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First things first, I passed my general exam yesterday! The presentation went pretty well and I thought I did a decent job of fielding the questions from my committee. I know that I get over stressed and worked up about these things but that’s just how I function. Immediately after the exam I was struck with two feelings: physical relief and exhaustion! I celebrated passing my exam with a nap, a run around Green Lake and a yummy dinner!

This morning I up very early to fly home to Ottawa for the weekend. I took the above photo at the Toronto airport during my layover. As soon as I got through customs and security I made a beeline for Tim Hortons’ to play Roll up the Rim to Win. As you can see, I won a coffee! It’s good to be in Canada.

I can not believe how much snow is on the ground here! The side streets are barely 1.5 car widths wide in places! I don’t ever remember it being this bad before. It is a pretty winter wonderland though. It’s supposed to warm up this weekend so hopefully conditions will improve.

My main goal for this weekend is to watch as much basketball as possible (and maybe some curling on TV too). It’s the Men’s CIS final 8 and my family has tickets to the whole tournament (10 games). Go Carleton!

At the cottage, circa 1988

Aren’t we adorable!? I loved those pink converse with the yellow and green fluorescent laces.

A Valentine to Seattle

Inspired by the article A Valentine to Seattle in this morning’s P-I I’ve compiled my own list (in no particular order) of reasons to love Seattle:

• Days when both mountain ranges are visible
• The Great Blue Heron I saw this morning at Green Lake
• Mangodillas and margaritas at Aqua Verde
• Requesting books on the Seattle Public Library website
• No state income tax
• The view from a seaplane landing on Lake Union
• Watching bike teams fly down Lake Washington Blvd on a Saturday morning
• Borrowing an umbrella while shopping at University Village
• The Wallingford sign over the QFC on 45th
• The highly efficient Starbucks in the main terminal at SeaTac

• The grid street/avenue system – It’s easy to find places!
• Discovery Park, Seward Park and Golden Gardens
• Watching kids get soaked at Seattle Center’s International Fountain
• The Suzzallo reading room
• The University of Washington quad when the cherry blossoms are in bloom
• Light rail to the airport … some day
• The day you figure our the “Pay as you leave” vs “Pay as you enter” system
• Fremont Solstice Parade
• Pagliacci’s seasonal pizza
• The shady side of Safeco field on a Sunday afternoon

• Summer Farmer’s Markets
• Hoping for a snow day when there’s only an inch or two on the ground
• The Victoria Clipper
• Spiraling down from the top floor of the main library
• The view from Volunteer Park
• No tourists between November and March
• Polar fleece is always acceptable attire
• REI Flagship store and its fireplace
• Wild Pacific Salmon
• The ferry ride to Bainbridge Island

“It’s amazing you can ski down a hill that slowly”

On my first day in Whistler I went downhill skiing with my Dad and sister. It was my first time downhill skiing in two years so Dad and Alli took it easy on me. By easy I mean they took me down most of the Dave Murray Downhill which will be used for the Men’s Olympic downhill race in 2010! Actually, they were really great about taking things slowly for me. See I am a super conservative downhill skier. I like to be in control because the last thing I want to do is tear and ACL or something like that! When Mom saw a video clip of me skiing down a steep hill she actually said “It’s amazing you can ski down a hill that slowly!” Yea, a speedster I am not!

We had several large snow dumps while we were in Whistler which made for lots of powder on the hills. You could actually hear people on the hills spontaneously letting out squeals of joy and they skied/boarded through the powder. Overall the conditions were great even though on some days the alpine lifts weren’t open due to high winds/poor visibility/avalanche risk. My favourite was when there was 5-10cm of fresh snow over perfectly groomed trails.

Later on in the trip I had the idea of wearing my Garmin while skiing. Below you can see the routes that we took over three different days of skiing on Whistler and Blackcomb. We definitely tried to cover as much of the mountain as we could!

Cross-country skiing the Callaghan Valley

Over the holidays I spent nine days in Whistler with my family. Days were spent skiing (four day of cross-country and five days of downhill for me), late afternoons were spent napping and reading and evening were spent enjoying good food (homemade in our condo’s kitchen), good wine and the best company of all – family.

One of the highlights for me was Mom, Matt and my New Year’s day trip to the Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley about 20km outside of Whistler. This is the site of the 2010 Nordic events: cross-country, biathlon and ski jumping. We were to first people to purchase recreational day ski passes in 2008 and headed out on the trails. We didn’t actually do the Olympic routes (they were black (i.e. difficult) trails). The scenery in the valley was beyond beautiful. In fact, it was almost too beautiful to comprehend! Near the end of our route we skied right up to the base of the ski jumps and watched juniors practice for the National Championships that were starting the next day. Then we skied through what will be the cross-country ski stadium. We ended the trip sipping hot chocolates on the drive back to Whistler.

Memorable Moments of 2007

Happy (somewhat belated) New Year! In keeping with tradition (2006, 2005, 2004 and 2002), I am pleased to present my list of Memorable Moments of 2007:

January	February
Vacation in St Maarten with my family	The excitement and trepidation felt starting marathon training (more)

March	April
Weekend in Vancouver with the family and attending my first NHL game	Placing in my age group at the Tom Wales Memorial 5K (more)

May	June
Running my first marathon (more)	Trip to Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains for Jeff and Leah’s wedding (more)

July	August
The Thunder 07 reunion/mock statistical conference	Trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake for Mike and Erin’s wedding (more)

September	October
Trip to Copenhagen and Paris with Mom (more)	Canadian Thanksgiving weekend: running the Victoria half marathon and then family time in Vancouver (more)

November	December
Attending Husky basketball games with Dad	Christmas vacations in London and Whistler

Sonics Home Opener

My Dad and I went to the Sonics home opener last Thursday. We had a blast. Part of me feels as though this was the last real Sonics game since last Friday the owner (formally) announced his intention to move the team to Oklahoma City. Sigh. It was pretty cool to see Kevin Durant play in his second ever NBA game. Of course I had to cheer for fellow Canadian Steve Nash too.

PS – Can you spot Kid Rock in the above photo?

Portage Bay

My office may not have a window but the nearest stairwell has a lovely view of Portage Bay. Also this is proof of a sunny day in Seattle!

Seaplane views

Last weekend I flew by seaplane from Seattle to Victoria and then from Victoria to Vancouver. The seaplane flies so low (that cabin isn’t even pressurized) that the views are amazing. Below is a shot of Lake Union on a sunny day in Seattle and one of downtown on a more typically cloudy day in Vancouver. I have a few more seaplane tagged photos on flickr.

Football and “30 in 30″ goals

Last week my Dad took me to my first ever NFL game. It was a preseason game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Oakland Raiders. I think the last football game I’d attended in person was a Waterloo game in my first year of university. This was a bit different. The best word I can find to describe it is BIGGER. The stadium, the noise, the players and the intensity were all bigger. I had a great time but I actually found it a little hard to follow the game. That’s probably because I was easily distracted by what was going on around the stadium and because I only have a working knowlege of the rules of football and don’t understand the intricacies of the sport.

Attending this game counts toward one of my “30 in 30″ goals that I’m going to be working on during my 30th year on this planet. Actually this is the only one I’m currently working on. My original plan was to attend 30 sporting events between January 2007 and December 2008 (age 28.5 – 30.5, I’m using a loose definition of 30th year here). However, I’m way ahead of schedule, 17 at last count.

Another 30 in 30 goal is going to be to run 6 5Ks (because 6×5=30) in 2008. That’s all I’ve got so far so I’m taking suggestions for goals with a theme of 30. While you think about that I’ll leave you with a few shots from previous sporting events…