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There isn’t much time.

Actually that's a lie. I just wrote that because it was the first thing that came to my head, and I wanted to test out whether or not copy and pasting was going to work as intended. Why was I copy and pasting, you ask? I can't say. Sorry. Top secret.

Two people now have told me that my website "blog" doesn't have as much personal information in it, and they said that in a way that made it seem as though that was a bad thing. So perhaps that is true. I guess it makes sense. I've taken the cheap and easy road, the road oft travelled, and just tried to link funny stuff, so you could be entertained. Not realizing of course that my own brain is far more entertaining than watching videos of overweight kids fall of swing-sets and such.

So this is an email of personal information. Let's delve deeper into the mind of Mitch. Let's take it back… to December 24th…

I spent Christmas here in Vancouver. Because of my new job (which, by the way, is awesome, especially when the office is completely empty, so empty in fact that the lights aren't even turned on, and only one person has walked passed my desk all day,) I was not able to take time off. Shall I check and see how many vacation days I have accumulated to date? Let's do that. Wait here…

Oops, sorry, I got distracted and started looking at sales prices for 330's … One sec…

Here we are:

Great little table there eh? I didn’t make that. But you can see that I have 1 day of vacation. And I don't even think, at this point, that I’ve actually earned it yet. So needless to say, there was no holidays for me.

Instead, I hung out with Ed and Abby and their family for Christmas. It was nice. We had a nice dinner, we shovelled snow (I love shovelling,) we drank a lot, and we played lots of video games. Ed and I beat Gears of War 2, and I did a fair amount of Rockbanding. Because of the snowstorms (or not, perhaps) we ended up staying there for 3 days! I won't lie, I was definitely ready for a change of clothes, and scenery, by the end of three days. My underwear was playing Rockband by itself at that point. And kick some ass too, I might add.

Speaking of Rockbanding, whether you like the game or not, you can't deny that the drums are hard to play. And real drummers drum better, so the skills are technically transferrable. Anyway, my point is that I've put down the guitar mostly and now I'm working on my drumming. I’ve beaten all but three songs on “hard” now and am working my way through the expert ones. Soon, my training shall be complete, and I will have experted the entire game. Then I can start my band and hang out with Nickelback!

Note: I don't want to hangout with Nickelback (nothing personal, guys, I mean, you know' we could hang out, it’s just not, like, a goal of mine.) but I did make sure that I was spelling their band name correctly by reading their Wikipedia page. And I have to say, they need some more stats up there or something. That’s a pretty sparse Wikipedia page. I think it could use some additional factoids.

Since I grew up in Hanna, Alberta, here are some facts that I know about Nickelback that you might not know:

1. Nickelback derived their name from when one of the dudes used to give people a nickel back after their made a purchase at Starbucks.
2. Nickelback’s lead singer Chad Kruger once used a person’s tendons to make them dance like a puppet, as documented in the film “Nightmare on Elm Street”
3. Chad Kruger’s first time playing doctor was on the cold leather seat of a snowmobile in his parent’s garage
4. Chad Kruger once punched a bully in the penis on the playground and said "I want my nickel back", setting the stage for his later obsession with ensuring customers always received their exact change. No exceptions.
5. Nickelback’s three brotherly members, Chad, Mike and Brandon Kruger, have three step sisters who are known as "The Dixie Chicks", Martie, Natalie and Emily.
6. Brandon Kruger once had a nocturnal emission during a dream about Emily his step-sister the Dixie Chick.

These and other interesting factoids would really spicen things up.

Awesome word I just invented. Spicen! So much better than ‘Spice’ things up. Spice. You don’t “Live” things up, you liven them up. A delicious donut on the counter doesn’t hard up, it hardens up. And factoids hell of spicen up a good Wiki page. Spread the word. Spicen.

Other than my Christmas adventure, I haven’t been up to much. My dad bought me the best gift, a super GPS watch (Forerunner 405) that I will use to become a marathon running machine, but I haven’t been able to use it yet because the city is tucked under a blanket of ice and slush right now. Goddamn winter why won’t it just go East, or wherever the hell it came from.

What else on Mitch’s personal front? Well, not much. I’m going to sit down soon and have a little goal setting party, in which me and some friends are going to decide what we want out of life, and want to accomplish in 2009 (The Year of The Duncan) and then start working on some goals. I’ve got a few good ones, but I need to really hammer it out on paper, you know? Here’s a few of my current 2009 / YOTD goals:

1. Get my motorcycle license
2. Finish “Beginner’s Mandarin Chinese”
3. Run the Victoria or Kelowna marathon in sub 3 hours
4. Hike up and down Black Tusk in sub 3 hours
5. Hike the West Coast Trail
6. Run the West Coast Trail non-stop (possible 2010 goal)

See? I barely have any goals, and most I just made up just now. Actually the first two were the only goals I already had that I could remember, and the rest I just thought up, pretty much. The Black Tusk one was sorta already existing, I guess. But you can clearly see that I need to spicen things up a bit. I mean, those a boring assed goals, right? All that running around is going to be exhausting, and for what? Exactly. For nothing. I need goals that make me feel like I’ve done something! In the words of Mel Gibson, playing William Wallace: Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.

Oh my god. Wouldn’t you know that the very first search result in Google for that quote is a running website? Perhaps I can only avoid my destiny for so long before God himself reaches down and pushes my nose into it like so many dogs shitting on the carpet.

Here’s another one from the same website: “There is no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.” - Bill Bowerman

Not bad. I think the quotes from my website are better. Incidentally, I’ll add a couple more. Done. One of Ed and one from Colin. Genius.

Oh, here is another personal thing about Mitch. In my journey of self-discovery and goal setting, I have decided to cut out some of the things that distract me from being productive. (Note: This is a suggestion from a book I am reading.) As a result, I deleted half my internet bookmarks, and am going to delete my hotmail account, and my Facebook account. What do you think? I’d say I spend at least 20 mins on stupid Facebook per day, and for what? Sure, it’s entertaining see how the funny things people do, but it’s also pointless, not unlike watching TV, which I don’t do. Anyway, I haven’t done those things yet, but they’re on my tentative to-do list. Thoughts?

Ok, I’m going to go spicen up my day by doing something else. Hope everyone is having a happy Holiday!

Mitch out.

Leslie, 2008-12-30, 16:16:28 FB and hotmail must take up what? 0.01% of the time you actually spend on the internet gchatting and blogging?

Actually wrong. - Mitch, 2008-12-30, 20:48:45 FYI FB takes up epic amounts of my time. I am way too into it. It must go! So must gchat, damnit. Blogging is ... well, it's a better bang for the buck. 60 peeps per day is a wider readership than 1 gchat window.

Garmin 405 - prs, 2008-12-30, 20:53:49 Mitch, a friend I run with has the 405 and is not a fan of the way to toggle between screen displays. The 305 (which I have) seems to generally work better, but it definitely is *much* larger on your wrist.

Garmin - part deux - prs, 2008-12-30, 20:55:51 ps - one of the coolest features of the Garmin is the HR monitor. So far the highest I've gotten my HR is 197 bpm. Maybe trying to beat that is another thing to add to your 2009 goals?

really? - jessicers, 2008-12-30, 21:07:24 for real? is this so no one fbooks you on your bday? were you the first kid born in canada that year or just the maritimes?

Garmin - Mitch, 2008-12-30, 21:56:40 The touch thing is a bit of a gimmick, for sure, but I'll let you know how it goes once I start using it. I guess when I'm running I won't be fiddling with it too much? The guy at the running room recommended the 305, but I hate wearing a watch on the best of days, so I wanted the 405 for the size. Stoked! 197 BPM? I'll see what I can do! I've never worn a HR monitor, but was planning on getting one. Now I will for sure! New goal!

Birthdays - Mitch, 2008-12-30, 21:57:17 I was actually the first baby born in North American in ol' '79. Special!

Nicole, 2008-12-31, 10:56:03 You were the first baby born in North America? Also.. You would want your HR to be as low as possible though, correct?

tl;dr - Duncan, 2008-12-31, 22:43:56 Where are the videos of fat kids falling off swings?

Needless to say - Fran, 2009-01-01, 12:21:14 Gchatting is an investment in relationships that yields untold personal dividends.

Tim, 2009-01-05, 11:06:15 Happy birthday Mitch! During a good sprint on my bicycle I'll max out at a heart rate of 212 BPM. Nicole you don't always want your heart rate to be as low possible. An often used measure of cardio fitness is the HRR or Heart Rate Reserve which is max. heart rate minus resting heart rate. Ideally a high max. heart rate and a low resting heart is desired. Just think of how much enjoyment you'll give up if you delete FaceBook. You'll likely wind up wasting the previous FaceBook time on something more useless.

Brendon, 2009-01-05, 14:47:21 I'll be able to help you with goals 3,4,5 & 6 if my leg doesn't break off during training. Giving notice today!