The game's afoot... er, abike!

The city is running a bit of a temperature, poor thing. I am disappointed that yesterday we did not break the all-time record set in 1936, because that would have been the least we could do if we're going to insist on calling this heat wave Heatmageddon. Bright side: we set a record for highest minimum temperature. Yay, us!

I sat here not quite sweltering because I finally installed my air conditioner this week and I did not, alas, work on my Athens photos. Or organize my course notes. I'm not entirely sure how my day slipped away yesterday, but suddenly it was 3 pm and I hadn't done much. I know you are shocked.

Anyway, today I'm very excited because the Let's Go Ride a Bike Summer Games are on. I missed them last summer, due entirely to the fact that I didn't know about them. There are prizes! Frankly, there are only two or maybe three things I'd want to win, but the prizes are not the point. Well, they're a tiny bit of the point. As with the 30 days of biking challenge, it's more about getting me to use my bike more recreationally, because I'm mostly a transportation cyclist.

How it works: There is a list of 10 activities. You complete at least 4 of them and either blog about it or send them an email detailing your escapades. Much fun is had.

I'm happy to report that I will do most of the things on the list, some of them all together. For example, renting a bike on vacation + test riding new style of bike + visiting new part of town = Bixi to the Distillery, for example. And writing a letter to my councilor? Timely.

Speaking of test-riding a new bike: I came across these bikes propped against the light pole outside my apartment when I got home from the Jesse Cook/Pink Martini concert on Wednesday.

Can you believe it? Free! That red and white number was really cute. If I had the space to store it and the inclination to restore it, it would have been mine.

By the next morning, they were somebody else's.

Updated: At the Big on Bloor festival, I saw the red & white bike. With most of the rust removed, she's really, really cute! 

Ahoy!

I have renamed all my Greece photos, which took a lot longer than I expected, no doubt because I have lost the ability to use alt-codes for accents (the HP has no key pad and alt-codes don't work with an external key pad. I love it when upgrading results in a loss of functionality!) and I spent some time trying to Google a solution. I have commented on and posted the ones for the ferry trip.

Only a week behind schedule.

Minoan Lines cruise 2010

I think I'll wander out into the boiling-hot air and get my still-to-be-purchased Provence cupcake before I come back and do the Athens and Delphi photos. Aντίο!

In which PhysicsGirl is somewhat sidetracked

I have, finally, finished my Provence pictures and am now out of France and heading to Greece, skipping over Venice. Pictures-wise, that is. I had uploaded the bike-trip part of my Provence trip last... er... August, but ah, took a little time to finish the Avignon portion. However, they are finally done and here they are:

From Provence 2010

Somewhere in this city is a cupcake with my name on it.

I would have done these pictures last week, but I have been a little sidetracked by a new toy. I just got an HP TouchSmart laptop. The idea is that I will use it with a projector instead of writing on the blackboard. I will be able to save my lessons for a) posting to the web site and b) future reference (for when I have one of the lessons where everything goes so well I want to reproduce it, but later can't remember exactly what I wrote on the board). I even bought a pocket projector, so I don't have to fight for the use of one at school. I had to buy the laptop off e-bay, since HP has pretty much abandoned the tablet pc in favour of a pure tablet, and it arrived minus the stylus, so I'm waiting on that to be resolved. So far, I'm very pleased. Solitaire is a lot of fun using the touchscreen.

Ahem. Anyway. New toy. Slight sidetrack. But now I am using the new toy to work on my pictures, so two birds, one stone!

Greece next. I've promised myself baklava and "blood of the pigeon" tea from Arabesque when those are done. Καλησπέρα. Τα λέμε!

To-do (bee-doo-bee-doo)

I am a big fan of to-do lists. I love making them. I love scheduling my time and colour-coding my plans by category. I love making lists, almost to the exclusion of actually doing anything on the list.

I take procrastination to a whole other level.

I make my lists in two places: a white board (I have 6 different colours! meaning 6 whole categories! which aside from being fun, works well for me as a visual learner) and on the calendar on my Palm Zire, which also has colour coding. The white board is awesome because it lets me write long lists of things and then wipe them off if when I complete them. It lets me totally rearrange things when I inevitably don't get things done. I then put them into the calendar on the Zire so I can see whether there are actually enough hours in the day to do all those wonderful things.

Seriously, I can kill a couple of hours setting this up.

Big plans are afoot for this summer. I'm finally going to build the drawer for my kitchen table. I'm planning on making an awning for my deck so I can sit outside without burning my delicate flower-like skin. I'm even inching closer to finishing my Provence pictures, and getting a Dlish cupcake as a reward.

Ooh! I should add that to the list...

Edited to add: I should have linked to this xkcd strip. It's so very true.

I'm famous! Sort of. Not really.

It is so cool when a blog you read, that a lot of other people read, quotes something you wrote. Granted, I sent it in, so it's not like she came across something I wrote and thought it was awesome. Still.

It's about money. The blog is by Gail Vaz-Oxlade of 'Til Debt Do Us Part and Princess. You should check out the website if you want money information. It is packed with information and helpful spreadsheets and so forth. She has just finished running a series on the way we save, for which she had asked input. I sent in my tip, because at the time I came up with it, I thought I was a genius.

Here is the link. Last year it worked out a little differently because they didn't deduct EI until I started working again and I used the additional savings towards my Europe trip (where I bought most of my Christmas presents, so it worked out sort of the same). The CPP, though, did turn into some extremely pretty dresses from Doll Factory by Damzels in this Dress.

Autograph line forms to the left, please.

But, see, we still need pies to celebrate...

Happy Tau Day!

On Pi Day, a friend sent me a link to the Tau Manifesto. Now, the author does make many interesting and valid points, although as a professional pedant, I feel the need to point out that he is reaching with his argument for the area of the circle. There are good physical reasons for the structure of the formulas of kinetic and elastic energies (and btw his equation for the object in free fall is only valid for dropped objects, although that's beside the point). If the area of the circle were related to the energies, then he'd have a stronger argument, but what he's doing is just a mathematical exercise. So is his manipulation of Euler's equation; to bring back the fifth constant he writes 1 + 0, which is more than ugly. It's silly.

Also? His argument that a simple substitution means we wouldn't have to replace all the math textbooks confuses me a bit. If he means you can just reprint university textbooks and sell the new editions to the next batch, well, that happens all the time anyway. But it also means he has never had to buy textbooks for a public school board. Replacing entire sets of class texts? Yeah, right. Oh, let's not forget about all the calculators we'll need to replace, and the software programs (because I just checked, and tau() isn't a function in my spreadsheet software). Not economically viable. And it'd be even more pedagogically confusing to tell 13-year-olds "Hey, your textbook is wrong because of something that you might not even learn about for another five years. Trust me."

Look at me, ranting. Actually, I'm not even invested in this. Like I said, he makes many valid points; I'm just bothered by a few weak arguments. But really? I'm content to let the Great Mathematical Council battle it out. And I'm all for another day to celebrate math with food.

I'm more concerned with how we're supposed to celebrate Tau Day. There is no food that sounds like tau. In fact, there is no English word that sounds like tau, so even punning is out, except for some philosophical ones that don't really relate to math. But that isn't as worrisome as the food thing.

Some clever friends have suggested that what we need is tea. And two pies. Totally on board with that.

And so we, finally, bid farewell to the City of Lights...

My Paris pictures. Are. Done.

Yes.

Again, to my Facebook peeps, click on "View Original Post" below to come over to actually see the pictures. If you're reading this on the actual blog site, ignore the previous statement. Everyone click the title below the pics to see more than just the one. Or click on the link at right to see all the albums in their glory.

I took pictures of Luxembourg Gardens, the St-Martin Canal, the Eiffel Tower, back to the Jardin des Plantes, and Père-Lachaise cemetery. Twice.

From Paris 2010: Cityscapes and Walking Tours

I finally went inside Notre Dame for more than a few minutes.

From Paris 2010: Look Ma, Culture!

I also did a bike tour to Giverny.

Giverny 2010

I've also uploaded pictures into my daily life and oddities albums.

Paris 2010: La Vie en Rose

Paris 2010: Ça m'amuse beaucoup!

Wahoo! Only the rest of Provence, the Greek Cruise, Athens, Delphi, London, Oxford, Bath... Salisbury... QM2... NYC...

Suddenly? I feel a little tired.

But, she said, brightening, I have these to look forward to, as I promised myself two months ago:


I may have cheated a wee bit and bought them on Sunday in anticipation, since I only had a few dozen pictures left to go. I did take them to my brother and sister-in-law's, and I did hold back while they took first choice. But they might not have eaten all of them. And Aged P may have bought me a macaron recipe book. And I may have bought a few extra to come home to...

In knee news, the scab has fallen off, and I've got a rather angry red scar bisecting my kneecap. It's still quite sore, especially when I've been sitting for a while. Perhaps it will be back to normal just in time for summer's end.