Why you should bag your oranges?
Tonight, I ran to the swimming pool for a workout and stopped by the grocery stores to buy some food for dinner. I grabbed some pita, meat, and dried cherries and headed over to the self-checkout area and waited for my turn. There was an older couple just ahead of me having some trouble. The norm is for folks to put all their oranges in a bag when selecting them from the boxes. This couple didn’t know this so they were trying to place all their oranges on the scale but they kept on rolling off and landing on the floor. The eventually decided on the divide and conquer approach which is place as many oranges as can fit on the scale and then to weigh them before weighing the next batch. The machine didn’t like this as they forgot a little detail which is that you have to tell the scale in advance what it is weighing before it will weigh it. They eventually got it sorted out but it was comical as they would have a handful of oranges on the scale and then one would fall off and the machine would start beeping and saying that they should see the attendant. The moral of the story is to put all your oranges in one bag and to place them on the scale together.
Last workout before my first race of the year
It’s a couple of days before my first race of the year and tonight I did my final workout under questionable weather conditions. It was midway between raining and snowing. As I set off for my run, I knew I was in for a challenge as ice started to form on my glasses making it had to see in the dark. Ever couple of minutes, I wiped my finger across my glasses to thaw the ice. As the workout continued ice started to accumulate and very soon I had a thin layer of ice forming down the front of my jacket and pants. It was a unique experience. I ran long enough to satisfy my legs but not long enough to tire them out for my upcoming 13.1 mile half-marathon race in the southern US. Once back at the gym, I noticed that icicles had formed in my hair. As I was taking on my hat I noticed a long icicle was attached to my hat. I sucked on it while doing my stretching, expecting that it would have a salty taste but it tasted like good old water.
Albino/Leucistic Canada Geese
Today on my morning bike commute I spotted an anomaly that caught my attention, a Canada goose with an odd coloring. The bird’s feathers didn’t have any pigments. Once at the office I did a quick google check and Leucistic/albino geese are quick common. Here is a link to more pictures
Leucistic Canada Goose
Swing dancing — “switch dancing”
Something new happened at last night’s Friday night swing dance which I will call a “switch dance” but I’m sure there is another name. We were all on the dance floor watching the jam session and once it was over the dance started up again but with a twist about every 15 seconds we had to change dance partner. The DJ would call out “change” and we would dance with the closest follower. Over about a four minute period I danced with a fair number of women and many of which, I have never dance with before. It was a great way to meet a lot of dancers in a short period of time. After the dance I was able to dance with some new women which was great.
Hints of fall…
As I bicycle commute in the mornings I find it is becoming harder and harder to wear a quick dry t-shirt as it is getting colder and colder. I’m at the point where I start the day in a long sleeve shirt and roll up the sleeves for the nightly commute. My legs are much more durable so I’ll probably cycle bare-legged for a little while longer. Along the bike path there are more hints of fall each day, trees starting to develop shades of red, orange and yellow and the trees are starting to thin out as they start their annual shedding cycle. There is now a new hazard starting to appear on the horizon and that is, wet leaves on the bike path. Folks at the office say that they can almost double your stopping distance in an emergency situation could make a bad situation worse. Cycling with studded tires might be an option but I would prefer to take it easy when cycling under these conditions.
Geocaching and bouldering
Yesterday I went geocaching and was able to use my bouldering skills. It had a difficulty rating of four and a half stars. The highest rating is five stars. The cache was midway up a pine tree (18 feet). The problem was that the lowest branch was eight feet up. What to do? I had a McGyver moment and saw two possibilities brute force, or make use of my environment. About 300 feet away from the cache were two things that might help, a shopping cart and a oil drum trash can. I opted to take the plastic bag out of the drum and roll it over to the tree. Once the drum was upended I could reach onto a branch and pull myself up the tree. From there I was able to climb up to the tree until I reached the cache. I signed cache log and slowly worked my way down the tree and finally landed back on the drum. I rolled the drum back to its home and was on my way.
On dancing…
The beach
Today, I noticed that the beach along my daily bike commute looked different. It looked unkempt. The groundsman hadn’t leveled or smoothed the sand. The buoys were absent from the Ottawa River and the life guard towers were no longer within inches of the Ottawa River. After a closer look the flag pole no longer flew a red or green flag. The nearby restaurant on the beach had shuttered for another season. The swimming season was coming to an end. All that was left, as I took a last glance was an old geezer wanding the beach with his metal detector in search for some sunken treasure. Further along the path, the trees were starting to show the first hints of fall as there were specks of red in the leaves.
Swing dancing floors
Over the weekend while swing dancing, I experienced a new type of dance floor, a homemade one made out of particle board and a 2×4 studs. The venue was along the Ottawa River at Britannia Park which is close to where I live. The forecast for the weekend was a 60% chance of thunderstorms so the organizers opted to hold the dancing under a tent and to build an impromptu dance floor which was bouncy in some places and stiff as a board in others. Midway through the afternoon Alaina, one of the local dance instructors, came out with a 10lb bag of corn meal and poured it on the dance floor. The floor suddenly became very slippery which made for a new dancing experience. There was a side benefits as little kids saw the corn meal as a play toy and made piles and figures out of it while their parents were dancing nearby. This got me thinking about the other two dance floors that I regularly dance on. The Ottawa Swing dance society moved in the spring to a social hall attached to an old church which has a sprung floor. I really like the floor as it hall a nice give. OSDS’s previous home was a community centre which had a parquet which sat on a cement pad which was hard on your back and knees after a while. I wondering what other dance floors are out there.
