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...

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...

A long time ago, Wendy and I came up with an axiom of our relationship. I'm sure it's been "discovered" countless times throughout history. The thing you most hate the most is the thing you love the most. Ben would probably add, "from a certain point of view." We have seen this countless times during the course of our marriage. Wait! Don't go. This actually isn't another boring post about my relationships ;) No, really, it's not. I was just thinking that the same can be said for the weather. We had a minor ice storm last night. It made driving frustrating and dangerous, it made shovelling snow difficult and it made cleaning my windshield this morning near impossible. If I had remembered the relationship axiom (and remembered that it applied to weather as well), I would have brought my camera with me as I drove my kids to school. Serves me right :) I had been on the road for all of 2 minutes when I sensed my error and whined to Leora ...

5 sec exposure and an inactive crowd made for a cool shot Although I have been a bit down for the last couple of months, it isn't as though there haven't been highlights. A big part of my coping with the bad weather of summer and the stress of putting on a new roof, guests and plumbing turmoil is diving into frivolous asthetic pursuits. fireworks over the Broadway bridge In early September there were some really terrific fireworks on the riverbank, just off Broadway Ave. I knew I needed to have a little fun, so I put on my Quester's robe, pulled up the hood and did a little climbing. Of course I took my camera gear. It was quite crowded and I enjoyed my strangely visible anonymity as I scaled the brickwork to my perch. If you've played Assassins Creed, you'll have a vague inkling of how cool I felt. As a side benefit, I got some nice pictures. Album:  Fireworks Leo's Favs... OAK! In the following weeks, I enjoyed more sun than we saw all summer. It...

Winter's Icy Grip Crushes Goose Vanguard I've been struggling a bit with this weather. It's a bit of an understatement (we may talk of that another time). Cold and lack of sunlight have me a bit down. I've been grouching at the girls, sighing a lot, and projecting gloom around the house in the evenings. Wendy gave me a kick in the pants last night and told me to take today off. I didn't have any work with the library scheduled, but I would have spent the morning making and canning chutney out of the beautifully ripe mangoes that I got on monday. Instead I went to Don's Photo and found an awesome deal. A used Sigma 70-210mm f/4-5.6 auto-focus lense for $40! It's twin was sitting next to it for $100 (they were both on consignment and the price on one had just been dropped). OK, so Sigma is a bargain brand, but it's my first telephoto--I'm excited. Naturally, I had to go take some pictures. 1st set, 0-0 I went to campus and fooled around a bi...

I've been very excited about my new camera. Leading up to QNY, I spent quite a few hours on and about campus testing it out. Here is what I learned: Only attempt to do one thing at a time while airborne. In the above picture I had just jumped off of the window sill and was... doing a spread eagle trying to look manly in the spread eagle position (just as tough as it sounds) toggling the remote shutter switch for the camera attempting to land gracefully on the stairs I'll let you be the judge of my success on #'s 1-3. I seem to have failed miserably at #4. No, I did not fall down the stairs. I simply realized that the landing was a bit more jarring than I would have liked. At no time in this process did I feel "hurt". Upon waking the next morning, however, I discovered that I might as well have fallen down the stairs. I pulled a muscle in my back and popped a rib-head behind my shoulder. One of these may have caused the other--I don't know. It hurts. Oh, and th...

I did my campus-tower-home run in my Vibram 5-fingers for the first time about a month ago (and several times since). Let me tell you, I was nervous. My last major run in them, the 10km with Jaime last month, resulted in 3 days of serious stiffness in my calves and not a little whining. I recognize that (re)training my lower legs and feet is a process of undoing 37 years of unwitting damage. Atrophied muscles aren't going to strengthen and flourish in a month or two. However, I do feel that I am well on my way. I have started to think of running barefoot as a type of physiotherapy class taught to me by my own feet. I have found three distinct running styles while I am barefoot. When on grass, I jog with a typical "heel strike" method. Such as you would do all the time in running shoes. On harder surfaces, I run landing on the padding between the arch and my toes. This is what really gets the calf muscles working. When my muscles are feeling sore, or I am at a slower than ...

A friend of mine emailed me this story. It seemed questy, and I wanted to share it with the my like-minded readers. My friend has a nephew who has recently left the county. I thought since he is now out of the reach of the applicable authorities, I could safely tell this story... Oh, If you open the title of this post in a new window, you get a map of the activities as described. I didn't embed it cause Vin whines is concerned about load times. It's been a long time since I felt like getting into trouble on campus. To be honest, I didn't feel like it tonight. Sometimes I get to feeling like I'm too old to be climbing where I don't belong and like the magic of the night just doesn't do it for me anymore. That may be one of the reasons that I had children. Kind of cliche if it's true. Anyway, mine aren't quite old enough to be this kind of fun... yet. Fortunately, I have this nephew of mine. I'll call him 'David,' in order to protect his ide...

Those of you who know me may know that I rarely take an escalator. What can I say? Today I was weak. I had a date with the Cosy Corner and I was excited to get there ASAP. Let this be a lesson to you all. "Preventative Maintenance" sure is an uncommonly apt name for it! Finally, there was the corner, beckoning to me. I ran with arms outstretched, despite the odd looks from passing students. The years had not been kind. While my memories of it remain bright and clear, age and disuse had caused a pallor to descend on the place. The sound of my boots echoed a dull thud as I inspected the area. At least the fire escape was as I remembered it. Alas the door had cobwebs stretching across the threshold. I reverently stroked them aside as I recalled many hasty exits, vaulting me from darkness to sunlight. I looked around and was unable to find a place to sit -- save the stairs and even then , the angle was all wrong -- the air not quite right... Just then, I was struck with a solutio...

Just the Q-juniors and dad this weekend. While Ms. Orange breaths deep of the mountain air in Banff, I am being my most indulgent. We slept in a little this morning and took it slow. T1 had a bit of a cough so she road in the trailer all the way there and most of the ride home. T2 was a cycling trooper, per usual, and we set a new record of 30 min. flat to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I had a good visit with the family and then PCarbon and his boys teamed up for some Resistance: the Fall of Man fraggin'. We stayed until 2pm! It was windy on the ride home so we took the opportunity to stop on campus for a little "rest" and photo op. We spotted a rather large magpie nest (24" TV sized, a.k.a. ~24" ) and I was induced to do a bit of climbing myself (twisted my arm, they did). You can't tell where I was because T2 likes to be in nice and close with the telephoto :) Curse my Cannon and its 12x zoom. Daddy Weekend Hey, this pic is a LINK! Click, Click, Click ...

I was out having a great time this Friday. I wanted to share some of my unending childhood with you. It is part of the Quest project I have been working on this year. Will it be ready for this QNY? No. I'm sad to say that I had big dip in my enthusiasm for working on it during the winter. But, I am still enamoured of the idea of trying to create a multimedia representation of my personal approach to questing. The world will just have to keep holding its breath.

I read a relatively lame PS3 line-up article and the responses to it on Slashdot today. I would have posted there, but their threading system seemed to be busted and my response seemed too long for the average attention span anyway. I figured you would be more generous. I'd love to hear your feeling on memorable line-ups when you are done reading... There is an issue here that some people seem to be missing or ignoring in favour of the all too easy jokes. I went to university in Canada back in the 9600/14400 days. Computer registration (for classes) wasn't an option that any but the most visionary had conceptualized and telephone registration was just in the pilot phase also known as the audio labyrinth of terror. I was a disorganized kid with no real knowledge of why I was even at university, much less how to effectively pre-register for my classes (here the discerning reader may read "pre-order my PS3"). If you didn't register by mail early enough, you got in ...

Quest New Year was a rousing success for me. I can't speak for everyone else, though it seems as though a good time was had by all. I managed to get to our meeting spot in record time (which for me was 6:45pm). That gave me time to wait for a good table, do some last minute reading and set up the pool from which participants collected this years Quest branded gift of slate coffee coasters hand carved with the Q symbol. I had a really tough time hanging on to them until new years as I made them well before Christmas. As I had planned, they were snagged b y the Questers as they arrived (after 8pm) at the table. Me, Dave, Geof, James, and Vin. There were some good books picked for this year. As I recollect however, there was almost no discussion about last years picks. Without Vin's early prescence, there was just no one to jumpstart the HoL discussion. Other than that, there was plenty of fun discussion of goals for the year (mostly mine) although James, Dave and Geof all seemed...