2012 in review

It has had its ups and downs but I am happy with my life as it is.

I enjoyed all my squirrell moment road trips to the USA and East Coast for paddling, photography, and life.

I plan to stay in Canada more in 2013 and visit some friends and family out west that I have not seen in a few years.

Life is to short and I want to make sure I visit them before things get busy and stuff happens.

I plan to continue with my weight loss ... I managed to go from 275 pounds to 222.4 over the last 23 months. It has made a difference in my ability to do things. I hope to maybe start walking and biking and work my way up for the hike into the Green River race in november without injuring myself.

Can't wait for march to come along so I can go boating.

For now I will continue on with my camera in hand until then.

Be safe out there and have a great New Years Eve!

p.s. I will try and remember to update my blog as well. Just been a crazy year!

Paddling roadtrip from hell

Just had the paddling weekend from hell.

Had a shake start in the front end fo my car. Stop to check what it was and no obvious signs.

Turned around to go home and had my front left tire come off on the 400 north of King City road.

Sheared five studs off. Tire was tilted in and held on by one stud with no nut on it. Car did not ground out.

Had the CAA guy stop at my place first to pick up two of my steel snow tire rims and the current rim was screwed up.

Had it towed to Barrie Ford. New hub was installed on it for 360 bucks.

Went home picked up my crap ... roadtrip part two.

Paddling was great ... noise in pulley area of car got worse. Disconnected the power cable going to AC clutch. Still some noise.

Got to the duty free in Buffalo. Had to go bathroom and get a bottle booze. Went to start car heard a squeal and serpentine belt came apart. AC unit pulleyt seized.

Made a few phone calls. Talked to USA customs and of course i had to be like fifteen feet away from him as he was paranoid and had a big ass gun.

CAA came across and got me with a flatbed truck and dropped my car at Barrie Ford and gave me a ride home.

I was over my mileage on the tow and had to pay a extra 60 bucks but it was cheaper then staying in Buffalo.

So including the starter I had replaced a week ago ... three tows in just over a week ... Felt like I was in a movie but not sure which one.

Having CAA Plus ... priceless!

Note: the AC unit had totally seized which caused the belt to break ... AC is now gone replaced with a pulley system. only need the car to last until next April as I should be able to buy a brand new vehicle then!

The wear and tear repairs I just paid for are still cheaper then getting into a vehicle payment.

Broken starter in car equals getting more stuff done around the house

I have not been paddling as much as i would like to as there is no good water around at all. I have been keeping busy doing some photo shoots plus going crazy in my regular day job which is a good thing. I went to the photography show in Toronto last weekend only to come home and have the starter fail in my car. The bad side of it was I want to go paddling in Minden. Th good side of it was I was able to get the pool opened even though it is green and a bunch of stuff done around the house. I hope I get to go paddling soon!

April and May are almost gone

Well ... I cannot believe how quick time passes these days. I managed to get my first ever run on the Upper Black River near Queensboro, Ontario just shortly after my trip down to ALF. The weekend after that was a run down Beaver Creek near Marmora which ended up in some swimming and ripping a hole in the ass of my drysuit. Yes the water was cold. I just came back from the annual C1 Armada down in the USA. This year it was on the Cheat River in West Virginia. I managed to have a great run on the friday on the Upper Yough in Maryland running some great class 4/5 drops with no problem at all. The saturday was a run down the Cheat Canyon. The highlight of the day was coming off the river into the middle of a organized rave complete with techno music. I am going to try and keep this blog updated on a regular basis .... I hope

2012 Paddling Season Has Begun

Well ... it's been a while since I posted last. Not much was going on as I was getting stuff ready to go on my first paddling trip of the season in between doing some studio photo shoots.

This sums up my roadtrip in a nutshell:

two countries ... one province ... six states .... almost 4000km (2500 miles)

five days of amazing paddling with great friend ... all y'all know who you are

trip leader on the Little in the Smokies with ten of my Canadian friends.

two swims ... one on the Little ... one on the Tellico

lots of warm sunshine ... face burn

jealous of a twelve year old running the shit including Bald River Falls http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7056/6836976850_6cf286e081_b.jpg

lots of great photos taken ... see http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/collections/72157629221702696/

nice comfy bed to sleep in thanks to Karen and Jeff

lots of great southern BBQ ... have not got on the scale yet :(

onsite tech support call for wireless printer problem in North Carolina

Canoe Movie 2 Premier night in Knoxville

long ass eighteen hour day driving almost 1600km (1000 miles) in one day including a boat delivery for Taylor in WV

scoring a 60 ouncer of Bacardis at the duty free for twenty bucks

making it to the Nexus line at the boarder with four minutes to spare before it closed for the night and just getting waved through

waiting another 257 days to do it again for ALF 2013

waking up in your own bed and realizing you dont have to go to work .... pricessless

Come on March ... get here please

Not much has happened over the last month or so.

It's been a crazy stupid weather winter with hardly any snow.

My work has been super crazy busy for me ... in one way that is good as it keeps me from going insane waiting for my 2012 paddling season to start.

I am in the process of getting all the pre-planning / gear check done for me plus working on the contact list for ALF 2012 donw in Tennessee.

Holy crap xmas and new years has come and gone

Dang It!

I had a xcellent xmas with the fam jam.

I was supposed to go on a east coast work trip during new years only to have a last minute cancellation due to the flu running around on the remote end.

So I ended up spending new years eve day at my sisters place ripping out her kitchen base cabinets while my brother-in-law fixed all the drafts. I thought it was going to be a two day job but thanks to the cabinets not being screwed together and the counter top in the same way ... it ended up being a one day job.

I ended going home after that and spent new years eve having a few drinks and watching movies.

I spent the next three days of that pretty much sleeping as I felt like total crap.

Work has been crazy busy and I am going thru paddling with drawls.

Come on march get here