lazy me.. should've posted many times before..

that's what happens when you don't post for awhile, it takes me a minute to collect my thoughts and write, before the BS would just flow out.. crap..

okay, so I'll start with last weekend. I may have told some of you, but I was off to ottawa with my bro, sis and a few cousins for white water rafting. I very highly recommend going if you haven't had the experience, it's tons of fun. I did not at all realize that they did not shy away from attacking the rapids, flipping the raft over and tossing people out. I think it differs greatly from any sort of rollercoaster ride you might ever encounter, because you genuinely feel that you are at risk and you have some control over your own destiny. I myself, was tossed out twice, one time was a bit more adventurous and painful than the other.

As our raft was one of the ones near the back and since we were the last group of the day (no need to hurry), we were able to paddle back to one of the rapids and try to surf. The main idea is to get the boat stuck in one of the standing waves in the rapids and ride it out. On one of the attempts our boat didn't make it deep enough into the wave, dipped down and got tossed up into the air. I, frantically paddling, couldn't get a good hold of the boat and got thrown out. That's not even the scary part. As the boat was airborn I somehow was tossed at high speed directly underneath it. It was enough to send me down the bottom where I banged my knee on a rock and was prompty popped up directly underneath the boat! Remembering what our instructor said, I pushed off from the boat with me legs and emerged at the surface. From there I took a few precious breaths of air and swam to safety. Very exciting, I must say, one of the more exciting moments of my life. One of the other exciting moments was when we stopped for a snack at the side of the river and they allowed people to jump from a cliff into some white water. It was one of those I left my stomach at the top sort of experiences.

enough of that... I'll move on to an even more extreme experience, skydiving.

Organized by a fellow intern at work, about ten of us headed out to Niagra for some tandem skydiving. After ignoring some very crappy google map directions, we arrived there at about midday ready to take our plunge. There was the pages of waivers, along the lines of "I realize that skydiving may result in serious injury or death due equipment failues, instructors, or the aircraft.. Initial Here ___". A great way to keep you motivated. Then came our instructional video, "Do not at anytime, touch your instructors hands", "Maintain the arch position" and "Do not panic"... more fun. The training overall was surprisingly very quick. After a brief demonstration on a mat that you could arch your back, stick your legs and arms up and jump out of mock airplane door, you were ready to go. I met my tandem buddy, and life saver (someone who you do not want to piss off), suited up and headed for the plane. I've flown in a small aircraft before, so that wasn't a big deal, it was doing it with the door wide open that was the scary part. On the ascent up there were the nervous looks around, words of encouragement and last minute instructions. When we reached the "drop zone" at 14,000 ft (using the lingo), the green light turned on and we were ready to go.

The single jumpers excitedly went out first some doing flips and others jumping out together (again, quite scary, realizing that I'll need to do that in a minute). Then came my turn. Got up right against the door, arms crossed, knees bent, feet shoulder width apart... 3.... 2.... 1.... go.. the leap of faith. Turned around saw the plane... crap.. it's flying away, turned back around, WTF... can't scream, can't breathe, can't do anything... oh crap.. forgot to arch... oh crap.. my hands are out of position, oh crap.. my head is facing down... thumbs up, thumbs up.. trying to breathe, not really happening, trying through my nose... uhhh.. sort of working. Okay.. still falling, very cold, wtf.. we're turning.. the bastard is turning me, oh crap.. ground getting closer, shouldn't we be pulling soon????... He pulls, woah... pulled way up... ohkay.. nice.. pull out the camera take some pics.. shit.. I better not drop this thing.. put it away.. where the hell do we land?... it all looks the same.. okay I see it.. cool. We do some practice landings, some nice turns, and make our approach. Relax... feet up... pull... nice landing, butt first, no need to be a hero and land with my feet (that's how you break legs). Unlatch, kiss the ground, pull out the camera and take pictures of the others falling to earth.

Picked up my certificate (now hanging in my cubicle next to the holiday schedule and my xxx family fundamentals certificate), grabbed some dinner and made the drive back to Toronto. A very exciting day indeed. Will I ever do it again?... maybe.. just maybe... the only problem being that the cost is a bit steep.

okay.... I was gonna talk about some of the leadership stuff I learned at the two day seminar thing, but I honestly don't remember much.. I think it was a whole lot of "leadership is a learned skill", and "make sure you listen well and engage people".

hope this wasn't too long..

bye

sunday morning tv shows..

many of you probably never get the opportunity, likely hung over from saturday night or simply used to waking up in the early afternoon, but I usually watch tv on sunday mornings. It's not that I don't like to sleep in, but the regularity of waking up at 7 on the weekdays coupled with my early bird noisy family usually gets me up in time.

so, what is there exaclty these days.. I sort of know a few shows well. There's "That's so Raven" and "Phil of the Future". Keeping in mind the quality is far from 24, they are still better than the bs american political news shows that are on at that time.

Today, I caught Zoey 101, starring... you guessed it, Britney Spears' little sister. The sunday morning tv show can be a lauching point to stardom. The key is to attract a younger audience and as they grow up you'll have them hooked. This is displayed most notabley with young hilary duff. It's like the clash of two worlds, on the one hand she's on much music in some borderline music video that screams statutory rape and on the other she's in some wholesome "today's lesson is" sunday morning tv show. Weird, weird. It's almost like the publicists are setting young britney up for stardom. They try to portray her as all innocent and caring.... blah.. blah.. It won't be long till she cracks out some music video and we'll be on our way. I see the transformation from wholesome kid to suppoed sex symbol as very weird and disturbing. It's like with the olsen twins. Whenever someone refers to them as "hot" or anything of the sort I find it very odd as I did watch them grow up on full house.

I know it's a short post and there is more to talk about, but I really need to buckle down for a certification text week.

bye for now.