fey

reality tv in living colour

Watching American politics is my reality TV. Tim Wise provides much food for thought about Protest, Insurgency and the Workings of White Privilege.

bike rally training

And so it begins... today was my first training ride for this year's bike rally. I have a fancy new bike computer, so it's statistics galore over here.

This will be my third year participating in the Friends For Life Bike Rally, and I've learned so much from so many people when doing this. More than anything else, I've learned from the kind and generous people who have contributed that we are all part of a larger community, that we are all affected when anyone is afflicted, that none of us is alone. Anyone wonderful enough to sponsor me for the Bike Rally, can do so here: http://www.fey.ca/bikerally

Back to the stats... here's how the first training ride went:

Laser or Goggles

So it looks like I've made up my mind, at least for now. I've spent the last couple of months thinking about getting laser surgery to correct my vision, but in the end the risks seem too great for the slight annoyance I would be correcting. My eyes aren't that terrible, after all, -1.50, so even if there was a great glasses blight after the end of the world, I'd still be able to walk around without bumping into things. Everyone I know who's had corrective surgery is happy with the results, and in fact 95% of people are, as far as I could ascertain. That remaining 5% is bothersome to me, though, and I HATE creating a new problem when I solve an existing one.

So today I ordered a prescription version of these, to eliminate my reliance on bothersome contacts at least for cycling, and I think they look kinda citified as well, so I won't look like I'm wearing cycling goggs if I wear these around town. Maybe I'll look into the lasers again next year.

size matters

I upgraded to a 27" iMac, because, well, size matters, and I love being able to have stuff open all over the place. It also allowed me to sell my old iMac to Bonnie, who I feared was going to replace her aged PC with another PC because of cost, which is just plain wrong. Everyone wins, and the world has another convert to the Cult of Apple.

The new iMac came with a seriously downsized keyboard, though, which was infuriating. I use the number pad all. the. time. The new wireless keyboard has no number pad. Also no home/end or page up/down keys. No function keys beyond F12 (F13 is Print Screen in Windows when using VMWare Fusion). Sometimes Apple takes aesthetics too far... the smaller keyboard footprint does indeed make the desk look less cluttered, but at the cost of too much function.

But there are workarounds. Turns out that VMWare Fusion includes the ability to remap keys to PrintScr in its preferences, and a great tool (which I learned about here), KeyRemap4MacBook, maps FN+jkluio789 to a "virtual" number pad (among many other very useful things). And so the fury abates once again.

PS: Also have to say, briefly, that the magic mouse is definitely a welcome upgrade from the naughty mighty mouse. No more screeching with rage when the tiny ball, yet again, decides that it doesn't scroll down after I've used control scroll-up to zoom all the way in on something.

Some people say life is about more joy, but sometimes I'll settle for less fury.

holiday sparkle

I bought a sparkly shirt for New Year's (I am not typically a flashy dresser but don't mind going over the top once in a while), and it was quite the conversation piece. I bought it at Winners, and I was explaining at the party that was graced with its presence, "There I was in the store, browsing through the Holiday Sparkle rack, which only existed in the women's section (surprisingly!), looking for something sparkly yet masculine..."

At this point the bartender (the role was played by a young Marky Mark lookalike) looked appraisingly at me and interjected, "Too bad you didn't find it..." Definitely hilarious, and well worth the price of the shirt!

learn as you go

Why am I always learning after the fact?

Last night was a good night. I met up with my friend Michel, who I like, and we went to the Bike Rally holiday party, which also had a lot of people I liked. Good fun.

Except after the fact it hit me that Michel didn't know any people, and I left him alone more than once to go talk to someone from the rally that I knew. All because I couldn't work out at the time that the right thing to say was, "come meet these great people," rather than "I'll be right back after I go talk to these great people." Next time I'll try to remember to pick door number one.

just because I love your booze doesn't mean I don't love you too

Last month my friend Amanda celebrated her 33rd birthday (oh how I wish our birthdays synched up better so that I could be 45 at the same time she's 33), and we ended up at her friend Jesse's house, pretty late, after a party at the Cadillac Lounge. "...And then there were four" sort of a situation, soon to be "and then there were three." Jesse asked if I wanted anything to drink, and I asked if he had any bourbon. He pulled out like a dozen bottles of esoteric bourbon, and I selected a rare sweet mash. "Is it wrong," I asked, turning to Amanda, "to fall in love with someone for their booze collection?" Probably, but I'm still not convinced of it. Damn those metro straight boys!

parade moment

I've always disliked parades, and the pride parade is really no exception. Whether it's marching bands or drag queens, I've just never really understood the point of endlessly watching them all go by. Today, though, I had my first exciting parade moment ever.

The fire truck in the parade stopped abruptly and both of the firemen fell down, still on top of the truck but in a heap. One got up, shook his head, and then reached down to help the other up. The one still down seemed a bit dazed, though, and took a few moments to clear his head before accepting assistance getting up. His "rescuer" then pulled him in for a deep kiss and something in my brain exploded.

Firemen kissing... just imagine!

I might still be bored at my next parade, but I'll for sure be watching out for a fire truck...

iPhone 3.0 Battery

My battery was lasting no longer than 10 hours on Standby after upgrading to v3.0. This is how I fixed it:

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data

Changed Push to Off

Changed Fetch to Manually

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Advanced

Changed all to Manual

Like magic. When I was on the phone with the Applehead, he asked me if it was possible that my battery was simply degrading, but the difference with Push on vs off was 10h vs 36h on standby. Insane. You have to *really* want push to put up with that.

Susan Boyle

Jumping on the viral video bandwagon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

The thing about it is that it's poetry in life. If this is really what reality TV was like I'd be all over it all the time, but in truth Susan Boyle is the exception that proves the rule. The internet is abuzz with how crazy it is that someone that looks like that can sing like that, but that really only accounts for that first blazing moment when she starts to sing. What's truly remarkable here isn't just disparity between inner and outer beauty. What elevates the performance to art is that she's singing her life and her dreams; not of overcoming but of surviving adversity. She does all of of this with charm, grace and elegance not even hinted at in the preamble to her performance. She has her moment in the sun and starts to walk off the stage when she's done, because she's done. And the world falls in love.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high,
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid
When dreams were made and used,
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung,
No wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dreams to shame.

And still I dream he'll come to me
And we will live our lives together
But there are dreams which cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather...

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seems
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.

toronto oakville return 70km

First ride of the season on the Orbea. Great day, although really I have to admit that I wouldn't have complained at all if the ride had ended at 60km. Best song of the ride: Jolene by Dolly Parton.

k2p2 grafting

In order to imperceptibly join the live ends of knitting you use a process called grafting, also known as Kitchener stitch. The stitches end up out of alignment by 1/2 a stitch, but when you have all knit or all purl stitches, this is only noticeable at the edges, and you can futz with it to make it almost completely imperceptible. When joining rib, though, things are more complicated, because it's going to be obvious every time the pattern shifts from knit to purl and back. The instructions here:

http://www.knittinghelp.com/forum/showthread.php?p=474749

make the cleanest K2P2 graft I've tried so far, with an almost imperceptible jog.

I've copied the instructions here, in case the forum post at knittinghelp.com ever goes away, but I'll remove them if asked. They're adapted from instructions in Principles of Knitting, and Amy's alterations are marked in red. These instructions assume you're grafting K2P2 rib, starting with two knit stitches. Where it refers to different stitches in order (as in "one Knit, one Purl"), the first stitch noted is the stitch closest to the needle point. The instructions assume you already know how to graft stockinette stitch.

Preliminary step: Near/Purl, Far/Knit (same as usual)

1. Near on two Knit: Knit/drop, Purl
2. Far on two Knit: Purl/drop, Knit

3. Near on one Knit, one Purl: Knit/drop, knit
4. Far on one Knit, one Purl: Knit/drop, purl

5. Near on two Purl: Purl/drop, Knit
6. Far on two Purl: Knit/drop, Purl

7. Near on one Purl, one Knit: Purl/drop, Purl
8. Far on one Purl, one Knit: Purl/drop, Knit

I particularly like these instructions because I feel I could apply them to any type of rib (okay, assuming no twisted stitches) since the instructions set out what to do in each possible knit/purl combination. The only upsetting thing about these instructions, really, is that the hood of the Urban Aran hoody cardigan I'm making for Stephanie now has a much cleaner-looking graft than the one I did for my own Urban Aran hoody, and that's not a very bad thing at all.

blasted

At 9:30 - 10:30pm every Monday, Andrew McBurney is coaching Monster Monday Body Blast at Boulderz Climbing Centre. He describes it as "a gymnastic-style conditioning circuit focused on increasing core strength and power." It's more than that. It's the reason I had to roll over, rather than sit up, to get out of bed this morning.

Andrew started Body Blast on Feb 23, but I wasn't able to take part until the day before yesterday. I was very interested in training like this, because Andrew is looking sick fit, because I've always had a gymnast fetish (doesn't everyone?), and because I want to climb harder.

What this looked like on Monday:

There were four people in each group running through the circuit, so there is some rest between each of the three sets while the other three people complete the activity. Otherwise I would have died. These were the exercises on the circuit:

1. Rings, and it's all about the threes. Three iron crosses (in my case this looks much more like a very acute arrow than a cross, but we all start somewhere), three 90º leg lifts (holding one for 10 seconds) while holding upright in the rings (like at the top of a dip rather than hanging), six inverted levers, alternating between front and back (so three of each).

Skip 200 times (this number increases by 25 every week).

2. Rope. Using only hands, ascend the rope, starting from sitting on the ground. Descend slowly and with control. Climb the rope only as far as you can go and still safely descend. I did not go to the top of the rope, because the rings had already broken me somewhat.

Skip 200 times (this is really hard if you haven't skipped before, and are a lump even though you maybe didn't think you were a lump)

3. Handstands. With support as required, as long as possible up to one minute. I lasted all of 23 seconds each time before collapsing on my head. "Doesn't that hurt?" asked Julie. "Well, the floor is padded, and it's not exactly like I have any choice when my arms collapse like that."

Skip 200 times (okay, I only got to 160 this time before I thought I would maybe hurl. I decided stopping at 160 was the prudent choice)

4. Dead-hang leg lifts. Hanging loosely from a beam, without bending your knees or moving your upper body at all lift your legs to 90º. Ten lifts per set. I know this sounds easy. Try it. Julie rocked this so hard! My angles past rep number 3 in each set were perhaps somewhat larger than 90º. Also, not so much with the straight legs. We'll see how next week goes.

Skip 200 times (okay, not so bad this time)

5. Push ups. Five hand positions per set. I did three of each (so 15 per set). Hopefully next week I'll get all the way through this.

Skip 200 times

6. Boat. Start in yoga boat. Without moving your upper body, do 10 leg extensions, then without moving your lower body do 10 torso extensions (dropping back so your lower back touches and then lifting back to boat), then to 10 combined extensions. I don't know how to describe how far from being able to complete this activity I was. Are there three sets? I have no idea. I skipped to #7 after five torso extensions.

7. Shavasna or equivalent laying-down pose, for as long as necessary to stop crying.

I can't wait for next week! Everyone should come share the pain out to play! No additional cost for the Body Blast beyond a regular day pass. Come on down!

third

Came in third place in the Men's Experienced category of the Tour de Bloc comp at Gravity on Saturday. Definitely means that I should be able to work a bit harder and not embarrass myself competing in Open. This is a pic of the crazy medal!

Upgrades

are complicated. It was all fine until I decided that being able to reply to comments would be cool. Not because I need it, really, but just to get it working. If only I were actually smart enough to make that happen without breaking everything in the process...