Here’s a couple of new sets of skiing pictures. Enjoy! (click on pictures to go to albums)

Whislter



Lake Louise

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Amanda and I successfully completed our half marathon in Victoria. We are both extremely proud of ourselves for finishing the race, especially since we weren’t exactly “runners” in the past. I think we might qualify now.

It was quite a family event with a total of 10 of us involved in the races. Congrats to Lauren and Caley for completing the half marathon, and Matt, Paul, Leslie, Cheryl and Larry for completing the 8 km. And finally, a special congratulations to Nana for completing the 8 km and finishing 2nd in her division! Of course, we also have to thank Boppa, Vic and Grandma Ivy for cheering us on from the sidelines. A great weekend was had by all and lots of turkey and pie after the race!

I’ve also posted links below to some hiking and camping trips that we did over the summer. With things being so busy, I didn’t get around to posting the photos until now. Enjoy!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. Now that I’m in my final year of med school, things are getting a bit busier and I’ve been away on some electives. Things are going well though - it’s just that there hasn’t been that much non-medical stuff to post about since that’s about all I’ve been up to lately.

On a different note though, I’ve decided to run a half marathon in Victoria. It’s not until October but it will give me lots of time to get prepared. It also gives me an opportunity to visit my family out there over Thanksgiving weekend. I’ve never been much of a runner, so this is a big step for me. I’ve been trying to tell people so that there’s no giving up and turning back. I’ll try and post some updates as to how the training is going - but I have a feeling that a post saying ‘So, I ran again today…’ wouldn’t be that interesting!

If anyone else is interested in joining me, (Amanda has also said she will run), you can find out more information here.

Last weekend, Amanda’s sister Lauren came out for a visit and on Saturday, we hit the slopes of Lake Louise. It was a clear and sunny day making both the scenery and company amazing!

You can see all the photos here!

EDIT: I should have said thanks to Lauren for remembering to bring her camera and providing these photos!

Technorati Tags: lake louise, skiing

OK… so the real reason for this post today is so that I don’t go the entire month of October without an update to the website. Things have been busy, but not with the sorts of things to update on the website.

We had everyone to our place for Thanksgiving which was a lot of fun.

Matt and I are also trying our hands at video podcasting now with The Skinny on Sports Tech. The latest episode talks about my new toys - the new iPod nano and the Nike+ Sports Kit. You can check out the video to find out more about that. The easiest way to play the videos if you’re having trouble is with iTunes. We’re hoping to make it much easier in the future for those of you that just want to see the video within the web page itself.

That’s all for now. November is just around the corner!

Technorati Tags: apple, nano, nike, podcast, sports kit, video

Sorry it’s taken me a week to finally get these posted. You can see the pictures from our trip to Golden, BC and Kicking Horse Ski Resort here. We had a great time with our friends Meredith and Justin and you can see us finishing off our fondue dinner in the later pictures. The skiing was also fantastic as they got LOTS of snow while we were there. I think all of our legs were toast by the end of the trip (except maybe for Justin - he seems to have endless energy!) All in all, a great trip that we’ll hopefully be able to do again next year. Our friends Kristen and Chris are coming from Ontario in a couple of weeks, so we’ll be out skiing Sunshine that weekend - looking forward to that as well.

Technorati Tags: kicking horse, skiing

We’re off to Kicking Horse this weekend. Looking forward to a nice weekend away with some friends from school. We haven’t been out skiing in a couple weeks though, so I’m hoping that my legs are up for the challenge of two days in a row, on new trails that are supposed to be a little tougher than we’re used to. If my legs feel like Jello on Monday, then mission accomplished. Have a great weekend - I’ll post photos when we’re back!

Technorati Tags: kicking horse, skiing

The regular season is over and this is what they are playing for - The Road to the Final Four begins tomorrow. The great thing about NCAA Men’s Basketball is that anyone can win. It’s not like NCAA Football where it comes down to rankings - the basketball teams actually play it out. Of course, there are favorites to win, and there is always some dispute about how the brackets are setup, but when it comes right down to it, you just have to play the games! I’ve got my picks in!

One thing that is annoying me is that iTunes will be offering a “season pass” for the tournament. For $19.99 US you get shortened versions of all 63 games and the semi-finals and finals in their entirety. So, what’s annoying about all this you ask - it’s only available in the US. Come on Apple! I’m sitting and waiting with my credit card to give you 20 bucks - can’t we work this out!

Technorati Tags: apple, bracket, canada, itunes, march madness, ncaa, season pass, tournament

For those of you that were having problems with the video from our day on the slopes last weekend, it should now be working. It may take a bit to load, but once it does, you should be able to view it. Let me know if you have any more problems. Scroll down to take a look!

We had an awesome day skiing at Sunshine Village yesterday. I’ve put up a photo album and as you can see, there was not a cloud in the sky all day.

We also got some movie clips from our camera and I’m in the process of putting together a short video clip with pictures and video highlighting our day. I’ll post the details about it here when I get it up on the site.

It’s supposed to be another nice day in Calgary today, but the forecast is looking to get cold by the end of the week. There’s always hope that the weather people will be wrong, but the winter has been so mild to this point that I think we can handle a couple days of colder temperatures.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

UPDATE: The video is now posted below!

As I mentioned in the last post, I was working on a video with highlights from our day of skiing. You can watch by clicking below. Enjoy!

Finally, a company with some outstanding customer service!

Without going into too much detail, we’ve been having a terrible time with customer service lately. The streak seems to have come to an end with Columbia Sportswear. 2 weeks ago, I was getting ready to wash my old ski jacket, but after removing the zip-out liner, I noticed that the waterproof lining of the shell was disintegrating and looked like it was completely falling apart. The jacket is a few years old, but I knew that Columbia has a great warranty. So, after calling Customer Service, they gave me a return authorization and I sent it back for them to have a look.

Yesterday, when I got home, there was a brand new jacket waiting for me at the door. The turn around was only 2 weeks and I now have new ski gear! Can I really expect anymore?!

Thanks Columbia! It’s always nice to get such exceptional service! I’ll be testing out the new jacket tomorrow on the slopes!

No matter how big of a sports and/or football fan you are, there’s nothing like the Super Bowl. Whether you watch it for the game, to hang out with friends, or even just to see the new commercials, it’s sure to be a good time. I’m preparing myself for a blowout this year so that if it is, I won’t be disappointed. However, this game looks like it could be a great one!

Speaking of the commercials, there’s a video podcast feed that is supposed to be posting all the commercials from the Super Bowl. You can get the feed here and use a program such as iTunes or my new personal favourite for video podcasts - FireAnt. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Well, it wasn’t a blowout, but not the best Super Bowl either. Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers! You can hear more about what Matt and I thought on The Skinny on Sports.

From the Sunshine Website:

“Sunshine Village is officially open!! With 8 cms of new snow and a snow base already at 75 cms this is the best opening we have had in 16 years! 8 lifts are running and there are over 40 runs to ski and ride on.”

The picture to the left is from the website and was taken on October 31st. I usually don’t even think about going skiing on opening day since it’s usually pretty rocky. While I don’t expect the conditions to be perfect, the snow report and the picture are making me start to get the skiing itch! We have season’s passes again this year. I think we’ll have to try and get out in a couple of weeks following my next exam at school. Hopefully the snow keeps falling out in Banff and we get good conditions all year.

Yahoo! has jumped in on podcasting with a new website. It’s been out for a couple of weeks now, but I wanted to point it out now since we are on their front page as one of their Staff Picks. You can view a full screenshot here.

Thanks Yahoo!