got out for a mountain bike ride. Originally it was going to be a road ride, but the other people I was going to ride with had to change their plans. Instead I took Heart out to the dump for a spin.

I was expecting the trails to be in pretty nasty condition due to the rain earlier in the morning, but I found them to be pretty good actually. The downside I saw was that any time I brushed by some grass or bumped a tree, I got drenched.

He ride itself was pretty good. I felt great on the bike, but I need to spend more time on my Bullit to get my timing back, and to feel confident when jumping. My legs felt strong, and I climbed some hills that I wouldn’t have been able to a few months ago. From the parking lot I went up Pooh corner, up past Inventive, then over to C-Section. Then I went to Walk Up, and came down South Ridge. It is vry depressing being at that end of the trail system and seeing all the new property markers encroaching on the trails. I made my way onto Fun Trail until I could cut onto Green Ribbon. I did a few more trails at the far end of the park before making my way back to the truck.

Heart had a good time and didn’t lose me at all this ride. Back at the truck, she jumped in as soon as I opened the door, and curled up in the back seat.

The only bad thing that happened was that when downshifting my chain jumped off the largest cog and into the spokes where it got jammed up pretty good. This happened twice, and both times it took me a while to sort things out.

Update:

Here is the map from the ride. For some reason, there is a section missing.


View June 18 in a larger map
Total Distance: 5.57 km (3.5 mi)
Total Time: 1:49:06
Moving Time: 1:11:57
Average Speed: 3.07 km/h (1.9 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 4.65 km/h (2.9 mi/h)
Max Speed: 24.37 km/h (15.1 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 112 m (368 ft)
Max Elevation: 254 m (834 ft)
Elevation Gain: 272 m (891 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: -8 %

Basement Island

It almost looks like we are moving, but we aren’t. We had been storing a bunch of unassembled Ikea furniture in our basement for quite a few months now. This weekend we delivered it to a cabin on Saltspring Island.

We stayed the night there, and had a wonderful time. Yesterday we went out for dinner at the Treehouse cafe, which was excellent, and also meant we didn’t need to cook, bring the food to cook, nor clean up after cooking.

Today I got a bit of a sleep in, then the kids brought me some Fathers Day presents that they had made. Very nice!

We did some research and decided on a walk at Duck Creek. After a bit of trouble finding the place, we started our walk. Heart had a great time, and the kids got to run around quite a bit. The walk followed a meandering creek on way, then the return had us walking through some large meadows. Lots of daisies could be seen.

After lunch at the cabin, we headed back to Ganges for an ice cream cone and a play at the playground. All too soon we packed up our stuff and headed for the ferry. I’m looking forward to many more weekends on the small island.

Jumpship Boosts

Jumpship was today. Well, the Jumpship finals any way. What’s Jumpship? Jumpship was a barge covered in dirt jumps. The riders start on a 20 foot scaffold, drip in to a step down, then make their way across a set of dirt jumps to a quarter pipe, then back toward the start line across another dirt jump.

There were two days of practice leading up to today, but today was the only day I could make it down to watch. I had seen the barge getting prepped ahead of time, so I sort of knew what to expect. Still, the calibre of riders they had was excellent (Graham Agassiz, Tyler McCaul, Jarret Moore, Kurt Sorge, Mitch Chubey, Brandon Semenuk). Some of the tricks they threw down were amazing, and to be so close to the action was pretty cool.

Originally they were going to anchor the barge in the middle of the harbour, but instead they docked it at Ship’s point. This worked out better since the people were able to be closer to the action.

As a photographer it was difficult shooting conditions. The sky was overcast, so all the riders turned out dark. I switched to shooting in RAW mode, so I may try some faking out some HDR shots. We’ll see if I can make time for that. Any way, here are some of my favorite shots. You can see the rest of my shots here.

It was a very cool event, that I hope boosts riding in the area. I hope they can bring back the event next year, or something similar to it. It was a lot of fun and very inspiring to see these athletes perform.




Floats Sqeeze

And with yesterday’s Bucanneer Day’s Parade, our parade season is over. The Esquimalt parade was longer than last year, and almost as good. Way less candy than the Oak Bay Tea Party parade too. Lots of the same floats were present, but much, much closer to our viewing area. In fact, for the Spectrum band we had to lift our legs off the road so they could squeeze by. Its also a bit redneck, as evidenced by the cars revving their engines, the monster truck, and all the women pirates showing as much cleavage as possible.


Figured Chewing

Hearty, Hearty, Hearty. What are we going to do with you? Just when we think we have her figured out, she throws a curveball. We know that Heart will chew on things if we don’t clean up properly, yet sometimes she gets into things that we don’t expect. The other day it was some Kleenex’s. Today some plastic bags and a bottle of sunscreen (she didn’t get into he sunscreen itself, just chewed the bottle).

The other day though, she outdid herself. Sue and the kids were outside playing. I was inside making dinner. Elliot had been playing with Heart and the chuckit was laying on the ground. A couple moments later I looked out and saw Heart chewing on a blue ball. It dawned on me that she was chewing her chuckit. I yelled, but she only looked at me, then resumed. I ran out there and she droped it, but the damage was done. A few chews had ruined the part of the chuckit that hold the ball. Damn. I think she thought that it was another ball to play with.

Now we need to buy another one.