Tempus Fugit

Latin (tem-pu̇s-ˈfü-git): Time Flies

Posts

  • Second Centrury

    Two years ago I rode my 1st Century, and last year I missed this event but last Sunday I took part in the 16th Annual Muddy Waters 100.

    This year the Muddy Waters ride hooked up with Habitat for Humanity and has over 500 cyclists take part in the event riding 25,  60 or 100 km, or the big one, 100 miles. In cycling speak a “Century” is a 100 mile ride and most serious road cyclists eventually get around to adding it to their list of accomplishments.

    The ride was quite a bit different this year with a start from the Forks and a police escort all the way to the Perimeter Highway with rolling street closures all the way. So, for about 1/2 hour we had all of the north bound lanes of Main Street tied up. This made for a very leisurely start at about 10-15km/h, actually painfully slow and them up to about 30km, and then full speed ahead after the cruiser car pulled off at the Perimeter.

    I stayed with the main group until after the “Big Bridge” past Selkirk which was great. Coming down from the bridge I thought I was getting a flat and as I slowed to check out what was going on, a gap opened up between me and the lead group. Turns out I’d just hit a tar strip with made the bike feel funny for a few seconds but it didn’t take much and I found my self in the second group. We worked hard for quite a while, almost to Hwy 44 to re-join, but for me, it was not to be. Stayed with the second group well onto Hwy 212, but got dropped again for some solo riding and eventually joining up with four other guys for some on again off again riding into the Birds Hill town site. From here the other four guys took a rest stop and I soloed on to Henderson Hwy. At this point another rider picked me up from behind and we rode a steady 34-36km/h to the finish. All in all a very good day. The weather was great and the ride a lot of fun.

    However, I’m sure there are lots of stories of some pretty interesting events, like the crash at the front of the peloton just entering Selkirk. I was pretty close to this one and just missed going down in the pile up. To me it looked like a rider bumped an on coming car and there were 6-8 riders abreast at the time and that triggered quite the pileup. It looked like nobody was seriously injured and the organizers were right there to respond. Later, I hear a very loud “pop” and the rider next to me pulls off with a flat. I wonder how many flats occured that day. I heard of one rider getting 3! Then there was the rider with shoes off and walking at Garvin and 59. When I asked he said he’d be OK, and just needed to walk it off for a bit. Hope that turned out all right.

    I followed the perscribed course to the letter, but my odometer came up a little short of the 162km required for the Century, but I’m chalking that up to the new bike computer not being set up quite right. Compared to two years ago, I put in a significantly faster ride over all and the “Trip Time” is actually just time on the bike not total elapsed time and I know I took way fewer and shorter rest stops this year. For the record, max speed was 54.77km/h

  • Lake of the Woods Island Mystery


    Underground Bunker
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    The other day we were explaining to some friends about some cottage lots on Lake of the Woods where electricity had recently been run from our point across to Hay Island (1.5km away). This lead to wondering how much these lots were selling for (a lot!), followed by some Google Map activity where we noticed this white square with a dark shape in it.

    Well, this just had to be investigated. So, this morning Eric, Len & I boated over and hiked around and discovered this concrete structure with a stainless steel venting tube. It’s in the center of this part of the island between the east and west shores. There is virtually a road cleared up to where it’s located and the “road” carries on south up the middle of the island for quite some distance. We didn’t walk to the end, so we’re not sure just how long it is.

    There is another stainless steel tube close to the east shore in an area that was obviously excavated, close to where we landed the boat . But this tube has no visible concrete base. From this shore location it looks like there is a buried cable/conduit/??? in a trench that has been covered over with rock that leads up to the concrete pad. There are no signs, identifying marks or and indication as to it’s function or purpose. It seems like there is a humming coming from what ever is on the other end of the pipe, but that could just be some sort of echo or resonance effect from the pipe itself or …

    Additional photos

    Any ideas on what this is all about? Then please post a comment.

  • Queen Anne II


    Queen Anne II
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    A rare site in our bay, the Queen Anne II stopped at Smith Camps last evening and we caught it heading out on the lake. This picture was taken off our deck just before dinner.

  • Boat Trip




    Cruising on The Lake

    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    After a cloudy start to the day it cleared off and since it was relatively calm, we decided to take a little trip. After passing through The Hades we headed over to Mather Island and then cruised around the edges of Shammis and Crow Rock Islands and then explored Micrometer Bay.

    While it was not exactly hot, about 23, we decided an ice cream was in order, so off to Kenora. Boat up ice cream at the Wharf Marina is the best. However, the young ladies pumping gas had me a little worried when they didn’t seem to know how to mix 50:1 for the outboard. In the end they got it right with a little group participation and we were on our way. A busy run out of the Kenora harbour and through Devils Gap and we’re on our way home. 74km for the round trip and a little sun tan as well.

  • red neck shootings

    There appears to have been some crazy shooting activity at the lake. What’s up with the BBs stuck in the railing? This has to stop.

  • Street Fire

    I saw this on the way home today. I wonder how it happened?

  • WordPress client for Blackberry

    First post with the public beta of the sw. So far so good

  • Reason 8,239 to switch to a Mac: IE8

    Like anyone still needs a reason.

    Today, the helpful Microsoft updater offered to upgrade IE7 to IE8. Always a sucker for some new software and always forgetting the more that occasional pain associated with installing new software, we let it do it’s thing on the home computer. Not a good idea.

    After the update, IE8 would not access any web sites, not even Microsoft. That’s bad. Even worse, Firefox now won’t access any web sites. It’s not the Internet connection because I’m checking out the Home computer over a remote session. A quick search shows that there are others having the same problem. Even more amusing is those saying that there is no way IE8 could be responsible. Like this response to a guy who describes a problem similar to mine.

    red alert: IE 8 shuts down my web REGULARLY. – Technology Questions

    Again, installing IE8 could not possibly have caused other browsers to fail.
    The environment in which you installed it could have.

    1. If you don’t own the computer in question, you should NOT be upgrading
    IE, period.

    2. The various security measures put in place by your employer may well be
    related to the problems you encountered after installing IE8. These include
    any GPOs and Admin Templates.

    3. For best results, you should disable (a) the anti-virus application, (b)
    all real-time “system protections” (e.g., those afforded by any third-party
    application, (c) any third-party firewall and then (d) enable the Windows
    Firewall prior to installing AND uninstalling an IE upgrade.

    However, I disagree! IE8 or some other evil that gets done by it’s installer screws things up. Several other folks with this same issue uninstalled IE8 and their problem was gone. I uninstalled IE8 and problem gone. The bad news was that it still left IE7 behind.

  • Getting ready for MDH?

    Are you practicing your trail riding skills and getting ready for MDH 2009?


  • Ouch!




    Ouch!

    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    Sometime during the night this tree came down on the truck. Not exactly a great thing to wake up to, but the damage is minimal and the door still works fine and no glass was broken so I’d say we got off easy.

    After a few cups of coffee for fortification I’d planned on tackling the removal project. Before I could even get out of the door, one of the neighbors roared up on his quad and offered to help, very nice. Apparently, my truck is currently causing quite a bit of excitement on the road. As I go out to start limbing the tree, three other guys are at the bottom of the driveway discussing my “situation”. Of course they all had to come up and have a closer look. It sounds like we’re the only one with a big tree down this time around but one of the guys recounts how a tree wacked the corner of his cottage causing significant roof damage.

    Anyway, after a couple of hours it’s all cleaned up and I’m soaked to the skin because it’s been raining steadily. A hot shower is in order and Shirley has brunch ready to go when I come back in.