Swimming the English Channel

No, not me - Jen Alexander (Guiding types may remember her from the GuideZone or the YiGGGS list). She's in England now waiting her time to swim, sometime after Wednesday. Her blog is here - if you know Jen, check it out and send her a message of support.

Riding riding riding

That's what we did today, lots of riding - 60 km and over 3.5 hours, all the way to Rundle Park and back. A great way to spend the last Sunday afternoon of August when it's sunny and 25 C (knowing that winter's probably coming all too soon). Here's our route map in red, courtesy of Google (with a driving suggestion in blue, though I'd never actually drive that way to Rundle - I'd go up Henday to Yellowhead as it's much more direct) - click on it to see a larger version:

Only change in route was that we crossed over to Gold Bar Park going and stayed entirely on the north side of the river coming back. Lots of areas that I'd only seen on the map and never actually been to, like Rossdale, the Brickyard subdivision in Riverdale, Dawson Park, and most of Ada Boulevard.

This was my longest ever ride, topping last week's ride of almost 45 km to the University then the long way home via Snow Valley and a detour in behind Fort Edmonton. We also detoured slightly last week to Sue's to see the rock she put in her front yard (in memory of Darryl) - wow, it *is* big!

The other day I saw that the City is running various "Masters Training sessions" for free next month, I guess a follow-up to last year's World Masters Games - there was a Women's Road Cycling clinic with Alex Stieda, the first North American cyclist to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France (in 1986, good story about it here). So I signed up - I see that the men's clinic plus several others (triathlon, swimming) were already full. Stieda runs weekend skills camps in various locations (Banff, Jasper, Whistler, etc.) plus tours to the Tour de France, so even if it's just short I figure it will probably be useful - especially since it's free!

Remembering Darryl

here (what else can I say?)

What irony ...

How ironic is it when the song that I can't get out of my head and keep singing to myself is "Sing Me Spanish Techno", by The New Pornographers, which contains the lines

"if only to punish you
for listening too long to one song
listening too long to one song"

(which in fact are the some of the lines I keep singing ...)

What a day!

I woke up to radio news of thwarted terrorist attacks. Then I went online to read more about it, and heard that people were complaining about not being warned and that they lost their makeup, with the sudden restrictions on liquids in carry-on luggage (isn't not getting blown up a little bit more important than having to buy new makeup?)

Then it seemed that the crazies (well, one actually) on an online forum I frequent had become crazier still...

Then my day at work was so busy and demanding it made me yet again thankful I don't have to do this for too much longer (this sort of family medicine that is) - it's exactly the kind of stuff I quit last fall...

Then I heard at lunch that they found Darryl's body, which brought back all the sadness of last fall, but in the end it must bring some closure to Sue and to Darryl's family.

Then someone told me at the end of the day that there was a full moon last night, perhaps it explains my day ...

South American Penguin rescues

Penguins waddle back to the sea after oil spill clean up

(coming soon ... Ani DiFranco concert)