Sunday, September 28, 2014

Crowded cry

I went to see the movie If I Stay with a friend a couple weeks back. It's pretty sad, about a girl who's in a car accident with her family, and her body is in a coma. She decides if she wants to stay living in our world, or pass on. It flashes back to her life, the day of the accident, and her life since. Now when I say it's pretty sad, I mean it. Closer to downright heartbreaking. And I'm so in touch with my emotions, I've cried at commercials occasionally, so needless to say, I was a balling mess. But isn't that weird how we do that? I realized I was in a room full of strangers, in the dark, attempting to cry quietly, as were all of them. Kinda strange really...

Bottle me up

Somewhat accidentally, I started contributing to my fundraising for the Ride to Conquer Cancer by taking in my friends bottle returns. It's more lucrative than you'd think! I've made $120 so far! I'd try to thank everyone, but then I'd miss someone. This picture below is from a lovely family who celebrated a wedding, and donated their bottle returns. Want to guess how much it came to?  


$45 was that pull. Even the random guy I bought my bike rack from donated me a carload when he found out I was doing the ride. $20 from that one. He'll be doing it with me next year, should I make it. When I make it. 

But this might work right? Maybe we're onto something. Bottles. A change jar. It's still a donation to a great cause. I need this win guys, help me get there. 

Here's a link to my fundraising page:


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

First ride


My cousin and I went on our first of many training rides this past Sunday. I've signed up to do the 2015 Ride to Conquer Cancer, and should I make my fundraising goal of $2500, I'll ride 260km from here to Seattle next August. Sundays ride was significantly less since it was my first time on my new bike, we rode 18.4km in an 1h18mins, with an average speed of 14.1km. All of these stats were tracked on a bike monitor thingy my cousin has .Very cool really, I WANT ONE!! 

We had a rocky start, since she lives in a complex with a steep, sharp incline to get to the road. There I was, new biking shorts, new bike, grunting up the very SMALL hill thinking, "what on earth have I gotten myself into this time..." And when we got to the top, we had a frustrating encounter with a hand bike tire pump, but I was just happy to have a change to catch my breath. 

The GREAT thing about this ride was I discovered I do in fact like long distance biking. Because that would be the absolute shits if I didn't. I also discovered there's a lot to gears, and changing them to match hills and such. Weird. I just had this idea I was going to jump on the bike and go. A long ways. There's SKILL involved? 

I did ok though, mostly with the guidance from my ubber patient cousin. "So Jay, we do try not to ride in the middle of the road like that..." Near the end of the ride, I was liking it so much, we did an extra loop to make the route longer. "Nah, I'm good to go, LET'S DO THIS!!" 

I'm going to train my arse off, and I'll get my body ready, I need your help to get there though. I've included a link to my fundraising page: 


I signed up to do this ride on Father's Day, and the money I raise will go directly to the type of Cancer that Dad fought, and lost earlier this year. This cause, this ride, this challenge is close to my heart. Help me get there.