Yep, it was. January 14, 2009

Yep, 2008 was the best year ever.  No doubt about it. I don’t know how it happens, but somehow each year has been better than the last, since I was born.  Seriously, I’m not bullshitting.  Every year I look back and go “whew, does it get any better??”  Sometimes some key aspect of my life goes to crap, but then, that just sets up something else.  I knew it would happen again this year and it did.  Not everything went perfect. There were some financial stresses, vehicles that got wrecked or broke down, races I blew, disagreements from time to time, jobs that never got done, friends or family that got seriously ill, and a few that passed on.  But if you look at the list, it’s all stuff that no family on earth avoids.  Try it, check the list.  You probably had 80% of them too. It’s life. Otherwise it was the best year ever. 

My bike racing performance was below average, and only a second place at the Velo stage race crit to smile about. But I learned that I could still hang out with friends and a few beers, get up the next morning and race hung over, and still have a fun day, it hurt more, but still fun. Lots of times that great day simply meant finishing at the back but having a great time watching the chaos, or working with a teammate.  It was all good. I also realized that if I could stay with the pack completely hung over, maybe I might actually win something if I focused a bit.  The Devon GP was another success, and we made some mistakes but they forced a whole new approach to the race organization, and the GP will be even bigger and better in 2009.

The kids were even more fun than ever as they grow and change.  They still live life like a bomb going off.  But one day this summer, Cassidy came up and said, out of the blue, “You know, I love my life.  I love everything about it.  My friends, my family, all the fun things I get to do, my school, my cousins. It’s so great! I just love it.”  That right there, pretty much made my year.

 
At work, we’ve had a lot of challenges, and some really hard moments, but every time we get through it, every time we or I screw up and have to unravel a big mess, it’s like this intense MBA crash course.  I have to make some adjustments to how I work to balance overtime, but I have a plan, and that’s half the battle.
We got lots to be thankful for; there’s a lot of war in the world, but I get to stay home with family; the economy is sideways but my company is gonna be ok; the housing market is a bear but we bought years before it hit; my kids are healthy and happy. 

 
Cindy had a great year, establishing her training pattern, xc skiing with the club, doing more cyclo-cross.  She continued to remove walls with the axe. She got her work schedule changed to fit our lives better.  She was the rock that got all 200+ volunteers going the right directions for the biking club. She experimented with some dietary changes and it’s really working.  She’s a machine; nothing stops her, she just keeps motoring along, game for anything. 

The great part is that if I look at all the things I want to improve, they all seem to be symptoms of one issue, which means making a plan for 2009 to be the best year ever will be easier than I thought:  I have to simplify.  I let life get too complicated.  Too many projects, too many activities jammed in.  Too much clutter.

The Devon GP could be simplified to require less volunteers even with the same # of events.  I have already thrown out a lot of half-done projects from the garage: Better to reap the satisfaction of the ones that will become something, than forever trip over the “someday-I–should’s”. I finally got in touch with a few old friends this year, people I used to be in contact with daily, that I haven’t spoken to in years.  I gotta simplify my schedule, call people and get together, rather than saying “hey let’s get together”, and then it never happens.

There’s a lot of freedom in simplification.  I got rid of my bike computer and it was like taking off leg shackles.  I don’t need a computer to tell me that I pushed too hard…usually I just barf, and I see the chunks on my legs, and that’s my sign.

 
Simplify.

 
Yep, 2009 is gonna be the best year ever.

“You have to put happy things in there so your brain isn’t hurting” November 4, 2008

 

Last night I got home from Cold Lake and I was tired and I told the girls it was because I can’t sleep on the road because I miss my girls. 

Dani (4 yrs) says to me: “Dad, it’s because of all the work things and sad things in your brain!  Your brain is full up of things that are bad and you have to clean it out!  You have to put happy things in there so your brain isn’t hurting”  I said: “like what?”  And her answer was “well, like happy things.  Sometimes I think of skating, or snowmen, or candy…and then your brain feels better and you can fall asleep.”

 

And to think people buy books written by psychologists to tell us pretty much the same thing…

Blaster lives… November 3, 2008

The kids decided ‘Blaster” is a good name for the Master Deluxe.  Maybe because that’s the noise it makes, and with all the smoke.  A 67 year old straight six doesn’t exactly purr the first time it’s started.  Anyway, I figure it’s a good name, and better than some of thier other choices like “flower” or “kitty”.  We got Blaster going last week, and it was actually really cool – I was jumping around like a moron..who wouldn’t!!  A $600 car from 1941 and it started…seriously, who’d a thunk it.  It caught on fire a couple times in the garage from the gas I spilled working on the carb, and one electrical fire…but nothing serious.  It definitely tells a story about the times: there are about 15 ashtrays!  There is an ashtray on every surface.  Now the real work starts..the stuff I need to do for it to be road worthy: brakes, clutch, lights.  The interior will be (according to the kids, to whom I promised the colour choice) black and purple, which actually is gonna be good. (They coulda said pink and orange so i should be glad).  They want to chop the top off, but I vetoed that since we don’t live in california. Some projects end up taking so much time and work that it’s only fun when they’re done, but something about this one has been fun since the beginning, and the fact that both kids sometimes draw pictures of it with thier latest paint job idea, means that it actually will be a family project, which was the point from the start.

But we still gotta convince cindy it was a good idea…

It’s time to travel… November 3, 2008

I think it’s time to go somewhere. 

We used to travel alot, Cindy and I, and we kinda stopped when the kids arrived, but they’re travel-ready. I grew up travelling: heck I pretty much lived on my own in a foreign country from about the age of 15.  I’m in Cold Lake for work, and I wish Cin and the kids were here.  It’s a cool place so far.  I wouldn’t want to live here, but that’s what all trips are, somewhere away from home for a bit.  It really hit me yesterday, I was standing on the pier at the lake, and it could’ve been Holland.  It felt like home.  Holland is my childhood/youth home really, since I was there for a long time during the years I grew up (about 16 – 25).  But it would’ve been better if the 3 girls were here.  When I get home, I’m planning a trip…because I miss home…does that make sense?  I think travelling makes home that much better, and that’s part of what makes travelling cool.  And I gotta take the kids to Holland, see where daddy “grew up”…or maybe just to Cold Lake, it’s a cheaper facsimile…

Kindergarten Rules! April 4, 2008

Got to spend the day with Cassidy at Kindergarten as part of her “Star of the week”.  It was the best ever.  We did crafts and words and the 5 senses and show-and-tell and all sorts of stuff.  

One thing I learned: the kids are 100 times smarter than I expected.  They are doing stuff I didn’t do until grade 3 I’m sure.  They actually understand how molecules line up in iron to create magnetism!  Crazy.  But they’re still kids, and we had a blast goofing off.  I can relate to kindergarten age. 

 At lunch we had Macaroni & Cheese and I pretended my noodles were sailors and piled them on my bun, which was a ship, and then I was a giant shark and I bit half off and ate it real noisy and messy like a shark, and then the rest of the sailors were diving off and screaming.  The kids at my table really dug that, and pretty soon lunch was getting outta control so we had to settle down.  Then I did some magic tricks and that got a good laugh. 

Recess was super-fun, we played hide-and-seek, dug for dinosaurs, fought with the “big kids” for the playground. 

Recess at a K to 9 school is like a history-of-Europe-from-1910-to-1946 condensed into 15 minutes!  From the moment they get out the door, there are little alliances, skirmishes, wars, truces, new alliances, spying, land claims, betrayals, and deals going on everywhere. 

Just one little episode I witnessed (before I had to help a kid who peed her pants): First the grade 2’s and 1’s took control of the tower and slides.  Then the kindergarten boys, plus Cassidy, stomped up there to demand access. Then the 2’s got greedy and kicked out the 1’s too, who shifted allegiance to the K’s.  That worked for a while until the K’s noticed somebody digging in “their” dinosaur pit, and the battle shifted to the eastern front. 

I was gassing out, and they took it so seriously.  I won’t forget little Ethan trying to explain to me:

“You don’t get it!  They TOOK the top slide.  It’s THIERS.  We can’t get it back” He explained. 

“Why not?”  I asked.  Then Cassidy and another kid piped in:  “Because!  Just because! They took it, it’s THIERS now. That’s it.  Nothing we can do.” 

Then the K-boys stormed the slide from the bottom and the war was on…

SuperIncredibleKids – The Movie April 2, 2008

We’re making a movie. 

It started pretty innocently, but like everything in our house, it went out of control pretty quick.

Just after supper the girls said that they wanted to make a play, and mom and I would be the audience.  Then they said “let’s film it.”  I told that if you film a play, it’s a movie.  Well, that set it off the rails. They lost their minds. “A movie!  Yaa!! Let’s make a movie!!”

For the rest of the night, they jumped and ran and acted and screamed and argued around the living room while I wrote it all down.  It’s all their ideas, 100%.  I just asked stuff like; “What kind of story? (Pirate/Princess/super-hero/scary/sports?) Who is in it? Why are they good/bad? Do they have any special skills or powers? Where did they get their super-power?  Why do they do that? Who will play them?”  They just kept going on and on.  I can’t wait to start. We’ve got it all mapped out, we just need to do the dialogue and make the costumes and set.  Even if it take forever, I think the process will be the fun part.  They get to paint the background and sets, make the costumes etc.  They’re excited about that.

Here’s the story so far:

A good wizard is dying, and he knows that an evil mad scientist is going to try something.  In his dying moments, the good wizard transfers all his powers to a group of kids who are having a dance party.  They don’t realize it so they discover their new powers by accident, and each only gets one or two of the powers, each something different, stuff like; the power to turn invisible, turn into various animals, become Bruce Lee (seriously – my daughter loves his movies), shoot lasers, etc. When the evil scientist poisons all the food in the world, the kids decide they are going to find a way to save everyone.  They go on a quest to find the evil scientist and along the way they have all kinds of adventures and meet; a dragon, a robot, two aliens, a pirate, a witch, and a few others…I couldn’t write fast enough, they had so many ideas.

This is gonna be the funnest project ever…woohooo!!! 

Flaming arrows is coming! March 26, 2008

I just happened to talk to a guy here at work  that has been arrow hunting and guiding for decades, and he happens to have a pyro/explosives fanatic brother, so anyway if we can find the location, and get the permits and stuff, he will hook up the bow and arrows – he said he’s got tons of old ones we can toast.  Also, he said he’ll mention it to his brother, who spent his youth making his own bombs, blowing up neighbors’ garbage cans and mailboxes, and he can rig something up to explode when the arrow hits. 

How diggable will the kids find that!!!!

Oh man oh man oh man I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait  

Flaming arrows original idea: http://timbrewster.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/before-you-die/ 

BEFORE YOU DIE March 20, 2008

I just got this email from my buddy Lindsay:

“Timbo . . . I heard this one at our retreat this week and I thought of you immediately…We were talking about things we gotta do before we die, and a friend of mine said that his 5-year-old son already was working on a list of things he has to do in his lifetime…

Top of the 5-year-old’s list:  “I want to shoot a burning arrow into something and burn it down.”

Who doesn’t dream of being able to shoot a burning arrow! 

So my buddy is trying to arrange a burning-arrow-shooting day on a local farm . . . they are all going to shoot burning arrows into an old farm building and burn the thing to the ground…and then clean it all up…

Aaahhh the imagination of a 5-year-old eh?” 

This is hilarious!  I want to shoot a burning arrow!  I never would’ve thought of asking someone that young but now I can’t wait to ask my kids what would be on their list.

I’m sure everyone has heard of it, but in case you haven’t:  Back in 1993 the Chicken Soup For The Soul series had a story about a guy that had a list of life goals (http://www.johngoddard.info/life_list.htm) and I remember thinking it was the coolest idea ever, so I started one immediately.   It’s not a career type thing, it’s more a really LIVE LIFE kind of list, so it doesn’t have “Become Senior Regional Manager” on it, but rather stuff like “light a match with a rifle at 100 paces” kind of stuff.   My (and now “our”) list has everything from “hike to Mt. Everest” to “Learn to do that spin-the-pen-around-the-thumb-thing”.   

It really does work: Sure, I still haven’t done 80% of it, but we’ve also done a lot more than we would’ve otherwise, simply because stuff was on the list, and so sometimes we just go do it.  We did go to everest, skydive, bungy-jump, stand on the Eiffel Tower, read some Tolstoy and Machiavelli, and a few others, simply because the list inspired us. 

Try it; make a list of things you’d like to do, (they don’t have to be big important things, just anything that would make you happy) Then, constantly look at the list and make an honest effort to tick things off.  It doesn’t have to be a individual thing either, I do all mine with the family now – makes it even more fun.  What ends up happening is that, in the process you have a ton of fun and adventures, even if you don’t ever tick much off the list.  It’s the reminder process that creates action, and it forces you to stop and dream a bit, like “what would I do if I wasn’t so chicken.” 

I started my list like about 12 years ago, and I’ve maybe ticked a only fraction, but the fun it has instigated was way worth it.

I’m definitely going to add “shoot a burning arrow into something and burn it down”, and hopefully soon I’ll get to mark it done.

5-year-old needs job, will work for dolls. March 13, 2008

My 5-year-old daughter Cassidy says she wants to get a job. 

Yep.  She announced that yesterday when they were in the tub. 

She says “Dad, I need to have a job, I need to get paid some dollars like you do.” 

I say “oh, ok…”

She says: “ Yup, see, I want the Gymmnasti-brat doll but you guys said no more dolls, that you won’t buy any more but I really want it.  So I want to do a work thing where I do work and somebody gives me money and I will buy the doll myself because it will be my money and I can do whatever I want with it.  So you have to think of some jobs or something  that I can do for you and you can pay me.  Is that a good deal?”

I honestly have no idea what to do about this one.

Spring weekends! March 11, 2008

Last weekend was awesome. 

Ok, I got a cold brewing and I didn’t get to ride, but it was still pretty good.  Went to the motorcycle wreckers and found a decent old fuel tank for the chopper I’m building, which is a relief, because the whole project has been collecting dust for years, and getting a tank moves it up a notch, since now I can try to figure out the wiring and build the seat, now that I know where the tank goes.  Stopped there on the way to the Stony Plain Eagle Senior Triple A playoff game.  We got a friend in town that plays for them, so went to watch and I was blown away.  This is close to NHL level hockey, I had no idea!  Everyone on the ice played top level junior, US college, or even pro at some point.  There’s ex-NHL’ers out there.  It’s the highest non-pro over 18 level there is.  In fact, the championship is called the Allan Cup, and goes back almost a hundred years, and was originally the Stanley Cup before that cup was given to the league when it went pro.  Anyway, the rink was standing room only, the crowd was loud, the music was good, and the hockey was fast and intense…all for 10 bucks!  My dad had the kids, and they went to watch our niece’s Peewee girls hockey playoffs, so before they left we painted thier faces with her number and team colours, and they both wore her favorite outfit in honour: pink skirt with a hockey jersey.

Sunday we XC skied a bit with Dani, as the town was shooting a Devon Promo video, and they asked for families from the ski club to come ski.  The caught us off-guard when they started interviewing us on-camera: we thought it was just going to be filming us skiing off in the distance. 

After that we went for a hike with the girls and didn’t get more than a few hundred yards down the trail when we ran into another family we know.  The five kids climed the trees and played tag for like an hour while we visited.  We were gone for almost two hours and never got out of sight of the trailhead!  It didn’t matter, it was a good day, and the kids were so soaked and muddy we had to undress them on the front porch and leave the snowsuits on the deck to dry.

It don’t get much better than that.