Christmas Post

First thing I want to say is that it's been a while since I've blogged last, but I'm on vacation now so I'm happy about that. It's been a relaxing week so far here at my relatives' house. Definitely a lot more than I expected.

Anyways, I recently read Joe's blog with a christmas theme list to answer. So here it goes.

Egg nog or hot chocolate? I prefer Egg Nog actually even if I know it's not good for me, usually without alcohol. I've never liked hot drinks even on cold winter days.. yeah I know I'm strange.

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wraps presents and puts them under the tree. My wrapping sucks but I give it a go anyway.

Colored lights on tree/house or white? Coloured for sure.

Do you hang mistletoe? Nope. I don't see a reason to.

When do you put your decorations up? I decided not to put any decorations up at my place since I knew I wouldn't be there for Xmas, but if I did, then probably some time at the beginning of December.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Turkey (dark meat)

Favorite holiday memory as a child? Spending Christmas at my grandmother's house out in the country and opening up some cool toys or video games that I wanted all year.

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can't remember but I don't think I was devastated about it when I found out since I knew that my parents would still buy me stuff.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope, not a family tradition although I know it is in some cultures.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? just with lights and coloured balls amnd sometimes candy canes. I have good memories as a child decorating the tree with my mom.

Snow! Love it or dread it? I love it also and don't mind driving in it provided I have the right winter gear on my car. I must say that there is nothing more beautiful than a really sunny day where the white snow sparkles in the sun and the air is so fresh and crisp.

Can you ice skate? certainly but not that well actually.

Do you remember your favorite gift? Yes, I remember when I was a kid, my aunt bought me the newly released Super Mario Brothers 2 for Nintendo and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I played that game all day on Christmas day.

What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Being with family, relaxing and not thinking about work.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Definitely a gingerbread house. Yum!


What is your favorite holiday tradition? I don't think our family had any notable traditions that I can think of.

What tops your tree? I'd probably put a star.

Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving for sure. It always makes me feel good knowing that I made someone else's day.

What is your favorite Christmas song? Jingle Bell Rock

Candy canes? I don't mind as long as they are not the white and red kind.

Favorite Christmas movie? Elf by far. That movie is absolutely hilarious!

What do you leave for Santa? Cookies and milk.



Well that answers the Christmas tag. I hope that my readers will enjoy my answers. Otherwise my trip has been pretty good. I went for my first swim practice in a week with the local masters team here. Actually most of the team members spent the whole practice playing water polo since they had just finished a meet but a few of us who were just visiting from out of town did a whole practice. I swam about 2400m in about 45 minutes as follows:

400 warmup
8x50 on :50
4x50 kick on 1:15
do that twice

300 swim
200 pull
100 kick
200 pull

At first when I dove in, I didn't feel that great but towards the end of the practice, I started feeling better. I think I'll go swimming again on saturday morning to keep up my fitness. I have to admit that I've been cheating a bit on my diet but at christmas time, it's really hard not to.
I'm also happy to report that I'm completely done my Xmas shopping except for the gift for my girlfriend. I'm not sure what to get her, but I guess I better decide soon.

I went to my aunt's house today to help install a new CD Rom and put her old existing hard drive into a new computer but I ran into a bit of a snag. I had no problem putting the CD Rom in but when I put the 2nd hard drive in and connected it, the computer couldn't boot up properly. I know that I have to switch the little piece of plastic at the back of the Hard drive from primary to slave (either primary or secondary) for the computer to recognize it in the BIOS but I couldn't figure out which sets of prongs on the back were what since it was not labeled... in the end, I didn't manage to finish the job since my aunt had to go to bed but I guess I'll just have to do it trial and error.

Well, this posting has turned out to be a mix of everything from Christmas to swimming and even some technical stuff. Overall though, I'm happy to see my family so that is good.

Diet doesn't seem to be working...

Well, I got my mealplan book from the dietitian the other day. I started to follow some of the meals outlined in the book but unfortunately, I don't think this diet is working. Some of the recommendations seem pretty ridiculous to me (i.e. 2 pieces of fruit, some nuts and milk with protein powder for breakfast, a small can of tuna with a couple of slices of green pepper and a stick of skim mozzarella cheese for lunch). After two days of this type of diet, I really started feeling dizzy and hungry as well as losing concentration. I wasn't able to focus at work and could not do my job very well. As a result, my performance began to suffer not only at work but also at swim practice. Friday night's practice was a joke as I had no energy at all to do any of the sets. At that point, I said enough was enough and decided to modify the original diet that they gave me to add more complex carbohydrates. They say that swimmers need those anyway. I guess I'll just have to watch which ones I eat. It's better to have energy and maybe lose weight more slowly than feel hungry and weak all the time I say. However, I still plan to stick with the protein powder as I think it will help me in the long run and I enjoy eating it. Let's hope that it works out for the best.

I'm not sure if it's the diet or what it is.. but I feel really worn out this past week.. it seems like I've been hit with a mack truck or something... Maybe I just need some rest. I'm going back to Ontario in a week or so to visit with some friends and family. I'm looking forward to that. It should be invigorating I think. I'm also going to try and do some training over the holidays to keep up my conditioning... I won't be back until January 6 or so. Maybe after a good night sleep also I'll feel better. Let's wait and see what happens.

Nanaimo Ebbtides Swim Meet

Well, this past weekend I went to the Nanaimo Ebbtides swim meet in Nanaimo, BC on Vancouver Island. At first, I didn't even want to go because I had had such a poor performance at the UBC meet a couple of weeks ago. I felt pretty badly and at the time, I didn't even think I wanted to do much more competing this year. Fortunately, my training partner Joe convinced me to try the Nanaimo meet and swim a couple of off events to just have fun and enjoy myself.

We left on Friday evening after I got home from work to go to the ferry. In the car there was myself, my training partner, his wife and his son. We would be staying at his parents house who live in Nanaimo. The ferry ride over that night was relatively uneventful. I hadn't eaten supper that evening so I decided to grab a bite to eat on the ferry. I ate a vegetarian slice of pizza, a small bowl of clam chowder, a banana, a rice crispies square and I drank a 5 alive. It was pretty expensive at around $12 but I wasn't sure if I would be eating anything later that night so I didn't mind spending the money. As it turns out, when we got to Joe's parents' house, they had some delicious smoked sockeye salmon and some cheese and crackers waiting. That salmon was definitely some of the best that I had ever tasted in a very long time... excellent stuff. We settled into bed that evening and I slept on an air mattress which actually was pretty comfortable. I brought my own pillow and sleeping bag(s) which I needed both of since it was quite cold in the house overnight there.

The next morning quite early in the morning at around 5:30 am, I had a really strange lucid dream about dogs running around and people whispering things around me. I still remember it now. This wasn't any normal lucid dream for sure. I've had lucid dreams before but nothing like this. This was really freaky in that I swear I was hallucinating. I've never had that experience before. I actually believed what I was seeing was real and I didn't realize that I was dreaming and when I finally came to, I felt a bit spooked out actually. In any case, I was able to go back to sleep for a couple of hours before I had to get up for breakast and get ready to go to the pool.
For breakfast that morning, I had a delicious waffle made hot off a waffle iron. It reminded me of something my grandmother used to cook as she used to have an old waffle iron and made us waffles sometimes when I was a kid. After we ate breakfast, we got ready to head to the pool in time for the 11am warmup. When we got to the pool and went to register for the meet, I found out for some bizarre reason that myself and one of my other teammates who was at the meet also (Scott) were not even on the MSABC system and I had no number for the meet. In addition, Joe was registered with the Prince George Masters which obviously is a mistake. We discussed with the MSABC registrar and he decided to have us swim at the meet Unattached for now and hopeully get this fee mixup straightened out. Scott was nice enough to pay the $30 at that time to make sure that I could swim that day. Joe also I think was able to get them to change Prince George on their system so that he was registered with the correct club - Hyack Masters. I know that Joe already sent an e-mail to the registrar, our head coach and our coach about the mixup. Hopefully the problem will be rectified in the next short while as I don't want to have the same problem in a couple of months at the English Bay Meet.

In any case, warmup itself was pretty uneventful and I was able to get in a long warmup and loosen out my muscles after having missed several practices that week due to the snowy weather. The water temperature was not as cold as I remember it 2 years ago when I went to provincials, so that was a positive thing.

Joe brought along his new digital camera which took excellent video and still shots of course as well. We used the camera to record our races which I will have shortly posted up here. I hope to send it to some friends and family who are interested. My first event up was the 200m I.M. I was feeling pretty good before the race.. I had a few jitters before the race but that is totally normal for me. Then the starter blew his whistle and I was up on the blocks. "Take your marks", "Beep!" and then I dove into the water. The first 50m of butterfly felt pretty good. I was actually going a lot faster than I thought afterwards. The backstroke I started to get fatigued a little bit but still managed to hold my own especially on the 2nd 25. The 3rd 50 of breaststroke was somewhat painful and slow and it was at this point, that the guy I was racing caught me. By the time I got to the freestyle, I was really getting tired and was just trying to hang on. When I did the flipturn for the last 25m of the race, I saw the guy who had caught me right beside me. Somehow, I found extra energy and started to sprint to the wall. The other guy saw that and started to sprint too. We were stroke for stroke right into the wall and in the end, he got me by half a stroke. It was a great race and I shook his hand afterwards. As a bonus, I beat my best time from this time last year by 4 and half seconds. I went a 2:54.83 from a 2:59.19 last year.

The next event up was 100m butterfly. Beforehand, I knew that this was going to be a painful event but I was prepared mentally for that. Since I was in the fastest heat, my strategy was just to swim my own race and not pay attention to anyone beside me because I knew that they would be going way faster. I dove in and started swimming.. the first 75 metres felt great actually. It was the last 25 that was a killer which I predicted more or less. By the 85 or 90 metre mark, my arms were struggling to get out of the water. I think my final time was a 1:26 which isn't all that great but I guess it's a starting point.

After the meet, we went back to Joe's parents house for a nice dinner and to relax. I also got a chance to meet up with Joe's sister, brother-in-law and niece. One of the first questions that his sister asked me when I told her that I was a teacher was if I could speak French. When I told her that I did, then she wanted me to practice with her daughter. That caught me a bit off guard but I was more than happy to speak to her in French. Her French was actually pretty good even if she did make one or two mistakes. I guess being a teacher, you can't help but notice these kinds of things. I also spent a considerable amount of time talking to Joe's brother-in-law who is pretty interesting. We had a lot in common as he is also originally from Toronto. We reminisced about the differences between life here and there... and I told him about some of my childhood memories...

Afterwards, we had a wonderful pork tenderloin dinner with some wine and it really hit the spot. I really enjoyed it. At the dinner table, Joe's dad told some really funny stories that just made crack up. One of the stories had to do with all the crazy things that they used to do way back in the day (1940s and 50s). A few crazy examples include a doctor prescribing patients to smoke cigarettes to calm them down (today it seems so ridiculous I had to laugh), using X-rays without any protection when you buy a new pair of shoes to see if they would fit etc. He also told us about some pranks that he pulled on some of his friends like exploding cigarettes and pretending that he ingested sleeping pills etc. Those stories will definitely stick in my mind for some time to come.

After dinner, we didn't do much except get ready for bed because we had to wake up early the next morning to catch the 8:00am ferry. That night as I was dozing off to sleep, the alarm clock radio on the refridgerator unexpectedly went off at midnight. I immediately woke up and become a little annoyed and went and turned off after a few minutes. That was definitely unexpected. When I woke up the next morning to go to the ferry, I felt a bit groggy and it took me a while to wake up but in any case, I was able to get my stuff together and we made the ferry just in the nick of time (I would say with about 5 or 10 minutes to spare). On the ferry ride back, half way across we spotted a pod of porpoises swimming in the water just off the side of the boat. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that before. I've seen whales and dolphins etc. but not that many all at once. I really enjoyed that.

We eventually got to the other side at Horseshoe Bay where Joe drove me back to my place. All in all it was a really fun weekend and I hope to do something similar again in the future