Sandy also exercised, using a fitness club for the first time ever. After sorting out her membership, which they'd somehow lost, she talked to the trainer and he got her going on the equipment. From the sounds of things she used a lot of different machines, upper and lower body. Her neck was hurting last night so I hope that she didn't overdo it. She doesn't want to exacerbate her C5/C6 problem. As of last night she was planning on going back today ... we'll see.
Abby had a boring day with nothing to do. I'll remedy that today, at least taking her for a walk, perhaps a boat ride. Perhaps we could go boating in the afternoon after Sandy gets back from the fitness club.
It was late afternoon when I got back from the bike ride and I was thoroughly chilled. While on a warmer day I might have also gone for a spin on the Harley, not yesterday. I don't think it got out of the 50's. Today, however, it is supposed to get up to 70F. I'll be able to pick my time and go for a Harley ride, since I'm not cycling. Tomorrow I'll be doing a 200k, perhaps for the first time going south for said ride, since the last time I looked the winds were going to be coming from that direction.
For the first time since we came back, OceanS Seafood had tuna. The cold weather and cold water have definitely affected the variety of fresh fish in stock. We are finally seeing that change, with Red Snapper for dinner on Tuesday and Yellowfin Tuna last night.
I got my chuckle of the day this morning when reading Wayne's blog. He gave such a glowing account of my blog that I wondered if he was following the wrong link. I went to the comments section to say that his description sounded better than my blog but found that one of his readers had already provided a review. I have to share that here ... I found it quite funny ...
With all due respect to your friend Dave, Marcel Proust wrote about the minutiae of every day life, a very long time ago. Even up to today, reading his book is considered cruel punishment.
I clicked onto Dave's site only to discover that reading Proust was fun compared to reading Dave. You blog is more interesting. You have a voice and perhaps you are unaware that there is a powerful personal narrative hiding in your prose.
Do I feel like an author getting a bad review in the New York Times ? No. I did so much writing -- proposals and reports -- during my working career as author and editor that I lost any pride of authorship. That's not to say that I don't try and maintain a reasonable grammatical style, but this blog is mostly about me and for me.
This did make me think again about why I blog. My blog is now up to 954 entries, with the first blog having been written just about three years ago. I started the blog originally as I trained for my bike ride across the country. I recorded what I was doing, what I was eating and drinking, and what was going on around me. I continued the blog while on the ride, describing each of our 32 days on the road as we covered just shy of 3500 miles. I continued the blog after the ride for family and friends who wanted to keep track of us. It's somewhat of a habit now ... I use it myself at times to double check when certain things happened in our lives.
My blog is a stilted, one-sided conversation at best. It's not prose except in a generic sense. It will never be a best-seller :). It's more like an extended Twitter than focused commentary.
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While on our trip west, after the problems with using the Amex card, I stopped using it while in Canada. I was annoyed at their security system, at their customer service and at the 3% that they charge for foreign transactions. I used my Toronto Dominion Visa exclusively. Yesterday I called the 800 number on the back of the Amex card to enquire about getting a Canadian card. The person said that their system was down but did get the 800 number for me. She asked me to call back later to get a replacement card for my well worn, well traveled piece of plastic.
I called the Canadian number and got a very cheerful person -- Patrick -- whose system was also down -- obviously not a coincidence. I thought back to my working days and figured that someone, or some team, was not having a good day. Anyway, I asked him what was involved in getting a Canadian card ... expressed my annoyance in an equally cheerful way when he said that I'd have to do an application ... he empathized and offered to go through the process with me ... but later of course, since his system was down. I think that I'll either simply forget about it and use the Visa or perhaps do it online. You'd think that since I've had my account since 1984 I wouldn't have to go through this.
On a completely separate note, Jeffrey has reconnected with Nathan, his growing-up friend from Glenburnie Road in Mississauga. Nathan practically lived with us, came on some vacations with us, was a part of our family. With our move to the U.S. they stayed in touch for a while and in fact a number of those vacations took place after our move. Towards the end of high-school they grew apart.
Facebook is useful for something ... they have now reconnected. Nathan lives in Montreal with his girlfriend and their daughter. We have exchanged emails with him as well. Some of the gaps have been filled in. It will be interesting to see if they continue the bond as adults. It's easier now, with Facebook and email and texting, than ever before. Nathan wasn't really a computer user before and once his Mom and Dad split, he didn't have regular access.
I finally got around to loading up the pictures from our trip. They are posted under "Recent" on my website. As usual I need to do some culling; I took tons of pictures from the slopes of Revelstoke. It's about time for me to split off the 2009 pictures from Recent into their own folder and update the website. ... later ...
Some pictures, in no particular order -- David, Kim and Meagan with the Harley; Harley lounge pants ... and antlers ?; Kylie, Lauren and Abby - Christmas in Oakville; Sandy and Kim in the chalet. There's a lot more under recent but you'll have to scroll through and bypass most of the Revelstoke pictures, unless you have lots of time !
Today ... well, I already covered today so don't need to re-hash.
Onward ...
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