Once again, it’s been too long, friends!

Let’s make this brief, since I’ll be back soon with the annual video Chase Family Christmas Card!

So, what’s been shakin’? The Syrian refugee crisis is a mess,  Canada has a new prime minister, Halloween has come and gone,  ISIS/ISIL is terrifying, the Canadian dollar is down, mass shootings are up, and the Christmas shopping season is in full swing. That about covers it, yes?

Happily, amidst all that, I found a new job in past months, with the Make-A-Wish Foundation (BC & Yukon Chapter, specifically). It. Has. Been. Amazing.

I am the new Director of Marketing and Communications. What is Make-A-Wish? Let me communicate to you about that (see how I’m earning my paycheque?!)

The Foundation has the very cool mission of granting the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. As in: let’s send kids to Disney resorts; let’s let kids get a new trampoline; let’s have a kid meet their hero. 

It’s straightforward, impactful, and very, very rewarding. I am a happy camper here. 

So far, I’ve gotten to do cool things like witness a wish kid turn on the lights at VanDusen festival of lights and launch Gingerbread Lane at the Hyatt. Gotta love Christmas! 

Saying a few words on behalf of Make-A-Wish at
The Hyatt Vancouvers' Gingerbread Lane launch. 

The lighting of the VanDusen gardens with Wish Kid Hannah,
family .. and some strangers in red suits.

What else? Still doing the paddling thing. Just did a first set of TeamBC canoe-kayak winter dryland tests this past weekend. I haven't done one of these sets of tests since the early 2000's. Long story short, basically its me at age 36 vs. a bunch of way-in-shape 15-19 year olds. Buncha punks.

One of them expressed near disbelief when I told them I wasn't there to coach, but to participate in the testing. I says PARDON? 

Here, a 30 second vid I slapped together of one of the tests! It's called a benchpull for those unitiated.

Okay, that’s enough for now! As I said, see you again shortly with the video Christmas card! I hope all your holidays are bright! 

One of these years is not like the other

Happy birthday to me! 

If present me could go back a year ago and bet against past me about what my 35th year was going to be like, present me would be in the money!

AH, Florida tan lines. Good times were had in my 35th year! 

A year ago, prospects looked good for a training and competition track that may have lead to the 2016 Rio Paralympics in the sport of sprint kayak. Alas, as multiple previous posts have noted, I was declassified based on new rules that came out this year.

A year ago, I was working at PwC,  but here we are one year later and I'm searching for my next exciting opportunity!

What a family!

A year ago, I was jogging along fine. Now I'm waiting for knee surgery! I've also managed to somehow put a small tear in the bicep insertion on my right arm. That one is a minor hassle compared to the knee!

All these things come with their own blessings, of course. I am excited to find my next work contract that is at the core of what I'm good and and what I enjoy. The paddling thing is what it is, and I am thoroughly enjoying being in a different kind of boat, the V-1, which provides its own potential opportunities and sense of satisfaction. That, in tandem with free time at the moment affords me the opportunity to take long, introspective paddles on my birthday!

#Birthday10K on a foggy Vancouver Friday!

The knee and the elbow things are... well, that's getting older, perhaps :D

On my birthdays these past years, I also turn my thoughts to my parents. By this age (not that they could have known at the time), they were already well past their mid-life. If (BIG, HUGE knock on wood) It was to be the same for me, I know that by my mid-30's I have already been blessed with so much opportunity, and such a great community of friends and family that I just have to smile about where life is at. The constants in my life with which I am blessed year in and year out keep a smile on my face no matter what.

No sense looking down when there's always a sun overhead!

Here's to the 36th birthday bringing about new opportunities and experiences!

At Summer's End...

Well, here it is. A summer of blistering heat and drought conditions is over. The end--here on the South Coast of B.C., anyway--has been heralded with days of lashing wind and rain causing massive power outages and widespread damage from tree falls.

We get it, mother nature. It's Fall, just around the corner.

But hey, let's remember the good times. Here are a couple of videos from our summer adventures!

Enjoy. Bookmark this page for when it's November, dark and raining even more.

This is a video from a bike trip my wife and I managed to get in, sans kids, up at Whistler. There's no footage of the steep stuff, cause I don't have a GoPro and was only willing to hang on to my iPhone for the safe sections :P

This is a video from PlayLand, where we take the kids at least once a summer. Once again, no footage from ON the best rides since I don't have a GoPro :P PS, The BEAST is a fantastic new ride for anyone visiting the PNE.

This is a video from the Sunshine Coast, where my brother, sister and I, along with our families, packed in some fun over a weekend. For the uninitiated, by the way, the Skookumchuk narrows featured herein? Not a whitewater river. Ocean. It's quite the sight considering the rapids it produces at ebb and flow tide times!

That's it for now! Enjoy the rain!

A work in progress: Story of a renovation

Well, here is the video about our home renovation that ironically took longer to finish than the renovation itself. 

Considering how long contracted home renovation jobs can take, It’s pretty pathetic how long this video took to put together. None the less, I'm pleased to share it with you! 

In this video, I focused in on only a few various aspects of the job; the main floor, broadly speaking, the backyard / back of the house, and some of the landscaping. Fact is, our basement and main floor were fully gutted, many supporting structures were replaced, and we rejigged some of the footprint as we went along. All in, it was about eight months that we were moved out. Our landscaping remained a shambles even after the house was done, so it was summer 2014 before it was all complete… give or take.

Long story short, it’s everything we hoped it would be when we bought the house way back in 2006, and we’re never leaving. 

If you need me, I’ll be on the front porch watching the sunset. 

https://youtu.be/WGtdNPwaxVM 

Classified information

obligatory plane wing-in-sunset shot before take-off in Vancouver. 

A few posts ago, I entitled my entry ‘de-classified information’. That was in respect of racing a para kayak. This past week, I was officially classified to race V-1, the para outrigger. I travelled to Montréal to partake in the classification process, and it was successful. In the eyes of the International Canoe Federation, I'm officially disabled enough to be worthy of that particular boat.

Stuck a maple leaf on my paddling prosthetic just to
remind myself of "what's possible" each time I take a stroke. 

Don’t get me started on how being a partial hand amputee does not make one worthy of also being a para kayaker. Who needs fingers to hold a paddle?! It is what it is, though!

Same tree. Same idiot. (editors note: it hurts more to
 do this with a hand with missing fingers. I didn't love it). 

Finish line at the Bassin Olympique.
This happens to be a women's canoe event. 

SO aaaanyway, the classification was part one of the trip to Montréal. Part two was to race in a couple of national team trials sprints to see if qualifications for the 2015 worlds could be achieved. In a word: no. Neither Saturday nor Sunday did I manage to post a time that qualified. I was disappointed in this, as I have been training on times well within the range I was trying to achieve. My Saturday race, admittedly, was sloppier than I would have liked. The Sunday race actually went quite well, though in different, generally slower conditions. I managed to post the exact same time on both days. Logically, then, had I put down as clean a race on Saturday as I did on Sunday, I may have put in a qualifying time. Ah well, no sense over thinking this. 

In general, I am happy with my weekend. Many objectives were achieved. I am classified. That’s a big weight lifted. I know where my time stands where before I did not, and I know where I need to improve.

A third aspect to the weekend: a return to the Montréal race course that I haven’t paddled on since 1997. Nostalgia couldn't help but play a role in the weekend. As I paced around the compound, I recalled the victories my wife enjoyed back when we were teens (she was a national champ that year, on that course). I myself enjoyed my best single boat showing as a teenager that year, getting into a K1 final. Camaraderie with team mates, humid summer weather, exploring a new city—all of these memories came flooding back to me. Granted, I had all my fingers back then. There's no accounting for every circumstance, I suppose.

Guess you could call this... a... hand bag? 

I revel in the fact that the sport that gave me so many experiences and lifelong friends—not to mention girlfriends, and my wife!—is affording me a second existence of new friendships, new explorations and the continuation of racing in a sport that is so ingrained in my life. 

So, I didn’t post a championship-qualifying time… for now. But that’s OK. in the 18 years since I came to this spot in Montreal last, I know I’ve already won quite a lot.  

Ahh, progress. three photos side by side in 1997 vs. a panorama in 2015 taken on this thing called a "smartphone".