4000 miles

 Yesterday, the odometer on my old exercise bike, which I use regularly when I don't go for a walk, turned to 7000. This is measured in miles. The last times I posted anything in that regard was when the odometer turned to around 6000 miles; that was in January 2011, and 3000 miles in March 2009. So, in somewhat less than three years, I have put 4000 miles (6435 km) more onto the old, trusty "wheeled horse". The earlier post can be viewed here: http://www.penmachinedad.blogspot.com/2009/03/turning-3000.html

March 2009                                                                                              January 2012

These 4000 miles represent both tragic and uplifting changes in our family. The tragic part is about our son, Derek. He died last year, on May 3 (http://www.penmachine.com/). The uplifting part concerns the birth of our niece's son Alexander, a strapping addition to our extended family. Our daughter-in-law, Airdrie, and granddaughters (Derek and Airdrie's daughters) live next door; it's wonderful to be so close to them. We consider the three of them to be "our kids", along with Lucy, the girls' little shitsu/poodle, which came into the family a couple of years ago. 

My wife and I have traveled here and there in that time and met friends, old (sadly, one of them has died, too, and a couple of others are seriously ill) and new. "The kids" have done the same, but have gone to different, and more exotic places. We've had our enjoyable family gatherings for the yearly holidays and birthdays. I'm still running my small business. Life is carrying on...

"Biking"

Since the weather was reasonable this morning (it's getting ready to rain right now), my wife and I decided to take our regular walk around the neighbourhood. We do this as often as weather permits. For us that means that it's not raining or snowing. In that case, I substitute a half hour on our stationary bike. I've been using that bike basically by myself; my wife does her exercise by doing her normal housework - we have a "split-level" home, and she's constantly walking up and down the stairs.

By now, the bike's odometer reads just over 6043 miles (over 9700 kilometers). I commented on this exercise bike in March, 2009, at which time the odometer read 3000 miles. At an average of about 9 miles per half hour that additional distance represents roughly 330 days on which I used that bike.

It shows how often the weather around here is bad enough for us to forego taking a walk, because this means that there have been something like 170 inclement days per year during that interval; it's an indication that we live in a "high precipitation" city.

Here's the link to that previous post:
http://penmachinedad.blogspot.com/2009/03/turning-3000.html

See the town

We went for a nice walk yesterday. Got off the skytrain at Science World and walked to Granville Island. We had some ice cream there, then took the False Creek ferry to the Aquatic Centre, walked past Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park to the Bayshore Inn and had lunch. The next stop was the Pan Pacific Hotel for a Spanish coffee, watching the cruise ships go, and finally home via the sky train. A mini-holiday. The green hand-drawn line on the Google map shows our walking path (skytrain not shown). Click on the map for a larger view.

Turning 3000

About 3 years ago, my brother-in-law's brother and wife gave us an exercise bike which they were replacing with a more up-to-date version. At the time, it's speedometer indicated about 300 miles. It is a totally mechanical bike, with an adjustable tension roller pressing against the wheel, which makes it possible to simulate mountain "grades" and, if adjusted properly, will make us work hard. On the days when weather or a particluar time commitment prevents us from going for our walk, we use this bike for about one half hour - and for myself, I adjust it so that I work up a real sweat. On average, I cover about 9.3 miles in that half hour (according to the odometer). If I do any less, I'm not working hard enough. Both my wife and I are making pretty good use of it, but since she gets quite a bit of exercise around the house, it is I who does the bulk of the pedalling on the bike (90%, or so).



In the winter, the bike is used almost daily. In the summer we're much more likely to walk - our neighbourhood is hilly, and a good walk is good exercise. In any case, the other day, when I was doing my usual half hour on the bike, the odometer turned 3000 miles (it's an older bike, and still calibrated in miles). This means that we've added about 2700 miles (a bit more than 4300km) to its total use. That's the distance from Vancouver, BC (our city) to Halifax on the East Coast. It also means that the bike has been used about 320 times by us (it's getting close to the equivalent of one year's worth of half-hour per day pedalling). I never thought we'd "bike" all the way across Canada - we did it "virtually", of course. Luckily, the bike doesn't simulate any inclement weather "along the way".

The bike works just fine - I've oiled the various bearings, chain, and especially the pressure roller about 3 times. I expect it to last a lot longer still.

Winter again

At this time of year here, you take the nice days when you can get them. Today was such a day; my wife and I took the opportunity and went for a long walk (usually, we walk about half an hour per day, if weather permits). Our city has many nice parks, and there are a couple within reasonable walking distance. We chose Central Park (not the one of New York fame).

After we got home, the view out of our front window showed that our local mountains had been dusted with snow - the first signs of the coming winter. Time sure goes fast. You've seen similar pictures of the scenery on this blog before, but we never get tired of the view, even though we've lived in this house for 37 years. So, here is what attracted my attention today:


The pictures were taken through our front window with a Canon Rebel XT, set to an exposure time of 1/500th of a second, at ISO 800 "film" sensitivity, 75-300mm Canon zoom lens set to 255mm, at f 8.0 focal ratio. For those of you who want to know more about what these various settings represent, I recommend that you read Derek's ongoing dissertation about camera settings.

A nice day, finally!

Those of you who live in my city know just how long we've had no sunshine. Today, things changed (it actually started yesterday). The sun is out, the snowtopped mountains are beautiful and the days are getting longer.









Mountains


We decided to take a walk in Stanley Park, took the skytrain to Waterfront and walked from there. Spring announced its coming.








The seawalk





Some flowers were blooming, and it seems that half of Vancouver had the same idea about taking a walk as we did.










































Spring is coming: some flowers and buds.


On the way back, we decided to take the seabus (the ferry across the harbour) to Lonsdale Quay for a beer and a burger (since I wasn't driving, this was a safe thing to do). Seabus is part of the skytrain system, so we bought a ticket at Waterfront, went to the quay, had our food, got back on the seabus, transferred to skytrain, and went home. The fare for each of us for all that was $1.75 each way (a total of $7.- for the whole day). I think the cost of driving would have been higher (at $1.05/l for gasoline) - and I would have had to have a coffee instead of a beer.










Lonsdale Quay

Enough, already, and more

It seems that we've had far more than our normal share of snow here. There has been "dump after dump" for several weeks now, and some snow has almost always been on the ground. That's quite unusual for us west-coast softies. We've done more than our normal amount of shovelling; it makes up somewhat for the missed walks my wife and I like to take. The other exercise option we have is an old excercise bike we have in the basement, which we use when the weather makes walking uncomfortable for us.

This exercise bike was given to us by a member of our extended family. When we got it, its "odometer" showed just under 300 miles of (stationary) travel - the scenery never changes - now it is showing just over 1,200 miles. This means that we have "biked" around 900 miles - 1,450km - I think that's like biking from Vancouver to Calgary.

Anyway, I'm sure hoping that the weather will be clear for the next lunar eclipse on February 20. This eclipse occurs early in the evening, it starts around sunset (and moonrise) for us here on the west coast. Look towards the eastern horizon, as the sky gets darker, the eclipse should be more easily visible. It's hard to predict, sometimes the moon gets really dark during an eclipse, and is hard to see.




This is a simulated image of how the moon might appear on an uncommonly clear evening at around 6:30pm on Feb 20 from some imagenary lake in the Vancouver, B.C., area. Click on the picture to get a slightly larger view.

More food

Last night, Derek watched the fireworks (it was Spain's turn); he said they were very good.

Derek is having more food today. Before we went to visit him, he asked us to bring him a special kind of soup of which Airdrie had brought him a little yesterday. He told us where we could get it, and we drove by and picked some up for him. This is one of those special, hardy Jewish soups, with motzeballs (meatballs). We brought him a large portion, and he ate it all (except for the carrots, which are too fibrous at this time). He also asked for, and we brought him some no-sugar-added pudding and he had one of those (the package contains six). He also had some tea. His doctor is saying that they're aiming for a Saturday release from the hospital. We'll see how things are progressing, but it's something to aim for.

After all that food, he had a rest while we were at his bedside. He still gets tired quite easily, but makes an effort to move around. He's been down to the cafeteria on his own for some tea (six floors down and some distance to walk). Since he's is still tied to his intravenous rack, this is a slow process, but things are looking up some more.

Recovering

We visited Derek (Lauren, Marina [Derek's daughters], my wife, and I) for a short period this afternoon. Derek and Airdrie had walked around the ward a couple of times earlier today (probably about 200 meters - 660 ft) and he was fairly tired when we arrived. We didn't stay long. Derek is taking a lot less of the morphine drip today, but his gut hasn't started working yet (quite normal for this kind of operation). Airdrie has posted a couple of pictures on Derek's blog (http://www.penmachine.com/). We are all pleased about Derek's progress, none more than Derek himself.

Alive man walking

Derek just phoned to let us know how things are going. He's walked from his hospital bed to the elevator and back - a considerable stretch, totaling approximately 50 meters (165 ft) - and sat up for a while. We're all happy with this wonderful progress. It's amazing how well the body deals with the healing when asked to do something. Not too long ago, the procedure would have been to stay immobile and "baby" the body. It seems that the more you ask of it, the better it responds. My wife and I plan to visit Derek later on today; more news then.

One thing which I haven't mentioned so far: everyone of us owes a great debt of gratitude to the doctors who are treating Derek - his team of doctors at the BC Cancer Institute, the surgeons at St. Paul's Hospital who so skillfully removed Derek's colon cancer, and the nurses and staff who look after Derek. Without them, all the good news above would likely have been much bleaker. So, from us (Derek's parents), as well as all members of our family, thank you...