'77 Track 7

Cycling: Plotting A City

2011-01-28T14:58:00.003-05:00

I've let this place languish for far too long, but I couldn't let this pass without mentioning it here (though I should have mentioned it sooner!):

Back in August, 2009, I posted some videos I had made from my cycling GPS tracks. Shortly after, in September, I was interviewed by the Torontoist blog.

Most recently, the videos were noticed by Patrick Macaulay at the Harbourfront Centre here in town, and I was invited to participate in a small exhibit called Plotting A City: "Eight artists document the city through an active plotting by creative activities such as photography, painting, sound, walking and installation."

The reception is tonight, 6-10pm, at York Quay, and the show opens tomorrow, January 29th, to run through to April 3rd:

Visual Arts at York Quay Centre

Plotting A City

I had no idea that this was a possibility when I posted the videos to YouTube. I'm off to the reception shortly -- I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works out.

Cycling: 10,000,000 Meters Maps

2009-12-18T09:18:00.004-05:00

According to my GPS logs, this Tuesday I reached 10,000km of cycling since I started recording my rides -- which was when I started riding a recumbent, a Rans V-Rex, on June 25th, 2004. I hadn't been cycling for a few years at that point. A pulled muscle in my back made riding for more than a half-hour or so rather unpleasant, but the recumbent did away with that problem.

The 10,000km has been over 1239 rides taking about 727 hours total, which is a lot of time to spend on a bike. You can see why a recumbent helps.

I rode about 955km that first summer, but this last year -- starting early (February 10th) and riding late (Dec 15th) I got in well over three times that distance (3179km). 3839km of my overall total has been for 1011 rides under 10km (mostly commuting to and from work), 1811 for rides over 50km, and the rest in-between.

My longest ride so far is still the 2008 Hamilton ride, 177km, though I've put in a few centuries since then.

On May 8th, 2007, I upgraded to an HP Velotechnik Streetmachine Gte, which has been my bike every since. Overall, 2972km has been on the V-Rex, 6894 on the Streetmachine, and the rest on Lori's trikes, the Sun EZ-3 and the Catrike Speed.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been making maps and animations of my rides. Here are a couple of the latest:

Downtown Toronto

Toronto

These leave out my rides in Missisauga, Hamilton, Bruce County, and Haliburton, but those are a relatively small part of the total.

All-in-all, it's a nice milestone... Though the fact that cyclists in the Ride Across Amierca do half that distance in about nine days puts it in perspective.

Cycling: 10,000,000 Meters

2009-12-15T19:23:00.002-05:00

Today, on the way home from work, I hit 10,000km of recumbent cycling since I started in the summer of 2004.

But I think it's time to put the bike away for the winter.

I'll post some maps tomorrow.

Denim: Happy Birthday

2009-12-15T11:05:00.002-05:00

Two years ago yesterday, Denim looked like this:

A couple of weeks later -- almost Christmas -- she still looked like a guinea pig:

By New Years, she started looking more like an actual dog:

Then we introduced her to Cobalt:

They hit it off immediately:

They became inseparable:

Now she's our acrobat:

She's a complete goofball:

But very sweet:

Cobalt: Happy Birthday Photon, Also

2009-11-19T10:05:00.003-05:00

And happy birthday to Cobalt's litter-mate Photon, from Chez PLJ:

And thanks to Laura from Chez PLJ for sending the pre-adoption Cobalt pictures.

Cobalt: Happy Birthday

2009-11-19T09:51:00.006-05:00

Three years ago today, Cobalt looked like this:

A week later, she still looked like a guinea pig:

After four weeks -- almost Christmas -- she started looking more like an actual dog:

At six weeks, it was New Years, and she really started to look like our pup:

We picked her up from Stoverly Aussies on February 11th, when she looked like this:

And now, she's all grown up:

Cycling: Cycling Routes

2009-09-10T12:12:00.003-04:00

Just a quick note that I've added a link to a page with links to the Bikely and MapMyRide maps of my major cycling trips down at the bottom of the page. As I go new rides, I'll be updating that page with maps.

Cycling: Route Maps

2009-09-01T14:28:00.012-04:00

I've uploaded maps of some of my longer rides to MapMyRide. MapMyRide has a lot of nice features, but is rather ad-heavy. I'm also going to try Bikely, which doesn't have as many ads, but doesn't have as many features either. Once I've settled on one, I'll throw a permanent link up on the blog.

BTW, I'm experimenting with the "Read More!" feature so that I can hide the bulk of these posts, so you don't have to scroll down through several screens to get to the previous post. Please let me know if there are problems!

(These maps are trimmed at each end so as not to broadcast exact home location to the world.)

First up, my old standby: the Beaches/Taylor Creek/Don Valley loop.

Beaches/Taylor Creek Loop
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A Don Valley/Humber River loop. This eventually got expanded northward to become my first metric century.

50km Downtown Loop
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My first time riding the Black Creek ravine trails.

Humber/Black Creek Loop
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A loop out to Etobicoke Creek by way of the Belt Line and the Eglinton bike trails.

Etobicoke Creek Loop 1
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Another Etobicoke Creek loop, this one incorporating the upper creek as well as the lower.

Etobicoke Creek Loop 2
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My first time riding in Scarborough. The Highland Creek trail is great, though last time I was there part of it had washed away.

Highland Creek Loop
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Another ride out into Scarborough. This one is one-way because I forgot to eat breakfast and ran out of energy. I had to get a ride back.

Don Valley to Highland Creek
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A ride the full length of the Don Valley Trail. This one is one-way because I got caught in a thunder storm and had to get a ride back.

Don Valley
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This was my first 100+km ride, incorporating the Don Valley and Humber River trails.

West Toronto Century
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My second 100+km ride, this time through Scarborough.

East Toronto Century
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A good ride from Toronto to Port Credit. This was a precursor to my Hamilton ride.

Toronto to Port Credit
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The big Hamilton ride.

Hamilton
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The Tour of Toronto ride.

Circumnavigating Toronto
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This one is also up on Bikely:

Tour of Toronto

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Sunday's Canada's Wonderland ride.

Canada's Wonderland Loop
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And here are some out-of-town rides:

A short loop on the Bruce Peninsula.

Pike Bay Loop
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A very hilly ride from the Red Umbrella Inn on Twelve Mile Lake into Haliburton.

Twelve Mile Lake to Haliburton
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Cycling: Interviewed

2009-09-01T12:55:00.006-04:00

Stephen Michalowicz of Torontoist has posted a short article about my ride animations: The Cyclist Who Drew Toronto.

Ignore the "Read More!" -- it doesn't apply here. Anyone know how to turn it off for short posts?

Cycling: Canada's Wonderland

2009-08-31T22:42:00.007-04:00

After the Tour of Toronto, I got to thinking that I'd done very little cycling outside the city's boundarys (except along the lake towards Hamilton), and started wondering what the trails were like north of Steeles.

During the Toronto Tour, I came across a sign for the Bartley Smith Greenway, which seemed a good place to start. The trail runs north from Steeles directly across from G. Ross Lord Park, which I'd only biked through once before, so it seemed a good place to start. Using Google Earth, I eyeballed where the trails went and how they connected -- or how to get between them if they didn't connect -- and put together a route that ran north from about the 401/Allen Expresssway interchange all the way up to Canada's Wonderland, then south again by way of Black Creek and the Humber River.

I ended up tweeting the ride again, though without as many photos as the Toronto tour:

11:15 AM Aug 30th: Trying a new cycling route. Let's see how this goes...

The first part of the ride was very familiar: up through Rosedale then along the Belt Line Trail to the Allen Expressway. North from the Allen was moderately familiar -- there isn't really a bike trail there, so it's all residential streets.

12:11 PM Aug 30th: Ok, reached the new part of the route. Time to not get myself lost.

Now I was at Baycrest Park, which I hadn't ridden through before. This was supposed to connect to a series of valley trails that would take me up to G. Ross Lord Park.

12:39 PM Aug 30th: First time through Earl Bales park. Really nice trail - well forested.

This was a great trail. I wish the Don Valley and Rosedale Golf Clubs didn't keep this trail from connecting to the West Don. That'd be a great route.

12:57 PM Aug 30th: Note to self: next time, don't use the trail behind the Jewish Centre on the West Don to get out of the valley...

First big mistake in the plan. Google Earth shows a trail behind the Jewish Community Centre of Toronto on Bathrust. Well, the trail is there... But it runs up a steep climb and is paved entirely with coarse gravel. Completely unmanagable on my recumbent. I ended up walking that climb.

1:18 PM Aug 30th: This is not that helpful:

This is in G. Ross Lord Park, which has great wooded trails. I have no idea what it's supposed to be warning against.

1:19 PM Aug 30th: This is, though:

I didn't see any, though.

1:26 PM Aug 30th: Great creek-side trail in G. Ross Lord park:

After a stretch in the woods, the trail moves to a wide-open flood plain. This trip largely alternated between woods, meadows, and streets, in a pretty nice balance.

1:32 PM Aug 30th: Last time I was here, I said I'd have to investigate. So, time to do so!

The sign for the Bartley Smith Greenway that I saw during the Tour of Toronto ride. This marks the start of my first real ride north of Steeles (as opposed to those short jaunts into parking lots to grab lunch with in 100m of the street).

1:50 PM Aug 30th: Nice trail:

The Greenway didn't disappoint, except for being too short. It only ran maybe half a kilometer on a diagonal from Steeles to Dufferin. Fortunately, other trails picked up where it left off. On the west side of Dufferin, the trails in Marita Paine Park and Geln Shields Park actually have tunnels running under the suburban roads so that pedestrians and cyclist barely have to worry about traffic at all.

1:52 PM Aug 30th: First time biking past the 407:

My prefered way of crossing a major freeway on a bike: along a dedciated path underneath.

2:11 PM Aug 30th: This looks less overgrown on Google Earth:

The second major failure in the plan: this looks like a paved path on Google Earth. It's the winding path that runs up between the trees in this view:

View Larger Map

It turns out it's kind of abandoned. I could follow the trail for about 200m, but eventually it was so badly overgrown -- and so infested with mosquitos -- that I picked up my bike and hauled it straight through the trees. I just happened to meet the fece for the lot behind the big rectangular building on Basaltic at a point where it was partly collapsed, and I could get the bike over it. Unfortunately, I discovered later that I broke my bell in the process...

2:23 PM Aug 30th: Note to self: when planning a ride using Google Earth, remember that some roads might not exist anymore...

This is important to remember.

2:39 PM Aug 30th: Odd little house:

All I know about this house is that it's behind a fence at the east end of a wooded area called Cromwell Park.

3:07 PM Aug 30th: Reached the north end of the ride. It's downhill from here!

Actually, this is slightly south of the northernmost end of the ride. But it's the official terminus.

From Canada's Wonderland, I just took Creditstone Road south all the way to the 407. Normally, I'm not that fond of riding on suburban industrial roads, but Sunday was very nicely overcast, which took care of my biggest gripe -- the lack of shade. Throw in almost no traffic and a slight downhill grade, and I just zipped along.

3:44 PM Aug 30th: Crossing 407 again.

My least favourite way of crossing a major freeway on a bike: on a busy overpasss with a strong cros-wind.

3:53 PM Aug 30th: Back in Toronto: Black Creek Pioneer Village cemetery.

I realized a little after this that I should have gone along Steeles for a block and into the Black Creek valley from Murray Ross Parkway, rather than down Jane to Shoreham. Oh well, next time.

4:12 PM Aug 30th: Another great creek trail: Black Creek

Yet again another great wooded trail. My only gripe with Black Creek -- and it applies to a number of other ravine trails in Toronto -- is that there are a number of places where you have to climb a steep grade up to a busy road, get across, and ride down a steep grade on the other side. A tunnel would be much more convenient -- and safer.

4:32 PM Aug 30th: Nasty climb:

This is the climb from Downsview Dells Park to Langholm Drive, but the picture doesn't do it justice. For starters, the first 50m of the trail from the Downsview Dells parking lot isn't paved -- it's practically marsh. Unridable. Then the climb out of the park is a killer.

4:39 PM Aug 30th: A nice, short trail between cul-de-sacs: Giovanni Caboto Park

I'd never ridden this park before. Google Maps labels this Tavistock Park at the start, then Exbury Park further down, though the sign across from where I entered said Giovanni Cabotto. Whatever the name is, it's a nice ride, though, again, only a few hundred meters long. You come out of the woods and connect to the Heathrow and Chalfkarm Greenbelts, which are trails through standard, open parks.

5:14 PM Aug 30th: I always have trouble spotting this entrance to the Humber trail:

On the Humber, you can get from Steeles to the lake entirely on paved multi-use paths, except for a 600m stretch from Fairglen Crescent to Conron Place. A combination of a steep cliff on the east bank and the Weston Golf & Country Club on the west bank has prevented the city connecting the two sections.

5:23 PM Aug 30th: The remains of Raymore Bridge, destroyed in 1954 by Hurricane Hazel, along with many valley houses:

This is one of my favourite "sculptures" in Toronto. It's one of the anchor blocks of the Raymore Bridge, yanks halfway out of the ground by Hurricane Hazel in 1954. The block has been etched with a drawing of the original bridge on the long side (on the right in the photo), and has had reproductions of newspaper front pages from the aftermath mounted on the short side.

Before Hazel, this flood plain had been built up with several houses. The rain from the storm raised rivers' water level by as much as eight meters, and 14 homes in this area were washed away. 81 Canadians were killed by the hurricane, and 35 of those lived just across the river from this marker, where the Raymore Bridge used to go.

After Hazel, Toronto banned building on the flood plains, which is one of the reasons why we have these great ravine parks today.

5:48 PM Aug 30th: Speaking of storms...

A tree knocked over in one of the recent thunderstorms, possibly the one that spawned all the tornadoes across southwestern Ontario.

5:49 PM Aug 30th: One tree knocked down the next:

On closer inspection, I realized that the tree in the previous photo was actually two trees: the one had fallen on the other.

6:08 PM Aug 30th: The home stretch! Hope I don't run into Caribana this time...

I return to the Humber River Bridge -- from here on home, I'm practically coasting.

6:56 PM Aug 30th: All done! ~95 km, not a bad ride.

And here's the whole thing. I'm trying out an online service called "MapMyRide" for sharing my rides. It's pretty good, but ad-heavy unless you spring for the paid membership. We'll see how it works out:

Canada's Wonderland Loop
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This map gives the length as 86.91km instead of 95km because I trimmed off the ends (so as not to give directions right to my house) and cut out a few wrong turns and dead ends. The "Dirt" markers are the two places where I ran into unpaved trails, and the red mountain marks the muddly climb out of Downsview Dells Park.

Cycling: 650 Hours, 8100 km

2009-08-19T11:41:00.007-04:00

A couple of weeks back, I posted the images I created from the GPS logs of my five years of recumbent cycling. I mentioned then that I was working on an animated version of those images, and I now have those up and working. I've split them up by year, with and without labels that track time, distance, date, and the bike & GPS models used.

I find these animations fun -- they bring back memories of the rides quite sharply. I don't expect others will have a similar reaction, but just in case you're interested, here they are.

YouTube has reduced the size of the videos from the original, so the text in the labelled versions isn't always that clear. I may re-upload these using videos created at YouTube's resolution at some point.

2004 - 69hrs, 850km

This was my first year with a recumbent, a Rans VRex. You can see my explorations of various trails that would be come regular rides: the Don Valley, Taylor Creek, the Waterfront, the Humber River, the Belt Line / Cedarvale Ravine loop, the Leslie Spit, the Islands, etc. The red path represents five minutes of cycling.

2005 - 76hrs, 823km

In my second summer of recumbent riding, I tended to stick to the same trails I'd explored in 2004. The two main exceptions are the Ride for Heart (I did the 50km route that year) and a trip out to Highland Creek in Scarborough, probably my longest single ride to date. We also took the bike up to Bruce County, where we vacationed for a week, and I did some nice loops up there.

2006 - 89hrs, 1113km

Early this year (May 6) was my first major failures. I was taking Lori's Catrike Speed out on a ride through High Park when I hit a rock or a log and bent the chain -- she had to come rescue me. Also, on May 28th, I tried to do a longer version of the the Highland Creek ride in reverse (parks first, then Kingston Road) and conked out around 70km, again needing rescue. Not all the big rides were failures, though. I was still doing the 50km route for the Ride for Heart, and on June 17th we took my Rans down to visit a friend in Mississauga so I could bike back on my first outside-Toronto recumbent ride. But the big ride was two month later, on August 16th, when I did my first (metric) century ride, up the Don Valley, across the top of North York, and down the Humber.

2007 - 145hrs, 1802km

In 2007, the VRex started showing signs of wear. I had to abandon two consecutive rides along the Belt Line loop because of mechanical problems, and we decided it was time to upgrade the bike. I moved up to a HP Velotechnik Streetmachine Gte, a recumbent with front and back suspension and under-seat steering. With the new bike, I decided to up the Ride for Heart to the 75km route, which worked great. I started expanding the Belt Line loop over to Prospect Cemetery for variety, and threw in a ride out to Port Credit, as well as some big loops through Scarborough and Etobicoke. In October we took a week's vacation in Haliburton, and I did some riding up there as well.

2008 - 144hrs, 1810km

Most of my riding in 2008 was pretty close to downtown -- I didn't get out to Scarborough or up to North York at all. But I made up for a lot of that on August 2nd, when I did my longest ride to date: almost 180km to Hamilton and back -- my first ride over 100 miles.

2009 (to August 17th) - 127hrs, 1676km

2009 isn't done yet, of course, but I have gotten some good rides in. Nothing out of town, but I pushed the boundaries of my Toronto riding to the limit -- literally, with an August 1st ride around the perimiter of the city. Other rides include a run up the Don Valley that was cut short at the north end by a massive thrundestorm that felled a tree right in front of me, and some nice rides east and west along the lakeshore. I've started replacing my Belt Line loop ride into work with one along the Waterfront Trail to High Park, then back along Dundas, which is nice and relaxing.

The Whole Thing

Finally, here's a single animation with all five years' of rides. Unfortunately, YouTube's compression really degrades the quality of this one, even more than the previous ones.

Books: An Odd Litle Science Book

2009-08-18T12:05:00.003-04:00

Way back in high school, I found a very odd book on relativity in the library. It was very thorough, getting right into the tensor math, but it was typeset almost like poetry -- one phrase per line, in a sans-serif font (though not Helvetica) -- and filled with surreal, Rudy Rucker-esque illustrations. I worked through all the math I could handle, but I didn't have enough tensor calculus to get through the whole thing.

A few months back, a science mailing list I'm on was in the middle of a big flame-war about relativity -- the usual "Einstein makes me uncomfortable, so he can't be right" sort of thing -- and I kept wishing I had a copy of the book around, as it was both the most thorough and easiest to follow non-textbook on the subject I'd ever run into. (Larry Gonick's chapter(s) on relativity in The Cartoon Guide to Physics were pretty good, but didn't get nearly as deep into the subject.)

Well, I was in Pages (a great independent bookstore in Toronto, which will unfortunately be closing its doors at the end of this month) looking for Neil deGrasse Tyson's new book, The Pluto Files (which I didn't find) and spotted a paperback that hadn't been there last time I was in: The Einstein Theory of Relativity: A Trip to the Fourth Dimension. I popped it open and immediately realized it was the book that I'd read way back then. I had forgotten the title and author's name, but there was no mistaking the format and illustrations.

It turns out it was written in 1945 by Lillian R. Lieber, with illustrations by Hugh Gray Lieber. It's definitely one of the oddest serious science books I've ever run into. In many ways, it feels like one of those books that tries to explain how quantum physics explains the author's favourite form of mysticism -- like the ones Fred Alan Wolf would put out -- with odd typography and illustrations (and USE of
CAPITALIZED WORDS), but it also completely ignores the old publisher's adage about "ever equation cuts your audience in half": by that rule, I must be the only person ever to have read it.

To give you a feel for the book, here is the conclusion, aka THE MORAL, typeset approximately as below:

Since man has been
so successful in science,
can we not learn from
THE SCIENTIFIC WAY OF THINGKING,
what the human mind is capable of,
and HOW it achieves SUCCESS:

I. There is NOTHING ABSOLUTE in science.
Absolute space and absolute time
have been shown to be myths.
We must replace these old ideas
by more human
OBSERVATIONAL concepts.

II. But what we observe is
profoundly influenced by
the state of the observer,
and therefore
various observers get
widely different results --
even in their measurements of
time and length!

III. However,
in spite of these differences
various observers may still
study the unvierse
WITH EQUAL RIGHT
AND EQUAL SUCCESS,
and CAN AGREE on
what are to be called
the LAWS of the universe

IV. To accomplish this we need
MORE MATHEMATICS
THAN EVER BEFORE,
MODERN, STREAMLINED, POWERFUL
MATHEMATICS.

V. Thus a combination of
PRACTICAL REALISM
(OBSERVATIONALISM)
and
IDEALISM (MATHEMATICS)
TOGETHER
have achieved SUCCESS.

VI. And,
knowing that the laws are
MAN-MADE,
we know that
they are subject to change
and we are thus
PREPARED FOR CHANGE.
But these changes in science
are NOT made WANTONLY,
BUT CAREFULLY AND CAUTIOUSLY
by the
BEST MINDS and HONEST HEARTS,
and not by any casual child who
thinks that
the world may be changed as easily
as rolling off a log.

Has anyone else ever seen this book?

Five Years, More or Less

2009-08-05T16:43:00.018-04:00

So what do you suppose this is?

It looks sort of like a doodle someone might make during a boring meeting at work, kind of a make-some-random-dots-and-sketch-in-lines thing.

How about this one?

A litle more relaxed and curvy -- maybe the meeting was less stressful, so the lines are more relaxed and fluid.

Actually, they're both part of the same thing. Let's pull back a bit:

Recognize it? Maybe if we pull back some more:

Torontonians may have figured things out at this point: it's a sketchy map of Toronto. I drew it myself -- but not by hand. Over the past five years, I've drawn this map with my bike.

A few years ago I pulled a muscle in my back, and ever since, riding a regular bike for more than half-an-hour has been painful. Then, in 2004, I got a Rans V-Rex recumbent, which not only made long rides possible, but revived an old fondness for cycling that had faded for a while in Toronto, even before my injury. I lateer upgraded to an HP Velotechnik Streetmachine Gte.

Except for my first ride on the V-Rex, a tour of Sunnybrook Park, I've had a GPS on all my rides, long and short. On that first ride, I realized how fun it was to get out on a bike again, and I wanted to keep track of everywhere I rode, and how much riding I did. I wrote some software to go through the GPS logs and work out some stats on how much riding I'd done, and started playing with importing the maps into Google Earth.

While experimenting with Google Earth, I noticed that, if I made the tracks as thin as possible (instead of the several pixels thick that's the default), I got this sketchy effect. And if I blanked out the map, it took on an odd feeling, kind of like a medial image -- especially if rendered as white on black. This shot of downtown, around where I work, gives a good example:

Downtown Core

By the way, all of the white-on-black images in this post link to larger versions, and if you mouse over them, you'll get labels of some key features. If you aren't getting the labels, wait a few moments and try again -- it might not have downloaded the alternate images completely.

This image shows off the medical feel pretty well, I think. You can see that I do most of my east-west riding on Gerrard, Dundas, Queen, and Richmond. Most of the north-south is on Spadina, Beverly, and University. In the upper left is the university -- King's College Circle is quite clear, as is half of Spadina Circle. In the lower right, the streets are fuzzier and sketchier -- as is the stretch of College where it crosses Yonge. Why would that be?

GPS receivers work by catching signals from orbiting GPS satellites. Each signal has a time stamp that lets the GPS know how long it took the signal to get from the satellite to the GPS unit -- and it knows the exact position of each satellite as it orbits. Knowing the distance to three satellites lets the GPS triangulate and figure out its location -- within a margin of error. The more satellites the GPS can lock onto, the more accurate the position information.

Unfortunately, the GPS satellite signals tend to bounce off of buildings. If the buildings around you are short, or spaced far apart, this isn't a big deal -- but in the canyons of a downtown core, it can bit a big pain. I've had the GPS tell me I was in Nathan Phillips Square when I was actually 500m away. So, in addition to giving a history of my rides, this gives you a sort of GPS accuracy map.

Here's more of downtown:

Downtown

This map shows off what I call "the Long Way Home" -- A 20+ km loop that runs up through the University to Cedarvale Ravine, up to the south end of the Allen Expressway, then down the Belt Line trail to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, and finally south through Rosedale to home. There are a few variations -- you can see a fainter line that runs from Mt. Pleasant in a curve around Rosedale: that's the Moore Park Ravine trail, which runs past the Brickworks, which I take when I want a slightly longer ride.

I haven't used that route much this year, as I've been experimenting with other long rides, but I've done it enough that it's one of the most prominent features of my bike's-eye view of Toronto.

Here's another favourite ride, which I call the "Taylor Creek Loop":

Taylor Creek Loop

Of course, there's much more here than just that one loop: every time I've crossed east Toronto is in here. The Taylor Creek Loop runs along the Waterfront Trail to the east end of the Beaches, then up Victoria Park to Taylor Creek. From there, I go west along the creek and south along the Lower Don trail, back to where I started. It's around 35km, a nice couple of hours. The only downside is climbing the hill from the beach to Kingston Road.

One of the fun things about this map is that there are little details all over it that call up memories. This is an obvious one: my first ride on my first recumbent. I said above that I didn't have a GPS for that ride, so I've faked it -- I went back later with a GPS and re-rode the route, then re-labelled the track with the time of the original ride (more or less):

Sunnybrook Park

The map here shows the West Don trail coming up the Don Valley from the south. It branches into the Wilkit Creek Trail going north (the route you take if you want to head to North York) and the Sunnybrook Park road going west. The first ride started from the parking lot that's just south of that fork -- the little squiggle below the line -- and ran up around the sports fields. Not a long ride, but I was a little unsteady on the bike at that point.

You can also see three tracks heading west. The north shows the one time I biked along the dirt trail that continues along the Don. A little rough for a recumbent. The south one was from a geocaching trip with L -- we biked up the hill, then walked to the cache (the walking part is in paler grey). The middle track is how I get into the Don Valley when I'm coming from the west -- through Sunnybrook Hospital grounds and down the hill. I've done that ride several times.

Another memory triggered by the map:

Mount Pleasant Cemetery

This shows the area around Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. You can see the bright line that's part of the "Long Way Home" route, which cuts through Mt. Pleasant, but you can also see the roads of the cemetery themselves. Those mostly arise from two trips.

The first was another geocaching run. There's a puzzle cache set in Mt. Pleasant that involves looking up dates & figures on tombstones & mausoleums, then plugging those into a formula to get the location of the final cache. Most of the roads you see on the east side are from that trip, though some on the west are as well. The final cache itself was about halfway down Moore Park Ravine.

The second trip accounts for most of what you see in the western half of the cemetery. The oral surgeon who did my molar implant is just north of Mt. Pleasant - you can see some trails that go up to his office in this image. I always biked up, but one day I misread the time and arrived and hour early. To pass the time, I tried to bike all the roads in the west half of the cemetery -- and I got most of them. It was a fun morning.

By the way, you can see the Brickworks trails in the lower right of the image as well.

Here are a few other maps that I thought were kind of fun:

Don Valley

This shows the junction between the Lower & West Don trails and Taylor Creek. Up through the middle is a very smooth set of tracks -- that's the Don Valley Parkway, from the Ride for Heart, which I've done every year since 2005 (I couldn't in 2004, as I didn't get my bike until the end of June).

Highland Creek

I haven't biked Highland Creek all that often -- I've brightened it here, as on the full map it comes out quite faint -- but it's a really nice ride. The only problem is that it takes a couple of hours just to get there.

On the left, you can see a long, thin rectangle. This is the Lawrence St bridge over Highland Creek. I either come from the west and go along the south side of this rectangle to the traffic lights, where I cross, then backtrack to the trail; or come down the trail and go along the north side to the other traffic lights, where I cross and backtrack to the south road. It makes for an odd feature on the map.

The diagonal that comes down from the top of the curve of the creek is Kingston Road. It only actually connects with the creek trail because a storm washed out part of the bike path earlier this year, forcing me out of the valley.

Last year they opened a bridge over Highland Creek, which means I can now bike further east -- that's the line heading off the right edge of the image.

High Park

High Park is fun to explore by bike. In this image, you can see the curve of the Waterfront Trail as it goes around Humber Bay. Just north of that is the DVP from the Rides for Heart, then High Park itself. I'm currently using the south-east corner of the park as part of my most recent "Long Ride To Work", along the waterfront, up through the park, and back towards downtown along High Park Boulevard.

Ride for Heart Turnaround

I wanted to put up an image showing the full Ride for Heart track, but it spans so much of the city that it tends to get lost among everything else. This is just the north end, where the route turns around at York Mills. It reminds me of a long-stemmed flower of some sort. The faint track cutting across is from a ride loop I did out into Scarborough.

Toronto Island

I haven't been riding on the Islands since we got Cobalt, but they are fun to bike on (if not particularly challenging). They have a nice, pleasing shape to them, too.

So, here's the full map. Last Saturday's 140km ride was the first ride I've done specifically to put something in this image -- namely, the border of Toronto (more or less). Before that, I had some of Steeles and some of Etobicoke Creek, but that was about it.

Toronto

As for those stats I mentioned... As of August 5, 2009, I've done about 560 hours of riding totalling 8240km. 2920km on the V-Rex, 5180km on the Streetmachine, and the rest on L's trikes. Not all of that total is represented on this map: this doesn't show the rides in Grey County, Haliburton, or down towards Hamilton. But this map should account for very nearly 8000km of cycling, which isn't bad when you consider that Toronto is only about 20km x 40km.

I'm also working on an animated version of this -- that'll come later.

Cycling: Around the World (Well, Toronto)

2009-08-02T20:47:00.013-04:00

Almost a year now since the last post. That's a little longer than I meant to leave things idle.

I've actually been working on something I intend to post, but it's not quite ready yet. One of the things I wanted for it was a GPS track of the (approximate) boundaries of Toronto -- so, yesterday, I biked the border, as best I could.

You can't actually bike the exact border. Sure, the north edge is easy -- 40km straight of Steeles -- but you can't ride through the Rouge River valley, and taking the paths along Etobicoke Creek is hindered by a couple of missing bridges. But I did the best approximation I could.

For extra fun, I decided to try live-tweeting the ride, and I've collected the tweets below, with some extra comments.

The photos are all taken using my iPhone, which presented a few problems: the iPhone camera has a fixed, wide-angle lens, so there isn't a lot of flexibility in composition; and the Sun was bright enough that, most of the time, the only things I could make out on the screen were silhouettes.

Note that some tweets didn't send properly at the time I composed them, and I ended up re-submitting them when I went to write the next tweet -- so the time stamps can't always be trusted!

7:47 AM : Trying an experiment today: gonna tweet my bike ride. But first: silly cat photo!

I needed to try the TwitterFon app to see how you posted photos with it, and Mouse provided a perfect subject.

8:10 AM: Ok, ready to go. First stop: Cherry Beach!

The Streetmachine Gte, sporting a new chain & cassette thanks to the wear and tear of 5000km of riding having worn the teeth of the old one.

8:26 AM: At Cherry Beach. Now for an hour of running with the pups.

Often when doing long rides on weekends, I bike down to Cherry Beach and meet L there with the dogs. We do our usual morning dog-walk, then she takes the dogs home and I continue on my way.

As I was leaving Cherry Beach, I started getting "network failure" messages, and my tweets didn't get through. The problem continued for a while.

10:44 AM: Twitter problems... Testing...
10:46 AM: Ok, seems to be working. Getting food at Kingston & Eglinton. Here's the new Unwin bridge:

Finally, after a couple of hours, things were working again. I had taken a photo of the new Unwin bridge, which had only recently re-opened, so I forwarded it once I had the network back.

11:17 AM: Looking out at Darlington as I approach Highland Creek. 1/3 done

There's not that much to see between the Beaches and Highland Creek, but once you're approaching the creek, you get a good view of the Darlington power plant. Unfortunately, the wide-angle lens on the iPhone reduces tht part of the view to a tiny fraction in the middle.

11:20 AM: This bridge over Highland Creek is fairly new. Before, I'd have to turn north here.

My usual Scarborough path is out to Highland Creek, then up along the creek in a big semi-circle that curves back through Colonel Danforth Park towards the Scarboro Golf & Country Club. This bridge went in fairly recently -- last summer, I think -- and this is only the second time I've ridden across it

11:33 AM: The Rouge River pedestrian bridge.

Not far past the Highland Creek bridge is this bridge over the Rouge River. The city's building a bike trail all the way here, but for now you have to cross the GO tracks at Rouge Hill (there's a level crossing) and take Lawrence Ave E to get here.

11:43 AM: I've never biked in Durham before...

I'd only ever gone as far east as the Rouge Hill GO station before. Next time I'm out this way, I'll continue along the Waterfront Trail to Darlington. I'm going up through Pickering because you can't bike through the Rouge River park (so far as I know).

12:24 AM: Petticoat Creek:

Around here, the hills started getting annoying. Not that you can tell in this wide angle shot.

12:31 AM: Hard to climb on a recumbent:

This doesn't really show the steepnes of the climb very well. Recumbents are great for long rides, but for climbing hills you have to rely entirely on your gearing -- you can't stand on the pedals to use your weight.

12:37 AM: Finally! Steeles. 40km to the next turn.

I'd never been out this far on Steeles. It was more rural than I'd anticipated -- though I have no idea why I should have expected anything else.

12:44 AM: A reminder of how far east I am:

This sign is pointing south to the Zoo. I don't think I've ever been inside Toronto north of the Zoo before.

12:49 AM: Moo.

Wildlife! Sorta.

1:01 PM: 52km - Time for a breather and a drink.

I spotted a pharmacy and grabbed some water.

1:32 PM: Pacific Mall - the heart of Little Hong Kong.

Good green tea ice cream there.

1:49 PM: Almost half way. Lunch break!

Traditionally, when on long rides, I do a McDonald's breakfast and a Wendy's lunch. Not sure why.

2:28 PM: Gah! Nettles!

I zipped through these plants, and it was only as I hit them that I realized they were stinging nettles.

2:38 PM: Long climb ahead:

Again, the wide-angle really downplays the climb.

2:51 PM: Yonge St - Halfway done Steeles:

The city boundary along Steeles runs 40km in a straight line. I think that's the longest I've ever actually ridden in a straight line...

3:11 PM: I'll have to check this place out some other time:

This connects in to G Ross Lord Park, which I've ridden in before.

3:21 PM: York University:

It's in behind the trees somewhere. I've been here a few times on my bike, usually when riding Black Creek's paths.

Around this time, I was starting to worry that there might be a storm coming. Wouldn't be the first time I'd've been caught in a downpour on Steeles.

3:36 PM: Across from Radioworld, my fav GPS store. Time for a drink.

Radioworld is a great GPS store, though my current Garmin Oregon 300 comes from Mountain Equipment Co-op.

4:22 PM: Here we are - The west end of Steeles. It's downhill from here!

Looking back the way I came. Not quite as rural as the other end.

4:30 PM: Abandoned road & Hindu temple:

Indian Line Road is falling into disrepair. No cars are allowed at this point. It provides a back way into Indian Line Campground on Claireville Lake, next to Wild Water Kingdom. The somewhat incongruous temple in the distance is the new BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, which opened in 2007.

4:33 PM: On the Claireville Dam:

A quiet view of Claireville Lake, with the campground off to the left. I exited the park through the campground, with lots of kids yelling "Cool bike!" as I rode past.

4:45 PM: Hmm... I didn't know about this:

Another set of trails to explore!

5:15 PM: YYZ:

Not just an instrumental by Rush, it's also an airport!

Not that you can see much of anything in the photo -- I just figured that, since this is the closest I've ever biked to the airport, I should get a shot.

5:24 PM: 100km - Yay! 30km left - 1.5-2 hours.

At this point, I've exceeded my original time estimates for the ride. These estimates also will not hold, for a few reasons.

6:19 PM: Hmm... Can't get down Etobicoke Creek yet...

The city border runs down Carlingview, past the airport to Eglinton. It then follows Eglinton to Etobicoke Creek, and runs down the creek to the lakeshore. I thought I might be able to head down this street, Rakely Court, and find a trail along the creek, but no luck.

The image is oddly skewed because the iPhone's camera uses a scaning method for pulling the image off the sensor chip, and I moved the camera while it was doign this. It's an interesting effect, but not at all what I was after.

It turns out, after later investigation with Google Maps, that there is a path at the creek, but I missed it this time around. I may do the Humber-Eglinton-Etobicoke Creek loop to fill that in later. The big problem is that, as near as I can tell from Google Maps, the bridges are out on that path:

View Larger Map

6:20 PM: Hey, I'm not the only one!

Usually, when I do the Etobicoke Creek-to-lakeshore path, I join the creek at the south end of Centennial Park and follow that to Dundas. At that point the path stops, and I take The West Mall down to this Tim Hortons, grab a drink, and rejoin the creek with the new path. This is the first time I've stopped anywhere (except the Urbane Cyclist) and seen another recumbent parked outside!

6:33 PM: Nice talk with the owner of the Bacchetta.

We chatted about over-seat stearing vs. under-seat, long-wheel-base vs. short-wheel-base, and sundry other recumbent topics. The rider's husband joked that, whenever he rides his plain green bike along behind his wife's Bacchetta, he might as well be invisible.

6:52 PM: Finally! Back at the lake. Revised time estimate: 45-60 mins

The talk with the other recumbent owner delayed me an extra 15 mins, but this is the home stretch now!

7:26 PM: First sight of downtown on the home stretch:

This is somewhere around 5th Street in Etobicoke. Once again, the wide angle on the camera kinda minimizes the effect.

7:27 PM: Humber bridge:

It was shortly after this that I started realizing that I'd mis-remembered when Caribana was...

7:34 PM: Busy down here:

Sure, it started a couple of weeks ago...

7:37 PM: Very busy:

But the parade was today!

8:16 PM: Almost there...

I backtracked to Parkside and worked my way back north to Dundas, then College. This was tweeted from College & Bay.

8:24 PM: There... All done!

And home.

Final tally: 141km, 12h30 including dog park, two meals, and other stops. And I really should have remembered that it was Carribana...

Here is the overall route:

View Larger Map

Cycling: Hamilton And Back

2008-08-19T13:41:00.018-04:00

A couple of weekends ago I managed my longest bike ride ever: Toronto to Hamilton and back!

View Larger Map

(Note: the maps in this post are all interactive Google Maps, so you can zoom in and scroll around to see the fine details of the routes, or switch to satellite mode to see what buildings I passed.)

I'd been planning this ride for a while. My longest ride to date had been 115km. This was going to be at least 50% longer than that, so I had to be prepared. The first step was picking Hamilton as a destination -- the route is along the lake front, so there aren't too many hills to tire me out. After that, the question was whether to go the longer way, around the west side of Burlington Bay (past tye Royal Botanical Gardens), or to go along the beaches under the Burlington Skyway, on the east side of the bay? I decided to do both -- one on the way in, and the other on the way back.

I arranged with a friend who lives in Hamilton to drop by between noon and 1:00 for lunch, so I could catch my breath for the return trip. I wasn't sure, even as I set out, wether I wanted to do the western route going in (it's hilly, so I might have been too tired after biking that far) or save it for going back after I'd had something to eat. I decided to make up my mind when I got to Burlington.

The route I took is based on the Waterfront Trail, which runs (on and off) from Kingston to Niagara Falls. It's uninterupted from the Beaches in Toronto to Stoney Creek in Hamilton, though it alternates between dedicated off-road multi-use trails and simply using Lakeshore Boulevard -- between Port Credit and Burlington, it's almost entirely on Lakeshore.

View Larger Map

The first leg (above) was very familiar to me -- I'd done the Toronto-to-Port Credit ride several times. I stopped in Etobicoke for breakfast (I learned my lesson about eating early in a long ride a couple of years ago, when I conked out after 55km without a breakfast, still 20km from home).

From Etobicoke, the trail runs along Lakeshore for a while, then cuts down to the water to alternate between parks and neighbourhood streets all the way to Port Credit.

View Larger Map

On the west side of Port Credit the trail goes into a large park. At the entrance to the park, I encountered this sign (first flag on the map):

Further along is Jack Darling Memorial Park, where I saw a couple looking intently at something in the grass (second flag). As I got closer, I realized it was a hawk which had caught a starling. Unfortunately, the hawk took off before I could get the camera out. Instead, I took a photo back at downtown Toronto

The Jack Darling path leads into Rattray Marsh, but the trail turns to sand as you enter, so I decided to go around, though the neighbourhood. This involved the first noticable climb of the ride, though nothing major.

The the next while, the path was pretty straightforward -- long stretches of Lakeshore Boulevard, with the occasional dips over to the water in the parks around town centres.

View Larger Map

When I got to Burlington, I was still feeling reasonably fresh, so I decided to take the hilly route around the east side of Burlington Bay. The route continued much as it had, though I got a little mixed up in my directions at one point (first flag) and ended up on a steep, sandy path that I couldn't quite force the bike up.

By this point, I was getting a little tight on time -- I promised my friend I'd be at his place for lunch around noon -- so I decided to forgo the route through the Royal Botanical Garden, and head straight downs Sping Gardens Road to get to York Boulevard.

The first part of this was easy -- a downhill run to Valley Inn Road, where I took this photo of the York Boulevard bridge, which runs over the channel between Cootes Paradise (the innermost part of the bay) and Burlington Bay.

The problem was, I had to get back up to cross over that bridge... A 25 metre climb in a run of 300 metres, after having just ridden over 80km from Toronto. Needless to say, I didn't quite make it all the way up, and had to finish the climb on foot.

Once up there, and across the bridge, I stopped to photograph the Burlington Skyway -- the route I'd take going back.

Then came the biggest problem of all -- to get back to the Waterfront Trail, I had to get my bike back down 25 metres, and the only route was a set of stairs (second flag). Thoughtfully, they'd included a bike groove, but my recumbent bike doesn't work well in those.

Fortunately, a friendly jogger helped me carry the bike down the eight-or-so flights.

The bridge, as seen from the top of the stairs.

The stairs, seen from the bottom. You can't make out the first three flights, which run from the monolith to the top of the flights you can see.

The bridge, as seen from the bottom of the stairs.

From there, it was a short ride along the Waterfront Trail to where I could get onto Hamilton streets, and then another 15 minutes or so to my friend's place. So far, I'd ridden about 95km.

View Larger Map

After a nice barbequed lunch, I was on my way again. The return route was about 85km, and without the hills that the trip down had ended with, so I was feeling optimistic. The route started but cutting east across town to Stoney Creek, where I could hook back up with the Waterfront Trail.

Unfortunately, just as I got to Stoney Creek, the city was hit by one of these miserable summer downpours that has been plaguing the area this summer. I had to hole up in a Mac's Milk for 15 minutes or so, until the rain had passed (first flag).

The Waterfront Trail under the Burlington Skyway runs along the east side of the land below the bridge. Bicycles and pedestrians can cross at the lift bridge (second flag), but apart from that the ride is extremely flat and easy.

View Larger Map

Once back in Burlington, I was retracing the route I'd taken on the way down. I did make some changes, though: I skipped a few of the smaller detours from Lakeshore Boulevard to the waterfront, and instead of going around Rattray Marsh, I went through.

The trail was pretty good, but at one point, turning a corner, I had the most serious spill I've ever had on my recumbent bike. The limestone path, wet from the downpour, had turned to soft clay on the corner, and my rear wheel slide sideways, taking the entire bike out from under me and dumping me on my tailbone in the mud (flag).

This was more surprising than anything -- it's very hard to get thrown from a recumbent bike. My worst spill ever on a recumbent was far less dangerous than even a mild spill on a standard bike, since it's almost impossible for me to fall head first. Still, it was uncomfortable, and wet. The bike also suffered some minor damage: the bell was totalled, the steering was knocked out of alignment (not by much, only a couple of degrees, but noticable), and the seat was soaked. It was still quite ridable, though, so I was back up and on my way in a few minutes.

I had to walk the bike for the last part of the marsh trail, because it has stairs and ended in that sandy section that had discouraged me from entering the marsh on the way down.

Not long after that, I arrived in Port Credit, and decided to stop for a bite of pizza.

View Larger Map

The last leg of the ride was uneventful, though by this time I was starting to wear down. It was almost 12 hours since I'd left the house, and I still had 30km to go.

When I got back across the Humber River, the last complication appeared -- Caribana. On my trip out, I'd passed by the parade route long before festivities were to start, but now the western beaches were packed with celebrants who'd stuck around after the parade ended. The Waterfront Trail was far too busy to ride, so I cut up to the Queensway and rode the rest of the way home on King Street (which was packed solid from Roncesvalles to about Spadina). Finally, around 8pm, I got home. I'd been out for roughly 13 hours, of which 10 were spent on the bike. L & I went out for dinner as my muscles complained about having to be used for walking instead of cycling, and I had a very good night's sleep.

Cobalt: Agility Fun Run

2008-08-19T13:24:00.005-04:00

We've had Cobalt in Agility classes for quite a while now. She can handle all the obstacles, but she doesn't have a lot of drive when she goes around the courses. We've been suspecting she's kind of bored with the whole thing, so we've moved her from Agility into Rally Obedience (which starts in September) to see if she likes that better.

However, Lane White, the Agility trainer, announced at the end of the last course that he was having an Agility Fun Run. A Fun Run is a run on a standard outdoor course that doesn't count towards any ranking -- it's great experience for the dogs, because an outdoor course is very different from an indoor class, even if the gear is the same.

Lane runs Daytripper Dog Training from his place on Lake Skugog. He and his partner, Teddy Green, have a full-sized Agility area set up in the field beside their house.

When we arrived, the place was being circled by a turkey vulture, which wasn't very encouraging, but things went quite well. The vulture was no doubt disappointed.

Cobalt's first run was hopeless -- she was much more interested in sniffing around the field than running the obstacles. But Lane assured us that that's typical of a dog's first time on an outdoor course.. In fact, Cobalt was running the course pretty well by her third run, and Lane told us that some dogs can take six months to get their act together, so we were pleased.

Lori took Cobalt on the runs while I managed Denim and took photos. Managing Denim proved to be a little tricky. At first, I just had her on a flexy leash while I walked around to shoot the dogs running the course. She was fine with that, until Cobalt went up -- then she went squirrelly, barking her head off. I ended up putting her in the travel crate we had for her, where she continued to bark and whine while I shot stuff.

Unfortunately, she managed to chew through the mesh in the crate, and had her head out by the time anyone noticed. So much for that crate!

For the rest of the run, I kept her on a short lead, and kept her back from the fences while photographing -- though that limited my options for angles.

Coming over the A-Frame

Stopped on the Pause Table

Over a Jump

Through the Weave Poles

Over the Dog Walk with L

There were four other dogs participating as well:

Allie, a Golden Retriever

Chip, a Standard Aussie

Phoebe, an Italian Greyhound

Talia, a Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever

Denim: Frisbee Fanatic

2008-06-02T10:23:00.004-04:00

Denim has a new talent -- leaping.

This first showed up at Urban Dog, where the staff reported that she was jumping over 3-foot gates to be with them.

We already knew she was an escape artist, since she could get out of her pen -- but we figured she was just climbing, like Cobalt used to.

We hadn't counted on her actually clearing such high barriers in one go!

Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of her escape attempts. But we do have some of her newest passion -- catching frisbees (well, "floppy discs" in her case) on the fly.

We first noticed that she'd scrunch down and wriggle when people were getting ready to throw the discs, and she'd lunge at them as we threw them.

Note the tongue

But it wasn't until a few throws later that she started getting serious about jumping.

Her jumps got more and more impressive with every throw.

Though her catches didn't always match the drama of her attempts:

She has now mastered the art of levitation:

And she's getting good at mid-air maneuvers:

Going up

Coming down

Note her shadow in front of Cobalt.

Of course, now we have to work on her actually bringing the thing back...

Dogs: Visiting Tala and Cody Again

2008-03-24T10:36:00.003-04:00

Our friends L-Girl and Redsock, who had had us over to visit with Cobalt back on New Year's Day, had us over again for Good Friday. (They work weekends, and we work weekdays, so we can only really visit on statutory holidays.) This time, of course, we brought Denim as well, so she could enjoy their huge yard and their two dogs.

L-Girl's already posted an extensive write-up of the visit, so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but here are some photos:

Denim jumped right into the fun.

Cobalt and Tala are, of course, good friends now. Denim was a little wary.

Tala and Cobalt got right into the chase games.

All four together.

Cody, it turns out, loves little dogs, and spent the whole time following Denim around.

Cobalt would retrieve the ball, Tala and Denim would chase Cobalt, and Cody would chase Denim.

Denim just couldn't get away!

She found Cody's attention a little overwhelming at times.

Denim ended up a little mussed from Cody constantly slurping her head.

She tried retreating up onto a snow pile, but it wasn't tall enough to get away.

Nyah!

Meanwhile, Tala was fixated on Cobalt.

Eventually, Denim discovered that she could fit between the slats in the fence, and visited the neighbour's yard. Fortunately, her recall is good, and she returned on command -- but moments later, Cobalt went through, then Denim again, and we decided to move indoors where we wouldn't lose track of the dogs.

Books: The Surreal Art of Robert Vanderhorst

2008-03-11T21:45:00.003-04:00

This spring, painter Robert Vanderhorst will be publishing a comprehensive collection of his surreal paintings in The Paintings of Robert Willem Vanderhorst. The book will feature twenty-six of Vanderhorst's oil paintings, as well as an introduction and an original short story by Night of the Living Dead directory George A. Romero. Romero's story was inspired by the Vanderhorst painting The Yacht Club, and will also be published in three installments on Vanderhorst's website, www.twoartists.ca, over the next few weeks. The announcement of the final publication date for The Paintings of Robert Willem Vanderhorst will also be announced at www.twoartists.ca.

Robert Vanderhorst's The Yacht Club

George A. Romero (left) and Robert W. Vanderhorst (right)

Robert Willem Vanderhorst is a self-taught artist with a talent inherited from his father and a technique born of a strong Dutch tradition in art. Emigrating from Holland to Canada in 1951, he now lives in Toronto, Canada. In 1979, he began publishing limited editions of his images under Vanderhorst Graphics. In 1973, he held his first solo exhibition. Over the next three and a half decades, Vanderhorst's imagery has been used in many diverse ways, including in music videos, television programs, live stage productions and record jacket designs, as well as illustrations in psychology journals and aviation book covers. His paintings have been featured in almost thirty exhibitions, culminating in two major retrospectives at the St. Lawrence Hall, Toronto in 2004 and 2005. Vanderhorst's work has also been featured and explored in two DVDs titled View from the Gallery 1 and View from the Gallery 2.

George A. Romero, the celebrated directory of Night of the Living Dead and its sequels, met Robert Vanderhorst at the 2005 retrospective in Toronto while filming Land of the Dead. Impressed with Vanderhorst's talent and fascinating imagery, he struck up a friendship with the painter that has led to his contribution of not only an introduction, but an original short story, to The Paintings of Robert Willem Vanderhorst.

Check out Robert's site at http://www.twoartists.ca/ to see his paintings and keep up with news about the book.

Denim: In The Snow

2008-03-11T21:39:00.004-04:00

Some snow pictures!

Exploring

The wrestling game continues outside

Cobalt is much rougher with Denim when they play outside than when they're inside. We're not sure why, but Denim often ends up completely snow-covered.

But Denim doesn't seem to mind!

Denim: Yet More Photos

2008-03-11T21:31:00.005-04:00

I've posted a lot of Denim photos to Flickr since the last set here. I'm only going to put a few of them up here, and in the next couple of posts, but be sure to check them out in the Denim and Cobalt & Denim sets on Flickr.

Looking a little forlorn

Up close

Ear chomp

Nose to nose

Wrestling

Cobalt & Denim notice L coming down the stairs

Even closer

Planning her escape

Kilroy Was Here

Tired pup

Very tired pup

Exhausted

Cobalt: Old Photos

2008-03-11T21:27:00.003-04:00

Here are a couple of old Cobalt photos that I only just got up on Flickr:

Cobalt at the beach

Cobalt after a busy day

Denim: More Playing With Cobalt

2008-02-16T09:48:00.006-05:00

UPDATE: Corrected the images, so they're back!

There are now two main games: the keep-away game and the wrestling game. In the wrestling game, Denim tries to see how high she can climb on Cobalt. Cobalt usually ends up on her back.

The two of them will play the keep-away game with any toy, or even with rawhide chews.

Sometimes Denim wins

And here are some solo shots:

This one shows off the blue highlight in her right eye.

Denim: The Game Video

2008-02-13T21:05:00.001-05:00

I almost never actually use the video capabilities of our cameras. I much prefer stills. However, stills can't quite capture the dynamics of the Game, so here is five minutes of Cobalt and Denim playing.

Denim: The Game

2008-02-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned last time, Cobalt's invented a game for Denim. It started when Cobalt was playing with a hard plastic ball (she likes it because it's slippery, and so easy to knock around the room to chase). She noticed that Denim was curious about the ball, and started to play keep-away with it.

At the next play session, though, Cobalt decided to up the stakes. She went and got her very favourite toy, a purple plush sheep, and brought it into the living room for Denim to play with.

They've played this game three or four times now. Cobalt sticks the sheep in Denim's face to get her interested, then pulls it away to get the little fuzzball to chase her.

The Tease

The Chase

Sometimes, Denim manages to catch the sheep, and Cobalt will drag her around by it, or yank it away for another run.

When Denim gets distracted, Cobalt plunks the sheep down and back off a bit, just to get her little sister interested again.

Sometimes, Cobalt will even let Denim win the tug -- though only for a moment!

Usually, the game winds down to a sheep-plucking session (Cobalt loves to pull the fuzz off of plushies), which Denim participates in enthusiastically. It usually involves Cobalt holding the sheep down with one paw and tugging lightly on the fur, while Denim puts her whole minuscule weight into yanking on the toy, which doesn't budge.

Cobalt adores these play sessions. It's causing us a slight problem -- Cobalt doesn't want to eat in the morning, she wants to play with Denim. We have to coax her into eating with promises of playing after.

It's fascinating watching Cobalt manage these games. We barely do anything, ourselves -- we basically enforce the "Cobalt can leave the room whenever she wants, but Denim can't" rule and leave it at that.

Last night, the two pups were having a very quiet session in the room, just wandering, chewing on rawhide and such. Then Denim got up and wobbled over to the hard plastic ball (she's still a little unsteady on her stubby puppy legs) to bat at it. Cobalt noticed this going on, and calmly went over and picked up the ball. She teased Denim with it a little, until the pup started bouncing, then left the room with the ball. A couple of moments later, she returned with the sheep, and started the Game in earnest. You could almost hear her thinking, "Oh, you want to play the Game? Sure, but that thing's no good for it. Let me get the right toy."

Eventually, after 15-20 minutes of the Game, Denim starts to get tired, and the play session turns into more of a quiet wrestling match.

Denim: The First Weekend

2008-02-11T09:08:00.000-05:00

The drive to Midland was nasty, again. Last year, when we went to get Cobalt, it was white-outs and blowing snow. This time, more white-outs, more blowing snow -- though not quite as bad. We made good time with little fuss.

And when we got there, we saw this:

Our new pup, Denim, all ready to go. We arrived just as one set of adopters was leaving and another was arriving with us, so it was pretty busy at Stoverly Aussies, but Sue Stoverly was on top of things, and we were all sorted out in short order. Cobalt was a little overwhelmed -- Tango, Denim's mother, was feeling playful in spite of a serious injury she sustained a couple of weeks back (she jumped a fence with something sharp sticking out the top, and tore her belly from chest to crotch; she's pretty much recovered now, but she lost a nipple and had to be spayed).

We headed out with Denim after about 40 minutes at Stoverly. We'd brought a cat carrier to hold Denim in the back seat, while Cobalt sat next to her and sniffed. Denim whined and fussed almost to Hwy 400, and was perfect after that, quiet and calm.

Then it was time to introduce her to her new home. First, Grendel:

Stoverly has a cat, but not like this one!

"Oh, you're another one of those bouncy things."

Then, dinner.

Then, a play session with Cobalt. After Denim's done gone out and is safe, we let her loose in the living room, so that she and Cobalt can get to know each other. At first, Cobalt wasn't sure what to do. She brought out her very favourite toy, the purple sheep, to show Denim, but didn't do anything else with it -- at that point. Later, though, there was a major development with the sheep -- that's for the next post.

Denim started investigating the toys we put down for her. Some were a little big for her, but that didn't slow her down much.

It turns out that she loves laps. If you sit on the floor, she will make a running leap into your lap, with a good chance of missing. She's banged into my chin on several occasions. She's also a slurper, and will bite at my beard in her enthusiasm for licking.

Squirmy thing, isn't she?

For most of this, Cobalt was just running around playing with a hard yellow-and-blue ball that she enjoys chasing, but Denim would get in on the fun from time to time. Eventually, Cobalt started getting seriously interested in Denim, and began to tease her with the ball, to get Denim to chase.

Sisters

Come get it!

Keep up, little girl!

Gimme!

I'll Gitcha!

Denim, of course, has the puppy dog looks down pat.

All this playing is exhausting!

Nibbles

At first, we thought Denim had two brown eyes, like Cobalt's, but if you look closely, you can see that there's a splash of blue in the bottom of her right eye. In some other shots, it looks like there might be some blue spots in the left as well.

We have a pen for Denim in our office, so we can watch her while she plays, as well as a crate in the bedroom for night-time and when we're away. Cobalt has now taken to stretching out beside Denim's pen and sleeping beside the crate. She obviously is very taken with her new sister.

Last night, she produced a new twist on the ball-tag game -- using her favourite sheep! We didn't get photos of that, but we have some from this morning which I'll post later.

The end of a busy weekend

Cobalt: Tala and Cody

2008-02-01T10:26:00.000-05:00

Our friends L-Girl and Redsock, immigrants to Mississauga from Manhattan, are also dog people -- moreso than us, actually, as they've had dogs for ages.

Their current two are Cody, the elder, and Tala, whom they adopted just over a year ago.

Cody

Tala

Last May we brought Cobalt over to introduce her to Cody and Tala, but it didn't work out that well. Tala's a bit of a bully around smaller dogs, and harassed Cobalt all around the yard. Cobalt found her far too overwhelming.

We visited again in June, and things started a little better -- Tala was better behaved (L-Girl and Redsock had been working on training), but still a little aggressive. Eventually, Cobalt decided she'd had enough!

A scolding

A lecturing

And a firm cussing out

Cobalt shows Tala who's boss

On New Year's Day, we got together once again. Cobalt was a little cautious at first, but soon was all smiles and playing with Tala as if she didn't realize she was 1/4 the bigger dog's size.

A little uncertain

I remember you...

Wrestlemania!

Timid? Cobalt?

After a while, we moved indoors. This was the first time Tala had had another dog besides Cody sharing her house, and it went quite well.

Actually, Cobalt's just giving Tala a kiss on the nose here

The wrestling was a little more intrusive in the kitchen

They're great friends now

We think Cobalt's the happiest dog in the world

...inside or outside

Within five minutes of leaving, Cobalt was completely out of it

Denim: The New Pup

2008-01-28T23:30:00.000-05:00

Last month, I posted about the new puppy we were planning on adopting.

This past weekend we went up and visited Stoverly Aussies to meet Denim for the first time. She's six weeks old now, three weeks younger than Cobalt was when we met her.

That's Sue Stoverly, the breeder, in the back

She's a blue, like Cobalt, but with a very different pattern. She has much less white, more reminiscent of Cobalt's sister, Photon.

Cobalt had spent that morning at Cherry Beach, romping with a Shiloh Shepherd, a Great Dane, a Mastiff, and a Bull Terrier. But when we got to Stoverly, all of a sudden she found the six guinea-pig-sized fluffballs very intimidating. Denim tried to get her to play, but had little luck:

Note the subtly exposed fang

Denim wasn't quite as energetic as her siblings, but she was a very methodical explorer.

All that exploring tired her out eventually...

Keeping one eye open, looking for mischief to get into

Once she started slowing down, Cobalt got a little curious.

It shouldn't take Cobalt long to get used to having this new creature around.

Cobalt: Heavy Snow

2007-12-20T13:46:00.000-05:00

Last weekend had a heavy snowfall here in Toronto. Cobalt adores snow, so we were looking forward to taking her out to High Park -- but the snowfall was so heavy, we didn't think we'd be able to drive that far easily.

So we figured we'd take her to Riverdale Park. No luck! Cabbagetown hadn't been plowed at all, we couldn't get in.

Brickworks? Nope -- the parking lot was pristine with its 20cm of snow.

Eventually, we ended up back home, parking in front of the house instead of in the garage, because we weren't sure if we'd be able to get back down the lane (we barely got out!).

So, it was Allan Gardens by default.

They're building a fenced-in off-leash in Allan Gardens at the moment, but it's not ready yet. So we had to make do with the rest of the park.

Cobalt enjoys the snow in the back yard before we head out.

Arriving in Allan Gardens.

An encounter with a friendly 5-month-old Newfie.

The only thing better than chase games is chase games in the snow.

Catching snowflakes.

You know, I'm starting to get a little soaked here...

And it's starting to get a little hard to move around...

And my fur's all frosty...

Ok, I think I'm ready to go in!

(Actually, she could probably have gone for another hour or two -- but we were freezing!)

Puppy: Sad News

2007-12-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

We just got news that the male blue merle puppy we'd reserved at Stoverly Aussies died overnight at four days old. We're going to ask for the blue merle female instead, but it's definitely a sad disappointment.

Stoverly has named her "Vixen", but we'll be sticking with "Denim".

Stuff: The Strangest Question I've Been Asked This Week

2007-12-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, a scruffy-looking man carrying a putter approached me on Queen Street, just west of University, and asked, "Excuse me, did you see a green Titleist golf ball fly past here?"

Cobalt: Another Birthday

2007-12-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

Shortly after we got Cobalt and introduced her to my mother's dog, Mattie, we decided that we'd need a second Aussie -- but not until Cobalt was at least a year old.

A few months ago, we put a deposit down on a Stoverly Aussies litter that was to be due in early December. The breeding got delayed, though, and the final due date was December 18th.

The litter apparently liked the original schedule better, and arrived today!

Our original hope was that there'd be a red merle (coloured like Cobalt, but primarily red instead of black & grey) who we could name "Copper" to go with "Cobalt". There aren't any red merles in the litter, but L's already decided she really likes this blue:

We've put a reserve on him, and L's already decided he's going to be called "Denim".

Cobalt: Happy Birthday

2007-11-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

Today is Cobalt's first birthday!

Before

After

We celebrated yesterday with Photon, with doggie-cakes and cookies in Riverdale Park. I'll have photos up soon!

I'm way behind on posting -- I have vacation photos & other stuff to put up as well. It's been a busy fall!

Cycling: Another Century

2007-09-04T10:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I completed another century. Technically, this is my second -- I only did 98.6km on the day of the Ride for Heart. This time I set a new personal record for distance at 116km, which helps make up for coming in short in June.

This time, I toured Toronto east of the Don Valley instead of west:

View Larger Map

Some notable bits of the trip:

4.4km - Stopped at Cherry Beach for an hour to do some water-fetch with Cobalt.
12.2km - The tip of Leslie Spit
25.4km - Breakfast
47.2km - A view of Pickering's nuclear power plant
~52km - The Highland Creek trail turns to fine sand, and a washed-out section I encountered last year is even more washed out now.
64.0km - Stopped for donuts.
~78km - I planned my route through the forest in l'Amoreaux Park -- that was a mistake. The path is soft wood chips.
85.3km - The tippy-top: Steeles & Leslie. From here, it's (almost) all downhill.
94.4km - Lunch
100km - Arrival at Edward Gardens, the north end of the part of the Don Valley trails I know best.
116km - Home, finally!

Cobalt: The End of the Evening

2007-08-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

The party ran until just past sunset, with people drifting off as the pups got tired and the sky got dark.

Sunset

A couple of dogs went back in for a quick dip before heading out.

Jazz didn't stay in the water very long, though.

People eventually moved up the beach.

Photon stayed longer in the water,
and Cobalt stayed the longest of all.

By now, Splash was almost entirely over her barking.

She showed off a few tricks, like her ability to distinguish left from right...

...and High Five.

Everyone hung around for treats before leaving.

Photon looks like a cartoon dog when she's wet.

Heading Home

Cobalt: Aussies On The Beach

2007-08-30T09:47:00.000-04:00

Since the dogs wanted into the water and the shore near the labyrinth was covered with huge boulders, we moved down to the beach area at the west end of the off-leash park.

Photon was the first to get wet

She could direct shipping with those semaphore ears!

Jazz had a good swim, but didn't go back in much

Lots of excitement over Cobalt's fetch toy

The waves caught Bean by surprise

Three sisters in the water. Photon wanted at Cobalt's toy!

Oh yeah, she definitely wants that toy.

She tried and tried, but Cobalt's become
quite protective of her toys, and kept hold

Charli was a pretty quiet pup, but
even she got into the fetch game

I think this is Jazz, but it might be Bean

This fluffy fellow joined in the fun,
and was eventually named an honourary Aussie.
He's quite young, but bigger by far than
any of the Aussies.

One of Charli's people ended up throwing a stick
pretty far out. Charli made a valiant attmept, but
just could not find it.

That takes us to the end of the photos I've uploaded at this point. Tonight, I'll be putting the rest up, and I'll have one more post.

Cobalt: Aussies In The Park

2007-08-30T09:25:00.000-04:00

Here are some highlights from the first part Mini Aussie Party.

We started at the stone labyrinth that people have built in the middle of the off-leash area.

Other dogs joined us from time to time
(Splash and guest)

Some of the Aussies played fetch
(Photon)

Some got to know each other
(Jazz, Bean, and Cobalt)

Some got to know the other owners
(Bean giving Splash's owner kisses)

Some went exploring
(Photon, Cobalt, and Jazz)

Some did tricks
(Jazz)

The "the camera twisted as I shot the photo" version
of the above picture. I kind of like the effect

Photon's a real ham for the camera sometimes

Cobalt and Photon started hinting
that they wanted to go down to the water

Unfortunately, the beach was a little... rocky... right there

We gathered everyone up and headed to the west end of the off-leash area, where there was a proper beach right down to the water. That's in the next post!

Cobalt: A Gaggle Of Aussies

2007-08-30T09:13:00.000-04:00

This past Tuesday we had our first gathering of Stoverly Aussies from Toronto. We got people together at the Kew Gardens off-leash park, which is on the beach just south of Kew Gardens in The Beaches.

We had six Stoverly mini Aussies show, and one non-Stoverly non-mini Aussie. In order of appearance:

Splash
Splash was originally an HHC Aussie,
but had to be rescued from an abusive adopter,
and became a breeding female for Stoverly.
She distrusts all men because of the abuse,
but she mellowed a lot over the course of the evening.

Bean
Splash's daughter from her first litter

Cobalt

Photon
Cobalt's sister from the same litter
(Here's Photon's folks post on the party)

Jazz
Jazz is Splash's daughter, from a different
litter than Bean. She's almost indistinguishable
from her sister. I tell them apart by the shape of
the blazes on their foreheads, and the big black spot
on Bean's right foreleg.

Raven
Cobalt & Photon's sister from a different litter

Charli
The non-Stoverly Aussie, who lives with Raven.
This is the first Aussie I've ever seen with a tail!

The pups had a great time in the park. Jazz's owner was disappointed that Jazz and Bean weren't particularly interested in Splash or each other. On the other hand, Cobalt, Photon, and Raven ended up playing together a lot in the water.

Continued in Part 2

Cobalt: Soggy Doggy Day 2

2007-08-13T09:23:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning, we went back out to Cherry Beach. We wondered if Cobalt would still be keen on the water, or if we'd need to coax her out again, to jump-start her.

We hadn't needed to worry.

In fact, within ten minutes, we had her swimming for the first time since her koi pond mishap.

She couldn't get enough of the water. She must have brought that toy back dozens of times.

She was extremely pleased with herself.

Eventually she started to tire out, and we took her for a lap of the beach and back to the car.

At this point, we decided I needed some waterproof shoes. I have "convertible" pants (the legs zip off above the knees to make them into shorts), but no sandals or anything. So we ran a short shopping expedition so I could go into the water next time, and let L take the photos.

That evening, we were back at Cherry Beach, and she was back in the water. This time, I was the one in with her, and L was on shore with the telephoto lens.

And, occasionally, out of the water.

We took her deeper into the lake than she'd been before, but she did very well. She sometimes had trouble spotting the toy in the waves (which were much larger than they'd been that morning or the evening before), but she usually found it.

Sometimes it was a long swim back.

But she really enjoyed the water.

And, as before, she was extremely pleased with herself.

So we'll be back, during the week and on the weekends.

Cobalt: Soggy Doggy

2007-08-13T09:05:00.000-04:00

One of the things L was looking for in a dog was an affinity for water. Cobalt, though, had been a bit of a disappointment.

She'd only gone in the water twice, both times by accident. Once, in the western beaches, she was chasing some gulls and tried to follow them out to the breakwater -- We'd never seen her run backwards so fast! The second time, we were visiting our friend Robert Vanderhorst and she was running around the yard, having a great time. She ran at a bush and jumped over it -- and landed square in the koi pond! It was about a meter deep, so she had to swim to get out, but she managed it.

We would take her down to Cherry Beach, but she wouldn't venture more than a sniff at the waves.

Her sister, Photon, was already turning into a water dog, splashing around in a kiddie pool, wading into the lake at the cottage, and so on. Then last week she suddenly started swimming -- so L decided that this weekend, we'd get Cobalt into the water.

The first attempt was Saturday morning at the Kew Gardens off-leash area, a fenced-in area of rocky beach south of Kew Gardens in the Beaches. We found a small (about a meter square), shallow, sheltered area and tried to get Cobalt to fish a tennis ball out of it. She was willing to go as far as getting her paws wet, but she spent most of her effort on finding which of the rocks sticking out of the water let her reach the ball without getting wet.

Still, getting her paws damp was progress.

That evening, we headed to Cherry Beach for 8pm (when dogs are allowed off-leash again) for another try. We'd picked up a new toy -- a tennis-ball-like "stick" that squeaks. Cobalt finds regular tennis balls too big to carry comfortably, so we figured this might be a better choice.

L took the new toy and started with tossing it just barely into the water, like we'd done with the tennis ball that morning. Cobalt would retrieve it just fine, so L took the next logical step -- she grabbed the toy and waded out into the lake (in her jeans!) And, for the first time, Cobalt decided to get properly wet and waded out to get the toy!

Within five minutes, she was running in to fetch the toy. We played with her for about half an hour like this, and she was still game for more when we decided it was getting too dark and we had to head home.

She ended up a very soggy doggy -- but there was more to come the next day (and the next post)!

Cobalt: Riding in Style

2007-08-01T10:46:00.000-04:00

Cobalt's decided that she loves the bike trailer. The folks at Urban Dog call it her "chariot", and whenever I'm the one picking her up, they ask if she's going to be "riding in style". She definitely thinks it's stylish!

Though it doesn't do her image as a sophisticated dog-about-town any good when she tries to jump in when the screen's still zipped closed.

Cobalt: Visit to Stoverly

2007-08-01T09:19:00.001-04:00

I'm way behind on getting my photos up on Flickr, but I'm even more behind on getting posts up here. So, here's some catch-up.

Last month we drove up to Stoverly Aussies to visit with Cobalt. The drive up was a bit of an adventure: two cars had decided to drag-race down the southbound 400 and wiped out around the Hwy 89 exit, sending 11 people to hospital (no fatalities, fortunately!). The southbound highway was completely closed, and the northbound was backed up all the way to the Holland River. It took us half an hour to cover the 18km from the Holland River valley to Hwy 89 instead of the usual nine or ten minutes.

They were pulling up the roadblock at Hwy 89 just as we drove passed.

Hitting the backup

Not a great shot, but you can see the empty southbound lanes and the packed northbound

Opening the southbound lanes

The roadblock at Hwy 89

The southbound traffic backed up behind the roadblock

We finally did get to Stoverly, just as another family was leaving -- they, unfortunately, needed to head down that southbound 400. We were hoping that most of the backlog would be clear by the time they got there.

We'd gone up in part to see the two new litters -- 18 puppies in all. They also had a third litter on the way. (it arrived a few days later, bringing the total to 30 pups!) This wasn't the plan -- one of the males had got in where he wasn't supposed to.

The puppy bin, with Cobalt investigating

Cobalt, it turns out, doesn't like puppies! She found the whole concept rather alarming.

Who could be scared of this pudgy little guy?

Cobalt would've happily bolted if we hadn't been holding her.

It was very strange. These guys aren't threatening at all!

A tiny red merle

Cobalt's very suspicious of this strange creature

Still, it was a nice visit in spite of Cobalt's wariness.

Cycling: History

2007-07-12T11:20:00.001-04:00

Being a little obsessive about stats and such, I've gone through my GPS records and compiled an analysis of all the riding I've done on recumbent bikes since I got my Rans V-Rex back on June 26, 2004. Here's the summary:

Bike	Distance (km)	Time (hrs)	Moving Ave Speed (km/h)	Max Speed (km/h)
Rans VRex (2004/06/26 2007/05/09)	3249	253	14.3	49.5
Street Machine Gte (2007/05/03 onwards)	750	53	15.2	49.4
Catrike Speed (L's trike)	54	5	11.7	34.8
2004 Rides	1021	79	14.4	49.5
2005 Rides	922	77	13.2	47.7
2006 Rides	1288	96	15.1	49.0
2007 Rides (so far)	822	59	14.9	49.4
Totals	4053	311	14.4h	49.5

Some records:

Longest Trip (Distance)	108.7 km
Longest Trip (Time)	6 hrs 44 mins
Fastest Trip Average Speed	21.3 km/h
Fastest Trip Moving Average	22.6 km/h

Cobalt: Catching Up

2007-06-29T13:30:00.000-04:00

No posts in too long, so here's some catch-up on Cobalt!

She got through her spay ok, though she hated the lampshade, of course.

It was several days before we could take her out to run properly -- we could walk her on leash, but she doesn't get enough of a workout that way. As soon as she could go to the park, she took full advantage of it:

This was the first time we'd ever seen her chase a bike

She also exhibited a new hobby: decapitating dandelions!

She actually managed to tire herself out, which is unusual for her.

There are more adventures to list, though I don't have all the photos prepared yet -- so those will come later.

Cycling: Ride For Heart Followup

2007-06-11T09:17:00.001-04:00

A couple of follow-up points from the Ride For Heart:

I finally have the route up for Google Maps.
There were about 12,000 cyclists participating.

Cobalt: Back To School

2007-06-08T09:50:00.000-04:00

Or, at least, back to day care.

Cobalt's back to Urban Dog, and everyone's excited! I wasn't there for the drop-off (L took her in, I had to head to work to deal with a crisis there), but apparently Cobalt was so psyched she managed to pull her leash from L's hand as she ran to greet the Urban Dog staff, who were just as excited to see her again.

It'll be great to have something tiring her out again!

Cycling: Ride for Heart 2007 (Elevation Profile)

2007-06-05T19:43:00.000-04:00

Lastly, here's the elevation profile of the ride, with major locations marked. The vertical exaggeration is 300x.

Cycling: Ride for Heart 2007 (Part 2)

2007-06-05T17:29:00.000-04:00

I'd reached the top of the biggest climb -- now it was time to head back down! The drop is a little higher than the climb (56m vertical instead of 52m) since the starting point is on top of the York Mills overpass, a little higher than the York Mills exit from the northbound DVP.

This is where you hit your top speed. The bikes going down are widely spaced, so you don't have to worry so much about crowding and can really open up. My GPS recorded a top speed of 52.3 km/h -- the first time I've broken 50 km/h on a bike. Last year I managed 49.5 before another cyclist cut in front of me and I had to slow down.

As I mentioned in part 1, this slope is in two sections with a level bit in between. It only runs half a kilometer, but it can bleed off a lot of your speed. On the second slope, I took it easier -- and just as well! About halfway down, while I was doing 46 km/h, a cyclist ahead of me lost her water bottle, and it skittered across the road at me. I really didn't want to run over a bottle at 46 km/h, but I didn't want to try a sudden stop at that speed either! Fortunately, I just clipped the bottle, with no ill effects.

29.5 km into the ride

The nasty climb. The slope between Wynford and Lawrence is lots of fun going down, but much, much less enjoyable in the other direction. As you can see here, I'm just barely managing 11.0 km/h.

(The numbers on my GPS as speed on the left, and total distance on the right.)

32.4 km into the ride

32.5 km into the ride

As you go through the railway underpass, at least one of the cyclists going through with you will yell to get the echo. I think it's in the Ride charter.

32.6 km into the ride

There were a lot of tandems on the ride, as well as other exotic bikes.

33.0 km into the ride

As I was approaching Don Mills, I encountered the first of two accidents I passed on the ride. On the right of the photo is the cyclist, on his side with his back to me, covered in bags of ice to keep the swelling down until the ambulance arrives. It was there when I passed again on my way back north a few minutes later.

36.3 km into the ride -- almost halfway!

After turning around at the Bayview-Bloor exit, I spotted three hand-cranked trikes. These are tricycles with hand-operated pedals instead of foot-operated ones, generally used by paraplegics.

They're very tiring to ride compared to regular bikes, since arms just don't have as much power as legs, so I expect these riders were doing the 50k route. They were about 20k in at this point.

43.5 km into the ride

43.9 km into the ride

I also passed this recumbent trike several times. The rider generally didn't stop at rest stops, so he'd overtake me while I was getting an orange slide, then I'd catch up with him again later.

I've also seen this fellow riding up and down the waterfront bike trails.

44.5 km into the ride

The climb to Eglinton strikes again. On the way I passed another tandem and a very expensive-looking triathlon bike.

46.1 km into the ride

47.1 km into the ride

47.2 km into the ride

At this point, the DVP is covered with not only the 75k riders that I started with, but the 50k riders that started an hour later -- it's starting to get a little crowded. Though the crowd looks thinner behind me.

48.1 km into the ride

48.2 km into the ride

Back at York Mills for the second time, I took a shorter break. I spotted another tandem and a nice Burley short wheel-base recumbent. This one is similar to my old bike, the Rans V-Rex, though with a fancier frame.

52.9 km into the ride -- over 2/3 done!

52.9 km into the ride

Back to the nasty climb to Wynford. It was harder this time, not only because I was much more tired, bu because there were far more cyclists going slower than I was in front of me. I really wanted to keep my speed up as much as I could, but I couldn't weave through the crowd! Last time I went through the tunnel, it was with one other cyclist -- now it was a dozen.

55.6 km into the ride

56.0 km into the ride

A four-hour bicycle tour isn't as exciting as the Santa Claus parade, but it did bring out a few spectators.

56.3 km into the ride

I passed the second accident just as I was getting to the bottom of the DVP. A cyclist was lying on the road on her front while the paramedics discussed whether or not to back-board her. The good news was that she wasn't so badly hurt that she definitely required the back-board -- the bad news was that she was hurt badly enough that they were considering it.

The last big climb of the ride is at the bottom of the DVP, going back up onto the Gardiner. Fortunately, the climb from the southbound DVP to the westbound Gardiner doesn't have nearly the elevation change of the drop from the eastbound Gardiner to the northbound DVP! (You can see the eastbound Gardiner on the far side of the cyclists in these photos)

The climb is just 13 m over 1 km -- but after almost 70 km of riding, I still felt it!

68.9 km into the ride

69.1 km into the ride

And, finally, the finish line! The ride actually finished a little before this picture, when the lane heading into the CNE got too crowded to continue riding, and everyone had to get off and walk their bikes to the official finish line.

In the end, it turns out that the 75k course is 77 km long.

After the ride, I biked over to the Sunnyside pavilion for some lunch (though they were still serving breakfast), and then home. I didn't realize it, but the total of the Ride for Heart, plus getting there, getting to Sunnyside, and getting home, almost reached 100 km -- I was 1500 m short. I should have gone around the block a few extra times at the end!

77 km into the ride

So here are some final statistics from my ride:

Total distance ridden: 76.91 km
Climbing distance: 11.54 km
Descent distance: 12.08 km
Flat distance: 53.29 km
Total time: 3:45:25
Moving time: 3:21:22
Moving average: 22.9 km/h
Max speed: 49.4 km/h (from GPS upload) or 52.3 km/h (from GPS max speed display) (*1)
Climbing speed: 16.0 km/h, 36.0 km/h max
Descent speed: 28.2 km/h ave, 49.4 km/h max (*1)
Flat speed: 24.1 km/h ave, 45.4 km/h max
Total elevation gain: +613 m / -606 m (*2)
Climb grade: 1.7% ave, 8% max
Descent grade: -1.5% ave, -8.9% max
Temperature: 18°C
Relative humidity: 88.2% to 93.9%
Wind Speed: 14.8 km/h to 18.5 km/h from the east

And the most important statistic of all: money raised for heart disease research by the 2007 Toronto Ride for Heart:

$2,700,000

Of which I raised 0.0074%.

(*1) My GPS has a trip display that keeps live values for various statistics. At the end of the ride, it had a maximum speed of 52.3 km/h recorded. However, the tracks that get uploaded to the computer are not as finely detailed, and only record a peak of 49.4, which occurred over a 100m stretch on the way down from the York Mills rest stop. Most likely that 100m stretch peaked at over 52.3 at some point, but only averaged out to 49.4 overall.

(*2) These numbers are the total of all climbs and all descents, not the net difference between the lowest and highest points (which is 93m). The difference is due to the slight differences in the elevation of the north and southbound DVP lanes in various places.

Cycling: Ride for Heart 2007 (Part 1)

2007-06-05T09:57:00.001-04:00

Sunday was the 2007 Toronto Ride for Heart, during which the city closes the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway (DVP), the two downtown freeways, to car traffic and opens them up for cyclists and roller-bladers, who raise money for heart disease research. This year was my third time doing the ride.

Cyclists have a choice of 25k, 50k, or 75k routes, and roller-bladers can do 5k or 10k. All routes start at the west end of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) grounds. The 25k and 50k routes head east along the Gardiner, then down onto the northbound DVP. The 25k turns around at the Bayview-Bloor exit, while the 50k continues north to York Mills, then turns and comes all the way back.

The 75k is a little more complicated: it goes west along the Gardiner to the Kingsway exit, then turns east and joins the 25k and 50k routes. After turning around at York Mills, it goes south to the Bayview-Bloor exit, then turns north back to York Mills, then heads south and back to the CNE.

There are some serious climbs on the route. On the 50k and 75k routes, the overall climb is about 90m from the lowest point to the highest, but thanks to the ups and downs of the overall route, there's about 600 vertical meters' worth of climbing over the 75k route (in part because it does the bulk of the climbing twice!).

The first two times I did the ride, I did the 50k route. I'm not a particularly ambitious cyclist -- especially compared to some of the other people on this ride! -- but I had set myself a goal of maintaining a moving average of at least 20 km/h over the ride. I was rather pleased that I not only managed that, but I kept my overall average speed -- including rest stops -- over 20 km/h also. This year I decided to try the 75k route, with the same 20 km/h goal.

The trouble with the 75k route is that you have to show up for 6:45 to get in on it. Actually, only a select few cyclists actually start at 6:45: hard-core racers can arrange to be at the front of the line so they have the entire freeway to themselves as they do the route (at least until they've turned around at Bayview-Bloor to head north again -- more on that later). Still, the rest of us are all underway by 7:10.

The first leg is along Lakeshore Road going west to the Gardiner westbound on-ramp. This was new to me -- the 50k route takes the eastbound on-ramp that's right by the CNE exit.

225 m into the ride

580 m into the ride

There are rest stops all along the route. This was the first, just after the Kingsway turnaround. They have lots of water, as well as apples, oranges, and bananas, and mechanical service stations.

4.2 km into the ride

The day was rather overcast and threatening rain (in fact, it did rain a little towards the end of my run), which is actually perfect weather for this -- no hot sun to burn your skin and bake the fluids from your body. Still, once we turned around at Kingsway, we were riding into the sun for a while, which was pretty bright in spite of the clouds.

This shot is from the first major climb: from the Gardiner at ground-level to the elevated Gardiner, a climb of about 20 m over 2.3 km, followed by a nice relaxing downhill run that drops 11m over 1.4 km.

8.4 km into the ride

Taking photos from a moving bike is tricky, especially when you're doing 30 km/h, so I didn't quite get the angle I wanted for this one. If you look closely behind the railing, you can see the ramp down from the Gardiner to the northbound DVP, a drop of 18m over about 515m -- you get going pretty fast down here! Naturally, I don't have any photos from when I was actually going down that, as I topped 40 km/h for the first time in the ride on that one.

The first time I did the ride, I didn't know that the left-hand lane has a manhole at the bottom of the hill that isn't quite flush with the road, and hit that at about 45 km/h. Fortunately, I made it over, but someone else wasn't as lucky: on my way back, there was an ambulance at that spot.

14.6 km into the ride

The Bloor Viaduct is a major landmark on the ride. It marks the end of the first climb after getting off the Gardiner (20 m in 2 km), and tells the 25 km riders that they're getting close to their turn-around.

This year as I was approaching the bridge, a TTC maintenance train was heading from Castle Frank station to Danforth -- you can just barely make it out among the girders under the roadway. It honked its horn at the cyclists, and a maintenance worker on the front waved to us as we went by (he's hard to spot, but if you click the image it'll take you to the Flickr page, where he's highlighted).

17.4 km into the ride

17.5 km into the ride

Just after I passed the Bayview-Bloor exit -- the point where 75k riders coming south turn around to go north again -- a car came up behind me. I had plenty of warning, though, as it was driving slowly with a megaphone going "The leaders of the 75k are coming up behind you! Please move to the right lane!" over and over. These are the hard-core cyclists who start right at 6:45 and ride the whole route like a race. At this point, I was 50 minutes into the ride, and had covered about 19 km, but they'd covered almost 43 km. They had a bit of a head start, as they started about 20 minutes ahead of me, but even so... My average speed (including stops) at this point was about 23 km/h. Theirs was over 37! And I hadn't even done the big hills yet!

19.2 km into the ride

The first really big climb is the run up from Don Mills Road to Eglinton. The Parkway actually leaves the valley here, climbing to above grade in East York for a while before diving back down. Overall, the climb is 45 m (half the total vertical climb from the bottom of the DVP to York Mills!) in 3.2 km.

The first time up this year, I was struck by how much easier it was with the new bike. This climb was always daunting -- it's not the steepest on the ride, but it is the longest without a break -- but it went really smoothly with the new StreetMachine, and I managed to take the climb at an average of 20 km/h.

The second time up, I was a little less enthusiastic, though I did keep my speed on the climb at 19 km/h.

21.4 km into the ride

After the longest hill comes the steepest. The DVP heads back into the valley in a drop from Eglinton to Lawrence of 26 m over 1.2 km. It's great fun -- though a little daunting! -- one the way north... On the way south, it's the nastiest climb of the route, and one of the main reasons why I did 50k instead of 75 last year.

25.5 km into the ride -- 1/3 done!

The last climb (going north) is from Lawrence to the turnaround at York Mills, 52 m over 2.5 km. It's higher and shorter (horizontally) than the Eglinton climb, but it's not as bad overall because there's a level section about halfway up that lets you catch your breath. The city chose this place to put a pixel board that provides helpful advice that was rather wasted on us cyclists.

27.6 km into the ride

I wasn't the only one out on a non-standard bike. Here's a recumbent style known as a "long wheel-base" or LWB -- It puts the front wheel in front of the pedals, instead of behind like on my SWB (short wheel-base). They're easier to get used to, since the position is more natural, but they're hard to fit into cars!

28.3 km into the ride

Finally, the top of the last climb! The route leaves the DVP at the York Mills exit, then heads around to the other side of the cloverleaf to get back on going south. There, there's another rest stop (my third of the ride) and the start of the longest descent on the route (slightly longer than the climb, since the rest stop is a little higher than the York Mills off-ramp was).

28.5 km into the ride

29.3 km into the ride

The last two times, this was the halfway point -- this time, it's not quite 40%! Time to take a break.

Update: Corrected some of the distances and fleshed out the bit about the 75k leaders. Added links to other parts.

Cobalt: Dad

2007-06-02T21:54:00.000-04:00

Photon's people visited Stoverly Aussies, and Photon got a chance to meet her father (and Cobalt's), Max. There's a write-up at Chez PLJ.

Apparently Photon is just slightly smaller than Max -- which means that Cobalt's probably just slightly bigger than Max.

Cobalt: Visiting Photon at Cherry Beach -- With Pictures!

2007-05-31T11:51:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned before, we arranged to visit with Photon at Cherry Beach last Saturday so that we could bring out the big cameras. Up to now, we'd only met up with Photon's folks by chance, so we'd only had the small point-and-shoot with us.

We ended up shooting 655 photos (the DSLR does 9 shots a second in burst mode). We usually expect to post about 10% of our shots to Flickr, but this time, I ended up going with twice that. The set below is just a small selection of what's up on the Flickr pages!

L & I arrived a little early, so Cobalt got a head start on the zooming.

Someone Cobalt's size, but younger

Someone Cobalt's size, but older

Cobalt loves the beach

After we'd been there about 15 minutes, Peter, Laura, and Jon arrived with Photon, who made a bee-line for Cobalt.

Cobalt's the bigger and stronger sister, but Photon's the one that usually starts all the trouble.

(Bela Lugosi voice) "You are falling under my spell! Wooooo!"

Then, the zooming starts.

Though they have to stop to catch their breath from time to time.

"Stop hogging the water!"

"Yeah, right there, that's the spot!"

Exploring the beach.

And what's a trip to the beach without beach-balls?

Then the wrestling starts...

(Bela Lugosi voice) "I vant to suck your blood!"

"What? Us? Rough-housing? We're good girls."

Of, course, not all the photos I got were of the two pups together. Here are some of Cobalt by herself.

She got covered in sand. You can't see it here, but she got sand all over her tongue as well.

I ended up taking a lot of solo photos of Photon as well. She got herself very wet, and really seemed to like the driftwood sticks.

A self-portrait in Photon's eye

Cobalt: Back From the Doctor

2007-05-31T11:47:00.000-04:00

Cobalt's home, but not exactly happy. Can't run, can't play, can't scratch, and she has to wear the lampshade when we can't spare 100% of our attention to her.

On the plus side, she tends to flop out and snooze when she's got that silly thing on her.

I've got some photos, but I want to get the Cobalt & Photon beach photos up first!

Cobalt: Under the Knife

2007-05-30T11:29:00.000-04:00

It's Spay Day! Not only for Cobalt but, by coincidence, for her sister Photon as well. L's all fretting about how miserable the next couple of days will be for Cobalt in her radar-dish collar. Me, I'm more concerned by how squirrelly she's going to be after a couple of days of no daycare, no park runs, no nothing.

Cobalt: More From Laura and Allan's

2007-05-28T09:58:00.000-04:00

I just realized that most of my posted shots of Cobalt from the visit to Laura and Allan's showed her being pretty passive and subdued. While Tala did have Cobalt a little reserved, she still had some fun:

In fact, she sometimes had a little trouble stopping:

Cobalt: Visiting Photon at Cherry Beach

2007-05-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday, we arranged to get together with Peter, Laura, and Jon at Cherry Beach so we could bring the big cameras to catch Cobalt & Photon in action.

I haven't got all my photos sorted out yet (I ended up taking 650, mostly action shots), but Peter got some of theirs up already -- including some video!

Photon spends most of these wrestling matches pinned on her back, but she's almost always the one who starts things! That's Cobalt making all the noise, though.

I'll have my photos -- well, a selected subset -- up on Flickr soon, with the best ones here.

Cobalt: Laura and Allan and Tala and Cody

2007-05-28T09:02:00.000-04:00

For Victoria Day, we headed over to visit our friends Laura and Allan. Laura writes the We Move To Canada blog, while Allan writes The Joy Of Sox, and they have two dogs, Tala and Cody. The plan was to have a BBQ lunch, then take the three dogs down to Jack Darling Park for a romp.

Tala

Cody

The two pups

Part of the idea was to see how recently adopted Tala, a rescue Husky-German Shepherd cross, would react to a strange dog in her yard. In the end, it proved a little overwhelming for Cobalt. Tala was very protected of her yard and her people, and, while she never got nasty, her dominance games were more than Cobalt was used to.

This was the first time we'd ever seen Cobalt roll over and submit to any other dog! She wasn't happy about that at all.

Cobalt spent most of the time avoiding Tala after that, though Tala still had a great time chasing her Kong.

Cody, who's an older dog, was much more mellow.

The trip to Jack Darling didn't work out, though. All the parking was packed to the brim. So we returned to Laura and Allan's place, and let the pup's play. Cobalt didn't warm up to Tala much, but she still enjoyed herself.

Cycling: Longer Way Home

2007-05-28T08:55:00.000-04:00

Friday, I wanted to take the long way home from work, but wanted to do something different this time. So I took a quick look at Google Earth and plotted a new path up to the Belt Line trail.

Most people know the Belt Line as the path that runs diagonally down from Eglinton & Allen to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. Less well known is the western part of the trail, which runs from Allen west and curves down to Eglinton near Prospect Cemetery. This section isn't as long or as wooded, but it's a nice ride none-the-less. I use it as part of the Belt Line/Humber/Lakeshore route I did last week.

So I found a way from work, up through Trinity-Bellwoods Park and a couple of other, smaller parks to Prospect. The final route was just short of 26km, though it'll probably be a little shorter when I try it again without the dead ends and backtracking.

Cycling: Routes

2007-05-24T08:38:00.001-04:00

Now that I'm getting out on the new bike more regularly, I've also spent some time getting my GPS tracks in order -- at least this year's. It'll take ages to get them all sorted out.

Thanks to Google Earth, Google Pages, and Google Maps, I can put those tracks up here, as well. So if you're interested in bike routes through Toronto, I'll be posting the ones I like.

For starters, here are some that I've done with the new bike this year. The route names link to Google Maps views of the routes:

2007/05/11 "The Long Way Home" (20.8km/12.9mi)

This is the route I take home when I want to get some exercise in. It has some good climbs on the north-bound leg (though I rarely manage the one on gravel up to the south side of St. Clair -- I usually have to walk that), and a nice long relaxing downhill run through the Belt Line trail (Allen Rd. to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery). This variation takes me down Moore Park Ravine past the Brick Works instead of going through Rosedale.

2007/05/12 Don Valley / Edwards Gardens (27.2km/16.9mi)

A typical run up the Don Valley to the end of the trail and back. I'm not going to be carrying my new bike down the stairs at the Riverdale Park again, though! Too unwieldy. I can't wait for the bottom end of the Don Valley bike trail to reopen.

2007/05/13 Beaches / Taylor Creek / Don Valley (26.1km/16.2mi)

This is a pretty relaxing ride, with the exception of the climb from Queen St. to Kingston Rd. I had to walk the last half of that climb on this ride, maybe because I went up Silver Birch Ave. instead of Victoria Park Ave. like I usually do.

Once you get up to where Vic Park meets Taylor Creek, it's downhill almost all the way -- a very relaxing ride back.

2007/05/20 Belt Line / Humber Valley / Lakeshore (47.5km/29.5mi)

This route was inspired by parts of one I saw posted on Bikely, a nice resource for bike trails all over the place. I've done a similar path in the past, but I usually go down to the Humber Valley via Eglinton instead of cutting north as I did here. This path added a few kilometers and another park to the tour, which was nice. Not to mention avoiding Eglinton traffic!

Cycling: Breaking 100k

2007-05-14T09:55:00.000-04:00

As of this morning, I've managed 118km on the new bike. The ride is great! Very comfortable. Let's see if I can put another 100km on in the next week.

Cycling: Learning The New Bike

2007-05-12T15:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I took the long way home with the new bike for the first time. I used the route through Moore Park ravine, which runs about 21km. The weather was great, and the bike ran really nicely.

HP Velotechnik advertises the Street Machine Gte as "a bike with a view". Without handlebars in front of you, the only thing you see when riding are your legs and the pedal cranks (and, in my case, the GPS). It feels rather different from other bikes with conventional steering.

The Belt Line Trail, roughly where my old bike got its flat

The bridge from the Belt Line Trail to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.

Exceeding the speed limit in Mt. Pleasant.

Funky time exposure at speed!

Going down Moore Park Ravine.

Sometimes it's hard to believe I'm in a huge city when I'm riding these paths.

After I got home, I attached the trailer hitch to the bike, and went off to pick Cobalt up from daycare using our Croozer Dog doggy trailer for the first time. Lori was stuck with work stuff, so it fell to me to rescue the pup.

The trailer works very well -- it rides smoothly, it's very light, and Cobalt doesn't seem to mind it at all. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of her in it: it was awkward enough taking the above photos with the camera pointing forward at a largely empty path!

Today, I got another great ride in: the Don Valley, 27.5km from Dundas up to Lawrence and back. So far, I've put 85.6km on the new bike, so I should break 100km tomorrow.

Cobalt: Photon, This Time With Pictures!

2007-05-11T11:24:00.000-04:00

Here is Cobalt's sister, Photon:

And here are the sisters together:

They get along great!

Of course, they love to wrestle:

And, once again, the wrestling match ended with Photon losing a baby tooth (the other canine) and Cobalt covered in blood! Cobalt's now taken out both of her sister's canines.

Cobalt was sad to have to leave the park, but she'll be back soon! Let's hope she doesn't continue her dentistry practice on Photon's adult teeth!

Cylcing: A New Set of Wheels

2007-05-11T09:56:00.000-04:00

And now, for the first time in months, a post that's not about our dog.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this (and I'm too lazy to go look), but I try to do a lot of cycling during the summer. A few years ago, though, I injured my back, which made riding a standard bicycle painful after about half an hour. I was ok for commuting to work, but nice long rides through the countryside were right out.

About four years ago, I found a solution: recumbent bikes. I'd seen them around, and been curious about them, but I was used to my diamond-frame mountain bike. However, with my back problems, they started to seem like a good idea. I did some online research and visited The Urbane Cyclist in Toronto for advice, and finally settled on a Rans V-Rex, a "short wheel-base" recumbent.

The V-Rex has been a great bike. I've put between 1000 and 1500km on it, which is not bad when you consider I haven't left the Toronto city limits (except for a couple of rides into Mississauga). I've done the Toronto Ride for Heart twice (50km each time) and, last year, did a 105km tour of the city.

This year, though, things started off rocky.

I live about 4km from work, so it's a quick ride in and home each day. At least a couple of days a week, though, I try to ride "the long way home" (as I call it). It's about 25km, depending on the exact variation I use (sometimes, when I'm feeling energetic, I head through Moore Park Ravine and the Brick Works instead of through Rosedale).

The first time I tried that this summer, I got about halfway down the Belt Line when I got a serious front-tire flat. Fortunately, I wasn't far from a service station, so I walked the bike down and filled up the tire, then cut straight down Avenue Road to get home as quickly as possible (I had to make it home for 6:30 so we could get to Cobalt's obedience class on time!). Within three blocks, the tire was flat again.

I'd called L to come from picking Cobalt up at daycare to grab me and the bike, but she ended up stuck in traffic. By chance, though, I was a couple of blocks from her office. She arranged for me to stash the bike in her cubicle 'til after the class, and the next day I took the wheel in for repair.

Two days later I did the long ride again, and things went well. Nice and refreshing!

Two days after that, though, I only barely got past Old Park Road at the north end of the Belt Line when my pedals stopped going forwards. Something had jammed them completely.

When I got off the bike to look, I discovered that one of the chain links had caught on the chain guide tube and broken. Recumbents have very long chains, since the pedals are well in front of the rider's seat. Many recumbents have chain guides -- long plastic tubes that cover the chain to keep grease off the rider's legs. My V-Rex didn't come with guides, but I got the guys at Urbane to improvise some. They did a great job, but after a couple of years of riding, they'd shifted or something, and the chain caught the guide so hard that it not only bent the guide mount, it bent the idler wheel mount the guide mount was attached to! That's more serious: the guide wasn't an expensive piece of hardware, but the idler wheel mount was welded directly to the frame, and it looked like the welds might have been cracked.

Fortunately, by chance, I was only a few blocks from our accountant's house (Anita Goren of Silver & Goren -- highly recommended), and Anita & her husband were good enough to put me up while I waited -- again -- for Lori to come and rescue me.

Now, last year after that 105km tour, I had started to think about getting a new bike. The V-Rex is great, but it's above-seat steering puts the handlebars pretty close to the rider's chest, forcing them to sit in what's known as the "praying hamster" position. After six hours, your elbows tend to lock up! So I started to research under-seat steering as an option. Also, the V-Rex has a rigid frame, and after that long ride, suspension was sounding like a good idea.

That led me to the Street Machine Gte, HP Velotechnik's update to their Street machine Gt touring bike. It costs about 1/3 more than the V-Rex, but it's a very smooth, comfortable ride -- at least, as far as I could tell riding Urbane's floor model around Grange Park.

So last week, while the V-Rex was still in the shop for the chain mishap, I bit the bullet and plunked down the cash for the Street Machine -- and here it is:

It's a little customized -- from the factory, the Gte has a SRAM DualDrive hub, which means only one gear in the front, which means no post to mount the front deraileur on. Unfortunately, without handlebars above the seat, that also means nothing to mount the GPS on! So Urbane swapped out the Gte's front boom with a boom from another HP Velotechnik model that does have the post, so I could get my GPS & light mounted.

I've only put 33km on it so far, and I haven't taken it on the long ride yet (haven't had a chance), but so far it's been great. The ride is incredibly smooth, and the seat is very comfortable -- though it needs adjusting still (I'm told it takes time to get it just right).

My only complaint is the gear shifters. They're the same style as the ones on my V-Rex: Rings mounted on the inboard side of the handlebar grips that you twist to change gears. They're great on the V-Rex, but lousy here, because the under-seat mounting means that the rings are under your pinky and ring finger, instead of index and middle! The floor model had nice knobbly shifters that mounted on the ends of the grips, which worked a lot better. I'm going to have Urbane swap those out.

This weekend will see my first long rides on the new bike. I'm really looking forward to it.

Cobalt: Photon Again!

2007-05-07T09:30:00.000-04:00

We were having a lazy day on Saturday, just playing World of Warcraft with some friends, when we all decided we'd reached a good breakpoint for dinner. I suggested we take the pup out to Riverdale Park and let her off-lease in the valley, just to romp a bit.

We hadn't been out to a park with Cobalt since the previous weekend's visit to Cherry Beach because our dog-walker had had to run off to Denver on short notice (family emergency). We ended up expanding Cobalt's doggy day-care at Urban Dog from two days a week to five -- which she really enjoyed, but she was coming home pretty exhausted! Still, even though she was getting plenty of exercise, we wanted her to have a chance to do more than just putter around the house and back yard with us.

When you drive up to Riverdale Park, you see a pretty standard residential park in Cabbagetown: a square grassy area with paths and trees and a wading pool. What makes Riverdale Park unusual is, first, Riverdale Farm, and, second, the steep hill down from the south-east corner into the Don Valley, where there's a much larger, untreed park that doubles as sports fields and an off-lease dog park.

Our first stop was at the edge of Riverdale Farm to introduce Cobalt to the clydesdales. She didn't quite know what to make of those -- she found them quite alarming, and barked up a storm. We didn't stay long.

About halfway down the hill I decided to let Cobalt loose -- we were far enough from the streets that I didn't think she'd run after them, and besides, all the other dogs were down at the bottom of the hill. She took off like a shot, zooming all over with great enthusiasm.

When we got to the bottom, we stopped by the other groups of dogs to say hello. One fellow there took a look at Cobalt, turned, and yelled "Photon! Come!"

Just by chance, it turned out we were visiting the park at the same time as Photon, Cobalt's sister! We'd met her briefly at Urban Dog, but Cobalt was quite tired at that point and they just sniffed each other a bit. This time was very different! They chased and wrestled each other almost non-stop for the next forty minutes.

We got a chance to chat with Photon's owner, Peter Cook, as well. We'd met his wife Laura when we encountered Photon at Urban Dog. It turns out that they had considered adopting Cobalt shortly before we did, but decided on her sister instead. Their son, Jon, has periventricular leukomalacia, and they had to be very particular about the personality of the pup they adopted.

Unfortunately, in spite of having bought a new Canon G7 camera for such trips (our regular camera, a Canon 20D, is a great camera, but since it's an SLR it's rather bulky), we'd forgotten to bring it this time! So no photos of Cobalt & Photon. However, you can see pictures of Photon at Peter & Laura's blog, Chez PLJ.

The wild romp came to an end when I noticed blood on Cobalt's fur. Nothing serious, though! Photon's still losing her baby teeth, and in all the excitement, Cobalt managed to knock out her left-front canine. When Photon nipped at Cobalt, she got a little blood on her.

Blood-stained wrestler

Blood-stained wrestler

It turns out that they live over the river and through the woods -- to the east of Riverdale Park, about 2km from us, and they're in the park regularly, so we'll be getting Cobalt & Photon together regularly from now on.

Cobalt: Off-Leash

2007-05-07T09:16:00.000-04:00

We've been really nervous of letting Cobalt go off-leash in the local off-leash parks -- not because of the other dogs, but because the parks all open out onto busy streets: Carlton, Jarvis, Gerard, Queen, etc. We wanted to make sure her recall was very, very strong before letting her loose. So all of her off-leash play has been in either our back yard or the DogPatch at the Brick Works.

A week ago Saturday, we were in the DogPatch with a dozen other dogs, and Cobalt was having a great time. More important to us, though, was that she was now checking in with us, and had settled on a comfortable distance at which she'd always return to us on her own -- and, most importantly, she'd come when we called her name.

We were so pleased that we decided to take her down to the Cherry Beach off-lease and let her run. The trip was a huge success, as you can see:

Even before we could get the car-seat harness off her, she was off!

She came back when we called her, though, so we got the harness off and let her romp.

Of course, whenever she came back, she wanted a treat...

She didn't repeat her Western Beaches trick of trying to run across the lake

But she really seemed to enjoy running in the sand

Some of the dogs were just not up for a game of tag

We also noticed a dog on the beach playing with a half-inflated soccer ball, which we thought would be a great sort of toy for Cobalt, since she loves toys that are at least as large as her head. After the run, we went up to PetSmart to stock up on food, and found a nice ball with indentations all over, just right for a dog to grab. We picked it up and stopped by DogPatch on our way home to try it out -- sure enough, she loved it.

Cobalt: Graduation

2007-05-07T09:08:00.000-04:00

Time to do a little catch-up, starting with Cobalt's obedience class graduations.

We've had Cobalt in a number of classes so far. We started with the "Puppy Preschool" PetSmart and the "Puppy Gymboree" at Who's Walking Who. Puppy Preschool is an intro obedience class -- sit, down, stay, come, etc -- and Puppy Gymboree is more of an introduction to agility training.

Cobalt's finished both those courses, and the PetSmart had us bring our cameras for the Puppy Preschool "graduation", complete with silly caps that Cobalt didn't really take too that much:

The one time we managed to get her to sit still in the cap

A more casual look

Also graduating that day were:

Lucy, Cobalt's favourite wrestling partner

Checkers

Finnegan

Cobalt: Family

2007-04-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we met Cobalt's sister, Photon, while picking Cobalt up from daycare at Urban Dog. They were quite happy to see each other, but then Cobalt's quite happy to see any dog. Photon's owner told us that they'd originally intended to adopt Cobalt, but decided that Photon's personality suited them better (Photon seemed much more mellow than Cobalt).

The mini Aussie world in south-western Ontario is very small. There are only three breeders in the area, and they all work together: Stoverly Aussies in Milton (where Cobalt comes from), HHC Mini Aussies in Alliston;, and Skoachs in Kingston. Since we got Cobalt, we've met Aussies from all of the breeders.

Our first small-world experience was at Cherry Beach, where we met Parker, a red tricolour from HHC. When we mentioned that Cobalt was from Stoverly, Parker's owner recognized her as Max's daughter.

Next, we met Bean at PetSmart. Bean is a black tri from Stoverly's very first mini litter. She introduced us to what's known as "the Aussie reserve" -- a shyness that Cobalt does not exhibit at all.

A few posts back I had a photo of the third mini Aussie we've met, Ozzy the Aussie -- he's from Skoachs.

Then, a couple of weeks back, we were in PetSmart without Cobalt and spotted a young mini who looked very familiar. It turned out to be Quiver, Cobalt's brother -- the one who originally caught L's eye and led to us adopting from that litter.

So, so far, of the five other mini Aussies we've met, two have been from Cobalt's litter, one was from another litter from the same breeder, one belonged to someone who knew Cobalt's father, and only one hasn't really had any connection to Cobalt at all.

I guess you have to expect a small world when you're dealing with miniatures.

UPDATE: Corrected Skoachs's location from Hamilton to Kingston.

Cobalt: Soggy Doggy

2007-04-16T09:52:00.000-04:00

Last night we were over visting our friends Robert & Allison Vanderhorst (to help with a computer problem) and we brought Cobalt along to show off.

The Vanderhorsts have a large, landscaped yard, which is great for Cobalt to run in. Robert got us a tennis ball for her to chase, and she had a great time.

One of my throws of the ball landed in a conifer bush of some sort, and Cobalt had a little trouble -- she zoomed after it at full speed, as she usually does, but when she got close she couldn't slow down in time, so she leapt over the bush.

Unfortunately, the bush was part of the landscaping around the garden pond.

>SPLOOSH<

The pond's three feet deep. Cobalt's just over one feet deep.

The good news is, she figured out how to swim. That, and she's drip-dry.

She hauled herself out of the pond in seconds, and was back to playing as if nothing happened. But the rest of us were laughing to hard to throw the balls.

By the time we left, she was almost entirely dry again. Fortunately, we have towels down in the car.

Cobalt: Visiting Mattie and Wendy

2007-04-16T09:39:00.000-04:00

A week ago, we headed down to London to meet my mother's new dog, Wendy. My mother decided to get Wendy after seeing how much fun Mattie had with Cobalt. Wendy's another Coton, a four-year-old (Mattie's one year at this point).

Oddly, though Wendy's four times as old as Mattie, she's also only about 3/4s Mattie's size.

Wendy

Cobalt and Mattie hit it off like they usually do. Wendy kept out of it for the most part.

The Chase

Closing In

The Lunge

Bop!

Wendy has a trick of her own, though: she can dance.

Of course, where there are tricks and treats, Cobalt wants in on the action!

The Puppy Two-Step

Cobalt: Breakthroughs

2007-04-13T13:45:00.000-04:00

As of earlier this week, we're no longer locking Cobalt in her crate unless it's necessary. She now has run of the bedroom at night, when we're sleeping there, and during the day, waiting for the dogwalker. She's been perfect -- not so much as a chewed sock. Which is great.

One of the best parts is her curling up with us when we sleep. L loves having the pup up with her. Grendel would always curl up on my side, and Mouse was never one for cuddlyness. The only problem has been that Grendel's reluctant to come up on the bed when Cobalt's there -- the pup tends to wander over and stick her nose where it doesn't belong.

Last night was a big breakthrough on that front. Grendel had curled up between L & I, against my shoulder, when Cobalt came up onto the bed. The cat looked up, but ignored the dog and curled back up again. Cobalt then curled up against L's shoulder, right beside Grendel, and Grendel ignored her.

That by itself would be a breakthrough, but then Cobalt shifted, and leaned over to settle her chin on Grendel, like he was some sort of big pillow (which, to be honest, he is). And he didn't mind! I wish I had had my camera.

Pillow Cat

Cobalt: An Exhausting Week, Part Last

2007-04-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

There was one last event in Cobalt's busy vacation week: meeting Bear, my cousin's dog. Bear is a therapy dog, and is the sweetest, calmest, and most submissive dog I know.

Bear

Cobalt took to Bear just as she takes to every dog -- bouncing and jumping, eager to play. Bear, however, is getting on in years, and was quite happy to relax and let the puppy do all the work while the rest of us had dinner.

After my cousin left, we ended the week curled up in bed, watching Mythbusters and relaxing before a fresh week of work for L & I, and Cobalt's first full day of doggy daycare.

Cobalt: An Exhausting Week, Part 4

2007-04-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

I've dragged this out too long, and need to wrap it up. We had a busy weekend with Cobalt, with hundreds of photos shot, so if I'm going to get that up, I have to get last week out of the way!

Wednesday afternoon, we took Cobalt out to Humber Bay Park, a park built on landfill around the mouth of Mimico Creek. It's a nice walk, with a good view of the city -- and lots of swans, geese, red-wing blackbirds, and many other birds (in the fall it's also a Monarch Butterfly migration stop). Cobalt loved the birds -- she wanted to chase after all of them, and even herded a couple of geese into the water. All in all, though, we prefer to keep her away from the geese -- those birds can be nasty.

Thursday was off with a flying start, literally. I got Cobalt up and took her outside, as usual, but when I tried to bring her back to the office for her breakfast, she decided instead to run upstairs, leap onto the bed, and jump on L, who had been sound asleep. No injuries, fortunately, and it was very cute, so we let her get away with it. Now, it's standard procedure for weekends.

She was obviously feeling pretty lively, so we took her out to the Western Beaches (officially known as Sir Casimir Gzowski Park), just east of Humber Bay Park (across the Humber River footbridge). The Western Beaches have a new boardwalk, which is great for walking dogs. The water birds were a big distraction, though. At one point she spotted a bunch of gulls on the beach, and charged for them (she was on the flexi-leash, so she had a fair bit of freedom). She scattered the lot of them, and they flew out to the breakwater offshore where things were quieter. Cobalt ended up at the edge of the water, where she was muttering at the gulls, but as soon as we caught up to her -- and she had slack on the flexi again -- she decided to run out across the water at the gulls.

She got about three jumps from us before she realized that she was up to her shoulders in water.

She immediately turned tail (well, tail-stub) and bolted back to us, but we were laughing to hard to really offer much comfort to her.

Fortunately, she's a wash-and-wear dog, and in a few minutes, she was back to normal.

Saturday, we decided to try visiting more of the official off-leash parks in Toronto. Out of curiousity, I suggested Woburn Park, one of the few parks listed as being fenced-in. I wanted to see how it compared to the Dogpark at the Brick Works.

Unfortunately, when we got there, it turned out to be very unappealing. A small, muddy triangle, only a fraction of the size of the Brick Works park, with a fence that someone seems to have driven through on one side, patched with snow-fence. We decided against it immediately.

L suggested going to "the formal gardens" that aren't too far away, so I gave her directions to Alexander Muir Gardens at Yonge and Lawrence. It turned out that that wasn't what she meant: she was thinking of Edwards Gardens, at Leslie and Lawrence. But I remembered an off-leash area near Alexander Muir, so we decided to try that.

It ended up being a long walk -- the dog park was at Sherwood Park, on the other side of Mt. Pleasant Road. Unlike the dog parks we'd been to so far, it wasn't just a grassy (or muddy ) corner of a standard city park, or a clear field, but a set of paths in a forested area. The paths were fenced, and the woods between the paths are part of a wildlife reclamation project.

One nice thing about Sherwood is, thanks to the tree cover and the mulch-covered paths, it's not at all muddy. A great change from the other parks we'd been too!

Sherwood Park Off-Leash

Cobalt on a path in Sherwood Park

At Sherwood Park, Cobalt met Dexter, a friendly and bouncy pup who was more than happy to chase and wrestle. They were rather hard to photograph together -- too fast!

Cobalt and Dexter

Zoom!

We also met another miniature Aussie -- Ozzy the Aussie, a black tri-coluor from Skoachs in Kingston:

Ozzy the Aussie

By the end of the day, Cobalt was reduced to this:

Tired Pup

One last installment to come...

Cobalt: An Exhausting Week, Part 3

2007-04-05T09:51:00.000-04:00

I should have mentioned last time that the agility preschool we're taking cobalt to is run by Who's Walking Who, and located at Urban Dog on Parliament, near the Distillery District. The course is called "Puppy Gymboree", and Cobalt finished it yesterday. We also have her lined up for "Total Recall" (recall training) and "Family Dog" (full obedience class -- heel, stay, etc).

The Gymboree glass before our week off, one of the dogs, a tiny bulldog named Lucy, was even less energetic than usual. Lucy's owner said that it was because Lucy'd been to the Urban Dog "Playcare" three days in a row, and it had tired her out completely.

Since Cobalt was especially rambunctious that day, we got to thinking that maybe some of that Playcare would be good for her. On Thursday, we took her in to be evaluated -- all the dogs in Playcare have to have full vaccinations (plus kennel cough), as well as a quick "personality test" to see how well behaved they are, and finally a session in the room with the other dogs (who get brought in one at a time) to see how she gets along. Cobalt passed with flying colours, so we booked her for a half-day of Playcare on Friday, so we could relax a little.

Urban Dog keeps a web cam on the Playcare room from 9am to 1pm. Follow the "Web Cam" link from their home page and pick the Small Dog room. While we relaxed at home, we had this up and watched Cobalt romping with the other dogs. She spent a lot of time under the bed in the middle of the room, occasionally darting out to wrestle with the other dogs.

When we went in six hours later to pick her up, the staff told us another dog, a Jack Russell terrier, had been in for an evaluation, and he'd spent almost the whole time under the bed with Cobalt, wrestling. When we noticed the name on the terrier's application -- Romeo -- we realized it was another dog from the Gymboree class. In fact, now that Cobalt's in Playcare regularly, she's spending time with at least two of the Gymboree dogs, Romeo and a little fluff-ball named Eli. She loved wrestling with them in the class, and now she gets to romp with them all day.

The plan worked, by the way -- at the end of the day, Cobalt was nicely worn out and mellow. We've now put Cobalt into the Playcare on Mondays and Thursdays, and I can see her running around the room on the web cam as I type.

Next up, a rude, but cute, awakening and more off-leash parks.

Cobalt: An Exhausting Week, Part 2

2007-04-04T12:36:00.000-04:00

The other big thing this week was training. "Sit", "Give", and "Leave it" are good. We've made some progress with "Come". "Stay" is still pretty weak, though. And she's also started doing tricks!

Roll Over

Roll Over in the style of Marcel Duchamp

Shake-a-Paw

We're also taking her to a "preschool" for agility training. Agility training is that obstacle-course stuff for dogs -- running up stairs, over teeter boards, through tunnels, etc. Energetic dogs like Aussies love that sort of thing.

The preschool consists of getting used to the basic equipment: very low jumps, short tunnels, a tip board instead of a teeter board, and so on.

The training technique for getting the dog to go through the tunnel is to wait at the other end and wave a tug-o-war toy at the opening. Dogs like Aussies (and Jack Russells, of which there's a very noisy one in the class) love tug toys, and will zoom through the tunnel for it.

Just for the fun of it, I tried getting her to go through a tube on one of the cat trees. It's off the ground, and smaller than the tunnels we tried at the preschool, so I wasn't sure she'd go for it. She didn't go through for the treat I offered, but L came by and waved the tug toy, and she was through in an instant!

Still more to come, including other off-leash parks and doggy daycare.

Cobalt: An Exhausting Week, Part 1

2007-04-03T11:58:00.000-04:00

We took this past week off to spend with Cobalt. We worked on her training and took her to lots of dog parks, and wore her out completely! The photos above is how she looked after her first experience with doggy daycare on Friday (more on that below).

We've decided to visit all of Toronto's off-leash parks. We don't let Cobalt off-leash in open parks yet -- her recall isn't good enough, and we don't want her running off into traffic -- but she loves romping in the off-leashes on her flexi-leash.

We'd already been to Alan Gardens, since it's right near us. We actually prefer to take Cobalt to Moss Park. It's not on the official list of off-leash parks, but it's got a much larger grassy area for the dogs, and is farther from the road than the Alan Gardens off-leash. It also has a fenced-in tennis court, which we've been using for training Cobalt to come when called.

The other place we let her actually go off-leash is the Dogpark at the Brick Works, off Bayview Ave. The Dogpark is a completely fenced in triangle next to the Brick Works parking lot. Unfortunately, it's been rather muddy lately, but Cobalt seems to love the place.

For the first weekend of our week off, we took Cobalt down to Clark Beach, better known as Cherry Beach. I'd never realized that the beach extended west from Cherry Street -- in fact, the entire area to the west, from Cherry to the canal, is an off-leash area, the biggest we've been to so far.

We met a lot of dogs down there, including another 4½-month-old mini Aussie named Parker. Parker was a red tri-colour, slightly larger than Cobalt. When we mentioned that Cobalt had come from Stoverly Aussies to Parker's owner, he immediately recognized her as Max's offspring.

Cherry Beach was so exciting, Cobalt zonked out as soon as we got home.

It was a busy week, so I'm going to break it up into multiple posts... More to come!

Cobalt: An Exhausting Day

2007-03-19T10:37:00.000-04:00

This weekend we took Cobalt to some new places, and she had a blast.

The first place wasn't new: it was the vet's, for her final vaccination booster and rabies shot. The vet was running late, so Cobalt got to experience, for the first time, a cat that will stand up to her. At home, the cats don't care for the puppy's bouncing playfulness, and will quickly retreat to safe spots -- up the cat tree (Mouse) or into the bathroom sink (Grendel). Which is fine, except that Cobalt takes this as chase game.

The vet's cat, on the other hand, has been around dogs forever. He just sat there and ignored Cobalt, which drove her nuts. She was running back and forth, trying to approach the cat from every different direction, but she could not get the chase game started. I think she found it quite frustrating.

After the vet, it was off to Riverdale Park. Riverdale Park has a huge off-leash area in the Don Valley, though we didn't go down there -- we stayed in the more standard part of the park, in the middle of Cabbagetown.

Early in the walk we were struck by how aloof the other dog owners were compared to what we were used to. At Alan Gardens, Moss Park, or High Park, people would be curious about Cobalt, asking about her age, her breed, and so on; but here, at least at first, nothing.

It wasn't until much later in the walk that we encountered a group walking their dogs (big dogs, all of them), who spotted Cobalt and crossed the street to see her. She had a grand time being fawned over and running around with the big dogs. Shortly thereafter an elderly lady with her bishon came by and Cobalt went nuts wrestling with her new friend. It reminded us of how she played with Mattie.

Sunday was another exciting day. We took Cobalt to the fenced-in dog park at the Brick Works. We actually let Cobalt off her leash here, for the first time. She met lots of dogs, mostly big ones, and had a grand time playing tag with them. We worked on her recall training, with some success, which was great.

There were a couple of problems, unsurprisingly. One of the dogs that joined later was a coon hound who thought Cobalt was great fun to chase; Cobalt found that a little overwhelming until I held on to her for a bit so the coon hound could sniff her and she could sniff back. After that, she was chasing the hound!

Later, a Rhodesian ridgeback was running around with Cobalt and bowled her over, which scared her -- and her yelp set the coon hound howling, which didn't help. It took a few minutes for her to relax again. She rejoined the chases again after a bit, though with less energy, and a few minutes later we headed home. She was very snoozy for the rest of the day, though she livened up for her obedience school class, where she likes to wrestle with a black mini schnauzer who has a bad habit of biting Cobalt's face.

After that, she was really exhausted, and spent most of the rest of the day snoozing. She likes sleeping half-on her pillow -- though which half is on is pretty random. It's not uncommon to find her upside-down with her head on the floor and her feet in the air on the pillow.

Too tired to care about the camera

Watching Mythbusters with us while I fold the laundry.
That's my Homestar Runner t-shirt in the back.

Cobalt: Toys

2007-03-19T10:23:00.000-04:00

Cobalt, like most pups, loves toys. She's got several she can play with on her own, but of course her favourites are the interactive ones, the fetch and tug toys.

The octopus was a huge success -- it rattles, it squeaks, and it's a tug toy.

It's amazing how immovable a small pup can be.

Her very favourite was a red plush bone that came with her from the breeder, but unfortunately it didn't survive the tug-o-war games that well. We went looking for a replacement for her, but all the plush bones at PetSmart were too big. L saw a what she thought was a stuffed sheep, but when she grabbed it, it mooed at her. Immediately, Cobalt stood up on her hind legs -- on tip-toe -- to get a better look at where the noise came from, and stayed standing for several seconds. She looked like a meerkat! So, naturally, we bought the cow.

The mooing's been driving us nuts ever since.

Cobalt grabs the cow and runs around the house with it, shaking it vigorously and making it moo over and over. It's her new favourite, and the bone's been retired.

Cobalt: High Park and New Friends

2007-03-05T14:52:00.000-05:00

Cobalt loves other dogs. All sizes: chihuahuas to great danes (and she's met both already). She'll bounce and chase and try to herd them.

Saturday we took her to High Park, which was fun but rather wet. On the sidewalks we couldn't move for more than a couple of minutes before having what we're calling "the Cobalt conversation":

Them: Ooooh how cute! He's adorable! How old is he?
Us: She's 15 weeks.
Them: What unusual colours! What breed is she?
Us: She's a miniature Australian Shepherd.
Them: She's adorable! What's her name?
Us: Cobalt.
Them: Isn't she cute!
[etc]

In High Park we encountered a playful collie named Snickers and her owner (we never seem to get the owners names) who was as keen to play as Cobalt was. We had the camera, so we managed to get some shots, though not 'til after they'd jumped around a fair bit.

Snickers

Cobalt's always curious about new dogs

She's a little rambunctious at times

But Snickers didn't seem to mind

Snickers' owner gets the Tongue of Doom treatment

Cobalt: Snow Pup

2007-03-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

More photos again. This time, a romp in the snow in the front yard. This is just a selection -- there are always more of the Flickr site.

She loves to tunnel into the snow

Though sometimes she stays down too long and has to pop up for air

And then she tears around like crazy for a while

It's a little deep for her

She can be very hard to photograph at times.

Cobalt: Another Update & More Photos

2007-03-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

We think we've figured out why Cobalt has been waking us up so often to go out during the night -- four or five times, and most of the time she just licks at the snow. We should have figured it out sooner, but it's because we hadn't been using the humidifier this week. Last night she made it all the way to 5:30 am, for the first time.

Three nights ago we got a surprise -- we were sound asleep, when suddenly there was a bark from L's side of the bed. Which is odd, 'cause Cobalt's crate is on the opposite side of the room! I'm hoping it's just that I hadn't latched it properly, 'cause we're in trouble if she's learned how to open the crate! She has figured out that it has something to do with those metal bits that flip up, and she's flip them, but she can't (yet) slide them to get the door open.

Yesterday was a bit frantic. Our dog walker phoned about 2pm to tell me that he'd fallen in the storm and lost his clients' house keys, so he couldn't get in to let Cobalt out. I ended up bolting home from work (I brought my laptop to work from home), too late to save Cobalt's crate-cushion. Ah well.

Grendel still finds Cobalt a little too pushy

She loves tug o' war, of course

The Tongue o' Doom. She'll slurp anyone and anything into submission

Cobalt: Portraits

2007-02-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

I've gotten tired of having to go down to "Small" on wide Flickr photos to get them to fit on this page, so I've tweaked the template a bit. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.

I'm now about four days behind in posting Cobalt photos, so I'm going to try to catch up. For today, some portraits:

She can be rowdy

But she's usually pretty dignified

And, of course, extremely cute

It's hard, but it is possible to tire her out

Cobalt: Weekend Update

2007-02-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

Remember the old Warner Bros. Foghorn Leghorn cartoons? Leghorn would tease the dog until he ran out at full speed until he reached the end of his rope. As the line went taught, his feet would fly out from under him, and he'd land flat on his back.

Cobalt managed that this morning, though without the giant chicken. She also recovered far faster than the dog ever did. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera going!

Things have been settling into a routine for us, though Cobalt keeps defying the routine -- at least, the bit between midnight and 6am. We're trying to get her on an overnight schedule, based on the times she was whining to go out, but apparently she's changing that...

Puppy preschool started on Sunday. Nothing too exciting the first day -- mostly introductions and expositions. We've got homework, though, to train her on "Watch me": getting her to look at one of us and not look away. Unfortunately, she's very easily distracted. We'll keep working on it.

Cobalt's deciding that she likes snow. She'll wander around and stick her muzzle into it up over her eyes to sniff around, though that always ends with sneezes. She'll even tunnel in up to her shoulders at times -- lots of sneezes from that.

We've got a bunch more photos to sort through and put up -- I hope to get those in place over th next couple of days.

Cobalt: Last Photos With Mattie

2007-02-22T11:41:00.000-05:00

Here are a few selections from the last set of photos with Mattie:

Cobalt's usually very quiet, but she got quite vocal with Mattie as they played.

Not to mention bouncy.

At one point, she grabbed Mattie's tail and got dragged around the yard.

Mattie's ears are just ridiculous when she's running around.

Cobalt: Off Leash

2007-02-21T13:15:00.000-05:00

We've been getting mixed advice on leash-free parks. One trainer said, up front, "keep out" -- he'd seen too many dogs attacked and injured by, or infected with parasites from, dogs not properly trained or cared for by their owners that they met in leash-free areas.

About a month ago, my mother took Mattie to her local leash-free, which had a "small dog" and a "big dog" area. Some idiot was running his greyhounds in the small dog area (because they were "too gentle" for the big dog section), and the greyhounds took Mattie for a rabbit and went for her. My mother, who's in her late 60s, couldn't catch up with them, and the greyhound owner wouldn't do anything.

My mother avoids off-leashes now if there are any other dogs around. Her previous dog, Bogie, was completely neurotic about all other dogs after being attacked in an off-leash, as well.

But yesterday I had Cobalt down at Moss Park, where three other people had their dogs off-leash, and she loved it. I kept her on her springy-leash thing, so she couldn't run free, but she had a grand time bouncing at the other dogs, who either ignored her or snuffled friendly-like. It's certainly a great way for her to burn off energy!

I suppose the best bet would be an off-leash area where you knew everyone and their dogs, but that's not really doable in downtown Toronto.

Cobalt: Cobalt & Mattie In The Snow

2007-02-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

More photos from Sunday. There's one more set after this one, but taking care of Cobalt after work takes up a lot of prime photo-prepping time.

Mattie doesn't usually get this animated.

Mattie looks like a seal. Where are her legs?

The two of them burned off a lot of energy.

Normally, the shepherd's supposed to corner the sheep.
Cobalt hasn't got up to that page in the manual, I guess.

Cobalt: Cobalt Photos

2007-02-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

And here are some photos of Cobalt herself:

Of course, she loves to run

But running can be exhausting!

She can zonk right out in the most inconvenient places

But it doesn't take much to perk her up again.

Cobalt: Mattie Photos

2007-02-20T09:29:00.000-05:00

I am exhausted. Cobalt had us up at 11:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:30, 5:30, and 6:15 last night. We need to get her on a schedule. She's taken to whining to go out to pee, then once she's back in her crate (on the third floor with us) whining to go out again for another go.

But before all that, I got the first of the Cobalt & Mattie photos up on Flickr. These ones are from their first, indoor romp.

Cobalt & Mattie

Still not quite sure what to make of the new creature

Being an Aussie, Cobalt doesn't know what a tail is

Cobalt tries to herd Mattie

BFF