A couple of days ago a number of geocachers who own caches that are in Gatineau Park received the following message:

You are receiving this message because one of your caches is located within the territory of Gatineau Park.

The National Capital Commission (NCC) wishes to control Geocaching in the Gatineau Park.  Therefore, it is currently setting a procedure for caches within its territory, and is asking geocachers to archive all caches in the park.  They are requesting the cooperation of concerned geocachers to pick up all the containers.

We are asking for your cooperation in collecting your cache and in archiving the listing. Note that on June 20, 2010, all remaining caches within the territory of the park will be archived.

All new requests for publication at this location will be denied until permission of the NCC and the new procedure are received. We apologize for this inconvenience, which is beyond our control, and solicit the patience and cooperation of all geocachers.

Thank you

The Quebec Reviewers

About 300 geocaches are affected by this mass archiving. Needless to say, the local geocaching community is not impressed.

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I started off the day in a bad mood and as the day progressed it seemed like things were deliberately conspiring to put me in an even worse mood at almost any turn. The final straw was a phone call I had this afternoon from someone who, aside from being very rude, disrespectful and close minded, actually said “you don’t want to get into it with me!”

This stunned me. I really hadn’t done anything to warrant this, so I said…

“Are you threatening me? Why don’t I want to?”

“Because I’m always right. Always.”

Seriously, the guy actually said that and he genuinely believed it.

Our conversation, such as it was, really didn’t improve from that point and I shortly decided I’d had enough, hung up and stomped off to a meeting, which fortunately didn’t aggravate me further.

But I brooded about it for the rest of the afternoon until I got home just a few minutes ago.

I bumped into someone who offered do something productive related to the topic of the conversation that got me so pissed off and I even got to vent a tiny bit about the person from the phone call.

And now I’m feeling much less pissed off. It’s amazing what one person basically saying “how can I help you?” can do to improve one’s mood, eh?

The Algonquin College Singapore Slings held their first practice of the year yesterday evening. The weather was great and from the first strokes leaving the dock to the last strokes coming back in an hour or so later it was as though we had been paddling through the winter instead of taking almost eight months off.

We’re a good 400m team, meaning that we usually do quite well in 200m sprints and the 400m races at the Fall 400 in Carleton Place, but when it comes to the 500m races in Ottawa we’re not as consistent. To rectify this, we’re stepping up the endurance training, which means they’re going to be doing more drills involving paddling for longer runs. (I say “they” because I’m the steersman, so my job is relatively unchanged. 🙂 )

We actually made it to the railway bridge, which we haven’t done in quite some time. Getting to the bridge is a good target to aim for, so hopefully we’ll be back there often. From the Rideau Canoe Club to the bridge and back is about 6km, but I’m sure it felt even longer because the wind was in our faces most of the way back.

Our next practice is Saturday morning and I, for one, am looking forward to it.