Painting the forest blue

Saturday, 16 August found us out playing paintball. It was my first time but LP had played before in China. Rod organized the whole thing for his co-workers and a few friends. He had played before when he was younger along with Alex. Jesse made it out too for his second time or so. A few of Rod's co-workers came wearing camouflage and packing their own guns. If this was something I was going to play a lot more, I'd invest in my own gun too 'cause the flight of my paintballs was quite random. I had Jesse and Rod on my team with LP and Alex on the other team. At most, we had about eight players on each side.

We started out on a field which had two ridges on either side, sloped down in the middle towards three small bridges and fences and has some mounds in between. I was surprised that a few people shot a few rounds right off the bat at such a long range but one of these shots found LP's mask and she was out in the first few seconds. Our team held the fence and pinned the other team behind the earthen mounds until Michelle just walked across a bridge and stood in the open shooting the other team. Her move took even us by surprise but we tried to shoot a few shots from long range to keep the enemy in place while Michelle walked up close. This strategy would prove costly for Michelle later in the day. We were on an urban setting and she pushed ahead without other people knowing. Three of us were working together on that side when she came running back towards us into a house. She has a similar build and was wearing the exact same coveralls and LP, who was on the other team. Jesse showed some great reactions by shooting her in the leg as she burst back into the house he was about to occupy. It left her with a bit of a bruise.

We got in about eight games in our three hours on the field. I went through about 500 paintballs but only had about two confirmed kills. I spent a lot of time hiding behind different structures but I was usually quite far forward. I was also using quite a few shots to fix the enemy in place while team mates came up to help. I would also shoot a number of rounds as tracers so I could find the range with my gun. The rental gun was anything but a straight shooter so I usually shot a number of rounds at a person and hoped for the best. I was only shot four times. In the third game, I was out of ammo and one ball hit me in the elbow but didn't break. Since I couldn't do much at that point, I gave up. In the fourth game, my team started behind a very small van with large windows which didn't have the glass anymore. The other team started in a large house with very small openings to shoot out of. Alex shot my goggles and then my hand as I raised it to surrender. In the last game, Rod declared a free for all in the middle so we could waste the last of our paint. I got shot in the thigh from across the map and have a very small welt to show for it.

In the end, I had lots of fun playing paintball for the day despite wearing coveralls over long pants and a long sleeve shirt as the temperature climbed towards 30°C. It sounds like we'll organize a similar outing again in the future.

NIN

On 28 July, I went to see Nine Inch Nails with Alex, Rod and Robyn. Alex was a huge NIN fan at the beginning and I've been a big fan for a long time as well. I've kept up to date with their recent stuff which I enjoy almost as much as the classics. Rod was a big fan and knows the classics as well and Robyn just thought it'd be a fun thing to do.

The Opening Act

Crystal Castles has to be about the worst opening band ever. There was a download on nin.com where you could get a sample of the opening acts for the tour and the Crystal Castles song wasn't bad. That was their best song and their live performance wasn't anywhere near the quality of the studio version. That was also the only song where the lead singer had her voice run through a synthesizer. The other songs had her screaming unintelligibly and wracked with posing fits to show "I'm really into my lyrics!" She was striking all your standard "my lyrics have deep meaning" poses which included the squat-down-lean-into-the-audience-and-clench-your-fist pose and the lie-on-the-ground pose. The backing back was playing music I could create in Garageband if I had a free afternoon. I'm not sure how many people are in the band because they could only afford one spotlight so I never saw anyone other than the lead singer. Bad music, bad effects. They had it all covered. Luckily, they only had about five songs.

The Main Event

Nine Inch Nails was definitely worth tolerating the opening act. Trent et al. played for at least two hours straight. They played a great mix of the old songs I remember from high school and their latest works. I can happily say I knew all the lyrics except for maybe two songs. Rod and Alex knew all the classics and Robyn knew two songs. Trent even let the audience sing the chorus to "Head Like a Hole" (I think that was the one) and Robyn just looked around with a blank stare when I noticed her not singing and gave her a poke. Watch "The Family Guy" where they go to the KISS concert and you'll know what I mean.

I enjoyed the light show quite a bit. Unbeknownst to me, they had a sort of see-through light curtain which they dropped while it was dark part way through the show. I just though the stage was suddenly a lot shallower than it appeared previously. They shone some brightly coloured patterns on the curtain which left Trent et al. as backlit silhouettes. Trent et al. retreated behind the curtain for "Breathe" which was filmed with a handicam with a night-vision effect and broadcast on the curtain. I kind of wondered what was going on 'cause you could see lights moving around behind the curtain and then Trent and the camera guy came out front briefly. The next song just had the band playing behind the curtain which was showing bright colours again. Suddenly, like they had been watching Bonanza while planning the stage show, the middle of the curtain became completely see-through and the audience could see the band playing behind it. They used this effect a few times in different ways but always enjoyable.

The one thing that struck me as odd was all the little blue lights you could see in the audience; people using their cell phones to take pictures or video or record audio. I also noticed a wide range of ages at the concert. That's to be expected since NIN has been around for twenty years or so. We did find ourselves out of touch since we repeatedly wondered where the young kids go to have a good time in the evenings when we tried to play our after-concert fun. I think we ended up at Urban Lounge but we didn't last long 'cause some needed to work in the morning and some needed to get back to their children. I bought a shirt but I was given a medium instead of a large so LP got a souvenir from my going out and having fun.

Listening to podcasts

I love podcasts. Actually, I love professional podcasts. Way back when, I listened to one Formula 1 podcast which sounded like two yokels with bad recording equipment who didn't seem to know anything about Formula 1 other than what they saw earlier that day on SpeedTV. Currently, I subscribe to one Apple podcast, three in German, four from CBC, one F1, four about digital photography, one from Gordon Ramsey, a short comedy video podcast, one from each of John Cleese and Stephen Fry, one in Chinese, one NHL, two from the Onion, one science video podcast, one from Sesame Street for Julie and Strong Bad Email. I found a solution to put all my audio podcasts into a playlist so that I don't have to select each of them individually. I just press "shuffle" and then I'm good for a bus ride downtown.
In order to have a playlist with all your audio podcasts and have them play in random order, you have to jump through a few hoops. You'll need to set up a smart playlist; a screenshot of mine is above. You'll need to match the following rules: first off, "podcast is true." No-brainer. My second rule was to exclude my Chinese podcasts 'cause I need to be in a certain frame of mind to feel like learning Chinese. The next three rules exclude videos, movies and pdfs from the playlist. On my iPod touch, video will play in audio mode but, if the Onion is trying to make a joke by telling me to "look at this shocking graph," I'll miss the punch line. I only match checked items so that I can save a podcast and not have to hear it everyday just by unchecking it and live updating is essential.
Jumping through hoops really comes when you're updating your iPod. Every time I open iTunes, it looks for new podcasts. Normally, I plug in my iPod and let it update. Old podcasts will now have a play count of 1 and new podcasts will be downloaded to iTunes. Once the update is finished, I delete podcasts I no longer need and uncheck ones I'd like to save. Once all downloads are finished, I need to do a quick Apple-A, Apple-I for "Select All" and "Get Info." At the bottom, I select "No" from both the "Remember Position" and "Skip When Shuffling" pop-up menus. I like to start at the beginning of each podcast and, if you skip when shuffling, your playlist will play one podcast and then return to your playlist menu. Annoying!
This technique works quite well for me except when podcasters use enhanced podcasts with a slide show. I have only two podcasts which do this and one announces every new picture so I know when to turn on my display and check the picture. The other, I tend to listen to once and then skip through the pictures later but I can miss why the picture is important.

Shaganappi Valley 9

On Sunday, I played my first round of golf since August 2005. I had been to the driving range once earlier this year and was surprised to see how straight I could hit the ball. I had been turning my wrist like a baseball swing which meant some big slices but I've been thinking about this flaw and my stroke seems much better. Shaganappi Valley 9 is a par 33, nine hole, public course with no par fives. There is water on three holes but it's mostly wide open with little sand to worry about. The longest hole is the first one at just 313 yards.

After hitting a small bucket on the driving range to warm up, I met up with Rob, Tammy and their friend Chris. The first hole started poorly with me slicing a drive into the trees on the left side. The longish grass prevented me from finding my ball so I had to drop a new one in the fairway. One stroke, one slice, one lost ball, one penalty stroke. My next shot was straight but aimed left and once again fell into the longish grass. Once again, I couldn't find my ball. I didn't have any help looking either as everyone else was down the right side of the fairway. Had I looked longer, I could have found it but I don't like holding up the players behind me. A wedge over the green, a chip on and a one-putt gave me a seven to start. It was looking like a long day.

The second hole started with a poor drive but I crushed a five-wood off the fairway onto the green. The greens were really slow and I was on the opposite side of from the pin so I ended up three-putting but that gave me a five. I've never broken 100 so I try for bogeys on each hole and I just got one.

The fifth hole was another seven. I hit a bad drive and just caught the far edge of the water. One more foot and I would have cleared it and been in the fairway. I had started to play better so I was disappointed to hit the water when so little of it was in play on the left side. I had to hit a second drive which I put long on the right side. I put a nine iron just over the green, chipped on and barely missed my first putt.

The sixth hole was my first par for the day. There was a little water before the hole and the green was 223 yards away so I hit a three-wood just short of the water and to the right. I hit my 56° wedge to the middle of the green and once again barely missed my first putt.

The seventh hole was a 143 yard par three. I hit a good five-iron into the wind and ended up in the sand to the left of the narrow green. A good sand shot got me onto the green and I once again left my first putt on the edge of the cup.

The eighth hole started with a bad drive over the water but I barely cleared it and was in the fairway. From about 170 yards I hit a good four-iron just off the left edge of the green and was able to chip close and one-putt.

The ninth hole was just 131 yards; the shortest of the day. I hit a seven-iron onto the left side of the green and once again just missed my first putt.

In total, I shot 43 which is 10-over for the course. Three pars, four bogeys and two triples is good for me. I'm trying to get to playing bogey golf since one-over on every hole would mean 18-over on a regular course and a score of 90 which would beat my best score by 10. On Sunday, I was only one shot over my goal. Had I continued to play like that over a full 18 on a regular course, maybe I would have finally broken 100. Then again, I remember a few times when I shot 45 on the front and 55 on the back.

Banff Bike Fest

Saturday was the Banff Bike Fest. I was there to compete in the time trial and criterium.

I've been a little tired recently because I haven't been sleeping well with Julie tossing and turning in our bed at night. I also haven't been training as much as possible due to all the rain in Calgary.

My start time for the time trial was 8:14 and, with the hour and a half drive to Banff, this meant packing the family into the car really early in the morning. I did arrive in Banff with enough time for register and get a little warm-up in before going to the start line. I felt okay off the start but I became aware that it wasn't going to be a good day shortly into my ride. My maximum heart rate is about 185 bpm and I can normally do a time trial with my heart rate over 170 bpm the entire way. I can see from my GPS record that I only hit 170 bpm once during my race and my legs felt heavy and tired at just over 150 bpm. The first half of the course has quite a bit of climbing which isn't my strength, especially since I'm still so far overweight. Still, it was a very scenic course running from Banff and going around the Lake Minnewanka road. There were even some big horn sheep on the road around the halfway point.



Things went a little worse but as expected during the criterium. Once again, I couldn't push my heart rate up very high and I struggled. Even with the motivation of trying to hang onto the pack, my heart rate peaked at just 168 bpm. The main pack could do about 55 second laps but alone I could only do 1:05 or 1:10. The course was barely over 600 m so getting lapped wasn't going to take long. I was off the back in a hurry and lapped after only seven laps.

Up next will be the Stampede time trial and road race in Calgary. I hope the weather will co-operate and I'll be able to push a little harder during that one.

Urban Farming

Yesterday evening, we started planting our garden. To give 外公 and 外婆 something more to do that just watch Julie, we all went out and bought some plants and seeds to plant in the backyard. And... Front yard. The previous owner left the flower beds full of perennials so 老婆 and I did very little in the garden last year. We mowed the lawn and pulled a few weeds but little else. Late in the year, Mom bought us a raspberry plant and blueberry bush. Those each appear to have survived the winter and, we hope, will provide us with a little fruit later this year. 外公 and 外婆 come from a small farming village and had a little garden behind the school so we thought they might enjoy some gardening here during the summer.

Last night's planting session turned out to be quite comical. If you ever view my pictures over on Flickr, you can view a picture of our latest batch of cookies where instructions weren't followed. This trend continued yesterday evening. I cannot say much since I don't enjoy gardening and didn't help very much. Still, I was out there, reading the instructions on the back of the seed packets and watching for space to be cleared and rows to be dug. From all the arguing going on in Chinese, I think 老婆 was also wondering about the rows. 外公 did most of the work and ended up planting the seeds the way he wanted.

The picture above is our front flower bed. You can see four plants were planted there but, what you cannot see are the seeds which have been randomly scattered by 外公. Onion seeds to be specific. I thought the garden was going to be confined to the backyard but it seems we'll have onions, tomatoes and bell peppers growing in our front yard. We do have rabbits in the area so we'll probably be thinking of some way to defend our plants soon. In the backyard are carrots, lettuce, green onions, a second blueberry bush, blackberries and pumpkins. The pumpkins were my idea but the location where they were planted was not. I hope I can provide pictures of pumpkins in the middle of the yard later this summer as the strip of garden where they were planted is not very wide.

I guess we'll have to wait and see how this all progresses. Random spots have been cleared and planted and not all the weeds have been pulled. I would like to add a second compost and some rain barrels to this whole backyard project. I'll keep posting as the garden develops. Just for the record, 外婆 was a school teacher and 外公 was a projectionist turned head of the village so no one here has much gardening experience.

Midweek Mayhem 1

Tuesday marked the start of the Midweek Mayhem criterium races. They'll switch to cyclocross races in the fall but, for the next four months, it'll be crits at the UofC. This week's race was a chilly one. As I rode home from work, the sun was out and the winds were light. At the start of the race, all that had changed. The wind made the only interesting corner on the course much more interesting. On the northern straight, the road bends slightly to the left before making a 135° turn to the right. With a tail wind, I entered that corner at over 40 km/h on each lap.

The first time I did this race, it lived up to the Mayhem name with four crashes and one ambulance ride. The B race had none of that this week. The race was uneventful for me. I started near the back and the pack quickly strung out due to the high speeds and wind. Like usual, the weak were dropped off the back and left to form their own little chase groups. I rode almost the whole race with three other riders. We took turns pulling for a lap and just enjoyed ourselves. The only excitement was when we got lapped by the leaders while going through the only tricky corner. That broke us apart and I rode the last few laps with just one of the riders I had been riding with previously. Still, it was enjoyable and good training. I ended up covering 19.3 km in 34:30 for an average speed of 33.6 km/h. The tail wind pushed me over 40 km/h on each straight but the opposite straight meant a 30 - 33 km/h push into the wind.

Here's a map of the course with my speed zones. Orange is over 40 km/h and green is under 30 km/h.