So it has been a while. I have been super busy with life. Working my 2-3 jobs, relaxing with my lady. Travelling around Canada and the Globe, it takes its toll on you. I am a second time uncle again, to another little boy. I think i am expecting a little girl soon, from my other sister, which should be super cool. Who knows one of these days i might even gain the balls to ask as well. Time will tell.
I have a super cool new job, well it is only part time or casual but still super cool. It is a job designed to increase peoples use of there bodies, yup active transportation. So it means getting people out of cars and onto foot and bike and any other means. Anything but using the car, it is really interesting and i am looking forward to the challenges that it provides to me. I am planning on having a meeting with my boss and see where she wants me to go. If it is an open slather kind of job, then i will have my work cut out for me. If i have to play a roll in getting people out of cars, that would also be awesome. I would love to see more people out of there trucks and walking and biking. The winter so far has been very mild and it is great to see the number of people we already have. I would like to have more.
Apart from that exciting news, not much more has managed to happen here. Life is moving along quite nicely. I can’t wait for summer and spring to really start cause then we can start growing veggies and stuff. Yum!
Also i have done some admin stuff on the site, so now it is optimised for mobile devices as well. Sweet stuff!
Well that would be the case if i pumpkins could actually do something other than grow and look good and be eaten and all orange and stuff. Anyhow…back to the important stuff. I am super busy at the moment. I have 2 projects on the go, and training and 2 jobs. It is awesome, plus i might be starting to go to the gym so i look super hot and buff for my lady when she arrives. Rar!
So the 2 projects? Well they are a bike share for Golden, which is cool but not sure if it will float. There are loads of obstacles, such as helmets, insurance and such. We shall see.
The Second is a bike polo tournament. It is going to Kick ass! So much fun. We are also having a messenger race to go along with it. So if you want to donate a house or stop along the way, make people do physical challenges like, something funny. It is going to be great. The more people involved the better.
So all that and i am working 11hrs a day, so there isn’t much time left at the end of the week to do fun stuff. Hopefully i can get it sorted out that i work 3 nights a week, one day on the weekend. Then gym the other nights, and work on the projects at work and in the free time. Lets see how much i can cram in there. Oh i am also half way thru my Apple Training, so i need to do that too. Phew, why do i sleep. The good thing is that i am requiring less sleep which is always a good thing.
I went to an active transportation forum tonight. Seeing that i can’t sleep and am excited about it, i thought that i would write about what i know and learnt tonight. So what is active transportation? Well it is basically anything that uses the body for motion, walking, riding, skateboarding, roller blading, wheelchairs etc.
The idea is to create communities that can use these functions much more easily and thus rely less on the cost and associated problems related with car usage. It’s not about saying that cars are bad, boo cars. It is about saying, hey this lifestyle that i lead is unhealthy. I should be getting at least 30 mins of exercise a day but I’m only getting 2 mins. I need to do something about that. It is about making us less reliant on oil and more healthy and dependable on ourselves. I like the idea, it sure makes me think that it can be done, not only that, it must be done. The example was errands, how many times have your driven to the shops, only a few blocks away instead of riding, or walking? Sure it was convenient but how much CO2 did you put out into the environment, to save you that 10 mins?
The average American walks 800 metres a day!
That is a stunning and shameful fact, Canada is not far off. So i am very interested in seeing how much I can do in Golden to change attitudes and regulations. What can be done to make this situation change? How can things in Golden change?
Studies were put forward stating that if nothing it done about this that the cost of helping all the people that are obese in relation to BMI (Body Mass Index) the health system is going to crash, along with everything else. It is not a matter of if’s it is a matter of whens.
Children need 90 mins of activity every day, yet somehow they don’t get it. Instead they get over 5 hours of TV a day. How does this add up? It doesn’t it just makes me wonder and resolvant to make sure my kids are fit and healthy regardless of where they live.
It does sound like a lot of dooms and glooms, but in reality, its the truth. The investment now is really a long life investment for the future. North America is 20-30 years behind Europe. There is lots more going on there about biking and active transport than is even being considered here.
To finish up i am giving you some links about Active Transportation, so you can see just how important and relevant it is today and in the future.
Active Transportation dot org
Public Health Canada
Travelsmart
It is has been quite the boring and uneventful week. Nothing so far has gone on. 1 thing that has occured is i went for a hike on Sunday. It was awesome fun, i will have to post some photos on Flickr some time soon. Once i get them off the camera. I went with Heather, up to Emerald Lake. It is an amazing lake, just like you would expect on a postcard. It is only around a 40min drive from my house too. Hehe, i love where i live. We then started the walk around the side of the lake, and ended up taking the walk upto the Emerald Basin, that is where there are large mountains, and coulairs etc. It really was nice, long way up too. We were estimating that we gained loads of elevation in our short walk. Around 200ft we think, maybe more. The pics tell a better story.
Heather and I had some good talks, just about random crap, and catching up. Something we hadn’t done in a long time. Both of us were quite busy over summer. Good thing i enjoy her company as a friend, cause i am going travelling with her around the world. Only 53 days till we leave!!! Woot!
The total hike took around 5hrs which isnt to bad, seeing that we had lunch and a look around, stopped to pick rasberries. We did only meet 1 other group of ppl on our trip up the mountain side. So cool. They had a dinner bell on, aka bear bell. We didn’t take any bear spray with us, maybe i should get some. I just think that if the bear is there, and wants to eat us. Nothing will stop him. So far i haven’t even been close to a bear. I make noise as i go along, so that should give them fair warning that im coming.
So that is my update for the last little while.