Quick Search & Rescue on Grouse

Got back a little while ago from a quick search for two missing hikers on Grouse. Left here at about 10:30, drove to Grouse, up the tram with Doug, Connie & Peter, jumped in a truck, and drove partway down the ski runs to where we thought the hikers might be. Sure enough, a few hollars through the loud hailer and we heard their shouts in response. It took another 10 minutes to reach them - they were on a trail paralleling the ski runs - the man and woman (Glen & Maria) were a little cold, but were otherwise fine. A short 15 minute hike took us back up to the top of Grouse, and then a quick ride down and we were done! A record short rescue.

Critical Mass!

As planned, Killaine & I went in the ¨Critical Mass¨ ride last night. It was a really cool experience in ¨randomly organized¨ group culture and a ton of fun.

The evening started off with cyclists gathering in front of the Art Gallery in downtown Vancouver:

At a little after 6:00pm, the group slowly coalesced and started moving out ... the crowd was pretty huge - I can´t estimate how many cyclists there were (I´ll have to read the paper tomorrow - but 2,000ish would be a good estimate) - if you take a look at this picture, you can see the huge line of cyclists going off down Howe Street:
From Howe, it was up onto the Granville Bridge - for the first of several ¨bridge celebrations¨. Note that the entire route is completely dictated by the group - no pre-planned route, and no planning with any authorities. Complete randomness! Certainly, this caused huge traffic tie ups throughout downtown - all to celebrate the bicycle, and to experience the freedom of cycling without worrying about traffic.
These folks are ¨corkers¨ - meaning, folks that block vehicles to let the other cyclists past safely. Note that the lead vehicle being ¨corked¨ here is a hummer!
Then ... over the Georgia Viaduct - note the big crowd behind ...
... and ahead:


Then, along and over to the Lions Gate Bridge for another Bridge Party. There were lots of eclectic folk there, and lots of neat bikes - from beaters to the latest full suspension jobs, and even some penny farthings (!) and unicycles!

Finally, we headed back into downtown around Stanley Park (by this time, the police had caught up with the group, and diverted us into the park). Still, another bridge celebration on Burrard - we eventually left the ride at around 8:30pm to cycle home.

All in all, it was a ton of fun - lots of happy cycling people, lots of community, and just a real fun feeling that we were demonstrating how cyclists are an integral part of the transportation options within Vancouver.

Yes, I Suck

For fun tonight, Killaine & I entered one of the "Big Chop" paddle races. It's a fun, thursday night race for paddle boats of all types - surf skis, double kayaks, single kayaks, fast kayaks, slow kayaks and single and double outriggers. I took my kayak in the "long course" - about a 9 or so km course from False Creek through English Bay to Siwash Rock off of Stanley Park - and back.

Here's the rough route:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/canada/bc/north-vancouver/539557312

It was pretty hard paddling, though the water was pretty flat tonight.

At the very end of the race, I found that I had finished ... last.

Yup, there's always someone at the back of the pack, and I got to experience that tonight! In my defense, I'll definitely say that I had one of the bigger kayaks there. But, hey, I covered alot of kilometers by boat in a short amount of time (about an hour and a bit), so it was still fun.

Oh, and for the $8 entry fee, I got the race, followed by a sausage barbeque, and I won a draw prize - a waterproof case for my camera!

Perhaps Killaine will write something about her first paddle race too!

Critical Mass Bike Ride Friday Evening

After having lived in Vancouver for > 8 years, and always having the "last friday of the month" critical mass bike ride in my calendar, I'm finally going to do it tomorrow evening.

Dynamic Critical Mass Vancouver: June29 Critical Massive!

According to an article in today's Vancouver Sun, over 2000 riders are expected this year.

Ubuntu Phase 2 - Networking - Complete!

Yippee! Itś quarter past 12, and I just got the wireless card working! Holy cow! I have to admit that it was quite an effort to troll through the Ubuntu newsgroups, and eventually had to do some pretty complicated stuff using something called ndiswrapper to get it to work ... but it eventually did, and now I am posting wirelessly!

Time to sleep ...

Ubuntu Phase 2 - Networking

So, back to Ubuntu ... now that I got it installed on my PC, the next step is to actually get it connected to the Internet. Now, this is not quite as easy as it sounds because - at Killaineś, we use the, um, public wireless network. So, for this old Omnibook 900, I had to find a wireless card (a friend at work lent me a PCMCIA wireless card) - however, that doesn quite work off the bat.

But ... I also got a crossover Ethernet cable, and connected the Ubuntu PC to my regular PC (with wireless), and I able to share the wireless connection between PCs! So ... that means that my Ubuntu PC is connected to the network - and I updating my blog from my Ubuntu PC!

Now, back to trying to get wireless to work ...

Paddle to UBC

Just back from a good paddle out to UBC. Being just two blocks from Kits beach, it makes kayaking very accessible:


Set up the kayak on the beach:


... and off to UBC:

An old gun emplacement (from WWII) near UBC:


By Wreck Beach ... a tug pulls a log boom into the big log boom storage area by UBC:


A couple of birds fly ahead of the rain:


A curious sign to see from any boat ... this is on Spanish Banks where, at low tide, this sign sits on the sand, telling dog owners to restrict their dogs (presumably to keep them away from wildlife at low tide, or possibly to stop people & dogs from going off the steep drop at the edge of the banks):


And, finally back past one of the large ships sitting in Burrard Inlet:


Details of the route can be found here.

Ubuntu!

Yay! Successful installation!

I had to download and install the "text installer", rather than using the Live CD - it looks like my old PC just didn't have the RAM to run the Live CD (192Mb).

It was pouring when I woke up this morning, so an Ubuntu installation seemed like a good thing to do this morning. Now that it's installed, time to go out and do something (I'm off for a paddle).

The Assault on Reason

I just finished reading a very good and eye-opening book - "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore.

Al Gore is, of course, well known as the Vice President of the US in the Clinton administration, narrowly "lost" to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election and, most recently, as an ardent and eloquent lecturer on the threat of the climate crisis.

"The Assault on Reason" has little to do with the climate, rather, it is an extended essay on the problems with the modern US democracy with a particular focus on how the current Bush administration has undermined the constitution, destroyed the US's international reputation and ignored any international treaty with which it disagrees.

The book starts off with an interesting observation on the lack of discussion in the modern US democracy by an interesting observation on the role of television in the national discussion. Al Gore asserts that television has made the national discussion a one-sided affair - essentially making the national discussion a one-sided operation wherein the politicians or interest groups can essentially buy votes through the number of 30 second television advertisements that they can purchase. Gore shows how this has eliminated any debate within the democracy - there is no path for the electorate back to the politicians to engage them in meaningful dialog on policy and national matters.

He then connects this with the Bush administration and the case for the Iraqi war - the lack of debate, both within the houses of congress as well as nationally resulted in the fiasco that the Iraqi war has become.

Gore then goes on to show the abuses of the US administration in the areas of human rights (best demonstrated through the continued abuses in Guantanamo Bay), the complete disconnect from the principles laid out by the founding fathers of the US, and how this has resulted in the loss of moral leadership by America in the world. This lack of moral leadership has led to the abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and has shown the world that the US is little better than the terrorists it proposes to fight in respect for the basic principles of human rights.

Although the book reads very much like a long essay in structure, Gore does a very good job in linking the principles and history behind the US constitution and how those that created and formed the United States had the forethought to consider many of the challenges to democracy that this document would need to address in the future. This historical context does much to tie history to the present day in the spirit of understanding the future by examining the past. In no uncertain terms does he ultimately brand George Bush as a criminal - a stunning indictment from an ex-Vice President.

Upon finishing this book, I (once again) could simply not understand how Americans can continue to let their current government erode their basic rights, lose their moral leadership in the world and, in a very pragmatic sense, continue to let their government squander billions in a war started under false pretenses. (By the time the Iraqi war ends, whenever that is, the total cost of the war is projected to be around 2 trillion dollars). Why are Americans not out marching in the streets? How can Americans not see the lies that have been perpetrated upon them by their government? This still perplexes me.

Ubuntu Continues ...

Still trying to get Ubuntu installed on an HP Omnibook 900B. I had to reburn the CD at a slower speed 'cause the archaic CD drive was having trouble reading it. It's now starting up ... I think ... but it's taking a very, very long time. Hmmm.

Cool Ubuntu

I successfully made a "Live CD" for Ubuntu - meaning that I could just boot my PC directly into Ubuntu - also meaning that I could play around with it before actually installing it on a PC.

It seems to work really well - it came up with the right screen resolutions, and the wireless interface worked right off! It had Firefox installed in it, and it worked right off as well. All in all, looks very cool - I'll install it on my other PC when I get a chance ...

Ubuntu

I'm currently downloading Ubuntu! Ubuntu is an open source operating system based on Linux (as I understand it). Ubuntu goes one further than other Linux distributions by being an all-inclusive download, including a windows-like GUI, OpenOffice and other stuff. I'm going to install it on an old Laptop that I've got lying around.

So, why bother? Well, I always thought it would be fun to try to install a Linux OS on a PC - just to see if I could do it. One of those "staying on top of technology" things. (I also just installed Apple's Safari Browser on my PC a week or two ago - just to see what it was like).

First GuyzBlog Entry!

printf ("Hello world\n");

Ok - for those of you who understand programming language humour, you'll get the above. Otherwise, I'll put this in as my very first entry in my Blog.

Every since Ron and Carole started their travel blog, well, that push it into the bounds of legitimacy for me.

So, look forward to Guy's diverse opinions on topics ranging from cool things I've read / seen / done / not done!

Guy