Tall Pines Pictures

This will be the last Tall Pines post until I have the video footage.

Here are pictures Ian and ourselves took (mostly Ian though).

Ours our the first few, then you can tell that Ian's photography skills far surpass ours.

Johnston makes it around the "S" bend! His girlfriend screams shrillly, as if cheering, in the background. 

Rally of the Tall Pines

So on Saturday, Anne, Ian, Heather, Chester, Tim and I ventured up to Bancroft to watch the rally. Since it was a bigger group this time things moved a little slower and we missed the first couple of cars on the first pass, but no big deal. But say them all the next 2 times at that first spectator area and had a great time. Everyone listed to the advise to dress warm and cold toes were the only complaint. The night stages viewing also impressed everyone a great deal as well.
It was Anne's, Heather's, Chester's and Tim's first time at a rally and they seemed to have their expectations exceed. Anne had even said how we will do things differently next year thus inferring that she plans to go again?! Chester was quite pleased to have gone and had a great time, but I didn't talk to Tim enough to know how he felt.
Anne and I also met Ian's girlfriend Heather for the first time and were very pleased to have done so. We both enjoyed her company immensely. She and Anne got along great and we can't wait to get together again soon.
So it was an excellent day and Maya was apparently an angel for Andrea and John who graciously cared for her all day. I am sure Anne will recount her experience as well.

This Hyundai Tiburon won the rally. Definately the smoothest driver we saw all day. A well deserved win.
He was just coming off of a fairly sharp turn here. 

Across the bridge. This guy came in second.

Only one car really can into the sides of the bridge when we were at this spectator part. But they didn't damage anything or slow down at all. 

Another action shot from last years rally. Pat Richard, the driver here, did not finish due to technical difficulties but is the #1 north american driver. I hope he makes it this year.
There are tons of really good entries so far this year and its look like more top cars are entered than last year already. 

It's time to Raaallllllyyyyy

The Rally of the Tall Pines is on November 26th.
Who wants to come this year? Anne is coming and we are meeting with my friend Ian and his girlfriend Heather. I have some other "maybes" but I need some firm commitments so I know of I want to try and borrow my parents van. We leave early Satuday morning to make it to Bancroft at about 9-9:30am and won't be back until well after midnight. It should be an awesome day, with fast cars, good food and good friends. Dress warm though. 

big guy with a beard

Today Anne and I went to Home Depot. While we were in the line at the check out Anne went to grab one last thing. No one was behind us so I stepped sideways to grab a couple of 9V batteries. While I was trying to grab a 2 pack of them an older couple come up to the line and so I stepped sideways in front of them (and their load of lumber I might add) and said "oh sorry in am in the line I was just grabbing some batteries". Not a big deal.. or so I though.
The old guy says "Oh look at me, I am a big guy with a beard and I can do what I want!". I laugh in a my head until I realize he is serious. I turn around, mouth agape and say " No seriously we were here and just were looking at batteries for a second.". The man replies bitterly, "oh well then, if you are in such a hurry just go right in front of me then!".
I just shrugged and turned around. Then a new till opened and they got in first of that new line.
I guess I looked suitably menacing today :)

Maya the Flower Girl

Here is not one, not two, but 80 pictures of Maya the Flower Girl. Once we got her in the dress she loved it. For the second set we took in the park the other day, she was actually pretty photogenic.

A nice fall trail.
On the Bruce Trail near Kimberey. For fun we walked up one of Talismans most difficult run on our way back to our car.

Some nice fall scenery. The view from some spots was amazing. 

We stopped for lunch on the trail, Maya enjoyed sucking on the hydration pack. 

The trail was a bit rough and the leaves were hiding a lot of the roots and stones, but Maya walked for some of it. 

Here is a coool animated music video, its electronic music featuring asian instruments. I have no idea who the group is.
Be warned, the are mermaid boobies. Gasp!

Want to teach in Japan? Think twice.

Here is a great site, kind of like a blog, detailing an american's experiences while teaching english in japan. Its absolutely hilarious. Japanese are very strange people.
I am glad "Kancho" isn't something kids are into around here.

We lost our cell phone and...

A couple of months Anne lost our cell phone. We think she took it on a transfer and since then we haven't seen it. We don't use it for anything except to keep in the car for emergencies and other calls one occasionally has to make on the road. I don't think we have every used more than 15 minutes in a month.
So today I finally get around to going to the Bell Store (its exactly 2 blocks away) and do something about it.
It ends up that our plan had an upgrade option and I get a new phone for free. Then the phone I supposed to get was missing something and it was the last one so I get an even better one. So we ended up with this one, which is exactly what I was hoping for but doubted it would happen without a lot of money exchanging hands. We will probably start using it more, just so we can play with it :)
Not only that, but apparrently CAA members get deal when you get a $20/mo rate which will save us even more!
So everything working out very well. I think we better lose this phone in a couple of years so we can see what kind of deal we can wrangle then too.

Birthday Boy!

So today is my birthday, yay!(?) I am 28, which is just fine with me.
Anne made me that black forest cake, which was pretty good, especially when all mashed up with chocolate ice cream.
I ordered myself a new mouse pad and mouse feet which I am looking forward to.
I also was got a box of birthday cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crush) which is my most favortisting cereal evar.
That about sums up birthday activities for the day.
We have to leave for my parents shortly as they are moving today into these new house in town. The funny thing is that there new house isn't quite finished year so they will be living in squalor for a few weeks.

Rally Germany

Here is my Rally Germany Highlights (40MB).
This one is my favorite after my Finland Highlights.

Mountain Biking

My friend Ian came up for the weekend and we mountian biked here and here and here. The Bruce Peninsula Mountain Biking Adventure Park was one we had not tried before and we were both very impressed. As you can see in the picture there were some great obstacles and the trails were very well done. Its a lot rougher than the Brant tract and you have to slog through some of the rough sections. I am going to try and make it there a couple of times more this year for sure.

Virtual Death

Someone I knew and corresponded with on Shacknews pretty regularly died last week in a motorcycle accident. He was a pretty well know shacker and so after realizing he hadn’t posted in a few days people discovered after a bit of googling that he was dead. It seems his death was pretty much his fault as he was going way to fast on the motorcycle and couldn’t stop in a time and slid into a stopped car on the road. There is even a thread on the message boards where people told him he was going to be killed sooner or later if he kept doing going like that on his bike.
Anyway, I am surprisingly bummed about it. We were both big rally fans and were planning to play against each other in one of my rally games shorting. I was even about to message him to plan a time this week just before I found out. I never even spoke to the guy in real time, athough now I really wish I could have met him. It was always through the message boards or private messaging. The other sad thing is I don’t think he was a Christian either.
Anyway, R.I.P. “Harkov”.