A Simple Thing

Most people around here know that, up to a few years ago, I was a massive wrestling fan. I finally fell out of it when the storylines just got ridiculous and the swell of newcomers got to the point where I no longer knew who anybody was. I suppose I was dragged back in earlier this week when news of Chris Benoit's death surfaced, and initial thoughts were some horrible confrontation had ended the lives of his entire family. Obviously, that wasn't the case.

As a devout Christian it can be times like these that cause the most internal strife in exactly what I *do* think and what I *should* think. I want to attempt understanding people go through things that make for unreasonable circumstances and actions. But through that I begin to think that there is never, ever a reason to take the life of a seven-year-old boy. Depression can be overcome if people seek out the answers, and steroid-induced rage is self-imposed and not a defence. What surfaces is the anger I've felt since yesterday for this wrestler I used to look up to. I simply can't allow myself to understand him or feel sorry for him. I attempt to soften my words and even thoughts to be more eloquent or understanding but it doesn't last - I'm simply very angry over the selfish and thoughtless actions of a loser.

I know some will offer the defence that I wasn't in his place and don't know what he went through, and thus I'm not equipped to pass any kind of moral judgement. I simply say it's true, we can't walk in each other's shoes, but I can say that nothing I've gone through or could go through would bring me to the point where it seemed reasonable to murder my wife and child and hang myself. I know this.

I suppose the Christian in me is angry that he decided to place Bibles beside his wife and child, presumably to encourage their safe passage to heaven. As if Chris Benoit has any understanding of what it would take to get there. As if he isn't a mental midget with no comprehension of what that book says, teaches, or desires from us. Chris Benoit is where he belongs, and I feel nothing but contempt for him. I wish I could feel compassion but I don't. My compassion, thoughts, and prayers are reserved for an innocent woman and child, and the family and friends close to the situation, now left to deal with the aftermath.

Bottom of the Bay

I hurt.

Yesterday was my chance to try out the new North Course at The Club at Bond Head, near Highways 400 and 88, where I'll be hosting an Ingram Micro Reseller Golf tournament on July 18th. We needed to check it out, investigate the services, and check out the holes to recommend them for vendor sponsorships. Sadly, I didn't make the decision to apply sunscreen until #11 and I'm paying for it today.

The course itself was quite good, wide open, tons of fescue and some pretty wide fairways and greens. The pin placements were exceedingly difficult, likely due to the fact that Ian Leggatt was playing in a twosome right behind us. Still, I managed to get my first par on a hole ever (I'm a baaaad golfer) and a bogey on another. All other holes I scored numbers that don't come with fancy names.

As for the Leafs discussion on the Zonk.. I'm not sure how some folks can take pride in the fact they're fans for life, regardless. This isn't admirable to me. If you ran a business and hired someone to run it, and day-in and day-out for years they did a pitiful job, you'd eventually lose faith in them and terminate the relationship. The Maple Leafs have been ineptly managed for our entire lives, completely lacking in any desire to put a competitive team on the ice. JFJ isn't to blame, ownership is, because if ownership wanted to win they'd staff the team with capable people, not simply micromanaging the same team of old misfits every year. Look at what Ottawa and Pittsburgh have done with their teams, each less than 10 years removed from residing in the league basement. This is something worth supporting?

Just Over This Mountain

Sorry for the delay! A week out of the office has left tons of work to do - but without further ado I note that I received my offer of full-time employment today, a little over a month ahead of schedule. Good stuff!

For those interested in the Calgary/Banff/Lake Louise trip head on over to Facebook, I've got a directory up there. At some point this weekend I should get a Jalbum up on this site but there are pics over there now. For those who haven't heard/seen/read the story the coolest part for me was the trek up Sulphur Mountain, a 2200 foot, 5.6km hike to one of the highest summits in Banff; a 90-minute walk that is advertised as a 2-5 hour journey. Story after the jump for those who care...

Arrived in Calgary on the 13th to run into my event planner at the baggage claim (she flew in from Edmonton so it was a nice piece of coincidence), so we hitched a ride on the free shuttle to the Coast Plaza Hotel and Conference Centre. I must quickly note to those holding events in Calgary that the northeast is somewhere to stay away from, it's basically Calgary's Harlem. Calgary has a significant poverty and homeless problem they appear to be ignoring, and a large portion of this problem is in the NE. It gave me concern for my event straight away as I can't imagine a Calgarian looking forward to a drive into the NE for a tech show. The event planner, myself, and our internal reps for CA and IBM headed out for a Red Lobster dinner and then back for a rest for the big day.

Thursday's show was well done and well run with the exception that only 29 of the registered 49 bothered to attend. It's an uphill battle to keep the peace and please the vendors when attendance falls that low but I did what I could, and it seems the quality of who I brought was there. A good and tiring day culminating in a trip to the Saltlik steakhouse on Stephen Street, a terrific restaurant with the greatest French Onion Soup I've ever poured down my gullet. I followed it up with the smaller sized Angus Sirloin paired with a Big Rock Black Amber Ale and all was top-notch. Good place. Back to the hotel for a quick meeting with another old friend alongside Big Rock Traditional Ale and Big Rock Grasshopper Wheat Ale.

Friday I woke, packed, and caught the C-Train to the Marriott I'd won for a couple nights at $50USD per night. They were extra kind and checked me in at 10:20AM so I could drop my bags and gear off, got dressed into the hiking clothes, fired up the GPS and quickly darted out the door. Met up with an old CryptoLogic colleague for lunch, strolled downtown while we caught up, and then head out Geocaching. My first cache took me into the Erlton/Roxboro Natural Area and was found without my delay, only my second Geocache in my early career, and a valuable "foreign" find. I found it interesting that these nearby residential areas were so varied as to have older, century-style homes beside ultra-modern boxy houses. I was informed that house values ranged from $1.5 million to $4 million, and thus people were selling their land and the rich newcomers were building their dream homes. I kept walking, found another cache, and noticed it offered a great view of the Calgary skyline. Also noticed I'd walked almost four kilometres so I began the waterside walk back. A quick bite at the famous Earls chain for the Soup, Salad, and Pan Bread combo along with an Albino Rhino Winter Pudding porter; both good. From there it was a meeting at Bot the Fish Tavern with an ECHL friend and GM of our Calgary Flames and a great few hours of chatter alongside a tasty Big Rock McNallys Extra, a pitiful Molson Old Style Pilsner (now re-branded Pilsner in a cunning attempt to trick me), and a third one that escapes me. Clearly by now I've drank a lot, lay off.

Saturday I woke to a horrific rain storm that promised no view during my planned trip to the Rockies. But I'd secured a car rental for $19.97 on the internet and had no intention of not driving there, so off I went at 8:30AM anyways. Got to Banff about 9:45AM and began walking throughout. It's a great town, highly recommended, and so much more to offer than boring old Calgary. I Geocached again, along the Bow River Trail, and coming up directly opposite the hotel from The Shining - the Banff Springs Hotel. What an awe-inspiring site to see this crazy hotel rising out of the trees as these storm clouds hung ominously overhead. Wild stuff. Headed back for a bit at Magpie & Stump for some Chicken and Almond Enchiladas and a Grizzly Paw Grumpy Bear Honey Wheat. From there, it was off to Sulphur Mountain.

Great trail but a long and arduous hike for a rookie like me, and with no signs warning of how far you've come or gone it's hard to find the strength to keep going at times. I hit that point part way up and ran into an amazing doctor from Kitchener in amazing shape who told me she'd done this four times and invited me to walk along with her. I did, and we talked and introduced ourselves as we went. It wasn't long before we hit the top and continued on another kilometre to the Cosmic Ray Station and the pinnacle of the climb. We took each other's pictures before heading back down on the Gondola. This kind lady took me on a brief driving tour of Banff to show me the sights, took me back to town, and bought me a coffee before shaking my hand, wishing me well, and heading back to her hotel. The highlight of my trip and a time I won't soon forget. Sadly, I'd barely noticed that I appeared to be suffering from heat stroke and dehydration, and was unable to continue drinking as every sip of water made me want to vomit. Coupled with a migraine it was providing difficult to keep going.

I was off to Lake Louise at the urging of my parents, and because it would be silly not to drive the extra 30 minutes to do so. Sadly, my rapidly failing condition wasn't allowing me to make the most of it, and while I roamed and snapped some pictures, my mind was on getting some food and getting back to the hotel. I grabbed dinner at Coyote in Banff, then quickly peeled out to try and beat the darkness back. What I didn't beat back was one of the worst storms I've seen in a while, so bad the news reported houses losing roofs and such. It was that bad with pure blackness, torrential downpour, and plenty of other things to scare a guy who declined collision on his rental. I did make it back safe, however, cleaned off the day's worth of hiking filth, drank a little water and fell asleep.

Sunday was to be my last day and I woke up tired, weary, and barely able to walk from the day before. Still, I hadn't seen the Saddledome or Stampede Grounds, and I wasn't about to let a tired body and another hefty helping of rain stop me. I managed to take in those sights but gave up on my hopes of another Geocache due to the non-stop rain and fact I was mere hours from flying home.

That's my story - I think I managed to pack a lot of living into a few post-work days, and can report the vendors were happy with the show I put off now that the feedback has come in. All told a successful trip! Next up - three days in Boston with Brent for a Red Sox game, hopefully with my new car. I'll keep y'all posted..

Come Together

I'm currently hard at work here preparing for yet another in the long series of Ingram road trips; this time, a tech event in Calgary, Alberta. This is this weary world traveler's first visit to Calgary so I've gone ahead and booked myself a couple extra days to see the sights. I fly in tomorrow to prep for my Thursday event, then wake up Friday with two-and-a-half-days to myself.

Current plan is to use Friday to venture throughout downtown Calgary and see all I can, and I've loaded the GPS with urban geocaches to help carry me through the downtown core. Saturday I'll rent a car and drive to Banff as I've been repeatedly told I "have to". Again, I'm loaded with geocaches and looking forward to a little hiking and wandering about. Sunday I'll fill in the blanks with what I haven't yet seen, relax a little, and fly home in the late afternoon for an 11PM arrival back in YYZ.

Anyone here familiar with Calgary? Suggestions and options I would simply have to see while I'm there? I lucked out with my hotel as I once again turned to Priceline and secured the Marriott Calgary right beside the Calgary Tower for $50USD/night. If you're not using Priceline for your hotels you're missing out. For those counting that's a Hyatt Regency on the beach in Miami for $35, Calgary for $50, and Boston Harbor for $100.

That also means I'm MIA for a bit - no posts, no zonk, no BBJ, no management of ECHL games, and most distressing, no Facebook. I implore Mark, Rob, Cliff, and House to get posting and entertain each other!

See you Monday.

Sky Blue Sky

The 90th birthday party was a great time on Saturday, with the best news being Poppy showcasing an alert mind, looking happy and healthy. At one point he caught a robin building a nest on the other side of the yard, so far away even I couldn't see it. It's good to know he's still got it! Due to the planning and tidying for my pending half-week in Calgary I wasn't able to make it up until 1:30 when everyone else was already there and well into some yardwork. I did, however, make it in time to help with the cooking. Mark put together some homemade burgers and potato salad while Paul created a mango marinade for chicken breasts. I built a salad of baby spinach, fuji apples, blue cheese, walnuts, radishes, red peppers, and celery with an apple cider vinaigrette that I'd first made last Monday for my lunch and *loved*. You have to be a blue cheese fan, though. I also tried my hand at a green chile sauce for the burgers that seemed to go best coupled with some slices of asiago cheese. Burgers so good even I had two!

Yesterday was tidying and cleaning again, getting my life in order and preparing my plans. The bad news is I still haven't found a hotel for my personal days in Calgary, with all the local establishments wanting to charge at least $125 a night, far more than I'm willing to pay. I tried Priceline but have heretofore been declined on my cheap offers. In the meantime I've loaded up my GPS with Alberta maps and geocaches within Banff National Park. Hopefully I'll get a chance to tour a bit and track down some caches at the same time.

How was your weekend?

Ain't That Strange

So while my prediction of Ottawa in 6 didn't turn out I will attempt to salvage some credibility with the note that my best prediction was the one everyone ignored. I refer everyone to a post on May 23rd: "My finals pick shall arrive Sunday - historically, I'm not so good at closing things out. So proceed with caution..." The truth is I never get the Cup winner right, so the money bet was against me. Next year you'll know. ;)

Regardless of that I fell only slightly outside the top 500 in the huge Sportsnet pool, and yet again, ahead of their resident experts. Someone should really start paying me for this stuff.

Props to "Trout" - your Zonk post picking the Yankees after dissing Mark probably made me laugh more than any Zonk post in the history of the site. Word.

And now a word of thanksgiving. Somehow, at age 33, I continue to have six grandparents. I'm forever grateful for the length of time I've had with them, especially those I left for 10 years and now get the chance to know again. This is a great week as two grandfathers celebrate big birthdays. 17 years ago a friend told me to cherish my grandparents because I'd never know how long they'd be here. I suggest everyone else do the same, with family and friends of all ages. Peace!

Visions of the North...

Alright I know I promised this story lastnight, but by the time I got home from work, went to the gym, ate dinner and ran those darn ECHL games I didn’t feel like doing much of anything….

Anyways, I do have one free moment this morning before my bosses roll in and the crap once again hits the fan so I’ll take it to talk about something good for once.

Well folks as some of you will remember this trip is part of a tradition dating back almost 30 years now where a group of guys including my Uncle (Rick’s dad) head north to the little town of Shining Tree for some spring fishing. This was my second trip accompanying them and I have to say it gets better and better every year. Now yes I still didn’t catch my trout, but there were some firsts for me and overall it was a great trip. Anyways on with the story…

Day 1, Wednesday May 30, was rather uneventful. Basically it saw us getting a bit of a late start leaving Barrie as most of the group (nine of us in total) decided to work half a day before heading north. We managed to roll out of Barrie at about 3:30pm and start the trip north. Now I’ve always been one that says if you have somewhere to go, just start driving and don’t stop till you get there, but this group takes a bit more of a relaxed approach to the trip up. Our first stop was in Parry Sound for a cup of Tim’s finest and a quick stretch of the legs. It was relatively uneventful. From there we headed for Sudbury and a quick supper at Swiss Chalet (yes Rick, no more Wind Lake Restaurant and their claim of the “slowest service in the world”). A quick gas up we headed north out of town for highway 144 to Timmins. This is where things finally got a little exciting. First we pasted an area just north of Chelmsford that had been recently burned through by a forest fire and then we got to see a moose that proved once again that they own the roads up north. It was a big bull moose that walked across the road, stopped on the bank and then proceeded to walk back across the road only to stop long enough to for a photo or two. This was my first clear moose sighting even in all the years I lived up in Thunder Bay and all I have to say is, man those things are huge! The rest of the drive was fairly straightforward and we arrived at the camp a little after 11pm, almost 8 hours one the road!

Day 2, we were up at 6am, had a quick breakfast of whatever we could grab, a cup of coffee and it was off for the Welcome Lake. Now as Rick will most likely agree this is quite possibly one of the best lakes for us to get into and one of the most beautiful lakes to fish. It’s a short drive from the camp and then long ride down the Wanapitei River (very scenic). This lake boasts a great variety of fish including bass, pike, lake trout, pickerel, and white fish. The last section of the river getting into the lake is a little sketchy and you have to pull the boats over some rocks and some little rapids. Now we discovered last year that the pools between the rapids contain a large amount of bass. So the boat I was in stayed behind while everyone headed to the lake and we fished the pools. We managed to pull out about a dozen bass between the three of us in about 10 minutes of fishing. Great start to the day! We then headed up the last section of the river and into the mouth were we landed another couple bass. At this point we had almost filled my stringer with fish and had only fished about 30 minutes. From there we trolled up the lake to a set of rocks that usually holds some fish. I made a few quick casts and landed 2 large pike (3 to 4lbs each). At this point the stringer was full so we decided to troll up and down the lake till around lunch. The rest of the morning was relatively uneventful so we all pulled up to the island for our shore lunch. On the menu was a whole bunch of fresh bass cooked on the open fire, with a side of baked beans and some bread. Its not the most glamorous, but its good enough to get the job done and personally I think that fish cooked mere hours after it was caught is the best you can get. After lunch we were greeted by a Thunder Storm that came out of nowhere and lasted all of 10 minutes before once again changing back to sunny. The rest of the afternoon didn’t see much action. I managed to land one more decent bass and a fair size pike. I hooked into a monster pike, but unfortunately he dived straight for the stringer of fish hanging over the side of our boat and he’s officially, “the one that got away”. So the days total for myself was 3 decent pike, 12 bass (5 keepers, 7 tossed back), and 2 little hammer handles (tiny pike). Not bad. On the way back from the lake we stopped at the swamp outside the camp and saw a great big cow moose, that’s a female for your nitwits. Second one for the trip! I snapped a few pictures before she headed off into the bush. It was a great ending to a great first day.

Day 3 saw a bit of a switch up in the boats. I volunteered to join the 2 newfies, Rob and his son Dean and go to Meteor Lake in search of the trout. Now Rick hates this lake which a passion that he will no doubt tell you all about, but I viewed this as my last chance at landing a trout for the weekend so I joined up with Rob and Dean to Meteor while the rest of the group tried a new lake, the Lower Opikinimika (Opik for short). So this day didn’t go to well for us. As we feared the trout had already started to dive deep in the lake and were not particularly hungry it seemed. So our day saw no fish caught and no shore lunch. I’m sure this is where Rick will add his, “I told you so comments,” but I had to go with the guys to try for the trout and I will most likely do it again next year if they are going that way. The rest of the group faired much better on the new lake landing lots of little pike, a few big ones and some pickerel.

Day 4, the last day of fishing we decided to return to the Lower Opik for another crack at some pickerel. Now I would guess this was a man made lake, as there was a whole forest of sunken trees lining the sides of the lake. We sped up the river and into the lake where on my first cast I landed a big (5lbs) pickerel! This was a great looking first and my first pickerel ever. We spend the morning trolling up and down between the deadheads (sunken logs) looking for more. My boat landed one more pickerel and a bunch of small pike. Now Rob decided that it was time to try and get into Allin Lake that was connected to the Lower Opik by a section covered in deadheads. The other guys told us that it was impassible and so we took it as a challenge to see if we could get into it. So we plowed, paddled and smashed our way in through the logs for a good 30mins to get into the lake only to find that if we had gone up to the other side of the sunked forest there was a clear channel in! So much for impassible!

Anyways we were atleast glad to know that it would be easier to get out. We trolled Allin Lake for a bit, but didn’t catch anything meanwhile the rest of the group landed some more pickerel out in the channels and then joined us for a shore lunch. Now for those of you that have never had pickerel I would have to say it is one of the tastiest fish ever. I introduced the guys to a traditional Northern Ontario pickerel fry that was so well received that we had to cut up a few more fish because everyone wanted 2nd’s, 3rd’s and 4th’s! The afternoon was once again a little uneventful. We got back out on the lakes, we trolled around picking up a couple dozen little pike (those things are annoying), we went up the see the waterfall and old dam at the end of the lake and I managed one more decent size pike (4lbs). It was a good end to the trip and we did manage to catch enough to bring a few fish home. The final count for the day, 1 pickerel, 1 pike, and about 15 small hammer hands a decent haul.

And so ends another spring fishing adventure to Northeastern Ontario. A few final notes about the trip; the bugs were out and biting, but not bad. The weather was good overall. We did see some rain, but nothing that was unbearable and it never got too hot or sunny. No doubt my best trip so far, but until I catch a trout I’m not satisfied. Next year they will be mine!