Random Musings and Nicknacks

Part of the start line for the Cypress Challenge, Photo courtesy Glotman Simpson Cycling

I discovered something this weekend – maintaining an average heart rate of 170 for 49 minutes really takes a lot out of you!

For a change of pace, the friends that I ride with on the weekends decided to enter the Cypress Challenge, a “fun ride” up Cypress mountain (according to my iPhone, a 12 km ride at an average 5.8% grade) to raise money for cancer. I thought this was a great idea, and prepared for it Friday night by staying up way too late watching a movie, having some wine, and having a small dinner. The alarm Saturday morning came way too early – a mere 5 hours after going to bed. This was going to be fun…

I met with my friends, we drove out to Cypress, signed in, and by 8:50 were at the bottom of the mountain (just past the highway exit) surrounded by 200 other cyclists. I figured this would be interesting, I’ve never ridden in a group like this – although that would only last until the real climbing started.

The announcer over the megaphone reminded everyone that this was a fun ride not a race, so you could take your time (everybody laughed – I don’t think you’re allowed to buy a bike unless you have a competitive streak), then he pointed out that we had a local celebrity at the front – Sebastian Salas who has just set the Grouse Grind record at 23 minutes, 48 seconds, so he might be a good wheel to follow up (if you could).

The countdown went … 3 … 2 … 1, the horn sounded, the bikes started to roll, then the woman in front of me couldn’t get clipped in, and was having trouble pedalling. I hadn’t even crossed the official start line, and I was already falling behind!
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Venice Beach

Getting out of LA was nowhere near as simple as one might expect. First off there was the problem of buying gas for the rental car. I drove into a nice looking gas station, swiped my credit card, and it asked to authorize a 75c charge – weird, but I thought OK, said yes, and it asked me for a PIN. I don’t have a PIN for my credit card so I went inside and asked, and was told that they only took cash or bank card. I told the attendant I would pay cash then, and she agreed, and reset the pump. I walked back outside, pushed the cash option, and was told I had to go inside (where I had just been, saying I would pay cash), and prepay. Dumfounded, wondering why she let me walk back out without mentioning this, I said “F*** this place” drove to the station across the street which took credit cards, and swiped my card.

It asked for a zipcode – not a trivial question for a Canuck, and I didn’t see letters on the keypad.
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Grand view over LA – I’m curious if we got lucky, or if the skies are clearer?

Sunday we woke up, barely.

After breakfast we went to Venice Beach – Ling and Tim weren’t sure about going to a beach, but I insisted. This is *the* crazy beach in LA. The one you see in the movies that want to show the young innocent person arriving in LA shocked by how decadent and weird it is. I was really curious – I had looked it up on Trip Adivsor and the reviews were split between “Must see” and something along the lines of “I’m from the mid-west, and while I think I’m relatively forward thinking, this was disgusting and a display of everything that we teach our kids not to do. Nobody should go there”.

How could I resist?

It didn’t disappoint.
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You can’t get more “LA” than this!

Here we were in LA. Moderately rested, and rather suddenly I must admit (the Monday work conversations were interesting – “What did you do on the weekend?” – “Flew to LA” – “Huh?”

We got up the next morning, and immediately hit google to figure out what we were supposed to do now that we were here. Yes, that was another thing we had not gotten around to yet. The majors: Disneyland, Six Flags, Universal Studios, were out – none of us are rollercoaster people, and we didn’t really have the time. So we narrowed down a shortlist, and as proper practitioners of Agile project management, categorized them into the must-haves, nice to haves, want to haves, and if we have times.
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Walking over some of the most famous people in the world

The idea came about on Tuesday: Ling’s sister Lu Yuen was going to be in Los Angeles (she was touring the US on vacation), and maybe we could drive down there for the weekend and visit her. A quick check of the driving distance killed that idea – it was way farther than i remembered. On a whim I decided to look up plane tickets and discovered that not only did we have enough points to get us all down there for free (plus taxes), but when you put it together with a rental car, it would cost less than the gas to drive there and back. Even the timing was perfect – we would fly out Friday at 6:00, and fly back Sunday at 9:00 – so we wouldn’t have to miss work, and we would get two full days in LA! Yeah baby. So we booked the flight (there were four seats left), and forgot about it [1]. Thursday night I remembered that it would be a good idea to book a hotel and a car as well.
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The story is written, and it is coming. I just need to do some editing. This is a teaser

When looking at just about anything that changes regularly, you can divide the world into two groups: traditionalists, who are apoplectic when things change, or pragmatists who recognize and move with changes. Of course there isn’t a clear definition, and in some cases the same person can be a traditionalist in one area, and a pragmatist in another.

Language and writing is one area where this divide is very apparent.

There was on specific aspect of high school and university writing that I remember I hated. It was trying to do citations and how to write a bibliography. I am so glad I don’t have to do that anymore!

And yet, looking back on my writing recently, I realize that I am far more studious about citing my references and research than I have ever been in the past. I just don’t call it a bibliography. I call it a hyperlink.

[This is an article that I've been drafting in my head for a long time, no recent events have led to it. I actually had it written around mid-march, events since then have consistently conspired to leave me feeling like it was an inappropriate time, but I've finally decided I need to increase my post count --ed]

I want you to take a look at the above numbers. Think about them, roll them around in your mind for a bit. Consider that the murders were an all time high for BC, and the traffic fatalities were a six year low (down from 450 the year before).

With that thought in your mind, I ask this: why was there a public outcry every time one of those 53 people were shot, but nary a peep when any of those 350 were killed by a car – which is more likely to happen to the average person on the street?

There is something about our society that trivializes the act of killing somebody with a vehicle. Even the term we use — accident — trivializes it. The term “accident” for a vehicle collision is one that I wholly and completely reject.
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How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad… 23 years ago

One interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next Generation—one that separated it from the original series and most of the early films—was its widespread use of smooth, flat, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-D. This touch interface was also used for numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices. These mobile computing terminals bear a striking resemblance to Apple’s iPad—a mobile computing device largely defined by its smooth, flat touchscreen interface.

Again, the entire article is well worth a read, they went back and interviewed the people who designed the NCC-1701 and NCC-1701D bridges [1].

[1] And I can’t believe I remember those callsigns off the top of my head

My favourite science site (and by science I mean everything – technology, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, you name it) has been doing a long running series on the history of our reactions to new technology, and demonstrating how little attitudes change.

Their latest entry is looking at how telephone etiquette has been defined through the decades

Well worth a read, my favourite quote:

Some local phone companies even pushed for, and won, city laws making profanity in phone conversation a finable or jailable offense.