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