Sending a handwritten letter once a day for a month? Well, basically. Here is the challenge. So if you send me something in the mail by the end of February, I’ll send you something back.

My address:

Photo by Janson Smith

I went to Castle River Rodeo Campground again this year with my good friend Andy for the long weekend kayaking festival. This was my 6th year participating in the event and once again it was a really good time.

Photo by Janson Smith

Organizer, Chuck Lee, and his crew of volunteers put on a great event each year with all sorts of river runs and clinics available for paddlers of all levels. Andy and I hit up the “Upper-Upper Old Man” and also the section known as “The Gap”. We also ran the Castle River Falls and the Castle Canyon run. Here’s a video from near the headwaters of the Old Man River shot on the GoPro HD Hero 960 that I was given for Christmas. (Which I love by the way).

Each year they have a boat stacking competition — we were eliminated in the semi-finals — which is too bad because the winning team each got a brand new helmet. Here we are in a round where we did NOT get eliminated.

Photo by Janson Smith

This year I helped start a new tradition that they’re now calling H2O Limbo. Just Liquid Sports provided the prizes in three contests — one for men, women, and kids and I came in second in the mens which earned me a new pair of neoprene gloves! (Thanks Rob) The guy who beat me must have been about 65 years old and could limbo better than just about any guy I’ve ever seen.

Photo by Janson Smith

Some dude ran Lundbreck Falls again this year — I did not. Luckily there were no injuries at the falls. Here’s the photo I snapped:

Photo by Jeff Milner

And the video from my iPhone (thanks Andy):

There is a photo of me running the same falls in 2008.

Another year has come and gone. This year has been a good one. Some highlights for me include:

• Some great parties.
• Caught the Olympic spirit as the torch came to Lethbridge.
• Falling into a couple of different (somewhat dramatic) relationships; sometimes in less than ideal circumstances.
• Created some cool electronics
• Finishing off another Major at University, providing me with the credentials to apply to the U of L’s Faculty of Education.
• Travelling to Trois-Rivières, Quebec to learn French for the summer — there was a terrorist bombing my first week there!
• Getting accepted into the Education Faculty and completing a teaching practicum in Hays, AB!
• My brother and his wife had a baby — my first niece, Natalie Jane.

It was a good year but I’m hoping that in 2011 I’ll have more opportunities to travel the world. I don’t think I even left Canada this year! At least I went back to Quebec and that’s almost like visiting another country.

Happy New Year!

To the man or woman that found and returned my iPod touch today, I hope someone else returns the favor because You are a wonderful person.

I think it happened when I decided to jump up the stairs six at a time. I was feeling in a particularly good mood this morning and (if you can believe it) was even on time for my last class on “Evaluation”. The instructor continued making the day great by telling the class how much she enjoyed teaching us this semester and that she would miss being our teacher. I assumed I must have left my iPod in the car because I was certain I brought it with me this morning. I refused to think about the chance that it may have fallen out of my pocket because I was afraid of what that might mean.

I called security and found out that a modern day hero turned it in. THANK-YOU!

When I got home this afternoon I flipped my room upside down looking for some paperwork that I forgot to deal with before. It’s a form for my student loan that needs to be taken to the post office before they will “release” the loan to the school. Pretty dicey that I’ve taken this long since the semester is almost over. Oh well, I’m pretty sure things will work out just fine.

I’m glad I live in a place where University is just a student loan away and that people turn things in when they find them. Life is good.

I’m slowly finishing off each of the classes for my PS1 semester. We had a terrific class this morning in my Communications and Technology class. Our sessional instructor hooked us up with a video conference “experience” with the Tyrrell Museum.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, in fact, I was pretty sure I was going to study for my psychology test during it, hence I sat in the back, but it didn’t take long to realize this was something I would really enjoy.

Some students in the hallway outside were making a huge racket. I felt a bit odd going out to tell them to be quiet, because, while it seems like you’re just watching a talking head when the man on the screen is giving his lesson, it’s pretty jarring when he asks what’s going on with you walking out of the room.

As the video conference continued we learned about some of the different types of activities and lessons that take place during a typical video-conference with the museum and an individual classroom. We had a short virtual tour of the museum and learned about different dinosaur facts. I loved that I was able to answer a lot of the questions — I guess I remembered a lot of what I learned about dinosaurs from when I was a kid. Here’s one for you:

Q. What the name of the dinosaur in this picture I took a few years ago?

(Hint: It’s Alberta’s most famous dinosaur)

A. The Albertosaurus.

The Tyrell Museum is not the only place that offers video conferencing presentations, in fact, there is a huge list at the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. I’m going to remember this for when I’ve got a class of my own.

Because we went in early for the video conference, we also got to leave an hour or so earlier than normal. I took the opportunity to go for a swim at the pool and did the usual 1km workout. I have to say that skipping out on it so much lately makes it hard to get back in the water. As I floated at the edge, I decided to put in 2 more lengths and really go all out — to see if I’ve still got it.

28 seconds for a 50 meter free, I guess you can say I’ve still got it, but I think I left “it” in the water because when I got out, I felt sick! Oh my, I had pushed myself too hard. I left myself with no choice but to sit it out for the next 15 or so minutes and even had the lifeguard a bit worried about me because my face was completely white and I must have looked like I was just about dead. I certainly felt that way.

If school doesn’t kill me, maybe the pool will.

A very short summary of my life:

Jeff Milner’s 2 minute autobiography.

(Made for one of my education classes).

During my “Music of Quebec” workshop at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres in the Explore program, together with almost 100 students, we created this “lipdub” music video. Students from the Summer 2010 session of the workshop participated in the video singing along to the song “J’taime comme un fou” [I love you like a fool] by Robert Charlebois.

Yesterday at 3am, a bomb went off at the Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre in Centre Ville, Trois-Rivières. Nobody was hurt. Catch the CBC’s coverage here.

I am in Trois-Rivières this month studying French.

On Friday I took a little trip to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. When we noticed the sign warning us of a police barricade ahead, we thought we might have to wait for an accident to be cleared.

It turns out that due to all the rain, the highway was “washed out”. It ended up not really affecting our trip, we just turned north sooner than we had planned, but I understand the flood waters have been very terrible for the people in Maple Creek and Irvine (among other places).

Here’s some footage of the “wash out” on the highway. I had no idea.

(Thx, Kim)

Over the long weekend my friend, Andy, and I went to the Castle River Rodeo Grounds to take part in the biggest whitewater festival in Canada, the Three River Rendezvous. My decision to go wavered when I read that the weather forecast predicted cool temperatures, variable cloudiness, and sprinkled showers. Luckily we pressed on and, as it turns out, the weather wasn’t actually that bad, and for most of the time, it was actually sunny — I even got a little burned on my face.

Unfortunately tragedy struck on Sunday night. After we had returned from our trip running the Five-Alive feature on Carbondale River a couple of times, Chuck Lee, the organiser of the event broke the news that one of the participants had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. He explained that a group of kayakers were going over Lundbreck Falls and that on this particular run the boater was held under the falls for several minutes. He was revived once or twice but that’s all he let us know at the time. He emphasized again the need to always be vigilant and to remember that these kinds of things don’t just happen in other places, they can happen here too. We held a moment of silence in respect for the victim.

It was a sobering thought because I had never heard of anyone getting caught in the flow of water under the falls, and to think I, myself, have braved the 12 meter drop and walked away without so much as a scratch.

Jeff Milner going over Lundbreck Falls in June 2008.

I found out later that night who was involved in the accident. I had hoped that it would be someone that I didn’t know but that’s not how it turned out. His name is Jaron and I had bumped into him just the morning before at the put-in for the Upper Castle run. I have paddled with him and his twin brother Dave a couple of times over the last two years.

I looked up some old paddling footage and found some with him in it:

He’s the one in the yellow and orange boat, yellow jacket, and blue helmet. His twin brother is also in the video.

I didn’t know him that well, but it was obvious that he had a passion for kayaking. Both he and Dave are the kind of enthusiastic friendly people that you want to spend a sunny day with floating down the river and enjoying nature. I remember talking to Dave for a long time about his decision to become a teacher and although I have many other influences for my decision to go back to school, it was that conversation that tipped me over the edge.

Kayaking isn’t always considered an extreme sport where you expect to hear about someone dying but every year there are a few news stories where someone drowns in a river. Almost always they are inexperienced or not wearing PFDs, or there is alcohol involved somehow so Jaron’s death comes as a great shock to the paddling community.

I’ve only got one more week of school before the summer. I hate to talk about how posting has been rare lately, but I have been feeling guilty about it — hopefully I’ll get back to regular blogging when I finish up my final projects.

This summer looks to be very exciting for me, I’m headed back to Quebec in July to learn more French.

I had a great birthday weekend but things really went downhill yesterday. I always think it’s pretty silly when people get thrown off by the time change, however, it turns out I’m now one of those people. My iTouch had the correct time on it, but the alarm clock beside my bed was an hour slow. When I figured things out I had less than a half hour to get ready for school and make it to class. Lately I’ve been doing my part for the environment (not to mention saving money on gas) by taking the bus to the University, but since I was late, I had to drive. Since I don’t drive regularly, I parked on the street, and since I was late, there were no close parking spaces — oh except that one with the “no parking” sign. What are the chances they’d give me a ticket? It turns out, the chances are pretty good.

A ticket for parking without a pass at the University works out to about $8. That’s less than some people pay for parking at regular price. A ticket for parking beside a no parking sign? Sixty @#^^ing dollars! (With a reduction of $19 if paid within a week). Argh.

It also turns out that I forgot to renew the jeffmilner.com domain name when I paid to renew the hosting plan. The stress caused by the fact that I might not be able to get my web site back easily made me pretty mad and I found myself racing home from reffing water polo with the pedal to the metal. Knowing full well that if I wasn’t careful I’d end up with a speeding ticket too, I calmed down and slowed down. No sooner than I slowed down to the speed limit, someone’s cat darted out in front of my vehicle and if I hadn’t taken a moment to simmer down, I would’ve taken that cat’s nine lives with nothing more than a bump.

I thought, this might make for an interesting story to post on my blog. Oh… right.

Luckily, LUCKILY, I was able to renew it when I got home last night and once again all is well in my universe — oh except for that nasty parking ticket. What was I thinking?

With another year coming to a close, I decided to take a look back and recall some of my highlights for the year.

• January – Attended the show “Stomp” in Calgary
• February – Went cross country skiing for my first time, 19km on the Goat Creek Trail
• March – turned 30
• April – Lost jeffmilner.com
• May – Drove to Washington State to attend the Sasquatch! Festival
• June – Saw the Rural Alberta Advantage play at the Slice in Lethbridge and made a few leisurely but excellent trips down the Old Man River
• July – Sasquatch Gathering near Drayton Valley
• August – Attended a Virginfest event in Calgary and saw Pearl Jam perform for my first time ever
• September – Back in school at the U of L
• October – Interviewed Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant from Age of Persuasion and had my photos published in Alberta Views magazine
• November – Recovered about 1000 posts from 2002-2006, but mostly I buckled down and did a lot of homework
• December – Won the intramural water polo league and got straight “A”s in school

Happy New Year!

BEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBEBE…The whining screech of the fire alarm wakes me abruptly.

I glance at the alarm clock beside my bed. 6:10am seems a bit early to get up on a Saturday morning but I decide that I’d better check just in case nobody’s around — nobody is.

There isn’t a lot of smoke, in fact, in my groggy state I can’t figure out the source of the alarm. Then a moment later I flip on the oven light.

It turns out somebody’s cooking one of those Delissio frozen pizzas. I hope they like a crispy crust… with black toppings. Yum.

I just received an invitation to join Google Wave. I have yet to have an actual conversation in it yet, but I’ve been supplying nominations for a few of my friends to get invitations. It’s sort of like being the first person with a telephone—it’s not very useful until the people you want to talk to, get one too.

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