The last of Facebook

Finally I have the last of the images from Facebook. Most are from the 24 hour Montreal Marathon of 2007, some are pictures of my cats when they were less than a year old. I have posted the pictures here for reference, my cats used to be that small!

See this is good technique, notice how my right skate is near parallel with the left, except I should have held the left in the air longer. (Posted July 19, 2007)
lame lame lame, WTF!! Why am I doing a set down of the right foot while the left has not even started the push! (Posted July 19, 2007)
Posted July 19, 2007
See Eric? He's the guy with the medal, he just skated almost 500km in a 24 period, without taking more than a few very short (i.e. 5 minute brakes). (Posted July 19, 2007)
Okay, this is a pretty acceptable thing to see, except my right leg is now pushing at a perpendicular, not good. (Posted July 19, 2007)
WTF? Now my left leg is at a perpendicular to my direction of travel, not good. (Posted July 19, 2007)
Jacky has good technique, I totally dont. (Posted July 19, 2007)
Posted July 19, 2007
What the hell am I doing? Coasting when I am the skater with the batton!! (Posted July 19, 2007)

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last! No more Facebook for this Crackberry hater. (And anyone ever tries to tell me to get back on Facebook is gonna get a smart bottom!)

Over the next few weeks I'd like to explore something new, there is an article in the August 2006 issue of Scientific American Magazine on the subject of Supersonic Combustion RAM Jets (or SCRAM Jets) and their applications on a space plane. Inspired by this article I would like to describe, in boring technically accurate detail how my grandchildren will go into Earth Orbit just as easily as I go to Vancouver, or Shanghai today.

First pictures of my custom skates

These were the first pictures of my custom skates from Facebook. (Two more photo albums left then new content, and no more facebook. I promise.)

Although I have been told the skates have shipped, actually got the email to my Blackberry last night while at the Toronto Inline Skate Club (TISC) practice, the only thing I have to go on at this point is this marketing image. It turns out there was some confusion, but the end retailer is going to set me right, course until things get fixed I am stuck on my old K2s and Rollerblades. Oh well! (Posted August 29, 2007)

Here is the original packaging, prior to opening, and open it up we get... (posted August 30, 2007)

WTF!!! I ordered black skates, these are white. Bont calls it Pesti white, I call it Vile white! Damnit, after shipping to the wrong address, waiting, litterally ten months, they get my order wrong. I am never getting Bont again! (Posted August 30, 2007)

This is the box the re-shelled Vaypors came in. I sent to China to get re-shelled, so after arriving from China, being sent back to China and then returning to Canada, three trips across the Pacific Ocean in 30 days! (Posted September 26, 2007)

I open the box and... Ah ha! They are black! Sweet! (posted September 26, 2007)

The flash from the camera makes them look kind of disgusting actually. But I am sure once I get some frames and wheels attached they will be a sight to see. (Posted September 26, 2007)

My customs, notice the large wheels, those are 110mm in diameter... 110 wheels baby!! (posted September 26, 2007)

The blue wheels really don't work, they are Gyro F2-110, but doesn't matter, I am saving my Yellow Matters (F1110) for Scooters (indoor). (posted September 26, 2007)

A third and final view, I cannot take a picture of the weight of these things, but far and away the heaviest component is the wheel and bearings, frames and boots weigh next to nothing. (posted September 26, 2007)

An Email disclaimer we can all live with and other things.

Notice: The information contained in this email is not confidential, if it were we would have encrypted the email since unencrypted email is about as confidential as the New York Times Magazine. If you are not the intended recipient, you really should get a life and stop reading other people's email, you may disclose or use the information, (like we could actually stop you with stern language) especially since destroying any copies of a message is pretty much impossible, with all the backups and redundant disk systems out there, destroying an email is sort of like find Osama Bin Unfound him, you know its possible, just not really feasible and wouldn't actually do any good if you managed to achieve your objective. I don't stand behind a single word in this message anyway so who the hell cares!



An unrelated aside, I have found my new religion, but guys, sometimes I have to use Yahoo... second thought, no, I don't. Alright sign me up!



Finally here is an image from Facebook I deleted before I posted to my blog.

From the left, Morgan Williams, Mike Lin, Michael Cole, Herb Gayle.

More images

Below are more photos from Facebook. As I post here I remove the images from my Facebook profile. With time I expect to remove all the images. Then I can finally get rid of that useless account.

The image above is me, naturally. Lesley was so inspired by my picture where I stuck my tongue out she made me do it again this time with a close up. Incidentally the trees in the background are close to the centre of power as you can see in the images below.
The couple in this image are my in-laws. This picture was taken during the congressional recess of the summer 2006. Curiously there was a police presence in DC the likes of which I had never before seen. Its a shame, Americans should be able to tour the capital unhindered (okay I'm not American, but if my friend from Rochester wanted to take a tour of the capital he'd have to arrange it with his Congressman first.)

This image is from August 2001.

This image was also taken during the congressional recess of the summer 2006. Over my left shoulder is where the United States House of Representatives convene, over my right shoulder is the US Senate. Like I said above, those trees are closer to the centre of power than just about any other trees in the World.

This picture was taken from Liberty Island in the summer of 2006. Behind us is the Battery and over my left shoulder you can make out the Brooklyn bridge. It started pouring cats and dogs just after the picture was taken.

This is the national mall, taken from the lowest steps of the US Capital facing the Lincoln Memorial. The man on a horseback is part of the Civil War Memorial, I cannot remember who he was, probably General Grant. The pool is part of the civil war memorial and not the famous reflecting pool which is beyond the Washington Monument. (The Vietnam Veterans memorial and Lincoln Memorial are about 4km away just a little to the right and directly downrange respectively. The Whitehouse is just a few hundred meters to the right of the Washington Monument.)

Photos from the summer 2001.

Facebook Images

Below are images from my Facebook profile, they were taken by Georg and put on his Flicker account. (To my knowldge Georg does not have a blog.) The photo's in today's post were all put on my Facebook account Sept. 28, 2007.

Me, just about to put my helmet and wrist guards on, total distance covered, 0!! (Munro Foster in the background)This is me gone round the bend! (Actually that looks like a pretty decent cross over.)

Me, chasing Candy Wong, I'm doing cross over's that's why my right foot isn't comming up clean... I hope that's why.

I think my left leg is in recovery here, if it is about to perform a set down this is a good stride, if it just came up in the air, this is really BAD.

Here I am chasing Jay Brown, I wonder why his leg is out so far... then again Jay takes HUGE strides.

I love how this image suggests movement, you don't see that when everything is perfectly clear.

So this is why Jay's strides in a cross over are so wide, when he crosses over, he really crosses over!

I think I was about to adjust my skates, they were pretty uncomfortable by this point. (New skates always are.)

On skating

Today I donated blood, for the 58'th time. (If one donation can save three lives, then the way I see it, 174 people owe me a big one, not that I ever expect to be paid back, but it sure would be nice,... maybe a tax deduction?)

Anyway on my way to the clinic I walked past Nathan Phillips Square where people were ice skating on the reflecting pool. Ice skating is a funny thing, if a person does not know what they are doing, watching them try to remain upright on ice is a pathetic sight to behold. But a reasonably good skater on ice is so graceful, far more so than an inline skater. Its hardly any wonder that figure skating is such a popular spectator sport whereas 'roller dancing' goes almost unpracticed. One of these days I will break down and buy a pair of ice skates, but the problem I have found is the sporting goods stores only seem to have hockey skates and I am not sure I want to spend hundreds of dollars more on speed skates.

On a totally unrelated aside, I have decided to phase out my Facebook account. Besides being a good way to find out that my taste in movies is eccentric (to put things mildly) frankly Facebook seems like a mammoth waste of time. At least ten years from now I can read my old blog postings and find out what thought processes were zipping through my mind in late November of 2007. With Facebook things are ephemeral.

So in honour of the end of my Facebook profile I am including a picture that I have yanked from the site:

(Facebook caption) My brand new Bont Vaypors with 3point frames, and Gyro F2110 wheels. Outside on the track for the first time ever! (Picture posted on September 28, 2007.)

On The West Wing and dysfunctional US politics

Every time I use the Elliptical Machine I watch the Television. Rather than try to keep my mind occupied during commercials I put on DVDs, often old T.V. shows. Not for the first time, I have been working my way through NBCs award winning, The West Wing. The other night, I saw In Excelsis Deo, an episode from the middle of the first season.

Now I am going to make a confession, which will probably surprise next to nobody. I am a sentimental sap. Show me the scene from The Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman walks towards Tim Robbins on the beach at the end of the movie and I get good and moved. Well show me the scene in In Excelsis Deo where "Toby Ziegler" and "Delores Landingham" are at the homeless Korean war Vet's funeral and I'm reduced to tears.


Although I'm not so sure if its the fact that Aaron Sorkin has a way with his writing, or the music. Rather I am inclined to think its something else entirely.


For most people who read this, it is not overly difficult to go take a trip to the District of Columbia. Its a very worthwhile adventure, besides the astoundingly good, free, museums, the District has some spectacular architecture amid some absolute squalor. But the reason I bring up DC is not the museums, although seeing Apollo 11 in the flesh is something to behold, or the DaVinci (eat your heart out Ottawa, the Americans really know fine art). Rather the reason I bring up DC is the memorials.


Take a trip to DC in the late Autumn when it is cold and rainy, and then go for a walk from the Capitol along The Mall to the Lincoln memorial. Stop enroute at the Civil War Memorial near the Capitol, the World War II memorial the reflecting pool. Read the Gettysburg Address (it was too dark and I should have brought my glasses, so maybe print a hard copy and bring it with) on the wall of the Lincoln memorial, then walk over to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and get really depressed. Remember that on that wall is the names of some 50 thousand boys who died, and for what? So that America could well be worse off than if the war had never happened. (It does not include the names of the 2 million or so Vietnamese people who died for pretty much the same lack of reason.) Touch a few of the names, embedded in that black stone, and remember, that the name your finger is following was someones husband or boyfriend, a son or maybe even a father and he's dead. Did he want to be there? Probably not. Did he want to serve? Probably no on that count too, after all during Vietnam America had the draft. The boys who went to fight no more wanted to be there than Rush 'medical deferment' Limbaugh.


When you are done at what really is a Wall of Shame go walk over to the Korean War memorial and if you still aren't moved, then all I can suggest is mental help might do some good. While I was in DC in December of 2006 at the Vietnam memorial all I could think to myself is, in twenty years they're gonna have to build another wall like this for the Iraq war. It all seemed so hopeless and futile.


Well when you are done at The Mall, go walk back to The White House and keep going through Lafayette Park at the intersection of Eye/I Street (yes it actually has two different spellings depending on which block you are on) and 17'th Street North West you have the choice of facing the US Department of Veterans Affairs, or across the intersection (kitty corner) is McPherson Square. Every time I walked by that block the number of homeless people in the square and at the VA was staggering! You want another reason to cry, think about those homeless people, and why they are almost certainly congregating at the VA. They fought for their country, they gave what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion and this is how they are treated.


I should be frothing at the mouth angry that a society would treat its citizens this way. But I can not its just too emotionally tiring. So many boys, that is what they were, too poor, or just unlucky to get 4-F, skip the country, go to school, so they ended up getting completely messed up in South East Asia. You want a good reason to cry, think about those homeless people and then go read the text of the Gettysburg address.