a little Kespic catch up

I haven't done one of these for a while.

Ladies and gentlemen, probably mainly ladies, may I present:

A wibble-inducing anthem pic (that I had to edit the giant NHL watermark off of, yawn, so don't look too closely as I did a bit of a botch Photoshop job)

FINALLY a full size version of his current roster pic (HOW long have I been looking for this???!!!)

A couple of really nice ones from the Canucks Place open day

And some in game pics

Oh - and a couple of vids, a relatively new, nicely made fan tribute. And a re-upload of the CDC highlight reel from last year that I originally uploaded to Youtube but which disappeared when my YT account inexplicably died a death.





If anyone has any of those last little pics full size without the watermark (no way could I Photoshop these out), or has a Getty account and could get them for me, I would be forever in their debt.......

Especially the one where you can clearly see BULL 17 on the stick, that one I would pay good money for...Year of the Bull, and all that jazz.....

One week and counting......

Vancouver here I come!!!!

Isn't it breathtakingly beautiful???

I can't wait to get out there

And I get to see my beloved Nuckies not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES

(they'd better win some of that hockey, or there will be trouble!!)

Let's all do the Frudance....

...because it's John's birthday :D

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!!!!

A to Z Journal - D is for DNA

I'm up to date with the A to Z journal for the first (and probably last) time - yay!!

My D page is for DNA - and very appropriate for Mother's Day - as it's about my three boys, and how they will, hopefully, carry my genes forward to the next generation.

Background is gesso and paints over stamped cardstock. The handpainted squiggle is supposed to be a DNA double helix (I know it looks nothing like one, but hey, art doesn't have to be perfect lol).

The boys are printed onto transparency and stuck on via the magic of Xyron.

That's about it, nice simple one this week.

Bittersweet Mother's Day

Seems like an odd thing to say, but it really hit me when all the Mother's Day blurb started going up in the shops, that I don't have a Mum any more. The first year ever that I haven't bought or made a card. Its weird. You expect them to always be there, somehow. Miss you, Mum, hope you are happy. Have a good Mother's Day, wherever you are.

On the other hand, Mother's Day reminds me that I am blessed with three wonderful boys, who I love very much, and who love me too.

Connor went into the shop all by himself, chose this bear for me, and took it to the checkout. Such a grown up little fella. And I love the card he made on the computer, digi art is maybe his future :)

The big boys will no doubt lavish me with gifts when they finally get out of bed (yeah yeah, course they will :D)

Geocache recommendation

If anyone is visiting the Swindon area on a nice day, especially with kids, I can thoroughly recommend this cache.

It's a really good fun puzzle cache, just like a traditional treasure hunt, roaming around the Lawns (a gorgeous park/woodlands) looking for clues. All the co-ords are spot on, you get a good long walk (but never realise you are exercising because you are having too much fun), the clues are nice and easy so the kids really get to join in, and the cache hiding place is a good one.

Frick and Frack, lol, but which one is which?

Nice article about Kes and Burr from CDC:

It Takes Two
Different paths, same goal - Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows team up.
Jen Herrington
Mar 1, 2008, 12:24 PM EST

They’re the Sonny and Chers, Batman and Robins, and Simon and Garfunkels of the world. They can stand alone, but as the song goes, it’s always better when they’re together.

Music’s got its fair share, there’s no short supply in movies, and of course, in sports there’s a full arsenal of dynamic duos and perfect pairs.

While the Sedin twins have earned quite the reputation as a talented and terribly effective twosome in Vancouver, there’s a new duo moving on up.

“Oh, Frick and Frack,” said Canucks defenseman, Willie Mitchell. That’s Canucks slang for the team’s leading shut-down pair, Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler.

This past season, both Kesler and Burrows have stepped up as the go-to-guys for shutting down opposing, offensive juggernauts.

Last December, Sidney Crosby made his first visit to Vancouver since being drafted in 2005. He came to Van city with a boatload of hype and fanfare, and left minus-1 and without a point.

Checking tandem, Kesler and Burrows had a lot to do with Crosby’s lack of scoring.

“Pittsburgh was a great game,” said Canucks centre, Ryan Kesler. “We shut down Crosby...When you shut down a guy like that of that caliber, that’s a pretty good achievement by both of us.”

More impressively, Kesler and Burrows both left that game with a point in hand and a plus-1.


SCORING BIG

While emerging as checking specialists, the pair are both on pace to post career numbers in goals and assists.

Kesler eclipsed his previous career with a game-winner against the New York Rangers Jan. 3.08, and he’s three off his career-high in assists with 20 games left to play.

Burrows topped his career-high in goals, Feb. 16, and has more than doubled his previous output in assists already.

Frick and Frack had their own explanations for the seemingly newfound scoring touches. “Well…first of all our main role is to shut down the other team’s top line as a checking line. That’s what we want to do every night—make sure they don’t get on the score sheet so we have a good chance to win the game. But obviously those guys, they like to cheat offensively and if we play well defensively we’ll get our chances offensively,” said Alex Burrows.

The formula sounds simple enough, but in most cases it’s easier said than done. “It’s a fine line. Some nights you’re not going to get anything offensively because that’s just the night it is and you’ve got to worry about your own end. Other nights you’re going to get a lot of chances. And I think the nights we get a lot of chances are when they’re cheating offensively and we’re frustrating them and it gives us a little better jump on them,” said Kesler.

Lately the other teams have cheated their way out of a handful of games. Kesler has seven goals since the New Year, including a two-goal effort against the league-leading Detroit Red Wings. Burrows has five to his credit in that span to go with his six assists.

While they were able to fly under the radar in seasons past, the increase in scoring has resulted in more media coverage than ever.

“It’s funny how scoring goals is the thing always at the end of the day that players get recognition from,” said Mitchell. “There are a lot of things [Burr] does without the puck that are extremely important for our team. Kes is much the same.”

One of those things has caught the eye of fans lately. Both Burrows and Kesler have shown a willingness to man up and drop the gloves when the bell rings.

For Burrows, squaring off hasn’t been so much about his own frustration, but loyalty. “It’s just a matter of sticking up for my teammates. In training camp I did the same. I’m just trying to help the guys. If something happens I’ll be the first one to jump in there to help my teammates,” said Burrows.

Like when Minnesota Wild forward, Brian Rolston took a run at Willie Mitchell, Burrows stepped in.

But sometimes it’s just a result of the gritty, in-your-face style of play that characterizes Burrows and Kesler. "When [Burr] does [fight], he usually sticks up for someone or he ticks a guy off so much on the other team that they just start fighting with him. Just like in Tampa Bay when Lecavalier fought him, and when Ribeiro fought him two nights later. I think that’s something that’s a good trade off for us when we have Lecavalier going off with Burr. Not to take anything away from Alex, but Vinny’s a great player and when you get him off the ice for five minutes, that’s key,” said Kesler.


PEST CONTROL

Despite the scoring and willingness to drop the gloves, many across the league still label the pair as pests. A label that’s not lost on the gritty forwards, but not costing them any sleep at night either.

“I think being a pest is a compliment. For me at least,” said Kesler. “I don’t think a lot of guys in this league like being played hard and the kind of in-your-face style that me and Burr play. It frustrates guys and that’s when you get high-end [players] like Lecavalier, and I guess Jokinen and Ribeiro fighting—something they normally don’t do.

I think that’s when we’re at our best and when we tend to get those guys off their game.”

Kesler played a role at keeping Jokinen off his game in the Feb. 1 contest. The two exchanged blows and Jokinen, the leading scorer for the Panthers, left the game with just one powerplay assist.

It’s that ability to get under opponents’ skin that makes the pair so effective, but hasn’t earned them any friends.

“If people want to call me [a pest], that’s alright,” said Burrows. “If they say they don’t want to be my friends, they don’t like me or something, I’ve got enough friends back home or in this locker room, so it doesn’t bother me.”


One of those friends is none other than his checking counterpart, Kesler. The two roomed together on the road last year and have skated alongside one another almost since day one.

Though both skaters took remarkably different paths to the NHL (Kesler was drafted in the first round and Burrows got his start in the ECHL), the duo seems to have hit stride at the same time. And that’s made all the difference.

E is for Energy...

Yes...yes....I know I haven't done D yet :) Watch this space, I'm hoping to get it done today.

The reason I'm all out of order is that I was asked to be the "guest" over on the IACW pages for the letter E, which is very flattering indeed, thanks girlies for choosing me :)

This page is a bit of a mess really, but that was kind of the the point. It's supposed to represent how my brain never lets up, flitting from one idea to the next, buzzing with ideas (99% of which I never have time to realise), buzzing with worries, buzzing with questions....

Sometimes I wish it would give me a rest :D

The page was somewhat inspired by this exchange over on the UKS forums in a discussion about Geocaching....I was trying to think of a good name for my team...





I needed a pic of me looking particularly manic. Not a problem, as I look like an escapee from Claybury in pretty much every photo, but I settled on this one that I took on my mobile phone to show my other half my recent rather drastic fringe reduction:

The pic cuts the top of my head off though, hence my restyle courtesy of Ranger adirondack dimensional acrylic paint in raisin, I quite like it, maybe I will go that colour next time I go to the hairdressers :)

The background is made from various Christina Cole papers cut up like sun rays and gesso'd over lightly. I have then overstamped with various squiggly arrows in yellow, orange and red Stazon (sunset colours, my favourites, I always come back to them)

My photo was printed on a Selphy and finger painted all over (except the eyes) with irridescent medium, to give it a shimmer, and also bring the eyes forward to add to general air of mania :D

And then the title was stamped as with the rest of these pages using Creative Imaginations stencil style stamps, and the journalling (which, if you want to, you should be able to read if you click on the pic to zoom in) was scribbled on with a fine black permanent pen.

Onwards and upwards to the letter D....

Our first DNF

But I still love geocaching :)

Me and my maaaaan spent forever today looking for a micro in the Botanical Gardens in Bath, but to no avail

But do we care? Nah, we had a lovely time anyway, found lots of fab statues, and made friends with the squirrels.

And quite frankly, I just love spending time with him, finding the cache would have just been a little bonus :)

Bye Bye Matty

I liked you, thousands didn't

Traded to the Caps for another Matt - Pettinger

Least he'll get to play with Vech now, lucky Cooker :)

I hate trade day, I'm hoping that's the worst of it over with, but I bet it won't be (watching from behind a cushion with fingers and toes tightly crossed)

more geocaching...

Darbs and I went to see this lot <----- , Sum 41, in Southampton last night, and very good they were too.

Darby was a little the worse for wear by the end of the night (although the delicious cheesy chips helped sober him up a little :)), so I wasn't sure how well he would react to me waking him at 8am with an enthusiastic cry of "it's geocaching time!!!!".

But to give the lad credit, he got up, and came tramping through the woods with me in good spirits.

We made a TOTAL cock up of finding the actual parking spot for the cache, before we even started the hunt on foot. It was 3 miles from Ian's house, according to geocaching.com. We managed 21 miles in the car :D

We were literally going round in circles, we could see on the GPS where we needed to be, but we just couldn't find a road that went there!

In the end we had to get onto the motorway, come off at the services, and then drive illegally up the authorised access only route at the back. I'm sure there must have been an easier way :D

Compared to all that faffing about, the actual cache find was a doddle, from getting out of the car to taking this picture ------> took about 10 minutes.

We had fun though, and Darbs is now keen to tackle some of the fiendish puzzle-type caches, because he likes a mental challenge :)

At least, after my trip to Hawkins Bazaar this afternoon, I have enough cache stuffers to keep us going the rest of the year, lol:

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

And he's called Ryan too.

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Wonderboy had a great game!

Ryan Kesler's only job was to shut down Detroit's top line of Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom.

Scoring - especially twice on great individual efforts against the team he grew up cheering for - was, in Kesler's words, "awesome."

Kesler scored twice on individual rushes in the third period and Roberto Luongo stopped 28 shots, lifting the Vancouver Canucks to a 4-1 win over the injury-ravaged Detroit Red Wings Saturday night.


"I'm playing with some confidence but I know first and foremost my job is to shut down the other team's top offensive guys and being able to score a couple is just a bonus," Kesler said. "Those guys are hard to shut down, they're really shifty, great one-on-one guys and to have them on the minus side of things was awesome."

Defensemen Alexander Edler and Sami Salo also scored as the Canucks won their fourth straight for the first time this season, moving into a tie with San Jose, Calgary and Nashville for fifth place in the Western Conference, four points ahead of ninth-place Colorado.

“We’re getting rewarded for our hard play, and again tonight we had a real solid effort form our whole group," said Coach Alain Vigneault who was clearly impressed with the effort. "Obviously Kesler did a great job on their top line and was also able to contribute offensively in the third, and Roberto made the key saves that he had to make, it was an all around a solid effort.”

Kesler stripped defenseman Brett Lebda of the puck at the Canucks blueline and raced the other way, tucking the puck between Jimmy Howard's legs on the breakaway 3:31 into the third period. He rounded out the scoring with three minutes left, keeping the puck on a 2-on-1 break and beating Howard between the legs again.

"It worked the first time might as well try it the second time," said Kesler, who grew up in Livonia, Mich. "Playing against a team I watched growing up, there was a little extra motivation."


Datsyuk scored the lone goal for the Red Wings, who are 1-7-1 their last nine games and have had their lead atop the Western Conference trimmed to six points over the Dallas Stars.

"We've gone through the same thing, we know what they re feeling right now and it's a dog-eat-dog world I guess," Kesler said. "So we tried to jump on them right away and put them on their heels as much as possible."

More addictive than heroin...

After weeks of thinking about it, and some significant investment in kit (and wellies, and little toys), and many many hours spent in preparation, Connor and I finally bit the bullet
and went geocaching today.

And wow, we had an even better time than I thought we would (and I was expecting it to be fun!) - we are totally hooked after one go!! Can't wait to go out again tomorrow.

We were pretty rubbish at it to start with, to be honest, I had no idea how to work the GPS (and no, I hadn't read the manual, and yes, that might have helped, and yes, I've read it now :))

We walked about 4 times as far as we needed to, because I couldn't work out which way it was telling me to walk. Still, it was great exercise :D

The GPS keeps a record of the route you have taken on screen, like a little trail of breadcrumbs, and ours was hilarious, lots of wandering around in confused circles and retracing of steps.

But we got there in the end :)

Having said that, getting to the co-ordinates was one thing, finding the (bloody huge) box was another.

I walked RIGHT PAST IT at least 4 times, how I managed to not spot it, I have no idea.

I almost gave up at one point, but the knowledge that 170 people had found it before me (without a single DNF - did not find - get me and all the lingo :D) kept me going :)

Now I know what I'm doing, I'm pretty sure the next one will be easier :)

The good thing about making such a bloody pig's ear of finding the cache, was the pure elation once it was spotted :) I don't think I'd have been anywhere near that excited if we had found it more easily.

Connor took this pic of me emerging with the cache, totally unstaged, that's pure joy, that is :)



And then Connor had the fun of rooting through the box and choosing which little toys to take (there was tons of stuff in there, he chose a little Macdonalds teddy bear and one of those plastic frogs that jumps when you flick the tab on its bottom), and deciding what from our own swagbag to leave (a tub of bubbles, a parachute man and a spinning top :))

I can thoroughly recommend this hobby for anyone who struggles to motivate either themselves or their children to get out and about for a walk just for the sake of walking. The whole treasure hunt element is just so exciting, but you also get to see some lovely parts of the outdoors that you might never have come across otherwise - we didn't even know about the section of Coate Water that this cache was hidden in, despite having been to the park a hundred times.

And if you do take it up, and you ever see this in a log book:

That's us!! :)

The Chaos Crew, otherwise known as me and Cons, and anyone else who fancies tagging along at the time :D