Blog Archives: June, 2009
Panorama test
As you may have noticed, over the past few years I have taken panoramic photos during my travels (or more accurately, many photos that get stitched together to make panoramic photos). I have been unhappy with the way they are presented on my website, so I’ve created a fancy panoramic image viewer. Please give it a try by clicking on the image below. It should display a new window with a high resolution panoramic picture (give it a little while to finish loading the picture) that you can zoom in and out on. Press the space bar or click the play button to have it automatically scroll across the picture. It should work in Firefox 3+, Internet Explorer 7+, and Safari 3+; let me know if you have any problems. (For readers on Facebook, you’ll need to come to my blog first to get the fancy viewer; click on the “View original post” link below this note.)
View comments (2) or Post a comment
Running – Week 13
I don’t have much to say about my running this week, other than that I did it. Thursday was a nice easy run, but today’s run continued to up the distance, this week 16km. In all the excitement of last week’s race report, I forgot to note that I passed the 300km mark for the year, and have run more than twice as far as I had at this point last year.
Congratulations to Cecilia on her new half marathon personal best this weekend: 1:50:57!
| Jun 22 Mon | Rest day | |
| Jun 23 Tue | 3.8km | Easy run |
| Jun 24 Wed | ||
| Jun 25 Thu | 6.6km | Easy run |
| Jun 26 Fri | Rest day | |
| Jun 27 Sat | XT | Bouldering |
| Jun 28 Sun | 16.0km | Long run |
| Total | 26.4km | Year to date: 334.0km |
|---|
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Queensland Gallery of Modern Art
Today I visited the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in South Brisbane. The main exhibit on was called “The China Project”, showcasing art from Chinese artists of the last 30 years. There was a great photographic exhibit of the homes of 75 different families in urban China, and some towering statues of Mao Zedong.
Spencer Finch - The Light at Lascaux (Cave Entrance), September 29, 2005, 5:27PM The exhibit that really left an impression on me was by Stephen Finch, an American artist who often works with light. The photo at left is a close up of a set of 25′-long fluorescent lights wrapped in coloured film with the goal of reproducing the exact colour of light that was present in a certain cave at a certain time. When I have a house, the lighting in one room is going to be done that way.
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Running – Week 12 – An unexpected and inauspicious race
On Thursday night I happened to be checking my calendar to see if I had anything planned for the weekend or next week and discovered that I did have something planned – a 10km race on Sunday morning!
The race was called Running4Research, to support the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation here in Brisbane.
Having not actually spent much time preparing for it mentally, I had to quickly come up with a goal. In my previous 10km race this season, I finished in 48:19, with little training. Since then I’ve been running fairly regularly so I decided that I could do a bit better, and was aiming for at least sub-48 minutes and would take anything better than that.
The morning of the race did not get off to a promising start. The night before I had dutifully adjusted my alarm clock to go off an 6:30 so that I would be at the 8am start line in lots of time. I apparently forgot to turn the alarm clock on, because at 7:20 I realized what time it was and bolted out of bed. Fortunately the race was only about 500m from my flat, so I still would have enough time to make it. When I neared the race area and saw others heading in with their racing number, I realized that I had forgotten mine at home and had to rush back to get it, and to find the 4 safety pins from the last race to pin this race number on with.
Having finally found everything I needed for the race, I made my way back over to the event, when it started to rain. Not a lot of rain, just a light shower, but enough to keep the morning cool and make the waiting runners annoyed that the race started 15 minutes late.
The start of the race was very tight and it took a while for the pack to spread out since we were running on sidewalks in a park for the first few hundred metres. Once there was more room to run, I settled into a good pace. I was enjoying the run because it introduced me to a new route very close to where I live.
At the 2.5km mark, making a 180-degree turn that was the start of the return of the first loop, I wiped out. Just completely fell. Scraped up my hands and knee very mildly, and my hip’s a little sore right now from where I landed on it, but very mild as far as falls go. I spent a few seconds getting sorted out and then took off — as you can see from the split times below, I probably only lost about 20 seconds total from the fall.
The rest of the race passed without incident. I took it easy around the corners to avoid another spill. There was a bit of rain on and off, but I did my best to ignore it. (See, Cecilia, I’m learning to run in the rain!) I had a bit of a slowdown around 8km but recovered and gave a solid push to the finish. I clocked in at 46:14, over 2 minutes faster than my previous 10km time this year.
On the way back it started to pour rain but I happened to be on a covered sidewalk at the time, so I avoided a big downpour. The run got off to an inauspicious start, but it ended up fairly well. This will probably be my last 10km race before the half marathon two months from now.
| Distance | Total time | Split | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1km | 5:09 | 5:09 | 11.7km/h |
| 2km | 9:42 | 4:33 | 13.2km/h |
| 3km | 14:30 | 4:48 | 12.5km/h |
| 4km | 18:54 | 4:23 | 13.6km/h |
| 5km | 23:30 | 4:36 | 13.0km/h |
| 6km | 28:01 | 4:31 | 13.3km/h |
| 7km | 32:34 | 4:33 | 13.2km/h |
| 8km | 37:06 | 4:32 | 13.2km/h |
| 9km | 41:43 | 4:37 | 13.0km/h |
| 10km | 46:14 | 4:31 | 13.3km/h |
| average | 13.0km/h |
Here’s the rest of my running progress for the week.
| Jun 15 Mon | Rest day | |
| Jun 16 Tue | 3.7km | Easy run |
| Jun 17 Wed | ||
| Jun 18 Thu | 9.6km | Tempo run |
| Jun 19 Fri | Rest day | |
| Jun 20 Sat | Rest day | |
| Jun 21 Sun | 10.0km | Race |
| Total | 23.3km | Year to date: 307.5 |
|---|
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Caribbean cruise: Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands
Clouds descending over Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas 
Roadside shack in the rain 
Rainclouds over Saint Thomas
Our last island stop in the Caribbean was Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Saint Thomas is an American territory but still has a European colonial flavour to it, having been a Dutch island until 1917. For example, cars in Saint Thomas drive on the left but are right-hand drive cars, putting the driver at the left-most edge of the road, rather than toward the middle of the road.
I wandered around in the morning after we docked in Saint Thomas and got caught in a rainstorm, as you can see in the pictures above.
Back at the dock around lunch, after the rain had cleared a bit, I captured these pictures of iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks.
Iguana on the rocks, ready for his close up 
Iguana on the rocks
Bones snorkelling pirate ship My final excursion during the cruise was a snorkeling expedition on the Bones Pirate Ship, which you can see sailing in the harbour at right. We sailed 4km to the Buck Island National Wildlife Refuge. Sailing there was actually quite rough, and the weather was not particularly pleasant, so we got pretty wet and it was fairly cool. Even when we anchored off of Buck Island for our snorkeling, the water was still a bit choppy (nothing compared to the North Atlantic, I’m sure, but I’m a landlubber), but one I got in the water and started snorkeling I didn’t notice the waves. In the shallows surrounding the island we saw lots of fish, coral, and a few little turtles. The sun came out and started warming us up, making it a much more enjoyable experience. Sailing back to the Queen Mary 2 was much more enjoyable with the sun keeping us warm and the beverages keeping us cool. I got my very own pirate tattoo as well, but somehow that picture won’t be ending up on my blog.
Double rainbow in Saint Thomas panorama After our pirate ship dropped us off next to the Queen Mary 2, I headed up to the observation deck to take a picture of it sailing away. While I was up there, a rainbow appeared across the harbour in Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the US Virgin Islands. I dutifully pulled out my camera and shot lots of rainbow pictures, when a double rainbow started to make itself known. The picture at left is a panorama assembled from 19 different pictures and, I think, one of the best panoramas I’ve taken. I will work on a way of making the full resolution panoramas available on the website, but take a look at the picture at left in the meantime. After reading the Wikipedia article on rainbows, I learned that the colours are reversed between the two rainbows: the inner primary rainbow goes from blue (inside) to red (outside), and outer secondary rainbow goes from red (inside) to blue (outside).
View comments (0) or Post a comment
World Press Photo 2009
World Press Photography 2009 Yesterday I went to see a photography exhibition called World Press Photo 2009, which features the best in photojournalism of 2008.
The photos were spectacular and covered a wide range of photojournalism: news, sports, people, arts and entertainment, and nature. One collection of photos was of brightly coloured eyes of different animals. Another great set was of Olympic divers as they held a tuck — the looks on their faces as they strained to hold their body in place were, well, hilarious. And no set of 2008 pictures would be complete without coverage of Barack Obama on the campaign trail: I loved this photo of him doing a chin up in his suit.
If you have a few minutes, I highly recommend taking a look at the gallery of winning photos.
As well, if the exhibit ends up coming to a city near you this summer, it’s definitely worth a visit. It will be in Montreal and Ottawa in August.
Brisbane Powerhouse The exhibit was on display at the Brisbane Powerhouse a few kilometres downriver from my apartment. It’s an old power station that’s been turned into arts centre, with a gallery, performance space, concert hall, bar, and restaurant. While we were wandering the gallery a band was warming up for their performance later in the evening. A very cool gallery — not just the sounds of muffled coughs and shoes shuffling along the floor.
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Running – Week 11 – Ramping up the distance
Sunlit spans of the William Jolly Bridge This week saw a major increase in distance compared to previous weeks. The next month and a half will generally be adding more distance as we build toward the half marathon in August, although I get a few nice rest weeks along the way. The picture at left is a view of the William Jolly Bridge along the river where I run Thursday and Sunday mornings.
| Jun 8 Mon | Rest day | |
| Jun 9 Tue | 3.6km | Easy run |
| Jun 10 Wed | ||
| Jun 11 Thu | 11.2km | Speedwork (3x1600m) |
| Jun 12 Fri | Rest day | |
| Jun 13 Sat | Rest day | |
| Jun 14 Sun | 15.0km | Long run |
| Total | 28.8km | Year to date: 284.1km |
|---|
View comments (0) or Post a comment
Caribbean cruise: Saint Kitts
Practicing for scuba diving in a pool in Saint Kitts How could anything top zip lining through the rainforest in Saint Lucia? The other excursion I was really looking forward to came the next day in Saint Kitts: scuba diving. I’ve been snorkelling before, but never descended below into the thousands of leagues under the sea. In fact, I’d previously only been about 0.00055 leagues under the sea, and now I’ve been all the way down to 0.0022 leagues under the sea, quite an adventure! (According to Wikipedia, the title Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea refers to the distance travelled under the sea and not the depth to which they travelled. But I digress.)
Me in a wetsuit after scuba diving in Saint Kitts Our adventure began in the pool of a seaside hotel not too far from the ship. We practiced breathing with the tanks and repressuring every half foot of descent, and then swimming around the bottom of the pool with the tank on. Once our instructor deemed us ready to go (and one of our group was not, so she had to sit out for the scuba diving portion of the scuba diving excursion), we boarded our boat and set off.
MV River Taw wreck; photo by Clark Anderson/Aquaimages, used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license We made our way a few kilometres off shore to the site of the wreck of the MV River Taw. It sunk in 1985 in one piece, and then Hurricane Hugo split it into two parts in 1989. We swam around and over the two parts of the ship. Our guide brought fish food so at times we were surrounded by fish. It was a great first scuba dive. While I’m here in Australia I will probably try to take some scuba diving lessons so I can go out on the Great Barrier Reef for some diving.
Here’s a great blog entry from a blog called Life on St. Kitts with lots of photos from a dive at the same wreck.
We headed back to the ship. Leaving Saint Lucia I had another evening of sunset yoga on the top deck of the Queen Mary 2.
View of Queen Mary 2 docked in Saint Kitts 
Aft view of the Queen Mary 2 docked in Saint Kitts 
View of Basseterre, Saint Kitts 
Clouds over the mountains in Saint Kitts
View comments (0) or Post a comment
