Month: July 2009

Remember I said I had photos printed?  It was these:

july 24 2009
And by crafting I mean I hacked away the sides with an old Swiss Army knife.  These are both for gifts, I’m not one to have photos in my place, like none. 

I went with Casie Stewart and we had an excellent time stuffing our faces and cackling.  I love cotton candy, on the right is round 2.  I went through this phase* where I’d pick up a bag from 7-11 on the way home, eat half of it as I was falling asleep then finish in when I woke up.  We also got tattoos from this nice lady Deyanne.

july 23 2009

But I didn’t let mine dry enough so now on the inside of my suit jacket is half a unicorn. Click here to read Casie’s blog post about the party, see her giant eagle tattoo and watch her video of the Bollywood guy dancing because it’ll make you smile almost guaranteed; he really takes off at 0:13 and you can hear Casie yelling “oh ya!”, ha.

* by phase I mean a year

I was sitting here updating this blog when @photojunkie popped up in my gmail asking if I wanted to go for a ride, so off we went to Brampton, Georgetown (and some other places I forget) in his new Nissan Cube.  As in the car he won, the one mentioned in our episode. The car that has it’s own Twitter account, ha.

 
Such a great day, getting out of the city, we probably drove 160km, and isn’t the roof cool? Top right is Rannie teaching me my new move.

We chose Brampton because he’s on the hunt for an antique bench it’s good to do that where a lot of rich people live and get rid of perfectly good things.  Rannie really knew his way around and took me to The Cheltenham Badlands, look how neat it is:

july 22 2009

We thew ourselves down them, and although it’s not so evident in the photos it’s really steep, like steep enough we both had trouble stopping we picked up so much speed.  

‘Badlands’ is a geological term for soft rock filled with iron (hence the bright red), devoid of any vegetation and all hilly like that from overfarming in the 1930s.  This is one of the few areas in Ontario like this, and probably the best of all of them.  It’s an ‘Ontario Heritage Foundation’ site and under the care of the ‘Bruce Trail Association’.

Then Rannie did a panorama so I’m in two now.  See all of his panos (this is what won him the car) in a movie here.  It’s an excellent way to see Toronto; there’s 300 of them.

[And sincerely thank you to all those who wrote me lately, I am feeling much better and you really helped]

Okay SO!

– first a one-day exploration to see if I can explore a whole city in a day.  I’m choosing Hamilton since I’ve had a hankering to go there, as mentioned last month

– then, a 3-day trip up north to… I’ve not decided yet.  But this will be a great test… living on the road, how much I’ll have to pack, will I be able to bring my bike, blogging remotely, editing in my car and the hotel lobby, testing out CouchSurfing.com, how difficult will it be to eat reasonably healthy, what will my routine be, will finding internet be tough, how about testing out the Bell Turbo Stick*, how much can I cover on both my blog and in video in 3 days?  There’ll by more questions, that’s all I got right now.

– then a week-long trip, again up to Northern Ontario (figure I gotta take advantage of the good weather) to run a longer test

Until I go and actually try it all out, I’ll only know in theory and well, that rarely works out.

july 21 200

Meet @HeidiSwift, a fellow Wend Magazine Ambassador (and it should be noted a better one than I).  She’s a serious cyclist, loves cyclocross and writes and photographs for newspapers as well.  When I read two specific things in her bio I knew we’d get along great: she wears the same earrings everyday, and her choice of footwear, boots, “is the kind you can get work done in”.  

Late tonight a message came in from her with a link to this video and omg I was floored, look:

 

A tribute video, love it!  And ya you can match it… I’m the one who dabbles, you’re the one who kicks it serious fitness styles for reals.  Looking great lady, keep going with these!  And thanks, eh.july 21 2009