Super Moon, Blue Moon, Blood Moon, Eclipse (of) Moon

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish...

The alarm clock awoke me 15 minutes earlier than usual this morning: 5:30 a.m. I had nudged it back a few clicks last night to ensure I had time to take in a rare celestial event; a lunar eclipse. But not just any lunar eclipse; a super moon, blue moon, blood moon and eclipse of the moon.

Frequent perusal of weather forecast websites yesterday told me not to get my hopes up however for fair weather this morning. In any casino I'd consider myself lucky to score seven consecutive identical icons; I'd at least win some money. But in this case a cloud with rain drops forecast for the next seven days is not the image one wants to see on the weather website on the eve of a rare eclipse.

The faint horizontal shadow at the bottom is an electrical power line that
got in the way of my camera's frame.

I had set my trusty dSLR the night before to pre-arranged settings I researched some time ago. It took awhile to find them hidden away in my cellphone notes. Unfortunately I neglected to factor in the fact that there would be NO illumination being reflected in the camera's light sensor under full eclipse, which is the timeframe during which I first viewed this event. Needless to say my first four frames were completely black. Also fortunately I quickly regained my senses and realized what a cool spectacle I was seeing and left the camera alone to simply experience the moment.

It was actually a bit creepy to see a FULL moon hanging in the sky, dark, as if someone or something had extinguished it. Can you imagine being a hunter in some long ago place and time, having planned a night hunt, knowing in advance when the moon would be full, only to have it inexplicably curtained from view, like the final act in a play? Furthermore would you now be exposing yourself to unexpected darkness and danger, perhaps now the subject of some unseen predator in the forest whose eyes were more accustomed to night vision than your own. That could infuse a bit of panic in anyone, bold hunter or not.

Firmly back in the present, as I first stood on my deck this morning after exiting the warmth of the house it was difficult to locate the moon as there was some light cloud. Once located I watched the black orb floating in the western sky for a few minutes until a faint orange glow began to appear at the lower left portion. It gradually grew in brilliance to fulfill the "blood" portion of its name; then more minutes later the familiar whiteness of our real moon reappeared, again at the lower left corner spreading slowly across the face. Only then, now fully reassured that full restoration of illumination was underway could I re-enter my house and prepare for another day.

Chilly Chase 2018

To tell you the truth, I'd kinda been dreading this event for the past week for two reasons: I didn't have good runs the week preceding the event and the weather forecast was for torrential rain. Rain has made for colourful descriptions of the epic drenching we underwent during the 2016 Eastside 10K. I think the tale gets taller with every re-telling. But really, it was uncomfortably wet.

The Chilly Chase actually went really well. The worst of the weather largely held off until later in the day, and I jogged a good pace without any knee or hip discomfort to a finish of 1:02:30. I'm always a bit disappointed to miss a 10 km/h pace, but really, I haven't been aggressive enough in my recent training to realistically be able to expect a faster result. A pain-free finish is worth the extra 2-1/2 minutes. But to cheer me up, the stats say I placed 8th in my age category, and in about the middle of the of the pack; 8 out of 14.

Shauna did well too at about 1 hour 13 minutes, consistent with the Victoria 10K event last Thanksgiving weekend.

We prepared for any weather system this morning. We even
took public transit!

Fresh before the big run (and by 'big', I mean 10 km).

Despite the "Start" sign in the background, we are actually at the finish line.
Unfortunately I didn't get our medals in the frame, only the straps.

The post-brunch glow.

Almost 100% rain from here on in...We
got lucky this morning.

Fixing a Hole (where the rain gets in)

A couple of weeks ago we discovered we have a roof leak in the bedroom. There's a fine crack in the plaster that's been there for years and Shauna noticed drops of water hanging from that crack during a particularly nasty rain event. We haven't engaged a roofer yet to investigate, but we did place a plastic bin under it to catch any ensuing drips (of which there haven't been any!).

However, Tannah has somehow taken a fancy to this bin. It's lined with a towel so as to muffle the drip, drip, drip that will always occur while we're trying to sleep (Murphy's Roof Leak Law). The first time she hopped in I didn't have a camera handy, but this morning I happened to have my iPhone in my pocket.

She just doesn't get it; how could she ever lie down in this thing? Silly Spaniel. :-)

Tall Collage

I've been messing around with collages lately, and I've also been thinking about another series to incorporate into a collage. I had a couple of tall images in mind that I'd recently photographed in warehouses; one for tires storage and the other featuring stainless steel brewing tanks. Then the thought occurred to me to mix the series with nature shots. Last year while in Mackenzie on assignment I captured a grove of Poplars (I think they were Poplars anyway; they have white bark).

I had wanted to create a set of four photos, but the last selection didn't occur to me until this evening. On another assignment in Victoria last year I was waiting for a float plane flight and framed an interesting scene in a reflection of the building's structure in its own glazing. It turned out to have the look of a tall structure that I wanted even though it's really only an illusion of height. Hmmm...does that make it fake-height?

2018 Motorcycle Show at Tradex

Chris and I attended this year’s motorcycle show at the Tradex Centre in Abbotsford on Saturday afternoon after our running group. If time and weather permits I do like to attend each year just to swing a leg over the new models and keep up with what’s new, especially with Scramblers. I’m really drawn to that genre.

The BMW RnineT is still my favourite. It was last year too.

Believe it or not, this also is an RnineT. BMW has made this model very
customize-able, straight from the factory. This particular incarnation looks
super-cool, but I'm sure the crotch-rocket riding position wouldn't do my lower
back any favours.

And yes, this is also an RnineT. I've always been drawn to the boxer twin
format. I guess it just adds some nostalgia. Kinda like what the V-twin does
for Harley. This RnineT styling exercise evokes Scrambler elements with
the high exhaust.

I really want to like Yamaha's scrambler but I don't like the seating position.
With the low-hung exhaust (which I don't like; Scramblers have high exhausts!)
the foot pegs are set too wide, and my left knee hits the air filter box. Perhaps
Yamaha just needs a customization program like BMW's. I'm sure I could
modify this thing to suit my tastes. All it takes is mo' money!

Harley Davidson was very well represented too. A cool 13 grand will send
you off into the sunset on this Roadster (although it looks like a 1200 Sportster
to me).

Here's the "Yama-Harley", aka the "Bolt", Yamaha's tribute to Harley's Sportster.
I must say it looks the part and feels quite comfortable, at least on the showroom 
floor. And you can't beat the cost savings; a $7,400 show special.

I tried out the Kawi that Chris bought; its a Ninja 1000, although Chris' will
be green when it arrives this week. This bike fit me quite well, I must say!

Indian (two point oh) was also represented with quite a wide range of models.
This one looks ready to storm the salt flats of Utah. 

I read a cool book a few years ago (twice actually) about a guy who rebuilt
a classic 1941 Indian, much like the one I tried out. In "Rebuilding the Indian"
by Fred Haefele his bike has a hand shifter and foot-operated clutch. I'm sure
I can't even comprehend how difficult that layout would be to learn to ride.

A few customs slipped in too. I didn't get a chance to talk to the owner, but
this Yamaha flat track racer's engine looks like two RZ350/400 engines mated
to a shared crankcase/transmission. I'm not aware of a 4 cylinder watercooled
2-stroke ever having been produced by Yamaha. In my opinion this was the
coolest bike in the building!

There were a couple of nods to the future in the show too, including this entry
from Electra Meccanica (a company which started life as Intermeccanica, the
producer of excellent quality Porsche 356 replicas). This car is a single seat,
3-wheeled electric vehicle conceived in Vancouver, and soon to be mass
produced in China.

Still in the future but back to two wheels, this Piaggio electric-assist bicycle
is what I'm interested in presently. This would be perfect for my Vancouver to
Richmond commute which involves a large hill on the return leg (I'm not
exactly getting any younger!) With this bike I could make use of the bicycle
bridge suspended from the Cambie Skytrain bridge. Last year my FZR1000
commute stuck in Knight Street bridge gridlock wasn't exactly pleasant.

Happy Tannah

For no particular reason besides we're in the middle of the January blues, I decided to post a photo of one of Tannah's happiest faces. Just try not to smile, I challenge you!

Happy Tannah.

This was a couple of years ago, but she enjoys her walks just as much now. I don't often manage to catch in an image the exact expression that I see on her face.

The Increasing Unfitness of...

(Excerpts from) The Increasing Unfitness of Donald Trump by David Remnick - The New Yorker (2018-01-15 Issue)

“He behaved less like a President than like a teen-ager locked in his room with an ounce of Purple Skunk, three Happy Meals and a cell phone.” and;

“…and (Trump) quoted the Lou Dobbs Show’s praise of the Administration for “a set of accomplishments that nobody can deny.” (…that nobody can deny, for he’s a jolly good fellow…).

And of the new (released ahead of schedule due to insatiable demand) book by Michael Wolff, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House”;

Headline: “Trump Defends His Mental Capacity, Calling Himself a ‘Genius’.” (In other words, nobody noticed so Trump had to tell them.  Sad.)

October Group Ride in 2017

Over the weekend my friend Chris mentioned he hadn't seen photos of our October 2017 group motorcycle ride posted on my blog. I was quite sure I had already blogged about it, but a quick archive check proved he was right. I remember I had WhatsApp'ed him a photo or two but I guess blog-time eluded me.

Chris had arranged for me to join him and his friend Doug to ride through the north hilly portion of Mission on a mostly sunny October 1st afternoon. However, I realized I hadn't topped up on oil and we stopped by my place for a quick pit stop.

Chris (foreground) and Doug outside my garage.

Unfortunately Doug managed to only get his shoulder in our selfie.

Me, Doug and Chris in the Tim Hortons parking lot in Mission.

Next season Chris will be riding a new motorcycle (a mean green Kawasaki this time) due to an unfortunate traffic incident.

Multi-media Staycation

My Christmas break was a busy one this year. I had one more week of vacation than usual; 2 weeks off due to some accumulated overtime from earlier in the year. We decided to have a staycation for some much needed R & R. It turned into a bit of a multi-media audio-visual marathon of sorts including live theatre (the annual East Van pantomime), Netflix binge-watching: The Crown (season 2), Schitt’s Creek (season 3) and Stranger Things (season 1); and several movies including The Florida Project, Blade Runner (2019, borrowed from the library), Blade Runner 2049, Star Wars (re-watched A New Awakening to be fully abreast of the plot), Star Wars – The Last Jedi (being a dog lover I really liked the Crystal Foxes segment, and of course BB8 who displays so many canine traits), and Big Time (about Starchitect Bjarke Ingels, who is involved with the presently under-construction Vancouver House project in downtown Vancouver).

Vancouver House under construction.

Vancouver House has come a long way since November 2016.

We tossed in a couple of random viewings too from Youtube and TV including Canuck the Crow, and a 5^th Estate investigation on the soon-to-be released (April 2018) JFK files from 55 years ago. It’ll be interesting to find out how much will remained sealed and Top Secret despite the official US Federal announcement of full disclosure of all files to the public.

 

I also managed to fit in a couple of LEED maintenance courses. LEED provides a 2-year time window to review 10 modules to maintain one’s accreditation, but somehow I typically manage to leave it to the last minute. So far I’ve managed to whittle it down to completing 7 modules in the next 6 months, as my membership is up for renewal at the end of June.

 

Happy New Year!

3rd Anniversary of My 17th Birthday

Shauna made me an awesome birthday cake!

It looks like a more somber event than it really was. I didn't know at the
time I was being photographed or I would have smiled.

P.S. (2018-01-08): And speaking of not somber...it was my birthday! Of course I smiled! Laughed a few times too! In re-reading this post I think I may have somehow mistakenly created the impression that I'm not keen on being my age. Really, I'm OK with it. It's just a number. Now move along people; nothing to see here.