Skating on the Canal

Today was one of the nicest days of winter so far. It wasn't too cold, yet not too warm that the Canal was cold. The high temperature was -6 C, which brought tons of people out onto the Canal. Geofford, Keating, and I started out at the Somerset entrance and we were going to meet Brash and Vero at 5th Avenue where she was going to rent some skates. Unfortunately Keating's skates were too small, and he had just recently gotten stepped on at soccer, so his feet weren't feeling 100% so he turned back around Pretoria Bridge, so only Geoff and I met Brash and Vero at 5th Avenue. When we got there, we found out that there are is only a limited selection of skates, and Vero's size was one of the more popular ones, so only Geoff, Brash and I set out, but before we could get too far, Vero called to let us know that she was able to get a pair of skates in her size. yay! It's a wonder what we would have done before the advent of cell phones.

Geofford and I at the 5th Avenue rest area

The surface of the canal by this time had gotten slightly snow covered due to all the people skating on it, we were thinking it would be great to have zambonis on the ice during the day just so that the ice surface could get nice and smooth for the people skating later in the day. I guess we will just have to get to the canal earlier in the morning to get that freshly flooded ice. We skated to the Bronson St. bridge/Dow's Lake where we got some beavertails and hot chocolate/apple cider.

The sunset at Dow's Lake while we were skating on the canal.

Books

I seem to be addicted to books, and fortunately for my schoolwork, I only have a limited number of non-school books at my disposal. The rest of my "leisure" books are back at my parent's place, which is really fortunate. If all of my books were at my disposal, I don't think that I would get anything done.

I'm not sure how many people actually read my blog, but I'm going to start recommended books that I think are really good, and I'm going to start with a book that I actually read last semester for an assignment and I have just re-read because well I ran out of other books to read.

This book is called "A Test of Will" and it is an auto-biographic look of Warren Macdonald's extraordinary story of survival. This book tells the inspiring story of Warren's journey to reclaim his life after a tragic accident while climbing Mount Bowen on Hinchinbrook Island, off the east coast of Australia. I really enjoyed this book as it made me take a step back and realize that you can't take anything/one in your life for granted and that we should really treasure all of the special gifts in your life because you never know what is going to happen. I own a copy of the book, and have registered it on BookCrossing so that when I lend out the book, people will hopefully post up what they thought about the book, just so I can see how it affects other people.

I'm not sure if I have ever told anyone about BookCrossing, but it is a pretty cool website that allows you to track your books if you ever let them go into the wild. I think that it is a very interesting concept because it allows you to share your books with other people (if you want to) or release your book out into the wild by leaving it anywhere for someone to pick up. I've decided that I'm going to release some books when I go on vacation just to see where they end up. (hopefully they won't end up in the trash).

Anywho, 17 days left before we go to Mexico! I can't wait...it's way too cold in Ottawa right now, but it's great for winterlude because that means the canal will be nice and frozen, hopefully the temperature rises though, so people aren't too scared away by the cold.

Fun with Pictures

So school has started again, and along with school comes the many assignments. This semster I am taking courses in Political Economy of Sport, Marketing of Sport, Sport in Canadian Life, and a seminar in Professional Environment (aka how to make presentations). There is a lot of reading to do for these courses, and fortunately most of it is semi-interesting as it usually somehow relates back to sport, which is good. But this completely brings me off topic. Of course since I am now supposed to be getting back into studying/reading, Geoff introduces me to a fun computer program that allows me to share pictures as well as upload them to my blog. The program is called Hello and there is another program called Picasa which allows you to organize your photos. I just got them yesterday so I really haven't had a chance to play too much, but they look like fun!

Below is an example of some of the playing that I have been doing. I took some pictures of Geoff and his cat Cawaja over the holidays. She was being really cute that day. Here is one of the pictures:



Geoff and Cawaja

Anywho, I should get back to studying, but now there might be more pictures on my site, so that should be fun. Also, I am starting the countdown on my trip to Mexico for Rachel's Wedding....24 days left before we leave. yay!

Lazy Daze

Well, I am glad that the holidays are over because I feel ready to go back to school. I am also excited about not having to feast every day, although I know that it is a luxery that no everyone can enjoy. I'm sure this will all change next week :)

On a more serious note, if you still have some extra dough after the holiday rush and are still feel generous, you might be interested in donating to the help with the aid in the wake of the South and SouthEast Asia Disaster. If you donate to any of the following organizations before Jan 11, the Canadian Government will match your gift: Canadian Red Cross, World Vision, Doctors without Borders, Oxfam Canada, CARE Canada, UNICEF Canada, Development and Peace, and Save the Children Canada.

This past week has been quite busy (or at least it has felt really busy). Monday night, Geofford and I went to Ryan's house for a potluck. We couldn't get our butts in gear, so we ended up getting there later then we wanted, but I did get to see my friends for a while, so that was nice. After dinner we both played in Derek Alexander's annual holiday tournament, which started at 9pm and ran until 3am. The first game was highly anticipated because Geofford's cousins Cassie and Eliza were playing on the other team - White, and Pierre - Cassie's boyfriend was playing on our team Blue. During Christmas dinner there was a lot of slagging happening, although most of it was between Geofford and Pierre, but in the end team Blue was victorious (although some of the players that were supposed to play on team White never showed up...but whatever we won) It was also fun because Geofford's cousins: Charlie and John showed up to cheer. We taught them how to slag properly at Christmas dinner - using the requisite phrases - "Not a Thrower" and "Crowd wants a hammer", but we couldn't hear any of their slags because the music drowned out their slags. We were guaranteed three games that night, but our team managed to win all of our games, and during our bye before the Semis, I decided to pick up with purple to help them out, which ended up quite badly, as I layed out and ended up scraping my leg, which at the time didn't feel too bad, but got worse over the holidays. Team Blue ended up losing to Team Purple (I should really check to see who I will be playing for before volunteering) in the semi final, which was good because it was 2am, and most of us were cold and very, very tired.

Tuesday lunch time, after not getting enough sleep, I met up with some Shad friends - Adrienne, Allan, and Xavier for dim sum. Betty, Allan's fiance, noted that it was interesting that we were all so close considering that we only spent a month together over 10 years ago, but I guess Shad really brings people together. Tuesday night, Geofford and I went to dinner at my Godparents' house with my parents and some friends of family. As usual, there was too much good food, so I was quite full. We tried to have an early night as we were going snowboarding the next morning with the team (seVen). I ended up not having a very good night as the scrape on my leg got quite bad and kept me up most of the night.

In the end, I did not snowboard on Wednesday because I was too sore and I was afraid that I would end up falling and opening up the wound more. I did accompany Geofford to Edelweiss and was a "Snow Bunny/Mom" in the chalet the whole day. It took Geoff about an hour to get his lift ticket, and he only got in a couple runs before lunch when he was going to meet Marcus. Fortunately I was there, and Geoff ended up spending a few more minutes inside - instead of rushing back out to the hill, so he ended up meeting up with Marc and his girlfriend Leanne, and they were able to board all together. I ended up finishing Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix that day and also got some ideas on how to paint things. So I thought that was quite productive. That night, we met the team at Lonestar and there was a pretty good turnout considering it was during the holidays, which is generally a busy time. Afterwards, Evan, Marcus, Leanne, Geofford and I went to MacLaren's to play pool. Leanne and I found out that the hot brown cow, is not bad considering the waitress could only heat it up by microwaving it, but it didn't stay too hot for too long, which was unfortunate.

Thursday the 30th turned out to be a pretty lazy day. I was still pretty sore so I decided to bail on curling, and Geofford was also sore, but from snowboarding, so he also didn't attend. From the sounds of it, curling was pretty one-sided so I don't know if our presence would have made a big difference. We ended up going to Luke's place in the evening so the boys and the brave girls could play Halo 2. It was a pretty cool set-up with 2 PS2s and 2 TVs going, and usually 7-8 players yelling at the tvs. Although I didn't play the game, I got to play with Catherine, and I also got to knit. In the end, my 3rd attempt at knitting a purple hat didn't work out so well. When unravelling that hat, it turns out that I could have fit the hat around my waist...so it might have been a little too big :)

New Years was quiet, which was nice. Although we were invited to Mike and Arlene's for a "fancy" party, we ended up just going to my Aunt Anita's for dinner with my family - it was nice to see my mom after she was away for a few weeks in Hong Kong, and then Damian, Geoff and I went back to my apartment to watch Kill Bill: Vol 2 with a brief pause around midnight to see the ball drop on Times Square.

I have finally finished my 4th attempt at my purple hat (finished it last night) and it fits perfectly (well it fits well enough that I can sew a band of fleece in to make it warmer and fit a little better :) and now I am getting ready to go back to school on Thursday...

Hope everyone else had a fun holiday season! And if you get a chance, come to Ottawa - it's not as cold here as you think ;)