Don’t want to be a fat man,
have not the patience to ignore all that.
Hate to admit to myself half of my problems
came from being fat.
Won’t waste my time feeling sorry for him,
I seen the other side to being thin.
Roll us both down a mountain
and I’m sure the fat man would win.
- tull

It’s just that season isn’t it!?  Tidings of comfort, joy and cold feet.  Really, cold feet!  It was minus 10F here last night and it certainly does not feel much better this morning.  At least I have a dog to put my feet on to keep them off the cold cruel floor.  Now let me see… Where was I?

Oh, yeah, blogging.  So  on the kayaking side of things there’s a lot going on.  For instance, I’m working with a guy now who plans to paddle across America next year to raise awareness for childhood obesity here in the states.  (I’ll share that with you as we get more info online.)  I’m totally for this cause, and at the same time I can’t help but be a little “cause adverse” at the moment.  Maybe it’s the holidays?  I think sometimes that doing A or B for a cause can become cleche’ to the point of actually harming the cause we’re trying to support. I mean, every athlete is raising money or raising awareness for something, right?  I sometimes can’t help but wonder if it does any good, or simply dulls our senses.  Well, you know me by now.. always wandering and wondering in two opposite directions at once!  As I said, I’m totally into sparking someone one, anyone to do something about  childhood obesity.  I just don’t think the NFL’s  Play 60 is going to cut it.  We are in trouble here and in other countries around the world.  We’re getting fat. Too fat.  Sickly fat.  Yet at the same time we are tippy-toeing around the issue as not to offend anyone.  That won’t work either.  Now to be fair, I don’t need to hear any 5’11″ 89 LB waif trying to tell me (or anyone else) to eat less.  Highly focused, over caffeinated athletes are not always the best folks to deal with the issues of  those less “inspired” than them.  You need to think before you simply shout out some  over-worn mantra about getting off the couch. The fact is most individuals, whatever their issue, be it psychological, physiological or pharmacological, want to be healthy and in good shape.  We need to help them get there.  That means knowing why that unique individual is struggling. Not making blanket statements.  At the same time, we need to fight what society has done to our food supply.   Let’s be real here.  The reason many poorer folks in the states are fat, is simply because crap food is cheap and healthy food is expensive.   We not only need to teach healthy dietary habits and exercise, but somehow we must make healty food available and more to the point, affordable to everyone regardless of economic status.  If we don’t start there, everything else we do will be destined to failure before we even begin.

Wait, I was going to talk about a couple new kayak expeditions coming up, and some way cool ski bindings and now I’m totally off chasing another wispy thought.  Well, that’s why this site is called Kayak “Quixotica” and, well, there it is then.