Not a lot to report this past week. 

It’s been a hard couple of months so I decided to get a massage and a pedicure to help relax further.  A guy needs to pamper himself every once and a while. This was the first pedicure in about 20 years, so needless to say, there was a good amount of work to do. Pretty sure she started with 50 grit sandpaper.

Generally housebound this week during this first spell of cold and snow in Calgary.  As a result, I decided to take up a new indoor hobby.  I signed up for an acrylic painting course on-line from the local arts university. This should be interesting, as until now this has been a substantially underdeveloped quadrant of my brain. My daughter loves painting so she’ll join me in the classes.  Should be good bonding time, and an opportunity to try to beat her at art…

Finally got around to re-assembling the doors and roof of the Jeep.  Been damn cold without them. Now need to fix the dent in the side panel from when I took the door off in the first place. Then I can get it on the market, as I’ve started a new project with my oldest son (my automotive advisor) to buy a “cool” new (used) car. Some difference of opinion on what a teenager and a middle aged dad thinks is cool. In any event, there’s been a lot of test driving and pretending I understand what mechanics and car dealers are talking about.  We’ll see where this ends up…

P.S. Let me know if you want to buy a Jeep. Like new. 🙂

Well, we’re now officially at the halfway point of the sabbatical…  ☹

Amazing how fast these first three months have flown by, not surprisingly I guess, what with all the fun being had.

I won’t go into a long and emotional retrospective piece this week, but I will acknowledge that it has been productive, and I’ve actually checked off a lot of the (stereotypical) boxes that one tries to check off while on sabbatical.  For example:

• Get more tech savvy:  created a “blog” on the interweb, and am now on Snapchat
• Learn a new trade:  woodworking (sort of)
• Learn a new language:  Italian (kindergarten level)
• Confront a fear:  skydiving
• Connect with nature:  4-day canoe trip
• Improve skills:  golf/tennis/hockey
• Bond with family:  drive kids to 6am swim practice, then to school, then pick up from school to take to practice…

Highlight of the past week was the one last hurrah at the lake out in the Okanagan to enjoy the Thanksgiving long weekend and the final vestiges of fall.  Thanks to the in-laws for the full turkey dinner with all the fixin’s. 

We also had one last surf session for the year.  While I never landed the 360, I will take small victory in the fact that I was the only one this weekend to surf without a wetsuit (not an act of bravery or toughness, simply a byproduct of being too large for our inventory of suits – in part due to the full turkey dinner).  It’s always sad to leave, but on the upside, for the first time ever I sat in the passenger seat as it was my 14 year old son who drove the whole way home (my wife has never cared much for sharing the driving…), so I actually got to enjoy the spectacular view .  Unfortunately, the “view” once we hit the Alberta border was winter…

So now that golf season has abruptly ended, will need to be a little more creative to fill in the gaps in the days.  But been busy this week already (hence my delay in posting), so should have some good updates for next week.

By the way, the blog has now actually reached an amazing milestone: 1,000 views! Thanks to everyone who has googled it and has hopefully enjoyed a brief peek into my sabbatical life. I’m not sure whether that number of views is good or bad, or what it says about everyone else’s life. But hopefully it’s monetizable somehow…

Well, we knew there was no way that this week was going to be able to match the excitement of last week… Kind of sad that the highlight of this week ended up being my dental appointment.

Funny story about that though. I’ve been going to this dentist for some years now. And as we were chatting during this visit (is it really chatting when only one person is talking at the other person who has a mouth full of scrapers and sucking tubes?), she confides in me for the first time that she is not just a dentist, but also has psychic capabilities and can see people’s “aura”.  Well, without me even having mentioned the sabbatical, she said she could see something very different about my aura this time around.  It was brighter and more vibrant. Night and day from before. Like a different person.  Now, I’m not sure that this is exactly the validation that I was seeking for this introspective “journey” that I’m on, but maybe it’s making a small difference after all…?

Ever since this revelation, I’ve been searching a little more actively for other signs of a physical or spiritual evolution.  For example, at the manicurist today (yes, I did…) I asked her if my healthy cuticles and lack of hang nails may be a sign of lower stress and greater awareness of self.  She said no, and implied that it was more likely from having lived a sheltered life with a general lack of manual labour.

Spent some time in Canmore this week. Absolutely beautiful views in the fall. Less beautiful was cleaning up the droppings of a pine martin (they’re like a mean mountain weasel – look them up) that had been living in the attic there over the summer.

Otherwise, it was an uneventful but enjoyable week.  The sun is now setting on the golf season.  Need to maybe get back to having a more goal-oriented mindset in order to drive results.  For example, I think I’ll learn how to make sourdough bread next week (?).

Holy sh*t.  I can’t believe I did that. 

On Wednesday I launched myself out of an airplane at 13,000 feet (with a professional skydiver strapped to my back to keep me alive)! 

That easily ranks as the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Sitting on the lap of a strange man on the floor of a small rickety 30-year old Cessna airplane with my feet dangling out of the open side-door, 4 kilometers in the air above the prairies. Then 8,000 feet of freefall for 60 seconds and a smooth parachute glide the rest of the way down.

I’m not exactly sure “why”.  But I think it was therapeutic in some twisted way.  Perhaps it was the act itself that required relinquishing absolute control of my fate, or perhaps it was the hasty but emotional hand-written letter to my family that I left behind for them to find in the event that I hit the ground at full speed.  Or if nothing else, it made for another good story from the sabbatical…

Also had a great day on Friday with my youngest son as we set off on a road trip to Drumheller to check out the dinosaur museum.  After about 5 visits over the past 15 years with the kids, this was the first time any of my “guests” had the attention span to last more than 30 minutes. I finally had the chance to make it to the end of the dinosaur exhibits and find out what actually happened to them (until now I had assumed over-industrialization of a carbon based economy).  We also did a guided tour through the local hills and found several small dinosaur bone fossils which was kind of cool. That was enough to satisfy my long held desire to become a paleontologist.  We thought about cloning the DNA in the fossils to genetically recreate the dinosaurs in order to populate a for-profit theme park on a private island.  But turns out it’s been done before with mixed results.

And finished the weekend with my oldest son on an amazing fly-fishing float down the Bow River.  It was way better than the couple of corporate event fishing trips I’d done in the past, as this one included beer, 80’s rap music, no corporate bankers, and we actually caught fish (shout out to our friend and expert guide Scott Rayner!).

It’s going to be tough to top this past week, but I’ll keep trying.

This week I focused more on my physical fitness and sporting skills. It was primarily centered around nightly adult “learn to play hockey” lessons.  Having taken up the sport at age 40, my hockey skills are slightly behind those of my peers (if peers is defined as 9 year-olds).  I do feel that I made moderate progress this week (again, if progress is defined as sucking slightly less). On the plus side, the home-made picnic table has proven to be quite useful as a place to air out my hockey gear. Not sure I ever want to eat lunch on it again though. 

My days were also fairly active. This week’s full workout regimen included the following:

• 6 hockey sessions
• 4 golf sessions
• 2 tennis sessions
• 2 soccer sessions
• 1 personal trainer session

In the end it proved to be quite exhausting. I don’t think that I can keep this pace up for the balance of the sabbatical. By Friday I was almost longing to be back to the somewhat sedentary life of a desk jockey.  But then I had a nap and felt better.  Except for my knees, sprained right ankle, and pulled groin.

Looking forward to this coming week when I tackle my fear of heights head on.  Unless I chicken out.  We’ll see…  Stay tuned for this one!!

Struggling to settle into the new routine with the kids’ school and activities starting back up (although “routine” was exactly what I was trying to break out of in the first place with this sabbatical…).  It is definitely harder without the kids around during the day.  I’ve found myself driving them to school in the morning just to spend a bit more time with them, even though last week I had forked over a not-insignificant cheque for the school bus service…

The other challenge with the new kids fall routine is to have them delivered to the pool at 5:45am for swim practices.  Guess who gets to chauffeur.  So much for a solid 8 hours of sleep per night while on sabbatical.

Started a meditation practice this week.  There’s an app for everything.  The intro course is pretty easy as its only 7 minutes a day.  Although you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to be “present and mindful” for that long.  In fact, on Wednesday the 7 minute meditation turned into a 45 minute nap…

Other successes this week include:

• Survived cardio-tennis class
• Daily golf practice
• Gambling on English Premier League soccer
• Got my mountain bike fixed (now just need to ride it)

Enjoying the last of the summer weather. 

Buenasera. Io sono una mela verde matura.  I thought I was making some moderate headway learning Italian this week. Killing it on my app, then got a reality check when I tried to watch an Italian soap opera on-line.  Going to need some more motivation. May try to book a trip to Europe, maybe go sometime between the second and third wave…

Did fly to the Okanagan this past weekend for the official end of summer holiday at the lake.  Booking this flight 8 months ahead seemed like a good idea at the time.  Very odd experience that included fever sensors and Air Canada pre-bagged care packages with headphones, pretzels, water, masks, gloves and sanitizer.  Fake sense of cleanliness while you sit inches away from sweaty strangers. Great weather out there though, while Alberta got it’s first snowfall of the year. And kudos to my daughter who finally won the family wakesurf competition, landing the first 360!  I was never even close.

In the vein of self-betterment, though, I think I hit golf balls at the range every day last week. We’ll see how it translates to real rounds.  Have a couple games planned this week and don’t want to suck badly.  Also have cardio-tennis sessions starting up this week.  Never tried it before.  Worried that the more experienced stay at home moms will be hammering forehands at me as I sprint back and forth, begging for mercy.

And back to school. First real week this week. Let my peaceful introspection begin.

Well, I’m not going to lie to you, they’re not all going to be spectacular. This past week was a little bit slow. Spent the better part of it recovering from the week 6 canoe trip (i.e. sleep deprivation, muscle pain, gastro-intestinal challenges (shouldn’t drink water straight from the river…)). Don’t get me wrong though, it was still a great week just hanging out at home and in Canmore, with family and with friends, getting some golf in along the way.  I may even have drifted off to sleep in the afternoons a couple of times while I was reading the paper. 

But I didn’t advance any of my grand self-actualization objectives.  And that’s ok too.  I think of the past 7 weeks as “phase one” of the sabbatical. Holidays with family while the kids were out of school. Not worrying about anything else. Now comes the harder part, though.  Transitioning to “phase two”. Kids will be going back to school this coming week. Leaving me at home. By myself. All day. A whole lot of Jonny Gould time.

Of course I’ve started to think about some of the things I’ll be working on in the coming weeks and months. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here by putting them on paper, just in case I don’t actually get to them.  But suffice it to say that I’ve just dusted off the old guitar, and have downloaded a learn to speak Italian app…

This past week was our first real outdoor family adventure: a 4 day canoe/camping trip down the Kootenay River!  This is the sort of thing that the sabbatical is supposed to be all about. New experiences, quality family time, connecting with nature, feeling alive (in this case by risking death by drowning or hypothermia).  Maybe the most powerful experience was being without cell service for days. Turns out the world went on just fine without us. And the kids learned that there is in fact life outside of Instagram and SnapChat.

The trip was an incredible success. At no point did we need to alert the park ranger for an emergency helicopter extraction. Yes, some canoes tipped and cargo (gear and human) floated down river to the next eddy, but that was all part of the fun! Thanks to our good family friends who led the expedition, all 4 adults and 7 kids emerged happily and safely from the river 75kms downstream from where we launched 4 days earlier. 

It was truly an eye opener for a family of city slickers like us.  We learned:

• Life is harder without our nanny there
• It gets more painful sleeping on the ground as you get older
• Wine takes the edge off when camping too
• Showers are a luxury that even the kids eventually missed
• The humility of having to “go to the bathroom” in a hole you dug yourself
• But, we also learned that nature is a truly spectacular thing

There were so many great moments and stories coming out of the trip. This will no doubt be a lifelong family highlight and something we look back on with fondness.  Maybe we’ve even started a new annual family tradition.  If nothing else, that would allow us to better amortize the cost of all the new gear we bought…  Next year, Amazon River?

Week 5:   See week 4.  More of that.

I have to admit that my procrastination with social media and other general correspondence hit all time highs this past week.  I think it’s a function of actually approaching a state of mental relaxation. More great family time at the lake, supplemented by visits from friends, has helped me tune out the real world. 

Passing the day with plenty of sun (>35C), wine (red, white, pink), and boating (not necessarily in that order).  So much so that I haven’t even ridden my mountain bike or swung my golf clubs that I hauled out here.  And somehow I also still haven’t knocked off much more than a chapter of the book I’ve been reading for about a year now…  I may actually have moved from a state of procrastination to abject laziness.

Sadly, the sun is now setting on our family summer vacation time at the lake.  Back to Calgary to prepare for our greatest family outdoor adventure yet:  a 3-day canoe trip down the Kootenay river this coming weekend! 

I earned my “Intermediate” canoeing badge (with distinction) at summer camp in 1986 so this should be no problem for me.  It’s the rest of the family I’m concerned about.  Granted, we’ve taken one group lesson a few weeks ago, which I think should be fine for navigating the class 3 rapids…  I expect there will be ample content to blog about next week.

PS:  For those wondering about the results of our family 360 degree wakesurf spin competition, the race is still wide open.  The new board didn’t help.  Even hired a “wakesurf coach”.  No luck yet.  Next I may have to get a new boat…