Brrrr!!!

Well - our respite from winter is apparently over! It is officially cold here again complete with 5 inches of snow and yes I have shoveled my driveway twice now! I guess our Albertan friends send us some of their cold temps - with windchill I think it must be -23 or so! So yeah - I'm ready for a warm getaway but apparently I'm stuck marking papers & preparing exams for our end of the semester in just a couple weeks. Brrr!!!

Night Riding Nov 22!

After some amazingly warm temps today - a record high of 12 degrees Celsius - it was obvious that I would have to do a little biking. Unfortunately - a busy afternoon and no one to ride with till after dark meant a night ride was all that could be. The temps were still around plus five but the forecast was for them to drop throughout the evening...we (yours truly and Pat) hit the trails (singletrack off of Black ski trail) and were in for a treat. It was a bit softer than the few previous rides but we still managed to get quite a few kms in over the next hour and a quarter. I once again tried my hand at videoing our adventures with a great little Pentax point & shoot allweather camera.

Sweet Bike...

DYN-O-MITE!!!

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And The Beat Goes On...

Post-disco 80's song and for whatever reason the song is in my head...grrr I suppose it could be worse but why in the world do such odd songs pop into my brain...to much radio growing up I suppose. Not the reason for my post - I'm just in the midst of yet another chaotic week of teaching, marking, leading, directing, and even counseling. And the beat goes on....

Personally, I am very much looking forward to change of pace! Christmas couldn't come sooner but the snow can wait. I have very much enjoyed our fall - one of the best following an also amazing summer. Probably one of the best riding seasons for mtn biking - these past few rides have been simply epic - cool, crisp, but super fast with the ground being semi-frozen!

Oh the 80's keeps popping in my head - things are going great - the futures so bright - i gotta wear shades...geez' i need something to get me outta here! Hmm - time for something completely the opposite - Nirvana's Lithium or Social Distortion's I Was Wrong...okay I'm ending this post with a cheers to the Pumpkins' Zero...wanna go for a ride? Okay I think I've been decontaminated from my 80's kick...

Hunting Season Continues....as does our Biking!!!

More excellent riding although we had to deck ourselves out with blaze orange to prevent hunters from targeting us! Opening season for rifles...maybe not so smart to go riding with the rednecks in the bush but hey! we have just as much right to be there as they - probably more so! Nice frozen ground - I'm wearing the blue jersey and Pat is in the red - I put a couple clips from the previous time out and Jason & Pat are wearing yellow...

Enjoy!

My Passion For Adventure Continues...

I've posted this before on this blog but it continues to inspire me daily and I thought why not share it again? I read Aron Ralston's book Between A Rock & A Hard Place a few years ago. It is a fascinating read into the mind of a fellow adventurer with the misfortune of becoming trapped in a slot canyon in outdoors mecca of Utah's canyonlands.

He ended up having to amputate his own arm to escape his six day entrapment beneath a shifted boulder. Ralston does not regret the choices he made in exploring that cabin and shares in the book that he is a better man for having gone through the experience. I think the story illustrates well the innate desire some of us have for adventure. Ralston quotes Jon Krakauer's book Into The Wild as being sort of a manifesto for his life:

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances & yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

This quote ties in well with my own lifestyle choices and perhaps explains my desire to mountain bike even during hunting season. Since my days as an adolescent I've been an adventure-seeker and it has resulted in a few mishaps & close-calls in my day but I have no regrets because I have lived a full life.

Still Riding!

This past week of warm weather did a number on the snow remaining in our beloved Sandilands! They had a good foot of snow last week but by today it was non-existent and so we took advantage of a plus one day and went for yet another ride! It was still cold but the great thing was the ground was completely frozen. I actually found that out after falling over while turning my bike around on the trail and being unable to unclip in time. Yeah the guys laughed and I definitely felt the solidness of the ground!

The Boyz Having Fun on the Roller-Coaster!

It was a little unnerving though with the occasional blast of hunters...last day of muzzle load and apparently the hunters were storming the forest in search of the elusive buck trophy. We hit a trail that unfortunately has been deteriorated to the point where it was almost unrideable. The quads tend to rut out the trail and the erosion of the ground into loose sand just takes away the fun but recent rains and below zero temps resulted in the ground being perfectly frozen making the unclimbable doable!

One of my attempts at climbing the "Hill"

So needless to say we were hooting and hollering as we climbed some amazing hills and sped through a section appropriately named the "roller-coaster." The cool thing about that section is that it is possible to make it down one hill and 3/4 of the way up the next purely on sheer momentum...and the g-forces are scary but addictive! All three of us had a few close calls but well worth the effort!

A Great Blurred Shot of One of my Timid Descents...

Oh and the shots were all taken with my point & shoot so not as nice as my digital SLR but with a little tweaking in Picasa they worked out alright. I also took some cool video footage of our attempts of climbing & descending. UPDATE: I removed the video clip i had here as I took the clips and added them over here if interested!

All in all great way to spend a Saturday!!! It also happened to be Remembrance Day and hearing the shots in the distance was a bit eerie...apparently there are only three Canadian veterans alive from the first world war - life definitely is temporary on this planet. War seems like such a waste of human efforts & resources but clearly we all appreciate the freedom we have here in Canada. Peace on Earth!

Forgotten Music...

Sorry - I reread my November Music post and realized I'd neglected Bruce Cockburn's Lifes Short Call Now - another under-rated but extremely well-crafted folk-rock album. Probably the only Canadian album worth purchasing in this past year...those Brits seem to be taking over my music collection again! Please correct me if I'm wrong about Canadian music but I'm not finding much these days...

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November's Music

Well, October brought us some snow that is slowly melting and we'll see how much remains by the end of the week. It has definitely stopped my two-wheeled pursuits on the trails of the Sandilands unfortunately. I hate this time of year as it is always tough to transition exercise-wise in the winter...I'm looking forward to XC skiing but it will be awhile before that happens. So while I wait through this I'll share some of the music I've been enjoying as of late. I should note that while I write this I'm listening to a band my friend Jer encouraged me to check out - The Silversun Pickups. Absolutely brilliant - my personal favorite is the song "Lazy Eye" and it very much reminds me of the Smashing Pumpkins - thanks again J! I can hardly wait for whatever the Pumpkins come up with as their new album...fingers crossed.

What else are my ears digesting? Courtesy of relevantmagazine.com I was exposed to Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - great folky female angst in the vein of Sarah Harmer, Jewel, etc. Copeland's latest offering Eat, Sleep & Repeat is also quite inspiring - great mellotron intro to the album complete with great drums, winding lyrical bliss, and a good touch of Radiohead-esque whining.

I first heard Evanescence before they ever hit the charts after having an online discussion with their first indy producer via Napster chat. He predicted their success and that his guidance was only temporary - wow was he right! In their latest album - The Open Door, their lead singer continues to sing through the octaves which such power & control that it simply draws listeners in. Great edge & contrast throughout the album, perhaps a touch over-produced but still very powerful! Oh and their website is pretty swanky.

I'm still listening to Keane's Under The Iron Sea, Mat Kearney's Nothing Left To Lose (Chris Martin-like vocals), The Afters' I Wish We All Could Win, The Fray's How To Save A Life, Thirteen Senses' The Invitation, Tom Petty's Highway Companion, Jars of Clay's Good Monsters, and believe it or not the heavy & edgy Pillar's The Reckoning.

Probably the most obscure stuff I'm listening to right now is Sting's Songs From The Labyrinth which has been described as 16th Century Pop. In the atmospheric ambient category - I'm absolutely loving The Album Leaf's Into The Blue Again & of course Sigur Ros' EP Saeglopur is simply entrancing!