88. Ride in a June Critical Mass with Sophie and Holly.

June 26, 2009 (last Friday of the month, as per usual)

My goal was to ride in a June Critical Mass with Holly and Sophie. (June, because June is bike month, and the June CM is the biggest one of the year.) I exceeded my goal by a sister-in-law and a visiting Italian third cousin-in-law. Kristi and Nicola joined us for the ride, and it was great! There were tons of people (my estimate is in the low thousands, although Holly figures it was more like hundreds), the weather was good, and the motorists weren't overtly aggressive. (Except for Ice Cube guy, and he was swiftly corked.) Here's the scene, gathering for the ride at the art gallery downtown...



We were pretty impressed by the fact that, when we were heading north on the Burrard Bridge (we were near the front), we could look over and still see Granville Bridge being taken over by the tail end of the Mass, heading south. Here's a pic of the group coming down the Burrard Bridge, near the end, where it had thinned out signficantly.



We ducked out partway through the ride - it was getting late, and we had to get some food (Nicola's first sushi!) and get Sophie home to bed. It was a great event, and I feel truly fortunate that we have the ability and freedom to do something like that.

14. Swim in Kits pool.

It's somewhat embarrassing, having lived in Kitsilano for six years, and having never gone for a swim in Kits pool. At 137 meters (almost three times the length of an Olypmic pool), it is Canada's longest pool. Add to this the fact that it's Vancouver's only salt water pool, and is situated outdoors right by the ocean and Kits Beach, and this makes for a pretty amazing swimming experience.

Of course, we wouldn't know much about the actual swimming side of things, since we spent all our time shivering in knee-deep water while Sophie went down the little yellow slide over and over again. We had to keep pulling her out when she fell face down in the water, and to keep her from drinking the water. Silly girl.

But still, it was good times. We plan to go again soon.

16. Walk to work at Radical.

As part of a justification for shuffling around my biking to work days, I walked to work on Monday, June 22nd. It took about an hour and 20 minutes.

3. Ride the Dayliner on Vancouver Island.

I lived on the Island for something like 19 years, and I'd only ever taken the Dayliner once, when I was too young to remember. So when we were over on the Island for the annual Father's Day picnic, we seized the opportunity, and took the train from Duncan up to Parksville.

Mom was kind enough to drive the car up, so we could have some time in Parksville (rather than coming home again on the train three hours after we arrived). This meant that Dad and Holly and Sophie and I could take the two hour train ride north. Here's one of Mom's shots of the Duncan train station - in my opinion, the nicest station by far, at least of the ones we saw.



Here are some pics of us on the train. Sophie spent a lot of the time standing on the seat, looking out the window, and at the other passengers. We had a bit of a chat with the conductor, and learned that we were only going around 40 mph (about 65 kph) at our top speed, although the train was rated for 120 mph (about 195 kph). The way we wobbled going around corners, though (especially in the bathroom!), I'm glad we weren't going any faster.





We enjoyed seeing things from a different point of view than the usual highway drive. The scenery varied from dense forest (with branches brushing the train as we went by), to wide open farmland, to a few overpasses and tunnels, to some beautiful rivers. We went right by WildPlay Element Parks (formerly the Bungy Zone), although we didn't see anyone jumping at that moment. We were right near the back of the train, so here's a shot out the back window to finish this post.

18. Climb a tree.

About a month ago, Holly and Kristi and Sophie and I went on a bike ride along the beach, right to the end of the line at Spanish Banks. There's a good little climbing tree there, with easy-to-grab, strong branches that let you climb right up into it - at least to a point. Seems like I've gained a bit of weight since the last time I really climbed a tree, so I didn't try to go as high as I would have liked to, say, 20 years ago. Regardless, it felt great to be in a tree again.

We didn't have our camera with us, but this might be the tree I climbed. I got the image off of Google maps, and it seems to be pointed in the right direction and everything.

Movie review: Knowing

Boooooooooo! BOOOOOOOOOO!

I saw the previews and got all excited. Neat ideas: prophecies, codes, disasters - they could really do some great stuff with this, I thought. Or, alternatively, they could write a terrible story, cast Nicolas Cage as an MIT professor, and turn the whole thing into a ridiculous religious story. Ugh.

It's not often that I walk out of a movie feeling personally intellectually insulted, but I sure did tonight. Boo. [Spoiler alert!] Here's an example of one subplot, paraphrased. Nicolas Cage: "I'm an atheist because I'm bitter about my wife's death. But now there's this piece of paper telling the future, so I'm rethinking all that. And hey, turns out aliens did it, so now I believe in God again! Phew, feels better not being an atheist anymore." WHAT?!? The rest of the plot didn't fare much better.

Slightly redeeming feature: the effects were cool. But I think I heard somewhere that you might just need more than effects, say, an actual STORY to make a good movie. Crazy notion, but maybe one movie companies should be investigating a little more.

All in all, I want my money back. Booooooooooo.