Sports

openman
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

I went to the gym today. Yes, I went for my workout on the treadmill, the universal, dumbbells, crunchy pad thingy and other machines whose names escape me as do many memories of late.

But no complaints.

So I worked up a sweat, met a guy who looked about my age and turned out to be four years younger, so maybe I have poor judgment, or maybe I look younger than I am.

I took Steve with me--left him in the trunk of the car and he waited patiently for me to get pumped and sweaty--and when I returned to Doug, (he's my car, of course), I went for peanut butter and paper towels at the Metro across from the Hunt Club Community Centre (that's the way they spell center here) and put it in the trunk and took out Steve. The photo of the guy catching the football was taken by Steve, my Nikon D300. I watched the game for a while and shot photos to put on Flickr, and then went home to a television-less house while Thasneem worked. Now I know that this information is not important to you--but think about it (in Canada they say "aboot" or perhaps "a boat," it sounds a lot like that), some dude made a skillion billion dollars inventing Twitter so all of us twits can tell each other what they had for breakfast, what they're doing at the moment, oops, they just farted, and so on--so maybe this photo of the park, and my time in the gym, and my buying peanut butter with paper towels isn't going to change the face of mankind anytime soon, but it beats the crap out of Twitter.

maple leaves

maple leaves
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

So we took Shabana's advice and went to Le Parc de la Gatineau. It was truly a French experience what with all the French signs in the windows, and those pain in the ass bike riders in the streets of the park (oops, parc) riding like they owned the rue. Lucy, our GPS, wasn't able to find the route for us because parks don't actually have addresses, and I'm as technologically advanced as a broken frisbee, so I didn't know how to find parks on the device, so we used an ancient method of navigation, you've probably never heard of--something called "a map," if I spelled it correctly. A map is kind of like a schematic diagram of places, only much much smaller so it can fit on a sheet of paper. Thasneem was the navigator and I was the pilot, and Doug was, and still is, the car.

We found the park without too much difficulty and went to the information booth. There was a French family of three ahead of us, asking for information about the map they were given by the information maven, and the discourse seemed to go on for hours. French question after French question and finally Thasneem realized that on the other side of the little Question Hut was another French person answering more questions. We got our own map of the park and found out that the closest lake, pinc lake, was fairly far down the road. Oh, I forgot to mention that when I opened Doug's trunk to get my camera gear, I had left the backpack opened and my 60 mm macro lens fell out and got bruised on the edge so that I cannot use a filter on it anymore. Now of course, this is sad on one hand, but gives me leverage about getting another cool lens as a replacement, on the other hand.

But I digress.

So we got back in Doug, drove into the heart of the park, and found Pinc Lac or Lake or whatever. I was as disappointed as the little British girl next to us on the observatory platform as she asked her mummy, "Mummy, why isn't the lake pink?"

"Well, it says here that a man named Pinc discovered it, so I guess they named it after him."

"Boy, that sucks," I said, much to the shock of the British mummy, who put her hands over her daughter's ears and scooped her up and away from me.

So I shot some photos with Steve, my Nikon D 300, and we got back into Doug, and headed for more park to shoot.

The photo above, called "Maple Leaves," is my symbolic concept of the drugs being used in this area of Canada by its citizens. Who paints a house mauve anyway?
Before long, it started to rain. It was a gentle rain that fell, and some of it fell into the back of my shirt, down my back, into my underwear. It was uncomfortable and I decided it would be a good thing if we would go home and see my wonderful photos of this glorious Labor Day in Canada.
So Thasneem and I put Steve away, got into Doug, and drove home to Ottawa. We were one big happy family.
The end.

worms for fishin'

worms for fishin'
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

So, okay, Thasneem and I took the food handlers certification course today and don't you just hate when people start a sentence with "so" and/or "okay," and especially hate it when they do both in the same breath? So anyway, the course was about E-coli, Sal Monella (ex-third baseman for the NY Yankees, 1952) and handwashing and shit. No, I really mean shit, and the problems shit causes with food, which makes handwashing even more important. The photo you see here is of minced beef or hamburger meat--it's a closeup and it kind of tends to make a vegetarian out of many people.

So, okay, we took the course, aced the test, came home and we actually joined the gym in our neighbourhood (Canadian spelling). Tomorrow we work out for the first time since the beginning of June. They don't have a large facility here, but the price is right and there are enough free weights to do the job. I may need to pump to the metric system, however, and will know more tomorrow morning at abooot 7 a.m.

Have a good one, and sleep well, my American and Canadian friends (all five of you).