Author: gfox (old content)

Excited Rolling

We looked after Plum for three weeks recently. She is a very sweet Lab/Retriever cross who was very easy to have in our house. She settled in quickly and didn’t seem to mind the chaos that erupted once in a while.

One thing that was interesting about Plum was that she had a couple behaviours that reminded me of Yoshi.

Plum is a protective girl. She barks when she sees something happening outside. She was actually taught that when she is barking to go look for a toy to put in her mouth instead. Seeing her frantically looking around for something, anything, to hold was cute. Often she would head downstairs and grab a dirty sock if she couldn’t find a toy.

Yoshi was like this. Before Elliot and Amy I can remember coming home and he would greet us at the door. If he didn’t have a toy with him he would give out an excited whimper and start looking for one. Sometimes he would come back with something strange like a shoe or a towel. We always kept lots of toys around for Yoshi for this reason. From very young he loved his rope toys. Something in his mouth had a calming influence on him.

The other thing Plum did that reminded me of Yoshi was scratching her face and back in the dried grass. Last summer Yoshi got in the habit of heading outside after eating his dinner. Out in the yard he would rub both sides of his face through the rough scratchy grass. He always looked like he was blissing out when he did this. After the face was thoroughly massage he would drop a shoulder and roll around on his back a bit. Once done rolling he would stand a give a great big shake.

I still miss seeing him shake those ears. I still miss his stubby little tail that seemed to vibrate when he was shaking his ears. I still miss him a lot.

Swim Tub

I swam and played a bit in the water last week while at Sproat Lake, but I didn’t actually swim. My last swim wasn’t so good either.

I decided to head to the pool last night, but as I arrived I saw that the two length swimming lanes were pretty packed (around 7 or 8 people). One guy was even swimming lengths with his son on his back!

I almost bailed on the swim, but went anyway. By the time I got to the pool deck most people had moved on and I was able to share one lane with someone else.

I did a 100m warmup then concentrated on not stopping too much between lengths. The last 100m I did without stopping at all. In total I swam 600m.

I would have liked to retire to the hot tub, but it was closed 🙁 Next week.

The one thing that made the night less enjoyable was the super chatty naked guy soaking in the shower.

Saanich Donkeys

Monday we headed out to the Saanich Fair. It was a gross day. It was cold, wet, and windy, yet we wanted to go anyway. The kids had a bit of fun seeing some of the animals. We same some llama’s, horses, rabbits, chickens, pigs, cows, and donkeys.

Since it was raining so much, I also didn’t bring out my camera to take a lot of pictures.

We also got to go check out the inside of an ambulance. I think the kids liked that the best. Closing in on lunch time we were cold, somewhat wet, and had seen enough. We headed out and grabbed some lunch on the way home.

Sproat Lake Bombers

Last week I was up at Sproat Lake at a cabin my Mom rented for the week. It was a great vacation, and the weather was spectacular the entire week.

We were only a couple doors down from the Water Bomber base and everyday we saw Hawaii Mars out in the lake. We went for a look in their museum, and Sox, Elliot and I went for a tour on Phillipine Mars. What was really interesting about this visit was that
Elliot has a book about the story of Hawaii Mars. The plane is named
Martin in the book. In the book there were lots of other characters based on other base vehicles. Wandering around Elliot and I spied many of the characters in the book. Our tour guide even had a role in the book. It was pretty fun. Here is their website.

On one of our first days there, the base personnel took Hawaii Mars out for a short flight. I never got to see it take off, but they landed right in front of our cabin.

To give a little perspective on how big the plane is, here is the co-pilot sticking out of the front hatch, ready to fasten the plane to a buoy.

These next few pictures are from the tour.

My son standing behind the nose hatch I talked about earlier.

Sox and Elliot in the pilot seat.

The engineers station.

Thumbs up for a good water drop.

Stepping into one of these flying boats is like stepping back in time. I had not expected to see a metal and wood desk. There were two of these. This one was for the navigator, and the other was for the radio operator.

Silly time on the beach.

A few sunset shots.


Lochside Ride

I’ve wanted to share riding with both my kids for a while now. I saw Elliot have a great time when we got him his first pedal bike and that brought lots of smiles to my face.

Today we went for a nice ride along the Lochside Trail. We find a section that was pretty flat which was important since this was Elliot’s first ride outside of our yard. Elliot did extremely well. We started before the 14 Km mark and rode past the 15 Km mark before turning around. I’m guessing we rode around 2.5 Kms.


Here we are taking a short break.


Nice form!


Having a good time.


Beautiful day for a ride.


Smiles all around.


Water break.

Here are a couple videos of Elliot in action. After we turned around we took a couple rest and water breaks on the way back to the car. Once there Elliot and Amy played on a playground for a bit before we headed to Matticks Farm for lunch and ice cream cones. Great family time.

Pool Track

Since Ulti is over for another year I decided that for tonight I should revert to swimming on Wednesday nights.

Tonight was my first time in the length pool in a very long time. I was slow, it felt a little awkward at first, but eventually I got into a rythm.

There was one other person in my lane, and she was even slower than I. I had to weave around her several times, but that was ok, it gave me a chance to take a breather every now and then.

The one thing about swimming is that I have a hard time keeping track of how far I swim. I keep losing track of how many lengths I have done. In then end I know I did at least 30 lengths and as many as 34. This means I swam between 750 metres and 850 metres. Not bad. Next time I will work on swimming more than 25 metres at a time without stopping 🙂

Off for a quick sit in the hot tub, then a short walk home. Nice.

Horrible Abilities

To the Ass-Clown in the Grey Dakota:

When I am driving I tend to use my turn signals. It would be swell if you noticed that. In addition, I typically don’t stop in my lane right in front of a road with my turn signal on for no reason. Sometimes the road is blocked, or traffic can’t move (sometimes due to some flaky chick pulling a horrible u-turn). It would be super-swell if you didn’t honk at me, then pass me on the left, thereby making an already silly situation more unsafe. Add on that this was in a residential area and there really is no excuse, nor hurry grand enough to explain your idiotic driving abilities.

Have a nice day.

Layout Universe

Last night was a double header for Ultimate. We needed to win both games to play in the finals. For me this season has been great. The team I am part of is a great group of people who really got the game. We had a number of people who could teach the newer players, and I actually offered a few tips here and there too.

The first game was against a team we had only beaten by one point. They have one player that is awesome on defence. Actually, he is just awesome since he just got back from playing in the worlds, but he is especially awesome on D. Any time I was handling for this game I checked where he was and avoided throwing to that location. The rest of the team, for the most part, did the same.

I ran hard, played hard, and threw well. I also wasn’t afraid to layout. Near the beginning of the game my check broke away from me for the end zone and the thrower hucked it hard. We both chased after the disc with him one step ahead of me. I could see he was going to catch it, so I gave it my all and at the last possible moment dove for it. With a big swat I knocked the disc out of the air as he was reaching for it. Thankfully the grass was soft and I didn’t hurt anything with my dive and roll.

During the first game I also had a few good diving catches. I was catching well this game and I was proud of that.

One zoned offense when I was handling we were swinging the disc well, but not making much progress up field. I got the disc and I could see one of our players in the end zone, open from everyone. The only way to get it to him was a hammer. I threw it up, and it was perfect. It arced perfectly and landed in his hands with little movement from him.

Nearing the end of the game we were tied 12-12. Universe point, just like the last time we played this team. I headed off the field and sent another team mate on. Moments later he called me back. The captain called a set line and I was one of the players she wanted on. We worked the disc up field when we got possession, but that one player was always lurking, waiting for his chance to D block the disc.

I passed to one of the women handlers, she took one look, and one of our long strikers broke for a sideline. The tough D player didn’t follow. The handler put up the disc, the striker caught it, and we won!

Game two was going to be a much more difficult game. We played the team earlier in the season, and somehow managed to beat them. Once we started we were shocked at how relentless they were. Quickly we were down 3-0 and our egos were shattered. Time to rebuild and get moving.

On one of our pulls, it was a high hanging pull that dropped in the far right corner. I booted down the field and saw where the first pass was going. I pushed as hard as I could to intercept and came oh so very close. The recipient was visibly shaken that I had got there so quickly and was so close to intercepting. After a couple more throws there was a turnover and we capitalized for out first point.

Unfortunately no matter how hard I tried we kept getting beat. Our teams morale dipped, then someone went on a beer run and that was the end of our game. We had a good time, but we were not running nearly hard enough. We ended up losing 13-4.

At the end of the night I was drained, sweaty, dirty and sore. It was a great season full of hard played ultimate. Definitely one of my favourite summer league seasons. Next week the finals are being played, and I think our team is going to play another for a fun game for third/fourth spot. Time to figure out another source of exercise.