Activites and Interests

Activities

Being in the outdoors is one of my favourite places. I thoroughly enjoy mounting biking, rockclimbing, snowboarding/skiing, hiking and camping. I do run but purely for the sake of fitness. I never got overly involved in team sports but do enjoy playing soccer and volleyball with friends.

If I am indoors, I love to play table tennis. Also, I play the guitar when I have time and enjoy jamming with my wife who plays excellent piano. Additionally, I find the strategy of chess fun.

Photography is another one of my big interests; mostly landscape and sports. Although digital is substantially more convenient than film, there IS a difference in the pictures, even at 10 Megapixels (although maybe only visible to the trained eye). Well, even though this is true, the cost of developing and ease of photo editing has lead me to nearly all but retire my trusty Nikon F601 for the D80.

Interests

I am enjoying developing my son's appreciation and respect for nature. I have a tremendous passion to preserve what is left of nature (According to the Toronto Zoo, 250 acres a day of rain forest are cut down a day to support North America's insatiable desire for fast food meat). As such, I am a conservationist and support the preservation of farmland (from the grips of suburbia), as well as habitat conservation, preservation of drinking water and specific managed wildlife hunting. I am shocked at the gross disconnect people in the large cities have with nature (ie. meat comes from the grocery store on a white Styrofoam and the shiniest, polished apples are the healthiest). A recent study showed that school children were able to identify hundreds of brand names advertised on T.V. but were unable to identify 10 plants or animals that were commonly found in their area (Source: The 11th Hour).

I am also a dedicated Christian (not affiliated with any denomination) and continue studying spirituality. Although several of the forefathers of naturopathy were ardent Christians (Vincent Priessnitz, Sebastian Kneipp, Adolf Just, Emanuel Felke, etc.), Christianity is currently not at all prevalent in naturopathic medicine.