Headlights and sunglasses

It's that time of year again. Driving to work as the sun is just above the horizon. This morning I wanted to stop and take some photos because it was absolutely spectacular. Just no place to stop and get a good view.

In Calgary the streets run north south, and the avenues run east west. When I say that, I mean almost exactly. Then there are on and off ramps, corners, and curves so that at some times of the year sunglasses are a must, even at dawn. In the shadows it's still dark enough that people have their headlights on.

So this morning I'm driving north on 14th street. There's a sound wall to my right. Everybody has their lights on. Most aren't wearing sunglasses, it's a bit dark for that. Yet at the corner for Southland I saw the guy in front of me put them on before he signaled. I had mine on turning onto Glenmore, and good thing too. The sun is right there. There are times even sunglasses aren't enough, and people shade their eyes or pull down the visor.

There have been accidents on the Deerfoot bridge attributed to the glare of sunlight. Going north, the road swoops around to the right heading uphill over the river, then left and back downhill again. There are several opportunities to get dazzled, and it's a bad spot for putting on your brakes at the best of times. There is lots of traffic and most of it wants to go too fast. What makes it worse is that the dazzle happens at different times of the day, and different times of the year, compared to the avenues, because of how it is oriented.

There are times when Anderson road lines up exactly with the setting sun. It's really hard to see the traffic lights, and everybody has their headlights on. I try to avoid that particular time, but I'm not willing to give up yoga class. I can't wait for someone to invent an adaptive filter technology that knows where the light is coming from, and where the driver's eyes are, and selectively dims a small portion of the windshield. They would make a killing in Calgary.

I haven't mentioned my legs lately. Still cranky, some days better, some days less so. Assessment on Thursday. I was down stretching today, and got some interesting clunks out of my hips. As I try to roll forward on my right hip, it's like there is a huge lump of something in my butt that is preventing me from rolling, and then if I get past it, there is a huge clunk, and something inside my hip settles. I hope I haven't deformed the bone joint or socket. Other days it feels like there is a tight band around my thigh, just above my knee.

Added in some stability plank and pushups. Lots of twists and bicycle. Trying to relax in forward stretch and downward dog. Trying not to squash a cat as I thrash around.

It snowed today, just a little bit. I thought you'd want to know, so you feel better about your weather. Except for where it's worse, and you're gnashing your teeth at "just a little bit."

Even with cranky legs that feel just a bit unsteady sometimes, I'm still walking faster than most of the people on the sidewalks. There was this cute couple that took up most of the sidewalk as they lovey-dovied along, wobbling back and forth in time with my trying to pass them. Eventually I brushed past the one on the left, and walked on the road to get around them. Then there was the herd around the Tower today. Milling in a particularly bovine way out of the building and being undecided about crossing the street. I waded through, trying not to step on anyone.

The hint of spring

I thought it was going to be nice today, and only figured out walking into the pool that it was pretty darn cold out for April! It just about convinced me I should have stayed in bed. I sure wanted to. The rest of the day turned out pretty nice, but I've no doubt there is still some snow coming.

Decent 30 minute swim in a crowded lane. By the clock I was making my times, but it felt slow, then fell apart at the end.

Dance this evening was a bit chaotic. At the best of times it's hard to hear the instructor, what with the echoes and everybody else still talking, and tonight was brutal. Essentially I didn't hear anything clearly all evening. Not a big fan of Pase Doble (spelling?). Lots of taps where you put your weight back on the tapping foot, which is weird. Dancing is sure hard on my knees these days.

Stretched and rollered after dance, including some stability plank. It's probably good for me, but my knees didn't like it.

Supposedly the RCMP busted a terrorist plot to blow up a VIA rail train. The reputation of the RCMP is such that if they pointed to the sun near the horizon, and said it was dawn, I'd get out a compass. I wouldn't be the least surprised to find it's a an entrapment plot.

no photos of the secret guests

I loved this morning. The early sunlight was such that I was scuttling outside to get some photos. Very interesting light, even if things didn't quite work out the way I liked. Here's a couple for your enjoyment.

This was first thing. I saw the orangey red glow, and got all excited for the possibility of a brilliant sunrise. However it quickly faded to gray. Later on there were some pretty dramatic clouds, but I was busy.

 Just as I was going in I thought the sun behind the evergreen might look pretty nice. I was hoping for a bit more colour.

Every now and then when the light is right, the houses on the opposite side of the green space can look remarkable. This isn't the best example, but it's pretty good. Once I caught the light coming almost perfectly horizontal, so the grass was dark, but the houses were brilliantly light. That was amazing.

After being outside for the photos I settled in with a coffee and tried to write. Some days it's difficult, and writer's block is the least of the problems. There's an iPad under there, somewhere.

Here's a more flattering shot of him.

Amelia, our last cat, was terrified of the vacuum cleaner. As soon as it got into the same room as her, she would panic and bolt for an exit. Curtis and Celina are kind of blase about it. In preparation for our secret guests I ran the vacuum around, chasing dust bunnies. Curtis let me vacuum to within an inch of his paws on the cat condo. I put the vacuum down for a minute while moving things around, and Celina was right there checking it out.

We had a wonderful time with our secret guests. BBQ bison burgers, and lamb burgers, with a Yum Bakery chocolate dessert. Lots of chat, a good time had by all. Sorry, no hints, or they'd have to kill me.

Clean up took no time at all, and we settled into a quiet evening. This wine is about 6 months in the bottle and coming along nicely.

As always, the weekend disappeared in a rush. I'm not sure why the days are going by so quickly. It used to be the work week took forever, and the weekend went quick. Now it seems like I look up and it's time to go home from work, and the week is over before I know it.

Lots of blog buddies are at various training camps, and race results are starting to come in. I was discussing racing this summer with our secret guests, and I'm still not feeling the love. I think it's my cranky legs, and once they feel better, I'll feel more like racing. I hope so.

In the meantime, at least the swim is going well. Maybe there is a proto relay team looking for a semi-respectable swimmer?

So much for that idea, and Boston

Sometimes when stabilizing wine you get an interesting snowfall effect. We've been getting that outside here and we're all sick of it, but in a wine carboy it's really cool. After I stirred, it looked like it would be good, so I set up the camera. If you think of rasberry jam, and were prepared to wait decades for it to settle, that's what you'd see, only in 30 seconds or so. I consider this only marginally interesting, so it will only go up if someone asks for it.

That put me in the mood for it, so I started the iPad watching the snow. I was hoping for a nice snow build up effect, but it stopped. I let it run, and run, and run, hoping it would start again. It didn't so I stopped.

Then I went down for a spin session, and when I came up it had started snowing again. Now it's snowing quite hard, but the light is beginning to fade, so it wouldn't turn out anyways. Sigh. Winter has to end sooner or later. Another month ought to do it.

The spin session was not-sigh. Given what I've been going through with cranky legs I'm pretty pleased. When I got up this morning after a good night's sleep, my legs felt quite a bit better. Curtis supervised me through a morning core session, including some stability plank.

Later this afternoon I was on the bike, feeling quite a bit stronger. After a good warmup the main set had me pedaling about 100 rpm, and just over 200 watts for a minute at a time, with some easy spin in between. I didn't count, but the timing says I did 6 of them. This felt pretty good, though by the end I was beginning to feel it in my legs a bit. Good stretch session after, with a bit of timed plank, 105 seconds.

I've been thinking about Boston a lot this week, and it's still a bit chaotic so I'm going to write about it.

My first sympathies are for the wounded and the families of all the victims. It was a horrible event for all involved. Many of my friends are runners; I know people that have run Boston or would like to. There is a particular poignancy when you think, "that could have been me."

Next, while I love me a good conspiracy theory, I'm not one of those Infowars nut bars, and that's being polite. There are many events in which the American government emerges with red hands, but I'm pretty sure this isn't one of them. If it was an FBI entrapment plot, they'd have been reeled in well before-hand. How do we know? It's happened lots of times before. If it was a plot by some nefarious overseas terrorist group, the death count would have been far larger, due to the greater expertise involved. No, this was a couple of home-grown kids doing something crazy, for some yet unknown reason.

This is going to be sensitive for some people, so take a deep breath. Three people dead, so far, and some dozens losing limbs, and many others with various injuries. It's horrible, no denying it, but not easily preventable, at least not in the semi-free and semi-open society we have now.

In comparison, on average, about 90 people every day, day in, day out, die on American roads. Killed by drunks or those impaired by other intoxicants, speeding, being distracted at just the wrong time, over estimating their skills at coping with bad weather, or just plain stupidity. On top of those killed, there is some larger number of people injured, and all those families that have to cope with the fallout.

Here's the kicker. Almost every single one of those daily 90 auto related deaths and associated injuries is preventable. They didn't need to happen. Where is the outrage? Why don't we care that in a year, we lose a good sized town's worth of people? From an economic point of view, we lose the talents and potential of those people, we lose the injured while they recover, we lose the medical talents of the various medical staff that have to treat them, since the time spent treating these preventable injuries is time that is taken from other medical work. We lose the time taken off work by other workers to care for them. Businesses lose, and the overall economy loses. I'm going to slap anyone that brings up the economic gain of auto body shops, and replacing +30,000 cars a year.

Even more important is the loss to the families. Kids that lose their mom or dad. Parents that lose their children. Families that are ripped apart by a preventable avoidable death.

So yes, I mourn those three that died at the Boston Marathon finish line, and the other cop that was killed tracking down the bombers. I mourn the wounded. It's particularly cruel to see runners losing their legs. I anticipate mourning these people all over again as they get fucked over by the expletive deleted medical insurance companies. Those ghouls should be put out of business. The media won't cover that story.

But I also mourn those 90 daily premature deaths from auto collisions, and statistically there are probably about 9 a day in Canada. I mourn the many killed in gun related violence that is nearly as preventable. If that isn't enough, lets think about all the people killed by America over the past few years, mainly in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, but lots of other places too.  Economic sanctions, direct military action, drone strikes, and a bit of good old fashioned torture on the side. Nobody knows how many have been killed and wounded.

And yes, let's not forget about the American side of these wars, there are lots of service people killed and wounded, to say nothing of those raped or assaulted by their so-called comrades in arms. There are lots of patriotic noises about that, that these people were serving their country. But really they are patsies supporting corporations that make a lot of money out of these conflicts.

All those preventable deaths. There are days I think of the Roman bread and circuses put on by the emperors to distract the populace from the facts of life, mainly that the wealthy didn't pay tax, and brought in slaves to do the work, so there was no work for what we would now call the middle class, which created a gradually failing economy. Eventually the bread and circuses weren't enough, and there were uprisings. Or a horde would sweep into town and sack the place because they couldn't pay the military to keep them out.

The events after Boston certainly qualify as a distracting circus. All the disgusting politicians trying to spin the events to support their own immoral ideology. The people listening to police scanners and tweeting the info. The various police agencies under enormous pressure to find the bad guy(s) RIGHT FUCKING NOW, and having to sort through an enormity of clues. Are these two REALLY the perps, acting by themselves, or are their others supporting them? The media chasing the story, desperate for a scoop, desperate to fill the air time. All of it lapped up by a population eager to be entertained, conditioned to expecting a happy ending in one hour less commercials.

Justin Trudeau got into a bit of trouble over the words "root cause". He didn't phrase himself well, but really, if you want to stop the bombings and the street shootings, you have to look at what the root causes of the violence are. You have to hold a mirror up to your society and look at it warts and all. You have to be willing to discuss the issues like grown ups, and make changes.

The first problem in the USA is that it's being governed by petulant children, and Canada isn't much better at the moment. That makes things difficult, but the brutal fact is that the bombings and shootings and random violence will continue. One can make a bomb out of household materials. The USA is awash in guns, and people willing to sell them to anyone who asks, even if they are foaming at the mouth. Don't even get me started about the recent background check vote.

The second problem is that the innocent suffer, not the politicians and corporate predators that create and enable the conditions that produce bombers and shooters. As long as the ones in charge don't feel the pain, nothing will change. As the immortal George Carlin put it, "They own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

Not quite myself yet

Just feeling blah. Not sick. Just run down and tired. After a long work day Thursday, I came home, ate, and was in bed pretty quickly after.

Today I was up at 4, in the pool by 5, and at my desk by 6:30. It always amazes me how much faster the 25m pool is. Swam 40 minutes, then left as a whole herd of kids were coming in. I think there is a swim meet happening.

The early start finished my work week early. After some errands we slipped out to research house exteriors. Very interesting. Now after supper I'm wondering where the work week went, and why it was in such a rush. Curtis is purring, and I'm ready to call it a day. It's 7:45.

I made an appointment to get my cranky legs assessed next week.

There is a lot I want to say about Boston, but I'm not quite there yet. Look for a rant this weekend.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Diagonal step then 2 steps sideways

This cranky leg thing is getting old. Seriously contemplating getting more detailed medical advice. It seems a long time for what I thought was locked up muscles to unlock and relax. It's been getting better, but still.

Didn't swim today. Yoga though, including plank. There was an interesting move added onto Thread the Needle, where the opposite leg from the tucked arm is lifted up and stretched out, turning it into a balance pose.

I have to include this shot of our weird icicles this morning. No tricks, this is what they really looked like.

The food trucks are out and about, so it must be spring. I met Linda for lunch. Even though I've been working downtown for a few years now, I think this is the first or second time we've done lunch together. It was nice to go for a longer walk than usual. I had a chicken in a fluffy pita with lots of goodies in it, and some Fiasco Gelato.

Afterward we went down to the banned art show in City Hall. This is the one that was making a statement about the pristine wilderness that Enbridge wants to run a pipeline and tanker route through. Somebody made a phone call, and yanked the chain of their pet Alderman, who reared up on her hind legs and declared it was political, so it wasn't allowed to happen at City Hall. Nice touch that. There was a bit of back and forth, and since the show was supposed to close that same day anyways, they let it play out with a few face saving restrictions. I think everybody was happy, the show because it just generated more interest, and the city because it demonstrated they were firm and protecting the interests of their masters and by golly we won't let anyone do that again.

For those that are interested, I think it's dumb to export jobs. We should ante up and build the refinery somewhere reasonably near the source, and ship processed product, not raw bitumen. I know a thing or two about pipelines, and they can be the safest way to move petroleum products. Then can also be somewhat less safe than could be desired, depending on a lot of factors, most of which are well understood. Proper monitering and mitigation processes will go a very long way towards keeping a pipeline out of sight and out of mind for most people.

My big problem is the tankers. They are proposing to send tankers through some of the most storm prone waters on earth, through a long narrow twisty channel to Kitimat. I don't know what they were thinking. Why not Port Rupert, just up the coast a bit, and right on the ocean. I'd scrap the project as long as the pipeline terminal is in Kitimat.

Sure glad I'm not a pro commentator

Over the last several years my blog has evolved from a pure fitness and training related blog, to one where I feel free to talk about whatever pleases me. Occasionally it pleases my readers and that makes all of us happy. But if it doesn't make you happy, that's your problem, not mine. I am not dependent on your happiness for mine.

In many ways I'm a contrarian, believing that the herd is almost always wrong. If it makes the herd happy, it probably won't make me happy. I will cheerfully use that as a rough cut to winnow out lots of crap, accepting that in a few cases, the herd might be right. Since the herd following my blog is very small, I choose to consider all of us outliers from the great unwashed herd.

Look at the stock market. There are people that believe the technical analysis tells the story, that corporate profits and such determine which stocks go up and down. Poor naive fools. There are two things that rule the stock market, fear and greed. People fear to miss a trend and buy in after it's already a trend, which is when it's too late. People get greedy and hang on too long, or bail out too soon to jump to the next hot tip.

Quite a few years ago I happened to be hanging out in a stock broker's office, and got to chatting with a  much older guy. I was a bit startled to learn he was going through bankruptcy proceedings, and had in fact been a real millionaire. Not just on paper, but actually more than $1,000,000 dollars in cash and near cash, back when that was serious money. He made some poor investments and lost it all.

What he had to say about the whole experience was very interesting. He said it wasn't especially hard to make money, but it was harder to keep it. He told me the big difference between us was that even though I had access to more cash, at that moment, than he did, that was all I had. He knew how to become a millionaire again, because he had done it once already. I hadn't.

And he's right, I'm not a millionaire, most of the way through a reasonably productive working life. But then, I never wanted to be especially rich, just comfortable, so I didn't fully apply the things I know perfectly well. Just partially, so I'm only partially a millionaire. I lost track of him after that, and have no idea how his story turned out. Those who don't know how, and want to know how to become a millionaire, leave a comment. Trust me, it doesn't involve lottery tickets or a pyramid scheme. Could I do it, even now, at my advanced age? Oh yes, I'm quite confident. Am I going to? Almost certainly not. I don't need that much money. There's lots of things I know how to do, and don't want to do.

One thing I have noted is that when it comes to the stock market, the crowd is often wrong. The basic trick is to buy cheap and sell dear. If it's cheap, that means the crowd doesn't want it, so you have to have the nerve to buy in, and stay bought in during temporary downturns. I've heard brokers call market downturns the "dummy shake" because it shakes the dummies out of the market.

Most people badly want to be part of the herd. But when you run with the herd you never get the fresh un-trampled grass, and you're always walking through someone else's shit. Which is why I prefer to do things my way. Blogging, for example. "They" say you need to monetize your blog, and have contests, and giveaways to increase readership and promote your brand. Whatever that is. Do you see any ads? You never will. If I talk about a product or a store or a service, it's because I used it, and it worked for me. That doesn't mean it will work for you.

And my brand. I haven't the faintest idea what my brand is. Any hints, anyone? Amuse me, I'd love to know what you think my brand might be, and where it might be applied.

Rest day. Massage day. Those quads and IT band in my left leg still have soreness I didn't find.