How Christmas went, by Reid, age 6.

We had a great Christmas. I had to work the week prior and the week after, but things at work were pretty quiet.
On Friday, December 24th, Joe and I invited friends over to our place for Xmas dinner. We had more people show up than anticipated, but we were able to feed them all and have leftovers to boot. Who came over? Sean & Nancy, Jerome & Bruce, Allie & Noel, Ryan & Donna, Carrie and Mike, Nick, Darryl, ???. I had quite a fill of wine that night. I shut it down around 1:30am, since I had started drinking wine by myself in the afternoon while making pots of food.

I also received the most awesome news on Xmas Eve as well. Owen and Chloe are going to be parents! Yup, little brother is breeding. Their due date is July 8th, so that's going to cause a lot of happy turmoil in the middle of the summer. I'm gonna be an uncle! How cool is that?

Xmas day was quiet. Joe and I opened gifts. I was very fortunate this year. From mom & dad, a new ski jacket. From Owen & Chloe, a DVD/DVD-R/CD/CD-R/MP3 player for the house stereo, and a copy of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. From Joe, two shirts, Futurama seasons 1 & 2 on DVD.

On Boxing Day I went to A & B Sound to use up my gift certificates -- Bought seasons 3&4 of Futurama. Headed to Future Shop and bought a Canon Powershot A400 digital camera. It was a package deal containing extended warranty, rechargable batteries and charger, camera bag, 256MB memory upgrade...I figured the cost of the camera less the extras was only about $250. The entire package came to $440.

That night, Jerome, Bruce, Ryan and myself headed to Twisted Element to visit Natasha while she was in town. Her and Laura showed up, as well as Debbie and Sandy, Calvin & Doug, Curtis and man, plus two other cute friends. As well, Kevin McCuish showed up out of nowhere and hung out with us. Afterwards the gay boys headed to Curtis' place for a few brews. Curtis was obliterated and was starting to do weird things to Kevin (even though his boyfriend was there??), so I figured that was as good a time as any to get out.

The rest of the week is a blur. I had to work on the 29,30,31. I don't think I did much of anything that week but watch movies and sleep in my spare time.

NYE was fun. Joe and I went to Hugh and Brian's place. It was a very cold night, so they didn't have the turnout they were expecting, but we had fun anyways. Tim & Doug, Rob Blain, Mike & Shawn, Darren Stolz were all there. Nick showed up later after work. We headed home around 1:30am.

NYD was slow and dark. We relaxed all day, but had tickets for the BT show at Tantra that night. Hugh and Brian decided not to go, but Doug, Nick, Joe and myself went, and met up with Mike & Shawn there. There weren't many people out that night -- it was still bitchin' cold and the hangovers didn't help much. BT put on a good show though - it was his typical sound, nothing new or surprising. He did play a lot of remixes of old tunes though -- is this a trend or what? I don't care for it much if it is.

I went back to work a day early on Jan. 3. I wanted to bank the day for use later in the year. It's now the 12th, and I'm finally getting back into the training and working groove. We started Phase 3 of the Synergy sprint training program at Peak Power yesterday. I'm sort of sore today. We did our baseline testing yesterday as well, and I improved across the board. Some highlights: 7.2m triple jump, 346kg leg press x 6 reps, 3 sets of 70kg cleans x 5. It's been too cold to keep up with 55km+ weeks running, so I've been spending some time on the bike trainer, which hasn't been so bad with the portable DVD player in the spare room. It doesn't play the DVD-R copy I have of the 2003 TdF unfortunately.

I bought airline tickets for BK and myself for Tucson last week. $382 each, April 1-10 on United. One stopover in LA en route, two stopovers on the way back in LA and SF. Reid C. bought his ticket on the weekend as did Marcus, Chris, Cory, Craig all have yet to buy. We have seven going so far, can fit eight in Cory's parent's timeshare. I'm so excited!!!

Bandit and Gizmo are doing well. Bandit is such a little troublemaker. He loves getting dirty and teasing Gizmo into a wrestling match. I think we're getting him fixed in the next few weeks, once the weather improves.

Fetish report: I 'accidentally' won an eBay auction for a black zentai spandex suit in November which I received in early December. It was surprisingly close to my proportions and fits like a glove. I've tried sleeping in it; I find it almost too arousing to relax in. It's a lot of fun though. Joe's even fucked me in it once already.

I went a little crazy and bought some rubber items from InRubber.com based in Vancouver and Hauteng.de based in Germany. Everything was delayed shipping out over the holidays, but I received the InRubber.com order last week. It is wonderful! A pair of black footed rubber leggings with built-in C&B sheath, a black pullover shirt with long sleeves and attached gloves, and three masks, plus a pair of bike shorts with sheath and some Rubber polish as bonus items for patiently waiting. The leggings are skintight and feel wonderful, especially when everything is in place in the sheath. The shirt fits tight around the torso and lower arms, but the upper arms are pretty loose. I guess I'll have to build up the bar muscles to tighten up the shirt. The masks fit very tight as well. Everything was ordered in size small, which was definitely the way to go. I've had the stuff on about three times already. Took photos during the last session - very hot. Joe fucked me again with all of the rubber on - even hotter. I've noticed a few pinholes erupting. One is in the side of the right knee in the leggings, the other is in the left hand glove between the thumb and index finger. I have to contact Fernando at InRubber.com and find out the best way to repair these. Probably simple-layer bike patches will do the trick. The rubber isn't very thick so I'll have to be careful.

The order from Hauteng.de should be coming this week or next, I ordered three more bondage balloons from them, that I promise not to destroy on first attempt this time! I've also bought some surgical tubing to put in the balloon once I'm in to suck all the air out with the vacuum, and see how long I can spend vacuumized and immobilized in my rubber prison. I'm hoping for more photo sessions too, both with the rubber clothes on in the balloon and naked. I'm getting hard just thinking about it....

I have to lay off the fetish purchases for awhile. With the amount of bike equipment and travelling I'm planning on doing this year, I need all the money I can get my grubby paws on!

That's about it for now. Curling starts again this weekend. I'm hopefully going to test ride the Trek Madone 5.2 at Calgary Cycle and the Cannondale Six13 R3000 at Bow Cycle next week. I should be able to make a final decision on a bike then. I think if the Madone rides anything like my old 5500, that will be the choice to make because of its slightly more aerodynamic design. I've heard wonderful things about the Six13 too. Both are around the $4000 range. I will also order a front Ksyrium wheel (probably Elite instead of SSC) to complete another wheelset.

I've also ordered a new track bike to be built by Cochrane Cycle. It begins with the 2005 Giant Track frame, and it built with FSA and Deda parts. Jon Keech suggested Sugino components, and BK suggested Campagnolo which he has on his, but I was going for a lower cost. It's still going to cost just over $1800 to put this bike together (without wheels). I wasn't prepared to go over the $2000 mark, which would be easy to do with Campy or Dura-Ace components. I hope it won't cause any big problems. I'm still debating buying another wheelset specifically for the track bike, plus the Zipp 909 set or Corima disc wheel (another $2000). Cripes, this is gonna hurt!