Dear dumbass...

Instead of yelling "you ran a red light!" at me as I rode my bicycle through the intersection this morning, perhaps you should be watching for the "walk" signal.

The light changed to amber as I entered the intersection. It changed to red when I had to come to a near stop because your ass had stepped into the dedicated bicycle lane — while the "don't walk" signal was still on — as I got to the other side.

Rain sucks

The topic says it all.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and Monday was the day. I got rained on, while cycling home. Up to then, I was fairly lucky and the worst I got was a light misting.

The worst part wasn't so much the rain, but the puddles I had to ride through at the side of the road. My shoes were soaked.

I got a sports cam for my Birthday earlier in the month and I've begun filming most of my rides. Sometimes there's an asshole who cuts me off, and other times there's something cool to see. This is one of those "something cool" moments.

I'm really pleased by the steadiness of the camera, considering it's mounted to my handlebars. It's a Contour ROAM, but it doesn't have any kind of stabilzation feature. I've tried mounting regular video cameras or pocket cameras and the quality of the footage is terrible. I plan to eventually post a video of an entire ride (sped up around 300%), just for fun. By the end of summer, I may also have enough for a compilation video showing how bad some cyclists are.

Bucket List update, Nov 7, 2011

Overdue for an update...

• Weigh 210lbs or less — This was originally 200 but was revised months before achieving it at the end of October, so I'm marking this as complete.
• Quit smoking — Completed almost 3 years ago.
• Visit the UK — Still to do.
• Visit my Dad's grave site in Louisiana — Still to do.
• Own a Ford Mustang — Probably a long way away from getting this one done. :)
• Visit every province in Canada — Still to do.
• Cycle 1000 kms in one year — Done mid summer 2011.
• Cycle 2000 kms before the end of the summer 2011 - Done
• Cycle 3000 kms before the first snow fall — Done. Can't recall the exact date... maybe I blogged about it?
• Ride in a hot air balloon — Still to do.
• Ride in a bi-plane — I see one taking off and landing at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum all the time, but I think it's a bit pricey.
• Learning to play at least one full song on guitar — New! :)

Extra-long weekend summary

You could probably also call it the end-of-summery...

• Thursday — Helped some friends move into the neighbourhood
• Friday — Went for a long cycling ride
• Saturday — Woke up early to go shoot photos of hot air balloons, which I will post a link to below. This was followed by our neighbourhood Family Fun Day, and parking lot dance, with to much "La Beer Day" celebrations. :-\
• Sunday — La Beer Day recovery
• Monday — Chillin' at home. Would have liked to go cycling, but the weather wasn't too good.

And here are the balloon photos:

Cutting cable... or the bill at least

Our rented Rogers PVR died a few days ago. None of the hours of recorded shows we had were showing up. I rebooted it and they appeared, but then disappeared soon after. I suspected that the hard drive was dead or dying. It had been acting up for a while in the last couple of months, rebooting on its own for no reason, and splitting recordings in two parts.

Sandra took it to one of their stores to exchange it for a new(er) one. At the same time, she tried to cancel stuff that we don't use because our bill keeps growing. We were disappointed, but not too surprised, to find out that you can't cancel anything at their stores. You have to CALL them to do that. Stupid.

We got the new one hooked up and so far so good.

The next day, Sandra called to cancel the movie package. I turns out that it wouldn't make much of a difference to our bill. Maybe $15 less per month. Sandra told the rep that we need to do something to get the bill down because it's too much.

Get this. The rep offered to keep everything the same but reduce our bill by ~20% in exchange for signing a contract with them for a year.

She also threw in two "on demand" movies, free of charge, for the loss of all our recorded shows.

We accepted the offer.

I had often heard that they'll cut you deals if you call and threaten to leave for another company. We didn't even do that. We just told them that we didn't want to pay as much as we do.

Apparently our monthly bill will now be around $185 instead of $217. It's still too much, imho, but I'm not ready to battle my family for all the channels they like to watch.

Bucket List — updated

I was looking through old postings on my blog and came across one titled "Bucket List".

It was basically a list of things I wanted to do in life. I realized that I have completed at least two of them, and I'm on my way to completing a third. This was the list:

1. Weigh 200lbs or less (target = summer)
2. Quit smoking (already in progress -- if I can go 2 months, I'll consider it done)
3. Visit the UK (where I was born, and where my cousins, aunts, and uncles live)
4. Visit my Dad's grave site in Louisiana.
5. Own a Ford Mustang. :D
6. Visit every province in Canada (6 to go... not including the territories)
7. Cycle 1000kms in one year (this may not seem like much to some people, but considering I tend to cycle once per weekend, in spring & summer only, that's about 80kms per weekend -- double what I usually ride...)

I thought I had updated it at one time but can't find the posting right now. Anyway, it's time for an update! :)

1. Weigh 200lbs or less — As this was posted in 2009, I didn't make the summer target. It's unlikely I'll make the target this summer either, but I'm well on my way as you can see in other postings. :)
2. Quit smoking — Done. Done years ago. I made it past the 2 month mark and kept going.
3. Visit the UK — Still to do.
4. Visit my Dad's grave site in Louisiana — Still to do.
5. Own a Ford Mustang — Probably a long way away from getting this one done. :)
6. Visit every province in Canada — Yeh, still to do.
7. Cycle 1000kms in one year — I had completely forgotten about this one, but as a matter of fact, I'm almost at 1400kms for this summer and I expect to break 2000kms before the end of the summer, easily. :)

I think I need a few more items added to the bucket list.

"Out with the old. In with the new"

I had planned to write about this past year, and what I hoped the new year would bring. Like every other blog out there, I guess. After an hour of trying to formulate something that didn't sound corny, I gave up.

Screw it. Keeping it simple always works.

Goodbye 2010; it's been a slice.

Hello 2011.

Resolutions? Who needs them? I quit smoking without one. If you've read any of my previous blog postings, it should be obvious what's next.

Clean slate. New experiences. New goals. New determination to reach those goals. And maybe a little fun thrown in.

I'm ready.

I think.

My 10.10.10@10:10AM GMT Worldwide Moment

I set my alarm clock for 5:30AM so I could be awake for 6:10AM to shoot my "Worldwide Moment" shot. I rarely hear the alarm clock; it's usually my wife who wakes me up during the week.

5:30AM arrived and I actually heard it. In my half-asleep state of mind, I remembered exactly why it was going off so early on a Sunday morning. I turned it off and slowly crept out of bed and hobbled to the washroom.

Why would I ruin a perfectly good sleep to join thousands of other people worldwide, to take a photo at 10:10AM GMT on 10/10/2010?

Because it seemed like a good idea. It was fun. *yawn*

I needed coffee and I needed it NOW.

As I walked back to the bedroom, my wife woke up to go to the washroom. I asked her if she thought Tim Horton's might be open. She said she thought so, and suggested trying a few different ones. I asked her if she wanted one. She munbled "Get me one just in case..." and crawled back into bed.

I now had ~35 minutes to find coffee and return home.

I put on track pants, grabbed my wallet and keys and off I went.

It was still dark. And cold.

Two of the three Tim Horton's I checked seemed open, but only the third one had the drive-thru open. There was no way I was going to get out of my truck for this, so the third one saved me.

I now had ~15 minutes to get home, figure out what I was going to shoot and actually take the shot.
With 10 minutes to go, I was home. My wife was still in bed. I put her coffee on the kitchen counter and started looking around.

I looked out my back window at all of the leaves on the patio. Leaves. Leaves it would be. And I would add my Timmy Ho's coffee in the shot as well. How Canadian. :) But it was still dark and I didn't want to screw this up, so I grabbed my Gorillapod and attached it to the camera.

5 mins to go.

I quietly slipped out the back door, coffee and camera in hand and set up the shot. I fired off a few test shots while waiting for "the moment" to make sure it was focused.

10:10AM GMT arrived.

*click*

A couple more.

*click* *click*

Done.

I think my neighbour was sitting in his backyard having a smoke. Not sure what he thought I was doing out at 6:10AM, in the dark, taking pictures on my patio.

I managed to get two pretty good, focused, shots. This is the one I used.



Yay me. *yawn*

My coffee has been done for a while now and I think I'm going to need more.

Oh ya, Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians.

(Edit: here's my photo in the Worldwide Moment gallery)

10.10.10@10:10AM GMT - Worldwide Moment

Can you imagine everyone in the world taking a photograph simultaneously?

Can you imagine the feeling of peace, connection, and excitement this moment would bring?

Can you imagine the impact? … We can … Please join us on October 10th!

Worldwide Moment is a not-for-profit simultaneous photography event to create international peace, art, and cultural awareness.

Don't forget, this Sunday, October 10th, is Worldwide Moment @ 10:10AM GMT! If you have a camera, you can participate. Do it! It'll be fun. :)

Be sure to check out what time you need to shoot for your time zone since it's GMT! There's a link on the Worldwide Moment page, or click here.

For my time zone, I have to be awake for 6:10AM.

Gatineau Park

Sunday turned out to be a really nice day. My wife, daughter and I drove up to Gatineau Park to check out the colours. It was crazy busy.

Our first stop was the Mackenzie King Estate. When we arrived at around 10:00am, it was just beginning to get busy. The professional photographers were out in full force, doing family photo sessions, each waiting their turn at the various deformed trees and monuments for that "perfect" shot. Some of the tourists were shooting photos of the photographers as they shot photos of their clients. I was tempted to shoot a photo of the tourists as they did that but thought it might start a massive chain reaction.

We then made our way up to the Champlain Lookout, stopping at too lookouts on the way. We actually had to park the second lookout and walk the rest of the way because the NCC was stopping vehicles from proceeding all the way to Champlain. It turned out that they were doing that because the Champlain parking lot was full.

The views from all of the lookouts was spectacular. This was the first time I had ever been there in the 28 years I've lived in Ottawa. If you're planning on checking out the autumn colours, the next week or two is probably the time to do it. There's still a fair bit of green, especially below the tree line, but there's enough colour to make it worth the trip as you can see in my photos here.

After walking the trails at the Champlain Lookout, we headed home, but not until after we made a quick stop at the Byward Market to pick up a whole whack of veggies and apples.

All in all, a great 6 hour outing on a crisp fall day.

What is this?

If you arrived here using www.scottpaterson.org and are surprised that the entire layout and colour scheme has changed, there's a reason for that. (if you got here with that address and the page is black with grey text, then there's a problem...)

This is the same blog, but now hosted on Posterous.com. After a month or so of playing around with Posterous, I decided that I like it enough to switch my domain to point here.

However, if you prefer the old location on Blogspot or wish to purchase any of my photos via Fotomoto (which currently does not work with Posterous), the old blog location still exists and is synchronized with here. You can get to it by using http://blog.scottpaterson.org or its Blogspot address, http://spaterson.blogspot.com.