m@adie

2007-01-31 Training (distracted)

I was going to run, but I postponed it until tomorrow afternoon. I may have some time after court (I’m a witness and it’s a long story). I meant to ride longer on my trainer, but I started geeking out and lost track of the time.

Total Time: 1:00

12:00 pm – YMCA Swim
- swim: 0:30 1500 (1000 and 500 all free)

9:30 pm – Home trainer
- bike: 0:30 (watching bones)

2007-01-30 Training (good)

Long swim day… felt pretty normal. I was going to run a bit after but didn’t have the energy.

Total Time: 2:00

12:00 pm – YMCA Swim
- swim: 0:30 1250 (mixed, 500 free, sets of 500 and 250)

5:30 pm – YMCA Swim
- swim: 1:30 3500 (mixed, 2500 free, sets of 500 and 250)

2007-01-29 Training (awww)

A sad little swim left all by it’s lonesome. I thought I’d give my back a good measure day. Besides I had a strong urge to geek out with a new Linux installation on my old Transmeta sub-notebook.

Total Time: 0:30

12:00 pm – YMCA Swim
- swim: 0:30 1250 (mixed, 500 free, sets of 500 and 250)

Geek Community and BarCamp

Julien at in over your head posted this blog entry Montreal… needs… brains…….. which sparked a flurry of comments about the state of geekery and the geek community in Montreal. His blog continues the discussion with the entry Montreal has brains?. Robin at IM2 | OQP adds to the discussion with Montreal, action !, and I myself…


I haven’t been paying enough attention to the tech community lately to truly be entitled to an opinion, but I do have geek friends, I do work geek jobs, I do know that there is a fairly large community here, and I’m feeling an interest in probing the edges of possibility…

Enter BarCamp, and more specifically BarCamp Montreal; If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of BarCamp you can checkout this entry in Wikipedia. I have never attended one of these things, and I don’t have anything to demo, but I think that I will attend the Feb 27th event at the SAT to get a sense of what it’s all about.

The dates of the Montreal BarCamp activities are as follows:

DemoCampMontreal1 – Tues/Mar Feb 27, 2007
DemoCampMontreal2 – Thurs/Jeu Mar 29, 2007
BarCampMontreal2 – Sat/Sam Apr 28, 2007
RoCoCoCamp – May/Mai 18-20, 2007

Transitory in Nature

time, time, it’s so sublime
well they say it’s non-existent
but it’s playing with my mind
[Climbing -- The Meat Puppets]

I’ve uploaded another batch of photos, some of Montreal, but most of graffiti found along the Main. Outside of being interesting and sometimes beautiful, I think my fascination with graffiti is largely due to it’s transitory nature. While all graffiti (and murals) will fade and disappear in time, some of it seems to get wiped out without anyone (the royal anyone) even noticing…

  In March 2004 I took the photo to the top left; it was located on the north wall of a parking lot found on the west side of St Laurent (across the street from a booze can that I’d been to once or twice in my mid 20s — also taken by time). Apparently a building has now been built in it’s place, and my favorite quirky piece of graffiti is visible no more (I took the photo to the right earlier today). This is probably a sign that I should look up more often… change often comes as a shock to me because it’s complete by the time I notice.

  If you look at the photo to the bottom left, you’ll see a process of change that I did notice… of course I can’t remember what was there before they started the white washing. This photo is of the north side of the storage building located along the railroad tracks just above Bernard in Mile End; I’ll have to check in on it in the next couple of weeks to see their final product.

Hopefully this graffiti photo project of mine will have enough continuity to more broadly document the effects of time… of course it would help if I took note as to where each photo was taken but…

2007-01-28 Training (rest)

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Tweaked something in my lower back… it’s not very bad, and it seemed to improve over night, so I decided to take today off training. Just as well, I’ve had a productive day so far: my dad came to visit, I’ve wondered around taking another hundred or so graffiti pics, and I’m now sitting at Laika working on my site (posting photos and blogging).

2007-01-27 Training (ok)

Rode on the trainer, the ran on a treadmill… it’s been a hamster like day.

Total Time: 2:00

12:00 pm – Bike on trainer
- bike: 1:30 watching cartoons (easy)

5:30 pm – YMCA treadmill
- Run: 0:30 treadmill (easy)

2007-01-26 Training (rest day)

Strange… I didn’t want to go… I didn’t enjoy being there… I was trying to swim easy (rest day)… BUT my stroke felt smooth and I covered more distance than I normally do in half an hour. Strange…

Total Time: 0:30

12:00 pm – YMCA Swim
- Swim: 0:30 1500 meters (mixed, 750 free, sets of 500)

Katie Moore

There’s an interview with my friend Katie Moore at Midnight Poutine. I missed her show last night (yet again), but that’s because I didn’t know about it… oh well…

On another note, another aquaintence of mine, Lubo Alexandrov (Kaba Horo: Balkan gypsy groove), is playing on Sat night at Bobards.

2007-01-25 Training (blah)

This was one of those days where everything felt wrong and weak. Guess that means that tomorrow is a good day for a rest day.

Total Time: 1:40

12:00 pm – YMCA treadmill, weights, and core
- Run: 0:30 treadmill (easy)
- Core: 0:10 core and stretch

5:30 pm – YMCA Swim
- Swim: 0:50 2000 meters (mixed, 1000 free, sets of 500)
- Stretch: 0:10 good stretch