Five for Friday; Vol I

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blue jays, canadian politics, cycling, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, hockey, ropes, sit ups

A new, intended-to-be-regular feature. Let’s call it Five for Friday where I pontificate pointlessly on random, recurring and unrelated things. Or perhaps related. It depends. I won’t really know until I’m done.

– – –

Firstly, I did it again.

I was just past the entrance to Glen Abbey Golf Club on Dorval this morning when I realized I had forgotten my chest belt. Stop laughing.

For the benefit of the new and/or uninterested, we wear MyZone chest belts at ATC when we work out to monitor heart rate and gather data on the intensity of our effort. I had already forgotten my belt once this week.

And not that it really matters, but the computerized data base records your “effort points” so if you forget your belt, you get zero effort points even if you work your butt off. On a month-to-month basis, the cumulative effort points benchmark yourself against the group and against your own previous effort. And in a room full of competitive people, the points matter whether we admit it or not.

If I showed up without the belt again I was in for grief.

So. U-turn. Go home. Retrieve belt. Onward. I have no idea whether Laura heard me. If she’s smart she now knows I can show up just about any time looking for shoes or clothes. Mostly she just ignores me now because this is becoming so common.

I worked out three mornings this week and once at noon. For each of the 6a workouts I forgot something. My shirt. My belt. My suit. My shirt and my belt. My Shoes. A water bottle. My mind.

. . . and my head, if it wasn’t attached

Tags

AUS Hockey, blue jays, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, hockey

One of the best parts of my day is the brief interlude early in the day when I sit on the turf at the Athlete Training Centre and pull on my sneakers.

The regulars file in, in varying states of readiness – physical, sartorial, and otherwise. Richard walks through the building snapping on lights, turning on the computers and monitoring systems, and firing up the music. The gym comes alive before the gym rats. We banter about the Jays.

Occasionally someone is tired from a late work night or business event. Rarer still is the weekday hangover (but they do happen.) A unifying point of conversation — a rallying point for those of us about to feel the hurt — is the earliness of the hour, the darkness of the sky, and more and more, the coming cold of winter.

But in those few minutes we are part of something a little bigger. Almost a team. I hear people share something from their lives – a mom’s birthday party, a hockey game on the road, a weekend plan, where they were when the Jays won or lost. It’s fun and it’s light and you realize that we’re all different and we’re all the same and we’re all there at 6a.

The thing that is the most the same is that at 6a, five mornings a week, we’re all there to work. No one makes us go. And we can leave whenever we want. But I really respect those people for just showing up, let alone the things Richard makes us do.

I don’t think it has occurred to most of those people that their example is actually changing other peoples’ lives. But I know that to be true.

–

On Tuesday after the election – I worked very late – I didn’t go to the gym. On Wednesday I did go but I was still tired. So tired, in fact, that I forgot both the chest belt that we wear to monitor heart rate and effort, and I forgot a dress shirt to wear after my shower.

It was a pain in the ass to drive home to get a shirt but unless you have a butler in your employ, it’s a self-inflicted injury.

Today, Richard chirped me during warm ups. “Did you bring your chest belt? Did you bring a shirt? Did you bring a tie?”

Yes on all three counts, actually, but with an asterisk. First, I rarely wear a tie. But I have a board meeting today and ties are pretty much board-room mandatory.

Second, the asterisk. I actually forgot my suit. And tie. And shoes. I was halfway to the gym when I realized it. I always put out my work clothes the night before and hang them in the mud room and I did that last night, too. But for some reason I walked past them this morning and out to the garage with the blissful ignorance of the utterly unprepared, utterly unaware.

I turned around and went home. If Laura knew I returned she never said so.

I may have to start putting everything in the car – not just the mud room – the night before, to counteract my apparent creeping senility. But that won’t work well when it’s -20 – changing into frozen clothes is one of those circles-of-hell kinda things.

Eventually, I got all my clothes in the right place today. We had a good workout, including a hard, flop-sweat-inducing 30-minute spin, which if it doesn’t kill you will certainly wake you up.

And I got to pull on my sneakers with some friends, inside a sparsely populated gym where the light from the door at 5:55am pierced the darkness like an arrow and the promise of the day to come bled into the morning.

I enjoy the 6a workout. And like the strawman in Wizard of Oz, maybe I could remember my clothes if I only had a brain.

–

Like thousands of others in Toronto, I left work a little early Wednesday afternoon to go home and watch the game. Unlike most of them I wasn’t hurrying to see the Blue Jays and Royals, but rather I was dialled in for the Dal Tiger and Acadia Axemen.

Last night was Dal’s home opener and Acadia was sure to be a handful as the 6^th ranked university team in Canada. Dal’s program is improving but is still a work in progress, although a tight 3-2 loss to #2 UNB on the weekend gave reason for optimism.

Dal went into last night’s game with four of its eight rostered defencemen injured. Two or three forwards were also on the shelf. It was hardly a portent of glory.

But glory, there would be.

Long story short, the Tigers prevailed 4-3 in an overtime shootout. Acadia scored with just four seconds left to tie the game after the Tigers carried a 3-2 lead for most of the third, with my kid picking up an assist on that goal. Yeah, I  was excited for him and all of them.

In overtime, the Tigers played like giants. Patrick drew the only penalty of the frame, taking a high stick to the face. He never missed a shift and they rode him like a $2 pony at the fair.

It was such a great way to end my day and such a great moment for the Dal players. It doesn’t get any easier on Friday night when they travel to Antigonish to play St FX. That’s the thing about the Atlantic conference – every night is a tough night.

Our guy knows from hard experience that nothing worth having comes easily. I think about that all the time lately, too. Even at 6a.

Just watch him

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canada, canadian election, canadian politics, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general

I started writing this blog in December 2005, which coincidentally was during the federal election campaign that first brought Stephen Harper to 24 Sussex Drive.

That was a long time ago and after last night it would seem that a man who always seemed to be a master of political calculus made a final, serious miscalculation.

Even though buckets of ink have already been spilled and barrels more will be emptied in the days ahead writing his political obituary, I think it’s far too soon to evaluate his tenure. Part of the reason for that is that he was always a bit of a hard guy for the public to like and last night that caught up to him.

He ran a fiscally principled government in difficult economic times. He assembled a formidable front bench of cabinet ministers – like Flaherty, Baird, MacKay – and he kept a close watch on every major file and most of the minor ones.

He was criticized for not engaging directly with the provincial premiers, but politically that was astute frankly because the premiers would do nothing but ask for stuff that a) he probably couldn’t afford to give them and b) politically would be divisive and distracting.

Foreign policy and defence were steady but unremarkable even if Canada’s place on the world stage shrank. The record on the environment was lamentable. There were things like the Duffy/Wallin scandals and ham-fisted elimination of the long-form census and other small-ball irritants.

But overall, the Conservatives ran a decent government, albeit one far too distracted with politics and eliminating its enemies, who were often, frankly, doing the job for him.

To me, his terms seem utterly defined with crushing opponents – especially the Liberal party — and he almost succeeded and actually might have accomplished it if he had left office a year or so earlier.

But he didn’t, and the son of the man he loathed most as a young conservative moving up the ranks is the man who brought him down as a host of issues – C-51, ISIS, niqab debates (who even knew what a niqab was six months ago), the economy, subtle and not so subtle racist wedge issues, Duffy and more piled up into a formidable ball of hate.

A sporting life

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AUS Hockey, baseball, blue jays, cycling, cycling in cold weather, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, junior hockey, kids hockey

Too much on the calendar this weekend. A high-quality, first-world problem.

There’s a junior A game in Milton tonight that I would like to see, because it’s Milton vs. Cobourg and there will be several kids in the game I know, not the least of whom is Will the Thrill.

But.

The Dal Tigers are on the road this weekend, playing at UPEI and that game will be webcast. Through the miracle of Apple TV I can stream the webcast from my iphone to the Apple TV box and onto the big screen in the family room. While it’s not HNIC, it is to us, and it’s free.

UPEI also has the best and most entertaining play-by-play and colour commentators in the Atlantic university conference, and that coupled with my personal interest in the game makes it must-see TV. Sorry Will.

Then, there’s also a baseball game of note tonight – the Blue Jays open the ALCS in Kansas City tonight and that is also must-see TV. And the Leafs host Columbus in what will be perhaps the least-viewed Toronto hockey game of the season. Both teams stink and the Jays are in the ALCS? Good luck.

So, tonight I will be grateful for the invention of time zones. The 7p start for Dalhousie in Charlottetown is 6p here and the hockey game will be almost over when the Jays take to the field for a scheduled 8:07p start.

The greatest inning in Canadian history

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ALCS, baseball, blue jays, diet, exercise, fitness

You will need to live a very long time indeed to see another inning of baseball that even approaches last night’s utterly epic ALDS-deciding match between Toronto and Texas.

So much has already been written about the game by far better writers, I won’t bore you with another blow-by-blow account. But certainly Toronto has experienced nothing like it since Joe Carter touched ‘em all in 1993.

Last night was the reason kids get excited about sports. It’s why adults go to the fields and rinks to coach. It was the essence of sports boiled down to the gooey, sticky, messy, wonderous residue of what is left when all of the drama, excitement, frustration, hope, hopelessness and optimism are stripped away and all that is left is will to win and the question of who wants it more.

Texas deserved to lose. Basically through errors in the field the Rangers gave Toronto five outs in the bottom of the 9^th after taking a one-run lead on a play so rare and unscripted that it could not be imagined outside of the most nonsensical Hollywood script. I could have pulled three guys off the GO train who with me could have made at least two of the plays that the Rangers booted.

A baseball game that matters

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baseball, blue jays, colds, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general

Finally, baseball that matters happening in our postal code.

The first World Series that I actually remember – and yes, I’m dating myself mercilessly – was the 1968 series between Detroit and St. Louis (which was ranked by The Sporting News as the 6^th greatest fall classic ever).

Denny McLain and Bob Gibson. Al Kaline and Lou Brock. Willie Horton and Orlando Cepeda. Interesting to note, given the debate in Toronto these days about pitchers and rest, that series MVP Mickey Lolich started game 7 (and won) on two days’ rest, just as McLain had done in Game 6. Both went on to have productive lives in spite of the short turnarounds.

The first World Series that really burned into my brain was the 1975 matchup between Cincinnati and Boston – ranked #3 overall by The Sporting News. As a kid I had become a fan of the Reds a couple years earlier when they lost in the Series to the A’s. Maybe it was the whole “Big Red Machine” thing. I don’t know. I just know it was the first time I saw drama on a baseball field and I was hooked. I can still recite the Reds lineup. Perez. Morgan. Conception. Rose. Bench. Foster. Geronimo. Griffey (the other guy’s dad.) It’s a wonder they ever lost a game.

We lived in Ottawa when Toronto won in 1992. We were in Edmonton when they won again in 1993 – and that win is sentimental because Pad was born a month before that victory and I (we) watched a lot of baseball that fall with him in my (her) arms screaming (him, not me (or us). But maybe both (or all), now that I think about it.)

Giving thanks, but not for Alvin

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baseball, birthdays, blue jays, chipmunks, colds, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, pest control

I came home from work Monday night and went through the usual routine.

After greeting Laura I dragged my gym bag to the basement to toss my sweaty stuff in the laundry. I flipped on the laundry room light and two beady, nervous eyes stared back. It’s not every day you see a chipmunk standing on your washing machine.

First reaction: This isn’t a good thing. A rodent by any other name is still a rodent. And this is a rodent.

The chipmunk was staring up at the small window. I was staring at the open washing machine wondering if there was some way I could knock the critter into the drum and close the top. Neither of us got what we were wishing for.

Alvin – let’s call him Alvin – jumped to the floor and disappeared into the labyrinth of basement that unfolds from easy access from the unfinished walls of the laundry room.

These dark days

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blue jays, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

 – Robert Frost, My November Guest

It may be that autumn will bless us with a few more warm sunny days – days like yesterday and this morning — before the next month falls by with the dizzying pace of life these days. But I doubt it.

I got home last night and it wasn’t just warm, it was humid and sticky. It wasn’t my imagination – the humidex was 28, the outside temperature was 23 at 630p, and if not for the horizon’s relentless early pull on the sun it could have been July again.

But darkness at this time of year seems to come like the flicking of a switch, not summer’s slow fade through the spectrum’s colours until the sky eventually turns deep purple. By 730p it is all but dark, and the path to the barbeque for my evening ritual of grilled chicken is an accident of stubbed toes waiting to happen.

I had no sooner put dinner on last night when Laura called, a nice surprise and earlier than usual for when she is away. Visiting with her family in Cape Breton she was enjoying scallops – the favored seafood takeout place was out of our cherished clams. She was content to rough it and happy to be with her sister and dad.

I settled in inside the family room. The light timers need to be adjusted, so the room was dark, save for the glow of the television; the room was quiet, save for Buck Martinez’s ubiquitous excitement/optimism over the Blue Jays.

Take me out to the ball game

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baseball, blue jays, diet, exercise, family, fitness, mickey mantle

It’s hard not to be a cynic when it comes to major league sports in Toronto. We have lived here more than 15 years and the current Blue Jays run is the first time any of the Big Three – Leafs, Jays, Raptors – have legitimately contended for a championship run.

Sure, in 1999 and again in 2002, the Leafs made the conference finals: losing both times. But there was no genuine sense that those were championship teams. This year’s edition of the Blue Jays feels different.

It kind of sucks to live in a major-league city for this long without experiencing the excitement of a meaningful playoff run, and I mean that from the perspective of a dad with two sports-loving sons whose rooms were generously adorned with every manner of Toronto team swag, such as to assure Richard Peddie has a long and prosperous retirement.

As a family, we’ve endured more sporting rebuilding projects than Habitat for Humanity with precious little to show for it other than Mats Sundin posters and now-anonymous Raptors bobbleheads.

Until now. And now, we have Blue Jays Fever.