Personal

When we moved to Sudbury, one of the draws was the wealth of trails available to us for hiking, biking, and cross country skiing. Between work and school and the arrival of Arik and Amber, however, it's somewhat rare for us to take advantage of those trails that are literally at our back door. This summer we got in a few good hikes, and picked some blueberries, but I had brought my mountain bike ride out for only one brief off-road spin. Well, until last week...

One fine sunny day, I headed out for what I thought was going to be another quick ride. Then I took a turn that I hadn't before, and started on a (for me) epic ride around Laurentian Lake. My neighbour / friend Markus had told me about this trail, but I didn't think I had the stamina or skills to pull it off. Our terrain is an incredible mix of glacier-hewn exposed granite, deep woods singletrack, and lakeside rides. This ride put all of those elements together; the following picture captures a rest break I took at the top of a rock outcropping about one-third of the way into the ride; it overlooks Lake Laurentian, a star-shaped lake about one kilometre behind our house:

After the intense rock climbing & descents (yes, at points I threw the bike over my shoulder and clambered up and down), the ride settled into a marshy trail, then smoothed into classic singletrack through a pine forest that provided welcome shade for this pale torso on an intensely sunny day for early September. After dipping close to the lake several times, a waterfront trail emerged and I managed to capture this rather spectacular shot from the other side of Lake Laurentian:

At this point, I was getting pretty fatigued (I had skipped lunch before the ride and had no food or drink with me - yeah, duh, it was going to be a short ride, remember?), so the Lake Laurentian Nature Chalet was a welcome sign that civilization (and crisp, cold, clean drinking water) wasn't that far off:

My bike looks pretty good resting up against the chalet's waterfront railing, doesn't it?

One more long climb brought me to the lookout:

Such beauty does come at a cost, unfortunately, at least for those who don't ride often enough. Luckily, I was able to pay the price in scrapes and bruises this time around! Following is a picture of my lightly scraped knee; my elbow took more damage (but I'll leave that to your imagination).

From the outlook, it was only another twenty minutes or so of familiar trails to get back home. All told, a great ride, and one that I hope to repeat--albeit with appropriate provisions, or a bottle of water at least--before the summer is out. Also, if you come to visit, you would be well-advised to bring your mountain bike. I'll be happy to show you around a few of our backyard trails!

(My apologies for the (lack of) picture quality; as was previously noted, I hadn't been planning on a long ride so I ended up putting my cell phone to work)

Arik is just over eight weeks old now (and over fifteen pounds!), so I'm long overdue to post some photo updates of the family. The following photo was taken when Arik was about six weeks old. He loves the sling; so does his Mommy, and and so does his Daddy (who has an extra-large version to fit his extra-large frame). Amber prefers us to use the Austin Powers-style baby carrier, though.

Three most important people

Janet sent us this fabulous soft, warm quilt for Arik that will undoubtedly accompany him for years to come. In this picture, he's lying on the floor in our living room soaking up a bit of the sunshine on a warm February day in Sudbury (it happens, honestly!):

A study in contrasts (quilt courtesy Janet)

Spook loves Arik (and the quilt, and sunshine) too

Amber loves Arik. Loves holding him, loves singing to him, loves being sung songs featuring both of them that Daddy makes up on the spot... only sometimes is that a detriment when Arik is sleeping and she wants to wake him up

Big sister doesn't look _that_ big next to Arik

Amber also loves the camera. (For the dentists out there, she is on a weaning program for her pacifier, don't worry)

Mugging

Arik apparently likes the camera too.

Mugging, part two

Updated: 2009-03-01 Thumbnails were all linked to the same image... fixed!

I was tagged by Lukas for the "7 things" meme, and meant to do something about it, but I've been kind of preoccupied with the new baby and the sprinting toddler and work. Anyway, it seems like a heck of a lot more reasonable than the evil Facebook's "25 things" meme, so I'm going to take a few minutes to try to play along.

1. I was an early riser until I was around 15 or 16 years old and discovered the surrealists. At that point, I began experimenting with sleep deprivation as a means of stimulating my prose and poetry. This is also when I began drinking coffee. After about a month, I was no longer capable of being an early riser--and the fruit of writing experiments was, uh, not too impressive.
2. Rather than going directly to university after high school, I elected to take what is now termed a gap year. No trips to Europe for me, though; the goal was to refine my bass-playing and music-reading skills and head to a post-secondary music program. I recorded a few prog-rock tracks in a studio with a fantastic couple of guys (hey Pete and Mike!), but ultimately didn't put enough effort into my bass to carry out the plan. Let me assure you that a year of working night shifts at a convenience store in the entertainment district of a small city is not a waste of time; I can't count the number of experiences that I'm thankful for having had during that time.
3. Although I roast and grind my own coffee, I'm not a coffee snob. In fact, I possess almost no sense of smell and I suspect that my sense of taste is limited in comparison to most people, and I'm quite happy to drink diner coffee. I cannot stand the taste of Starbucks coffee, however.
4. The first time I was able to run a full kilometre without walking was when I was eighteen. Since then I've run a couple of 5K races and and a sprint duathlon.
5. I'm pretty sure I was destined to become a systems librarian. When I was 10, I used to hang out at the local college's computer room until the students would log me onto a completely restricted Gandalf mainframe account so I could pretend to be Matthew Broderick in WarGames. My first real job, when I was 14, was as a "computer page" at the Barrie Public Library Children's Annex. It was my responsibility to oversee the use of the bank of Commodore 64s that the library made available to children, luring them in with games but requiring them to complete their allotment of educational software first. Oh the power.
6. I occasionally wrote reviews for random CDs that came into the campus newspaper office. Nobody else wanted to review this orange CD called Tragic Kingdom by some West-coast band, so I took it on. I gave it a savage review; I wasn't impressed with faux-ska and couldn't stand the lead singer's voice. Six months later No Doubt's "SpiderWebs" was in high rotation on every radio station in North America (look, folks, that song is repetitive enough without being played twice an hour!). I'm sure that my negative review still gnaws at Gwen Stefani today as she weeps bitterly in her platinum mansion.
7. In grade one, my report card read Dan is too critical of his classmates. In my defence, if they weren't so stupid--come on, sound it out buddy--I wouldn't have been critical. Okay, not much of a defence.
8. I am not a very demanding friend. I (almost) never call, (almost) never write, and (almost) never visit. Okay, scratch that: I'm a crappy friend. Most of my close friends found out that we were expecting a second child only through Lynn's Facebook account. I called one couple shortly after Arik was born and his quasi-namesake (one of the Eric's in our life who bring honour to the noble name) asked me after a few minutes: "So, uhh... did we know that you were expecting a baby?". No, no you didn't, and that's not your fault. Man I suck.
9. I'm really good at arithmetic.

Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.

• Share seven facts about yourself in the post — some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Wow, that was fun. Lemme see, I'm going to break the rules and just tag two people: Helmut, because he's one of the only other people who worked on the ibm_db2 PHP driver out of passion rather than as a job assignment. And Gabriel because I like his style.

49 minutes before Christmas, Arik Nathan Kabaroff-Scott was born - much to the delight of his mother. Well, and father too, but some of us are pickier about avoiding holidays as birth dates than others... Arik weighed in at 8 pounds 11 ounces, and was 23 inches long, although his bulk belied the long slender toes and fingers that he came equipped with. Perhaps we have a future bass player in our midst?

There was much relief on the Kabaroff side of the family as it was revealed that Arik did not inherit his father's webbed toes. He definitely has his mother's ears, at least as far as attached vs. detached goes.

So far, Arik has been exceedingly kind to his parents, sleeping for two and three hours at a time, eating well, and generally being everything we could hope for. He's healthy and seems happy.

Big sister Amber has adjusted quite well to her new brother. On her first visit to see Arik in the hospital, she commented on his tiny toes and ears, and sang him a lullaby that she had been practicing for months in advance. Although her Mommy, Daddy, and new brother spent Christmas Day in the hospital, Santa conveniently waited until a few days later to arrive at home. And luckily Grandma was on hand to help Amber cope at home for a few days.

Daddy and Arik are getting along rather well, although Daddy has already been taught the hard way one of the major differences between changing a little girl's diaper and a little boy's diaper. Although Daddy's first instinct was to duck and cover, apparently the opposite order of operations is advised...

Mommy is doing quite well recovering at home and bonding with Arik. It's certainly a big adjustment from working on the thesis!

P.S. Daddy apologizes for the delayed announcement and pictures and thanks everyone for their kind wishes. It's been a little bit busy around here...