What's going on?

Hey y'all... it's been a while I guess. This is harder than I thought it would... pickin' up where I left off... which from what I see was a sketchy parking lot @ the Hanoi airport. LoL!... anyhow... just to let you all know that life is good... life has changed... and is still changing... but all going in a positive direction. Not sure how much blogging I'll be doing in the future... I tend to enjoy blogging when I travel more than I when I'm in the 514. That being said, I am organizing my next adventure... I've decided to take a "leave of absence" from the office in the spring of 2009. Not sure of the details, i.e. the length of the journey, but it's going to be at least 3 months and at most 6 months, and I'm going to be going to Africa. My original thoughts when I came up with this trip was that I wanted to do more than just travel. I wanted to give back to the places I visit. After having been in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, although I had incredible journeys, I always came home feeling a little... I'm not sure how to express it, but I guess "white, rich and privileged" comes close... so this time I've decided to do things a little differently. I'm going to backpack, but I'm also going to be doing some volunteer work. My primary destination (at this moment and time) is Madagascar. I hope to do some coral reef conservation work with a group called Reef Doctor. I'll let you go to their web site to see what it's all about. I was going to do it for a full 3 months, and then spend 1 month travelling up and down Eastern Africa, but now I;m feeling like I want to do more travelling and less diving. I've just ordered my Lonely Planet and we'll see what comes of it all... who knows, by next year, I might end up in Mongolia or something.....

Other than that, in the news... well I've pretty much turned my life around. From couch potato to quasi-healthy dude. I've discovered the love of cycling (spandex and all!!), I've completely changed my lifestyle and eating habits (haven't had a soft drink since March and no more fast food!) AND (drum roll please)..... I'm training to do a half triathlon! Actually it started out that I was just going to train to run the 5km @ the Montreal marathon this September but somehow, I've managed to commit myself to doing the Sprint Triathlon... WTF?! 750m of swimming, 20km of cycling and 5km of running. Now, I'm pretty confident about the swimming. The cycling, I do about 120km oer week ( I cycle 3 time a week to work, which is 20km to Laval and 20km back to Rosemont... 40km)... so that's pretty cool... but the running... holy shit. I'm actually making progress.... When I started, I couldn't even run a kilometer... last week I was able to run, 2.5km... and this past Monday, I was able to run 3.5km without stopping. Yay! So I figure, the 5km part on it's own should be doable in the next few weeks. The part I'm not sure about, is all three parts combined. I went cycling at the race track this weekend and I took a detour to cycle down along the rowing basin where we will be swimming... and holy crapola... 750m is a lot longer than I thought. I can do it in the pool, but in the basin, there is no ledge to rest on... anyhow... I still have 2 months.


So yeah... life is good.... 2008 is turning out to be quite the incredible year. I had a feeling in 2007 that this was going to be a year of change... I'm excited to see what the rest has in store.