Day One

Today is day one of trying to get off the white stuff, again. It was a pretty good day as I completely avoided the sugary gummi treats in the developers' ghetto of which I had more than my fair share last week. There was also a fresh box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts which didn't crack my resolve. My only indulgences were a hot chocolate and a smallish slice of warm chiffon cake, baked by 老婆. I'm not gong from zero to hero here but I'm trying to make a change.

This morning I crushed the scale at a massive 87 kg. I'm aware that's not massive but it's far beyond where I'd like to be and I don't want to hit rock bottom by being wheeled in on an industrial strength dolly and crying to Maury or Tyra Banks. Rock bottom should have been one month ago when I finished last in a cyclocross race; nearly two laps down after six laps despite pushing an average of 93% of my maximum heart rate.

I got through high school at about 73 - 75 kg and maintained that until my metabolism slowed down just a few years ago. I then hovered around 76 kg except for a December 2001 trip on the boat that had no edible food from which I returned at 72 kg. It was Xmas so I was able to get back to 76 kg in a hurry. Except for a couple little dips due to the rigours of travelling in China, I maintained 78 kg from 2004 until Xmas of 2005. 老婆's first Xmas in Canada meant tons of sweets and treats at Mom's and I kicked off 2006 at 81 kg. Another year of falling activity and increased eating helped me top out early in 2007 at nearly 90 kg. A little contest with the co-workers enabled me to drop to 85 kg but the end of the contest has meant the end of any declines in my weight.

I'm feeling healthy as of late, no more back and hip pain which I experienced continuously to some degree for a number of years, but the belly giggling like a bowl full of jelly is not making me jolly. I'm lifting weights more regularly in the past few weeks and I'm hoping to keep that up. I'd decided that Dr. Atkins isn't the quack I thought he was a few years ago because of material I've been receiving from Men's Health and a book review on Quirks and Quarks. For me, carbohydrates mostly meant simple sugars so limiting them isn't a bad plan. Recently, a muffin or cookie too many, even long before bed, would keep me awake with heart burn so I think the messages my body is sending me are finally loud and clear enough. I'm going to cut those carbs and make sure meals have some meat and vegetables. I think I'm also going to try easing up on the rice and pasta.

So, now it's out there. I'm fat and I'm trying to do something about it. How far this goes all depends on how I feel. According to official charts, my ideal weight is supposed to be 70 kg but I don't think I've been there since junior high. I've always carried a little extra muscle in the legs and have been surprisingly heavy for my size. The little red mark on my scale is at 84 kg and it's too surprising that I've been above it for so long. The green mark is at 75 kg. My driver's licence says 73 kg.

If it sounds too good to be true...

The Rick Mercer Report on Tuesday did a story about ZENN cars; made in Canada cars but currently illegal to drive here. ZENN stands for Zero Emission, No Noise. While the cars look great and don't create any pollutants themselves, I hope people realize that something needs to be done upstream to reduce their carbon footprint.

One litre of gasoline yields about 35 MJ of energy and I typically drive my car less than most people so I use around 50 L of fuel per month; that's 1.75 GJ of energy I put into my car. If I owned a ZENN car and used a similar about of energy, at 8¢/kWh that I get with EasyMax, I'd send Enmax an extra $39/month but I wouldn't be giving that money to Husky. Based on energy usage, that's like paying 78¢/L but my EasyMax rate is locked in for the next five years. Of course, I wouldn't drive the ZENN nearly as much as my Jetta because the range is 56 km on a charge and the car tops out at 40 km/h. I can almost ride my bike faster than this car. And at four hours for an 80% charge, the drive to mom's would take 27.5 hours; only 7.5 of that actually driving.

What people need to realize with all these "zero emission" vehicles is that the energy has to come from somewhere. Yes, the ZENN itself produces no emissions but, if I plug my car in in Edmonton, all that energy could come from the Genesee coal-fired power plant. I hope no one tries to tell me that is zero emission. Of course, if Enmax allowed reverse metering, I would install a wind turbine on my home 'cause it's always windy here. I only checked a few sites and my friend who's trying to manufacture and sell wind turbines here hasn't got back to me with his numbers but, if the wind speed averages 20 km/h for the month, I could generate up to 400 kWh (1.44 GJ) of electric power. That's slightly off the 500 kWh (1.8 GJ) my home used last month and also slightly off what a ZENN car would use per month but I don't mind giving Enmax $32 less per month. They'd make it up with their distribution fees, service fees, unfair fees and taxes.

If we're going to make use of electric or hydrogen cars, we need to improve how we generate the power we use in our homes. I'd love the government to anger big business by helping home-owners install their own solar or wind generation systems and allow the consumer to bill the company when an excess of power is generated. As unpopular as it is, nuclear power is also an option but has anyone calculated the planet's uranium reserves? I guess I'd better get back to work on my cold-fusion experiments.

Photographic tips

I've been listening to Chris Marquardt's Tips From the Top Floor on my iPod while I ride the bus to work and there are lots of useful tips and tricks for aspiring photographers like myself. One trick I learned recently and has become my favourite is using the fully manual setting on my camera when shooting in consistent light conditions.

I like trying to use natural light through windows when shooting indoors and it is relatively consist for Julie's entire attention span while she's being my model. Since my ist D L2 tends to underexpose my photographs in indoor, natural light conditions, I like to correct for this so there is less post-processing to do. I can set my shutter speed and aperture and the camera also indicates if it thinks the settings are correct or not. I typically overexpose by one full stop to get results I like.

Another great advantage comes during the post processing. Since conditions do not change, all the photos I take are similarly exposed. Ergo, if I'm still not happy, I can batch correct all my photos quickly. I use iPhoto for most of my general corrections and Elements for anything that needs particular attention. iPhoto allows me to copy and paste edits between photos.

My only word of warning is to watch the ISO on the camera. If I take a few shots to start with, I use the P setting and then switch to fully manual when I see that Julie is in a good mood and going to give me a lot of cute faces. The camera remembers the P settings when I switch to M but the ISO resets itself so my first manual shot is horribly underexposed if I'm not paying attention since the P setting with an automatic ISO will often select an ISO of 1600 in low light. My minimum ISO is 200 so I'm typically three stops underexposed if I don't force the ISO to something higher or adjust my shutter speed or aperture.

I'm currently switching from Picasa to Flickr so you can check out those sites if you want to see more of my photography (read: Julie). If you use a news reader, you're probably better off subscribing to the Flickr feed. And check out the Tips From the Top Floor podcast.

Chinese Philosophy

Despite the West's objections to a law imposed on a society by a basically totalitarian government, I have to say I agree with China's one child policy. Though, I'm also glad my parents-in-law paid the fine when my wife was born as their second child. Before anyone asks me any "what ifs" because my wife is around only because of her parents' disregard for the law, you can ask "what if" about any decision anyone makes in life. I try to just make the best of the current situation. Hmm... What if I hadn't gone into geophysics? We'll never know.

Anyway, awhile ago I was listening to Dr. Bob McDonald on Quirks and Quarks talk to Alan Weisman about his book, "The World Without Us." I haven't read the book yet but I intend to and the idea I present here was presented during the interview so, if I don't have the facts of the book entirely straight, I'll try to straighten them out soon. I also apologize for skipping to the end of the book, but Alan Weisman suggests a worldwide one child policy.

If you consider the rapid and unsustainable growth of the human population, reducing our numbers a bit would make some sense. With 6.6 billion people in the world today and 9.4 billion expected in 2050, I don't see how the Earth can keep up with providing for all the humans. Each new person put on this planet requires a certain amount of resources.

Obviously, we're seeing today that the Earth cannot keep up and the ideas put forth about how to be sustainable/environmental without putting a limit on the number of humans on the planet are just ridiculous. The false environmentalist propaganda I like the most comes from the auto industry. Prices at the pumps were low across North America and then Hurricane Katrina blows through. Fuel prices take a big jump and the next day all the car ads have a new voice-over claiming this vehicle is now fuel efficient. Now everyone thinks hybrid cards or ethanol will save the planet. Take a gander over at Ford.ca at their Escape Hybrid. The regular model will set you back 10.7 L/100 km in the city and 7.7 L/100 km on the highway. The hybrid model uses only 5.7 L/100 km in the city and 6.7 L/100 km on the highway. I believe the reversal of economy is due to the sustained power to propel yourself down the highway is way too much for the electric engine so you're burning fuel the whole time. With a price difference of $7500 and assuming you do a lot of driving while gas still costs you around $1.10/L, you'll pay off the extra cost in a mere 136 000 km of city driving or 682 000 km of pure highway driving.

But I'm not concerned about how people are punished for trying to save the planet; I'm concerned about the pure consumption of humans. If I have two children and buy them each a Ford Escape Hybrid and they each drive 100 km per week in the city, they're using 11.4 L of fuel which is more than if I had only one child and bought her the regular Escape. Of course, it's also $41 000 cheaper to buy just one regular Escape. Someone else can do the math to see if two Toyota Priuses are more economical than one regular Toyota. That's also an argument purely based on fuel. The blog at Quirks and Quarks also pointed out that every car loses rubber from its tires which gets washed into the gutter and into our rivers, drips lubricant and requires its share of steel, aluminium and plasticsl. And don't tell me ethanol is the answer. With more people there are more mouths to feed yet we would rather that more people bought more cars powered by more corn which needs more water to grow. More is not sustainable.

If you want to cut greenhouse gases by 20%, why not let the worldwide population fall from 6.6 billion to 5.28 billion instead of making each person find 20% of their carbon footprint to cut. In fact, you'll have to cut more than 20%. Before the Earth's population has had much of a chance to fall under a one child policy, the population will have hit 7 billion in 2011. Now you have to cut your personal carbon footprint by 25%.

Sometimes an authoritarian figure has to step in and force people to do what's best. It should be obvious that governments and a few CEOs making obscene amounts of money aren't going to curb our consumerism or do anything to jeopardize their ability to make even more money.

the old man can climb

Just finished my first bike race in a long, long time and I certainly don't feel well. As you can see from my MotionBased GPS readings , I pushed about as hard as I could but that was only good enough for last. Technically, I wasn't last 'cause another ERTC rider got lost on the course, dropped out and was planning on riding the Expert race. I completed four laps of the course in just under 36 minutes and was lapped towards the end of my third lap. There was still one rider just behind me when I dropped out but he had been closing the gap and I don't think I would have kept him behind me for much longer.

The race wasn't terribly interesting for me. The start was technical with some short climbs up a small hill. My bike handling skills seem to still be quite good as I was able to easily stay with the bunch and I even thought about a few daring passes in corners. There was also a tricky hill climb which most of the Sport racers decided to run up. The approach to the climb was along the side of the hill and then the course turned quickly to the right, down the hill, and immediately turned 180 degrees to a climb. On the first lap, I was able to take a good line, go wide and climb the entire hill out of the saddle. As I climbed and passed a few riders who were walking, I heard someone exclaim, "the old man can climb." I really didn't think I was old but this is definitely a young man's sport. On the second lap, I made an error on the hairpin, twisted my handle bars, ended up in a track stand but was able to recover from my standstill and climb even though I was in the wrong gear. I was forced to run up the hill on my third lap as I got lost amongst all the flagging and was outside the course so I had to jump off my bike, turn around and get back on course.

The only other points of interest to my race were three near falls. On lap two, I took the inside line down the hill towards the asphalt section. There was a bump in the grass just before the asphalt and I caught a little air and landed a little more forward that I would have liked with the transition to a hard, coarse surface just in front. Also on the second lap, my front wheel dug into one of the sand pits and I was forced to put one foot down to recover. On my fourth lap, I hit a small hole in the grass just before I had to turn into a downhill, off-camber corner. The bump jolted me forward and I was left with my elbows on the brake hoods. This is not good posture for a sketchy downhill section but I was able to recover.

I'm still intent on doing a few more cyclocross races before the year is out but I have confirmation that my conditioning is not good. According to MotionBased, I averaged 172 bpm, or 93% of my maximum heartrate, during the race. At least I was trying hard. The course was very tough and I didn't really enjoy it. It was good for the enclosed space but some sections were easy to lose your way and go off course. I also don't know why course designers insist on forcing racers to go up and down hills so often. It seemed the design was mostly an effort to tackle the one hill as much as possible, hit the few other obstacles in the area and keep the racers uncomfortable. The cyclocross course I enjoyed the most was in Edmonton and had a good mix of high speed stretches, technical turns and climbs. Consensus after that race was that there were only three places where you had to touch the brakes. This one had at least ten braking zones and went up or down the only hill eight times. Still, I imagine course design is very difficult, you cannot please all the people all the time and I'm sure some people thought it was a great course. I did enjoy the asphalt section and the spectators could see almost the entire course from one spot.

Getting myself sued for libel

Okay, if I check the dictionary this is not actually libel since I can back it all up. I'd like to say that my experience with Laurich and Associates for the purchase of my house has gone less than ideally. I do realize that we've been living here for eight months but there are reasons I've come to this conclusion at this time.

I used the same lawyer for buying a condo in the summer of 2005 and everything went fine. Since I had a name for a lawyer who'd done a good job for an average unreasonable price, I thought I'd use the same lawyer again. Of course, that's when things stopped going smoothly.

The first problem was that the lawyer had moved his office seemly due to a split with his partner. The previous office was conveniently located downtown near my work. The new office is in a house in Bridgeland which is not convenient since it's neither near work nor home. It's also a good five to ten minutes on foot from the closest C-Train station. Have you realized that eight months prior to this post was January so walking isn't always nice. If I remember my first house sale correctly, I visited their offices once or twice for a signature. For this transaction, I visited four times and had to get Ying downtown twice. The extra visits were for typos which had to be corrected and then initialled or signed by us or to avoid being charged the lawyer-standard $10 for a 50¢ stamp. The mistakes were just the ones they caught while not in our presence. They also found a good number while in our presence. Our initial run through of the sales agreement went something like this:

lawyer: "this first page just shows the address of the property you're buying"
me: "that's not the correct address. We're buying a house in the NW and that's an address in the South. Also, that seller's name wasn't on the documents from our realtor.
lawyer: "yes, that doesn't match the address on the cover page. I'll have to get this page retyped. Just wait a moment."

The lawyer should also have a professionalism talk with his staff. The girl he has answering the phones is nice but not at all organized and doesn't conduct herself as I expect someone who works the phones for a lawyer should. On the phone, she mentioned a few times her lack of organizing her files, noticed some more of her typos and referred to me as, "hun" a number of times. She seems to be just out of college but I'm not aware of what she studied.

I'll get to talk with her some more on Monday though. Due to the crazy pace of buying and selling in the Calgary real estate market, Land Titles has been a little behind in processing everything. I didn't think they were eight month behind but I guess they were. Two weeks ago, we finally got the legal description of our property. Last week, we got a surprise of almost $200 back from the lawyer. We were surprised since we received a final tally months ago; two months or so after I had to make a trip to the lawyer's office to pick up the money from the sale of our condo. A bigger surprise came today when I noticed on my on-line banking that the $200 had been taken back out of my account. I have other issues with the Royal Bank wanting $1.50 to show me the details of a transaction on-line but that can wait for another day when they finish the job pissing me off and I switch banks. It appears that the lawyer has written a bad cheque. I'll be going through their math tomorrow after my bike race, incase there are more errors in my favour, so that I don't have to phone them more than once to complain. I've already wasted hours of my day travelling to his office so that I can verify that I'm aware of mistakes in legal documents.

When lawyers openly write on your bill that they incurred massive costs for photocopying and local telephone calls, you'd think they'd have enough money in their bank accounts to cover a $200 cheque. It's not even his money! The $200 is the amount they overcharged me on the Land Titles fee and are returning eight months after we moved in.

The agony of defeat

First basketball game, first loss. Doug and Charity have assembled a good team but we met another good team tonight and were defeated by one basket.

There was some controversy in the second half when I was fouled driving to the hoop. It's a social league and there are no actual refs; a "Game Co-ordinator" keeps score and makes sure things don't get out of hand but each team is supposed to call its own fouls. We though the defence called the foul and the other team thought it was the offence. That left two teams calling fouls at our end of the floor and no one calling fouls at their end. Anyway, I wondered out loud why no foul was called, was told to call my own foul and then proceeded to say I was fouled. There was a bit of a discussion as to whom should actually be calling the fouls and play resumed after a few minutes. However, play resumed with them bringing the ball up the court. The foul against me was forgotten.

Personally, I don't like not having refs because a few people in the league don't know what a foul is. There are also one or two GC who act as part time refs, which is extra annoying since some fouls are called by them and then they lose interest for a while. They also don't run the court and are a long way from the action. One in particular has overruled charges which I took on two different occasions. Both were charges and both times the other player had accepted that he committed a foul until the GC pipes up from the sideline.

Ying and Julie liked the game quite a bit; they sat on the stage at one end of the gym. Julie was so excited to see all those people running towards her, like they were coming for a visit. Except, they didn't quite get all the way to her and then they ran away again, making her a little sad. But, just a few seconds later, everyone would come running towards her again and she's get excited. Yet, once again, everyone would run away after a few seconds. These emotional ups and downs took their toll and Julie just slept through the second half.

Oh well. It was a fun game which was played at a high level. We got off to a slow start but pulled ourselves back into the game at the end. We even had a lead briefly but couldn't hold it. I'm looking forward to next week's game quite a bit. I'd better get some more practice in so I can contribute more.