Anyway when I did get up, I had all intentions of getting up and being productive, my first task was going to be washing my car, unfortunately the council were relaying the footpath on the street with tarmac so I couldn’t park my car outside to wash it. Never mind I thought, I’ll do it later. But later the rain began. I was in need of another task, so decided to setup a Sharepoint server, I found some instructions and set to it, it took hours, but finally the server was complete. The only problem now is that I’m not sure what to do with it. When you look for any Sharepoint documentation, its all very complex. Although I configured a server its only because theinstructions told me to, not because I know why I did it. I think I might need to do some more reading. Another problem is that my Sharepoint server is actually running on a Virtual Machine. The actual host PC is actually quite slow so my VM is unbelievably slow.

Thats about it for yesterday, I never did get my car washed, but did go to the gym then settled in for the night to watch Glastonbury.

Today I went to help Scott move a shed, washed my car, ordered a 500gb external HDD, went for another run and am just about to have my tea.

(PS. My new blog theme makes use of tags for each post, I’m having terrible problems working out what to tag entries with, should I just have a few predefined tags, or should I set up new ones for each post. Also how indepth do I get with my tagging. In this post I mention tv, running, technology stuff and Glastonbury the greatest gig ever. But does it really qualify for 4 different tags?)

If your interested in taking part then applications are available from the Dolphin Centre, or online here.

As a result of the previous night I got up quite late on Saturday and wasn’t really up to much, I washed my car and was exhausted. After a little rest I did manage to write some php for a message management system I’m writing for work. Its not really my job to write it and we are so short staffed at work that I don’t get enough piece and quiet to do it there. Also the fact that I don’t yet have a Mac at work and all my favourite programming tools are mac based means that its easier to write at home.

You may have noticed that I’ve switched my theme over, its not yet perfect, I think that some of the colours need tweaking, and that is something that I will hopefully do shortly.

Yesterday I decided to fully embrace the power of Facebook. MySpace is so last year. While with MySpace you can customise the look of your page, so what because most people don’t know what their doing and end up with something which looks really crap. With Facebook you can’t alter the style, but you can install applications, which means that I’ve been able to import my flickr photos, this very blog and my twitter status into my Facebook page. Its very good.

And so we come to today. Since I’d done all I needed yesterday today was slightly surplus to requirements, I therefore decided that the time was right to get my bike out so my dad and I went for a bit of a cruise round the country. It was interesting, I’ve seen rabbits, a chicken, lots of sheep and had to navigate through a field of cows. At one point we went about 4 miles down a narrow single track road to discover it just led to a farm. We had to turn around. It was good I didn’t crash.

Now I’m gonna make some more tweaks to my wordpress theme and then I think it will be time for bed. Next weekend I’m off to see Muse at Wembley, I can’t bloody wait!

That’s right I’m re-joining the gym. The last time I was there was November and to be honest when I was going I wasn’t actually that motivated. You reach a point when you reach physical perfection, and that’s where I was, to become any fitter was going to take a lot of effort (if you know me you know I’m joking!) On a serious matter, I decided that I wanted a bit of time off, and it wouldn’t hurt if I put on a few pounds as extra insulation while on holiday, well winter is over and its time for summer preparations. I think I’ve actually put on something in the region of 1.5-2.0 stone and its time for it to go.

Today is London Marathon day, I’ve applied for it the past 2 years and so far have failed to get a place. Therefore with a year to go before the next one its time to get a training on the off chance that I actually get a place next year. I will therefore also be taking place in this years Darlington 10km road race where I will be aiming for a completion time of around 45 mins.

So where do I start with this epic adventure, obviously somewhere near the beginning. Well on Saturday 24th March myself and Phil departed sunny Darlington for Glasgow where we were to catch a plane the following day. The journey was rather uneventful and we arrived in due course. It turns out that the directions from the AA website weren’t that good since we arrived at the Holiday Inn rather than the Holiday Inn Express. It turns out that we weren’t the only ones to do this, it is however an easy mistake since the Express is hidden round the corner. Eventually we arrived, checked in and hit the bar for a few beers with Adrian (Phil’s bro), I somehow even managed to score a free round of beers from the bar staff.

Sunday

The next day we got up and went down for breakfast where I met the rest of the group, who were a splendid bunch of people. The next bit of the story is mainly a lot of waiting, some sitting and some travelling, I will therefore fast forward a little…..

….Upon arriving at the hotel we checked in a rushed off to our rooms. There had however been a huge mistake since it appeared as though we had been assigned a double room. Yes Phil is my friend, but we had no intention of being THAT friendly. I went back to reception to speak to the hugely attractive Aussie girl and triumphantly returned with keys to a new room. This room however was equipped to 2 large Queen sized beds.

Even though I’d been awake for a very long time it was still quite early, I can’t quite remember how we passed the time, but I believe we went to the liquor store to purchase some ale and then convened in one of the rooms for some Dominos pizza action. It was a great night. An early night was had because we were catching the first bus to Sunshine Village.

Monday

So on Monday morning we rose with the larks, or at least did the best we could. It was the beginning of the holiday and we were going to make the best of it, and as everyone knows this means getting up early for the first bus. Megan had been booked into snowboard lessons for the first 3 days at Sunshine Village so this was to be our playground. It was fantastic, it’s by far the biggest resort I’ve been to in my short snowboarding career. The amazing thing was how quiet it seemed. In order to get to Sunshine you need to get a gondola from the car park up to the base of the mountains, by getting the first bus we were able to miss all the queues. The second amazing thing about Sunshine were the breakfast bagels, these were just to die for, they also had the biggest rice crispy cakes ever. The perfect accompaniment for such a feast was Gatorade, which isn’t that great tasting but I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

After a great day boarding we returned to the hotel to get cleaned up and then as was to become a bit of a tradition some beers. On my very first snowboarding holiday we were lucky enough to get a fridge in the room, sadly in this room we did not. What however we did have was a sink and access to an ice machine. It therefore became a bit of a tradition that within the first 5 minutes of getting back to the hotel I would have a sink full of ice to chill the beers. You’ve got to make the most of what you have, and I did. We capped the night off with another awesome Dominos pizza.

Tuesday & Wednesday

The Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty similar to the Monday, with lots of great boarding done and some amazing food in the evening. On Tuesday we went to the Bears Den which was a bar in a neighbouring hotel, I had chilli as did a few others, and it was nice, it’s just that I wish I’d had the shepherds pie which looked amazing. On Wednesday we went to Tommy’s Neighbourhood pub where I had an Elk burger. I’m not sure what I expected an Elk burger to taste of; I guess I assumed that it would be a bit like beef. Well it was a lot like beef; in fact it probably was a beef burger.

If anyone reading this is a boarder then they should know that a leash is an essential piece of equipment. What is a leash I hear you ask, well its one of these. It’s basically a strap, which you attach to your binding, the other end you attach to your leg. If you then have binding failure or drop your board while carrying it, then it won’t fly off down the mountain. Phil didn’t have a leash, so when he climbed aboard the chair lift at Wa-wa, he had a board attached to his foot, after about 20 seconds when he thought to himself ‘my board feels very light’ he suddenly realised he didn’t have it and the bloke in the chairlift behind us was carrying it. It turns out that the ratchet on his straps was failing so the board fell off as he climbed aboard. As a result he needed to buy new bindings which means that it’s the 3rd year in a row where he’s had to buy replacement equipment which he couldn’t afford.

Thursday, Friday & Saturday

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday we had snowboard lessons. I know what your thinking, why did I need lessons? Well as a wise man once said you’re never too good to learn. They were lessons aimed at blue and black runners; they were 3 full days of riding, spending a day at each of the different mountain resorts. The first day was spent at Sunshine Village, the second at Lake Louise and the final day at Norquay. I was a little apprehensive at first, I get a little worried about these kinds of things, especially when I know that I’m going to be the worst in the group which makes my confidence even worse. I think I did ok and hopefully didn’t hold the others up to badly. It was very useful; I did get some advice which should make me a better rider so long as I can actually get my mind to do it. I also discovered that my stance was too narrow, this has now bee rectified.

The first two days we were instructed by a guy called Tom who was quite cool, sadly he got some kind of food poisoning so for the final day we were taken by Forrest who sadly was a bit crap. I’m sure it was difficult and he was trying his best, its probably quite hard to take over a group on its final day. The advantages of the lessons were that we went down some runs that we may otherwise have not found, or we did on the first two days with Tom, Forrest didn’t really take us anywhere too challenging. This was possibly due to the resort, Norquay is a bit crap, in the morning the slopes we were on were really icy and by the afternoon it had all turned to slush.

On the Friday evening we attended the Shine and Dine at Lake Louise. I’d heard great things about this from Phil’s previous visits and so was expecting great things. On the whole it was a great evening, it was held at a lodge half way up one of the mountains. Some cheesy entertainment was put on and some fantastic food was served. A lot of beer was drunk and some snowball fights were had. The highlight of the evening was to be snowboarding from the lodge to the bus at the bottom in the dark following the torch of the person in front. Sadly due to the clocks changing it wasn’t actually dark enough to need torches. It was still quite amusing watching Phil crash into a skier (don’t tell him I told you!) The most sickening part was that by the time we reached the bottom, checked in and boarded the bus it was dark, so why couldn’t they have delayed the decent by 30 minutes.

On Saturday evening we attended an all you can eat buffet at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel which was organised by the ski school. This was another enjoyable event. We got to watch the video that had been made during our lessons and yet more great food was served. We were probably a bit rude because we ignored Forrest and sat at another table, but we had asked him about organising a table to accommodate all 8 of us and he said it couldn’t be done, it just so happens that Stan had asked his instructor and he said it would be fine so that’s where we sat. As well as the great food it was also an opportunity to take a look at the amazing hotel, because there’s no way that I could ever afford to stay there it was amazing.SundayWhile everyone else took a day off to do family things Phil and I carried on with the boarding. Just how hardcore are we? I must admit though that we did get up a little later than usual though. For some reason we were entitled to a free breakfast in the hotel, but only on Sundays so after we had eaten that we headed off to Sunshine for some board action. It turns out that the efforts of the previous week were beginning to catch up on us. It was getting slightly more difficult to get my feet to do what I wanted them to do, and aches were starting to appear. The best solution we could think of for this was for a beer in between runs. We didn’t get that many runs in, but a nice relaxed day was had. Just as well because we would need it. On the evening we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory, if you’re ever in Banff you should go its lovely, the food was very tasty and surprisingly cheap.

Monday

When you think of a holiday, you may think that its a time to relax and do very little. A time to recover from the stress and worry of work. Well on Monday there was a great deal of stress and worry, and it started really early in the morning. We were going to Kicking Horse and the bus was picking us up at 6.55am.

Kicking horse mountain resort is a boarders dream. Unless you’re a little nervous on the steep stuff, since pretty much everything is the steep stuff. It’s described as a power resort because they don’t bash the pistes, they just let the snow lie naturally. Luckily there had been a lot of snow so there was a lot of lovely power. The problem was that under the powder was a lot of bumpy ice, so what looked flat on the surface was actually a little rough. As I already mentioned it was also quite steep and the sun was hidden by clouds so visibility was difficult since no shadows were visible. It was still bloody brilliant. Because of the powder on the ground it was good fun boarding in between the trees because there wasn’t really an issue of doing any damage to ourselves.

At lunchtime we had food at Eagles Eye Restaurant, which was quite spectacular. Sadly the meal I had was a little disappointing, but you can’t have everything. After lunch I took it easy as I was struggling a bit so stopped and had a jug of beer with Adrian.

The journey back to Banff was really interesting. There was some fantastic scenery to look at, and our bus driver told us lots of interesting information about Canada and the history of Banff National Park. It even got me thinking about how interesting it would be to spend some time there during the summer months when its possible to explore the parks.

I’d definitely like to go back to Kicking Horse again, but could only handle a day. I don’t think I could stay there for a full 2 weeks. If I were to visit again I think it would have to be at the beginning of the first week when my energy levels were up, rather than at the beginning of the second.

Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday it was back to Sunshine since Megan was doing more boarding lessons. By this point in the holiday, I was beginning to feel like I needed a holiday. It was getting so difficult to get up on a morning. Things were that bad that we decided we could no longer manage the first bus. The second bus was now the order of the day which gave us an extra half hour in bed. We were also getting a reputation for tuning up at the bus stop at the last minute. We could regularly be seen running down the road from our hotel to the bus stop. We always had the last laugh though since we never missed a bus and got and extra five minutes in bed.

In fact it was Tuesday night where we had a genius idea. The reason we were getting to Sunshine so early was so that we could get breakfast before Megan’s lesson. Well what if we already had food, well in that case we could get the third bus. It was therefore decided that on Tuesday night we would get 2 extra large Dominoes pizzas which would be enough for tea and breakfast in the morning. There was actually enough for supper the following night too!

On Wednesday night we went to Wild Bills for tea, I had a Buffalo burger with garlic potato and gravy. It was fantastic. It was in fact so good that we returned the following night – I had fajitas. Sadly we always missed the entertainment, they had line dancing on Wednesday night, I think I would make a great line dancer – ye ha!

Friday & Saturday

With our holiday coming to an end Friday was our last trip to Lake Louise, and on Saturday we went to Sunshine for the last time. By now I was very weary, so much so that on Saturday I actually drank more beer than I managed runs on the mountain. I think I only managed 3 or 4 runs when I actually managed around six beers. With it being Good Friday and Easter Saturday these were the only 2 days out of the whole holiday where there were any crowds. The Easter is a popular time for Canadians to go away so this and the fantastic weather brought them out of the woodwork. The weather on our final day was that good that I managed to get a little sunburnt.

SundaySadly it was time to come home. It was with a very heavy heart that I woke up at about 9am to pack my case to come home. I popped into town to try and spend the last of my dollars and be back at the hotel for 1pm to catch the bus to Calgary airport. The best holiday ever was over.

My thoughts

I think that so far Canada has to be one of the best countries I’ve visited so far. It’s just so familiar, it’s got big wide roads, huge cars and trucks, and everyone seems to friendly. The roads are a little confusing. From what I can gather pedestrians have right of way. Therefore when you come to a road that you need to cross it appears that the cars have to stop at junctions to let you cross. This took a while to get used to, I’m that used to standing patiently until a gap appears and then crossing, it just seems strange that the cars have to stop.

When you turn on Canadian TV it is always possible to find Friends, The Simpsons or Family Guy on one of the stations. If all else fails then The Shopping Channel is very entertaining. There is a whole channel dedicated to weather, and on a morning the TV actually tells you when the school bus arrives. It also appears that whatever time of the day it is there is always a live hockey game taking place.

There is a pub in Banff which claims to be an English pub, this I have to disagree with since they didn’t sell Carling, and the place was full of Canadians watching Hockey. It actually turns out that I love hockey, although I’ve got to say that I still don’t understand it.

Well I appear to have reached then end of this blog. There may very well be things that I’ve missed out, although I can’t imagine what. If you’ve managed to reach the bottom of this post without falling asleep then well done!