"Smile"

It's Christmas!
I sometimes take this smile for granted, but not today. Today I am reminded that I would not trade it for all the money in the world.  Not however because of the pretty teeth themselves, but rather because of the person and the attitude behind the smile.  Am I not blessed??

Love
Peter

"You Can't Control What Happens"

But you can control your attitude in response to what happens.

That's why I'm feeling pretty good about myself despite the fact it seemed like the universe was out to get me today.

The day started out quite well with a 2 hour visit to the factory where I spent 17 years of my life.  It was humbling and at the same time ego building to have so many people remember me fondly.  Thanks Mark!

It was after I got back home that the real joy began.

Other than my workout all I had to accomplish for the day were 2 little tasks.  The first was to get my dining room table re-assembled, and the other was to get 2 tires put on Miguettes car.  Pretty easy stuff.

And I even had assistance.  Adrian agreed to help out by taking the 2 tires up town if I would only take them off the car.  That part was easy, and so I whipped them off and Adrian headed out.

Ten minutes later the phone rings.  It's Adrian.  The car place is on lunch and if he waits for the tires he may be late for work.

No worries.  Just leave them and I will pick them up later.

Adrian comes home with a promise they will have the tires ready by 4 pm.  Just before he heads out to work he will help me carry my table top back into the house.  Just so you know this ain't no ordinary tabletop!  It is solid black walnut, hand made by my son Jonathan.  The top itself is about 7 feet long and weighs about 150 pounds.  I spent the last several days resurfacing it....six coats of sprayed varnish.

We dropped the thing on the garage floor!!

After my immediate fuck! fuck! fuck!  I knew I had 2 choices.

I made the right choice.  The one corner is so badly bruised that the only way to fix it properly would be to completely rework the top one more time.  I chose instead to embrace this blemish.  After all, if you compare it to my ears it don't really look that bad.

I think this was the critical moment of my entire day as it set the pattern for my responses for the rest of it.

So back to the tires.

I would just drive Adrian to work so I had a vehicle to pick them up.

Whoops....Adrian has hockey after work so he needs a vehicle.

No worries.

I knew Roo would be home around 5:30 so I could go pick up the tires before they closed.  Miguette needed her car for a midnight shift.

Whoops....just checked and they close at 5!

No worries.  Mark gets home at about 3:30  and I can borrow his truck for 20 minutes.

Whoops....Mark has hockey after work!

Shit! Now what?

I got it!  I'll take my tractor!  Just like the town drunk of my youth.  I'll drive my tractor uptown.  Beauty.

No worries.

So I had the presence of mind to strap on my slow moving vehicle sign to make the trip legal, and then I fired up my orange beauty.

Whoops.

The fuel gauge say one bar!!  And we have no diesel fuel in the cans.  At this point I was blaming the rats since I had spent all my fuel unsuccessfully trying to kill them.

But I was not gonna give up at this point.  I decided to take a chance and head to the nearest diesel pump which unfortunately was in the wrong direction, and now I was starting to get pressed for time.

Here I go though, still in a positive state of mind.

Whoops.
 
Before I was 2 minutes out of the driveway the last bar disappeared.

But even the last few kilometres to the fuel station with gauge reading zero didn't dull my mood.  I actually laughed at myself and arrived safely.

Whoops.  There is a big truck parked at the only diesel pump.  Patience Peter but time was now a factor.  He finished pumping and then proceeded to clean every window and mirror on his truck....and then he went in to pay.

Finally however it was my turn and I got er filled up, and knew if the rest of the trip was flawless I could still make it.

Got there with a few minutes to spare.  I went and paid my bill which they had all ready, and then went to pick up my tires where they promised to leave them, as they were just closing the auto repair section of said garage.

Whoops!!!!!!

Sure enough my tires were there and on the rims....my old tires!!!!  They remembered to have the bill ready for me, but they forgot to change the tires.  WOW!

I banged on the door...they let me in...they swore that it just couldn't be....and then to their credit they reacted quickly, and I had my tires in less than 10 minutes.

What a hoot!  And I really did have a very satisfying day simply because I successfully practiced two of my favorite cliches.  The first is the title of this post, and the second is "where there's a will, there's a way".  It really is true.  If you truly set your mind to most anything, you can accomplish it.  "TRY NOT"

I also had another great bike workout.  They always start out so intimidating and end up so gratifying.  I have never enjoyed riding on the trainer as much as I have the last few weeks, and it is all because of the structure.

And lastly I read the most hilarious thing today.  I man wrote an opinion pice on CNN.com in which he blamed gun violence not on guns, but on moral decay.  Okay, I get that.  Moral decay.  Regression and the like.  Moving back to the jungle etc.   His solution is to give guns to teachers!  How can any sane person not see the irony in that?

Then again, if teachers had guns in Ontario maybe Dalton McGuinty wouldn't be so brave, and my grandchildren wouldn't be missing school tomorrow.

And here's another funny thought.  If the nuns had guns when I was in grade school, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it to grade nine.

Love
Peter

"Analyze This!"

Very weird I'm telling you.  Last night I had a dream and as I think is typical of many people I can remember only one little part of it.  That part however is extremely vivid.  I think that I was with some former co-workers and wherever we were, there was a pond of some kind. At one point there was an armadillo in the water.  Someone commented on it but immediately the armadillo morphed into some kind of prehistoric creature with it's mouth on it's leg.  The leg  looked remotely like a cucumber and you couldn't see the mouth until it opened it.  And open it it did, when my grandson Colby suddenly appeared to feed the creature a chocolate muffin.  Yes, a chocolate muffin.  I remember that part better than anything.  I can still see the muffin.  It was one of those large ones like you get at Tim Hortons!

Weird eh? Just had to share it.

I think the dream was still on my mind when I went to the gym this morning as I was definitely a little preoccupied.   I looked everywhere for the handwritten copy of my weight routine and finally gave up.   I must have left it sitting in the gym last time or I had left it at home. Since I only crafted this routine 2 weeks ago it was still not imprinted on my memory so it meant starting all over.  So I laboriously went from exercise to exercise, and reconstructed settings and weights for all 16 exercises.  Frustrating!

But it is what it is,  so I did my workout and this time when I was done I was careful to nicely fold my piece of paper and proceeded to find a safe place for it.  Since I actually leave my gym shorts in my bag it occurred to me that the pocket would be a good place for it....so I stuck it in there....right beside my old one!!

And speaking of age I was talking to a nice gentleman at the gym who has the misfortune of suffering from multiple sclerosis.  He moves from machine to machine in his wheelchair.  We got chatting and somehow age came up.  Turns out he is 61 years old and I remember my immediate reaction was that he looked extremely good for a guy that was that old!!  I didn't think about his illness, just his age.  In my mind he was a senior citizen.  Then I realized he was a mere 4 years older than me...hmmmm...

Despite my age training does continue.   I had a nice 25 km run on Sunday and that distance continues to be relatively easy. It is clear however that I can not maintain the overall pace I've set out to maintain.  Alas, I have decided to drop my weight routine down to once per week for the next while.  I really don't want to, but the bike workouts take so much out of my legs that I simply can't maintain both,  and still have decent sessions.  I'm also considering alternating long runs with long rides, instead of trying to do both each week.  Just thinking though.

Oh and by the way, Roo told me about a recent dream she had which apparently involved me dancing naked in the street. Why can't I have such dreams?  And no smart alec comments about that being a nightmare, not a dream, thank you very much!!

(swim drills, weights, run 7.3kms)

Love
Peter

"Guns Don't Kill People"

People kill people!
Yah!  With guns!
You might as well say that cigarettes don't cause cancer, people cause cancer don't you know?
The reality is that if we didn't have cigarettes there would be a lot less dead people, and if we didn't have guns there would be a lot less dead people.

I had a really crazy day this past friday that somehow involved both cancer and guns, and their respective damages.

 I had an afternoon appointment at the clinic for my 5 year checkup.  I knew this was the big one because upon a clean bill of health the protocol usually sets you free for good.  I went in with a great sense of optimism and after a complete exam, including the dreaded scope up the nose, that optimism was proven well founded.  I felt 10 feet tall as I headed for the exit for the last time, but just at the last moment I decided to do a quick tour of the facility just to celebrate.  I went up and down all the halls, bounced up and down the stairs, said hello to everyone I met, and just generally basked in my good fortune.

Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  I don't know what attracted me to the TV set hanging in the corner but something did, and so I stopped and listened to some impromptu press conference that a cop in a big hat was holding.  I had no idea what it was about as I caught only the end of it, but I heard the cop ask the media to leave the families of the victims alone.  My curiosity getting the better of me I asked another gentleman what it was all about, and of course you know what that was.

I can honestly say that I don't ever remember an occasion where my mood was turned completely upside down as fast as that moment.  I went from feeling like the king of the world one minute, to sitting in my car crying within the time it took me to walk the 20 metres.

I assure you that I am not a bleeding heart, left wing, anti everything, kind of guy (just ask Michael) but I can also assure you that I don't see the logic in guns any more than I see the logic in cigarettes.  They both just seems senseless to me.  The one involves a product that is 100% proven to be carcinogenic, and the other sends lethal projectiles flying through the air at supersonic speeds.

I'm not against guns.  I'm against the attitudes that we develop in relation to guns.  When weapons become readily accessible to one and all, we stop treating them with the respect they need.....NEED!

Times have changed and we as a society have not changed with them.  We can criticize the Americans all we like but I don't really think we're that much different in Canada.  We just happen to have less mental health problems than Americans and I think it is undeniable that mass murder of children is not just about guns, but also about mental health

I have been blessed with circumstances that have indeed generated a huge change in my personal attitude over the years.   I give you the story of my evolution.

When I was a teenager I had my very own Ruger semi-automatic rifle with a 12 shot clip.  It  sat in the corner of my bedroom next to the bullets.  We lived on the farm and we only shot ground hogs and fence posts.  It seemed natural.

Forty years later I live in the country again but this time the very thought of having such a thing in my home scares the living crap out of me.  My grandchildren live next door, and the lady in front of us runs a day care out of her home.  Can you imagine the kind of prison I would commit myself to if I had a lethal weapon in my home?  Don't take advantage of this by coming around to rob me, but we never lock our doors here.  I would have to start doing so, just to  make sure no one came in to steal my gun, and do something bad with it. I would start having bad dreams about that gun I'm pretty sure. I think as a society the preponderance of available weapons does the same thing.  It makes us vulnerable.  It commits us to a philosophical prison that does the exact opposite to what many believe it does.  It takes away our freedom, our safety, our peace.

Like wise I once thought smoking was natural.  After all I did it for 20 years.  I now live in awe of the idea that for those 20 consecutive years I purposely drew smoke into my lungs some 20 to 30 times a day....every day...for 20 years!!!  Mind boggling!!!

Of course the gun thing is a much a more complex topic, compounded by the fact that  gun sports are many and varied, and I happen to believe have many healthy aspects to them.  I don't know the answer but I'm pretty sure that I know the direction we need to go.  I think the idea of owning a gun for any reason other than sport is absurd, and that we need to start making it extremely difficult for people to do so.  Beyond making ownership difficult through regulation, another idea may be to tax the ownership.  Not just the original purchase itself, but then some kind of insanely high ongoing "property" tax.  I would bet you dollars to donuts that this idea would meet with the approval of the vast majority of Americans and Canadians if he had a vote today.

In closing, if you decide to quit smoking your first task is to get rid of the cigarettes!

And if you find my thoughts provocative just wait.  Pretty soon I'm tackling abortion!  I have that one figured out a whole lot better.  I just need a little encouragement to lay it out there.

On a brighter note I need to give "try not" kudos to Old John who yesterday ran 18.6 kms on the very same leg he almost lost many moons ago.  The funny thing is John, I just this minute had a flashback of sister Mary coming out of the back room at the hospital and relaying the doctors verdict that in the long run your biggest handicap was gonna be that knee.  I guess he was right eh....or then again maybe he was wrong?

"When a person has a gun, sometimes their mind clicks that this thing will win arguments and straighten people out."---Bill Cosby

"People always come up to me and say that my smoking is bothering them... Well, it's killing me!"---Wendy Leibman

Love
Peter

"There Goes The Neighbourhood"

It's normal I think after a canine adventure like I had this past Sunday to be just a bit skittish for a while, despite my assertion that it only frightened me briefly.

That's why over the rest of that run I startled a little at phantom hounds, which turned out to be in order, a garbage bag, a fire hydrant, and a blowing leaf.

By today though I was completely over it, and since I was only doing the block  there was no reason to thing 'dog'.  I've been running our little 7.3 km country circuit for almost 10 years now, and to my knowledge have never encountered even the politest hound.

Imagine my surprise then when I was again startled by a phantom, about 15 minutes into my jog.  As fast as you can have the thought I put it out of my mind, only to wonder why the sense of a black shadow remained in my peripheral vision.

By the time I acknowledged that this was no phantom, it was too late.  He streaked right at me and before I had a chance to defend myself the bastard was on me.  He leaped at me with his front paws, reached for me with his ugly mug, and tried to lick my face!  He then proceeded to roll over on his back and invite me to scratch his belly.  I obliged him!

He looked like some kind of cross between a black lab and a beagle, and while that gave him a fine temperament, it also made him one ugly looking dog.

But he had know idea how ugly he was.  All he knew was that he found someone to scratch his belly, and for that he seemed grateful.

It turns out that the dog is indeed brand new to the neighbourhood, and the young man who sheepishly came out to gather him was just horrified by the dogs behaviour--he apologized profusely--.  The kid was grateful to me as well because I had to catch the dog for him.  The stupid mutt thought I was gonna scratch his belly again.

Love
Peter

"Surprise!"

Nope!  Not a single rat picture for the second night in a row.  Either I killed them all, or at the very least I got them scared as hell!  I am not even setting up the camera tonight but tomorrow I will stuff something in the hole, and wait to see if they clear it out.  That will tell the tale.

I got another animal surprise today at about the 11 1/2 km mark of my run.  I knew there was a dog along there somewhere but I hadn't expected him for a few minutes yet.  Either I misjudged the location, or this was a different dog, but he scared the living hell out of me.  He was one of those indistinguishable, barnyard dogs that look and act insane.  He came out of nowhere, snarling, barking, drooling, and snapping his ugly yap full of teeth.  The funny thing is that once I was over my initial shock the adrenalin kicked in and the fear dissipated almost immediately. It is generally not that hard to deal with a lone animal as they usually settle for protecting their territory and letting you move on.  When there is more than one, the pack mentality kicks in and they start thinking like wolves or something.  I am also less troubled by a lone dog in the winter time, because I feel better protected under all my clothes, especially gloves.  Just one time I want to punch one of these mongrels right in the mouth, but that would be a bad idea with a bare fist.

And I had a nice surprise today as well, and that was the run itself.  After the intense week I had, I did not know how things were gonna go today.  They went just fine thank you.  Despite a very nasty east wind I managed a steady 22 kms in 1:55.  I'm very happy with that.

(run 22 kms)

"The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy."---Karl Von Klausewitz

"Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise."---Alice Walker

Love

Peter

"1041 Pictures"

Of this!

And the camera lasted the night with a picture at least every minute.  That makes me confident that we did not have even one visitor.  What that means it's obviously too early to say.  The Internet says they will get a bit cautious for a day or two if their routine gets busted up, and I'd say killing the granddaddy may well qualify as messing with their routine.  We shall see eh?  Camera is set up and waiting!

And although I know that rat killing is much more exciting than my training (especially it seems for Kathy and Elly) I do wish to give you a brief update on that front as well.

I have really ramped everything up over the last 2 weeks or so, and really feel back in the groove.  I am now swimming  5 times a week, riding 4, running 3, and doing weights twice.  I am especially excited about the bike workouts.  They are tough but rewarding.  The only ones I don't really like are the long ones, as the boredom and the sore ass become challenging.  Today I rode for 2 hours, 15 minutes and it seemed like a long time.  Eventually that gets built up to more than 4 hours which is an awful long time to sit and think!

Like I said I feel back in the groove but I do have one little concern.  The schedule doesn't really have anything that comes close to an easy day and all the experts warn against that.  I'm gonna monitor it closely and see how it goes.  The only thing I know for sure is that if I have to drop something it won't be the biking or the weights.  I think both are crucial.  Like the rat saga...we will see.

As I've cut back on the blogging a bit I've come to realize that one of the pressures I felt was the need to always come up with a quote.  You may have noticed that I've stopped doing that entirely and it definitely helps.  I may even find myself posting at least something on most days...we will see.

Love
Peter

"Peek-a-boo"

Night before last I got absolutely no pictures so I was cautiously optimistic that I had won the war.  But just  to be sure I set up again last night, and set the camera sensitivity to maximum...and guess what.  Unfortunately because of the sensitivity I got over 800 pictures that I had to wade through to find a total of about 20 that actually had a live subject.

And because of the 800 pictures the chip filled up completely before Raty had a chance to check out the peanut butter.  But some time before morning he apparently did!!  My wife claims that peanut butter is good for your health but I think that's a generalization to which there are exceptions.

And this is the biggest freakin rat I've seen since the  one at the Fiesta Inn that I used to stay at in Mexico!

I swear to god the rats have been mating with ground hogs or something.  I couldn't resist collecting his key characteristics.




Yup!  Fourteen inches long from nose to tail!




And 260 grams!  That's about 9 ounces or to put it into perspective, my third born male child weighed about 1200 grams when he was a week old.  (don't tell Roo that I used the food scale)

The size of this guy makes me think that maybe I've been underestimating the scope of the burrow they have under the coop.  The fact that I have not been able to gas them would attest to the same thing. 

I set the camera up again tonite but restricted the shots to every 30 seconds.  I wonder how the chickens feel about 800 flash pops throughout the night?

So what do you think?  With the demise of this monster is that the end of them?  Or is WWIII just beginning?  Exciting  eh?  

Love

Peter

"RATS!"

I put the traps out for 2 successive nights and each time one of them was tripped but no rat.  I'm pretty sure they weren't set off by anything else and as  such I clearly was not winning the battle.

So I brought out the heavy artillery.  The "Giant Destroyer"  It looks like a stick of dynamite but rather than going ka-boom it releases sulfur gas.  Yesterday I plugged all the holes and lit and inserted 2 of them.  The end result?

This!

And this!!

And this!!!

And this!!!!

And this!!!!!

FUCKERS!

Miguette suggested it was game, set, match to the rats, but I have just begun to fight!  Actually after my original disappointment I'm glad the battle wages on.

Today I collapsed all the tunnels they have out side of the periphery of the coop (I think), and tried the gas trick again.  I have the camera set up and the traps again, this time baited with peanut butter.  Let's see what the morning brings.  I can't wait!

Love

Peter

"Two-One"

I tied the score at one with this decisive move!

  Please note that he has a bloody nose and that's all.  He was quickly and humanely dead!  I made sure to use a good trap because as much as I enjoy the game, I don't enjoy the killing. The simple fact is that the rats gotta go!  I've tried hard to reason with them but to no avail.

So one-one but then they went ahead again.  I had initially set up 2 traps as you can see here.

Then note that the one trap has moved out of the picture when the dead guy sprung it, but the other one remains set.  This pic also confirms that there is indeed more than one of the little beasts!

And finally this one shows the second trap sprung but without a catch!

 2-1 rats....Game on!

And the pictures can be deceiving but does the last rat not look gigantic compared to the previous one? I don't think it's the same animal and as such there are at least 2 more still living.

I'm uncertain about my next step now.  Maybe I need to give them a night off to get their courage back up.  Unlike the previous 2 nights (no traps) when I got almost 400 pictures, last night I got only 7 total, and only 2 after the first trap went off.

All is peaceful on the training front but I'm having some diet problems.  I am steadily gaining back the 10 pounds I lost last year.  I have to figure that one out.  I'm pretty sure the problem's with my head, and not my stomach.

Love
Peter