Whole Foods rocks

Today, while doing some Christmas shopping with my folks we stopped in at Whole Foods in Oakville. I was going to pop in and buy some Pomegranate tea that I spied last time I was at the Baltimore Whole Foods store. This would be my third visit to Whole Foods. Jason and I went their in the fall and I grabbed some lunch when he was returning some things.

My folks were really impressed with the place and asked if we could go back after Christmas. My mother bought a wide variety of cheeses that she hasn't seen in years. As we were walking by the bakery we picked up a fresh baguette for dinner. I stocked up on some of the exotic black teas that looked yummy. We went up and down every aisle and enjoyed taking in the Whole Foods experience. Since it was close to lunch time had paninis for lunch. Jason thanks for taking me to Whole Foods in the fall, as a trip their is the easiest way of having really stoked parents.

The Perils of Poor Packing and Chai Tea

Today I learned about the perils of poor packing first hand but was able to make a quick recovery. In my last entry I talked about how I wanted to try running to work soon. Today, I awoke really early and decided to run to work. I packed all my work clothes and shower stuff into my backpack; it was a full and heavy load. I made a critical mistake of not closing my zipper sliders at the top of the bag and not to one side. With all the giggling of my bag the zipper started to peel open and things started to fall out along the route. One of the first things to fall out was my winter hat and office access badge. I only discovered when checking into the office of my fatal error and was lucky that I had other identification. After showering I decided to retrace my steps and found my access badge hanging from a tree as someone had seen its value and picked it up. My loss was only a winter hat. As I run home tonight I'll stopp by MEC to buy a replacement and will most likely carabiner my zipper slides together.

My second adventure today deals with Starbuck Organic Chai tea. For a long time, I have been a fan of their Early Grey teas but found at times it contains too much caffeine. I switch every so often to the Tazo Organic Chai Tea. To the folks at Starbucks when you say you want Chai tea it brings up two connotations, one cheap and the other expensive. The cheap version is some hot tea with a Chai teabag and the other is the Chai Tea Latte. Today, I was downtown for a meeting and asked for Chai Tea and tried to be clear what I wanted and jokingly the barista just gave me the tea bag in its package. I said sort asked where was the hot water and which we all rolled around laughing as they wanted to figured that I wanted hot tea.

Commuting

A little while I moved a little further away from the office. This has some advantages as well disadvantages. My new place has a partial view of the Ottawa River and is twice as large as my old place. One of the disadvantages is that the commute is a little longer. But it satisfies one of my goal of being able to run, blade, ski, snowshoe and cycling to work depending on the season. My commute recently has been a little more challenging over the last two weeks. I had only been living in my place for a few days when the transit company decided to go on strike just as our first major snowstorm descended on the city. This created major havoc as the bus drivers decided to protest in front salt/sand depot in unplowed and unsanded roads. I've considered this situations as a bit of an opportunity as it has allowed my to explore my new neighborhood on foot, something, I otherwise would not have done. Each day I hike 6 miles/10 kilometers round trip to the office using I can in about an hour depending on the footing. By bus this commute would normally take about 15 minutes. Each day has been different as I'm making good use of my iPod as some days I listen to swing music, jazz and occasionally a string of symphonies. I have learned about the various plows and sanding trucks the city uses to keep the roads clear. I'm starting to see familiar faces and can sort of gauge who is late and who is early. I have been able to recall what black ice looks like and what consistency of snow is the most and least slippery. As you can see much goes through my mind on my hour to and from the office. I've been comparing notes with my briefer as to who is loosing the most weight as a result of our extended commutes. My daily adventures will most likely end soon as I head home for the holidays at the end of the week and the city will eventually have to settle with the strikers. While the drama continue I still have to see what it us like to winter run to the office. I also openly wonder what expressions I would get as I visibly stow my snowshoes in my cube after a commute through the hinterland along the Ottawa River.

Innovations in snowplows

On my morning commute, I saw something that got me excited and that is, the latest innovation in snowplows. The traditional setup is to have a concave blade that can plow straight ahead, plow right or plow left. The new plows have the blade split into two sections each which can be independently angled. What this means is that at a twist of the joystick the blade can change to a "V" shape or the shape of an arrow or one part at a 90 degree angle and the other straight ahead or whatever combination meets the needs of the situation.

Moving

I've been thinking about moving for a little while and made the plunge recently to a larger place. I am a little further from the office which may or may not be a good thing. With the help of my parents we purged, packed and cleaned my old place over a couple of days. On the weekend, I moved into my new place using a 14 foot U-Haul truck that was 3/4s full. The weather cooperated as it was a sunny and a cool 8C/46.4F. It took about two hours to fill the truck and I fell in love with the box cart as I could move three boxes at a time. The drive to the new place took about ten minutes. It a little long to unload the truck at the new place as the elevator was smaller. I think that my new place is double the size of my old one. I'll blog more on the adventure soon.

During my moving week I stayed with my parents at a downtown hotel. It was more convenience for everyone and my parents did want to tackle the Ottawa city traffic. Our bedroom looked down onto a day care. As we drank our morning tea we would watch the parents drop the kids at a really early hour of 7:00 AM. The kids were all bundled up and looked like minature Michelin-man people. Before we would head out for the day we watch the kids playing during recess. Some would be making snow angels, other on tricycles, throwing snow, shoveling snow and have fun in the cold weather. One of the things they did brought a smile to my face and that was the hoola hoop. They had learned about wiggling the hips thing and we happy to throw it five feet away and to pick it up and throw it another five feet. They were getting joy from just tossing around some plastic. Another brought back memories and that was that all the kids had their mittens on strings. I can remember having my mittens on strings.

Guest blogger segment -- my father

The most notable incident occurred when returning to the hotel as we bundled up against the sub-zero freezing weather. Outside the hotel door was a stocky fellow in just a t-shirt and shorts puffing on a cigarette with a sarcastic look on his face. He ball cap said Junior Canadian Ranger. He was an Inuit/Eskimo and a member of Canada's Army of the North and our last frontier. Somehow he found the freezing weather to his satisfaction and felt right at home.

Wordabble -- 100,000 points

This morning, I passed a landmark that has been looming for a while and that is have found 100,000 points in the Fusion Bay's iPhone/iPod Touch game Wordabble. Earlier in the month, I achieved another milestone and that was to have played my first 100 games. As I think about these two milestones, I wonder what other milestones I can achieve by playing wordabble. I'll close this entry by thanking Jason and Adam for developing wordabble. 100,000 points later and 100 games later I still get my daily mental gymnastics through Wordabble. Thanks guys!

Geocaching, the military, and bow hunting

Yesterday, I was out geocaching and with the expectation that it would be cool and quiet afternoon. This was not too be. As I was driving up to the trailhead I passed two groups of army recruits decked in cammo, face paint and carrying an assortment of rifles, sniper scopes, and machine guns. They looked like a serious and dangerous bunch. At the last moment, I noticed that most of the guns were plugged. They were hoping to ambush another platoon concealed much deeper along the trail. Lucky for me the first geocache was in the opposite direction and an easy find. I continued along the trail and noticed a guy in cammo sitting midway up a tree keeping very calm and quiet. Later I would find out that the woods were occupied by deer hunters with bows. The third cache find was what I call a "gotcha." The cache was suspended 15 feet in the air and hanging from the nub of a branch. Standing on a three foot stump and using a 10 foot long branch I was able to knock the cache down. As I was lifting the cache back into place along came a couple of deer hunters wanting to know what I was doing. I showed them the cache and my GPS and explained what geocaching was all about. Before they headed back along the trail I asked them what to do when in the woods during deer season; do you move silently or make some noise. They suggested to make more noise that you would expect of a deer prancing through the forest.

100th Wordabble game

Today I played my 100th game of Wordabble. Each day has been a lot of challenging and rewarding fun. I can say with certainty that my vocabulary has increased as I continue to learn more and more obscure words. When Jason and Adam introduced the finger-dragging with auto-entry option I found I could play the game faster. Another feature that has become more valuable over time is being able see what words I have missed at the stroke of midnight as I use it as a way to increase my vocabulary. I would like to take a moment to talk about a couple of the more entertaining days. In one of them I was able to make use of most of the urology terms I had learned a couple of years ago. In the other game, I was using my knowledge of the various components of the heart and lungs. I can say that I have enjoyed each days whether it had 200+ words or less than 100 words. In the high value games it was frustrating to find 50% of the words. When there were fewer than 100 words I would scratch my head and wonder if that four letter jumble of letters was indeed a word. In most cases it would be a new obscure word that I would park away for future reference. I'll close off this entry by thanking Jason and Adam for my first 100 days of fun playing wordabble.

Bras to Masks

I'm at home for a long weekend which gives me a chance to catch up on reading. This morning I was reading one of my father's technical magazines. It talked about a recent patent for a bra that could be quickly converted in a face mask in the event of civil emergency.

Urban Jetboiling 2

One of the dangers with your iPhone/iPod Touch is that you will write less than you should. I'll try to make up for this fault.

I was impressed by how quickly the Jetboil heated the water. The Mac N Cheese tasted good but it would have tasted better after a long day of hiking and camping. I think it would awesome with tuna or salmon. There was a little problem with portions. If this was an outback adeventure I would have had to cook two packages. This may vary depending on the meal. I think my next meal will be Ginger Pasta which when served with salmon is awesome. Jason, Em and I had this meal when we hiked in the Shenandoahs last year and it rocked.

Urban Jetboiling

Tonight I did something I had planned to do last weekend but got rained out. This is cooking with my Jetboil. I loaded up my backpack with my utensils, flashlight, Nalgene bottle, fuel canister, the Jetboil stove and packaged dinner. My destination was the bike path that runs along the Ottawa River. The idea was to test out the stove in a familiar setting before putting it to test in the foul elements. I assembled the stove as dusk was setting in. I reached a point of indecision, should I light the stove before or after mounting the pot. I opted to light the stove first. The stove lit on it's first try. In the meantime I started to prepare the grub. Before I knew there was a geyser of steam coming out of the stove's portal. I poured the steaming water in the Mary Jane Mac N Cheese and waited patiently. A little while later I was eating my first Jetboil assisted meal. A quick thanks goes out to Jason for the stove.

2008 Baltimore half-marathon

Short version – finishing time 1:34
60 second improvement of 2007
pace per mile 7:10
pace per km 4:27,
position 142/6245

Long version –

This past weekend I headed down to Maryland for my forth Baltimore half-marathon. My friend Jason met me at the airport and we headed over to the race expo to pick up my race kit. Registration was well organized and was able to get my gear quickly. One innovation this year is that they had disposable timing chips that look like a loop of tape. He headed back to Jason's place and had a pasta/BBQ dinner with his girlfriend. I came dressed for Ottawa weather and very quickly had to start peeling off the layers. Mid-evening, I checked into a nearby hotel as I would have to start race preparations early. I awoke at 5:30 AM and started my feeding. Over the next little while, I ate half-a-box of Vector cereal. I caught the 7:00 AM hotel shuttle over to the race start and was able to watch the start of the marathon. For the next while, I chilled before eating a Clif bar at about an hour before my start. After multiple bathroom breaks I did a long warmup along the edge of the Inner Harbor. I was seeded in the first corral and had a great start. It would take me a while before I finally reached my race pace. The first four miles are a gradual uphill reaching the steepest part at the six mile mark. Along the way I enjoyed running along Patterson Park, and Clifton Park. One of the highlights of the race is running around Lake Montebello. Your start at the south-east corner and come out at the south-west corner having knocked off two miles. We next headed over to John Hopkins University at which point we start the downhill section of the course. My energy was starting to wane a bit so I pushed back a gel. I was pleased as my mile pace was a consistent 7:10 despite the rolling hills. The final hill takes you over the very colourful the MLK (Martin-Luther-King) parkway. The hill comes at a bad time as you still have three miles left to run. I finished off my gel and appreciated the sugar surge and caffeine jolt (15 mg). Ever so gradually the view of Camden Yards (home of the Orioles) became closer and closer. At this point, I pulled away from a pack of runners that I had been working off as they detoured to a water stop. I increased the pace a bit and imagined that I was doing my last 2.5 km/1.553 mile interval along the Rideau Canal. I was in a fair amount of discomfort but knew that I still had more left in the tank. I was really pleased to find that I had finished the race a minute faster than last year.

Sneaky Geocaches

Yesterday, I went geocaching along the Ottawa River and eventually located a sneaky geocache. The GPS told me that I was within a couple of feet of the cache but where could it be. This link shows where the cache is. The cacher had transported the tree segment home, sliced off the top, ground out the core and the put dowling support to secure the top. From a distance it looks like a large tree stump sitting next to the river. Afterwards I was reading the logs and noticed that the tree had stumped a lot of people.

MacGyver moment

While on my run tonight I had a MacGyver moment. When I packed my running gear this morning I packed my large winter overpants. They are designed to be worn over a couple of layers. As I started out on my run they started to slide down. Every so often I would pull them up a bit. At the midpoint of run there is a construction site with miles of yellow caution tape laying around. I grabbed a foot of tape and used it to secure my pants. My run back to the university was at a faster and more relaxed pace.

Voting

Earlier this week, I cast my vote in the Advanced Polls for the upcoming election. I was one of the first 15 to do so which created complications as the folks in charge were still working out the details. There were a variety of forms, a new Voter Certification, a Change of Address Certification and Proxy Voting Certification. I showed my drivers license and presented voter registration card and spent the next 20 minutes people watching. Most of the people were much older than I (read retired) and should not have been pressed for time but they were. I had an Asian chap constantly poking me saying “You Next!! You Next!!” I said that they were three people ahead of me so we would have to wait. A couple of minutes later he would poke me again and I would say we still have to wait. I’m not sure if he was trying to sway my vote using physical force. Most of the old folks started to complain about government waste and inefficiency and why the exercise was taking so long. When it came time to marking my “X” in the box it was a straight forward process as I knew who I was going to vote for and did so without any second thoughts. The candidate’s brochures, the TV ads and the debates had no bearing on who I voted for. It is a relief as I can now wait and watch the election results when they become available.

Lindy 1.2

Last Thursday, I had my first Lindy Hop dancing lesson. There is a bit of a story as to how these lessons came about. About two weeks ago Andrea, sent out a group email mentioning that they were in need of leaders for upcoming lessons. A couple of days later along comes another email saying that they were in desperate need of leaders. This caught my attention so I kept a copy of the email on my desk. At the Friday night dance, Andrea asked me if I was going to take the lessons and I was more yes than maybe. A day later I got an email saying that if you replied within 24 hours the lessons would be free as the waiting list of followers was continuing to grow. This was enough encouragement for me to signup for the lessons. The lessons will repeat what I did in an eight course in the spring and I'm looking forward to brushing up on the steps.

Awesome weekend in Baltimore

I spent last weekend having an incredible great time in Baltimore. I arrived on Friday afternoon and Jason met me at the airport. We headed over to Whole Foods for a late lunch as I was famished. After lunch we headed back to Jason’s place to chip away at a layer of cement in his bathroom as earlier in the week the bathroom tiles didn’t set properly. Having two hammers and chisels beaver away at the floor allowed us to nearly get the floor free of cement debris 1 2 . In the evening we headed south to Glen Echo, which is south-west of Washington for some swing dancing. Jam Cellar and Sac au Lait were hosting an outdoor dance in the old bummer car pavilion. It was a great venue and the music was good.

On Saturday, we headed back to Jason’s house and spent much of the morning scouring the bathroom floor of cement so that Em could lay the tiles in the afternoon. In the afternoon Jason grouting another bathroom and I was cool to act as a support person doing chores for Jason and Em. In the evening we headed over to Camden Yards to take in an Orioles game. It game started late as the “O’s” were playing a double-header. We had great seats and we watched a good game despite the fact that “O’s” lost.

We started off Sunday with a large breakfast (home-made waffles) at Jason’s parents place. Jason gave me some tips on how to get my Yahoo Mail on my iPhone/iPod Touch which was really good. Afterwards, we headed to REI as I had an order that needed to be picked up. I was able to buy two BPA free Nalgene bottles which was sweet. We next headed in a North-Western direction to the Catochin Mountains close to Thurmont, MD. Much of the day was spent hiking and doing some light climbing. I was happy to watch Jason scale some steep rock faces. (Note to self – I should have brought my climbing shoes and harness.) (Wolf Rock n39 38.042 w077 26.258) There was a little exciting when we were at Wolf Rock. I found a crevasse in the some rocks which allowed me to lay back and to take and get in some R&R. Once Jason had climbed Wolf Rock he set his eyes on a more ambitious goal of seeing his could climb through a rock face underneath me. He got very close to the surface only to find he couldn’t get his chest through a small crevasse. What to do? The only solution was to head back down the way he came. It was a hot day and the rocks were slippery. As he was heading down Jason lost his grips and fell 15 feet bouncing from one rock to another. It was a WOW moment. A little later we headed south back to Em’s place for an awesome lasagna dinner with family friends.

http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#

On Monday, Scott, Jason and I headed over to Home Depot to get some Hardi-backer flooring boards. I had estimated that we would need 14 boards by measuring the area and adding in an error factor (15%). After lunch we laid down the cement, Hardi-backer boards, and screwed in 850 screws. Having three people working on the task meant that we always had a ready-supply of cement, some putting in the screws while someone else was measuring the next board. In the evening we headed to the Austin Grill for some swing dancing. I head a great time dancing while many folks that I had danced with before. We close out the evening doing something quite memorable and that is playing wordabble on our ipod Touch/iPhone.

On Tuesday, we had a leisurely morning which was great. We exchanged gifts and I’m pleased with my JetBoil. For lunch we headed to Rosina’s which is a sort of tradition. In the early afternoon I headed back to Ottawa by way of Philadelphia.

Exhaust Burger: Let your tailpipe cook for you

I was listening to an engineering podcast tonight which caused to laugh for quite some time. An Iranian engineer has invented a device that attaches to your car exhaust pipe and uses the excess heat to cook a hamburger. It is a novel concept.

Roofing

Every year my father and I tackle a couple of large home maintenance projects. This summer we completed three. We started off by manually drilling and installing four concrete footing for my parent’s deck. This stabilized the deck and extended it by a couple of feet. Earlier this month, we stripped off the shingles from half the roof of the deck and re-shingled it. Last weekend, we finished our most ambitious project of re-roofing 40% of the roof of the house. We started off by removed three layers of asphalt shingles and two layers of pine shakes. This exposed the underlying laths. We covered the laths with 15 - 2'x8' plywood sheeting. Our final chore was to apply 15-year asphalt shingles to the roof. It was a sense of great relief when the last shingle was nailed to the roof.

Meeting a distant friend

Over the weekend I did something that I have been meaning to do for a while which is to meet a friend from the other side of the globe. Gemma and I have known each other for a couple of years but only formally met in Montreal when our paths crossed recently. A couple of years ago I exchanged emails with the New Zealand chapter of my honor society. Gemma was their communications person and put me in touch with some folks that would be attending the Arizona conference that I attended. We connected again through myspace and finally on Facebook. A while back she commented how she had been able to buy a ticket from New York City to Toronto for $12.00. She would then be heading to Quebec City for a World Youth Summit. I could either meet before or after the summit. Getting together before the summit proved hard to schedule so we opted to meet afterwards. On Friday, met in front of McGill University and had supper at a nearby Italian restaurant. [The caesar salad and pizza were great.] We went across the street to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream as even though she has been in the U.S. for six months she hadn’t experienced the marvelous Vermont ice cream. We concluded the evening talking at a local coffee shop. As the clock was striking midnight, I headed back to Ottawa and she departed for Toronto-New York City-Washington, DC.

Wordabble

I thought I would blog about a new game available for the iPhone and iPod Touch which has me excited. The folks at Fusion Bay recently developed a game called Wordabble. Using the touch interface of the iPhone/iPod, you locate words hidden in a 5x5 block of letters. What I like about the application is it is easy to use, intuitive, fun and addictive. You can play the game in three modes, a timed game, a marathon session or you can download the game of the day and challenge your friends and family. At any time you can submit your scores to see how fair with other players. I like the way the application cleanly and smoothly presents the challenge of finding the words. I say check-it out!

Civic Holiday, Colonel By day or John Graves Simcoe day

The first weekend in August we have a holiday that has many names, Civic Holiday, Colonel By day or John Graves Simcoe day. I decided to head to Montreal to see if I could achieve my geocaching goal of 900 finds. On Friday night, I joined a long line of people at the bus station heading to Montreal. In all there were 180 folks in line for the 5 p.m. bus. Security was heightened as they had undercover cops and sniffer dogs checking out everyone’s luggage. Once at the McGill residence, I found that the place was overbooked for the weekend. They have another nearby residence which I checked into and was upgraded to a better room at no additional cost. On Saturday, I joined a line of five people eager to buy the iPhone. I bought a white 16 gigabyte phone. WooT!

Over the next couple of days I did a geocaches marathon finding 26 geocaches putting my finds tally at 902. On Monday, I headed up to the Apple store which is located in the second largest mall in Canada, the le Carrefour de Laval. I was talking one of the specialist (blue shirt) about my challenge in getting the native Yahoo mail on the iPod touch to work and he suggested seeing one of the Genius (black shirt). After an hour the genius couldn’t get the Yahoo Mail app to work. I opted to use some custom IMAP and POP settings to get it to sort of work and not work. All in all it was a great holiday weekend.

Animals in the Hinterland

Today I was geocaching in the Greenbelt of Ottawa and trying to locate some caches in deer yards. As I was walking to my next cache I heard a branch crack and stopped dead in my tracks. This could have been a good or bad decision. If a tree or branch was falling I was going to get whacked. I was lucky as whatever made the noise stopped too. Through the cedar underbrush I could see that I was five feet away from a deer. We stared at each other for a while and then it flicked it tail and was off on its way. A little later on I spotted another one heading away in the distance. My current find tally is 875 and so my goal of 900+ finds by the end of the year is quickly coming within sight.

IAT – Implicit Association Test

While exploring iTunes U recently I downloaded a couple of psychology lectures from the University of Washington. During one the lectures they talked about the IAT (Implicit Association Test). These are self-administered tests that will help you find out your unconscious levels of prejudice about age, gender, race, self-esteem, and mathematics vs. art. (Wikipedia Entry) At the Harvard IAT web site you can take a variety of IATs. I took one comparing Canada and the United States and one comparing Obama and McCain. It was interesting learning about my natural biases.

iPhone 2.0 Software Update

I like the iPhone 2.0 software update as it offers many new features and builds on the things offered in version 1.1.4. The ability to delete multiple messages at once, the “push” feature, improved map support; the scientific calculator and the AppStore make the negligible cost I paid worthwhile. Over the weekend, I downloaded four applications, Things (a productivity app), WeatherBug, Units, and Remote (controlling iTunes on your computer from your iPhone/iPod touch). A news release from Apple today said over the weekend 10 million applications were downloaded from the AppStore.

Getting the iPhone software was a bit of a challenge. It took me a while and a bit of frustration to learn the trick. I had assumed that once I had bought the software it would download automatically. This was not the case. Every time I tried to download the software the orange download icon would spin for three seconds and then disappear. A 225 megabyte download should take longer than three seconds. It could be that the servers were busy so I attempted the download a couple of times an hour without success. I checked the Apple discussions area and was pleased to learn that I wasn’t the only experiencing this problem. There is an expression that trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity. On a whim, I tried something different and that was to plug the iPod touch into my computer at which point iTunes asked if I wanted to download the update. This was the trick. Sweet! The orange download icon spun for 15 minutes and the download was done. From this point on the upgrade was routine and I was finally happy and relieved to experience the new powers of my Touch.

Adirondacks June-July 2008

Wright Peak/Algonquin/Iroquois/Phelps/Colden

Friday June 27
One of my goals is to eventually climb all of the 46 peaks in the Adirondacks whose elevation is above 4,000 feet. This past weekend I added one more to the tally, Iroquois. On Friday morning, Chris Mc and I headed down to Lake Placid and stopped in at the Price Chopper to get lunches and groceries for the long weekend. Once at camp we setup a tarp and bug net over the picnic table as suspected we would meet the bugs and/or rain over the weekend. Na, Paul and Ben would arrive at the campsite a little while later. After supper we started a fire and contemplated when Wendy and Erin would arrive. We took bets on when they might arrive and I won. They wouldn’t arrive until mid-afternoon on Saturday.

Saturday June 28
The five of us were up early (0630) and eating breakfast by 7:00 AM. Our goal for the day was to hike the mountains near Algonquin Peak much of this would be dependant on our stamina and the weather. At 8:21 AM we headed out from the ADK Loj trailhead and made our way south-west. After 30 minutes the trail splits, one direction leading to Marcy Dam and the other to Algonquin. We took the right path and headed south. The trail very gradually climbs and is a Mecca for boulders. Along the way we took in the sight of a waterfall. After climbing for about an hour we reached another trailhead. Half of the group climbed Wright Peak while the others continued on the trail to Algonquin. The view from Wright was good but we could see a storm approaching in the distance. As continued our ascent up to Algonquin it started to lightly rain and in rolled the mist. It was hard to spot the next cairn. We stopped for lunch at the summit. The mountain steward was standing on watch. The group split again and most of the people headed down Algonquin. The remainder continued east to Boundary and Iroquois. The intensity of the rain increased and the fog grew thicker. It was at this point that the GPS proved its value. At breakfast time I punched in the coordinates for all the peaks we would be climbing. A father, his son and a large poodle mistook Boundary for Algonquin. I shouted that the GPS said we had another 300 yards to hike. They were not happy by this remark. The final 300 yards involved hiking through shoulder height trees and boggy mud flats. My knee high gators kept the spruce trees from scratching my legs as well as keeping the mud away from my boots. Once we reached the summit we retreated back to the valley between the mountains. We had a choice to head back by Avalanche Lake or return the way we had come. Three groups were making the same decision and all opted for coming back the way they had come. It would be better to head back on familiar terrain that to take a longer route with an uncertain terrain. The constant rain made this choice obvious. As we headed across Algonquin the rain became more intense and my heart went out to the steward huddled next to a large rock. It would be another three hours before he could head down. Once below the tree line the rain let up and we could take off our rain jacket. The forest was steamy hot. A little while later the sun came out. As we were heading by the falls I saw some naïve hikers making there way to Wright Peak. They were wearing button-down white and blue shirts. I wonder how long they would stay clean and dry as another storm was an hour away. Once back at the camp I had a piping hot cup of tea to celebrate my ascents. Wendy and Erin had arrived by this point and prepared a marvelous pasta dish for supper. Paul and I trimmed up a standing conifer tree and as a standing dead tree is a dry tree. A blazing warm fire was a welcome site to the group.

Sunday June 29
Most of the group was awake at sunrise and we started down the trailhead early in the morning. Our goal was to climb Phelps. At the first trail junction we headed east towards Marcy Dam and took in the sights before heading further east. There was much relief as we were climbing the Phelps trail as it had fewer rocks than the trail leading to Wright. We ate lunch at the Phelps summit. The knats and black flies were swarming on the summit so we headed down shortly after lunch. We were at our campsite by mid-afternoon. After a Chinese stir-fry meal we headed into B&J for ice cream. There were black clouds hanging over Lake Placid. As we were heading back to camp it started to pelt. There would be no fire tonight. It would rain for most of the night.

Monday June 30
On Monday morning, Na, Paul and Ben packed up and headed back to Ottawa. Chris Mc, Erin and I set out early to climb Mt. Colden. We headed over to Marcy Dam before hiking in a southerly direction towards Avalanche Lake. By lunch hour, we were climbing over the ladders that take you along the shores of Avalanche Lake. The edge of the lake ends in a steep cliff so they have wooden ladders and platforms hanging from the edge of the cliffs. Our trek along Colden Lake was muddy. Midway down the lake we started our steep ascent of Mt. Colden and reached the summit after much exertion and heavy breathing. It was a bright and sunny day on the summit. We ate our lunch while admiring the views, of Marcy Dam, Avalanche Lake, and the three other peaks we had climbed two days earlier. The hike down to Lake Arnold was a pleasant one as the switchbacks allowed us to gradually drop elevation. We pumped water at Lake Arnold despite the black fly infestation. Within an hour we were back at the Marcy Dam trailhead. We all headed into town for steak dinner at the Lake Placid Boat Club which sits on the edge of Mirror Lake. Erin and Wendy headed north to Ottawa after dinner. Chris Mc and I headed back to camp for the final camp fire.

Tuesday July 1 – Canada Independence Day
We were both up at 5:00 AM. I spent a little while packing my thermarests and sleeping bag before leaving the tent. Meanwhile, Chris Mc got the Coleman stove alight. We had all our gear packed and heading north by 8:00 AM.

http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July

East Dix – South Dix – June 2008

I spent the past weekend hiking in the Adirondacks and visited two peaks I had climbed last fall (East Dix and South Dix). A recent microburst and the unmarked and unmaintained herd trails made the trek more challenging. On Friday afternoon four cars headed south from Ottawa and rendezvous in Keene Valley at the Rock and River lodge. On the way down we stopped at Price Chopper to buy lunches for the Saturday and Sunday hikes. I replenished my stock of fig newtons. Our group stayed in one of the largest chalets which was a converted barn and had a climbing wall on the back side of the fireplace.

On Saturday morning after a hearty breakfast we headed 20 km south to the East Dix trailhead. I fired up the GPS and punched in the coordinates for the East Dix summit. At the critical point on the trail we forded the Bouquet River learning from our mistake from last year. As we meandered along the river the GPS “distance to final” fell very slowly. At times we were slowed down due to downed trees but soldiered on. Our OHOC group (12) broke up into three smaller groups and the distance between them grew. Every half-hour we would regroup. Brian and I were the first to reach the East Dix slide after a three hour hike. There is a well defined path to the west side of the slide which takes you about halfway up at which point you have to cross to the east side. One had to be aware of your colors. A black or brown colored rock is slippery while a gray will give a firm purchase. With the GPS running I could watch the feet to the summit ever so slowly decrease. It was slow going up the slide. Our goal was to climb toward a cliff that looked like a hammerhead. There is a path along the edge of the cliff that leads to the summit. It was a big relief when we reached the summit. We took a couple of pictures and started our one mile trek to the summit of South Dix. We made the hike with a certain amount of urgency as there were looming dark clouds overhead. Once again the GPS allowed us to keep our bearing. As we were taking pictures on the cliffs of South Dix it started to rain. I fished out my rain jacket and Brian and I headed back over to East Dix. Midway along the trail the rain stopped but we continued to wear our jackets as the forest was wet. Once back on East Dix the sun came out and quickly dried off the rock face. It was mid-afternoon by this point and I ate my sub quietly and pushed back some fig newtons and diet coke. We would spend the next 40 minutes climbing very slowly down East Dix and in some cases walking on all fours. With a little luck I found the trail that runs down the east side of the slide and eventually leads to the campsite. Once off the slide I sighed with relief as we were out of harms way. The journey back along the trail was more brisk than I would have liked. By this point I had consumed three liters of water and only had one more to spare. The forest was warm and muggy. We bumped into the other group midway along the trail which was a relief for me as we as there was no longer a need to travel at a breakneck speed. We learned that the other groups had made it halfway up the slide but missed the cairn that tells you to cross over to the other face. They turned back as it was raining and thundering overhead. Once back at the car I headed down to the Bouquet River and stood in the cold river for 15 minutes to cool myself down. It felt awesome. As we were driving back to the lodge the skies opened and it pelted with rain.

Once back at the lodge I had a blistering hot shower and washed the caked mud from my legs. We had a group pasta dinner. After supper I bedded down really early as I bushed.

On Sunday morning I awoke really early and headed over to the lodge for a hearty breakfast with the rest of the crew. The goal for the day was a short four hour hike up Pitchoff Mountain. It was a good day hike as long as you kept moving. Our turnaround point was “the ridge” which had a great view of Cascade Mountain. At is at this point that we experienced our first bugs of the trip. The black flies were out but they were not in a bitten mood and were more of an irritation.

http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/June2008_Adirondacks_EDix_SDix

Apple – WWDC – iPhone coming to Canada

On Monday, I received some much expected news from the Apple WWDC conference. Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone 3G would go on sale in Canada on Friday July 11. This was exciting news. During the day I had been infrequently been following his keynote speech through posting on macworld.com blog. Jason and I talked about the WWDC but it would take until the evening before I had a chance to listen to the keynote speech. I was stoked when I found out that my cellular phone carrier will be selling the iPhone. I am hoping that they will release the contract details in a couple of days. There is one thing I am eager to explore and that is, the GPS capabilities of the iPhone which was only very briefly demonstrated during the speech. It would be sweet to be able to use it when geocaching.

One of the applications that they featured is me.com that is described as “Microsoft Exchange for everyone else.” It is a subscription-based website that allows you to keep your mail, contacts, pictures and documents in sync not matter what device you are using. I have read the web pages describing the product but still not sure if I would ever need the functionality that it offers. I’m curious what others think of the product.

Hmm, only 30 more days before the iPhone arrives…

Retirements and meeting the CEO

This is a sort of work-related blog, something I usually don’t write about. I work for a large organization that has about 5,000 employees and I receive about 1.3 email messages per week announcing that someone is retiring. In the past week, one of the head honchos retired with much fanfare. He has been with the organization for 51 years and 23 years as its CEO. Around the office this was a really big deal. They organized a lottery to select employees that could informally meet him and wish him greetings for his retirement. I was selected to informally join 700 other employees to meet him. This came as a big surprise to me. My first concern was what to where, a tie, a jacket, a tie and jacket or my normal work garb. In the end, I opted to wear my usual work stuff and not to get to puffy about the gathering. I joined the reception line in our cafeteria and very slowly marched along towards the CEO. In the background, they were playing very sad and somber baroque classical music almost as if I was attending a state funeral. In hushed tones were told that we had only 15 seconds with the CEO. I can’t remember what I said to him but his reply what that we were all colleagues together. Tom, one of the guys I work with, took my picture with the CEO. In the afternoon they had live streaming of the formal retirement ceremony delivered to all employees’ desktops. I’ll talk about a couple of nuggets from the ceremony. The CEO mentioned the whole exercise was like eavesdropping on his own funeral. The new CEO was eager to know what the outgoing CEO’s wife put in his cheese sandwich to promote longevity. The last nugget is sort of weird. One of the vice-presidents gave a testimonial of the CEO and didn’t have a chance to proofread his speech. I think that he had intended to say that the CEO had been a pillar of the organization but due to translation he said that CEO had been a boat anchor to the organization.

Off to the Adirondacks soon…

In just over a week, I’ll be heading down to the Lake Placid area for my second hiking trip of the year. The plan is to climb East Dix (4012 feet) and South Dix (4060 feet). Last year, Chris Mc, Kevin and I camped at the base of what we thought was East Dix and later confirmed once we were at the summit. This year we are taking a different approach and staying at a hostel overnight in Keene Valley and to summit both Dixs peaks as part of a long day hike. Now that we have the GPS coordinates we can start at the car and just follow the GPS arrow as it counts down the kilometers/miles to go. Chris Mc and I are leading a group of OHOC hikers this time round. There is still one unsolved mystery and that is, will there be bugs and how fierce/intense they might be as this is the earliest in the spring that I have been hiking in the Adirondacks.

Another 31 second improvement…WooHoo!

2008 May 25
292/8368
1:33:42.7 chip
4:29 pace

2007
377/7005
1:34:13 chip

The ING Ottawa half-marathon is one of the three half-marathon races that I train for each year. I usually start off the year by doing the Phoenix, Arizona, PF Chang RnR half-marathon in January and close off the season with the Baltimore half-marathon in October. This year’s Ottawa race allowed me to better my time by 31 seconds but a few hours before the start even running the race was uncertain. After an 11 km tempo run on Wednesday night I developed a severe cold which affected my lungs and throat. For three days I was without a voice. I decided the best thing I could do was rest and hope that I could nix the cold. By late Saturday, my lungs were clear and throat was still coarse. Using the old running adage that it is okay to run as long as the cold as above your throat, I decided wait and see how I felt on Sunday morning.

I got up on Sunday to find my legs feeling fresh, energetic and ready to go. I ate four bowls of Vector cereal and drank some strong tea before heading over to the start line. At this point my first challenge arose as I was 300 folks behind the 1:40 pace bunny who I could see off in the distance. It would take about 1.5 miles of hard and fast running for me to surge by the bunny and his entourage. The pace I was running at was fast but very comfortable. I asked myself do I want to slow down or speed up. I sped up and surged by a hoard of people. The course was very familiar to me so I was able complete the Gatineau loop quickly. I surged each hill and glided down the backside. As we were heading across the over of the Ottawa River I went into a “zone” and worked hard climbing the three hills before descending along the Rideau Canal. At this point, I saw my folks who cheered me from the sidelines. The remainder of the race would be on familiar territory, the bike paths and roads that run parallel to the Rideau Canal. My journey down to Bank Street went quickly as we were racing in ideal conditions a cool and crisp 8C/46F. At this point I had a bit of fun as there was a jazz band playing in a nearby tent. They were playing swing with a fast tempo. I decided to do a 400 meter wind sprint and have my legs keep in sync with the beat of the music. It was fun to do. I eased back on the pace once out of earshot. At the Bronson Bridge, we crossed over the Rideau Canal and started our northward trek. I threw a couple of cups of cold water over me and sponged down at the water stop. I ingested a Powergel with 35mg of caffeine when I was 5km away from the finish. As I was heading up the canal I heard the jazz band playing a fast tune from the other side of the canal, time for another surge. For the next three km I pressed myself to try and shave at least one second off the next km. This strategy worked well under the final kilometer when I stitched slightly but the energy of the crowd pulled me through. I was really pleased by the race as the 31 second improvement was unexpected.

The Spitting Goose

Today, I decided to have lunch down near the Ottawa River along the bike path. As I was walking along the path I was approached by a spitting Canada goose which is a sign that it was upset. I moved along a little further and it started to follow. I opened up a 200 yard gap and sat down to eat my Ruffles. A short while later along comes the waddling goose. It started to spit at me again so I walked a little further along the path. At this point the goose backed off and it was happy to munch on dandelions. Is this normal goose behavior sort of, as this is the peak season for mating and reproducing. The goose wanted to guard its turf against invaders even if they are six feet tall and it is a mere two feet tall.

Close to where I live there is a railway bridge that runs across the river a goose has setup camp underneath one of the abutments. It has built a nest and laid a couple of eggs. I pass by the spot a couple of times a day and notice the progress. I’ll try to get down there with the camera to capture some of the sights. As I meandered back to the office I kept a safe distance from the goose who was keeping a watchful over me.

11 days before half-marathon

Tonight, I did my final interval workout before my half-marathon race next weekend. The workout was brutal, 6x1km on 30s rest. It was over quickly but a painful experience as you are only able to take a couple of breaths before you start sprinting again. My intervals times are better than last year but I am still not sure about my fitness level so I will use the outcome of the race to act as a judge.

I am looking forward to the race as I have been training for it for the past couple of months. The race really be special this year as my folks are coming to town to watch me run.

Geocaching

One of the goals I set for myself in January was to have found between 900 and 1000 geocaches. This past week I was able to go geocaching on three occasions. (current tall 886) I set a new weekly record by finding 18 geocaches. Yesterday my geocaching got off to a rough start as I spent much of the afternoon searching for geocaches underneath light standards at shopping malls. I don’t really enjoy this sort of urban caching. By mid-afternoon, I stopped in a Starbucks to log my finds using my iPod touch and to see what other caches were in the area. I copied down the coordinate for six caches which would take me into some of the wooded areas and parks in Kanata. As dusk was starting to descend the forest drew cooler and quieter and the wildlife started to appear. From a distance, I could see a furry black blob walking towards me at a slow and steady pace. It could either be a skunk or a raccoon. As we got closer the raccoon decided that I was a larger animal and headed off the trail while keeping a watchful eye on me. My next animal encounter was will a flock of deer. I was headed down a railway bed that has been converted into a jogging trail. To my right, I heard a branch break and I stopped dead in my tracks. The wind was blowing towards me. It was a family of deer that were planning to cut across the trail. I stood still, held my breath as they came with ten feet of me. They were suspicious but quickly headed into the woods without flapping their tails (a warning sign of problems).

Cracking eggs

I was at the hospital recently and decided to have breakfast while waiting for my appointment. The person ahead of me ordered a Western sandwich and I decide to do the same. The chef had a unique way of cracking the eggs. He dropped the eggs, shell and all onto the hot grill, one at a time. This caused me to recall an experience a couple of years ago when I was volunteering in an industrial kitchen. One of my chores was to crack 144 eggs/12 dozen into a bucket which would be used to make scrambled eggs the next morning. I initially started by cracking one egg at a time. After watching some of the cooks I could crack two eggs at once but could never reach the “pros” level when you can crack four eggs at once, two in each hand. Hmm, I wonder if anyone can crack more than four eggs at a time.

Geocaching

Today, I had a meeting on the outskirts of the city. In the case of Ottawa this means a heavily wooded area. I decided to pack my GPS and to do some geocaching after the meeting. Over the course of a couple of hours I found five geocaches. The forth find was the most memorable. I had hiked down to the end of the trail to find my third cache and noticed that the next one was 1,500 meters away in a southerly direction. This is where the fun begins! I set a reference point for the next cache and started walking through the woods. Along my trek south I spotted a couple of cotton-tail deer, I navigated around a beaver bog, hiked through a couple of (cedar) deer-feeding yards, spotted a couple of deer hunting platforms and finally forded a couple of streams by walking across downed trees. It was a fun afternoon.

Fiddleheads and swing

While out geocaching on the weekend I spotted another sign of Spring, fiddleheads. They are one of the first ferns to appear in the Spring and grow very quickly before disappearing. They are a delicacy and have a unique taste when prepared properly.

Last night I had a really fun time swing dancing. It was great for a couple of reasons, a live 20-piece jazz band, a new venue with a dance floor that has a new bounce, dancing a record number of dances in an evening (15) and dancing with many of the folks that I dance with regularly on Friday night. One of the organizer, swing dynamite, showcased their latest dance troupe submission to the upcoming Canadian Swing Championship in Montreal in May. I think that they will win an award as their dancing rocked. I am hoping to check out their dance lessons in the future.

The Maze in the Grass

In one of my blogs last week I presented a couple of mysterious pictures (one, two, three) taken in the grass near where I live. I had first seen the phenomena when I was growing up and this was the first time I had seen it in Ottawa. The picture is of mouse trails and tunnels in the grass and dirt. When a thick crust of snow forms mice burrow and hibernate underneath it eating the grass, weed and worms. Rather than stay in once place they dig through the grass and soil to form a maze that they can run through to keep warm and to expand their feeding ground.

Ottawa Spring Mystery

Today, I was heading along a trail that I take to the train and noticed something that made me stop. It is a spring-like phenomena common in Ottawa. I came back later in the day and took two more pictures (2, 3). The challenge is to try and figure out what want the pictures represents.

Time...time...what time is it?

Tonight (Friday) while running south along the Rideau Canal I had an
interesting experience. A runner was coming towards me from the
opposite direction as I fumbling with my GPS watch. He started
pointing at his wrist and shouted time, time, what time is it? I wasn't
sure what time he was interested in as my watch was showing that I was
18 minutes and 34 seconds into my workout as well as being 6:45pm. I
shouted back that it was 18:34 which seemed to satisfy him. On the way
back, I bumped into the speedsters that I run with on Wednesday night
who were doing their warmup. I sped up considerable and they responded
allow us to do the next two miles at a pace very close to slowest km
interval pace of 4:20. It felt good to burn off a day's worth of
stress. At the same time my legs were nicely limbered up for swing
dancing.

Last night, I had my first of six lindy swing dance lessons. We
reviewed some of the basic moves and spent much of the evening doing
slow step, slow step, followed by step - triple step - step, with the
s-ts-s being done on a eight count. They mentioned that it would be
frustrating at first but if we were patient the prize was out there
waiting.

Ice flows on the Ottawa River..but not for long...

I work in a tall building near the Ottawa River. Today, I was looking out the window and noticed another sign of spring, ice flows making there way down the river. In the winter the river freezes thick enough that you can snowshoe across to the province of Quebec. The chunks of ice are getting smaller so the water temperature is getting warmer. Further up the river a few brave soles are kayaking the rapids while protected by a thick wetsuit. Doing an Eskimo role in the frigid conditions could be a fatal paddle/outing if you don't recover quickly. I'll see if I can post pictures in a couple of days.

In the afternoon, I found myself in a bit of an emergency situation as the mercury had started to climb to an Ottawa warm 21C/70F. I was starting to cook but not for long as two zips later I was comfortably wearing shorts.

The 5-6-7 dancing mystery...

While darting across the uOttawa campus today I spotted a dance troupe doing their routine. As with swing dancing they counted off 5,6,7 and started their dance moves. The question I pose is why don't we say start off with 1,2,3 or 4,5,6. I also wonder what the origin of the of starting off with 5 as it seems that many other dances in addition to swing dancing use this protocol. Hmm...

Spring running

I did something spring last night and repeated it tonight, run in bare legs. The weather in Ottawa has finally turned for the better as the snow and ice piles are quickly melting away. There is so much snow melting away it is causing large puddles to form; my interval course is no exception. Tonight, I did 5x1km intervals on 60 second rest. The workout was made a little more difficult as there were two large puddles located on the course which we had to cross ten times. We would run hard/fast, hurdle over the first puddle, run hard/fast, hurdle over the second and then run to the finish and then repeat the process all over again. A crosswind made for uneven interval times. 4.16/3.52/4.16/4.04/4.18

Hazards of snowshoeing

This weekend I learned first hand about one of the perils of snowshoeing in the Spring, weak ice. We had an impromptu gathering of the people that went on the recent Adirondack trip. We headed up to Gatineau Park on the north side of the Ottawa River. The snow is melting quickly but there is still a thick base of granular snow. Our goal was to have lunch at Pink Lake. We initially started out by bushwacking in a northwesterly direction. After scrambling through a couple of thorn patches we decided to try and find the main trail. It was at this time that we ran into a wet problem. We had to trek between two lakes divided by a land bridge. The hump of the land bridge was quite steep. My first attempt at getting up the hill was unsuccessful. One of my legs slid down onto the weak ice breaking through the surface of the lake giving me a soaker. One foot was icy cold while the other was toasty warm for the recent exertion. As more and more people went up the slope it became more slippery. A couple of soakers later we decided to take an inland route rather than trying to scout along the edge of the lake. We made it to Pink Lake and took a more direct route back to the car.


Sent from my iPod

Adirondacks 2008

Friday March 28 2008

It was under spring-like conditions that the uOttawa Outdoors club headed south to the Adirondacks for a long weekend of winter camping, mountain climbing and snowshoeing. The weather conditions would be a mystery until we arrived at the trailhead. Ottawa is within a hare’s breath of setting a seasonal snowfall record. Would there be more snow in the Lake Placid? On our way south we stopped at Malone, NY for the traditional Friday fish and chips pre-trip meal. We briefly detoured to Price Chopper so I could buy fig newtons and pretzel goldfish.

As we headed south the condition grew worse. It started to snow. The snow was accumulating on the road. As we drove down the park access road we spotted wild turkeys grazing on a nearby field. Further along the road we had to make an emergency stop as a deer was in the middle of the road eating road salt. We arrived at the ADK Lodge and loaded our backpacks with group gear. This year we would split into two groups as there is a cap of nine people per campsite, we had 15. Under blustery conditions we headed out on the trail towards to Marcy Dam. We left at an inopportune time as they were four other groups that would be heading towards Marcy Dam at roughly the same time all in search of scarce lean-tos. I was asked to scout ahead and try to get first dibs on the largest lean-to, known as the “palace.” (N44 09.443 W073 57.079 e=2347 feet) It is the largest on Lake Marcy. I got lucky but by only five minutes before the next group arrived in search of an abode. The snowy conditions would work to our advantage keeping the evening temperatures in the mid-twenties. Despite the higher elevation of the Adirondacks had received there annual average amount of snow. For supper, we had started with a mixture Knorr Swiss soups mixed with coconut paste. The main course was pasta. While sitting around eating supper Steph, the leader, offered us some wisdom, what freezes will stay frozen over the weekend. This could mean that your toothbrush, toothpaste, liquid soap or water bottle might freeze and stay frozen. As we settled in for the night, I ditched my snowlion boots and donned my booties and gators. A pair of tights and Gore-Tex shell pants would keep my legs warm. As the conditions grew chillier, I applied more and more layers making it hard to bend forward. On top, I had base layer coolmax top, a REI lightweight shirt, 200 weight Polar fleece vest, a 300 weight Polar Fleece jacket and a Gore-tex shell. I felt toasty wearing all this gear. Before bedding down for the night I dropped a couple of layers.

Saturday

I awoke at 0500 to find it was still dark. I dozed off for a couple of hours before getting up at 0730. For breakfast we had a deluxe breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and bagels. A cup of black coffee would be all that was needed to restore one’s senses. After breakfast I had my first experience with the cold. It would take two hands to squeeze out toothpaste as it as had frozen overnight. As well, I had to de-thaw my toothbrush in my mouth as it was crunchy from freezing overnight. At 10:00 with bags packed we head west to pickup the Algonquin Peak trail (Junction N44 10.334 W073 57.528). Along the way we were passed by the other group traveling at a brisk place and they were eager to be the first to ascend the mountain. There speed would become a hazard. Over the course of the hike we would gain 3,000 feet. As we climbed we peeled off layers as we were working up a sweat. Along the way we eyed the frozen falls (N44 09.578 W073 58.779 e=3277 feet). This would be a water refilling stop on our return. We stopped at the Wright Peak trail junction (N44 09.156 W073 59.152 e=3994 feet) to put on warmer clothing. At this point we were close to the edge of the tree line. We could see the snow blowing near the peak. I headed out first and did a solo summit (Algonquin Peak summit solo @1400 N44 08.613 W073 59.206 e=5115 feet). (http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=6022) On the way up, I had a weird experience as I was breathing hard and sweating profusely while receiving a blast of arctic cold air. The going got a little rough near the top and I was forced to bash my snowshoes’ crampons into the snow-ice base to get a purchase. A misstep could cause one to slide down the side of the peak. I took a self-portrait and headed down to lead the remainder of the group up to the summit. The going was challenging as the crampons on their rented snowshoes were not aggressive as mine. We would use rock carrons for navigation. There was much relief once we back into the shelter of the trees. It was at this point that the fun began. It was child like. We slide down the trail on our bums. Once back at the Wright Peak trail junction we took a lunch break. Our trek back to the waterfalls was a brisk one. Using a precarious method we refilled water bottles. We took another rest break at major trail junction and met Peter Fish, one of the early Park Rangers. We were arrived back in camp late in the afternoon to find a surprise. Something had attacked the food pack and left discarded package of brownies underneath the bag. A quick check of the bag revealed that the martin must have a penchant for chocolate. There was some discussion if it would pay us a visit overnight. Would the martin climb into someone’s sleeping bag for warmth? Steph came back to camp a little later to pass along news of the other group. They were a disappointed lot. They didn’t reach summit. Without a compass, a map, or GPS they decided to take a shortcut and see if they could summit by sighting the peak and snowshoeing off trail in hope of beating our group to the top. This wasn’t a wise idea. Midway up the slope they had to turn back as the snow was too deep. For supper we had a couscous stew along with a raspberry, apple flan for dessert. Tonight, would be a colder night as we had a healthy crop of stars visible overhead. In anticipation I added another layer of clothing, a down vest (-15C/5F overnight).

Sunday

Once again I was awake early but didn’t emerge from my toasty sleeping bag until there were others about. Breakfast was hot fruit mixed with a dry cereal. By mid-morning we were back on the trail heading in a southerly direction bound for Avalanche Lake. It would be a warm hike. The snow was melting and starting to gum up our snowshoes. We had lunch while sitting on the frozen Avalanche Lake. (N44 08.117 W073 57.883 e=2959 feet) The bright sun reflecting off the snow gave many of us the start of a tan on our faces. Once back at camp we had to peel off more layers as there was melt water dripping from the roof of the lean-to. With lighter packs we reached the van in record time. We stopped in Saranac Lake for a hearty post-trip meal.

map

Easter and Facebook

My Easter weekend was more productive than usual. On Good Friday, I ran in a 10 mile road race close to where my folks live and ran a race that came with a surprise. My second loop of a five mile course was 63 seconds faster than the first. This was good news. During the weekend we installed a new countertop in my folks kitchen which went without a hitch. I also did something I should have done at Christmas but for time and weather reasons didn’t; to catch up with some of my running friends. On the weekend, Perry and I went for a seven mile run on an extremely hilly course that we would usually do twice a week while training on the cross-country team. The course is known as the “three-hills” and every two miles you have to descend and climb the Niagara Escarpment. We finished the workout in a brisk 53 minutes. Perry and I haven’t seen each other for a while as he went to Korea to teach English after university. During the fall we reconnected by Facebook and vowed to catch-up and go for a workout. He is married and has an energetic son that loves hockey. We played a game of pickup hockey after our run. I did some geocaching which was good as area near Niagara Falls has less snow and as a result locating a cache involves little or no digging in the snow. In keeping with tradition, the three families got together for an Easter dinner and the kids are getting older at an incredible rate.

Good Friday Road Race

There is a Easter tradition with my family which is to start off the Easter weekend with a road race. For the past eight or so years, my father and I have run in the Burlington Good Friday road race. A runner has two distances to choose from to do a spritely 5km(3.1miles) or 10 miles. My father always runs the 5km race while I will switch between the two distances. This year I ran the 10 miles. The race went really well and I finished to find a surprise waiting for me. The course is two loops. The course undulates as you run along the shore of Lake Ontario. Ten miles is a long distance and you have to pace yourself as there is a danger of starting out too fast and having to suffer for your early exurbance. I started out at a comfortable pace and sped up as I started to warm up. My goals was to pass as many runners as I could. The first loop went well and have had more energy than I thought. My five mile split was 37.02. It was time to take the race a little more seriously. I increased my pace slightly and started to pass people at a more brisk rate. Each successive mile was done at a slightly faster pace. At the finish line, the clock said 1:13.04. My second half of the race was 62 seconds faster than the first. I am pleased with my race as it lets me know that I have been able to perserve through the tough Ottawa weather and thay my running, snowshoeing and swimming is keeping me fit.

Shoes

On Friday, I was looking at my shoes with a smile. There is a little problem with my Keen slip-ons. It is a fatal problem. There is a hole that makes me happy as it is in my forefoot. Hmm, why would this make me happy? A hole in this location means that I have been doing my swing dancing correctly by dancing on my forefoot. The shoes are a year old and have taken me through a challenging winter. When REI had a fall closeout sale I bought a replacement pair at a fire sale price. This pair is currently getting daily service at the office as I change into them at the start of each work day. When there is a hint of better weather it will be time to retire my well trodden Keen and embrace the new ones.

Raining and running...

On my way to work today, I felt compelled to take off my winter gloves. Something unexpected was happening where I live; it was raining for the first time this year. It felt good to feel the rain landing on my hands. If you live in Vancouver or Victoria, British Columbia, I think this thought would come with a groan as it is always raining on the west coast. This can mean that warmer weather is on its way. There was a downside to this warm trend. The snow is starting to melt forming large puddles that one must dart between. This is made more challenging at night when it is hard to distinguish between the black road and a puddle. This became more apparent during my Running Room workout in the evening. I ran down to the store trying my best to avoid getting a soaker but failed miserably. The workout took the form of four mile warmup followed by 5 x 1km repeats on 90 seconds rest. It was my first speed workout of the year so it sets a benchmark on which I can only improve. (4.04/4.09/4.24/4.24/4.22) On Friday, I head down to my folks place and will run in the Burlington Good Friday 10 mile race. The race is long enough that I can only treat it as a training workout.

10 days to go before my next winter adventure

Tonight, we had our planning meeting for the uOttawa Adirondacks winter camping, snowshoeing and mountain climbing meeting. Steph, one of the guides, walked us through our gear list and hammered home the fact that we will need two sets of clothes, our day outfit that will get wet during the day and our night set which will keep us warm, dry and toasty overnight. During these meetings he likes to put the fear into the foreign-exchange students so that they take him seriously when he says to pack warm clothing. This year he toned it down a bit. I think this will be the fifth trip that I have taken with Steph and they are always fun and interesting. We talked about peaks and will likely climb Algonquin Peak or maybe Phelps mountain this year on Saturday. The weather-of-the-day will determine which peak we attempt to summit. I talked to Steph about changing the trip date in 2009 to the April 3-4 weekend so that it does not conflict with the Boston Tea Party. It would be awesome if Jason could come on the trip in 2009. With Easter coming up rather quickly, I'll be visiting MEC a couple of times over the next couple of days to load up on provisions.

Too much snow for some…

This morning on my commute to work I passed Alf. He was on his roof with a shovel trying to offload two feet of snow that had accumulated over the past couple of days. Alf was rightly concerned about the snow load of his roof. Earlier in the day in the hamlet of Westboro, near where I live and the home of MEC, a roof collapsed due to the weight of the snow. The family escaped but the house is toast. My first exposure to snow loads was when we were building my parent’s deck and had to build it in a certain way to meet the snow load standard published in a reference book. As I think about the snow load tables, they make sense given what recently happened in Ottawa. We are now within a foot of exceeding the 1970 record and strangely enough the locals are praying for another of foot of snow.

Let it snow...Let it snow...

As I type this entry it is snowing. We are within three feet of exceeding the snowfall record set in 1970-71 of 444.1 cm or 174 inches or 14.5 feet. Our current tally is 357 cm or 140.5 inches or 11.7 feet. We are expected to get another foot overnight. As I was heading back to Ottawa earlier this week we got another foot. The local newspaper claims that the average resident has shoveled the equivalent of 16 rhinos or 37, 572 kg or 16,970 pounds.

All this snow is good news as it is the first time that I have snowshoed in March. The plan is to trek along the Ottawa River for a couple of miles on Saturday. Earlier this week, I signed up for the UOttawa Adirondack snowshoeing adventure. It is a long weekend of snowshoeing, winter camping and mountain climbing at the end of the March. I am hoping to convince the organizers to change the date for next year's outing so that Jason can come along. But with more snow on the horizon I'll be snowshoeing for the foreseeable future.

SwingD for Fri = 14d

Sent from my iPod

Swing dancing--Solomon Doulglas Swingtet

The Ottawa swing dancing scene will have a special guest on Friday night the Solomon Douglas swingtet. I bought my ticket a couple of weeks ago as when we have a live band the tickets always sell out. I wasn't too sure who these performers were so I decided to check out their website and found a really useful and helpful nugget. It is a play list of songs that Solomon uses for teaching the Lindy Hop. It was a sweet find.

I had an incredible past couple of days in Baltimore swing dancing and taking in dancing workshop at John Hopkins University. Charm City Swing(CCS) organized the event had a beginner/intermediate tract as well as an advanced. I took the beginner tract and was able to develop a basic grounding in the lindy hop which I can now start building on. I really liked the depth that the instructors took to making sure we understood the basics. For example, at the end of the first triple step your body should be at a 90 degree angle from where you started the move, and at the end the first step it should be 135 degrees relative to your starting position and the final triple step is completed 180 degrees from where you started the move. It is details like this that allowed me to visualize and remember where my body needs to be at a certain point in time. The dancing weekend closed out with an hour long blues dancing lessons which was a lot of fun and quite intimate. I learned an enormous amount about swing dancing and how I can improve on the main things I already know. I would like to thank Jason and all the folks at CCS and the many local and imported teachers for a great weekend.

I'm in the midst of drafting a blog of the weekend and will post it later in the week.

To cold for the pigeons to fly...

The past couple of days I've been working in downtown Ottawa allowing me to see things I normally wouldn't notice. This morning it was a crisp -21C/-5F and sunny. As I was getting off the bus, I noticed something about a gaggles of pigeons. It was to cold for them to fly. They were all perched next to a exhaust heating duct from a nearby parking garage. They were extremely reluctant to move. I was bundled up in winter clothing but less than I have been in the past. My REI down jacket allowed me to drop a layer of clothing, my Polar fleece 300 jacket which I normally wear as a base layer. In its place, I'm wearing a Polar fleece 200 weight vest. On top, I wear a Mountain hardware toque and on my hands I wear a Mountain hardware primaloft gloves. Tomorrow, I head south to warmer weather and hopefully little or no snow.

Lindy Hop -- Swing Dance

At the start of the year I set out a couple of goals that I wanted to achieve in 2008. I am making good progress on many of the goals. One of them is to dance the Lindy Hop. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been taking Lindy Hop lessons at the UOttawa which are taught by a couple of students. These lessons have been a lead up to the Lindy Hop weekend in Baltimore at the end of the month. Charm City Swing is having a Lindy Hop marathon weekend of 20 hours of lessons and three night of dancing to a live band. I view dancing the Lindy Hop like a journey as the number of the dance moves is broad and it will take a little while to become total comfortable with basic footwork(RS(1-2) TS(3&4)-S(5)-S(6)-TS(7&8). I want to thank Jason for suggesting that I come to Baltimore for the Lindy weekend. It has been a relief to find that many of the dance moves in West Coast swing can be translated over to Lindy Hop with a little variation.

Genius Bar -- I like Apple!

Earlier this year, I bought an Apple iPod touch and am still amazed with what I can do with it. The five iPod touch applications Apple released in January made the toy more powerful. On Saturday, the home button stopped working. I would select the Safari icon and do some surfing and hit the home button expecting it to return to the home screen but nothing happened. It would stubbornly stay on the safari screen. The only way to return to the home screen was to turn it off and then on. I checked the discussion groups on the Apple site and didn’t find any hints as what to do. I had two choice drive to Montreal (2 hours) or head down to Toronto (5 hours). I signed up for a 3:00 pm appointment at the Genius bar on Monday in Laval, Quebec. The web interface for the Genius bar is fun to use. I headed to Montreal on Monday morning and took the subway north and tried to follow the directions on the Apple retail store web page but made an attempt to speak in broken French to the subway conductor who said to keep heading north. I jumped on the subway again and headed underneath the St. Lawrence River and took the subway/metro to the last stop on the line known as Montmorency. I was now in a different city with a different bus system and rules. There were a couple of buses that would take you to La Carrefour shopping center. I caught the first bus apparently destined for the mall and ended in north Laval miles from anywhere. After talking to the driver in broken French he suggested an express bus and I headed back to the bus hub. The second bus took me to the shopping center.

The Apple store was a hive of activity with a lot of people receiving 1-on-1 Apple training. I spoke to one of the “blue” shirts girls would confirmed that my appointment was still good. In the meantime, I explored the fun on display and imagined what it would be like to use a Macbook. It was sort of like being in a toy store for adult with all this neat gear. A little while later I met with the genius “black” shirt and we tried to do an iPod restore which didn’t work. The iPod was sicker than we thought. Apple replaced the iPod touch as it was still on warranty (Thanks Apple). It was a fun experience and my first visit to an Apple store and hopefully not my last as it was a fun place.

Mundane jobs

I was at a wine and cheese last night and as we drank more wine the topics of the conversations started to get more interesting. We all started to describe some of the more boring and mundane summer jobs we had when we were younger. One of my friends Jessica talked about spending the summer filing forms in folders. All day long she would file forms for the city. The discussion eventually came around to me and I describe how I was part of a team that sorted 10 tons of pears for a local cannery. Each pear had to be measured. If it was larger than 2.25" it would be sent to the fresh fruit market and if it was smaller it went to a cannery to become part of a fruit cocktail. We would sort the pears that had been picked during the day in a large barn just after dusk. During the day I would pick a ton of pears or 60 bushels. It was hard work at the same time it was fun and rewarding work as you could see your progress at the end of each day.

Shoveling with an ice scraper

Over the last little while the Ottawa area has been getting a record amount of snow. On the weekend, I saw something that caused me to stop and have a good laugh as a parent was trying to shovel snow in their driveway using an ice scraper. They were I think on their way to a son's hockey practice didn't have enough time to clear the driveway so they were clearing a path for the tires to drive down with an ice scraper. Meanwhile, I could hear the son in the car beckoning the father to hurry up otherwise they were going to be late. It was funny as I've never seen an ice scraper used this way.

wo -- 8 hill repeats -- warm legs, sore and tired

Lindy Hop

In less than a month, I hope to achieve one of my New Year's resolutions which is to dance the Lindy Hop. I've been spending the last little while watching teaching videos on Youtube, but watching is the same as actually doing the moves. The basic steps are a little different, as you do a rock-step/triple-step/step/step/triple-step all on an eight count. My swing dancing current does a rock-step/step-hold/step-hold on a six-count. Charm City swing in Baltimore is having a lindy hop workshop weekend at the end of February. As well, one of my favorite jazz band, The Boilermakers will be in Baltimore for one of the nights which will be great. I'll be heading down to take in the workshop as well as to spend some time chilling.

Workout tonight -- 30 minute warmup/7x400 m hills/ 10 minute warmdown

Phoenix half-marathon -- part 2

The Race

I awoke at 5:15 am and started the processing of fueling for the race. It would take the form of four bowels of Kellog’s Vector cereal and hot tea. At 6:00, I headed down to the lobby and was able to catch the race shuttle a couple of minute early. The start area was a haven of activity as there were 30,000 runners milling around the downtown core of Phoenix. I had brought along the daily babble puzzle and worked on it while watching the sunrise. As it was getting brighter, I checked out the senate building and took some pictures of nearby statues 1 2 . At 7:30 am the marathon race started which much fanfare. Of note, the organizers had set aside 27 corrals. I started munching on a Clif bar. At a little before 8:00, I stripped off my layers of warm clothing and dropped then off at the UPS depot and headed for the start line. It was a cool 4C/39F. After the playing of the national anthem we were off on our 13.1 mile journey. My first two miles were done at a brisk pace of 6.55 and 6.59. At around mile 8, I started to feel my energy level drop, so I pushed back a Clif Gel with 25 mg of caffeine. This would stabilize me for a little while but I was running faster than my energy intake could keep up. At mile 9, they had a volunteers handing out Powergel so I grabbed two. These would act as a lifeline for the final three miles. I had run the first half of the race too quickly and was starting to pay the price. I could still rely on one advantage and that was, I knew the race course and could run towards familiar landmarks. At the start of the Tempe Town Bridge with 1.5 miles to go, I opened up and sprinted for as long as I could and held on until just over the finish line. I would finish in position 456 while 21,000 participants were still out on the course. The finish was special as I was greeted with flowers and two beauty women. After cooling down for a while and sucking on multiple popsicles it was time to see how JB’s race was coming along. With ten minutes to spare, I was able to watch him cross his finish line. JB was excited by his finish as he ran a 3:28 marathon which was two minutes faster than he had expected to finish.

A little while later I headed over to buy some tea. It is special tea and much sought after. I bought multiple boxes of Revolution tea and walked ever so slowly back to the hotel. We closed out the day with a celebratory dinner at the Cheesecake factory.
1:36 -- 13.1 miles/21 km
Mile splits time heart rate date
1 6.55 162/131
2 6.59 13.54 164/165
3 7.21 21.16 168/166
4 7.07 28.23 168/167
5 7.15 35.38 168/169
6 7.11 42.49 168/170
7 7.23 50.13
8 7.23 57.6 168/169
9 7.24 1.05.01 171/173
10/11 15.40 1.20.42
12 7.20 1.28.20 173/175
13 7.23 1.35.25 173/178
13.1 1.36

The Road Trip

On Monday morning, I was up early as we had to pick up the rental car at 7:30 am. JB’s dad took us out for breakfast before we started our trek north. Our first stop was Montezuma Castle in Camp Verde. It was an impressive sight. The Hopi Indians had built their homes into the side of a rock face 15,000 years ago. During the summer heat the thick wall would keep the folks living their cool. We continued our journey north and stopped in at Bell Rock (N34 47.506 W111 45.697) in Sedona. All around us the soil and rocks were red. It was like driving through a Martian landscape. Throughout the drive I let my mind wander as I envisioned John Wayne riding ahead through the desert and through the large rock outcrops. Continuing north we stopped at the Chapel in the Rocks (N34 49.920 W111 45.988) which is a church built in the 1950s in a rock ledge which is an architectural marvel. The next part came as a surprise, snow and cold. Flagstaff had received about a foot of snow in early December and it was still on the ground. We stopped in at North Arizona University and took a tour of the campus. The university’s crest contains a snowflake and the mascot is a lumberjack. Flagstaff is also the site of the US Olympic training center as it has an elevation of 7,000 feet. We threw snowballs and built a snowman. Our journey would take us next in an easterly direction to the Meteor Crater (N35 01.934 W111 01.298) which is the largest well preserved crater. It was huge and could hold 20 football fields at the bottom. We arrived a little late and missed the hiking tour around the perimeter. A couple of facts about the crater: As the sun was setting we started our journey in a south-westerly direction back to Phoenix. We closed off the day with a steak dinner.

Tuesday’s adventure would involve a fair amount of driving as we headed south just as the sun was rising. We headed in a southerly direction and were within earshot of the Mexican border. Our destination was Tombstone, AZ (N31 42.837 W110 04.018). The drive south started out flat as a pancake and ripe for speed traps. Tombstone is an old Wild West cowboy town frozen in time. There was the famous OK Corral, the general store, the post office and the saloon. The saloon was just as one would expect a great bar, cheap drinks and scantly clad women. JB opted for a whisky on the rocks and I a local Merlot. Drinking the booze on an empty stomach gave me a bit of a buzz. We visited the world’s largest rose bush and the attached museum. We stopped in at the OK Corral to watch an enactment of the famous Wyatt Earp shootout which was fun. The Tombstone Epitaph, the local paper, has a museum so we checked out the offerings. As the sun was setting we visited the Tombstone graveyard which is home where the remains of 50 of the famous western heroes. Back then justice was severe as the ceremony was riddled which folks that experienced really gruesome deaths. On our journey north we stopped in at the University of Arizona campus and eyed some weird signs. They have a pedestrian crossing for both deaf and blind folks next to a performing arts center. Visiting the UoA would mean that I had visited all three of the universities in the state of Arizona during my stay. Early Wednesday morning I caught early flight back to Ottawa.

http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008