Book Of Keepsakes

I was doing what sisters do best. My brother had recently set up shop in our basement after quitting his job, and has been practically living down there working on his projects. I purposely went downstairs out of pure boredom to bug the living daylights out of him. In the room where his desk and computers are, there's also a couch. So, I sat myself down right next to him and babbled away. Babbling useless nonsense with only the intentions of annoying him. That's what sisters do best.

"Why don't I program for you? I bet you I can write a program much better than you can."

"Why is your programming all colour-coded?".

"Can I press delete and erase the whole thing?".

"Wanna go out and eat?".

"You said mom downloaded 400+ Gb of chinese shows into her computer? How much is that really?". (With which he answers in my kind of leighman's terms, "Like 1,200 episodes of the Walking Dead".)

So anyway, along with his stuff, there's also a lot of my stuff sitting in the basement left untouched since I've moved back from Victoria in 2006. While I was fumbling through my old things, I came across my book of keepsakes. In it were tidbits of moments that I wanted to remember. Concert tickets, little handmade cards, and all of my race numbers from all the runs that I did. I went through this really strange phase from hating running to being addicted. In 2006, I registered myself into six different 10k's on the island and on the mainland, and this was one of my favorites - the Canucks Fan Run.

Why?

Because it was my first ever trail run. Because it helped raise money for Canucks Place (a pediatric hospice for palliative care) where I did a bit of volunteer work throughout university. Because at the end of your 10k run, you get to feed on all of the healthy snacks they provide you... and meet some of the players from the Canucks hockey team.

Along with inserting this race number into my book, I also wrote about the event and my experience on the run. It was my first trail run, but not my first 10k run. Jen had warned me ahead of time about the uneven grounds and rocks. And because of this, I remember I was extra cautious watching where I was going. An older, probably much more experienced lady running next to me must have noticed my carefulness and said to me, "Your first trail run?". After I replied "Yah", she wished me luck and sped ahead of me.

I enjoyed every bit of it. I had written in my book that the volunteers were extra cheery. I remember soaking in the moment of breathing in every breath of fresh air. It's a little different running in the trees vs. running on city roads. When we were all done, we got our usual snacks of fruits and powerbars.

And there they were... four Canucks players happy to greet everyone. Every single person had a chance to talk to them. Jen, Anth, and I stood on the side watching mostly kids going up for autographs. Then finally Jen and I went up too. I hate to admit that I wasn't at all into hockey back then. We were just oogling. But now that we've all jumped on the bandwagon, it's pretty crazy that I got to meet these four guys. It's unfortunate that this event is no longer available.

Can any die hard fans recognize just from these autographs who I got to meet?



(Answer : Mattias Ohlund, Ryan Kessler, Luc Bourdon, Roberto Luongo).