Almost Perfect

Posted on June 4, 2010 by danocan

A few weeks back I described my some of my experiences as an umpire.  Now, I’d certainly never compare my time as a little league ump in small town Alberta to being in the American League, but having blown my share of calls I think I understand what happened last night in Detroit.

The first thing is I suspect is mental.  One should never forget that umpires grew up loving baseball.  Before they were umps they were fans.  As professionals, they never cheer for one team over another, but they want to be a part of historical moments as much as any player.  You can bet that Jim Joyce knew that, as the first base umpire, the odds were quite likely he would be called upon to make a critical call in that ninth inning.

Knowing the entire stadium was rooting for a perfect game Joyce would have been thinking “Don’t get caught up in the moment.  Don’t make the call too soon.  Don’t let the weight of the history force you into calling him Out just to appease the fans.”  Once an umpire starts thinking he is in a lot of trouble.  You simply have to react on instinct.  I believe if you watch the replay in slow motion you will see Joyce hesitate slightly before making the call — he thought about it and it cost him.

The second issue is physical.  Bang-bang plays at first base are actually pretty easy calls to make under normal circumstances.  You simply get in position and watch the bag, not the ball.  By watching the bag, you can see the exact moment the runner’s foot touches the base, plus you can verify the first baseman has his foot on the base when he catches the ball.  I know what you are thinking — if you are watching the base, how do you know when the first baseman catches the ball?  The answer is simple — sound.  You listen to the sound of the ball hitting the mitt.  There simply is not enough time to watch the ball come into the glove and then look to see where the runner is.

In this case, it was not so simple.  The first baseman had ranged far from the bag, leaving Galarraga to cover the base.  Both Galarraga and the runner, Jason Donald, were approaching the bag from the same general direction, making me think that Joyce simply didn’t see which foot belonged to which player.  If Cabrera lets the second baseman field the grounder two things happen that change this play:  1)  The second baseman isn’t ranging to his right to make the play like Cabrera was.  That means there is no hesitation and stopping before the throw is made to first and the play isn’t even close, he’s out by a country mile.  2)  The player making the catch at first base is stationary making it a routine call for Joyce.

One thing you have to admire is the tenacity of Jason Donald.  He turned a simple groundout into a close play.  With his team already down 3-0 with two outs in the ninth a comeback was not likely.  This was a nothing play yet he hustled all the way down the line.  That is true professionalism and he should be admired for playing with that sort of effort. 

Everyone has shown a ton of class since this event.  Even Bud Selig upheld the integrity of the game by refusing to overturn the ruling today.  When a commissioner steps in to overturn the decision made by the umpires on the field, chaos reigns.  Anyone remember George Brett and the infamous “pine tar” game?

Oh well, with only 20 perfect games in history, did we really need three in a single season anyway?  (I’m kidding!)

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Facebook Rolls Out New Privacy Settings

Posted on June 3, 2010 by danocan

Back on May 26, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg came forward with an announcementthat there would be new privacy settings rolled out across FB.  This announcement was mainly in response to the growing discontent amoungst the user community over changes made to Facebook’s privacy policy. 

Well, I say “user community”, but realistically the tempest in a teapot seemed to be spawned more from some rather high-profile people in the tech community coming forward and raising concerns which were then picked up by the mainstream press.  No one should ever confuse what the mainstream press considers important with what the general public actually believes.

A prime example came from Leo Laporte, a podcaster who’s online network TwiT.tv is one of the most popular and extensive new media empires around.  Leo made a grand display of deleting his Facebook account live on “This Week in Google“. 

Personally, my issue was not with Facebook’s changing privacy policy, but the fact that the settings were just too confusing to figure out.  Now, I am a fairly tech-savy guy, so for me to admit confusion over something tech-related means one of two things:  1)  I’m just getting old. or 2) The interface was actually too confusing.  If, someone like me who lives and breaths computers for the vast majority of the day, cannot understand what is going on, what is Joe Q. Public’s chances or, more accurately, Joe Q. Public’s grandmother’s chances?

So, as a techno geek, I have no problem admitting that I was eagerly anticipating these new privacy controls and what they would mean both to me and to the more casual Facebook user.  Well, on June 1 I finally saw the notice that the new controls had been rolled out to my account and I was ready for the playing to begin!

The New Privacy Controls Announcement

OK, naturally the first thing I do is click on “Learn More”.  That pops up the “Controlling How You Share” screen.  The first sentence says it all:  “Facebook is about sharing.”  Let’s face it, if no one shared anything then Facebook would be a pretty boring place to be.  Heck, as it is it seems only a small number of the people who use it actually share anything on a regular basis, most of the people on my friends list are never heard from at all.

Facebook Is About Sharing

So, what about the improved simplicity we have been promised?  I’m a little nervous at first because the “Controlling How You Share” goes on for five pages!  I read it all because I knew I was going to be writing this, but I can imagine for most people it’s like reading the EULA — just tell me where to click to get past this thing!

A second glance and things look pretty good.  Facebook offers three simple “buckets” where you can group the people you share with:  Friends, Friends of Friends, and Everyone.  With a single click you can now use Facebook’s recommended settings and set things all at once using these broad strokes as guidelines.  Nice touch, much easier than before.

Simple One-Click Settings in Easy to Understand Language

OK, let’s start in Section 1 — Basic Directory Information.  For the first time in this process some alarm bells go off for me:  “…some basic information is open to everyone.”  Hmm, no mention of what exactly that is or if there is any way to change it.  When you are dealing with the Internet, “everyone” covers a LOT of territory. 

Basic Directory Information

Let’s see what Facebook has in store for us.  Let’s dive into the “View Settings” link, shall we?

Basic Directory Information Settings

Now, we all need to keep in mind here that I have modified my privacy settings in the past, so I can’t be completely clear as to what the defaults are for brand new accounts.  However, the format is simple and easy to understand.  Above you can see the settings I currently run with.  Things that let people connect with me such as searching for me, sending me messages and Friend requests I think need to be open to Everyone.  Other things I prefer to wait until you are in my social media circle before I let you view them, with the exception of my current city and hometown.  That sort of information is already available on my personal website, so letting Facebook share it with Friends of Friends seems harmless enough.

So, now moving on to the “Sharing on Facebook” section.  The first thing that catches my eye here is that all of the custom settings I have put into place have remained intact:

My Customized Settings Remain Untouched

As you can see, I keep things fairly close to the vest on Facebook until I connect with you as a Friend — at that point all of my information is there for you to see.  This is one of the big reasons why I am careful about who I add as Friends — Facebook is only for people who know me, or used to know me.  The content I produce for general consumption is what I use Twitter and the like for.

Let’s take a quick glance at each of the three simple preset buckets Facebook offers us before we see what they consider to be Recommended.

The “Everyone” Settings

Well, no surprise there.  If you choose to share with everyone they get everything.  If you actually populate things like phone numbers and email addresses in Facebook (I know I do!) then this is a scary place to be living.

Friends of Friends Settings

This is interesting.  After seeing the Everyone settings you would expect that all the dots would fall down the middle of the chart, but this isn’t the case.  Apparently Facebook believes that even if you want to share with Friends of Friends there are some things you should keep more private, such as Contact Information and Birthday.  I know many people don’t trust Facebook, but this shows to me that there is at least some willingness to help you protect your information.

Friends Only

Ah ha!  Success!  A single click quickly matches your settings to what I was originally using.  The only difference here is that when you use the Facebook defaults, you get an additional option:  “Let friends of people tagged in my photos and posts see them.”  I don’t seem to get that option when using the Custom settings. 

And, finally, the big one!  Recommended.  What does Facebook think I should be sharing with people?

Facebook’s Recommended Sharing Settings

This is a pretty good mix of public and private.  I think the first setting “My status, photos and posts” tells us a lot though.  Over the years Facebook has been accused of having “Twitter envy” and I think this shows it to be true.  Not only was the News Feed a direct shot across the bow of Twitter, this is another attempt at the same sort of thing.  Facebook wants your status, posts and pictures to be public.  I suppose there is a lot of value in being able to mine that real-time data stream, and that is something Facebook could really monetize.  As I said before, I’ll use Twitter for status updates or posts I want to put out for public consumption, and Flickr is my home for public pictures.  This doesn’t jive with what I signed up for when I created my Facebook account.

Family and Relationships is another one I don’t like being totally public.  This is like opening my Friend List up to people who aren’t already on it.  I like to be in control of my own data, and thus publishing my relationship with other people means, in my mind, I am violating their ability to control what they share.

Everything else I am OK with.  I think those default settings mesh with what the non-tech savy Facebook user would expect to happen with his/her data.  I still choose to keep my settings much tighter than what Facebook recommends, but that is because I have other sites for my web presence, I am not at the mercy of Facebook.  One of the reasons I started this website is so I can have complete control over what I choose to post.  Facebook may not like having people link to videos of people deleting their Facebook accounts and delete those posts (calling them spam, no less!), but what I put here is under my control as long as I do it within the letter of the law.

Bottom line is this:  Never put anything anywhere on the Internet if you are not prepared for it to leak into the public.  Whether you believe Facebook will go and change your settings to make you unwillingly leak your personal data or you have a falling out with a friend and she posts all sorts of bad pictures of you, or your account is compromised by a hacker, it’s only a matter of time.  Be aware and take steps to protect yourself and keep yourself comfortable. 

It was never my intent to dive deep into the customized settings available in Facebook.  I’m also avoiding the dreaded “instant personalization” that has many people creeped out.  Those things are well beyond the scope of what I have the time to write.  I highly recommend checking out the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s article on “How to Get More Privacy From Facebook’s New Privacy Controls” article for that level of detail.

 

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Back to the Badlands

Posted on May 31, 2010 by danocan

One of the best caching experiences we ever had was back in the summer of 2006.Life in the Wet Lane   There was a weekend event called “Badlands Cache Quest” and we camped at the Lions Youth Camp just north of Drumheller.  It was a lot of fun and we made a lot of friends that weekend.

Fast forward four years.  We’re sitting around the house on a Friday night, contemplating what to do for the weekend.  The weather forecast is for cool temperatures, snow and generally crappy weather.  It’s shaping up like a weekend to be in the house and doing a whole lot of nothing. 

The phone rings.  Shirley answers it, as she always does.  (I don’t do phones!)  She’s off in the other room and I can hear snippets of the conversation.  She emerges.  Harry and Peggy want to know if we’re interested in going out to a Cache and Release (CAR) Geocaching event.  Well, I hadn’t planned on it, but it certainly beats the alternative of doing nothing, right?

I immediately start doing my pre-caching road trip work.  Fresh batteries in the GPSr.  Grab the camera gear.  Download a fresh Pocket Query of caches in the area.  Load the caches both into the handheld unit and the Nuvi.  Make sure the iPod is sync’ed and loaded.  Get the charger for the iPhone into the car.

Saturday morning is a flurry (pun intended!) of activity.  Sandwiches are made, the dog crate is loaded, the gear is loaded in the car.  Don’t forget the FRS radios so we can communicate between vehicles.

A last minute Facebook message.  There’s a weather system over the Strathmore region.  Snow.  Rain.  Slush.  Ugly.  We still want to go?  Sure, why not?  We’ve cached in worse, and I figure if things are that bet we’ll set course for the nearest pub and settle in for the day. 

We head into the city to meet with Harry and Peggy.  With Harry leading the way we head out towards Strathmore, opting to ride Highway 21 up towards the badlands. 

Things are going fine until we leave the pavement for the first time.  Mud.  Lots of mud.  I put the car into “snow” mode to split more power to the front wheels.  We power through without too much issue.  Survived.  Back onto pavement.

Another backroad.  This time there is a cache to be found.  We park as far off to the side as we dare, not wanting to sink out of sight in the mud.  The GPSr is pointing to the otherside of a ditch which, up until this precipitation started, would not have provided any sort of obstacle.  Right now it is a raging torrent of brown water.  Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  We leap the water and into the mud.  And the search is on.  And on.  And on.  And on.  After fifteen or twenty minutes we’re cold, we’re wet, we’re dirty and we’re forced to admit that we’re stumped.  This is not the start we were looking for.

We move further northward.  After bagging two caches at the Orkney Viewpoint we move on to the Bleriot Ferry.  The Province of Alberta first installed a ferry at this location in 1913.  It was originally known as the Munson Ferry until 1966 when the name was changed in honour of Andre Bleriot who was a homesteader in the area.

The DanOCan Mobile on the Bleriot Ferry

The current ferry was built in 1997 and is 27.6m long.  The crossing of the Red Deer River is just 106m and is completed in 1-2 minutes.  We had a really good conversation with the operator, especially considering that, after crossing to the east, we quickly found a cache and then returned to cross to the west.  He was a really friendly guy, which is rather important when you’re operating something that has become a bit of a tourist attraction.  The Bleriot Ferry is one of just seven cable-guided ferries left in the province.

Orkney Presbyterian Church

Next stop was at the Orkney Community Hall.  After locating the cache hidden in the caragana bushes I requested we make a stop at the church just down the road a little ways.

The church was built in 1953 and remains in good shape.  After snapping a couple of pictures I checked out the foyer before we departed the area. 

There was more caching, including a couple in the small town of Morrin.  We eventually worked our way out to Rowley, AB which is where the final wrap-up event was set to begin.

Rowley is a town that really died off in the 1970s, but thanks to the filming of the movie “Bye, Bye Blues” in 1988 it has survived as a tourist attraction.  The town has embraced its status as a ghost town and people come from all over to walk around and see many of the original buildings.

The most famous of these buildings houses Sam’s Saloon.  Originally built in the early 1920s (1920 or 1922 depending on which webiste you believe), it was operated as a restaurant by Sam Leung from 1943-1968. 

On the last Saturday of the month it is opened up by volunteers who serve pizza, beer and popcorn.  We were lucky enough that the cache event was the last Saturday of May, so we took advantage of the chance to have a couple of cool ones.

The second you walk through the swinging saloon doors you are transported back in time.  The floor is covered in sawdust and every square inch is covered in knick knacks and paraphernalia.  In the corner next to the piano was the oldest popcorn machine I had ever seen in my life.  It looked like something that was salvaged from a landfill, so you can imagine my surprise when one of the local volunteers started filling it with oil and started the thing popping, complete with a ghostly orange glow emanating from the bottom.  How it didn’t overload the ancient wiring I’ll never know.

Speaking of ghosts, the locals delighted in telling us how old Sam still visits the place on a regular basis.  They told the girls a story of how they were sitting at the bar one evening when two bottles of beer lifted themselves off a shelf and levitated down to the counter, completely upright.  Whether it was a story made up to impress the city folk or not, sitting in a place like this you can’t help but believe that Sam still gets a kick out of his place being the centre of attention in town.

Sam’s Saloon is the Heart of RowleyThe cache event wrapped up across the street in the community centre.  They brought in tons of free pizza, raffled off some great door prizes and announced plans for attempting to bring a Mega Cache event to the area next summer.  The Canadian Badlands Geocaching Association (website not functional yet at the time of this writing) has some grand plans on how to leverage Geocaching to promote tourism in the area, and they have some government funding to back it up.  As they said during the event, “People come to the Badlands, they climb the dinosaur in Drumheller and visit the Royal Tyrell Museum and then they spend the rest of their vacation in Banff.”

Well, given the great job the organizers did with this event and the hidden gems we found while touring the backroads I think they might just be onto something.  Who knows, maybe it won’t be another four years before we take the opportunity to spend a day in the Canadian Badlands.

Broken Wheel and Cracked Sidewalk

 

 

 

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A Day in the Life

Posted on May 21, 2010 by danocan

I gave myself a new writer’s challenge today — take something mundane and write about it.  Sounds simple, right?  Then I added a caveat for myself:  try and do it in a way that makes people actually want to read it.  With that project in mind I am proud to present “A Day in the Life”.

Friday, May 21, 2010

5:05am:  I become aware of a slight buzzing in my right ear.  I try to ignore it and hope it goes away.  I fail and it doesn’t.  The buzzing continues, now followed by some sort of hokey melody.  Slowly my mind enters a state of consciousness.  Ah crap, it’s my iPhone, laying beside my head and partially buried under a pillow.  I open my eyes and see the screen flashing.  It is my alarm app letting me know it is time to face another day.  “Sleep Cycle” uses the iPhone’s accelerometers to measure your sleep pattern with the idea that, somewhere within a 30 minute window of the time you select, it will sense when you are naturally waking up and trigger the alarm so you awake more refreshed.  Bull.  Despite going to bed nearly eight hours earlier I am no where near refreshed, likely because I spent a large portion of the night tossing and turning thanks to a sore throat I developed the day before.

5:07am:  Now in a state which passes for fully awake I sit up on the edge of the bed and cancel the alarm.  There is silence around me.  Despite its best efforts, my iPhone failed to stir a reaction out of Shirley off to my left or Tucker the dog who is still sound asleep in his crate next to the bed.  Perfect, the longer I can avoid dealing with other animate objects the better.  I swallow, trying to judge the status of my throat.  There is some small protest of pain, but I am successful in this endeavor.  Damn it, despite not feeling great I am no where sick enough to call in sick to work, especially on a Friday before a long weekend when no one would believe me anyway.

5:09am:  Shower.  Hot as I can stand it.  I am hoping the humidity from the steam will help with my throat.  I lean against the corner of the shower feeling the contrast of the hot water splashing off the front of me while the tile is cold across my back.  In the space of four minutes I have achieved my first goal of the day — I am awake and will not be falling back asleep.

5:25am:  I emerge from the bathroom.  My eyes are immediately drawn to the bed.  The covers on Shirley’s side have been tossed to the middle and she is no where to be seen.  The door of the dog crate hangs open; the rest of the family is also up and our day has begun in earnest.

5:35am:  I find myself in the driver’s seat of the car.  I have skipped breakfast, prefering instead to get into work early to catch up on what I have missed while attending my First Aid course the last two days.  My laptop is on the backseat, secured in its case.  Beside it in a re-useable grocery bag are two dozen eggs, which I am delivering to some coworkers.  I fumble with my iPod, connecting it to the interface cable.  Shirley is not working today so I am commuting solo which means I have full control over my musical selection.  That can wait, for now I’ll start with talk radio — AM770 to be exact.  I listen long enough to get the forecast for the weekend — cool, cloudy and possibly wet.  Glad I’m not going very far.  Before I reach the highway I have engaged the iPod, turning my “Road Trip” playlist into shuffle mode.  Thanks to the sore throat, there will be no singing in the car today, I will simply have to settle for tapping out the rhythm with my feet while cruise control handles my speed for me.

6:09am:  I have arrived at the parking lot.  I made good time today — it sure helps when most people are taking today off.  I don’t actually park on campus, instead I use a parking spot at Shirley’s building a couple blocks away.  I have a parking spot on campus, but I sublet it to yet another coworker — technically it’s a violation of the rules, but I doubt anyone cares.  Maybe if President Weingarten hadn’t decided to put up a new building on every decent parking lot on campus we wouldn’t have the parking woes that we do.

North Entrance to Campus: It’s a Mess Due to Construction6:16am:  The walk to my building is extended slightly thanks to construction blocking my normal access route.  I detour through the ICT Building and its sterile concrete floors and walls.  Ploughboy’s has closed permanently and Good Earth isn’t open yet.  The wire mesh tables in the common area are all vacant and campus has the feel of a ghost town.  My footsteps echo as I trudge to Earth Sciences, the building I have called my work home since 1999.

I decide I am sick enough to skip my routine of taking the stairs.  Instead I punch the button on the one bank of elevators which is actually functional; the other set is out of commission due to construction, what else? 

6:20am:  I have reached my desk.  The lights in the office are off but there is enough sunlight coming in the windows I don’t feel the need to turn them on.  My coat goes on the rack and the laptop slams into the docking station.  I power it on and while it boots I grab my bottle and wander to the water cooler to fill it.  I never drink as much water as I do when I am in the office, not sure why. 

I return to my desk and logon.  While waiting for Windows 7 to load my desktop I put the eggs into the bar fridge I keep behind my desk.  I shuffle some papers and create some semblance of order.  The iPhone gets connected to its cable, Tweetdeck is launched and I bring up Outlook so it can start loading whatever email has come in since last night when I last peeked in my Inbox.

6:28am:  Exchange seems really slow today, it is taking forever to pull in new email  As I contemplate whether or not we have a problem with the system I see email start to flow in.  Cool, while it does that I open Facebook and update my status for the first time.  I have nothing witty to say so I just slap in some mundane comment about being at work.  It sucks and I know it — I expect it will generate almost no comments, which is how I judge whether my updates are successful or not.  Hey, I’m 30 minutes early, I haven’t eaten yet and I’m high on Contact C, what do you want from me?  With that done I move on to seeing what email I have to deal with.

6:58am:  There, the Inbox is clean again.  Nothing exciting, the standard mix of Viagra spam, bulk messages sent to various campus email lists and the odd request from clients who are supposed to know better than contact me directly anyway.  It’s all good — with the long weekend approaching I know we’ll be down in staff so I don’t really want anything out of the ordinary anyway.

Main Floor of Earth Sciences: It’s a Ghost Town

I decide my biggest priority of the morning should be prepping for job interviews.  We have an open Sys Admin position and I still have a number of candidates who need to have their interviews scheduled, plus I need to develop a list of questions to ask.  Coming up with job interview questions is tough because I don’t want to use the same lame questions everyone uses such as “So, where do you see yourself in five years?”

8:05am:  Wow, that took longer than expected.  I’ve lined up another series of candidates to interview and come up with my questions.  I ended up with lame questions, just worded differently:  “What are your long-term goals for your IT career, say five years down the road?”

I bring up iTunes.  I’m not planning on listening to music, rather I launch iTunes University.  There is a series of podcasts I have been listening to called “What Great Bosses Know.”  As I listen I make some notes in a Word document I keep updating with the tips I learn.  It’s not the greatest way to learn, but it’s as close to having amentor as I get.  I work my way through a number of three minutes segments before it is time for morning coffee.

8:45am:  Ah, coffee.  The majority of the coffee crew is off today so it is just Wendy and I.  We wander outside and over to Mac Hall, which is what everyone calls the building formally known as “MacEwan Student Centre”.  The line up at Tim Hortons is short so before long we have taken our normal seats near the pillar in front of A&W.  I wander over to “the ‘dub” to order the breakfast I didn’t eat at home.  The fella behind the counter knows me well enough that he is already punching in “classic breakfast, over easy, brown toast” before I reach the counter. 

I’m sure we are often criticized for our morning coffee breaks because of their length.  I justify it by saying we never take breaks in the afternoon, plus most of the coffee conversation usually deals with work anyway.  More valid communication happens during that morning coffee break between the various groups in the department than at any other time.

9:30am:  Back in the office.  I dive into email once again.  Let’s see, some questions about whether our Administrator account has been locked out, some minutes to review from meetings I didn’t attend, and more bulk mailing list stuff.  Delete, delete, reply, delete, file, delete.  I open Remedy to look for any tickets sitting in our queue which are unassigned.  Crap, I spot one from Social Work which I dropped in there a couple days ago — I guess no one else had time to look at it.  I assign it to myself and mark it as “In Progress”.  Just as I start to figure out what is being asked of us it is 10:00am and time for my meeting with my boss.

10:00am:  Joseph’s office.  We have a couple items to discuss, nothing serious.  About 20 minutes in we appear to be done when I make the mistake of asking about a report I had prepared last week regarding how we allocate our time.  A lively discussion is set into motion as I explain my rationale and my interpretation of the numbers.  We debate back and forth over how this report could be used.  The meeting which once appeared like it was going to be short actually runs long.  When will I learn?

11:11am:  Back at my own desk.  I work to pick up where I left off.  I need clarification so I send an email to the client.  Much to my surprise she writes back right away with an explanation.  The more I read the more confused I get.  Crap.  I pick up the phone and dial her number.  Some things are just not meant to be done in writing.  She explains what she wants in terms of security on their network share.  I listen, I make notes, I offer some suggestions.  In the middle of this conversation my Windows Live Messenger starts blinking — crap, almost time for lunch?  I hastily type a reply:  “Yeah, see you at The Den as soon as I am off the phone.”

I return my full attention to the client.  We hash things out a little more.  I finally understand exactly what she wants so it’s up to me to work my “IT magic” to make it happen.  No problem, I make a promise to get it done for her before I leave for the weekend.

11:55am:  The Black Lounge  Ah, the campus pub.  Nothing makes me feel older than hanging out in the student pub.  Actually, I notice today it isn’t too bad — many of the patrons are employees like myself and the number of students is quite low.  Wendy and I are joined by Dave and Kevan.  Seeing as how I am not climbing any stairs today I decide to eat as light as I can — Diet Pepsi, buffalo chicken wrap and a salad.  I stare with envy at the bacon cheddar burger and fries that Kevan is eating.  Oh well…

1:25pm:  Wow, lunch ran long.  I guess that’s what happens when you start talking shop.  I return to my desk just in time to grab a resume and cover letter from the candidate we are interviewing for our open position.  Joseph appears at my door and we are off to the conference room to conduct the interview.

2:12pm:  Back at my desk.  I think the interview process went well, even if I did steal most of Joseph’s questions.  I turn my attention back to the ticket I am working on for Social Work.  My work is interrupted three of four times with different people coming to my desk asking questions on various topics.  I try and answer each one with a smile and send them on their way.  In addition my Windows Live Messenger pops up a couple times with more questions.  I finally complete my work on the network share security and I hope like hell I got it right with all the distractions.  I guess I’ll know on Tuesday if I didn’t.

2:41pm:  My mind officially goes into “long weekend mode”.  I take one last look in the queue of tickets to see if there is anything which is truly critical.  Not seeing anything I use the opportunity to scan my email, update Facebook and start powering off my laptop.

2:49pm:  I sneak out of the office, only getting caught by one person who wishes me “Have a good weekend!” loud enough for the entire office to hear.  So much for stealth.  I wind my way through the maze of cubicles to the elevator.  Before I reach the ground floor I remind myself I was in the office early today so I’m not actually leaving THAT early.  I perk up.

 The Mobile Office 

3:00pm:  I reach the car.  The laptop gets tossed on the front seat with my jacket.  I fumble through the pockets until I locate the iPod.  I turn the key and listen with satisfaction to the exhaust note emitted by the 3.5L engine.  Frick, I love this car.

I back out of the stall and turn my sites southward.  It’s about 14 degrees, so not warm enough to fully open the sunroof, but certainly warn enough to pop the glass up anyway.

At the first set of lights I stop and don my sunglasses.  I assume my “coolest guy in the world” position — one hand on top of the wheel, the other resting on the door.  My fingers drum along with the beat of the music.  Have I mentioned how much I love this car?

The commute home follows the exact same route as the one in, with one exception.  I observe a RV turning onto 37th Street SW from 146th Ave.  Seeing how slow he is traveling, I opt to stay on the gravel portion of 146th and take it out of the city before heading south and joining up with 22X.  I don’t know if it saved me any time, but it got me away from the traffic which NEVER travels fast enough for my tastes.  I mean, c’mon people, let’s rock here!

3:40pm:  I pull up the driveway at home.  I observe a large tree branch laying across my path, right in front of the garage.  I press the button to open the garage door and then carefully drive over the branch.  In fact, I am so careful and paying so much attention to the branch that I fail to notice whether the garage door is all the way up or not.  When I finally turn my attention to it I am shocked to see that I didn’t miss clipping it by much.  Whoops, I’ll blame the meds!

The Priddis Valley: The Road Home

3:50pm:  Having greeted Shirley and the dog I find myself laying on the couch.  The sun is streaming in and I doze slightly.  Shirley is baking salmon for dinner.  Nona comes and lays on me.  Life is good.

4:10pm:  Coming out of my haze we decide to watch last night’s episode of “The Office” which we PVR’ed.  Skipping commercials means it is over in no time at all, right around the time the beeping coming from the oven indicates that dinner is ready.

4:32pm:  Salmon on our plates we once again fire up the PVR, this time turning on last night’s CSI.  Nothing like a good gory forensic drama while you’re eating, you know?

5:15pm:  I disappear downstairs into the “man cave”.  Shirley has no idea what I am doing, but she likely knows she won’t see me for a couple of hours.  This is my time to listen to some more music, check my social media sites again and, in this case, compose a very lengthy blog entry.

7:24pm:  Current time.  Blog entry ready for posting.  Sure, it’s not quite an *entire* day in the life, but you get the idea.  (It’s not like anyone is actually going to read this whole thing anyway!)

 

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Allsmoke Mountain

Posted on May 17, 2010 by danocan

On Saturday, May 16 I set out with Tucker the Dog.  Our goal?  Climb Allsmoke Mountain.  The trailhead for Allsmoke is reached by heading west of Millarville on Highway 549 and then southwest on Gorge Creek Trail.  The Gorge Creek Trail is not a well-maintained road and is not recommended for low-clearance vehicles or when it has been raining, unless you have a 4×4.  Just before the bridge near the Ware Creek Provincial The TrailheadRecreation Area you can park on the north side of the road.  This is the unmarked trailhead leading to Allsmoke Mountain.

To reach the summit of Allsmoke Mountain you will be engaging in a hike which is approximately 15km round trip and will involve an elevation gain of roughly 700m. 

The hike starts easily enough, crossing a well-used pasture.  You’ll have one small water crossing, but it is nothing serious, you can practically step across it with no effort.  As you work your way west and into the trees the ground will have a tendency to turn quite boggy, depending on the time of year.  Here in the Sping with all the snow in the higher elevations melting I had to often detour off the trail and around the worst of the sections to avoid soaking my boots.

The Boggy SectionThe good news is that this section of the trail involves minimal elevation gain so you can still make good time, even with all the detours.  Around the 2km mark you will need to decend to Ware Creek and make your way across.  There are plenty of dead trees which can be used for a convenient and dry crossing.  Once you climb back up out of the creek valley you start the real ascent to the summit.

The trail at this point begins to wind its way up the ridge through the forest.  As I gained elevation I started to run into more and more patches of snow, which I expected given the relatively early part of the season in which I was attempting this hike.  Even with the snow the route to the summit was quite obvious — stay on the high ground of the ridge and it is hard to go wrong.

This part of the hike does not offer great views as the forest is quite dense.  You will eventually emerge out onto a meadow and finally be rewarded with some wonderful views to the west.  By this point in my hike the snow was now covering the entire ground, typically ankle-deep.  My boots and socks were soaked and the hike was becoming more labor intensive than I had expected. 

Your First Glimpse of the Reward

It is around this point I was faced with a tough decision.  I was still about 200m below the summit, which sits at an elevation of about 2100m.  The GPSr showed the summit was about 1.3km away.  There was a slight dip in the ridge before it rose again to gain the peak.  The snow was really starting to take the fun out of this hike and I knew it was only going to get worse the higher I went.

Eventually I convinced myself that I had come too far to turn around.  I set off for the top.  As expected, the snow continued to get worse, reaching the point where I wished I had brought my snow shoes.  By the time I reached the summit cairn the snow was knee-deep in most places.  It had taken me about 3.5 hours to reach the top.  I admit I was exhausted and the thought that the truck was almost 8km away was actually quite disheartening.

The one thing that was not disheartening was the views.  You have uninterrupted views sweeping from Forgetmenot Ridge to the west, Moose Mountain to the north and the prairies to the east.

Panoramic View From the Summit

The dog and I ate our lunches at the summit cairn before starting back down.  Apparently you can use Volcano Ridge as a descent route, but I opted to trust the devil I know and essentially retraced my ascent route back to the trailhead.  The return trip was much faster, taking about two hours to complete.  By the time I was done I have to admit that seeing the old Dodge across that pasture was one of the sweetest sights I had seen in a long time!

Allsmoke is a great workout and I certainly intend to return one day, AFTER the snow has melted. 

All of my pictures from this hike are available on my Flickr page.

 

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