Life: Me and My Dog

So I woke up after New Year's Eve and discovered the month is almost a two-thirds gone... I don't what it is exactly that causes it, but I find this feeling of blur unsettling.

Aerin has gone off to Montreal to help a friend undergoing surgery. That leaves me and Ursa to hang out. We started doing some serious grooming work before Aerin left on Sunday to take care of some issues with Ursa's coat getting so long. Being somewhat less experienced with dogs I didn't foresee issues with Ursa's visibility jacket causing matting between her front legs. Unfortunately Ursa has been slightly uncooperative with the process of detangling the matted hair, so it's going to take concentrated bit of effort to get things sorted out there. If it was spring and the weather going to stay mostly warm I would be tempted to trim it short, but there's still two months of wintery weather left at a minimum.

We also ordered, or will be ordering, some new kit for Ursa. Our "little" girl is now 28.5"/72cm at the top of her shoulder. This puts her well past the breed standard of 27"/69cm. And she's not done growing yet! Hopefully she does move growing sideways to fill out her shoulders, chest and hips. So a new crate for unsupervised times, and an actual space she can den, that fits her better is on the way. The thing is enormous at almost 6'/1.83m long plus much taller and wider. Hopefully she'll be able to stretch out a lot more since she's a little crowded even laying corner to corner in the current crate.

Ursa's a pretty smart girl, and we really need some toys that will keep her mentally engaged. It's one reason we don't feed her out of the bowl at home anymore. (What we'll do while backcountry has yet to be worked out.) The plan is to get some wooden toys designed by Nina Ottonson for her to play with. This lady has at least one BRT herself, so it's not a stretch to know that Ursa should be just fine with them.

I sound like some proud parent taking about their kids' accomplishments, don't I?

I've committed myself to making a batch of chili while Aerin is away. I was thinking I'd make it tonight, but now I think that will be on the Saturday menu when I have the chance to supervise it a little more closely while it simmers for the morning and afternoon. I only really make mac & cheese these days when I need something quick and easy to fill things in while Aerin isn't around, so last night I did some with zuccini and red pepper. Tonight is bison burgers and not sure what else. I forgot to get a yam while grocery shopping to do some fries.

In between eating, sleeping, cooking, cleaning and Ursa are my attempts to get more miniatures done. I have started to base coat a bunch of minis I had assembled and primed with the new Battlefront base coat colours. It's a heck of a lot easier than using the air brush for time and consistent colour. It's obvious that a bunch of my America vehicles I'd already painted are a little too green and not enough brown, but I'm not going to stress about it. I also have an US armoured rifle platoon good to go pretty much. I will keep pumping out the US guys for now. I will start to touch up the base coat on all my Soviet tanks so I can start the detailing on those. I have a whole bunch of Soviet infantry to do too, but not nearly so much as if I had to paint an infantry company.

Some gaming to do too. I hope to play a little Flames of War before Aerin's return, and I will start a Napoleon's Last Battle campaign game that might take a few weeks to get done. The Flames of War is to playtest some new stuff a friend and I are working on. The Napoleon's Last Battle campaign is a follow-up to the course on Waterloo I did last fall.

Aerin and I will be celebrating our third anniversary the beginning of February. Since it falls on the Thursday we're planning to celebrate on the weekend with a trip out to Banff for dinner at the Bison Bistro. I have yet to decide what to get Aerin for a present, but no doubt I will decide soon.

I'll leave an update on how things are going with running for another time.

Life: New Year of Possibilities

So begins the 36th calendar year of my existence on this rock hurtling through the vaccum of space. I can't really say that this event holds anything special for me. It's just more of the same. I've had a few years practice with passing the time. I certainly don't like waking up the New Year's Day when Ursa wants some attention, food and a bathroom break way earlier than I'd like. But with the changing of the calendar comes a whole new year of challenges and dreams.

So first on the list is what to do with my running. I'm still not entirely happy with how this is going with continued back problems that don't seem to respond to anything with ongoing positive results. I am running, but not in any sort of volume I would consider truly useful to undertaking much more than a gimpy half-marathon distance if I raced this week. And yet I find myself desiring to lighten my wallet with race entries for a number of events.

I have currently decided I want to run the single lap of the Blackfoot 25km baby ultra since it is the only distance other than the 100km I have yet to run. Since I won't be running the 100km this year it seems a reasonable compromise. My other decision is to enter the Lost Soul 50km again given the disappointing lead up to the race due to the dislocated rib. My hope is that continued progress, however slow, will make for very different race this year.

The chance to run a couple ultras as part of a relay team has presented as a possible option. This is currently in the discussion and exploration phase. The Iron Horse and Sinister 7 are the two I'm most interested in. After some reflection I have no interest in the Canadian Death Race until I'm ready for a solo attempt. If this doesn't quite work out I have alternate plans to do more exploration of the trails in the Canadian Rockies this summer.

There are plenty of shorter trails to run, but I would also like to run some of the Glacier Trail and over Jonas Shoulder. There are some passes that I might be able to transit in a day too. A lot will depend on the kind of mileage I'm comfortable with by the time summer arrives. I'm not particularly interested in unsupported runs of more than 6 to 8 hours unless I think my body is up to it.

And speaking of the Canadian Rockies, there will certainly be more time spent there this year. Ursa will be pretty much finished growing this summer, so we will do some light trips into the backcountry. Car camping and a few overnight backpacking trips will begin the summer. Hopefully this will work out the kinks for a multi-night backpacking trip with Ursa by the end of the summer. Lots of day hiking is also on the menu. With Ursa being up for almost 3 hours of snowshoeing last weekend I think she will do just fine hiking around the mountains for more than a few hours.

And winter has not yet left us, so there is still snowshoeing to do. No doubt we will go out to Kananaskis a few more times before the snow starts to disappear. Some trips closer to home at Nosehill or Fish Creek will no doubt happen if the snow isn't all melted away by chinooks. I have little motivation to run on a cold weekend, but if the chance presents itself I will certainly head for the south side of the river on snowshoes or just shoes with appropriate ice gripping attachments. Either way me, Aerin and Ursa are still getting out lots between our walks and other activities.

Aerin and I are looking into buying a house this year. Who knows if this will actually happen, but we have started discussing our options. Wrangling a down payment and what we would actually spend the money on our the top two house conversations. We have little interest in buying something for the sake of buying since the cost of certain fixes or renos to make things liveable are not an option for us. We really would like to find something we can say we're still happy with ten years later.

We really enjoy our Friday night boardgames with our friends. It is by far one of our favourite events of the week. I am currently organizing a regular Flames of War league at The Sentry Box. I get to play some games, meet some new players, and generally have some good motivation to get things done with my terrain and miniatures. I'm so lucky and thankful that Aerin lets me play my games. We're both going to need to sit down with some paint again to move things along. Thanks for helping Sweetie!

That's all I can think of for now. I'm certain the year will whiz by in a blur of barely remembered details - 2009 certainly did.