My Wet Coast Life

On my way home from work yesterday, i survived a JRfm bumper sticker toting minivan drifting into my lane on a corner as the car in front of me slammed on the brakes and I had to swerve at the last minute to avoid getting hit cause they still didn't see me or realize they are half way in my lane and have completely taken away my braking distance. He got a horn and salute from me. He quickly moved back to his lane after that nerve racking event and in the process cut off the driver that was behind him in his previous lane. That moronic driver then tried to change lanes into my passenger door a couple hundred meters later without shoulder checking to see if i was there or indicating his intention. He just started moving towards me and my feeble horn gave him another reminder that I was there. And of course it had not 1 but 2 JRfm 93.7 bumper stickers on it, cause 1 ain't enough. Ahhh...those bumper stickers explained it all.

Luckily, thanks to the Canada's Worst Driver series on Discovery Channel, they have given real good tips on how to get out of a jam and just common sense when on the road. The one tip that has saved me more than once from the idiot drivers, and what worked for me yesterday, is when not-so-smart drivers like to cut in between you and the car in front of you, with no indicator and no space of course, while the car in front of you is already breaking hard, thus taking away any breaking distance you might have had. Canada's Worst Driver showed me not to slam on the brakes but just to let off the gas and steer to retain control. That is why I'm still here and able to write this.

In December of '09, I wrote about how you can identify bad drivers on the road in the lower mainland by looking for the JRfm 93.7 bumper sticker(s) and how JR 93.7 FM listeners are the worst drivers but at least give a courteous warning via the red and white sticker(s).

Thank you Canada's Worst Driver for the tips over the last 5 seasons, they have saved myself a couple times now and would've been a different outcome had i not watched your show and paid attention. You can watch all of Season 5, if in Canada, here.

Now the previous night before this most recent incident, i was checking some stats for the blog and noticed traffic coming from searches for JRfm 93.7. Curious, i decided to Google it and see where my blog stands in the search results. To my amazement, i am ranked second only to JRfm's actual website when searching "JR 93.7 FM" and other similar searches kept me in the top 5, WIN! Maybe the listeners will see my article, read it and change their ways? Or they may just remove the bumper sticker so they can stay on the down low. This has nothing to do with JRfm 9.7 station and the music they play, rather their fan base's lack of driving skills. But you never know, the station could promote it, i wouldn't know as i listen to 99.3 the FOX on my commute, cause the FOX ROCKS!

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After the lack luster first weekend of July is over and Mother Nature still not giving us a summer to remember. After a not so great June-uary, I seem to be rusting instead of tanning. Looking outside at another overcast day and temperature sitting around 15°C, I look east to Ontario and Quebec who are currently experiencing a hot, humid and smoggy heat wave. Now living on the wet coast, we tend to always get cooler weather compared to the B.C. interior and prairies mainly due to cool ocean breezes keeping us in check. But every so often the wind dies down and we get the nice hot weather and looks like that is coming in 1 day for us.
Now I prefer love the hot weather. Due to my lack of insulation, you can still find me wearing pants or layers in 20°C+ weather when others are sweating and pealing off all their clothes. So i decide to go check our weather and see if the weather is gonna get any warmer and sunnier.

To my surprise, it looks like we are about to get our first heat wave of 2010! WooHoo! Both Environment Canada and Weather Network show the heat is on the way!
After calming down from the shear excitement that the sun will be out and the temperatures nice and warm, I realized I live in Rain-couver where people loooove to complain about the weather. Whether it is raining too much or not enough, someone has to be a weather hater. As for me, my body works like a human barometer and whenever the weather is inclement, my body hurts. I can now somewhat accurately predict weather based on pain and its location. Now why do I mention this?? Well sun and high heat tend to be the only times I do not hurt which means little to no pain medication for my bad back = Win.

Now for my unfortunate family and friends who tend to “die” when the temperature goes over 25°, fear not for i have put together some tips and tricks to beat and deal with the gorgeous tropical weather on the way.

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It's been awhile since my last post due to being busy with work and other things. But now i feel the need to share my 2 bits on another issue that irks me and finally measures are being introduced to reduce/eliminate drunks on the road and severely penalize the ones that still drive drunk.

British Columbia has finally stepped up to take on the drunk drivers and impose stiffer penalties. This week they announced tough new measures to reduce the number of impaired drivers on the road and implement stiffer penalties for those that think they are OK to drive after having a few brews, when they are in fact not OK, and get caught.

I have had friends, and most likely you do to, that still stupidly get behind the wheel after a few when they should have made a smarter choice for getting home and luckily they are still around. Unfortunately, sooner or later, their luck will run out or maybe already has. Sometimes my friends or I were able to stop them by taking away their keys. But every so often, some felt obliged to refuse or even go to the extent of offering "we''ll fight for it". Some battles are just not worth it. You can't win against someone aiming for top spot on the Darwin awards. I just hope they don't take out others in that process. We can only hope.

Everyone that drives and has a wobbly pop or two, or three, has multiple alternate options and choices to make. They can get designated driver, take a cab, call a sober friend, stay overnight, take transit and one of the best services of all, Operation Red Nose, a volunteer safe ride home service. That's 6 alternate options compared to getting behind the wheel but alas, ignorance fueled by alcohol is bliss.

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Today is a beautiful sunny day on the wet coast and just wanted to share 2 useful Google bookmark features that can help you when you are traversing the intertubes.

Both of these tips are bookmarks, the first one gives you the ability to create tiny URL's with the click of your bookmark and uses one of the fastest short URL services courtesy of Google with 100% up time and around 1/3 of a second to resolve and process the URL. All you need to do is drag the following link into your bookmark toolbar:

If you want to see how it works, you can click the link right now to make a tiny URL for this page.

Once this bookmarklet is in your toolbar, if you need to make a tiny URL, just go to the page you want to generate the link for, click the bookmark link and voila! a popup window will appear with your tiny URL and you can copy and paste it where ever it is needed.

The next bookmark tip gives the ability to google search a site you are on and only show results for that particular site. This is useful is the site doesn't have a search box or you want to find something specific on the site and not want to go to google and add "site: URL" in the search box. The bookmark is:

Once this is in your bookmark toolbar, just go to the site you want to search, click the bookmark and enter your search key words. It will take you to Google search results for that particular site only.

Hopefully you will find these two quick tips useful. Let me know if you have any tips you want to share that helps making your web surfing more enjoyable.

So for Easter Friday, i amazingly got the day off work so Robotrogue and I decided for our next hike to go do the Lynn Loop in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve in North Vancouver. It has a variety of trails, a suspension bridge, multiple other bridges and a cave tunnel (if you can find it). We arrived at the the Lynn Canyon Park entrance at around 8am and it was a decent 8^oC with a light rain and luckily, light wind too. The forecast for the day was winds, gusting over 70 knots, and up to 40mm of rain but we were prepared with more or less, the right gear for the weather. It is the wet coast, where you don't tan, you rust. Now Robotrogue recently got some new gear from Mountain Equipment Co-Op and T.A.D. Gear and this weather was perfect to test it out.

We decided we would start by crossing the suspension bridge and then head in a northerly direction and loop around to the Baden Powell trail. With one of the best ways to start a hike, we made our way across enjoying the view from the suspension bridge and the rushing water below. After some quick pics, we were on our way. Our first section took us along a gentle winding path running parallel with the river. After about 10 minutes or so, we were greeted by a rather daunting set of stairs. Hmmmm....

Now before going any further, a bit of background info. Both of us have the goal of getting back into shape and trying to get outdoors more often. I'm trying to gain weight and Robotrogue is trying to lose some. We decided to ensure we packed all the required equipment for a day hike, even though we were still close to civilization and a bit harder to get lost. Yet again, the expected terrain, anything can and could happen and always better to be prepared than not. This included a first aid kit, space blanket, change of dry clothes, water, food, mini stove (more on that later), whistle...well, you get the idea. We planned for the worst expecting the best, which is what we got. We saw a lot of people on the trail with nothing but a jacket but i guess they are either using the multi-use wide trails which have inherently less risk or just being ill-prepared for the outdoors and banking on someone else for assistance. This also gave us a decent weight in our packs to test our fitness level on a more intermediate hike than compared to our trek through Pacific Spirit park.

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