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Failing Your Way to Success: Lessons learned from being blindfolded and left in a farmer’s field
Whenever my extended family gets together you can usually count on three things: a lot of boxed wine, a lot of Euchre and a lot of jackassery. Our Easter celebration a couple years ago delivered on all three counts and included an activity that my Van Osch cousins came up with: the Blindfold Game.
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Go see Notre Dame Fighting Irish college football game – South Bend, Indiana
Make no mistake: I’m no sports fan. The last time I watched a full hockey game, the Nordiques were still a thing. When I get invited to a Super Bowl party, I usually have to look up who’s playing beforehand. And I still have no clue how offside works in soccer. So when my girlfriend…
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Cycle for Change: Otesha bike tours
Welcome to beautiful British Columbia. Home of the Canucks, the West Coast Trail, Bryan Adams… and freakishly large zucchinis?
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Grind it out at the Grouse Grind in Vancouver, British Columbia
Welcome to Mother Nature’s Stairmaster. On paper, the 2.9 km trail hardly seems daunting. However, when you get to the foot of the Grouse Grind and realize that it comes with its own “you might die” warnings, it starts to sink in that this might be more than a leisurely stroll.
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Play Dodgeball World Domination
My brother Dan introduced me to a great variation of classic Dodgeball. Here he is to explain: “At the school where I teach, students are in charge of organizing and running intramural activities this year. They have started with an old-school favourite: Dodgeball. However, they have introduced numerous variations on the game to keep the…
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Do a Photo Scavenger Hunt
Photo scavenger hunts are a great, low-impact, low-cost alternative to the classic “find and collect” game. Whether you’re looking for a fun activity for your corporate event or just want something to do with your buddies on a Saturday afternoon, a photo scavenger hunt is a quick and easy thing to whip together. As the…
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Host a recipe swap night
Here’s a simple idea that’s both a fun social activity as well as a way of beefing up your personal cookbook (or vegging it up as the case may be). Throw a Recipe Swap party. The rules are simple: Bingo-bango-bongo, you’ve got 10 new recipes in your playbook. If you want, you can also choose…
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Play Tri-Pong
Rainy days are the mothers of invention. While visiting my friend Rob’s cottage, he taught us how to play a simple, yet exhausting version of ping pong. This is Tri-Pong. A big difference from your average ping pong game is that the players are working together, not against each other. Another big difference is that…
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Go Geocaching
Ever wanted to be a pirate and search for buried treasure? Is your favourite part about Easter the egg hunt? Do you pride yourself in your ability to find lost car keys? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then geocaching just may be for you. I’ve wanted to go geocaching for years…
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Play Spoons (with vigour)
Spoons was a very popular card game in the Martin household growing up. I’ve played a few variations of it over the years but the general idea remains the same. Click here for the full rules. Some people play that when you get a set of four, you don’t actually yell out SPOONS! This adds…
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Congratulations to the “That’s Awesome” Photo Contest Winner
Congrats goes out to Allison Tilly of Ottawa, Ontario, whose “Snow Tunnel” photo received the most votes in the “That’s Awesome” Photo Contest! Allison’s photo will be used as Badge of Awesome’s Facebook cover image for the month of October (even though I agree it’s too early to be thinking about snow!). She’s also won…
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Play Extreme Croquet
Croquet: The Gentleman’s Game? Not where I come from. Growing up, my brothers and sisters used to play this backyard game in very un-gentlemanly ways. We’d send our opponents’ balls flying into the bush, down our long driveway and into the little creek that ran next to our house. Out-of-bounds was for babies, and sending…
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Play Desert Island Dream Team
Who would you want with you if you were stranded on a desert island? How useless would you or your friends be in a post-apocalyptic world? Desert Island Dream Team is a great game that aims to answer these questions. Here’s how it works: Some qualities you might want to look for when building your…