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Tumbling 2nd Ontario Cup

Up highway 401 past the tri-city Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo area - up highway 401 past Mississauga and Oakville - up highway 401 past the Greater Toronto area - up highway 401 past Oshawa and keep going East! - up highway 401 ... well you get the idea.

Five and a half hours later you will arrive at a place call Belleville, the host of our 2nd Ontario Tumbling Cup.

Bright and early this Saturday morning there are some youngsters all bright eyed and bushy-tailed just waiting to get their second chance at showing off exactly how awesome their tumbling is!

I had four athletes competing at this meet but do to some inclement weather a blizzard, one family decided to not attend this competition. I had to fair the weather and 5.5hrs later I arrived in this small northern Ontario city.

Good luck to all my athletes competing - I'll see you at the competition!

Google Wave Community

So I’ve started a wave within Google Wave and what this waves job is to bring people together.

As most know, you have to be invited or “nominated” to be part of Google Wave. Most people don’t know where to begin. If you are lucky enough to know someone on Twitter or another service that invites you, then you’re set. What about everyone else? Well hopefully my wave idea will help out.

I’ve started a wave that all of my contacts are a part of and all of their contacts and so on. When they have a friend that needs to be invited they simply add that persons email to the wave. Once done, anyone that is a part of that wave with invites will hopefully pop the email address into the invite wave and BAM, nominated!

As the wave grows so does the potential for invite. The more people that are part of the wave the more names will be added to the growing list of people to invite.

The wave also contains some helpful information on how to update your profile on Google Wave.

For more information or to get your name on the list, just send me a message from one of the following services with your name, email (gmail account), your favourite networking service (twitter/facebook) and I’ll add the emails!

Twitter, Facebook, Email, Leave a Comment

Happy Waving!!!

Finger Work

Sometimes it just feels good to type. You know, just sit down in front of a computer and just put fingers to keys. I guess that would be the updated twenty first century saying as compared to "put pencil to page" or "put pen to paper". Just the thoughts in my mind are so varing with no way out. I jump from notion to notion before coming to any sort of solution about anything. Just to not speak and type out anything that comes to mind just feels, well good. So many things that need to be done and the motivation escapes me. I find myself at an impasse ... that is all.

Travel, Trek and Transportation

So recently I was just on a trip to Calgary to visit a very good friend of mine @eveningmartini. This was one of many times that I have travelled in my life and just like anything else the more times you do it the easier and less nerve rackin it becomes. I flew out there on Westjet airlines which is a Canadian airline that mainly flies within Canada and goes coast to coast. Something to know about Canadian Airlines is that they are not as inexpensive as Airlines in America. I've been told that you can travel from coast to coast in the US for around $100. To do the same in Canada it would cost you upwards of $250 one all things are considered.

After this great trip I have learned a few things that I will have to remember for next time I travel. One thing is, that it's all well and fine that I was able to watch the flights and find one that was inexpensive but that really is only one aspect of the entire travel. Too and from the airport is something that also much be considered. On this particular trip I took the train to the airport on the way out to Calgary and I took a shuttle bus on the way back from my trip. As hinesight is always 20/20, I look back now and I might have been able to rent a car for less money then the methods that I choose to take. Really exploring your options when traveling is very important. Do your do diligence and consider all angles, really consider the trip as a whole.

Other then that it was a most amazing trip Calgary is an amazing city in an amazing province. I suggest all who have the chance to go out there take it. You really wont regret it.

On Vox: Conflict Management

So it came up today talking to a friend about a situation in my personal life, that I don't seem to see all the angles in conflict management. There always seems to be more options that I never see. I hate to say that I have poor conflict management skills but maybe I do? The ability to see a situation, analyze what's happening and then come up with a solution that will hopefully benefit all parties involved.

I tend to not be able to step back as 'far' from the scenario as my friend can. Seems like I have to learning to do.

Originally posted on mikemimik.vox.com

T & T National Championships 2009

This past weekend I was part of an amazing event - I was at the 2009 T&T National Championships. I was part of an Apprentice Program run by Gymnastics Ontario that matched me up with a mentor that I would be able to shadow for the entirety of the event.

I arrived at the competition very late Thursday evening/Friday morning and got myself settled into the campus residence we were staying at. We were up early the next day for Team Ontario's training in the gym at the venue. Each Province is always given a training time for their athletes to come and practice on the equipment that is available at the competition.

Event prelims where Friday/Saturday and event finals where Saturday/Sunday and Senior event finals where on Monday. All the athletes performed was from all of the provinces and it was such a great experience to see them all together and competing.

As part of the Apprentice Program I was challenged with the task to interview two coaches from other Provinces and ask them questions and get as much information as I could. I had the opportunity to speak with a coach from Quebec as well as one from British Columbia. They had very different views and insights into questions that I had and how to coach power tumblers.

I met some new people who I now consider friends and networked with others. The experience was, as I believe to be unforgettable and irreplaceable.

T & T Eastern Canadian Championships - Gearing Up

Today I will be embarking on a very significant trip for myself. The ball starts rolling for this evening when I fly into and stay over night in Toronto in anticipation for the next flight. The next flight will take me to Nova Scotia, which in itself is pretty exciting as I've never been to that province or anywhere out east at all for that matter.

Tumble & Trampoline Eastern Canadian Championships will be held in Nova Scotia this year. The qualifying athletes from each eastern province will be sending their team of athletes in their respective sport and category. I personally have two athletes that will be participating as part of Team Ontario whom I've very proud of. In addition to that I will be part of the Delegation that Ontario is sending as a Team Coach for one of the Tumbling categories. I am very honored to have been selected as a Team Coach for this event. It seems to denote my coming to pass as a 'somebody' in this sport in Ontario. In my short time as a coach in this discipline I've managed to learn a lot and become a part of the community.

I spent most of the day today doing laundry and packing what I will need for this weekend long event. We arrive in Nova Scotia Friday afternoon and get ourselves settled in. Competition is all day Saturday and Sunday. It will be a jammed packed weekend of meetings, training, competing and I am up for the challenge and experience of it all. This is my first year solo coaching the competitive power tumbling team at my gymnastics gym. A lot of what was done this year for me was repetition from years past except for Eastern Championships. I have not been to any competition higher then that of the Provincial level. Don't get me wrong, these are still Provincial level athletes competing but no longer for just their gym club, they are competing for their province! I am very very excited to be a part of it.

Wish us luck!

Hump Post Wednesday's

I've decided to start a blog series dedicated to Wednesday the Hump day of the week. Being the middle of the week people seem to have mixed feelings about Wednesday's. Half way to the weekend, half way from the weekend, six of one - half dozen of the other. I'd like to include my outlook on the days that have past and the days that stand in the way between now and the weekend.

Now I realize that this post isn't actually on a Wednesday as the idea came to fruition over the course of today, but Wednesday is the Topic of the day so next Wednesday you shall have and can expect my insights and a little rambling on the one and only Hump Day.

Hopefully my posts will give you something to do if you are one of those people that can never seem to motivate yourself on this so called cross road of the week. If you are like me and Wednesday is just another stepping stone on the way to the weekend and doesn't seem to hinder your progress through the week then if you can spare the time it should be a good read anyways!

Here's looking forward to our first Hump Wednesday! Cheers!

Friday Night Blues

To help you get all caught up, I slept at 7:30AM this morning and didn't wake up until 2:30PM. I went to work for 4:00PM and was there until 8:30PM.

My twitter can fill you in on the rest and to not be redundant I'll skip the minor details.

I sat on the couch through all the news and politics that my parents love so much. I shake my head at most of it because I find most people like to fix the symptoms instead of figuring out the problem and going for that. The TV continued to be occupied past the news and into random channel surfing. Several hints were dropped to get the 'House Marathon' going with no success.

So now I find myself sitting here on the computer thinking about everything else I could be doing, or could have done while waiting for the TV to become unoccupied. So here I sit with the Friday night blues; 

My brain rambles like my mouth at a party. Thinking of all the things that I could be doing or sound like a good idea some other place some other time. Nodding my head to the music that now fills my head like an army to conquer the boredom that sweeps in from the mountains in the north corner of my world. The world now expanding to fill the emptiness of the space around me. I stand Battle Ready and with the gust of wind from the speakers I thrust my mouse upward to the heavens and venture on towards the cyberspace which awaits me.

What A Sunday

So I admit I went to bed rather late. I had full intentions of getting up to my two alarm clocks that I had set, oh yeah you read that right..two alarms. So the story ensues.

My mornings usually start out with me rambling as I press the snooze button on my alarms. Seems I can never wake up the first time that it goes off (does anyone ever?). This much like all the rest of my mornings was no different. Only the snooze button I seems to be scrambling for was in fact my phone, as it was ringing. Much to my surprise and dismay it was a colleague at work calling to ask were I was. I quickly glanced at the clock which read 10:06AM which was only about 6 minutes after I was supposed to start coaching my group of athletes. Finished the phone call in a hurry and well this is were things get hairy. I whipped the covers off of me in a fit of rage that I had slept in genuinely wondering how I slept through my alarms. Now some background info about the night before, I had fallen asleep with my iPod in as I do some nights. Whipping the covers off flinging / catapulting my iPod straight at the wall! I had so vigorously gotten out of bed that I the iPod hit the wall and had enough force to bounce off the wall and come straight back to the bed. It was as if I had through a tennis ball at the bed but instead of it being squishy and round it was metal and rectangular and also about 10 times more expensive. Needless to say I was stressing out to the point were I couldn't focus on anything. Got myself settled and got cleaned up as quick as I could and went off to work. My mother drove due to my state of mind and the fact that I wanted to figure out if my iPod had become a paper weight. Turns out that the LED for the backlight on my screen no longer worked. The iPod itself other then that was fine.

So I finished my morning of coaching and felt so much better when I was done. Went straight to Bestbuy after work and swapped it for another one. As I finish this blog post though, I am so very tempted to bring it back and switch it for an iPod Touch. Well my first thought was that 8GB's is just not enough for me, seems more reasonable that 16GB's would be much better suited for me. Then I thought to myself if I'm going to spend an extra $50 in upgrade to the 16GB iPod Nano, would it not be wise of me to look into the iPod Touch which at 8GB is only $40 more then the 16GB Nano. To which I rebuttal this thought with the whole point in 'upgrading' was to get more memory not to 'upgrade' to a new device and less storage. Now wrestling with my thoughts and talking with a few people (many thanks to @vandymcnew) I've decided to genuinely upgrade to an iPod Touch 16GB tomorrow. I'll probably to a full review on it later this week, so I'd look out for that.