Escaped Free

Last weekend I returned 2 dogs to their rightful owners. Although this might seem like something that would be out of my way, the dogs had actually escaped from their yards as I was walking past with Yoshi.

The first one was a very friendly little dog named Petal. The gate to Petal’s yard was open and she came out to say hi to Yoshi, then me, then Sprout. I didn’t actually see Petal escape, so I called the number on her collar, and the owner came out of his house to usher her back to the yard.

The next day I was walking Yoshi up to the grocery store, and a block away from Petal, another dog came to say hi to Yoshi. Bruno saw Yoshi, and lunged at him excitedly. He was tied to the stairs, but something broke and Bruno was free. The owner was on her deck playing a guitar and I called up to her to let her know that Bruno was free.

2 days, 2 dogs. Pretty funny.

Fair Delicious

Yesterday Sprout and his Gramma and I headed out to the Saanich Fair. We got there early, some time around 9:30 I think and it was perfect. The weather was a little cool, but that was ok. We browsed the animals, checked out the farm equipment, watched some horse competition (dressage I think), had a snack (mmmm), played with the model boats, skipped Pirate School (we already know), played on the farm equipment some more, perused the market, watched some of the rides, ate lunch, and I even got to take a quick tour of the photo competition.

The snack was had was amaaaazing. It was a langosh from the Ukranian food stall. It was a flat deep fried donut like thing that you sprinkled cinnamon sugar on. It was hot and delicious. Yum. Think mini-donut taste, but 10 inches in diameter and a half inch thick.

I didn’t spend a lot of time taking pictures, but I sure had fun showing Sprout the sights. We saw all sorts of animals: pigs, goats, sheep, cows, a calf, horses, guinea pigs, rabbits, ducks, ducklings, chickens, roosters, and donkeys.


After lunch we poked around a little bit, then around 1 we decided to head out. We were in the car at 1:20 and on our way. Leaving at that time was a good thing. During the morning the crowds weren’t too bad, but by the time we left, the place was packed. As we were driving, we saw the line up to get to the grounds. The traffic was backed up from the grounds all the way to the Pat Bay Highway! This is a distance of 2 miles or 3.2 kms of bumper to bumper stop and go traffic. Yikes.


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The sun had also come out and it was starting to heat up. All in all we had a great time, and we timed it well.

Sweet Crispy

These cute little sweet peppers were part of our SPUD delivery this week. Very tiny and very cute. They were supposed to be part of a very yummy recipe for roasted veggie quesadilla’s. Unfortunately they didn’t roast that well. Instead of the skin turning dark and separating, the entire tiny pepper dried up into crispy chunks. By the time I realized this, the entire batch was past the saving point. Bummer, I hate wasting food! I bet they would have been tasty raw too.

Outside Leaving

Jungle Kitty! Aphro has been more interested in being outside lately. Sometimes she zips out an open door when we aren’t looking and other times we let her out. The other weekend we were just about to leave for Nanaimo, when Sox thought to check on Aphro one last time before we drove away. The car was loaded and the kids buckled. That was how close we were to leaving. Sure enough Aphro was outside.

We managed to corral her back in the house, then we were on our way.

Here Aphro was exploring our deck, and in particular our tomato plants.

Cold Throat

I’ve been fighting a gross summer cold for a few days now. This cold started making its rounds in our household Thursday last week. I think the order was Sprout, then Sox and Beet got it. Poor Beet looked pretty pathetic with red, puffy, watery eyes and big sneezes expelling lots of snot.

I didn’t get hit nearly as bad, and it has mainly been in my sinuses and throat. A tickly throat does not make for a good sleep. Last night I suddenly woke up around 3am. As I was laying there wondering why I was awake I let out a huge sneeze.

Thankfully the cold held off long enough to go for my ride last Sunday.

Meandering Obstacles

I got out for a ride today that was just fantastic. It was raining, which I wasn’t looking forward to, but it was still somewhat warm. My friend and I took a meandering route through the park that had a few technical challenges, but was still a good for cardio. I may not have been out for a while, but my body still remembered how to ride.

I suppose my playing Ulti this summer helped me a lot. When you aren’t concentrating on how hard you are breathing, you can concentrate on the trail. My legs felt plenty powerful so I could still power over small obstacles and rocks.

It felt great to be on the trails, and to catch up with my friend. Socializing has always been a big part of my riding and today was no exception. We didn’t run into too many people due to the weather which was neat since it felt like we owned the trails.

I was wearing a jacket to keep warm, but that always traps my body heat soaking me through. I was still working up a good sweat and every time I looked down water was streaming off my helmet, down my face, and off my nose. A few times my eyes were stinging with sweat. My hands were feeling particularly wet, and I was able to clench a fist and see water streaming to the ground.

Wet rides will always be special to me. Some of my best and favorite rides are in the wet.

Arriving home I unloaded my gear, grabbed a quick shower, then had lunch with the family. What a great Sunday morning.

Morons Double

More morons spotted.

Tuesday Sox was driving me to work. After crossing the blue bridge we could see a taxi double parked dropping someone off. There was no traffic, but as we approached, it pulled out cutting someone off.

Another guy, learning from example, put on his hazard lights and stopped in our lane. Sure enough he wanted to let someone out of his vehicle. As Sox passed she honked at the guy for blocking the lane.

He then honked back a few times at us. Then without turning off his hazard lights he pulled back into traffic, nearly hitting a couple cyclists! Revoked!

Then, on my way home yesterday, I had an advance left turn light. As I was making my turn, I could see a guy in the opposite direction turning right, which happened to be where I was headed. It wasn’t close, but he was looking the wrong direction for traffic. I layed on the horn to scare him, and scared he was. He jammed on the gas and had a very surprised look on his face. Once he was straightened out, he put on his signal and pulled off to the side of the road. It was all I could do to not laugh too hard.

Points Dive

Great game last night. Still in the finals we were psyched for another win. The team we were playing is one we beat on points, but lost due to lack of women. We were golden.

Starting the we were in god spirits. Right off the bat we scored a couple points and were feeling good. Then there was a rather long point, and right near the end I was starting to stitch up. Breathing was labored and the pain kept increasing. Unfortunately we lost that point and had to walk, but this gave me a chance to get some water and take some deep breaths. It went away and I played on. Actually I had no choice to play on since we had no subs at all.

The fields were in very god shape. Much better than last week. It had been raining during the day so the grass was wet, and the ground softened. Awesome.

Wouldn’t you know it, I was striking for the end zone and the the disc was getting away from me. I put it in overdrive, but couldn’t catch up to the disc. I ended up sliding on my butt a ways, but didn’t come up with the disc. 🙁

Throughout the game I was feeling great. Fitness-wise I felt fast which was much different than last week. My throwing and catching was spot on, and my timing for catching the disc high up in the air was spot on. I was also doing well breaking free from my check. I was having an awesome game.

Then came my backwards point. I have no idea what happened, but I was supposed to be a handler, but somehow ended up in the stack. Every time I tried to get back to a handler position, I got blocked by someone on my team cutting me off, or a pass going forward so I was out of position again. Then, on the turnover, my check got the disk, and I forced the wrong direction. Weird. After that point I was back to normal.

Nearing the end of the game (we hit a time cap), I was breaking for the end zone and the handler saw me. He threw it up, and again the disc was getting away from me. I sprinted hard as I could, and as I was gaining, the disc was dropping. In my mind I knew I could catch it if I dove. Then I remembered my teammate and his separated shoulder. I thought about the time I dove and ended up with a groin tear. I thought about my messed up shoulder. I thought about my family and how an injury would make home life more difficult. Then I decided to dive, but be careful. I layed out and started sliding. The disc was heading for my hand and my hand was open. The disc bounced off my hand and I wasn’t able to snag it. I slid to a stop and did a mental check to see if I had hurt myself. Nothing was hurting, but I was having a little trouble breathing. I ended up slightly winding myself, so a quick rest and the point continued.

We heard the call for the time cap and played on. The game was tied and it was tight. The final point was a battle that could have went either way. To both ends of the field multiple times. The issue was light. Depth perception was dwindling with the light, and so was our energy level. Passes became more and more difficult to see and turnovers kept happening. Then one of the passes to a player on our team went wild and he tried diving for it winding himself. He ended up leaving the field since he felt wrong, so we were down a player. As a result, there was some confusion an opposing player got open, got the throw, and ended the game.

We lost, but it was a fun, enjoyable game against an evenly matched team. I was drained by the end of the game.