March Photo a Day

March is over, and I've completed Fat Mum Slim's March Photo a Day challenge. You can see the slide show below.


(If you wait long enough, you'll see the previous month's photos.)

I'm quite enjoying the challenge, because it's making me less shy about taking out my camera to capture something interesting, and I like trying to be creative about the prompts.

The April list is here, if you want to play along.

In other news, I'm in marking hell again. Which naturally means I got sick again. Joy. I managed to allow myself to get talked into going to the Mythbusters' live show on Thursday and I'm so very very glad I did. It was full of the awesome.

Also, 30 days of biking begins tomorrow. As before, my pledge is to get on my bike on non-work days and to try to fit in one long bike ride per week. By some coincidence, the first Cupcake Ride of the year is next Saturday. That will do nicely!

Tour du macaron

Every macaron must have its day, and this past Tuesday was it. The Jour du Macaron is the second happiest day of the year.^* In France for the past seven years, March 20 has been the day when the patisseries give away free macarons and donate part of their profits to charity. Other cities like London and New York have since gotten involved, but Toronto's only participant has been Nadège.

Until now.

My darling cousin, who used to work for Payard in New York and was the one who told me about Macaron Day last year, contacted Michel Firanski of La Bamboche about doing something this year. And they did! Participants gave away a free macaron, and 25% of the profits of the rest went to the Red Door Family Shelter. Since I am queen of overkill, I decided to do a whole tour. The plan: visit 9 patisseries by bike, buy 3 macarons from each in addition to the free one, die happy.

The result was mostly successful. It was a gorgeous day for riding a bike. Some bakeries had a special macaron they gave away for free, and some let you pick whichever flavour you wanted. Two of the bakeries were sold out of macarons (or, at least, sold out of the ones I wanted) and one was confusingly closed. And I nearly died of fright at one point. But in the end...

Let's just say that my prep periods this week have been delightfully tasty, as have my after-school snacks.

The route was mostly a loop up Yonge to Manor, over to Bayview, through Mount Pleasant cemetery, back to Yonge, to Yorkville, and then home.

Fair warning: I am not a food reviewer, nor am I particularly expert on macarons. I just love them to death. I tried to choose unusual (to me) flavours, or at least ones I don't usually get. As far as I can tell, all the macarons were nice and fresh and therefore the texture was great. They all tasted terrifc. Even the smushed ones.

In which PhysicsGirl gets all girly on you: Utilitaire-12 #13 & 14

Utilitaire-12 Tasks 13 & 14^*: Bike to get a hair cut & a store other than a grocery store = Hair cut (finally), Dolce gelato, & Fluevog shoes

This is a girly post. Hair, gelato, and shoes. You have been warned.

I was really putting off finishing those NY pictures. I'm sure a psychologist would give you a really good reason for that. At any rate, I felt I needed an extra push, so I made an appointment to get my hair done yesterday. Even so, I put them off until the last minute. However. They are done. And so now, finally, is my hair.

New York, New York, a wonderful town!

The pictures of my Europe trip are DONE! Over 7000 photos have been whittled down to about 4100. Phew!

I finally finished my New York photos. Again, there aren't as many as, say, London, because since it was my third trip there I'd already done the main tourist attractions. I also didn't do quite as much as I planned; after being sea-sick and then getting used to it, I found myself land-sick and dizzy. I often didn't leave the hotel until 11 each day.

However, there are quite enough for you to admire.

New York, June 2010

And here are my pictures from the fall trip:

NYC October 2009

You can click here to see all my Fabulous European Adventure trip albums.

This is all very exciting. Only a few months shy of two years after the original deadline I set myself. I promised myself that I wouldn't get my hair done until I'd finished all the photos. I've needed a haircut since July.

Now to catch up on the blog posts. I'm aiming for at least one a week. We'll see how that goes.

Heh. Hee hee hee. *Giggle* *snort*

To celebrate Pi Day...

I've already used up all my pi jokes. Someone posted this on G+ in February, but I thought I would share it with you today.

Kitchen Backsplash Counts Out 159 Digits of Pi

Happy Pi Day!

(Added joy: Cake Wrecks got into the spirit of the day. Naturally.)

What does Google know, anyway: Utilitaire-12 #12

Utilitaire-12 task #12: Bike to work... again (via College)

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Google thinks it's faster for me to go along College/Carlton to Jarvis. Filming the commute was the best way for me to time it, or at least I choose to believe that I want the precision I can get from looking at the video as opposed to a stopwatch that I'd probably forget to turn off anyway, even though it's really that I want the fun of editing the movies.

I re-filmed the Harbord St. trip on Tuesday to include the Queen's Park leg and get a true sense of the timing. I admit to some shenanigans with the College video: I filmed it on Wednesday, but it wasn't until I reached Clinton St. that I noticed that I hadn't manged to actually start the camera. Oops. I was going to redo it Thursday, but it was raining. Friday I was running late and couldn't take the time to set up the camera^*. I did follow the College route those days to confirm my results, though. I refilmed it this morning on my way to buy tulips^**. Saturday morning on College is not exactly the same as a weekday morning, but it's good enough for my purposes. Except that I mucked it up again. I'll redo it... next week, perhaps^***.

I've trimmed the video to start where the two routes diverge at Ossington and sped it up 8x.

Result?

It's a good thing she's cute: Utilitaire-12 #11

Utilitaire-12 task #11: Bike to any store that is not a grocery store = Pet Valu

The weather has been its usual weird March self. We had an extreme cold alert on Monday, then by today the temperature had gone up 20 degrees to 16! People were out on patios. Tomorrow it will go back down to "normal" March temperatures, with the possibility of snow on Friday. But today was glorious -- I got to cycle in a light jacket and a pair of shoes. Shoes, not boots! So freeing for the feet.

The wind was completely unnecessary. I'm tired of the wind. Literally.

I had to get all manner of cat food and litter, so I took myself to the local Pet Valu after work. The sun had set by the time I left, and there were more ninja cyclists out due to the warmth. I passed a guy decked out in reflectors from head to toe, but no lights. Nice try, but no cigar. Guess what, dude? I still couldn't see you because reflectors are designed to shine light straight back (e.g. headlights), and ambient street light won't cut it. Become a luminous object!

I was extremely surprised to see how much the cat food cost; I am certain the price jumped by $10 for the bag of kibble, but the cashiers seemed to think it was the same price as always. I'm going to have to check it against past receipts. So expensive, this eating habit my kitty has.

Fortunately the wind was at my back on the way home. Hauling bags of cat litter and food is the main reason I had the wide front basket installed on the Opus. The heavy front load does make the steering a little unwieldy at first, but I always get used to it. Besides, it frees up the back rack for things like big bags of potting soil, as in this picture from last summer:

Total mileage: From my apartment to Dufferin & Dupont and back = 4.6 km/2.8 miles

It's the square root of Christmas!

And thus begins Nerdigras, the 10-day period before Pi day. Break out the compass and protractor!

No, really.

Have tea, can now travel: Utilitaire-12 #10

Utilitaire task #10: Bike to a bike shop = Curbside Cycle

I was going to wait until March Break to visit MEC for this task, but Curbside was having a sale this week. Naturally I decided to wait until the last possible minute to go. The goal: a cup holder. I want my tea on the way to work.

Goal achieved. It turns out the mug holder comes with a travel mug, which is convenient. I do have another travel mug, but it's always good to have two. I also picked up a Basil Baboushka bag that I in my ignorance call a pannier but is apparently a "postman bag." At any rate it only cost me $20 and it's perfect for carting lab books.^*

It was a dangerous place to be: they had Yakkay helmets on sale for $65. Want. I had to keep repeating "It's not in the budget, it's not in the budget." So. Very. Tempting.

On my way home, I came along Dewson, which is part of my usual commute home from work. The city spent a good part of last year tearing up and replacing half the street. And when I mean half, I mean they split the road down the middle, repaired one side of the street, then switched halfway down the block and repaired the other half of the street, leaving the rest it all its potholed, cracked glory. Except for that weird half-metre strip they put in which feels like it should be smooth but is bumpier than the cracked gutter. That doesn't seem at all like a waste of taxpayer's money. No gravy there, no sirree.

There are two weeks left in the challenge, and I only have two more tasks to complete. I'm going for 14, baby.

Total mileage: From my apartment to Bloor & Markham and back = 6.0 km/3.8 miles.

^*The tags on the bag describe it as "hip." Since this style came out in 2010 and doesn't seem to be available anymore, clearly I am at the cutting edge of bicycle fashion.

February Photo-A-Day

As a brief respite from the series of biking posts:

I stumbled across Fat Mum Slim's photo-a-day challenge too late in February to properly take a photo a day. I like the idea, though, so I played a bit of catch up. I take quite a lot of photos with my little Fuji FinePixSX300 (now, videos with sound) and I had some that suited a few prompts. The rest are photore-creations.

Today the March challenges kicks off, so I will try to be diligent and follow the challenge properly. Check back at the end of the month if you want to see how I've done.