1. Oakville Cycling Club: http://www.oakvillecc.com These guys literally saved my life by dragging my sorry ass out on 100K rides through the Halton Hills. They de-stressed me, challenged me, and taught me a lot about proper road cycling technique. Like how to empty your bladder on the roadside as if it were perfectly natural. And they taught me the value of team work. Win as a team, lose as a team. Except when you spot the blue road sign or you are 50 meters from the crest of a hill. Then all bets are off. Join them to learn these and other skilz.
2. The ERG: http://www.concept2.com Ever heard the term, "Saved by the ERG"? Of course you haven't, I just made that up. Rowing is my life, and makes up the bulk of my winter training and keeps my heart beating along at 160+ when I interval train, and 35 bpm when I rest, and in the low 20's when I sleep. Nailed the Top 3 a few times at the Canadian Open In-Door Rowing Championship. And once hit the Top 10 overall at the St. Catherine's indoor event. They don't call the 2k ERG race "Death Row" for nothing. I am sure the ERG is BORG technology.
3. Cervelo: http://www.cervelo.com The best bike company in the known universe. Well maybe just our galaxy, and the other one with the big horse head. OK, fine, just our planet. The Cervelo Soloist is the best damn value of any road bike, pared with Campy titanium and carbon group, and Nimble Crosswind wheels. My wife is jealous of my bike because I spend more time on my bike. See an image of me and my Cervelo: http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff149/stevco88/Steve/?action=view¤t=bike.jpg
4. Yield: http://www.yield-ica.com Yield, resistance is futile”. Hey that’s good I should be in advertising. Wait I was. Anyway, they used to own part of my old software company, TiCORP, and Brad really is a linder hoser. I wonder if a Porsche can go "Faster miles an hour"? Anyway, I learned a lot about the ad industry, like how to claim a mountain bike as office equipment. Seriously though, great company, smart guy, and I still use the mountain bike, I mean office stapler, for cross training.
5. Apple: http://www.apple.com I have 5 iMacs. Enough said. Well OK, their iPods and Shuffles are pretty cool too. And the iPhones are great. I heard they are developing iWindows. I cannot wait to see that. Steve Jobs needs to get Castro’s doctor so he never dies and outlive 5 Microsoft administrations. iJoking.
6. Canoe: http://www.canoe.ca Up the creek with 4 paddles. I worked with Patrick and Stephen and this was one of the best consulting gigs ever. Great bunch of guys. Grant is cool too. Stephen likes Trappist beers and we hoist glasses of Belgian triples and quads once a year. Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Konings and Unibroue, are a great bunch of guys. Unibroue makes the best Belgian style ales in Canada. La Fin du Monde. Go Sleemans, and please drink responsibly.
7. Flying Cigar: http://www.flyingcigar.de OK, so I smoke a couple of fine aged Cuban EL and RE cigars every month. They don’t stink! Nino is a genius, great site, unreal photojournalism, some of the greatest images of very rare Cuban smokes, and he knows the real deal on vintage cigars, who owns them and who burns them. Cigar Aficionado has nothing on him.
8. HHGTTG & Duddy Kravitz: I am pretty sure Zaphod and Duddy are twin brothers in some pan-dimensional way. They both lie, cheat and steal, are pretty successful, and meet interesting female bipeds along the way, and get caught up in seemingly random unconnected, yet completely probable events. And they get into whacked out situations involving a strange assortment of grumpy Vogons and Montréalers. Hmmm to bad Richler and Adams have expired like a Norwegian Blue parrot, as I would of loved to have had a fine Cuban cigar and a couple of Trappist quads with them and discuss why “a man without a towel is nothing”, just what the hell is an “improbability drive”, and the meaning of life, the universe and poutine? But not necessarily in that order.
9. Sun: http://www.sun.com Drink JAVA everyday and you will be OK. I love J2EE and how it has changed the world according to Microsoft. JAVA, Struts, Hibernate, XML, AJAX, and JAVEX. Clean YES, germs NO!
10. Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com I hate them. No I love them because they popularized XML. What’s with the name though? Micro and Soft. I think a little blue pill can fix that. Just kidding Steve. iRelax. But, uh, what’s with the name Ballmer? Does it hurt?
11. Princess Margaret Hospital: http:www.uhn.ca I had the coolest job in TO back in the late 80’s and early 90's, as I guided their PMH Graphics Section from pen and ink to Macintosh computers, as the Graphics Section Supervisor. The best team ever, Stephen, Christine, Carol, Meta, Marlene, Alan and Keith. I miss you guys. I want my job back. No really, I want my job back.
12. Addicting Games: http://www.addictinggames.com Oh yea, you know what I am talking about, total pwnage and destruction, snipers, racers, crazy places, arcade games, silly games, wild clicking, shooting, smashing, mouse bashing, crashing, puzzles, and lots of other mind wasting stuff. And don't get me going on about on-line Halo. Ahh, I’m addicted. Somebody help me.
13. Yellow Pages Group: http://www.ypg.com They are really big and really yellow. I led the team that built their City Sites ( http://www.torontoplus.ca ) and we never slept for 5 months. Again team work. And we won. And then one day I went for a run in the woods and ended up with my face in leaves. Boy that job could kill ya.
14. Cool Knives: http://www.knifepurveyor.com Damascus steel, titanium liners, mammoth tusk scales, engraved spines, carved bronze bolsters. What more could a guy want? A Nate Clarke or Stephen Olszewski auto knife? Go there and you will understand. No women allowed. This is a guy thing.
15. Farmers: http://www.ontariofarmers.com I spent the better part of my teenage years and early 20’s on beef, cash crop and fruit farms in Southern Ontario, and put in an honest day of work, 7 days a week, 6am to 8pm, and learned that farmers are salt honest. Hats off to the Fonger’s and the Wright’s where ever you are. I have shoveled more than my share of cow manure, and I’m still a farmer at heart. But without the smell. Once I stumbled onto a grow op. But that's a story for another day.
16. Triathlon: http://www.ironman.com My life in the spring and summer chasing cars on my Cervelo road bike up Trafalgar Road into Milton. Love those escarpment climbs and the downhill rocket ride back to Oakville drafting cars. Running on the numerous cross-country ravine trails, avoiding dogs and the stuff they leave behind. Hey you gonna pick that up? No it's not mine. Hey, get back here!
17. Slovenia: http://www.slovenia.info If you can pronounce Ljubljana then you should go there. I spent every other summer in the mid 60's to late 70's at my grandfathers garden in downtown Ljubljana cooking marinated shish kabobs on a open pit fire and eating them with fresh bread. Fishing for trout in a narrow plant covered mountian river at Sticna with my grandfather was the highlight of the visit. I miss my grandfather a lot. The Adriatic coast, Bled, Kranj, Sava River, Kamnik, and Maribor. All good. Went biking there in the late 80's and had a riot, as I biked with a cycling team that went from mountain top pub to pub. I cannot remember how that ended.
18. And lastly, Google. If you need the URL you probably should restart your central binary organic cerebral cortex. To do this, lift your left arm up as if you were replacing a light bulb on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Now with your right hand, press your index and middle finger firmly between you 3rd and 4th ribs. Press hard for 5 seconds. When you regain consciousness you will be re-assimilated into Google Net. Resistance is futile.
If you would like your link added to the above list, just send me an email with the URL, and some witty sarcastic remarks, and I’ll see what I can do. If you are the legal representative of one of the companies listed above, phone my mom, as she was the one who suggested these links to my past, present and future, and ask her to remove the link, as she is also the CMS web master. She bakes a lot, so in between batches of cookies, I am sure she can accommodate your legal request to avoid litigation. Sore sport.
0 comments:
Post a Comment