Blink Helmet

Friday I was driving home across the Bay St bridge when I saw a cyclist on the sidewalk. She was on the wrong side of the bridge and looking for a sidewalk to ride on. I watched as she turned around, then lost her balance. She fell backwards off the sidewalk and hit the pavement. Her head then whiplashed down into the pavement and I saw her helmet hit the ground pretty hard.

I was surprised at how quickly it happened. I shouldn’t be that surprised though since I have crashed enough while mountain biking to know that it happens in the blink of an eye.

I pulled over to the side to see if she was alright. Another car stopped behind her so she was effectively blocked in. The other driver and I talked to her for a bit and she was definitely a little wobbly in the knees. I mentioned it would be better for her to sit down until she was feeling better.

A large double decker bus stopped and asked if we needed an ambulance which was turned down by the cyclist. I stayed with her for a few minutes, but she insisted she was fine. I also made sure she had a way to call someone and was glad to hear she had a cell phone in her pack.

As the other driver got up to leave he looked into the road where she landed and retrieved three pieces of foam from her helmet. She hit hard enough to not only crack the helmet, but to actually break parts of it off. Very goo thing she had that helmet on.

Super Break

Tonight’s swim was a bit of a gong show. When I first got in the pool there was only one lane open. There was one other guy in the lane and he was fast. Super fast. I stayed out of his way as much as possible, but then a third person joined our lane. She was slower than I. Now this guy was weaving in between the both of us. Then a fourth person started doing lengths. I hit 600m and gave up at that point. Too much traffic. Too crazy.

The swimming I did do was good though. I swam 200m without stopping, a short break, and then another 200m without stopping. The rest there were a few breaks as I waited for people to be the right distance away.

The hot tub was even a gong show. Some super talkative guy started talking at me after the woman he was talking with left. I immediately saw why she left. He talked and talked and talked about all sorts of random topics without letting me get a word in edge wise. I eventually cut him off saying I had to go then walked away quickly. I just wanted to relax a bit in the warm water. Sheesh.

Mailing Macro

Last week I made a new purchase. A mailing list I was one had someone advertising a used macro lens. I’ve wanted one for a while, so I jumped on the chance. Turned out I had emailed with this person before when I was running a photo club.

I’ve had the lens about a week now and so far I like it a lot. I still need to learn more about macro photography, and to really get a feel for the lens. It also needs a good cleaning. There is something on one of the glass pieces that I am not sure if I want to try and get off myself. I may leave that cleaning to a professional.

Here are some of my first shots. I was suitably amazed by the pictures. I was also very surprised at the low shutter speed needed when close up. A tripod would have been a good idea.


Some bread.


Cutlery


The stucco on our house.


The textured walls in our house.

I’d also hear that macro lenses can make good portrait lenses. So far I would agree.


Swimmers Recover

Last week I swam 650 m. I was pretty happy with that. Throw in that I did the last 150m continuous, and maybe I am seeing some improvements. Weird thing was that as I soaked in the hot tub I bumped into a former co-worker and we chatted for a bit. Then as I left the building I bumped into someone else I know.

This week was similar to last week. I did 650m again, but this time my longest stretch of continuous swimming was 200m or 250m. The lane was pretty busy and I tried to stay out of everyone’s way as much as possible. It was odd that the slow lane I was in had two other pretty fast swimmers in it and the fast lane had a very slow swimmer in it.

The hot tub was nice and relaxing too.

The one thing that I have figured out about swimming is to relax. When breathing I often end up with water in my mouth. During my first few swims when this happened I would panic and inevitably stop swimming to recover. Now I can keep going and recover on my next breath. Sometimes I bump the wall, or the lane markers. This also used to throw me off, but now I can recover mid stroke and keep going. I must be getting better.

Year Things

Today would have been Yoshi’s 12th birthday. Lots can change in a year.

I still think about Yoshi a lot, and I still miss him a lot. Some things really remind me of him. Simple things like the way a dog shakes his/her head, the sighs a dog makes, or even the excited noises a dog makes.

Yoshi was an excitable dog. Start throwing anything for him and he perked up and was happy. Stop throwing and he would get insistent and whiny. It bugged me at the time, but I miss it now.

I am looking forward to having another dog, but I do admit life this summer has been a lot easier not having a dog. There was no need to make arrangements when going away for the weekend, more room to pack with in the car, and the ability to get up and go was nice. Still, I long for that faithful companion. Soon, soon.

Excited Rolling

We looked after Plum for three weeks recently. She is a very sweet Lab/Retriever cross who was very easy to have in our house. She settled in quickly and didn’t seem to mind the chaos that erupted once in a while.

One thing that was interesting about Plum was that she had a couple behaviours that reminded me of Yoshi.

Plum is a protective girl. She barks when she sees something happening outside. She was actually taught that when she is barking to go look for a toy to put in her mouth instead. Seeing her frantically looking around for something, anything, to hold was cute. Often she would head downstairs and grab a dirty sock if she couldn’t find a toy.

Yoshi was like this. Before Elliot and Amy I can remember coming home and he would greet us at the door. If he didn’t have a toy with him he would give out an excited whimper and start looking for one. Sometimes he would come back with something strange like a shoe or a towel. We always kept lots of toys around for Yoshi for this reason. From very young he loved his rope toys. Something in his mouth had a calming influence on him.

The other thing Plum did that reminded me of Yoshi was scratching her face and back in the dried grass. Last summer Yoshi got in the habit of heading outside after eating his dinner. Out in the yard he would rub both sides of his face through the rough scratchy grass. He always looked like he was blissing out when he did this. After the face was thoroughly massage he would drop a shoulder and roll around on his back a bit. Once done rolling he would stand a give a great big shake.

I still miss seeing him shake those ears. I still miss his stubby little tail that seemed to vibrate when he was shaking his ears. I still miss him a lot.

Swim Tub

I swam and played a bit in the water last week while at Sproat Lake, but I didn’t actually swim. My last swim wasn’t so good either.

I decided to head to the pool last night, but as I arrived I saw that the two length swimming lanes were pretty packed (around 7 or 8 people). One guy was even swimming lengths with his son on his back!

I almost bailed on the swim, but went anyway. By the time I got to the pool deck most people had moved on and I was able to share one lane with someone else.

I did a 100m warmup then concentrated on not stopping too much between lengths. The last 100m I did without stopping at all. In total I swam 600m.

I would have liked to retire to the hot tub, but it was closed 🙁 Next week.

The one thing that made the night less enjoyable was the super chatty naked guy soaking in the shower.

Saanich Donkeys

Monday we headed out to the Saanich Fair. It was a gross day. It was cold, wet, and windy, yet we wanted to go anyway. The kids had a bit of fun seeing some of the animals. We same some llama’s, horses, rabbits, chickens, pigs, cows, and donkeys.

Since it was raining so much, I also didn’t bring out my camera to take a lot of pictures.

We also got to go check out the inside of an ambulance. I think the kids liked that the best. Closing in on lunch time we were cold, somewhat wet, and had seen enough. We headed out and grabbed some lunch on the way home.

Sproat Lake Bombers

Last week I was up at Sproat Lake at a cabin my Mom rented for the week. It was a great vacation, and the weather was spectacular the entire week.

We were only a couple doors down from the Water Bomber base and everyday we saw Hawaii Mars out in the lake. We went for a look in their museum, and Sox, Elliot and I went for a tour on Phillipine Mars. What was really interesting about this visit was that
Elliot has a book about the story of Hawaii Mars. The plane is named
Martin in the book. In the book there were lots of other characters based on other base vehicles. Wandering around Elliot and I spied many of the characters in the book. Our tour guide even had a role in the book. It was pretty fun. Here is their website.

On one of our first days there, the base personnel took Hawaii Mars out for a short flight. I never got to see it take off, but they landed right in front of our cabin.

To give a little perspective on how big the plane is, here is the co-pilot sticking out of the front hatch, ready to fasten the plane to a buoy.

These next few pictures are from the tour.

My son standing behind the nose hatch I talked about earlier.

Sox and Elliot in the pilot seat.

The engineers station.

Thumbs up for a good water drop.

Stepping into one of these flying boats is like stepping back in time. I had not expected to see a metal and wood desk. There were two of these. This one was for the navigator, and the other was for the radio operator.

Silly time on the beach.

A few sunset shots.