Three Years

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Three Years.It’s the morning of the flight to Canada and everyone’s up early. A new life beckons. Running out of space. A dash to Maidstone for another case. The taxi is late, the M25 is stationary, there’s a fire alarm at Gatwick, but [...]

Vespa GTS 250

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Vespa GTS 250.The scooter commute has changed from Kymco to Vespa GTS 250 and the smiles have increased with the additional cc’s. Having sold the second car back in May, the plan was always to commute to Richmond during the summer on a [...]

Steveston cycle ride

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Steveston cycle ride.Steveston is a quaint village in the south west corner of Richmond that has some great cycling along the sea front; and cycling was the order of the day. What to do on a searingly hot Sunday morning? Air conditioned mall? [...]

Stave Lake

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Stave Lake.A chance to get out on the Ducati in the brilliant sunshine led us to Stave Lake near Mission. Lesley hasn’t been on the back of the Ducati since last summer when we took a couple of trip to Fort Langley on [...]

Road trip Day 6 – Home run

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip Day 6 – Home run.Decision mad. After 5 days on the road on day 6 I’d make the home run. I could still do the final loop through the forests on my road trip or I could hit the freeway home. [...]

Road trip day 5 – Endurance

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip day 5 – Endurance.When the guy at the gas station in Biggs said that he didn’t know how the heck I could ride a motorcycle in that wind I realised that I’d just done something pretty amazing/foolhardy. The day started easily [...]

Road trip Day 4 – I only use awesome sparingly

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip Day 4 – I only use awesome sparingly.The word awesome seems to be well overused in Canada. I’m not a great user of awesome, but Crater Lake fully deserved the superlative. It was indeed awesome. Time to hit the road again. [...]

Road trip Day 3 – Sometimes good things just happen

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip Day 3 – Sometimes good things just happen.Road trip day 3 was a day of contrasts. From the spectacular Pacific coast to gorgeous rivers and finishing with a major cruise of the car variety. The day had it all. Sometimes good [...]

Road trip Day 2 – Searching for sun on highway 101

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip Day 2 – Searching for sun on highway 101.Day 2 of the road trip took in fog, searching for sun on Highway 101, some spectacular scenery and a long time in the saddle. I wanted to give Aberdeen a second chance. [...]

Road trip day 1

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip day 1.Today was day 1 of my road trip taking me from PoCo to Aberdeen Washington. A day of Freeway riding, aching shoulders and searing temperatures. Finally the day had arrived. The Short(er) Way Round was no longer a dream, the [...]

Any ride is better than no ride

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Any ride is better than no ride.I briefly spoke to another biker today and his words ‘Any ride is better than no ride’ really struck a chord. Part of the preparation for my Short(er) Way Round ride has been to kit the bike [...]

Road trip – preparation

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Road trip – preparation.I’m heading off to Oregon on a road trip. It’s the first time I’ve tried something like this and I’ve probably under-prepared. Here’s the story so far. Inspired by the Long Way Round when I moved to Canada I started [...]

Changing the commute

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Changing the commute.I’ve recently changed the commute. The second car has gone and in it’s place is transit and a scooter. It’s been a mixed experience, but on the whole a good one. After a year of driving to and from Richmond I [...]

Delivering the goods

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Delivering the goods.We’ve recently purchased a package of white goods and discovered how inefficient some companies can be. After a year of holding off we finally bit the bullet and ordered a new fridge, cooker (stove/range) and dish washer. The whole process really [...]

Canada doesn’t want my blood

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Canada doesn’t want my blood.Despite being a blood donor in the UK for many years, Canada doesn’t want my blood. In 1999 Canada decided not to accept blood from potential donors that had spent more more than 3 months in the UK since [...]

Changing jobs

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Changing jobs.After months of trying to crack both the local job market and consulting market I finally resorted to my transferable skills to try and generate some regular income. But not for long. A difficult decision had to be made after a huge [...]

Rip off Canada

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Rip off Canada.We recently had an issue with a door mirror on the car which led to a perfect example of how “rip off Britain” can be equalled by “rip off Canada”. Unfortunately, whilst backing out of the garage, a door mirror was [...]

Credit Card skimmed

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Credit Card skimmed.My Credit Card has been skimmed and I’m trying to figure out if I feel personally violated. I’m also thinking about what I could have done to prevent the skimming and what I need to do to protect my card from [...]

Ducati GT1000

Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Mark Cannon. Visit the original article at Ducati GT1000.Despite me having the Ducati GT1000 for over 6 months I’ve not previously posted a pic of my summer cruise machine. So, here it is. I’m not a hardened biker by any stretch of the imagination and how I ended up on [...]

New year, new challenge

It's something that's been on hold since my first redundancy, back in 03, so I thought it high time that I kicked the grey matter back in to action.... I'm also trying out a neat application, ecto to try and make getting blog entries up easier as there's no need to log in to my site to prepare posts.