As Though It Never Happened:

Hello one and all. Well, some stuff has been going on lately, but due to work, social encounters, a weekend out of town, and a very brief but violent bout with nausea, I haven't been able to keep this blog up to date. So here we go.

This past weekend I went with my good friends Emily and Jocelyn to Warsaw (Ontario, not Poland), just north of Peterborough, as they prepared to do their first adventure race, Storm the Trent. 4km run, followed by 16km bike, followed by 10km paddle (canoe, not doggie). Since it wasn't set up as the most ideal spectator sport, I got into volunteering to help the organizers (my specialty, I guess you could say).

The race started early Sunday morning, so we headed out Saturday afternoon/evening to Em's friend Ryan's place just outside of Peterborough. Since we were a little late getting on the road, Ryan and his fiancee Stacey had gone out by the time we got to their place. But they left us their key and their dog Tripper to keep us company. We watched the ends of "Point Break" and "Harry Potter" on TV before we realized that it was 11pm and we had to get to bed soon if we were going to be able to get up at 6 and be on the road by 7. Now...keep in mind that I have never met these people before, so it was extremely weird wandering through their house, looking for the bathroom or some kind of sign of where they expected us to spend the night. The basement was unfinished, but we found some sleeping pads so we quietly borrowed them to sleep on the living room floor. After learning that the cold water faucet in the bathroom doesn't shut off properly, I went to sleep wary that at some point in the night Tripper was going to bound off the chair and land on my head. But not long after lights out Ryan and Stacey returned and took Tripper with them up to their bedroom. In the morning, we tried to make as little noise as possible as we let ourselves out. That was the weirdest overnight visit I've ever had. Not only did I never get to meet the owners of the house, we left the place almost exactly the way we had found it. It's as if we were never there...

The overcast sky worried us a little, but it turned out to be an awesome day. Not as many bugs as I had feared, but much more sun than I had anticipated (Lesson of the Day: Remember to put sunscreen on the back of your hands). As with any event, the initial registration was the most chaotic part of the day, but I was able to hold my own against a sea of eager racers. When they all left on the buses to the starting point, it was eerily quiet. I hung out with the other volunteers (very nice ladies) and walked around and took photos. After about an hour and a half the first bikers started to arrive. I got worried when most of the people had already checked in and taken their canoes and Ema and Jocelyn were nowhere to be seen. Finally I saw their matching red bike helmets. After they took off in the canoe, Sean (the main organizer guy) asked me to man the Wall. This thing was pretty impressive given that I think Sean and his dad built it on their own. It was a roughly 12-foot wall, with two bells attached to levers at the top. There was also a small climbing wall right next to it with a bell at the top. The 2- and 4-person teams had to work together to boost one of their teammates up and ring one of the bells at the end of the race. Solo competitors got to climb the wall. My job was to be at the top of the wall (there was scaffolding behind it) and help out the teams by pushing the bell a little lower if they were having a hard time reaching it. I have to say, it was the best part of the race for me. For some reason, when the person rang the bell, it was like a signal for the person/people at the bottom to just let go. Luckily, nobody got hurt really badly, and I started to caution the teams about letting them down a little more gently.

So the race results are posted up at the website, and Team Triboluminescence came in 68 out of 85 in the 2-person team category with a time of 4:04:02 and no time penalties. Add on to that the fact that Em won a t-shirt and socks in the draw, and I'd have to say it was a pretty successful race. I don't have access to my scanner right now, plus I haven't gotten the photos developed yet, but once things are sorted out I'll post some on my website. And I SWEAR I will get the dogsledding photos and stories up as soon as I can. Kev, I'll let you know when I've got the OTHER photo scanned too. =)

Oh, I guess you're wondering about that nausea thing I talked about earlier. Well, it seems to be a unanimous diagnosis at work that I suffered some kind of heatstroke on Sunday that didn't hit me until 10am on Tuesday when I was at work. I couldn't handle it and barely made my way home at lunch (had to pull over on the 401, but fortunately the traffic was slow). I collapsed on my couch for a couple of hours before my mother fed me some water and the nausea really kicked in. Funny thing about me is that once I get it out, I'm 100% okay, as if I had never been ill in the first place. I'm a weirdo.

Finally, in a really unrelated way, congrats are in order for Laboni! She secured herself a teaching position in Mississauga, which means she can enjoy the summer knowing that kids will be waiting for her in September. Wait...is that a good thing?

"Between my fire sighs and my burning eyes, my heart burns wildly in his eyes, he's just a drunken, gambling man, dealing with the hands of desire's game, I'm gonna shuffle his deck clean"