The weather is warming up and as part of my enjoyment of it and in recognition that the climate here is so very accommodating to outdoor exercise, I've been spending more time on my bike. I ride to work almost every day now and so, it seemed only logical that I participate in the monthly Critical Mass ride yesterday.

For the uninitiated, here's the nuts and bolts of it: a bunch of cyclists from all over the city (and by "bunch" in this case, I mean roughly 500) gather in front of the Art Gallery, explain the rules and then, under banner "We're not blocking traffic, we are traffic!", we go for a ride. The route is typically down major arteries, the ones we as cyclists are usually terrified to use due to the scads of car traffic. Volunteers from the group stop at intersections to block traffic from entering the stream (we call them "corkers") and the rest of the group move through the city like on big bus. We ignore stop lights because for safety, we have to stay as a unit -- hence the corkers.

It was a most amazing experience really. Imagine a city with no noise. The vast majority of agitation within a city rests with cars. Remove that component and suddenly, all seems quiet. You can hear the birds for a change. For a moment, I was taken back to Amsterdam: so peaceful... but with mountains, beaches and the ocean nearby.

We went over three of the four major arteries in and out of the city: the Granville Bridge, Burrard Bridge and the Second Narrows. In each case, we stopped at the peak and paused a moment to take in the view. It doesn't take much to remind me why I live here, but damn... that was awesome.

We cruised through Stanley Park, down Davie, Denman, Pacific, Robson, Granvile, Howe, Georgia... you name it, we were on it. A most wonderful ride.

For the Toronto folk, I thought that I might mention that there were two key differences here that made this ride considerably more successful than the one I went on out East:

1. The rules were explained before we left. In the Toronto case, there was no structure at all. Some people stopped at lights while others blocked traffic "for fun". It was chaotic and not much fun.
2. Vancouver had a police escort. There were numerous cycle cops with us on the ride to smooth over tensions with pissy drivers (seriously, you can't wait 10minutes? Get over yourselves!) and keep everyone safe. On top of that, some motorcycle cops were bringing up the rear just to make sure that the stragglers didn't get run over by afore-mentioned drivers. Having that kind of support from the community goes a long way.

So yeah. Lots of fun. You should try it. If you drive, maybe try getting out of your car for a bit, maybe even to join the CM. You never know, you might just like the quiet.

I just had a dream about Dave and thought it a good idea to keep it here:

I was walking down a Vancouver street at night carrying a few rolls of network cable when a guy passed me and mumbled something about how I didn't recognise him. I turned around just as he said it and was met with an older, more mature version of David Alexander, my former best friend from way back.

Dave was "eaten by the church" when we were 17 and we lost (or cut?) contact not long after that. From my end, I felt as though the Dave I knew had gone away and been replaced by a bible on legs. He made new (good Christian) friends and started ignoring the rest of us. It would seem that his inner circle of Atheists and Pagans were no longer welcome in his life, and so we obliged him by ignoring him right back.

Getting back to the dream, I apologised for not recognising him and he explained that he'd lost some of his network cable, to which I offered to take him back to my place so we could go through my collection and I could give him what he needed.

Back at my apartment, while I sifted through my various cables, offering one length and colour after another, a group of people playing poker back by the kitchen spoke up and asked if it'd be alright if they asked us some questions 'cause they were in need of smart people. I laughed a little and replied, "Sure, don't you know who this is? This is my old friend Dave, he's really sma--".

I couldn't finish the sentence. I was suddenly reminded of how the well-thought, sceptical friend I knew had died and been replaced by this new Christian form. These people were interested in knowledge and what could he offer now? Would he consult that book of his for the "answers"? Would he promote Intelligent Design and talk about how dinosaurs co-existed with humans 6000years ago? Or would we be treated to a lecture on how homosexuality is a choice and how the great flood carved out the Grand Canyon?

I turned to him then, looked him square in the eye and said: "I'm sorry, but I don't think that I can be friends with non-thinking people."

And with that, I woke up. I woke without a feeling of loss or pity. I think I finally said goodbye to my old friend.

I'm back online! Yay for me! It's also really late though and I have to go to work early tomorrow (the hours were changed out from under me) so I really can't write much so here's the gist:

I went to Toronto and had a lovely time. It's funny the kind of perspective one gets on their home town by living elsewhere. Ask me about it sometime... I promise a healthy rant. It was wonderful to see everyone again too, and not surprisingly, staying with Melanie was um... interesting. I reconnected with almost everyone and got to play tourist in my former home. I even went up the CN Tower (yay!).

Pictures of all of this will follow of course, but later. I need sleep.

My server (Moulinrouge) has been completely rebuilt and now sports a clean slate and a whack of services (Apache, Bind, DHCPd, Dovecot Imap, Exim, Fetchmail /w Procmail, MySQL, NTPd, Subversion and SSHd). My wireless is offline for now though since it would appear that I've run out of outlets on that side of the room. I left my good power strip at Melanie's so I'll have to go out and buy one tomorrow.

Things at the office are going very well. James and I are writing the Free software policy of the company and I got to write the preamble. When it's published, I'll post a link 'cause I'm rather proud of it.

That's it for now, to bed with me :-)

For those of you who don't already know, I'm currently in Toronto for a few more days. Much has happened about which I'd like to blog, but the thing about vacation is that you're supposed to enjoy it first, and talk about it later ;-)

It should be noted though that part of my trip out East includes the retrieval of my server from Melanie's house, and that means that this site is going offline as of Saturday and won't be back up 'till I've figured everything out in BC and re-setup the whole thing. So yeah, if when you come back here, you find nothing, know that it's temporary :-)

Alright, back to the vacationing!