I have the best brother EVER! Okay maybe sometimes. He was dropped by over the weekend, as he was picking up some chilly bites from a little local African store. While he was there noticed they recently got a shipment of potato chips in, normally they don’t have them in when we go. When I was in South Africa in December I came across the flavor Caribbean Onion and Balsamic Vinegar lets just say, I’ve been craving those since I’ve been back. Now that they are in the house I’m trying to be good not to eat them.

Those Tomato/Ketchup flavored ones were my brothers thankfully he finished them off before he left (after the picture was taken).

Comment for a Cause (C4AC) is back for it’s 4th year. C4AC is my way to raises funds & awareness. This year I’ve picked BC Children’s Hospital as my charity of choice. Each comment this site gets equals $1 that I will be donating at the end of the month.. Don’t forget to keep up to date by subscribing to my rss feed

While waiting for youtube to finish uploading a video I posted this afternoon from yesterdays regatta, I glanced down at one of my rings and thought that would be a great ankle tattoo. But I’m not gonna get a new ink until after this season is over.

Back in high school I use to doodle all the time in class and instead of flowers or hearts with a guys name in them, I’d draw aliens not sure why I guess I’m just unique like that.. So now I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of that to remind me of my youth and what’s more to come..

I think it’s just gonna be the alien with it’s crown, but it is fun to get ideas of what my next tat’s are gonna be

The last couple of months have been crazy busy, with life in general, workload increased and working on my clubs website (was put back in-charge of it ). Never thought I wouldn’t have time to keep up with this site as well with everything else on my plate …. I did write a few posts but never got a chance to publish them, oh well I’m back and I’m happy that I’m pgn is finally getting some tlc again.

How are you?

This past Monday as I was meeting up with a friend for dinner, my car finally rolled over the 100000KM mark. Which is kind of funny since my car is a 2000 Toyota Echo; though I purchased it for work in December 2005 at that time it only had about 50000 KM on it.

– Didn’t take the picture until I parked my car.

Every year since I was could remember my family and I took in our (old) towns Canada Day parade and the rest of the activity’s afterward. And or if we were home/in the pool and the wind was right we could smell the famous Salmon BBQ that they always have…. the joys of living in a small fishing town. Though this year I opted out of driving out to take in the venue, as I over slept and I didn’t really want to battle others looking for parking.

I think its the little things I’m missing about my old place, like every year there would be a paper Canadian flags in everyone’s front lawn, so everyone could have a flag when they head down to the parade, which was done by a realtor who lived in the subdivision as well I went to school with her two sons. If I was able to find those flags I would have done it to my neighbours but I ran out of time. The city I’m in now had their own celebrations, I think I saw more of my neighbours yesterday out and about on the street then I have all year. I didn’t take part in it this year as I took out my Mom for lunch instead.

Growing up and watching those I am Canadian, Molson Canadian beer commercials on tv with one of them sticking to my mind to this day though I can’t find it on youtube. Where this person had a tattoo of Canada with the flag filling it in.. (tired googling but found more American tattoos of that style.) Since I first saw that commercial I wanted that tattoo or something close to it, to mark that I was a proud Canadian.

We all show how patriotic we are to our country in different ways: some are willing fight and die for us, others will be presenting their county at a sporting event or flying their country flag all year long (not just on the country birthday). Like many, I have opted for a Canadian Maple Leaf tattoo with a dragon boat paddle.

To the neighbours to the south have a great 4th of July this weekend.

How did you spend your Canada Day / July 1st?
How patriotic are you? Just on your countries birthday or all year long?
Would you ever get a patriotic tattoo?

What a great weekend, the clouds were rolling in with a few sprinkling of rain here and there but all and all it was one of the best Alcan I’ve been to in years. I say that not just because of the venue or that the woman’s crew I was on got 1st place in our heat and placed 13th out of 22th in the woman’s category. My 1st ever medal for woman’s to boot to, sad that we just missed taking part in the woman’s guts and glory a 2000 meter race (when you get a bunch of teams paddling against the clock and doing wild turns. The one year that my team at the time made it into it…I was 8 months along.. my goal is to take part in it one day)

The reason why I think its the best one to boot is because of the team I paddled with who has a lot of heart . Instead of sparing for the whole weekend with the team I currently paddle with. I opted to paddle with LARD (Los Angeles Racing Dragons) who were short female paddlers for the woman’s races. In my 10 years of paddling in the adult category mostly on 2 boat teams/crews this is the 1st time I’ve seen a 2 boat team do everything together. I mean if the ladies had to be at the tent at 7am so were the guys for the support and everyone teams warm up together as a whole not this your on either the A or B boat for the whole season. You could be on the A boat for a festival and the B the next. More Vancouver teams need to learn from them I think.

On Sunday as we were waiting on the docks for our boats to come in for our 1st race of the day and someone just started to sing Oh Canada, and then the two American teams broke out with the Star Spangled Banner afterward’s. It was a great way to start off the morning! The small things like that make anyone at any level smile. I love paddling at the level I’m at which is against the big fish on the creek, FCRCC. At 16 I had a goal of what level I wanted to be paddling at by the age of 29 but having a kid and the surgery in April. I kind of got side tracked but hopefully not for long.

Though sooner or later a local team that wants it that bad will beat our local national team FCRCC. They have been beaten before years back by other national/high ranking teams but never by a local. In the final there were teams closing in but not quite up to par just yet. I’m not against our national team (I’ve been a fan of their head coach for 13 years), but it would be nice for a local team or Portland’s Kai Ikaka to knock them on their butts every once and a while and take home gold. As you can’t be #1 all the time. FCRCC came 1st and 3rd and Kai Ikaka placed 2nd.

Now that this festival is now over, time get focused for the next 3 festivals of the season (with my team) and maybe another 1 or 2 with LARD.

Photo Credit: Fred

Last year we had four paddling centers on the creek that housed dragon boats teams but this year one had to close down because of where it was located to the Olympic Village with that the festival they host will no longer running. Which is sad, its the only festival around here where, you can do barrel races, paddle blindfolded and race all in different style boats. I heard rumors since late last season on a forum I visit about the city wanting to relocate another paddling center (the main paddling center that we use for all the festivals/regattas) to elsewhere on the creek. Which is fine with me but not sure where they want to put this new paddling center is bothering me and a lot of others.

The City had two open houses showing plans of development of the area earlier in the year. Though I wasn’t able to make either of them because they were only open for a few hours both days. Oi! So I don’t know what’s going to happen.

False Creek has been a keen place for Dragon Boaters since Expo ’86, three years later in 1989 Vancouver held it’s 1st Dragon Boat Festival, years later in 1996 Vancouver was the first city to host a Worlds outside of Asia. With this year marking the 21st Dragon Boat Festival which also might be it’s last one . Which is sad because this is one of my favourite festivals to attend.

When I started off in this sport, this weekends race was basically the only Dragon Boat event out there with one or two regattas. But now since this sport has grown so much over the years. You can find a Dragon Boat event almost every other weekend and all over the planet. I may not be paddling on the creek this season but I do consider the creek to be my home away from home for the last 14 of my 15 years.

If you are in the area this weekend, please come down and sign the petition to keep Dragon Boating on the Creek. No where else in the Lowermainland that hold up to 9 boat heats, other venues can run 3-4 boat heats, 6 if lucky. So please help save this amazing sport!!!!

For More Info:

Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon Boat Team
24 Hours
News 1130

The other day I was taking pictures of my plants and I noticed that my christmas cactus has 10 buds all about to bloom (its a fall blooming plant). While I was taking these ms.Pixel decided to be a brat by eating some of the plant leafs on one of my gram’s old plants. Which end with this picture that I just love.

Sure cats will be cats of course and will leave lovely teeth marks on the leafs of the plants. Which annoys me but nothing you can really do as it normally happens when I’m not around.

Now if my cats could do the chore of watering the plants with h2o, I’d be happy and that be one less job for me.

Like the title says, I have a weird fetish for belly buttons, I just like looking at them. The post baby belly buttons and or the weight loss ones have more of a character then those of someone who hasn’t had a child or struggled with weight. Though I do miss the dimple I had above my belly button that I last saw when I was pregnant

None gross note: I’ve started walking anywhere from 2 to 5 miles a day. Since the weather is getting better, walking is free and easy to do (living in a hilly area is a bonus), I’ve noticed more of my clothes can’t fit right.

I thought they would be here today to finish up the small details like putting up the mirror and some other stuff but they never showed when they said they would be here today. So hopefully they will be here on Monday then gone for good. When they are gone for good, I’ll be changing their alarm code and all the lock on the door they had a key to.

The Coffin Shower is gone and I am SOOOOOO freakin happy!!! Its was a stander shower stall you could purchase at any built center. If you turned on the water but were not in the shower the water would have sprayed out onto the floor. Who ever built it, make it a foot higher then the floor where I almost twisted my ankle coming out of it once. So as you can see, I’m now loving my new walk in shower. Pictures will be posted on my flickr account once the reno is 100% finished for those who can’t wait to see it.