The Halifax Oval

A pretty neat treatment of the speed skating oval that they built in Halifax for the upcoming Canada Games.



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That it is open to the public for free explains the high levels of usage that are visible throughout the video.

3rd Annual Blog-off is just around the corner

Don't forget that Montifax's 3rd Annual Blog-Off will be starting at mid-night tonight and going until the end of February.

Like the first year of the competition, Neil will be awarded 5 points for each post he makes while I will be awarded 1 point per post. Competitors will be encouraged to include score updates in the bottom of each post so that readers will be able to easily check the status of the blog-off

To get you hyped, here are the wrap-up videos for our past two blog-offs.

2009



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2010



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Be sure to check back regularly for updates and to watch the progress of the competition.

It's snowing

Right now big, quiet snowflakes are falling in Halifax. It is a pretty beautiful way to end a pleasant Sunday evening.



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Maybe the perfect way to end a pleasant Sunday evening in the Winter.

Pumping out content

For the past few years I have heard that writers like Graham Greene would only, but consistently, write about a page a day. I presume that this means that they are writing somewhere between 250 and 500 words a day.

I find two things about this impressive. Firstly, these guys really aren't writing all that much on a daily basis. This is an entirely achievable volume for a relatively average person (though, I guess what they are writing is of a slightly higher quality than what I, or the average person, might write in the same space). Secondly, at this rate these authors are pumping out 1 to 1.5 quality books a year, and they manage to keep this rate up year after year.

While I don't necessarily have too much interest in writing novels (as I don't think I could do a good job of it), I do wish that I could somehow tap into this vein of productivity and manage to produce the equivalent output over the course of my adult life.

A Few Quick Notes 503

-Today has been a pretty great day all day long. Now, presumably just for a seasonal effect, a few snowflakes are falling, though not really staying around.

-Our Ultimate team played pretty poorly in our game last night. Our poor play wasn't helped by the fact that were were missing quite a number of players. In the end we lost the game by about 7 points. Hopefully things will go better next week.

-Did you know that you can Flickr user's photostreams as RSS feeds? I know that I just learned this a few days ago and was a little saddened to think that I hadn't been taking advantage of this feature for the past few years (assuming it has been around that long).

-I am presently in the midst of making batches pea soup and butternut squash soup for dinner tonight.

The butternut squash soup is turning out a little thinner than I hoped it would. I will soon be trying to resolve the problem by supplementing the soup with some carrots and potatoes. These new additions should give the whole thing a little more body, and make it a little less like yellow water. Hopefully they aren't strong enough flavours to overpower the squash.

-We are still going 'strong' over at Doyle Pitches. My favourite of the day, at least so far, is "Doyle: Pig in the City."

Late night appearance change

At about 11:00 PM last night I decided that it was time for a hair cut. I decided to lose a few inches.

It turns out that an inch is a fair bit shorter than I thought. Woops.

Round Three

This summer I learned about a type of New Zealand cookie called Afghans through my friend Nicole's house's cooking blog. Almost immediately I was inclined to try the recipe. Almost immediately I managed to screw the recipe up (and then post about it).

A few days after my first failed attempt at Afghans I tried again. This time with a little more success. Actually, eventually I can to accept that this batch of cookies was pretty tasty. After a few more weeks of reflection I began to idealize these cookies. They seemed like the best cookies I had ever made. Why wasn't I making them more frequently?

When I saw whole walnuts on sale a few weeks ago I decided to buy them to encourage myself to get around to baking them again. Obviously, this tactic wasn't immediately effective.

Anyway, as today is a special someone's birthday I finally convinced myself that today would be a good day for me to bake these cookies (particularly as she really liked the second batch).

As the original form of the recipe called for ingredients to be measured by weight and as I received a new electric scale for Christmas that I had yet to use, I decided to weigh the ingredients I was going to use.

As this is was the first time I had ever weight ingredients, the process was slow. I definitely wasn't quite comfortable with how the whole thing was to work. Though with each ingredient I felt a little more comfortable.

Eventually I had some cookie dough and was ready to put the first tray in the oven.

While the first dozen cookies were in the oven I started to work on the icing, which is a nice thick, fudgey chocolate icing. As I was measuring the sugar I noticed that the quantity didn't seem quite right. After a little investigation I realized that I had failed to notice the decimal point and that I was trying to add one tenth the required volume.

In my defence, the digital scale's digital decimal point is a little lower than the base of the numbers. Furthermore, when one has things on the scale and is forced to look at the screen on an angle it can be difficult to see.

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This discovery helped me understand why I had added so few cornflakes to the dough. Bummer.

I was able to take unbaked cookies and then add the additional cornflakes before baking them.

So, again I managed to screw this recipe up. Bummer.

Anyway, in the end I think they were edible.

At least everyone has been eating them and no one has died yet.

I might have just seen someone famous...

...or not.

What I definitely did see was a film shoot in Cornwallis Park.



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Maybe I will have to go star spotting after lunch...

... or not.

Boid

I was reminded of the Ironman 2 bird scene when I saw a few birds outside my window bathing in a puddle. The connection is obvious isn't it?



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Comps 2

I just did a few quick calculations and determined that my average typing speed during today's comprehensive exam was 22.99 words per minute. I am surprised that the number was this high, particularly as I took a few minutes to think about each answer and then finished about 10 minutes before my time expired. If these factors are taken into consideration it seems probable that I sustained an average speed of greater than 25 words per minute.

While 25 words per minute isn't necessarily the world's fastest typing speed, I wouldn't have guessed that I could maintain such a speed for 5 hours going in to the exam.

Comps

Well, that is done.

Just a little while ago I finished my first comprehensive exam.

I had something to say for all of the questions, so that is good. Hopefully what I had to say made sense.

It is great to have this test in my past.

A Few Quick Notes 502

-This morning when I woke up it was snow-raining, which then turned to rain, which has not reverted to snow. What a generally ugly day it has been. Hopefully tomorrow is better.

-I heard a rumour that a number of Halifax universities closed today because of the weather. This surprises me as it really wasn't all that bad here. Actually, by mid-morning things had kind of cleared up and what-not (at least until just a little while ago).

-My Canadian comprehensive is tomorrow. I have spent the better part of my day studying by working through practice question. Obviously I haven't taken the exam yet, but impressed by how useful it feels to try assembling some of these, until now, disparate ideas.

-Fortunately I have been able to avoid spending too much more time on Doyle Pitches. Word on the street is that it has been forwarded to the makers of the show. I really have no idea what they might think of such a ridiculous site.

-For the third time this week I am preparing roast chicken for dinner. Fortunately for everyone the sale on whole chickens ends tonight.

-I am really looking forward to finishing this exam (though this will mean that I get to move on to the next exam in the process).

Doyle Pitches

It seems that today I foolishly allowed myself to be sucked into wasting several hours on a new blog: Doyle Pitches.

The general premise of this blog is that it is a venue for unsolicited character and episode concepts for the Newfoundland PI drama Republic of Doyle.

As of right now I have roped Jeannette, Peter, and Neil into helping me come up with content for the site. Actually, I think some of it is pretty funny and some is close to plausible (at least in terms of actually being a Doyle episode).

Anyway, if you are interested it feel free to check it out (and/or subscribe to the RSS feed). Hopefully I will be able to keep myself under control tomorrow and not allow this site to completely sidetrack me.

A Few Quick Notes 501

-Today was definitely the coldest day of the year so far. At it coldest, the windchill brought the temperature down to -32, also know as frostbite territory. Aside from the temperature, the day was actually quite nice and calm.

-It seems that Jeannette and Rebecca both avoided these adverse weather conditions by not going outside at all.

-It seems that tragedy struck close to Dal today in the form of a fatal vehicle/pedestrian accident.

As I was walking home this afternoon I could tell something was up as the police had closed down Edward Street to traffic, a development that is not usually a good sign.

-We had chili, baked potatoes, and vegetables for dinner tonight. I really enjoyed the meal.

-Some of us thought that the contribution of Jaden Smith to the world was a sufficient a contribution to the contemporary American pop culture cohort for Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, apparently they didn't agree and have decided to also provide us with Willow Smith.



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-Back to work.

A Few Quick Notes 500

-We had another cold, clear winter's day today in Halifax. Fortunately, aside from a few quick trips outdoors, I was able spend most of my day out of the cold. It seems that we should be in for more of the same tomorrow.

-Jeannette and Rebecca (but mostly Jeannette) just talked me into baking some cupcake. Given my desire to procrastinate it didn't take long to talk me into the proposition. I am now waiting for them to cool before icing them. I must say, I am definitely looking forward to chomping down on one or two of these in just a few minutes (as this salad thing as meant that we basically haven't had dessert in a month).

-For dinner we had a roast chicken, baked potatoes, and boiled vegetables. I was pretty satisfied with the meal.

-The almost non-existent Canadian Library of Parliament website is a real bummer. I know they don't want to be bombarded with questions from the public, but it would at least be nice to be able to ask them questions about the documents and reports that they produce. It seems completely unreasonable that they don't even make readily available a contact email address or phone number (they give you only the general Parliament contact information).

-In preparation for my comps I have been trying out some ear plugs. I always find it funny how many different sounds I hear while sporting ear plugs. In many ways my jaw is almost as distracting as someone typing on the other side of the room.

-There seems to be some shouting going on somewhere behind our apartment building. Unfortunately it seems to be just far enough away that I can't quite make out what they are saying. That I can't figure it out is probably fine, it doesn't sound as though anything particularly nice is being said.

-So we now have 500 of these. In some ways I am surprised that there are this many and on the other hand I am a little surprised that it took me so many years to get to 500. It is also hard to believe that the blog has now existed in parts of at least 6 years. Who would have guessed that it would have such a long life-span when it was started all of those years ago? Also, who would have guessed that Neil would almost stop posting within a year or two?

A Few Quick Notes 499

-We had another cold, clear, and crisp day in Halifax today. In many ways this was a little surprising given how much precipitation we had yesterday.

-Earlier today I remembered that we are now just a few days away from our 3rd annual Montifax Blog-off. I think that I will have to re-jig the scoring system a little so that things will be skewed a little more to Neil's favour. At the moment I am even thinking of going back to the original 5 to 1 scoring system that we used in the first year. Anyway, check back in February for exciting blog-off action.

-We had another successful Ultimate game. Though we whittled down an 18 lead to only a 6 point lead, we did manage to hold on to the lead and win. It may be hard for us to bring our winning streak to 3 as we will be missing quite a number of players next week.

-I had another big salad for lunch today. As usual, I didn't waste any valuable salad space on leafy greens. Who wants leaf taking up space when they could just as easily have something with a little more substance in their bowl?

-I guess I should get back to work.

Clarity or confusion changing to confusion

The following is the current Environment Canada forecast for Halifax:

Snow or rain changing to rain and ending this evening then cloudy periods. 30 percent chance of flurries overnight. Rainfall amount 5 to 10 mm except snowfall amount 2 cm inland. Wind southeast 40 km/h gusting to 70 becoming southwest 20 then increasing to 40 gusting to 70 late this evening. Temperature rising to plus 5 this evening then falling.

Is it just me, or does this make next to no sense? I am inclined to think that the person in charge of writing these things isn't too concerned about providing the public with a comprehensible forecast.

At least the snow is gone

So it seems that most of what is coming down right now must be rain as there is much less snow on the ground than there was an hour or two ago. So much for our impending snowfall.

Things have taken a turn for the worse...

...I can't tell if it is raining or snowing. Unfortunately, much of the available evidence seems to be suggesting the former rather than the latter.

Halifax gets her snow on

It seems that while I was it the kitchen having some lunch it started to snow.



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Amazingly, almost as soon as I returned to work/my desk things calmed down. Of course, given the size of the storm system and the whiteness of the skies I don't expect that Halifax has seen the last of this snowfall. Actually, the satellite imagery seems to suggest that we have only seen the beginning of what this thing likely has to offer.



It should be a nice winter's evening.