Alex White's Life ...

Update time

2010-09-02T12:39:00.000-04:00

Yup, time for an update I feel.

Didn't realise I hadn't touched this since April, that's pretty poor on my part.

So the Summer has been good, both Kate and I have had enjoyable summers her in Toronto. I've been rowing regularly and coaching a lot. I'm now in charge of the Junior program at the Argo's rowing club, which will be fun this year as there is some promising talent amoung them and most have another couple years at junior too. It'll be interesting to see how much time I have to train myself when work starts again as it gets pretty tiring.

I went on a course to build a wooden kayak called a Night Heron, part of the Guillemot Kayaks fleet. It is made with marine ply and fiberglass the kit was pretty simple to build as it is precut boards that one pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. There are some pics up here on my flickr of the build process. the boat is still undergoing finishing touches at home, but we've had it out on Lake Ontario already and it's great fun!

We also now own a car, a Subaru Legacy Outback 1998 model. very nice drive and i'm sure it will be even better in the winter, with it's heated seats, and 4 wheel drive.

We have 2 cats, something I've not blogged about, they're named Moshi & Mao, one loves to cuddle and be carried and the other detests being carried and just wants to lie on you the whole time.

Back on the water

2010-04-15T18:25:00.000-04:00

Went out rowing today, I'd say this was my first proper rowing session on the water as I covered 17km with an average heart rate of 155. Up until now i've only been out doing short rows to get used to being in a boat again, rebuilding blisters, getting some skill back. Anyway I took all my toys down today, gps and bullet camera, although, the camera wasn't working for some reason so i just ran the gps, so below is my work I loaded onto the Garmin Connect website.

Life continues

2010-04-13T16:07:00.000-04:00

So life here in Toronto is moving on at a steady pace somedays it's sloooow and somedays it's hectic, but i'll admit i've definitely had less of the latter.

Kate and I recently adopted 2 cats from the Humane society (they came as a bonded pair), at first impressions they didn't seem particularly bonded, as one (now named Moshi) was continually bullying the other (now name Mao). They've been here for around 10 days now and getting more settled and the bullying is subsiding as they acclimatise to their new home. Kate and I have both grown up with cats and other animals so it's nice having them around, one thing that is different here is that it is recommended that cats remain indoor pets. This apparently is due to the wild urban animals in Canada, such as raccoons and coyotes.

The cats we renamed to Moshi and Mao are 10 and 8 years old and have very different personalities. Here are a couple of pics of the boys.

Va'a / OC technique

2010-02-17T08:25:00.000-05:00

Lemmy V1 Technique in Slowmo from Ocean Sports Media on Vimeo.

Lemmy Lambert is the co-builder and designer of the Va'a Factory V1 and V6 in Tahiti. An accomplished paddler himself, Lemmy and his team, Taaroa Dubois, Roland Teahui, Steeve Teihotaata and Heialanin Vairaaroa won the Te Aito, Super Aito 2009 V1 races, they also manufactured the V6 for Top Tahitian Team OPT, who won the 3 day 2009 Hawaiki Nui Va'a race.

Lemmy was just recently in Australia as coach of a V1 Clinic organized by Erica Hamp, Tracy Horan, the South Queensland Zone AOCRA Committee and Mark Kennedy (Va'a Factory Franchisee in Aust ZuluSurf) I had the pleasure of spending time with Lemmy at the 2 day Clinic and filming him demonstrating basic V1 Technique. The video above is part of that Clinic.

Canoe building by one of the best

2010-02-17T08:23:00.000-05:00

In Canada

2010-02-02T14:59:00.000-05:00

Well we've made it! Eventually!

It's now February and we've been here for one month. we spent most of the that month trying to organise an apartment, who'd have thought it'd take 4 weeks?! in a country where we speak the same language. In HK I found an apartment and moved in, in under one week. The rigmarole went on and on one thing after another with this Canada move.

First up we were meant to arrive way back in September 2009 but Kate's company outsources the HR for their international moves, the HR company only sent us the paperwork we had to fill in on the 16th August, informing us at that time that once completed it would take six to eight weeks for Canada Immigration to process the paperwork. As with any paperwork it took us more than a day to fill it in correctly and once that was done it had to be sent to this HR company who then sent it to their Canadian lawyers who checked over the paperwork and sent it on to the Canadian Consulate in London, who duly kept the paperwork for 7 weeks, decided we were allowed to go Canada and sent it back to us. This whole process took us up to December 11th, 2009. The following week Kate and I took a one week trip to Toronto so she could complete some work and I could view some potential houses.

The house viewing went well and we saw a few that we liked and put in an offer to rent one in particular. We left Canada returning to the UK for Christmas pleased that we'd have an apartment to move into when we returned to Canada. A few days after Christmas we received an email informing us that the we had not been able to rent our desired apartment. I'm sure you can imagine we were somewhere between disappointed and irritated that we had lost this apartment. After throwing a lot of blame around it was later discovered that the leasing agent had forgotten about us and had given the apartment to someone else, it's amazing that this person is actually able to operate.

We returned to Toronto on the 30th December, 2009. We came out before the New Year because a friend/colleage of Kate's had invited us to a party and we thought it would be good to go make some new friends. The party was great despite the jet lag, which was pretty ruthless. Anyway Kate started work immediately and I start looking for work and looking for a house. Turns out that this isn't the best time of year to find a house, so choices were thin and are criteria was tight, we knew what we wanted and it was just a matter of time until we found it. After much looking we eventually came across the house we now reside in, looking quite poor on the outside, it turned out to be very nice on the inside and we decided to take it the day we saw it, so our agent started the paperwork. It turns out the landlord got a bit confused with the fact that Kate and I would be living here and her company would be staying, and the lawyers made something quite simple, hugely complicated. This process ran out for a couple of weeks, making myself and Kate quite stressed and immensely frustrated. Having a lot of second thoughts about whether it was an apartment worth all this hassle.

We are now in the apartment and after having more hassle from Leon's furniture store over the delivery of our furniture which we cancelled because of the hassle it was causing. We now have a lovely mattress and little else in the way of furniture. We do have all our belonging out of storage which is wonderful, especially as everything went into storage for shipping back at the end of August.

Here are a few pictures of the moving in process:

More Photos here

Still in HK

2009-09-30T01:28:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a while since my last post and I'm still in HK waiting for the Canada visa's to come through. Hopefully won't be long now as the paperwork is with the Canadian consulate. 2 weekends ago I took part in the HKIPC canoe paddle to Macau and back it's a 140+km round trip in 6 person outrigger canoes over 2 days. We had quite a big group so we took 3 canoes and had 15 people per team. The club has done this many times, it is usually an annual event although due to expense it's cancelled in '08. This event is a great way to introduce the newer paddlers to the club and also help everyone improve the sea change skills. Sea changes are used in long distance change races usually over 2hrs in length. Men race these distances with a team of 9 and women with a team of 10. The idea being, the canoe never stops. So every 20mins 3 people in the crew change, like a relay race. 3 people jump out the canoe and 3 people jump in. I took lots of pics from the trip and will post them up here soon, if you can't wait then go to my flickr. I also have some video from my camer I had mounted on the ama of one of the canoes. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Packing

2009-08-25T04:09:00.000-04:00

Well at the moment we don't know if i'll be given a 'Dependent' visa, and the packing people were delayed and that has given me a little more time to faff at home with my stuff. I have, pleasingly, managed to strip and pack my bicycles into their travel boxes, donated from my LBS, here's a pic of them packed, well nearly packed, i've just got to add some padding and seal them up.

Left to Right:
Look KG451 - On-One Geared Inbred - Felt TK2

White become O'Brien

2009-08-22T05:18:00.000-04:00

Emma and Liam got happily married on the 15^th August, 2009.

Here are some of the photos taken my my dad's various cameras:

Toronto Day trip!

2009-08-22T05:01:00.000-04:00

Yep pretty much as it says in the title. Kate and I went for a 2 day trip to Toronto back in June we left from Shanghai! it was a 'look-see' trip so Kate could meet the new boss and we could get a first impression of the city, and have a brisk snoop around.

We were there for 3 nights, 2 full days and had a good time. We both liked the city, a huge contrast to our current locations (Hong Kong and Shanghai), similar in size to London/Shanghai but with around 1/4 of the population, which means it's probably quieter than your local town. Our expected move date is September but here are a few pics to keep from my walking and being driven around.

The good news about this city is that we have a friend (Amelia) there already, yippee. And with some help from our HK paddling friends (Matt and Summie, who are from Toronto) we have some easy introductions when we arrive.

Pics:

Tokyo 2009

2009-08-05T00:45:00.002-04:00

Kate and I went to Tokyo the other weekend. It was a great trip, neither of us had been before and so many people had recommended it. A very interesting city not as many high rises as we'd both imagined and also very cycle and pedestrian friendly which is great, shame we didn't take our bikes :( maybe another time. There are some pics below which are all on my flickr account (all 380+).

Hotel room view at night:

Fish Market:

Lots of Tuna being carted around:

6am sushi breakfast:

Comedy translations on the menu:

Tourist stuff:

HK OC & SS Sprint Regatta

2009-07-28T09:36:00.000-04:00

Here are some photos from the inaugural Hong Kong Outrigger Canoe and Surf Ski Sprint Regatta.
More Flickr Photos Here

HK Internationals

2009-07-14T10:35:00.000-04:00

This is a very delayed posting of photos from the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Regatta. Photos are from Saturday and Sunday, there are more on Flickr Here

Hong Kong Attack #2

2009-07-14T10:29:00.000-04:00

Hong Kong Attack #2 from b9t on Vimeo.

New Sunnies

2009-07-11T05:13:00.000-04:00

Bought some Oakley Radar's today, all my other sports sunnies seem to have disappeared, no matter they were all cheap as chips. These beauties, I'll be keeping an eye on!

Ben Stiller before Stage 4 of the Tour De France

2009-07-07T20:04:00.000-04:00

Ben+on+Lance%27s+TT+Bike+Before+Stage+4 -- powered by http://www.livestrong.com

NSR250 rebuilding ... more pics

2009-07-07T10:14:00.000-04:00

NSR rebuild progressing nicely, did the exhaust work and now the new can's fit fine, at-least until I can get the new pipes. I now need to do some nut and bolt shopping as there are a lot of randomly missing ones.

Post-it Stop motion

2009-07-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

I'm liking the Post-it stop motion:

Bike's back inside

2009-06-30T10:29:00.000-04:00

NSR rebuilding is way overdue! And it's begun eventually, by simply bringing inside out of the mosquito haven and inside where i'd be safer from the bugs! I've been putting the coolant pipes back on, filled it up with water and waiting to see if it holds ... it appears to be leaking a little. from the connections so i probably just need to tighten the jubilee clips.

Camera on Felt - Part II

2009-06-30T10:07:00.000-04:00

Here is my test ride with the camera on the downtube.

I started with it facing backwards, this I think is quite good, I believe I could get it to face up more and that would work better in a group ride. The second position isn't ideally where i'd like it purely because I fixed the cable in position fir the first position and there wasn't enough slack to reverse the camera where is was, therefore, having to raise it up the downtube, oh well lesson learnt.

Camera on the Felt

2009-06-29T09:17:00.000-04:00

Decided it's time to have a bit more ingenuity with where I can mount the camera on the bike to get some cool footage. Here is a little youtube of the tests at home and pictures to show where the camera was positioned.

The mock ups are just using bluetack.

Position 1; downtube, facing backwards:

Position 2; downtube facing forwards;

Position 3: under nose of seat:

Short video to see any potential problems:

OC1 camera again

2009-06-24T20:34:00.000-04:00

Put camera on rear iako of my Fuze OC1, here is the edited footage, most of it is in fast forward.

OC1 Bullet Camera

2009-06-07T11:04:00.000-04:00

Fitted my Bullet camera to the OC1 for the first time and half way through the paddle the bloody thing broke!! Anyway below is a 9 min clip of what the recording was like, unfortunately, the this section of the paddle had the sun in the camera's view hence a lot of flare in the picture. I was using Emily's Hurricane and paddle (very kind of you Emily) as my dad was visiting and I sent him out with my boat and paddle, luckily it all came back in one piece ;-)

End of Dragonboat season

2009-06-05T04:21:00.000-04:00

Last weekend (30/31st May) brought the end to the 2009 Hong Kong Dragonboat season at IPC. Our training boats have left the VRC until next year and the Canoes are coming back in the weekend.

It was an eventful season, being assistant coach and men's captain meant I took a different view of this season over the previous 2 years. A lot more pressure on my shoulders provided mainly by myself and my own high standards and also by the shoes of the previous Captains'. One of my targets this year was to lift the standard of our top crew (the Mixed crew) which would inevitably pull the Men's and Women's boats with it. This I feel was a success with us finishing an unbeaten local season, our only 2nd place was to the Macau National Team and this was by far our closest finish in club history (0.5 sec) at one stage we even managed to lead them (according to the observers).

The rise in the this boat was really credit to the increase in individual performances of the top club women, the men raised their game, but the women went up leagues over previous years. This also showed in the performance of the Women's team, taking a microscopic victory in Lamma over last seasons champions (Stormies) to having clear water between the boats at the HK Internationals. The Macau National Team even stated their "worry" about the "strength" of our crew as we chased them down to about half a length. This was a fantastic race to watch.

The Men's team has had something of a turbulent season - lots of disagreements between myself and Leon (Coach) didn't help - with us only winning our first hard race at the HK Internationals where we won the Open division (retaining our title from 2008) beating the Hong Kong team in the process. This crew was by far the physically strongest i've seen at the club and it was really a case of making it "click" which couldn't have happened at a better time, each of races at the Internationals went smoothly, everyone was happy (including me for the first time this season) with how the boat ran and what we had achieved.

The Mixed Crew was really a highlight and a show of strength and ability from those involved. This was a crew we hadn't really raced and definitely not trained in over the season, but with the crew that was involved, it was always going to be good. This year I ran the crew line up with a 'mixed' point (myself and Jo) something i felt would always work and it did (phew!!). I also ran a slightly front heavy so it would plane better when up and running and from looking at the pics, this worked well. As for getting a seat in the boat, wow, there was a lot of competition and some very disappointed people, hopefully that will drive them on to be better for next season. Next year at the Club Crew World Champs this crews has all the potential to medal. Here's to a successful future! :-D

Wuxi International Dragon Boat Regatta

2009-04-29T04:05:00.000-04:00

Last weekend (25/26th April) a few of us from HKIPC went up to Wuxi (2.5hr drive from Shanghai) to compete in a Dragon Boat race. We knew very little about the standard of the other teams, although on arrival at the venue we discovered we were tent neighbours with some rather large burly Russians. At that point we realised this may be a tough competition, and so it was.

it was a great weekend and we ended up coming 9th out of 12 teams. it was an Open competition and we were running a boat with 11 Women and only 9 Men - Even though our women were some of the strongest in the club (and they are strong), we just weren't able to catch the full Men's teams.

Lots of pictures were taken by John Chan (most of the photos from the race course) and myself here are some samples:

For more pictures go

here

Extreme Sheep Hearding

2009-04-03T09:22:00.000-04:00

Bizkit the sleep walking dog

2009-04-03T09:21:00.000-04:00

Shanghai Tourist time

2009-03-31T11:22:00.000-04:00

Was up in Shanghai over the weekend, this time I took up the big camera and Kate and i went out to take some Tourist pics from around The Bund area.

Here are a couple of them:

Pic from the bedroom window

Jin Mao Tower reflecting in the Shanghai World Finance Center

Shanghai World Finance Center

Jin Mao Tower

Puxi Streets

All the pic are here

Looks like I need to clean my lens and get a lens filter for some of the brighter days.

New to Motion Based

2009-03-22T08:48:00.000-04:00

I've decided to start using

MotionBased.com

a website provided by Garmin, it's free to subscribe to and you can load up your gps tracks and get some cool stats in return.

Here is a running session Kate and I did at the Ma On Shan running track. all the running was done in the same lane so the mass of lines is just the gps trying to pin-point where I was with it's usual +/- error.

New camera lens

2009-03-18T09:42:00.000-04:00

Got myself a new lens for the Nikon, it's a Tamron macro zoom 35-80mm 1:2.8-3.5 apparently with a bit of internet research it's older than I am! from back in 1978-80 period.

Here is a picture of my dirty keyboard I took with it as a test of the macro capabilities:

Here is the Lens:

We'll see how it goes in the future.

News on your computer???

2009-03-12T10:37:00.001-04:00

Hong Kong Cycling Hall of Shame

2009-03-08T03:30:00.000-04:00

Hong Kong Cycling Association Track Bike Hall of Shame - so many beautiful bikes with such a blatant disregard by the owners. All of these bikes and the other un-named bikes in the shed wore a combination of Dura-ace, Superbe-Pro, Record or Sugino cranks and hubs, not 1 bike had matching components, if you took all the parts off all the bikes and rebuilt them properly or sold them off individually you'd make an absolute fortune, that is if you could actually part with such classic items.

Basso:

Colnago:

Bob Jackson:

Campagnolo Record:

One Small Seed

2009-03-05T09:39:00.000-05:00

A little while back a few of us HK Fixed Gear riders went and did a photo shoot for the South African Magazine 'One Small Seed', they were writing an article on cycle culture in different cities. We recently received a couple of copies of the mag and it is also now online on their website www.onesmallseed.com.

Here are 2 direct links to the digital magazine with very posed pictures and their write-ups

Spread One and Spread Two

Images taken from the One Small Seed Website

Livestrong

2009-03-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

Just seen this posted by Lance Armstrong on Twitter

http://tinyurl.com/beksm3

Amazing Artwork, all in the name of Charity. Fantastic!

Gluten Free Bread

2009-02-25T18:06:00.003-05:00

I've found a recipe that not only works but tastes goooood. As verified by other gluten free friends.

Recipe as follows:

1 cup Rice Flour
1 cup Corn Flour
1 1/4 cup Buckwheat Flour
3 tbsp Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Salt
2 1/2 tsp Xanthum Gum
1/3 cup Flaxseed Meal
1/4 cup Pumpkin Seeds
1/4 cup Sunflour Seeds
7g (1 sashet) Active Dry Yeast
3 Large Eggs (lightly beaten)
4 tbsp Coconut Oil
1 1/2 tsp Cider Vinegar
2 cups Rice Milk

Weekend Review

2009-02-23T08:14:00.000-05:00

I had a good weekend, it wasn't my usual weekend anyway, but nevertheless I feel i made good use of it.

So Saturday I attended the first part (1 of 2) of a First Aid Course which took most of the day, luckily it was a lovely day (it was held outoors) and more fortunately for me I seem to be remembering what to do in an emergency more easily, I believe this is my 4th first aid course. After the course we had Dragon Boat Training, the weather wasn't so ideal for this as it was blowing quite a strong wind, which was against the swell, making life a little uncomfortable in the small cramped boats with low water lines. To make matters even more challenging we had a large turnout of 41 people, but only 1 large boat and 2 mini boats available. So to accommodate the people and the conditions the training was re-arranged, nut i'm pretty sure I didn't optimise it fully. Life's a learning curve, and i'm happy to learn. After training we had a little snack up stairs on the VRC balcony, where i snapped this shot of the Flag as the skies began to cloud over.

After training I was most fortunate to be given lift round to Clear Water Bay for a BBQ at Tobias and Tony's, which wasn't an ideal evening for a BBQ as it was drizzling, but on a positive note it was nice an cool and they have a covered patio area.

Sunday, an interesting morning. This was the first of a three day Beginner's track course being run by the HK cycling association. It is a compulsory course for anyone wishing to use the velodrome for fun or competition. The comical part is the course is only run in Chinese, which obviously doesn't really allow for us Westerners. i was there with a few of the guys I ride fixed gear with on the roads, both are Chinese and translated the important parts (there weren't any important parts). What was really fun was being able to use the rollers before we hit the track. As I thought my balance needs a little work, but wasn't too bad, I appear to have a habit of shifting my weight to the right side when i ride and i try to correct with my body, fine when moving, not so good on the rollers!

Here are a few pics from the Velodrome:

After the course, I went home had a nap and then started the uninviting task of filing! I have to say i was quite productive at this but have discovered to keep the organised side of my brain happy I need a couple more box files to store the papers in an appropriate order.

Sports Update

2009-02-20T05:43:00.001-05:00

This Sunday I and some fellow HK FIxed riders are showing our support for the local track cycling scene by completing the beginners track course at the ShaTin velodrome. Its a relatively old cracked concrete outdoors velodrome, did I mention it was cracked?! Its a 3 part course running for 3 consecutive Sunday mornings. I'll post a review and some picture of the course after Sunday.

On a water note, the Dragon boat season is underway and training seems to going well, it'll be an interesting year for IPC as there are a few 'seasoned' paddlers not competing and quite a lot of new faces, despite this and a modification of our technique, training has been going well. We have a few races coming up in the next few months shortly followed by a very busy May which involves racing almost every weekend.
This weekend and next I'll also be updating my first aid training for most of the Saturday's.
Right, I'm off to make food.

Train Commute Reading

2009-02-20T05:18:00.001-05:00

Well as usual I'm on the train commuting home from work, my stomach is grumbling with hunger (also very common) and. Thought I'd post an update about a few books I've been reading.

One of my client's has lent me Dubliners by James Joyce, a book I had never of and one I'm finding quite interesting, for those that haven't come across this book here's a little brief - its a book of short fictional stories about different varieties of folk from Dublin (can't remember which decade). Unfortunately with only 2 stories left to read the book has taken an unexpected trip to Shanghai with Kate.

In the mean time, I've started reading a Biography of Albert Einstein (if you dont know who he is - learn some basic history!!). It's a monster book 550 odd pages with very small print, I calculated that it will take me about 45 days to finishing reading it, if I maintain my 12 pages per day average. Kate bought me this book, a good present it has turned out to be too.
I also have the Madonna biography (authored by her brother) to read, lent to me by Tobias, but at the moment this is waiting on my coffee table.
That's all for now I have to go change trains.

Email Blogging Test

2009-02-09T23:56:00.001-05:00

Hopefully I can now email updates to this blog. Which should mean there will be a few more regular updates :-)

Year of The Ox

2009-01-29T21:02:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the Year of the Ox. Now the year of 2009 and the Ox are one and it's time to get stuck into work and training. We've had some race dates already for the Dragon Boat season and also a few of the International Outrigger races have posted dates, which all give a bit more focus to the season ahead. It's time to get on with work as well, bring in a prosperous year with work and helping fix lots of injured people. I've got a couple of projects brewing at the back of my brain, but first i need to finish rebuilding my NSR. I'll post more on these later.

Between New Years'

2009-01-18T19:44:00.000-05:00

So it's 2009 and in a week and a bit it'll be the year of the Ox. It's a bit like being in limbo here, as the Christmas decorations went down and were immediately replaced by the more tradition Chinese New Year decorations.

Since christmas, it's largely just been a case of getting back into work. It has also been the beginning of our Dragon boat season, so training has commenced and now I seem to have no time to think. Fortunately I managed to get out on my bike this weekend, I had a short cycle with Kate, who is getting used to her new road bike, and me getting used to riding my Felt on the road. I also met up with Damon and Masa for an afternoon ride around Shatin. I have a lot of flickr pics of those 2 doing tricks here and there.

I've also been playing with my Christmas present from Kate the Nikon lens for the camera my dad gave me (one of his hand-me-downs, can't complain, a D2H), here's a pic I took of the Felt while we were out.

I suppose I should be heading to work now.

Kate's Bicycle

2008-12-24T15:25:00.000-05:00

Early Christmas

2008-12-24T06:29:00.000-05:00

Well it's the 24th December - Christmas Eve!! Fortunately i've been very lucky and had a couple of early presents. Kate and I swapped presents today, She had bought me a new camera lens for the camera my dad gave me (one of his old ones - a Nikon D2H) which is really nice. I gave her the Bicycle i had built for her by Renold Yip (www.yipsanbicycles.com) I'll post some pictures of it on my Flickr page soon. This present is waiting for us in Hong Kong. I'm as excited about it as she is!

I also received a Biography of Bruce Lee from T&T which they gave to me before i flew to the UK, I started reading this on the flight and is very interesting.

I'll post a 'post christmas' update soon with with some pictures as well.

Merry christmas

End of the Weekend

2008-11-30T08:18:00.003-05:00

Well, I have finished the Yuen Method course with success. I am enjoying this new technique and the ease of application. It feels like i've had no weekend at all, especially as the course was being held in a small window-less conference room in a hotel. The hotel also provided snacks for our workshop breaks, although these tended to be deep fried version of different food groups, which inevitably meant there was a period of serious digesting after, this also involved struggling to remain awake. I'll be getting an early night as I've a long Monday tomorrow and my brain feels a little fried!

Yuen Method Day 1 over

2008-11-29T05:09:00.002-05:00

So day 1 has finished, its been a very exciting day, lots of info to absorb and process. I find it very interesting watching a master at work, making a technique seem so simple, well, it is a simple technique just so long as you listen to your intuition (the hard part for most people). Day 2 of the course starts tomorrow, but first up is the HKIPC end of season party 'Nancies' tonight. At this event everyone tends to drink a reasonable amount, but, we also give out a few awards for various achievements, some serious some not so serious.

Yuen Method

2008-11-28T19:22:00.002-05:00

Today is day 1 of the Yuen Method course I am attending his weekend. It is a 2 day course where I will be learning this exciting energetic medicine. Be warned I'll be practicing and you may not even know it! If you are interested check the Yuen Method website for more info on the course link here I will try and post a few updates on what I've covered at the end of the day.

Race Results Update

2008-11-26T01:15:00.000-05:00

It's time to give the official results from my weekend of racing.

1st Race was on Saturday (22-Nov-08) The Dragon Run.

This was my first OC1 race, I thought i'd throw myself in at the deep end. I've loaded the official results up so you can view them

here

. Although I'm a fair way down the peking order, I'm happy with the result, it's what I was aiming for and although there were 88 racers on the day, everyone was of a high standard.
The race course ran from Clear Water bay Beach out to Nine Pins Islands past Cape D'Aguilar and into Stanley main beach, a distance of around 24km with a north-easterly wind.

2nd Race was on Sunday (23-Nov-08) the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club's Loro Piana Around The Island Race, which circumnavigates Hong Kong Island.

This is a 9 man or 10 women, OC6 change race. As with last year i managed to perform well enought through the season to earn a spot in the Mens A boat, which as with last year came in 2nd to another Hawaii crew. Although it was only 2nd, it was a good performance all round especially as 8 of the 9 men had been racing the previous day in The Dragon Run.
This year the organisers decided to move us further from the Yachts (they're not found of us beating them each year) and started the course at their Middle Island base. This actually proved quite useful as when we came around towards Chai Wan we were starting to catch the Yachts and down the east side of the Island we had a great view of a hundred or so yachts with their colourful sails drifting slowly in the wind.

Hopefully next year the events will run on the same weekend again as this proved quite successful with the competitors. I certainly had a great time racing.

General Photo's from both races can be found on the following sites:

Video from the during the Dragon Run

Photos from during the Dragon Run

Photos from Around The Island Race

Hopefully I'll pull up some more photo links soon

Mark Webber Tasmania Race

2008-11-19T17:26:00.002-05:00

Looks like a great event, here's a link for more info.

All about Work

2008-11-11T02:27:00.003-05:00

So i've started learning a few new techniques in the Energy field which is very exciting. The rehab work is good at the moment and i've also been able to get some good work done on the company website to improve our online visibility. Recently we've added new treatment pages and I've also created a blog for the company and am in the process of creating a Facebook profile and possibly a twitter feed. Feel free to have a browse around the site: www.thebodygroup.com

Nov 8th Shoot & Ride

2008-11-08T05:29:00.000-05:00

Location:

Bikes:

Ride from Sham Shui Po down Nathan road to TST Star Ferry:

Thurs & an Empty House

2008-11-05T22:48:00.000-05:00

Thursday is now here and Kate, Marcia and Louise are all off to Shanghai for a couple of action packed days before Marcia and Lou fly back to the UK this Saturday. Bart, Lauren and Nadia got to Aus on Monday fine.

As it's Thursday, it's training night and it's boys in the OC6's, turn out has been good recently and hopefully we'll have a few boats out tonight in prep for Sunday's race.

For a few of us the Big Race weekend is 22nd/23rd Nov, where we'll be racing The Man Dragon Run on Saturday followed by the Around The Island Race on Sunday. This will be very exciting as for me it'll be my first OC1 race. Training has gone well so far and I look forward to being in good shape that weekend.

On a more relaxed note, I should be completing a new (new to me) course the following weekend (29th/30th Nov) where I will be learning the Yuen Method to compliment my current work.

Visitors Weekend

2008-11-01T22:45:00.000-04:00

This weekend we (Kate and I) are being visited by mutual friends Bart and Lauren who are staying with me as they are on a 1 night stop off in HK between London and Perth. Kate also has 2 friends in town (Marcia and Lou) they are here for until Thursday when they fly to Shanghai for a few days before heading back to the UK.

Kate's organised a busy week for them, i think they'll sleep well on their flight back to the UK.

Hong Kong Weather

2008-10-27T12:07:00.000-04:00

Today being a fairly normal HK day it was hot and horribly polluted which meant poor low level visibilty, but when you looked up at the sky, it was actually there, above the pollution was definitely blue sky. Which as i've learnt the hard way means, one still burns. So I headed out for a paddle in my outrigger canoe, ended up being out for a shade over 2hrs, and for most of it i seemed to be pushing a strong head/cross wind.

So the paddle was good, enjoyable and exhausting. Got home and have done a little more on my website (if you're viewing it you'll have noticed already, if you're reading this on blogger.com the you can now view the website at www.whiteslife.com). Adding a few pages ( -content) and sticking with one of the basic Rapidweaver themes, so far i'm quite happy.

I had to purchase a couple of add-ons so i could fully incorporate my Blog and Flickr accounts, also I discovered i could place a small Twitter feed in the side bar, which a neat feature. Now i'm just playing with the layout and adding information and pages to suite.

Week Ending, Week Starting

2008-10-26T02:34:00.001-04:00

So the week's gone quite well, obviously i've started blogging, i'm also experimenting with Twitter which appears to be a sort of mini blog for quick short updates. I have also purchased some web space and a domain name. One I create the site and it's starts running, I'll post a link. Yesterday (Sat) I had a bit of work in the morning, then after I went for a Paddle in my outrigger canoe, involving a tough cross head (ama side) for 60mins out then turned to come back on some reasonable surf. Unfortunately the sun came out in force and I was a little unprepared and burnt a little (oops). After the paddle i headed round to Shek O to help clean one of the beaches. This was followed by Thai dinner with friends and a few drinks after. Today (Sun), I've had a nice lie-in and then did some of the repair work on my NSR, soldering some of the wiring - doing a PGMIII wire splice and 4,5 & 6th gear power fix. Now when it's been rebuilt it should produce better power when riding and have a more stable power curve (previous owner has bodged the PGMIII splice so the power was a little erratic). I shall also be putting up some blinds around the house and later going out for a cycle (how far is TBD). Over and Out.

I Want, mmm full NJS

2008-10-22T23:13:00.001-04:00

Testing Blogger software

2008-10-22T03:13:00.001-04:00

So from today i shall be testing a few of the different third party desktop blogging software options available. I've downloaded MarsEdit 2, Ecto, BlogWorks and Blogo to see which is my preferred program. They all seem to have a good length of Trail period. So hopefully this will provide enough incentive to actually do some blogging.

This Week

2008-10-21T07:44:00.001-04:00

So recently i've been pulling my Honda NSR apart to do an electrical check, and a top end rebuild on the engine, which is quite fun.

It now looks like this:

In another area of my life,

I swapped the chainring on my pompino over from a 44T to a 50T. I used to ride the 50T in london so it'll be nice to a bit more resistance to push again.

1st Post

2008-07-20T08:04:00.001-04:00

Farily uneventful week, did a bit of training which went well. Kate flew in on fri night, so on sat we went for a paddle in the day then Kate went off to yoga and i did some dragon boat training as we've got 2 weeks until Club Crew World Championships in Penang. Met Kate afterwards in central, did a little shopping and went out for dinner. pretty relaxed really. Perk of the week was gaining confirmation my work visa being transfered.