Thanks to the generosity and support of a bunch of people, we more than doubled our goal of raising $1000. Our final count came to $2100! Thanks to everyone who donated, including family members, friends, coworkers, the fine people at Marigold Ford in Whitby, Coach Canada for the free bus ride home and everyone else who contributed or helped out in any way.

We met at Spencer’s house on Friday morning at 7am for a little send-off party. We presented the money we raised to Wyatt’s aunt, took some photos and then we were off. Within four minutes, we had our first breakdown. Spencer broke the first of many spokes. It took a good 25 minutes or so to get fixed, then we were off again. As we were turning into Darlington Provincial Park, I took a little spill on some loose gravel. Luckily, I didn’t get hurt and nothing on my bike was affected. As soon as we left the park, I got a flat tire. Ten minutes later, I got another one.

So, within the first hour or so, we had three breakdowns and one wipeout. It got better from there. Spencer’s spokes broke almost routinely throughout the ride, but the frequency decreased as the days went on. It wasn’t horrible though – spoke breaks provided us with a little break to get off the bike and stretch.

We had a good time in Montreal, checking out the sights, eating at different restaurants and drinking at different bars and pubs. It’s a nice city, like a smaller, Frencher Toronto. While we were there, we got to check out a little bit of the Jazz Festival, which drew a lot of crowds.

Over the next week or so, I’ll write about some of the highlights of the trip and upload some pictures.

After talking with my friend for a bit, the possibility of getting the job sounded very promising. He told me if it were up to him, he’d hire me right away, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Almost immediately, my mind started racing with thoughts of relocating to a new city for this new job. The very next weekend, I drove out to Oakville to get a feel for the town and see what it was like. I started thinking about finding a new place to live, how soon I would be able to move and all the other things that come with a big life changing event.

As time passed, I got a bit more information about parts of the job, and about relocating/commuting. That last part really put my mind at ease. My friend basically told me to try commuting for the first month or so, and then figure out how close or far away I could move to keep a balance between getting to work and still being close to my family, friends and everything else in Whitby that I’m used to.

As the hiring process continued, I had several phone interviews. They went very well, except for the last one. In this particular interview, I was asked a lot of tough technical questions, and I had no idea how to answer them. Suddenly, the job was not what it originally appeared to be – it was sort of similar to what I do now, but not really…

Needless to say, I was contacted several days later and was informed they would be moving forward with several other applicants. They thanked me for my time and that was that.

Overall, the entire process was interesting, but the time and stress could have been lessened if so many assumptions weren’t made from the start. I learned a lot, and I’ll take that with me moving forward. It was a long, drawn out process, and even though things didn’t work out, I’m glad it’s finally over, because the uncertainty was annoying.

One of my coworkers lives near me, and offered to drive me to and from work until I get a car, which was really nice of her. I had to adjust my schedule, since she starts at 7:30am and I used to start at 8. Today was the first day and it was a bit rough getting up earlier, but that’s not what this post is about either.

So anyway… on our way to work, we stopped by Tim Horton’s to get morning coffee and tea. When we got to the drive through window, the cashier informed us the lady in the car ahead of us paid for our order! That was a pleasant surprise and brought a smile to our faces. My driver (the nice coworker, not a real chauffeur), in turn, paid for the order of whoever was in the car behind us. Hopefully it sparked some sort of chain reaction that continued all day, but I’ll never know how far the giving went.

I have heard of this sort of thing happening before, but never seen it firsthand. I hope the nice lady in front of us had a great day.

I checked my records the other day, and I rode a total of 1340km last year, falling a little short of my goal. I had a lot of fun, got some good exercise and I’m a lot better on a bike now than I’ve ever been. Since late fall, I haven’t really done any biking, but I’ve been seeing a lot of people riding even in the snow lately, so I’m thinking I might do a little winter biking soon.

From their website and MySpace page:

For those of you who could not make it, we want to put on another show just for you.
If you are one of those people, bring your UNUSED ticket to:
The Sound Academy (formerly the Docks)
Friday, January 25, 2008

More details will be available on their website at a later date. I’m really impressed they are doing this and I’m looking forward to getting a second chance to see these guys in January!

My main resolutions I talked about had to do with exercise, eating, sleeping and updating this site more often. I’ve been doing well with some of these things, and not so well with others.

I’ve been hitting the gym regularly, except for a short break during July. The gym at Durham College where we used to go closed down, and we worked out in the basement for a few weeks, then decided to take a break. Now that the new gym is open at the college, we’ve been going fairly regularly again. I’ve also been consistent with the bike riding, with only one week where I didn’t ride at all, due to the weather and a bit of laziness on my part.

I was doing fairly well with the eating and sleeping up until the summer started. There’s so many parties, barbecues, cottages and other things going on, that I find it difficult to “eat right” all the time. The same thing goes for sleep. The weather is great, the sun stays out late, and it’s not easy to get to bed at a reasonable hour all the time. I think I’ll just consider this all summer distractions, and I’ll get back into the swing of things once September rolls around.

As for the website/blog updates, they were going well until the end of June. I had at least one post per week, until I just got lazy and uninspired. But I had a month off, and now I should be back to posting regularly, whether people actually read this or not…

]]> http://www.robmaeder.com/archives/31/feed 0 http://www.robmaeder.com/archives/26 http://www.robmaeder.com/archives/26#comments Wed, 28 Jun 2006 12:19:31 +0000 Rob http://www.robmaeder.com/archives/26 Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It’s not a fun thing to learn you have an uncurable disease that will stay with you for the rest of your life. However, I’ve learned a lot in the past weeks, and I’ve realized that while my life has changed dramatically, having diabetes is not going to prevent me from doing the things I want to do. It will definitely change the way I live my life, but it’s more of an adjustment than anything else.

For those unfamiliar with type 1 diabetes, it is an auto-immune disease, in which your immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Insulin is a very important hormone that is needed by cells in the body in order to use glucose, which is the body’s main source of energy. Without insulin, the cells can’t get energy, and therefore they keep signalling the body for more food. This leads to increased hunger and thirst, but no matter how much you eat or drink, the cells are still unable to use the nutrients because insulin is not present. Since you cannot use the sugars that are present in the blood, the body will act like it’s starving and will start breaking down fat (and eventually muscle and organs) for fuel.

It all started just over a month ago when I suddenly started losing weight. I was actually trying to put on a few pounds during this time, so it was a bit surprising to see the scale going down week after week. During this time I was also really tired all the time, super thirsty and peeing a lot. These are all classic symptoms of diabetes. My dad also has Type 1 Diabetes, and after talking to him about it, he suggested I check my blood sugar with his glucometer. My reading was quite high – much higher than a ‘normal’ person’s blood sugar should ever get. This concerned my dad, so off to the hospital we went.

At the hospital, they checked a few things and took a bunch of blood samples. Fortunately, there was not a long wait, and they gave me my own bed in the emergency ward almost immediately. They put me on an IV and gave me insulin to bring my blood sugar down. It was a really weird experience, but the nurses at Oshawa General Hospital made it much more bearable. They were super friendly and took really great care of me while I was there. They were going to keep me overnight, but after my symptoms improved, they released me at about 3:30am so I could go home to sleep in my own bed.

The next day I went to see my doctor and I was referred to the Charles H. Best Diabetes Centre in Whitby by one of my wonderful co-workers. I cannot say enough good things about the staff at the centre. Finding out I am diabetic was difficult, and it brought a lot of questions and uncertainty with it. Everyone at the Best Centre is very supportive, extremely knowledgeable and will do their best to help out in any way that they can. They really made adjusting to this new life easier for me.

At this point, I am taking insulin injections four times per day. It’s really not as bad as I thought. The first injection is the worst one, and after that they all get easier. So far the worst part is pricking my fingers several times a day to get a drop of blood so I can test my blood sugar. I met with a dietician at the Best Centre, and I was delighted to learn I can eat almost anything I want. Things aren’t so restrictive like they used to be, so I can still eat sweets (in moderation). As long as I eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly and take my insulin, I should be as healthy as any ‘normal’ person, if not healthier.

That’s all about diabetes for now. For more info, check out some of the links below:
http://www.charleshbestcentre.com – The diabetes centre in Whitby
http://www.ianblumer.com – Dr. Blumer specializes in diabetes and works with the Best Centre. He has written a couple of books on diabetes and his website is a wealth of info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes – An encylopedia-like explanation of diabetes, with more scientific details than most people would probably want