Brock Research Celebration

This past Tuesday (Feb 25), Brock had its annual Research Celebration event. There were research posters from about 80 faculty and students, and also a ceremony honouring recent award winners. It took 18 months or more after the fact, but I got the official recognition of the renewal of my Canada Research Chair position. Of course, I'm already busy plotting what comes when this magic carpet rides ends in fall 2017.

As a bit of a lark, I decided to dress up for the event, breaking out the full Pablo Nero Omega Pharma - QuickStep fancy tie, hankie, and even cuff links. It was good camouflage, as nobody really recognized me. Or at least until I blew my cover by hanging around the food table too much!

As you see above, the scary thing is seeing my Both Sides face much larger than real life at the event. Couldn't resist taking a gag picture with myself.

Weather Forecasts on My Phone

EEL Snow Angels

The TV profile with CHCH in Hamilton

Yes it's Canada and yes it's January, but darned if it hasn't been a cold winter so far. And my cell phone seems to have a bug in it. Namely, whenever the temperature here in southern Ontario drops below -15oC or so, my phone rings like crazy with media requests! Even over the weekend, during our Syracuse road trip for the boys' gymnastics tournament, I ended up doing a phone interview at the hotel with a Northwestern University journalism student in Illinois about the effects of alcohol on cold tolerance. Apparently, if you google "faculty expert cold and alcohol" there I am!

They're all pretty fun to do, and the most recent one has been with CHCH TV in Hamilton, with my talking to their health reporter Maria Hayes about wind chill and manual function in the cold. We end up with my grad student Phil Wallace doing some snow angels.

Racing Overload!

Jamie's bar-cam with his boy Connor. Rare footage of me actually passing someone on a MTB!

I love the bike - end of story. While cyclocross has become my passion, I just love all types of riding. But it's racing that's the real spice that makes the whole love affair sizzle, and over the past weeks I dove back in hard-core into every type of bike racing around.
First up last Thursday was the Larkinville crit series in downtown Buffalo, probably my first criterium since 2001 Nationals! Next up was my return to road racing at the KW Classic in Kitchener Sunday, my first Ontario race since the KW in 2009. All fun and games until I dropped my chain at the base of the big hill about the same time that the torrential rain started!
Then this past Tuesday, did probably my hardest club race that I can remember. Flat course but we were just killing it all day (OK part of it was my fault for hammering and attacking). So hard that I woke up sore everywhere like I was a rugby tackle dummy. That was all just a prelude for my 3rd comeback of the week - this time mountain bike racing and the local Laura Secord series put on by Liberty! Bicycles. Awesome AWESOME fun all around!

Josh Tiessen - Shipwrecked Treasure

Saturday June 1, Zachary and I went to Stoney Creek for the Stoney Creek Artists Stroll event and also the Battle of Stoney Creek (200th anniversary) re-enactment. For the artist stroll, we went to visit Josh Tiessen at his studio. What a terrific artist and great young man - all of 17 and already making a great career for himself as a painter. He was also homeschooled and really appreciated the chance to have the ability to focus on his passion and talent for art - and what talent it is.
His paintings are really something, and he's had a piece exhibited at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa along with being mentored by renowned artist Robert Bateman. I bought a giclee print of his "Shipwrecked Treasure" for Debbie and I to celebrate our upcoming anniversary and to reflect our Nova Scotian heritage. Here's Zach with Josh and the original.

Food in Ottawa

When we were in Ottawa, we decided to go to zak's for dinner on our first night.

Me and Scott decided to split the Zac Attack Special (shown above) with a side of poutine.

And of course here is me trying to fit the burger in my mouth.

On the last day we decided to get Beaver tails before we left, and here is Jacob with his.

Jacob got half Nutella and half butter maple.

Here I am with mine!

Mine was half Scor and half oreo.

Singletrack Mind!

Had one of my dreams fulfilled this past week. Being the nutbar cyclist that I am, as a dad you can only dream of the day you get to share your passion for the bike with your kids. Last Monday, 4 of us dads on Team905 decided to take our kids out for a trail ride. While the boys and I have been on the bike lots together, from the early days of hauling them behind me on the trailer, this was our first real offroad adventure. Well, the boys were AWESOME! We went through the trails around Brock and, much to my pleasant surprise, the boys did great and loved it.


And especially so since I just set up Zach on his new "big" mountain bike and this was his very first time on it, and Jacob's very first time on Zach's bike! They cleaned most of the trails we threw at them with a big smile on their faces, and with an even bigger smile on my face! Here we all are at Decew House, where Laura Secord completed her famous trek during the War of 1812 to warn the British about American attack plans.

This past Saturday, I took them on some different trails around Brock for 90 min, including some really twisty and tight trails that I myself had only just discovered. Zachary even started hopping some logs and they both cleaned most of the trails except for the big log series, dips, and rock humps. So much fun! On the left is our start at Morningstar Mills, and on the right we're on the levy around the lake.

Community Building - BikeStyle

This past weekend has been all about the bike. Saturday May 25, my racing team Team905 hosted our first annual Kids Build-a-Bike event at our sponsor Inception Cyclery. Our team raised funds and organized the purchase, building, and donation of three new bikes to disadvantaged kids from three different St. Catharines schools. The three kids Sydni, Trevor, and Billy came with their family to Inception, where we had some media and made a presentation.

Sydni was chosen through an essay contest at her school. She didn't know she had won the bike and her parents suckered her into coming to the shop. So she was rather overcome when Jamie informed her why she was there! On the right Jon helps fit Trevor to his new helmet that we also got donated.

Brandon, our sponsor at Inception Cyclery, is a meticulous and very thorough mechanic, and my Kane TT bike, Thin Blue Line mountain bike, and BMC cross bike have all been fabulous since he's overhauled them. Jamie and Josh went to the shop Wednesday evening to build up the bikes, and the joke is that Brandon spent most of Thursday rebuilding them! I also gave a short bike skills clinic.

Sunday May 26, our St. Catharines Cycling Club member Jeff Poulsen helped organized the annual bike rodeo in Niagara-on-the-Lake, where we took over the arena and spent the afternoon fixing up the bikes belonging to some of the many migrant farm workers in the Niagara area. We drive/bike by these folks every day and rarely give a second thought to them, their lives in a foreign land trying to make and send money back to their families far away, or how our food gets to our tables. 

I brought along my stand and toolbox along with about 6-7 other guys, and spent the afternoon having fun as a bike mechanic. Did everything from changing tires and tubes, tightening up bottom brackets, adjusting brakes and gears, to replacing cables and truing wheels. Amazing how much you can accomplish with a couple of adjustable wrenches!

Gymnastics provincials

On Saturday the March the 8th we went to Windsor for our Gymnastics provincials. I got a third on rings, and there was a six way tie for sixth on vault that Jacob and I were in. We drove up to Windsor the day before because it was a 4 hour drive, and we stayed in the Howard Johnson Hotel. We also went to Grill 55 with the team for dinner, and got a team menu. The whole family got spaghetti/meatballs and the meatballs were massive. The competition went well, and was shorter than most other competitions.

aaagh!! don't shoot me!!!

Last saturday we went to one of our friend's (Jeb's) belated birthday party. and there we went paintballing for the first time, Zach got a couple bruises, but I didn't but it hurt a bit. there were 8 of us all together and we had the whole place to ourselves because it was cold and it was outdoor paintball. while we were there we did 6 rounds, and it was a lot of fun. 

1st Lego League

On Saturday we went to our First Lego league regional tournament, this was our first year of being a team, and we came first!! We had lots of fun, we had 4 robot matches and 3 judging sessions (Project, Robot design, and Core Values).  our robot started the day by being very crazy, but we figured it out by the 3rd round,in the third round we got 373 points, which put us in first place until we got bumped to 2nd. we had lots of fun, after all of the real matches were played, there was a little playoff which was just for fun we got to the finals and then lost to the team that beat us in the robot game. There were 15 teams at the competition, and every team got a medal. Since we came first we got the big gold trophy. We were one of five teams to qualify for provincials from this region; the five teams are The Lego da Vincis (us), The Fatima Falcons (the winners of the robot game), St. Alexander Senior Sleuths (also from Fonthill), St. Anns istallions (also from Pelham), and St. Philomena Bulldogs.

This is me doing the skit, with Connor beside me. I was playing the part of Dr. Adkin from Brock University.  I am in the big flat screen TV!! (which was made out of cardboard)

We all wore Christmas hats, and here is Jacob wearing his cute little elf hat.

Here is me, and Scott, doing the robot game, you can see part of the table in front of us. The rest of the team is where you would be standing in this picture to cheer us on.

Here we are at the Core Values judging session, There was one person who was behind a board, who had something built out of Lego, and the rest of the team was at the table, with one person building what the person who was behind the board said, and the rest were handing the "builder" pieces.

Here is me wearing a Santa Claus hat with my Flamingo sunglasses.

We came second in the robot game, so here we are at the playoffs which were just for fun.

Here is a picture of us at the robot judging session.

Here are me and Scott making some modifications to our programs.

This picture is of me and Jacob looking at the scoreboard.

On the left is Scott with the trophy, and on the right was me, The trophy was very breakable, because it wasn't glued together. 

On the left here is a picture of all 3 teams from Pelham, on the left is St. Alexander, in the middle is us and on  the right is the team from St. Anns. In the picture on the right is our team with the trophies.

Here is a picture of our 2 trophies.

This is at our after competition party.

here is a picture of our debriefing meeting.

Extreme Tree Trimming

Last saturday we went to our freinds treee triming party and there was a lot of food. there was rice krispy squares, maple bacon chips, salt and vinager chips, alphabet pretzels and cookies.
my favorite part was putting the lights on the outside oak tree because me Zach and our friend got to climb up and Zach was about 5 meters above the ground. there was also  fizzy lemonade and apple cider.

The Way Up High Gang!

More Robo Madness

Here are some more videos of our lego Mindstorm Robot doing the FLL Seniors Solutions missions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MId-yuS72A&feature=plcpthis mission does similarity, planting, dog push and chair return.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbszsk9_Rz8this one does blue quilts and chair grab

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gmUW-bpH4kthis one does orange quilts and retrieves the dog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOOMNcAaBBA this one does 5 things, it does cardio flexibility, bowling, weightlifting and stove.

Movember Freak Show!

By the time this is posted, hopefully the horror that is Movember will be over for another year! I went with not shaving the whole 2+ weeks in Japan to have something to play with, and decided to go with big long Wiggins sideburns and also the chin beard to give something horrible to look at from each angle! There's a LOT more grey than 3 years ago! Who knows, I'm getting a bit fond of the sideburns...

Soldering Fumes

On November the 20/21, we went to daddy's lab, and helped Geoff do some soldering, and other things to help fix the equipment. First we soldering some wires together to make some cables, Then we put together a box used for the metabolic cart, which measures how much work we do. we also put together another box with all of the wires in it, but I don't know what it was for.

when you solder, you are pretty much gluing the 2 pieces of metal together, by melting the solder,(which melts very easily) and when it cools, it hardens and sticks the 2 pieces of metal together firmly. There is also a little gun for sucking up the extra solder, when you get too much, Geoff says the problem most people have is that they put too much solder on.

lost in space

On Tuesday we went to Brock University with our dad, and listened to his class. The lesson was all about microgravity. Microgravity is the lack of gravity in space. Dad was talking about how in microgravity, you grow a little, because the disks in you vertebrae expand, and your muscles are not being pulled down by gravity. It is the same when you are lying down in bed, gravity is not pushing down on your head and shoulders, so the disks in your vertebrae can expand, and your muscles are not pulled down. but during the day, because you are standing up, the disks are flattened again, and your muscles are pulled down.

Also in space all of your muscles grow weaker because you do not need to use them to stand, and to move around you only need a small pull or push with your arms or legs to get you moving. To study this scientists do bed rest studies, where subjects have to just stay in bed for long periods of time, like 6 weeks. In space your bones get weaker, also you heart, and pretty much all of your muscles get weaker from you not having to use them.

Some things astronauts use to stay strong are treadmills and stationary bikes, and they also use bungee cords, which they attach to part of the  shuttle. The treadmills and bikes, have to 1. be very light, because every kilogram of weight is very expensive to send up to space, and 2. be as simple as possible, since motors might interfere with the motors and navigation of the shuttle. The treadmills are more just a slippery surface, and the astronauts just slide on it in the socks, they also are attached to it by bungee cords, so they do not fly away. The bikes are similar with a very simple design that works and you are just attached to it by some bungee cords.

FLL practice tournament

Last Saturday, we went to a practice tournament for our First Lego League team, which was in Hamilton. There were 3 teams, us the Lego da Vincis, Garf 12, and the BCA bots. There were also 3 trophies, so every team got one, (we got the teamwork one.) we have a video on YouTube, and we are also on Facebook. Check out the youtube video here!!. We had a great time, and the judges made some good suggestions.

The team consists of Me, Scott, Jacob, Jeb, Connor, Natasha, Alexander, Rowena, Emily, and Tim. we meet every monday, and every friday in the afternoons.

L'eggo My Lego

First Lego League Open Finals 2012 were held in Mannheim, Germany and there were 70 teams representing almost 30 countries. The teams had all qualified in their own countries at regional, provincial and national competitions. The competition was held in the Rosengarten conference centre which has a beautiful facade and is across from a welcoming park with a big water tower called "der Wasserturm."

Der Wasserturm on de left, Shaun the Sheep slipper on de right.

The Robo-Raptors Team from Ontario

Each team was judged in a number of areas divided into core values, research project, robot design and programming and robotic games. The robotic games were the only part where spectators could watch and cheer for all the teams but each team also had a booth where you could meet them and ask them questions and they usually had some sort of game or give away  prepared. At one of the Swiss tables you used a Lego gun to shoot an apple from the hat of William Tell to receive a Swiss chocolate. The Slovenian Rooster team had handmade pottery medallions that they had made themselves. The team from Iceland had collected beach rocks and painted them with the flag and Viking symbols.   They also had posters and handouts showing their research and information about their country.

One of the Dutch team Lego and a group of Dutch coaches

The research topic this year was about Food Safety and it was amazing to see the ingenuity and the amount of work that went into these projects. The projects varied from better shipment of apples to protect them to filtering shell fish bits out of saltwater, making contaminated corn safe to eat by adding 2 certain spices, testing milk for evidence of mastitis, determining if an isolated town could survive on its own if it didn't have any imported products.  It was also interesting to see how different teams attacked the problem of how to build the robot, some were small and compact and others were big massive structures.

There were 2 teams from Canada. The Robo Raptors are a team from Stoney Creek with 4 members at the competition and 3 more still in Canada. Their project involved designing an automatic hand washing station to improve sanitation in restaurants.  They won a second place trophy for their robot programming for using a unique way of calibrating light sensors. The other Canadian team was from a school in Mississauga and they also won a trophy for their research project. They had looked at using UV light to sterilize equipment used with food. At first they had difficulty because the experts would talk to them because they were  "too young," but they persisted and came up with an excellent project.

It was obvious that everyone was having a lot of fun there. I think the coaches were having as much fun as the kids, although some of them were a little stressed.  There were about an equal number of girls and boys and there were at least 3 all girls teams that I spoke to. Most of the teams were experienced having been together for several years but I met the Australian team of 3 girls ages (9,9 and 11) and it was their first year as a team and they made it all the way to this level. The most fun loving team seemed to be the Terminators from Ireland.  The award for the most indomitable spirit goes to one team from Israel who had a fire in their hotel the first night and lost everything - robot, passports, clothes. They showed real spirit and courage by continuing to compete in every category they could and greeting everyone with a smile and a taste of Baklava.

As a spectator, there was lots to see and do and everyone was friendly and willing to discuss their project. The kids have gone to so much work to get to this competition, it is obvious that they have learned many things besides just Lego and robotics.