Leasing Crown Land

So I've decided to try and put down some semi permanent routes here in BC.  There is a little place about 90 minutes from Vancouver that I've fallen in love with.  There are several cabins around this lake, about 8, but according to the cadestral map of the area, there are almost 30 lots mapped.

I will try and navigate BC Landtitles, Crown Land Administration Division of BC, and whatever other red tape there is to find out if I can actually lease a small parcel of Crown Land in this stunning part of the world.

The plan is to build a small cottage and I will be looking for people to help me build.

Here is a link to the online cadestral map for BC.  There really is not much left to explore.

http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/sgb/IMF/

Homer Street

It's been almost 1.5 years since I've blogged last.

Lets just say I've been doing my best to get my bearings in what seems to have been a very challenging 18 months. You'd think at 36 I'd be pretty grown up, but apparently not. I've got the practical skills down; and by that I mean I can garner a paycheque every month and I'm able to keep fit, wash, and feed myself.....however on the emotional side of things I'm still a bit of a 2 year old; and I'm working on it.

The latest development in my life is the purchase of a Condo. My apartment on Jervis never really grew on me despite the views, it just always felt like a hotel room; and I hated paying rent to someone I hadn't even met.

The sense of groundedness this condo affords me is just what I need. I don't feel restless at all, I just like being at home, eventhough I'm living in a construction zone of sorts. The condo is in the heart of Vancouver's Yaletown area. The neighborhood is kind of posh, clean, and only a few blocks from the seawall. I really like it. My long run starts at my front step, two blocks to the seawall, along the ocean, through the forrest in Stanley park, along 3rd and 2nd beach, and back to my front steps.....about 15km and it's just beautiful the entire way.

One of Eva's wishes was to get a sense that I was feeling settled in Vancouver. She gifted me the downpayment for my place on Homer and I was able to close the deal before she passed away. She made it possible for me to carve out a small piece of Vancouver for myself. I really hope I can do her proud with my renovations. I'm sure she's watching from somewhere. In her last few months, despite the side effects from her chemo and the pain from her fractured hip she was in the midst of renovating her own kitchen; she was refinishing the doors of her old oak cabinetry, sanding down every inch, restaining them, and even routering out the wood panels and replacing them with bevelled glass. She was so determined to get it done.

Similar to the Egerton project I'm able to round up a lot of good help; it really is amazing what a second set of hands can do. I hope that everyone who is helping me understands just how big a difference every bit of help makes. My bartering tools are free food and beer, perhaps teach a few skills, an occaisonal visit to the emerge, a wide range of shitty music, and exposure to my great sense of humor.

2008 - Review in Pictures

My intent with this post is to summarize 2008 in text and in pictures. The close of 2008 marks 20 months since I've moved to Vancouver and I've had the good fortune to meet some really fun, kind, and interesting people in that time. There is a community forming for me here that I really enjoy being around. However it was a year of learning for me in what could probably be described as one of the most discontented years of my life so far. It's hard for me to put my finger on exactly what the issue was. Even just thinking this way makes me feel ungrateful. On some level I feel my discontent was linked to a desperate desire to find true love and on another level I think it could be my need to feel like I'm doing something really meaningful with my life. There are days when I look around and if I think about things too much I'm overcome by a sense of doom and only a glimmer of hope and I wonder how I could make a bigger impact from day to day. Perhaps feeling a sense of discontent is normal? I'm going to ponder this for a bit and try and do my summary of 2008 justice. For now I'll simply pick some of the best pictures of 2008 which highlight the highs from the year past. There are a few pictures that I've not uploaded including the Kettle Valley Rail, simply because I don't have them handy.

The lonley Hiker

I spent a few days up at Mount Washington....watching mountain bike nationals. It was a rainy weekend, however I managed to get in some riding and a hike in Strathcona Provincial Park.

Sunset Boulevard

The last few evenings I've been able to watch some of the most beautiful sunsets from my apartment.

Mount Baker - USA

A group of 15 of us drove to Sumas saturday morning, to park our cars and ride our bikes across the US Border and into Mount Baker Park. The round trip to the "top" of Mount Baker was roughly 120km. It was a great ride and I took a few pictures along the way. I hope to add a few group pics once I get them.

A few impressions from June

November Lake near Squamish and Mount Seyour in North Vancouver. I broke the log crossing the river.....my fat ass!!!

New Balance Half Ironman - Elk Lake, BC - June 17th

bib#558 Norman Barmeier, Winnipeg, MB
63/308 M 12/38 Men 30-34

Total time: 4:41:15

swim - 34:50 1:45 min/100m

transition 1 - 2:17 min

bike - 2:26:12 32.8 km/hr

elapsed time after swim and bike - 3:03:19

transition 2 - 1:14 min

run - 1:36:43 4:51 min/km

My overall feeling about this race is that it was amazing. The course is hosted on one of the most beautiful venues, and the run around Elk Lake is absolutely beautiful.

I had a fairly crappy first 300m in my swim. In fact I had a 300m pep talk with myself where I had to stop, tread water and say out loud: "Norman, you are a grown man.....pull yourself together!!!" One of the lifeguards even came over to ask if I was ok. I had to tell him to leave me alone as I was having a "moment" I think he got the picture. The remaining 1700m were actually very good. I hit my stride and was passing fellow swimmers the rest of the way in. I'm guessing I lost at least 2 mintues during the first 300m....gasping for air, breast stroking, and just generally avoiding racing. Man. I know this is simply a matter of working on my anxiety in the cold water. Out of the water I was ranked 106 out of 308.

My first transition was also a bit of a lolly gag. My wetsuit was not cooperating and someone racked next to me had knocked all my stuff over, so I had to scramble around the ground to collect my bike levers, pump....sunglasses etc. I also learned how very difficult it is to get cycling gloves on when your hands are wet. I have lots of transition work to do!!!

Out of transition, despite my turtle pace I was now ranked 88 out of 308.

On the bike I was giddy as a school girl, and the hills couldn't come soon enough. I had managed to get into a really good groove. The day prior to the race I scoped out the entire 37km loop to get a sense of where the hills were and where the long streches were going to be. I was well prepared to punch up all the hills because there were lots of sections to spin out the legs. The bike was by far my favorite part of the race and in my 2 plus hours on the bike I must have passed close to 60 riders. I felt great. There were moments during the ride when I was asking myself wether I should be working harder. I still have to learn how to pace myself I guess.

The phrase that keeps going through my mind is from Jared: "Race within yourself"

That was my matra for the whole race, especially the later part of the run.

After the ride I had moved up to 56 out of 308. (I wish my swim hadn't sucked so much ass)

Transition 2 was much quicker but I still lost 2 positions, ending up 58 out of 308.

Now for the run. I had been dreading the run all week. I was certain that I'd develop a cramp or my feet would be numb or some other thing like that.....but instead I shot out of transition like I was on fire. My legs were turning over like I hadn't been doing anything for the past 3 hours. (I'm not sure if that's a good thing) I felt really strong for the entire run and managed to pull it off in 96 minutes.

My run did cost me a few spots to finish up 63rd, but it was the most surprising result for me. I'm very please with my run.

I think this triathlon thing is good for me, so I'm gonna stick with it.

Next race is the Desert Half in Osoyoos BC, July 8th.

I hope to have a few pics to post here soon.

Living up high

Here are just a few pics of the new apartment. I managed to get a place up on the top floor, 26th floor in fact. The wind can be blustery up here, but it makes for nice fresh air....and even an ocean breeze.

Olympic Distance Triathlon

This weekend I competed in and completed my first Olympic distance triathlon.

What an incredible experience.

The day started at 6am with registration and transition area prep. My swim wave start time was 7:50. There were 3 waves ahead of me. Adaptive athletes, mens sprint and womens sprint. I spent a good 30 minutes warming up to the 16'C water. I really need this as my chest tends to tighten up in cold water. They started us off in a line along the beach, where I stood abreast with 60 other crazies. My plan was to be at either side, but somehow in my distraction I ended up right in the middle. The start was a dash through the sand and a shallow dive....and then just swim like there's no tomorrow. This being my first open water swim in the ocean surrounded by flailing arms......it lent itself to a bit of panic on my part. I spent the first 200m or so gasping for a deep calm breath and just fighting to get a rythm. I took me up to the 500m mark to finally hit some kind of stride and feel reasonably certain I wasn't going to drown. I swam along side one guy just to feel I wasn't totally alone. The dark deep green murky waters below were FREAKING me out too. I must admit it was a "traumatic" experience. The swim took me over 26 minutes, which is shy of the 24 minutes I was aiming for. I blame it on the panic factor, and the fact that I probably swam the longest course, sticking to the outside for the bulk of the swim. I was so happy to put my feet down on the beach at the transition area near Stanely park (2nd beach). It took me a few seconds to find my legs as I tried my hardest to "run" out of the water and get on my bike. I was dizzy and numb from the cold....my feet were blue. eeek.

My transition from swim to bike took 2 minutes including the run from the beach to the bike stands. I diddled around with my wetsuit, and the KY jelly I used to put it on made it difficult to get a good grip in order to take it off.

I must admit it was disturbing to me to realize how excited I was to see my bike and get to ride it. The ride was absolutely great and I peeled of 40km at a split of 37.8km/hr. Not bad considering I was suffering from post traumatic swim disorder. The ride was 4 10km loops through downtown Vancouver. Up and down Beach Ave, Pacific Ave, over the burrard bridge and through a small section of Stanley Park. I lost my water bottle over a speed bump at 7km and locked up and kicked out my back wheel a few times on the wet pavement. SCAREY!

The ride could have been 80km. I was just so happy to be on my bike.

The transition to run was a bit quicker at 1:13. Not too bad considering I even put on socks. I made one novice error: having lost my water bottle on the ride I was thirsty getting into transition to run. So I downed the spare bottle I left in trasition....with a powerjel chaser. This silly little move left me with a wicked stich for the first 3km of the run. I was considering walking it off, but I just bit my lip instead and ran through it.....all be it at a diminished pace. Honestly the first 3km were HELL. My feet were still blue and frozen, it felt like someone had put large pebbles where my toes were supposed to be and my legs just had a mind of their own. Once I got through that part the last 11km were managable (yes you heard correctly, our 10km run was 14.8km). They had us doing 4 loops along the seawall at Stanely Park. So it was a nice flat run, however the turn around point was about 600m further than it was supposed to be, so we ended up running an extra 4.8km.

Good prep for next weekends half ironman in Victoria.

My finishing time was ~2:40, wich is about 20 minutes shy of my goal of 2:20. Given that we ran an extra 5km, I can safely say I managed to finish in the time I was expecting.....and that thanks to a solid ride where I made up time.

I had so much fun doing this race! I can't wait for my next tri.

http://www.triathlonvancouver.com/index.html

...so far so good

I've managed to get right into the swing of things here:
Thursday night arrival: run around False Creek with Beth and Mark
Friday: run to Stanely Park, walk around west end with Trevor
Saturday: hike up High Falls Creek Trails, followed by Sushi on Davie
Sunday: ride spanish banks through UBC to airport and back with Shayne (Sonars friend), BBQ at Pogue Sports outrigger club, Memphis/Apostle of Hustle concert that eve with Richard
Monday: fly to Winnipeg, dinner and TV night with Lisette
Tuesday: look for Lex, he ran away, breakfast with Marcus, meeting at U of M, visit Oma, fly back to Van
Wednesday: attempt at Grouse Grind (still closed due to snow), hills at Stanely Park, road ride with Marc to Deep Cove, and North Van, outrigger paddle in the evening with Pogue boat club, sushi dinner with Beth and Marc
Thursday: am swim with Beth and Marc at Vancouver aquatic centre, walk through west end....apartment hunt begins, attend live CBC radio show taping, with Richard.....the host of the show was SEAN MAJUMBDAR.....what a funny man. GREAT EVENING.
Friday: am ride around Stanely Park with Marc, meeting with Ryan at Pogue boat club....he wants me to help him fix boats, and drive a load of boats to Hornby Island. YEAH!

Now I have to start taking pictures.

Hike #1 High Creek Falls

A small group of us went on a hike early Saturday up toward Squamish. The highway is under some serious construction in preparation for the 2010 Olympics. They are trying to fit 4 lanes where they can barely fit 2.

Trevor, an old friend from Winnipeg who now lives in Vancouver invited me to come along with him and and a group of friends on this hike. The scenery was breathtaking.

Who needs a map anyways

It occured to me on my drive that I don't need a map to cover the 2300km from Winnipeg to Vancouver. I just follow HWY#1 the entire way. In fact I don't have a map with me.




I took a few random shots along the way to Calgary:







I'll be spending Tuesday and Wednesday night in Calgary with my friend Kristen. I'm looking to get a swim in at Mount Royal Rec centre (for which Kristen has given me a free day pass) and to have dinner with a few friends from Calgary Wednesday eve. I depart for Vancouver early Thursday morning with a pitstop in Banff to have breakfast with Paula.

39 km/hr

My ITT on Saturday went well with an average speed of 39 km/hr. I was hoping to break 40. The ITT was 2 laps of birdshill or 22.6km total.

Vancouver or Bust

I'm in transition to Vancouver. I'll be stopping off in Calgary for a day on the way there.....expecting to arrive in Vancouver Thursday May 3rd.

For those interested in getting in touch with me, you can use my cell phone number. I'll be keeping that number until I get settled into Vancouver. My land line has been terminated.

Wish me luck.

TRIBALISTIC SEND OFF

Tribalistic threw me a surprise going away party after practice tonight.

It was very touching. I've made some really good friends over the last year training with them.

These guys are making it VERY hard to leave Winnipeg.

I realize I have to go through with the move now, but the friends I've made at Tribalistic are priceless.....and I'm going to miss them and the awesome training sessions like crazy.

They've got something really good going on in that club!

The plan for the next few months

So I'm in the process of boiling my life down to one car load. This is proving to be a bit of a challenge, but it is also a good excercise........amazing how things can just keep piling up. I expect I'll have more garbage bags than luggage.

Beth and Marc have opened their home to me upon my arrival in Vancouer. I depart Tuesday, May 1st, with a stop over in Calgary. I expect to get to Vancouver Thursday night.

It looks like I have a long road ride lined up on May 6th with one of Sony's cycling buddies. I hope to get into the loop quickly in Vancouver so I don't lose my thread. TRAINING IS GOING AWESOME.

I have registered for the following races:
June 8th - BG Vancouver World Cup - Olympic Distance
June 17th - New Balance Half Ironman, Elk Lake Victoria
July 8th - Dessert Half Ironman, Osoyoos
August 4th - Drummondville Triathlon, PQ - Olympic Distance

The races in June will be training races to get me ready for July and August.

This weekend, ie. the last weekend in Winnipeg, I will be doig a 22 km time trial on Saturday, and a 90 km road race on Sunday. The time trial is an individual race, with no drafting allowed. The road race on Sunday is a pack ride with strategic drafting and pushes. The pack riding freaks me out a bit.....45km/hr with dozens of riders only inches away.

The week after Pentiction Training Camp

The overly ambitious goal of 1000km ride, 100km run, and 10km swim fell a bit short, by about half. Despite that we were all tired at the end of each training day.

The biggest ride of the week was 160km of the 180km Ironman course. This was the highlight of the week for me as it really helped to put the race into perspective, and definatley gave me some good visualization tools. There nothing like knowing what your about to face. There are 2 big mountain passes on the course, Richter and Yellow Lake. They are a bit of a challange, especially Yellow Lake which is 145km into the ride. Ouch.

Most days started with a swim, roughly 2km, followed by either a long ride, or a combination ride run. On average we were training about 5 hours a day.

I hope I qualify in Victoria, but if I don't I'll be driving out to Penticton to watch and register for next year.

Move over Ethanol, Poo's on the way!

Today is my last day on the Husky Ethanol Project. The design group wrapped up about about 2 weeks ago which left me enough time to tie up all the loose ends for my part of the project. It feels good to go with nothing left undone.

I had the good fortune of landing a short contract with the U of M. It's for the Biosystems Engineering Department and focuses on the Hog Production Moratorium in the Province. We're looking at novel ways of processing pig poop to reduce the Nitrogen and Phosphorous loading on Manitoba streams, rivers, and lakes.

BIOGAS, who would have thought you could turn farts into energy......SERIOUSLY? It's called anaerobic digestion and Methane, aka pig farts.

My new TOY

Trek Madone 5.5

Beth and Marc - Emerald Lake Lodge

We spent an amazing weekend celebrating Beth and Marc's Wedding.

Kristenn, Jeff, and I wasted no time exploring avalanche chutes and frozen waterfalls.

I hope to post some actual wedding photos soon. In the meantime I have a few of Kristenn and I clammering up this crazy snow slope to the base of a frozen waterfall. In one of the pictures you can see the lodge on the other side of the lake (if you look really close and know where it is. haha)

10 - 100 - 1000

Today I bought my airline ticket to Kelowna. Tribalistic has a training camp in Penticton (near Kelowna) at the end of March that I'll be taking part in. The training itinerary:

Totals for the week:

10km SWIM

100km RUN

1000km BIKE

I'll be sure to book an air ambulance for the return flight.

Training Goals

So I've registered for my first official triathlon.

The New Balance Half Ironman at Elk Lake on Vancouver Island, June 16th.

This race is also a qualifier for Ironman Canada, August 26th.

I hope to be an Ironman by the end of this summer.

First big snow in Winnipeg