Another experiment
In a couple of days, I’ll do another physiology experiment at the University of Ottawa. This one involves one of my passion running. There will be three parts to the experiment. The first part involves being wired up with sensors on my chest which will monitor my heart activity 24 hours before the experiment. The next morning, I will jump on a treadmill and do a VO2 test which involves incrementally run faster and faster until you just about fall or fly off the treadmill. The final stage is to monitor my heart activity for 24 hours after the VO2 test. I think the idea behind the test is to see how my body responds to the stress of running as fast and hard as it can in a controlled environment. This will be the third time that I have done a VO2 test and they are always fun but at the same time quite challenging. I blog after the experiment with my the findings.
Urban jetboiling
Tonight, I did something that has been on my “ToDo” list for a while is some Jetboil cooking. On Friday, I was over a MEC buying some bike stuff and grabbed two package of AlpineAire dinners. The idea is to test out meal in an urban setting before experiencing them in the wild only to discover that they are no good. I sort of wanting to make an adventure out of cooking dinner so I loaded my Jetboil, Nalgene bottle, utensils and roll of toilet paper into my backpack and headed out along the Ottawa River. The sun was starting to set so I couldn’t travel too far but a handy park bench was nearby.
Both dinners required two cups of water and the nice thing about the Jetboil is that it has a 2 cup/16 oz mark on the inside of the pot. I set up the stove and had my first load of water ready to heat. The first dinner was AlpineAire Wild Tyme Turkey. The Jetboil was steaming in under a minute and I loaded the water into the pouch and gave it a good stir and set it aside for 10 minutes. The second batch of water was heated even faster and was loaded into the AlpineAire Pepper Steak Rice pouch. At this point it was time to get out the toilet paper for all the wrong and not obvious reasons. While both pouches were steeping I dried off the inside of the Jetboil pot and the lid and put the stove away and waited.
The Wild Turkey dinner was tasty but not as filling as the Pepper Steak Rice. A note -to-self to really stir the Pepper steak before serving as the salt and pepper tend to accumulate at the bottom of the pouch. The Pepper Steak Rice dinner would feed two people well. The Wild Turkey when combined with something else would feed two people satisfactorily.
Multi-national swing dancing
One thing I like about the lesson that comes before the Friday night swing dance is that I get to dance with people who are dancing swing for the first time. Recently, I have been dancing with people from all over the world, such as from Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany and the Ukraine. I could usually get a hint from where there from through the chit-chat we exchange before we rotate. This influx of people from around the world is something new. I started talking to the regulars and they mentioned that the swing dance club has been advertising in the magazine and the newspapers that the diplomats read. This sort of explains why there are so many folks from various nations at the Friday night swing dance. So, the easiest way to meet foreign diplomats is swing dancing.
Culinary — Hot Cross Buns
I like a hot cross buns and with Easter appearing quickly on the horizon this blog entry is sort of appropriate. The large grocery chain in Ottawa sells a hot cross buns all year long. They taste very good after a long workout or a hike with tea or hot chocolate. I recently learned that there are variations in how they put the white cross on top of the bun. I always thought that the white stuff was some sort of special baking material. My local bakery does something different. They put the cross on the bun after it is baked and it is a seam of fresh butter. This make these extra tasty. Over the next little while, I’ll be eating a lot of a hot cross buns giving me a chance to decide whether I like the baked cross or the butter cross.
When a backup isn’t a backup!
A couple of years ago, I bought a seagate FreeAgent disk drive to backup my laptop. In keeping with tradition, my father bought the same drive to backup his computer. Over the Christmas holidays, the backup drive stopped working as you could feel the drive spinning but Windows Vista would not detect the drive. While at home on the weekend my father asked me to take a look at it. We ran the diagnostic software and it said that the drive was toast. We ran the disk recovery software and it said that it could not recovery any files. Once back in Ottawa, I did a couple of more tests and found to my surprise that the drive is still under warranty. Sweet! The repair depot is located near Toronto. Seagate is very precise on how they want the drive packaged for return. The drive has to be surrounded by 2″ of foam on all sides. Where to find 2″ foam rubber? I had a brainwave which saved the day. Fabric stores sell foam rubber for folks that want to make cushions and comforters. I headed out at lunch to a fabric stores and bought a 2′ x 2′ x 1″ foam rubber pad and cut it into segments to fit a box. I’ll send the box on its way tomorrow and see what Seagate does.
Dancing in the dark…
I am typing this blog in the dark. It is Friday night and my first swing dance in a little while. A construction crew cut the power to studio earlier today by mistake. There is a CAT diesel generator humming outside which is still warming up so it is not producing any power yet. The dance hall is full of people talking with hushed tones in the dark. There are pockets of people huddling near folks that have cell phones. The phones are acting as portable flashlights and beacons. It is a weird situation. Power is expected soon but they keep on announcing delays. Harmonic Dave has pulled his harmonic and we are have a jam sessions waiting for the lights to come. Updates to follow…
Half-marathon and some traveling
pThis coming weekend I will head to Arizona to run my first half-marathon of the year. I am looking forward to the race as it will give me some relief from the arctic cold weather that the Ottawa area has been getting recently. There is also another thing I curious about and that is my physical fitness. Over the Christmas holiday, I ran a 10 mile race in Hamilton in a time that suggested that I am in better shape than last year. This could be because I am eating better this year but I really think it is the extra exercise that I am getting each day. I run to and from the office twice a week and walk the other days. One of the bummer is that all this exercise leaves me more tired than usual in the evenings. The upshot is that I am loosing more and more weight which is a good thing and might mean that I will run faster on the weekend as I will be lighter. /ppbr /Once the race is over I’ll spend a couple of extra days in the Phoenix area and head up to explore the Grand Canyon area as well as head up to the north-eastern corner of the state to a place called “a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_(United_States)”Four Corners/a.” The states of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico all meet at a 90 degree angle. It is the only place in America where this happens. I am excited to take a picture of myself with each arm and legs in a separate state. I’ll post a blog and pictures next week talking about all my adventures./p
The Perils of Poor Packing and Chai Tea
Today I learned about the perils of poor packing first hand but was able to make a quick recovery. In my last entry I talked about how I wanted to try running to work soon. Today, I awoke really early and decided to run to work. I packed all my work clothes and shower stuff into my backpack; it was a full and heavy load. I made a critical mistake of not closing my zipper sliders at the top of the bag and not to one side. With all the giggling of my bag the zipper started to peel open and things started to fall out along the route. One of the first things to fall out was my winter hat and office access badge. I only discovered when checking into the office of my fatal error and was lucky that I had other identification. After showering I decided to retrace my steps and found my access badge hanging from a tree as someone had seen its value and picked it up. My loss was only a winter hat. As I run home tonight I’ll stopp by MEC to buy a replacement and will most likely carabiner my zipper slides together.br /br /My second adventure today deals with Starbuck Organic Chai tea. For a long time, I have been a fan of their Early Grey teas but found at times it contains too much caffeine. I switch every so often to the Tazo Organic Chai Tea. To the folks at Starbucks when you say you want Chai tea it brings up two connotations, one cheap and the other expensive. The cheap version is some hot tea with a Chai teabag and the other is the Chai Tea Latte. Today, I was downtown for a meeting and asked for Chai Tea and tried to be clear what I wanted and jokingly the barista just gave me the tea bag in its package. I said sort asked where was the hot water and which we all rolled around laughing as they wanted to figured that I wanted hot tea.
Commuting
A little while I moved a little further away from the office. This has some advantages as well disadvantages. My new place has a partial view of the Ottawa River and is twice as large as my old place. One of the disadvantages is that the commute is a little longer. But it satisfies one of my goal of being able to run, blade, ski, snowshoe and cycling to work depending on the season. My commute recently has been a little more challenging over the last two weeks. I had only been living in my place for a few days when the transit company decided to go on strike just as our first major snowstorm descended on the city. This created major havoc as the bus drivers decided to protest in front salt/sand depot in unplowed and unsanded roads. I’ve considered this situations as a bit of an opportunity as it has allowed my to explore my new neighborhood on foot, something, I otherwise would not have done. Each day I hike 6 miles/10 kilometers round trip to the office using I can in about an hour depending on the footing. By bus this commute would normally take about 15 minutes. Each day has been different as I’m making good use of my iPod as some days I listen to swing music, jazz and occasionally a string of symphonies. I have learned about the various plows and sanding trucks the city uses to keep the roads clear. I’m starting to see familiar faces and can sort of gauge who is late and who is early. I have been able to recall what black ice looks like and what consistency of snow is the most and least slippery. As you can see much goes through my mind on my hour to and from the office. I’ve been comparing notes with my briefer as to who is loosing the most weight as a result of our extended commutes. My daily adventures will most likely end soon as I head home for the holidays at the end of the week and the city will eventually have to settle with the strikers. While the drama continue I still have to see what it us like to winter run to the office. I also openly wonder what expressions I would get as I visibly stow my snowshoes in my cube after a commute through the hinterland along the Ottawa River.
Innovations in snowplows
On my morning commute, I saw something that got me excited and that is, the latest innovation in snowplows. The traditional setup is to have a concave blade that can plow straight ahead, plow right or plow left. The new plows have the blade split into two sections each which can be independently angled. What this means is that at a twist of the joystick the blade can change to a “V” shape or the shape of an arrow or one part at a 90 degree angle and the other straight ahead or whatever combination meets the needs of the situation.
