The Fonthill Airborne Regiment

So I quit the Royal Westminster Regiment back in the 1980s before I got to jump out of an airplane. To make up for that, the boys and I are forming our own airborne glider unit out on the slopes. We've got passes to Holiday Valley in Ellicotville, NY (about 1:40h drive away) this season and we've decided that this is the season we learn to do jumps and tackle (sometimes literally) the terrain park. Rather than just riding the black diamond runs, we're now seeking out every little bit of small terrain and dip in the green and blue runs as an excuse to get airborne.

The shadows underneath the boys' boards prove their jumping abilities, and these were taken pretty much from a near-standstill! The past two times, we learned how to ride on the flat box, and the boys have now taken things further by riding a stack of boxes and also riding/jumping an "A-frame" box!

The great thing with homeschooling is that we go during the weekdays when there's minimal traffic on the roads or the slopes. And the "group" lessons we get with our passes generally end up as private ones. Here the boys are with David (L) and Dom (2nd from R), who have both taught us. Dom is especially awesome and fun to ride with, and we help him out by saving him from teaching beginners...

Snowboarding is just a fabulous day out and a way for us to bond as three boys, plus the bonus is that Debbie gets the day off from having to take care / put up with us!

Syracuse Wildfire Gymnastics Meet

Jacob had a pretty awesome pommel routine

The second gymnastics competition of the year was in Syracuse Jan 25/26 weekend. We'd never been there before so it was a nice road trip with the other boys' parents (Isaac and Ben) despite the sketchy winter weather. I don't think they really believe in plowing the roads around Buffalo. The boys generally improved their performance from 2 weeks prior in Niagara Falls, so there's an upward trend.

The parallel bars are always impressive to watch.

Artsy shot with all the medals to play for on the left, and the boys lining up for the pommel judge.

 Way up high on the high bars.

Zach on the pommels.

Jacob's bronze on the pommel and Zach's bronze all-around. 

Next stop Rochester NY Feb 15/16!

Paddleboarding

From way back in September, but check out Jacob's talent in his first ever attempt at paddleboarding!

Weather Forecasts on My Phone

EEL Snow Angels

The TV profile with CHCH in Hamilton

Yes it's Canada and yes it's January, but darned if it hasn't been a cold winter so far. And my cell phone seems to have a bug in it. Namely, whenever the temperature here in southern Ontario drops below -15oC or so, my phone rings like crazy with media requests! Even over the weekend, during our Syracuse road trip for the boys' gymnastics tournament, I ended up doing a phone interview at the hotel with a Northwestern University journalism student in Illinois about the effects of alcohol on cold tolerance. Apparently, if you google "faculty expert cold and alcohol" there I am!

They're all pretty fun to do, and the most recent one has been with CHCH TV in Hamilton, with my talking to their health reporter Maria Hayes about wind chill and manual function in the cold. We end up with my grad student Phil Wallace doing some snow angels.

The Coolest Mexican Restaurant in Syracuse

OK, I've been offline with the blog for a long while, so let's renew with a blog about FOOD! We spent this weekend in Syracuse at the Wildfire Invitation gymnastics meet for the boys. Debbie searched out "The Mission" restaurant for us to try, and we went with the Siemens (Isaac competes with the boys).
What a totally cool place. First and most important, the food was fabulous (seafood enchilada for Tim and me, fish taco for Debbie, tacos and others all around). The decor as you can see is really neat too, with the kitchen right there in the shrine/altar area. Yes it was an actual Wesleyan Methodist church (2nd one in the USA) from 1847, and it was also a part of the Underground Railroad during the slavery era. There were lots of archeology from the basement areas, and our waiter Doug was a wealth of info and passion about the history. The church was also a meeting place in the early suffragette movement. The stained glass is all from the 19th century too.
Super fun night out. Thanks to the Siemens for the fun company too!

ROBO MADNESS

Pelham Lego Robotics Team Takes First at Regional Competition

At this weekend’s Niagara Regional FLL (First Lego League) robotics competition, Pelham was well represented having 3 teams out of the 13 competing.  The Lego Da Vincis took the 1^st Place Champion award, in addition to the Robot Performance award, while their mentor team, Legolas, won the Rising Star award.
The competition consisted of 4 categories: the robot game obstacle course, robot design, project research and solution and core values, which includes problem solving skills, team work and ethics.  This year’s topic was “Nature’s Fury” so the teams had to research natural disasters, identify a problem and develop innovative solutions. The Lego Da Vincis have developed a solution to connect neighbours in the event of an emergency, so they don’t have to call 911 as often, and efficiently care for others in their community in times of crisis.  This initiative consists of a website to raise awareness on local emergency situations, how to plan a “block party” and how to construct an emergency preparedness kit.  They have presented this idea to the Mayor of Pelham and Fire Prevention Officer Saskia Holditch and have been invited to present it to Pelham Town Council on the 16^th of December.  Teams are also judged on their robot design, with one judge commenting that the Da Vincis “set the standard for programming efficiency.”  The robots compete against each other to complete autonomous tasks on the obstacle field.

3 teams advance to the East Provincials Competition on January the 18^th in Oshawa at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.  The Lego Da Vincis (a team from the home schooling community), the Fonthill Fury (composed primarily of St. Alexander’s students) and the Princess Margret Panther Bots from Niagara Falls. The 3^rd team from Pelham, the St Ann’s Stallions, made Pelham proud and took home the Robot Design award and put in a stellar performance in all other areas.

Congratulations to all students on the fruits of hard work and ingenuity!  Your community is cheering for you on January 18^th!

Racing Overload!

Jamie's bar-cam with his boy Connor. Rare footage of me actually passing someone on a MTB!

I love the bike - end of story. While cyclocross has become my passion, I just love all types of riding. But it's racing that's the real spice that makes the whole love affair sizzle, and over the past weeks I dove back in hard-core into every type of bike racing around.
First up last Thursday was the Larkinville crit series in downtown Buffalo, probably my first criterium since 2001 Nationals! Next up was my return to road racing at the KW Classic in Kitchener Sunday, my first Ontario race since the KW in 2009. All fun and games until I dropped my chain at the base of the big hill about the same time that the torrential rain started!
Then this past Tuesday, did probably my hardest club race that I can remember. Flat course but we were just killing it all day (OK part of it was my fault for hammering and attacking). So hard that I woke up sore everywhere like I was a rugby tackle dummy. That was all just a prelude for my 3rd comeback of the week - this time mountain bike racing and the local Laura Secord series put on by Liberty! Bicycles. Awesome AWESOME fun all around!

Dr. Freeze and the Freezies!

"Freezies" work for Freezies, apparently...Jacob works on the shoot's storyboard...

A video of what happens inside the lab of a mad scientist!

Last fall we shot an episode of "Science Scoops" for Virtual Researchers on Call, a group producing news and videos for grade school kids about the fun and importance of science. Debbie had the great idea of "if it's meant for grade schoolers, then why not have the boys interview you?" Here's the result that went live on YouTube today!

Josh Tiessen - Shipwrecked Treasure

Saturday June 1, Zachary and I went to Stoney Creek for the Stoney Creek Artists Stroll event and also the Battle of Stoney Creek (200th anniversary) re-enactment. For the artist stroll, we went to visit Josh Tiessen at his studio. What a terrific artist and great young man - all of 17 and already making a great career for himself as a painter. He was also homeschooled and really appreciated the chance to have the ability to focus on his passion and talent for art - and what talent it is.
His paintings are really something, and he's had a piece exhibited at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa along with being mentored by renowned artist Robert Bateman. I bought a giclee print of his "Shipwrecked Treasure" for Debbie and I to celebrate our upcoming anniversary and to reflect our Nova Scotian heritage. Here's Zach with Josh and the original.

The Mint

Now the mint in Ottawa is only used used for collectors coins, and investment coins, but it used to make all of the coins that we used. Now all of the regular coins are made at the mint in Winnipeg. We went to the Mint while we were in Ottawa, and we learned the worth of gold and silver. Silver is worth $23.27 CDN per ounce, and gold is worth $1433.40 CDN per ounce. We took a tour, so we got to see the whole process of making coins. At the mint we bought a Silver coin of an Arctic Fox (we each got one). They we 20 for 20, so they cost $20 and are worth $20.

The mint also makes some of the medals we use in Canada. They made all the medals for the Vancouver Olympics (which you can see on the left), one thing that makes them interesting besides their strange shape, is that they all came with a scarf, The scarf had a picture of an Orca (Olympics) or a Raven (Parolympics) on it. If you put all the medals together, you can make the picture on the scarf with them. So all the athletes that won a medal at the Vancouver Winter games can find their part of the medal on the scarf they got with it.

These are 2 pictures of the front gate at the Mint, with the mint logo.

Me and Jacob lifting a real GOLD bar!!!