Pyrola

These are the best and newest photos of me this year!! I love my floating head!!

Beer

I was just minding my own business the other day when I was informed that beer only stays good for 3 months!! Oh my, I thought, I have some beer that is older than that...

After some discrete inquiries I learned that beer does have a shelf life, but it is longer than 3 months. However, I was challenged with the response of why on earth would one keep beer for that long? Logically, when you consider the competition - beer versus cocktails - cocktails win 80% of the time.

The immediate concern was what to do about the beer?

• At first I thought I could have some friends over and drink it, of course keeping the hard liquor locked up for the evening. BUT, what if the beer was bad, I would die of mortification if I served bad beer.
• I thought I could throw it away and start fresh, but the idea of wasting potentially good beer knotted my stomach and I quickly discarded the notion.
• My third thought was to test it to confirm its quality.

If the beer was still good then I could share it. BUT then I realized that I should employ some statistical test on a sample of the bottles to determine the proportion of bottles that were good and bad; with the hope that the majority of them were good. Because really, if I sampled only one bottle luck of the draw would result in me testing the only good bottle. However I soon realized that I would have to drink every bottle to confirm the quality. My plan was to drink one beer a day, solely for purposes of testing the beer. I say "was" because it didn't turn out quite as I anticipated. I am not a hard core beer drinker, which really I should have guessed based on my preference for cocktails.

However, after five days of drinking beer I had to take a break. My body was designed to drink cocktails as frequently as I desire, but not beer. =)

I've taken a week off and I think I am ready for another testing session, but I think I will limit it to three days for health reasons, as well as concern for the public at large. At this rate I should have all the beer drunk within say six weeks... at the earliest. To date although I have drank five beers, somehow 11 new beer appeared in my house... It has me stumped too. I'll keep you posted. =)

Teaching

Well, I may be temporarily crazy. I am teaching biology labs at Augustana (UofA) and kayaking at the UAPS (United Albertan Paddling Society) in addition to my job. But I love teaching!!! I hate marking!!! Not to worry though. I am very content most of the time, except that I do not see my friends as much as I would like to right now. Only 4.5 weeks of teaching left though and then spring will be upon us and I'll be ready to think about biking. =)

You may wonder why I am teaching and coaching at the same time. Well it has been 3 years since I taught at Augustana and the gap in my life resulting form not teaching was growing and I was discontent. But, I love to paddle, and I thought I would contribute back to the UAPS community so I took my level 1 certification for kayaking this winter and started applying for grants for new equipment and coach training to help cover costs and now I'm coaching too.

For those of you interested, the UA in UAPS used to stand for University of Alberta, but in the UofA spirit of profit they decided to cut us loose and form a Campus Rec club. Unfortunately they are lax in caring for their equipment and slow to attend to their financial responsibilities. But the UAPS is coming together, we're working with the new UAPC (UofA Paddling Club), and although I feel at times I am overly aggressive for example in meetings - meetings are for business, so I redirect the conversation frequently because I think people can socialize after the meeting; I mean for godsake imagine chattering on about your personal life and then complaining that the meeting is running too long, -sigh- and -shrug-, I am really excited to be part of the force driving the revival of the UAPS to a community oriented club.

WOW!! Building the UAPS is like a mountain, but I love to organize and find it is quite refreshing to be entangled in this collapsed web, realigning and linking the strands anew. I am really looking forward to this summer and becoming a better coach and working with a wonderful group of friends to make UAPS a success. We even have a new website under construction and a cool domain name http://www.paddleuaps.ca/ =)

And thus it came to be that I overloaded my schedule this new year. =) I love you all and hope to see you in the spring. Most of my free time is being spent in my shell right now, and I am quite happy there. My only fear right now is when will I have time to watch the 1995 Pride and Prejudice 6 hour BBC mini-series with Colin Firth???

Hockey

Well this post is two weeks late cause I did not have computer access when I wrote it and instead of entering it into the computer at my earliest convenience, I carried it with me for safekeeping. Now it is tattered and folded and no one can know its contents unless I send out this blog.

In my Christmas letter I mentioned I scored a really good goal in hockey and that perhaps it was a good omen that I would score more after Christmas... will it's true!!! I have scored 3 goals since Christmas and none of them on a shooter tutor!!! I am so excited. I scored a goal this past week too... but they have yet to determine whether the whistle blew before or after my shot. And the down side is there is no video replay to confirm. =( My friend Darren was kind enough to call me a showboater!!! Oh my! But really, I don't score every week, this is a big deal for me. Someone has to celebrate!! =D

I wrote this message on paper as I waited for my bus from Saskatoon to Edmonton. The flights were booked solid out of Saskatoon to Calgary/Edmonton! But my Tuesday Karma has depleted and I waited from 6:12am until 8:40am before I boarded a bus... I of course slept for the first hour and a half of the following 8 hour trip.

On the plus side, I did not require a body search to ride the bus, it was quiet and roomy, and a much needed mental respite.