FreezeRide

With the wind chill, it has been pushing -46°C in Whitehorse. I am still riding my bike 15 minutes to go to the public library and work on my thesis. There are a few problems that pop up when riding in such cold weather:

1) My studded winter tire on the front kept rotating on my rim and ripped the valve stem off the tube -- instant flat tire. Twice.
2) The pawls (teeth) in the rear hub freeze and do not catch, so I spin the pedals but no power is transferred to the rear wheel. The only way to get it to work is to push the bike backwards for a meter or so until the pawls catch, then pedal continuously once I get going. This means...
3) ...that as soon as I stop pedaling, the pawls disengage and I will no longer be able to propel the bike forward, even if I start pedaling again. So I must do all of my shoulder checking without stopping. This is problematic because...
4) ...to shoulder check while the hood of my down-filled parka is up, I must let go of the handlebar with one hand and turn around to look back and see if any cars are coming.

All is not bad though. I still get to ride my bike, and there are even other cyclists out and about!

Scattered

Today's random assortment of photos is a reflection of my current mindset -- a lot of different, great ideas and places that I'm trying to create, organize and accomplish all at once. The following article uses examples of IPods and cars to show how Americans and Japanese suck at making some things, while being great at making others. Sometimes I feel like I attack projects with reckless abandon (American-style), but then have a long way to go to satisfy my perfectionist tendencies and produce Japanese-like quality.

Made in USA

I found this website while trying to find out which materials and metals are used in the manufacture of IPods. Last week, I gave a geology talk to a couple of grade 10 science classes and wanted to make them more aware of where our day-to-day resources come from, and figured that relating rocks to mp3 players would be helpful. It was.

And now some photos that were scattered about my hard drive...

Edmonton, Alberta -- night shot of the waterfall off of the High Level Bridge

Virden, Manitoba -- old tractor sitting in the field behind where my Dad grew up

Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta

Hitched!

My big news from the holiday season is that Jenny and I got married! A lot of friends, family, food, booze, music, dancing, laughing and visiting made for an awesome party. We'd like to thank everybody who made it out and had a good time. We are enjoying being newlyweds, but it seems like it will take us some time to get used to calling each other husband and wife.