Category Archives: Personal

I received a Wii Fit for Christmas… and although my sister and I started off using it regularly…. it kind of got pushed off to the side of the living room and forgotten.

A few weeks ago, EA Sports released a new game called “Active”. So as part of trying it out… I booted up the Fit again this morning. And… well… its been awhile…

…but on the up side, todays use brought it up to 10 hours of activity. I guess it had been sitting around 9.5 hours for the last 4 months 🙂

BJ posted a video on YouTube showing how we eventually got the bike out of the mud:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGJX0SrbUI&fmt=18

I just got back from the Bethany ’09 ride, and while it wasn’t an overwhelming success for me personally, I did experience some new things for the first time, and make some new friends! Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Overall it sounds like everyone who attended went home happy, and in one piece!

BJ invited me to share space on his trailer with him and his friend Robin. Saves a 90min drive from the GTA! We arrived just before 8am, and were one of the first to sign-in and get our eggs:

As everyone else showed up it gave us a chance to oogle all the other bikes: “Oooh – where did you buy that from?!?”… waiting for the 9:00am start time: lots of other first-time club riders!

Then I did the first dumb thing of the day. Although this morning the bike started on the 2nd kick to ride it to BJ’s… and it lit right up after taking it off the trailer at the club… I was the guy that flooded it when we really were supposed to start. Doh!

Because I had my own GPS, I told everyone to head out and I would catch up. Here I am letting the bike sit for a few minutes, before trying to kick-start it again. It was easier to leave the kickstand on the cement so it didn’t sink into the gravel with all the kicking…

Success! Here the bike idles as I run around to put all my gear back on…

Then my second “less than optimal” decision of the day. Ecstatic that I was mobile… my head turned to thoughts of catching up… and the beginning of the route was easy sand road so maybe I wasn’t really concentrating on my lines. Which lead to me enthusiastically trying to throttle through the first “tiny mudhole” I came across.

As some of the other riders no doubt heard at lunch… I only made it about half way and spun to a stop. At this point the bike wasn’t really buried: the frame was clear of the mud. First time I’ve gotten stuck on a bike: but should be easy to get out, right?

Of course now that I was sitting at a standstill… I look over about 4 feet to my right and saw the mud-free rut I should have taken. Still convinced this was a minor setback, I started to slowly turn the bike around: ahead of me was a larger mud pit, and it was slightly uphill as well, so forward didn’t seem like a good idea.

Over the next 2 hours, this is as far as I got:

The Police drove by on their quads about 10 minutes after I got stuck. Initial impressions weren’t good: as I’m standing in knee-high mud, wrestling with a stationary bike so wedged in that it stood on its own: the nearest officers first words were “Are you allowed to be here?”

His partner walked around to see my blue plate, and they became considerably more friendly. Then came bad decision #3: when they asked if I needed help… because I had the bike about 1/3rd turned around I said “No, I’ll be fine”. So the went on their way… to warm many more riders to stay out of Raglan pits. I really thought I would get out of this, and it would be a funny story at lunch.

About 90 minutes pass, with me tugging and spinning the tire and digging and pulling on the front wheel, and I could move it no further. And I had only seen 2 more dirtbikes come by during that time. I had given up any hope of trying to keep my gloves or bike clean: digging the mud with my hands and the half-circle of plywood you can see in the picture.

So when the cops swung by a second time (“You’re still here?”) I asked if they could try to winch me out, and they were extremely helpful and friendly. But, because all we had on hand was an old towstrap found in the mud (obviously I wasn’t the first one to get stuck here).. which broke in about 2 seconds the best I could do was strip the tools/keys/GPS from the bike and have them take me back to the landing.

Oh yeah, when they dropped me off, they said they had to report that they had helped me… and oh by the way can we see your papers? Fair enough!

I called my sister, who Googled the phone number of the restaurant we were supposed to meet at for lunch, and I scratched it into the driveway with a stick (probably still there: had no pen and paper). Then I called ahead and left a message:

“Hello, Heaven on Seven!”

“Yeah, hi, uh… is there a big bunch of dirty bikers there?”

“No, but I’m expecting them, what can I do for you?”

“Tell one of them that the guy who flooded at the beginning is all right, don’t expect him, but he got stuck and is back at the starting point. Here’s my number..”

“Will do!”

Shortly thereafter Dave called and got the scoop, and let me know I won a prize for what happened to me. I didn’t ask what the name of that particular contest was: “Shortest distance travelled?” (he gave me a TimCard at the end, thanks Dave!)

So all I can do now is wait: take off all the gear and lay on the grass (until it started to rain)…

While the rest of the team was having lunch, I was dining on snack bars + CamelBak!

Soon enough BJ and Robin (and another guy whos name I forgot, sorry, really sorry, since you drove us half way in to my bike in your truck)…and we hatched a plan to get me out. Walk in with a few towstraps, a couple that were the ratchet-type, and pull me out

It was a bit of a hike:

Hopefully BJ posts some of his pics or video… because the towstrap idea was hopeless… but although I hadn’t seen almost anyone else all day… shortly after we arrive a large group of about 10 quads/bikes came buy and offered to help. We had winched my bike forward about a foot and were having a think about what to do next when an even larger quad rolled in, a large green Kawasaki and a rider that knew how to really drive it!

Long story short, we ended up winching the bike out: the quad was strong enough it pulled my bike out of the mud, backwards, and up about a 3 foot high 45degree incline! About 20 minutes later we were back at the start point and all loaded up. Special thanks to everyone who helped me and stayed around until I was out… with very very special thanks to BJ and Robin for walking in the road to get me (and back out again). They just met me today, and treated me like a friend!

A little over an hour later we were back at BJs house… which was only about a 15min ride away from my place. So I sit here now typing up my story, thoroughly exhausted, but no worse for wear.

I take responsability for everything that happened: it was my lack of experience and poor judgement that got me into this mess, and a bunch of OFTR members and the kindness of strangers that got me out…

…so I consider it my duty to try the NTR ride in two weeks and show the world I’m a little older and wiser! I had a great time today, despite what the pictures may show! Anyone got room on their trailer? 🙂

Between the digital cameras, GPS, several remotes, electric toothbrushes, R/C toys, flashlights and other assorted electronics, we use a lot of rechargeable batteries, especially AAs. Last fall I needed a few more… so I bought 8 “BTY” brand AAs from Ebay. I didn’t look for any reviews… figuring the were so cheap they’d be “good enough” (how bad could they be, right?). For about $1.00 per battery, I wasn’t expecting much.

But I got even less than I bargained for.

The ratings on the batteries was “2500” mah… but they never seemed to last very long. It didn’t make much of a difference until I got a Wii Fit for Christmas… then charging the batteries every 2 days with light use got to be a bit much. So I did some poking around, found a couple reviews… which said the BTY batteries were crap. Surprise! 🙂

Powerex got good reviews, and the price was right (although about 4x the price of the BTY’s). I also picked up a good charger: one that can cycle NiCD/NiMH AA/AAAs and tell you their true capacity.

Results? The new Powerex 2700’s almost held their rated capacity (2600-ish mah). The BTY 2500’s I tested averaged averaged around 470 mah (less than 20% their printed capacity!). Although Powerex was about 4x the price of the Ebay specials, they delivered over 5x the charge.

The Wii controllers, Wii Fit, and 2 GameCube Wavebird controllers use 12 AA’s: so I need to buy even more: you can bet I’ll be more carefull with Ebay purchases from now on 🙂

Just before leaving for Christmas vacation we had one of our first good snowfalls. I work on the 18th floor of our office building, and in the summer had taken a picture out my window to send to a friend in the US. When the snow came I tried to frame the same shot:

The smoke you see in the summer pic was from a car that had caught fire on a highway in the distance. Just thought I’d throw up these pics to show my friends in Kenora that it does snow in Toronto too! 🙂

Recently the 1-year special DSL price from Acanac expired on my second phone line. Rather than renew at a higher rate, I decided to move the line to TekSavvy instead… since I already had the primary line with them. The price was about the same, but TekSavvy offered something I wanted to try: “MLPPP” connections: the ability to bond 2 DSL lines into a single connection, with a single IP address. The fact that MLPPP also circumvents Bells DSL throttling didn’t hurt either.

I ordered a second dry-loop connection from TekSavvy, and had them migrate my Acanac line over. Although I didn’t really need to, I got a second SpeedTouch 516 DSL modem to match my first: one less thing to worry about when troubleshooting:

Next I needed something to bond those 2 DSL lines into a single MLPPP connection. Although I was already using a Linksys WRT54G, I found another use for it over Christmas, and decided to buy an Asus WL-500gP v2 instead. It had aftermarket firmware, good reviews, and speedy hardware.

Speaking of firmware: the most important piece of the puzzle came from the Tomato/MLPPP project. They specifically tailor the normal Tomato firmware to be MLPPP-capable, and automate connecting and maintaining multiple links to your ISP. I installed an early release of “v3alpha4 ND”, punched in my TekSavvy DSL credentials, and both links went up automatically! Success!

I had some issues with my second Bell line (it was running at 3000/800 instead of 5000/800) but that seems to be fixed now. I have a bit more testing to do after Christmas (like fiddling with MTU settings)… but here’s a speedtest of the untweaked MLPPP connection using stock Tomato/MLPPP settings:

Just about double what I was getting with a single connection, and maybe a bit more with tuning. Special thanks to all the MLPPP-topic posters on the DSLReports TekSavvy forum for convincing me that things would work out.

This year I took my first real vacation in a long time: a 2 week all-inclusive trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, at the Bahia Principe Resort. I went with 2 friends from work: Craig Wyllie and Joe D’Cruz.

Resort

I was used to swimming in the cold lakes around Kenora on my summer vacation: so the resort was a real surprise! Beautiful beach, grounds and pool areas, and other than a couple small showers it was warm and sunny almost the entire time we were there!

A typical day? Wake up and have breakfast, then find some chairs in either the beach or pool areas, stake our claim… then lay out in the sun, drinking rum+coke, or go swimming, or read to pass the time…

(we took _way_ too many books)

…until it was lunch, when we’d usually eat at one of the restaurants along the beach…

…then some extreme lounging in the afternoons…

…until it started to get dark: then we’d move back to the main reception area, for more drinking…

…until it was time for dinner…

…then a show (see Joe and Craig on stage?)…

…the on to the Karaoke bar, disco, or bed… depending on what else we did that day or how tired we were. We went on a few excursions and did some on-site stuff: like some mini-golf on a crappy course (where we were almost rained out).

Excursion 1 – Outback Safari

Craig and I took a tour in the back of a large truck to see the local area. Before we even left the parking lot everyone was given their choice of beer, rum+coke or rum+sprite: a great start to the day… just after breakfast 🙂

We spend about half the day roaming around the Punta Cana area: visiting small towns and back roads where we saw many local people (lots of kids!) and their houses, and stopped at places that made vanilla, chocolate powder, coconut extracts and other things:

We had a full truck, but everyone got along fine with a couple drinks in them… and the guide was constantly telling jokes and local stories between destinations…

…one of the highlights of the trip was watching the guide hang off the last step of the truck as we were doing highway speeds…. bartending out of cooler… trying to keep at least one arm over the chain you see in front of him in case a pothole threatened to toss him off…

We visited a few places, like a home where we watched the owner process coconuts for their milk. And no trip would be complete without a chance to buy something at every single stop 🙂

Finally, we finished the trip at a local beach where we were given a chance to swim around for awhile, and try some boogie-boarding (which I wasn’t very good at, but it was still fun!)

Excursion 2 – Boat Tour

All three of us went on this one. First, a short bus ride down the coast to where we could board. It was a double-decker and it took awhile to get everyone on as they would only let a few people on the dock at a time. Everyone had to wear lifejackets, at least at first. Here’s the boat and couple of shots of the beach each way while waiting…

And here we are after getting our snorkeling gear and out on the water:

We stayed close to shore where there were lots of other boats and tourboats (and you could see the other resorts) until we reached our first destination: the floating contained areas where we could see the stingrays and sharks. Unfortunately I don’t have any of those underwater photos developed yet:

Between stops they kept us entertained with music, dancing, and other things to keep our interest:

Next was the snorkeling stop: everyone in the water! 🙂

Finally, we made our way back home, with an open bar and more music and dancing. Also, a Ultralight had been buzzing around a few times, and when he came over the boat I managed to get a couple pics:

Excursion 3 – Quads

This one I did alone. It took some of the back roads around Punta Cana to visit a ranch, see some scenery, an underground water-filled cave system, and a beach. Give everyone an quick overview of how to ride, put on some useless goofy helmets (seriously: a mountain-bike helmet would have provided more protection)…and we’re off!

Then on to a nearby ranch to look at empty green fields, near-dead horses, and our first chance to buy more souvenirs (what a surprise! 🙂 ):

Then put back on the goofy helmet, drive out past the incoming group of dunebuggies (they looked fun!)… down some dirt roads… and finally to something interesting: the cave system!

We had a chance to swim in the water at the entrance to the cave, but nobody went for it (probably because it a bit dark and spooky)… but we did see a diver just entering the series of underwater passages:

…then down some more back roads… on to the highway (!!)… through some small towns…

…and to the beach Craig and I visited on the truck tour! 🙂

After a short stop where we could swim or wander around… it was back to the parking lot… the a bus back to the resort:

The quad tour wasn’t difficult: there wasn’t any challenging terrain: but I had great fun driving where I wanted to go… aiming for all the big washed-out puddles in the roads, doing half-donuts in the sand, and basically acting like a dumb tourist 🙂

I also got 99% of a PADI Open Water scuba certification. All I was missing was one last ocean dive (my fourth) and I would have been done. I had completed all pool sessions and written tests, but on the day of the last dive there was a transit strike that prevented many employees of the dive shop from coming to work… so the dive was cancelled. So I have to get one more dive here in Toronto to get certified: Grrrr 🙁

After 2 weeks I was ready to head home, but I really enjoyed the vacation. Others who have been on other all-inclusives have more to compare to (food, accommodations etc)… but I thought our resort was great! Can’t wait to try something like this again!

Today is my last day in Denver. About 9 hours from now I’ll be leaving work and heading to the airport for my flight home. The whole trip I’ve been looking at tourist magazines for the area showing all the wonderful things you can do in the snow here. One problem: no snow.

I just got out of bed and was greeted with this:

Hooray! It will probably will stop snowing soon, and it may all melt. But that’s not the point. Winter has arrived, just in time!

The cake is a lie anyways, right? 🙂

I was at Walmart for my weekly grocery trip… and the birthday cakes didn’t look all that tempting (or they were 2′ x 3′ in size, and I am but one man)… but the pumpkin pie looked tempting… especially paired with some whip cream!

I celebrated my 33rd year on this earth with pumpkin pie, some Comedy Central, a little StarCraft, and a can of “whipped topping” (it didn’t actually list milk as an ingredient, I checked). I think I’ll make this a tradition for every birthday divisible by 11! 🙂 Next week I’ll be back in Toronto and out of the hotel room…

Last week I was sent to Denver to spend just over a month helping a customer with a new project. I’ve been to Denver before… but never for more than a few days at a time… and this is my first “real weekend” in the area.

I drove around a bit on Saturday, and picked up some tourist info, but didn’t really do anything interesting. This morning I decided to go for a walk and get some fresh air. Just down the road from the hotel is a small undeveloped park area with a couple walking paths, so I decided to explore. The trail looked a bit boring…along the side of a hill covered in short grass… so I wandered down the hill to a little ravine where I could see a creek and many more trees:

I was following a small trail on a hill beside the edge of the creek, when I looked up and saw this guy. Not scared of at me at all, and walking on the same trail I was on. I think he was just waiting for me to get out of his way:

That first picture wasn’t zoomed at all… he was standing about 20 feet away, just sort of looking around… probably out finding something for breakfast. I walked up the hill and around him… giving him lots of space…. both of us occasionally eyeing the other up 🙂 I don’t remember if I’ve ever seen a Coyote before…

I didn’t see anything else with legs for the rest of my walk… except for what I think was a rabbit… but was moving way too fast to get a pic. Trees, water, and strange weeds and cacti:

Next weekend I’m going to see if I can go on a half-day quad ride up the mountains. Can’t wait!