CaptainOrange

Strange Angles in the Peterson Bldg. Not quite the Mendel Okay, the bit about the "lady's chamber" was an outright fabrication, but you're here... so that's good. Before I get into the pictures, a quick update on my stair running. This week I've bested my records at both the 5T and 10T times (where T=11 floors up and down). 5T stands at 15m08s and 10T is 32m30s. 10T took me about 55 minutes the first time. On with the photos... Picked a freakishly cold day to do some more stair explorations. Neither my trusty, if aging, Pentax K-x, nor my trusty, if aging, body had an easy time with the -30C wind chill. After getting politely kicked out of the Agri-Food Canada Research building (I had been inside looking at maps for several minutes without "checking in" at the security desk),  Found +Kent Pollard ,s  Peterson Bldg . I must say, the staff was a whole lot nicer there. A bit off the beaten path but, the stairs were unusual as prom...

Health Sciences Entrance. With all the reflections and directionality, it feels Escher-esque to me. Winter is settling in slowly this year. No rush. As one of the millions on the Canadian prairie who wondered last year where all the sun was, it was quite a thrill to be walking around mid November with just a t-shirt, a tripod and my camera. New Wing of Dentistry Old Dentistry/ Health Sciences You would think that I would be sick to death of stairs right now, but the truth is that my fascination is growing ever deeper. When I did up my last post I spent some time looking through old photos that I had of campus stairs to include. It reminded me two things: firstly, despite the simple going up and down thing they have going, there is great variety in stair design and secondly, my photographic eye has come a long way in a few years. So, I decided to revisit some of my favourites and see how many ways I could skin the same cat, so to speak. Stairs are stairs after all, but w...

Arts Tower from basement level I had some great reaction to my last post about stairs. Alas, I don't have any mysterious wilds into which I can trek nor vast unexplored ranges of mountains. However, obsessively climbing stairs seem to be sufficiently strange for people to engage me with questions (and concerns) on the topic. This is not going to be an FAQ, but I am going to share a bit of my process with you in hopes that it will answer some common queries. Most of this post was inspired by my friend, Dave. He wasn't the first one to ask me what I thought about when I spend an hour and a half climbing the same set of stairs, but he did cause me to think most deeply about it. He is no stranger to feats of endurance. I was in the process of formulating a short one paragraph answer, when I realized that I couldn't honestly do that. Answering in one paragraph I could've come up with some inspiring snippet of honesty about why I do it and the effect it has on my life. ...

This post is mostly for me. As, I suppose, all of them are. I like to have a specific record of my exercise when I am trying improve on something difficult. I find that it really helps me to focus on the little things necessary to improve. When I share that with you, it gives makes the goal seem more real and somehow more important to achieve. Anyway, yes, I took a break from stair climbing during my healing process. But, I've been back at it pretty hard in the last little while. I thought an update was in order. In case you missed the first post on stairs. What's new? Below is my tower activity since injuring my ribs. I fill in a web form each time I run the tower and it updates a spreadsheet for me. As you may care to notice, I took some heart rate measurements at several points today (last row, right hand column). Times (usually) follow the format of hh:mm:ss.tenthsec 15/09/2013 10:04:30 Arts Tower run 17:31.5 5x u/d. 1st time on the stairs since my rib injury. S...

19-yr-old Mike, clinging to the Tyrell building "Do something." "We're not computers, Sebastian. We're physical." "I think, therefore I am." "Very good, Pris. Now, show him why." I've been thinking about Blade Runner quite a bit during the past couple of days weeks months (really need to publish this blog more often). If you haven't seen this movie, you really should. In the quoted scene, Pris goes on to demonstrate a few of the physical things that she can do as a replicant. Phenomenal strength, quickness and durability. Physical acumen that Sebastian will never know. I've always empathized with the replicants rather than the humans in this movie. I'm not an olympic athlete by any stretch, but in general, I am stronger, faster and more durable than most of the people I meet. From the sound of it, moving to Canmore would probably help with that. BTW, don't worry, I've been called arrogant before ;...

I hauled myself out of a warm bed at 1:30am. The Perseid Meteor Shower reached it's peak sometime early this morning... Not the Perseids I saw quite a few nice meteors, but I had no luck capturing one with my camera. A wider angle lens would have helped as I was only able to photograph a tiny slice of the sky at any one moment. Consequently, I only saved one of my dozens of photos. I spent most of my time staring at Capella (part of Auriga and the brightest dot-left 1/3) and the Pleiades (or the 7 sisters-right 4/5). Perseus (where the Perseids appear to radiate from) is basically the center of the top of this photograph. The above photo illustrates the main two contributing factors that made capturing a meteor difficult on this, my first solid attempt. Perseus is in the north-east part of the sky. It was only really dark for a few hours. At this time of year the sun doesn't get too far below the horizon. Made for a really long sunrise, though. Also, it was overcast...

We have just arrived home from our family vacation to Glacier National Park , Montana. As you have come to expect... there are pictures ;) We didn't get too far on our first day. A friend of Wendy's was having a surprise wedding in Regina and we decided we could spare a day of our trip to attend. We booked in at the Travel Lodge because they claimed to have the largest waterslide in Regina. Anwyn had her heart set on another awesome water park like we found last year at Lost Island , but she had to settle for quite a bit less. The slide was good looking, but sucked for 13 and 14 7/8 year olds. The wedding was low key. It was nice to see Karen so happy and I took some pictures for her. The most notable thing for me was that the external flash for my camera "popped". That's pretty much the sound it made as the bulb inside exploded. Needless to say, it somewhat limited my lighting options during the rest of the trip. On day 2 we made a bee-line for British Co...

Made a change to the blog today that will affect those of you who comment. I've enabled G+ commenting, which (as you may have guessed) means that Google+ now handles the comments. It has several benefits: you will automatically get notifications when your comments are commented on -- no pesky check boxes or "subscribe" options. If you share a post via G+ your share will appear on the blog (probably won't affect anyone here) you control who can or can't see your comments--including me--(assuming that concerns you). If you are familiar with G+ Circles  you will be aware that you can easily specify who can see your comments. It's interesting that an entire conversation could happen on a post that the blog author wouldn't see. So make sure you post "public" or at least to a circle that I'm in :) you can edit or delete your comments like most Google data, it can be downloaded via Google Takeout . Good info for this on Data Liberation . Th...

With the extended winter that we have felt this year in Saskatchewan (yes, yes... and many other places too) I have been in a bit of a funk. Trying to get over it usually involves pushing myself to some physical extreme. At Quest New Year, The Doctor mentioned that his brother had embarked on a mission to do his age in chin-ups, of all things. Checking my records... I see that my maximum ever was 16 in a row (currently at 10). That gives me a ways to go, but I have decided to work on it. At the same time, so my lower body doesn't atrophy, I have been attacking the Arts Tower with renewed vigor. The tower is approximately 50.22m  and I'll throw a little history lesson  (dates of construction etc...) in for good measure. For now, I'd love to make the assumption that the total height of the building, 50m, roughly equals the distance I run from the basement to the top floor. Sadly, for me, in 1996 I measured the height of a single stair at 18cm. My own internal measurements...

There aren't a lot of melt days during February in Saskatchewan. When it does happen, given my proclivity for being down in the dumps this time of year, I usually sprint for the door. In this case it ended with supper not being ready on time for the hungry hordes. But, it also ended with some awesome pictures of icicles. They are edible too, you know. Well... some of them are. On the left is the modest fellow that was clinging to my eavestrough. At 18 inches, not much to get excited about, but the sun was hitting it just right. It was enough to make me grab my camera. As I was driving Wendy to her office, she suggested that I stop by our old rental home. On the right, 518 Albert Avenue. Despite it's several rounds of renovations, it continues to have fabulous ice "problems" (if that's what you call it) in the winter. Unfortunately, the sun was too low on the horizon to give me the look I was going for. Downtown, the store fronts were clear of ice, but there...