I came close to covering a half-marathon distance in training today, just three kilometers shy of it. I did OK for the run itself, however the decision to do it was rather spontaneous, and I failed to have a sufficient carb and mineral intake to prepare for such a feat. Afterward, I was suffering with a bad migraine for much of the afternoon and early evening, either because of extremely low blood sugar or screwy blood pressure due to electrolyte depletion. It's finally starting to settle; just in time too, since my walls are starting to shake from the Newfie sea shanties blaring from the concert grandstand tonight*. Either the Ibuprofin or the bowl of salty popcorn I'm having for my late supper is making the experience tolerable. They are playing quite well actually. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have enough wits to stand the commotion of a 5000 person 'sociable'. Sadly, I can't enjoy a beer while listening to it right now; a shot of pickle juice will have to do (helps prevent lactic acid build up/cramping . . . it works instantly too).
The Newfoundlanders playing down the block, the brief visit with my relatives visiting from Victoria, the more extreme of the distance I ran today, and re-reading a comment in a past entry about the scale of our nation made me put all my accumulated mileage into perspective with respect to our geography. I calculated that the accumulated kilometers from all my recorded runs is a bit shy of the distance between St. John's, NFLD and Thunder Bay, Ontario. If I recall correctly, it's just about the same distance Terry Fox made it to before his demise from cancer taking the rest of him. It's a depressing realization; I hope doesn't serve as a harbinger for some sort of impending disaster. So, I'll track my progress starting from Victoria instead. I'm reckoning that by following the Trans-Canada, and then down highway 17 through Ontario, that my current placement would be somewhere between/around Sudbury and North Bay**. That's a better thought to have, since I know someone lovely who lives around North Bay. I should have something special in store for me like a celebration if or when I achieve the kilometer number what covers the distance from between Tofino, BC to St. John's: basically the breadth of the nation. I figure that would be around another 2,800 kilometers left for me to do.
There's just one more night of the left before they start packing up Sunday. I hope Saturday night passes without getting as crazy as all the other years.
*- Great Big Sea is playing tonight at the Ex.
**- The roads through the Shield get a little more bendy and hence makes my estimates less accurate.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
This Round of Vacation Time
I was hoping to make the beginning of next few days off something more eventful and less dutiful and tedious than dusting, cleaning floors, reorganizing cabinets and closets, and scrubbing porcelain and tiles, but that's all it has been mostly so far. Vacationing is about doing what you can to bring about some peace of mind and a sense of satisfaction. Clearing and cleaning my space, and seeing things put into order satisfies me and brings more peace of mind: therefore it wasn't wasted time. I felt it had to be done first before I could move on with anything else. I correlate a clean and well-ordered home as a reflection of, or a least an attempt to allow for, a more focused mind.
The other meaningful thing I did was daring myself to seek company outside my regular social sphere. I used Meetup.com to find groups in my area with common interests. I wish I could find the right words to use to express my elation and satisfaction about finally finding and interacting with an actual group of people in this town who:
I had my cable TV service re-installed a couple days ago. My HD receiver/PVR was upgraded; although there's now super-sized interface, with some features and options that add a bit more razzle-dazzle to viewing/recording, I still find that the channel selection is still limited and uninteresting. It made me seek refuge in the bookstores and library. I shouldn't be re-visiting such places, because I constantly overwhelm myself. I already have a personal mega-super-syllabus of reading materials of interest to me that I want to absorb, which I would already need several lifetimes to do. When I explore those bookshelves, I add to the inventory exponentially. I really need to have a more effective method of speed-reading.
Reading, napping, cycling, running, healthy cooking/eating, strength training, playing Jeopardy; watching PBS, TED, movies; drinking coffee/tea/beer, solving puzzles, meditating, language acquisition, painting, CAD and web designing, programming spreadsheets, list making, testing mnemonics, math problems, blogging, and avoiding the bullshit of the EX pretty much summarizes the remaining hours of leisure time I'll use for my next few days off.
The other meaningful thing I did was daring myself to seek company outside my regular social sphere. I used Meetup.com to find groups in my area with common interests. I wish I could find the right words to use to express my elation and satisfaction about finally finding and interacting with an actual group of people in this town who:
- have many similar interests and values as I do
- have higher ideals about well-being, and life-balance
- actually deploy reason and common sense
- understand what I'm saying
- are people with whom I can speak to without having to dumb myself down
- actually read contemporary literature
- aren't constantly stewing in/spewing out negativity and drama
- aren't deluded and sanctimonious idiots, who act as if their shit doesn't stink
- take ownership of their problems, and share successes and failures about dealing with them
- who are actually supportive, cooperative and encouraging in another person's attempt at betterment
I had my cable TV service re-installed a couple days ago. My HD receiver/PVR was upgraded; although there's now super-sized interface, with some features and options that add a bit more razzle-dazzle to viewing/recording, I still find that the channel selection is still limited and uninteresting. It made me seek refuge in the bookstores and library. I shouldn't be re-visiting such places, because I constantly overwhelm myself. I already have a personal mega-super-syllabus of reading materials of interest to me that I want to absorb, which I would already need several lifetimes to do. When I explore those bookshelves, I add to the inventory exponentially. I really need to have a more effective method of speed-reading.
Reading, napping, cycling, running, healthy cooking/eating, strength training, playing Jeopardy; watching PBS, TED, movies; drinking coffee/tea/beer, solving puzzles, meditating, language acquisition, painting, CAD and web designing, programming spreadsheets, list making, testing mnemonics, math problems, blogging, and avoiding the bullshit of the EX pretty much summarizes the remaining hours of leisure time I'll use for my next few days off.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
My View on Roadtripping
I attended a family wedding this past weekend. It was a good trip for the most part. Though I was under-prepared for the cooler than seasonal night up there, I managed. It was good to see many of my relatives again; I just wish I was better adapted for this sort of social environment. I don't have a physical problem with my hearing; but I don't know if it is because I'm just getting older, or because I'm too accustomed to a more introverted lifestyle: I find myself having a brain that's more diminished in capability in filtering out multiple conversations; so being in a crowded, noisy community hall is sensory overload for me.
I was also invited to another family member's wedding in Banff in late August of this year. Sadly and regretfully, I won't be able to attend that one. I do like Banff; I've been there three times already, but the last time was there was around 20 years ago. Thinking back for each of those times, it was a miracle that I've made it in and out of there with the less than road-worthy vehicles I had to use at those times. This subject, plus reviewing my last entry, prompted me to think about making road trips within this country, as some more holiday time is coming my way. As like with many Canadians, I am one who has been blissfully ignorant about just how huge our country is in comparison to others, and just how skewed our notions are about what 'big' and 'small', or 'near' and 'far', are in terms of distance and scale in relation to those preconceptions from those of other nations; and what we consider is 'normal' for our needs/challenges to travel around, even just within our respective home provinces.* I was doing this after reviewing the time, distance I covered, and the amount of fuel I used, just to go the destination of this last wedding, which was within the province. I was further sobered up to this fact upon realizing through another conversation that the province of Saskatchewan alone is about 15 times the size of Denmark. I'm imagining that the whole scene of the sparseness of our population, distances between towns, and the expense of some rail and air fares for even trips within this country that are greater than some international flights, must appear so grossly inefficient to someone from someplace within, let's say, western Europe when it comes to the subject of travel.
I'm coming around to really disliking long road trips for the sake vacationing now, especially given that the price of fuel is constantly rising. If I have to do more than six or seven hours of driving just to arrive at one destination then I'd rather just fly. It's the fact that you start off (from here) with having to go a ridiculously long way just to get out of territory and scenery that you are already familiar with. The only advantage of it is that you can drive through it relatively quickly, but it still makes for a long drive. I would dread having to live any further south of here. I'm at an age and a place where I pretty much got the general concept of what prairie looks like, and driving through it more doesn't make it look any more exciting or appealing. To put it in perspective for the benefit of my international readers: from my city, you have to drive through what amounts to half the length of England just to escape prairieland, before you just start touching the closest fringe of what is the decent natural parkland and woodland north of here. It may have been OK to do back in the days of my youth, but for me now, it just sums up to more wasted time on the road. I would probably have a different attitude altogether if I were touring another continent with a sparse population on the road, like Australia, because that would be a totally different place I've never seen before. Then again, I would tire quickly of it if it were desert land I was traversing.
I've come to realize that each day I'm allotted less and less time on this Earth, so when I am lucky enough to get time off, I want to get wherever I want to go as soon as I can, and spend less of that time staring down a highway lane and driving. I have only three days to use of my five days off**, and a drive within my six hour radius/comfort zone doesn't really bring me close to anyplace I really want to explore in depth. A sore knee, neck, and back is making tenting and sleeping on the ground up in the bush country not too appealing, as I am trying to recover again for marathon training. Like with the last stint of time off, I might have to be content with creating an adventure at home.
*- And vice versa . . . I heard more than one story of various people in this province who've had guests arriving (I've heard from Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Australia, Hong Kong, and even the United States) who landed in Toronto or Vancouver, and were expecting their friends or relatives to meet them there in something like a couple hours to greet them. Rule # 1 of travel: LEARN SOME FUCKIN' GEOGRAPHY!
**-Two claimed by other appointments.
I was also invited to another family member's wedding in Banff in late August of this year. Sadly and regretfully, I won't be able to attend that one. I do like Banff; I've been there three times already, but the last time was there was around 20 years ago. Thinking back for each of those times, it was a miracle that I've made it in and out of there with the less than road-worthy vehicles I had to use at those times. This subject, plus reviewing my last entry, prompted me to think about making road trips within this country, as some more holiday time is coming my way. As like with many Canadians, I am one who has been blissfully ignorant about just how huge our country is in comparison to others, and just how skewed our notions are about what 'big' and 'small', or 'near' and 'far', are in terms of distance and scale in relation to those preconceptions from those of other nations; and what we consider is 'normal' for our needs/challenges to travel around, even just within our respective home provinces.* I was doing this after reviewing the time, distance I covered, and the amount of fuel I used, just to go the destination of this last wedding, which was within the province. I was further sobered up to this fact upon realizing through another conversation that the province of Saskatchewan alone is about 15 times the size of Denmark. I'm imagining that the whole scene of the sparseness of our population, distances between towns, and the expense of some rail and air fares for even trips within this country that are greater than some international flights, must appear so grossly inefficient to someone from someplace within, let's say, western Europe when it comes to the subject of travel.
I'm coming around to really disliking long road trips for the sake vacationing now, especially given that the price of fuel is constantly rising. If I have to do more than six or seven hours of driving just to arrive at one destination then I'd rather just fly. It's the fact that you start off (from here) with having to go a ridiculously long way just to get out of territory and scenery that you are already familiar with. The only advantage of it is that you can drive through it relatively quickly, but it still makes for a long drive. I would dread having to live any further south of here. I'm at an age and a place where I pretty much got the general concept of what prairie looks like, and driving through it more doesn't make it look any more exciting or appealing. To put it in perspective for the benefit of my international readers: from my city, you have to drive through what amounts to half the length of England just to escape prairieland, before you just start touching the closest fringe of what is the decent natural parkland and woodland north of here. It may have been OK to do back in the days of my youth, but for me now, it just sums up to more wasted time on the road. I would probably have a different attitude altogether if I were touring another continent with a sparse population on the road, like Australia, because that would be a totally different place I've never seen before. Then again, I would tire quickly of it if it were desert land I was traversing.
I've come to realize that each day I'm allotted less and less time on this Earth, so when I am lucky enough to get time off, I want to get wherever I want to go as soon as I can, and spend less of that time staring down a highway lane and driving. I have only three days to use of my five days off**, and a drive within my six hour radius/comfort zone doesn't really bring me close to anyplace I really want to explore in depth. A sore knee, neck, and back is making tenting and sleeping on the ground up in the bush country not too appealing, as I am trying to recover again for marathon training. Like with the last stint of time off, I might have to be content with creating an adventure at home.
*- And vice versa . . . I heard more than one story of various people in this province who've had guests arriving (I've heard from Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Australia, Hong Kong, and even the United States) who landed in Toronto or Vancouver, and were expecting their friends or relatives to meet them there in something like a couple hours to greet them. Rule # 1 of travel: LEARN SOME FUCKIN' GEOGRAPHY!
**-Two claimed by other appointments.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Vacation Day X: Brooding, Brewing, & Planning for a Better Escape Next Summer
I quit counting the days off that I've used since this past Tuesday. There has been nothing eventful since then, except for sobering issues that I had to address on Wednesday evening, all of which were work related. Other less than favourable circumstances have me restricted to being a homebody. So, I settled with converting the kitchen into a laboratory, to start brewing some beer, and then I continued to monkey around with other wildly experimental ways of cooking and food prep that just run shy of me using liquid nitrogen and explosives.
The brewing project is going well so far. The yeast culture is alive, activated, and doing what it loves to do best: making alcohol. I love hearing the initial rhythmic released bursts of CO2 escaping from the fermenter's airlock, as it matches the same cadence and frequency of a person's heartbeat at rest . . . a tell-tale sign that this life form is being well-nurtured and content. Yeah sure, I suppose that sounds a little flaky . . . but I'd rather share this little blurb with an embellishment of romanticism than describing it all with the more accurate scientific explanation of what is really going on through this process: the synchronous expulsion of gas that is an expended metabolic by-product of digestion from micro-organisms. In other words . . . a pulsating release of the collected billions of tiny yeast farts.
I had to force myself to settle down, and let my ankles and knees recover from the shock of using my toe shoes (Hobbit boots) for running again. These things are a delight to run in, but they play havoc to the leg muscles when doing any extended period of walking in them. I became so seduced by how wonderfully I was performing with them on my run that I overshot my training range by a hell of a long way, and I'm paying for it now.
My review of last entry led me to search through travel sites for getting ideas for cheap packages for next summer. I figured that I'd extend my running to hitting a race or two out of province, or even out of country. I'd be doing neither races further south of here, nor any around the great lakes region in summer*: I don't handle heat and humidity very well as it is now. I figured that I could do a marathon in Quebec, or the Maritimes, or someplace in Northern Europe which would be suit me better: maybe somewhere between the latitudes of Reykjavik and Zurich. I have more research, and whittling down of options, to do.
*- Maybe in mid or late autumn.
The brewing project is going well so far. The yeast culture is alive, activated, and doing what it loves to do best: making alcohol. I love hearing the initial rhythmic released bursts of CO2 escaping from the fermenter's airlock, as it matches the same cadence and frequency of a person's heartbeat at rest . . . a tell-tale sign that this life form is being well-nurtured and content. Yeah sure, I suppose that sounds a little flaky . . . but I'd rather share this little blurb with an embellishment of romanticism than describing it all with the more accurate scientific explanation of what is really going on through this process: the synchronous expulsion of gas that is an expended metabolic by-product of digestion from micro-organisms. In other words . . . a pulsating release of the collected billions of tiny yeast farts.
I had to force myself to settle down, and let my ankles and knees recover from the shock of using my toe shoes (Hobbit boots) for running again. These things are a delight to run in, but they play havoc to the leg muscles when doing any extended period of walking in them. I became so seduced by how wonderfully I was performing with them on my run that I overshot my training range by a hell of a long way, and I'm paying for it now.
My review of last entry led me to search through travel sites for getting ideas for cheap packages for next summer. I figured that I'd extend my running to hitting a race or two out of province, or even out of country. I'd be doing neither races further south of here, nor any around the great lakes region in summer*: I don't handle heat and humidity very well as it is now. I figured that I could do a marathon in Quebec, or the Maritimes, or someplace in Northern Europe which would be suit me better: maybe somewhere between the latitudes of Reykjavik and Zurich. I have more research, and whittling down of options, to do.
*- Maybe in mid or late autumn.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Vacation Day 6: Art Hacking
Today, the dog and I scurried out to Diefenbacher Park: to try my hand at Frisbee golf, and to let Ella snoop amidst the bushes in some of the more denser overgrown paths around the top of the river bank. As well, I found a place to forage for Saskatoon berries; Ella found herself a bunch of chipmunks to pester and chase around. We lingered around there until the mosquitoes got the best of us.
Later on, it was perhaps a lucky thing that I discovered that I had no more coffee filters left, and that I was going to be deprived of my daily morning brew at home. I use a five cup coffeemaker, and the only place I know that has the filters for it is the dollar store. So, I went there.
I love the Dollarama Store. It's a reminder to me that most of the things that give me pleasure are simple ones. The one I go to is the place where I find the German and Italian cookies I like, which cannot be found everywhere else. So, I bought some of those, along with my filters, plus a $3.00 sketch pad, for one of the biggest challenges of this week that I've given myself.
I suppose the mission of today was to knock some dust out of the right hemisphere of my brain, and test out my artistic side, or just to see if I actually have one. I'm sure as I write this that I'll be talking about my artistic ability like I was from friggin' Mars or something. I haven't tried to draw anything in a very long time. I don't even think that I drew pictures or coloured much as a kid. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a total chicken-shit when I'm approached and asked to try to do something artistic. It was a real stretch for me to plunge into the activity of 'rock painting' a couple of weeks ago when a co-worker of mine, who is very good at crafts, invited me to join the rest doing it. At this age, it seems like when I see a blank page, I seem to be too reserved, or too weirdly fearful that I'll corrupt it somehow with some kind of ghastly indelible mark, that will be like some sort of total perversion when compared to a real masterpiece. That same anxiety sort of hit me when I placed that blank page in front of myself. Writing is comparatively easier. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet (of my language), 10 digits, and a handful of punctuation marks and symbols to use in a structured way. The most intimidating thing that strikes my analytical mind right away is that there are infinite ways to use and arrange points, lines, curves, and shades on a piece of paper to make even a simple object. Infinity is overwhelming.
I wish there was an easier way to "hack" artistic talent, or to at least be wary of and remember some things that falls somewhere along the lines of the Pareto principle applied to art: knowing how to use just the basic 20% of the skills one can tap into to create 80% of the detail in a masterfully made production. I relapsed into being total geek and researched some stuff, and I did find some useful pointers.
To not make this process too intimidating I stuck to a minimalist approach. I only used a pencil. I also found an erasure shield, something that came in a grab bag when I checked out a garage sale a few years ago, I believe the seller was a retired architect.
I thought I'd start off making a project of practical application of it too: by drawing my own 'manual' of technique hacks.
I think the most valuable one I learned is the pencil scaling trick (Hack #2), where the pencil and thumb are used as a sighting tool to gain perspective, plot marking and reference points, and to frame and align a scene by finding its particular vantage point.
Hack #3 is simply random play, and testing out refining strokes and shading.
I sure as hell won't be a Da Vinci or Rembrant, but these few little tricks I learned added exponentially to what little talent I originally thought I had.
 |
| My pad, my fresh brewed coffee, and European cookies. A simple setting for a relaxing happy place to begin. |
I love the Dollarama Store. It's a reminder to me that most of the things that give me pleasure are simple ones. The one I go to is the place where I find the German and Italian cookies I like, which cannot be found everywhere else. So, I bought some of those, along with my filters, plus a $3.00 sketch pad, for one of the biggest challenges of this week that I've given myself.
 |
| It's either a crude drawing of my hand, or else a very accurate one that shows just how ugly my hand really is. |
 |
| Hack #1: Cone, Cube, Cylinder, Sphere. All forms can be derived from some variation of these four shapes. |
To not make this process too intimidating I stuck to a minimalist approach. I only used a pencil. I also found an erasure shield, something that came in a grab bag when I checked out a garage sale a few years ago, I believe the seller was a retired architect.
I thought I'd start off making a project of practical application of it too: by drawing my own 'manual' of technique hacks.
I think the most valuable one I learned is the pencil scaling trick (Hack #2), where the pencil and thumb are used as a sighting tool to gain perspective, plot marking and reference points, and to frame and align a scene by finding its particular vantage point.
Hack #3 is simply random play, and testing out refining strokes and shading.
I sure as hell won't be a Da Vinci or Rembrant, but these few little tricks I learned added exponentially to what little talent I originally thought I had. Monday, July 15, 2013
Vacation Day 5: Thoughts On Travel
I had a bit of a road trip to the Battlefords, about 135 kilometers northwest of here: to visit my folks yesterday afternoon. I arrived home today, to an alert of a tornado warning for this area. Thankfully, it remained just a warning, which ended mid-afternoon without incident.
As I left my parents' place this morning, I did my Dad a favour, and took a parcel of his of some stuff that he needed to return to a local business here in Saskatoon. My Mom called them earlier to notify them that I was bringing it to them. When I arrived back to my city, I parked my car at home and took the package to downtown on my bike to avoid the lunch hour traffic and parking fees. When I got to the business, I entered wearing my bike helmet and backpack. I then pulled out the package, stating that I brought it to them for my Dad from North Battleford. The receptionist looked at me with astonishment, and then asked me if I actually came all the way from the Battlefords on my bike. For an instant, I didn't know whether to be shocked at her stupidity for making such an assumption, or to be flattered that she thought I really was that physically fit, and had such a superpower of being able to pedal that much distance, within two hours, on a bike.
Getting away for the day was OK, but I really need to be away from here longer, at a totally different environment than what is already familiar to me. But then, that fundamental question strikes me: that being "Why, do I need to travel? I don't know if I have a concise answer for that question, but I found some very poignant commentary surrounding that question in an entry from Tim Ferriss' blog, which makes a lot of sense.
I find it no small coincidence that the English word travel , i.e. 'going from place to place', stems from the same Latin root word that means 'to work' or 'toil', as used in the case of French and Spanish (travail and trabajo, respectively). Travel can be toil, especially if you have the wrong company. In the past, when forced to travel in groups, I got tired quickly of people who will try to drag me around to places that disinterest me, yet are too bloody lazy, ignorant or stupid to know how to compose a simple four word phrase in another language to order a drink, or give directions to a cabbie . . . that somehow always turned out to be my job. They got to satisfy their agenda, while I was stuck at that spot, deprived of making my own experience worthwhile. I make it a point to travel alone now, however, that still doesn't help things much. In my mind, for me as a single traveler, most travel agencies and tourist services even make it worse by:
I'm certainly not pooh-poohing the whole idea of traveling. The thought of having an unstamped passport makes me quite sad. I make an effort to learn languages with hopes to one day use them practically, and that's for the sake of allowing me to veer off the beaten path. I know that constantly re-visiting what I already know isn't improving me. Book learning is OK, but no substitute for hands on experience.
This recent bike misunderstanding I mentioned had prompted me to think and realize that there are a hell of a lot of countries out there that are smaller than the size of this province, or even smaller than the distance between here and my folks' place in length or breadth; and that it would be perfectly achievable to cycle across or around them in a few days or weeks for doing some low cost/less traffic hassle sightseeing. Such places I thought of off the top of my head were*:
Too much altitude and tropical heat would limit my movement, in such places with those conditions. In such environs, I'd be limiting myself to visiting places along the coastal roads. I edited this by adding more countries and regions based on the on the formula of (135 km)2 x pi to give me an area range of about 58000 sq. km or less to pedal around in. Data from the World Bank statistics and Wikipedia.
As I left my parents' place this morning, I did my Dad a favour, and took a parcel of his of some stuff that he needed to return to a local business here in Saskatoon. My Mom called them earlier to notify them that I was bringing it to them. When I arrived back to my city, I parked my car at home and took the package to downtown on my bike to avoid the lunch hour traffic and parking fees. When I got to the business, I entered wearing my bike helmet and backpack. I then pulled out the package, stating that I brought it to them for my Dad from North Battleford. The receptionist looked at me with astonishment, and then asked me if I actually came all the way from the Battlefords on my bike. For an instant, I didn't know whether to be shocked at her stupidity for making such an assumption, or to be flattered that she thought I really was that physically fit, and had such a superpower of being able to pedal that much distance, within two hours, on a bike.
Getting away for the day was OK, but I really need to be away from here longer, at a totally different environment than what is already familiar to me. But then, that fundamental question strikes me: that being "Why, do I need to travel? I don't know if I have a concise answer for that question, but I found some very poignant commentary surrounding that question in an entry from Tim Ferriss' blog, which makes a lot of sense.
I find it no small coincidence that the English word travel , i.e. 'going from place to place', stems from the same Latin root word that means 'to work' or 'toil', as used in the case of French and Spanish (travail and trabajo, respectively). Travel can be toil, especially if you have the wrong company. In the past, when forced to travel in groups, I got tired quickly of people who will try to drag me around to places that disinterest me, yet are too bloody lazy, ignorant or stupid to know how to compose a simple four word phrase in another language to order a drink, or give directions to a cabbie . . . that somehow always turned out to be my job. They got to satisfy their agenda, while I was stuck at that spot, deprived of making my own experience worthwhile. I make it a point to travel alone now, however, that still doesn't help things much. In my mind, for me as a single traveler, most travel agencies and tourist services even make it worse by:
- many rates are based on double occupancy, that can get more expensive for single occupants.
- packages are sold for resorts and tourist traps
- tourists are herded into groups and often isolated from the rest of the population
- tour groups are often put through "itinerary overload", hauled around on a bus to see a thousand points of interest in 16 hours
I'm certainly not pooh-poohing the whole idea of traveling. The thought of having an unstamped passport makes me quite sad. I make an effort to learn languages with hopes to one day use them practically, and that's for the sake of allowing me to veer off the beaten path. I know that constantly re-visiting what I already know isn't improving me. Book learning is OK, but no substitute for hands on experience.
This recent bike misunderstanding I mentioned had prompted me to think and realize that there are a hell of a lot of countries out there that are smaller than the size of this province, or even smaller than the distance between here and my folks' place in length or breadth; and that it would be perfectly achievable to cycle across or around them in a few days or weeks for doing some low cost/less traffic hassle sightseeing. Such places I thought of off the top of my head were*:
- Ireland (Northern Ireland and Eire)
- Scotland
- Southern Scandinavia, Sweden/Norway
- Denmark
- Luxembourg
- The Netherlands
- Belgium
- Fiji
- Bali
- Tasmania (Australia)
- Bermuda
- Bahamas
- Tuscany (Italy)
- North Island (New Zealand)
- Samoa
- Belize
- Cyprus
- Estonia
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- Costa Rica
- Israel
- Taiwan
- Sint Maartin (St. Martin Island)
- Portugal
- Panama
- Malta
- Catalonia (Spain)
- Britanny & Normandy (France)
- Dutch Antilles (Aruba & Bonaire; I've already been in Curacao)
Too much altitude and tropical heat would limit my movement, in such places with those conditions. In such environs, I'd be limiting myself to visiting places along the coastal roads. I edited this by adding more countries and regions based on the on the formula of (135 km)2 x pi to give me an area range of about 58000 sq. km or less to pedal around in. Data from the World Bank statistics and Wikipedia.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
The River Run Classic 2013: 10 km Results
The Night Before: I made Spaghetti alla Vongole for supper, fell asleep around midnight. It was fitful. I was awoken not by ambient noise, but by the stench of a smelly old skunk waddling somewhere around the neighbourhood close to my place. The stink remained in the air a long time after I shut the windows.
Wake up/Breakfast on Day of Race: Alarm set at 6:00, hit snooze once. Breakfast was a plain white bagel, with almond butter, and a banana.
Ten kilometer race start time: 7:30 AM, arrived 20 minutes early. Biked there, and grateful for the valet station for cycles.
Weather Conditions: It was only 7 degrees when I arrived there before the start, and it deceived me in thinking that I was hydrated enough. The temperature rose rapidly after 7:00 AM.
Weather Conditions: It was only 7 degrees when I arrived there before the start, and it deceived me in thinking that I was hydrated enough. The temperature rose rapidly after 7:00 AM.
Start Position: I was probably somewhere between the 40th and 50th person to cross the starting line.
The Goal: To try to beat my time from the Saskatchewan Marathon 10 km race from earlier this year. It would be great if I could put my time under one hour.
Most Challenging Part of the Race: Getting a strained knee after the sixth kilometer, it became tough to just charge up the inclined stretches of roadway beneath the University and Broadway bridges coming back to the timing gate. I would have done better had it not been for that stupid knee.
Things I'm Most Pleased About: I met my goals, 3 minutes and 49 seconds under an hour, and beat my time from the Saskatchewan Marathon 10 km race by 11 minutes and 44 seconds. Although it didn't feel like it during the last three kilometers, the numbers show that I'm improving. At least I wasn't last in my age/sex division.
The Goal: To try to beat my time from the Saskatchewan Marathon 10 km race from earlier this year. It would be great if I could put my time under one hour.
Most Challenging Part of the Race: Getting a strained knee after the sixth kilometer, it became tough to just charge up the inclined stretches of roadway beneath the University and Broadway bridges coming back to the timing gate. I would have done better had it not been for that stupid knee.
Things I'm Most Pleased About: I met my goals, 3 minutes and 49 seconds under an hour, and beat my time from the Saskatchewan Marathon 10 km race by 11 minutes and 44 seconds. Although it didn't feel like it during the last three kilometers, the numbers show that I'm improving. At least I wasn't last in my age/sex division.
Final Results:
 |
- Time: 56:11
- Rank: 83rd out of 166 racers, just within the upper 50 %
- Average Pace: 5'38"/km
- Average Heart Rate: no reading taken
- Place in my Age/Sex Division: 9/10
My reward(s): Finally taking a road trip out of town, and finally getting to test my car's performance on the highway. Getting to reunite with an old friend. Seeing how happy Ella became when visiting her Grandma and Grandpa. An afternoon nap, and having a beer with my Dad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)