Category Archives: sports

13.04.14 [Sunday]
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campbell river, sports, travel

time and work

Yesterday I watched a documentary about the Chinese artist/dissident Ai Weiwei. The scenes where he was in Chengdu made me miss China. Not that I was especially happy when I was living in China, but visiting China after my term was done? I loved it.

Maybe I just miss being on vacation. I know from Australia that working five days a week wears me down. After easter I was joking with some of my coworkers about how I could get used to that 3-day work week/4-day weekend cycle. But it wasn’t a joke exactly. I totally wish my job was a (predictable) part time one. Especially here in Campbell River where I do not need to be working as much as I do to pay my rent (as opposed to Vancouver or Sydney).

I mean, I like making enough money I don’t have to put off buying groceries till my paycheque comes in. I don’t want to make less per hour, just work less. Socking money away in a bank account is something I’ll appreciate eventually (when Aileen and I hit the trans-siberian for example), but for now it’s not exactly providing a huge amount of pleasure for me the way lazy long weekends do.

But I have vacation time coming, and I’m taking it in San Francisco. The Jays are playing two games against the Giants the first week of June and I’ll be there. I bought tickets yesterday and had to fight very hard to not spend hundreds of dollars on each one.

I got one seat behind the plate-ish along the home-3rd base line (which is my favourite place to watch a ballgame from even if it is thirty rows further up from where I’d get them at a Goldeyes game), and the other by the Giants bullpen lined up along the 2nd-3rd basepath. I’m hoping Lawrie’s back with the big club and isn’t injured so I can watch him do his thing fairly closely. It’s too bad about Reyes’ ankle injury.

Sometimes I think about my time here in Campbell River being something like my time in Wanzhou. When I do that it feels more manageable. I mean, I couldn’t possibly go to San Francisco for a week or Vancouver for a weekend from Wanzhou. And I made it through those years all right. But I worked a lot less as a mediocre teacher.

Sigh.

That’s my infrequent update on what is happening in my non-reading life. (For my reading life, as always check Librarianaut)

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12.10.31 [Wednesday]
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campbell river, games, library, sports, vancouver

come on grab your friends

I believe this is the first time I’ve been the most-elaborately costumed person in my workplace. For Halloween at least. I went as Finn the Human and brought along an episode to show people who’d never heard of the show Adventure Time. Which was most people.

One thing I really like about wearing a costume at work – as opposed to at a party – is the extra layer of ridiculousness layered into every interaction. I find those are even better when both people are in costume and there is no acknowledgement of the fact. I chatted with one of the bookstore women about their author signing last week, and she was in angel regalia and I was a radical adventurer and it was no big thing.

On the weekend I went into Vancouver and played D&D in costume with library school friends and that was pretty fun. I’m really glad that Vancouver isn’t a completely onerous distance from here, since well, that’s where my friends are.

We were talking over the weekend about how I can get a bit more of a social circle here and it seems that being the kind of person who could go somewhere and play rec-league sportball with strangers is the ticket. I am still not sure what I’ll do instead. It’s a good thing I have the internet to keep me company till I get meatspace pals sorted out.

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12.09.30 [Sunday]
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library, sports

relaxing thoughts of baseball

I’ve been getting settled in Campbell River the last week. It seems pretty good so far. I love the view from my apartment even when it’s cloudy. I’ve talked more with my neighbour in the last five days than I have with any neighbour I’ve ever had before.
morning
My internet is installed and I’m glad to have it as the MLB postseason looms. This year I won’t have to watch playoff games the day after to fit in with my sleep schedule. Though I guess being out in Pacific Time means most games’ll start when I’m at work. That’s too bad. I guess the Giants games’ll be at a more suitable time, and those are the ones I have a more vested interest in. It’s only been a few years since I adopted the Giants as my NL team, and I’m very obviously not a lifelong fan as I’m kind of cheering for the Dodgers to get into the postseason too. I like the sparks that would fly if they met for the NLCS. I really want an all black and orange World Series.

Last night I met a bunch of the library community at the retirement party for my predecessor and it was pretty fun. I was introduced to a storytime puppet and there was food I could eat, and we talked about how you can date novels by the technology inside. Library people are people I can get along with. The assorted librarians’ husbands were also very welcoming. One guy makes really detailed sculptures of fish!

And tomorrow I start work. Which is weird. But I’ll be at an information desk, which is where I do well so it should be fine. I’m sure there’ll be a few “Ack! It’s my first Baby Time!” posts as the month progresses. And Halloween. Oh man, I’ve got to figure out a costume.

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12.07.05 [Thursday]
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library, sports, vancouver

hard not hardly

So I’ve been back in Vancouver a week and been busy busy busy. I have a lot of stuff to do every day, transcribing the interviews I did out east, keeping up with the Teen Reading Club stuff and getting paid to work on elearning videos. It’s funny how the last one is the hardest to get to and that’s the one that actually brings in money. I guess part of it is that I’ve also got to keep those hours down and it’s entirely possible for me to get lost in editing video until the world ends. If I’m judicious about when I start that kind of thing it means I’ll be able to juggle the less fun work too.

Sean and Jenn were in town last weekend and though I didn’t get to spend as much time with them as I’d have liked we did have a good sports day (baseball and football) followed by a science morning. I had never been to Science World, though that golfball building has been my iconic image for Vancouver since I was six. It was a lot of fun. The DaVinci exhibit, filled with replicas of devices made from his notebooks, was there and we wandered slowly through. It was the part of Science World where we had to elbow the fewest kids out of the way. They had a whole room dedicated to blown up pictures of the Mona Lisa, all colour-corrected and infra-red viewed, but my favourite part was the actual sized replica of the back of the painting. There’s an inexplicable H and other scrawls. Even though it’s not the real thing, it felt good seeing something new.

I’m applying for jobs. There’s a great Community Outreach Librarian job in Calgary that came up that I really want. A similar one went up in Edmonton too. And there are positions open in the public library back in Sydney. I doubt I’d get any of those, since they probably aren’t going to be as trusting of a Skype interview as a techy place like Prosentient was, but I’m applying. And I’ll keep applying here in Vancouver. It just feels like here everything is so temporary. There’s a great job that I could maybe get for a year but then I’d have to find a new job when a year is up. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world. Flexibility is a virtue and all that.

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12.06.13 [Wednesday]
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library, sports

suddenly everything happens at once

I’ve had a pretty lowkey couple of months since my winter term ended. Plugging away at the IFLA project and doing my Children’s Publishing course. But now this week everything decided to start happening all at once. I had an interview yesterday for a Professional Experience course doing techy stuff with a Teen Summer Reading Program. The interview went well and I was hired, so instead of having one more course to finish, I’m doing that instead. I also got hired (for pay not course credit) to work on producing videos for SLAIS over the summer. And next week I’m going to Ontario for ten days to interview IFLA-connected librarians (again for course credit, but the trip is paid for not by me).

All of this busyness while I’m applying for post-school jobs. And that came around to bite me today. I applied for a job in Kelowna which would have been pretty sweet, and they called me to bring me in for an interview, but the interview time was Monday, when I’ll be in Ottawa. So I had to turn them down and hope that they have a bunch of terrible applicants so they have to go to a second round of interviews once I return. It’s nice to get offered an interview, and it sucks to not be able to go do it. I get this notion that this was my only chance and now it’s gone and I’ll never work again, which is patently untrue, but still.

I also got to watch the last third of a perfect baseball game tonight. Matt Cain is a pretty awesome pitcher.

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12.04.18 [Wednesday]
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comics, games, library, sports, vancouver

all these events – i feel so social and poor

Post-school life is starting to come together (though I kind of need a job). I mean, I have classes coming up again in May, but now that all my friends have graduated it kind of feels like I have too. I’ve also gotten to play a new game and go to a conference and be part of Jamie’s four-night trivia blitz.

For a research project I’m working on I got to interview a former National Librarian of Canada last week, and she was adamant that going to conferences without having a job to do is pointless. I think that makes sense. This Saturday I’m going to be doing some liveblogging for the North Shore Writers Festival, which should be fun. I’m going to be a convenor for the BC Library Conference in the middle of May and I’m volunteering at VanCAF. I mean, I had fun wandering around at Emerald City, but I do like having something to do.

Also, when Sean comes to town in June the Vancouver Canadians will be playing. It works out that we’ll be able to go to a baseball game in the afternoon and then the Bombers-Lions CFL season opener in the evening.

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12.04.09 [Monday]
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photography, sports, vancouver

i am a big fat dynamo

Today I did my taxes, got some more Lego out of storage, bought minor bits of recording equipment, dropped off my Emerald City film to be developed, got new passport pictures taken and purchased inner tubes for my bike (because I got a flat the other day coming home from school). That was all before 4pm and watching baseball (on TV in a bar).

The home opener for the Jays season was spoiled by our exceedingly handsome closer, who was unable to not blow the save. Le sigh. At least Colby Rasmus made an excellent diving catch and hit a triple (which, even though it’s illogical, is a feat I respect way more than a home run, no offense to Mister Bautista), and I watched the game in good company.

One of the things I really enjoyed about our Easter dinner yesterday was one of my friends being a little drunk and really wanting to take us all to a goth night. Her pitch to me was “Goth girls are all hot and they love librarians so you should completely come.” While I agree that goth girls are hot, and that their librarian preferences are probably a bit higher than the general population, I didn’t go to that part of the evening. And it turns out that was just as well, because the bar they ended up at was doing a lesbian night as opposed to goth, which would have hurt my chances for love far more than my lack of ink and paleness.

Remember how I talked about the cherry blossoms being awesome here? This is my fucking bus stop/skytrain station:
where i catch the bus
Spring here is great. I don’t care if you’ve already hit 20 degrees for weeks on end in Winnipeg because the planet is boiling.

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12.02.18 [Saturday]
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school, sports, vancouver

biking and the inevitable decay of all flesh

I neglected to ride my bike to school on Wednesday. No, not neglected. I chose not to, because I wanted to finish the book I was reading on the bus. Which worked out, but man oh man I get frustrated waiting for overcrowded buses to get me home when I could be moving. I decided to bike on Friday to my 8am class to make up for the frustration (even though my schedule works well for comfortable Friday busing).

Part of not biking on Wednesday was because I failed to make it the whole way up the hill on Monday. Now, I was never really in shape as a younger man, so I don’t have any real notion of being past my peak. I have friends who complain about being sore after playing sports that they used to do without ill effects. I have always had ill effects from sports, so I don’t have some better time to compare things to. Due solely to never pushing my physical limits when I was younger, I still feel like I have room to improve my strength and fitness and whatever. Anything I did yesterday I should be able to do tomorrow.

So on Monday when I had to stop and walk my bike up the last 10 metres to my normal “pause to survey the city” point, it sucked. And because it sucked I was scared that maybe that had been it, and I’d never be able to climb that hill again. But on Friday at sometime after 7am I did climb it in my normal fashion, and it was a bit of a relief.

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12.02.11 [Saturday]
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books, comics, sports, tv

sometimes i watch sports

I love baseball. True fact. But this past week I read The Complete Essex County and it was about small-town Ontario life and hockey played a big part in it. Today was Hockey Day in Canada so while I worked my afternoon away I took the opportunity to stream NHL games and feel a bit more stereotypically Canadian.

There is something about the way a hockey game is called that is calming just because of its familiarity. While baseball commentators on TV or radio can annoy the hell out of me (Buck, McCarver, Morgan) because of the inanity of what they say, I barely hear the words coming from the hockey game. I know friends of mine have strong opinions of who is damned good at their job in the booth hanging over the ice, who should never be allowed near a mic and who should have retired fifteen years ago, but to me hockey all sounds the same. It’s just this chanting cascade of names in succession (Tanguay to Jokinen to Iginla to Jokinen shoots Luongo saves), and it’s soothing as all hell.

Sean, who preferes football, and I have talked about the American ability and proclivity to mythologize the fuck out of things (he’s better at explaining it than I am). Listening to these games today I was thinking about how the announcers’ hockey chant is less a mythologizing than a ritualizing. In the game itself there’s no room for much more than the names, while baseball announcers have epochs to tell stories between pitches. Baseball’s got sagas while hockey’s doing rosaries.

Kind of bullshit, I guess, but something I might keep in mind. For future refinement.

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11.11.14 [Monday]
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australia, music, sports, whining

when you’re out of fuel, i’m still afloat, puking and shivering

Sunday I learned that I like songs about surfing much more than the actual act. There’s something about swallowing all that seawater and relying on my spindly arms for propulsion and being so terribly cold that isn’t really conveyed in the melodies of the Beach Boys.

The members of our house got a deal on surfing lessons and so we took them. At the time Holly said “Really?” when I said I’d try too. And yes, surfing probably was never going to really be for me, but I’m here in Australia and it seemed like something I should do when I’m here. I mean, I haven’t had the chance to manhandle koalas or introduce an invasive species or anything. But surfing I could at least try. Maybe I would really like it.

I didn’t.

It might have been better if I’d had a wetsuit that actually fit me. Supposedly they’re supposed to let a little water in but it gets stuck in there and your body warms it up and you’re all insulated. When you’re skinny and wearing a rented wetsuit that’s flopping around and isn’t close to being tight, the water just flows through and it’s like you’re just splashing around in the cold cold ocean. Which I don’t really do for enjoyment.

I ended up bailing out after being flung around by the sea enough to know that the fleeting moment of being pushed along by the sea trying to touch the moon wasn’t worth the pain and pukiness.

The instructors were good about coming to check on me sitting on the beach and shivering, to make sure I was all right. But the one guy said I would have really enjoyed myself if I’d gone back in. I know myself well enough to be able to call him on that lie, but he was just a twenty-year-old trying to talk about the stuff he loved to do, so I just told him not to worry. I did not explain how little my body and I have in common, and how little trust there is between us, and how that trust was easily shattered and wasn’t going to be repaired by heading out into the ocean again to get even colder.

So yes, I have tried surfing. I don’t live everything completely secondhand. Which was kind of the point of that endeavour.

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