Ballsy

[bawl-zee]

1. Exhibiting ball-like qualities

2. Telling off your boss

3. Erik

Erik rode his bike to work today. It was -31 degrees out (-48 degrees with windchill) this morning.

The ONE thing I like about Air Canada

I spent a lot of time flying with Air Canada in 2007 - not by choice; by necessity. I'm not going to lie to you, I'm not a fan of Air Canada. But, I've finally found something I like about the airline. Air Canada followed Westjet's lead and finally installed personal televisions in many of its aircraft. No more Spy Kids 3; I can pick my own movie now. I can even pick my own Canadian movie!

Air Canada features the En Route Student Film Festival Award winning short films. Way to go Air Canada. As a passenger, I appreciate that this is part of my entertainment alternatives and, as a Canadian, I appreciate that you are giving young artists an opportunity to showcase their talent to a, well, captive audience.

If you've got a few minutes, it's totally worth checking out these short films online.

My favorites include:

Party On

In the mayhem leading up to Christmas, I didn't have a chance to post about Erik's corporate Christmas party. In it's usual style, FirstEnergy put on a splashy and very memorable event. This year's theme was FirstRocker, and everyone was expected to come dressed as a rock star. The highlights of the evening included a Guitar Hero III station and a series of music videos featuring FirstEnergy employees. Good times. guitar hero III - sure beats all that awkward christmas party socializingangus young and amy winehouse (bruce springsteen in the background)gene simmonsblues brothers

slash and avril
rick james and tina turner
alice cooper!

Sintra - the Finale

We spent New Years Eve Day riding the hills around Sintra. There are some great road rides, as well as some very cool single track, in the area. It is a great location for a cycling trip and the weather was spectacular, considering it is the dead of winter. It seemed like such a shame to pack up our bikes when there were still so many spots that we hadn't explored. We will definitely have to come back here again. I will close out this series of vacation posts with some pictures from the week.

Christmas Dinner!Bike trail near Lindoso - a real step back in time.

From the road up to the highest point in Portugal. 
sometimes driving was tight - but erik handled it all masterfully.
old meets new.
the biking around Sintra was, like, pretty friggin' cool.
sometimes the parking was a bit tight.

Serpa-Algarve-Sintra

Getting out of Serpa in the morning was a challenge. A car had parked in front of ours, leaving little room to wiggle the station wagon outward. Adding to the challenge, the car was parked on a slope and only a few inches from the side of a house. It was a spectacular parking job last night, but required some patience, delicate driving skills and creativity to get out this morning. I hope the owner of the house has some paint handy - judging by the gouges in the wall, we were not the first to find ourselves in this position.
We headed further south through miles of cork farms (but, we didn't see any cork soakers) and eventually reached the coast. In contrast to the laid back, quiet living we found inland, the towns along the coast were jammed with time-share style condos like those I've seen in Mexico, Palm Springs, Florida, etc. The thought of spending more time riding back in Sintra appealed to us more than anything we saw in the Algarve. So, we looped back north to where we started from one week ago.
We found a bed at a tall yellow and red striped house overlooking the city. Restored and operated for the last 14 years by a swiss ex-pat, the attention to detail in finishing and service was impressive. Seems like it has been a good business for him.
Dinner was our first real meal that was not based around cheese - outstanding indian food at a hole in the wall in the historic centre only a half kilometre away, up a road that was probably steeper than 15% grade.