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.
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.
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.
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,
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
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!
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:
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.
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!
 |
| 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.
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?!'
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.
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.
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.
Boulderz - a fun new bouldering gym in Toronto!
Last night I went to Boulderz, a great new climbing/bouldering gym that recently opened up here in Toronto. I was fairly excited as I tend to stick mostly to my home gym, Oasis.
Boulderz is run by a friendly gentleman named Andrew.
He started Boulderz after having to move and take down his home climbing wall (of course the story's a bit longer and more involved than that...). Congratulations Andrew -- building and starting a climbing gym on your own is a significant accomplishment you should be proud of.Consulting with Vertical Solutions, Andrew built Boulderz over the course of about 8 weeks. Some 4000+ holds pepper the walls of the gym, which is primarily oriented towards bouldering, although a few short top-rope routes are also available.
There are a variety of different overhangs and angles to try out. What was particularly fun was topping out -- climbers can finish problems by going over the top at the end of problems, and then take stairs to go back to the ground floor.
The problems were a solid mix of beginner, warm up, moderate, hard and insane. What I liked was that Andrew was soliciting qualitative feedback about the problems, as well as the fact that the boulderers there were taping up their own. It just means that attention is going to be paid to make sure the problems are fun and that there's a mix for everyone.
The facilities are decent too. A/C in the summer. Changerooms, washrooms, lockers, a shower. And a drinking fountain!!
I wound up getting a good workout, though I definitely felt out of climbing shape. Add a couple of requisite bloody knuckles (the wall friction and all the holds are sooooo new!), and it made for a fun climbing session.
Boulderz is located east of Dupont and Landsdowne. (I took the subway to Landsdowne, then the bus up to Dupont.) It's a little bit hidden -- from D&L, walk west under the bridge and then turn right at 1444. You won't see the entrance from the street - you have to enter the parking lot to find the specific building.
More pics here. Tell your friends!
LIFE Magazine photo archive on Google. Amazing.
Despite my ongoing antipathy towards Google (having to compete with them for talent tends to bias my perspective), periodically I have to admit they do cool stuff. Like this.
Google has arranged to make available LIFE magazine's photo archive, online via image search. The collection spans over 10 million photos. And you can view them in large size instead of some crappy web reduction. Try it here or just enter
source:life
as part of a normal google image search.
Google has arranged to make available LIFE magazine's photo archive, online via image search. The collection spans over 10 million photos. And you can view them in large size instead of some crappy web reduction. Try it here or just enter
source:life
as part of a normal google image search.
The political spectrum - where are you?
I came across this test while surfing the net. It's a simple survey that plots where you fall politically onto a grid; in addition to the usual left-right axis they added a vertical authoritarian/libertarian axis.)
The results were predictable (in the sense that I scored exactly where I thought I would.)
It's disheartening to know that there really aren't any mainstream politicians who serve my particular leanings. It's lonely in Ayn Rand territory. Haha.
Try it out and see where you wind up!
The results were predictable (in the sense that I scored exactly where I thought I would.)
Economic Left/Right: 6.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.85
It's disheartening to know that there really aren't any mainstream politicians who serve my particular leanings. It's lonely in Ayn Rand territory. Haha.
Try it out and see where you wind up!
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