Righto!
So Kel is out with a friend...house-sitting tonight and I'm all on my lonesome. Today will here-to-fore be known as "random topic" day.
I know.....let's talk about Canadian-Style canoeing.
These guys aren't just known for hockey and bilingual provinces....they can also paddle with the best of us!
I'm in the middle of a canoeing unit in my Outdoor Adventure class at Spring Valley and I caught a video on YouTube today entitled Canadian Canoeing. Basically you sit the canoe completely different. One person in the middle of the canoe, on your knees, distributing your weight only on the left side of the hull. The gunwale will basically sit 2 inches above the water line with this type of paddling and it maximizes the effect of a steep rocker. Your maneuverability is top notch, but you have to learn one-sided paddling....basically only paddling on the left side of the boat.
So since I'm "batching it" tonight, I took the canoe down to the pond and tried it........hard as crap! It definitely makes the canoe more maneuverable, but it's really tough to master. I'll keep at it and hopefully claim a conscientious objective to traditional paddling.
So next time you go canoeing.....remember Canada!
In other news I have officially decided I'm way too busy in an unhealthy sort of way. One of my close friends at the high school I teach at and I have started to fill up our schedules for the summer with technology seminars. We go to other school districts and present on possible technologies that teachers can use to improve the "quality" of learning that goes on in their classrooms. It's cool. It pays, but for some reason I've always loved Kelley time, or outdoors time more than $ time. Call me Thoreau, I know, but there's something blissful about sitting on a mountain top and not having a pressing engagement. What's the hurry anyway? I think a whole freakin' lot of us press on ceaselessly day after day as if present time is just a preamble for the proverbial "what's to come" that never ends up getting here. Like the yoga clothes brand claims...."be present"...and enjoy it at that.
......now off to enjoy the present
1 comment:
I never once have known you, even back in the halcyon throes of college life, to not have an appointment to keep. Even at Jones Gap that one day, after it had snowed and you made a fire (remember?), you still had places to be...
...I'd love to know Jeff Gregory when he has nowhere else to be but right there. I think I glimpsed him that one time I crashed at his folks' (old) house....
:)
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