The secret and sinister madness

A stat holiday up here. I slept in so I didn't go to the pool. Who knows what would have been happening? But I knew when I got out of bed that I'd be going for a run, probably down into Fish Creek. It took a bit of puttering but I was finally out of the house at noon.

You see, there was this really really good coffee that just had to be savored. It's called CCC-XXX from Crickle Creek Coffee Company. They're a small shop in Priddis that does their own blending and roast, and then deliver it to your home. How cool is that? Check them out. Plus it was cold this morning and I wanted to give it a bit of time to get at least above zero.

Ran the same route as last week, down into Fish Creek, turning around at Bridge 7. I think it's 7, it's the one just before where the pathway splits to go up that horrible hill into Woodlands. Ran easy and steady the whole way. No niggles, just calves getting a bit tired towards the end. It felt pretty good. Ran 90 minutes, and again almost evenly split it, which isn't bad considering the way back is all uphill. Stretched and used the T ball on my feet, and that felt really good.

The adventure in Fish Creek was all the dog walkers. It's like there was a secret meeting and they all decided they were British or something, and were going to keep left. No idea why. Maybe just to mess with runner's heads. One person saw me coming, rounded up their small herd, walked from their right side of the path to their left side of the path, scrunched up against a small tree and took up half the path. If they'd stayed where they were they would have had all the space in the world. One guy was backing up the path to take a photo or something of his doggy buddies in the middle of the intersection. He wasn't paying attention to anything I said, and none of the other people said anything. I ended up putting my hand on his backpack to keep him from taking me out. At least there was an apology in the wind behind me. I want to get a run shirt that says "Keep Right, Dammit!" Front and back.

Here's a picture of a Yum Bakery tart. Just because. I think is from last weekend and I haven't downloaded my phone for a while.

Taking the trainer tire off gave me this minor scrape when the stupid plastic tire iron slipped out at just the wrong time. Not a big deal.

The weather is going to be crappy for the next week or so, and in any case I signed up for the spin-a-thon on April 21, so the trainer tire had to go back on. There have been a couple times where it's been an ordeal, complete with bad language, hurt feelings, and pinch flats. Last fall I figured out the secret. The tire has to be warm. Not room temperature warm, but actually warm to the touch. Linda would do horrible and unspeakable things to me if I put it in the dryer, so here's what I do. I let the heat gun blow the warm around the inside of the tire for a while, moving it every now and then so one spot doesn't get hot. Then I'll do the outside till the tire is warm to the touch. Everything is ready on the wheel end, and on it goes with no fuss, no muss, using only my hands. No tire irons needed. You're welcome.

I was at the library the other day and picked up a bunch of CD's on spec. I've been in a musical mood lately, so I started with A and picked out what interested me. This blog was mostly written to a Canadian band called Black Diamond Bay that is pretty good. The last bit was to something called Binary Park that I'm not sure I like. Kind of European electro techno pop.

Anybody not get the pun in the title?

snow and almost snow

After Tuesdays beautiful day, nice enough to be riding outside in shorts and bike shirt, it snowed on Wednesday. Lots. For hours. I was ambitious enough to get my run finished just as it started. Easy run, active recovery sort of run. My legs felt better after.

Then yoga was a really good flow of stuff. For once, wall dog worked for me, both legs even, for a short while. A very short while. But it's a start. A first time.

Thursday was back in a quiet pool. The 50 m lanes were all full and splashy, with bad vibes, so I went into the 25 m pool. All was peaceful. Warmed up 1000 m 18:10. Then a bit of kick and pull. Then the main set, 10 x 50 on 60 seconds, trying to maintain 45 seconds. The first few were there, then they started slipping. Then I realized I was losing form, and got the groove back on again, to go a bit quicker using less energy. Cool down with some easy pull and back stroke. 1 hour.

For my sins I was into Costco this afternoon. I forgot this was the first day of the long weekend, and people would be stocking up. Correction, the geezers would be stocking up. I saw it all today, people blocking aisles, stopping at random, walking very, very slowly. Two things stood out. One person who had been driving their cart along briskly enough, drove into a herd of carts clustered right where a display cut down the aisle space, and then abandoned their cart to pick up some corn chips or something. Nobody could move past. The other was a woman shopping for clothes. She took off her jeans to try on another pair of pants right there by the display stand. I think she was wearing a one piece swimsuit, or else she has really colourful taste in granny panties.

Oh, and one other thing, a demonstration of world class stupidity. As I was coming up to the checkout lines, the last cart in one line had a big sign on it "checkout closed". Naturally that line got shorter as all the rest of us went elsewhere. As it happened, I was in the next lane. When the last cart was starting to unload, some guy pushed his cart in behind it. When the sign was pointed out to him, he pitched a fit about why they always close the shortest line. Then he tried to move the sign to his cart. By then a bunch of us were being thoroughly entertained as the cashier's assistant told him politely he would have to pick another lane. He tried the kids argument "I'll hold my breathe till I turn blue!" by saying he would stay there and pile his stuff on the conveyer and they'd have to deal with then, wouldn't they? The woman behind me burst out laughing when the assistant told the guy he was quite welcome to pile his full cart of stuff onto the conveyer if he wanted to, but that nobody would be there as soon as they finished with the current shopper. He stood there for a minute, looking at all of us looking at him, then slunk off to the other end where nobody had seen his humiliation.

They've installed a gas bar since I was last there, which takes up parking space that was already in short supply. If I have to park any further away, I'm going to start counting the walk as workout time, and for the geezers they'll have to install a shuttle bus.

It was sunny when I got home and I was thinking about going outside for a bike ride again. But no, it's clouding over and looking really cold and windy. No snow again yet, but they say there is a chance of wet flurries later. Looking outside I'd say it could happen anytime.

Hello Nepal my old friend

In the pool again this morning, with lots more people. I still didn't have to share a lane, but it was getting close. Easy swim, 45 minutes.

What had me excited for today was weather nice enough for me to ride outside! As is well known, I'm a bit of a bike weenie. Once it gets much below 10 C ( 50 F) I start getting reluctant to go. Yes, I've layered up and gone out when it's colder than that, but it's not much fun. Being on a bike is about shorts and a bike shirt. There's a guy that lives in the cul-de-sac behind us, and he rides in all weather down to about -35 C. I saw him out on the path one day when I was doubting the sanity of running, what with the icy footing and -WTF wind chill temperatures. There is no way I'd be riding, but he thought nothing of it.

Today was the day. There is snow in the forecast for tomorrow. It won't stick, of course, and they're only talking about 5 cm (2 inches) after a bunch of rain. So nothing hardly worth talking about. I called around to price out a new wheel to save the bother of changing the tire each time I have to swap between and inside and outside ride. Holy expensive Batman! Using a generous calculation of it taking 15 minutes longer to change a tire, and a generous application of my billable rate, times the number of times a year it might need doing, and that is a very long payback period.

So I didn't. I changed the tire. There was a minor scrape and a bit of blood, but nothing serious. Things went smoothly to get all the trainer gear off the bike and prep for an outside ride. Estela was happy. I chanced to hear one of my favourite songs when I was doing this, and of course I started to filk it.

Hello Nepal my old friend
I've come to ride on you again
because my fitness needs testing
to find the flab grown while I was resting
It wants to take over in my gut
And stay there
in a shell of softness

 The road itself is good, but lots of gravel and crap on the side. The other thing today was the wind. This is up there with some of my windiest rides. It was coming out of the south, and that made for a very long ride to the bottom of the road. 1:21. Cross wind was a bit tricky. Turned around and figured the wind was about 30 Kph with stronger gusts every now and then. It didn't quite blow me up the hills but it sure helped push me along. I made it home in less than an hour for a total trip time of 2:18.

I wasn't sure what to expect, and once I realized what the wind was doing I decided to not worry about time, just see how I felt on various parts of the road. There is no riding this road "easy". For those new to my blog there is a reason the local bike community called this "The Road to Nepal." Hills. There are lots of places that have bigger hills. Steeper hills. Longer hills. But this road is all hills, all the time. Here's an elevation profile in a previous blog. The distance of road that could be considered flat is to be measured in a fairly small number of meters. The road itself is only 37 Km out and back, and the start is 7.5 K from my house. Many people like to ride it one way, and take in some of the other roads around, which being in the foothills, have hills too. Just not as many. Riding out and back from 22X (where they've improved the parking lot from a bog to graded, graveled area) is considered a pretty good workout.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased for a first outdoor ride of the year. The wind took about 20 Kph off my downhills, and slowed the uphills even more. Coming back was nice, I hit 89 Kph on one hill without really trying. The fastest I've ever done this is 1:58 trying to keep up to Katie. (As if.) I'm not sure what the slowest time is. I don't like to think about it. My legs felt pretty strong, but there was a little twitch in my spin I've not noticed before.

I said hello to the herd of bison. They were milling around, pretending not to be enjoying the nice weather. No baby calfs so far this year, so no mama's giving me the stink eye as I rode past. I saw two other bikers on the road, both dressed much more warmly than me. I hope they didn't cook on the way back. There were a few times it was nice and warm. I'm looking to lots more rides that way, and out 22X. Anybody wants to go for a ride in this area, let me know and I'll come with, if I can. We've often had people park here and head out, which gives them a place to water up, and a fridge to store a post ride snack.

Internet grrrrr.

Just the last few days using the internet has been extremely frustrating, on and off. For a while it would. Then it wouldn't. Would. Wouldn't. At first I thought it was my computer because the iPad typically worked just fine. After futzing around a bit I read of a DDOS attack on the main internet DNS. That would describe what was happening to me. Then late morning it all stopped and I could do what I wanted to do.

In the mean time I spent an hour in the pool this morning with almost nobody else.
1500 m in a hair less than 28 minutes, feeling strong, but not having to work too hard. That was a consistent pace throughout the swim.
Then a bit of kick and some pull.
7x 50 m on 60, aiming for sub 50 seconds, and stopped when I got over.
A bit of drill and some cool down.

We are at an awkward time of year here. Tuesday it's supposed to be nice enough for me to go for a ride outside, for the first time this year. However, later this week there is snow in the forecast. In the interest of saving some time and not having to struggle with the trainer tire more than necessary, I looked into getting another wheel. That way I could swap wheels, which is much quicker than swapping tires. However, that was much more expensive than I thought it would be. Much more. So I didn't. I'll take a look at the weather tomorrow, since it might change, and decide then.

Some health stuff

Easy-ish run today, about 45 minutes. Start easy, settled into a groove, then tried to keep myself balanced by pushing gently, but not too hard. My feet and legs felt pretty happy with it. Stretched after. Warm enough to run in shorts and a tech shirt, but not quite warm enough for a weenie like me to ride outside.

I am musing about Twitter. Any thoughts you have, feel free to share them in comments. Because if you tweet them I won't get them.

I just finished a book by David B. Agus, called The End of Illness. It's a bit dense in places but makes for very thoughtful reading. His take is that cancer is not a disease, it is a process. Rather than saying someone "has cancer", we should say they "are cancering." He feels that prevention and early detection are all important, and I suspect few would argue with him there.

Then he takes a bit of a detour through our body, talking about it as a system. I can't emphasize how important that point of view is for understanding where he is coming from. All to often our medical system take some part of our system in isolation by observing we have some condition, and then providing a cure for it. We've had a lot of success with that over the last couple generations, but that approach hasn't got us very far with cancer.

To say our bodies are intricately balanced in many ways is an understatement. He talks a bit about how our bodies deal with Vitamin D, for example. It appears there is an optimum amount to have, and that providing more doesn't do us any good, and in fact may harm us in some subtle ways. Our cells have ways to regulate it. He also makes the point that taking multivitamins in pill form is not as good as getting them from food.

Towards the end of the book he talks a bit about prevention. Here are at least some of his suggestions; you'll have to read the book to see the supporting evidence.

• Keep to a regular schedule.
• Get good sleep on a regular schedule.
• Move throughout the day.
• Eat real food.
• Reduce your daily dose of inflammation.
• Stay abreast of new health technologies.
• Take charge of your own health information.
• DO NOTHING. The body can often heal itself given a chance.

I'd like to talk about a couple of those points, and this is purely my own perspective. The sleep thing - athletes are always told about how important rest is. Well, it's more important than that. I worked shift work for a few years, and I know how messed up I became. Now I understand a bit more about what happened to me, and that was scary shit. So much of our system depends on getting good, regular sleep. Without that everything else is messed up, our eating, how we digest the food, our stress levels, how alert we are, how well our memory works, how well our body deals with illness. It starts early, kids that have messed up sleep patterns are at enormous risk later in life for a variety of conditions and diseases.

If there is one thing that is against the rules in North America, it's doing nothing. We aren't allowed to do nothing. Our kids are driven from activity to activity. Adults are tied to their jobs 24/7 now, even on vacation. There is always another email to deal with, or some crisis somewhere. It never ever stops. 

But that isn't good for us. At least once a week I like to relax, and do nothing for an hour or two. I mean nothing. I'm not reading, sleeping, listening to music, eating, or doing anything. All I'm doing is sitting quietly. Some might say I'm meditating, and fair enough, I won't argue. I like to let my mind and body settle, and just breathe quietly to myself. Having a cat purr nearby is good. Of course I can hear the outside world, but I let it pass by. I don't think of anything in particular, and I don't NOT think of anything. I let my mind go where it wants to go. Sometimes it flits from topic to topic and I'm thinking about whatever issues are in my life at the moment, but that often passes quickly. Normally my thoughts become more sluggish and calm, along with my body being more relaxed. Oddly enough, I don't feel heavy; I feel light and relaxed, as if I could float across the room on a stray breeze. 

We do an easy spin on the bike to flush out our legs and help recover. I think of this as easy spin for the brain, to let it explore where it wants to go, at whatever pace it feels is best. Sometimes I'm lucid dreaming, in an odd state where I'm still awake, perfectly aware of the world around me, yet I'm dreaming and can control the dream. That's the best. I always feel refreshed when I get up. There is always a way to take notes nearby because I usually find that I've made a decision about something, or I know what I'm going to next, and I don't want to lose it.

It's tough when plank is the easiest

I forgot all about writing about yoga class on Wed evening. That was my swim for an hour and run 13 K or so day. So I was tired and a little tender going into class. There was a small hope that F would relent on us because a minor knee owie, but it was not to be.

Now I don't remember all what we did, but I do remember walking out thinking that you know it's been a tough yoga class when plank is the easiest thing in it. Some of the people complained about how long we held the pose, but not me. Oh no. There was other, harder stuff. There were many stiff notes of complaint from my legs to my brain. Still, once I got home it felt pretty good, and when taking the long view, it was probably the right thing to do.

Thursday was a very long walk, some brisk, some not. Up and down stairs, ramps, and once up an elevator only because I didn't know where the stairs were. There are bits of the +15 system that are tricky.

Friday was a take it easy day. I stretched a bit, and was on the bike for an hour of easy spin. I took Julie's advice and took the bike out of the stand to clean the trainer friction wheel. I am still surprised that a rubber tire can make what appear to be permanent marks in a steel tube. Once I got the rubber off, I could see faint grooves in the friction wheel. I also recalibrated, and what a pain in the behind that is. The little wheel is at the very bottom of the unit, with barely enough room to get my fingers in there to turn it. I'm pretty sure that after I went back and forth a little bit, I essentially ended up where I started.

That afternoon we went out to see John Carter at the theatre. This is a big deal for us, since we typically see maybe 2 or 3 movies a year in the theatre. There was hardly anyone else there. Mostly we enjoyed it. I was disappointed because in the books Deja is nude, but I suppose you can't have that even in a PG-13 movie. The movie seems to otherwise follow the books, but then, it's been a very very long time since I read them. It wasn't a bad movie at all, so I don't know why flop is being attached to it. I don't think it was marketed well, and there is all those complicated names to keep straight. That's a lot of work for today's audience. They seem to prefer the predigested pap of Twilight, for example.

Each of these nights I've been sleeping like a rock, which is good. Today (Saturday if you've lost track) I had my bag packed for the pool, but decided not to set the alarm or anything. Since I slept till a reasonable time I figured I needed the sleep more than the swim.

But all is not lost. I did get on the bike for a short but moderately hard workout. Easy warmup, then a series of gradual builds to successively higher peaks to see what my legs would think of increased load. On the Friday spin I could feel the stiffness and clunkiness in my legs and didn't push it. Today was much better. No twinges, spin was smooth, though I didn't push to high rpm's or anything. I did spend a little while up near the peak of my wattage, and things still felt good.

Once I pick up some supplies, the next wine kit gets started, and the one on the go now gets racked to a carboy. That's a nice way to spend the afternoon, when it's still too cold for a weenie like me to go for a ride outside. I'm seriously contemplating getting another wheel and cassette for my bike, so I can quickly and easily swap between inside and outside tires. Yeah, I'm lazy like that.

Is there a quick way of knowing how many cogs are on each disc of the cassette, without having to count them?

Art. +15. Cala-travesty

Today was the big day. For a while now I've wanted to wander the +15 system and see what's new. Some of the buildings have nice public art, and I wanted to see if the areas I hadn't been in had good art or not. I've seen most of the system over the years, but they're always adding to it or changing things.

But what, some of my readers are asking, is the +15 system? This winter was a mild powder puff weenie of a winter. I think the coldest it got was -30 C or so (-22 F) for maybe a week or two. Nothing really worth talking about. Sometimes the winters here are brutal. There was one, back in '84 or so when it was colder than -40 for 6 weeks straight. That -40 was the daytime high, it was colder at night, and part of my job involved spraying water on metal that was supposed to be moving. Once I froze myself to a railing. But I digress.

A guy named Harold Hanen had the brilliant idea of connecting the buildings with a bridge above street level. They are about 15 feet above street level, so it's called the +15 system. Over the years the system grew. Now there are double decker, and even triple decker bridges. (+30 and +45, duh!) and connecting spaces within the buildings. There is about 16 Km (10 miles) of the system now, in one very large network, and two smaller ones. Once the new Bow building is complete one of the smaller networks will join the big one.

Anybody that works downtown loves the system, especially in winter. Well, except for the ones that think it detracts from a "vibrant" street life. There are times it's shorter or quicker to go through the system than to take the streets. The system is full of businesses. Many of them are integrated into the network, and sometimes the network was patched into existing buildings. There are ramps and stairs. I couldn't say how many coffee shops and the like there are, certainly many dozens. Aside from the several malls of the usual stores, there are dentists, doctors, travel agents, copy shops, and probably almost everything else under the sun. I know people that have refused a job because the company was not in a  building on the network.

Much of this network is busy. There is a steady stream of people going back and forth, many carrying coffee, since everyone has their favourite place. It might be a block or two away, but so what? You don't have to go outside. You always see people chatting. With any luck they are out of the way of the herd. It is common to run into people you know; it happened to me today, which was nice. (Hi Sue!) When you're downtown it's much easier to stay in contact with people through coffee or lunch dates. When you work out in the boonies, as I have for years, lunch dates become a major ordeal.

You might have to embiggen the Map image to see the small red circles. These are either outdoor patios, several of which are fenced off for kid's day care, or are under construction. I either didn't go there or couldn't. Essentially I went everywhere else there is a blue line. The map isn't quite exact, especially how it represents space within the buildings. For example, the Shell building shows you can walk around the outside edge of the building, and that isn't true. There is a gym on the north side. There are several examples where a path is shown inside a building that doesn't exist anymore, or is planned but not built yet.

There is no easy efficient route to see it all with a minimum of footsteps, or if there is, I don't know it. During the day I was musing about the race in the London Underground. There is a contest to ride all the lines as fast as possible. I was thinking it would be fun to have something similar here. Lots of dead ends to deal with. Although the system is about 16 K long, and I don't know how that is measured. I think I probably walked about 20 K today, maybe more.

The system isn't all retail hell shopping. There are quiet nooks with comfy chairs if you know where to look. Sometimes there are buskers. At least some of the building owners have public art on display. There are at least two building models I know of. Today I wanted pictures of art either in the +15 or easily visible from it, plus some shots of the system itself or the nicer lobby spaces. Readers are invited to guess where the pieces are, if they don't know. I kept notes. If you really want to know I can tell you where all of them are. The Calatrava bridge is a special case and it's at the end.

Some of the art is quite large, as the following example shows. Others are quite small. This one is actually a real airplane, not a model.

Here, in no particular order, are the rest of the shots. There are some comments along the way, just because.

This is one of a sequence of frosted glass murals. Since I was touring the +15 system I thought it was appropriate to include this shot.

The lights move, adding to the floating effect.

As I said, in some cases they carved the system out of other buildings that had never imagined such a thing happening. Here's a place where you can see the original stone wall. There's a reason Calgary's nickname was Sandstone City.

This is a bit more detail on the original buildings for this section of the system.

I just had to take this shot. Calgary sunrises and sunset light up downtown in strange and magical ways that fascinate photographers.

The other direction from the same place.

This explains why "Damn the CPR!" used to be a common Canadian curse. When the CPR was laying out towns across the prairies, they ran the railroad tracks down the middle and built the small towns on one side, and the larger ones on either side. Calgary has several tracks running right through downtown. It makes for interesting building and parked construction.

I took a bunch of shots trying to get this right. It's a series of glass panes hanging from the ceiling. Here it's almost invisible, yet it makes quite an impact in real life.

I love the garden features in some buildings. This is a nice one.

A huge bronze horse surprised me as I was going up the escalator and I had to hurry to get the shot.

I watched my Grandfather do this. One of my very favorite photos of all time is one of him doing just this. It was taken by an amateur photographer by accident. I'm told he won several prizes, and only years later did he discover who it was. My Granny had the original, and my favourite cousin made a print for me. Yes, this one looks like he's ploughing up the floor tiles.

I worked in the building with this artwork.

This is what a dead end in the +15 system looks like. I only assume they are join to hook it up to the buildings on either side.

This was near the elevator bank I used lots.

I nearly tripped over this one day when I wasn't awake.

Yup, this is a living wall.

When you say "Devonian Gardens" many Calgarians sigh with happiness, then say "When will they ever finish the renovations?" Here's a very small section under construction. It looks like they are working on some pools. These gardens were huge, taking up a big chunk of +45 space, and some of the outsides of +30 and +15 space. It was a great place to go and eat lunch during the winter. You could see people soaking up humidity and the general atmosphere. The City made out like bandits on charging for wedding photos. Now it will be integrated with the food court.

It's hard to see, but there is a herd of deer running across the open area.

I just loved these huge snowflakes.

Here's an outside view of a triple decker bridge. That's all retail space you see in there, with a food court on the top level. Technically, the bridge I'm standing in isn't open to the public yet, but nobody was standing guard, and there was just a bit of ribbon blocking it off... This is the same bridge that I noted was a dead end above. I had to walk the long way around to get there.

I loved the Udderly Art fundraiser. There are still a bunch of cows around if you know where to look. Hint, on either side of this poster. And I had to walk outside to get from the glass to this poster, the bridge was closed for construction.

I've always liked this big statue of a Native Chief outside the building.

Somehow this photo makes this look much smaller than it is.

I used to work in this building, and always loved to visit the turtles. I'm happy they are still there and the Koi are much larger now.

Taking pictures of things enclosed in plastic cases is really hard.

Several blocks of long straight space. They built this above the alley, and there are branches on either side leading to various office buildings or parkades. I think this is the longest straight space in the entire system. Kind of boring, actually. I used to walk down it a lot.

This is one of my favourite buildings downtown. It looks like two buildings were merged together in a transporter accident and somehow didn't blow up.

There is no standard design for the 59 bridges. Some are utilitarian structures, some are beautiful and match the nearby buildings. Some you hardly know you're in a bridge. I think I hit all the indoor bridges open to the public and one that wasn't. There are several bridges open to the outside.

Sculpture, not a painting.

This is only part of a much larger mural.

I used to work in this building, and always liked this water feature.

This is one of two huge, HUGE living walls. You can see the guy in the lower left for scale.

Another nice water feature, and more garden beside and underneath the escalator.

These three paintings make me happy, I'm not sure why.

 This is a really neat carving, not a painting.

Now for the Cala-travesty, as I call it. Normally I would like this bridge. It's a cheerful colour - a bright red that doesn't seem to show up in photos very well, an interesting design, and is wide enough to deal with bikes and pedestrians. But. It was chosen in a secretive process by a cabal of City Aldermen. It was very expensive. It was about a year and a half late. The entrance and exit are not graceful. The Memorial end is particularly brutal as you can see from the last photo. You make an abrupt left or right turn to get onto the path. If you want to actually cross Memorial Drive, which was the whole frakking point of the bridge in the first place, you have to walk 2 blocks to 10th Street or the LRT overpass, both of which are perfectly serviceable bridges for pedestrians and bikes. Cars go on one, and the train on the other. Without an integrated pedestrian crosswalk for Memorial Drive, the placement of this bridge is stupid. Already people are jaywalking. It's only a matter of time till someone gets run over.

This is the Memorial Drive end of the bridge.

And there you have it! I started about 6:45 in the morning. I stopped about 9 for a coffee and a muffin in a small isolated chunk of the system that I'm not sure I've ever been in, the one attached to the JJ Bowlen Building. I got some pizza for lunch and sat for a half hour watching the world go by and checking my email in Bow Valley Square. I finished up about 2pm, and hung out at Bankers Hall to meet up with a buddy, then walked to City Hall to get Linda.

All in all it was fun. I knew it would be a long walk, but my feet feel pretty good. This isn't all the art, not by a long shot. However, a few pieces I remember are not there anymore, and there isn't as much as I had expected in some of the newer sections.