Zipping Close

Wednesday I headed in to work late. Ulti was a late game so I rode to work, and stayed late. The ride in was a little circuitous as I tried to find a new and longer route to work. It was pretty fun poking around in different neighborhoods.

Leaving work and heading to Ulti was interesting. As I was zipping along Granite a car that was stopped at a stop sign turned left onto Granite cutting me off. Luckily I was watching for such things and I grabbed a handful of brake. Later I saw this same car do some other lame brain maneuvers. Also on the way to Ulti I was rounding a long sweeping corner at a pretty good clip. As a car was overtaking me, they squeezed me toward the curb. Dude, if I can reach out and touch your car, you are too fucking close!

The plan was to go for an extended route after Ulti too, but I was pretty wiped after the game, and it was getting late. Instead I headed straight home.


Meandering Week

I was up late last night due to Ulti, so I dragged my butt out the door late this morning. By the time I got going, the rain had picked up and I was not looking forward to my ride. Again I took a meandering route to work trying to avoid some traffic and to have a little fun.. By the time I got to work my lower half was soaked. My jacket did a great job of keeping my dry, but I don’t have proper rain pants.

I had a dentist appointment, then my ride home from that was longer. I took a route down by the water which was really enjoyable. With this ride done, I have beat the 80km mark for the week, and have earned my beer 🙂 I still have 1 more day to go, and I think I am going to see if I can surpass 100km commuted by bike for this week.

Trailer Provider

The ride today was interesting. In total I rode just under 23km which is pretty good. The ride in I was rained on pretty good, but the slicks I have did a great job of shedding the water and not spraying me with it. I was actually surprised at how little water was being thrown. I was cold on the way to work though, but still very sweaty. The twist to today’s ride is that I was towing Sprout in the trailer.

Climbing some of the hills to and from home were hard! He is not a tiny boy, and his added weight behind me led to a great workout. I think I’d like to do that again some time. The downside was that the ride took a lot longer. A 20 minute ride stretched into 45 minutes. This made me late for dropping Sprout off at daycare, which meant he had to come to work with me for a short while as the daycare provider had some errands to run. Oops.

Bike Beer

Our office is doing Bike To Work Week again this year, with some added challenges. Two people in our office have ponied up some extra prizes for participation. Each year our office has succeeded in 100% participation. The extra prizes are a beer to anyone who cracks 80 kms traveled to and from work in the week, and the person with the most mileage gets a bottle of liquor of their choice (or 6 pack).

Today was day 1, and also fday 1 for me back to work after a month off. I took a pretty direct route to work which ended up being 8.8 km. The ride home I stretched out a little so that it was 11.3 kms. This gives me a day 1 total of 20.1 kms. Nice start I would say.

Soleil Afternoon

A while ago I saw that Cirque du Soleil was coming to town. I knew Sox had been wanting to see a performance of theirs for quite a while, so I got us some tickets for her as a birthday present. This happened a few months ago.

We set up some child minding with Gramma, and we tried (unsuccessfully) to train Beet to take a bottle.

Today was the performance, and I was a little nervous about how Beet would be with Gramma. I knew Sprout would be fine since he would be napping. Without the bottle, Gramma might be in for some trouble.

The show itself was fabulous. I thoroughly loved the show. The performers were amazing, and managed to make a lot of what they do look easy. I know for a fact that juggling 7 balls is not easy. I know that the acrobatics are not easy. I know riding a bike on one wheel while facing backwards is not easy. Yet, the performers all made those actions look normal.

The music accompanying that performance was excellent, and the singer was amazing. All in all it was an extremely enjoyable show. I just thought of this now, but I almost wish I could buy a DVD of the performance so I could see it again.

Arriving home I opened the car door and didn’t hear screaming. As we climbed the stairs I saw that Gramma was reading her book. I knew then that it wasn’t a difficult afternoon like had been envisioning. Yay for sleeping babies, and yay for adult fun.

Dump Loved

I went mountain biking yesterday! Woohoo! First time in a while. It was a gorgeous sunny day that wasn’t too hot. D and I met at the dump, and did a small tour over some familiar trails, and took numerous breaks. It was heavenly. I do still miss mountain biking, and I look forward to the point in time when my family is old enough that I can get out riding on a regular basis.

Our route took us up to the Swtichbacks, then up to Snakes and Ladders. Down that trail, we then ended up on Skull, then back to the cars. We were out for over 2 hours, and I loved every minute of it.

Two legs turning two wheels is pretty simple. A lot can happen when you turn off your brain and concentrate on one thing only. I sometimes enter a zen state and have a completely empty mind. Yesterday wasn’t that kind of day and I don’t mind one bit.

Darted Camouflaged

I cleaned the fish tank out again today. There was a lot of green algae growing due to the increased sunlight, and with the new Cory’s there is a lot of extra food in the rock. It was getting bad.

I cleaned the sides, removed all the decorations, and started cleaning the rocks with the gravel vacuum. I was half way done when I saw a tiny blob that I thought was a bit of rooty material from one of the plants. When I moved the vacuum to suck it up, it darted away.

Awestruck, I quickly realized that it was actually a very tiny fish. It was less than a centimetre long, orange with black fins. I think it might be a Platy. Strange thing is, I only have 1 Platy in my tank.

Of course now I can’t find the mini fish. When I could see it, I noticed it was hugging the bottom, and hiding in amongst the rock. I worry that I somehow killed it during the cleaning, but maybe it is just camouflaged really well right now.

Angrily Confused

People are weird. I know this, and take it as a common truth.

While riding to Ultimate last night I was reminded of this. I was riding up Bay St, and was reaching Richmond. I wanted to get over into the left turn lane, so I shoulder checked. Since it was clear, I made an arm signal and moved over. At the red light I was behind a VW van. I also held my arm out to show people behind me I was going left.

When the light went green the van took off and I followed. After rounding the corner, I immediately moved over to the bike lane.

A couple seconds later, some guy in a small blue car (a Honda Fit sized car) passed me, and shook his finger at me angrily. Confused I turned up one hand to indicate to him that I didn’t know what he was talking about. He continued shaking his hand at me.

I was confused. I really have no idea what he could think I did wrong. Perhaps I didn’t clear the intersection fast enough? I was in a pretty hard gear and should have been one lower. I know I didn’t cause him to miss the advance left turn. Truly weird. Maybe he thought I shouldn’t have been on his road.

Maybe he is just an ignorant driver. I’ll go with that one. After wagging his disapproving finger at me and continuing on he approached a crosswalk with people waiting to cross. He started to slow down, then let go of the brakes and gunned it around a corner. Smooth move loser.

Afforded Headwind

Another Ulti game last night. The ride there was longer due to a change in location. This afforded me a longer warm up which suits me well actually.

The game itself was good. We played pretty well, and scored a few points. The zone was thrown on us quite a bit (still windy), so we got to work on breaking the zone. I was a popper this time instead of a handler, and I wasn’t doing a good job of it either. My timing was off from the other popper and I was frequently in the wrong place, or just a few steps off from being able to break the cup.

Then when I was handling, it seemed I did poorly at that too. My throws were getting caught by the wind and lifted way too high and out of bounds. I also missed a couple catches. Not my best showing, but I still had fun.

The ride home was hard. I kept a brisk pace the whole way home, but with a headwind and always facing into the sun, I was glad when I reached my garage.

Dwindling Afternoon

Vacation update. The days are dwindling!

Last time I mentioned we watched the parade. Since then there has been a bunch of things happen. We did a bunch of things around town, including a nice walk with J, L, and C at Elk Lake.

Then we went to Vancouver. We were there for 4 days, and had a (busy) fun time. We went to one brunch where there was 8 kids there, and 7 adults. Once Sprout got warmed up he had a great time. We didn’t leave that one until 2:30, so we ended up letting Sprout skip his nap. Waking him after a short nap results in a grumpy bear that we didn’t really want to deal with.

The next day it was another brunch with some more friends and their 2 daughters. I think Sprout had a great time there playing in the sandbox and the pool.

Then on the 26th, we went from Langley in to Stanley Park to visit the Aquarium. We spent a couple hours there, and Sprout definitely had fun. His favorite was the scuba diver in the big tank, closely followed by the beluga whales.

We came home that day. I did some grocery shopping on Tuesday while Sprout was at daycare, then Wednesday Sox took the kids to a friends while I did some things on the computer. I also had an Ulti game last night.

Today we drove up to Duncan and saw the Forestry Centre there. We rode the train (the highlight) and poked around the grounds a little bit. Finished there we ate lunch in the car on the way to Nanaimo where Sprout is having a sleepover at Gramma’s for a couple days. Yes, Sox and I only have 1 child until Sunday. We drove back to Victoria late in the afternoon, and had a leisurely dinner in front of the TV.