Critical Mass Bike Ride

Quotations:
We are not blocking traffic, we are the traffic!!!
Pedals are Power!!!

I attended the Critical Mass Ride of May last Friday afternoon. The sunshine is perfect, and it is so good to be a part of the special 'Blue Shirt Team' A.K.A. Vancouver marathon bike escort team.

Here is the photo of me and my bike buddies:


You could see the captain from my sunglasses. He is taking picture for me, LOL


This photo looks a little bit weird. I guess the reason is I was drinking from my water bag.


We shut down the Burrard Bridge


I had a conversation with a co-worker who is both a cyclist and a driver before I went to the event. She said she like riding bike, but does not like the Critical Mass. As some people may get late for appointments or important events because cyclists block their way. It also frustrates the bus drivers, as being puncture is their responsibility but they cannot be there on time because of the Critical Mass bike ride blocks their way.

I thought her concern makes sense. So I paid many attentions to other road users when I was riding in the event. Almost all drivers are pretty cooperative, it is not a big deal, it probably only take 10-15 minutes for all the bikes passing by the intersection, so they won't be delayed too long. And it is only once per month in the Friday evening, so nobody is really in a hurry. Many pedestrians enjoyed watching and shooting us, and a boy at the bus stop of Main Street even shouted out "Keep on going! I'm patient !"

I love this event, I'll definitely go for the next time.

Critical Mass is a grassroots reclamation of public space -- a bike ride and skate -- held the last Friday of every month. You are invited to enjoy the safety and comfort in the car-free space that we create by simply riding together! Bicycles, skateboards, rollerskates, self propelled couches, and any other form of human powered locomotion are all welcomed! Critical Mass Vancouver Website is: http://www.bikesexual.org/cm/home.htm

Show the sender's photo in your outlook 2007

Just create contact cards with photo for your contacts, then you could see their face when reading their emails! It applies for the emails they send you before.

For the people who wants to set up this feature for their work email, it is easier just copy & paste all contacts from the public folder to your local folder.

Got my photo taken by a professional for the first time:)

Thank you very much, Brian!

Consumer Guide to Mercury in Fish

Copied from: http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/guide.asp

The list below shows the amount of various types of fish that a woman who is pregnant or planning to become pregnant can safely eat, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. People with small children who want to use the list as a guide should reduce portion sizes. Adult men, and women who are not planning to become pregnant, are less at risk from mercury exposure but may wish to refer to the list for low-mercury choices.

Protecting yourself -- and the fish: Certain fish, even some that are low in mercury, make poor choices for other reasons, most often because they have been fished so extensively that their numbers are perilously low. These fish are marked with an asterisk (read more below).

This list applies to fish caught and sold commercially. For information about fish you catch yourself, check for advisories in your state.

LEAST MERCURY
Enjoy these fish:
Anchovies
Butterfish
Catfish
Clam
Crab (Domestic)
Crawfish/Crayfish
Croaker (Atlantic)
Flounder*
Haddock (Atlantic)*
Hake
Herring
Mackerel (N. Atlantic, Chub)
Mullet
Oyster
Perch (Ocean)
Plaice
Pollock
Salmon (Canned)**
Salmon (Fresh)**
Sardine
Scallop*
Shad (American)
Shrimp*
Sole (Pacific)
Squid (Calamari)
Tilapia
Trout (Freshwater)
Whitefish
Whiting


MODERATE MERCURY
Eat six servings or less per month:
Bass (Striped, Black)
Carp
Cod (Alaskan)*
Croaker (White Pacific)
Halibut (Atlantic)*
Halibut (Pacific)
Jacksmelt
(Silverside)
Lobster
Mahi Mahi
Monkfish*
Perch (Freshwater)
Sablefish
Skate*
Snapper*
Tuna (Canned
chunk light)
Tuna (Skipjack)*
Weakfish (Sea Trout)


HIGH MERCURY
Eat three servings or less per month:
Bluefish
Grouper*
Mackerel (Spanish, Gulf)
Sea Bass (Chilean)*
Tuna (Canned Albacore)
Tuna (Yellowfin)*


HIGHEST MERCURY
Avoid eating:
Mackerel (King)
Marlin*
Orange Roughy*
Shark*
Swordfish*
Tilefish*
Tuna
(Bigeye, Ahi)*


* Fish in Trouble! These fish are perilously low in numbers or are caught using environmentally destructive methods. To learn more, see the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Blue Ocean Institute, both of which provide guides to fish to enjoy or avoid on the basis of environmental factors.

** Farmed Salmon may contain PCB's, chemicals with serious long-term health effects.

Sources for NRDC's guide: The data for this guide to mercury in fish comes from two federal agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, which tests fish for mercury, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which determines mercury levels that it considers safe for women of childbearing age.

About the mercury-level categories: The categories on the list (least mercury to highest mercury) are determined according to the following mercury levels in the flesh of tested fish.

Least mercury: Less than 0.09 parts per million

Moderate mercury: From 0.09 to 0.29 parts per million

High mercury: From 0.3 to 0.49 parts per million

Highest mercury: More than .5 parts per million

Why computer workers always have a lot of spare time...

I get time to find this comic and post it to my blog in the working hours because my code is building...

Met an angel yesterday

When I was waiting for bus in Brentwood town center yesterday afternoon, I met an angel. He made my day and delivered a mysterious message to me. "I know if I don't ask, I'll never get it"

Too bad it is not my commute routine. Otherwise I may got more philosophic messages, LOL.

Failed to get my HRM, blaming MEC

I have been thinking of getting a heart rate monitor for a long time. Finally I decided I will get the Polar F4F after doing a lot of research.


I saw this HRM from MEC's website, it is $92. Then I search Future Shop's website, it is $99.99. As FS has the low price guarentee and it is very close to my home, I decided to buy from FS. But the funny thing is it is available on the website, but it is not available in all the FS locations in Greater vancouver. Then I tried to Walmart, it is even cheaper only $89.99, but later I found I'm search walmart.com instead of walmart.ca. And walmart.ca doesnot have this product...

Finally I went back to MEC and found it is no stock in most stores, but it says low stock in North Vancouver store. So I called them right way, the guy said they still have 2 F4F, so I asked him to hold one for me. But when I arrived at the store, I got a F4M holden for me. I asked a staff, and he is confused about the F vs M, so I have to explain to him that F stands for Female and M means Male. Then he checked on the computer and told me there is still 1 F4F in their store, and he will find it for me. He went to the warehouse, and another staff just realized the first staff actually checked the Halifax store. So he checked their own store, it said still 2 F4F. He promised if the first staff cannot find it for me, he will go to the upstairs bigger warehouse to find me one. The first staff came back after about 5 mins with nothing. The second staff went to upstairs, but after 10 mins he also came back with nothing. They said it is very embarrassing but they just cannot find even one but the inventory says 2. They adviced me to call the 800 to ask them ship the one in Halifax to here, then I

Well, I have been very statisfied with the service MEC provided. But it is really not a good experience today... I think I'd better wait, maybe I could get a better deal/model when the Polar release a newer model.

Good Book: I could do anything if I only knew what it was

I actually got attracted by the book as the first glance of its title. And I cannot agree more for the idea of "What makes people feel happy".
To be happy, there are 2 essentials:
1) You have a goal.
2) You are moving towards it.

I got this book 2 weeks ago, and I'm currently on Chapter 3. I know I'm a (very, very) slow reader, so my next goal is to read faster. Let's see whether I can finish this book in May.

I had a conversation with a younger friend last year. She is a smart girl with Master degree and teaching computer network in an university. But the problem she and I both have is we don't have a goal to work for, which makes me feel unhappy, and makes she think of pursuing a Ph.D degree :) (Jin, if you are following my blog, here is my advice: Read this book first. )

Google definitely changed the way of thinking

I started to use google since 2003, and became more and more addictive to it. Yes, I love Google, I guess I could not finish ~90% of my research type of tasks without it. But the funny joke I made today let me think maybe I used it too much.

The story is: I need to found what happened in DB when I do certain operations in an application I have never seen before. So I start to trace sql using the profiler. I have used a few basic functionalities of profiler for couple of years, but never touched any 'advanced' functionalities. But this time, I saw too much other sql commands which I don't care, so I decide to use some 'advanced' function of column filter to exclude them. I decide to exclude commands like 'exec sp_reset_connection ' and 'exec sp_VerifyUserSession ', then I found the column filter easily and input the first '%sp_reset_connection%' under the Not Like item. But the funny thing is I don't know how to input the 2nd Not Like item. See the following dialog, it is a pretty simple UI and I cannot find any buttons/hints from it.



So I try to use '%sp_reset_connection% OR %sp_VerifyUserSession%', '%sp_reset_connection% AND %sp_VerifyUserSession%', but they are not working. Then I begin to think maybe I should use some special symbols like && or to replace the AND/OR. So I think I'd better google it. I searched 6 groups of keywords, and read about 10 different articles but still didn't find a solution.




I began to feel frustrated, and decided to go to ask our DBA. Well, I know it sounds funny, but asking co-workers for general technical issues is the last thing I prefer to do. I saw the DBA was on a phone, so I tried it by myself for the last shoot. I pressed the Enter key at the end of the ''%sp_reset_connection%', and to my surprise, the magic happened and the 2nd item appeared. I cannot help laughing at myself for 1 whole minute.



Besides blaming my addiction to Google, I have to blame MS for this dialog. It is really a weird UI design of activating the next item only by pressing the Enter key.

The Best Volunteer Experience: The Vancouver Marathon Bike Escort Team

I'm so glad I joined the bike escort team, it is so much fun!

There were totally 10 evening practices before the event day. We usually ride for 21KM along downtown, Gastown, Chinatown, Stanley park and English Bay, then have pizza dinner together. It is a miracle that we did not encounter any rain in all the practices, it is quite unusually for the April.

It is very comfortable to riding with a group of cyclists in the evening after a whole day's work. But my personal riding experience is not great. Well, it is all my fault, I ride as slow as an escargot, and I could not remember the roads. It is so embarrassing I always be the 2nd last cyclist in the riding with a sweep cyclist behind me. I had worried about I would be kicked out of the team for my slowness, but to my surprise, I did not get any complaints, all I got are encourages. Later, in the race day, I realized although my speed(~15km/h) is lower than most cyclists, but it is good enough for lead runners.

Pizza dinner is a more fun part. Captain Brian always does his fashion show to amuse us. He has volunteered for the Vancouver Marathon for more than 10 years, so he has 10+ different volunteer T-shirts to show off. I'm so happy that I got a purple year 2000 volunteer T-shirt from him for encouraging me to recover from my bike accident. Now I could pretend that I had volunteered for the year 2000 Vancouver Marathon, LOL.

Well, I have to say, I did not enjoy the first dinner. Everyone knows the uncomfortable feeling of sitting in a group of strangers, but a more awful feeling is this group of strangers know each other except me! I unfortunately chose a wrong table, the other 2 table mates know each other pretty well and I could barely understand what they were talking about... I felt so awful until the captain came to talk to me. I felt so thankful for him as he saved my whole evening. See, how important it is to be a host. Later, I got better luck with the dinners, I met many interesting people, and had lots of fun conversations together. It added so much highlights to my dull life!

On the event day, I got up at 4:30 AM, and ride my bike to the race place, as there are no bus/skytrain available at that moment. It almost kills me, as I have never been a morning person. But it is really worthy that, it is such a good feeling of riding on the closed road with runners under the sunshine. According to 2 teammates, they actually watched the runner's running very carefully and enjoyed watching the perfect muscles and movements. It's a pity that I didn't notice that part, there are always too many runners together with my target runner, I didn't got a good view. :(

The most impressive part of the race is actually about the last runner. She looks not like a runner, I mean, slightly overweight. But she did finished the full marathon with the time of 7 hours and 1 minute. In the last 1 km, we surrounded her, and escorted her in her speed. 2 bikes at her left and 2 bikes at her right, all other bikes are in one row behind her, and we all ring our bells. I wish I could found the picture and put it here.

It's only 11 months left. (Greg, I know the copyright of this sentence belongs to you. )

P.S. There are 2 related links:
Details about the racing day
Video about our team, could you find me from the video?