Nothin' but a pillow

Still in Canada, now being hosted by DP and DT in a lovely (if rainy) rural bit of the Fraser Valley after a few days at the parents'. The local menagerie consists of three dogs, two cats, and one horse. The cats have figured out that I am (a) attentive and (b) warm, and I may be able to knit a sweater with their collected sheddings by the time I leave. Thankfully the horse has shown no signs of wanting to sit in my lap...yet.

There's a lot of interest in Canada in the American presidential race, particularly in Barack Obama, despite Canadians' inability to vote, or make campaign contributions, or otherwise participate. While partially explicable by Canadians' frustration with the GWB presidency, it probably owes something to Canada's terribly uninspiring politics: nobody much seems to like the current prime minister, but nobody has sprung up as an appealing alternative. And so, the minority government limps on...

Foreign foods

I'm sitting in my friend's attic apartment here in Vancouver and it's beautiful and sunny outside. I'd show you, but this computer running XP seems incapable of communicating with my digital camera (in contrast with my Mac, which in such predictable constrast really has its shit together--thank you, Steve Jobs). So, some purely verbal bitching about why can't I get these foods in California?

Cereals: Shreddies and Just Right. Shreddies are an absolute Canadian classic. Most people of a certain vintage will even remember Freddie and Eddie, the Shreddies mascots. I even appreciate the billboard at the end of the street advertising new "Diamond Shreddies". And Just Right is just about the best bowl of flakes that money can buy.

Cookies: Dare Digestive Biscuits. Yes, there is a market in the world for a not-so-sickly-sweet cookie, with only 7g of sugar per 36g serving. Those of us with sugar-hyper issues appreciate something we can eat for dessert after dinner without it making us sleepless. Not to mention that the taste is just downright wholesome goodness.

Juice: Five Alive. Of any kind. OK, it's a lot like Sunny Delight as a citrus blend, but it's better. Way better.

OK, I'd best get some sunshine now--who knows how long it will last!

Last day at work

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

-T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

Very strange to try to clean out the office today. Not everything is finished and tied off; little ends are sticking out everywhere. But it's time to go.

And lordy, T.S. Eliot rocks.

W-w-w-wimped out

I could have gotten out of bed this morning and gone a-racin' cyclocross.

I was tired and the weather really, really sucked--though it could have improved.

I slept in, rose refreshed, and the weather never got better.

I am happy with my decision. Cyclocross season is now over.

--

Went up to SF to see a friend yesterday, spent a few hours trotting around from Market to the Marina. 'Twas a beautiful day for it, all the more so since Friday and today have ended up being downpourful. The rain had washed all the dust and haze and fog out of the sky, so you could see all the distant edges of the Bay.



--

Four more days of work, then back to Canada on Friday for paperwork reasons.

Another New York whack job

Saw I Am Legend a couple weeks ago.


Saw Cloverfield this past weekend.


What is it with filmmakers needing to (virtually) beat the #$%& out of Manhattan these days?

Hm, though I guess it's simply a continuing tradition. There was The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla, Independence Day, Escape from New York...and the godfather of the monster movies, King Kong. Probably the only city to have taken as much cinematic abuse is Tokyo courtesy of Godzilla & Co.

London and Paris have just as many icons but they don't seem to get crushed nearly as often. San Francisco got a bit of a thrashing in X-Men 3.

I guess a film about Los Gatos, or Santa Cruz, or even San Jose getting whacked would have fairly narrow appeal.

Yup, change is a-comin'

So: I accepted a darn good job offer from a start-up in Berkeley, which will be a big change from working for GlobeCo in south San Jose in so many ways. Not quite as many as if I were moving to the Maldives, OK, but still, change. Change. CHANGE!

I don't know Berkeley terribly well: e.g. plunked down at Shattuck and University, I'd have no idea where to go to get groceries. But I won't be moving up there until after I start working, which won't happen until after I get a work visa, which won't happen until I get my passport renewed, which won't happen until I go back to Canada Feb. 1 or so...assuming ticket prices have not radically changed (!) since I last checked. For the interim working-but-not-yet-moved period, I'm really looking forward to those Los Gatos-Berkeley commutes on Hwy 880 (a.k.a. where hours and day of your life go to die).

Oddly enough, I'm still motivated to get something done at Old Job, but the time constraint has me thinking and experimenting a bit frantically. It'd probably be best to trim the to-do list down considerably at this stage to make sure a few things get done, as opposed to getting a lot of things not done.

Oh yeah: bike race this morning. Gooey, play-doh-like mud (Carr index #3) in places.* And I have no fitness. Didn't sleep in quite enough to sabotage any chance of racing, but it was enough to guarantee that there was no chance for me to warm up or pre-ride the course.** The small B field took off in front of me and I plugged along behind, which worked out well enough for me to pass a few mechanicals and outgassed riders--5.5 long laps later it was done, and I was 7/11 (+2 DNFs).

*I can plow through mud, oddly enough. Is it my size? Bike position? Big glutes? You tell me. Oh, and the pedals with their advertised "open body [that] sheds mud easily and yields easy cleat entry and exit in all types of riding conditions"? Not in mud #3. I don't know if any pedals were working well today, mind you.

**Cyclocross is a completely different beast when you do not have a chance to pre-ride a course and have no idea what's at the bottom of the hill, around the corner, under the mud, etc. It would be interesting (though impractical and unlikely) for a promoter to somehow enforce a "no pre-ride" event simply to see who can learn the fastest on the fly...or is that like MTB?

Maybe I should write something

Lacking rantable or ravable material:

1) Raced 'cross this morning after not riding a bike for three weeks. My body did not respond well to the shock therapy of reactivating, so no spectacular result (though I was v. pleased to not crash). The 1.5 hour après-ride through the trails of Fort Ord w/ the Fantastic Four was probably closer to what I should be doing.

2) My Xmas break was pretty inert: good to see the fam, but I should've coaxed myself out into winter wonderland (see the Flickr pics in the sidebar) a bit more. And the hassle of travelling over the holidays really makes me wonder if it's worth it. I should pick another tropical destination for next year and visit the parents on Jan. 25.

3) My most recent man-on-the-street-discovers-pop-culture find: muffintop, when the pants are too tight and the Christmas belly fat rolls over the edge. It's just so spot-on.

4) In a strictly financial sense, I got a shiny new radiator for Christmas. Not a stupendous present, but reassuring.

5) A better present: a job offer! Change may be a-comin'.