Too much time....

I'll let the link talk for itself...

Space Invaders!

Worth a look see...

So I went out for a ride...

So I went out for a ride on Saturday morning to do some training as I can't let Army Boy even think about kicking my butt on Sea 2 Summit. My favorite "how fit am I" training evaluation is to bike to Henry Coe, go for a run, and bike back (Click here for GoogleEarth Tracks). I've measured myself on this particular course a couple of times, so it's a great way of evaluating my overall fitness. As I was heading up towards Coe I passed a man who had stopped to adjust some stuff on his bike. I nodded at him to make sure he was alright and continued on my way. As I was on my mountain bike and he was on his road bike, I tried to see how long I could stay ahead of him. After about 6 hard miles he caught up to me, and the chat went something like this (edited as to not bore the reader to tears):

Him: Nice pace. I didn't think you could hold me off for that long.

Dave: Well it only cost me a couple of coughed up body parts that I left along the way.

Him: How do you like your bike?

I was riding my 2002 Specialized Stumpjumper FSRxc

Dave: Love this bike...I've put some serious miles on it, and it's never let me down.

Him: You changed the rear shock. Why?

Dave: My Fox Shock wore out...

Him: They wouldn't rebuild it for you?

Dave: Nope...they wanted to sell me a new one, and I got the Cane Creek for way less

Him: Hmmm...

Dave: You know your bikes. Do you work for Specialized?

Him: Yep

Dave: What do you do for them?

Him: I'm the president

Dave: uhhhh....I'm Dave...

Mike: Nice to meet you...I'm Mike.

We chatted for a few more minutes, and then he dropped me. Now for those of you who don't know, Mike Sinyard is a mountain bike god. He designed the first StumpJumper back in 1981, and has been working with them ever since. I'm very sad because I hadn't had a chance to clean or oil my poor 'jumper (which I usually do regularly), and it was creaking so badly as I was peddling up the hill, that I had cranked my iPod to drown out the noise...what did Mike think? Sigh... :)

Sea 2 Summit 2006

It's now official. Bren and I are going to do Sea 2 Summit Whistler the Sept 9/10th weekend. We'll be racing as Team Cardiac Arrest.

If anybody wants to come up to Whistler to cheer us on, we'd love to see you.

How geeks waste time...

Go to:

http://n.nfshost.com

You are allowed to look at the source, and you are allowed to change the URL. Can you make it to the finish?

This little puzzle probably cost Google a couple of million in "wasted" time alone :)

Sacre Bleu! Tabernacle! Ou est le sirop?

Thieves Steal $1 000 000 syrup

How on earth do you fence 270 000 kg of syrup?

Also, according to this very official looking paper the density of maple syrup is about 1.25 g/ml. At 270 000 kg, that gives you 270 000 000 g of syrup, so you get 216 000 000 ml of syrup, or 216 000 litres of syrup. According to this price sheet, that's closer to $3 615 300 000 (yes that is 3.6 BILLION) dollars of syrup. Now we know that the province of Ontario enjoys fleecing the tourists, but even still...

BTW for our American audience, I realize this is all in Canadian dollars and all those colours (yes coloUrs) can be awfully confusing at times...but even still, that's 3.2 BILLION US.

Edit - who knows what I did on my math. As my Dad has kindly pointed out in the comments it's only (ONLY) $2 892 240...I somehow added a small factor of 10^3 in there. Oops.

Hummingbirds

We have been enjoying watching the development of two hummingbird chicks in a nest near Gran's deck. Although they are still in the nest we think they are almost ready to fly and will likely leave soon.

Summer at Shuswap Lake

We celebrated Robert French's birthday today. Included in the celebration were our very good friend's from Burbank--Jim and Ann Atkinson. Of course Joan and Dutchie were there. The kids are Holly and Piper French as well as their cousins Hanna and Elias.