Inspiration: [in-spuh-rey-shuhn]
a divine influence directly and immediately exerted upon the mind or soul….
A few days ago our good friend Ulf The Swede made a heart-felt post on his blog that made me realize just how precious ‘time’ is. Time with your friends, and time with your family. Yesterday, I was inspired again by a comment from a great friend who use to windsurf with us alot. ‘Link’ taught me the finer art of railing a longboard upwind, and the longboard skills that I still use today racing. I’m inspired by Link everytime I hit the water. I’m also inspired by my wife Woodette for her unconditional love of our family, and the wonderful day we had together yesterday. Some days with your partner stand out more than others, and yesterday was one of those days for me. Today, I’m inspired by the rain. Just the sound of rain tapping on the roof sends a certain peacefulness through the house. Some of my most memorable days have been rainy days. Rainy days allow you to find more ‘things’ to do inside, and for me today, I’m inspired to write this post.
Inspiration comes in many different ways. Let yourself be inspired today…
Stay Cool
Well it’s been sometime since my last update….going on 2 months now! Our life has been so busy with travel to Germany, family from England visiting, then just recently good friends from Germany spending some time with us, I’ve rarely had the opportunity to just sit & type for an extended period of time. I was actually contemplating at one time of not doing a ‘blog’ anymore and concentrate my online efforts with our growing windsurfing club NOW, which also needs a regular update of stories and pics. I’ll be doing this more in the months ahead.
Our summer hasn’t been one to remember that’s for sure. Cold and lack of wind for the most part. Just this past week we’ve enjoyed hot weather with windy days which has seemed to spark a fire under me to make a post. As matter a fact, we windsurfed for 6 hrs yesterday then went for a starlite sail for a couple of more hours. Very fullfilling day.
So here are some highlights from the past 2 months in no particular order:
- bought a new Phantom Race 380 raceboard. This board rips! The best raceboard I’ve ever been on period. I look forward to get it into a regatta environment to see how it makes out against the other longboards.
- gained 5lbs when I was in Germany. Slowly losing it now with the extra time on the water! haha
- my Woody board got smashed up and is need of repair. I’m thinking of sending it to the Board Lady. I’m currently without a good short board. I still haven’t found my JP Slalom III that I lost when returining from Worthington, so windy days just aren’t quite the same right now.
- our youngest son Jeremy is windsurfing in the straps now and wants me to get him a harness!
- I miss competing at regattas. No, I miss the comaraderie and community more than the actual racing. The last event I attended was our very own Moose Regatta (my last post!) in July. We have three regattas this month so it should be FUN!
- we now have our 21′ tandem board finished and on the water. Riding on this board will put a smile on your face guaranteed!
- we’ve finished up our deck at home (looking outside right now) and have spent many nights in our new screened gazeebo with candle light and conversation.
- Josh is working full time now at The Lodge. He’s going to work for a year before continuing his academic studies which we hope will be in Toronto so he can be close to my sister Guin.
- Stephanie is the social butterfly of the family, and we’re happy to see her home again after spending what seemed like the entire summer on a “sleep over”.
- our good friend Ulf the Swede who was living in Des Moines, Iowa, is moving back to his home country of Sweden this month. We will miss Ulf and his energy, but look forward to still many fun times ahead. Hey Ulf, you too need an update on your blog!!
So I’m off to the Waconia Wind & Wave regatta Sept 6,7 in Minneapolis, followed by the Windpower Championship Sept.13,14 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, then The Crossing on lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota where 40 kiters will battle it our against 50 or more windsurfers – Go Pole Boarder’s!!. This all means, the 5lbs of pure German cuisine I gained ove the course of this summer will be history by the end of the month! haha
Stay Cool…
Master Chef Woody grillin’ up some meat!
We woke up to this on Saturday morning!
Look at my awesome shovelling form!
Just two days ago, we were in the middle of redoing the deck to compliment our new BBQ which we’ve been enjoying for a week on our snow free deck. Heck, we had the yard all cleaned after a long winter, put away our snowkiting gear and was looking forward to the ice melting so we can get on the water windsurfing. Well, Mother Nature around these parts has been playful it seems the past year, so why not give us another 40-50cm’s of snow to deal with! Crap! Just when we thought we were in the clear, whamo!
Our first regatta of the season will be the ‘Dam Jam’ in Des Moines, Iowa May 17-18 and I’ll bet that will be the first time we’ll be on the water this year too. The Dam Jam promises to be a hoot this year with live band, free beer, limo rides to and from the event site, massages after each day of racing, big comfy chair to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs, meals brought to your chair side, tucked in at night…ohhh baby…wait a minute, I got off track there a bit, that’s home I’m talking about! haha Really though, the Dam Jam will be a riot! Can’t wait!!
Stay Cool…
