A conversation this morning…

Aidan (bringing a book to me): Fire engine!

Me: Yes, Aidan, that’s a fire engine! But Daddy has to make his lunch and go to work.

Aidan (more insistent with the book): Fire engine!

Me: I’m sorry Aidan, but I have to go to work.

Aidan (looking me straight in the eye): That’s crazy.

Me: …

Friday was my birthday, rounding out our 3 week stretch of birthdays. For my birthday, Gwen got me a GPS receiver: a fancy Garmin eTrex Vista CX. We intend to use it to do geocaching and for hikes. But that’s not what I want to talk about. On Friday night, Gwen took me to see “Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad” at the Arts Club Theatre. Tammy came over to babysit for us, and brought her two cats Keji and Jack — she and The Brit are going to Mexico for a week and we agreed to look after them again. At any rate, Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad is a two-actor play starring Cailin Stadnyk and Jackson Davies (you know, Constable Constable from The Beachcombers). It was written by a Caper, Michael Melski. It’s billed as a romantic comedy.

So, the play starts with a completely unrecognizable Jackson Davies (see pic from the play, below). Mind you, he looks 30 years younger. His character, “Teddy”, is a divorced custodian with a young son playing hockey in house league. In Trail, B.C. (apparently a departure from the original). Cailin Stadnyk’s character, “Donna”, is a divorced school teacher also with a young son playing hockey in the house league, on the same team (“The Leafs”). Teddy is one of those over-bearing, over-competitive, loud-mouthed hockey dads. Donna is a meek mother who’s never been to a kid’s hockey game. Right from the start, Teddy pursues Donna, and over the next 90 minutes (yes, it’s a short play) we find out more about Donna, but not that much about Teddy. As it turns out, Donna came from an abusive relationship.

Once we find that out, the play gets uncomfortable. Frankly, Teddy comes across as the same sort of abusive personality as her ex-husband. At one point, he incites the kids not to shake hands at the end of a game and instead to start a fight. Donna is predictably aghast at this urging to use violence.

Eventually, the two feed off each other. As the play wraps up, Teddy becomes a little less extreme and Donna become a little less meek, and they live happily every after.

The acting was great: both actors were quite convincing in their roles. The writing, however, was weak. Not awful, but we’ve definitely seen better plays. If you’re considering seeing it, consider giving it a pass. We had fun, though.

Today, I rode the Pacific Populaire.

“What’s the Pacific Populaire?” you ask? Well, according to the site:

What is the Pacific Populaire Bike Ride?

Greater Vancouver’s first major public ride of the cycling season is the Pacific Populaire. Since its incepption in 1986 the focus of this event has been to encourage participation by all cyclists regardless of fitness level, cycling experience, or age. For some, the ride is a challenge to turn in a fast time, a personal best, or to complete a greater distance than in a previous year. Others will be out for a relaxed spring ride, fresh air, and exercise.

So, I rode the Pacific Populaire for a relaxed spring ride, fresh air, and exercise. 105 km worth of spring air.

And, oh, Tammy rode with me. Unfortunately, it was Tammy’s first ride of the season. Play big or stay home, eh? She did amazingly well. The last 20 km were somewhat tough, what being mostly uphill, but she made it without any walking of the bike (a personal goal of hers).

The route wound its way from Nat Bailey stadium across town to Jericho Beach (@10 km), up around the university (@15 km), down to the airport (@30 km), through Richmond to Steveston (@40 km), along the dike for a bit (@50 km), up to the Westminster Highway (bollards!) and out to New West (@60 km), back along the north arm of the Fraser to the airport (@80 km), back along SW Marine Drive to the University (@90 km) and (whew!) back across town to the Nat (@103 km). We had a few “potty” detours, so our total was actually a little over 105 km.

The route info (if you’re really *that* interested) is here:

It was an unusual spring day in Vancouver, cool, grey, but dry. Apparently upwards of 400 of us left the Nat and took over King Ed for most of the way towards Macdonald. Of course, we pretty much hit every. single. stop light. along the way. The trip up the hill from the beach was pretty uneventful, but that’s where we started losing the pack of cyclists. By the time we hit the Arthur Liang, the road was a little wet but the upshot was that while the main pack of riders may have been rained on, by cleverly holding back we avoided the presumed deluge. The sun came out on the ride down towards Steveston, and the ride along the South Dike was just great. We had a stop-over at the half-way point (with absolutely di-vine date squares) and then rode up to the Westminster Highway and had a rather boring ride to New West. After turning the corner and coming back west along the river, we were confronted with a bit of a headwind and light showers. Combined with the dreary scenery (lots of discarded machinery and log-booms) it was a reasonably miserably segment. The beginning of muscle fatigue didn’t help. The sun came out and the rest of the ride was pretty nice, slow and determined, but nice.

So, that was that!

Did I mention that I did it all on about 5 hours of sleep the night before? Thanks Aidan!

Another quick note. The following email addresses no longer work: anthony@composites.ubc.ca, floyd@composites.ubc.ca, anthony.floyd@composites.ubc.ca, etc. For personal email, please use anthonyfloyd -at- gmail -dot- com. I’ve spelled things out to avoid getting even more spam, if that’s possible.