BeerFest and my unit is too hot over the summer

Well it's been three days since I went to BeerFest, and I've just sufficiently shaken off my hangover enough to start writing on this again.

It was really a great time! Good lot of beers there. Although I did make a list of beers that I was interested to try, a lot of them were either out of stock, or the crowds around the brewing booths were just too ungodly dense to wait it out. 

It didn't help that I left my super-organized list at home by accident and had to rely on a crappy bit of scrap paper with some beer names haphazardly scrawled thereon before rushing to the Fest after work. 

Some beers that I found pretty notable --for better or worse-- were: 

- Pretty much every stout for their thick, easy drinking quality; 

- A new type of beer called a "Sour Beer" which tastes exactly how you'd think it would;

- "Princess Wears Girl Pants" at first for the funny name, but it ended up tasting swell;

- Pump House Blueberry ale was great! Last year I found the blueberry taste was way to sharp, but this year it was balanced out quite a bit better.

Fast-forward to Monday: I drug myself out of bed after a particularly slow night shift and powered out a good 7k run from the North End to the Rotary and back. It was delightful. 

Speaking of work, I might not have put much thought into my schedule for the next six weeks as I'm doing a bunch of on-off-on-on-off-off patterns repeatedly--other nurses will likely get that. It might burn me out a little bit, but the timing couldn't be better as our summer slowdown is still in effect (we close a pretty high proportion of our beds because the heat in the summer coupled with the lack of air-con on our unit makes recovery as a patient pretty miserable, and working there becomes a physical strain --literally). Nevertheless, this schedule pattern might actually allow me to squeeze in bit more cycling over the next couple weeks. So we'll see how things go. 

Back in the saddle

It's been a remarkably long time since I've last hit this blog. I've probably forgotten and remembered and subsequently forgotten it again several times in the past... two years? Holy shit... it really has been that long since the last post, eh?

I'm not sure anyone really cares though. A whopping three official followers, and I'm sure two of them don't exist anymore. Knowing the third in real life, I recently learned I had slighted her by ignoring her for about a year or so. Overall, I don't think many people are miffed or clamouring to their internets at the end of the day to see if this blog has updated lately. 

You

In any case, not too much has happened on this end for the past couple years. Work has continued to dominate my life, imbued with the typical healthcare lifestyle stresses --poor sleep patterns, not much time for proper exercise, no time to go on dates or meet anyone in any inkling of a romantic fashion, etc. I've been taxed by the absolutely abysmal management behaviours of the 'leaders' of our healthcare system --write-ups, suspensions, absolutely zero official recognition for the multiple patients and family that seek me out upon their discharge to share how much my effort meant to them. This is sadly an experience many nurses worldwide face on a pretty consistent basis, leading me to give you the following instructions if you're ever encouraged, inspired, or generally impressed by the effort of anyone in the healthcare system:

It's not enough to tell them that they are doing a great job. Tell unit managers, service directors, VPs or CEOs!

Seriously. The person you are most impressed with is probably being reamed by management because they fight for improvements in their workplace, identify safety issues on their unit, or try to initiate change in the healthcare system as a whole. There's an unfortunate saying shared in the realm of nursing: the nail that sticks out in gets hammered down.

But I digress...

*   *   *

In this same timeframe, I gained about 40-50 lbs. over two years. It wasn't a good scene. I lost touch with the saddle (cycling) in anything other than a commuting capacity. I didn't realize how much divorcing myself away from the bike reduced my horizons. After turning 30 this year and receiving a great blog about hitting your 30s from my good friend Jabes, I realized I needed a bit of a re-adjustment. I would totally suggest the blog to anyone entering their dirty-30s!

In March I started running again with some help from the always stellar Zombies, Run! app. In April I had enough saved up to buy a brand new Giant Defy 2 in order to get back on the saddle and re-discover what I'd been missing from riding over the past two years. 

Ain't she a Beaut!!

It's been wonderful: feeling the power slowly returning to the legs, the wind whipping against my face when blasting down a curving stretch of road on my way out to Sambro, or feeling the accomplishment of climbing one of the tougher hills during the Cow Bay Loop. The crush of traffic at your heels. Even points of exhaustion have been enjoyable. Feeling the strain in my quads, the sweat sticking to my back, sun pounding and stinging any exposed skin. Thinking I'm totally spent, but reaching down and finding some modicum of energy to climb off the saddle to power out the last section of rolling hills after a 50 km ride. 

Halifax itself has improved slightly in the world of cycling. We have at least one bike lane that makes a degree of sense which runs down Windsor St. (you're welcome). Drivers are getting more experienced in sharing the roads with cyclists and the NS Motor Vehicle Act now requires a metre of space between cars and bikes. Of course the rule is broken constantly, but at least there is more of just a shrug from police and a "get over it" mentality when accidents happen. Personally however, I don't really mind being close-cut by traffic. I think that comfort comes to almost everyone on a bike in time. Also, I've never been in an accident. That may also have something to do with it. 

In any case, I'll leave you with some photos as this entry is getting a little long. Hope to see more of yous out there!

Duathlon, Bikes are Cool, Nice House

I went and did another race this weekend. It was pretty alright --a duathlon in Riverport (about an hour or so away). Lots of crazy expensive and good looking bikes. Even though I find my own bike quite fetching, there were some very cute other bikes there. At the end of the day, I wished I had a good $10 000 to drop on a sexy carbon fiber bicycle. Something fast and firm!

If you would like more double-entendres, please leave a comment.

The above pictured bike is my OCR3. The OCR line was meant to be an entry level competitive road bike, which has since been discontinued, and revamped into the new line: Defy. It's kind of like the Toyota Tercel transforming into the Toyota Corolla. The 3 (inversely) indicates the degree of performance you will get out of the bike. The OCR2 for example has lighter wheels and some more carbon fiber than the OCR3, making it a little stiffer as well (stiffness = more power transfered directly to the drivetrain). My bike makes me sad however. I don't really think of it as a "he" or "she" as some people tend to see their own bikes. I have not named it either. I sometimes think "What if my bike does have a personality that it wants to have expressed." If this is true, it must be depressed.

On another note, I met an old friend for supper in Bridgewater the night before the race. We used to go to classes at Dal together, and he's just gotten back from a big trip up north. Upon telling him that I was planning on roughing it in my car by the start/finish line, he urged me to stay at his brothers place for the night. My biggest props go out to you big guy! What a dynamite house!

Well that's it from me. Stay real everyone! I mean it... if anyone wakes up as a mannequin tomorrow, I will flip the fuck out.

New Race and an Hour at Point Pleasant Park

So I haven't mentioned this, but I do some racing in my spare time. As much as I'd like to say I've done a bike race (other than an AlleyCat), it's hard to find any road races that are going on at any particular point in the year. I looked into it a couple weeks ago, and essentially, I've missed the road racing season. Drag.

But I've chosen my next race: the Harvest Marathon in Wolfville NS. I'll just be doing the half (21 km). I was on the fence about whether or not I'd start training for it this week or next. Luckily, some friends got me out of the house and we went over to Point Pleasant Park for a fun run.

PPP is a pretty nice little spot to get away from city streets, and get some fresh air. The jog itself however was a little slow. Only did about 4km, and the effort put into the run was probably a 3/10. Not a bad place to start I don't think though.

One feature of PPP is BlackRock Beach. If you value your life, do not swim at BlackRock Beach.

Unfortunately, the Halifax Harbor is world renown for it's unsanitary condition. This means the beach isn't open at any point. Halifax tried to address this issue last summer by making a sewage treatment plan. Things looked pretty good for a while. The beach opened for a couple weeks, and even the mayor jumped in for a swim. Later that night, it rained big-time. The storm-drains --all of which only empty in the Halifax Harbor through the new plant-- overloaded the sewage plant and the next day, after a week of being open, BlackRock was closed again. It hasn't opened since, as the plant is still fried from last year.

Now if I ran a site like www.fail.com, and gave out awards for ultimate failures for 2008, this one would definitely be in my top 5. I guess the plant itself consists of 3 or 4 big vats, none of which have lids. Also all the storm drains, which by my rationale should just empty in the harbor, in reality all connect to the plant. So I guess the boneheads that built the plant thought 3 or 4 large vats would serve over 200 000 people plus be able to absorb all the run-off from storm drains. The real footnote here is that it rains here every 3 or 4 days. So yeah. Only one word...

FAIL.