All posts by Maurice

Surrey Lake

Surrey Lake, May 15 2009It’s been a while since we’ve made a post on the blog. Not sure why that is – just lazy I guess. We’ve been doing a lot of running, Max and I. We usually head down to the watershed on the weekends, and I usually don’t take a camera. Yesterday was a day off for me, so Max and I headed over to Surrey Lake.

Surrey Lake, May 15 2009It’s a man-made lake, and wetlands, designed to protect the farmlands. It’s got a trail around and up a fairly steep hill. On top of the hill horses graze. The run down the backside of the hill is nicely lined with trees, then you break out over the flats of the wetlands.

Max really gets excited when we get close to the parks where we run. He sits up and starts whining eagerly, prancing on his seat. All the little creatures get him scampering all over.

Max at Surrey LakeHe’s much better around people when we’re on a leash. He used to react to people who got too close. But we’ve managed to calm that down a bit. Still working on his in-home behaviour when visitors arrive – I’d like him to be a bit calmer when he sees we are ok with whoever has arrived. We had a technician from the cable company and he was better. Not great, but getting there.

I tell you tho, he has the most hysterical habit of playing with his stuffed toys. I’ve seen dogs take toys and shake them and rough house them, but Max takes them and TOSSES them WAY into the air. They even wind up on the table! It’s so funny, and he stands there with his mouth wide open in a big smile! It’s really too funny.

Tribute to Nurses

Cathedral Place Office towersThe Vancouver Medical Dental Building was built in 1929. On about the tenth floor there were constructed 11 foot high terra cotta statues of the Nursing Sisters, a tribute to the nurses of the First World War.

Art Deco tribute to World War 1 nurses.The story goes that one of the architects who designed the building was wounded in the war, and he credited the Sisters with saving his life. This was his way to pay his respects.

They could not be salvaged when the building was demolished, but replicas now reside on the Crystal Place office building, on the corner of Georgia and Howe, but down at the 3rd floor level, where they are clearly more visible! When we were waiting for the Sun Run to start, we took a couple pictures of her – and so – here she is! Really pretty cool.

Nothing much!

Well the weather finally seems to be turning the corner into summer, but I’m not holding my breath about it! The other day i posted a picture of some tulips in our back yard garden – here is a picture of the tulips a couple days later – the color is darned glorious!

The tulips finally openAnd the cherry tree has finally bloomed, but it looks like a lot less blooms than last year. Guess we’re not going to get a bumper crop this year!

One of our friends was heading to Cancun, Mexico but has been forced to cancel due to the swine flu pandemic that threatens to envelope the globe. Is that something or what? The scale of it seems incredible, with Mexico City considering shutting down public transit! Wow – that’s an amazing reaction.

Surely, in this day and age, a flu pandemic cannot be THAT serious, can it? They say that up to a quarter of a million people die from the flu yearly, so will this drive that number up significantly? I always worry about how the media approaches these kinds of stories. Headlines from many papers are over top really, creating fear and worry among anyone with a sniffle or a cough.

SWINE FLU GROUND ZERO screams one headline; SCIENTISTS PERPLEXED BY SWINE FLU screams another; even the New York Times is adding to the hysteria with silly pictures of people with masks on… the practice of wearing a mask can actually INCREASE your chances of getting the virus, people! Here’s a link to a story if you don’t believe me.

RELAX – chill out. This too will pass….

The mind wanders

Canucks LogoStream of consciousness post this evening… We’ve had time to reflect on the Vancouver Canucks four game sweep of the St. Louis Blues and people got more than just a little carried away! They were out blocking intersections, and honking horns and fighting – and finally a cop got his leg broken. I mean, come on people! It’s the first round, we’ve won nothing.

Not that I’m not glad we won! Sure, I’m excited, but there are three more rounds to go. No point in getting carried away over nothing.

Tulips bloomWhat happened to spring? Usually the cherry tree in the backyard has finished blooming already. So far, it’s not giving much sign of anything. If this is happening to our usually very productive tree, how are things going with farmers? I sense that food is going to be pricey this summer, rather than cheaper.

The early tulips we got in February are toast; they grew four or five inches then got snowed on, and they never recovered. The ones that were later coming up are finally giving a bit of a show.

Max had some dental work done this week, and had his nails clipped. He’s not great with strangers to say the least! When my folks stayed for a few days last week, he barked at them each morning. sigh. Not behaviour we want – I wish I knew what he felt… how can these people in the house be a threat? They’ve been there all day, all night…

I’m confused. He’s such a goofy friendly guy in general. It’s just this stress of seeing some one new sets him barking.

My official Sun Run time was 1:13:35. Darned slow I know, but I see in retrospect that I needed to train differently than I did. I’ll do better next year. It’s fun to be running again, especially now that it’s finally warming up. Although it wasn’t really very warm this morning!

(So what did happen to spring? Isn’t this the time of year it gets warmer?)

Thought for the Day: If I can remember when an application was for employment, a program was a TV show, a hard drive was a long road trip, and a keyboard was an electronic piano, does that make me old?

Sun Run Sunday

Sun Run, 2009Today was the Sun Run. It’s quite an event, the 2nd largest in the world. As one of the winners said, “Oh I’ll be back – watching 50,000 people run is inspirational!” There were actually 55,858 people who ran, walked or rolled the 10k course through the streets of Vancouver.

Before the startI’ve run in the Sun Run before, but the last time I ran it (2000), there were 40,000 runners, and we ran through Stanley Park for the most part. This course was quite a bit different, never entering Stanley Park at all. There were two tough bridges to ascend, but for the most part the run was flat and level.

Facing away from the start lineNot that that helped me! But at least I made it through. But it was a tough go… if it had been an 8k, I’d have been fine. If I’m philosophical about it, I haven’t run for 8 years, and I’ve only been training for 3 months, so can’t expect much. Excuses, excuses, I just didn’t have it this time. Ah well. I’ll be out running on Tuesday with Max, and we’ll have a fine time.

Cambie BridgeThe most amazing thing was to see the MASS of people! Really amazing – you come around the corner onto 4th and there are two kilometres of 4 lane street absolutely solid with people running – absolutely solid. Pam described it as a wall of people moving,  when she saw us coming over the Cambie Street Bridge – and it really was something to see.

Lots of people run it in costumes, but I saw a very inspirational saying on one ladies shirt. It said, “Living proof that organ donation works. Thanks to…” and she named the people who I assume saved her life. Wonderful.

Truly an amazing experience. Sometimes the running is tough (move over to the right BEFORE you start walking please!) and you have to dodge around people who are slower, but it is a FUN RUN. And the inspiration on the way from people lining the route, giving you applause and words of encouragement, that really helps too. When you’re struggling they inspire you to get back into pace cuz hey, they came to see runners, so give ’em a show!

Tons of runners carry cameras, so there must be a lot pictures of the race around. Here is a link to the Vancouver Sun’s gallery.

Run for Life

Riding in the carI have been doing some running lately. Seems every time I get a dog, we start running! When Buck got too old to run, we gave it up.

Run for LifeMax is a fit ball of energy tho! He loves to run, especially if there are birds to chase. We run around Surrey Lake and he thinks it’s a total gas to chase the ducks and other birds making use of the wetlands.

On Sunday April 5th I ran in the 5k Run For Life, a fund raiser for cancer research. My family has been hit hard by cancer, so I figured it was a perfect time to do a little fund raising and get some excercise too. This was the first 5k I’ve run. It was fun – I will definitely do it again next year too.

Run for LifeI’ve run in the Sun Run before, and the last time there were 40,000 people. This race had about 300! You can be a little more anonymous in that 40,00 mass! But 300 – not so easy…

It was held out at Sun God arena in Delta BC. We got there early, and there were lots of people milling about, some obviously course marshalls, wearing bright yellow vests with crosses.

Run for LifeLots of people were there to support cancer survivors in the family, some proudly wearing names of people they are hoping to help. (Go Mario!)

There was a no dogs policy, and this little guy in the picture to the left gave his opinion on that rule… (click the thumbnail to enlarge it.)

The Sun Run is in just two sundays now!

(I’m running in that too – have not run in it since 2000 I think.)

Shedding Max

March 01 2009 in the Watershed When we first got Max, I was amazed at how much he did NOT shed. Well, I guess there are two cycles for him to shed, and he’s pretty much finishing up shedding for this spring.

And wow – that was a shed! Just TONS of hair came out of that little guy!

Max - lighter colorHis color is so much lighter now! He’s almost blonde! It’s quite remarkable actually. I’m hoping you get a sense of the difference from this recent picture. The bigger one I took today in the front yard.

He is a really lovable dog. Just loves to be with us, and in physial contact with us, if possible! I’m just so glad to have him in my life.

He makes us laugh with his quirky silliness. You should see him “make his bed.” Just hysterical – we have a nice sheepskin plush bed, with a nice plush bed under that. We keep it nice and neat for him… so he can jump on it, squish it around, dig at it with both front paws, get both pieces all scrunched into a ball, then toss it aside, so he can lay on the carpet BESIDE the beds to sleep!! lol