Novaween

Every year, we go to a Novaween party that was invented by our friend Cindy.  She felt that on the regular Halloween weekend, everyone is busy jumping from party to party to party.  She wanted hers to be well attended, so she decided she'd have one the next weekend.

It's usually very well attended, and people get to wear their costumes again.  This year, Carmella and I didn't go out for the regular Halloween weekend, but we did attend Novaween.

Carmella was thinking about her costume all year.  Last year, she had the idea too late to put the required effort in, so she made sure to do it this year.  It took her about a week and a half to finish it.  Here are some pictures.  She did it all herself, after starting with a blank canvas.

He we are ready to head out.  Carmella made my costume too...I borrowed her striped hoodie, her zebra ears, and she painted my face.  I'm your standard zebra from the savannah.

Here's Carmella with Wes.  He's Mad Max, and Carmella has her drop sheet on to complete the costume.

I think Carmella's costume was one of the best.  While others were more elaborate, none were as original and home made as hers!  She got many comments and congratulations on the great costume.

Wes and Carmella enjoy dancing to Thriller.  Carmella took a course at the Harbour Dance Centre to learn the moves, so she was centre of the action!

A great memory: Bali in 2008.

I think I'll harken back to 2008.  July and August were great months that year!  I had just finished eight hard months in China, where teaching was new, the language was still foreign, the culture was confusing, and English conversations were scarce.  Carolyn was there with me, but she went home to Canada to have an ear infection dealt with.  I hacked it alone for the last bit, and it was one of those growing experiences people talk about.  You know, character building and all that.  Sounds great when it's over, but in the middle, times sure are rough!

July and August were great months because I was in Bali.  I had been planning the trip for much of my time in China, and it would be a celebration of my completed teaching contract.  I envisioned surfing, secluded beaches, seaside fires with guitars and drums.  Only the surfing happened, but it was still a great time.

Carolyn was supposed to join me, and Kirsten would meet us there.  It would be a sibling excursion, but without Erik.  Kirsten met me in Hong Kong, and we toured there for a few days, then flew to Bali on Air Asia.  Air Asia is like the airplane equivalent of a Greyhound bus.  It's cheap, and people run across the tarmac to secure themselves a seat, because you don't reserve spots.  You just put out the elbows and fight for them!

So, Bali!  I enjoyed it because I learned to surf, I wasn't teaching in China anymore, and I had Kirsten to keep me company.  Here are some photos from that glorious time. 

Kir and I rented bikes on a small island in Hong Kong, where the locals fish and enjoy rural living.  We pose in front of the main attraction, a waterfall.

The narrow streets!  It was fun exploring this little fishing village.  Bikes were everywhere, and so were small vestiges of English colonization.

Macau is a short ferry ride from Hong Kong.  It was a Portuguese colony in the same way Hong Kong was an English colony.  Now, Macau is known as Asia's gambling destination.  There is more than gambling though, including this fun architecture.

Carol was supposed to celebrate her birthday with me in Bali, but didn't get to because of her ear infection and resulting trip to Canada.  So, I made this picture!  I'm on an ancient bicycle that I rented, and a coolie hat I bought to keep the sun at bay.

Here I am in the villa.  Kir and I rented this room for $10 per night.  It was deluxe in that it had its own toilet and shower, but you had to fill the toilet with water from the sink, using a yogurt container.   It was pretty awesome.  I spent a lot of time reading and browsing the used bookstores.

The professional surfing tour, the ASP, had a competition in Bali while I was there, at Uluwatu.  The waves were small, but they surfed them anyway.  Here are a few photogs capturing the action.  If you look closely, you can see a surfer in the wave.

Here I am getting ready to surf.  I'm using a rented 7'6" Mini Malibu (that's a shape) surfboard and a swimmers cap.  I had ruptured an eardrum a few days prior, when I got attacked by a wave, so I'm protecting it with silicone ear plugs and a swimmers cap.  I got lots of strange looks!

Best shape of my life!  After a month of paddling into waves, I felt really strong.  You may not be able to see them, but there are some muscles in those shoulders and arms!

Occupy Vancouver

The distinct, pungent smell of marijuana is in the air, cut with wafting, homemade aromas from the open kitchen.  The air is brisk for this time of year, so the few people standing under the tarpaulins hide under toques and hoods, stuffing their hands deeper into their pockets.  They chat quietly among themselves, occasionally pawing at the ground with their feet.

In the hands of participants, the onion-rich Greek salad being doled out in the food tent makes its way to the open area where the majority of protestors have congregated.  They’re standing in a wide circle, two or three people deep.  Instead of waving signs and chanting slogans, these dissidents are taking orderly turns talking.  When something agreeable is said, outstretched fingers mime the actions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Disagreement is also silently voiced, this time with the classic thumbs down gesture.  Other signals appear less frequently, including, among others, those indicating a point of process or an irresolvable contention.

The group is varied; twenty and thirty-somethings in pea coats and black leather shoes stand along side those in beards and dreadlocks.  Despite the cold, almost everyone is focused on the discussions taking place.  This is the General Assembly at Occupy Vancouver, a movement that stands in solidarity with the original Occupy Wall Street protest in New York.  With a free library, food tent, workshop areas, family tent site, and lots of open discussion, this is unlike any protest Vancouver has seen, having more in common with the Habitat ’76 meetings at Jericho Beach than the Stanley Cup riots of 1994 and 2011. 

As the Occupy Vancouver protests enters its third week, it will be interesting to see how things progress.  Will the occupation lose its appeal and novelty, or will Mayor Gregor Robertson bow to pressure to clear out the tent city?  Will it end with not a bang, but a whimper?  Or will it keep going strong, and become a tourist attraction like the New York edition?   It doesn't matter what happens with it now, since it stands to be a success in that it will very likely influence policy with the mayoral elections upon us.  And people will continue to congregate in front of the Art Gallery.  After all, they do have free food and books to borrow!

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 This entry started as an assignment in a writing class I'm taking.  The point of the exercise was to describe a scene, but not to include ourselves in it.  We were encouraged to make our scenes strong by using smells, textures, sounds, and feelings to appeal to the reader's senses.  Doing this engages the reader and makes the writing more interesting.

My Long Run

Last weekend was Labour Day weekend, when everyone celebrates the last extra day off in the summer.  For Carmella and I, it was a chance to do things we talked about all summer, but hadn't done yet.

Carmella went for a swim in Kits Pool, which is a large outdoor, heated saltwater pool right by the ocean.  It's 137m lengthwise, so each length is a long one.

It was also a chance for me to go for a run I'd been thinking about for many months.

Whenever I'm driving across the Lions Gate Bridge connecting downtown Vancouver to the Northshore, there are always walkers, bikers, and runners on it.  I wanted to run it too, and I wanted to run there from home.

The route would about 20K if I went the most direct route, more if I wandered a bit.  It seemed like a good thing to do.  Since I wasn't really training or racing, I brought my camera along and took pictures along the way.


The run ended up being about 25K, and took me just over three hours.  I spent time resting, eating, taking pictures, and walking. The last 40% of the run was painful, but I slogged through.

I'm very happy with my run.  I hadn't run in about 4 months, so was proud of myself for running 25K off the couch.  It hurt though!  Here are some pictures of my route.

This is Kits Beach, about 3K in.  I decided to run along the water.  You can see Downtown and the North Shore.

Lots of rocks.  I heard they trucked in the sand to Kits Beach.  It's usually nice to run on, but after about 10 minutes my knee began to hurt, so I had to walk for awhile.

I walked until I got to the Burrard Bridge, then ran again.  This is taken from the highest point. My route would follow the water, where you can see all the ant-sized people.

This is the Sea Wall.  It was packed!  There were hundreds of rocks carefully balanced along the way, and little stations where you could donate money.  Kind of like busking, but using nature.

I came across the artist.  He has gloves and a very still hand.  He's balanced hundreds of rocks today I think.

Here's more Sea Wall.  I'm getting closer to the North Shore, and the Lions Gate Bridge that will get me there.

My goal!  I'll have to get to it though, which means running under it first.

I've made it to the bridge!  It's quite a bit noisier than the Sea Wall.

Always look where you're going on the bridge!  This guy didn't.  He was probably tempted by the mountain scenery.

I am mid-span! 

I was really nervous taking this shot.  I don't like heights, so I shot this quickly and kept on running.

Another shot, mid span on the Lions Gate.  I can ride any chair lift in Whistler with the bar up, but get nervous looking over the railing on the bridge!  You can see on the left the Sea Wall, where I had recently been.

I complete my mission, and am on the other side of the bridge.  Motorists wait as four lanes merge into one. 

On my way back, I found some low hanging fruit.  Blackberry vines are invasive, but deliver wonderful fruit.  The ones that come off the vine easily are sweet, but if you have to yank and pull, it'll be disappointingly tart.

Biking with Children

Last week, Erik sent along this picture of a bike trailer he bought for Anakke.  He's excited to take her on bike rides in the cool fall weather.

His email made me think about a story Carmella told me a few months ago.  To understand the story though, you need to be familiar with the various types of child carriers that bikes can have.

When I was little, there was just one type of child carrier, pictured below.  Dad had one on his bike, but I don't remember riding in it much.  It still got use though, because he'd wedge his briefcase in there and pedal off to work.

There are newer ones which mount on the front of the bike.  Last week on my bike into work, a guy riding a bike with an empty one joined my street from another, and I couldn't help thinking that his seat was like the minivan of the bike industry.  I couldn't let him pass me with that contraption hanging off the front!

Now, to the story.  A few months ago, Carmella was driving through Vancouver, and came to the intersection of 16th and MacDonald.  This is a pretty busy intersection, with two lanes in each direction joining.  16th has a boulevard, so it takes quite awhile to cross 16th if you're on MacDonald.

Carmella was waiting at the intersection, and saw that there was a mom on a nice cycling trip with her young son also waiting at the intersection.  Carmella was in the car, and this mom had her son in one of the rear-mounted child seats.  When it was time to cross the street, the mom began to bike, and carmella waited for them to pass.

I've read that the rear child seats sit quite high up, skewing the centre of balance of the bike making it difficult to ride.  This would be even more difficult when starting from a stopped position.  If you're a regular or casual rider, you know that you're at your wobbliest when you start riding from being stationary.  The city of Portland also knows this, and allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, recognizing that most bike incidents in intersections happen when the rider is just starting up, wobbling all around the intersection before able to ride quickly and confidently.

The woman that Carmella was watching cross the street also knows that bikes are at their most wobbly when starting from a stopped position.

As she started to ride, her bike leaned way over to one side.  It leaned way over,  dumping the young child into the street!  She didn't realize it, and kept riding away.  The child, just a bit past walking age, stood up in the middle of the street and began crying.  Carmella and the rest of the vehicles didn't move.

The child kept crying, but realizing that his tears would do nothing to improve his situation, decided to chase after his mom instead.  She'd crossed the intersection and turned the corner, still riding.  Her son is chasing after her into the intersection, which is larger than normal due to the boulevard. He's running and crying, and has his arms stretched out toward his mom.

His mom hadn't realized she'd dumped her child into the busy street yet, and wondered why all the cars were honking at her.  When she drove by, Carmella gestured towards the empty baby seat.  The neglectful mother looked back, noticed there was no child on the bike anymore, and got really worried!

By that point we can only assume that the mother collected her child, told him she loved him and wouldn't ditch him like that again, and carried on with her motherhood.  Carmella drove by, with only the regret of not having a camera to catch the whole thing.

So, if you're buying kid bike seats, be careful in the type you choose!  Safety first!  And don't neglect your children!

More pictures!

Here are some more pictures. These have a family theme. I chose random ones without too much thought towards blinking, etc.

Marlene gave us 6 identical CDs, and one cd with all 803 will live at Mom and Dad's, so everyone can see all of them! I'll also work on emailing relevant pictures to everyone too.

Carol readies the tables!

I blink as Er helps with my tie

Carol!

Carol looks on as Er shaves my errant neck hairs.

Dad yawns

We wait for guests to arrive

Carol and Minke are disappointed that their trivia answers aren't right, and they will pay by waiting a bit longer to eat!

I hold court!