Churchrules

I miss my Dad

2007-04-05T20:59:00.000-04:00

Just thought I would share some lyrics that make me think of my dad.

Ros Stewart - Forever Young

May the good lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
Surround you when youre far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As youd have done to you
Be courageous and be brave
And in my heart youll always stay

Forever young, forever young
Forever young, forever young

May good fortune be with you
May your guiding light be strong
Build a stairway to heaven
With a prince or a vagabond
And may you never love in vain
And in my heart you will remain

Forever young, forever young
Forever young, forever young
Forever youngForever young

And when you finally fly away
Ill be hoping that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime
No one can ever tell
But whatever road you choose
Im right behind you, win or lose

Forever young, forever young
Forever young ,forever young
Forever young, forever young
For, forever young, forever young

I use to think that my dad would be singing this to me, but it hit me one day that I wish my dad was here so that I could sing it to him.

Love you buddy!!!

Around the Bay Pics

2007-04-03T05:13:00.000-04:00

God Answers Prayers!

2007-02-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, for most of you reading this the idea of God answering prayer is not a leap of faith, but listen to this. I was just sitting here at home trying to kill sometime before Nyles and I would go to Buffalo to pick up the girls. I was thinking/praying that they would come home sooner when the phone rang and it was Laura telling me that they are now on an earlier flight and they are boarding right now and I better hurry up and get in the car. Corny? Maybe, but I'm still give props to the big guy on this one! Thanks big dude!

Too much to write about

2007-02-10T11:40:00.000-05:00

OK, I have a lot to write about but not a lot of time. So here is a quick little thing about what has happen in my life over the past couple of weeks and hopefully I can elaborate later.

The girls have gone to Ireland and should be returning tonight with a medal for Emily's hard shoe. Can't wait until they get here and I can feel them in my arms again, they really ache for them. I'm sure they have some great stories for us.

Nyles and I went to my mom's for a few days and hung out. We chilled, played darts and ate way too much, good times! Nyles is actually a really good darts player and I'm not just saying that to make Nyles feel good. He stands on a chair so he is at the same height as the board and he's good.

A few fun filled days at the Great Wolf Lodge. We spent about six hours a day in the water park for three days. I think I'm still water logged! Nyles and I had a great time there and really grew our relationship with each other. I will always remember our times jumping on the beds together and having finger rocket wars in our room.

Marshal and I went geocaching together and what a blast it was. We found a cache on the Bruce trail along forty mile creek, however it did not look that promising in the beginning. We took the wrong path in the beginning and hiked almost all the way up the escarpment. Eventually we found it and I think that Marshal is hooked on geocaching now. Thanks for the hunt Marsh!

Bachelors

2007-02-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

Well our girls are gone. They left bright and early yesterday morning with a few small glitches. Lets see, we got up at 6 so that we could be on the road for 7 and at Buffalo airport for 8. (I love that airport, so simple, easy and cheap) Everything went smooth at check in with both bags under weight, Laura was worried that the bags were going to be too heavy. Said our good byes and the girls waited around to find out that their flight had been cancelled. Something about the plane in Boston could not make it to Buffalo, technical difficulties or something. So a small detour through New York and then Boston and everything would be alright, except they lost their luggage. I guess the bags did not make it to the flight going to New york and instead they just sent them on the next flight to Boston from Buffalo. My last text message from Laura said they are safe and in Ireland now.
So what did two handsome bachelors do during their first day, go on a shopping spree of course. We started at one of my favourite American stores, Target. We picked up a pair of jeans and a cool T for Nyles. From there we went to the galleria and hit Dicks Sporting Goods. Nyles picked a pair of sweet Vans there. Next, JC Penny where Nyles picked up another pair of jeans and some badly needed socks for both of us. (Has anyone ever figured where all the socks go to in this world. I have dozens of single, odd socks) After Nyles' shopping was done I hit the shoe stores and scored my self a pair of Puma's, Adidas' and Asics'. All this shopping had these men hungry so off to our favourite American restaurant Cracker Barrel for some home style cooking. With our bellies full, we filled up the car and headed for home.
Day one of bachelorhood completed. Other plans for our ten days include, ice fishing and snow shoeing at my mom's and Great Wolf Lodge for a few days.

Guy's weekend

2007-01-14T11:51:00.000-05:00

Nyles and I are coming to the end of our guys weekend and we would like to share our fun times we had with you.

Friday:

We dropped off the girls and Nyles went to school. After school we struggled to find a good restaurant for both of us. Nyles in his brilliance thought the mandarin would be good. So off to the mandarin we went. We were a bit to early so we had some fun time doing groceries first. Finally, at the mandarin, Nyles enjoyed a "Holiday Ho Ho" drink, which is a strawberry slushy floating on a pina colada (virgin of course). After a few trips to the buffet and dessert we moved on to dance class.

Saturday:

Began the day with a hearty breakfast with omelets. We started the day off slow with some extreme sports, pool trick shots and some Much Music on tv. After that we headed out to do some serious shopping at the dollar store and party packagers. At the dollar store we scored a dinosaur covered in slime, at party packagers we got noisy magnets, wrist bands, and an egg we are still waiting to hatch (not real). After a quick dinner where we tried buckwheat, Nyles hung out with his buddy Jordan and I went to Youth group.

Sunday:

Had to start the day right with some pancakes! We've now cleaned up and are planning to go to Starbucks and take out the garbage.

I think we've had a good weekend and we are ready for our guy's "ten days of fun" when the girls go to Ireland.

P.S.

Just got back from geocaching and it was awesome. Nyles and I felt like real modern day pirates/CSI agents trying to follow clues with a GPS to find the hidden treasure. Gotta get ready for church, hope to blog more about geocaching later.

It Snowed!!!

2007-01-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

If you swing by my place during the next twenty-four hours do not be alarmed, a giant did not run around in circles on my front lawn leaving giant footprints. I tried the new snowshoes and they're great!!! Thanks for all the prayers.

When is it going to snow?

2007-01-08T19:07:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of my snowshoes that I got for Christmas and I have yet to use. Please pray for snow!

Past/Future

2006-12-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, before I start, I know it's been forever since I last blogged, but when you haven't blogged for awhile it feels like you have to cover everything in your life that you missed and when you procrastinate like me that's a lot of things to cover.

Past year

Ran my first five km race with Emily.
Ran my first five km race with Laura.
Trained for and ran the Toronto Marathon, 3:58:28.
Experienced a major spiritual crisis in my life and turned to God.
Watched Emily dance at North American Nationals where she placed.
We went to Disney Land, Universal Studios, Sea World and San Diego Zoo.
Celebrated July 4th with Americans I didn't know and it was great.
Saw a calf being born on trail while on a run, thanks God.
Watched Nyles dance at his first Canadian Nationals where he placed second in Cananda.
Was a team leader on three different teams at work.
Our guinea pig died. We miss you Pinky.
We have a new member in our family. Welcome Mocha.
Celebrated our tenth anniversary with Laura.
Discovered podcasts, and I'm truly addicted.
Toured an aircraft carrier with Nyles.
Discovered Sudoko, thanks Mark.
Started a journey with a spiritual coach/mentor.
Experienced a colonoscopy, not fun.
Started blogging.
Worked over 500 hours of overtime.
Became a youth leader.
Discovered gin martinis and love them!
Spent many weekends in Buffalo, and I use to hate the place.
Bought my first thing from ebay.

Future

Try geocashing
Run two marathons: Cincinnati's Flying Pig and Toronto.
Introduce someone to Jesus.
Get a promotion.
Photograph more of my familie's life.
Scrapbook and no I am not gay.
Continue studying spiritual practices with Al.
Finish reading Screwtape Letters with Laura.
Invest in and grow my relationship with Laura.
Have a guy's weekend with Nyles while Laura and Emily go to Ireland.
Write a sermon for the youth group.

Time to celebrate!

2006-10-29T21:16:00.000-05:00

Just want to give a shout out to two of my favourite young people in my life, Emily and Nyles. First, Emily last week competed in her first cross country meet and finished 37 out of a 100 girls, which helped her team of girls to finish third. Her school came in first over all.

Way to go Emily!!!

My next props goes to Nyles. He competed in a special dance at the fies this weekend where all kids from novice and open skill level competed in a soft shoe dance. Fifty kids ranging from eight to sixteen competed and Nyles won!

Way to go Nyles!!!

Random

2006-10-28T21:06:00.000-04:00

What a week! Finally finished a long week at work. Total hours this week, 57 hours. It was a good week though, next week management is unveiling a bathroom break policy, should be some disgruntled people next week.

Pinky, Emily's guinea pig, died this week. I know it was only a rodent, but it really upset the whole family. Emily was very upset for a few days. I miss you Pink!

The kids danced in Burlington this weekend and both did very well. Emily placed seventh out of 19 for her competition and Nyles placed second in two dances and first in an other. Nyles also got a chance to dance in a special competition with all age groups of the same level and he placed first! The trophy is almost bigger than him. Way to go guys.

Al and I will be finishing off the book of Matthew this week. Next we are tackling The Celebration of Discipline next. Should be a gooder.

Dancing

2006-10-26T13:21:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone, two of my favourite poeple in the whole wide world or going to be dancing in Burlington this Saturday. Emily and Nyles are going to be dancing at Notre Dame Highschool, Burlington (up Walkers Line to Upper Middle turn left go on to Headon Forest turn right and continue north to school). This is a feis (pronounced "fesh") where about 400- 800 kids compete for top honours. It is a crazy, confusing, exciting, exhausting day. There will be many stages set up in the gym and the main stage in the auditorium. Emily will be dancing solo on the main stage at some point through the day and Nyles will be dancing solos on a variety of stages in the gym. We don't have a stage schedule (which is really just a guide line) yet, but will let you know if we can. They are both competing with teams first thing in the morning. Which brings me to another point of interest about feisanna (plural), they usually start at 8:30 in the morning and can go till 7:00 at night until the last kids dance and get their results (we are generally done before 5:00). As I said, an exhausting day. This is a very important day because it is a warm up for the Oireachtas (pronounced "oh-rock-tus) the Canadian national competition Nov 10-12. Next weekend we have a feis in the Syracuse area, (yes I drive four hours each way just for my children to have a great competition) the next weekend is the big event. This will be Nyles' first nationals, and we have had a bright pink dress shirt made for him so that he can catch the judges' attention, and this is Emily's chance to qualify for World's in Ireland. We are all very excited, we get to spend four days in Ottawa, enjoying our Nation's capital and the best dancing this country has seen. If you have some spare time this Saturday, come and check them out.

Podcasts

2006-10-21T12:56:00.000-04:00

Have you ever just wanted to listen to someone's blog instead of taking the time to read it, or having a blog that is portable that you can take it with you and listen to it in your car or while you are doing the dishes. Well you are in luck! Podcasts are like blogs combined with talk radio on a specific topic or idea. If you are already aware of pod casts, you can move on to the next blog in your bloglines, but if you haven't read on.

Wikipedia defines a podcast as "a multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers." The cool things about podcasts are that are usually done by an average Joe like you or me on a topic that they are passionate about. I have often thought that podcasts are like indie music where the artist does not have to answer to a producer or record label. As a result, the true art of the artist comes through and is not censored or changed. Most good podcasts are commercial free and produced weekly.

O.k. so you are probably asking how do I get one of these podcasts and what are the topics they talk about? The best search engine for podcasts that I have found is called podcast alley. At podcast alley you can search out podcasts by genre and also by how popular they are. Another way to find a podcast is to go to iTunes and search their store under podcasts. No worries about the cost, all podcast are free to subscribe to.

So which podcast do I listen to on a regular basis? My top four are:

Pheddipidations - A PodCast for, and by runners: Thoughts, opinions, observations and rambling diatribes composed during distance long runs. Steve Runner is a mild mannered middle-of-the-pack distance runner who shares the output of his oxygen starved cranial stimulation with his audience while training for his next marathon. Phedippidations is a RunCast named after the legendary Greek messenger: Phedippides. A modern day messenger of sorts; Steve runs near his home in Central Massachusetts. Each show is dedicated to an aspect of running, covering topics such as: training, injury, gadgets, nutrition, strategies and Steve's pathetic attempts at breaking four hours in the marathon. Subscribe to Phedippidations at SteveRunner.com. [Running Time: approx. 30 minutes; Produced: Weekly]

Burning twenty - 20 Minutes, 20 Weeks, 20 Pounds... A humorous account from podcaster Adam Tinkoff, host of TINKOFF RADIO keeping his 2006 resolution to burn 20 pounds in 20 weeks. (If you are going to check this one out, start at week one and go through them in order)

Daily Breakfast - Daily Breakfast - a breakfast show with fr. Roderick. The perfect way to start your day, with a 20-minute mix of music, news, movies, tv-series, videogames, history, health tips, inspiration, science fiction and more. Hosted by the Dutch catholic podcasting priest fr. Roderick. (I think this one is the Catholic church's attemp at being like a post modern church and is produced daily)

Dump Runners Club - A weekly info-tainment talk about my running. Each show includes a look at my week in running. Running news around the country and locally here in Denver. Some workouts, suggestions and tips based on my 20 years of running. Check me out!

If you are into podcasts please let me know what you listen to, I would love to add to the ones I already listen to.

Toronto Marathon

2006-10-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

Yes, I did it! What a great time it was too.
Before I begin to tell you about the whole experience, let me begin by thanking my family for the sacrifice they made so that I could run in a marathon. I missed many evenings of dance practice, passed on helping with homework to Laura and just wasn't around some nights so that I could do hill repeats or tempo runs. For sixteen weeks in a row I was not home Sunday morning so that I could do a long run, that would sometimes last as long as four hours. Thank you Emily, Nyles and Laura for the sacrifices you made.
Lets see, the training went well with a total of three, 33 km long runs before the race and a three week taper. The taper part was really hard, I kept thinking I could run more, but all the books said not to. I also started getting weird pains in spots that I never had pains before like the front of my shins during the taper. After 16 weeks of training, the race weekend finally showed up at the same time as my tenth wedding anniversary, bad timing. I guess I should have realized that when I signed up for the race, however we made the best of it on the Friday when I picked up my race kit and went out for dinner while in Toronto. Everything went well the day before the race, I just stayed home and rested. The morning of the race we showed up an hour early, got parked, warmed up and stretched. Laura got a subway pass for her and the kids and they were able to ride the Young street subway during the race. They would pop up every other stop just in time to see me and then hop on the subway again and go down another couple of stops, pop and see me and , well you get the idea.
17 km mark.
Finally the marathon, I was bit nervous about what to wear so, I dressed in layers with an old cotton long sleeve shirt and old gloves for my outer layer. After a few kms, I threw away the shirt and the gloves and felt comfortable for the rest of the race. It was a great day for weather! During the first 21 kms, I felt like a chatter box, I talked to everyone. First, there was a couple of women who could not get their GPS watch to work and wanted to know what pace they were running. After five minutes of talking with them and telling what pace my watch said, I started talking to a guy who I bumped into while watching a police officer direct traffic. I found out that this was his first marathon and his goal was just to finish. Well after five or six conversation ranging from the around the bay road race to cell phones I made it to the 21.1 km mark or the half way mark at a time of 1:58. I was pretty happy about that considering I just went out light. I figured I was a minute ahead of my four hour goal. The next ten km I decide to try to make up some time by picking up the effort a little. This was probably a good idea because I did not gain any time on my goal, but I did not loose any time. At the 32 km mark I was feeling a bit tired and my only thought was I just have to run a ten km race to finish. I dug a little deeper and went I little harder only to keep on pace. At the 39 km mark I was a minute ahead of my goal. It was also at this time I think I hit the wall. The next three kms are completely a blur, I have no idea how I did it other than at the 42 km mark I was still ahead of my goal. I did my best at what I would have called sprinting the last 200 meters, I'm not sure what it looked like, but I am sure it looked funny. I crossed the finish line with both arms tingling from lack of oxygen at a time of 3:58:28. I did it under my goal time.
finish line
After getting my medal I headed straight to the massage tent.
yesss, message!!!
Well there you have it, my first marathon in a nut shell. Thanks for letting me spill it all out to you. Hopefully we can plan to do one together in the future?

Happy Anniversary

2006-10-17T13:34:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess its been a while since I last posted, bad me. I have to be honest for a moment I have been going through a time in my life where my eyes have been opened to how much of a selfish and prideful person I can be, so I took some time off from blogging. It seemed wrong for me to write about myself when all I wanted was more of everyone else and more of God in my life. So how do I write a blog about me and not have it all about me? Easy, write the people in my life and how God is in my life and my relationships.

So, on with the post and my title "Happy Anniversary". This past Friday Laura and I have been married for ten years. If you don't know Laura let me take the time to tell you a little bit about her. She is my best friend, the best cook I know, an amazing baker, a great mom, an awesome scappbooker and someone who has put up with me twenty years, (did I mention that she's cute too). You see, we met in grade nine history class. The very first day of high school, in Mrs. Silver's class, I noticed this hot green or was it purple haired girl sitting in front of me. For the next month this hottie pursued me and I had no clue that she even liked me. Fifteen years old and hormones running through my body like a freight train, I was only thinking how much I liked her and did not really get the hint until she dropped a phone number on my desk one day and told me if I ever wanted to study to give her a call. I went home that night and asked my older brother if he thought this girl likes me or not? He thought I was the stupidest fifteen year old alive. Needless to say I gave the number a call and the rest is history.

Back to our anniversary. On Friday I had a big bouquet of flowers delivered in the morning and I had arranged someone else to take the kids to dance class, so that we could spend an evening in Toronto. After work we raced to Burlington and hopped on the Go train so that we could spend some time together and not worry about traffic and parking. For the next hour on the train we just looked at each other and talked with no worries of the outside world. Once in Toronto we cabbed it to the theatre district where we picked up my race packet for a race on Sunday. We walked along King street looking at all the restaurants and settled on a little place called KitKat . It was a cool place that served southern italian food. Dinner was great and after a walk in dowtown Toronto we ended up back at KitKat for coffee and dessert. One of the coolest things about the place is a tree that grows right through the building. You can see it in the picture behind Laura and me. They call it the lucky tree. Lucky I guess that they did not cut it down.

Thanks for putting up with me for all these years and I pray that God continues to bless our marriage together.

Hi-jacked

2006-10-05T15:05:00.000-04:00

I have hi-jacked my husband's blog to say- I love you.
That's all. Laura

Toyota

2006-09-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone, the Toyota recruiting site is ready. Just click here

TOYOTA IS HIRING

2006-09-12T20:03:00.000-04:00

If most of you don't already know, I work for a great place called "Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada" or TMMC. It's a little place (2 million square feet) in Cambridge, Ontario that builds the Corolla, Matrix and the Lexus RX 330. Recently they announced the opening of a new plant in Woodstock that will produce the Rav4 and will be hiring 2500 people to staff the production side of things.

The hiring process begins with an online questionnaire at the toyota.ca website and continues with an interview, work simulation and reference checks. The website will be open on September 20 and will close on October 4. I am not leaving a link right now, just in case it changes. Even though they are going to be hiring 2500 people they are expecting to be overwhelmed with applicants, so go on the website when it opens. Who knows, they may cap the number of applicants and close it early.

A little bit about the job, it is going to be physically demanding and the shifts are 9 hours long, except for Fridays (only 8 hrs). The day shift is: 7am to 4:30pm. The afternoon shift is: 5:45 to 3:15. Both shift have two 15 min breaks and a half hour lunch. The pay is good, but you earn it.

I will post on this topic again on September 20 with at link to the recruiting website.

Fox Journalist Released

2006-08-30T15:01:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to let people into a blog that I read. It's called Unholyland news and it is a guy named Mal who is a camera man for Fox News. He is a runner and that's what led me to his blog, but he has some great insight to what is going on in Gaza. Today his post is about the two Fox journalists that were kidnapped and released. Give it a read!

Sunday!

2006-08-29T04:49:00.000-04:00

Tell me if I'm wrong here, but was Sunday night at church awesome? Kevin really rocked the place out and I loved the way he led worship. Where has this guy been hiding his talents? To quote my wife "It was like Kevin was singing to God with passion and we got to join him"

Scared.

2006-08-23T21:34:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Margie's blog about being scared and I don't want to take anything away from her post, but it got me to do some thinking. This past weekend we went to visit my mom in Bancroft. It was a good visit and we all enjoyed ourselves, but I was left with a feeling like something was wrong when I got home. I'm not sure if you have ever had that feeling like something is wrong and you just don't know what it is. Well after awhile it hit me. My mother is getting old. She turned 60 this year and I know that for some 60 is not old, but my mother looks and is acting much older than she is. She showed me her hands and how she is having trouble with arthritis. All I saw when I looked at them were an old person's hands where the skin just hangs. She no longer does house work, she has a cleaner now. She has also started smoking again after being warned by doctors that she must quit. I guess this wouldn't be as big of a deal, but my mother kept on showing me pictures of aunts and uncles who had passed away in the past year or two. On the last night we were there she told me that while in Ireland this spring she heard that my grandmother on my father's side has passed. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm not surprised that my mom did not know this since the two of them had not spoke in years, I just wish someone would have called. I guess, I'm just beginning to realize that some day, with my father already dead and all my relatives in Ireland, it will only be my brother and me left and that has me really scared. Thanks for your post Margie.

My Favourite Race!

2006-08-21T18:18:00.000-04:00

If you did not already know, I am a runner. I love to run. For me it is the most relaxing thing I do. We'll this past weekend I got to mix two of my favourite things: running and my family.
On Sunday, the annual Cactus Festival 5k and 2k races were held. The 2k race was first and Nyles and Laura lined up for this one at 9:30. Nyles got off to a blistering start, took the lead and never looked back. Two laps around Dundas driving park and Nyles came in first place at a time of 11:31. Guess who the proudest dad was in the park at that moment. Not to far behind Laura completed her first race. It really made me feel good that there was my wife on a race course, seriously racing, I can feel the adrenalin pumping right now.
A few minutes later Emily and I were about take on our first, hopefully not our last, 5k together. There I was, dad/coach giving my daughter/athlete her pre-race pep talk. "Don't go out too quickly" "Pace yourself" "This is your first, so it's a benchmark to improve on" "You can do it". Emily decided that she would shoot for 30 minutes as her goal time. For someone who never trained for a 5k, or ever ran more than 3k before, this was pretty adventurous time. Finally the count down started ten..nine..eight..seven..(I was starting to get nervous)..four..three..two..and off went the air horn and we were off and running. At the first corner Emily told me "Dad you're not pacing yourself, you are going out to fast" Who's the coach here? She was right and we slowed up a bit. One lap around the park and out we went into dundas. At the 2k mark, our time was (believe it or not) 11:31, the same time as Nyles 2k time. At this point Emily started to get pain in her shoulder. So we walked for a few seconds. Still with pain we held up until the 2.5k mark where the only water station was and we walked through it. All downhill from this point, it looked we were going to breeze into a sub 30min time, but the shoulder pain would not let up. I kept on telling her "you can do it","you are going to run this thing under 30" "I know you can do it". Some short walks up until the 4k mark and we were back into the park. At this point Emily's pride must have kicked in and she was determined not to let anyone see her walk. As we rounded the last corner Emily caught sight of the finish line and she took off. She would later tell me that her legs were numb and she was just along for the ride. Her finish time was a very impressive 30:16 (second in her category, the first went to 14 yr old) with her dad just right behind her. After few free burgers, bananas and water, the award ceremony began and to our surprise Nyles, Laura and Emily would receive medals for their accomplishments. My award for the day was having my family run a race.

Community

2006-08-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

Wow what a weekend! For those of you who didn't know, it was just the FRWY camping weekend and it was a blast. To those who planned it and organized it all (including all the yummy food), thanks, it was a great time for building community. I loved hanging out with everyone and I was able to make connections with people I usually just say hi to at church. To all the Mafia players, I know you are Mafia. To Pernell and Nathan, it was a blast killing everyone with you. Jolleen, I still can't believe you jumped off my shoulders. Amber, I didn't really know you before the trip, but I would definitely call you a friend now and you're one cool chick. To all those I didn't mention, I'm just too tired from the weekend and I can't remember you all, but I won't forget the memories.

Frustrated

2006-08-03T14:32:00.000-04:00

Forgive me for a moment, but I have to vent. If you don't already know I have a real passion for running and gadgets, so when Laura bought me a Garmin Forerunner 201 last year I was like a kid at christmas. Let me explain: my garmin is a GPS that wears like a watch and measures the distance I have ran, my pace that I am running at, my elevation, the grade, well lets just say the list is endless and all of it can be uploaded to my PC for hours of over analysing. So that brings me to today. The garmin has a black spot on the display screen and when you upload a run it sounds like a baseball card in the spokes of your bike when you were a kid. I started out going to the Garmin website and contacting them by email. I was sent an automessage back telling me it would be 5-6 days before I would get a response, after all it is their busy season. Six days later I recieve an elaborate email about how to down the latest software for my unit. Ok I waited six days to get info I don't even need, so off with another email. Two days later I get an email telling me to call there support number. Excited that my problem maybe solved and that I get to talk to a real person I called first thing today. Of course I was put on hold for ten minutes, but thats ok because they are going to fix my unit. Finally I get to speak to someone to tell them about the problems and they start asking me all kinds of questions about the unit. YES someone who cares. After minutes of me pouring out my heart about how I must have unit back ASAP, as I can't run without it, I'm training for a marathon, the nice lady on the other end starts to take my personal info only to tell me that I am canadian and she can't help me. Can you believe it I can't be hepled because I am canadian? The funny thing is she apoligezed saying "You didn't sound canadian". What do canadian's sound like? It's not all bad though, she gives me a number for a company in canada. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but the other company is in quebec and I just got of the phone with them and the only thing I could understand was their web address. So here I am with my broken garmin and web address and I am no further today than I was when sent my first email to garmin. Thanks for letting me vent!

Whoonu

2006-07-27T18:30:00.000-04:00

Last week the Buceks introduced us to a great new game called Whoonu by the makers of Cranium. It is so much fun! It is easy enough that Nyles and Emily can play, yet Laura and I played with Carolyn and Marshall and it was great. The game is based around who knows each other the best. Check it out!