I've cooled off

OK, I think I have calmed down now from the whiteout incident from the previous post. I still have no idea what happened there. All I know is the post looks normal when I am composing it but when I post it to the blog the whiteout shows up. I suppose I could investigate to find out why but I simply do not have the energy. I can only hope whatever caused the problem will not occur again. If you double or triple click in the whiteout area the text will show up in blue so it is possible to read but maybe not worth the trouble.I don't think my next job will be as an office assistant.
Today actually looks like it will be a good bike riding day. It's 1C right now but the high is supposed to be around 13 so Aaron and myself will be heading out at 1 PM for a ride up the Pretty River road and then to Feversham and back. It should work out to about 2 hours saddle time. It's a good ride as well because of the climb up to Robroy which is a long tough little climb, especially the last two corners. I am nowhere near in great bike riding condition yet but the ski trip to Colorado did help me on the first ride of the year last week.

I'm back from the ride now but I was on my own because Aaron couldn't make it, probably because he's tired of trying to keep up with a guy 25 years older. I rode almost to Feversham and back for a total of 53.5 km. Going out was a lot of uphill and coming back was tough because the last 15 km were right into the teeth of a stiff breeze. I'm in not bad shape except for my ass which is more than a little bit saddle sore right now. My heart rate monitor tells me I was out for 2 hrs, 4 mins, I had a peak heart rate of 171 with a ride average of 148. The calorie total was 2018 which is too high I think, I'm guessing 1200 calories burned would be closer to the truth. It was a nice ride and when I arrived back at home and removed my helmet it was obvious that my bad case of dorsalling is still with me. I don't know what it is but the combination of the helmet, my sweating and the type of hair I have make it look like I'm growing a dorsal fin on my head. On the bright side dorsalling is better than catamaraning which is three sprouts of hair, one in the middle and one on either side of my head making it seem like I was riding while balancing a small catamaran on my head. It's not a good look but who cares, it's the riding that matters.

The Dead Zone

This is the time of year in Collingwood I call the dead zone. This one goes from the end of ski season until the May 24 weekend and there is another one that runs from after Thanksgiving to the first ski day. The town is noticeably quieter. the good part of this is that many restaurants offer up dinner specials to try to entice customers due to the reduction in business. I just want to know why they can't offer up beer specials, that would entice me more.
The ski season just ended this weekend so it was 4 1/2 months long which is a good season for Blue. I personally had a 25 day ski year including the 6 days in Colorado. That means my 5x7 pass worked out to less than $10 per day which is a great deal. I really enjoyed skiing this year. The only thing missing was I didn't get out on a weekend to ski with Silvia, Steve, Terry and the rest of the weekend crowd. I will make sure that problem will be remedied next year.
I finally got out for a bike ride yesterday and although it wasn't exactly warm it was a nice 42 km ride on my new bike. My buddy Aaron was also on his new bike so we both had good cases of newbikeitis. The sun was shining and there were many people out riding, enjoying the day and getting a little exercise. I was wearing a heart rate monitor for the ride and the results were: 1 1/2 hour ride, minimum heart rate of 118, max of 167, average of 149. The monitor also gave a calories burned total of 1457 but I am quite sure that is much to high. The monitor was set for my age and weight but I still think that total is incorrect.
Using the monitor on the ride has given me an idea for a little experiment. I will keep track on my rides of my heart but I will also wear it for doing house chores such as vacuuming, washing the car or cutting the lawn. It will be interesting to compare the numbers, especially the calories because although I think the total is high,  it will give an idea of the benefits of just doing things around the house. I just hope I can remember to put the monitor on for the household chores.
OK, I have no idea why this piece of shit has whited out a section of this post but I have deleted that section and redone it but it was still fucking whited out so who the fuck knows. Piss me off but I am not going to redo it. If you double click on the article the whole thing will appear and you can read it in blue I think. If this does not work for you please post a comment so I can try to fix the fucking thing. You may have also noticed on a previous post that the paragraphs were all screwed up. I don't know what happened there either but sometimes I would like to toss this piece of shit through the window.

Nitro

It's been a year and a half now since I lost little Nitro. I thought Nitro was the greatest dog in the world which is what all dog owners think of theirs I'm sure. He was a Havanese, Cuba's national dog and he was declared a champion after only 2 shows. His show name was Pocopayasos in your Face and he came

  from a long line of champions. He was put to stud before he had reached 1 year old and from what the breeder told me he excelled at his job. I was lucky enough to get him just as he turned 3 although he was missing a couple of parts due to the agreement with the breeder. The day I picked him up he was understandably nervous in the car in a crate and he wasn't feeling great either because his nuts had just been cut off so it was no surprise when he threw up. I got him home and he had a dump on the carpet within

5 minutes so it was a quick indoctrination into owning a dog. Nitro was hard to house train because he was in a kennel in a large garage his whole life so he was pretty used to going on the floor. He also had a

bad case of kennel cough when I got him which meant little white blobs of flem around the house. The first morning I had him he got out of the back door and I chased him around the neighbourhood for about 45 minutes before turning for home only to have him follow 3 feet behind me and go straight in the door when I opened it. He was just letting me know who was boss.

  There were obviously a few bumps in the road for the two of us but I know that little devil loved me as much as I loved him. One day I whacked my knee while mountain biking and I had to hobble into the house because my knee was so sore. Without a word of a lie Nitro came up to me 5 minutes later holding his front paw in the air and hobbled around with me for a while. I locked myself out of the house one night so I went to the back and put a hockey stick through the dog door to try and dislodge the wood slat holding the sliding door shut. Nitro was sleeping 5 feet away and awoke to me on my knees outside in the freezing rain cursing and swearing. I was unsuccessful so I went to sleep in the Solstice. I forgot to close the gate and when I awoke in the car 2 hours later and looked outside there was Nitro, soaked but sitting waiting for me to wake up. What a great little guy. I loved to watch him sleep because he could crash in what looked like the most uncomfortable positions and be dead to the world.

   Suffice to say Nitro was the best thing to happen to me in a long time. I had no idea how much that little guy meant to me until he got out because instead of fixing the gate I screwed up and the gate stayed open one day. He was clueless about cars and headed over to the very busy High street. I searched all that night and was combing the woods behind the house the next morning at 6 but I couldn't find him. Lori arrived at about 10 AM to help me look for him and it was shortly afterwards that I received the dreaded phone call. Nitro was dead. For the first time in my life I burst into tears, my little friend was gone. I loved that little guy. He is buried in the back yard now under my Dad's memorial tree and I still think of him every day. I could go on forever but I can hardly see now for the tears.

  I didn't waste any time getting another dog. I couldn't handle the huge hole in my life now that Nitro was gone so I looked on Kijiji and saw a Cockapoo that badly needed a home so I drove down to see him. Shadow came up to me right away and seemed like a great little guy so I took him home with me. He is called Guinness now and he is also a great little dog who is napping beside me at this very moment. He will never replace Nitro but then again Nitro could never replace him. Goodbye Nitro, I love you you little devil, Hello Guinness, I love you you little devil.

Video

  Saturday night I had Silvia and Steve over for dinner (Silvia did just about everything) and afterwards we fired up the XBox Kinnect to try the newest thing in video games. It is basically a camera that watches you and then transfers your body motions into the game itself on the TV screen. It takes a little time to set it up but overall it's quite easy to do and worth the time spent. Once the set up was done either Silvia or Steve could simply stand in front of the camera and they would be recognized by the game and be able to play with their settings in the memory. Amazing. This game differs from the other games such as Wii because there is nothing to be held in your hand while playing which appeals to me.  Games  include soccer, football, equestrian jumping, boxing, hang gliding and skiing. We tried them all and had a lot of fun. Silvia even ended up on the floor while playing football. She also kicked my ass when we were boxing which is neat because you can box against the computer or against the person standing beside you. Steve also knocked me out boxing. Very humbling. The ski game can also be played by two people standing side by side in the ski cross mode. My personal favourite is the hang gliding game which requires you to go through targets and find hot air risers to stay in the air for longer periods of time. Very cool. I think it is a real leap forward for video games and although the system isn't perfect it was tons of fun, tiring and will only get better in the future. I remember when I was 16 years old and received Pong for Christmas and we all thought it was amazing. Then came Donkey Kong,  Pacman, Galaga and the many other great video games which I spent more than a few dollars on playing. So that makes me a 55 year old who still enjoys playing kids game. Guilty as charged. They're fun, they keep my mind occupied for hours on end and I suspect I will be playing them for a long time to come. I may never grow up and I'm fine with that.

Forget about it.

  If the sport of forgetting is ever invented I am sure I will vault to the top ranks in short order. I have been to say the least absent minded and forgetful my entire life. The old saying "he'd forget his head if it wasn't screwed on" applies to me at all times. I am writing about this now because I just looked outside at the rain coming down and noticed that steam was rising from the BBQ which could only mean one thing. I left the damn thing on last night after using it to grill a steak. I figured I would leave it on for a while longer to burn off some of the fat. Oh, I'll remember before I go out. Sure I will. You would think after 55 years I would realize that the odds of me remembering to shut it off were slim to nil but not me. I forgot how forgetful I am. It's natural gas fed as well so it wouldn't run out for about 1000 years. The BBQ has cooled down now so that the only steam to be seen is emanating from my ears. I remember (two words I rarely use) as a child telling my Mother that I was going to run away from home at the end of the school day and then forgetting completely about it. Felt silly that day when she asked me what I was doing home. She used to make a lunch for me every day and the only way she could be assured that I would remember it would be to hang it around my neck like an oat bag. I have missed making a turn in my car, made a u-turn and then driven right by the road again. I rented a locker while skiing in Beaver Creek last week, opened it up, inserted the token and locked it. Predictibly I for got to put the knap sack in the friggin locker before locking it. DUH! My house is always in a state of disarray because I am afraid if I put something away I may never see it again. My MP3 is awol at this moment. I haven't seen it in over a month. I'm positive it was in a coat pocket but I have checked all my pockets and it is nowhere to be seen. I'm now hoping it was stolen because that means my memory or lack thereof is not responsible for its disappearance and if it was stolen I hope Neil Diamonds greatest hits goes into a continuous loop on the thief. Or was that Neil Sedaka? Shit, I forget.

Ski season summary

 It's a beautiful Wednesday and the ski season is over for all of us now so I figured I would look back on the year.
  I had a thoroughly enjoyable year skiing this year, probably the most fun I have had skiing in many years. I even managed to get out on the snowboard 3 times out of the roughly 25 times at the hill. It would have been great to board one day in Colorado but I couldn't fit it in my bag along with the skis. Oh well, you can't have everything.
  Thursday was my ski day of choice this year because the crowds were small and it seems to be the lucky day for good visibility on the hill. Lori came up Thursdays as well and Cam made it up for some of them (he's management now so there are fewer play days). We would ski until around 11:15 and then head to Jozo's for lunch which usually included the onion rings. Best onion rings I have ever had.                                         
  I don't think I had any spectacular crashes this year but I did go through the windshield on Starters Gate one day. I slid down on my chest for a ways before managing to stop, looked around and happily notice that no one saw or heard it which raises the age old question...If Gary crashes on the hill and no one sees or hears it and his subsequent cursing goes undetected, did it really happen? The answer is of course, it wouldn't be a real ski day if I wasn't grooming some hill somewhere. I tend to ski the way I mountain bike which is on the verge of disaster at all times. You only live once. And besides on a really cold day somebody has to provide the comic relief .
  Speaking of comic relief Lori and I had what might have been the best laugh of the year on O-Hill (or whatever it's called now) about a month ago. We were both sporting an illegal smile (thank you John Prine) and heading up on the chair when we noticed a portly oversized chubby obese fat fucker who had crashed and was now attempting to walk about 25 feet up the hill to retrieve one of his skis. It looked like that was the most exercise he had had in several years. He finally made it to the ski, turned around and after a step or two began skiing down the hill in his boots. By the time he stopped himself he had gone past the other ski and now had to turn uphill again and struggle some more. The chair had stopped so Lori and I had birds eye view of  his efforts and due to the illegal smile we were probably more amused that we would normally have been. He finally made it back to the ski, bent over to try to get them back on and started sliding backwards down the hill in the shape of a tripod. He must have waxed his ski boots.Well this was just more than we could take and we broke into a raucous illegal laugh. The people beside us had no idea what was going on and thankfully due to darkened ski goggles they would never guess. The chair finally started to move again causing me to yell at them to "STOP THE CHAIR" for the first time in my life. Moments like these are precious. Sadly the chair kept on going and we didn't get to see him ski down the hill. I know we shouldn't have been laughing but sometimes you just can't help yourself and I know one thing for sure, I hope I see him on O-Hill again next year while I am wearing an illegal smile.

Back to work and debate.

    Today will be my second day back at work after a fun and laughter filled vacation. Ski and biking vacations are the best as far as I am concerned. I do like going to an island occasionally to lie in the sun but that gets boring real fast. The only drag about this years ski vacation is that my knees are sore from either the bump runs or from walking up the damn stairs to the loft twice as many times as necessary due to a faulty memory. It seems the only thing I get better at with age is forgetting.
  Last night I remembered to watch the debate and although I don't think there was any clear winner I believe Harper presented his points the best although I am biased because I will be voting conservative in the election this year. I was also hoping that Harper would take 6 steps to his left and bop that traitorous bastard Duceppe right in the face to shut him up. What a slimy little prick. Only in Canada could someone who is devoted to breaking up the country take part in an election debate on policy to improve the country. On top of that the slimy little prick and his bloc of traitors have no qualms about picking up a pay cheque from the country they claim doesn't treat them properly (or something, their real complaints are hard to pin down). Hypocrites to the max. I personally think the rest of Canada should have a referendum to vote the French separatists out, give them their own section of Quebec and then see how they survive without the overly generous transfer payments they have been getting for decades. Canada is the greatest country in the world and will be even greater if we get rid of the French assholes who are so insecure about their own culture that they force it on the non-French through provincial government legislation. In Quebec it's OK to speak English as long as you whisper it in back alleys.  And furthermore.................I forgot what I was going to say.