The past few days have been interesting.

On our way to Kingston we noticed a dog in the middle of the highway. We stopped to pick him up but were beat to the chase. I was surprised and genuinely impressed at how many cars had pulled to the shoulder to save this animal.

I am writing this from the passenger seat of a lifeless mini van stranded on the shoulder of the 401 highway. The tow-truck (which was estimated to take 15-20 minutes to reach us), is a little over two and a half hours behind schedule. Alan is sleeping. Sometimes things just don't go your way.

Van on the shoulder of the highway, I had to push it a little further away from traffic.

It costs an average of $3 a kilometer to tow a vehicle to its destination. We are an hour and a half from the shop the van needs to be serviced at, I can only imagine how many kilometers that is. It is times like these I am happy I have always been terrible with numbers.

I was supposed to meet up with an old friend of mine in Oshawa this morning. Her friend is an employee at the local zoo and she had planned for us to meet baby tigers, something I was really looking forward to doing. Hopefully this opportunity will be present in the near future.

I want to meet you little buddy.

After a minute or two of silence our driver introduced himself and told us some interesting 'work-related' stories. I could only imagine the different types of people and situations he would encounter on a daily basis. He was easy to get along with and took an extra ten kilometers off our bill, I forget his name, but thank you for that.

Alan and I decided to have the van towed to our brothers place in Belleville in an attempt to cut some costs. Hopefully we can find a local mechanic to help us and be on our way sometime tomorrow.

Mr.Tow, Al, and I unloading the Van at Bubs place.

Tuesday night after training my manager informed me that my 135lbs debut scheduled for September 13th in my hometown of Montreal was to be post-poned due to circumstances beyond our control. This was disappointing to say the least. I was looking forward to being able to fight in front of and celebrate with my childhood friends and family.

It is hard to describe the intensity one trains with when preparing for a fight. Having only taken a few days off after my last bout I had kept most of my conditioning and was feeling healthy and motivated to avenge my loss. My mind, body and spirit were focused on the 13th. To have that taken away from me was pretty discouraging. However, I am keeping active and training hard. There is always the opportunity of being a last minute replacement in a number of different organizations with upcoming shows. This idea has kept me focused. It is hard not keep a positive outlook when the worst case scenario is that I have to train a few extra weeks and improve on my technique and conditioning before my next fight. Sounds reasonable to me.

Since the van wont be inspected until tomorrow afternoon I picked up a shift at my old job trucking in Belleville. I will probably work a couple days next week as well just to be keep things steady until we find out what is next for me in the fight world. I look forward to putting in long hours at work and then rushing back to Kingston to train at one of the local gyms in town like I used to. It is times like these that define you as a person, this is not a step in the wrong direction. This journey has done nothing but make me more hungry.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, I work 7am-7pm tomorrow and then have to drive back to Toronto to make sure I will be able to make wrestling practice tomorrow morning. As difficult as it may be, I'll have to make it an early night tonight. I have gotten used to staying up late and talking with my friend, an intelligent, yoga/ jiu-jitsu enthusiast, spiritual guru, and self proclaimed 'dork'.

UPDATED 7:52 pm 8/18/2008

Alan and I are tackling a vicious storm on our way back to Toronto. Normally, I would be sitting on our balcony soaking in the beauty and power of the storm. However, sitting in the passenger seat watching the flickering four-ways of the cars in front of us is a little less peaceful.

This picture does absolutely no justice to how bad the conditions were.

Work was great today, it was good to catch up with a lot of my friends I haven't been able to stay in contact with while training. I am meeting with my manager sometime this week to plan out the next month or so. I cant wait to get back on the grind.