Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Hey that's me!

Amusingly, I recently discovered that I have been making an (extremely peripheral) appearance in a chain e-mail that's circulating around the Internet.

We've all received these e-mails at one point or another. People send them around, they get forwarded a million times, eventually a friend of a friend sends it to your friend who thinks it's funny, and they pass it along to you... Typically they're slightly spammy collections of jokes, funny pictures, and so on, the static precursors to viral YouTube videos. Everybody has an uncle or cousin or acquaintance who loves these messages. The mechanics of how they propagate would make fine grist for a Malcolm Gladwell article.

Yesterday my dad forwarded me this deck of pictures (posted here as a google doc). [Yes, I know by posting the link I am myself transmitting this viral time-waster. Guilty as charged -- that's how these things work!]

"I am sending you this slide presentation... you are in one of the photos", he wrote.

Naturally I was skeptical. I opened it up and it was a typical set of captioned photos, primarily of silly or bizarre situations. You have to be in a certain mood to appreciate them. I took a quick glance through the deck...

Sure enough, there I am, about halfway in.* My incredulity was mistaken.

It's merely a peripheral shot where I'm in the background, and it's buried in a larger grouping of images, so it's not like I'm central or anything, but it's still weird to realize this image is out there, circulating endlessly over the internet, a tiny meme reproducing in people's e-mails and providing a sliver of a laugh each time. This fractionated, diffused 'fame' feels rather hollow.

At least it gave my dad a good chuckle!

So -- the next time you get one of those e-mails or see a post that reads, "Hey check this out", you never know -- you might be a part of it without knowing!

* It's the slide titled 'Stones Stacker', slide 23, if you're curious. It's indisputably me lurking in the back of the shot, partially cut off, wearing a Tilley Hat, oversize RayBans, and a maroon climbing shirt. I'm gawking at what you're supposed to be looking at - a guy balancing rocks. The shot was taken a few years back, during a Yonge Street Festival closure (before David Miller cancelled them). Always a bystander.

How I qualified for Boston*

* if I had magically gone twice as fast, for double the distance -- in the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon.

The last month has been pretty rough athletic venture-wise. I knew that if I participated in the Underwear Affair I would have an injury problem. Sure enough, I ran, had a fabulous time, raised a solid amount -- but injured my left leg quite badly, incurring either a really ugly shin splint or a minor stress fracture.

Consequently I haven't been able to run. The days ticked by and I realized I just was not going to be able to run in the half, at least not without serious injury. But it irked me that I wasn't going to be able to participate -- in recent years the waterfront marathon/half marathon has exploded and become a huge race for Toronto. Plus I hate shelling out money for nothing.

My finisher’s medal

I decided to try an experiment -- I'd WALK the half-marathon. That way I could avoid further injury, yet still legitimately wear a race t-shirt and hang my finisher's medal, without any suggestion of deception. I am no poser!

My race target was arbitrarily set at 10 minutes per kilometer. I would try... to finish LAST in my age group. The only rule: no running or jogging permitted -- just brisk walking.

I've never walked that (measured) length of distance before, so it was an entirely novel experience. I literally had no idea what it would be like. It turns out that life at the back of the queue is quite interesting in and of itself. I learned a number of things from my experience:

1. It's harder than you think. For the simple reason that... you're out there almost twice as long. Walking sounds easy, right? Sure, for half an hour. At three hours? You're taking a trip to Soreville.
2. Everybody is super friendly... and yet also way more determined. I admit, at the start I felt sheepish walking. I think of myself as a runner, and the natural inclination is to go, get a decent pace going, get a decent position. But walking, you had time for reflection and conversation with your peers. I heard a number of touching and inspirational stories from the other participants. As a runner, you kind of look down on walkers. It's instinctual. But now I have newfound respect for walkers. These two ladies I did the last 5k with even 'kicked' at the end, it was hilarious, and heart-warming. They were NOT going to lose to me! They had grit.
3. Technique is useful. You know during the Olympics when they show racewalking and you think to yourself, give me a break, that looks so simple. Guess what -- those guys are impossible to catch with normal walking. I tried to keep pace with a couple of them at the start but they just zoomed off; it was clear that mechanically speaking my gait rate and length was far less efficient. I had to settle for a steady purposeful stride.
4. Pee when you get the opportunity. When you're walking, the length of time between rest stations telescopes out incredibly! I drank a normal amount of water/gatorade for an event like this and it felt like being in kindergarten all over again about 10 kilometers in. "How much longer do I have to hold it in?!" Trust me, you do not want to be in a situation where it's 'just another kilometer' before the next washroom.
5. Everything happens in slow motion. When you're running, you can usually surge a bit and pass someone if you need to. Walking, you had to gain an inch or two at a time... It was funny boxing someone in or getting cut off slowly...

And the final result? 3:13:33, a Boston Qualifier -- if I had run that time over twice the distance. Ha!

It was mentally tough, not running today. But it was still worth doing. I guess I've just got to be patient, and look way, way forward to Around the Bay next year. I can get into gear by then!

8th Annual Board Meeting = Skate Rampage

As usual the Board Meeting turned out to be a crazy success. I'm always amazed by the stoke in the air during this annual city cruise by our longboarding community.



It was a beautiful day and happily there were no fatalities (though I did witness one particularly painful looking bail on University north of College). I think everyone takes something a little different from this event. For some it's a feeling of mass power. For others it's about the community. For a few it's about flouting traffic rules. For me, it was about relaxing in the sun and having a good time.

I met many old friends and made some new ones - I met someone here from Nova Scotia, and someone from Alberta. It was good to see everyone! In the above clip I can pick out so many of the OLF crew, it's funny. Kudos to the organizers, we owe you big thanks.

UA Group shot

Here we go, the elusive NexJ group photo for the 09 NYGH Underwear Affair...


You can't quite see it but yes we are all wearing NexJ underwear. And here's another shot for good measure. Can't do this without a tasty beverage!


Thanks to Gord/Karen for posting these!

Fantastic Underwear Affair!

Imagine a thousand people running free and loose in their underwear, along the Leslie Spit. Sound ridiculous? It happened today!


[Yes I know the above pic is missing a few team members: Henry, Mike and Karen! We forgot about the post race photo until after you'd left! Sorry! Once I get hold of the pre-race photo I'll post it :)]

The NYGH Underwear Affair was a fantastic success. A charity run for cancer care and research for cancers 'below the waist', the Affair showed us how a small-scale run can be powerfully effective in both raising funds (~$750k) and generating smiles at the same time.

To the other members of Team NexJ who joined me at the race: thank you. Together we raised over eight thousand, four hundred dollars! Incredible. You guys are amazing. We came in 11th out of ~190 teams with >1 member. Looking at the top 11 teams, we were competing against teams double, triple... even quintuple our size. We placed THIRD in terms of funds raised per team member. Congratulations everyone!

Next I want to thank my generous supporters, without whose donations this would not have been possible. My target was $400; my sponsors, including NexJ Systems and our CEO, donated over $1,300. Thank you so much!

Next I'd like to thank the organizers of the Underwear Affair, including Joe Boxer - you guys know how to throw a fabulous bash!

And last but not least - thanks to the other participants of the race! I saw some crazy costumes and delightful outfits out there on the trail. Lithe, beautiful, and clad only in underwear: a trend I'd love to see more of.

Oh yeah - my time? Gun time was 51 and change. Yeah, I didn't press. Shrug. I decided to go for FUN over discomfort. I wound up tracking behind an exceptionally attractive lady by the name of Jordanna. Ahem... And Team NexJ fared quite competitively: 3 in the top 100, and everyone came in under an hour. Tom and Mike respectively placed 21st and 31st, and I ambled in at 74. Well done gents!

I'm going to have some intense shin splints (left leg) tomorrow. Next up: Toronto Waterfront Half. Hope this doesn't affect my training!

In loving memory

A dedication: To our beloved uncle Simon, recently passed, who filled my childhood with laughter. Your playful sense of mischievousness and ready smile will live on in our memory. I thought of you during the race today, and my heart was filled with joy.


Uncle Simon played many roles: a loving husband, patrician father, doting grandfather, friend to many far and wide, physician-healer to the sick and frail. He will be deeply missed.

Hot weather makes it perfect for running in my Underwear

After a little cajoling and trash talking I finally signed up for the NYGH Underwear Affair at the end of the month. It's a fundraising 10k race for cancer care and research for cancers below the waist.


It should be a really fun run. If you'd like to help me out and support my fundraising efforts (I'm trying to raise over $400 - well, actually I already have, but I'd like to keep going) feel free to do so here. Don't be shy, I'll really appreciate it. My amazing company has fantastically decided to match donations made to me or my team, so any contribution automatically gets twice the impact!

I do want to thank all of my generous contributors to date. North York General Hospital thanks you too. You guys rock!

I have to say I'm worried about the temperature and humidity. I've fallen off the wagon since the Sporting Life run and am out of condition (sigh). I've run a few times outside over the past week and boy has it been HOT. Gotta keep hydrated. Not to mention I have to rapidly get in shape to gear up for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon, which is coming up pretty quick.

We'll see what happens. I was originally planning on cracking 50 minutes or even approaching my Sporting Life time, but based on my recent runs I'll be happy to come in under an hour. I have big problems with the heat!

On a tangential note, I'm interested to see how much this particular event raises, and the number of participants, relative to the Sporting Life 10k. The Underwear Affair is a MUCH smaller event with (despite organizers' best efforts I'm sure) a much lower awareness and media profile -- a lot of people I talked with when fundraising hadn't even heard of the event. They consequently seem to have taken a different approach and chosen the path of raising the bar considerably for individual fundraising. (Each runner has to raise $400!)

Will they come close to matching the $800k the Sporting Life run took in? That run is a massive event that annually disrupts the entire city for a few hours; is it even worth asking the question? You might be surprised. Last year the Underwear Affair event was for Sunnybrook Hospital, and raised $750k, with about a thousand runners. If you're going to participate in or donate to a charity event, it can be intriguing to determine how effective their fundraising efforts actually are by performing some light comparative analysis relative to other events...

sanity prevails and I switch to the Half

Taking stock of my current physical condition and the length of time it's been taking me to acclimatize to the summer heat, I decided to take the conservative route and reverse the accidental full marathon registration of a few weeks ago and switch to the half. It means I'm going to enjoy my summer running a lot more. Which doesn't mean I'm abandoning the full distance forever - there's always Ottawa in the spring.

Sometimes you have to be realistic to get the best outcome.

I always blame my errors on the user interface

You know when you're doing an online transaction, and you're annoyed at filling out all the form details for the millionth time, so you just kind of rush through the confirmation screen, you're like yeah yeah whatever, without checking the values? And you just click OK?

I just signed up online for the FULL Toronto waterfront marathon instead of the half. Haha. And it costs $10 to switch. Now I'm kind of amused -- should I go for it?!


Means a heck of a lot more training this summer.

Old Baldy road trip

Got my permit to climb at Old Baldy - might as well use it! I love small town Ontario. We camped at Roebuck Campgrounds near Meaford.

Photos from my road trip.

Didn't actually climb anything too hard - I did lead one 5.10b with a sketchy 2nd clip that was like a long diagonal traverse.

Was consumed by blackflies.

Homophonic Typographical Error on Ontario Veterans’ War Memorial

To: Ted McMeekin, Ontario Minister of Gov’t Services
Subject: Error on Ontario Veterans’ War Memorial

Minister McMeekin,

I am writing to call your attention to a typographical error on the Ontario Veterans’ War Memorial at Queen’s Park.

Specifically, the Jane Urquhart inscription on the central bronze plaque reads,

One by one they left behind the bright fields of innocence and stepped into the darkness of experience. Their brave departures were discrete and humble.

From QP-Veterans

Contextually, the word ‘discrete’ should be ‘discreet’. The intended meaning is confirmed by the French translation: “Ils ont quitté avec courage, discrétion et humilité.”

I trust that you will share my desire to have this corrected forthwith.

Your ministerial predecessor, Gerry Phillips, noted during the unveiling ceremony in 2006 that the Memorial represents a permanent, “lasting and dignified tribute to Canadian veterans”. It should reflect our deepest appreciation for their sacrifices, down to the final details.

Thank you for your assistance. Kind regards,

Nathan Ng


Update: Read the spectacular aftermath of this letter

Surprising results at this weekend's Sporting Life 10k

I had a delightful result at this Sunday's Sporting Life 10k: 46:09! I had been targeting just under 50 minutes, but the mostly downhill route apparently gave me a huge boost.

It was a great day for a run - cool, clear, and sunny. There were over 12,000 participants. The event raised over $800,000 for Camp Oochigeas, a summer camp for children with cancer. That is a huge increase in fundraising over the past few years - in 2008 there were 10,000 runners raising $500,000; in 2007 there were 9,000 runners raising $300,000; in 2006 there were 8,000 raising $100,000.

As an aside, doesn't that make you wonder what was going on with expenses? The $/runner ratio goes from 12.5 to 33 to 50 to 66. How did they quintuple the raise per runner in four years? Hmm. In 2005 it's $100k on 7,200 runners; also a lousy ratio.

The probable explanation is that the cost for reserving the road, getting the permits, and staffing/policing, is a giant fixed amount that has to be spent no matter what, so incremental runners after a certain point wind up generating a way bigger margin. At least hopefully it's explainable - I hope I haven't accidentally stumbled upon some secret running series accounting scandal! :)

I registered late, so for the start I was slotted into the 'open' purple corral at the back. I was worried that I would spend a lot of energy dodging people and not be able to settle on a pace, but the organizers did an acceptable job of spacing the waves of runners.

The first kilometer down to around Davisville was a decent warm-up with some unavoidable flittering around trying to get out of the pack, but then it started to spread out so the dodging wasn't too terrible.

I was going at a strong clip the first half, but it felt easier due to the downhill - the section from St. Clair to Bloor was a breeze. I wasn't going full out, but the pace was definitely faster than normal. I'm not sure if I should have taken it easier in retrospect.

Around 6 I started to get the familiar glimmerings of lung discomfort that we all know. I took it a bit easier through to the turn onto Richmond, then started to accelerate again. At 7 I was definitely going full on and started to feel a bit of stomach cramp.

At 8ish, somewhere around Spadina I had a novel, fairly rare for me sensation - my throat gagged, and I felt like I might throw up. The sun was on us and I felt hot. My lungs were fine (at least not any worse than you'd expect at that point) but the retch definitely disconcerted me and mangled my breathing pattern.

Vomiting did not particularly appeal to me, so I reluctantly throttled down exactly at the point where I would have wanted to kick for the final stretch, from 8 to the finish. That was frustrating. I'm sure that it cost me at least 30 seconds, maybe even more. I was totally primed to kick, and everything else -- lungs and legs -- was fine (uncomfortable yes, but nothing I hadn't encountered before).

My colleague told me that on the section along Front by the tracks there was a powerful odour of creosote, which might have been the source of my gagging, but I honestly didn't smell anything consciously. I need to get more sleep the night before a race, that's the real ticket.

In a weird sense I was both very happy with the result, and also annoyed - who knows how much I could have shaved off if I had been able to blast through the last 2k?

Looking back at it, I would even consider risking it if I could break 45. Maybe if it had happened a little bit closer to the end.

(I've never run a sub 45min 10k; the closest I ever came was 45:10 back in 2001, and after that I started doing longer events like marathons, where the pace is a lot slower.)

Interestingly, the first place Men's 70+ finisher clocked in at 44:47. I'll have to look this guy up and enter some more races against him. The question is whether I can triumph over him without throwing up! At least I beat the 2nd place 70+ year old.

The race finished off in Fort York. The main gate caused a bottleneck getting people through, but since that was how the Fort was militarily designed to work, I guess I can't complain.

The finisher's medals were well done with a detailed engraving. There should have been more effort to move runners after the finish into the open area where the food stations were -- it took a long time to get from the finish line to the first, massively crowded water station -- but given the volume of participants I am willing to concede the organizers some slack. Also, the distance markers could have been more visible - they looked too much like advertisements on the streetlamps, and I missed a number of them during the course of the race.

Wandering around the Fort, I met up with a bunch of work colleagues, and we swapped stories. We had a couple of minor upsets in the results versus expected order, which will undoubtedly be the source of some entertaining trash talking until the next competitive outing.

All in all it was a good time and I'm happy that I decided to enter.

I haven't decided yet what the next run is going to be. I will probably enter another short (by short I mean 10k or less) run over the summer for fun, but my present training intention is to gear up for the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon in September, or possibly the Toronto International Marathon in October. We shall see!

Photos from Kentucky

A fun climbing trip. As is customary during Easter weekend, hordes of Ontarian climbers trekked down to Slade, Kentucky to muck about the Red River Gorge.

We took it easy this year and rented a luxurious cabin in which to stay. It was quite a change of pace from the typical tent, and fortuitous as there was a serious hailstorm and tornado warning our second day.

Photo album link:

KY-April2009

Around the Bay - almost, but not quite a disaster

This year's Around the Bay 30k was a tough slog for me! Mentally and physically. My target was to come in around 2:50.

From running

For whatever reasons wet rain is a trigger to causing muscle cramps for me. And guess what, this year's edition (the 115th - North America's oldest road race) featured drizzling cold rain with a chilly wind off the lake. I was thoroughly drenched.

At about 12k (!) my left calf cramped. Which is ridiculous because it's not like I hadn't trained leading up to this point (And I ran the 12 normally, at about a 5:30 pace, so it wasn't a case of overzealotry at the beginning leading me astray). It was EXTREMELY frustrating, because normally at 12 I'm just about warmed up and ready to push a little. I mean, if you cramp at 27 or 28, that's fine, you're in the home stretch -- but 12?! I have never had a DNF but when you have 18k of ugliness ahead of you, bonking out is a serious option to consider. I chose to slow down to a 6min/k jog where the cramping was held in check. Nevertheless, it was touch and go between 14 to 18k.

Once I hit twenty I knew I would just grit it out (in the worst case, I could just walk 10k). I felt like a zeppelin with a leak, slowly being forced to descend from the sky. The rolling hills section in Burlington didn't help either. I thought I might have an outside chance to hit three hours but the Mountain brutalized me. My right quad started locking up too. Cardio wise everything was fine, since I was going at a turtle's pace. Huffing along at slower than 6 minute kilometers is not enjoyable for me.

My chip time at the finish was 3:01:27. Oh well. It still felt good to complete the course; it was like an exercise in humility and perspicacity. I felt like I earned my finisher's medal the hard way and will wear my race jersey (a somewhat lurid orangey-red longsleeve tech shirt) with pride.

Normally ATB is on the training schedule leading up to Ottawa or some other marathon in the spring, but this year I'm taking it easy. I might still do the Waterfront marathon or Toronto Int'l in the fall, we'll see!

Next thing on the menu: climbing in Kentucky!

Dear Mr. Gates, here's another couple hundred bucks

Once again, despite my best efforts, I find myself meting out hard earned dollars to the great and terrible Beast of Redmond. I'm not as fanatically anti-Microsoft as many of my ideological colleagues and associates are, but nevertheless I try to avoid using software from that particular organization wherever possible -- at least with respect to personal use.

The software license that I bought? Office:mac 2008, Home and Student edition. Yes, that specific eye-rolling suite. Aren't there other fantastic alternatives available, you're asking. What about Open Office? Or iWork?

[In case you're wondering, ethically I feel bound not to pirate software. I make my living with a software company, and even though piracy is endemic in today's youth culture, I can't be a hypocrite and pirate someone else's work. Just a personal choice I've made.]

Success in software deployments often hinges upon the use case scenario. And the use case here involves my parents. My parents have a Mac, which I purchased for them because -- generally speaking -- Macs just work, are easier to use, and are simpler to configure for non-computer adept users like my parents.

Inter-format compatibility is the driver of my purchase. The marketroids for iWork (and to a lesser degree for Open Office) claim repeatedly and assuredly that the long and dark age of incompatible formats is over, and that what's editable in one suite is importable in another.

If someone sends you a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file, you can open it in iWork.

And you know what? That's true. Probably ninety nine percent of all Word, Powerpoint, and Excel documents are openable in their respective iWork and OpenOffice equivalents. Asterisk.

Guess whether or not the documents my parents use are affected by the asterisk.

Yes. It turns out there's an edge case where the files are not truly, truly 100% compatible. In my parent's case, it's specifically Powerpoint presentations with embedded music. The music doesn't play in Keynote. I know this because I have a license for iWork and -- ahem -- it doesn't work. Sure, the file opens. The slides play. But no music.

I know what you're thinking. Big deal. The presentation opens, what's the problem?

I have made an amusing anthropological discovery: within the particular extended social community of retirees that my parents belong to, everyone uses Powerpoint as a multi-purpose multi-media communication tool. Got a photo album? Nobody uses Picasa or photobucket or flickr or facebook -- instead they slap together Powerpoint presentations. Got a music track you want to share? Forget imeem or Last.fm -- they stick it in a Powerpoint presentation! And that's what they e-mail around. Unbelievable.

The hilarious part of it is, that's their mode of behaviour and it's not going to be modified. The community is barely computer literate to begin with and highly, highly resistant to change. Education is not an option. And nevermind the Office Open XML glossolalia!

So 90% of the documents my parents receive from their social community consist of Powerpoint presentations. With embedded music. Out of all the Office suite functionality that exists, this particular incompatible segment turns out to be the one that gets used.

I could either cut my parents off from their social community, or swallow my discomfort and purchase an Office license. After all, I kept telling them 'Macs just work', right?

Filial piety is a heavy obligation. Chalk up another victory for MSFT.

At least the license permits me to install it on more than one computer! Guess it's going on my home machine... And now I have a ready excuse for the inevitable question, 'Why the heck is this installed on your computer?!'

impressive cigar box work

Increasingly juggling seems to be synthesized with other performance disciplines such as acrobatics and dance. It's about the manipulation in time and space of objects, as well as the interrelationship between the body and those objects.

Oh, and check out the abs on this guy. I gotta go work out now.

Asymmetry and calculus in architecture

I found this talk by Greg Lynn tremendously thought provoking, specifically because of my reaction -- the idea of complex non-linear structures whose interrelated parts form an organic whole excites me, yet I instinctively disliked every example shown. I could see the sense of what Lynn was trying to communicate in every example, yet was disturbed by the results. Have I been brainwashed by what Lynn calls symmetry and the problem of 'ideal shapes'?

There's one shot in his presentation where he shows a mass of structural steel beams that are curved and loop all around -- fascinating. With these sort of techniques one can imagine structures that are almost alien to our present experience.

Staggering honey bee colony losses last year

35% of honey bee colonies in the U.S. were reported totally lost last year. Don't you think that's frightening?


A new overview survey was recently published outlining the scale of honeybee colony losses in the U.S. from Fall 2007 to Spring 2008.

The authors estimate that between 750 thousand and one million honey bee colonies in the U.S. died in that time period, many from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). They speculate about numerous factors such as varroa mites, stress from constant colony relocation (use of bees for agricultural pollination is heavily industrialized, more than the layperson might expect), weather, starvation, and poor quality queens. Some kind of contagious element is hypothesized as the key factor behind CCD.

The rate of death appears to be significantly higher than in previous recorded years. It will be interesting to see whether this has an impact on food commodity prices.

Photo by autan on flickr.

Unfinished Game debate

I've been reading the comments in Jeff Atwood's post about this problem:

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you met someone who told you they had two children, and one of them is a girl. What are the odds that person has a boy and a girl?

The number of people who instinctively think it's 50% is high, as you'd expect. But the number of people who continue to insist that it's 50% after being shown that it isn't, is disturbing. What's most disturbing is that the target demographic for Atwood's blog is the software development community - programmers! Yikes.