I’m not going to offer incisive analysis of the ongoing federal election campaign. Here’s all you need to know:
It’s really long. Most Canadian federal election campaigns are five or six weeks long. This one goes on for an interminable eleven weeks because the Conservatives have lots of money to spend and, I don’t know, I guess maybe they figure the NDP, Liberals, Green Party and others will run out of money and the last three weeks will feature nothing but glorious, shining Conservative ads extolling the bright future of Harper’s Canada.
The Conservatives are horrible. Anyone knowingly, willingly voting for them is a fool. Don’t vote, fools. Stay at home and shout angrily at the TV instead. Speaking of which, this is my favorite wish-it-was-a-campaign-ad so far:
There are probably a billion jokes about Canada floating around the web today. Everyone knows how to use Google so I’m not linking to any of them. If you use Bing I’m still not linking to them but I salute your rebellious, free-spirited nature.
For the record, this Canada Day falls midweek, which makes it kind of sucky when it comes to planning holiday activities. I’m sure there’s a petition online for recognizing the official day of confederation while moving the actual day off to the first Monday of the month, making for a nice three day weekend.
I like three day weekends and I like Canada, so I would support such an initiative.
In the meantime it continues to be hot with more hot in the forecast. With the temperature currently hovering around 30ºC the jokes about us living in igloos on vast plains of permafrost may die out in another century or two.
My usual running spots are Burnaby Lake and the Brunette River trail. Metro Vancouver has in recent years provided copious new signs that provide maps, reminders and advise one of the park rules. They also strongly imply you may be lucky to get out alive as I will demonstrate below.
The Brunette River trail is an approximately two km long gravel service road used by Metro Vancouver parks vehicles and CN Rail trucks (the road parallels the train tracks, located not too far off behind a line of trees). It’s a nice place to run because the road rarely has traffic on it and is nice and wide, accommodating runners, pedestrians and cyclists with room to spare. Most of the time.
Upon entering the roadway you are currently greeted by these signs:
Venturing off the trail may result in you drowning.
Venturing off the trail may result in you burning to death.
Maybe both.
If you make it to the end of the trail and successfully enter Burnaby Lake Regional Park, you will find this sign at the Cariboo Dam:
You at least now know why you may find yourself drowning if you risk venturing off the trail. It’s the unpredictable killer dam upstream unleashing fatal torrents of water.
The Cariboo Road entrance to Burnaby Lake is replete with signs. I would probably exhaust the disk space of this site trying to host images all of them. Here’s one set you will see as you pass through the gate to get in:
No vehicles here. You will not be run over. Technically that’s not true because parks vehicles have free reign so you can in fact be run down by one of those little two-seater jobs they tool around in.
No cyclists. You will not be knocked down by some dope on a bike. Technically this is also not true because people break this rule all the time. They often seem to be the worst cyclists, too.
More “you may burn to death by going off the trail.”
You may notice another post festooned with signs beyond this one. Let’s take a closer look.
Pets are leashed so no worries about some dog getting in your way or attacking you. This rule is broken so regularly that the sign should actually read “Pets MUST be leashed (haha).”
See above, re: cyclists. Some entrances to the park have two or three NO CYCLING signs. Cyclists cannot read.
You will be eaten by a bear. This one doesn’t mention whether or not you should stay on the trail so you’re probably going to get eaten no matter where you go.
In summary, while at Burnaby Lake Regional Park, if you venture off the trail you may find yourself chased by a bear, catch on fire and then get swept away in an unexpectedly raging river. At least the raging river will put the fire out. There’s probably another bear in the river, though, waiting for a fish, you or an especially clumsy cyclist. You’re pretty much doomed no matter what.
To quote one of the other signs I didn’t get a picture of: Enjoy your visit!
Until April 7th Best Buy Canada is offering some boffo deals on various Apple products. Check out this bargain for the iPad Air 2:
Are you wearing a hat? You may want to hold onto it before reading further, lest it zing off your head from the shock. Are you ready? This deal amounts to a colossal savings of…
1.4%
I think it’s fair to say this will put an end to the notion that Apple hardware carries premium pricing.
Actually, it’s not, it just takes focus and a little time. I have a smidgen of the latter and not much of the former lately. If this were a diary-style blog (and I’m sure there’s one or two out there) I’d go into lavish detail over what has distracted me from posting but it isn’t, so I won’t.
All shall remain shrouded in mystery.
I will try to post more, though.
For now, enjoy this random cat gif I found after doing a random search in Google:
Back on June 1 2012 I encountered a coyote while running. It was ahead of me on the trail and dashed off into the bushes as I approached, probably because I wasn’t carrying a nice juicy baby in my arms. I also encountered coyotes twice this summer on my way to or from Burnaby Lake. In each case the coyote scooted away at my approach, then stopped at a safe distance as I passed by. Again, each probably did so because I wasn’t covered in layers of sausage links or raw meat.
Coyotes are generally to be avoided because you never know. Maybe the one you see is scouting ahead for a pack that will tear you apart. Maybe the one you stumble across is starving and will tear you apart. Maybe it’s just in a bad mood and will tear you apart.
The City of Vancouver knows this and near the trail that circumvents the Langara Golf Course they have erected this sign:
One thing I’ve learned while jogging is that people ignore signs. I’m fairly certain that if you put up a sign that said the following:
WARNING: If you take ten more steps you will fall into a pit filled with lava and large iron spikes. This will kill you very painfully. You should immediately turn around now.
At the end of the day the lava and iron spike pit would be filled with so many bodies that they would pile above the edge of the pit and thus the pit would no longer be an obstacle to all the other people ignoring the sign.
I am being unfair, though. Many people do read signs. They just interpret them. I’m not sure why they do this. Perhaps it comes from a lot of dangerous free thinking or a general belief that rules are for bad people and no one sees themselves as bad so the rules obviously don’t apply to them.
With that in mind, I present the interpretation of the coyote sign that many people may have:
This is not my best example of sign fakery but I spent way too much time on it as it is. At least I put my research skills to use in trying to determine which font was used (my best guess is Century Gothic).
By the way, if you use your favorite search engine (okay, Google) you can find enough stories about coyote attacks to convince you to never step outside again. Especially if you’re a juicy baby. Heck, just check out the Vancouver Coyote Sightings Map. There’s about a billion coyotes out there. Imagine if they all operated under some kind of hive mind and began a reign of terror. Now imagine someone writing a really crappy novel about it. Now go buy the novel on Amazon because I’m pretty sure someone has already written this book.
This is the image a retailer uses in their ads to entice you to buy phones. Based on how smartphones have evolved in the few short years they’ve been around, I am projecting that this phone will exist in 2017:
Run 347 Average pace: 5:18/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops
Distance: 10.04 km
Weather: Cloudy with some sun, a few sprinkles; humid
Temp: 20ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 772
Total distance to date: 2917
My first week back to work meant I could only run after my shift was over and every day it was pretty much Africa hot except Friday and by then I decided to just run Saturday morning instead and get a full run in instead. With a week between runs, I expected to be soft, flabby and slow.
Instead my pace was nearly identical to my last run, only one second slower at 5:18/km. Conditions were fine, with the temperature staying a moderate 20ºC, a nice breeze blowing at times and a mix of cloud, sun and the occasional light sprinkle.
My left foot was feeling sore before the run–never a good sign–and it became a factor past the midway point. By the 7K mark it was starting to hurt and it probably affected my pace in the last few km. I did turn it up a little for the home stretch but fell a bit short of my opening pace.
By about the 6K mark I began feeling tired and my pace fell off. It never cratered but I clearly did not feel as zippy as I might have. This run also marked the first time my all-time average pace went up, from 5:12/km to 5:13/km. Ouch. My average for the month is 5:20/km and with only one more possible run to go it’s unlikely to change. Alas.
Still, considering a week is a long time in running, I can’t be too disappointed. And on a more positive note this is the first month in a long while where I ran more than 100 km. Woot.
After being prompted to update Adobe Flash Player (this is the patch that makes it fun slightly more secure), the Adobe website redirected me to this page:
Like a polar bear in a snowstorm.
You know, I just can’t say if I am interested in this product. Seems a little spartan.
