The Mac are Back!

The music we get in Staples is a playlist of what seems like 10 songs from 1998 or someyear, played over and over all day, that gets streamed from Staples HQ. As you can imagine, we get pretty sick of this.

In a lot of places (eg. Walmart) the Christmas music started November 1 st, as Hallowe'en was over.
Staples' HQ is in Boston, and therefore we didn't get any at all until December, when Thanksgiving was over in the states. For the first few days about one song in five was christmassy, and I remember saying, "It's not so bad. One song now and then is manageable." As per Murphy's Law, the "normal" music was eradicated the next day, and every song became a different version of about three Christmas carols, just done slower, or in country or rap, or with a saxophone.
Macy Grey singing "Last Christmas" gets old quickly.

Imagine my delight as I pushed open the swingy doors to the sales floor this Monday morning to hear

Something in you brought out something in me, that I've never been since
That part of me that was only for you,
That kind of romance
Comes only once, that kind of love
That kind of fever dance
That you love because you become someone else in an instant

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance
At least give me time to change your mind
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

I've missed Fleetwood Mac. Monday mornings just weren't Monday mornings without them.

I thought about it for a while while cleaning up the tech room and getting on at the boys for not labeling things. Fleetwood are the perfect Monday morning music - very neutral. When Evanescence is too depressing, Queen are too flamboyant, Matthew Good is too political, Genesis can't decide what they are, Linkin Park are too angry, The Killers are too popular, Meatloaf goes on too long, Arcade Fire are overwhelming, The Beatles don't make any sense, you can't figure out how Billy Joel made his way into your playlist, Def Leppard do too many love songs, Deep Purple are too loud, Mike Oldfield can;t decide what mood he's in, Rammstein are too German, and you realize that Chris Martin can't really sing, Fleetwood Mac are always there to be neutral.

Okay, enough is enough

... of the bloody snow.

It started to thaw yesterday, but I woke up to see more coming down this morning. Big flakes, and lots of them.
I rode to work this morning on the road because I was late. I wouldn't have been able to make it on the paths. I fell off for the first time in this snow this evening in the Staples car park. I've lost traction and had to put a foot down many times, but I actually went over sideways and landed in the slush today. I've had enough of the snow. One or two days was fine, but this has gone too far. Too much like Manitoba (shudder).
I'm not one of them fair weather cyclists. I'll glady ride in rain, cold, dark, a bit of hail, heat, or whatever, but bikes just aren't made for snow. It might be do-able if you lived somewhere that gets enough snow to justify (do bikes need to be justified?) a purpose-built bike for the snowy conditions, but even then there are so many snowy conditions. The bike has to deal with icy roads, bumpy hardened snow, fresh soft snow, slush, puddles, bumpy ice from frozen slush, snow that started to melt but then froze again and got crust on top. It would have to be single speed as shifters just freeze up when they get wet, flat pedals so your cleats don't get frozen in, disk brakes, because your rims are continually wet when riding in snow, and skinny tires with screws (or studs) in with chains on (or zip ties might work).

Anyway, I'm getting cabin fever. I'm not sleeping as much either (and I don't really sleep much anyway). I did my laundry yesterday and there wasn't one pair of bike shorts in there. I want to ride my bike.

I'm also getting a lot of bike shaped bruises. It's difficult to walk a bike along the sidewalk when the trodden snow is one boot's width. Fire Mountain's got a lot of sharp edges. It's as if every part of the bike was engineered to cause the most pain possible when being jabbed against the body. The brake levers are pointed like a spear, the pedals have a million (each pedal, on each side, approximately) thorns to shred open your leg as you wrestle the bike along the snow banks. There are no bar end cap on the side closest to me, just a rough ended steel handlebar to take an apple core-sized cylinder out of my torso, a rusty chain to eat up my new black cords, a pointy saddle to catch in my coat pocket every three steps, and shifter levers that make there way into by gloves and coat cuffs and get caught in my watch strap.

I started this post last night and can't remember how it was going to end now. Bollocks.

The Tiny Tea Cozy

While I've been stuck inside, I've been knitting (well, just Sunday afternoon really). I used to knit a bit (mainly (well, only) hats - I'm not sure why I like hats. I look stupid in them). Prompted by Hilary's idea of a little knitting club (Amy and Hilary both knit too), I found the wool shop (it's next to the Brew Pub) and spent my half hour break (though most of it was taken up by walking there - damn snow) choosing this chunky acrylic with 20% mohair. It's called Narvin, which isn't really very inspiring.
I decided I was going to stick to a pattern (something I've always been unable to do previously), and came upon the Unoriginal Hat. I did a swatch in the cable pattern as stated, and realized that because I am a (very) tight knitter, I was going to need bigger needles.
Well, I didn't have bigger needles, so I did some maths, and cast on 84 stitches, rather than the 56 the pattern called for, for 6 repeats rather than 4. I knitted 8 rounds, pulled out the needles, and put it on my head. It was too big. So I ripped it out and went down to 70 stitches.
I finished the hat at about 1 am Monday morning. It looked so cool. It was my first time at cables and they looked perfect. (The following picture is closer to the actual colour - the other photos are slightly over exposed. I suppose I should re-do them, but it's late and I can't be bothered.)
There was one time where I missed a cable and didn't realize until 2 rounds later, but was able to undo just 7 stitches on the row below and 5 on the row before that, and managed to put the cable in - I couldn't even find the mistake in the finished hat - not even a twisted stitch.

Then I tried it on. I guess I should have stuck with 84.

Don't laugh! It's a good job Mum doesn't read this, as you would be able to hear her cackling right now if she did.
And Dad would say, "Why is she wearing a tea cozy on her head?"

It's quite frustrating when you finish something and it's crap though. I don't want to knit the same thing again - I want to do something different, but if I do, I won't get it right, because I won't do what the pattern says. I just won't. And I'll have to redo it to get it right.

Let it Snow...

So, as you will know, I've only been able to ride on my days off recently (because it's dark after and before work, and I've got no lights), and my days off have now been changed to weekends, which I hate.
Anyway, I got my new lights (the AyUp kit) so I could ride in the dark again, but it snowed two Sundays ago, and I expected it to last a day or two, then turn to mud, but it's been here since, and we just got a big top up over the weekend.
So no riding for me, not even at weekends. In fact, for the first time in a year I did a load of laundry without a single pair of bike shorts in. I find that depressing. There have even been two days (last Monday and today) when I haven't ridden to work - I've walked. I rode to work for the rest of the week however, and it is quite fun when the snow gets well packed. I've been riding on the sidewalks though, as there's even less room for me on the road. The packed snow on the paths is extremely bumpy and skiddy. The skids can be kept under control by shifting your weight back, and after a while they become fun. Fire Mountain has been handling the snow very well, but I took the HockRopper on a bit of a ride to Walmart and back along Somenos/Sherman as it was snowing quite heavily, and it definitely did better than Fire Mountain, not because of the knobbies or suspension or anything like that, but because of the riding position and it seems more maneuverable (if this were a magazine review, that would be "chuckable"). Fire Mountain does straight lines very well, and is "stable as houses". In fact I once rode 97% of the way to Crofton without hands (cue the Flobots: "I can ride my bike with no handlebars, no handle bars"), but it's difficult to move around, which is really noticeable after riding the Hopper. I think it's got a lot to do with the bars. I really like the wide bars.

Long time, no blog.

I haven't written a blog post in 12 days.
Why?

Have I nothing to write about?
Certainly not. I'm always writing blog posts in my head that never get written.
I haven't been busy with other stuff or anything.
I keep saying to myself that I should write about stuff, but it hasn't happened.
No idea why.

Anyway.
On the Tuesday before yesterday, I overheard James tell a customer that the technician would be in Monday through Friday. I found this strange as Wednesdays and Sundays are my days off. When I corrected him he said, "Well, you're on the schedule to work Wednesday." and what do you know, I was. Manager Sharon, when questioned, said that she and Manager Jeff had decided it would be better if I worked Wednesdays as it was getting busy (for Christmas). So they give me Saturdays off? Because no one does any shopping on Saturdays, right?
They could have at least told me, even if they weren 't going to ask if it was okay.
I'm a little bit bitter. It doesn't make any sense for me to have two days off in a row. Everyone else in the store works shifts except Ben the shipper/receiver, Nancy who does paperwork, and me. That means that if someone doesn't get everything done, someone else will do it - people that do shifts never get behind, and can take time off when they want. I'm the only person that does my job, so if I'm off for two days, stuff just piles up, and it takes me three days to get caught up. And if I get behind, I've got customers shouting at me.
If you work shifts, if you get bad days off, you get different days off the nest week. I never get a weekday off, so have no opportunity to run errand between 9 and 5 on weekdays.
It's not good for the biking either. Because it's winter, and it's cold and dark before and after work, and my lightset got stolen, I could only ride on my days off. Since I only got to ride twice a week, I liked to try and do long rides, and stay out for 4, 6, 8 or more hours. I can' really do that two days in a row. My new lightset arrived this week, so I could go out riding again after work, but we also got a load of snow last Saturday, and a load more today, which makes riding difficult and dangerous.

The Sunday before last (7th) I went on a ride by myself. I went off with the intention of riding around the fireroads in and around the Chemainus river park (Hillcrest?), but I got lost, and I took my camera too, so I didn't really get that far, but had a nice ride and got very muddy.



Last Saturday I went on a ride up Tzouhalem with Hilary and Michele. It had snowed the night before, so there was no snow in town but several inches on the mountain.

We went up some singletrack, which was fine, as the trees kept the smow off the trails, but the fireroad was almost unridable, especially for climbing.
So, we wound our way down Showtime, the end of Chicken Run 3, and then (accidentally) did Three Muskateers. After Tea Cup and Resurection we took Ben on a little run along the trail at the other end of the parking lot to the viewpoint, (where I broke a shifter cable), and came back again.
More pics here.


It started snowing heavily, and I went round to Hilary's afterwards, then went to the Brew Pub for dinner with Hilary, Dave, Amy, Sean, Trevor and Amy's friend Cassy. Then we went to The Moon where Hilary introduced me to London Fogs. Saturday was a good day.

We were planning on doing a long cross ride all together on Sunday, but we got about five inches of snow overnight, so that didn't happen.

Starbucks

I've been spending a lot of time browsing Flickr's Explore page recently, and dreaming that one day I will be able to take good pictures. The Explore page is a random sample of a collection of the 500 most interesting photos on Flickr each day. The photos are widely varied and cover every style and subject, but I've noticed one particular subject popping up in Explore over and over, and the composition and style is always the same. It's a macro shot, with a "bokeh" background, (which, yes, is very fashionable anyway).
A cardboard Starbucks coffee cup.
Sometime in the summer, after the Cobble Hill cross country race, Amy Luck (one of Hilary's pottery students) invited some of us over to her house for a "girls night". Erica (another student of Hilary's) used to work at Starbucks, and we ended talking about the "coffee culture" in North America. This proves (well, strongly supports) Amy's theory.
Interestingness is calculated based on a secret formula, but basically, the more people view a photo, comment on it, and mark it as one of their favourites, the more "interesting" it is. Now, Flickr's a big place. As I write this at 12:30 am (of course, I'm going to bed at 11 today to catch up on some sleep) Flickr says that 7084 photos were uploaded in the last minute, and it's the middle of the night. To be one of the 500 most interesting is quite an achievement. Americans must like their coffee.
I say "their" as I am obviously not one of them. The smell of coffee makes me nauseous. I don't go to Starbucks unless with someone else (ie. not very often), because of this (and that I'm a cheapskate). But if I did want a cup of tea and didn't want to go home for one (ie. never, unless I'm with someone else), then I'd go to Tim Horton's (but their tea is horrible, so I'd have hot chocolate instead). I find Starbucks intimidating. The few times I have been, I've just gone with "chai tea late", because it's all I know. You can't even just have a hot chocolate - dark, milk, white? Cream, milk or water? Flavouring? (What flavours have you got?) Gingerbread, mint, caramel, ...? I'm culinarily ignorant, so you might as well just give me a Sushi menu. I know fish and chips, toad in the hole, cheese and beetroot sandwiches, roast beef, trifle, and Custard Creams. You could be talking Latin to me when you start ordering Hollondais sauce, mussake, foccaccia, chop suey, temaki, profiterole, tortillas, ... (but I know what Prairie Oysters are, thankyouverymuch). I don't know if I want a shinny or grande. I don't care what country the nutmeg came from. I thought "mocha" was a colour. Macchiato sounds like a martial art. I'm not even sure what makes the tea "chai".
Why is it this way? It's snobbery, surely. It's wanting to sound clever, be fashionable, cool (though I think I'm showing my age here - didn't people stop saying cool in the 90's?). It's like wine tasting - red with fish, white with red meat, "this fruity full bodied blend would compliment the aroma of the orange and mint blossom duck pate beautifully!".
But then what about shampoo? (shampoo?) My shampoo isn't "lemon" scented, it's "kiwi lime squeeze with lemon grass extract" (damn - I'm sure I'd gotten one with Ulang Ulang!). Who says "Oh, I'll get this one, because the kiwis and limes have been squeezed, and it's not got whole lemon grass, just extracts." My laundry detergent is Orange Mango Tango. My tooth paste is cool mint, as opposed to fresh mint, spearmint or cool ice (whoever heard of warm ice?). When I bought deodorant I had the choice of baby powder, spring fresh, shower fresh or summer breeze (but I wanted fresh breeze!). My dish soap is crisp cucumber melon spring sensations.
Why?
Soup is going the same way. I challenge you to find a can of soup that says "chicken soup" on the label!
So what's this all about? Marketing of course. (Isn't that what everything's about?) I suppose we (the consumers) are supposed to think that the more healthy/fresh/organic/clever adjectives they use, the more engineered we will think the product is - obviously, more research, product testing, and engineering has gone into "Bumbleberry and South African lentil, with crushed wheat grass and acai berry seed essence" scented dish soap, than "fruit". Then there's the "comfort and enjoyment" factor. The C&E factor was taught to me in a business course taught by Mr. Potter in high school. For an assignment in the advertising unit we had to watch a load of advertisements on TV and write down which of a list of advertising techniques were used. Comfort and Enjoyment is the only one I remember, probably because one of the boys shouted it out when the Preparation H commercial came on. C&E was when irrelevant things are used to summon thoughts and memories of comfort and enjoyment. Like the box for the tea I'm drinking. It's called "sleepy time", and has a picture on the box of a teddy bear in a night gown, slippers and stocking hat (with a pompom), sitting in a rocking chair in front of a fire. For some reason, I only usually drink this kind before I go to bed.
"Fruit" isn't a good blurb for dish soap. I wasn't at all surprised to read that there are people that write book blurbs for a living. Naming paint colours continues to hold the "dream job" title for me. I think I'd be good at it. I think my bedroom is "Glowing Pompleberry Espresso White" (what colour is my bedroom, anyway? I can't tell - I still haven't changed the light bulb, and won't likely do so, as it is a good excuse for not wearing matching colours). Am I getting off topic yet?

I didn't take the photos on this page. They're in the Starbucks group on Flickr. Yes, a group of photos just of Starbucks cups and chairs and stuff. My next sentence was going to be that there's no group for Tim Horton's, but there is. But it's crap.
So I'm going to have to either steal a Tim Horton's cup, or buy a cup of Hot Chocolate after work tomorrow and take some photos. Anyone coming with me? On me. Two word maximum.

I finally went riding

... with Hilary up Prevost.

The last time I went on a "proper" ride was ... (hold on while I check my blog) November 23rd when Hilary and I rode on Tzouhalem. As my lights were on Jake when he went walkabout, I can't ride after work, or even before (and I've even lost both blinkies). So that leaves Sundays and Wednesdays for riding. Last Wednesday I didn't go out because Mum and Dad said I had to go to Victoria with them as they wanted to buy a car and put it in my name, but they didn't show up. They wanted to go on Sunday instead.
I spoke to Hilary yesterday (when she brought me a birthday cake and egg cup (pics to come)), and she said she wanted to come this afternoon. I had my lunch and planned to leave at 12:30, but with there were tires to be changed, missing cleat screws, flat tires, forgotten water bottles, I didn't get to Hilary's until 2:30.
We rode to the very top of Prevost, met a man called Doug, and rode back down the fire road. There was still light left when we got to the bottom, but only just. It got very dark as I was riding home. It was a very mild day though - no wind and about 50% cloud. We got pretty cold on the way down though. Hilary had trouble finding a warm enough body crevice to re-heat her hands.


Up: time - 1:18, distance - 7.3 km
Down: time - 22 mins, distance - 7.3 km (duh!)

Surfer on a Wave

Surfer on a Wave
Originally uploaded by theresmybike

I've not done any origami in a while, so I folded this last night.

Folded from a ten inch square of blue "American Foil", painted yellow on the paper side. Diagrams from Origami to Astonish and Amuse (Jeremy Shaffer).