A Golden Day

In 1972 (38 years ago!) I was sitting in Mrs. Kwong's accounting class listening over the intercom system of Churchill High to a game being played in Moscow. When Paul Henderson scored the classroom and much of Canada erupted. Sunday we were sitting around the living room in our Team Canada garb watching as Sid the Kid scored. What a perfect end to a storybook Olympics. No we didn't own the podium but 3rd overall and first in gold is an amazing accomplishment for a country with our population. 

The round robin portion of Northwood playoffs ended and the championship will see the 3rd and 4th place teams in the regular season face off next week. We had a 3 way tie for second and had to use a calculator to determine the team moving on to the final.  

The Weeeeek

Playoff time in Tbay. My weeeeek (yes it was that long) has been spent emailing the LMHL exec regarding a AA goalie in Vancouver for the Olympics. Rules say no pick ups, coach says he didn't know. It finally came down to having an online motion, seconder, comments and now a vote as to whether to allow a pickup. The coach admitted he had the handbook and I spoke to the father of the goalie that might be the pickup who said the team knew the kids was to be missing before they even drafted him.

Speaking of Olympics, what a week for the Canucks. Things have sure turned a 180 as we picked up golds in a some unexpected events, bobsledding? The womens hockey team did a great job last night and the mens team finally cashed in on some of the chances they were getting. If you didn't have a tear in the eye when the figure skater who lost her mom earlier in the week won bronze, you must be from Iceland.

For my world flight I stepped up to a bit quicker ride, the Epic Dynasty, a single engine turboprop with loads of electronic gadgets. So far I've made one hop from Victoria to Portland Oregon, follow along at the Epic Journey blog.

Gold Overshadowed

Just wonderful, our hockey team struggles and we win gold in ice dancing? Those two kids were awesome but will the country accept anything less than a medal for men's hockey? Poor Stevie Y is going to take a lot of second guess based abuse for his picks. So far the ones that were questioned like Drew Doughty have played very well. Some of the old shoe-ins, like Chris Pronger, have played sub-par at best. Just not enough speed in those legs anymore.


My Flight Sim-Cross Canada trip is done. I landed a Witman Tailwind in Victoria BC yesterday afternoon. I have to recount all of the stops but managed the entire trip which started in mid-September with one landing that was in snow short of the runway but 0 crashes. Along the way I used the most realistic settings, radio navigation rather than gps, and actual weather conditions. Next up? Around the world with landings in as many countries as have airports. I'm back to the base scenery since the great pc crash of Jan2010 but the net-based satellite feed is too slow to go around the world anyway.


I got to inform the 110 teams of Lakehead Minor yesterday that there are no affiliations (call ups) in the playoffs. It's a rule that has been on the books for at least 10 years. What about my goalie who is away at the Olympics? We only have one goalie, what if he gets sick? Sorry boys that's why you pick 2 goalies. Consideration is only given to teams with a season ending injury for the netminder and only if pre-approved. My inbox got full in a big hurry.

Ask Me Again.. Why Do You Do It?

It was only 8 1/2 km but getting back on a bike for the first time in weeks felt so good. I was determined to ride over to the rink today. I've been itching to try out Molly (of the new wheels) but with slick tires she was an iffy choice. I went into the basement and couldn't decide. Molly finally won. I walked out the ice covered back lane and got on once I reached dry pavement. Down Ogden to Simpson and then around down town for a bit. The low gearing makes it pretty tough to get moving but provides lots of speed. Everything felt the same. No not the same as my last ride, I mean my hands hurt, my butt hurt and my legs hurt. But I was smiling all the way.

Then I got to the rink. Disallowed goals, goals that should have been disallowed. Coaches that haven't lost since early December whining about refs. Parents abusing volunteers. Kids supposed to be shaking hands throwing punches. Two weeks to go. Then I'm going to hop on that bike and never look back. At least til next fall. And the answer to why do I do it. Right now I can't answer that because I'm asking the same question.

And On It Goes

My latest attempt at a cartoon, It Must Be Zamboni Dust. 


Nothing much new to say. Northwood is into playoffs and along with that goes the usual change in attitude for some. We've had issues with one goalie being too young all season and it came to a head, he just didn't want to play anymore so we asked for help from other teams and they refused. Had to put my foot down after he started crying when asked to go back into the net for the playoffs. Everyone says they understand. I'm just calling him injured.

Work hasn't changed much, slower if that's possible. It almost feels strange to go in anymore. Can't get used to that, not ready to retire mentally or financially. I can honestly say I spend more time with hockey commitments now than I do at my paying job.

I spent an hour wrestling with Molly's new front wheel and fork this afternoon. They didn't want to go together. After carefully filing the fork for a bit I tried my dremel-clone and then just put a 3.8 drill bit into my electric drill and used the edge to hone out the fork so the axle would fit in. I'm anxious to get out. As soon as my back is ready it's time to hit the road.

I finally got to Vancouver on my cross Canada flight. Haven't had much free time for flying lately. One more hop to Victoria and that project will be done. I have learned to use the radios for navigation and don't even turn on the gps very often.

Time to check out some olympics. If you haven't heard Tigers press conference, he's sorry. I felt especially bad for his mother when they showed her sitting in the front row. He should do something special if and when he returns to playing, like donate his winnings, all of them.

Motivation

While Sal covered for me at the rink, I snuck out to catch a one-time screening of "Race Across the Sky", the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. It was an awesome hour and a half. Lance was entered for the second time. The first time around he was just off the couch, in 2009 he was 3 weeks from finishing 3rd in the TdFrance and he destroyed the field and the course record. There were lots of stories of the 1400 riders who started but the concentration was on Armstrong and 6 time winner Dave Wiens. Never heard anything about Fat Cyclist Elden Nelson who has riden for many years but had a bad crash in '09. Hopefully this will provide some much needed motivation to get my butt off the couch.

Tweet Tweet

I've been following Lance Armstrong's twitter posts for a while now. Today I found an extension for Chrome which allows tweeting right from the browser. Blog post take some time to put together but tweets are just quick single lines thoughts. Theres a new link above to my twitter page, tweets.

Not Much Is New

Yes I know I haven't been posting much lately. Been in the doldrums for a bit but starting to come out of it I think. I'm working every day this week and that has at least got me moving, walking to and from when possible. The sun is actually just getting ready to peek over the horizon as I make my way in so spring and biking can't be too far off. With all the ice on the roads and no studded tires I just don't want to risk it, heck even walking is treacherous.

Hockey was going well until an incident a week ago soured things a bit. An assistant coach and his former father-in-law got into a heated discussion in the dressing room with all the wide-eyed kids present. He had me convinced he was totally innocent for a while but upon further review, he was as much at fault. They both got a warning that they would be banned if anything else came up. The coach then sent an email about the 'safety' of the dressing rooms with so many people in them. He wanted to limit the people in the room to just one per player. My email got filtered and I never saw it until another coach let me read it on his Blackberry. Every other coach told him there was no way they would agree so I didn't even have to respond. He is out as far as I'm concerned.

Took Eyowen to the Gardens for a makeup game Thursday. Pretty cool on the way home but minimal traffic and ice. Just didn't feel like walking anymore that day.

Saw a funny one while timekeeping on Friday. Penalty shot. Midget player pushed the puck about 2 feet from the centre ice spot and then skates past it. Over, done. No you can't circle around and start over.

My flight across Canada will wrap up some time this weekend with a final landing, fingers crossed, in Victoria BC.

Addictive Music

This is a site I found the other day that lets you create some interesting music. 8 instruments with any combination of 256 notes. I've been playing with it a bit and if you click on the > you can hear one of my creations. Now if I could just play an instrument I'd have a backup band.