spoiled chinese girl

The event was fantastic. 

It was held at an outdoor venue called Nanimo Park, the day after a Community Day event, and while the forecasts were threatening rain, the weather was perfect, the right amount of breeze and sun to make an outdoor event awesome.

Because this was expected to be a small event the entire unicycle trials course was set up for Beginner, Sport & Expert all at once.  The end result was those who scored between 0-12 were classed as Beginner, 13-22 as Sport and 23-33 as Expert.  The high-jump was one line, where 15cm was 1 point, 50cm was 2 points and 70cm was 3 points, and all the other lines were counted as one point each.  The majority of riders thought themselves to be in the sport class and went on the course first.  The beginners and experts joined in after an hour while the self-sport class was winding down.  I personally really liked this since in the end, the beginners and the experts really stayed away from each other as they attempted their approporate lines.

Personally I did really good for what I know I’m capable of, and even surprised myself at some of the lines I attempted and surpased.  My final score was 7.  I hopped through the flat flow (1), was able to hop onto a really small block and off again (2), a short and flat board (3), and even the teeter-totter (4) and really thought I was done at that point.  I was able to ride my trials unicycle across a 2×4 that was about 6ft in length (5), the 15cm high-jump (6) and also hop and gap the two skid pallets and hop off (7) as my last completed line.

I have to admit, the beginner lines were much more difficult than I anticipated.  My only other unicycle trials competition was the 2005 TOque games held at the Toronto International Bike Show.  The reason these lines were so much harder was that the venue being so small, the sport/expert course too up much of the paved surface, leaving the smaller obsticals to be spread across the grass which was not extremely flat and evenly keeled.  The 2×4 would definately have been easier had it been on a paved surface!

It was still a very awesome event, and I can’t wait for next year!

Tomorrow (Sunday June 4, 2006) is the Ottawa Unicycle Invasion (OUI) at Nanimo Park in Ottawa.  It’s mostly a unicycle trials event, and will be the second such competition I’ve entered.

I’ve heard it’s a total mixed event, being that it’s kind of small, and I’ll only be hitting the beginner level lines since I don’t particularly feel like breaking my neck.  Darren Bedford of Bedford Unicycles will be there along with top trials BC unicyclist Jeff Groves from Toronto, as well as many of the Ottawa and Kingston crew.

I hope it doesn’t rain because it’s an outdoor event! GAH!

Alright these gas companies need to charge one price for gas and not have it fluxuate between 10 and 20 cents every 8 hours.  It’s just stupid and causes for panics, and lineups, and a whole lot of road-rage.  Generally my rule of thumb is to not give a damn about the gas price because I need gas, I’ll get gas.  Of course I’d rather pay 85 cents per litre than paying a dollar per litre like everyone else.  But when the price of gas is a dollar at 2am, then down to 85 cents by 9am something’s wrong.

It’s irritating is what it is.  I want the government to just freeze the gas price for 2 weeks, no matter what it is, and give warning for when it’s going to go up or down.  And for them to hurry up about it.

It’s a good thing I’m going to be building up a fixed gear bike soon.  Then I can concentrate on the price of food as my fuel.

Today felt like an extremely fruitful day. I started the day by picking up a free futon (mattress + frame + pillows) from someone I messaged off craigslist, and had Brandon figure out how on earth to jam it into my car (it's not the 3 part frame I'm used to, so we had to actually tie down the door) then set that up in my basement (although Brandon seems to have claimed it for a hypothetical recording studio we're going to somehow build). Then I went to try and sell my BMX bike to some chick that wanted to buy it, but she never showed up and I found out that while I was jamming a much-too-big futon frame into my tiny car, she e-mailed me saying “I can't make it” instead of calling me like I told her to do since I was out all day. I decided to keep my BMX because I was playing with it in the parking lot and remembered why it was so much fun. After watching Boondock Saints & eating a load of popcorn & salmon straight out of the can, I went home for dinner. Then I got home to read the “Sorry I can't make it” e-mail, plus an e-mail from another guy who was also interested in my BMX, and was willing to pay a lot more for it so I quickly disapated my feelings for the BMX and tossed it in the car and sold it off, basically making the cash to buy the back wheel for my yet to be built fixie/flip-flop bike. And I should have enough left over for another 2-4 of beer. I need to start liking beer, or at least start drinking it.

Anyways, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Ottawa and the OUI (Ottawa Unicycle Invsaion) and won't be back until Monday afternoon. If you're desperate to contact me, check the pagejack entry for my phone#. Generally I'll see y'all Monday!