Yesterday I took Jen to this fun place in Gatineau Park (Quebec) and we rode for a few hours in the afternoon. It was my first time there, and I didn’t have a plan for what trails to ride; so that could’ve been a bit smoother. There seems to be a lot to ride, so I’ll have to plan better next time.
Jen was taking the Fiend out for her first spin, and it was a bit of an adventure. In a pretty short amount of time she had figured out the shifting and was getting the hang of feathering the brakes; which was important ’cause they have enough power to send the heaviest rider over the bars if the front were mashed. Toward the end of the ride the front shifting pod beame a problem for her; and I didn’t know until the ride was over. I had broken the pod months ago, but the shell held together and kept line tension so the shiting still worked. I have to take care of that asap now, the pod is pretty busted up now that it’s been packed and unpacked in the boot of my hatchback.
So, back to the riding! I had meant to stay on the fun/rolling xc trails, but that plan didn’t work out. As we made our final fire road climb we pasted two younger guys on well built bikes designed for play; I had no idea where they came from. Five minutes later, I knew. We had come across a shared road between the downhill area called ’skyline’ and the xc area at Camp Fortune.
The solution was to turn around; and we popped on the first trail head we found. It took us to a split of two double black diamonds and a single black diamond called ‘Evergreen’. I figured “singles are easy, Jen can do this no problem” thinking it’d be groomed like the trails at Blue Mountain. Well holy fuck was I wrong. It turned out to be a closed / abandoned trail of insanity! I couldn’t ride the majority of the trail without knowing my health and life insurance were in order. We were scaling rock faces via large rock gardens without pathes to go on; walking the edge of 20ft+ cliffs and at some points stopping to enjoy the amazing scenary.
When we eventually got to the “bottom” we discovered our trail merged with a properly groomed trail which then merged with more when we exited the trees. During this section, Jen did awesome. She’s got a bit more time to put in the cockpit before she’s handling the bike like a pro, but I think she’s got a lot of potential and can probably ride downhill next season or the falling; depending how much we go riding.
We ended up 3km from the car when we had found the road. The ride back to the car was pretty relaxing.
“I love you”
We said it tonight and it felt good. I’m glad.
The title might not be true; I’m not really sure because I can’t get a copy thanks to HP’s awesome support.
I have an idea HP, support the target operating system of the hardware you sell people; which has been around for a couple of years now. Really, that simple.
I’ve been waiting days to tell someone at HP how pissed I am that my laptop which supports 8gb of ram doesn’t have full support in a 64bit operating system. How that happens is beyond me, since you can’t address more than 3gb of ram in a 32bit os (sure, there’s that extra floating memory for devices/kernel .. but try to get an app to use it!).
I would’ve bought a different brand had I known. A complete fail of basic support is pathetic.
I didn’t do water changes for a few weeks after Jen went on vacation to Nova Scotia. The rapid pace of making water prior to her departure had really turned me off working on the reef, so I just let things slide so the skimmer could break in again. It’s going great; the skimmer that is. There’s now an issue of a hair algae outbreak that’s crept onto the rock.
The solution is more water changes. Yay!
I shouldn’t complain, it’s exceptionally easy and not even time consuming to make the water; I’m just about ready to sit back and relax while looking at my awesome attempt at playing God. It’s taking longer than I had hoped.
Mini rant.
What happened to skate shoes designed for .. skating? It seems they’re all flimsy canvas style shoes trying really hard to be more offensive to your eyes than the pair beside em. I must’ve missed the season where quality shoes with impact resistant foam were considered a waste of time.
I destroy things pretty well. Shoes, bikes, anything. If there’s a design flaw, I’ll find it quickly. Canvas shoes are no good for people like me. I just replaced my pair of Circas with a pair of Etnies featuring their sti-foam, which I hadn’t seen in almost a year (in a shop).
I fear the next time I need skate shoes.
I finally got to see the Dark Knight last night at a Silvercity with a couple IMAX screens with Jen. I’ve had a pretty good cam of the movie sitting on my htpc for about 2 weeks now, so not watching it has been an exercise in self control. I’m very glad I waited.
The movie started with a hilarious laser light show / digital projector demo for IMAX. It was so cheesy we were crying from laughing at it. I think we were the only ones.
I believe we were watching a 1080p source, but it could’ve easily been 720p. At one point someone in the projector room turned on the the digital projector and overlaid it on the movie, showing a res of 1280×960. Anyways, enough with the nerd factor.
This is an awesome movie for HD viewing. The wide city pans, the shallow dof on the actors during intense dialogue; it had everything you’d want in a stunning movie including great action sequences and things you just didn’t expect.
I’ll be buying this movie when it comes out.
If all theatre experiences were this good, I’d probably visit them more than once a year (if that). It was almost as good as watching a 1080p movie on my projector.
Camping this weekend was awesome. We couldn’t get a fire going the first night and burnt a hole in the tent with a propane lantern while hot boxing it, and then forgot our cooler outside so a bear visited us around 4am. Then we broke the zipper after it got stuck; and slept in the car.
The next day was much better. I cooked us a good breakfast and then we went canoeing. On the way back to the camp site (with the current) we discovered it was very easy to be spun by the rocks/current. Fun slash hard!
I lost my water bottle with an explodingdog sticker on it, and then found it an hour later. Awesome.
We noticed Halloween decorations when we arrived, and then we found the annoying french kids were going around getting candy. We had found a community camp ground… with french kids. It wasn’t the nightmare you might expect, because we had the most private ‘rustic’ site. We were happy.
Uh, my stomach really wasn’t happy for all of Saturday. Constant pain/nausea. I’m not sure why, but I’m guessing the mix of eating only breakfast bars on Friday and drinking a few talls cans on an empty stomach had something to do with it. Fail; however I tried to not be a pussy and I don’t think I bugged Jen with complaints.
That night we had a great fire. Win! Jen tackled the vodka while I drank water. Stupid stomach.
This morning the people in the site beside us left a fire burning as they pulled away at like 8am. Weird and irresponsible. I put out their fire and then we packed up.
Jen and I are finally getting to go camping. We reserved a ‘rustic’ lot at a camp ground in Quebec, about an hour from Ottawa. Tonight we’re getting our food and a couple of cooking items, and then we’re off Friday night after work. I’m excited.
I’ve also upgraded the ram in my laptop today to 4gb, because 8gb is too costly right now. This means an OS reinstall, woohoo! Sigh. Next week I guess, shrug. I’m doing this now since Adobe will be releasing a 64bit version of Photoshop with CS4.
SMORHAY, Walter - In loving memory of Walter Smorhay 79 years, who passed away Friday, August 8th, 2008 at the Sudbury Regional Hospital-Memorial Site. Beloved husband of Doreen (Hunter) Smorhay of Lively. Loving father of Gregory (wife Kathy) of Lively, Deborah of Calgary, Wendy (husband Ed Seguin) of Sarnia and Sandra (husband Ken Hawrellyk) of Deep River. Cherished grandfather of Marc, Jessica, Bryan, Kyla, Jason, Erin, Kristen, Heather, Joanna and great grandchildren Meredith and Abigail. Predeceased by his parents Frank and Mary and his siblings Paul and Amelia. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he married Doreen in Espanola in 1951. Walter was a miner at INCO for 38 years, retiring in 1986. He owned and operated Penage Golf Course for 38 years. Walter was a member of St. Pius X Church and the Lively Senior Citizens. He and Doreen enjoyed many winters in Florida. He will be lovingly remembered as a hard working, friendly man who was always ready for a visit, or with some good advice. Resting at the LOUGHEED FUNERAL HOME, 252 Regent St. at Hazel St. Funeral Mass in St. Pius X Church, Lively, Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 10 am. Cremation at the Parklawn Crematorium. Prayers 4:30 pm. Monday.
I got my awesome Mazda3 Sport last night and I love it! I wish I didn’t have to be taking a day off of work to drive half the day, but Gramps is in the hospital and I gotta get there. I’m not sure how long he has left to live, so this might be the last time I see him.
Update
He passed away this morning. I found out en route and turned around since I can’t do anything until the funeral.
