A Man Reborn

This January I came up with the idea of a list of 100 things that I wanted to do in 2010.  I thought about it for a little while and came up with a varied list of things.  The things on my list were new, old, little, small and in general, things that I thought would be fun or interesting.

I ended up finishing just over half of the things on my list – which I think is pretty good.  I did a lot of new things that I wouldn’t have done otherwise and I got to know myself a lot better by taking myself out my comfort zone.

There were a couple of unexpected side effects from making this list.  The first was that I had a lot of friends step up and ask me about doing things on the list together with me which I thought was really awesome of them.  We got to spend time together and often tried something new or it was something that they were able to teach me, or the other way around.  The second was that it inspired some of my other friends to do something similar.  In particular, my friend Carolina made her own list, which then inspired her friend Jeannie to make a list.  This was all over half a year before I had even met Jeannie – but since then we’ve been inseparable and I definitely think that the two of us making our lists played a part in building that connection.

One other thing that I definitely know this helped with was boredom – I can’t think of a single moment in 2010 that I was bored, as I always had this list to fall back on for something to do.

So here’s a list for 2011.  I don’t expect to do all of them.  Some of them are things I did last year and loved.  Some are things I didn’t finish last year.  Some are completely new to this year.  They’re in no particular order and again – they’re just things that I think would be interesting or fun.

2011 is going to be amazing and I am really looking forward to it!

1. Go skydiving
2. Do something special with Jeannie on our anniversary
3. Do a 48 hour fast
4. Plant and maintain a mini garden
5. Spend a day at the beach
6. Hike part of the Bruce trail
7. Go to the gun range
8. Go kayaking
9. Get a new tattoo
10. Take some kind of dance lesson
11. Keep my blog updated while working on this list
12. Get rid of 75% of the things I currently own
13. Go running in the rain
14. Watch a thunderstorm
15. Watch the sun set
16. Play in a poker tournament
17. Ride the single track at Albion Hills
18. Try indoor rock climbing
19. Paintball!
20. Volunteer my time for a good cause
21. Give blood 5 times
22. Make a gift for someone
23. Work at a haunt
24. Surprise someone
25. Spend a weekend at the cottage
26. Play a round of golf
27. Make sure I always have time for friends and family
28. Make a short movie
29. Go whitewater rafting
30. Climb the CN tower in under 30 minutes
31. Beat last year’s time of 1:07:14 in the Niagara Try-a-Tri
32. Get back to running 5k+
33. Ride 200 km in 2 days at the Ride to Conquer Cancer
34. Try skating
35. Do 100 push ups in a row
36. Do a handstand push up
37. Exercise or do something active every day
38. Cook 95% of what I eat
39. Fit into size L shirts again
40. Try skiing again
41. Ride in the trees
42. Do both a FS and BS boardslide on a box
43. Comfortably do all 4 types of 180
44. Go on a snowboarding trip with my little brothers
45. Do a nose grab, tail grab and method
46. Put together a new snowboarding video
47. Go to the zoo
48. Go to a Jays game
49. Go to a Leafs game
50. Go to a TFC game
51. Go to the CNE
52. Go to the science centre
53. Go to the Tim Burton exhibit at the Lightbox
54. Go on a brewery tour
55. Explore an old cemetary
56. Go to the Drive-in
57. Go to Honest Ed’s
58. Go to the Art Gallery
59. Go to a big music festival
60. Go to Vermont
61. Go to Buffalo with MicHELLe
62. Go to Detroit with Myla and Nix
63. Go to Niagara Falls
64. Go to Vegas
65. Explore the following neighbourhoods in Toronto: The Annex, Yorkville, Seaton Village, Little Italy, Kensington, Liberty Village, St. Lawrence, Cabbagetown and Harbourfront
66. Go camping somewhere new
67. Move out of Mississauga
68. Spend a day at the island
69. Learn to cook a paella
70. Try 2 new recipes every month
71. Make a Turducken from scratch with Shayne
72. Make sushi
73. Go shopping at St Lawrence Market
74. Have brunch at the Hoof Cafe
75. Eat a tasting menu
76. Bake and decorate a cake or cupcakes
77. Eat 10 new things
78. Master one illusion really well
79. Learn to create a life cast
80. Take a cast of my face and sculpt it into a zombie bust
81. Make a set of clay figurines
82. Make a Halloween costume from scratch
83. Finish my Halloween painting
84. Make a haunted gingerbread house
85. Read: Rework, The 4-Hour Body, The Power of Less, Pound for Pound, The Gift of Fear, It’s Not About The Bike: My Journey Back to Life and The Real Bling
86. Redesign the zombie walk page and setup the store
87. Learn search engine optimization
88. Learn 5 more effects in After Effects
89. Learn joomla
90. Learn JQuery
91. Learn AJAX
92. Learn Selenium
93. Learn OpenID / FBConnect / Google Friend Connect
94. Launch zombiepedia website!
95. Launch portfolio site
96. Build a facebook app
97. Take a night class
98. Get a raise
99. Earn 15% of my income outside of my regular job
100. Teach someone something

So I was checking out life remix and stumbled on the reverb10.com project.  It’s a set of daily prompts for each day in December that are meant to get you thinking about how 2010 went and what you want to do in 2011.  I’ve been catching up with them over the last few days and my entries for the first half of the month are below.

December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

My one word for 2010 would be exploration.  I feel that in 2010 I did a lot of exploring – both physically and mentally.  I did a lot of traveling and had a lot of first time experiences and I tried to open myself up to new people and experiences.  This helped me figure out what I want out of life and my word for 2011 is going to be commitment.  Now that I know what I want, I am going to fully commit to going after it.

December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

Multi-tasking.  I’m learning about how I work and I now know that if I set aside 15 minutes to write and do absolutely nothing else that I will write more in that 15 minutes than I would in an hour.  So from now on, when I want to write, I will set aside a block of time and just do it.

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

The moment that I felt most alive this year was while snowboarding at Whistler.  It was cold, but not uncomfortably cold.  There was no wind, few clouds and a beautiful blue sky overhead.  It was the morning after a fresh snowfall and there were few people around riding due to the Olympics.  I rode through terrain that I had never experienced before and totally lived in the moment and took it all in.  I remember feeling like I was floating through the snow effortlessly, the sense of peace that came from being in the middle of nature and the sense of danger from riding off trail in an unknown area.

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

To cultivate a sense of wonder in my life I made a conscious effort to see things in the mindset of a child.  I think this is something I’ve been doing the last few years actually.  I found that as I got older I could feel myself slipping into a cynical outlook and towards having a jaded view of things which I did not like so I decided to change it.  I now make an effort to notice little things and let my mind wander and to experience new things as well.

December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Biggest thing would be letting go of my last relationship.  I knew she wasn’t right for me and being in the relationship was leading me down a path I didn’t want to take.  Another thing was my fear of rejection.  That one only took 31 years… and without that, I wouldn’t be in my current relationship… funny how that works ;)

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

The last thing I made was a Christmas present for my friend MicHELLe.  She had her appendix taken out and we were joking about how they wouldn’t let her keep it, so I had an idea to make a diseased appendix out of latex.  I made it out of liquid latex and coloured it using latex that I tinted with acrylic paint.  She loved it!

Something that I want to make is a big halloween themed painting.  I’ll definitely need to set aside time for that in 2011.

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I am involved in a few communities because of my hobbies, but as far as a new one that started in 2010 I would have to say our Tuesday dart nights.  My old friend Steve from elementary school started it up and a bunch of us have been going almost every Tuesday for months now.  It’s good to see friends and be able to catch up in the middle of the week and it’s cheap and close by as well.

As far as connecting with a new community, I want to learn more about doing SPFX makeup and prosthetics in 2011 and I will have to start picking the brains of some talented people I know!

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful

This is a hard one.  I think probably the biggest thing would be that I am a very positive and easy going person.  I try not to get into pointless arguements and try to remember that I’d rather be happy instead of right.

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

A few come to mind here:

1) Carolina’s birthday party – good food, tasty beer (Big Wheel!), crappy music and many cleavage pictures, both male and female!  Most importantly, talked to almost everyone there and it’s where I met Jeannie for the first time.

2) Mine and John’s birthday party – got a whole load of us together at West 50 where the food is always great and the music not so great.  Almost all my favourite people were there to share it.  No drinking that night because at midnight I left to drive overnight to Mont Tremblant to continue the birthday shenanigans which included riding all day on no sleep, then a mad hunt for all you can eat sushi with the SNS crew in Montreal which almost ended in stomach bursting disaster!

3) Canada vs USA games at the Olympics – both of them.  The first one I was at the Howe Sound Brew Pub in Squamish.  There was much beer involved and we all had cowbells and fuzzy hats and it was pretty much a mad house.  The second one was the gold medal game and I don’t think I need to remind anyone what a moment that was.

December 10 – Wisdom Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

The wisest decision I made this year was to let my guard down in my relationship with Jeannie and it’s worked out very well.

December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

11 things my life doesn’t need in 2011:

1. Cynicism – there are no successful cynics – it is a state of mind that breeds nothing but negativity and serves no purpose to me in achieving what I want out of life
2. Negativity – yes, this is almost just point 1 again, but I need to stress this.  Negativity in all it’s forms, from negative thoughts to negative people.
3. Stress – there are very few things in my life that are worth stressing about.  If it’s not something I won’t remember in a year than it’s not worth stressing over.  If it is something I’ll remember in a year, then I’m better off doing something about it.
4. Routine – routine crushes my soul and I’m happier when I’m trying new things or mixing it up
5. Drama – I like to live drama free and do not allow myself to be pulled into other people’s drama
6. TV – I cut my TV watching back by 95% and used that time to accomplish a lot that I wouldn’t have had time for otherwise.  I’m only on this earth for so long and there’s so much I want to get done.
7. Clutter – By the end of 2011 I plan to have gotten rid of 75% of my possessions
8. Boredom – I have a lot of interests and I haven’t been bored once this year – I intend to keep it this way
9. Procrastination – enough said
10. Disorganization – I will have anything major I need to do mapped out
11. Bad sleep routines – I will get into a proper sleep cycle

December 12 – Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

Again – that powder day in Whistler.  I just existed in that moment and was totally integrated into it.

December 13 – Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

I want to start my own thing in life and work for myself.  I’ve said that for a while and it’s time to make it happen – so my next step is to step back and take an honest look at myself and take an inventory of my skills and talents and what I can do with them.

December 14 – Appreciate What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

The thing I appreciate most in my life is having good relationships with my family and friends.  I express gratitude for them by doing what I can for them whenever I get a chance.  Over the last year I’ve shared a lot of awesome experiences with a lot of different friends and our bonds have gotten stronger.  I didn’t always get to spend as much time with everyone I would have liked to and will work on that.

December 15 – 5 Minutes Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

Meeting Jeannie / Whistler / Olympics / Roadtrips! – Tremblant, Montreal, Detroit / Exploring buildings with Nix and Myla / Triathalon with Steve, Ant and Kristen / Ant and Ash’s wedding / Sushi hunting and stuffing with the SNS crew in Montreal / Heavy MTL with Greg / Box wars / Zombie walk / George Romero shooting me / Bike marathon / biking to guelph / Rammstein in Montreal and train trip with Mike and Candy / snowboarding as much as I can / making things / eating lots of tasty food ;) / crap 5 minutes are up

December 16 – Friendship How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

I wouldn’t say any one friend changed my perspective, but by getting to know more people better it gave me a lot of different viewpoints to see the world from.  It was definitely a gradual thing – the more viewpoints I have to consider, the more balanced my own view of the world becomes.

Today I woke up and as I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks, jumped up and looked out the window to see if it was snowing.  My morning glance was rewarded today with the first flakes of the season and I couldn’t help but have a giant grin on my face as I drove to work, thinking about the good times of the upcoming snowboarding season.

This will be my fourth winter of snowboarding and I absolutely cannot wait to get started.  My enthusiasm for winter is well-known to my friends, many of whom either curse my name when it snows or share my joy.  Either way, my love of snowboarding is no secret and a few people have asked me what it was about it that had me so obsessed.  The question had been sticking in my mind because I’ve really never thought to put it all together, so I decided to take a few minutes to get it out of my head.  There are 4 main reasons:

1. The Physical
2. The People
3. The Peacefulness
4. The Fact That Winter Sucks Without It

Part of it is the physical aspect.  I had never been very active in my childhood and other than some martial arts and a few attempts at sports, I really never stuck with any physical activity.  My uncles took me skiing when I was a teenager, but I did so badly that I ended up not doing any kind of winter sport for almost fifteen years after that.  Four years ago I decided that I wanted to make some changes in my life and my little brother was always talking about snowboarding, so I decided to give it a try.  My first day out was a disaster – with no exaggeration,  I probably fell at least a hundred times.  I was cold and sore and so out of shape that I managed to sweat in the middle of a blizzard, but I also fell in love with it.  It took me another three days of riding the tiniest bunny hill in existence before I had the guts to try the big hill at Glen Eden (a whopping 250 feet high).

I ended up going out twenty times that first season and another sixty times over the second and third seasons.  In that time I went from being terrified of the thought of riding down a 250 foot run, to downright giddy at the prospect of tearing down a 5000 footer.  Every time I’ve been out I’ve worked on some aspect of my riding that needs improving and every time I get better.  I still fall all the time because I’m still always trying to do new things.  There’s always some new trick to try, a new run to go down or a new resort to explore.  I’ve snowboarded at over a dozen resorts and traveled to the states and to two other provinces with plans to see more.  There’s so much to try and so much to explore and so many possibilities.

Another part is the people – I’ve been fortunate enough to find many other people that share my obsession.  I’ve ridden on days with terrible conditions, but being there with good friends that were stoked just to be on a board made them awesome days.  Together we’ve shared hundreds of hours of conversation while driving all over the place to chase the snow.  We’ve been lost, we’ve almost been stranded and we’ve driven on days that no sane person would venture out on.  So many fun memories and adventures and so many more to come.

There’s something about it that forms a bond between people when they both discover they love to ride – more so than I’ve personally found with any other of my hobbies and interests.  Riding has brought me closer to a lot of people and given me many new friendships that I am thankful for.

Probably the biggest thing for me though is the feeling it gives me.  When I’m on a snowboard, all of the stress and worries of life disappear.  There’s no work deadlines, no bills, no negativity.  It demands that you are there and completely living in that moment and I love that.  All of those things will still be there for me to deal with when I get back, but it’s good for me to be able to completely zone out of that mindset into a better one.

I was talking to a friend about this and she thought it was weird, but there are also moments on a board when I feel totally at peace.  When I was in Whistler this last winter we had a powder day and I did some solo riding through the trees.  In those moments, in the crisp air, in the middle of nature, with hardly anyone else around while weaving through the trees, there was nothing else but that moment and it was the most amazing time I had ever had riding.  It was my version of a zen moment and I will always remember that day.

Finally… winter sucks.  It’s cold and dreary out and for the four months of the year that the snow was out, I used to be absolutely miserable.  I’d stay inside, watch TV, get depressed and mope around.   Now that’s changed and instead of winter being a crappy time of year, it’s the complete opposite.  So now that I ride, the whole year is awesome, instead of only two thirds of it!

All of these reasons are why I love snowboarding so much.  It has made me a better and happier person and has influenced almost every aspect of my life.  I’ll ride until the day I die and I’ll never stop exploring and improving because of it.

All of last week I had Halloween on the brain – I know what you’re thinking – what else is new?  But there was something about the week that really got me in the spirit: some combination of the temperature cooling down, Halloween events starting to come into being and all kinds of ideas swimming through my head.

It seems that I wasn’t the only one – I’ve built up a big circle of friends that are also Halloween fans and it looks like everyone was really starting to get into it and ramp up their plans last week.  I’ve had some ideas in my head for Halloween and the Zombie Walk so earlier this week I started sketching them out and then I set aside Sunday to start making them real.

I was joking around online with some friends  about how Sunday should be a new holiday devoted to the start of Halloween activities.  One thing lead to another and the seventh Sunday before Halloween became known as Misgivings Day.  (named by Ghoul Friday – check out her awesome blog)

I love the name and think it fits in many ways:

1. It is somewhat dark and mischievous sounding
2. Misgiving means a sense of doubt about the outcome of something (like the way I see everyone worrying about getting all their props done in time for Halloween)
3. The name is a play on Thanksgiving Day – and we are thankful for the fun of Halloween!

I spent my Misgivings Day drinking Pumpkin Ale, working on paper mache pumpkins, making latex intestines for my Zombie Walk costume and starting a big painting – all while watching a ton of horror movies.

Latex Intestines - waiting for paint

First layer of paperclay on the pumpkin

Also, unrelated, but I had really great weight training sessions on Thursday and Saturday.  My squat and deadlift strength keep going up and I’m confident that I’ll hit my goals for them before the end of the year.  I think I need to dig up my lifting gloves though – deadlifts are at the point where they feel like they’re going to rip the callouses right off my hands.

Had a fun weekend!  Stayed in on Friday night and started work on my Halloween props – it’s been a while since I’ve worked with paper mache and I forgot how fun it could be.  It’s very satisfying to build up an armature in a creative way and watch something take shape out of nothing.

On Saturday I went to the CNE and had a really good time full of good company, rides, games and lots of guilty pleasures in the food department.  Can you say deep-fried? Tried the deep-fried mac-n-cheese, mars bar, corn dog and of course, the butter!  Mmm, deep-fried goodness.  I know this is in stark contrast to some of my goals, but hey – you gotta live.  I’m all for balance over absolutes and I know I’ll make progress towards my goals over the month – long term!

Sunday I took a trip to the ROM with a couple of friends.  I haven’t been there since they had the Two Towers exhibit for Lord of the Rings so it was nice to wander around and gawk at history.  I developed a fascination with patterns in the artwork from different cultures and time periods and took a lot of pictures for future additions to the sleeve on my left arm.  I’d been thinking I would keep that arm all black ink, but I might throw some colour in there … lots of sketching to be done!  I was going to come back into the city later on that night, but I ended up doing some reading and passing out (sorry guys!).

Monday I did some website work and visited my family.  My little bro cooked up a sweet meal like always and we discussed our plans to conquer the Turducken.

Also decided on a few more habits to change / try in the next 3 weeks – I like this approach… going to keep changing little things a few at a time -

1. Ride my bike to work twice a week.

So many benefits to this one: saves wear on my car, saves gas, pollutes less, gets me off my ass and improves my leg muscle stamina for the upcoming snowboarding season.  Plus I’ve got the Ride to Conquer Cancer next year so it’s time to start logging some serious distance on the bike.

2. Do yoga twice a week for 30 minutes.

I am actually quite flexible for a bigger dude from years of martial arts, but I could definitely use more flexibility.  I also enjoy the calming aspect of it.

3. Plan my meals.

Easier to shop, easier to stick to a plan and easier to monitor.  Plus there’s less of a chance of wasting any food… something I hate to do but it happens when I don’t plan and go crazy in the produce section.

So I was thinking about the whole 21 days thing and how well it worked out for me.  Of the habits I changed, the most interesting one was the 21 day no complaining experiment.  I loved this change and the results it brought me and I’m going to stick with it for life.

Now, I’m definitely not much of a complainer – I see it as pointless wheel spinning and a waste of energy.  I was reading old articles on The Four Hour Workweek blog and came across this:

Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment

Using a physical reminder (bracelet, elastic, etc.) – don’t complain about anything for 21 days without coming up with a solution.  Anyway – I’ve written about it here before – so I won’t get into the details.  So I got a blue elastic, slapped it on my wrist and went on my merry no complaining way.

I put extra effort into being aware of my thoughts and my reactions and when my instinct was to react negatively to something I forced myself to stop and think it through.  I probably picked the worst possible time to try this – as it was right in the heart of all the craziness at work – but at the same time, that probably made it the best time.  With that said – there were a LOT of opportunities to complain – I was in a high-stress situation and was working pretty intense hours.  At the same time I was making sure I was on top of my best man duties for my buddies wedding.

The thing I found amazing about the entire experience was that when I look back at it, I can’t really remember feeling stressed or feeling any negativity about it.  It was hard work and long hours and the hardest I’ve worked on something in a while – but my no complaining mindset kept me focused on all the good things that could potentially come out of the project.  I really think that the mindset spread into the rest of my life because even with the crazy hours, I had a super fun month filled with a lot of good times and a lot of good things happened to me – an almost eerie amount of things actually.

What I really like about it is that it’s not just blind optimism.  You don’t just have this attitude that everything is going to be awesome and then expect it to happen.  The habit requires you to think about a situation you felt negatively about enough to complain and then forces you to come up with steps to resolve it.  So rather than just building negative emotion, you channel that energy into actually resolving the problem.  Logically, it’s the best way to approach negativity I think – is there ever any benefit to just venting over taking action?

Anyway – I’m going to pick a few things that I want to change each month – will set aside 21 days of the month to do the change and the rest of the month to think about how it went / what I’m going to do next.  There’s always going to be some habit of mine I can improve or change for the better, so I’m sure I’ll never run out of things to try.  I’ll be thinking about what I want to change this month – I have a feeling getting more sleep will be one of them!

Twenty days ago I made a list of a few behaviour changes that I wanted to try and I’ve focused on those changes since then.  It’s gone very well and the changes have become habits.  I’m doing one of the changes with my friend Candy – the 21 day no complaint experiment.  Now that 21 days are almost up, she asked how we would up the ante and keep it going forward.  Truthfully, I’m not sure – so I’m going to do some reading and see if I can find any previous feedback from past experimenters to see where they have gone from here.

I’m also starting to think about the next set of habits I want to change.  Like I’ve said before, 21 days isn’t very long, but it’s long enough to make your mind believe you’ve been doing something forever.  It doesn’t even have to be an absolute belief – just enough that it would take more energy and effort on your part to go against the habit as opposed to going with it.

On Monday morning I talked to my boss – he did the presentation of the video I had worked on over the weekend to our main client.  They absolutely loved it!  It had the exact effect on them that we were trying to achieve.  As a result, we are getting business from them that was previously slated to go to another company and we’ll be working on some training videos for them.  More to learn for me and more creative work which I always welcome – and now that I have a better understanding of the process, the hours won’t be nearly as long.

Last night I met some friends for a Paul Verhoeven double bill: Robocop / Starship Troopers.  Saw them both at the Bloor Cinema – we almost always sit in the balcony towards the back because it’s deserted and we enjoy heckling the film and having conversations with ridiculous tangents in the middle of it.  Got my action flick fix and hung out with good people, including one I hadn’t seen in over a year – so good times!

Decided to start writing a bit more about other things than just working out. I like writing, so the more practice I get the better I’ll get at it.

Took it easy this weekend – just what I needed after the 5 weeks of craziness at work. Friday I vegged out for a few hours and finished off Final Fantasy XIII which I hadn’t played since I started the project. Pretty good ending although the whole tesseracts area of the last level really made no sense and was a bit dull. Got a txt from Tosha who I met at the fiendraiser a couple of weeks ago seeing if I wanted to check out a mexican wrestling show – sweet!

Saturday I took Ozzy for a bike ride and then headed over to Kombat for a weight workout. Did squats, military presses and bent over rows. Low reps, heavy weight. No messing around with a million machines – just the way I like it. I just got an iphone so I did some searching for fitness apps and got one called GymBuddy. I’m using it to track my sets and reps and to make sure that I progress properly. So far I like it and I’ll give it a proper review after I use it for a little while.

I’m bad at keeping up with cleaning when I get super busy at work, so 5 weeks resulted in my bedroom and office both looking pretty disastrous. After my workout I spent a good chunk of time getting them both cleaned up and it feels good to get it out of the way. It’s a lot easier to maintain it once it’s super clean. I even found all the old blood stains (fake :P) that had found their way to my door frames and out of the way areas in my bathroom while doing zombie makeup.

Left to meetup with Tosha and got stuck in CNE / TFC traffic on Lakeshore (note to self: avoid driving through this area until the CNE is over). Met up and Shanghai Cowgirl and had a tasty havarti/jalapeno/avocado grilled cheese and a pint of big wheel, which I’d tried at the conscious food festival a few weeks ago and really liked. After that we were off to Santo Sangre for some luchador action!

The show was awesome – so much fun! When we got there we saw a couple of couches right at ringside with no one sitting in them. I think everyone just assumed they were reserved and didn’t bother sitting in them – so we sat there, got the best ringside seats and no one said a word. Ended up sitting next to a couple of little kids who totally made the experience all the more amazing. Seeing how excited they got and how into the show they were made me smile and made me happy to be a big kid. I can’t live my life without play and fun and I do lots of things that I’m sure could be looked down on as childish, but whatever – it makes me happy and that’s all that matters. Anyway – few pics below.

After the show we got to meet all the wrestlers and get pictures / autographs. Got pics with the legendary El Santo del Hijo as well as with Trish Stratus and Lita who used to be in the WWE – bonus!  Was going to meet up with some friends after the show but that got derailed so I popped over to another friends place for a bit before heading home.

Sunday I took the dog for a bike ride and then dropped him off after a few K before heading out on a longer ride myself. I got an app called runkeeper pro to track my running/biking – so far I’m liking it – it tracks via GPS and tracks the route and all the timing stats so I’ll be able to tell how I’m coming along. I’ve got a lot of riding to do to get ready for the Ride to Conquer Cancer next June.

Got back and headed over to the farmer’s market – picked up some summer squash, potatoes and peppers for dinner. Made the potatoes into hasselback potatoes and grilled the veg and had it with some chicken breast I had grilled earlier.

What else… found out that Kombat is doing a seminar at the end of October with Andy the Destroyer Souwer, one of my favourite K1 fighters. I’ve got it on my list to train with a champion, so I’m definitely signing up for this. I’m expecting it will be a pretty intense seminar, so I’ll be sure to step up my training quite a bit over the next 9 weeks to make sure I can get the best out of the seminar.

… and I guess I’m a glutton for sleepless punishment, because I somehow ended up with plans for every night this coming week. The good thing is that I’ll be out with friends and not working. I’ll need to be creative with my workout timings and making sure I get some sleep too!

It sucks that I missed fan expo – not because of the show itself, but because of the people there that I didn’t get to hang out with.  I’ll have to make sure I make opportunities to see them all soon!

I’m finally done my big project at work!  After over 5 weeks of ridiculous hours and stress I did the final render last night and put the project to bed.

I haven’t had much time to write because of the work project and because of Anthony and Ashley’s wedding last week.  But now I’m in the clear!  I left work in the morning to come home and catch up on some sleep and other things.  By the time I got home I decided to skip the nap – did some laundry, dropped some stuff off at the dump (more clutter gone!) and did some reading / played some games.  In general, I did nothing and I absolutely loved every second of it.

So now I’ve got some time and I’m doing some catch up writing here.  I’ll start with the wedding.  It was amazing!  The weather was looking a little sketchy with some torrential downpours the night and morning of the wedding, but that cleared up just in time for the ceremony and the pictures.  It was a nice, small wedding at Ashley’s grandparents beautiful cottage on Lake Joseph in Muskoka.  Very low key and perfect for the two of them.  My speech went good and I kept a hold of the rings – so no best man horror stories from me!

It was a cool experience to be Ant’s best man and I was honoured that he chose me.  I had no idea how much was involved so onto the internet I went to find out what I was in for.  Lucky for me, one of my favourite sites: artofmanliness.com had a pretty extensive section on it, covering all the duties, the bachelor party and the speech writing.  Go internet!

Having known the two of them for as long as I have and having them as two of my closest friends made the wedding extra special for me.  It was truly a great day and I’m glad I was able to be there and be involved.  The wedding was awesome, the pictures will be great, the food was delicious and the party afterwards was a ton of fun.  Good times!

Below are a few pics from the wedding weekend – some are mine and some were taken by Hasty.

As I mentioned before, I finally finished my big work project.  It took over 5 weeks of crazy hours and over that time I developed an entirely new skill set that will come in handy in the future, if not just for making my own videos better.  The theme of the video was the progression of technology at one of our clients over the past, present and future and I ended up putting together a 9 minute video that showed this through motion graphics and videos.  I threw in a few screen shots below and if I can get cleared, I’ll post the full video in the future.

Other things – I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight.  I haven’t had anything even close to resembling a full night’s sleep in over a week and the last couple of days I’ve had that weird body buzz that I know comes from being mentally and physically exhausted.  I was going to nap, but decided to skip it so I could get some good sleep tonight.

This weekend is Fan Expo – a big scifi/horror/comic/gaming convention that runs annually at the Metro Convention Centre.  Basically it’s geek-heaven.  I’ve gone for the last 3 years but this year I think I’m going to pass it up.  The lineup of guests this year isn’t that great and I wouldn’t be buying anything as I’m trying to de-clutter.  The only thing I’ll miss really is the people – I know quite a few people that will be running booths / tables and it’d be nice to see them, but I know I’ll run into them in the future at other events.  I just want to take it easy this weekend – maybe go for a nice long bike ride, get to the gym and take the dog to the lake or park.

Finally – my habit changes are still going strong.  I’ve yet to complain about something without coming up with a solution and the increase in positive thinking has really manifested in a few ways that I’ll write about later.  Despite the crazy work hours I’ve been doing my workouts too – even if it meant doing sets of push ups / squats / crunches in between renders at my desk.

I think I hear my bed calling.  Sleep. Now.