Cool tools!

I am not, definitely not, absolutely not, a "tool guy".

My father's lifelong hobby was woodworking. He was really good at it. My sisters and I have some serious furniture our dad created for us. Our dining room table, stunning, solid, refined, and generous, with cherry, oak, and ebony hardwoods, exotic veneers, and exquisite and rare inlays. Truly special. My father's legacy literally lives on in our daily lives. That is the true meaning of treasure. 

I inherited some of his tools, but only the everyday tools, and only those I might have an actual use for. A hammer my dad owned for ever. Some vice grips. A laser level, a Vernier caliper, a few hand power tools... basically very little. 

The serious tools (table saws, drill press, lathes, planers...) went to my brother-in-law who could actually use them.

That doesn't mean that I don't have an appreciation for great innovative tools that meet a real need. Tools that fit their purpose to perfection. Tools that take very little room, yet are reliably there when they are needed, but otherwise, are all but invisible. That is my definition of cool tools. 

My Leatherman Wave fits the bill. 

But move over Leatherman, I have two other even more amazing and mind-blowing examples to share. If you want either of these, read on, the links you need are at the bottom. To get there, just read on and allow your interest to be piqued along the way.

The Brompton tool

I'll start here, because I own this tool, and it is a true joy to put to use.

This tool has all the components needed to all but completely disassemble a Brompton bicycle.

With the Brompton tool you can

• Adjust, or completely remove, the saddle;
• Remove the wheels;
• Remove the tires;
• Remove the grips
• Adjust or completely disassemble the controls
• Break levers, calipers
• Gear shifters
• Cabling
• Remove the handlebars
• Remove the mudguards
• Remove or replace the easy wheels
• ...

This list literally goes on, and on. If you were to use the tool to remove every component possible, all you would be left with would be the frame and the cranks.

Like everything about the Brompton, the tool kit is highly, highly engineered and exquisitely mated to the bike. 

How does it disappear when not in use?

It lives in the front section of the frame.

When the bike is folded it is obvious and easy to see, but only if you know where to look, and what to look for. The wrench does double duty as a handy way to pull the tool out of hiding. 

If you didn't know anything about it, for instance you bought a second-hand Brompton and didn't know about the tool, it might take you quite a while, perhaps weeks, or even months, to find it and figure out what it is, what it does.

Basically it's a ratchet driver that is also a wrench, with all the right bits for the ratchet, and two tire levers that also serve as wrenches.

The MetMo Pocket Driver

I mention this amazing tool second, because I don't actually own one.

You see, this is one of those fascinating things about the world we live in. In this case it's Kickstarter. A platform that allows smart people with brilliant ideas to bring their inventions to life.

There is something enticing about this tool. It's similar to the Brompton tool in many respects because it's also a ratchet driver, it's incredibly compact, and also because it is highly engineered to be robust, and to perform in tricky situations. 

Another thing the Brompton, the MetMo Pocket Driver, and Brompton tool have in common? They are designed and produced in the U.K. Wow!

Because of its form factor, the MetMo Pocket Driver fits in your drawer, in your pocket, in your glove compartment or console, in your purse, even your evening bag, in your saddlebag, top case, handlebar bag, in your backpack, or your travel sling. Super easy for it to be right there whenever there's a loose screw, a stuck bolt, or a fiddly bit of gear that needs a quarter-turn, a tweak, a twist, or a twirl.

Now that I've got your attention, I'll let MetMo's arty images tell the rest of the tale. 

If you now realize that you simply can't live without one, or the other, or even both of these wonders, here are the links I promised. Have fun, and have no fear, you will have spent wisely.

• The Brompton tool
• The Metmo Pocket Driver

Hmmmm... I forgot to mention that although MetMo reached out to me asking if I would do this, I am not compensated in any way by Brompton or MetMo for this post. It's 100% motivated by my love of cool tools. 

Trashcan solutions

 We just returned from a family event in Florida.

At some point I mentioned to Mason that for many years and in multiple locations at our home in Montreal, my offices at CGI, and now at our home in Toronto, I have used trashcans as a solution to the wire mess that is inevitable with computers and network gear. 

Mason was interested to learn more, and I promised photos. Mason expressed concern that bundling power supply cabling with ethernet was not recommended due to electro-magnetic interference. I acknowledge that, but it's something I have always done, and haven't had any issues that I am aware of.  Although see below about a magnet war that destroyed some key equipment.

Sending one photo by email is fine, but multiple photos is a trickier challenge due to file size.

I thought about alternatives, and decided that a blog post could do the trick.

So here goes.

There are a number of ingredients that result in the wire mess:

1. Power supply
1. There are the power bars needed to plug in all the devices. Sometimes the power connection is direct (for instance with a Mac computer) more often the power connection is indirect and requires plugging in an AC/DC adapter.
2. In addition to the little brick that takes up space on the power bar, the AC/DC adapter has a long-ish cable, often with a micro USB connection that plugs into the device. That is the first source of excess wiring. Modems, routers, bridges, they each have a little brick and excess micro USB wiring.
2. Network cabling
1. Modems, routers, computers, printers, microphones, and other devices that depend on rapid and voluminous data use RJ45 ethernet network cables, as well as phone or optical cabling. While it is possible to make custom length cables, I have never bothered, you will soon see why.
2. Often the ethernet cable runs to and from from the network components are short, in the case of my network gear, maybe from mere inches to a foot or three max. That means more excess wiring, depending on the length of the ethernet cables.

There are readily available tools you can use to tame cabling, but tie-wraps are essential.  In my most recent cable management for my sit-stand desk I installed Ikea undermount cable trays. I posted a video that you can get here. A word of warning about electro-magnetic interference that I did have though. In the video you will see that I mounted two Ikea lighting remotes next to the remote for the sit-stand desk. The Ikea remotes are held in place by strong magnets. Over time the magnetic field from the Ikea remotes destroyed both the sit-stand desk remote, and the control unit for the motorized legs. It took a lot of brainstorming with the amazing support folks at Progressive Desk to figure out what was happening. You will see in photo #1 below that the Ikea remotes are now installed on the risers for my monitors. The sit-stand desk is back to working perfectly. Hopefully the Ikea magnetic remotes aren't working on destroying anything else, like my Mac.

So here is what I do.

1. I plug everything in.
2. I use tie-wraps to route the cabling.
3. All the excess cable gathers at a single point along with all the DC power supply cables. From that point, the cables are gathered and from there descend into a trashcan (most recently I used a Muji storage cube). The excess ethernet cable takes the same path. All the power bars currently there are four, and all the AC/DC adapters live in the trashcan.
4. That's it. Wire mess tamed. Easy-peasy.

Here are the photos. In the first photo if you look carefully you will see 7 cables on the desktop in this order: lightning cable, micro USB cable, female USB, female USB, lightning cable, USBC, lightning cable. I can pull on each of those cables to extend them. The reason that works is that you can see in photo #5 that the excess cable simply falls in a controlled way into a trashcan. The other cable that falls into the trashcan is the main power cable that connects to the power bar that sits in the Ikea cable management tray. As my sit-stand desk rises and lowers, the cables lower into the trashcan, or rise up, as the case may be. Kind of cool, very functional, very handy.

Photo #1

Photo #2

Photo #3

Photo #4

Photo #5

Photo #6

Photo #7

Photo #8

Little bit of a morning stretch

Each weekday morning my watch kindly wakes me without disturbing Susan.

I rise, meditate briefly, exercise, then go for a ride. While I exercise I think of what path to take on my ride.

One possible route is to take the Finch trail east to the Don river trail which is my favourite trail. 

I have only rarely taken that route because of the distance, and because, I am ashamed to say this... concerns about coyotes. I have come across coyotes twice on the Finch trail. There was no cause for concern because the Finch trail runs under a hydro electric transmission corridor, it's wide open, and in both cases the coyote was warily keeping a great distance and going about its business.

Until this morning, I felt that the Don river trail presented more risk of coyote issues because I imagined I would be the only person on the trail because it was early spring, and because the trail, while set in an urban area, actually feels quite remote. The narrow paved path wanders along the ravine, following the Don river branch (more of a stream than a river, truth be told). My concern is that I might startle a coyote and prompt an attack. 

Yes that's a little silly, and cowardly.

Today I decided to go that way.

No coyotes, or even foxes, the wildlife was only squirrels, a woodpecker, delightful sounds of rushing water... and ten or twelve pedestrians and walkers, often with their pooches. Far from threatening in any way, it was pure delight. The music streaming in my AirPods matched the scenery. 

On the return route, I took the Sheppard subway for a couple of stops because parts of the route have serious climbing, and I needed a break. Besides, as wonderful as the Don river trail is, Sheppard avenue from the top of the hill west of Leslie to Yonge is very urban, and not bike friendly.

Occasional rain drops fell on the two kilometre ride from Sheppard subway stop back home. All told, 11.74 (excluding the subway ride) kilometres bright and early this morning, for a total of 2,607.22 kilometres since I began tracking my cycling on November 20, 2021. 

Not too shabby.

Maps of this morning's two segments. The scale is different in each, and therefore misleading.

2 B's and a F

 I was rarely a really good student. I made sure to pass, and to get really good grades when I could see that getting those grades was vital to an eventual next step.

But this, is not about, that.

And no, it's not about B-words and F-words either. Well I guess it is, but... not those...

You see, we live in a very urban area, Our condo tower is among the shrimps in our neighbourhood at 24 stories. New skyscrapers are constantly popping up like spring tulips.

Fortunately Toronto is blessed with numerous ravines. Most have streams running through them intent on dumping more and more water into Lake Ontario. The ravines are generally sufficiently steep so that builders avoid them as too costly for building homes profitably. 

And thus, as I do my outdoor morning rides on well-maintained bike trails in the midst of wonderful green spaces, including some in the nearby ravines, my almost perfectly silent Brompton fails to alert the local fauna lurking in the flora, and this week I saw two bunnies, one of which crossed my path a little too close for comfort, and this morning on my way down into the Earl Bales Park ravine, a sly but shy fox was about to cross my path but made an abrupt U-turn and sprinted into the greenery, not to be seen again.

Shock!

The scene as I left my firm's town hall meeting yesterday evening

How do you know when the urban environment is threatening and bullying the green environment?

Well, one thing you can do is pay attention to the trees.

Shocked tree seen on our evening walk

Mother's Day

 You can't make this stuff up!

Our kids organized a very nice Mother's Day brunch at a local restaurant.

There were flowers, and treats, and laughs, and fun with the kids and grandkids.

I enjoyed a little creativity, colouring with crayons with my granddaughter, building and re-building a little pyramid from the usual trash.

I suppose I was inspired by the "trashion couture" art on the wall... I had already taken pictures of six of the works to add to my digital collection. Lora Moore-Kakaletris's work now lives in my collection with works by Andy Warhol, Monet, Lawren Harris, and many, many other artists whose work struck my fancy over the years, including work from museums from Montreal, Athens, Toronto, Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, New York, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Portland, Seattle, Bayeux, and Amboise.

We had a very enjoyable brunch. Then came the funny finale, and the silliness that inspired this post.

I had my credit card handy, waiting my turn to pay, when... a power failure took the restaurant out. There was a collective ooh and ahh from the crowd, questions from the kids, and the wireless card reader that the waiter was offering me became...

That instant irony made me laugh!

We hung around waiting for the power to come back on. Just as I thought of telling our waiter we would return later in the day to settle the score, the power returned, and a few minutes later, their payment software branded as "Toast" returned and I was able to pay.

Soon after, we came home (the restaurant is just down the street from where we live). The music I had left playing, wasn't. That's not good, I thought. You see all my music plays on our network thanks to Apple and the wonder of streaming.

The power failure had been brief at home, but knocked my Mac out. Oh the joy of recovering all my work-related spreadsheets.

Another inconvenience thanks to the law of averages. The one law that never fails to apply. 

Flat Friday

Geared up, unfolded, and good to go, with a plan to cycle my longest loop, but in the opposite direction. 

Wait… why does the front feel… wah, wah, wahhhhhhh.

My early morning ride time was re-allocated to flat repair.

Not so bad really. One puncture in just over 2 years. 

Plus, I got to fix it in the comfort of home, as opposed to outdoors, in the rain, on a cold day…

So here's another reason why I am a huge Brompton fan. Everything I could possibly need to work on my Brompton, is INSIDE the Brompton.

In this photo, you can see it, but unless I pull it out a little, it's almost imperceptible: the comprehensive Brompton tool kit, and the brand new never used spare inner tube.

With a tiny tug, here they are.

No need for a saddle bag, and when the bike is unfolded, the kit is invisible, because both items live inside the main chassis tube. That's an option that only has the potential to exist in a folding bike, and absolutely exists in every single Brompton.

It was my first bicycle flat repair in a long, long, long time. But, like riding a bike, once learned, the skill lasts a lifetime. I more recently fixed Vespa flats, but those are a cinch because Vespa tires are tubeless.

The one disappointment: inside the tool kit, there used to be two patches. My intention was to patch the puncture. Alas, somewhere along the way (the Vancouver trip? The Ogunquit trip?) the patches went AWOL So I replaced the inner tube. I then took the spare inner tube from Susan's bike and put it in mine. So I am back to 100% Boy Scout readiness, but I still need to patch the punctured tube and put it into Susan's bike.

All told, not the morning I was expecting, but you know what they say, experience is what you get... when you were expecting something else.

Go with the flow

I have ridden past this fountain many times in the last few years. Today may be the first time I paid it any attention. If the fountain had become the heart of a contentious issue, and had I been questioned as a potential witness, my response would have been "what fountain?".

It's modern, modest, doesn't splash, and it's a nice touch in a very urban setting.

I stopped to take the photo because I noticed the fountain as I waited for the light to change. Now that I am thinking about how to describe how it fits in this morning's ride, the fountain seems like an expression of my recent post about how change often behaves like ocean currents.

Empty

 This is a very short post.

Today our condo was assessing the underground parking as part of its capital planning and the experts wanted the P1 level empty today.

Condo life is relatively new for Susan and I. It's just over seven years. In all that time, I have never, ever, ever seen the parking empty.

Wow! That's just P1, but still, quite a sight. The other two levels were assessed yesterday and the day before.

The end of an era

Time.

It was time. It's about time. It's time.

In 2010 it was time to begin riding Vespas. The Scoot Commute is what I called it, because, inspired by what I saw so many Parisians doing when I was briefly in Paris in 2008, I decided to commute to work in Montreal on a Vespa.

It all kicked off in the early spring of 2010. I won't go into too much detail on what followed. It's all laid out in minute detail in this journal (blog? I like journal. I don't like that it sounds hoity-toity though. Oh well.). To make things easier there is a link to a chronological list of posts above, or you can click here.

That decision to live more of my life on two wheels affected so many things. I learned to be even more different than in the past. Although, to be honest, I was always different. A lefty, bilingual, raised a Catholic, but married a beloved Jew, disowned by my parents, then forgiven. The list goes on. Commuting sixty kilometres a day on a Vespa in a busy city, rain or shine, in the heat or the cold? That's not 'normal', but...

I made friends. Not in my neighbourhood, like 'normal' people do, but all over the place. In Ontario, in British Columbia, in Pennsylvania, in New York State, in Florida, in Germany. I rode scooters in all those places. I rode a scooter to the Piaggio plant in Pontedera, Italy (to be fair, Italy is not exactly Germany, but I was riding with my German friends, so there's that). Never in my wildest dreams could I have pictured all the joy my Vespas would bring.

Today it's time.

Journeys all have places where experience shifts. Sometimes change is abrupt and jarring. Mostly though, there is a gentle drift, when the dominant theme and a new theme join paths, like ocean currents, unseen, seamless, relentless, eventually drifting apart, each going their own way.

Miata, meet Vespa. David sails off on a dragon red Vespa, and the mid-life-crisis-red Miata (Susan coined that colour) is left behind, and eventually, over time, takes a different path (from David to Marc, and beyond).

Vespa meet Brompton. David pedals off, folding, unfolding, folding, unfolding... and just like a Brompton, the journey must always be unfolding and shifting. Now the dragon red Vespa sits idle, and soon, in a matter of days, it will take a different path (from David, to Adam, and beyond).

A note to Adam.

Adam, my wish for you, is that your new Vespa will light up your life, the way Vespas lit mine.

Flaming Roseway

Would you be content to live there?

I know, what kind of a question is that?

Context often makes the difference between the head-scratch-and-cock-eyed-stare, and the nod.

It's a little street, or laneway, that meanders along a row of townhouses, closer to the eastern tip of one of my usual morning rides.

Approximately two years of riding that route, once or twice a week, from early spring to late fall, and I never managed to notice the street name before this morning.

What a great name!

Early this morning, eleven degrees Celsius, with blue skies and gorgeous puffy white clouds, headed to 26C (if you can believe it), that street sign seemed like the harbinger of a great outdoor riding season to come.

So long P2 Loop, hello Flaming Roseway!

PS: it's now quarter to six and twenty-six degrees Celsius on April 12, 2023!!!!! And my Brompton cycling adventures in the early morning now total 2,422 kilometres!!!!!! 

PPS: 20230425 My friend Ed (see the comments on this post) is a very creative guy. I often think that there isn't anything he could set his mind to that he wouldn't be able to do. Ed sent me these images of his handy work in designing and building an actual Roseway. Here is Ed's Roseway:

Progress

If there is one thing that seems clear to me at this point in my life, it's that you and I have a love-hate relationship with progress.

Many people might say they enjoy progress.

Progress and the colourful merry-go-round at the town fair have many things in common.

The gentle spin as the ride begins is delightful; we happily anticipate more to come; the slow swirl of the early rotation has us wanting more; a twirl that makes us flick our heads left and right to make sense of the scene beyond the prancing horses makes us tighten our grip on the pole; all too soon, we begin to have had our fill of the ride; any faster and we fear losing our grip... 

My grandfather was a published author. I only recently read some of this books. I can safely say that unless you studied French-Canadian literature at a Quebec university, you have never, ever heard of Oscar Masse.

I never met him, he passed three years before I was born.

The novel I am reading now, published in 1922, begins in his present but quickly shifts to explore what life was in the 17th century, in what was then neither Canada, nor the U.S.

Oscar began his book with his impression of progress. He wrote of the modern wonder of steam and electricity, how cars replaced his father's horse and carriage, cinema replaced theatre, how planes seemed destined to replace cars, and he foretold a crazy future where telephones might become wireless. His narrative then slips back in time, to the early days of the colony and he paints a picture of a very different world.

For many, 1922 has left no trace in our present. Here in Toronto, that past has been mostly erased as the new replaces the old at a crazy pace. The skyline seen from the lake no longer looks like what it did even ten years ago.

The truth is that all technology progresses at an exponential pace, whether it's the industrial revolution, or the digital one.

In large measure progress today is driven by computer chips, either directly, like our 'smart' phones, or indirectly where data networks, container shipping, and air travel result in our global economy. We have shrunk the world. North America, Europe, and Asia were, not that long ago, worlds apart, and now are only hours apart. What happens in Moscow and Beijing, affects the price of our bread and butter within just a few days.

Some of us want off that carousel. To return to a time that made more sense to us, when our neighbours were more like us, spoke like us, ate as we ate. When we didn't need to update our software, when our cars didn't sense their surroundings...

I have to admit that the pace of change once really frightened me, freaked me out, when I was sure that younger, computer-armed generations, would surely obliterate my career because computers and I were strangers.

I survived, unscathed, and even prospered, once I learned to type and made computers my friends. 

Today I gave up my morning bike ride in the sub-basement to share these thoughts with you.

I enjoy writing and sharing. It's something that allows me to express the essence of my self. To be artistic, to share my thoughts, and perhaps to persuade...?

ChatGPT4. What the heck...? What are you doing here?

Hey ChatGPT! Can I call you AI...? Write me an article about how the exponential pace of change is challenging our capacity to adapt, making people long for a return to simpler times.

In recent years, the world has witnessed a rapid and exponential pace of change in various aspects of life. The advancement in technology, globalization, and demographic shifts have accelerated the pace of change, making it challenging for individuals, societies, and even institutions to keep up. The exponential pace of change has been so rapid and unprecedented that it has made people long for a return to simpler times.

The capacity to adapt to change is an essential aspect of human life. However, rapid, complex, and unrelenting changes can overwhelm even the most adaptable humans. The exponential pace of change has been so rapid that people are struggling to adapt to its consequences. This struggle to adapt is evident in many aspects of our lives, including our social, economic, and political lives.

People's longing for a return to simpler times can be attributed to the fears and uncertainties brought about by change. The rapid pace of change has left people feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed by its negative impacts, and uncertain about the future. As technology and globalization continue to shape the world's landscape, people fear that they may be left behind if they do not keep up. For instance, the exponential pace of technological change has created anxiety about job loss, privacy concerns, and social isolation, making people nostalgic for simpler times.

The pace of change is also affecting social values and norms. The traditional social norms and values that have governed human societies for generations are undergoing rapid changes. The internet and social media have fundamentally changed how people communicate, interact, and form relationships. The traditional social norms that helped build communities and social cohesion now face significant challenges. This loss of traditional social norms is generating a longing for a return to simpler times when the community and interpersonal relationships were the backbone of society.

Moreover, the exponential pace of change is driving the demand for quick fixes and immediate gratification. People are used to getting anything they want, whenever they want it. This kind of instantaneous gratification is making people impatient, making them desire simpler times when life was more predictable and manageable.

In conclusion, the exponential pace of change is outpacing our capacity to adapt to it. As a result, people are uneasy about the consequences of change, and they long for a return to simpler times. However, change is inevitable, and we need to come up with strategies to adapt to it without losing the positive elements of our traditional values and norms. Rather than fighting or resisting change, we should embrace it, learn from it, and take steps to mitigate its negative effects.

Oh wow... Let's see... literally as I ate my breakfast, a) I searched on Google on my iPad for "ChatGPT"; b) I downloaded the app from the Apple App store;  c) I posed the question; d) I hit enter;  e) I waited maybe three minutes, maybe less, and BINGO! In all, in well under ten minutes I went from almost no knowledge or experience with AI, to that article.

The app wouldn't let me copy the output, or even my own input. I'm guessing that it "thinks" that it owns the copyright to my input as well as to its output? Let's see, as between one who sows the seeds and reaps the crop, that nature produces, who owns the crop, Mother Nature or MOI? I suppose that, for now, its intelligence is truly artificial.

I should add that it took my tools and my knowledge of computers to do a screenshot of the output, airdrop it to my desktop, feed the screenshot to my text scanner, edit the transcription in my word processor to remove spurious carriage returns, and paste it into blogger.

OK, so now I'm both lawyering AND bragging.

ChatGPT for its part just kept its mouth shut and instantly produced, claiming no credit, as far as I can tell.

So what do you think? Who wrote the better article? Was it me, or my 'buddy' AI? 

I spent hours, thinking, conceiving, writing, editing, preening, re-reading, tweaking, from 7:15 until I published this at 12:17.

AI puked out its text in mere minutes.

So that's now. And in two years, four years, a decade? If computers as we knew them spawned social media that might just be rotting society to its core, what will AI do?

I have no fear for my future. That's because I basically no longer have a future to speak of. I'll be 71 in June.

How does all this make you feel?

I'm curious.

Surprises

 Surprise!

This morning I was surprised.

"Surprise" is a word that gets lots of use. "I was surprised..." "we surprised him with..." "it was a surprise to learn..." "it was a nice surprise..." "I don't like surprises..." "it may surprise you...."

My surprise today happened on my morning P2 Loop.

No, it's nothing even remotely bad or disturbing. Besides, I do my best to be extremely focused and on the lookout for cars and people coming and going.

What surprised me this morning was a first for all of my 286 P2 Loops to date: another cyclist came down the ramp from P1. Hard to tell, but I suspect he was as surprised to see me, as I was surprised to see him.

I am posting this because it's an opportunity to explore what a surprise is. I think that it's something sufficiently out of the ordinary that it lights up our neurons as soon as it happens. Not always enough to provoke a significant physical reaction like a jerk, or a gasp, or a shout, but certainly enough to feel a psychic jolt of a kind. It's definitely a physical experience that stems from our perception of our environment.

We become familiar with our environment. We develop complex sets of expectations. It's our way of navigating our world, of predicting the imminent future. The surprise is unexpected. This encounter certainly fit that bill.

He was a serious cyclist, perhaps a commuter returning home. Our paths crossed in an instant. We were traveling in opposite directions, me northbound approaching the ramp, he exiting the ramp to head southbound. I assume he was headed to P3 because after that brief moment I didn't see him again.

We were alike in many ways as far as I recall. Both men, both dressed in shades of dark grey, both wearing gloves and black helmets, both alert, and very focused on riding, both moving at a decent pace. Both silent in our movement.

We were also quite different. His was a road bike, mine a Brompton. Mine had lights fore and aft, his had none.

Now I wonder how he would describe our flash encounter.

Was he surprised?

Happy Spring!

What's a million?

I'm glad I asked.

Clearly it depends on what you count.

Stars? A million is nothing, less than a drop in the universe.

Grains of sand? Nada. Maybe a sand castle on a beach?

Humans? Humans are never nothing. We are just the most amazing and bewildering things in the universe... as near as we can tell, we think. It's likely that many of the cities boasting of a million or more people, are places you have never even heard of.

Money? Ha... not what it once was, that's for sure.

So what's this particular million?

It's actually the millionth. 

The millionth Brompton bicycle rolled off the Brompton assembly at the sacred plant in London that all Bromptons come from, including mine. I 'liked' (loved? hearted?) the video of course and just had to comment.

I recommend that you watch the video too. It's obviously historic. It will be even more so if King Charles heeds my advice and knights Andrew Ritchie, Brompton's brilliant creator.

Feel free to chime in and poke King Charles in favour of Sir Andrew Ritchie.

"Good morning"

"Good morning" are two words that I give, and receive, multiple times during my morning P2 Loop.

They bring happiness, and start my day on the right note.

This morning an enthusiastic dog turned, looked me in the eye as I was passing and woofed a few woofs while nodding and wagging its tail. I took that as "Good morning" so I said "Woof, woof" with a smile, which I took to be pooch also for "Good morning".

Pedal strikes

Pedal strikes occur when you are pedalling through a turn.

You need to be going at a pretty good clip, you need to be pedalling or to have the pedal at its lowest reach, and the turn needs to be sharp enough so that the bike leans to the point where your pedal strikes the ground on its rotation.

That happened TWICE on the P2 loop this morning.

What is a pedal strike like?

Well, each time it instantly lit up my neurons in a way that I can only describe as both unwelcome and scary.

Fortunately that's all that happened.

My fear is that the pedal could lift the bike when it hits the ground (in this case concrete) throwing it off balance and causing a crash.

That has never happened to me, thank heavens, so I can only imagine what that crash would be like. But it would be in a turn, at a pretty brisk speed. It makes me cringe thinking about it.

Of course the prudent things to do would be a) to slow down, b) make sure that the pedal inside the turn is fully raised, in this case, it's a right-hand curve, so it's the right-hand pedal, and c) watch those tight corners.

I suspect that the actual risk of a crash is less than I fear. I have seen Vespa motor scooters being ridden at ridiculous speeds along tight and winding roads with showers of sparks when the center stand or side-stand scrapes the pavement. Vespas seem unperturbed and un-inclined to crash.

Speaking of Vespas, I have had my side-stand scrape the ground on a tight left turn. It feels just as awful as a pedal strike.

February 2023

😀 Well-past 2,100 Brompton kilometres since November 30, 2021

😍 Valentine's Day (today)!

👍 Washed my Mini with a mop! Surprisingly successful. Drove with the top down for a bit on Sunday.

😐 Still working full-time, pushing 71!

😳 Forecast calling for 14C/57F tomorrow. WTF?!?! IT'S FEBRUARY! Growing up, my Mom started warning of frigid February in December.

Happy Valentines Day to all!

Time to get back to work.

Bicycle Man

 This week I logged the kilometres that took my total distance recorded to over 2,000 kilometres.

I started tracking of my daily routines exactly 500 days ago today. That count of days is a coincidence, truly. I was pleasantly surprised when the count in my spreadsheet yielded that nice, precise, round number this morning. Tracking my activities began about a year after I read James Clear's Atomic Habits. That's an average of four kilometres a day. I find that a little difficult to grasp to be honest. I don't typically ride on weekends, but for the past year I do ride every week day, except when other priorities intrude, like vacations.

During the winter I ride indoors down in our condo garage on what I like to call the P2 Loop. I posted a video of what that looks like when we first got our Brompton bicycles. You can see that here if you skip to the 12 minute mark.

When you do something like that regularly, at roughly the same time each day, you get to know a tiny bit about other folks as they come and go when you are down there looping away. 

There is a mother with two young daughters I often see. To say that the daughters are adorably cute is an understatement. As I ride by them I smile and do a little wave. Yesterday they giggled and I heard their mother as she glanced in my direction say "yes it's bicycle man!" 

It's those little things that add happiness to my routine, and help to set the tone for my day. 

Raising kids

 My parents relied on Dr. Spock. No… not Mr. Spock, Dr. Spock.

My mother had a dog-eared, tea-stained, well beaten-up, paperback bible from the good doctor aptly titled Baby and Child Care. I see in the Wikipedia entry that Benjamin McLane Spock was not merely a pediatrician but also a left-wing activist. Can that account for my progressive political inclinations? Unlikely, because I’m pretty sure that most of the parents of my conservative-inclined peers were also slaves to that seminal book on post-war child-rearing.

I spent the best years of my childhood in the early 1960’s in a brand-spanking-new Montreal suburb with a ton of other kids. For grades three and four I walked one-and-a-quarter miles back and forth to school, often solo, four times daily. The path was along the shoulder of a country highway. The destination was a quaint, modest, very retro, 19th century, two-story, four-room, red-brick schoolhouse. It had a bell in a gable on the roof with a cord that dangled in the ground floor hallway. Lucky kids got to ring it. That was before the new, closer to home, mid-century modern elementary school was built.

My friends and I spent our summers ranging all over the former rural landscape on our bikes, hunting frogs, digging in sand pits, climbing trees, building forts, slogging along creeks in our billy-boots often mired in deep mud and getting “soakers”. We often collected empty soft-drink soda bottles from residential construction sites. We trucked hundred of bottles home in our wagons, rinsed off the mud in our driveways, then took them to the grocery store a couple of miles away to collect the deposits. As soon as we pocketed the cash, we headed down the mall to Woolworth’s to buy plastic model cars and WWII fighter planes, glue and paint. 

We did all that as 9 to 12 year olds, all on our own. No cell-phones. No parents. Most often miles from home. We’d set out for hours at a time. Our mothers had absolutely no idea where we were, or what we were doing. I never recall any motherly-angst, from any of our mothers. 

In the evenings we’d gather in front of a TV and watch some shows, on a rainy day maybe Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian and that crazy gang.

It was wonderful.

Leap forward 20-30 years, and we were raising our own kids. TV played a much bigger role. Our two or three year-old daughter memorized Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. Team sports like soccer and hockey were also a big deal. Bikes, much less. Foraging in fields and forests, not at all. Our kids didn’t roam like I did. Never. There was no Dr. Spock. We bought diapers in boxes, and baby bottles were plastic. As a parent I don’t recall being stressed out. Sure there was an occasional trip to the ER, some head-scratching moments at parent-teacher nights. But overall, I wouldn’t say any of it was a challenge we felt we couldn’t comfortably handle.

Fast-forward another 20-30 years. We have grandkids. They request an iPhone from mom or dad and at three and four years old, they swipe through photos and videos on the phone with what I can only call great skill and confidence, easily finding their favorites from among hundreds and hundreds of tiny thumbnails, with an ease that sparks a certain envy on my part.

And that’s where the looming challenge lies for our kids as parents. It’s as scary as a leopard stalking unseen in tall grass. When do their kids get their own phones? Obviously not now, but almost certainly that day will come all too soon. And with that phone, come games, messages, email, and SOCIAL MEDIA.

There is no doubt whatsoever that social media is poisoning public discourse and infecting society. That’s the least of it. Much too often it is proving to be lethal among children and teenagers. Truly deadly. Often suicide, lately spawning swarming by kids who commit assaults, and here in Toronto, a recent random murder.

How do you raise children to become confident, resourceful, socially mature, responsible, and capable adults when there is a truly threatening, ubiquitous, and poisonous environment, constantly present that’s impossible to see or apprehend and neutralize?

Ban cell phones, computers and tablets? No that’s not really an option. The schools are increasingly requiring those devices as part of the curriculum.

That means that  the worst aspects of social media are inevitable in the near future for our grandchildren. Likes and dislikes,  misinformation, inappropriate selfies, virtual cliques and gangs, bullying, extortion, blackmail… 

I wish this was an unreasonable overreaction on my part, an irrational delusion, my unreasonable fear, or my paranoid delusion. 

Unfortunately I truly believe, very regrettably, that it is a not-too distant reality.

I find myself asking what I would do as a parent? Where would I turn for reliable guidance? Where is the Dr. Spock for today’s parents? 

Is the answer to be found in just a few clicks on the internet? It’s a sea of information, and there is no Dr. Spock dominating the digital horizon, offering wise advice to spare. There is no shortage of advice, but where is the good, effective, reliable advice?

I don’t know.

Do you have any insights or guidance you can share? 

Another year ends

 Seven degrees Celsius at seven o'clock this morning. 

22 years into the century, and there are many mysteries. Why are we so poorly behaved? Who would have ever thought that many who worshipped George Washington for his honesty, would shrug truth into irrelevance, without so much as a pause, or second thought. It boggles my mind.

The weather is another head-scratcher.

SEVEN DEGREES!!! It's December 30th for heaven's sake. Buffalo, a mere 100 kilometres south of Toronto, has suffered an unprecedented winter storm. In a city that gets more than its fair share of snow, where people know how to cope with winter weather better than most, more than 40 people have lost their lives as a direct result of the storm that paralyzed the city. It boggles my mind.

As I write this, it's now 10 degrees here, headed to eleven degrees.

Yes, you are correct! I did not loop the P2 loop this morning. It was truly a joy to ride outdoors: south to Mel Lastman Square, west through the cemetery to Senlac, on through the side streets to Bathurst, north to the Finch corridor path, east to Yonge, and south back home. In all 8.5 thoroughly enjoyable kilometres.

I bundled up (3 layers, including a top waterproof one; mitts; ear warmer band; neck thingy). IT WAS BALMY when I left the garage. Warmer outside than in the indoor parking. I had to lower some zippers. Sheesh!

Look at this.

Yes, we did get a blizzard while the rest of Ontario, Quebec and New York was getting slammed with snow.

This is all that remains. Many Torontonians prayed for the snow so we could have a white Christmas. Evidently we prayed a little too much. We owe our neighbours a heartfelt apology. 

In truth, praying for a white Christmas is not the cause of all this unprecedented pain and grief. It's global warming. At least that's what I think. I could be wrong. But why risk life on earth when we could act to become carbon neutral and substantially address the threat of a global catastrophe?

My very best wishes to my family, dear friends, and dear readers. Let's all hope and pray that we right the course and sail to better times.

The P2 Loop

 Have you ever ridden a bike 9.6 kilometres in a garage?

It's a very different experience from riding outdoors, that's obvious. I know.

The thing is, that when you do anything very often, you come to appreciate the experience more deeply. Even when the thing you are doing seems dull and completely uninviting. Like riding a bicycle in a garage.

Repetition and focus are the key factors, but there are others that distinguish riding in a garage from riding outdoors. Each experience has features that satisfy.

Outdoors, there is a rich and varied soundscape. Cars and traffic, dogs that bark close by or in the distance. Vehicles approaching with that distinct whirring of tires on pavement. Pedestrians walking in pairs chatting. Their conversation drifts in from completely indistinct to just a very few words that make it to your brain, and the words instantly drift away into oblivion. Jets glide by sounding like they are tearing a strip out of the sky. Sirens scream and honk aggressively, and recede, eventually to be replaced by the soft airflow of an approaching car, or the rustle of leaves in a breeze. In a quiet moment the bike intrudes. The click of a shift, the faint noise of the thin hard tires on the pavement, the clunk, clunk, clunk of seams in the sidewalk. The slope of the landscape, sometimes letting you glide effortlessly, and inevitably reclaiming that gift as you lose your momentum, hear your breathing, and pull on the bars to reclaim that altitude. The bell speaking to pedestrians. Or to shifty squirrels. The ride repeats perhaps once a week, because there are alternate routes. And in a single route, there are few repetitions. Not none, but precious few.

Outdoors, even in an uninspiring place, like a busy street, or a parking lot, a million details compete for attention. Traffic and pedestrian flow. Potholes. Linear gaps and lines made by uneven seams or slabs that run parallel to the line of travel and light up your brain as your tires threaten to drift into their potent trap and jerk your bike off-balance. The sky in its infinite glory. Sunshine warming your body. A sky that is constantly shifting, familiar, yet never the same. Clouds, unobscured blue sky, fog, mist, light rain, grey featureless swaths of endless boredom. Dark mid-day skies, heavy with the threat of rain, as the leaves on their branches show their undersides in the breeze. You expect thunder at any moment, and you are wary of lightning. Yes, there is risk, but generally I  see it coming in plenty of time to make other plans. So far.

Indoors, each loop is 0.16 of a kilometre. There are 60 loops in a 34 minute ride, timed on my watch, each loop taking 34 seconds. 9.6 kilometres. It's much more science than it is art. That's not to say that it's artless. What you see seems always the same, but there are differences. There are also subtle differences. The parking spaces seem always home to the same car. But there is a cycle of change, ever so slow, yet it's there. When someone gets a new car, you notice. Then there are two types of parkers: nose-in, and nose-out. I have a theory that people who like what their car looks like tend to back in to their spots. They are nose-outers. When a consistent nose-outer parks nose-in, you notice. 

Indoors, the light is white, flat, and constant through the loop, yet it also varies. There are bright spots, usually reflections of the LED ceiling tube-lights in the eight semi-circular convex mirrors that dot the route, helping you see around corners. But also glinting off the surface of cleaner cars. My flashing headlight pulses off cars at certain angles. There are patterns. patterns in the concrete floor, but more importantly, patterns of behaviour. People are fairly consistent. If I ride between seven and seven-thirty a.m., the comings and goings I see are very different than if I ride from eight-thirty to nine. Usually I am looping from 7:15 to 7:45. I get to know the 'regulars'. With some I exchange a greeting. Others have their eyes on their phones.

Indoors, safety is as important as ever. People don't expect a cyclist in their garage. My bike is like a ghost, it only makes noise in one place, where the floor slopes towards the corner. That's where I hit maximum speed. The tires make an exciting whirring, almost whining sound in that curve. Otherwise I am so silent, it is up to me to avoid the comers and goers. I listen to jazz streaming on my AirPods. I keep the volume very low because ambient noise is key to avoiding cars and people. I can hear as soon as a car is in motion, either coming in, or leaving. Often even when the car is in motion on P1 or P3. My headlight and tail lights help the drivers see me. Kids often chatter, which is good because they sometimes run, weaving their way from the elevator lobby to the family car. Mostly people are as silent as my bike. I am always listening, always watching. There are cues. Is the door to the elevator lobby closing? Is there movement in the big corner mirror? Did a car door close? Did an engine start? If a car just parked on P1, where are the people as they make their way to the elevator? Every 34 seconds the pattern repeats, check the door, check the mirror, check the path through the cars, check the mirror, check the door... I am the alien, it's all on me, I yield to all comers and goers.

The P2 loop is about more than exercise. I love to ride. When the weather makes riding outdoors impractical, I loop on P2. The repeating patterns, the need to read the cues, the constant focus, the aural backdrop of jazz playing softly, the occasional greeting, smile, or wave, the patterns on the floor as I follow the same path that avoids oncoming cars and drain covers (they make a horrible clank that reverberates jarringly in the space).

All of this adds up to an ethereal, rarified, calm, and focused experience, very different from riding outdoors. It brings its own brand of joy that I have grown to appreciate.

That's why I decided to share it here.

Today was my 76th P2 loop.  730 kilometres of indoor life, on two wheels.

On the brink, the cusp, the verge...

 I mentioned that Atomic Habits has altered the way I live my life.

One of the tips I got from James Clear is to build structures around your desired habits that help to make those habits a reliable part of your daily routine.

One of the structures that James recommends is a "habit scorecard". It's really simple. You make a list of the activities you want to include in your daily life. My list is, of course, in a spreadsheet.

I started tracking my daily activities on September 29 last year.

When I do the thing that I feel ought to be part of my daily routine, I get an "X" in that activity's pigeonhole for that day. I never cheat. I never exagerate.

One column is "Move - walk, ride, swim". If I walk the pigeonhole gets a "W". If I ride my bike, it's an "R". Swims are rare.

When I ride in the underground garage doing the P2 loop, the pigeonhole gets a "P2".

In March of this year when my morning rides went from the garage to the great outdoors, I was able to use the activity app on my iPhone to track my rides. From that point on I not only noted the fact that I had ridden, I noted the distance.

In that way, in the early morning on November 11, I knew the exact moment and the exact place where I reached 1,000 kms.

I then went back in time (in my spreadsheet) to February 2, of this year. That was when I determined that 60 P2 loops adds up to 9.6 kms. I then added those kilometres.

My early morning rides, as I write this, amount to not less than 1,483.68 kms. 

That's a lot of kilometres. All in under a year.

If I stick to my routine, Monday I will cross the 1,500 kilometre line.

Wow! 

A bunch of little steps can really add up to something BIG! Quicker than you think!!

Cold hands? No more!

 Minus 4 Celsius (24.8 F.) this morning.

Yesterday I happened to be at Winners with Susan. I wandered over to a wall of gloves and poked around until I found a pair of ski mitts. For $20 it was worth a shot.

This morning I did a 8.55 km frosty outdoor loop.

I assumed that at one point or another I was going to need the little rechargeable hand-warmer in my pocket.

Not so! What a pleasant surprise.

To be honest I don't know why the mitts surprised me. There was a time when I used to ski. Mostly my hands were fine in mitts, I think.

Oh well.

On a side note, the Brompton stock bell that comes with every Brompton was not happy in the cold. I also had a little difficulty with my super bell (mitt clumsiness, it seems). On the other hand, I had no trouble using my WWII cricket clicker. Worked like a charm.

WWII cricket clicker????

Yes indeed. Picked it up a few weeks ago at the Canadian Juno Beach D-Day landing museum. 3 euros. Worth every centime! If you're interested, go to a museum boutique where you'll pay 3 euros, not Amazon, or Etsy,  where they'll charge $25.

I'll be back.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed posting to the blog.

Time to hibernate

This morning it was -4C (24.8F).

Nevertheless, though snow was in the forecast, it seemed willing to hold off till noon, so I followed my 'default' cycle route that amounts to 6.64 kms.:

I have adopted a layering approach to the weather that, in almost all respects, works really well for me.

It is based on the following items:

• fingerless cycling gloves
• waterproof gloves
• a light versatile neck warmer I picked up in Florence years ago
• a headband runner's ear warmer
• a light down jacket
• an ultralight windbreaker
• a high-end waterproof jacket.
• waterproof running shoes

I don't yet have waterproof pants, but they are on my radar.

All of these items are extremely packable, and come with me on all my travels. They will take me from a chilly or wet summer day, to a very wet rainy late September stroll in Paris from the Moulin Rouge to Galeries Lafayette, and then on to our hotel in the 5th, comfortably warm, bone dry, and umbrella-free; and all the way to this morning's very chilly ride, all in almost perfect comfort... except for my hands.

By the time I ended my ride this morning, two pairs of gloves (winter leather gloves plus glove liners), left me with uncomfortably cold hands - but always a warm heart.

Besides, snow is here. Witness our balcony bistro above.

What this all means, is that it's time to shift gears and move the morning cycle to the P2 Loop. Like a bear entering hibernation, if the bear rode a bike in its cave. Maybe circus bears?

In preparation for the shift, I took the Mini down to P2 and drove the Loop ten times: 1.6 kms. Last fall I used a counting application on my phone to count the number of loops in my usual ~34 minute morning riding routine: 60 P2 Loops. I'm far from a math wizard, but that seems to yield a 9.6 km morning ride. Not too shabby.

My average outdoor ride is 8.6 kms and lasts a little longer, to as much at 50 minutes for a ten or eleven kilometer jaunt. Outdoor rides have intersections with traffic lights, uphill grades, headwinds, pedestrians, dogs, cats, squirrels, coyotes, geese and photo ops. The P2 Loop has few things getting in the way of my ride. On the P2 Loop I'm more like a piston making its way around an engine block. So it makes sense that I cover more ground in less time on the P2 Loop, than on my usual rides above ground. Besides, all this data is the product of fancy computer applications, satellite links, and a spreadsheet. So it must be true. (20221116 Ed.: it's now tomorrow, and I did the P2 Loop this morning, with a 34 minute timer, and an application to count the loops to keep me honest, and the result was exactly 60 loops in 34 minutes, to the second. That means that my speed in the garage is a relatively constant 17 km/h. Also, my packable down jacket was all I needed for comfort. I had JazzFM91 streaming very softly in my AirPods. Overall a very zen-like way to cycle through the winter.)

And there you have it.

I have done my best to make a very boring shift underground as captivating as possible.

Speaking of cycling underground, did I mention that last month Susan fractured her collar bone crashing a bicycle into a stone wall, while on a guided tour of ten kilometers of pitch-black wine caves in the Loire valley? She's been convalescing nicely since the accident on October 2. This week she is more often sling-less, and physio is paying dividends. What a nightmare. 

_________________________________

Update: today, Friday, November 18, with a seasonal temperature of -3C (26F), I ventured outdoors for another ride. Riding outdoors has that much more appeal than the P2 Loop. This time I managed to wear my normal leather gloves over my Showers Pass waterproof gloves. It was a tight fit. By the time I got to my furthest point of that 8.92 kilometer ride, my hands were cold, but only my thumbs were cold to the point of discomfort. My conclusion is that heated gloves might be required. Everything else was nice and warm (except my legs, but who cares about cold legs?)

Here is the route  - home south to the residential streets just north of the 401, east to Bayview Avenue, then back west to Yonge and the 401, then home: