Biking in the Burl!

Burlington, Ontario that is. Went for an evening ride with Jon-o-vision yesterday and had a chance to actually use my GoPro this time. Thank goodness I didn't pull any stunts on the trail like last time's tragic fall, but Jon took it relatively easy on me (Praise Science!) so I made it out alive.

Here's a video he made from our last ride, I'll see if I can't throw together something from this ride real soon.



The GoPro is definitely coming in handy these days.

Mississauga Ribfest!

It's not every day that you get to consume like 5 pounds of meat/3000 calories in a single sitting but what they hay. While it's definitely not the best thing ever that you can do for your body, sometimes you just have to succumb to the deliciousness.


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Ribs + Chicken + Pulled Pork + Beans + Coleslaw + Beer = WIN!

Banana Boat vs. Hamilton Dragon Boat Festival

First regatta of the season complete.



Paddles up young bloods!

The 5 stages of driving stick

So now that I like to consider myself a somewhat capable manual driver (and can use my Civic power to pump out over 650KM a tank without even breaking a sweat (Hell Yeah!)), I thought I'd share a few notes on the whole fiasco adventure of getting here...

Here's something I like to call the 5 stages of driving stick.

1. OH SHIT I STALLED AT A MAIN INTERSECTION MAKING A LEFT TURN AND WILL PROBABLY DIE

You have just gotten your car and want to drive it everywhere. And you do, but you keep stalling at what seems to be all the most inconvenient places, often putting everyone's lives in certain peril. Empty parking lots and back streets are for losers, and you believe that (like most other things) the internet is the best teacher for the situation.

You realize that driving automatic took little to no pedal control and that moving from a complete stop is your enemy. You bring up the RPM before even letting the clutch out and your 1-2-3rd gear transition is a little rough. You also keep a keen eye on the tach when you should be keeping it on the road...

While driving, you get a calf cramp after an intense session at the gym and fear for your life while weaving through traffic. But at least you're still alive at this point.


2. 4 FAST 4 4URIOUS

You've done it - you can shift! At this point you're just driving anywhere you can for the hell of it, and switching as many gears as possible in the process. You try to shift as fast as you can and get all up in the VTEC just for kicks. You want to try every trick of the trade, from heel toe down shifting to engine braking even though you really don't even need to (most of the time).

You sometimes sit in that jackass position where you are leaned over, with your left hand at 12 o'clock and your right hand on the shifter and realize how much of an idiot anyone is sitting like this in an automatic. You then realize that you yourself are a jackass for sitting in this totally impractical and uncomfortable position.

You believe you can race any other car on the street simply because of your driving abilities and not because of your vehicle's performance.

You also wash your care like once a week.


3. WTF IS UP WITH MY CLUTCH

Now that your car is nicely broken in paranoia begins to set in. You have a hard time telling whether your joy riding has taken it's toll or if you have actually gotten better at working the clutch.

You hear all sorts of stories about people having to change their clutches after a few thousand KM and you hope that you're not one of them. You read about self adjusting clutches, stage 2 flywheels and all sorts of other nonsense that you think applies to you, and you calculate how much it will cost to replace these parts.

You get your friends and family to drive the car around because you have no idea what's going on with it (since it's the first ever manual after all) and you stall for the first time in a long while.

Meanwhile, nothing is actually wrong with the car and you realize your left calf muscle is jacked.


4. SAVE THE CLUTCH!

Now that the clutch scare is over with you try to get you're efficiency up. You stay in 2nd while in traffic and leave some nice buffer room so you don't have to clutch in. You get into 5th as quickly as possible and you see your mileage soar like a majestic turkey vulture.

You believe that you can eat an drive at the same time, but then slowly realize that there is actually an advantage to driving automatic.


5. YOU OFFICIALLY DON'T ENJOY DRIVING IN TRAFFIC

You now believe that you can now teach someone to drive manual even better than you've been taught. You don't really need to look at the tach anymore and getting moving at 1500RPM is easy peasy lemon squeezy. You also resent driving in stop/go traffic for anything more than an hour.

When you drive an automatic vehicle you go for the clutch when there is none and you also realize that you've never actually used the dead pedal before, and that it's extremely comfortable.

And while I'm not quite here yet, I believe at some point (when you have kids or something) you'll begin to hate driving manual. You bummed knee is probably giving problems and getting stuck in traffic is a royal pain. You also realize that your 2-door coupe probably isn't suitable for that car seat and your baby's mama.

And your left calf muscle gets even more jacked.

Now here are some random pictures to end this post.

Hump Day Continues...

On a pretty daily basis, one of the things I like to do as an afternoon break is walk around to check my mail (even though I get none), wash my mug, check the supply closet for new goodies (it's like Christmas when we get those gel pens) and then grab a coffee from the Tim Hortons downstairs (XL - 1 milk + 1 sugar, in case you want to buy me one).

Sometimes when I'm feeling like a fat ass fancy I get a donut. Today was one of those days.



Is it Friday yet?

Hamilton Dragon Boat Festival Videos

Or more precisely: The Lively Dragon Waterfest Hamilton Dragon Boat Event. Ain't that a mouthful?

Anyway, here are some videos from our races at this joyous event. It was a huge tragedy that my 16GB memory card ran out of space just before the final 2000m race was about to begin, but let's put it this way: at least I have 16GB of who knows what to sort through so I can make a more playful team edit.

F Division Final, Race 27



Round 2, Race 16



Race 39 - 250m Bonus



You can see the rest of the race videos HERE.

The drought is over! ...and miscellaneous debris.

So we did it - F division Champs! We threw down 2:34.90, 2:27.97 and 2:25.77 in our final. While that was nowhere as impressive as last year, my happiness level is through the roof as I finally have something to show for this sport. Damn those 1st years who got medals in their first regatta ever, lol.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty clear that we had a lot of first race jitters (just check the differences in our times!), with half of the boat being brand new and all. The marshals were also all over the place as we never got to warm up even once (I'm pretty sure I pulled my groin (again)). And the fact that we were short an entire bench caused a lot of moving around of positions all over the boat as well. Despite all that noise we managed to somehow make it through.

Not bad for our first race of the season, but as our coach said: We got a shit load lot of work to do. Pimpin' ain't easy.

I also managed to get in a morning mountain bike with Jon today, and let me tell you that biking ain't easy either. That or Jon has deceived me for years and is secretly a cyborg since he totally disgraced my fat ass with his mountain biking prowess (aka fitness level and trail savvy) as I was literally left in the dirt. Meanwhile, I managed to fly over my handlebars into a soft pile of mud. That was pretty much the most extreme part of the ride...that and also being on the edge of dying from exhaustion or a cliff at any given point.

On top of that, after showing no general interest in the World Cup, I also managed to watch it. While my previous soccer cup watching total pretty much comes up to 0.5 hours of some game 2 weeks ago, I have to admit that watching the final was pretty exciting. I especially enjoyed the jump kick to the chest and the fact that the ref was dropping yellow cards like they were hot. But really, any excuse to get together with friends over food and drink is good enough for me.

Then to cap it all off, we ended up getting some ice cream and watching Predators, which was definitely not one of the best things in the World. Damn the HST because I forgot to bring some of my beloved coupons and had to pay up.

So now I'm officially burnt out and going to bed at 9:30. Monday morning, here I come.

First regatta of the season/Opponents prepare to be crushed.

Banana Boat hits the Lively Dragon Waterfest in Hamilton, Ontario today. It's our first regatta of the season and even though (some of) our team's work ethic has been a little less than stellar this year, I'm hoping we can still win something...

Let's hope we don't burn out go out in a blaze of glory like last year.

We're also registered to do a 2000m this time too...we'll see how that goes...

Ottawa River whitewater rafting with River Run Adventures

It's like no matter what song I choose, YouTube wants to complain about copyright. Looks like I'll have to dust off the old keytar and synthesizer and start to make some tunes of my own pretty soon...

Bye Bye Bosh. Toronto Raptors vs. Miami Heat.

Not that I'm a huge Basketball fan or anything, I just happen to have these pictures laying around...



Flickr slideshow widget strikes again!

Extreme adventure rafting/The GoPro lives...

So I'm still slowly sorting through this rafting footage (heat wave has turned me into a bum is making me lazier than usual) and I'm still pretty surprised that that GoPro made it out alive since it is called Extreme Adventure Rafting after all...



While I'll admit that I was pretty scared about the whole waterproof part, I now have a fair amount of confidence in the housing and the strength of the mounts (although I opted not to bring it out for a second day...also had nowhere to charge it). It withstood the rapids, the constant banging against my paddle and scraping up against the boat and rocks.



While skiing and biking with the camera is one thing, being completely submerged in water and getting hammered by rapids is another.



The part that I was most afraid of was the top flipping open and the camera ejecting just like us out of the boat. All it really takes is a flick for the thing to disengage.



A smarter version of me would have stuck a piece of duck tape over the top just to make sure but apparently I wasn't that clever at the time. All I did really was tie a shoelace around one end, tie the other end to my life jacket and hope for the best.



Anyway, watching the videos, 6 person rafting is really more violent that you would imagine. When the guide flips the boat you pretty much go instantaneously from your seat into rapids, with a nice face full of water.



As a spectator you can see the part where someone falls like 4 feet off a vertical boat onto the guy next to you (which is probably why I have bruises all over), but from a first person point of view you're basically sitting one second and in the drink the next.



At the same time though, rafting is also really exciting and super fun provided you can swim...otherwise I think it would basically be a struggle for your life. Pansy.



You can embed a flickr slideshow? Who knew!

Whitewater Rafting on the Ottawa River with the GoPro Camera

They might as well call it whitewater swimming because that's pretty much what the 6 person adventure rafts are all about. Since we were basically a boat of the manliest men on the river, our guide took every opportunity to flip our boat as intensely as possible to hammer us out. It also helped that we were with a group of brothers who do the trip yearly and have the same guide each time - they definitely knew what was up.

I've never been rafting before so I wasn't really sure what to expect, but taking in face fulls of water is it. Lots of paddling, flipping, swimming and fun. I didn't think you would flip the boat so much but man was I wrong. Basically every run on a rapid that you come across (which you can surf on) ends up with the guide flipping the boat and everyone swimming for their lives. Ok, maybe not for their lives but back to the boat at least. It's a more violent motion than you would expect as basically everyone falls on each other (and I have the bruises to prove it).

There are two types of rafts on the river: a 12 person boat which is a huge behemoth of a raft that is impossible to flip, and it basically cruises down the river like a dead whale. Then there's also the 6 person, which is highly maneuverable, much less stable and can basically flip on a dime when the guide wants to. The 6 person is definitely not for the faint of heart as there were many people who chose to sit out after the first run.

If you don't know how to swim or aren't a strong swimmer then this is definitely not something for you. Let me tell you that it gets pretty sketchy when you come up under the raft in the rushing water - you just have to remember not to panic and then GTFO.

Anyway, here are a few clips from the first day until I get some more time to throw an edit together.

A look at what we were up against...



Here's Kevin holding on for dear life before he went head first...



This is what it looks like to take a swim in the Ottawa...I lost my shoe here...



A more or less successful surf before the flip...I even managed to pick up an extra paddle...



Us just getting soaked for the heck of it on the first rapid...



After seeing the other companies and boats on the river, I would definitely say that River Run is the premiere choice for rafting on the Ottawa. I think they are one of the only ones that allow you to choose 2 days of consecutive 6 person rafts and they were really a world class crew.

Air Canada San Francisco to Toronto Time Lapse Video

Air travel has been pretty sparse for me this year, as I'm not exactly an international man of mystery, and most of my 2010 vacations have included driving great distances so far. I found this in the archives and thought I'd share it with y'all while I'm away drowning in the Ottawa river.



Point and shoots have come a long way...

Tighten all those bike parts or you might regret it...

So I was out riding earlier this week while suddenly my pedal decided to bail out on me right after a short hill climb. Luckily I was able to hold it together and avoid any real injury (because I'm a pro) but the one crank arm suffered a little wear and tear as it jarred loose and flew off, killing a family of beavers in a nearly creek.

Unfortunately, my multi-tool didn't have a huge hex key for the bottom bracket (I think that's what it's called), so I had to take a walk of shame and call home for emergency evac.

The off-road bike trails in the suburbs of Mississauga aren't exactly the most intense thing you've ever ride, but they're easily accessible and you can cover a ton of ground on the relatively flat gravel and dirt tracks. None of them really loop back because they follow along a handful of winding creeks or rivers so it's sometimes easy to lose your bearings (at least with my sense of direction). Luckily you know that a roads or main intersection isn't that far away if you need a point of reference.

I've only really been getting into riding recently but it's been surprising to see how many mountain bikers you'll see in full gear and Camelbaks riding around after dinner. If you think about it, it's actually pretty convenient for a quick evening spin considering you don't have to drive out anywhere and the trail entrances are just around the corner...and that you're in Mississauga after all.

So much for a leisurely evening ride...

Going whitewater rafting and the GoPro is coming with me

You can't blame Canada for having it's birthday on a Thursday, but you can blame your work for not giving us the Friday off (in a perfect world). Anyway, like a lot of Canadians I took a vacation day to hit up some whitewater rafting on the Ottawa river. It'll be a first for me but I'm predicting 4 days of awesome.

I've decided to take the GoPro with me because its supposedly waterproof, but I have no idea how I will be mounting it. Jon and I combined shipping and bought some accessories for the cams (which arrived super fast btw) so we'll have a few options to choose from. Looks like I'll also have to tie it to my helmet with a shoelace or something just in case because apparently the camera sinks just like me...

This could be epic win/fail.