Roll on

I started to notice it two years ago: the room designated for bike lockup at work would fill up earlier and earlier to the point where if one arrived after 8:30 AM, it meant locking one's bike on the street. There's a definite trend here in Montreal, as in many other North American cities, towards increased bike usage. With increased fuel costs and people wanting to reduce their carbon footprint, urban cycling is on the rise. The recent start of construction on a bike lane connecting east and west parts of the city along De Maisonneuve and the addition of sharrows on other streets to improve the flow of cyclists show that the city is encouraging this trend. A Wired article on trends in bike sales also shows that people are looking for simpler, practical bikes to use for city commuting.

For those of you who've never tried cycling to work (and live close enough to do so), give it a whirl. It's a nice change from standing on an overheated bus or cramped metro. For drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, please use your heads when using this newly shared space: expect the unexpected as people slowly become accustomed to changes in their normal paths to work. For cyclists, biking with your iPod just in't smart. Please don't do it. Cities are busy and you need your ears to pick up on audio cues signaling a potential accident. People who care about you don't want you to end up like this teen. Happy riding.

The hope for Rock Star

The Cambridge, MA based company which brought the gaming world Guitar Hero is coming up with an extension of the idea of game-based music making with Rock Band. In the game, four players will play the parts of vocals, guitar, bass, and drums along to tracks in order to win points according to how closely they can follow a song.

It sounds like fun, but I'm more interested to see if experiencing something which resembles actual music making pushes some people to upgrade from plastic controllers to the real things. Pushing a button which sounds a guitar chord on your TV is one thing, making a real guitar crunch out chords through a humming amplifier is something else. I agree with what one of the company's founders had to say in a Wired article about the upcoming release: it will change how some people experience and appreciate music in that they'll be excited about 'playing' a song. Hopefully, that will help the real musicians who have dedicated a large part of their lives to learning their instruments gain new respect and appreciation for their talent and dedication and perhaps give some people the push they need to create their own music.

Dumb Little Man

The other day, I added content to my iGoogle page from a site called Dumb Little Man. Today, there was an article by Tom O'Leary entitled How to Win from a Loss. I know, know, more motivationalspeak. I thought this was a good one, though, as far as those go and thought it worth including here.

Don't work longer, work smarter

The Canadian Labour Congress president is requesting that the federal government legislate more paid time off for workers. He states that Canadian work more hours than the majority of their European counterparts. (brief article) Although this may not seem like an option that businesses would want to consider, it would likely be a worthy investment in their most valuable asset: their employees. Employees who are well rested, happy with their work environment, and feel that their employer encourages a balance in their work and home life are more likely to be productive at work and less likely to be absent or to take stress leave. In addition to allowing for more time off, better time and task management also needs to be encouraged and taught. I agree strongly with the notion that to work more effectively requires more focus with fewer distractions, not longer hours or trying to do many things at once (article). These thoughts are echoed here, here, and here. It's unfortunate that the fear of being of the next to be downsized leads us to work longer hours and take on yet another task or project. This is largely because it's difficult to say 'no'. The next time you're honestly at your capacity, defer or decline that extra task that would remove focus from your existing projects. It'll help you handle your existing work more effectively and also let others know your reasonable limits. That's good task and time management. Try it.

Know yourself, know your career

I'm currently at the beginning of the job hunt process. Although I don't have an indefinite time to discover the perfect career for myself, I'm definitely approaching this go at it differently than in the past. R lent me a book called What Color is Your Parachute? which apart from giving good general job search advice, gives good career and self-assessment advice. There is a great focus on knowing yourself and your skills before approaching potential employers. For example, how would you answer the question "Who Am I?" if asked to write down ten answers then prioritize them? In discussing the book and its ideas with other people, one person observed that some companies work like football teams with one quarterback dictating plays whereas other are like soccer teams where people contribute more equally in generating plays. Do you enjoy soccer or football and does this match your work environment? Are you happy there? That could be a reason why (for either a 'yes' or 'no'). It's interesting to note that my previous supervisor played and loves football whereas I prefer and still play soccer. ; )

How $7.50 could save your life.

Or at least save your face. It's amazing how many people I see on bicycle riding around at night with not a single light. As a cyclist who's also a driver, I realize how difficult it can be to see people cycling at night. I won't even get into the topic of not wearing a helmet here, but if you're going to ride at night, please invest in one of these and one of these. For a grand total of $7.50, they do a great job of making you visible to other drivers who are already distracted by cell phones, blaring music, GPS screens, pets in the car, etc. Maybe get a few for your cycling friends while you're at it, too.

The world is your oyster not your dumpster

A few weeks ago, a Montrealer was caught on camera by his friend teaching someone the lesson in the subject line. He saw someone dumping the ashtray of their car onto the sidewalk, and promptly walked up to the car, picked up a handful of the discarded butts and dumped it back in the man's lap. Here's a CBC article with accompanying links to a video on YouTube, and a radio interview with him.

The act brings up a number of points to think about, from why people think it's OK to dump their trash in public areas, to why more people don't stand up to offenders. I'd like to think that most people would like to live cleaner, greener lives if they could believe they could make a difference with small gestures. I also believe that if we weren't afraid of each other and were more accepting of criticism, we'd be able to provide guidance to each other when messed up - pun intended.

A break from the busyness of life

Between soccer, volleyball, guitar lessons, x-country skiing, spending time with the fabulous R, and new projects at work (we're takin' over the government, arrr.. which, put this way, will only make sense to Fel, MB, and MB's brother who laughed when I put it that way), life's been fairly busy. Perhaps a little too busy. I ended up taking yesterday off with a cold and working from home today so as to avoid spreading my cold. It's hard not to think that all that activity was perhaps a little too much and the cold was a way for me to take a little time to slow things down a bit. Tonight, I listened, and took a little time to prepare a simple dinner of Bhuna chicken (ok, from paste), saffron rice, salad with romaine, onion, walnuts, mint, and capers and an olive oil, honey, lime, cayenne pepper dressing. And of course, a classic martini to sip as I enjoyed this. Ah, now that's better.

Wint*r W*nderland

It's been a while since I've posted - longer than I'd thought it had been, actually. I've been pleasantly distracted by ongoings in the offline world. It's funny how things happen sometimes, but very shortly after the Impersonals post, I met a great gal who loves to x-country ski. Now, either of those two items alone would be reason to have less time for posting: both together, well, you know the results.

It's really looking like the picture postcard winter one imagines when thinking of Montreal in winter, and there has been good, and lately, great skiing to be found on our beloved Mont Royal. Having the park in the middle of downtown is one of the pleasures of living in Montreal and having someone to ski it with is just great. Yesterday felt like a one-day holiday, for example: went to Eggspectations for breakfast, then x-country skiing in fresh, powdery snow, then to the Atwater market to pick up great cheese, baguette, and wine for dinner followed by a mindless but fun movie (Pirates of the Caribbean II). A great day of R&R with R.

Namyopia

Everyone who wears glasses has at some point had to function, perform, and somehow get by without being able to see properly. You fell and broke your glasses rollerblading, you're 10 km from home, and well, you can sort of mostly see well enough to wheel home carefully. If you stay away from the grass. And you'll keep your hands out, just in case. After tearing a contact lens today while changing for yoga class, I decided to give the class a try with glasses. I hate wearing glasses for sports because they move around, virtually eliminate peripheral vision, get in the way, and only provide relative depth perception - all things that take away from a enjoyable sporting experience. In certain positions, they also just plain fall off. Now, in most sports, like running, skiing, or cycling, that usually won't happen since your head remains upright. In yoga, however, three moves in and you're upside down, glasses on the mat or at least dangling annoyingly while gravity fights to pull them away from you. So, first downward dog and they were history. This left me with another challenge: seeing the instructor. Luckily, I'd been going to the class before so I could follow what she was doing from her verbal instructions. However, instead of looking like photo 1 below, she looked more like photo 2:

On top of that, the room was dark. One thing I noticed, though, is that I depend on visually focusing on a point to maintain my equilibrium in balance poses. Not being able to focus made these a little tricky. Luckily, I didn't take topple and take anyone out during these poses. All went well, actually - certainly much better than R's yoga Nazi substitute instructor who apparently said "Those of you have bad energy should leave the class right now." No chakra for you! Step aside. (photos from Lululemon.)

Banff Mountain Film Fest (in Mtl)

This is the first time I'd been to a set of films presented as part of the touring version of this film festival. From the 320 entries, 7 were chosen and shown in Montreal which ranged from a 54-minute film of a couples' 8000 km bike trek from Mongolia to India (Asiemut) to shorter films on mountain climbing and technologies helping the disabled reclaim their active lives. Most were quite interesting if only for making one realize how narrow-minded we can become in our daily routines. If you're looking for an escape from the frigid conditions this weekend, you might want to check this out.

The impersonals

I used to wonder why it either took a while to receive a response when I wrote to someone on a personals site or they didn't respond at all. I actually found it kind of rude until I spoke with F about it. She said she received about 200 emails per week! Ah. I just got off the phone with someone who, although she'd given me two numbers at which to reach her, couldn't remember who I was. Even after giving her my name and a brief description of my ad, she guessed wrong when she tried to remember my pic. She did say, though, that it could almost be a full time job answering all the mail she received. To be honest, her ad isn't one of the most catchy I've seen, either, so I can imagine that some women are completely inundated with mail. So, to you guys out there, take note: there is a lot of competition. Don't take it personally.

Apple - it's the interface

It's been a long time since I've owned a Mac - eleven years now. I often miss it. Not for the machine but the user interface (UI), the user experience. One thing that always struck me about the UI, was that they do things right. They were first to let users copy and paste between programs and be able to scale and orient your printed output from any application. It's what and is you want to do and it's consistent across their applications. Enter the iPhone.

I just finished watching the keynote address that Steve Jobs gave at MacWorld to see what all the fuss was about over the new iPhone and can say that they've done it right again. Why? Because they built something around how users atually want to use the device. For example: shrink an image by squeezing it between two fingers on the screen and expand it by stretching two fingers apart; scroll a screen with a flick of the finger; run a real web browser on it; scroll through your music by finger-flipping through album covers like you'd go through your CDs.

Hats off to them for working so hard to keep it simple. That's no easy feat.

Never thought of it that way before

During the sermon at Ukrainian Xmas mass the other day, the priest said something very interesting. He stated that contrary to the story of the Bible, Jesus was not born alone. Millions of Christians were present at the birth of Christ. "How is that possible?" he asked us. Here's where it gets interesting. He went on to say that In the spriritual realm, there is no time. Therefore, all people spiritually exist in all of time as we know it, and spiritually we were all present at His birth. I'll let you think about that.

One of the most beautiful things I've ever heard

Today was Christmas for Ukrainian and other Christians who follow the Eastern Rite: Russians, Greeks, etc. It was the last of the holiday gettogethers for our family and it's one we all look forward to for the great traditional food and lack of commercial distraction this time around.

After mass today, my sisters and I went to parents' home nearby for leftovers from our great meal last night. I was the last to leave and I went to hug my mom goodbye, she said one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard: "When I'm gone, I don't want you to miss me, but I'm going to miss all of you." For a few seconds I couldn't speak and then had to fight back a tear at those simple, spiritual, human words. When the time comes, we'll miss you, too, Mom. For now, though, let's just enjoy that we're all together.

Belated best wishes for 2007

I feel very fortunate and blessed to have the luxury of being concerned about what to write for a New Year's blog post. As I take stock of my life situation, my family, my friends, and the creature comforts I enjoy, I feel that 2006 was a year in which gave me time to both get grounded again and to wonder about things beyond me. Thanks, Fel, for getting the new year off to a great start with mellowed meandering around TO and with your funloving FT crew (Woot!). Thanks to my family, MB, KTO, F, PD, LC, Bonnie and others for being your dependable selves.

For 2007, I wish that you surround yourself with great people and find a way to let your light shine.