800km and a Fountain

Went to Holy Smoke BBQ tonight and passed the 800km on 12th Ave by Centennial Park.  Centennial Park now has some cool fountains, so I pulled over and made this my 800km shot.

New Music from Charlie Peacock

New music from Charlie Peacock. Stream from the above widget or download in exchange for your email and postal code.

While Charlie is probably best known as the producer behind Switchfoot, I always think of his quirky pop/jazz debut album Lie Down in the Grass from 1984.  Listening to it now, I can pick out various stylistic influences, but in the mid 80s surrounded by Thriller Mania, Peacock was a truly exotic revelation.  

Enjoy!

- Peace

Mr. Rogers Auto-Tuned

"Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind?" - Mr. Rogers.

700km and some thoughts

Had hoped to hit 700km before heading to Europe at the end of June, but it didn't happen. Jet lag and personal drama delayed this mark on getting back.

Been getting out and riding the last couple of days and hit the 700km mark while running an errand.

Would like to say that I should hit 1000km by the end of Aug, but Kim and I have been hit with epic colds. So we'll see.

- Peace

No Longer with Shaw

Last week the Practice Leadership Team was disbanded and the two remaining members (myself and the BA PL) laid-off from Shaw. It came as quite a shock. I have some theories on what happened, but nothing simple enough for a blog post.  The FB relationship status of "Its complicated" probably covers it.

Thank you to everyone from Shaw who reached out to me after hearing the news.  Your support was amazing and deeply appreciated.

Trying to figure out what's next. What mix of writing code and helping other people write code is appropriate for me, while still being viable in the market place? That's the question.

Will update when I land somewhere.

- Peace

Europe as Seen from my Phone

Kim and I did just over three weeks in Europe to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. I choose not to take the laptop along. I took the SLR and shot over 11,000 pictures :) But without the laptop I couldn't post any of them. For on the road posting I relied on my Galaxy Nexus. I was impressed with what the phone could do and really enjoyed using it for my picture of the day while traveling.

Other than posting on the road, the laptop is also how I've kept from needing to buy a bunch of SD cards.  I picked up a ColorSpace from HyperDrive and put an 250 GB SSD in it.   Wasn't worried about speed, but figured an SSD could take the bumps of traveling better than a traditional drive and would go easier on the battery.  Worked like a charm.  Looks like I got one of the last ones as it's not listed on their main web page anymore.

BTW Wired had a post today Stop Arguing About Instagram and Go Make a Picture about embracing the iphone as a tool for photography.

- Peace

Construction at 600km

Hit the 600km mark on Friday. That leaves less than a week to make the 700km mark before we leave for Europe.

The 600km mark overlapped with the 500km mark.  I could have taken another shot of the block house.

- Peace

500 km Recap

Hit the 500km mark on the way home tonight. While I've been taking a picture every 100km and posting to Flickr I haven't been blogging the 100km marks. So here's the recap:

Hit the 100km mark in Vancouver at the end of April. Shot is of Jericho Beach.


Hit the 200km mark in May while riding around the Glenmore Reservoir with the Hills.

Hit the 300km mark on June 2nd while riding Goat Creek. To be honest that shot is from about the 302km mark, I missed taking at shot at exactly 300km. Something about coming down the path at almost 50km/h.
 

Hit the 400km mark last week while riding between the office in the NE and downtown office.


So that brings me to hitting the 500km mark tonight. 500km puts me at 20% of my 2012 Goal of 2500km. Hoping to hit the 700km mark before we head to Europe for most of July. Will be lucky to hit the 800km mark by the end of July. So that leaves 1700km for Aug - Dec or 340 km a month. More than doable, but I'll have to do better than I've done at the start of this year, and after three weeks off I'll be almost starting from scratch. Oh well what's the point of goal if it doesn't challenge?

- Peace

Goat Creek was Amazing

Rode Goat Creek trail on June 2nd.  Been doing that since at least 2005 but a few things made this year standout.

Had 16 riders, so one of the largest groups ever.

Had our youngest riders, two 10 year olds and 8 year old made the entire 45 km ride.  Previous record was Amy when she was 14.

Paul lost a steel water bottle.  It bounced out of his panier while coming down the first part of the trail.  He mentioned it to riders going up Goat Creek and asked if they found it if they would put it with his van at the trail head.  It was on the windshield when we go there.  Thank you fellow riders.

We dodged the rain.  Weather forecast for the day wan't good.  There was some heavy mist when we started out, but it never got beyond a light rain.  It cleared up after the first 9km.  We saw some very scary dark clouds while in Banff, but we just got the edge of it and the clouds headed back where we had come from.  The path back to Canmore had some puddles but we had sun and a tail wind most of the way back.  We normally have good weather, but this year's close call was very dramatic.

Really enjoyed the Iron Goat afterwards.  Our first time there.  We had a private room for our group and the hockey fans got to watch the game.  The duck wings were fantastic, as were the ribs.  I'd avoid the fries (regular or yam)  not that they were bad, but they didn't compare well with the rest of the excellent food.  Our friends who need a gluten free menu were very impressed with the variety of choices the Iron Goat had for them.

I'm continuing to add pictures to my Goat Creek June 2012 set on flickr.

- Peace