Heart Rate

With my new Timex heart rate monitor I have successfully measured my heart rate at a critical time for training: as I am lying in bed going to sleep! :-)

The average heart rate it measured over 20 minutes or so was 51! Considering I haven't really biked very much in the last month, I think that's pretty good. The lowest it went was 46. Now a bit more base training and maybe I can bring it down to an average less than 50!

Chinese New Year

Last night was Chinese New Year's eve. As ___ is Chinese she threw a CNY party at her place. It was nice, lots of nice food and interesting people, but it seemed like everyone was kinda tired, including the hostess and myself. And now, it is raining ropes (as they say in French)! What a way to start the new year. Yesterday gorgeous sunshine and high temps, now this. ARgh, and I was hoping to go skiing today! booooooo.

In other news I wrote an 'article' recently in a magazine! heehee, I've been published, and I didn't even finish my masters yet! It's called Outpost magazine, it's a Canadian travel magazine (not travelling in Canada, but published and written by canadians). If you look in the latest issue on page 17, you will see some cycle-touring tips by yours truly! They didn't include my favourite tip, which was to use a Camelbak bladder inflated with air as a travel pillow, but that's because they already had a similar tip from a guy suggesting to use an empty chea-wine box for the same thing (personally I think the camelbak idea is better, but anyway...). In return for my wonderful words of wisdom I received a $50 gift certificate for Mountain Equipment Coop, which, if you're not Canadian, is only the bestest store in the world...they sell equipment for camping, cycling, climbing, hiking, backpacking, x-country skiing, kayaking, etc...I drool when I go there.

Off to MEC to buy a heart-rate monitor (or camping stove).

Active Recovery

After my serious questioning of my choice of career over the past few days, I have now somewhat recovered from my lack of motivation, willpower, and focus when it comes to working on my thesis. Bolstered by the idea of new goal that I really like (i.e. definitely finish in September so I can go and gallavant around in Europe on my bike), and also by the fact that I caught up on a LOT of sleep and so am less tired, I actually managed to get something done today, HUZZAH!

Next I just need to get healthy again so I can begin my training for next biking season in earnest...Hopefully by next weekend, when I need to be able to do a spin class Saturday and Sunday.

Can't wait for warmer weather to bring out the bikes!

Am I made for academia?

I've come to the realization these last few months that I don't really like to work. At least, not work on the masters to which I've given the last two years of my life. It is not that I find the material uninteresting, but that I would much rather spend my time doing things that I really enjoy.

I can't seem to find the focus required to get anything done. I sit down to work on it, and I am immediately distracted by other things, such as my favourite photo web site, my favourite cycling web site, planning my training and summer riding schedule, working on photos from my trip that need to be printed some time soon, talking to my friends, reading random interesting blogs, etc. etc. etc. What is wrong with me? Why can't I seem to get interested enough in my work to find the motivation to get things done? Have I chosen the wrong career? Should I have been a professional cyclist? (haha...right.) Should I have gone into photography in undergrad?

What I would really like to do is combine my two favourite hobbies into some kind of career. I would love to be a cycle-touring photo journalist, or even just a travel journalist. I feel like I would be able to focus far more easily on either of these two things than I have ever been able to on my school work. These things are fun! I don't care about modelling turbulence enough to make it fun that way.

My physiotherapist told me about something that I am seriously considering for after my masters. That is to work for a cycle-touring tour company. This would provide income, allow me to see the world, meet lots of interesting people, learn many languages, ride my bike, take pictures....everything that I love, while at the same time giving me enough free time to do my own travelling.

The lifestyle might get a bit tiring after a while though. At which point I don't know what I would do. Maybe after a few years of that I might want to settle down and actually use the masters I hope to obtain, or continue as a regular photojournalist for some magazine. The question is, do I have the skill to do that? There must be thousands of other people that want to do the same thing as I do.

Argh.

Tiring Politics

Yesterday was election day in Canada, as many of you may know, and I hope you voted, no matter what your political inclination. And yes, as the polls indicated, the conservative dude won, with a weak minority, thankfully. Imagine a Republican's Republican in the U.S....that's like him, Stephen Harper. Most people agree he's got some ultra right wing agenda in mind, based on his past views and actions. But with this minority, he will have to continue to be moderate to appeal to the people who aren't ultra right wing like he is. Also, if he tried to pass anything extra weird in parliament, the other opposing parties have more than enough power to bring any of those motions down, which is good, and means that he probably won't even bother trying.

Anyway, for once politics are somewhat interesting in Canada. It's no longer a majority that simply does what it wants. I'm actually a big fan of minority governments now. When they're not fighting for power, good things get done because the party in power can not just bring in whatever bill they want; they must work with the other parties, and this brings in a lot of balance into how the country is run.

So for now I think this change in government will be good for the country. The Liberals are somewhat out of power, meaning they can hopefully clean themselves and their image up, and the Conservatives don't have enough power to pass any huge changes if the other parties are opposed (and a combination of Liberal, Bloc, and NDP, which are all centre or centre-left parties, should keep them in line). Who knows, maybe in the next election the NDP will do even better? They've made a large gain in seats this time around (from 18 to 29), maybe next time (which could be soon if the Conservatives screw up), they will gain even more.

As a result of all this political Brou-ha-ha I am quite tired. I couldn't really sleep last night afterwards (although I'm not sure that was from the election or from the street noise outside the window, or because I watched a good movie (The Motorcyle Diaries) with ___). It seems like my stupid cold is returning a bit, so I'm doing all I can to ward it off, and I hope by tomorrow it will have disappeared.

Ciao for now
GS

Skiing and Swing

Nothing too interesting to report. Swing dancing lessons continued last Thursday. We practiced our Swing Out (which is the basic and most important step in Swing dancing) and learned a few variations on it. Our teacher (Dan Amores) is really good at looking at the details of each step and making them as good as they can be. He says the swing out 'takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to perfect', hence taking the time to really teach it to us perfectly. Now we just have to actually go out and practice our new-found skills. Even if it's just turning on a CD at her house and practicing there! ___ also needs to learn the swivel that girls are supposed to do. But I think she'll probably learn that eventually during the lessons.

Tonight we are going skiing at Blue Mountain with a friend from work (who owns the car). I hope the snow is good! It would have been a perfect day to go day-skiing, however I have a season's pass that only works at night. That means that if it's a bit too warm during the day, then the snow will melt slightly and then harden as it gets to night time. This kinda sucks. For this reason ___ was hesitant to actually go with us. Being from Vancouver, she's pretty used to having really nice conditions and doesn't see the point in going and renting equipment and stuff when the snow is going to be crap!

In other news, the Canadian federal election is tomorrow. I was reading the party platforms in the paper, and I realize that I really like the Green party more than any of the other ones. Too bad that they have no chance in hell of winning in my riding, otherwise I'd vote for them. And then I listened to a debate in Oshawa on the radio, and there too, the Green party guy made the most sense. Maybe once proportional representation actually exists in this country I will vote for them.

In my riding it's a tight battle between the NDPs Olivia Chow, and the Liberal's Tony Ianno. I won't tell you who I'm voting for though, except it's not the conservative party.

Anyway, sorry for the relatively boring post. Nothing funny has happened to me recently, that I can recall. Actually wait there was something pretty funny. I was getting my hair cut at Hart House, and there was an old guy there too, who was chatting with his hairdresser dude about politics. That guy had some funny things to say, for example, he thinks that Harper has an advantage because 'he's a smooth talker and is good looking'! hahaha...Harper looks like a lizard! And then he said it's hard to argue with a woman, which I think related to politics in that some of the parties are pushing for more women in the house of commons to bring back some sanity. He also thinks that Canada will greatly benefit from global warming, in terms of crop growing times and economics! Apparently we should all drive SUVs and warm the globe as much as possible. It will be good for our country! Stand up for Canada and make as much CO2 as possible! It's amazing what people say some times. And the poor barber has to just agree with everything he says!

oooouch

Went to bed TOOO late last night again. I have to curb this habit...but it's fun!

After lunch, I had to go and TA a bunch of poor little second year engineering students in the engineering design course. They have to make a machine that weighs different grains and puts them in a certain order in jars, and then screws the lid on the jar. It's a pretty decent design project I think. The only problem is that I really suck as a TA. I don't know anything!! A question about circuits? no clue. A question about how their microcontroller chip works? no clue. A question about how to do something in the machine shop? A bit more clue, but still it's been so long I don't remember much. What an awful TA I am! booohooohooo :-( At least I try to be supportive and seem like I care. That's the very least I can do.

Anyway, after the TAing I went to the gym with a friend of mine, and we began our weight training for the season. Sadly, I found out that my legs are incredibly weak and powerless! No wonder I have trouble climbing hills. I can ride for a really long time, but not at a very high power. It is really weird, because my quads are actually fairly large, and I thought that the slow twitch muscle fibres (those are the long endurance ones) are usually fairly long and not so big, whereas the fast twitch muscles are much much bigger. You just have to compare a sprinter with any other rider...they are HUGE! I have no sprinting ability whatsoever, but my quads look like they should be good at that. Oh well, hopefully the weight training will make my slow twitch muscles stronger. In the meantime, I had a really hard time walking up and down stairs afterwards! OOOOOW.

It's been a while...

Well well well, it's been a whole 11 days since I last posted here. I guess quite a few things have happened since then, but nothing highly amusing or interesting. My girlfriend ( :-D ) ___ came back from her Christmas vacation in Vancouver on January 3rd, which I don't think I've mentioned yet. I went to get her at the airport, which turned out to be a good thing because if I hadn't offered/asked if she needed a chauffeur, someone else would have gone that I wouldn't have been too happy about.

I've been spending quite a bit of time with her obviously, to the detriment of my health and cycling training. She unfortunately brought from Vancouver a nasty cold virus which hit me about 5 days after she came back. It is very annoying: sore throat, runny nose, cough, the whole works. Nevertheless, I'd rather catch a cold from her than from a dirty subway pole. At least I know where it came from! ;-) Fortunately Advil Cold and Sinus does wonders and I was able to function and actually do some work, if not ride spin bikes. Tomorrow I should be able to spin, finally. And then drink some beer.

Besides the cold and no spinning, I did go climbing several times, and I am out of shape! Those five pounds I put on over the Christmas Holiday are really making themselves felt! I was still able to do some 5.11c's and d's though, with a lot of grunting and repeated tries...I found original ways of doing the hard moves. I also met some of ___'s climbing friends.

Recently, ___ invited me to a goodbye dinner for a friend of hers who is going away to England, and there I met some camping friends of hers...the guy reminded me exactly of a guy named Phil that I know from undergrad, only Asian! It was uncanny. Same build, similar face, same way of speaking. That dinner was a totally different group of ___'s friends that I hadn't met before. It made me realize that the number of friends that we have put together is really big! And the great thing is, I like her friends, and she likes mine!

Last night she had a Monty Python and Mulled Wine night at her apartment, mostly because I'd never seen The Life of Brian before. A good time and good wine were had by all. One highlight of the evening was meeting her friend K____ who is a professional Dominatrix...weird eh! We also watched The Incredibles. Finally everyone left and her very chatty and interesting brother stopped talking and went to sleep and we were on our own for a bit.

Anyway...I hope that my friends don't feel too neglected what with all this time with ___. I apologize if anyone is feeling like this, and if they are, tell me and I'll try to remedy the situation. Because you know what they say: Bros before hos!

(I've had it pointed out to me post-post that some people might be offended by this comment. Let me explain. It really means that when one has a girlfriend one must not forget ones friend friends. It does not mean that friends that are girls are boys (bros) heh, and also it does not mean that ___ is a ho!! argh...I feel like I'm digging myself into a deeper hole. Also, the comment was left on this post, however I had to remove it because of compromosing nominal information. Please, don't use my name if you're posting a comment. Thanks! :-) )

In work news, I've finally figured out that I need to set myself monthly goals and schedules to be able to get any work done...You'd think this would be self-evident, but I'm a bit slow sometimes. It took marking 2nd year Engineering Design Lab notebooks to figure it out...setting plans and goals is one of the major things I was supposed to look for in their books! So I've set my objectives for this month, and I'm motivated and working hard!

Funny word of the day

As I was discussing a programming problem with a friend, this word kept on coming up:

Type

Now type that word type into your keyboard a bunch of times, and in a few types of uses, and it becomes of a type of funny typed word. I think in this case it's the spelling of the word that amuses me most.

type type type type....typetypetype.

Not only that, but it's hard to type type, it's a difficult combination of letters on the keyboard.

I am weird.

The ninth day

Some time around mid-December, knowing that my parents would be away for the holiday, I decided that I would throw a New Year's Eve Party for lots of my friends. I sent out an email to about 10 or 11 people...I knew this would not be enough to make a good party, so I indicated that people should bring their friends, assuming that if they were my friends friends then they would make a good crowd.

I cleaned the house from top to bottom (with the help of our trusty cleaning ladies), and went shopping for champagne, LOTS of wine and LOTS of fruit...because of course I was making my traditional Sangria, 24 hours ahead of time for proper soakage.

Since I was ready pretty early during the day, I invited a couple of friends (CE, and Bike Freak and his gf) for pizza and beer and to watch hockey...then at 8:30 people started to arrive. Friends had brought friends, who brought friends, so in total I think we ended up wth possibly over 30 people. Five litres of Sangria disappeared in about 2 hours! Which by extension meant that everyone was pretty happy pretty quick. Around 11:45 I brought out the nicely chilled champagne, and we counted down according to CE's watch (as we didnt' have a TV to watch). Fortunately we had a critical mass of people (and bottles of champagne) so that the countdown and un-corking weren't lame.

The mix of people there worked pretty well...unfortunately most of my single friends weren't able to get the numbers of the seemingly single cute girls that were brought by someone.

Anyway, I thought my party went pretty well, and I think everyone there had a good time, which is really what's most important. Nothing was broken, and noone got totally piss drunk and barfed anywhere. I unfortunately don't own a digital camera so I can't show you any photos, and there are some on a friend's web site, but that would compromise my anonymity.

GS's 10 Days of Christmas

The Holiday began on December 23rd, anno 2005, several days after the Birth of Chris (one of His good friends)!

On the First day, He feasted.
On the Second day, He feasted.
On the Third day, He feasted.
On the Fourth day, He feasted.
On the Fifth day, He was so tired from all the feasting that he slept!
On the Sixth day, having recovered from the feasting, He began feasting again, this time on sushi.
On the Seventh day, I think He cleaned the House, purged the House of rubbish, and went dancing.
On the Eighth day, He went to The Climbing Gym and then decided not to go dancing again to rest for the ninth day.
The ninth day quickly approached...with anticipation........

On the Ninth Day, He PARTIED!!

At last, the holiday was nearly done.
On the Tenth Day, He began detox with an ibuprofen and an omelette from Dooney's, and re-purified the House. To further recover, He enjoyed several good films, Swingers, and Office Space!

The Holiday is over. GS must now get back to business. We must pray that His presence will shortly be felt upon this Blog, with what we can only hope is a more historically complete rendition of the legendary NINTH DAY!