Air travel booked so far:

Thu Dec 24, 20:50: AC  632, YUL-YYT, arr  0:47 Dec 25.  With Robin and Aslan.
Wed Dec 30,  7:00: AC 1197, YYT-YYZ, arr  9:15.  Robin's heading back to Montréal around the same time.
Wed Dec 30, 12:00: AC    1, YYZ-NRT, arr 15:05 Dec 31

The plan from there: spend ~2 months in Japan with an apartment in Tokyo but traveling all around (Honshu anyway.) Robin will arrive sometime in mid-February so we’ll do some of this together.

Then: fly NRT-SIN and head north overland. Climbing in Krabi/Railay. Visit Laos and Cambodia, but spend most of our time in Thailand and Vietnam. Arrive in China late April/early May and explore there.

Take the train to Lhasa in mid May, possibly alone or maybe this will be the last part of the trip with Robin. Mountain bike Lhasa -> Kathmandu. Fly back to China, train/fly to Beijing.

Around June 20: take the Trans-Mongolian & Trans-Siberian to Moscow/St-Petersburg, hopefully with Clare and Dad. Take another train somewhere that has direct flights to Montréal (AMS?). Fly home late July / early August.

Then… who knows? Probably drive to Burning Man :)

PS Anyone want to rent a plateau 5½ for $1125/month starting in January?

As I mentioned here before, I’m doing the CN Tower Climb, and you can still sponsor me if you like.

“Time to go?”
“Yeah, I’m on the loading dock.”
“Have a great day everyone!”

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Caturday: I was the first person up, and met the canoe guy who drove up with 5 metal boats in his truck. He pointed out that the pond was completely frozen and suggested we canoe in a different area, but Peter, our fearless leader, convinced him otherwise. As we were getting into the water, a woman showed up and lectured us on the stupidity of what we were doing. She said she was a canoe instructor. She said we should stop, and come back a month earlier next year. I took her aside and explained my point of view: "yeah, the group is very optimistic, but I think realistically if we make it to —> that island by dark we’ll all be happy. And we have enough time and experience to do that safely."

I ended up in "the lead boat" with a guy named Marc. We used our paddles to break the ice but it was a long and tiring process. Other people in other boats tried different techniques, some of which made more headway, and our lead quickly evaporated. We eventually discovered a reasonable technique for areas with medium (around 3cm) amounts of ice: both "paddlers" bash the backs of their paddles into the ice (yay, cheap aluminum and plastic paddles) and then pull the boat forward. If needed, rocking up and down will then break the ice under the boat enough that the process can be repeated. The two boats with axes (one ice axe and one lumberjack axe) also made rapid progress with their own techniques, and sometimes we followed their path. After over an hour of this, we reached a small stretch of open water, which was a welcome break. Actually paddling was so relaxing that we took our time getting back to the ice.

All good things must come to an end, and we were soon back fighting the ice. Our "goal" was still to head to the right of "that island", down a river, etc. It was suggested that we lunch on "that island". We made it there by 13:30. People were already talking about spending the night there. We decided to have lunch and see how we felt.

After a leisurely lunch, there was relatively little discussion. A couple of people expressed disappointment that we weren’t at least going to try for "that other island over there" but only after a majority of the group had voted, all in favour of staying on "that island." I put up my slightly less dirty tent, we built a campfire, and sat around it for hours talking about nothing. During the evening, a powerboat tried to make its way to the other end of the pond but gave up in the channel to the left of "that island" and turned around. I slept a bit better despite a low of -9°C, probably because I wore 2 pairs of socks.

Sunday: We really took our time getting ready in the morning since our goal was clear: follow our paths back home. Marc and I discovered some new techniques for dealing with the freshly frozen trails from the previous day. The most rapid was to have one person in the front of the boat leaning out as far as possible (which was easy considering the boat was not actually floating but rather resting entirely on ice), bashing in a paddle, and pulling forward as hard as possible. The person in the back could assist by pushing against some of Saturday’s ice chunks, which were now frozen in place. When the ice was too thick for this, we resorted to scooching [*] our body weight rapidly forward to make the boat slide. This was much slower than the pulling technique, but less frustrating than actually trying to break the ice. In any case, Marc and I made it to the open water well ahead of the other boats.

Erm, the previously open water. Overnight, about 5mm of ice had formed there. Fortunately that was thin enough that we could just crunch our paddles through it – it was a bit like paddling through thick oil with a crunchy topping. Eventually we did find some open water, and waited for the others. One of them decided to explore a river, which led us to a bridge that someone recognized from the drive in. So we pulled out our boats and portaged the last ~500m back to the cars. Phew!

We had one last adventure on the way out – one of the cars was leaking brake fluid. We were stopped near the middle of the small, unploughed road while the driver investigated, called CAA, etc. A pickup truck approached, saw the situation, and patiently waited for us to get out of his way. Then, about 30 seconds later, a car drove up from the other direction and decided to try and pass us all. She got stuck in the loosely packed powder on the shoulder of the road… it was our friend from yesterday! As we helped her get free, she said she was glad we made it out and apologized for giving us such a hard time: "I’m not really a bitch. I was just worried about you." By the time she was free, there was enough room for the pickup to pass without using the shoulder. As the driver did this, he slowed down and advised us: "Stay away from that one. She’s a crazy bitch."

[*] what do you mean, that isn’t a word?

It was a good weekend and a fun adventure. I’m glad I got out "paddling" one last time, and it was a good way to dive into winter head first. I’m no longer afraid of what this season will bring weather wise – if a crazed group of mostly McGill students can survive a frozen pond without even one case of frostbite, we can survive anything this city can throw at us!

2. The Sol LeWitt exhibit at MASS MoCA is made of pure win. You have approximately 25 years to go see it, so there’s no excuse to miss out. MASS MoCA is in the small town of North Adams – about 1.5 hours out of your way to make the round trip if you’re driving to New York (or Albany) and 2 hours out of your way if you’re heading to Boston.

Fri Nov 14, 11:45: Via  61, Montréal-Toronto, arr 16:42
Attending T-comp
Sun Nov 16, 18:35: Via 668, Toronto-Montréal, arr 00:18

Dec 22, 20:30: AC  632, YUL-YYT, arr 00:27 Dec 23
Dec 26, 14:20: AC  653, YYT-YHZ, arr 15:40
Dec 26, 16:10: AC 8865, YHZ-YUL, arr 16:54

• grimmwire : final assembly, more assembly, night view.
• Heather: Ceiling Cat in his Ceiling
• obskura : Kitteh
• Dome by day by Bill

My original idea was to produce a Really Tall Dome. When I realized how much effort and metal that would take, I scaled back my plans to be a somewhat tall dome.

The trick to producing a tall geodesic dome is to go elliptical. Most domes are based on a sphere, which means they’re roughly half as tall as they are wide (the exact ratio depends on the frequency of dome you’re building and where you truncate it.) Mine was a 2v class 1 icosahedron (all of which is pretty standard for a small dome at Burning Man) except based on an ellipse of eccentricity 2. It was 15.5 feet tall and 15.5 feet wide.

I built the dome out of 18 20′ pieces of 3/4" galvanized structural steel tubing and 6 10′ pieces of 3/4" EMT. I didn’t realize that the T in "EMT" actually stands for "pipe". A tube, by definition, is measured by its outer diameter. So 3/4" tube is 3/4" on the outside and something less on the inside and something more on the outside. 3/4" pipe, and 3/4" EMT, is 3/4" on the inside. Therefore EMT is pipe. So I ended up with some struts that were fatter than others, slightly less strong, but more rigid. Oh well.

The top of the dome had cat ears (analogous to the cross on Christian churches), and was covered with a parachute for wind and weather protection. I also cut some cat eyes out of cardboard and installed colour-changing LED spotlights behind them.

Inside this dome I built an actual drop ceiling, which took one box of 2′ x 4′ office ceiling tiles cut to fairly odd shapes. I left a 4′ x 4′ hole in the middle, and installed a fluorescent fixture over it.

From the hole hung Ceiling Cat Himself. He was made from 2 4′ x 8′ sheets of white coroplast painted with various colours of Pebeo Vitrea. To paint Him, I projected the Papercraft Ceiling Cat onto the coroplast, 7′ 3" wide. This resulted in a 4′ wide cat when folded.

All in all, it was a fun art project and I’m glad it came together. It was a lot of work in the week before Burning Man (I flew down early and built everything in San Francisco rather than ship hundreds of pounds of metal) and a lot of work getting it assembled on the playa, but it was enjoyable work. I’m not sure very many people understood what it was (I neglected to put up a sign) but really, who can’t appreciate a 4′ tall glowing Cat hanging from a Ceiling in the middle of the desert?

We were going to put a mattress in the dome so people could hang out in comfort, but that fell through. Nevertheless, the dome was put to good use by random burners. Among other things Ceiling Cat got to Watch:

• On Wednesday night, a juggler showed up – he didn’t want to juggle outdoors, and the Ceiling was tall enough for him.
• On Friday, the Church acquired its first organist. Some guy showed up with a deck chair and a synthesizer and was playing ambient music. Sadly he had fallen asleep by the time I stopped by to talk to him.
• Caturday evening, I walked by and saw 4 people standing under the glowing Cat, hugging.

So now what? The dome and cover are in storage in San Francisco. I’ll think of a use for them by next year – probably a deep playa art project with cool lights. Ceiling Cat himself has been carefully folded and packaged and is now visiting jbailey and auzure_skies‘s apartment in Mountain View. Hopefully He’ll make it to Montréal soon!

Sun Oct  5, 21:40: BA 94, YUL-LHR, arr  9:05 Oct 6
Thu Oct  9, 19:40: BD 92, LHR-BHD, arr 21:00
Fri Oct 10, 14:50: parents arrive on BD 86
Sun Oct 12, 13:15: BD 87, BHD-LHR, arr 14:30
Sun Oct 12, 17:40: BA 95, LHR-YUL, arr 19:45

LHR for work, BHD to visit family. Unfortunately, I’m not actually working in London but a suburb 1-1.5h out. So I’ll probably only be in London itself on Monday and I’ll be jetlagged and useless. Oh well.

So the plan is to head to SFO and build the Church of Ceiling Cat, which will be a large geodesic dome with a drop ceiling and of course our deity. I’m not sure if this will work. I’ve spent a lot of time planning, but some kinds of plans just can’t be made remotely in advance and I won’t know if everything’s going to work until it does. Or not. Ordinarily this would be no problem, but I’ve told enough people about the Church (and put in enough time and money already) that I feel like I have to make it happen. So it will :) KayOS told me he feels the same way about his poutine-in-the-desert plans – his camp has been repurposed to be the Black Rock Poutine Company.

If you’re burning this year, come and see us: 9:00 and D. Also stop by for poutine at 7:15 and C.