My Wet Coast Life

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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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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Living on the wet coast, we are surrounded by forests. One of the benefits of living here is the ease of access to local and regional parks. Last weekend, a friend from work, RobotRogue, and I took my dog Wallace and went for a trek through Pacific Spirit Regional Park. It is located in the University Endowment Lands, west of downtown Vancouver and has over 54 km of walking/hiking trails, 38 km of which are designated multi-use.

As a little background to this, RobotRogue and I, like many techs, sit at a desk all day long. As with any sit down job, over time you get lazy and de-motivated and some people get fat as well as an indirect outcome of sitting all day and snacking. Now RobotRogue's goal is to get in shape and lose some of weight and eat healthier. He has traversed the net and found various useful sites such as Couch to 5K, which helps lazy people slowly get back into the work out routine and nerdfitness.com, who's slogan is "Helping nerds and average joes get in shape the right way, one day at a time."
Over the last couple weeks, i hear of his improvements and motivation. Now me on the other hand, i've gotten lazy over the years due to a back injury 10+ years ago and working more with less time to workout. I am lucky that i have a metabolism like a race car and don't gain weight really no matter what and how much i eat (yes, you can hate me now). I am at the other end of the scale for being under weight and standing over 6'1", i am commonly referred to as a stick, bean pole, someone who should eat more....well, you get the point. So when most people are losing weight, i want to gain it. This tends to tick off the weight loss people...

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In Europe, where it is common for 2 footy teams to clash and create an alcoholic fueled bedlam over who has the better team or a bar brawl spilling into the streets cause someone said something they shouldn't and a fight is now required to settle it, various impromptu weapons get thrown into the mix, such as bottles and glasses, and injuries are sure to ensue.

Well, the Brits have had enough, i guess bar brawls and injuries have gotten so bad, they have taken the next step at preventing it. We've all seen videos of footy matches gone bad and now the opposing fans need to resolve what their team could not. Now as a follow up to my interests in drinking technology and alternatives to drinking, they may have come up with the a solution to solve at least one issue common to any liquor serving establishment.

Did they invoke more education to reduce the violence? No, you can fix ignorant drunks. Did they add more security at the bars and pubs? No, just means the fight is going to go elsewhere. What they did do is look at where the injuries came about and how to prevent that. There are 87,000 alcohol-related glass attacks each year, with many resulting in hospital visit in Briton.

Did I just say glass? Of course! Everyone wants a drink, served in a glass, so i guess everyone gets given an impromptu weapon every time they order a pint at the same time (kinda like an indirect bonus).

Now how did the Brits solve it? They created a shatterproof pint glass of course! Now you're probably thinking "why didn't i think of that.." or it must already be in use but alas it may be in use in some pubs being industry leaders/stakeholders but not on a national scale until now. It is very difficult to change people's perspectives on fighting but if you remove the ability to use common, easily available objects as malicious weapons, that will at least eliminate one aspect of the situation turning bad.

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