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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Job interview

I finally had a job interview yesterday morning at Lavo, the company that makes such cleaning products as Old Dutch, Hertel and La Parisienne.

It went really well, in my opinion. Unfortunately the plant is way the heck East in Pointe-aux-Trembles which would mean about a 2 hour metro & bus ride.
And it is for the evening shift, 2:30 to 11 pm.
So as much as the work sounds pretty well suited to what I want to do, I just went to the interview for practice, not because I want the job.

Oh well, as Arnold Horshack's sister said, "When you least expect it, expect it..." Of course, he then ended up with mashed potatoes flung in his face!

10 points to Griffindor if you got that reference!

Monday, July 24, 2006

Montreal Dragon Boat Festival

On Saturday, while most of my friends where helping Dave & France move into their new home, I was taking part in the dragon boat festival down at the Olympic Basin.
Ysabel, Maya and Kay were also there racing.

And I did have a few supporters turn up. Eric with Joel (his other little brother!) and then Cathy showed up too.

I was in four races on Saturday and one on Sunday.

This is the first JAG race on Saturday (photo courtesy of Eric!) which I did not paddle in.
Kay is in the 3rd row on the left and Ysabel is in row 6-right with Maya next to her and Rhenee is 2-right.




This is most of the Air Canada team receiving a plaque for one of the 250 m corporate races we did. (The other races were all 500 m.)




And this was my personal best race of the weekend, not that you can really see me, I'm in 9-left. Yes, the weather did turn slightly nasty by Saturday afternoon. But we were going to get wet anyhow!






So overall, we did pretty well. Air Canada placed 3rd in the B final and JAG came in 4th in the D final.

Saturday was a very long and tiring day but it was lots of fun overall. I was glad to have a ride home with Ysabel on Sunday afternoon when it was all over! Quite a good experience for my first races. I still have to build up my endurance though.
And it's not going to happen this week, we have a break from practices, phewf!
Well JAG does have a practice on Wednesday bit since I'm only a spare for them, I feel no obligation to go to it! I deserve a week off!

Awesome ride

I finally rode my new bike last week! Tuesday I went for a short ride heading West along the Lachine Canal but I stayed on the crushed stone path. So it was a small initiation to mountain biking as there are some tree roots and other hazards along there.

Thursday's ride was a much longer trip. I ended up going East along the Notre-Dame path then crossed the Le Gardeur Bridge into L'Assomption and returned via Gouin Boulevard and then down Christophe Colomb. About 80 km! I also biked a bit through the Pointe-aux-Prairies Nature Park.

About halfway along I realized the quick release on my front wheel was not tightened. Luckily my wheel did stay in place the whole time, even when I went through this mini mountain bike circuit with little hills & turns in a park along the way. That could have turned quite, uh, interesting, to say the least!

Friday I felt fine after such a long trip the previous day. But on Saturday I was stiff in the legs. Maybe next time I'll drive to Pointe-aux-Prairies (as we now have a bike rack for the car) and cycle the paths there.

This is a view of Ile Ste-Thérèse, I believe. It's vis-a-vis the end of the Island and Varennes on the South Shore. It looks like there are summer cottages there with boat access only.




This was a disgusting but somehow pretty looking marsh in the nature park.


Sunday, July 16, 2006

Flowers & Bugs













I left Tim at home alone for a couple of days for the first time, I think, since he moved in. Apparently it was nice for him to be able to stretch out in our big bed. But not quite as nice as having me there to snuggle with! (Always nice to hear!) I accompanied my parents on a trip down to my mom's hometown of St-Eugène. It's about 45 minutes past Quebec City on the South Shore. It was nice to see a lot of aunts, uncles & cousins I hadn't seen in quite a few years.

Thursday was my parents' 38th wedding anniversary. This is the church where they got married.


Monday, July 10, 2006

Last week & this past weekend

Last Tuesday Cathy had the day off as it was July 4th and so we we went for a looooooong bike ride together - just over 50 km! My longest ride this season, for sure. We started from their house in Brossard & followed the bike path to Chambly then headed towards Saint-Basile-le-Grand to make our way to St-Bruno. I finally got to see "The Loft", Cathy's parents' sail shop, Larsen Sails. I also got to see her aunt & uncle's place and witnessed the weekly feeding of the fish in their backyard pond. We picked up some artery-clogging but seriously delectable lunch at Cantine Deso and brought it back to the Loft to eat. Then it was time to put our sore butts back on our bikes to make our way home to Brossard. Luckily we made it there before the rain started up so we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing & chatting under the protection of their gazebo.
Tim had taken the bus to the Shore after work (since I had the car) so he could go to the bike shop at the end of Cathy & Eric's street. We joined him there and wandered around while he looked at bikes.
For supper, Tim & I discovered a neat little café on Victoria in St-Lambert, Café Passion. I was in the mood for a yummy sandwich like something from Santropol but since Italy had just defeated Germany in World Cup Soccer there was no way we were heading for that neighbourhood. Café Passion did the trick!

Wednesday's Dragon Boat practice was, to say the least, interesting! We had to practice in Lachine because the Canal was closed due to the heavy rainfall. It was windy so we had choppy waters and we managed to bash the boat into some rocks but at least we got to experience something other than the calm waters of the Canal.

Thursday saw me doing some bike shopping - more about that later!

Friday we played softball, badly. Lots of errors, a couple of outs (by two people who shall remain nameless but their initials are T.C.C. and E.C.C.) for leaving the bag before the batter made contact with the ball, and not much action for me in the field.
In all my sports endeavours, it seems like I've never been part of any very succesful teams. We'll have to see if this theory holds true for Dragon Boating!

Saturday we headed up to Tim's curling buddy Eric Lessard's family place near Tremblant at Lac Bibitte. We had a beautiful day of sitting by the lake, swimming, eating, canoeing and just plain relaxing, aaaaaaahhhh.









After supper we took off and went up to La Minerve to join Katja, Jouni, Élise and the mosquitoes for a night of camping.
Not quite a full moon...



And Sunday we loafed around for a bit and took off after an early lunch.


Friday, July 07, 2006

Camping weekend

We went camping last weekend in Gatineau Park and had an excellent time. Saturday as Maya relaxed & spent the day at the beach recuperating from her cold, the rest of us (Murielle, Cathy, Christina, Paul, Eric, Tim & I) went for a walk around Pink Lake. Pink Lake is actually green! That's because it's a meromictic lake. The layers of water in the lake don't mix and so the deepest layer of water doesn't have any dissolved oxygen and there aren't any living organisms at the bottom.



Eric's friends Glen, Heather & their daughter Melissa joined us that evening & arrived just in time for the rainstorm. Melissa quite enjoyed the rain much to her parents' dismay. 4 year olds don't take well to being told to put their raincoats on! We also had some thunder & lightning in the night but woke up to clear skies.

Maya, Tim & I packed a lunch and hiked to Lusk Caverns which was about 5 km from the campground. It was really neat. The caves were formed in marble pockets found in limestone. A rare phenomenon apparently for caverns to be carved out in marble.



As usual, a greater panoply of photos can be found on Tim's site...
the last one at the bottom - Gatineau Park 2006, enjoy!