Categories
canada general

snow snow snow

6.20am Wake up
7.00am Leave home to walk to the bus stop to catch the bus to work
7.10am Stand around in the cold, sipping at my tea, waiting for the bus to come and hoping it isn’t too full
7.45am Arrive at work
8.00am The sun rises
11.30am Go out skiing
1.30pm Get back to work
4.50pm The sun sets
5.30pm Catch the bus home
6.00pm Arrive at the house
10.20pm Fall asleep (maybe)

Categories
bikes general

mad i tell you

Ok, this is the story of my day yesterday. I carefully pack my bag for work – laptop, wallet, food, change of clothes, some work I’d done, make sure I’ve got my access card. I run around the house making sure I haven’t forgotten anything, as I’m cycling to work from where I’m housesitting, and it’s quite a distance. So I hop on my bike and cycle…. cycle cycle… cycle past school children studying Melbourne’s creek systems… ponder the fact that I forgot to bring my shoes, so I’ll be clomping around in bike shoes… cycle some more… cycle past people walking their dogs… cycle cycle… 20km or so later, I arrive at work, and hang up my bike on the bike hook, then go to reach around for my D-lock, packed safely in my bag. But my bag doesn’t appear to be there. I pat around at my back from the other side, then look around my feet in bemusement. Where can it be? I look up and down the bike storage corridor… no bag. And the realisation slowly dawns that I never had it in the first place, and it is infact sitting safely back at the house.

Which is one reason to look forward to getting old, as then I’ll at least have an excuse for this sort of behaviour.

(NOTE – The ‘what happened next’ goes something along the lines of “I cycled back home in disgust, and was glad that I’d actually left the bag in the house, rather than sitting on the verandah to be stolen, and was vaguely relieved by the fact that at least I had my keys on me, so wasn’t faced with the prospect of breaking and entering as well”)

Categories
climbing general

troy mclure and the quest for science fun

One day ‘til the Red Rocks adventure, and I’m on a hunt for new music to listen to on the plane. I’m in my little grey cubicle at work, and the man in one of the adjacent cubicles is snoring. This is the level of excitement at work. Earlier I heard a man saying “Oh, not party fun. Science fun!” (and going from sounding slightly disparaging, to alarmingly excited).

I present you with a conversation (slightly edited for ease of reading).

me says:
Americans do dodgy abseiling. From slings on trees.
Me: “Where’s the anchor?”
Them: “This dodgy handful of slings around this tree”
Me: “Excellent”
sair says:
Heheeh sounds familiar, like in Thailand.
Me: “Dan, where is the anchor?”
Dan: “Oh it’s up there on that tufa”
Me: “Ok climbing”
(Me having reached the top)
Me: “This tufa is hollow”
Dan: “Yeah you’ll be right just work quickly”
Me: “Dan my anchor is attached to a hollow tufa”
Dan: “Yeah you look totally hardcore”