s n e a k e r b i k e ¯•¯

here

a pretty sweet site that lets you wander around the world looking at fotos. the next best thing to actually being there. and a great use of ruby on rails to feed you written details of what you are looking at..
ici.

no, this isnt the gay pride parade coming early. it’s a pic of my good friend, and drinking buddy, Kampy getting into the ’swing’ of things for this years Critical Ass ride in Toronto earlier this month.

Nice work!

dig.more.pics here

I thought I had escaped winter this year as we all know that the winter in Toronto should have been called spring. I woke up this morning to a nice spring day, met briefly with my team at the centre, then ventured out for my first bike ride. Discouraging to say the least. Due to the increased altitude and my inability to fully quit smoking, I found myself gasping horribly for air on my first incline. So much so that a full on wheeze started and my heart felt like it wanted to rip through my chest and hide. Oh well.. Baby steps.

After a nap, I woke to what looked like a childs Christmas morning dream. Is it May?

well i’m now in heaven.. i mean Banff. a gruelling 3 day solo journey by car got me here just in time. here’s a little journal:

Things went smooth until uhh, KITCHENER, where I discovered too late that they had to close all traffic lanes west bound on the 401. A detour through farm land north of the KW area got me back on track roughly 2 hours later. No biggie I thought. It’s just my home land telling me she didn’t want to see me go. From there was a non stop, white knuckled bomb through Detroit where I assured the guard I didn’t have any ganja or tomatoes on me. The palms stopped sweating right around Ann Arbor and I settled in for a marathon run over to Chicago at which point I endured the MOTHER of all traffic jams that lasted from around New Buffalo, through Chicago proper, and eventually ending some where around.. I don’t know… Milwaukee?!? Again, no biggie.

From Milwaukee I headed uneventfully west on the i-94 through Madison, up through Portage, and on to Tomah where I branched off through La Crosse, Eyota, Albert Lea with my first rest stop in Blue Earth Minnesota where I was lucky to find the elusive Green Giant (pictured above). After a two hour nap in the trusty Yaris I got back on the road and blasted through the rest of Minnesota and into South Dakota, driving pretty much non-stop until I hit the Badlands and had my first glimpse of those achingly beautiful mountains. I hit Rapid City and headed south to catch a glimpse of Mt. Rushmore and surrounding area. Took a few snaps and jetted west through the rest of Wyoming. After seeing the Rockies, if I wasn’t already in a hurry, I was now. I pondered the idea of driving through Yellowstone but it was not yet open for the season. No worries. Up the i-90 where I eventually ran out of gas (me, not my car) in Billings. A few winks, an ultra, super, massively huge coffee, and i was again bombing down the road westbound towards Butte. The State Trooper that pulled me over somewhere near Three Forks could see the excitement (or was that delirium) in my eyes and decided to write me up a courtesy warning and sent me on my way.

Blah Blah Blah up to Missoula where I caught the 93 and headed North towards Glacier National Park. I swung right at the 35 up through Swan River National Wildlife Refuge and stopped for some homemade pie in Bigfork. Washed up, gassed up and off towards the West Glacier entry point. Again, being early in the season, my plans to shorten my driving distance via a short cut through ‘icantrememberthenameofit’ Pass was thwarted due to 25 ft of snow laying quietly ontop of what should have been my road. I was able to get a glimpse of the area but had to turn back towards East glacier via the 2.

I caught the 89 at Browning and bombed North. By that time I was verrry excited to get back into Canada so I thought rather than sleep, I’d take a run for Alberta. Again, I thought I’d stop near the border for some rest, but had Mountain fever in my brain so I drove non-stop through Calgary into Banff.
My arrival here deserves it’s own post with pics so I’ll try to get on that soon.
Hope all are well!

kind of cant believe that I’ll be nestled down here under this monster hill in less than a week.

A really easy to follow, step by step guide to turn any old 18-55mm lens into a suitable macro lens cheap! I might just try it.

link here 

just finished putting together a little travelogue.
euro-05