Life: Catching Up

It's been a long while since I last blogged about the things happening in my life. There have been ups and downs - mostly downs lately it seems. Thus, I haven't been particularly interested in being a downer, but I'll try to cover a few things at least in general here. If I find myself particularly talkative about any one subject I will expound on that in a separate blog.

Riding to work in the fall went relatively well with an average commute of 95 minutes each way. Some of the hills make it very challenging since I can't really ride the trike very well over the narrow dirt trail that is the less hilly option. The morning ride is particularly hard since I have a big hill to climb barely ten minutes into my ride. The trip home is downhill and then "flat" for a good while, so tackling the uphills is a lot easier.

I didn't ride over the winter. Two circumstances presented themselves that prevented it. The first was necessary repairs to the car that ate my tire budget. The second was the persistent snow and cold that was Calgary's winter this year. For all the years I've lived in Calgary I don't think I've ever experienced a winter quite like this one. So I'm relieved that I didn't spend money on tires and then didn't get any riding in. I did bring the trike inside and modify my cycle trainer for the 20" rear wheel, so I got some peddling in. Which bring me to the next thing that was a bummer over the winter.

My shoulder and back had been bothering me since 2009 when I partially dislocated a rib. It meant I had problems with some motions and lifting that were repetitive - mostly work and running. After a lot of massage and some physio that only brought temporary relief, I saw my family doctor in Edmonton the beginning of February and filed a progressive injury claim with the Workers Compensation Board. The claim was finally approve six weeks after seeing my GP, so now I am getting intensive physio treatment to help the rehab. Another 2 1/2 weeks of physio before I either get an extension on the treatment or released to do my own thing. I'm hoping things continue to go well on that front. I've been taking way too many muscle relaxants to be able to sleep at night, so I hope I can get off them and get back to running and cycling without worry about my back and shoulder.

The work situation has grown increasingly frustrating and disappointing since last fall. Needless to say this has been incredibly stressful and tiring. I've effectively committed myself to placing my health and well-being ahead of this situation with my reducing any "extra" work that doesn't apply directly to pickups, processing and disposal. A lot of this had to do with management, but there are immediate changes being made there. I'm certainly not holding my breath though.

I've been able to get in a steady scehedule of Flames of War games in since last fall. A friend and I have also been able to get back to work on a submission to Battlefront for a website PDF release. It will be nice to see that finished. I haven't got a lot more painting done, but it has progressed a bit. I also got a bunch of Paper Terrain sets for Christmas, so I have start work on those. Aerin found me some really good craft glue to put those together rather easier than my previos sets. Hopefully I can make more progress, but the return of spring means other demands will be made for my time.

I need to finish the baseboards this year. I will probably skip doing the stairs for one more year while I puzzle out how to finish them. A little landscaping will need to be done too, and I need to build a proper gate across the pad beside the garage to prevent pet escape and open the space a little. With the baseboards done I can also do a proper organization of the garage including making space for fireplace wood. The chimney sweep we had check the fireplace last summer was great about educating about all things fireplace, so this spring will see the arrival of a bunch of wood to cure over the summer for next fall and winter.

Ursa turned two years old last month! Has it been so long already? She continues to be the spoiled first child, so her trianing isn't what we'd like it some times. But we do love her to bits for all the joy she brings us. She did freak us out a bit last November, but you can check out Aerin's blog for those details. Here's the quick version: Xylitol (sugar substitute) and dogs do not mix. If she'd been a smaller dog she'd probably be dead. She's 120lbs/53.5kg now, and taller than both her parents. Did I mention we really love her? She's such a character.

I'm really looking forward to having a summer this year. Last year was pretty wet and coool. Much more camping and hiking are planned with some short backcountry trips to get Ursa introduced to the whole experience. We'll likely stick to the Kananaskis area mostly.

That's it for now. (I wish I could predict the same for snowfall, but it's not June yet.)

Life: Settling in Finally?

Yeah, there's lots of stuff to do around the house, but people keep telling me that's on par with home ownership. With the the big projects done, and no real pressing need to finish more baseboards for now beyond the aesthetics, I've backed off in an attempt to recuperate and enjoy some time at things other than house works. The window chaulking keeps nagging at me given the wind and rain combinations that keep hitting the west and north faces of the house, so I will endeavour to finish that before August escapes our notice.

The commute to work has proven to be less than engaging. The Calgary transit system is really bad. It takes more than 30 minutes to cover the distance between the Canyon Meadows and University stations. Add the time to get to and from those stations from the house or office and it borders on 75 minutes without needing bus connections. So I've committed myself to an alternate commuter method.

Given my troubles with getting my running to work for me, the best way to use the commute time is to involve some physical activity. Since running to and from the university is a little on the long side, I've opted to do what I've been thinking of doing for a long while: buy a recumbent bike. More specifically, I bought a recumbent trike - a tadpole design with two wheels forward and the drive wheel behind. I got a Catrike Road shipped to me from Gattineau, QC since the guy that sells them in Bentley, AB was a jackass. I even got it cheaper.



I've been very happy with it since I got it put together on Friday. I need to do some further tweaks to get everything dialed in, but it's a great ride. I can't say the same for parts of the pathways I'll be using, but that's a small part of the overall ride. It will probably be at least a 90 minute commute untill I get used to the twice daily ride. I'm a little concerned about the initial mileage compared to my fitness level, but there is still room to take the train occasionally if I don't feel up to the ride.

Overall the cost and benefits of the cycle commute far outweigh any other options I can think of. The bike costs me less to operate monthly and in the long run. There's even a bike collective on campus that will help with repairs and tune ups. I will need to get some new gear like shoes, tire patch kit, a new tire inflation system, and some other odd tools to keep me riding. I already have a line on winter tires that I can get from a local store, but I won't need them for a few months yet. I'll strongly consider getting an extra set of rims and rear cassette to swap them out if periods of the winter remain dry enough. I've also considered upgrading my road slicks to something a little more robust, but I hope I don't have to consider that anytime soon.

My test ride on the weekend was great! So I look forward to even more riding. The physical activity will also help me get some quality sleep again. I've been missing out for too long.

The remainder of the house organization and unpacking continues. Most of the boxes have new homes or have been emptied into their assigned spaces. I have a few things to reorganize in the game space in the basement, and I need to get the garage cleaned up and organized. It'll be nice to be doing my own oil changes. It really doesn't take that much to do given the expense of having others do it for me. The only thing I don't particularly like is doing it myself in the cold. I might just wimp out and pay the guys at Mr. Lube if needed.

So we are all getting into the rythm of having our own house. Ursa's protective instincts have certainly kicked in. She barks at things more often now, but she's not really too bad about it. Most times she stops if you acknowlege her. We've got lots of options for on- and off-leash walks. Things are starting to become comfortable.

I get to go to my first hazardous waste conference in the US in September. It's in Indianapolis, IN. Nothing to get too excited about, but I am looking forward to making some contacts in the business for myself and learning about how different issues are handled in other parts of the US and Canada. Things at work have generally been great. I've had some hard days due to poor sleep, but with the commute change I can say that work can only get better.

Life: Summer Finally Arrives

The seasons have been taking their sweet time making their exit on time. First winter drags into May. Spring finally arrived in June with all kinds of rain. Not that it's July summer has finally arrived with some hot weather. And a few days of sunny skies at the correct time is all that I ask for.

We finally got moved the last weekend of June. It was slightly painful as we got screwed by the truck rental gods again. I must say we have some of the greatest friends in the world for sticking with us to get everything taken care of that day. I was certainly thankful for taking loads of boxes to the new house in the days leading up to the move since it certainly made life simpler to concentrate on the furniture. That's not to say that more and more boxes didn't start appearing, but there was plenty we still needed to take pack that was still needed to live off of.

Despite not doing much running, I completed a ultra just the weekend before - The 48 Hours of Flooring. I spent 14 hours on Saturday installing laminate with help from the brother-unlaw. All three bedrooms and the living room were finished by 10:30pm. Sunday was another 10 hours to get all the old carpet and other crap to the dump and finish the laminate. All that remained was the rec room, but some finishing demolition need to be done on the old lino floor around the cabinets. After that things moved along quickly. Lots of running up and down stairs to take the laminate pieces outside for cutting meant I did a hell of a lot of elevation. My legs certainly felt it along with all the squats getting up and down from the floor. The laminate does look good, and it will be so much easier to clean than the carpets.

With the move complete it was on to the unpacking and other sundry tasks of post-move. The kitchen is looking good after much work by Aerin. It will definitely need a reno, but we'll survive since it's really no worse than the last one. Aerin also did a great job on the bathroom banishing the pink paint. Aerin's mom has gone above and beyond for us with painting baseboards that I've now started installing. With the bedroom repainted now since we had to take out the old closet organizer and three layers of pink flowered wallpaper, I can finish the baseboards and we can put in the new closet organizer with reuse of some of the original bits.

So once the baseboards are done there is plenty exterior stuff to work on. There's the chaulking around the windows that needs doing once I can get a ladder. I haven't decided if I should buy or borrow one yet, but I will need to do that soon. We've also scheduled redoing the garage shingles for the weekend after the long weekend in August, so here's hoping for some good weather. If that doesn't work it's two weeks later to get things done.

And finally a camping trip is on the horizon. Being busy with the house has put a damper on getting out to camp this year. Only the one trip is currently scheduled, but we'll have to get something else in before the year is out. Not sure where or when, but I would like to get away for at least a couple more weekends before the snow flies.

But mostly life is about the house and getting settled in. It doesn't happen overnight, but it is slowly taking shape as our place to live for many years to come... because I don't want to house hunt/move again for a VERY LONG TIME!

Life: Buying a House

The mortgage broker emailed me last week to say that the conditions on the mortgage have been lifted. We only have to show up at the lawyer's office with photo ids in hand to finish that now.

It has been more than a little stressful to go through this whole process. I have to say that Aerin and I are not looking forward to the prospect of doing the whole thing again anytime soon. Chris (our realtor) told us that people in Calgary are averaging a new home every four years. Four years! You're barely moved in before you move out again. Why would I want to put myself through the selling process at the same time as the ringer we just went through with buying? Granted this is our first home, but even then I'm not at all taken with the idea of "moving up". I plan to firmly plant this memory in my mind for instant recall if we ever consider buying another place before we've lived in this house less than 10 years.

Despite the financial considerations that go into home ownership, I'm happy to be a home owner. We can make changes and improvements as we see fit. We don't have to worry about finding a place to live that will allow Ursa. I don't have to concern myself with grass at any point in the future. We'll probably hire a local entrepeneur to take care of that until we get things zeroscaped. And we won't have to worry about our rent getting jacked up on us - at least until we have to renew the mortgage anyway.

We purchased new keypad locks for the house and garage. That was a $527 purchase, and I don't think we may even bother getting them rekeyed to match either. Once we get the codes set we won't need to worry about needing a key until such time as the battery dies or the circuits fry.

I hope we can get the new laminate flooring picked out this coming weekend on our way through Red Deer in either direction. We're getting a cash deal, so we can get the good stuff for far cheaper. I will look forward to getting that job done before we move in, or at least in the rooms and hallway if not the stairs. Once we get the flooring picked out I hope to start organizing the work gangs. A number of friends and family have offered to help with the install. Since I'm taking a couple days off after possession to get everything ready I hope it will go quickly to get it installed.

The other near immediate change is to chaulk around the window frames and flashing where there was some shoddy work. It'll hold up for a couple years until we fix up the windows and exterior. The windows are more important in my mind since they are the original aluminum sliders that are drafty and don't keep out a bit of the evening sun's heat. Nice in the winter, but not so much in the summer. Thankfully we're lower in the river valley where we can get some relief before it's bed time. The nice ceiling fan in the master bedroom will be most welcome.

I need to put a section of fence to ensure that Ursa doesn't escape on us, but that will happen once the floors are ready for their redo. I plan to have that done before we move.

And finally we'll replace the garage roof before the fall. Not sure of when that might happen, but again we have numerous offers of help to get it all done. I'm currently leaning towards the August long weekend since I despise camping with the long weekend crowds. But it's not decided, so there are still options. Of course the weather will be a major factor to consider, so who knows if Plan A will actually work out.

We're so looking forward to having a place of our own. It certainly casts renting in a different like. And while our current place has served admirably, it was definitely starting to cause frustrations for its deficiencies. But that will soon be a distance memory. Less than a month until possession!

Life: Catching Up

As Aerin so helpfully pointed out, I haven't posted here in a long while. There wasn't much to say since it was a lot of busy time just doing the living life thing. However I guess I can update things with some more exciting news.

We bought a house in Deer Run. It's close to Fish Creek Provincial Park and the off-leash dog park. My commute will stretch from a 20 minute walk to under 60 minutes on mostly the LRT. Overall we are very happy with how things turned out with the price, location and the house.

The house itself is a four-level, front-bank split with a double detached garage. The garage needs some exterior finishing and new shingles, but we'll do the shingles this summer and then redo the exterior next year when we'd like to upgrade the windows and house exterior. The windows are original, and the house has metal siding right now. We need to replace the foundation parging, so this would all happen together. The eaves off the gables were not installed properly either, so that's a matter of bolting things back on. Replacement of the furnace and hot water heater is also future project, but for right now the exterior is our focus.

The first order of business after possession is changing locks, and then it's out with all the carpeting. We're getting a cash deal with someone Aerin knows, so we should be able to redo everything with laminate that's currently carpeted. Renovated bathrooms and the kitchen are on the future projects list, but the structureal stuff is of most immediate concern. After the initial bit of busy work it's on to moving. By the end of June we will be in our very own house.

I am doing more strength training and cardio on the recumbent bike at the gym. I can wake up in the morning and not feel soreness or stiffness in my back once I get moving around. This will continue for another month before I start into the running again. I've had some stiff shoulder/neck spots due to being a little stressed over the whole house thing, but that is slowly working out too. Lots of long walks with Ursa have done well to help keep Aerin and I active.

And speaking of Ursa, SHE'S HUGE! I knew we were getting a big dog when we got her, but she is officially way past the breed standard for a female Black Russian Terrier. She stands about 29.5"/75cm at the shoulder (standard max. 28"/72cm as I recall), has a big, black nose (the breeder even says so), has a chest of 35" (and growing), and some darned long legs. We haven't had Ursa on a scale in almost two months now, but the last time she was weighed the scales tipped just over 100lbs/45kg. One of her brother's already has 10kg on her. Basically we couldn't show her if we wanted to since she's bigger than standard. Another BRT we know named Sasha is a good year and half older than Ursa, and last we heard he wasn't even 100lbs.

We love our puppy a lot. It's great fun seeing peoples reaction to her when we go for walks along the river. "Fantastic", "beautiful" and "great" are some of the many positive adjectives people use to describe Ursa. We still haven't met anyone that has guessed her breed right the first time, but we don't keep her trimmed in the usual BRT cut either. "Big" or "huge" are also commonly mentioned in conversations with other people about Ursa, but she's just our dog. We can't help it other dogs look so little. No doubt we'll have a whole new group of admirers and people in awe of Ursa's wonderful puppy-ness once we've moved.

The Flames of War Escalation League I've been running at The Sentry Box has been quite successful this year. Lots of new players and many battles fought on Sundays for the last five months almost. I plan to try another league in the fall that I am trying to decide the details, but it will be set in the Late War period.

Some other players and I have also started up a historical game club with our focus being Flames of War. We will branch out a little, but for now it's just FoW. We are currently planning to run a big D-Day battle that covers Juno Beach from Courselles-sur-Mer to Bernier-sur-Mer. I have my work cut out for me building terrain over the next month. Trench lines, barbed wire obstacles, an enfilade bunker and some tank tobruks are all waiting for my attention.

I had thought I'd gotten my American Armored Rifle company finished just about, but then I realized I'd completely forgotten about the damned transportation. So now I have to finish those too. Except I have now hit a bit of a snag with applying decals because the gloss varnish is beading on the basecoat to form a bunch of ripples and ridges. So now I plan to take a little 600 grit wet sanding paper to things to try and even out the surface before going back to finish the decals. I have a detailing left after that, but otherwise things are pretty well complete. Then it's on to my next army - Soviets. Then it's back to Americans and Soviets in alternation to finish off some of the other platoon options for switching out or expanding things.

I will try to do some more catching up later this week or next.

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.

Life: Settling In

Two weeks go by very quickly these days. The last week of November is almost a non-existent blur in my memory now. Where did the year go to already?

With the arrival of the freezing cold weather (-40C with windchill) I am very happy that we got our move done when we did. I can't imagine trying to load and unload a truck in these conditions. The people we were going to rent from originally were hopeful they could move before Xmas, but the long term weather looks none to promising for that even though they have a company doing the move for them. When I stopped by to pickup some mail that had made it there before our switch in residence they had all kinds of boxes stacked up waiting to go. I'm glad Aerin and I managed to spare ourselves that fate right now.

Have you ever heard the phrase "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part"? That's the way things have headed the last week at work as everyone that is moving labs over the holidays wants old chemicals and waste containers dealt with before they move. Our team leader's last day was on Friday before his three and a half weeks of vacation, so we're now short handed with more than enough on our hands to keep us busy. We sent out our 9th waste shipment of the year (compared to just seven last year), and we make one more the end of the week to clear our things so they are not sitting around for a couple of weeks unattended. Certainly never a dull moment at work these days, and I'm certainly looking forward to the time off between Xmas and the New Year we get while campus shuts down.

So the last couple of weeks have been busy with work by day and settling things into the new house by night. Aerin has had some busy nights doing shiatsu treatments for clients. We spent the Monday night after our move at Ikea spending a good chunk of our security deposit on new furniture that we needed but didn't have space for in the old apartment. So we got a new bookcase and a kitchen island amongst others.

The living room and dining room here are as big as the old apartment kitchen and living room/dining room put together. Unfortunately the kitchen doesn't have as much counter space or drawers/cabinets as we had before. The kitchen island has helped a little, but isn't going to quite get us there maybe. We'll continue to look at how to deal with that at a later date once we see how things are going for use with the current setup.

I have a room all to my self for my game stuff. I'll be reorganizing a few things in there, but for the most part I can start setting aside some time work on things without worrying about our tripping over everything or having it out for a few days between the time I have available to work on it.

We have a spare bedroom still that is currently a collection space for everything that hasn't found a permanent home or just needs to be sorted out. So we can host a few more bodies than we could before. Our old place was pretty tight with just the two of us; it was downright crowded once you got to three or four people. And it'll hold all our (mostly my) outdoor gear.

And the bedroom is quite nice too. We got the blackout blind hung yesterday, so that helped me sleep a little better last night. The street light is pretty bright through the existing blinds, so it was nice to have it a little darker for sleeping. I just have to remember to close the spare bedroom door if we plan to sleep in since it's across the hall and lets in a lot of light.

As a bonus we can now have a proper house warming, or even just have a few friends over, since we now have actual space to host people without sitting in each others laps. The house warming will happen some time in the new year.

Time to get some things done here. Cheers!

Life: Not Homeless

So last night Aerin and I found a place to live, so we are moving this Saturday.

It's a house in Parkdale at the foot of the hill below the hospital. Aerin would have liked me to dicker on the price when our new landlord was open to an offer, but I was too damned tired and excited to have found a place for my neurons to fire in that direction. At the very least we are not paying more than we are now. I am happy to found a place, and I doubt it will be a problem to go back and talk to her about lowering the rent some after we've not driven up the utility bills for a couple of months.

The house is a quite old, but in good shape. It's hardwood floors throughout the house. Three bedrooms. A big living room, and space downstairs too. Gas, water and electricity are included in the price. I'll try to post some photos once we get moved in.