The 100 Plan

Today's personal training session with Lisa featured two things. One, that she's taking the month of August off, and two, since it'll be about five weeks before I see her next, that I get to do the "100 Plan".

The 100 plan is deviously good. You start small and work your way up. To wit, my new regime is:

• 10 standing bent over rows
• 10 ab crunches on the exercise ball
• 10 chest presses on the bench
• 10 squats on the leg squat machine

Repeat 5 times, or a total of 50 each.

Each week, add 2 repetitions to each individual exercise (i.e. 12, 14, 16, 18, 20). By the last week in August, I'll be doing five rounds of 20 each, or 100 of each per workout.

Scary. Cool. Very cool.

The 2007 Vancouver Folk Music Festival

After a week of being on the Sunshine Coast on a lovely vacation, we returned just in time to spend Saturday and Sunday at the Vancouver International Folk Festival.

The Saturday was amazingly hot and I managed not to get burned, but I sure did get a lot of colour... Sunday was nicely overcast and being right by the water, it was lovely and cool.

I have to freely admit that while I always have a good time at the Folk Fest, pretty much none of the artists at the show are on my normal music radar. The music they play there is the kind that is really enjoyable live, especially when two or three different bands/artists are in a collaboratory set and jam together, but for the most part doesn't really translate well as something you'd listen to at home. In part it's because at a concert venue, you're actively engaged with the artist and the music, but at home music is often relegated to the background.

My wife had a lovely definition for folk music, that goes something like this: folk music is music that is consumed by the people who create it. It's a lovely definition that works on several levels.

I was talking to one of my good friends who has been volunteering at the Folk Fest for over a decade now about how the festival runs and learned some interesting things. For instance, the festival does not pay its performers (one of the few if not only major festivals in North America to do so), and as such, they usually don't know until about May what the final lineup will be. Hence why, unlike say Mission or other festivals, they don't post the schedule/lineup until June. Of course, the few "big name" groups/artists are usually booked as much as a year in advance, but until the whole lineup is known, the schedule can't be published.

Anyways, to cut to the chase, I had a lot of fun at the festival this year, and we bought three CDs:

• The Carolina Chocolate Drops: old time music from North Carolina. Fiddle, banjo, percussion, and very fun.
  
• Tapia eta Leturia: a Basque ensemble encompassing accordion, fiddle, keyboard, and tambourine. The tambourine player is unnatural - I've never heard or seen it played like that before. Has to be seen to be believed.
• Ndidi Onukwulu: This fine Torontonian has an amazing voice and an incredibly fun stage presence. She spans all manner of genres, and has endless energy.

Progress

My personal trainer has been working with me for about four months now - we meet every three weeks or so, which has felt like the right amount of time. She refreshes my workout plan, and then I execute the plan just long enough to feel comfortable with it and ... I do something else.

So what's the prognosis so far?

Pretty good I have to say. When I started, I was doing an indoor cycling class twice a week. Now I'm still doing that but adding two Lisa-designed workouts, and now that the weather is finally nice, I'm cycling once a week - if only to prepare for the 60km Ride for MS in mid-August.

So let's see... in four months I have...

• distinctly improved my overall fitness level.
  
• distinctly improved my posture.
• strengthened my back and abs (those core muscles you always hear about).
• almost doubled the weight I can lift/push/press/pull around the weight room.

One thing that has not been cooperative is the scale. While I've lost a little over twelve pounds so far, it's definitely been a case of three steps forward, two steps back. Averaged out, it's a little over half a pound a week. While I know logically that losing weight and more importantly, keeping it off, is a long and laborious process, emotionally it can get quite frustrating. And as someone whose reaction to stress or feeling blue is reaching for the munchies...

However, onward and upward - all progress is good! It's summer and fresh fruit and veggies about, and I'm getting enough sleep and sunshine to get me to the gym four times a week, and that's all very positive for me indeed.

My current workout, for anyone interested is...

• Three sets of 8 each on the rowing, chest press, and hamstring curl machines.
• Three sets of 12 each lunges with weights (front, back, and side), or 108 in all.
• Between all of those, in sets of three to coincide with above, crunches and obliques working out to about 115 crunches and 120 obliques all told.

In under an hour.

I'm looking forward to what Lisa has planned for me next time.

Red Burrito

I'd heard good things in passing about Red Burrito, on the southwest corner of Commercial and 1st in Vancouver, but finally had the chance to try it out today.

There's a joke about fast food that you can choose any two of fast, good, and cheap. Red Burrito is a place where you get all three.

The place is small, but very functional. Lots of nice small bar height tables as well as eating bars along the windows.

The service is excellent - the two people behind the counter worked harder than the entire line in any fast food place you'd care to name.

The menu is nice and simple too - burrito & burrito fajita (with peppers and onions instead of beans) are the main two items. They also had taco bowl salads and a couple other items.

In order to keep their business model simple, what you pay depends on the meat you choose. You make your choice of item, decide which meat you want (chicken, beef, veggie, etc), and then you get your toppings/fillings.

And how is the food? Excellent. I had a burrito fajita with chicken and guacamole (extra charge for guac - and here a sidebar rhetorical question: why is guacamole always extra? It's not like avocados are that expensive). It was very big and left me quite stuffed.

Ambience: 3/5
Service: 4/5
Food: 7/10
Price: $

Total score: 14/20

Nerd Games

I've been an avid board gamer for over a quarter century. I played the usual games when I was young, my dad introduced me to chess when I was only three or four, and when I was a kid Monopoly and Risk and Clue were the games that ruled my household.

Then in 1980, I discovered Dungeons & Dragons (the old Basic set in red and the added Expert set in blue), and not long after moved to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. That was also the year I was introduced to Ogre and it's been an unrelenting succession of board, war, and role-playing games ever since.

The other day I was in Imperial Hobbies in Richmond buying Chicken Cha Cha Cha for my daughter to try out, and the guy behind the counter made a comment about getting kids hooked on "nerd games". I thought that was a great term.

Over the decades, my interest in games and gaming has waxed and waned to various degrees. At the moment, it's in a waxing state - for the past six weeks I've had a lot of board games hit the table. Hopefully that will continue all summer.

Organic vs Local

It's been in the news a lot lately.

Now that "organic" groceries have become "mainstream", more and more companies are busy slapping the organic label on their products. A lot of the time, those same products come in conveniently pre-portioned pre-wrapped pre-packaged portions; let's also not forget that they come from thousands of kilometers away too.

As much as I disdain the "100 mile diet", the authors have a good point, one that I still think Nabhan is better at making, that you should know where your food comes from.

It makes no sense to buy "organic" strawberries from Mexico, when conventionally grown local ones are available.

Here's something the pro-organics movement doesn't want you to know - farmers hate using pesticides. You know why? Because it's expensive. Even when they do spray, they use as little as possible to keep expenses down.

My local farmer's market had a survey last summer and people overwhelmingly said they wanted to see more organic produce at the market. I don't. I want to see stuff I can't get at Safeway, and stuff that's fresh. Organic doesn't really matter to me.

So here's a radical idea - buy local produce. Don't worry about the organic label (but hey, if you prefer and can afford "organic", great - go for it).

The truth is that if it's local fresh and seasonal, it'll taste better than that imported from Mexico organic stuff.

Facebook

I recently was invited to join Facebook by a friend of mine, and I decided I'd give it a try.

Like most new users, I quickly invited everyone I knew, checked to see if some old lost friends and acquaintances were "out there" and experienced some of the obsessive-compulsive feelings I had when I was a kid collecting hockey cards. Look at how many friends I have! Collect them all!

But Facebook has a bit of a darker side too. I scoffed when my friend quipped that he refused to sign up because he didn't want to be on it when the stalkers came, but now I'm reconsidering that. My boss joined a work related group, and quickly jumped off because he didn't want to read all the rants and negative comments some people were leaving. (Making comments about your workplace online in a public medium is naive at best). I've had colleagues who I don't really know, except that they're on the employee roster, add me as friends.

My wife is on Facebook and she told me to make sure to check my privacy settings. I've pretty much locked my profile down, and I've even limited a bunch of people to only have access to my limited profile. I think though that what will ultimately happen is I'll be dropping people - the acid test will be, "would I invite this person over for dinner?"

If my answer is no... poof!

A Random Haiku

My poppies are in bloom in my garden (and I saw fields of them at van Dusen Gardens last weekend), and while I was at home today, this popped into my head.

Orchid's only rival
Poppy's red origami
Blooms make me happy

Phases of a Thesis

Tell me why I want to do thesis papers again?

My darling wife, who's been through both a MS and a PhD, told me that by asking that question I was at the "it looks like an insurmountable peak" stage.

I asked what the other stages were.

Apparently, next comes the "work like a demon" stage, followed by the "I don't care anymore" stage.

The weirdest one is the "I can't believe I got away with that" stage. That's the one that happens after convocation.

In between the "I don't care anymore" and the "I can't believe I got away with that" stages comes the "I'm too blotto to form sentences stage"...

... that's the one that happens after a successful defense.

I have lots of good wine in my cellar for that!

Fencing

No, not the fancy footwork kind with epee or rapier, the more banal kind with posts and cedar panels with latticework.

When we bought our place in 2003, the fence was given "a couple more years" by our realtor. Our neighbours to the north who own several properties in the neighborhood concurred.

Over the winter, our fence finally showed its age and one of the board kept popping out of its panel. I finally did some makeshift repairs to hold that in, which prompted the stress on the fence to show in another place and soon the side was sagging and looking disorderly.

We conveniently had a Home Depot flyer in our newspaper back in April that said they would come and give us a free quote, remove the old fence and dispose of it and then install the new one.

A brief digression - we have debated many a time to push the fence out closer to the sidewalk, but several things made us decide to replace the fence exactly in place:

• the Telus box that was in front of our fence was nice and small, but in February Telus came and replaced it with a huge box (for Telus TV among other things) about three times the size, which meant any previous plans for fencing around it would have to be redone.
• we would have had to move the garden over.
• any space we'd gain would not really be a net benefit. Notwithstanding that we have essentially a postage stamp sized back yard, we have several parks and playgrounds close to us, including one literally half a dozen houses down the alley, so any theory that the back yard would be a good play space for our daughter would not be fulfilled.
  

So we had AIM Cedar Works come out and give us a quote. We were technically too small a project (they wanted a minimum 60' of fence, ours was 54'), but they said they would do it anyways, and gave us a quote. 10% off if we booked by the end of April.

Well, we thought about doing it ourselves, but the price was very reasonable (much lower than we expected) so we booked it.

Yesterday, they came and installed the fence. It took them all day, as they hit a snag. The owner before the one we bought the place from had poured concrete in the back yard (torn out by the previous owner, and further reclaimed with a grass installation last year by us), which meant they had to jackhammer out and dig a trench to remove the gate posts. Lesson learned, aside from relief that we'd hired professionals, was that it's easier to install a new fence from scratch than to replace an old one.

The new fence is a thing of beauty. The old one was 4' tall and had a bracework of crossed bamboo poles for the Japanese hops we had to create privacy in our back yard. However, the hops are aggressive plants that in the spring grow as much as 6" a day or more, and further go to seed in the fall and die off until the spring, so there's always a mess to fix.

The new fence is 5' tall, and it's just the right balance between giving us more back yard privacy and less maintenance. I expect more back yard time this summer.

As a final comment - AIM Cedar Works rocks - they came when they said they were going to, did a great job of removal of the old fence, installing the new one, and cleaning up before they left. On time, professionally done, and on budget. I would happily recommend them to anyone.

$1.234

I bought my fuel efficient Tercel in 1998. At the time gas was $0.399/litre for regular gas.

Yesterday, I filled up and the price was $1.234/litre. It cost $42 to fill up, the most I've paid for a fill up on my car since I've owned it.

I'm glad I have a gas sipper rather than a gas guzzler!

Missing the Point - Incandescent Bulbs

The minister did not reply to me, but my MP did. Her reply was:

Thanks for your message about the proposed phase-out of incandescent lightbulbs.

The most common replacement for incandescent bulbs currently is the use of Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs). I recognize this is not always the perfect replacement for the phasing out of incandescents though.

I also want you to know that Paul Dewar’s Bill to phase out incandescent lightbulbs, as it is being drafted, does not specifically recommend the replacement of incandescents with CFLs. We recognize the new technology is being developed all the time, and hopefully we will soon have a solution that addresses all our concerns.

The phasing out of incandescent light bulbs is one of many alternatives that can help place Canada on the path towards ensuring environmental security and sustainability.

Thanks again for taking the time to write and share your concerns.

Sincerely,

Libby Davies

I did send a reply:

Dear Libby,

With all due respect, the point I was making, and which bears repeating, is that banning incandescent bulbs does not generate a desired result.

If the desired result is to reduce the power consumption of light bulbs, then the answer is NOT "let's ban incandescents", but rather "light bulbs must not consume more than x watts per y lumens".

To once again use the example of California, they did not ban internal combustion engines, instead they set emission standards.

THAT is what I am advocating our government do.

So don't ban incandescent bulbs, set power consumption standards. THAT will achieve the stated goal.

Thank you.

Will keep all y'all posted...

Risty's Redux

When I first moved to Vancouver back in 1998, I took a lovely one bedroom apartment in Marpole. It's a great neighborhood and between 64th and say 72nd on Granville, you can find pretty much everything you need - doctors, dentists, banks, grocery and produce stores, and last but surely not least, restaurants.

One of my first pleasant discoveries was a classic family diner called Risty's. It became one of my regular haunts and I'd go there at least once a week. Even after I moved near the Drive, since I worked in Richmond, a former colleague and I would go there regularly for lunch.

A couple of years ago, the family who'd owned it when I first moved into town sold it. The new owners were very nice, and the food was every bit as good. They even kept the original menu.

However, and this is not meant in an unkind way, the new owners had, for the kind of restaurant it was, poor English. I have countless times been in eateries in Richmond like at the food court Yaohan Centre where I've pointed at what I want, or been to a hole-in-the wall place where I've had the opportunity use what few phrases of Cantonese I know to order dim sum.

But for a classic diner, a burger and fries place with endless coffee, where the regulars are as white as the Wonder bread they make toast with, having to point to the menu to order a club sandwich is bad for business.

For me, having been a regular since 1998, loving the food, and being a little more flexible about language barriers, I was willing to put up with the minor inconveniences. However, as time went on, I did see fewer regulars, and for that matter, business seemed to be slow.

Just recently, someone else bought the restaurant, and they've now been open for a couple of weeks. Today was the first chance I'd had of going there.

The new owners, as with the previous two sets, are also Asian, but speak flawless English. Hopefully word gets around and business builds back up quickly.

Little seems to have changed at Risty's in terms of decor, which probably hasn't changed since the ... 60's? 70's? Certainly unchanged since 1998!

The menu has changed though. Gone are the salads, which were always a weak spot in the line up, and sadly, gone are many of the breakfast options (like the Denver hash and the famous Risty's omelette!). However, they have streamlined the menu and played to their strengths. A strong lineup of sandwiches and burgers, including the new "super burger" that has cheese, mushrooms, bacon, and... a fried egg. The soups are still home made and delicious.

The service was diner efficient - never did my coffee cup see its bottom, and the food was fabulous - hot, fresh, well prepared.

Risty's still strongly recommended by me!

Ratings:
Service: 4/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Food: 8/10
Price: $

Score: 15/20

Kal Tire

I take my car for routine service to the Toyota dealership, and I have nothing but nice things to say about how well my car runs and the service I've had there.

But for little things, the Kal Tire near my office is ideal.

Last fall, I managed to get a flat tire, and the Kal Tire folks fixed it for free (under the Michelin warranty), even though they didn't sell me the tires.

Today, I drove in to replace the dead headlight bulb, and again, no charge for the installation, only the bulb.

They'll definitely be getting my business when I finally get around to replacing my shocks and struts...

On the Stupidity of Banning Incandescent Bulbs

This morning's Globe & Mail (online) had the following headline - "Ottawa Moves to Ban Incandescent Lights"

I will spare you the diatribe, and instead share the letter I wrote to the right honorable John Baird, minister of the environment. Please write him too!

Dear Mr. Baird,

I am writing to you about the government's announcement that it intends to ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012.

While I am all for conserving energy, the specifics of the ban are highly problematic.

It would be far more reasonable and progressive to instead require that light bulbs, regardless of type, produce a certain level of light per watt. While this won't get you the same spectacular headlines as "Ottawa Moves to Ban Incandescent Lights", it will solve the problem.

As a convenient example, GE recently introduced something they call a high-efficiency incandescent bulb, and according to their press release "[t]he target for these bulbs at initial production is to be nearly twice as efficient, at 30 lumens-per-Watt, as current incandescent bulbs. Ultimately the high efficiency lamp (HEI) technology is expected to be about four times as efficient as current incandescent bulbs and comparable to CFL bulbs." GE has set their target to be 2010 for these bulbs. I'm sure other companies are working on similar ideas.

It seems that it should be possible in the forseeable future to have incandescent bulbs that are, for the purposes of reducing energy consumption, on even par with the current crop of compact fluorescent bulbs.

The government's role is not to ban certain kinds of goods, but to set the standards by which manufacturers will compete. Just as California has demonstrated that stringent emissions standards will cause manufacturers to innovate and create more fuel efficient vehicles, hybrids, and electric cars, this is an opportunity for your government to show environmental leadership and encourage technological innovation.

Thank you.

I'll let you know if I hear back...

Tosca!

If ever one were to say to oneself, "I'd like to see a good opera, one that would definitely let me decide if it's something I might like", then one need do little more than to go see the current staging of Tosca put on by the Vancouver Opera.

Even the usually critical reviewer from the Vancouver Sun called it a "tour de force".

In its splendid season-closing production, Vancouver Opera gives us the goods with this nasty thriller, set in a stunning stage design from the Milan-based Scenographie Sormani-Cardaropoli, which is spacious but feels close with dread.

Cynthia Lawrence, a soprano praised for her work in this role at the Met, is the real deal. She is fiery in a plot that is fueled by Tosca's jealousy, yet in her one great aria, Vissi d'arte, raptly removed and soliloquy-like with a feeling of being intensely caught up in a world not of her making.

This is tremendously difficult to sing, holding the high notes dramatically and for a long time, as Puccini wanted, then making a proper diminuendo -- also observing most of the grace notes, showing a firm cleanness on the marcato notes and a focus in the lower half of the voice. It was all there and thrilling to hear.

Singing actors is what Tosca must have or it's just a recital. There isn't a less than fine voice in the cast or one singer who doesn't act persuasively and naturally.

The Italian tenor Renzo Zulian as Cavaradozzi was impressive just minutes into the opera with an effortless Recondita armonia, though he didn't start it softly. He much later gave an even finer E Lucevan le stelle with fine control, power and resonance at the climax and the image of a man lost in reflection.

That's two of the three leads, which we saw early, inviting speculation as to what Scarpia would be like. And he, baritone Yalun Zhang, was wonderful too, applying extra weight to his voice to suggest bestial authority. He was very firm and consistent, though he might have changed his tone at key places to show that Scarpia can also be mellifluous and oily to get what he wants. This would only have enhanced the sense of his loathsomeness once the gloves come off.

But what a production. The minor parts were cut from the same cloth as the leads: Nicolae Raiciu as the sacristan, John Arsenault's Spoletta and John Conlon's Sciarrone.

Act II, where Scarpia interrogates Tosca, was a killer: suspenseful, dire with atmosphere and top lighting that made Scarpia look very sinister. Director Stanley Garner spares nothing and it's just what it should be. For once there's no hokiness to the moment when Tosca hurls herself from the parapets. She falls backwards, letting gravity do its work.

The chorus is terrific too, and conductor Robert Tweten gets nothing but beautiful playing from the Vancouver Opera Orchestra.

This is a dream closing for an opera company, something that should get the subscriptions going for next year.

My New Macbook

My new Macbook arrived yesterday, and I have a few first impressions I thought I'd share.

First, for the propeller heads, I got the white Macbook with the 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Intel processor, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive - in other words, I took all the default options. ALso comes with built in iSight camera, Bluetooth, wireless, firewire, USB, and a DVD burner. Full specs at the Apple site.

Second, I bought a Macbook both to complement my iMac and to have available to take with me wherever I go so I can work on my thesis papers. It will also allow me to surf the internet when my wife is using the iMac.

I would have bought a refurbished one because they're cheaper, but since none were available when I ordered, I used my student discount (there are some perks to being a grad student).

In strictly aesthetic terms, the laptop is very attractive. The white housing is made of a slightly opalescent hard plastic that looks like it will be quite durable. The unit is very light (a bonus for carrying around), and small - less than an inch thick! The 13.3" screen doesn't feel small and looks great.

One of the things Apple does well is think about what their end users need and therefore they put a lot of effort into design. The keyboard has a really nice tactile feel to it, and the touchpad is pretty nice although I prefer using an external mouse. Speaking of mice, Apple still uses the single button mouse concept in its design, so the touchpad only has a single button. Since I use a two button scroll-wheel mouse on the iMac, I'll be using one with the laptop whenever reasonable.

A cute and useful design feature is that the power cord connects with a magnetic clip - if the power cord is tripped over, it'll merely pull off without either destroying the power connection or hauling the laptop to the floor. Another nice touch is that there's an AC extension cord for the power adapter, although it requires pulling out the flip down power plug, which I could see losing.

The pleasant surprise came when I turned the laptop on. During the inital "welcome to your new Mac" process, it asked me if I had and existing Mac and if so if I wanted to synch it up with my current one. Well, yeah!

A few minutes later, after borrowing my existing iSight's firewire cable, my Macbook was busily transferring everything over from my iMac - applications, user accounts, music, photos, etc. This is the point where I discovered that I should have spent the extra money on a slightly larger hard drive. Once the initial transfer was complete about two hours later, I had to do some judicious file editing and another synch to get the rest of my applications over. On the other hand, there was a lot of data transferred over that I just don't need on my laptop! In the end, I have about 10G usable left on my 80G drive.

However, since the laptop was now synched and everything was transferred over, it behaves exactly like my desktop does and I didn't have to set up any preferences since that work was done a long time ago on the iMac.

On the whole, I'm very pleased with my purchase, and I think I'll be getting a lot of mileage out of the new laptop. All I need now is for the iSkin laptop case to arrive (UPS says tomorrow).

Feeling Great

I mentioned about a month ago that I was going to work on my fitness goals, and I'm pleased to report that things are going well. Down 11lbs so far in about six weeks, only 24 more to go to where I was two years ago, and then a lot more to where I was nine years ago. Go me!

I decided not to do MetSyn and instead leveraged my membership at the YWCA since it's a first class facility and more importantly, easy for me to get to and from home given the other constraints that real life has for me, like the commute to work, day care, etc. So now in addition to my two spin classes, I've added two mornings of weights. This might become three times a week, although once the weather improves and more importantly, the sun rises early enough, I'll be cycling on weekends again.

I've been working with the absolutely brilliant, talented, and fabulous Lisa Wagner and she has put together a cracking workout for me. This morning while I we were chatting she was talking about her long term plan for my fitness goals and said she would start me on a program where, I would do "100 pushups, 100 crunches, 100 rows, and 100 step-ups, in an hour, and we'll start on that in about, hmmm... 4... 5..." and in the pause I inserted "months?"

"Weeks," was her reply.

Fantastic.

Luther Wright & the Wrongs

I like a wide variety of music, and what's in vogue on my iPod varies on my mood.

Recently, I was over playing board games at a buddy's place and he puts on an album called Rebuild The Wall by Luther Wright & the Wrongs.

If you liked Pink Floyd's The Wall, imagine it done by a very talented bunch of country & bluegrass folks.

It's both really good and really funny at the same time. Y'all.

Playing With Numbers

It's tax time, or will be soon, and so I've been collecting my stack of information slips.

One of the benefits I have at my company is an employee stock purchase plan. Similar to many companies, the company I work for allows employees to contribute some chunk of their base salary into a fund that is then spent quarterly buying stock for us at a 15% discount.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I sell my shares pretty much as soon as I can. It's usually 5-10 business days from the date of the stock purchase to the time it's in my stock account and accessible to me, so in the interim, the price has fluctuated somewhat.

Now, as everybody knows, when you sell a stock, you're taxed on the capital gains; but here's where the fun with numbers begins.

To contrive the example with nice round numbers, I bought something worth $100 for only $85, but paid income tax on the $15 difference, so the asset, from the tax man's point of view, is $100.

Thanks to this little peculiarity, on paper, for tax purposes, I almost lost money in 2006 on the stock market.

Financial math really appears like voodoo sometimes.