Ace - addition to our family

The last 2 months have gone by really quickly - that's because we were enjoying every minute of it with Ace. He's a Schnoodle breed, a cross between Schnauzer and Poodle. My mom thinks it sounds more like a dish and a breed. Hehe...

We were looking around for a companion for a while and when we met him, we both fall in love with him. We went back the very next day to bring him back home. 

It has been a joy since!

He was only 7 weeks old at approximately 1.5kg when we brought him home. Now he's almost 4kg at 15 weeks. He's definitely growing fast! He was very shy at first, after bringing him to puppy social class esand mix around with puppies, he developed a lot of confidence and able to stand tall among other adult dogs. Good job Ace! 

 Ace at 7 weeks old

Very tiny - his food bowl look extra big

 "what's happening??"

 Ace wondering around the backyard in his jumper

Got too adventurous and stuck behind the door

Biting his rubber duckie

Enjoying World Cup 2010

After plenty of run at the Brighton beach

Taking a breather and enjoying the sceneries

Enjoying the sunset after plenty of run at a local park

Practicing his cute puppy charm

 

   

 

The many sleeping poses of Ace.

Some of the videos of Ace running around in Ruffey Lake Park.

Dragonboat 2009/10 race schedule

As soon as the daylight saving kicked in, we have been training harder, twice weekly to prepare ourselves for the upcoming races starting from early November to April. Last Saturday, I have committed myself to a number of races, as listed below. It's going to be a full on season.

1. Nagambie                      Sunday 8th November 2009
2. Docklands                     Sunday 6th December 2009
3. Falls Creek                    Sat/Sun 23th/24th January 2010
4. Yarra                             Sunday 7th February 2010
5. Sale                               Fri/Sat 26th/27th February 2010
6. Wodonga/Albury           Sunday 7th March 2010
7. Docklands                     Sunday 21st March 2010
8. Adelaide                        Thurs - Sun 22nd-25th April 2010

Hail, rain or shine... bring it on!!!

I am an addict!

Yes... I am putting my hands up and admit I am an addict... for all the right reasons. Some are hooked on ciggies, some are hooked on computers, I am hooked on working out at the gym. I've always packed my gym clothings the night before and put it my car so that I can dash off to get some sweat out after spending 8 hours in the office.

Things do not usually go as planned.

Last week, work was abundance, was pressing for time to get work done by the end of each day, weekend came too soon and by the time I decided to call it a day, all I wanted was to get home as quickly as possible, spent some time with my missus and sat in front of our tv with my feets up. I was just too tired for anything else.

No gym on the fist 2 days of the week. By Wednesday, I was starting to feel restless, was getting harder go focus on my work and patience was running lower as well. It felt like something was missing, incomplete. I knew what I had to do but no immediate action was taken. Call me a slacker and I will not challenge you.

It was Saturday arvo that I finally got myself a good round of workout. Because it was Sat, I didn't have anything planned until later in the evening. Went to the gym knowing that I can spend the whole arvo without any disturbance. It was a good workout... satisfied my addiction.

I felt so much better, somewhat happier and increased self-esteem. I never thought of it as a problem until when I was driving home that I started to realize this can be a problem if viewed at a different angle. "I may be a gym addict", I told myself.

I did not want to jump to any conclusion without knowing the exact meaning of "addiction". Was sort of giving myself a false sense of hope... better than no hope at all. Googled it and according to Wikipedia "addiction is a state in which the body relies on a substance for normal functioning and develops physical dependence".

That pretty much sums it up what I went through last week.

As I said earlier on, depends on which angle you look at it, I can gain from it or suffer the effects of it. The fact is that the pros outweights the cons and my addiction is not severe as compared to cigarettes or drugs addiction.

I'll be alright and hopefully it will add more life to my years. :)

Good cardio workout on a chilly winter morning

My alarm rang at 7.45 this morning, yes 7.45am on a Sat morning. Thought that I could get some work done before our 10am weekly dragon boat session. Switched off the alarm, went straight back to bed. It is hard enough to trade your nice warm bed with some shit work on your first day of the weekend. We are in the middle of winter, didn't help at all. I could've done better. Anyway... Lily's alarm rang 8.30am, again... did exactly the same thing, i.e. switched it off and went straight back to bed.

Some joker's vehicle alarm went off that woke me up. I had a glance at my clock and it was showing 9.25am. F*CK! I thought we were going to be late for our dragon boat session. Jumped out of our bed, on the heater, woke Lily up, rah rah rah... by the time we were ready, it was 9.40am. As if dragon boating wasn't enough of a race, we had to race against time before that. Grabbed some pre-packed cheese and biscuits, pressed for the lift and for some reason it took so much longer to reach our floor. Our race against time didn't stop there.

As we were heading down to 2^nd floor, the lift stopped at least 5 floors and tenants came into the lift at their leisure time. What are heck were they doing up so early on a Sat morning??? I have to admit, I have never valued every second so preciously as this morning. Our floor finally came, rushed out, got into our car, drove off as quickly as we could, overtook safely slower cars in front of us, made a couple of short cuts and BANG! We were there at 10am sharp. ON THE DOT!

Why did we have to go through so much trouble and stress to make sure we were on time? One, dragon boat is a sport where timing is very important, both before and during the boating and we intend to keep it that way and two, whoever is late, the whole team will be penalized by doing a full 2 minute plank (below) at one go.

Plank might seem easy for some… but when you have done 1.5 hours of intensive dragon boating, it is a killer and 2 minutes feels like forever. I don’t mind doing it but I surely will if we are the cause of the penalty. Lucky for us, no plank this time around.

The temperature was 9 degrees this morning. It was bone chilling, especially when there’s wind blowing. There wasn’t much cloud this morning, clear blue skies, sun was out, enthusiast dragon boaters, I knew from that moment that we were going to have a good session. There were a couple of newbies but majority of us have been doing it for a solid 10 times. Went into the water, arranged our seating based on our weight to stabilize the boat, by 10.10am, we were off.

We were doing more intensive training this time around, as most of us are experienced enough. We did a quick 200m race (actual race distance) to see where we were at. 1:01:28. This is a good timing considering we had some glitches when changing our strokes. I am not going to bore you with all technicalities of dragon boating. The point is, we can still improve our timing and be competitive when it matters. I think the next race is in December 08. I am already looking forward for this race after all the hard work and preparation. I am sure Lily feels just the same.

Some of dragon boating photos: