General

Aye, eye

I had my annualish eye exam today and nothing unusual to report. My near vision is slightly worse, as to be expected of “men of your age”, as the doctors like to phrase nowadays. To be especially thorough, the optometrist put drops in my eyes to fully dilate the pupils. I had 20 minutes to kill while the drops did their thing, so I went to the bookstore, which is about the most useless place you can go if your pupils are dilated because everything is keeningly bright and out of focus. After my less-than-satisfying browsing at the bookstore, I went to the washroom and checked out my eyes while washing my hands. The look is alarming. By that it means I looked like I was alarmed and it wouldn’t stop.

I have an updated prescription and I think I may opt for a new pair of glasses with polarized lenses. Unlike the last few times I will probably drag along a friend to make sure I come out stylin’.

My (alleged) top 8 needs

The recent testing I did to assess my values also included a deck of cards to ascertain one’s needs. Like the Values deck, it asks you to split the deck into three categories: High, Higher, highest. You then take the Highest pile and sort it into three more piles and then finally take the top 8 from the first (most important) pile. As it turns out, I only had 8 total. I’m not sure if that makes me efficient or just not very needy. Here they are, in no particular order:

  • an environment where my thoughts and ideas are welcome. Who doesn’t like to be heard? Not me, obviously!
  • a culture that allows for direct communication between people. The opposite of this would be using the Cone of Silence, I imagine.
  • to work in a chemical/dust-free environment. Are there people who would prefer a chemical/dusty environment? Sludge monsters from space, perhaps?
  • to be in a helping role. I like helping people, it gives me warm fuzzies. Unless they yell at me, then they get a warm fuzzy in the face!
  • to work in an environment where people are treated fairly. Again, the opposite of this would be “I like to work under the boot of a dictatorship, it’s fun!”
  • an environment that provides time for analysis and observation. Not too much time, mind you. But enough.
  • freedom to make decisions independently. I hate top-down organizations. Do as I say, minion! Not for me.
  • to be fairly compensated financially. I wonder how many people tell a prospective employer, “Pay me as little as you want, I don’t need to eat every day!”

Frankly, these needs are kind of boring. Oh well, I guess that’s why they’re called needs and not Super Exciting Things, Wow!

A pair of dream snippets

I am trying to remember my dreams again and have been doing a decent job of recollection when waking up. What I haven’t been doing such a decent job of is writing the dreams down after waking up. 😛

Here are a pair of recent snippets. They’re not very interesting but perhaps putting them down will help me to remember more.

Dream #1 featured Robert Reed, best known as Mr. Brady from The Brady Bunch. The dream seemed to be set back in the 70s and Mr. Reed was being a bit of a jerk (as himself, not Mr. Brady). I have no idea what exactly he was doing, why he was being a jerk and what kind of presence, if any, I had in the dream. I also have no clue why I’d dream about Robert freakin’ Reed. The guy is about as far off my radar as possible. Or so I thought!

Dream #2 took place in a small town and at one point I remember nimbly dodging a set of road construction equipment on my trip to…somewhere. The other part I remember from the same dream was being assembled as part of a group in a large auditorium that was serving as a makeshift movie theater. We were there to watch something I vaguely recall as educational but the stage area had no screen so the film was projected on a small section high up on the back wall of the auditorium, forcing everyone to twist in their seats to look backward in order to watch. No one seemed to mind, though. The one image I remember from the film was of a submersible of some sort. I believe this was triggered by the R.E.M. song “Sing for the Submarine”, which I’ve heard several times recently.

That’s all for my two most recent dreams. More subconscious nonsense to come!

This is Vancouver: a sign of the times

Photo (click for full-size):

Web page

Relevant quote:

Everybody knows that Independent bookstores have been under pressure from the ‘big box’ operations for many years now and it is clear that it is not going to get any better; the likes of Chapters, and Amazon are ruthless in their drive for market share and we cannot compete on price anymore. The book itself is in the throes of a technological transformation and book readers undergoing a major demographic shift.

I remember when Duthies had their big store on Robson Street many years ago, with the spiral staircase leading downstairs to the fiction section. That store eventually closed and is now a high fashion boutique. A pretty rare sight on Robson, as you know! But Duthies took over the Bollums Books at the corner of Granville and Georgia and once again had a two-storey space, this time complete with escalators. Alas, it was not to be as the company went through some dramatic restructuring after their expansion that resulted in the chain being reduced to a single store on 4th Avenue, whose windows currently bear the notices seen above. I didn’t even realize the store had closed until a few weeks ago when someone mentioned it to me, so I’m as guilty as anyone in helping it shuffle off its retail coil.

In recent years I have bought books from Amazon and a few from Chapters. I have purchased ebooks from Sony’s website to use on my Sony Reader. The world of book selling has dramatically changed over the past decade and smaller general interest stores like Duthies will continue to be squeezed out. It’s unfortunate because quality bookstores add something valuable to a neighborhood that isn’t captured by a sprawling place like Chapters.

There will still be specialized book stores, I think, at least for awhile, whether it’s shops like Macleod’s Books with its teetering stacks of obscure used books or stores that cater to a particular genre or style. But even they may eventually feel the pressure of outlets like Amazon that also take in and sell used books and can cover every genre without needing the expense of a brick and mortar presence.

I suppose it’s like everything else. In the end, there is only change. It’s still a bit sad to see.

P.S. The six exclamation points still rankles me. That will be a pet peeve of mine for the next million years.

I have still not found a use for Facebook

This could have been my Facebook status but I’ve already beaten that joke into the ground.

The subject line is still true, though. I am also becoming more aware of how all these social networking sites leave an easy-to-follow trail of crumbs for prospective employers to check out. Not that I’ve ever posted anything that would particularly get me knocked out of consideration for a job, it’s more the Big Brother aspect that gets me. One post I made here resulted in someone contacting me about it because I used words that were flagged by Google Alerts. Everyone watches everyone else on the world wide web. Quite the merry circle!

Mostly though I just don’t feel Facebook is a good fit for my rambling, verbose style.

UPDATE: After posting this, I checked Facebook and got the following. The timing is ironic, to say the least. And delicious!

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?

(It was fixed by deleting the cookies for the site.)

My top 5 values -or- My other top 5 values

Recently I went through an exercise where you take a bunch of cards with values listed on them and sort them into three piles: Never Important, Sometimes Important and Very Important. You then toss aside the two lesser piles and order everything that is Very Important. After this you finish by selecting the top 6 Very Important values but I read the 6 as a 5, so I my final result is slightly value-deficient:

  1. Teaching
  2. Creativity
  3. Listening
  4. Leadership
  5. Cooperation

The values are, of course, constrained by the options in the deck of cards you use. If a value isn’t listed, you can’t choose it, but it seemed fairly complete. I am always aware of my tendency to game these evaluations so I picked quickly to reduce the possibility of my brain being too clever for its own good. Let’s see how these values break down:

1. Teaching. I was about halfway to a teaching certificate many years ago before shifting gears and I’ve always tested strongly for it, so this does not come as a surprise. I really enjoy teaching others how to do stuff. The positive feedback is incredibly rewarding to me.

2. Creativity. I write, I draw comics, I dream up elaborate worlds and systems, I make maps of imaginary places. I sometimes arrange my food on my plate more for the aesthetics than the practical. Yeah, this is pretty spot-on.

3. Listening. I have always thought of myself as a good listener. If the person is at least somewhat engaging, whether they are talking about things positive or negative, I find it easy to stay engaged and absorb like a human-sized sponge. I generally prefer to listen rather than talk, though the inner stand-up comic in me does sometimes want to take over.

4. Leadership. Have you ever been in a situation where you’re part of a team assigned to some task and everyone just sits around and shrugs at each other and nothing happens and you find yourself thinking, “Stupid people! Do something!” and then you suddenly realize that you have to be the one to take charge and so you do and then things happen and it turns out okay? I’m that person.

5. Cooperation. This one seems a bit weak as a top 5 value. Sure, it’s got a good beat but can you dance to it? I guess I prefer cooperation to the alternative but what rational person wouldn’t? Well, one who didn’t have to cooperate to get things done, I suppose.

I always double-up on these tests to see what, if anything, changes when I do it again. Here are the results from take 2:

  1. Creativity
  2. Teaching
  3. Utilizing
  4. Listening
  5. Honesty

Here we see Creativity and Teaching swapping spots at the top, so no big change there. But then we have:

3. Utilizing. I’m not sure how this got in. I’m not even sure what it means. Maybe I wrote down the wrong card. Utilizing. Okay, the dictionary says “To put to use, especially to find a profitable or practical use for.” Seems very practical. I’m not sure how it’s a value. I think I picked the wrong card.

4. Listening. Swapped from #3 to #4, not much change here.

5. Honesty. Is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Like Billy Joel, I also like honesty, though I’m not as bitter and jaded about its apparent absence. Nor do I record songs about it and make millions of dollars and blow it on coke and crash cars and marry woman half my age, either. Anyway, this seems like a reasonable choice for me, as honestly is pretty fundamental. If you’re not being honest, you’re lying and there’s a good chance you’re a big ol’ poopypants because of it. I see a lot of people refusing to communicate effectively because they are afraid to be honest.

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Well: A deep subject

All right, then. What happened?

On my last run I complained that my calves were sore. This happens sometimes. Maybe it’s the weather, the phase of the moon or just the capricious ways of a body in its mid-40s but occasionally my legs will get sore while running (as opposed to merely getting tired). The day after this run my right calf felt fine, as expected. My left calf did not. It twinged with a bit of pain whenever I put pressure on my left leg. I knew this feeling from last October.

I had injured my leg. Again.

But for variety’s sake, it was the left one this time. Some sort of balance thing, perhaps. Fortunately I proved I could learn and adapt and did not run like hell on the injured leg afterward. I also think the injury was milder than the previous one. After being out of commission for 18 days I am planning on resuming my runs this week. Once again I vow to be cautious and careful and not pull, rip, shred or strain anything. I don’t have a third leg to injure so I’m hoping I’ve got this whole “hurting myself” business out of my system now.

In better running news, my total Nike-tracked distance to date is 407+ km. That’s a lot of laps!

In other random news, I am going to start spamming posts to the blog again. Excelsior!

The failed run

What a difference five days make.

On Friday I had my best 10k run to date. On Saturday I took the day off, as I do on my new exercise schedule. Sunday I did my workout with free weights.

Then everything went off the rails.

On Monday I skipped my run. I could have gone in the morning but i had ‘too much to do’ for my job search workshop and there’s not enough daylight left in the afternoon afterward. Then I skipped my workout on Tuesday and have no excuse at all for that, not even a lousy “a dragon ate my homework” one.

Then today’s run. Conditions were nice: sunny with an intermittent breeze, around 10ºC. I’d warm up soon enough after starting. I began and the first km seemed to take too long. It turned out to be 4:55/km, which is not bad. The second km felt much longer and came in at 5:05/km. Ten seconds slower on the second km is not good and suddenly I just lost all desire to keep going. I bailed at 2.61 km and an average pace of 5:08/km. By comparison on Friday’s run I was at 5:09/km at the 4 km mark. I was well-rested so the only thing I can think of that might affect my performance was psychological.

I was distracted. I am distracted. I have been out of work for a year and despite dozens of applications and resumes sent out, have seen only a scant few interviews. Most of the time I get nothing but silence and now that the money is running out, I am starting to sink into a bit of a funk. The job search workshop is useful, to a degree, but it eats up a good five hours every day plus time to do the ‘homework’ and I’m beginning to wonder if my time might be better spent just concentrating on getting work, period.

I am not going to give up my running but since half the battle really is in the head I need to get that sorted a bit before I can continue.

That Olympics thing

As I write this we are about halfway through the 2010 Winter Olympics here in Vancouver. Two nights ago I accompanied a friend who lives downtown to tour some of the Olympic sights.

We met at the Stadium SkyTrain station, the platform jammed with people (a sign of the evening’s recurring theme) and checked out some of the pavilions around the BC Place area. The Maison du Quebec had no line-up but also had nothing going on inside except for an empty stage filled with instruments and a food outlet (possibly serving poutine). The nearby Ontario and Saskatchewan pavilions had huge line-ups. I have no idea why, but obviously they had something a lot of people really wanted to see (or thought they did, anyway).

We decided to head out into the downtown core as dusk turned to night and I was astonished at how crowded the streets were. The Olympic organizers have spread events all throughout downtown which has the benefit of keeping one place from being overwhelmed. The downside (for local residents) is that it’s pretty much crowded everywhere. I’ve not seen the city this busy since Expo 86.

We grabbed some dinner at Pacific Centre, the food court there filled to capacity. I got my food first and managed to find a table. Strangely, we both tried calling each other on our cell phones but neither of us heard them ring. My friend even had his set to vibrate. I managed to eventually flag him down and after eating we headed out to the entrance to False Creek, where ten ultra-bright searchlights are shining into the sky, making various patterns. Although one of the lights sadly sagged and started pointing into the water shortly after we arrived, the lights were still spectacular to behold. One of the formations had then all converge into a single point, which immediately brought to mind the Death Star.

We then crossed downtown north to Coal Harbour, where they Olympic Cauldron is located beside the new convention centre. There is some controversy here because fears of vandalism prompted the Olympic people to erect a tall, ugly POW-style fence around the cauldron so no one could get close to it or take pictures without the fence being in the way. After complaints the fence was moved closer and slits were cut in it for people to aim their cameras through. With a billion cops in the city, why not just pay someone to watch the thing for potential vandals?

We concluded the evening with a fruitless search to find the giant Colbert banner that was supposedly hanging somewhere in the city [editor’s note eight and a half years later–I have no idea what this is referring to]. We finally gave up and I made my way back home.

I have to admit, though it’s something you clearly wouldn’t want around on a regular basis, it was fun to see such huge and happy crowds of people roaming about the city or skating at Robson Square or even zip-lining across Robson street itself! The weather has turned sunny and during the day it’s been quite mild, too, which is great for the tourists, even if it gives the wrong impression of what our winters are normally like (currently about the warmest on record).

We have tentative plans to catch some of the shows and/or venues in the next week, so hopefully there will be more to report back than just huge line-ups we chose to avoid.

Oh yeah, and some people have been winning medals at the actual games, too. Even Canadians. Yay Canada!