Victoria's Island

The Rochdale Project

Okay now I'm bragging.

If you are in Toronto you have to check out The Rochdale Project (starring none other than my little brother).

The Rochdale Project is playing at Theatre Passe Muraille from March 2 - 19.

Check out the Theatre Passe Muraille web site for details. Here is the blurb about the show:

The Rochdale Project
Created by the Rochdale Collective,
directed by Simon Heath
How do you eradicate tuition fees?

A student run co-operative college Rochdale College was home to Clayton Ruby, Judith Merrill, Jim Garrard, Matt Cohen, Dennis Lee, Reg Hart, intellectuals, anarchists, nudists, stoners, hippies, draft dodgers, bikers, speedfreaks, runaways, undercover cops, undercover reporters,Hassle Free Clinic, Acorn Daycare, and Theatre Passe Muraille to name but a few.  Rochdale College influenced untold numbers of Canadians. Championed by Pierre Berton, demonized by its own McCarthy in Tony O’Donahue, Rochdale College’s story is simply fascinating. The Rochdale Project takes you there.

Detox day 3

As the title states I'm on the third day of a five day detox. For those of you that know me you might be wondering what I have to detox from. I don't drink, smoke or eat fast food.

Let me tell you I've been wondering the same thing these last three days as I restrict myself to eating only fruit (1 cup), vegetables, chicken, soy, tuna and salmon. I've never thought about food as much as I have these past few days.

I guess it really isn't that bad, I do miss yogurt (soy yogurt doesn't make the grade) and my earl grey tea.

So why am I detoxing? Well, I thought it would be good for me to "flush" my system - I don't eat a lot of unhealthy food but because of my myriad of sports related injuries I do take a lot of ant-inflamatories. So I thought it might be good to get rid of whatever is left hanging around in my body.

I was really bracing myself for the "detox" effect - well, I'm still waiting. I was warned that the greens + would be quite powerful. Well, so far nothing out of the ordinary.

So how am I feeling? Overall pretty good - in fact not that different from when I got to eat a more varied diet. I do miss carbohydrates. The test will be today when I do my intensity work-out on the bike.

Overall I hope this five day experiment will gently push me on to some healthier eating habits. For example, incorporating more vegetables into my diet and less emotional eating.

I'll let you know next week how the last few days of this detoxifying detox go.

Did I mention how much I'm looking forward to Sunday? Hmm, what should we have for supper: Lebanese, Vietnamese, "Canadian", or Indian? What is "Canadian" food anyway? I don't think I eat it - do you?

Amsterdam again

I realized that I left out some interesting aspects of our trip to Amsterdam. Actually I didn't really write anything about Amsterdam. So here goes:

Bikes, bikes, and more bikes - a veritable bike mecca. I couldn't believe how many people ride bikes in the Netherlands. People dressed in their "nice" work clothes pedaling along the wonderful bike lanes, replete with traffic signals just for bikes. So many bikes - all looking basically the same - black, commuter style with a basket in the front and maybe panniers in the back. Some have coaster brakes, others the new modern hand brakes. Total insanity. I want to live there just so I can ride a commuter bike. Because of all the bike riding there are very few extremely overweight people - sure there are heavier people but not the same levels of obesity that we have here.

One of the most amazing bike things we saw was a bike parcade - four level bike parcade with rows and rows of bikes. Awesome!

Okay, so what else did we see besides bikes? Canals - a lot of canals. Here in Ottawa we are super proud of our one canal. Well, we need to get over it because in Amsterdam there are so many canals you are practically tripping over them, or dare I say falling into them.

Back to the bikes again, we went to Belgium on Saturday to watch a cyclo-cross race - this was also totally awesome. There were so many people at the race - my ticket was number 8842! We had a great day watching the espoirs race and then the elite race. I saw my favorite cycl0-crosser - Enrico Fabrizio. All in all it was a great day. A perfect way to end our whirlwind trip.

Now that we are back we keep thinking how awesome it would be to live there. So this week marks the beginning of the action plan. Time to get focused and start finding jobs and emptying out our house.

Let me know if you need any random household items or have a line on a job in Eindhoven, Hilversum, Utrecht, Amstelveen or Weesp.

Gotta go, have to see a man about a bike.

Hmmm, where was I?

Oh, that's right - I was in Amsterdam. We headed over for a quick trip - primarily so I could check out a job opportunity!

All things being said the trip went well, the short story being: I was offered the job - I turned it down. The opportunity just wasn't right for me.

But this has spurred us to look for other better opportunities - exciting. The experience also taught me a lot about myself - so all in all I consider this to have been a very worthwhile venture.

I did buy some very cool shoes in Amsterdam - can't wait for the snow to melt so I can flash the new shoes on the town.

So what else is going on? Not much really - the Amsterdam excitement overwhelmed us and seemed to consume all of my energy.

Just trying to get back into a rhythm of training and writing. My back has healed so training is full steam ahead.

Phew, I'm certainly long winded tonight. Could it be because I'm sitting here numbly in yet another Olympic stupor? Oh how I love the Olympics - coulda, shoulda, woulda.

Well, dear readers I'm signing off for today. I hope life is treating you well and that you are finding some satisfaction.