Last Day in the South

First off, apologies for the lack of a blog post on Friday evening, there was a certain lack of internet at our hotel that evening.

                Friday morning we awoke to a cloudy and somewhat windy morning. The planned workout was 2x2km time trials/races, thus that is what we did. Fortunately for us, the wind was blowing from the start line towards the finish line, which gave us a nice tailwind push during the pieces. It also created rather large waves from about the start line to the finish line. Oh well, we got the pieces done and had a good workout. Admittedly, by the time we got back to the dock, we were all a little cold and wet.

                Before the second workout we found ourselves again at WalMart. This time around, we didn’t get any ‘talking to Americans’ style questions, however we did pick up a fairly large amount of ‘travel snacks’ as well as some Vanilla and Cherry Coke, and who could forget a little more Fat Tire Beer (needed to bring some back to share). Also there’s just the joy/entertainment of WalMart in the US, so much more awesome than the ones here in Canada.

                Soon enough it was back to the lake for a final row. The wind was still there, but had come down a bit from what it was in the morning. Because it was our last row, we went up the river beyond the start line for a nice cat 6. After being out on the water for about 75 minutes, it was time to call it quits because we needed to load the boats back onto the cars for the journey home. This time around, boat loading took considerably less time than before mainly because it wasn’t snowy and cold, and everyone was there.

                As it was our last dinner at the all you can eat buffet, there may have been a little bit of extra enthusiasm in the eating. This was heightened when one of the cafeteria workers came out and told us if we wanted we could have all the extra pizza they had because we were the last ones there and the cafeteria was closing for their reading week the next morning.  This made us all quite happy, particularly Jerome, who has been known for his feats of eating exceptional amounts of pizza.

                Shortly after dinner, the van driven by Mark and Dave left to drive overnight back to London, in order to be able to arrive on time for and be rested for a Swedish House Mafia concert in Toronto on Saturday night (which we are all kind of Jealous we couldn’t have gone to. The boats they had on the roof of their car were back at the boathouse when we got there to unload last night, so we believe that they made it safely back.

                We (my car) left Georgia at just after 4 am Saturday morning headed back to London. Unfortunately it was not such a starlight voyage through the Smokey mountains. It was a rather rainy, foggy and dark trip through the mountains. This made the first three hours of the drive slightly less fun than they could have been. And by slightly rainy and foggy I mean wipers on full speed, reduced driving speed and fog lights on. The early departure made the first few hours back on the interstate better driving because there was much less traffic than normal on the road. We arrived back at the boathouse around 6pm, and everyone was back at their homes by 7.

                Two hours later (9pm), we learned that Matt’s car was just crossing into Canada (an hour from London). This put us about 3-4 hours ahead of them, though they did leave Georgia an hour behind us; and then stopped at Waffle House, and Chipotle (ok we stopped there too, but who wouldn’t), and Denny’s, and for various additional gas stops. Anyway, everyone is home safe.

                This effectively concludes the Georgia Trip Blog for 2013, stay tuned over the next week or so though, I hope to post a summary video shortly – and I will try to make it better than our Harlem Shake video. Thanks for reading, hope it was enjoyable.

Where's my lung gone?

Finally we’re here, the final team bio! He’s pretty tall. Based on information from Andre I’d say definitely tall enough to party, because he’s taller than Andre. He’s kind of quiet and sometimes he’s kind of awkward, but sometimes he’s kind of not quiet, and other’s he’s not too awkward. Thus it was difficult to come up with a good biography for him. What I do know is that enjoys changing Wendy’s signs. His ipod is known to have the best if sometimes oddest music mixes for the erg room. He comes from the lovely clean air and pleasant vistas of Hamilton, Ontario. He has collapsed his own lung - twice. Some say that he once hid in a bush for two hours in order to try and surprise someone – which he didn’t manage, and that when he’s not rowing, he’s rowing. All I know is, it’s Dave LaRiviere.

Out of all the pictures of Dave I found, I like this one best.

Underwater Adventures

                This morning was the warmest, brightest and earliest morning we have had on the trip thus far. We set off earlier because, even though we only had one row scheduled for today, we also had volunteered to put in a couple hours of work around the rowing club – similar to last year except for we hoped for no black widows (or ‘y’all aren’t afraid of black widows are you’ sort of jobs).  When we started doing the work, I was at first made a bit of fun of for bringing out some rubber gloves, shortly after we started doing the work, that ended. We had the joy of reaching into the water and fishing out logs, then lifting them up and making a big wood pile. This resulted in some ‘gondolaing’ of one of the docks to ferry logs to an easier location for pickup. That was actually quite fun. After that took place, we somehow ended up moving the swimming lanes again. I say again, because those of us who were on the trip last year got a strange sense of deja-vu while performing this task. The sense of deja-vu was heightened by the fact that the swim ropes were fairly clearly in the exact same arrangement that we put them in last year during our training camp. Oh well, we got it done.

                After that, we headed back to the hotel to change quickly before lunch. A quick lunch and eight of us found ourselves on the way into Atlanta, either to the aquarium, or to simply explore the city downtown. The aquarium trip was, as with last year – awesome. This year we also indulged in the dolphin show at the aquarium. It was entertaining, and the dolphins were very talented. However, the story that went along with the show was a touch too kiddy for most of us – Matt really enjoyed it though.

                Jill, Alex and Lenore went on a little walking tour/expedition around downtown Atlanta while Matt, Kat, Maria, Andre and I were at the aquarium. Fortunately, they managed to safely make it back to the car without anything happening to them. They did admit to happening upon a street/neighbourhood which was ‘less than friendly’.  They also managed to find a picture of Volker’s Olympic team from 1996, which is pretty cool.

                This evening we went out to the ‘2 Dogs’ restaurant for a team dinner. The food was quite good, Mark managed to win the coolest looking dinner award because he ordered an entire cooked flounder stuffed with crab cakes. It was a pretty nice dinner and resulted in us getting back to the hotel slightly later than usual. Oh well, we don’t start until 9 am tomorrow and besides, is there really a better way to prepare for 2x2km than a nice pre-race beer (we walked to the restaurant) or two? Maybe I’ll go crush some leg weights after this as well.

                Tomorrow is our last day here in Georgia, I only have one more athlete bio to complete! I hope I will be able to get this done tomorrow afternoon. Worst case I will post one shortly after we return to London.

                Did I mention, on the way back from the aquarium Jill was very not impressed to be woken up to the fairly loudly played musical notes of her favorite song – Call Me Maybe.

                May all your seas be smooth and all your starlit voyages end happily!

Ladders and HoneyBadgers

Well, it’s Wednesday. We’ve made it through more than half of the training camp already. Kind of alarming when you think about how fast time is going by. But at the same time, my body and hands have been reminding me that it’s not a bad thing we’re already this far through the camp. I have started to help sustain my energy levels by the usage of multiple Starbucks Frappuccino’s every day (the bottled kind you can buy from WalMart, I’m not that rich). Fortunately, they are not ‘light’ on caffeine, and so provide a nice amount of wakefulness – until the crash.

                This morning it was nice and sunny when we set out to the lake. Yet again there was debate about taking this afternoon off instead of tomorrow, due to a warm day forecasted for tomorrow. We are not doing this, we are sticking to our workout plan. The 12x250m ladder was pretty well run this morning, given a spread of abilities from novice all the way up to ‘been rowing since the dawn of time’.

                We have received a number of comments via facebook about our Harlem Shake video, or as it was also put ‘the worst Harlem Shake video ever’. What I can say is this: by the standards of my youtube account views, 200 views in less than one day is pretty much viral. So thank you for watching.

                Continuing with our usual tradition, I felt like I was driving behind Sebastian Vettel while following Matt from the boathouse to lunch at the Brenau University cafeteria. While there, as per usual, we all stuffed ourselves an awful lot, Matt specifically likes to enjoy an ice cream cone to cap off a filling meal (they do have waffles there but he manages to resist that during lunch and dinner). The cafeteria staff don’t seem to mind the way most of our team virtually runs into the dining hall to eat.

                The afternoon rolls around and I find myself sitting down here in the lobby while the others do things like nap, homework, nap more, watch tv, film random videos, do whatever the lightweight women are always doing while definitely not studying, napping or watching tv. I have heard rumours of pillow fights and crock-pot cooked food in their room.

                For the trip back to the lake for second practice, my car was again invaded by Alex and Lenore. The result – DMX and Ke$ha blasting through the stereo (not at the same time – boy that would be a weird mash up). This also meant multiple selfies and dance parties, etc were taking place while I was driving down to the course.  

                It had unfortunately clouded over and gotten a little windy by the time we reached the lake. Fortunately not windy enough to force us off the water.  After a quick row it was off to dinner. Dinner was the usual entertaining smorgasbord. This evening, those of us who had the pleasure of sitting with Matt got to enjoy a discussion on HoneyBadgers, and other things of that nature. 

From the town Soon to be Renamed 'Harperville'?

He asked to be described as ‘tall enough to party’. I’m not really sure what that means, whether he’s implying that short people can’t party or if he’s trying to insinuate something associated with being tall. This is his first year rowing for Western, which seems fairly logical given that this is also his first year at Western. Hailing from the capital of Canada, he has been rowing for quite a while and is currently gunning for a place on team Ontario for Canada Summer Games this summer. He chose not to respond to the questionnaire for the athlete bios, so I am working with whatever information I can creep/glean from facebook, and that’s pretty much it. Being from the Ottawa rowing club, he is likely to overdo it a Henley and enter himself in something like 7 events. Not specifically referring to him in that one. I have just been informed that he looks like one of the characters from Warm Bodies. He, like Matt, deeply enjoys waffle creations. Some say that . . . , ah fuck it, it’s Andre.

Selfies and Circuits

Derek’s Log:  Stardate -310136.41

This morning we were greeted by some very British Columbian skies. For those who are unsure of what that means, it means cloudy, grey skies and of course rain. Fortunately, the rain stopped before we got out on the water, so we didn’t all get soaked while on the water. Well Jill did get soaked, but that may have been courtesy of the person she was rowing behind. Instead of doing leapfrog like last year (or more accurately ‘ridiculously unfair leapfrog’ like last year), we did 2’ on 2’ off. This made for some fun pieces.  During this workout, I was running my GoPro in various different locations on my boat to create some different shots. All I will say about the footage is that you can take video-analysis to a new level. One of those things that will make Volker say ‘ach so, this thing I like very much’. Some of that video will hopefully be posted as part of a compilation video in a couple days.

Lunch was spent debating over the merits of the movie ‘parent trap’ and discussing the fame, fortune, etc associated with the Olson twins. A bunch of scholars we are. At least making bad Star Wars, Star Trek and Transformers references, we were not. There is/was (well technically is because I’m writing this part this afternoon) some debate about switching the free afternoon to today because of high wind predictions. As of yet I don’t know when if or when we will be rolling out for our second practice.

As it turns out, we did end up heading for the boathouse this afternoon. It also turned out to be too windy.  Some of us (Mark, Dave, Jerome and Sara – to be specific) decided to head for an actual gym, while the rest of us went an did a core circuit workout, and then played ‘ultimate ball’. The circuit was fun/challenging enough. Ultimate ball is just Matt’s way of having us play ultimate Frisbee without actually having a Frisbee. This is a good thing seeing as we are rowers and so have abysmal hand-eye coordination. Even when using a big, soft ball, we still have terrible hand eye coordination. Suffice to say I shouldn’t have tried that trick shot, it didn’t go so well – to say the least.

Also worth mentioning is the number of odd pictures/videos that were taken in my car between the park where we played ultimate ball and the dining hall for dinner. I believe there may also have been a Dancing Queen video. Not 100% sure on that one, trying to stay focused on driving.

Below are links to three videos, the first one is a 20 second teaser video for the big video from the trip that we’re working on. The second is our attempt at a Harlem Shake video. The third is a core strength competition as prescribed by Dr Dan Bechard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhJ82rbeQQ8&feature=youtu.be – teaser video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDDy3Qa5egU&feature=youtu.be – Harlem Shake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3ix4YWHLRU&feature=youtu.be – Core Strengt

Also, I actually looked up the stardate, it is accurate for 7:00pm on the day of posting.

Tall, Polish and Not Rabalski

This member of our team is about as tall as the burj khalifa. He is fluent in both English and Polish, which can sometimes make it difficult to follow conversations when around him and his parents due to random switches in language. A die-hard believer in five dollar footlongs. It is worth noting that a high level of caution needs to be exercised when erging near to him due to the likelihood of slipping in the rather large lake of sweat which can usually be found beneath his erg. As he is from London, he can be called a townie, but for some reason I think of him more as ‘Dawidek’ not a townie. That sounds kind of odd, but it is what it is. Similar to a T-Rex, if you remain still the likelihood of him being able to see you is pretty low, due to the fact that he spends a lot of his time squinting. Some say that he once spent a summer teaching dance at a camp in the Catskills and that his Ferrari is the colour of a rowing boat. All I know is, it’s Mark Dawidek.

#cantstopwontstop

It was slightly warmer this morning when we woke up ,that is to say according to the thermometer it was warmer, it was still cold enough for a small frost. We left the hotel slightly earlier than yesterday with a hope to find some flatter water. The weather gods appear to have smiled upon us because the lake was about as flat as an ice rink. I decided to use an ‘ice rink’ analogy for the state of the water instead of the typical ‘Mill Pond’ or ‘glass flat’ descriptors in part as a Canadian stereotype thing and in another part to emphasise the differences between here and lake Fanshawe – like I was discussing yesterday.  All in all, we had a good and hard 2x4km workout (rate 24-26) which helped really well with the development of blisters on our hands. It may have also been good for our fitness  a bit too.

After lunch my car (Jill, Beth, Kristen and myself) decided to do a food, etc. run. This meant we got to go to the ultimate American hallmark. You guessed it, WalMart. The people you see in a WalMart down here in the south can be described in one way, they make the ‘people of WalMart’ website look tame. That being said we successfully acquired all the food (or in my case beer) we wanted. Yes, I bought beer, more specifically, delicious Fat Tire Beer, which is unavailable in Canada.

There’s a funny story/quote associated with me being ID’d to buy the beer. The checkout lady was a kindly, semi-elderly  woman. When I handed her my ID, she asked where it was from, so I replied, Ontario, Canada. After a pause of about a minute, she looks up and says “I’m just trying to figure out if Canada is in the United States”. It took me a fair bit of control to keep a straight face and just answer with ‘No it isn’t’. Reminded me of the Rick Mercer show ‘talking to Americans’. And makes me thankful that I know Canada is its own country and that I am from Canada.

Other grocery store trips have taken place which I was not on. However, I was given some information about these trips. From two different trips Katherine has now taken to the grocery store, on both trips she has gotten really excited because of potential sightings of Honey Boo Boo – you may remember that she is on an epic quest for a sighting while here.  Apparently, both times she was rescued by Maria, and by rescued I mean prevented from doing something too foolish like say running up to them or stalking them of loudly saying ‘Honey Boo Boo’. Anyway, that was something worth noting.  

We went out for a nice long row up the river/lake (it’s a lake, but winds like a river) for the second row. It was nice and sunny and warm until the sun went down or almost went down and then it was, rather unsurprisingly, not sunny; this resulted in it cooling down.

We had a bagged lunch catered by the University cafeteria staff at the boathouse today. It was good, but slightly smaller than expected or hoped for.  The result of this was people literally sprinting into the cafeteria for dinner. Literally sprinting. The food is quite good though, so I shouldn’t criticize; tonight they had some nicely cooked pizza, the usual salad bar, pork, all sorts of stuff like that. Also, the ice cream machine was working today, which also made us happy.

It was a good day again, though I feel like people are quite tired this evening – I know I am.

On a different note, have you ever been in the same room as someone skyping and clearly having their own conversation? It’s kind of odd. Odder still as it is currently happening, except in Polish. Random, but I felt like talking about it. A long post today. Unfortunately no video today.

Finally, the blog post title does not refer to training, it refers to eating at the dining hall, just fyi. 

Would you like a smoke and a pancake?

Last year, I introduced this member of our team with one line “I am from Holland, isn’t that weird!” There are rumours going around that he was sent to school in Canada by his family because he eats too much food and it is too expensive. He was once known to have been referred to by one of our coaches as an ‘Abercrombie model’; I know what you’re thinking; yes this coach was a guy. The coach was also a German, and not Volker. This is starting to lead me to the conclusion that perhaps the Germans have a more liberal point of view on sexuality and nudity and what counts as appropriate or not appropriate comments to make. I am referencing one Volker Nolte at this point – he has been known to say things like “if you drop something, you must get on your knew and take it”. I’ve kind of strayed away from describing our Dutch athlete, so let’s go back to that. He’s a big guy and he has sometimes been known for late night McDonalds runs, and by sometimes, I mean all the time. His hobbies include, bar starring, lifting weights, speaking in Dutch, erging, lifting more weights, and stuff like that. He recently spend an evening serving ice cream at Marble Slab, not so funny, but an interesting fact. Some say that he was recently found trying to sell concrete chips as pieces of meteorite for very high prices, and that he recently received 12 000 concert tickets, all for the same Beyonce concert. All we know is, it’s Jerome VanLeeuwen.

In an effort to increase our female readership, here’s a picture of Jerome shirtless in a field. After all it has been said  by the ladies: “it’s impossible to take a bad picture of Jerome, he has Barney Stinson syndrome”.

Yup, another post for today

Using the video footage from the GoPro on my boat today, a quick (30 second) video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxgbS2FUP34&feature=youtu.be

A local Tobacco Farmer

This athlete recent voted (according to her facebook profile picture). She firmly believes that a day in which matching socks are worn is a day which has been wasted. This trait makes her easy to spot in a crowd because her shoes, socks and other apparel are all likely to be pretty vibrantly coloured. A member of a significant minority, she is studying engineering here at Western. Originally, she comes from the small town just outside of London, known as mount Brydges where she grew up in a tobacco farm. This is lucky for her because it means she just escapes the label of being a ‘townie’. Unfortunately, it means she lives in a tiny little town. She was recruited off the track team to come and start rowing – and by recruited I mean poached but that’s just semantics. She enjoys being in engineering because she enjoys being surrounded by boys. Her facebook page seems to have an odd number of selfie style pictures takes with one Caleb McCleary. Some say that if she owned a wireless company, she too would urge the CRTC to take it’s time with new regulations owing to the fact that her companies contracts give her legal rights to all their clients coloured socks; and that if you give her an important job to do, she’ll skive off and play croquet. All we know is, it’s Kristen Bujnowski!

Random Circuits and Cherry Coke

This morning we awoke to a beautiful sky, though a brisk temperature right around the freezing point. After a quick breakfast, which was slightly prolonged and agonizing due to the toasters which pretty much require the piece of bread to constantly be held down if you want anything other than ‘slightly warm bred’.  We were antagonised by the presence of large jars of peanut butter placed on each table which we were not allowed to touch due to a small peanut allergy in our group. Jill especially seemed to find this very irksome due to a little bit of a fetish (dare I call it that) for PB. Oh well, we will all survive.

We arrived at the lake all very excited to get the boats rigged up and get on the water. Unfortunately this wasn’t so doable because of the not so little white caps on the water due to the wind. This meant we got to go do a circuit training/erg/core/whateverMattfeltlikeatthetime circuit. It was a pretty good training session, but we still weren’t on the water. That means that thus far this trip we have driven through snow in the dark, slept, and done land training because the water was un-rowable. Remind me again why we left Ontario, it seems to me that all of these things could be accomplished staying at home.

Oh, right, now I remember why we’re here – the all you can eat dining hall at Brenau University. Good food and for an awesome price. This is a place which still has Cherry Coke, which I think says pretty much all that needs saying. However, I think I can talk about this a bit more. Matt was highly disappointed by the ice cream machine being out by the time he got there (I seem to remember something from last year to the effect of ‘I think later I’m going to hook my mouth up to that ice cream machine’).

Later this afternoon we headed back down to the lake to go for a second row, well really a first row, but I like calling it a second row more than an afternoon row after a random erg, circuit, random workout thing. Anyway, the wind had come down a bit, though it was still rather rough at the dock, which made pushing off rather difficult. There’s also a contribution from the odd orientation of the dock relative to the shore/wind/ramp/universe.  Suffice to say, we got out for a nice row which I think everyone enjoyed, or lied about enjoying, or put themself in the lead for this year’s dolphin award. After we got off the water there was a bit of a dash to get to dinner because we were hungry and tired and the food place is awesome.

I forgot to mention a highlight from yesterday’s travel. When we stopped to get gas in the town of Lima, Ohio, Jill found white Resse’s cups. As one might expect, they are regular Resse’s cups, but with white chocolate instead of milk. They were a cool novelty, but I can’t really say they were better than the regular cups.

Dolphin Award Tally:

Maria: 1

Everyone Else: 0

Yesterday's Trip From Another Prespective

First off: we have a quick link to a youtube video captured by the other car on the trip yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJJWvgK-qdA&feature=youtu.be

Natasha was travelling in down in a different car and she wrote up a blog post about the experience, it was written entirely by her.

My morning started off with having to leave my bike in the erg room for the week because there wasn't enough room in the vans.  This was a little disappointing because I was hoping to bike to and from the lake every morning, but to my relief André pointed out that there was a gym not too far from the hotel and that it only costs $20 for the week.  Then, after putting my bike and front wheel in the dungeons of Thames Hall, Matt asked me to switch vans with Jérôme because "putting him in the back would be inhumane".  I have accepted the fact that I am small, and can fit in small places, but being relegated to the back seat is never something I look forward to.  Oh well, at least I sleep well in cars because it took all of three minutes before I fell asleep.   And this is essentially how the rest of the trip progressed for me.  We left Alumni Hall at around 5:20AM and arrived at the hotel around 9PM.  During these almost 16 hours I think it's safe to say that I slept for about 13 of them...at least.  But when I was awake, I had the pleasure of experiencing Matt's swervey driving and swearing, Lenore's entertaining comments, Waffle House and a few other stops along the way.  Here's are the highlights that I took with me: Road rage before 10AM Matt after ordering at Waffle House: "I'm home, baby" André's take: "Those waffles were awful. Don't tell Matt." Lenore: "Have you ever seen a horse pee? It's like a waterfall. " Matt:" if advise against hitting me in the larynx right now." Lenore, while driving the through the woods in Tennessee:"So where are the other 7 million people?" And  "if we crash we can go to a cabin and they'll give us deer soup. "  Matt:"We're on turtle mountain...where the fuck are we?! There are only Baptist churches and no restaurants" Lenore:"Omg that place was Called RAPERS!!" Matt:"I'm going to firebomb the next church I see" Lenore:"Oh a traffic light. Make it through, I don't want to get stopped here."  Lenore when we stopped for dinner in Georgia: "I need to get out more, need to see the world. This is seriously shocking" Maria: You can't go this way Matt: This isn't a road? Everyone: No! Matt: Is it getting narrower? Everyone: Yes! Matt: Well shit fuck Alex: You guys, we're alive, that's all that matters.  Kat: I'm actually really ok with that. Were alive, the boats are in one piece.  Alex: That's the fourth time I thought I was going to die today  Lenore: Are we almost there? That looks like YOLO. Wait, where are we going? Gainiesville? "We're going offroading...and Matt's going to go to Waffle House" "I feel great right now. I'm like drunk or something " Lenore: Are there alligators in this ocean? André: yea, there are. I googled it.  Lenore: why would they do that?

Our Boats Made it This Year!

This morning we set out at the very crack of dawn in on and off snowfall. Heading for hopefully warmer weather down in the south. Throughout Ohio and Tennessee the weather appeared to be improving and the temperature was slowly rising. Unfortunately, as we hit the mountains in Tennessee it got snowier and colder. The results of this are that the differences between here and London are that the lake is not frozen here, and the temperature is only a few degrees warmer than in London, oh well, every bit counts right?

The Waffle House express way never fails to disappoint, winds, traffic, random snow, waffle houses at every exit. This year, I suggested that  we listen to the ’50 shades of Grey’ audiobook. I was voted down on this account. Instead we were entertained by random music, Robin Williams, Louis CK and Michael Crichton (Airframe audio book). Admittedly, the airframe audiobook was primarily enjoyed by me because Beth, Jill and Kristen took advantage of much of the drive to catch a few winks. And by a few winks I mean a lot of winks. Oh well, it gave me the opportunity to break out some very manly singing, such as ‘Call Me Maybe’ and ‘Abba’s Greatest Hits’ things like that. While they were awake, we discussed topics which girls find quite fascinating, one of which was cars. No I am not making this up; we did indeed talk about cars on the way down here. I’m going to keep thinking that they enjoyed the conversation and weren’t just humouring me. 

Oh well, we had a good, and Chipotle-fueled trip down here. The boats made it safely this time! 
Also, for more up to the minute updates, follow @DAStedman on twitter (yes, I just plugged my twitter account)

Here's a few shots from the GoPro mounted on the dashboard:
1) Early Morning Travel on a Snowy Ontario Road


2) Sunrise Just North Of Detroit

3) A beautiful, curved pedestrian bridge in Detroit (I loved this bridge)

4) Ohio - flat, straight, and flat

5) Driving into the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee

6) Smokey Mountains In Tennessee

7) More Smokey Mountains

Snowbird Looking For Some Sun

She’s from Kingston, and measures to the height of 56 end-to-end glucometer test strips. Quite the athlete, she has managed some significant achievements; a recent one being successful completion of several lengths of the swimming pool without being lapped or drowning. She’s hoping that the trip to Georgia will bring an opportunity to catch some sweet rays and get a bit of heat. Basically, she’s a Canadian snowbird; unfortunately looking at the weather forecast for the week at this point, it will be warmer than here but she may be slightly disappointed. Oh well.  She known to be one of the more sensible and less wild and crazy members of the rowing team. However, certain sources have indicated the she once dressed up as a Chechnyan rebel. Some say that she recently went to a Toronto Maple Leaf’s game and where they didn't lose. And that she recently wrote a book called 50 shades of black. All we know is, she’s called Beth Farnell.

One From The True North

Hailing from the true great white north, well not the true north, but a lot more north than us here in southern Ontario; this athlete was raised by grizzly bears in the town of North Bay. Being from such a small and relatively remote community, it would be expected that her ideal evening would be something outdoorsy, such as campfires, canoeing, scaling rock cliffs with no ropes, stuff like that. Unfortunately, this is not the case, instead, she claims to prefer doing tower fly-bys in her F-14, which leads to the question, why has she been keeping this F-14 of hers secret from us all this time? Anyway, apparently connected with this F-14 is her love of the movie ‘Top Gun’. I do have a bit of a theory that it may be the all-male beach volleyball scene which is her favorite part of the movie. Currently she appears to be the source of a massive potential rift on the team because she is looking forward to ‘everything but Waffle house’. I doubt that sentiment will go down well with coach Matt, but then again, the waffle’s might not go down so well either. Some say that she once called in Air Force One to pick her up from her home in North Bay to reach an important meeting, and that she once wrestled a bear to the ground. All we know is, it’s Maria Schrempf!

Random Mid-Day Blog Post

Here's a quick blog post with a link to the video from last year. A bit of a teaser for those of us who are going, and a bit of a 'it'll hopefully be sunny and warm with flat water' for those who aren't. I think we're all getting pretty excited to leave on Saturday morning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vuGvxdAJ6g&feature=youtu.be

I may not be at re-rigging, I have an exam

This member of our team is proud to be able to touch her tongue to her nose. However, it may be difficult to acquire a demonstration of this talent owing to the fact that she is part of the infamous crew which was received the ‘disappearing act’ award. As part of the questionnaire which was sent around to all of us going down to Georgia in order to gain some useful information for each person’s biography; she responded in a similar fashion to the majority of the team – with a “Land Before Time” reference.  Anyway, her favorite dinosaur is Petrie the Pteranodon. She claims that she ‘may or may not’ be the subject of a tragically hip song, the operative words in that sentence being ‘may or may not’. Unlike most others for this trip, who responded to the question ‘what are you most looking forward to’ with something to do with, food, American stereotypes or Honey Boo Boo, she is most excited to be able to row and then not worry about falling asleep in class later. This is something that wouldn’t be a problem if we decided to practice at a ‘normal’ time, hint hint coaches. Some say that if she was mayor, she would have called something better than transit busses to transport her football team, and that she recently launched her own line of designer Tupperware. All I know is, her name is Alex Stefanovski

She's On The Hunt For Honey Boo Boo

After escaping the French speaking land they call Quebec, she lived in Richmond Hill for a while, before moving on to become a local about a year ago. She enjoys running, playing Frisbee and apparently having her belly rubbed. She has numerous athletic achievements, such as being the self-proclaimed world champion of the 50m sprint to catch the bus (this fact is unverified by the Guinness book of World Records at time of publishing). Another thing which she has self-proclaimed for herself is ‘Queen of the lawn grass’ I’m not quite sure what that means, mowing the lawn, lying on the grass or what?  She is hoping to chase down the ever elusive Honey Boo Boo while we are in Georgia. I say ever elusive, but that may not quite be true as after all she does have a TV show. Some say that she has an aptitude for sitting in snow banks and that much to the dismay of the UN Security Council, she has also been conducting her own nuclear testing.  All I know is, she’s Katherine Jones.

Rowing Fast and Taking Names

Serbian, lightweight, cerise and blue,  NDCO. These are just a few words which can be used to describe this member of the crew going down to Georgia with us. With the exception of the Head of the Trent regatta she won her event in every regatta this fall – notably including the Head of the Charles regatta. As with Jill, she would prefer to spend an evening in a onesie (aka snuggie) eating food. This is starting to seem like a bit of a trend with lightweight women – onesies, nothing against them, just an observation. Clocking in at 8.750 vertically stacked pencil crayons tall, she has spent most of her life in St Catherines, the self-proclaimed center of rowing in Canada (where are the national team training centers again?). Some say that she once beat a heavyweight man at bench press and she has recently developed an irrational hatred of Rubens Barrichello, Wait, no she didn’t develop a hatred, because unlike the Stig, she has not been beaten by him. Anyway, all we know is, it’s Sara Matovic.

Back to athlete bios

This athlete is one of the ones who makes all the TID coaches in the land get really excited. Measuring in at something like 50 jars of peanut butter tall (or potentially 51, that’s up for debate), she is known for pulling on the erg like a heavy man. My theory on this is that it could be due to over-enjoyment of the movie Remember the Titans. A good way to describe her is evolving, having used to be a swimmer she recently crawled out of the water and into a boat, so my theory is that her next sport will be something to do with flying.  Having truly adopted a kinesiology student sort of attitude, she says that ideally she would spend her evenings at either kiwi kraze or bulk barn wearing sweats, as opposed to jeans, or Canada Goose jackets, of Lulu pants or Uggs. Some say that she only knows two facts about ducks and both of them are wrong. And that if she had directed Jurassic Park she would have had the T-Rex win. All we know is, it’s Lenore!

A little different post today

Taking a break from doing bios of each of the team members, today’s blog entry is instead going to discuss the annual Western Rowing ergathon (or ergaton). This is where we all head way down to South London (because there’s apparently no mall willing to host us which is located close to the university campus) to keep 6 ergs spinning all day long to raise money for the heart and stroke foundation. Members of our team often take the opportunity to perform some sort of feat of strength such as a marathon (or longer). After all, there’s nothing more fun than working hard, getting all hot and sweaty while breathing heavily while at the same time being sure to be able to last long enough on the erg to keep the ergs spinning all day. This event often attracts future recruits who want to take a turn on the erg – as shown in the picture below. After making an attempt at my personal 30km record, which I unfortunately did not manage to achieve, I find myself sitting here at home feeling rather tired, sore, stiff and dehydrated. Overall a really good event and lots of money was raised.  Here’s a link to a quick 2 minute time lapse of just under 3 hours of ergathon – shown in a space of about 2 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CftgkytseVU&feature=youtu.be

Notice: This photo was posted with the permission of the parent/guardian of the children.

Someone to keep us all under control

Measuring up to the height of one heavyweight male rower’s zyphoid process, she can speak English very fluently even though she hails from Montreal. In an ideal world, this coxswain would find herself enjoying wine, chocolate and a book; or everyone would have already bought their Gala tickets. She is known to have been quite irritated with a couple of the rowers on the lightweight men’s team when the borrowed her camera and successfully took over 600 pictures in under 2 hours at a regatta – 550 of which were not of rowing. On the lookout for low priced food and clothing, she is accompanying us to Georgia in a coaching capacity. Generally known for being highly sensible and organized, she is known to occasionally do insane things such as biking all the way from London to St Catherines for schoolboys. Her serial posting of vegan recipies to facebook makes us all suspect that she is actually vegan. Though, occasionally we all get invites to French club poutine nights from her, then again poutine is awesome. Some say that she’s seen Seinfeld 1 780 times, and for some reason she’s allergic to the Dutch, and there’s an airport in Russia named after her. All we know is, it’s Natasha Caminsky.

All I Want is Braveheart and a Beer

Two score and four years ago, this waffle loving, wake making, Western attending, wacky, fun loving guy was born. He professes his ideal evening to be spent doing nothing but petting a pot-bellied pig named Hamlet. However, those of us who know him well enough to be his facebook friends would probably agree that he also enjoys a good screening of Braveheart while drinking beer. Seriously, I’ve seen this same status something like 3 times in the last couple months. His favorite dinosaur is the Ankylosaurus, I don’t really have a joke for that one; but at least you learned something from reading this post right?  Preferring not to brag about his personal athletic achievements, he responded to the question “most notable athletic achievement” with ‘I think I went to the gym yesterday’. On the other hand, I do happen to know that he plays a mean game of beer pong and has an aptitude for chugging Guinness. He has been referred to as a real Mario Andretti behind the wheel of a car. Some say that he thought Star Wars was a documentary, and that he likes his athletes to take their oars down to the dock 6 hours before the race. All I know is, he’s coach Matt Waddell.

I had a post title, but it got hacked

Measuring a whopping 0.0010606061 miles high, she is an athletic force to be reckoned with, whose almost best known achievement was winning the 2012 beer Olympics on an all female novice team. As a lightweight rower, the thing which she is most looking forward to during the upcoming trip to the USA is eating at Chipotle. She was on the trip last year where her random shotgun obsession came to light. I’m not going to elaborate on that one. Ideally, she would find herself sitting in a onesie (aka snuggie) watching the bachelor.  Some say that she once hacked into her own facebook account and that in her wallet, she keeps a photo of her wallet. All I know is, her name is Jill.

This post would have been longer. However, it seems that her facebook profile was hacked yet again, and so instead of finding useful information there, all I found was a tidbit about her bowel regularity.  The next status update also had a rather fishy nature, I believe it was something along the lines of going to a Monday class ‘au natural’ if the post gets liked enough times. So I went further back in statuses, trying to find something of relevance. Unfortunately, no such luck, yet again another hacked, but most definitely entertaining status.

The picture, similar to the picture from my description is of her passed out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find another one I wanted to use. So here we go, another sleeping picture.

The Most Definitely Not Self Serving Autobiography

Today I am starting the team introductions, with my own. As per last year, one of the things I have been most anticipating is the opportunity to write this blog yet again. I was going to say that I will try my best to not make this blog post self-serving, and then realized that I will just do that. After all, we do or do not, as opposed to trying. Clocking in at a whopping 11.3 Stone and 188 000 000 nm tall, sporting an exploded appendix  and originally hailing from the fabled ‘best coast’, I now spend most of my time in London (the one where the Queen does not live). I only row in high definition, ideally near or under bridges; or other items of civil engineering merit. Ever questing for the All-Spark. Some say that I have recently been releasing pop records under the pseudonym of Lady Gaga, and that under my unisuit, there’s another unisuit. All we know is, I’m not called the Stig. I am quite excited to jump in my car and Roll Out for Georgia.

Hey y'all! Read This!

Welcome to the blog for the Western Mustangs reading week Georgia training camp. No, we are not yet in Georgia. Our planned departure is on the 16th of February, when it's actually reading week. Over the next couple weeks, until we leave I hope to be able to post highly detailed, accurate, serious and not at all funny blog entries describing each of us who are planning on heading down there. This year, the blog will be different than last year, as opposed trying to be funny and lighthearted, the blog will be serious and only report the most uninteresting and highly uninteresting details of the trip. One exciting example to look forward to is an in depth description of how they cast the concrete in the interstate system we drive on while driving down there. So if you're looking for a fun to read blog, I'm afraid you're SOL this time. Not. Rest assured I will endeavor to be as entertaining and fun to read as an engineering student can be.

Anyway, we're all getting super excited to head on down the Waffle House express way, also known as I-75,  on the way down to the homeland of Honey Boo Boo. As a way to get ready for the trip, many of us were competing at the Canadian Indoor Rowing Championship yesterday, there is a link to a summarizing video below. Is there a video in the first blog post this year? Yes, yes there is - and should be many more to come during the trip, get excited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFn3t6RwVug