DumbFAQ

After a long break from riding, I finally decided to get another bike. After searching for what seemed like forever, I stumbled across an awesome deal on a 2003 Buell XB9R. The Buell doesn’t have a tonne of horsepower, but given that it’s based on a Harley v-twin engine it’s gone a tonne of torque and at 175Kg that makes for a pretty high fun factor. Sadly, the weather has been sucking since I picked it up but hopefully later this week we’ll see the sun and I’ll be able to get out for a longer ride.

woohoo!

So I made the decision that after I got my replacement XBox 360 I’d see if I could swap with someone for a Wii and after having tried out the Wii, the results have been pretty positive.

Obviously the graphics aren’t nearly as good with the Wii as they were with the 360 but it’s got a lot going for it as far as the types of games they are definitely a lot of fun to play and since we still have the original XBox for sports games and the XBMC the change was definitely for the better.

Mike

So I’ve had my XBox 360 back from MS and all is good there but since I’ve found someone to trade me their Wii and games for my 360 and games I think I’m still going ahead with my plan. The kids are pretty excited to have a Wii but I suspect I can still fend them off and hog the machine. At least for know…

So I dropped my XBox 360 off at Purolator on Saturday and today I received an email that my replacement unit is on it’s way back to me. I have to admit that it’s pretty good service but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m getting a Wii as soon as I can get rid of the 360.

Speaking of XBox 360’s, I heard that the fucker on kijiji that was selling them fraudulently has been arrested and charged. Sadly, he probably won’t get in a lot of trouble but hopefully it’ll at least teach the prick not to pull shit like that in the future.

On an unrelated note, spring is here so if anyone is looking to surf or golf, drop me a line - I’m always game.

/gb

So I’ve had an XBox 360 since Christmas and so far it’s been fine until one day last week it locked up. Given that it’s a Microsoft product, I wasn’t overly alarmed and just reset it. That seemed to do the trick for all of about 5 minutes and then it started locking up constantly until after about 5 times in a row it started flashing the ring of death. lovely.

Given that I pretty much spend my life on the internet, I decided I’d google a solution and sure enough, I found one. As it turns out, you can wrap the bad boy in towels, run it for a few minutes, cool it off et voila! It’s up and running again. That worked for almost a whole day before it started locking again which led, inevitably to the ring of death again.

At this point, I was a little miffed so I called up Microsoft and spoke to them. I have to give them credit, they handled it pretty well (lots of experience, I suspect) and since I was under warranty the call was quick and painless. Microsoft is sending me pre-paid packing that I need only drop off at Purolator and a couple of weeks later I’ll have a replacement console. Good times had by all.

That leads to my next decision. The whole reason I got the 360 was for the games like Assassins Creed and Halo 3 which have sat pretty much unused in their cases. I’m also paying for an XBox Gold Membership to play these games online which, like the games is rarely used. The games that we really enjoy and play most of the time are the sports games and adventure games which are all available for the Wii and tend to be much more interactive than their counterparts on the 360. At this point, I’m seriously considering selling my 360 and games and getting a Wii which is probably what I should have done in the first place. The only good news is that I probably won’t lose much money on the deal, which is good because I happen to like money.

If all else fails, I suppose I can keep my 360 until it fails once more at which point I can put it in a pillowcase and start swinging it around.

/gb

After reluctantly parting with my Canon D30, I spent a lot of time surfing Ebay looking for a replacement and finally decided on the Canon 20D. The camera has always got great reviews and is about as good as camera can get in low light being able to go to ISO 3200 without much grain at all.  I ended up getting mine for $450 with less than 1000 shutter actuations and if you add to that 5 frames per second and 8 megapixels and you’d be hard pressed to beat it unless you wanted to shell out a lot more coin than I did. Thus far the results have been very favourable with my 50mm and 18-55 lenses but I still need to pick up a telephoto lens of some sort. Updates will follow, as will a few additions to my gallery on the main site.

 Mike

After being a skier for years and listening to my older son talk trash about how we could never learn to snowboard, we decided the time has come to lay the smack down and take up boarding.

As it turns out, after surfing, skiing and wakeboarding, snowboarding wasn’t all that hard to pick up. We went a couple of times and didn’t leave the bunny hill but after a few weeks we’re carving and doing the odd trick or two. I will say on thing about it though: Snowboarding is way fun. If you haven’t tried it, you should.

Mike

I think the title pretty much says it all…

In case nobody knew, Rhonda and I have been in martial arts for the last few months and recently we tested for our orange belt with green stripe. Part of the test was board breaking and given that we’d never done that before we were pretty nervous about it. In the end, Rhonda snapped hers with a side kick and Mike broke his with a 180 side kick and we both thought it was a lot easier than we expected it to be. Not to say that breaking a board is easy, but as long as you hit it in the correct spot you probably won’t break any bones.

To celebrate our belt test, Team Awesome went to Shubenacadie to the Tidal Bore Rafting Park to ride the highest tides of the year. We weren’t really sure what to expect but based on the stories that we’d heard from others it certainly sounded like fun. As it turned out, the stories were pretty accurate although given that we had the highest tides of the year the pictures on the website and what we’d heard didn’t really do it justice. We had all signed up for the 2 hour tour but our guide Travis said he was taking us to the 4 hour point because the waves were bigger and it was the last ride of the year so as we were headed out we were pretty psyched.

As we approached the spot where the waves were going to be you could see the tide coming and before we knew it the waves were huge and the boat was constantly getting swamped. By the time the ride was done, we were almost out of gas and 5 of the eight people in the boat had gone overboard at least once resulting in a few lost boots. It was definitely an experience that I’d recommend although if possible I would suggest going at the same time of year to take advantage of the highest tides. I’d also recommend a wetsuit and goggles if you have access to them.

On the running front, I have started training again albeit somewhat lighter than I was in the fall. The winter will really be about building leg strength while maintaining cardio with the plan to run Chicago and possibly one other full marathon along with a couple of half’s next season. We’d also like to congratulate Marla on her recent running of the Dublin Marathon as part of Team Diabetes. Marla put a lot of time into training and fund raising to make it to Dublin and despite knee problems at the 24K mark she still finished and posted a great time. Way to go Marla! I think it’s safe to say that she’s earned a few days rest before she comes home and I start bugging her about training for Chicago. I would say that’s all I have for now but I’ll try to stay more on top of things over the coming months.

Mike

Rhonda and I have made the trek to Chicago for the Lasalle Bank Marathon and when we were at the expo picking up my race package we thought it’d be fun to pose in front of the “Hell and Back” sign for a souvenir shot.

Well by the time noon on Sunday rolled around, it turned out that the sign wasn’t too far off from the truth. The weather reports were calling for unseasonably hot temperatures with the humidity index high as well. At 8:00am when they started the race, it was already in the 70’s and feeling pretty warm.

Given that I love the heat, I wasn’t too concerned but at about the 5 mile mark while running in a mob of people I stepped in a small hole and rolled my ankle. This would normally be a small inconvenience but it also caused my knee to buckle and given my past problems with my knee, it turned out to be a bigger issue than I thought.

I managed to maintain my pace until around the 15K mark but by 21K the pain in my knee was getting bad enough that I called Rhonda and said I was done. After about 10 minutes though, I decided pain or not I wanted to finish and called her back to let her know that I was going to at least try.

By that time, the temperature was into the 90’s and humid and people were starting to collapse on the course. This ultimately resulted in the race being called off and runners being bused in, but not before I managed to cross the line at 4:29. It was over an hour past my goal time but given how many people had to be carried off the course from the heat I was happy to have been able to finish.

Despite the injury and the insane heat, it was still a very rewarding experience and a big thanks goes out to Rhonda, Michelle and Andy for carting me around all weekend and providing fantastic support throughout.

I’ll upload the pics to the gallery in the next few days for everyone that actually visits the site.

Time to start training for next year…

Mike