Kayak

Found a canoe launch at a beautiful pond surrounded by reeds and forest, and it confirmed what I'd been suspecting: I need a kayak! Been thinking of trying to rent one since I got here, but haven't got a chance yet.

But now I'm actually considering buying an inflatable kayak. I've kindof wanted something like a canoe for some years. A kayak would make more sense since it'd probably usually just be me in it. The biggest reason why I didn't, besides price, was transporting it. Would need a roof rack or something, and couldn't take it anywhere far. And where to store it? I had heard of inflatable kayaks. That would be a very portable solution, they can pack small enough to even be carry-on on flights. But I figured they'd be pretty sucky, like just narrow rubber dingies. Looking into it more though, it sounds like they're "real" water craft. There are ones that are valid for class 4 rapids even (though I'd be looking for one aimed at flat water lakes/coastline, rivers, gentle sea). I was reading a bit of national geographic about someone taking their inflatable 600 miles along the niger river to timbuktu. So they're definitely hardy and can be considered "real" water craft. So now the biggest concern would be price. Looks like in the order of $900 for a decent one (though of course you could go far higher, and perhaps a bit lower), plus $100 for a pfd and $100-$200 for a paddle. That's a decent size investment. But if I'll make use of it, and if it'll last several years, it's not so bad.

Once that decision's made, it'd be cool to get right away, use it here, but the problem with buying away from home is there's no local store to go back to if there are problems a month down the line. Should've looked into it more back home, oh well. Anyways, need to consider it a bit more.

I saw fireflies!

Not just a single one (as in lincoln), a whole bunch! Couldn't get close, but there were dozens floating about a large area. They're so awesome!

Madison was mad

Compared to Lincoln, a worse president, but a much nicer town named after him!
(sure, most of us have probably thought about destroying toronto, but none of us would actually do it!)

On the drive from the hotel to the airport alone, there are 4 or more places I'd like to stop and explore (admittedly we're not very close to the airport this time). If you look at a map of the area, there's so much green and blue (representing parkland and lakes of course). With several large lakes, I'm sure I can rent a kayak somewhere. Looks like the only dragonboaters in town are a breast cancer team, but I emailed them anyways. I really hope the radar behaves so I can enjoy this place a bit. I haven't seen much, but it already easily beats lincoln and pueblo, is ahead of grand junction, seems like it'll beat richmond, and maybe after a couple weeks it might even rival portland.

Well, the comparison isn't really fair, they each have their strengths. Grand junction has rock formations, richmond has ultimate greenness, portland has mountains, asianness, and large-townity, and madison has lakes and parks.

Last rotation (Richmond/Lincoln) I made it the entire time without having to go on a single flight. This time, I didn't even make it one day. Oh well, it's not too bad, neat to see the city lights at night from above again. And a kindof fun descent, don't think I've ever changed altitude that quick before (~40 m/s).

Forgot to mention, on the flight down, I had zero checked baggage allowance! Now I think that's going a little far.

And just checked, I could do round trip to san fran for dragonboat for $430, of which $196 is the actual flights. Only 119% tax rate!

On the road again

Don't really feel much like going away this time. Partly just feeling tired from the weekend and therefore emotional. I don't think it's an indication of no longer enjoying the job. At least I'm going to Madison, not Lincoln, should be nicer. One thing I can identify, as I wandered around kensington sunday night in shorts and a t-shirt, is that summer is on it's way out, and when I return a month from now I likely won't be able to do that. Another unrelated but interesting analogy was coming to mind, something along the lines of even if you get a fabulous mansion, and fill it with all sorts of cool stuff, if you can't get the key, none of it matters.

All souls

I think it's 中元節 in chinese. Couple people had come from tallahasse, vancouver, edmonton, and grande prairie. It was a nonstop weekend. Friday did some openings and another chant, Saturday was going from 9:30 am to 9:30 pm (admittedly with lunch and dinner breaks) and then again sunday all morning and afternoon. Some were really intense. Inviting ghosts, opening, modified maan faat ging, closing, opening, saam yuen pt1, joe wong, yuen ling, diamond, saam nay, modified filial piety, closing, opening, saam yuen pt3, closing, send ghosts back, health+recovery. Got to play lots of different roles, fish, normal/other 'instruments', leader, lighter, east. Had me reminiscing about the grand opening in orangeville last september and all its craziness.

Opus

Went to Sync'n (Rec F) dinner friday, as mentioned I practiced with that team a bunch and really liked hanging out with some of them after practices. Unfortunately couldn't stay long, had temple stuff. Didn't realize how non-white the team was, and actually still didn't realize till I overheard someone comment and I looked around to see 15 asians and me. Anyways, some were going to a club later, so after temple stuff, though it was 11 pm, I decided to check it out. Couldn't get ahold of anyone but figured out where it was and headed over. There was a short line outside! But it went fast. Found some people inside, but none of the ones I had usually hung out with, who I'd hoped to see there. But someone I was very happy to see. Still, didn't take long to discover that that sort of place still isn't my sort of place, who'd have thought?! Stuck around a while anyways. I guess one thing I found interesting was the demographic of people there. There were lots of asians, but not so much that it was an "asian club". Some blacks, some whites, some of everything really. Not sure about age.

Mt Allan

Finally, Aug 16, made it out for my first hike of the year! Pretty sad actually that it's this late in the year.

So despite being the first hike, somehow ended up doing a 20+ km 1400m elevation hike, a bit over 8 hours. Took two cars so we could do the full traverse of Mount Allan. Tried to get started fairly early, but with the extra driving, it was close to 10 when we started hiking and already could feel that it was going to be a scorcher. Went a reasonable speed, and were often frustrated to look back and see the pair of litle asian ladies in their flowery floppy hats seemed to still be right behind us! We should have been leaving them in the dust! :) It was pretty steep, but we got to the weather station at "olympic peak" and had lunch. I was dismayed to see how much farther distance and elevation it was to the top of mount allan, but it ended up not feeling as long as it looked. Great feeling to be on top of the world like that, can't believe I could have left it so long. Temperature on the way up was hot but not crazy bad as there were clouds and a breeze. Got pretty hot on the way down at some points though. Was a nice variety of terrain, only a couple parts were a bit sketchy with steep gravelly scree, or exposure, but nothing too worrisome. Ended with a nice walk through forest paths, but as with many long day hikes, those last few kilometers you just want it to be done. My feet were really tired. I was actually impressed with myself though, I had expected to have been much slower and more tired and weak considering how little I've done for a long time. Always nice to discover you're fitter than you thought, even if it's still far below where you should be.

Oh the funniest part of the day was back at the car, someone had "crocs" style plasticky sandals, and having been such a crazy hot day, they had shrunk in the car! One must have been in sun while the other was in shade, so it had shriveled even further! It was hilarious! And her husband intends to take them back and ask for a refund.

With temple stuff next weekend and then leaving for work for a month, I really hope this wasn't my one and only hike of the year.

Calgary Dragonboat festival

So many topmade teams, there were few races that didn't have one paddling! I was steering a recreational, paddling the competitive and paddling the mens, pretty busy weekend. Friday just got wristbands and helped set up then went out to eat. Saturday got to steer quite early before the winds picked up, the team had a pretty good time. But soon after it got windy, and rough water. Arnold really kicked our asses regarding our first mixed race, swearing and everything. And then the mens race was totally disorganized, we didn't know who was paddling or which of our two boats we were paddling in until we were on the dock getting into the boats, it was mayhem mayhem mayhem! One mens boat had to go with only 17 paddlers. Afternoon steering was fine despite rough water, the team paddled a stronger race but the time was much worse cause of the water conditions. Paddling mixed in the afternoon was also stronger. Paddling mens in the afternoon was very wet! We must have had a couple extra paddlers worth of water in the boat by the end! Such a heavy boat! Overall the mens division, despite being very intense and posting amazing times, was almost "comic relief" compared to the rest of the races. Saturday felt quite busy, everything was spread out just enough to constantly be racing or marshalling or warming up.

The times were tabulated, the rec team I steer had quite a high ranking, beating out the other rec boats and the second competitive boat, thanks to that morning nice-weather race. We had 5 teams in division B and two in division A. A few others in lower divisions. The second boat in div A I didn't actually know it was part of our club, but I guess it was affiliated. A rec boat, but a very good rec boat! In the morning I had to sub off of steering in order to warm up for the paddling. Didn' treally like that much, and realistically I think I could have done both. From the marshalling tent I saw my boat come in fourth, meaning it might have got in the final, might not have. Tried to put it out of my mind and focus on the comp race. Unfortunately we came fourth, and our time was not high enough to make it to the final. But once on shore I found that my rec boat made it, it was actually faster than the top boat of the other div B qualifier (by 1/100 second). But then, I heard a rumour that some schedules were posted and they listed us in the consolation. It was true! Looked like they'd changed the way teams were advanced. I got my anger on, and went looking to do something about it. But by the time I did, it had already been fixed. Mens race was mid-day, it went similar to the others, came third out of four (fourth being the other topmade mens) so we got a bronze out of it. B-final and A-consolation were back to back, but I decided to steer anyways. Arnold saw me on the dock heading down to steer and suggested I save my energy for consolation paddling, I stared blankly for a moment then stated "I'm steering this race." I didn't get to see any results as I jumped off the boat and onto another, but it was a good race. Later I learned that the winner of the division was one of our other recreational boats, while we unfortunately came in fifth out of six. But that sixth boat was our second "competitive" boat, what an insult to them! I was so excited I wanted to tell people about it and laugh about it, but all I could find were people from that boat and I didn't want to rub it in. Paddled a good race in the division A consolation, and on the way back to shore did not one but two drive-by splashings on our competition! I totally should have had my team do that to our other two teams in the div B final.

Didn't get any team photos as things went disorganized after that and most people left fairly quickly. The weather then got colder and even more people left. Just the team that won a gold and a few others sticking around. Took forever with some speeches and performance in the middle of the medals ceremony. Afterwards, helped take a few boats out of the water onto a trailer for edmonton. And of course, a restaurant, always an important part of the day!

Being a smaller festival than previous years, things seemed more relaxed. Not sure if I liked it particularly more or less than other years, but at least I felt more involved.

I was noticing that it was a little funny, I probably steered more practices than the youth's official steersman, and paddled more with rec-F than most of their official paddlers. Wonder if I'll get to join their wrap-up dinners. Well, youth doesn't really matter, but I really enjoyed some of the rec-F team.

As always, kindof sad, cause I won't see much of most people till next year. But then, with some, I probably shouldn't want to.

Work

First, cell phone's gonna disappear, supposed to ship it to denver ASAP. So, not sure what my plan will be, maybe just live sans-phone again.

Second, malaysia work is coming up, and I'm likely to get to be part of it. Awesome. Even better, it'll be the king-air (that did malaysia work before), not the original lear which still has some old-school components that I've never actually worked with. Unfortunately, looks like whoever's there will have to be going on flights being super bored for some hours each day, in addition to the regular workload. Hopefully they can bring in another GCP guy or someone else to do that instead. Wouldn't have a problem if we still had enough pilots, but wait, we got rid of (almost) all of them a few months ago cause we weren't going to use this plane anymore! wow, this is a total shocker, I'm sure noone saw this coming. Anyways, still not sure when exactly it'll be (couple months), or where we'll be based (singapore or KL would both be cool, even already know people there).

Taste of Calgary

Went by eau claire just to spend some time outside in the nice weather, and see all the summertime people out and about, and discovered it's "taste of calgary". Debated with myself for a bit, then decided to get something. Didn't seem very expensive, though I didn't expect a full meal. After buying some "tickets" I caught sight of what you actually get... You know when you go to the ice cream store and ask to try a flavour and they give you a tiny spoon worth of ice cream? I'm gonna call that a "taste of calgary size" portion from now on. Seriously, you'd get about two mouthfuls for your $4.50. It was a total rip off and a big disappointment. I get the impression it was something good and cool when it started, and then it became popular and therefore changed into what it is today.

Oops

Was reading through one of our official ISO documents today, found this:
"All non-disposable paperwork is to be archived on the document suppository prior to close of the case."
Mentioning it to another coworker, he said "yeah we stick it up 's ass!"
I almost suspect it was intentional! I remember doing something like that once with a journal paper or maybe it was my thesis, but not nearly as good as this one.

Love Train

A great idea came to me while laying in bed last night, how awesome would it be to get a photo of every one of our teams out on the water at once! I think there's exactly the right number of boats for it too! (sorry no youth). We could even try to arrange the boats into the topmade logo or something! Actually, the original idea, inspired by an episode of scrubs combined with us towing dragonboats around tuesday, would be for us to have all eight mixed teams head-to-tail in the boats, and a video camera would pan by the whole train while everyone was waving their arms and dancing and the song "Love Train" would be playing, yeah! Can you picture it?! That would be sweet! Guess all those ideas would be logistical nightmares though, too bad.

hmm, does spawn the idea of installing a disco ball and coloured lights in the sea container though... we should have done that while The Jay was away, see how he'd react when he came back.

More irish

Once more... Someone on monday's practice said something about me having an irish accent. But she had overheard that I was in ireland sometime recently, so maybe whe was imagining things. Still doesn't make sense.

Sunglasses

Finally donated my sunglasses to the reservoir at tuesday's practice. I always knew it could happen, that's why I always wore inexpensive ones instead of my prescription ones, I've seen enough people lose hundreds of dollars of sunglasses during dragonboat. Though they weren't expensive, I'm still upset, they were good and had interchangable lenses which I actually used, I got them through dragonboat and I'd been wearing them for practices and races for several years now. Oh well.