A few interesting and random websites I’ve come across or been linked to.
Paleo-Future: a look at the future that never was. I’m a sucker for this stuff because most predictions are hilariously wrong. We were supposed to have baby machines and flying cars by 1980, let alone 2010 (the year me make contact). Granted, some of the predictions are made based more on wish fulfillment and less on using a rigorous scientific method in asserting what is likely to come to pass. Heck, Asimov had spaceships running on nuclear power.
alt/1977 is kind of a reverse take on Paleo-Future’s predictions and instead takes four current electronic devices — an MP3 player, a laptop, a portable game machine and a cellphone and imagines what they would look like if they had been released in 1977. As the artist Alex Varanese writes, “I’ve learned that there is no greater design element than the anachronism. I’ve learned that the strongest contrast isn’t spatial or tonal but historical. I’ve learned that there’s retro, and then there’s time travel.”
Michael Wolf’s Hong Kong architecture: Having looked at how the future didn’t turn out and what the past might have looked like, the final site is a fascinating if somewhat bleak look at Hong Kong skyscrapers, with the camera in close enough to exclude everything but the sheer expanses of steel and concrete reaching into the sky. The effect is somewhat bewildering.
Paleo-Future and Michael Wolf photo links provided by Nic.
In this case, the times are of increasing illiteracy. Or maybe this is new lingo I’m unaware of. Spotted outside a restaurant last night on the north side of False Creek:
My other guess is that it was a reserved party for private perverts, though it wouldn’t seem especially private being in a public restaurant with large windows and outdoor seating. The little heart stands as compelling evidence, though! The privert people gathered all seemed happy enough.
Tonight’s run was baseball and soccer-free, so the risk of getting whacked by sporting equipment was down to zero. Yay! It was 21ºC, sunny and with only a very slight breeze blowing.
A few other joggers were out, along with the usual contingent of people with their dogs, including a guy with a puppy that refused, utterly, to chase after a thrown ball. I think the owner got more exercise than the puppy.
I started faster tonight, coming in at 5:06 and had no dramatic slowdowns during the run. Only a second separated the last two km, with my average pace being 5:27, three seconds better than my previous pace. I also decided to run farther since I knew I wouldn’t be breaking any speed records and actually went on even more than I had intended because my sweaty fingers could not get the scroll wheel on the iPod to turn so I could select End Workout from the menu. An unconventional way to push yourself, I suppose. The total distance was 10.64 km. Curiously the pace for the final .64 km shows as 5:04, which is blazingly fast for me after already running 10 km. I wonder if it was bugged or if I really did boogie once I was off the clock.
The title of this post refers to the clouds of gnats or gnat-like bugs that hang around the path near the trees. I’m pretty sure I inhaled about 50,000 of them along the way. At one point I could feel a bunch of them softly bouncing off my face as I ran through one of the clouds (which are very difficult to see until you’re right on them). I’ve eaten worse.
Yesterday I went to Ambleside Park and foolishly turned down some sunscreen despite it being a sunny day in the mid 20s. My arms were a slight tinge of red last night but fortunately they faded by this morning. Lesson learned: I cannot beat the sun through sheer mind power. It has been a very long time since I’d been to Ambleside and Nic had never been, so we drove on over, parked and had a gander at the sights (the ocean, the beach, Stanley Park, the Lions Gate bridge, shirtless guys playing basketball) and went on a walk down the seawall, which, unlike the one in Stanley Park, borders along private housing. It is still somewhat amazing to me that almost all beachfront property in the city is open to the public and not barricaded behind someone’s fence.
The seawall in Ambleside is also different in that it is pedestrian-only. They have a sign on the walk that indicates it is pedestrian-friendly, though it’s a little weird to me:
It looks like they are just plain thanking you for the act of walking itself. At worst it simply promotes the stereotype of Canadians being so darned polite, so I’m not objecting.
Here’s a shot looking down the beach at low tide. Nothing funny is happening in the picture, so I have nothing funny to add to it:
Further along the seawall there is a sculpture dubbed the German Friendship Globe:
Perhaps this is Germany’s way of saying “We promise not to try to conquer the world again!” The globe sits in water and slowly rotates. You can push or pull on the globe to change the rotation, too, which is neat. I planned to get it spinning correctly and then grab a pic of North America as it came into view (so I could add a big YOU ARE HERE with arrow) after a small girl tried to see what would happen if the Earth was suddenly shifted dramatically off its axis, but after futzing with it for a minute I couldn’t get it quite right and Nic wanted ice cream and I like ice cream more than German Friendship Globes so what you see here is mainly Australia at a bit of an angle.
The ice cream was good. We ate it while sitting on a bench, soaking up the rays. Nic got sunburnt even though he wore sunscreen. Sure, you can push around a planet but no one messes with the sun.
I had a couple of goals for tonight’s run. I wanted to improve the time on my first km and tighten up the overall pace a bit. When I got into the final km, I created a third goal: beat the fountain. In my previous run I had finished a little ways past it but this time it seemed possible to finish before reaching it.
And I did. Woo. Plus there was only one bee again and this time it was down low so I didn’t have to shush it away when I went to get a post-run drink.
However, there were four soccer balls kicked into my path during the run. You’ll never get to the World Cup with that kind of ball control, guys! The guy on the scooter with the dog in tow also made a re-appearance. For awhile it felt like the jogging version of Groundhog Day.
There were two baseball games underway when I arrived but both wrapped up in the first 15 minutes or so. At one diamond they later resumed with some ad hoc baseball-ish game using a large plastic ball (the kind you kick around). It was a bit weird but everyone was very excited about playing. Almost too excited, if you know what I mean.
Speaking of which, for three laps a couple of guys were parked near the path smoking those funny cigarettes. It was a bit distracting.
For the run itself, it was 18ºC, with a mild breeze and the sun low enough to not be an issue. Yesterday we had winds gusting up to 70 km/h so there were a few branches on the path but nothing that couldn’t be easily navigated around.
My first lap time was a much better 5:10 and I had another strong, consistent finish. In fact, my 9th and 10th km times were identical. My overall pace was 5:30, a seven second improvement over the previous 10K. Overall I’m pleased with the progress.
What a difference nine degrees makes! Not to mention there was no waterslide getting in the way of tonight’s run.
I had an atypically slow start (tentative, I suppose) and that actually affected my overall time, a rather unusual occurrence. The good news is I steadied out into a comfortable pace and maintained it for the remaining 8 km, ending with an average pace of 5:37. Stamina was not an issue at all, to my surprise. My legs are feeling a bit sore, but I don’t consider this odd given that it is only my second 10K in the last 80+ days. I plan on doing some strength exercises on the off days to reduce the chance of injury.
And now the stats:
Cap Tug Number (CTN): 3 (slick forehead played a factor here)
Temperature: 21ºC
Number of bees at the fountain: 1 (it had been plugged up again and was once more a mini-reservoir. I dumped a handful of water on the bee twice before it was convinced to leave)
Number of smarty pants joggers who ran past me: 1 (he stopped running after getting about half a lap ahead)
Number of guys wearing climbing gear in a nearby tree: 1
Number of waterslides: 0 (yay!)
Number of scrimmage soccer games in progress: 1
Number of soccer balls kicked in front of me due to the above: 2
Number of kids who didn’t seem to realize than standing in the middle of the path does in fact create an obstacle: 3
Number of guys sans shirt: 1
Number of women sans shirt: 0
Number of old men on electric scooters racing along the path with a dog in tow: 1
Number of people out with their dogs: many
Number of people out with their cats: 0
Number of coyotes spotted: 0
Number of drinks I took from the fountain at the end of the run: 3
And the comparison chart where you can see how the times get closer the longer the distance:
I had planned things perfectly for today’s run. With the sun setting at 9:16 p.m. and temperatures slightly cooler today, I headed out just before 8 p.m. This would give me enough time to finish a 10K just as the sun was beginning to set, insuring that most of the run would be done in the shade.
I got to the park and notice something over on the large hill that runs along the western side. It is a makeshift waterslide. It extends down the hill and well across the path. It is not something I could easily jink around. I contemplate what to do as kids go sliding down, hollering with delight. (The photo is a low light capture from my iPod’s video camera, so the quality of the image is not exactly high.)
I figure they might pack it in soon so I stick around and head to the fountain for a drink while I wait. The fountain is full of bees, like a bad Nicolas Cage movie. Of late the ‘bowl’ of the fountain has been brimming with water, like a mini-reservoir, but apparently someone unplugged whatever was in there keeping the water from draining. The now dry fountain has apparently become the hot new bee gathering spot. This makes getting a drink of water rather more hazardous than I’d like so I passed.
In the meantime I noticed that a section of the waterslide had become unattached. I also noticed someone laying at the bottom of the hill spread eagle and not really moving much. It looks like this unlucky girl had managed to snag and pull away one of the plastic sections of the slide then tumbled the rest of the way to the bottom. I did see a little movement as people gathered around her so perhaps she was just winded. Amazingly, someone began stitching the wayward bit of the slide back together. Injury or death would not stop the fun tonight!
I went home.
Here’s hoping they all decide to go to the beach tomorrow.
It has been a long time since I went to a job fair. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. I was informed of one recently and so yesterday I found myself attending the 6th AnnualPICS MEGA JOB FAIR. The ads for it suggest all caps and bold are necessary. It ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and was located at the North Surrey Recreation Centre.
I went with Denis and the plan was to leave Vancouver around 2 p.m., spend an hour or so at the fair and then get the heck out of there.
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being Greatest Job Fair Ever, I would rate this one -700.
It started with us walking to the Burrard SkyTrain and getting on The Noisiest SkyTrain Car In the History of Forever. I swear there were hidden speakers piping in additional sounds of the train rattling down the track. At times it was difficult to have a conversation and we were sitting close enough to each other to have Eskimo relations. Even the recorded station arrival announcements were being drowned out. I suggested Denis stand up and use ASL so people would know what stations we were pulling into. Since we had to traverse the Expo Line nearly in its entirety, it meant we had to deal with this for 35 minutes.
Fortunately, the arena the fair was being staged in was located right next to the Surrey Central station. I think it took longer to exit the station, which is mysteriously built as if to emulate Cloud City from The Empire Strikes Back (read: really freakin’ up there), than it did to traverse the short expanse of sidewalk between it and the rec centre. With the smell of chlorine from an unseen swimming pool filling the warm summer air, we followed the helpful signs and entered the fair proper.
Ten minutes later we were on our way out.
Given that the economy is not exactly overflowing with jobs right now, my expectations were minimal. The exhibitors on hand fell into these categories:
Colleges and universities I’ve mostly never heard of
Jobs no one really wants
Government jobs
Recruiting agencies
#1 and #4 actually want to take money to you, which does not seem particularly in the spirit of a job fair to me, though maybe that’s just a case of being on the wrong side of the tables covered with informative and glossy pamphlets.
#3 had exhibits extolling the virtues of everything from working for the city of Surrey to joining the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canada Revenue Agency or helping out with WorkSafe BC.
#2 had some overlap with #4, mostly by having an exhibit for BC Corrections, one of the top jobs no one really wants. Mr. Lube and Safeway were also seductively offering the lifestyle of oil changes and stocking shelves to attendees.
We did one loop, insuring that we had seen every exhibit, then left, our freshly-printed resumes staying with us. We ended up returning briefly — to use the washroom, which turned out to be the most worthwhile part of the trip. We climbed back up into the upper reaches of Surrey Central station, where the upper atmosphere begins to thin and waited for one of the newer trains to arrive, since any one of them would be quieter than the tooth-rattling one we had arrived in. The first train to come into the station was an old one and Denis decreed it better to leave Surrey noisily now than less noisily 6 minutes later. I agreed. Fortunately the transit crew had remembered to oil the wheels on this train so it wasn’t that bad.
And that was it. We made the round trip (70 minutes of travel time) on a single transfer. There are no zany stories to report, no colorful characters to recall. It was a complete dud. But now I know about the modern state of job fairs and knowledge is power. Right now I’m feeling pretty powerful.
Hot = temperature (30ºC)
Doubles = two baseball games in progress
Run = what I tried to do today!
It seems the weather decided to skip the usual intro to summer with seasonal temperatures and jumped straight into the heat wave part. With the thermometer reporting 30ºC I headed down to China Creek Park at 7 p.m., hoping the sun would be low enough to take the edge off the heat. For the first km I was okay but after that I got really hot and not in the sexy way, more in the ‘sweating like crazy and feeling like you’re going to melt’ way. The trail was only about one-quarter in the shade at this point and I had to make a couple of stops at the water fountain by the 3K mark. The second time I did a dog stood patiently beside me, waiting his turn.
The problem with stopping for a drink is while the water refreshes, resuming your pace takes a little more effort than maintaining it. You also heat up a lot while you are stopped at the fountain, which exacerbates the whole resumption part.
There were two baseball games underway and at one point someone in the southeast diamond hit a ball down the third base line which sent it flying over the trail about 15 feet ahead of me. The girl who ran across and threw it back either did not see me or did not care. All that existed to her was The Ball. If I hadn’t momentarily paused I would have caught it in the side of my head. That was the only near-hit, though.
By the time I got to 4K I knew I would not make it to 10. I had simply started too early and I am not yet back in good enough condition to battle through this kind of heat. I decided I would go to 5K and see how I felt. As I hit 5K I also exited a patch of shade and moved back into the blazing sun. I called it good and stopped there.
My pace was actually 1 second slower than my 10K run three days ago. Ouch. On the plus side, I officially passed the 500 km mark, according to my Nike+ sensor.
Here’s a comparison of how the two runs stack up to the 5K mark. You can see how I pooped out after 1 km.
Weather-wise June can be a tad unpredictable. Any day could be sunny and warm or cool and showery. It’s no gauge of how the overall summer will be. Come July you can usually tell if you’re in for a stinker or not.
Today summer officially arrived in Vancouver:
The official forecast calls for a high of 30ºC tomorrow, which means it will only be one day before people start complaining about the heat. Run under a sprinkler, I sez.
Is this a new trend in Vancouver? Recently I have come across two depictions of male genitalia etched or sprayed onto a sidewalk in the local neighborhood. What compels someone to memorialize such a thing for all to see? I cannot say.
The first one is on Glen Drive, along the route I take to China Creek Park for my runs. It was carefully created before the fresh concrete had a chance to set. At first I thought it might have been the start of a brontosaurus or some other similar dinosaur since the scrotum looks more like a pair of legs. I hope this was not a self-study.
The second one appeared recently on the sidewalk beside a boarded house where Knight Street turns into Clark. By coincidence the house was being torn down today when I took the picture, so it is possible this particular piece of art may not last much longer. There is little ambiguity as to what the artist is depicting here in bold, vibrant strokes. I wonder if this spot was chosen because it was next to an abandoned property. I suspect so. It suggests a certain thoughtfulness one wouldn’t necessarily expect from someone spraypainting a penis onto a sidewalk.
