funkisland expatriates

Castles and Lions and Spaniards Oh My!

2007-03-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

9 out of 10 riders leading the Vuelta Castilla y Leon, which is a bike race around the largest autonomous community in Spain, are Spanish.
The first of which is Team Discovery's Alberto Contador.

Knives are great!

2007-03-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Enough with the politics already! Ranting about political things lately takes too much time and energy. 'Specially that budget thing. Although, I must admit after doing ye olde tax return, I'll say that whoever had the idea not to tax scholarship money is beer-worthy in my eyes.
I turned off random on my ipod today and just listened to Knives Dont Have Your Back. It reinforced my thoughts that it is a quality album. Very appropriate for the way I've been feeling lately. I strongly recommend acquiring it via your method of choice.

Its Not Free Trade.

2007-03-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

I was reading a book review in this weekend's Globe, and thought it was fairly informative, until I got to the part where the reviewer writes:

Unfortunately, too many of us will resist reducing our lifestyles to the values McKibben argues will be necessary to save the Earth. We may buy our produce at a local farmer's market, but we'll usually drive there, many of us in SUVs. We may choose free-trade coffee, but won't give it up to reduce the copious quantities of fossil fuels burned to ship the beans around the globe.

If the author calls it free trade coffee, I wouldn't buy the book. This all too familiar mistake really bugs me. Free trade and fair trade are opposites. Fair trade encourages sustainable development, gender equity and better working conditions, and consumers pay a higher price knowing that more of the money is going to the workers, not market middle men. This higher price can be seen as a tariff (by some) and thus is the exact thing that free trade is trying to abolish.

Dion: Your Carbon Bud.

2007-03-16T11:57:00.000-07:00

On the frontpage of the globe and mail website, I find this image. Hmmm... Either the liberal party's new environment strategy is to be friends with the pollutants, or they're trying to leverage the latest organic trend.

Mind If I Sprawl?

2007-03-16T08:31:00.001-07:00

If you're like me, you've at least heard something on the radio, or read something on the web about the compiled census results. I took a look at the federal ridings as pointed out over at kirk's blog, and saw something surprising. All of the ridings with centre in their names had below average growth (most of them had negative growth, also known as shrinkage) and the ridings with the highest growth were suburbs and exurbs like Milton, Barrie, Vaughan, Brampton and Markham/Oak Ridges (where have I heard of that before).
Not long after I noticed that, there were radio segments and newspaper articles like this one from our local rag. It is interesting to see the quotes pulled from our local politicians. Our (new) Mayor, Brenda Halloran, sees the situation as an opportunity to be a leader, and set the standard for urban intensification. Ken Seiling is in complete denial. He thinks that since Waterloo Region hasn't changed its borders in 30 years, there is no urban sprawl going on. Never mind that the only areas that had significant growth in the past five years are on the edge of the city, and they all have low population density. Some of the regional divisions experiencing this growth have 'rural' in their names!

Simon part 2

2007-03-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

A follow up to the last post, about the suspension handed out to Mr. Simon. At 25 games (or the rest of their season and playoffs, whichever is longer), it is the longest suspension ever handed out, but only by 2 games. The previous longest was a 23 game suspension given to Marty McSorley for hitting Brashear. But we should also note that McSorley never played in the NHL again, and was found guilty of assault with a weapon and given 18 months probation.
Simon's coach, Ted Nolan, is continuing to stand behind his player, and maybe that is the right move for a coach. But the front office has to take a hard look at this. They are now paying about $80,000 of salary for a player that they're not getting, because of a bad choice he made. He is also a 1 million dollar player who isn't able to contribute to the team down the playoff stretch. He also took a bad penalty and shortened the bench in a fairly critical game. All reasons why we might see him looking for work as a free agent this summer, and if justice is served, nobody picks him up.

Mr. Simon's Suspension

2007-03-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

After having a look at 'the incident', I would say that the hockey world ought to treat this kind of stick swinging episode the same as most other sports would treat a major doping infraction. The reasons for this are clear. These other sports (I'm thinking specifically of cycling and track) want doping gone, and so they impose very strict penalties. The NHL needs to make it clear that there is no place in hockey for deliberately using the stick as a weapon.
It is not that the league needs to protect the players, as so many media outlets cry, it is that they need to protect themselves. What would happen to the league if the worst happened? A player died on the ice. Or worse than that, a player killed another player? Of course, I am not saying that deciding on this suspension will have any impact on whether that worst of worst situation would ever come to pass. But it would set precedent, and show that the league is actively trying to reduce the incedence of extreme violence in the game. If the league has a policy of suspending, for a long period of time, those who commit acts of extreme violence, then when that happens the league doesnt need to sit behind closed doors and decide if what happened was bad or not. It would diffuse the talk in the media about what the league is doing about violence in the NHL.
Two years.
Chris Simon should not be allowed into an NHL arena for two years.
If he does it again after that, he should be banned for life.
This is how you stamp out extreme violence.
We'll deal with hits to the head in another blog post.

The Rich and the Rest of Us

2007-03-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

It is all in the title folks. It is a recent report from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives... it paints a stark picture. Because it wants to paint a stark picture, not necessarily because reality is stark. The title plays on envy. It paints the 'Us' as outside the classification of rich. Because even the rich are envious of those richer than themselves.
Check out an article about it in the KW Record.

Things I noticed after reading the report:
1. Focused totally on families. A direct quote from the report is

"Almost half of Canadians (46.3%) live in households that are raising children under the age of 18.1 They represent a big chunk of Canadian society."

Big chunk? If you want us to take your report seriously, talk about all Canadians, not just a big chunk of them. And the bad thing is, the family only caveat isnt part of the headlines. They know this. It just gets reported as 'Rich vs Poor'. The Record article actually points this out and says

"Jim Davies, economics professor at the University of Western Ontario, said he finds the study's results puzzling since the income gap has narrowed in the last decade when you look at all Canadian households, not just families."

2. The next thing to skew the results: only considering family income, not individual income. How many of the top 10% income earning families (that is, the rich) are two income households. Yeah, thought so. While this does nothing to help the bottom 10%, it does hit the middle class where families are more likely to have the choice to earn two incomes or not. And while they may be able to earn 20-30k more (and jump into the next decile) paying for daycare would mean very little extra money for them. They could make more, but their standard of living is exactly the same.

3. Data was custom compiled by Statistics Canada. nuff said.

4. Quote from the report:

Families with children under 18 have consistently displayed the most stable and least unequal distribution of incomes over time among all Canadian households.

Does that wash with Jim Davies' quote? What about other factors such as the changing household? More single parent families. More dual income families. These factors push both ends of the scale further apart.

5. Looking at the graphs in the report, the income bars are linear up to (but not including) the 10th decile. This suggests to me a fairly even distribution of income over the population save for the very rich. By discussing just the gap between rich and poor, and that it is widening, we start to expect a double hump type distribution, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

6. At the bottom end, (which is what we ought to be ultimately concerned with, right?) by discussing income, we see that more often than not, the bottom decile has an income of zero. (must be median not average, I guess... or maybe rounded.) The income change over the 76-04 time line is a stark -80%. But the after tax, after social assistance etc. number is +8%. Seems they are better off now than before. Hunh. Not what the headlines lead you to believe eh?

Lastly, I'll bring it back to the title. Playing on the envy of the rich. Or for the rich, playing on the envy of the super rich. People who are making more than me ought to do something to help the poor. A telling part of the record article is this quote from a woman who's family makes just over the average salary, which is in the 6th decile:

"I see the rich are getting richer," she said. "But we're not getting to where we're supposed to be."

Envy and greed my friends. We can't all be better than average.

Desperately Seeking Savepoints

2007-02-28T09:29:00.000-08:00

Since about Christmas I've been playing a certain video game. It is the most recent game in a large franchise of fantasy adventure games. One where adventurers travel around a made up world, fighting monsters and doing adventurous things. Every once in a while the adventurers come upon a place where their health is restored and they have the option to save their game. Those places are of great solace to adventurers.
In the past, when I have had more time to spend, and more importantly had larger continuous chunks of time to spend adventuring, these save points seemed convenient and plentiful. Of course, that is no longer the case. I tend to spend one or two 30 to 60 minute chunks of time on games, which in some cases are not long enough to find the next save point. The save points have now become base camps that I do small exploratory missions from, and rather than being a fall back point for the worst case scenarios. The adventuring has gone from a single push alpine style to an everest style expedition.
I don't like having to run back through several map sections to get back to the save point just because supper is ready, but I should look at the bright side. This style of exploration allows the characters to become acclimatised to the difficulty of a certain area by going through the easier portions several times. Rather than just level grinding for grinding's sake. And really, I think I end up healthier by eating supper when supper is ready.

Where did you say you were from?

2007-02-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

As much as we felt slighted when the US Marine Corps color guard flew the Canadian Flag upside down in Atlanta in the 92 World Series, at least they got the anthem right.

In other, completely unrelated news, the Australian task force has proposed a carbon trading scheme. It has no reduction targets. There is no cost associated with emitting, just a permit. The permits can be traded. The environment critic (and one time leader of the band Midnight Oil) has proposed that there be a real tax on carbon emissions. Here is my take: in a traded permit scheme, there would end up being a monetary value associated with emitting, just not the way the government designed it. There would be money changing hands when permits get traded. And corporations would simply take the deterrent cost of emitting more than the permitted amount into consideration and make decisions based on that. I think what we need to do is go through the pain of putting a price on emissions now, because once that link is established, we can deter emissions by changing the price. Changing the price would be a lot easier than establishing the link in the first place.

sUPER bOWEL

2007-02-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

Stupid Caps Lock. This is the day for that. It took way too long for the coffee to clear the fog out of my head, and once it did, i realized that there was also coffee on my pants. Hopefully the day gets better from here.
I dont need to tell you that Sunday was super bowl day. And thus, super bowl party day. We put together a decent spread of beer, salty snacks, pizza and chili. The HD projector was working well, but the HD cable box started to fade in the 4th quarter. Technical difficulties drove us to other amusements (oh internet, what would we ever do without you). Of course when one of the party attendees admitted she was in a scream-core band (or some such made up genre) it prompted a my space quest and the best comment of the evening, delivered with a chuckle... "Get many Gigs?"
It was my sentiment exactly, but put together in a somewhat more tactful guise than I would have managed. But he would know. He is in the industry.

Plus Two... Hundred.

2007-01-31T05:54:00.000-08:00

Science!

So today on the current, as I was driving in to work, Anna Maria was interviewing a math teacher who claims that there is a math plague circulating in the schools, and students just aren't learning math. I'm not surprised. On Sunday, while out at Lucy's (go there for sum-sum this Sunday. Do it) with a friend who is going through teachers college to be an elementary teacher, she told us about her 'math journal'. They are to write personal reflections on their math lessons. This is how they plan to teach math? By asking how they feel about it? That is crazy. You cant teach a skill by asking how you feel about it. Math is a skill, just like swimming or throwing a curve ball. It is learned through drills and repetition. If students don't like doing drills then we might want to change them, but the student still needs to repeat the skill. When we try to teach something really important, like artificial respiration, we use repetition and memorization because it works.

Boycott Everyone

2007-01-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

I had to post about this article in the Globe and Mail. To sum up, Mahmoud Zahar is reacting to Peter McKay not meeting with Hamas while he was in the area. Zahar called the current Canadian government extremist, possibly in retaliation for our cessation of aid to the Palestinian state once Hamas was elected. Then Zahar says:

What is Israel providing you? Nothing. What are you achieving from such policies? What have you gained? Nothing, except the hatred of innocent people. If you would like to be the tail of the American dog, it's up to you.

I'd like to respond to this with a few points. First, Zahar claims that we are achieving the hatred of innocents. That is quite a statement, flawed in so many ways. On the surface, that innocent people are still innocent while hating, or in its implication that the Palestinians can somehow claim to be innocent. No party in this conflict can claim that.
Next, it isn't about what Israel is doing for us. We ought to be boycotting both sides. That is what neutrality is all about Charlie Brown. Most importantly if you want people to stop fighting, you need to stop giving them weapons. We also need to get both sides to work for peace, not victory.
Lastly, by calling us the tail of the American dog, he is not helping himself. Insulting a nation does little to entice foreign aid. We do not owe any nation or any government any sort of aid. We owe it to the starving and oppressed. We owe it to those who are being persecuted and attacked. Until this conflict settles down, it seems improper to give aid to those who would cause the suffering that we would try to relieve. That money ought to be going to the red cross and NGOs that have no political agenda.

I need to blog.

2006-11-03T12:37:00.000-08:00

Because my blog is feeling neglected.

The company that I work for just got bought by a very big company. I am excited about this. Not because it means anything to my day to day work, or my compensation for said work, but for the employee discount. I'm not sure how much that discount is, or if we get access to all the products (I'm guessing probably not) but the possibilities are pretty good. I mean, there isn't much that they don't make.

In other news, I'm doing a lot less running lately, due to a groin problem. (you can click that link... it is nothing gross, honest). I'm hoping to start running seriously again in the new year. In the meantime, I'm doing some exercises on one of those inflated balls... you know, the kind you can bounce someone across the room with. It is much harder than it looks.

Further to the latest post

2006-07-24T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'll refrain from being link crazy like the last post, but I should point out that Floyd did indeed win the tour de france. It was a pretty good race to watch, with the lead changing many times. I was disappointed with team discovery, though. In the past the entire team was very strong, and was able to control the race whenever they wanted. I figured that with a team that strong, they could manage to lead out any of their better riders and have a shot at the top 10 at least. But it seemed like whenever there was a mountain stage break, team DSC was nowhere to be seen. Hincapie and Azevedo sometimes made a showing here or there, but neither of them could stick it out.

Menno Yellow

2006-07-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

Floyd Landis from Farmersville, PA, the worlds fastest Mennonite, is wearing the yellow jersey on Bastille Day in the Tour de France. Wow.

whizzardry

2006-07-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

Recently there has been a lot of talk, (like over at kirk's blog) about three guys peeing. At times like this, I'm glad I have friends who blog. Because then I can read sane comments on the news. Not like at the globe and mail. I read the comments posted about a recent article on this issue and read people say things like 'throw the book at them,' 'time for some cruel and unusual punishment,' 'bring back prohibition,' 'send them to a warzone and have them be minesweepers,' and 'send them to jail.'
Here is the thing. Corporal punishment is wrong, and not something Canadians do. Prohibition didnt work. Conscription is wrong and not something Canadians ought to do.

But what about the argument that what they did was completely disrespectful?
This spring I went on a trip to Italy. It was nice. We toured around the countryside, and we toured around Rome. My impressions of Rome were that aside from the monuments, it is a big dirty city. A very cool, very historical, big dirty city. And everyone smoked. While we were touring around the city, we came to the Altar of the Fatherland, at which is located their Tomb of the Unknown soldier, complete with an honour guard of two soldiers (with rifles in hand). This monument was sparklingly clean, and crawling with officers to keep people from smoking or sitting down. In a big dirty city, this place was clean. In a place where everyone smokes, not one person was smoking. In a city full of weary tourists, no one was sitting.

Here is where we pale in comparison. We let people do whatever they want to this monument. This is how we disrespect our veterans. We do not guard the monument. It is like we dont care what happens to it.

I tip my hat to You sir.

2006-06-05T07:16:00.000-07:00

My trip to Ottawa was interesting. It had ups, like visiting my beautiful wife, and running in a race with 7000 other people. It had downs, like wondering if I need to re-think this whole running thing at 8k. And a lot of in-between, like the radio ad for the possibly worst named dealership in the country: Kanata Ford.
Dispite the pain I felt, The race went fairly well. I finished in 45 (and a half) minutes, good for 365th place.

Apple: popular with skeletons.

2006-05-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Whoa... picture-ific.
Anyway, it has been way too long since my last post. I ran the St. Johns Amulance Waterloo Half Marathon and the results are posted here. I came in 36th, with a time of 1:38:04.3. I'm really happy with that time, my goal for that race was to beat 1:45, and I did that by almost 7 minutes.
Anyway, what have I been doing since that? Well, there was a vacation to Italy, and I'll be posting more of that with picutes and such... or I'll try to. I'm just getting the hang of the picture thing... and we'll see if I can get flickr to work for me.
My next race is the 10k in Ottawa next weekend, and my big goal race is after that at the Waterloo Classic. I'm hoping to beat my best 10k time of 42 minutes.

only the sound of the rain

2006-03-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

Wednesday and wintery.
I wish it were winery.

Not much is going on. I need better posture. I guess it is more of an 'I want' rather than an 'I need'. I want to not have my back bug me... and for that, I need better posture. At least I'm fortunate enough to have it be all up to me and how I behave. I guess we like to believe that if we're good, if we work hard, and all that, then good things will happen to us. We excercise, eat right, and our bodies will run well. I'm realizing that this isnt always the case. Being active will create aches and pains... but we cant let that keep us from being active. I guess the doctors advice can be summed up in two kernels of wisdom:

1. Sit up straight.
2. Suck it up!

there's just no good way to say it.

2006-03-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

Canadian Crooks Honoured by IOC

startups... or, I have a web page.

2006-03-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

I like to keep up to date with stuff that is coming out. So, when I hear about a new startup (like infogami or inkling) or a big company with something new (google pages) I go and check it out. So I have a couple of web pages, and a fake trading account. I cant say that I am too impressed by these things. The web pages are a bit like wiki blogs, and they dont seem to be all that revolutionary. I guess at the heart of it is, it is just a web page. And, really, the good websites dont look like they are cobbled together with one of a selection of css templates. They also have something to say. Something better than the message of the timecube.
I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is with inkling... trading fake currency... on ideas. It strikes me as something that would be a fun game if you were thinking about getting into the stock market, but didnt really like all the business stuff.

!running

2006-03-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I never actually claimed that this was a running blog. Running in the sense of I never talk about anything else. Today will change that. I feel like I have a lot to say that has nothing to do with this weekends 20k.
One of my workmate's blogs Had some decent rant-age going on, and I thought I'd chime in on some things that kinda bug me. Or at least one thing, anyway. I'll say in broad strokes that text message lingo bugs me, (even though I have a soft spot for H4x0r 7334N355) but even more serious than that is emoticons. My reasons for not liking emoticons are these: they are annoying, they dont do what they are supposed to, and advertisers (and viruses) love them.
Annoying: The simple colon bracket, when left in text form is only really annoying when people use them in asides (when people go on a tangent in the middle of a sentance) and they put them at the end of the aside. This is only a little annoying. But it still is annoying. The yellow happyface emoticons are a whole new breed of annoying. For starters, they are supposed to be part of the text, but often are way bigger than the text, creating a gap between lines that shouldnt be there. Plus, the whole 'yellow happy face' theme that pervades them. Like, I want a 'middle finger' emoticon, but what I have is an angry 'yellow happy face' (which itself is a disembodied head) with a disembodied mickey mouse glove stuck to its chin, giving the finger.
Poor Performance. I guess the idea of the emoticon is to add emotion to text. So if you are angry, you can put an angry face next to the text you are writing. Of course, people dont use it like this. Often what does happen is a smiley (some variation on colon bracket) gets put at the end of a joke. That would be ok if that was always the case, but it isnt. smileys get put all over the place. So you cant really tell if they are joking or not. Plus, if we really wanted to add emotion or 'body language' or inflection to our text, we'd at least need a sarcasm emoticon. But what does that look like? There is no good way to picture sarcasm. Especially not in the yellow happy face paradigm.
The most annoying part about emoticons is that they are the frequent subject of all sorts of pop-up ads and banner ads. Which is probably the most annoying form of advertisement possible. And have you ever clicked on one of these by mistake? The way you can tell if you've clicked on one is that your virus checker starts going nuts.

What touched this off? Well I was reading questionable content, and I saw one of the characters drinking out of a mug with an emoticon on it. It was a 'sticking the tounge out' emoticon. I kinda thought that was nice... it was a text emoticon. I kinda liked it. But then I thought... colon pee. That emoticon is a colon, and then a pee. Colon pee. That doesnt sound like a good fun thing.

in the zone

2006-02-27T07:32:00.000-08:00

oh, the ups and downs of training... and trying to train right. I knew that if I wanted to put up a big goal to shoot for, and actually make it, I'd have to get some help training for it. So I did. I've been reading about running, talking to people about running, gone to running clinics, and had workouts with a coach. Before all this, I knew that it was good to have a long slow run about once a week. But I didnt know how long, or for that matter, how slow.
After joining up with a local run group, I got a schedule of distances to cover before the race. The schedule works up to about 24km, which should be done 3 weeks before the race. Cool. Distance, check. Now for the slow part. With prompting from the coach, christmas money burning its way out of my pocket, and a geek's love of gadgets, I got a heart rate monitor. After setting it up, (then RTFM) then setting it up again, I wore it during this weeks run. And, as a result, I found out that slow really does mean slow. The optimal heart rate range for long slow distance runs is 65 to 75%. and running that slow is pretty difficult. Especially when you have 18km to run, and you dont want to take all day. It took all day. I could have finished the run in less time than 2 hours and 15 minutes. But they tell me it is better this way. I guess we'll see in a couple of months.

a year to forget

2006-02-20T06:32:00.000-08:00

I officially have about a year to forget just how bad the weather for this race was. I wish I could do it again without the weather being so much of a factor. I was on a great pace, and the wind just killed me on the last hill. Actually, a lot of things went really well in this race, my legs felt great (better than any run I've had in weeks) and I kept up a decent pace for a long time. My result is posted at
roadraceresults. I came in 38th overall.
Recovering is a bit of a different story. My lungs and abs arent yet back to normal. So between that and the weather, I would say that I wouldn't bother with this race again next year. That is, unless I forget.

Planning for vacation... I'm looking forward to the trip, partly because of the Giro d'Italia. Turns out there is a great big bike race going on while we are there. And we may even go watch part of it. I'm thinking of watching either the start or the end of the Team Time Trial, but I've never been a spectator at a bike race before, so I'm not sure if that is the best place to be.

pattern?

2006-02-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

Hey, so... posts seem to be coming pretty much weekly. Or is it weakly? At least it is consistant, if not constant.
In running this week, I ran an all time high of 17km. And it took just under two hours. I know for sure I could have done it in less time, but the new twist this week was that I went out and got myself one of these... (a heart rate monitor). So while using it, I found myself having to slow down pretty often, because I was running too fast, and my heart rate was above the long slow running range. Anyways, the 8M race is next weekend at Rim Park. Here is hoping for nice weather.
In other news, the two cats we adopted from the humane society went in to get spayed. They are recovering well, it has been almost a week and they are nearly back up to top speed.
We're starting to plan our vacation. Italy in May. Should be nice.

11 weeks to go

2006-02-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

I ran 15k on saturday. It was a good thing I did too, because as soon as I was done, it started snowing. It hasn't stopped since.
So with all this long distance running, I start to have to eat something while I run. Now, totally running out of energy isnt something that I have experienced, nor do I want to. The thing is, I can't really tell if my running is being hurt by not eating until it is too late. I'm pretty much going on the advice of the coach when he says eat a gel at 45 minutes, and every 30 minutes after that. Now, there are lots of different gels and stuff like that, so how can I pick? Everyone has a different opinion. They all say 'experiment, figure out what works for you.' Ok. I've tried the power bar gel on a couple of runs, and it was ok, but kinda tough to eat. Next I'm going to try gummi bears. Yep, those gummi bears. I've heard they work, and it stands to reason... I mean, they are simple sugar. Granted, they dont have caffiene, or electrolytes or the Florida Gators as test subjects, but they are cheap. Anyway, the funny thing is that I was searching the net to find out if other runners have done a comparison between gels and gummi bears, and got a page full of links to breast implants. Way to go google.

12 weeks to go

2006-01-30T06:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm now on the 12 week buildup to race day. The first run on the buildup schedule is 12km, but the route I ran was 13. It was a great run for two reasons, first it was warm and sunny (for january... 5 degrees) and second I ran along Glasgow street and saw a nice place for sale. Now I'm not going to get into the whole house buying deal that it seems that all of my friends are getting on (I'm not even finished paying of my car!). But I do want to mention this place. It looked great. Great enough that I looked it up (you can too, it is the only house for sale on glasgow st in kitchener). Of course, all that greatness comes at a price... (think Dr Evil) Two Million Dollars!!!

Voting Night in Canada

2006-01-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Yeah, thats right, a rare, non-running related post. Today is voting day. Today canadians ought to participate in the democratic process. I won't say who I'm voting for, instead, I'll include a little election haiku.

Who should we support?
How can we pick from these guys?
You know they all suck.

Next read the platforms,
Or listen to the debate.
Try reading the web.

Now we should all choose.
Decide for yourself who you like.
Please go vote today.

has it been...

2006-01-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

5 weeks? Man.
Well, I survived the holidays, and managed some running too. I'm not going to try and log it all, i have totally forgotten most of the details... I will say that last week my km total was 31 ( 8, 8 and 15 ).

I must say that the holidays were great but busy. Went to a couple of great parties, one at Charlotte's and a jazzy new year at Dave's. Best New Years party ever. Since i think i ought to have more linkey-goodness I'll link to the jazz band that played the new years party... What Next.

catch-up

2005-12-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

so, last week I followed my plan and had a total of about 21 or 22 km.
So, this week's total should be around 24 ish.

Monday am 2km
Monday pm 7km
Wednesday 30min bike
Thursday pm 7km
Friday 30 min bike

and that comes to today... but I think I'm going to head out for around 10km. Heading into holiday season, i might not be able to get all the runs and cross training in, so i might end up staying at around 25km or even having a step down week in there somewhere... i dunno. we'll see.
Part of the reason i want to go out for longer is to force me to go slower. When I went out last saturday, i was cold, and must have wanted to get it over with, so i went fast. which is ok for 8km, but as i start building up the distance, it'll kill me.

anyway, out for the run.

mung sprouts

2005-11-25T11:47:00.000-08:00

Apparently mung sprouts can make you sick. that made me take a second look... what are mung bean sprouts? Oh, they are those thick white bean sprouts that I like. Hmmm... I wonder why i only know them as bean sprouts.

oh, and I didnt run last night. i ran this morning. inside.

probably

2005-11-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

I'm probably going to run tonight... it is probably going to suck.

beginnings

2005-11-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems that someone noticed. Thanks Pat.

So, we left off with me having a hard time moving around, thanks to the 15k race... well folks, I'm about to do it again. Lets define about to: april. I'm getting ready for this: the waterloo half marathon. i hope i dont die.

I've looked at lots of 'training schedules' and there are a ton of them out there on the net. Some of them dont look hard, eight weeks of running three or four times a week, to six months of running like mad. I havent really picked one, but I have picked out a few things that I'll do. First of all, most of the plans have a 'long run' on the weekend. The idea is to build up the distance in this long run, to get close to the race distance. The other thing that I am incorporating is the ten percent rule. This is a total distance guideline. Each week I sum up the distances of all my runs that week. Then, for the next week, I plan to have the total kms add up to that number plus ten percent.

For example, last week:
Monday am: 2km
Monday pm: 6km
Friday am: 5km
Saturday pm: 6km
Total: 19km.

So, for this week, I should add 1.9 km to my plan.
Monday am: 2km
Monday pm: 6km
Thursday pm: 6km
Saturday am: 7km
Total: 21 km.

I've already done the monday stuff. My plan is to add to that saturday run every week, and I'll probably add more to the midweek stuff as well. Monday morning I run to the gym, and I am planning to go monday, wednesday and friday, so there is a possible 4 more km. (while there I'll do weights or cycle)

In non-running news, we have a guy leaving our team at work, so if you know c++ and are looking, drop me a line. (of course, you'll have to know me, and what my email addr is. but that is a good filter)

recovering

2005-11-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

I guess I ought to mention mondays run... I didnt even time it. Did 5km. Most of me hurt from the waist down, but only for the start of the run, midway though it most of everything started to loosen up. My hips and knees still ache though. I'm trying to figure out how I'll work in a long run this weekend.

the horror

2005-10-31T11:48:00.000-08:00

Saturday's run: the horror hill 15km country road race. I felt pretty cold at the start... it was 10c and there was still plenty of frost in the shade. As for horror, there was a few decent hills, one killer hill, and one short steep hill at the end that may or may not have qualified as evil. Oh, and I walked past roadkill on the way to the starting line. My splits were all over the place. I averaged 5:14 per km, but my slowest was 6:00 and my fastest was 4:30. Amazingly the slowest km wasnt the one with the big hill in it, it was the first one. I am thinking that a lighter breakfast and maybe waking up earlier or doing more warmup could have helped that.

Sat Oct 29. 15km 1:18:29 10c-12c sunny place: 50 out of 111.

flu the coop

2005-10-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

From an NPR health Q&A: (available here)

Q: I work as a volunteer social worker. My organization has distributed Tamiflu to each of us -- how effective is it with avian flu? -- Renee Rivera, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A: I would tell her not to take the Tamiflu since there is not a threat of human to human spread right now. When you start taking Tamiflu inappropriately, it can lead to resistance of the virus in question to Tamiflu, that's the first thing. As far as how effective Tamiflu is against the serious complications or the serious nature of H5N1, we don't really know. We know Tamiflu works reasonably well in the seasonal flu, the H3N2 flu that predictably circulates each year in this country. It lessens the number of days of symptoms and from a broad stand point, lessens hospitalizations. We don't have hard data because there have only been 118 people infected, and they haven't had a situation where they can give some of them Tamiflu and others not, and compare whether Tamiflu works. We're assuming that it will work with H5N1 with a reasonably good basis for that assumption, but there's no definite proof that it would make a difference with regard to hospitalization or life or death.

my take:
Flu viruses mutate a lot. That is why the flu shot next year will be different than the flu shot this year. So keep getting the flu shot, they say.
Just not Tamiflu.
What is going on here? Don't take it, the virus may become immune... Is the flu virus this year immune to the flu drugs from past years? Does that make it more virulent?
I'd really like to know what the chances are of a person who has never had the flu shot catching the most recent strain of flu as compared to the chances of a person who has had all the flu shots catching it. Are all these innoculated people creating an environment that encourages the mutation of the flu that is more likely than previous strains to infect those who have not had the shots? And should that make us rethink the blanket policy on free flu shots for everyone?
Sadly, I dont think a study that answers these questions is even possible.

Now, I'm not saying that nobody ought to get the shot, but I dont think everyone should.

comitted

2005-10-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

after the run last night I went down to the running room and signed myself up for the 'horror hill' 15k race this weekend. i dont think i've ever run 15k. well, maybe I have, but not since the majority of my running was 'after school'. Anyways, last nights run:
Thursday Oct 27 - 5.5km, ? university and ring rd, p.cloudy 6c

Things overheard at work: "You think you've got problems?? We're coding this ----!"

so tired

2005-10-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

There are two reasons I started this blog... for one, I kinda miss blogging. it is weird to say that, but true. The other was that I thought it would be a good way to keep track of my running. I think that might help the regularity of posts... if I use this as a training log, then at least I'll have a reason to type in this window.
Just to catch up on the last few runs:
Monday Oct. 17 - 9km 1:05, bearinger route, rain 11c.
Thursday Oct 20 - 9km 1:00, bearinger, drizzle 10c.
Monday Oct 24 - 8km 0:55, westmount route, rain 5c.

On the 17th I felt really good, and felt good the next day too. but after thursdays run I felt winded and tired for all of the next day. Yesterday's run felt ok, but not great... I dont think I got enough sleep last night. I'm really dragging this morning.

2005-10-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

Man, it has been forever since I did any kind of domain-spelunking. While trying to find a simple place to dump some blog posts, I ran across several blogs that were little more than 'wohoo, I got a blog for this name... cool' and that is it. How dumb is that?! Although, I did have to stop and think when I read the blog with the name bitz.
Anyways, with that as the subject for my first post, I am running a decent risk of hypocrisy here. Maybe that will get me to write more. I guess the proof is in the posting.