R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I'm not going to get all biblical, but I really would like to be treated by others as others would wish to be treated. With a little g'dam respect perhaps.

I'm not going a bundle on the dress, but the sentiment is sound.

Now respect has to be earned, not demanded by right. I understand this. I once met a triathlon official who confided to me that he (but it could have been a she) was feeling a degree of disrespect from the athletes and proceeded to be an absolute jerk at someone-else's station; presumably in an attempt to reassert him(her)self on the athletes. I hope I'm not the same. I admit, I'm not perfect. When it comes to fallibility I'm low on the papal scale. But I do try to be nice, to be polite, to say my please-and-thank-yous, hold the door open, to be diplomatic, I don't say the first thing that comes into my head (although God knows I want to) and try to be reasonably empathetic.

What does it get me? Reciprocity? Fuck no, you bastards can't even spell it.

Maybe I'm just in a nihilistic mood today, but despite this, it seems all I get is walked upon and over; do I have a sign on my head that I cannot see that says "delicate sensibilities contained with: please trample upon at will"?. What makes me such a good target to all and sundry? People who are neither perfect themselves or indeed good at their jobs find it acceptable to find in me the smallest fault, while (again trying not to go all biblical) overlooking the note in their own eye.

Really? Am I that bad? So perhaps I should just FOAD. Oh, what's that? You don't want to to go? Well, you just told me I was a complete fuck-muppet and so if you want me to stay, you must be a fuck-muppet too. Only a fuck-muppet wants a fellow fuck-muppet in control. But of course I can't call you a fuck-muppet, even though you told me I was one, because then you'll get all upset and say I'm not treating you with respect. Hence the problem, quod erat demonstrandum and all that.

Let me give you an example, which illustrates the problem I'm having perfectly and with exception to the two people concerned, you, my fearless reader, will be unable to work out who they are.

So I was standing in a car-park recently waiting for my Garmin to synch so I could go for a run. A friend of mine just happened to be in their car, so we started chatting. Someone else my friend knows, but not someone I know, walked by, saw my friend and (presumably) saw me chatting to him, walked up to said friend and engaged friend in another, totally unrelated conversation to the one we were having. I mean, buddy just cut right through me: physically and conversationally. After 30 seconds he turned around and asked me if it was OK to butt in.

Right, sure. Go right ahead. Don't mind me, I'm not here. Unless you want to walk all over me, in which case, I'm all yours.

Grrrr

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Travelin' light

At least the Youth athletes turned up this morning! I spent a pleasant hour pack-riding with them, saw the early morning sun over Purcells Cove then headed off for a couple of hours on my own. It was sunny, slightly cool in the shade, no wind. a true float day. Legs felt OK, there was even some leg-speed in there somewhere (surely not, and don't call me Shirley) and my knees had the good sense to know I was on a good thing and quit whinging. I hit TIBS after 50 miles and pretty much inhaled an almond croissant, which is why the Americano is standing on an empty plate!

Last week Dan stayed for a week and we had the opportunity to get some rides in together. It was time for clipless pedals so I took a pair of Shimano M520s off one of my fixies and put them on his mountain bike. Of course, he had the typical first-time users' crash: he rode up to me, stopped dead, couldn't get his feet out and fell over in slo-mo, like Wile E. Coyote. All I could do was watch!

Hey, who hasn't?

After we got that crash out of the way, we had a good ride on the BLT trail, and followed it up the next day with a evening traipse through Shubie Park. He's definitely getting the hang of clipless and it's improving his riding: in Shubie was actually making me work a bit to stay on his wheel. So much for stealing candy from babies and beating up 11 year-olds on the bike.

But travellin' light? Apropos of what, other than being my favourite Billie Holiday song?

Well, one day I had to work all day, despite having Dan at home so I did what a whole generation of parents has done and left him under the care of the electronic babysitter; the TV. What he did with his time was undertake a Star Wars marathon; while I was at work he got through Episodes I - V and we finished off Episode VI after dinner.

Like father like son? I've got a bad feeling about this.

I was quite envious really; who wouldn't want to have a free day and spend it watching an entire canon of movies? And which ones would you pick? Star Wars, a la Dan, is an obvious choice. I suspect Son #1 would go for a Star Trek marathon. I would go for maybe the Bourne trilogy, or maybe the Ocean's 11/12/13 trilogy, but only if you were in a Matt Damon mood! Perhaps Bond? A Kill Bill double feature? Austin Powers? Bee-have. A colleague said he'd watch Lord of the Rings. Perhaps. Maybe the only way LOTR will ever make sense to me would be if I were to settle down on the couch with a metric ton of popcorn and an adult diaper and just watching the whole damn thing.

Anyway, Dan pointed out that in the Cloud City scene in The Empire Strikes Back there is a fleeting glimpse of a guy running down the corridor carrying a canister and, somehow, this guy has been immortalized as an action figure. I tried to find a pic of this one on-line but typed in "Star Wars Leia's Metal Bikini" by force-of-habit and was momentarily side-tracked (if by momentarily you mean a good chunk of the afternoon).

See what I mean? Schwing!

I got to wondering about what would you carry in your canister if the Empire suddenly too control of your gas-mining station in the clouds, or perhaps more realistically if you had to lave for any reason. What would you take?

This wasn't quite as academic an exercise for me as I've done this quite recently. What I ended up taking was whatever would fit in and on my car. It looked something like this;

If you ever wondered what the internal volume of a 2000 Hyundai Elentra is, that was it,

plus three bikes on the car rack.

Not quite up to Paul Simon's standards ("hop on the bus Gus, you don't need to discuss much") I'll grant you, but life has a poor record at imitating art.

Of course, now I have the Ninja, I'd have to pare even this down a little more (well, a lot more).

Bikes? I know I can get a two-bike rack on the Smart; either a 1 1/4" hitch for a Thelma or maybe a Yakima roof system. I'd have to say the Carrot and Old Bess, but I'd take a couple of spare wheels, including the eccentric White Industry's ENO fixie, 'cos Old Bess can take it (Old Bess can take anything!).

In the car; clothes; some nice shirts, trousers, couple of jackets. I'd have ti get rid of all those race t-shirts, but we all have way too many of those. Basic running kit (one of everything for all weathers), ditto cycling kit. I'd junk most of the jerseys, just keep a few. My volunteer jacket from World Du's, it'll pretty much do every weather I'm likely to see, even if I'm fleeing an apocalypse in the Ninja.

The only thing missing from the Hyundai/interval volume picture is my Japanese Peace Lily, otherwise known as the Drama Queen for her habit of wilting at the slightest provocation. She's my bastard red-headed step-child with whom I have a love-hate relationship. I'm not as attached to the Drama Queen as Nicholas Angel is to his in Hot Fuzz, but I'd be loathe to see her go, so she comes with me. She'd take up most of the front seat of the Ninja though, but I suppose one has to make sacrifices; after all this is what the exercise is all about.

Should I have advance warning of the coming apocalypse, then in prep I'd get a lap-top so I can play my DVDs. Of course, perforce I'd have to a junk a bunch - maybe only keeps those suitable for a movie-marathon on a rainy afternoon? Or I could rip them all to an external hard-drive. I've done that to my music already but I bet buddy from Bespin didn't have time to rip >100 movies to disc before a vengeful wave of stormtroopers ransacked his quarters. Books, kinda hard to rip those to the E-drive, but they take up so much space. Natch. I'd have to hope the public library survived or spend a lot of pre-apocalypse time (and money) getting them all on a Kindle.

This illustrates on of the problems in my life in general. I seem to spend way too much time and money re-acquiring what I lost or left behind in the many moves I've made. Goodness knows how many times I've bought From Russia With Love from second-hand book-shops (Leeds, London, Aberdeen, Virginia, Halifax), or maybe how many different versions of Mission impossible or Star Wars (NTSC VHS, PAL VHS, DVD, don't make me go Blue-Ray, please).

As well as losing a lot of media in the last 23 years, I've also lost pretty much everything else. Some I willingly (or near as dammit willingly) gave up. Some, my Mother likely trashed. As much as I lightly refer to the Drama Queen as my red-headed step-child, at home I was quite literally the bastard black-headed step-child. I suspect, though I dare not ask, whatever didn't make the first cut when I left for Poly was unceremoniously flung in a skip. I do wonder, however, how much of my step-brother and step-sister's stuff remained at the family seat during our respective Uni years. More than mine, I'll warrant. Why? I'm at a loss, but as much as mater refuses to countenance it, some step-children were more equal than others chez Pickering. From my perspective the unifying quality amongst the Favoured Ones was a certain, how shall we say, Caucasian-ness. Hey, just simple cladistics: grouping things by outward characteristics!

So, I'm already travellin' light. All have have from high-school is this CD, The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me Kiss Me. I'm serious. I may appear to be a hoarder, but all I have from 1982-1988 is this single CD. I did have my scientific calculator for a while too, but it eventually got dropped in one too many beakers of buffer!

From before this time, I have Sooty, a rather threadbare hand-puppet from when I was a small child. Don't ask me how Sooty survived the culls and moves, but he did.

Third on the list of old stuff is my Crest CC jersey, which (incidentally) still fits.

Add some bike-tools (really, I don't have a photo of my high-school girl-friend but I have a pair of 20 year-old 15mm cone-wrenches and a pin-spanner!) and that's it. I suppose my GSCE certificates must be here somewhere, not that there'll be a pressing and urgent need for me to prove a B in O-level Religious Studies in 1986! Not much to show for a life. I've always prided myself by thinking I'm not too much of a materialist and I think this pretty much proves it. However attached I get to stuff, no mater how much stuff I acquire, life has a habit of periodically paring my shit all the way down again. Stuff this lot in the Smart Car, which cynics would say has the same internal volume as the Bespin dude's canister, and I'm good to go.

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Soul Food

No TIBS thins morning, but TIBs is becoming more of a treat than a regular occurrence nowadays anyway. Still, one supposes one appreciates it all the more when finding oneself on the dark-side with time to spare. The picture does illustrate, perhaps, the reason I've been posting less and less recently; not so much the aimless loafing in coffee shops (I just said I was doing less of that, didn't I?) as the attendant introspection that accompanies a cappucino and pastry. I've been doing a lot of that recently.

Anyway, unrelated or not, I finally made it to a new restaurant in town yesterday, well at least new to me: Mabuhay on Blowers Street, more commonly known as Rockys. Mabuhay, which is Tagalog for "long life" in the "cheers" sense of the word has strange hours, catering either a lunch buffet to the downtown City crowd (I use the term City advisedly, this is Halifax after all) or late night kebabs to the clubbing crowd. As such, it was always difficult to get to, being a full time employee somewhere other than downtown and not having been to a nightclub since 1989.

If I was going to check out a Filipino restaurant without looking like a sad lonely bastard I was going to have to choose my company with care. Son#1, well this is the guy who went to the recent Indian Cultural Festival (Curry is our middle name) and got a hot-dog. I think he finds onion spicy. Wimp. All the European genes went into that one! As for la belle, well her idea of food involves a fat-stripping process to the point of performing phenol-chloroform extractions to remove cell-membranes from the most basic of food-stuffs. Not so much cuisine as chemistry. Whilst undoubtedly healthy (although of dubious utility given what appears to be a genetic basis to my own hyperlipidaemia), remembering that when Filipino recipes are not calling for large amounts of belly pork (a fattier version of bacon or ribs) they require liver (ugh, offal, how can you eat that? You do know what those organs do, right?) it was clear she would not be a tranquil dinner guest.

So yesterday, when I finally made it to Mabuhay, it was with Son#2 , Daniel, in tow. Dan likes spicy food, is somewhat adventurous with with gastronomic tastes and, as yet, is not lipidaphobic (but if his biochemicial traits are like mine, then he will have to become so).

Oh boy. I have quite literally not eaten that food for thirty years, not since my parents divorced and my mother cut any ties we had to Filipino culture, including my name. Yesterday Dan and I pigged out (and I use the word advisedly) on pancit, steamed dumplings, asado and a few other things I have forgotten the names for. No adobo or dinuguon though, those were my favorites.

It was tasty, but not curry-hot spicy, although I did hear a white lady at the table next to us comment on the spiciness of something. I don't know exactly which dish she thought was "hot", but it can't have been anything I ate, and I ate everything! Funnily, most of the diners were, asides us, either from Sport Nova Scotia or Catholic priests.

It was only $10 a plate (or actually about $3.30 a plate by the time were were done) but the biggest surprise came when I went to pay.

"$15 please".

??

I protested that both of us had eaten.

"Ah yes, but your son? Only $5".

I mean, here is Dan, building a milk-and-jelly tower in Coras (who hasn't?) last Sunday, shortly before killing a huge breakfast.

Sure he's only 11 but he's an eating machine. He's nearly outgrown a 16" framed 26" wheeled mountain bike; the next size up is one I'd ride. He's adult sized, with an appetite to match! I told them as such, he'd had a couple of big plates and I was more than happy to pay them for what he had eaten. But they stood firm, and charged me only $15.o0 for two. They didn't make any money off us yesterday, so I feel somewhat obliged to go back and make good the deficit. Maybe I'll take la belle; after all how much can a couple of steamed dumplings with a plate of rice and water-chestnuts cost?

I ran the usual "you're not from around here" gamut on the way out, but for once I wasn't pegged as an Australian. They pretty much dinged it, which wasn't a problem. It was strange, the old guy who was cooking gave this funny little laugh when someone said something: it was exactly the same kind of laugh my Dad makes. Bearing in mind I wasn't looking at him when he did this, I was momentarily confused because I thought Dad was in the restaurant,. Wow, I never realised that was a Filipino laugh, it has to be because I haven't heard it anywhere else, and I've lived around a bit. It must be as culturognomic as the Canadian "eh" or the French Canadian "Waoui".

Anyway, I'll give my LDL a few weeks to calm down and I'll be back for sure: now Tuesdays are my day off and a lunch-buffet is only a 30 minute walk from home!

Pass the dinuguon, adobo and make mine a double helping of statins: Mabuhay!

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To the winds

A farewell dinner tonight for an old colleague of mine, Jessica Boyd. Some old, some current, NRC colleagues met at the Economy Shoe Shop for a final goodbye before she takes a new post on the faculty of the American University in Yola, Nigeria.

It was a little bit strange seeing so many old, familiar faces again. Of course, as might have been predicted, as the night progressed the crowd around the table dwindled to just Roger Ebanks, Mike Reith, Jess and myself; in many ways just like old times. The juke-box played old folk-punk tunes such as the Pogues' Fairy Tale of New York and we talked about science, life, Jess's new position and the current state of NRC; Roger and Mike still working in the old Mother Ship whilst Jess and I had been cast aside in favour of the new reality four years ago now. To be honest, from what we heard, we might be better off out of it than in!

We all stayed for a pint longer than usual, on account of the rain you understand, and eventually staggered out into the drizzle (drizzle being something Jess is probably going to miss in Nigeria). As we did, I pointed out that in 2000, NRC hired five young RAs on the GHI Aeromonas project; Roger, Jess, Victor Nesatyy and Stephen Tsoi. Victor and Stephen moved on after three or four years, but Roger, Jess and I stayed until the bitter end, and if I may say so, did some damn fine work. Roger survived the great WR (work-force reduction; great euphemism!) of 2007 whilst Jess and I were let go, but we both managed to stay in Halifax. We might all have been pink-slipped nearly four years ago now, but with Jess's farewell dinner and her imminent relocation to Nigeria, tonight felt like the end of GHI, with only Roger remaining on Oxford Street and his erstwhile colleagues, the three Amigos if you will, relocated hither and yon.

We didn't have the silly hats or that intro dance, but we published our fair share of papers and abstracts together.

Plus, after three pints, like the lightweight I am, I fairly staggered home. I don't think I've done that since I went to the Prince of Wales in Aberdeen with Andy one Friday night after work in 1994, had way too much and spent the rest of the night face-down in a bucket moaning "don't move my head". In hindsight, tonight I probably shouldn't have gone for a run then headed straight down the pub to rehydrate with three pints of Rickards White. Just sayin'

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Descent of man: Johnny Miles

A latte and an almond croissant at TIBS this morning, just the thing to warm up after 60kms in the rain. Of course, putting a wet helmet and track-mitts back on after the coffee felt pretty icky, but having one of the best java-shots in town and a croissant still slightly warm from the oven? Priceless.

Of course, in the "icky" damp cycling clothing category nothing comes close to damp cycling shorts with an actual chamois leather chamois. I'm old enough to remember those, and had a pair back when I started riding. Now putting those on while they were still slightly damp is an experience I'm glad none of you have to endure.

Taint necessarily so: synthetic chamois - we're spoiled beyond belief!

It's been a funny couple of weeks, what with Johnny Miles, Coteau du Lacs, having the boys full-time for a while and then generally trying to maintain a rhythm of life (the universe and everything). La belle and I had a chat last night and we pointed out that me starting full-time at Cyclesmith co-incided with a significant uptick in her call schedule. All of which means we're not entirely sure what even represents a "regular" life rhythm nowadays anyway.

In many ways, this morning's soggy sixty represented one of the first times I was able to have some time for myself in quite a while. Sure, the >14hr drive to Montreal and back was also "me" time, which was ably filled with audiobooks, podcasts and the CBC, but there was also the slight matter of piloting the Ninja at 120 kph. This morning was a little more sedate.

I thought a little about Johnny Miles. On the whole, I was disappointed with my time; 3:13 and change. Now yes, I know, whinging about yet another BQ may not be seen as something worth whinging about, especially when the mean marathon time in North American is nearly 50% longer, but at least one person has looked me in the eyes and said "well compared to what you can run, and have run, you have a right to be disappointed with that". Thank-you. You know who you are.

I thought I was doing OK around the first two laps, hell, I was doing OK around the first two laps. A nice easy lope with Dave Nevitt, Kevin Tulloch (until he DNF'd) and Matt Callaghan. Pace felt good, legs felt good.

On the third loop I tried to pick it up a little. That did for Matt, Kevin had already DNF'd, and I still felt good. Everything was under control and it even felt like I was gapping Dave Nevitt. Sweet! Only 10 kms to go.

Then the wheels came off. Dave blew by at the start of loop 4. This was quite demoralising really. It felt like I'd been working to gap the guy, yet all I had to show for it was a 15 second gap in 10 kms, which Dave handily disposed of in a jiffy. Fuck.

Oh well, still in 6th place on the road.

The first five kms of the last loop, which were on road, felt OK. Well, my legs were heavy and my mind was starting to get that slightly hysterical, wild-eyed look, but the monster was under control. Plus I was now moving through the back-markers and if I was feeling a bit lunatic with only four miles to go, these guys had ten miles to go and they were walking already, whereas I was still maintaining a semblance of a run. Nothing like feeding off other peoples' misery.

Then the left turn, down a small hill, narrowly avoiding a Sobey's 18 wheeler K-turning across the course and onto the track paralleling the river; three miles home, nearly all on trail. It's called Albion Way.

Oh, perfidious Albion!

Every step took more and more out of me. The more I tried, the worse it became. The Garmin taunted me; "ha only 200m since you last looked at me". The only saving grace was that Matt was in worse state than me! Our paths crossed just after the last turn, with 2 kms to go (for me), well he was really suffering! If I was going through some kind of purgatory, he was already plumbing the lower levels of running hell.

I was only 25 minutes or so behind the winner; Dave McLennan did a 2:48 or something. This isn't too bad, I'm usually 25 to 30 minutes behind him, so perhaps I really did have something faster than a 3:13 in the legs, it was just the day (which was kinda warm), or maybe the course (which is nearly 50% trail) or some other intangible on the day, which affected all of us, to differing degrees of course.

We can be geeky and look at the Garmin tracks for the race; The clear upward trend in pace can be seen. Good and controlled through the first twenty kilometres. A slight swing upwards between twenty and thirty and all hell breaking loose after thirty.

Or we can review the photographic evidence. Here's the start. Hey, I look pretty good.

Coming up to the half. I still feel pretty good. Dave Nevitt is just behind the halfer in red, sitting there, taunting me with his presence. Matt (in black, to my left), well his wheels have already become unscrewed and are on the verge of falling off and rolling away in opposite directions. Still, a good action running shot for me I think. Not looking as fresh as the start, but allowances have to be made for having a half in the legs already.

This is my third passage along the trail. Still look OK, I know I felt OK and I thought I'd dropped Dave. Of course, he was probably lurking just around the bend behind me. I know this because a mile or so later he came steaming past me like I was standing still.

Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. 38 kms or something. That calm visage has gone, replaced by a mix of pain and hysteria, my arms have dropped and if this was a video, yo'd see the rest of my running form had gone too. The shades still look good (nice bit of bling from work) and they did do the job of hiding that wild-eyed, staring look of desperation quite nicely.

This series of pictures reminds me of those ascent of man posters, but in reverse. To be honest, I'd have preferred riding a bike!

Next up, I have no idea. A couple of TD gigs I think. Certainly, I haven't really run since Johnny, now three weeks ago, and to be quite honest, I haven't really missed it. Shawn Beaton beat me up on a 20km club-run on Sunday, but I managed to keep my pace. You know, I think I'm starting to feel the urge to run again. Maybe.

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Signs of summer

For some, signs of summer may be the swallows returning, the solstice,modern-day druids performing made-up rites on said solstice, or perhaps having to mow the lawn.

For me, it's Irving gas-station coffee.

Whether perking up at the mid-point of a ride or perking me up at regular intervals on the highway, this is a beverage that never passes my lips in the off-season. As belated as summer has been coming to Nova Scotia, I've drunk a boat-load of Irving coffee in the last few weeks and, therefore, it is undubitably summer.

The latest batches of Irving's witches brew have been downed keeping me awake on the 1400km drive to the south shore of Montreal, Salaberry-Valleyfield to be precise, for the Soulanges Continental Cup triathlon. No, I'm not racing, I'm one of the officials. I've only been in town long enough to find the hotel and find the nearest St Hubert BBQ chicken resto; triathlon work starts tomorrow.

The drive was uneventful; as much as I usually don't like driving, it was nice to have the better part of 14 hrs to myself. I filled the first two-thirds of the trip with the CBC or a couple of audio-books, but then defaulted to louder and louder music as Montreal got closer and closer. Traffic was pretty bad around Montreal, and it took me over two hours to do the final 90k s from the junction of the 20 and 30 to the hotel. This was ignoring the advice of a suicidal GPS who wanted me to drive onto, and off, the island instead. Sure, it would have been a bit shorter, but with the current state of Montreal's bridges, I'd probably be out there.

There was no compelling reason to do so, but I did use a Garmin Nuvi on the drive, even though I knew exactly where I was going. Was this so I had accurate kilometres so I could submit my travel-expenses to TriCan? This is what I'm telling myself, but we all know the real reason; if it isn't on your Garmin, you never did it. Oh, how it creeps. Firstly, it was bike-rides that never happened, then rubs, but now long road-trips? If you remember doing it but you can't download it (or have a downloaded record of it) does that mean the workout still happened? When my computer crashed and I lost three years of saved Garmin tracks on Training Centre, did that mean I hadn't run all those miles? Which is more reliable; the BAA website shows I ran Boston twice, but I can only show you one downloaded track to "prove" it, and I was never actually "at" MDI! I think I need to get a life. Or a least one whose' worth cannot be so qualitatively determined, and if necessary, dismissed!

The Ninja was very good on the highway, I seem to be getting ca 500 kms out of a tank or ca. 6.6 L/100 kms, which were the figures the Smart was sold to me in the first place. La belle was very skeptical and didn't think I'd see those numbers, based on her experience with the diesel, so I'm pleasantly surprised to see the Ninja doing exactly what it said on the tin. As it uses Supreme, not regular, it costs about $40 to fill 'er up and so I go for about the same distance for the same money as the Deer Killer, but I am using less fuel, hence reducing my overall footprint.

And yes, I am aware of the irony of using the phrase "reduce one's footprint" whilst discussing a drive to Montreal. It's like discussing the ethics of food-production methods whilst eating a foie gras-stuffed veal sandwich (possibly the worlds most indefensible meal).

Well, bed-time for me; early start tomorrow. Should be an interesting linguistic weekend; most of the officials are Francophone, I'm a Brit and the TD is a Newfie! We'll have the arse out of 'er in no-time!

Breaker breaker

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Bikes and free coffee

Part Deux in the bringing you up to date on life and me up-to-date on the blog. Perhaps after I write this, the blog can get back to some semblance of contemporaneity and, who knows, socks.

Mad Science, "blowing shit up for Grade 2", was, and is, great fun. Being there for the lightbulb moment in some child's life was, and remains to be, an honour and there is possibly no greater thrill than doing an experiment, no matter how small, and hearing twenty kids go "woooooowwwwwwwwwwww, that's so cool" in unison.

Unfortunately, "ohs", "wows" and "thats-so-cools" don't pay the bills and whilst there was a possibility of parleying Mad Science into something closer to full-time, it seemed a little too sketchy. I don't mean the work or the people are sketchy, they are actually great people and a great program, but probability of a pay-cheque, and the amount of that cheque, was a little too probabilistic too me.

There was nothing in this town in my chosen field (fish + immunology; can you get any more esoteric?), leaving town was not an option and EI only lasts for 40 weeks. Time for Plan B: rethink one's career trajectory.

Fortunately, I had already thought out an alternative career trajectory. You know how some people say they'd like to retire early and open a B&B or become a painter or (in Alexandra Morton's case, become a "biologist")? I'd always said that if science didn't pan out, well I'd love to work with bicycles and in triathlon. Was there any way of making this pan out?

I'd been applying to sport-related management positions, but my CV just didn't want to stick with anyone. I think it was the PhD that did it. I was just overqualified. I remember getting CVs from post-docs wanting technicians' positions and I suspect my CV was ringing the same kind of bells with the people on whoms desks it was landing. Then just as HRDC was thinking "Dacanay, Andrew, we've been supporting you for a year, time for you to get off your arse", some opening on the sales-floor at Cyclesmith appeared. Within the space of two days, I applied, was interviewed and was offered a position. Within five days, I was on the sales floor in a staff t-shirt getting to grips with Career 2.0.

So, three months in, how goes it? I'm not so naive to think everything will be sunny and smelling of roses. I used to set my own schedule and agenda, I was the boss. Now my agenda and schedule are set by others, and I am most decidedly not the boss. Occasionally someone more senior will ask me what am I doing, if it appears I am standing around, customer-less and temporarily underemployed. Coming from a background where I was the one asking the questions, not answering to them, it feels weird.

However, I'm not making mistakes any more, at least I haven't had a mechanic come up to me with a work-order recently and say "did you book this in?". I'm getting a better handle on our inventory, but given the shop is 25 years old and has vintage esoterica on dusty top-shelves all over the basement, I don't think anyone really knows what we really have, and I'm getting to grips with the rhythm on the shop and shop-life.

But bikes! Do you have any idea of the amount of sweet, carbon-y, Ultegra/Rival/Dura-Ace/Forced-up goodness that pass under my hands on a regular day? So how bad can that be? I get paid to deal with these things! I mean, really, a job where I can fondle the Trek Speed Concept 9.5 on the floor without people saying "sir, please step away from the bicycle".

I already knew many Cyclesmith staff, after all, I've been a customer there for 11 years, so there was no awkward getting-to-know-you phase. This did mean my training wasn't quite as thorough as it could have been as I think was regarded as one of the family (almost)! There is a sense of community and team-work, more than the NSAC ever did (Houssain Farid, are you listening?), which makes it a great place to work.

The hybrid and moutain-bike learning curves were particularly steep for me. However, if you're enthusiastic about bikes, as I am, then it makes it easier to engage people regardless of your product knowledge; availability, affability and ability is the sales-floor triad (I believe). There is a great cross-range of people at C'smith and if I don't know the intricacies of a dual suspension MTB, I can always call on a colleague who does. And already I feel that I am called on to help out with with customers who's needs others feel I can better serve than they. Sometimes when your self-worth is feeling a little low, someone asking you to help a customer chose tri-bars is all the validation your life needs.

For those of you who know me, you know that coffee is kinda a big deal. I once worked out that I spent ca. $8500 at the Tim Hortons in the Life Science Building opposite the NRC in the 8 years I was there. With a Timmies on the same block as C'smith, was it possible this could happen again; coffee, bagels and breakfast sandwiches? No; there's always a pot of coffee on downstairs; it's provided by management and comes from Java Blend on North. Once a week a particularly sweet-smelling box is delivered containing a week's worth of coffee-grounds.

So, in the final analysis, I get to drink free coffee and talk bikes and triathlon all day. I mean, where's the problem? I'm supposedly an intelligent individual, I should have thought about this earlier.

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