Date Training

July 7, 2007

This is a date I need to entrench in my mind. It is the date of a big race I am in. The 24 Hours of Adrenaline, in Canmore Alberta.

This date is not very far away, yet my conditioning is nowhere near where it needs to be. My training should pick up soon as I start to ride to and from work on a regular basis. This ride will be out to Oak Bay and back. Since I moved on from NewHeights, I have basically stopped riding, and haven’t got much exercise at all.

This has to, and definitely will change.

Today I got on my trainer for the first time in a while. It was hard, but it felt good to sweat. It also reinforced that I need to ride more. I was slow, and worked very hard, but I accomplished my goal of a 3 minute warm up, a 30 minute ride, then a cool down.

1 training ride done, lots to go.

Snowdrop Possibilities

Yesterday I broke out the light box to take some pictures of some snowdrop flowers from our backyard. It was a fun little bit of time spent while Sprout was sleeping. The background of the first 3 shots is the lid from a cookie tin. As I spend more time taking pictures using the light box I am beginning to foresee new possibilities with it.

I posted my favourite shot over on my photoblog for yesterdays picture.

WWE Interesting

Sunday I got out to see the WWE when it was in town. Jim’s friend got the seats, and I was stoked since they were first row. First row yes, ringside, no. Hard to explain, but our row of seat started off at ringside, but extended out away from the ring. Bit of a bummer since mine and Jim’s seats were essentially what we had last time. Still great seats, but not ringside like I was expecting.

The show was as fun as always. I brought the small camera this time, but very few of my shots turned out. I hate using the highest ISO setting, but that is what was needed to capture anything remotely interesting.

The matches were fun to see, and some of the wrestlers are extraordinary acrobats.

Then there are the WWE Divas. There was a Diva contest while we were there. Essentially a bikini contest. If you can call those strips of fabric bikini’s that is 😉

The Undertaker was fun to watch, and so was Benoit. Most of the matches had their good points. All except the first one. The first one was lame. It was over very quickly (too quickly).

The headlining match was Batista against Mr Kennedy. I saw Batista last time. Behemoth, but good wrestler to watch.

All in all it was a fun day.

Necessary Construction

Here is another deck update. On the weekend of Feb 3, the deck guy came by and finished the stairs framing, then covered them, and covered part of the deck. But he ran out of wood. This past weekend he stopped by and dropped off the necessary wood.

The weather this weekend doesn’t look like it will be conducive to construction.

Sigh. I just want it done, and so does our landlord.

Donation Boxes

Tonight was blood donation time again. It is funny that every once in a while I notice slight changes in their procedures. This time it was the request to fill in the answer boxes and not just check or x them. Weird. Takes a lot longer to answer the questions that way.

Beyond that everything was as smooth as normal. I stuck with my left arm again more for superstition than anything else. I’ve never had an issue donating with the left so why mess with success. I got the donation bag filled in 5 minutes too.

Consumer Empties

Consumer Alert: Stay away from Canadian Springs. They can’t seem to figure out how to properly deliver water, nor how to stop delivering water.

Sox and I signed up a while ago for this 2 bottle a month plan. It was fine until we got backed up on bottles and realized we never drank that much. Also, their delivery schedule was pretty erratic, and they never seemed to show when they were supposed to. We decided to go back to buying it at Thrifty’s. Same water, just no delivery schedule.

I called up Canadian Springs in late November, or early December and told them we wanted to cancel. After asking their questions as to why, I arranged for the date they would come pick up the bottles. They said Dec 29. On that date I put all the bottles outside, and nothing. I called again in Mid January and they had no record of me calling and cancelling.

This time I really got it cancelled, and they said they would be by on Jan 29 to get the bottles. On the day we made sure they were all there still. When the driver came he grabbed all the empties, but not the remaining full bottle. Aaargh.

Another phone call, and hopefully we can get our deposit cheque back. This kind of service does not make me want to ever use them again. Post purchase support is of the same importance as per purchase. Why don’t companies get that?