Beanz Meanz Heinz

Birthday Fun!

Couldn't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than a nice loooooooooooong paddle down the Allegheny - so that's exactly what I did with a few friends on Sunday :)

In front of the Fort Duquesne Bridge.

                 Paddling past the baseball field :)

Heading under the 6th, 7th and 9th Street bridges.

Along for the ride :)  Umbrella to protect from the sun, it being a beautiful day... and perhaps to fend off some splashes from errant paddlers ;)

Our fearless launch-driver (AKA: conveyor of barbecue and beer!)

Look Mum, I made the paper!

Had almost forgotten that I did an interview with a reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review over the phone last week... although I can't honestly say that I rememer using the word "backyard"... as if I would use such a blatant Americanism?!?

and here's the story:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/s_507782.html

weekend antics

The Paddlefish team took off to Moraine State Park this weekend for our annual team retreat.
Bunches of photos over at our Flickr Account, and hopefully a blog-wrap-up on the Paddlefish Team site soon.  In the mean-time, here's one thing that I did over the weekend.

Hamster Derby Day

"Derby"
Der·by     /ˈdɜrbi; Brit. ˈdɑrbi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dur-bee; Brit. dahr-bee]

However you pronounce it, my lovely little dwarf hamster, Nancy (sister to Ewok), competed in her first yesterday - and over there ~~~> are the photos to prove it.

Enjoy!

New York, New York!

Was gallivanting around New York this last weekend for the first of this year's Dragon Boat races (the ERDBA New York Indoor Sprints).  Lots of fun, lots of painful stints on paddle-adapted rowing machines too - my muscles are still very sore...

But the best part is the location - Chinatown.
It's absolutely delightful to wonder around for a few hours, sampling the goods, soaking in the atmosphere, bustling with the locals whilst behaving for all the world like the blissfully clueless tourist that I was (backpack and sleeping bag slung over my shoulder, barging into just about everyone... not intentionally, mind you). 

(prizes to the first person who emails me with what the picture, over there, is of!)

planes,trains and more planes.
Were the bane of my weekend.  A late flight in on Saturday saw me run into the event approximately 30 seconds before my first race began - a quick strip and a double-check to make sure I was actually doing 500 metres and not 250 and off we went.  Oh the agony - paddling hard on no warm up. Ouch.

But the rest of it went well.  We even almost beat the Philly guys in the team event again (they all are on the US men's team, so a pretty noble effort on our part). 

Then off to meet up with the inimitable Euan - (via a train journey that was 4 times as long as it should have been...) - for fun and frolicks around Manhattan for the remainder of the weekend - including a very fine Bossa Nova band - ah, that's what New York's all about - you can do and see anything and everything :)

Brunch on Sunday with a whole bunch of Brits - poor waitress, I'm sure she didn't know what had hit her - to make up for the fact that none of us were in London for the First Monthly Burnsy's Brunch (photo to follow). 

A quick jaunt with Rachel to Central Park before we intrepid travellers managed to get a bus Uptown and to LaGuardia via Harlem (passed the Apollo Theater, how cool was that?!) - very much at the last minute, but very much on time for our flight.  Except!

That the silly US Airways lady in Pittsburgh had managed to cancel my return reservation - I'm sure she must have something against Brits - the evil lady...

Anyway, I had the fortune of having the most jovial and kindly airline representative EVER at the ticket counter and finally managed to get on the last flight out of LaGuardia that night on a different airline.  You know, some people think I'm late to things because I don't have a good sense of timing, but I swear, the world is conspiring to delay me... I mean, a delayed first flight and an innadvertently canceled second one - what's a guy to do?! 

But, you know, it all added to the flavour of a fine weekend in the Big Apple.  Am liking that city more and more each time I go.  Who knows, after 'My Kinda Town' and 'PittBritt' maybe the next blog will be titled something like 'Little Englishman in New York' ???

Things I like to see

Police officer on a bike writing a ticket for a fancy car outside the library.... yeah, in all honesty, I was far happier seeing this than I should have been.

Still - Power to the Bikes, and all that

clipped from mail.google.com

"So it's probably a stupid idea, but..."

Thus ran the first line of an email I sent to Richard Butler, the Executive Director of Three Rivers Rowing Association (TRRA), who are the Pittsburgh Paddlefish's parent organization.

and the rest of the email is copied below... why?  Because the idea that the email referred to is actually going somewhere, and, well, I've decided to track it's progress on this blog :) 

More to follow in the next couple of weeks!
J

Live Rugger, tasty coffee :)

Can't imagine many better things than a sunny Sunday afternoon, sitting in my favourite coffee shop and listening to the England Rugby team steamroller the French...

And we just scored!
That's 26-18.  Think we may have just won the game :)

Shame it's not available on TV over here (and not even in any bars that I've seen - although I admittedly didn't look too hard).  Then again, I *am* on a TV-free 6 weeks, so perhaps that's a good thing. 

And there it is - the final whistle - woohoo!!!

Rollin rollin rollin... hills...

of Staffordshire... ahh... they're pretty even on freezing day in January.
Dad and I set off at a ridiculous hour this morning for one portion of his 60th birthday celebrations - a 60-mile bike ride. 

And before you say it, yes, it was absolutely nuts.  But wonderful all the same.  We decided to go on a circuitous route from Birmingham to Lichfield and back (click on the image to the right to see in more detail), with a few stops on the way.  It was about -2ºC (28/29ºF for you Yanks), but gloriously sunny.  Of course, sub-zero means ice, and the morning did start off with a comedy spill on an ice-skating rink of a road for not one, not two, but all three bicyclists who were doing the first loop (Nick, another vicar, only joined us until breakfast - the waster - some excuse about having to work...).  But despite the , 60 miles (96.56064km for you Europeans) was just about adequate replacement for the Paddlefish training I was missing :) 

Once again, more pictures to follow once I've uploaded them, but in the mean-time, another video-clip, featuring, among other things a fine example of the Mayes bum!:

I must be getting old

because today my legs ached unbelievably...

In my defense, the pain is justified - had a very tough day yesterday - 10k (Pittsburgh Great Race) in the morning, followed by that Steelers game.  All rather a lot for one Jonathan to do in one day. 
But it's all good - I'll just need to avoid walking up or down stairs for the next week - harder than it sounds :)

Oh, and in case you're interested, I ran my best time in the 10k - hooray!