MrPutter like Fritos; MrPutter like Tab and Mountain Dew
Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Sean Nichols" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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04:32 pm
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So we will share this road we walk / And mind our mouths and beware our talk
Easter Mousse Eggs
For my parents, who arrive tonight to stay for a day, before they're off to Morocco.
I thought this was a great, original idea when I first thought of it. A 10-second Google search quickly corrected any delusions of originality. But I still like the idea.
Current Location: T2M 4E6
Current Mood:  blank
Current Music: The Kinks -- Strangers
Tags: food
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04:24 am
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So steer a course, a course for nowhere / And drop the anchor, my little empire
So when I  last posted, I closed out December with an eye on 2012, making the epigraph: "I can't wait for this next year to begin."
Some words are meant to be eaten.
So far, inasmuch as I'm concerned, 2012 can go die in a fire. Nothing much good has happened in my life, and it's mostly been a whole lot of shyte.
But I'm not here to talk about that: enough of 2012. Instead let us fast-forward four years to 2016. Specifically, May 1st, 2016. 50 months from today a few days ago (when I, *ahem*, started composing this post).
In the aforementioned missive in which I bid adieu to 2011, I promised an expansion on my plans to bike across Russia. The same plans that have been idling away on the back burner of "yeah, yeah, I'll get around to that someday" for a good FOURTEEN YEARS now.
Seriously, I hatched this plan shortly following my cross-Canada bike trip in the fall of 1997: for a length of time that's rapidly approaching half of my life, I've been planning to do this, but only in a time frame no more definite than "sometime before I die."
Well, no more*:
I has a plan! It's a nice long 5-year plan, but hey. And there's admittedly a lot of stuff at the end of said 5 years, and not so much at the beginning. But the part at the beginning is proceeding apace. Also as of a couple of days ago — precisely 10% of the way into that big green bar titled "Save Money" — I put the 5000th dollar into my specal bank account that I've set up for this, right on schedule. So by early 2016 I should have $50k (plus interest, but with interest rates at approximately zero, I'm not really paying much attention to that.)
With any luck, all that other stuff will happen according to schedule as well.
So come May 1st 2016, I embark on the red section of that Gantt chart, otherwise known as the "fun part":
(click for full-size Google map)
My plan has always been to start in the east, at Владивосток, and move west towards Europe. That way I get past all the difficult parts — with hundreds of km between towns and  potentially unfinished highways and local politicians demanding bribes to "expedite" the processing of infractions of made-up-on-the-spot regulations and god knows what other obstacles — first, while I still have flexibility in both my budget and schedule.
Going across Canada west→east, then South America east→west has pretty much confirmed that this is the wrong way of doing it, and I'm sure I will regret it, but shrug. We'll see.
So ANYway, 14,473km later (according to Google, with a bit of manual tweaking where I know it's on crack, or is taking me via routes I don't really want to take), I end up in Portugal's  Douro Valley, where I sure hope I will have enough unspent money left to gorge on some delicious, delicious port. (Russia's wine offerings I expect to be... underwhelming... compared to Chile's and Argentina's.)
14-and-a-half-thousand kilometres, at a rate of 80km a day, gives almost exactly 6 months. I'm sure I will be doing less than that at first, but hopefully a fair bit more once I really get into things. That has been my experience on the bike trips I've done in the past, anyway. And as always, I can always take the bus if I start falling behind; especially once I get into Europe. That 6-month schedule gets me to Budapest and then southern Europe, which is to say, warmer climes, by mid-September before the potentially cold weather sets in.
At any rate: 6 months later, after blowing whatever remains of my budget on Port, I guess I come home.
And, uh. Start planning for how I'm going to bike the Pan-American Highway. (Prudhoe Bay, AK to the Tierra del Fuego, baby!)
In the meantime, all I gotta do is figure out what I'ma do with my two antisocial cats for six months.
* After all, I've always said I  hoped I died before I got old.
Current Location: T2N 1Y9
Current Mood:  tired
Current Music: Chumbawamba -- The Goodship Lifestyle
Tags: biking, holidays, travel
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05:07 pm
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I deal in dreamers / And telephone screamers
2011: A Year in Review
It's been a busy and full year. A number of times in the last month or two I've looked back over the last 12, and marveled that it has all happened just in 2011. Really? There are a whole bunch of pluses in the first column, too (well, at least: there are a bunch of rather big pluses, and most of the minuses are minor).
So a couple of highlights:| + | January: Rode a bike (mostly) across South America. One of the best - if not the best - holidays of my life. (Rivalled only, really, by the time I biked across Canada. I sense a theme here!) I so can't wait to do this sorta thing again! (See October, below.) |
| + | April: Put on the best damn  Climb for Wilderness ever. (I mean, yeah; this is something I do for work every year, but...) It was the 20th annual climb, and we pulled out all the stops. And it worked. This year's climb was so, so awesome. Doing a recap at the after-party that evening, I sort-of broke down in tears because I was so happy about how things went. And then later in November, at our AGM when staff members were presenting to the membership about their work in the previous year, I had to cut mine short, because I was on the verge of doing the same again. I'm still super-happy about that best-ever climb. |
| + | May (plus September & October): I... kinda ran a marathon. And then I did another one. And another. And I discovered I really like this activity (not a huge surprise, really). For 2012, I've signed up for two so far (the Calgary one, duh, and the Vancouver Marathon earlier in May) and am in the meantime running a couple halfs. 2011 was a "is this something I can do?" year; the plan for 2012 is to work seriously on getting my times down (hence the half marathons, where I can more easily focus on speed). Still looking for a sub-4hr time. Of course, a part and parcel of this is all the training; I've done at least another 20 full-marathon-length training runs (plus God knows how many shorter ones); the longest I've run at a time is actually 47km. It's all pretty great. |
| +/- | June/July: Holiday in Spain. The timing for this, I think, was mostly unfortunate (the flip-side being: I don't know when the timing wouldn't have been?) and I was too stressed out to enjoy what I imagine would/should otherwise have been a very + time. The more time that goes by, the more fondly my memories are growing. This remains a decidedly mixed experience, but still. A momentous part of this very full year: it was, as they say, a thing. |
| + | July/August: As VP, I helped organize and run the Fringe Festival. Another extremely successful event about which I am over the moon. I am so thrilled and honoured (that sounds gah! so corporatese, but it's truth!) to have been an integral part of putting something like that on. This (sixth) year, we all feel, has really marked a point that the festival has established itself as a permanent fixture on the Calgary cultural calendar, and has begun to establish a comfortable home in Inglewood, building great community relationships. During the lottery draws for the 2012 Fringe season, acts picked Calgary as the 5th highest priority (in terms of places to perform) out of all festivals nation-wide. This is really good news: after years of trying, we've finally managed to distinguish ourselves and emerge from Edmonton's shadow. Extraordinarily rewarding all-around. |
| + | September (plus October/November): I feel like I can finally describe myself as a GIS specialist. In September I attended a 3-day  Google Mapping Technologies for Nonprofits workshop (hosted by Google) in Vancouver. That was great: I learned a lot, but at least as importantly, had a lot of fun! This was only a single event, but it was rather symptomatic of where my skills, etc. are these days. Over the following couple of months, I was able to put these skills to use producing a set of maps to be used as evidence in a court case that AWA (along with a dozen or so other environmental organizations across Canada) will be waging. This is actually the second time now I've produced maps for legal use, but last time, it was just AWA; I wasn't doing it on behalf of a number of other organizations as well. In November, my job description was changed to include this aspect of my duties, which I at least think is really cool. It's been a long and strangely circuitous route, but in a sense, I'm finally doing, as a career, what I've wanted to do for many, many years (since about 1989-ish; longer ago than I've been interested in computers at all). I'm increasingly thinking I will eventually go back to school to do an MGIS, as I've mentioned a few times in the past, but there is as of yet no specific schedule for same. In any event, that will probably wait a few years because in the meantime... |
| + | October: I've moved plans for biking across Russia from the back burner to the front. At least in the sense that it has stopped being "something I want to do someday, before I die," and now there is an actual, firm plan with schedules and deadlines and whatnot. The game, she is afoot! Partly inspired by my amazing holiday in South America, and partly by other things. Anyway: the starting date will be May of 2016. That leaves 50 months as of February; I want to have $50,000 in the bank before I start this, so that's roughly $1,000 per month to sock away, which I think is totally doable. I set up a separate savings account for this in October and have started filling it up — there's about $2,500 in it now ($3,000 as of tomorrow), so I'm a bit ahead of the game, but nothing wrong with that of course! Expect I will likely make another post about this soon enough. |
| | ? | December: finally exorcising the demons of 2002? Let's... call this one "pending" for now. I had hoped to have at least a feeling for a resolution by this point, but low-bandwidth phone/SMS conversations have proved frustratingly inconclusive. |
| - | Pretty much the biggest drawback to this extremely full year has been the complete lack of time to do any of the other things that I normally enjoy. A case in point would be my film intake; down from a usual 60-plus movies a year, I have this year gone out to see all of five. (One  amazing, one really good, one okay, and two forgettable and regrettable.) The point being that this is symptomatic of many daily or weekly activities that have just fallen right off the map this year. (I've cancelled more squash nights and other engagements than I can count, about which I feel really bad - Fringe meetings especially eat up a lot of evenings.) But in the so-called grand scheme, I think I can mostly live with this. |
So.
So yeah. All that in 2011. I can't wait for this next year to begin.
Current Location: V1V 2N4
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Joni Mitchell -- Free Man in Paris
Tags: 42point2, biking, film, fringe, gis, holidays, issues, running, travel, volunteering, work
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03:11 am
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Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free / Silhouetted by the sea
So my friend and occasional running partner ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) nickate phones me up the other night; asks if I want to dress up like Santa, and go out running.
"Ummm... sure?"
"It's on Saturday morning," she informs me, "and is called Run Santa Run. It's for charity. And I figure that if I'm going to make myself look all ridiculous, I might as well do it with someone!" ("Who already looks ridiculous," she didn't say.)
And that would be my Saturday morning.
( More pictures of running (and otherwise ridiculous) Santas under the cut )
So yeah. That.
But the day was just beginning, really. There was a party the same evening, and in the meantime, I had to get home and make samosas for the party. (Well, didn't have to, but...)
Which is precisely what I did: went home, and after a quick shower, headed into the kitchen.
Now all told, it's been a pretty long, crappy and stressful week. For... reasons. And it was while messing around in the kitchen that it occurred to me I was at my calmest and happiest since, well, the last time I was in the kitchen, really (last Sunday, to be precise). It really is a marvellous de-stressor. I should remember this: next time I'm wound up like that, get my butt into the kitchen!
Some further reflection identified the whole day, in fact, as being pretty damned ideal:- A morning full of running,
- An afternoon in the kitchen,
- An evening at a party.
That's pretty close to perfect. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that: if I could do whatever I wanted, and had to design a perfect day for myself? It would probably look pretty close to that one. At least in, y'know, the overall structure. Details would vary, but that's why they're details.
I need to remember that. It was a good way to climb down from an ugly week.
About the only major downside was that Sheba didn't make it to the party. (aww)
Hey you, I missed seeing you there! Was really hoping to see you at some point before I head off to Kelowna for Christmas...
Current Location: T2N 1Y9
Current Mood:  indescribable
Current Music: Bob Dylan -- Mr. Tambourine Man
Tags: christmas, food, partying, pictures, running, winter
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04:27 pm
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She had that smile old barkeeps get, like there’s an inside joke / They’re sharing with God
Black Forest Cake
For Sunday.
Take two. The cats got at the first one while I was on the computer, waiting for the cakes (which I had left on the kitchen counter) to cool. Sigh.
Current Location: T2M 4E6
Current Mood:  hopeful
Current Music: Rob Heath -- One More Day Above Ground
Tags: food, yaay
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05:17 pm
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I haven't seen you in ages / but it's not as bleak as it seems
Okanagan marathon in 4:10 and change... a new PB (personal best)!
Not quite sub-4-hours, but I'll take it. I'm pretty happy with running Kelowna; it's been good to me.
The marathon itself is pretty disorganized and a little on the cheap side. Another running blog online calls it a "ghetto marathon" which I think does a good job of capturing the feel of it, but hey: it's all part of the charm, right? And it's not about the organization, it's all about me!!
*cough*
There are some seriously silly pictures of me this time around:
...and that's pretty much it for this season, I think. Next up: Vancouver in May?
Current Location: V1V 2N4
Current Mood:  satisfied
Current Music: The Magnetic Fields -- Busby Berkeley Dreams
Tags: 42point2, kelowna, running
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09:22 pm
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You know, that bartender gave me a dirty look and a dirty glass
...so where were we?
Oh right; when I last got off my arse to post, I was about to head off to Barcelona for a couple of days.
Done did that.
And the less said of that whole trip, the better, frankly. Went with dubaiwalla. He seems to have enjoyed himself mightily. I'm glad one of us did — for my part, I spent the entire time fretting about all the things back at home that needed doin' and that weren't gettin' done doin'. Was mostly stressed out and unable to enjoy myself much. This often seems to happen when I go on holidays. Only recent exceptions bein' when I've made meself busy doing something, f'rinstance the South American trip when I was busy biking.
I think, at the end of the day, I'm not ever really happy unless I have a specific goal that I'm (at least nominally) working towards. Dunno why it's taken 33 years to properly reinforce this fact.
So anyways, then I came back and worked myself silly for a month. And then it was the Fringe Festival. Which was all kinds of awesome. No short-lived flings like last year, ha ('specially now bein' VP and all; 'twould be twice as full of inappropriation). But it feels good doing something to give to the community.
And then a mostly quiet rest-of-the-summer. Ramadhan passed uneventfully. Was too busy with work to do much in the celebratin' way. Didn't even make my usual big-assed pot o' Haleem. Ah well. Could do without it anyhow.
Second weekend of September I went to Regina to run the Queen City Marathon. It was fun but frustrating. Very hot; low 30s (well, that're be hot for September on the prairies; average first frost in Regina is September 10 after all). Had an awesome first half-to-two-thirds of the run. I passed the half-way mark almost 5 minutes ahead of intended pace... yippee! Hooray! Et cetera. I think I musta' been honest-to-God skipping for the next 300m; it felt like it anyway.
Then at 34km, the wheels fell off the wagon, and I hit the wall so hard it hurt. Staggered across the finish line in 4h21m, which... ain't so great. But meh. Next time, Gadget!
(Where by "next time," we un'rstand the Okanagan Marathon in Kelowna at Thanksgiving.)
There're  pictures of me online, but no good ones.
At 10:04 AM last Friday September 16th, I turned precisely ⅓ of a solar century old. Meant to observe it in some way, but f'rgot. Was at work, eyeballs-deep in... something... and it passed me plumb by. *shrug* Weren't that big a deal anyhow.
An' that's that. Um.
Current Location: T2M 4E6
Current Mood:  blah
Current Music: Samuel L. Jackson -- Stack-O-Lee
Tags: 42point2, awa, fringe, holidays, ramadhan, running, spain, work
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03:52 am
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I'm wide awake after the riot / This demonstration of our anguish
Too soon?
Happy (North American) Father's Day to anyone on my flist who is a father! I remember how, not too long ago, (at least the latter part of) such a quip would have been entirely tongue-in-cheek. Now: not so much.
Oof, it's been a busy week. On Wednesday, I had to pull an all-nighter proofreading the  latest issue of the AWA journal so we could send it to the print house on time, hence was unable to catch the big Game 7. Over the course of the last 3 rounds, the Canucks had lost every game I watched, and won every game (save one) I had to miss, so I figured this was as opportune a game to skip as any.
Guess we all found out how well that superstition held up, sigh.
Also at work, we've had visitors from a conservation organization operating in China's Chongqing Autonomous Municipality in the office for much of the week. It's part of (for lack of a better term) an informal exchange program; a couple of our staff went out there to observe their work on panda protection, and now a few of them have come here to see how we work on grizzly protection. Unfortunately, their schedule has been under the fairly strict control of the Chinese government, and often changes at the last minute. It's been... awkward to deal with and has necessitated the occasional really early morning. All in all, I'm even more sleep-deprived than usual.
But not sufficiently sleep-deprived that I was unable to make it out to the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo with friends earlier today. Wow, I haven't been surrounded by so much geekery since I used to do the Star Trek cons back in, uh... elementary school? Billy Boy Shatner was the headlining guest — one of the best ad-libbers on the planet. I'm trying to think, and believe the last time I saw Shatner at a con was back in the late 80s some time... 20-odd years sounds about right for a repeat. Mostly spent the day wandering around, then finally left with only a slightly-fuller backpack than I had when I entered. Not a lot that really grabbed me as a must-buy, so: *shrug*.
For only the second weekend since Easter, it doesn't look like I'll get a marathon run in. This time because it just refuses to stop raining.
Only 8 days until I leave for Barcelona! Once I wake up some, I expect to be excited about this. On Friday, I finally gave up on the stress-ride called currency speculation, and just bought some damn Euros. I paid about $150 more than I would have done 6 weeks ago, but $50 less than if I had done so one week ago. I think I can live with that.
Every time I try to take a photo of the kittens doing something cute, they hear the camera beeping and stop being cute. Have a sunset instead:
Current Location: T2M 4E6
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Green Day -- Murder City
Tags: awa, calgary, nerding out, running, spain, travel, work
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12:11 pm
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Just like a question with no answer / I guess we're always on the run
One more!
One more picture, that is. And one more post about me blahblahblabbing on about this. (Sometimes I get a little obsessive about things.)
So I had so much fun last weekend, I signed up to do two more marathons this year! The Okanagan Marathon in Kelowna, at Thanksgiving (when I will be there anyway, so easily doable). Also the Queen City Marathon in Regina in early September. I figure I'll just Greyhound out, do a little running, then bus back again. Should make for a fun weekend!
The Queen City Marathon's web page is most excellent. Excerpts from their FAQ section:
...
- Can I bring my dog out for a run with me?
Sure, no problem. Just don’t do it on race day [etc]...
- Okay then, can I take my CAT out for a run with me?
Ma’am, I’ve owned cats all my life, and if you can show me a cat that will go for a run with you, I’ll pay you 5 bucks (Canadian). However, we still won’t let you take your cat for a run on race day.
...
- Can I wear a backpack during the race?
Sure, you can wear a backpack during the race, as long as your backpack DOES NOT CONTAIN:
- ...
- A blow gun to shoot tranquilizer darts at anyone going faster than you.
...
- How is the course marked?
The Credit Union QCM marks its course with a temporary, biodegradable, spray-on landscape chalk that is environmentally friendly. Some guys on the committee tried to convince me it was also mint-flavoured, but I was not about to fall for that... again.
Like I said, this one looks to be a lot of fun.
And as I also said, one last picture from last weekend:
Speaking of fun and looking forward to things, in a couple more weeks, I'm headed to Barcelona around the Canada Day long weekend. (Modulo a few airline strikes.) There... may be pictures? We shall see.
And now. The Boston Marathon qualifying time is 3:05, so I still have a long (long) ways to go. That practicing ain't gonna happen on its own, after all! Time for me to head out and hit the pavement...
Current Location: T2M 4E6
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Jeremy Fisher -- Come Fly Away
Tags: 42point2, holidays, running, spain, travel
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06:08 pm
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Anyone here mentions "Hotel California" dies before the first line clears his lips
So, I no longer feel like a poseur!
Right now, I think that's the biggest benefit to having run an honest-for-real timed marathon.
In, y'know, 4h 12m 47s. Which is almost 10min better than my previous best effort during practice. So I'm pretty happy about that.
Actually, if you go to the results page (as above), you'll see my official time is 4:17:31. Because for whatever reason, the standard for marathon timing is to use the "gun time" — how much time has elapsed since the starting gun — and they don't subtract the length of time that it takes you to reach the start gate (due to the big crush of people, congestion, etc.).
Which, if I were trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I'd care about. But I'm not (yet), so I don't, particularly. I just care how long it took me to run the damn distance.
And 4:12:47 works for me!
Official race photos are not yet out, but I did find the one below on  some chick's flickr photostream. Thanks, lectio!
Also on the same photostream is a picture of this girl whose name is apparently Cheryl. We pretty much maintained the same pace throughout the back end of the race and were keeping up with each other for the last 17km or so. I'd pull ahead a bit, then she'd catch up and pass me for a bit, then I'd go out in front again for a while, and so on. It was an interesting experience having an impromptu running partner, in a way.
Good day! Sunny.
Will have to do this again some time.
Current Location: T2N 1Y9
Current Mood:  bouncy
Current Music: The Mountain Goats -- Liza Forever Minelli
Tags: 42point2, calgary, running
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