How can I get a police escort?

A brief blast from a police car makes me look up from my coffee in my local coffee shop.

A motor cycle with flashing lights comes up to the intersection I'm looking out onto. The light is against it, so the driver goes into the intersection carefully and stops the motor cycle. Then the driver holds up his hand to halt traffic before it gets into the intersection.

A slowly moving group of runners, bundled up against the cold of the day, run through the intersection. There is another motor cycle in front of them - presumably doing a leap-frog maneuver to get to the next intersection to stop traffic there. I count about 20 runners in the group.

Behind them is a police car with lights flashing. And another police car with lights flashing. And another, oh, this one's an unmarked car, with lights flashing behind that. And then another police car... and then an unmarked police van... and then another couple of police cars go by. And then finally the motor cycle leaves the intersection and drives on in the same direction that the rest of them just went in. I'm guessing that's one police car for every 2 runners. How does a group that small rate such an extravagance of police presence?

Oh, that's why: the runners ARE police. They have a banner in front of them - very colourful, says police, and um, something they are running for. Well, that's nice of them, to run for something that the casual observer can't read on their banner. I'm sure it's something worthwhile... I just don't know if it's worth 10 police cars and 2 motor cycles.

There are many running groups in Vancouver. You typically see 2 or 3 a day in and around downtown Vancouver. But most of them are on their own when it comes to traffic. They stop for red lights and run on the sidewalks, not down the middle of the road like that group did.

So how can an average running group get a police escort? Maybe every group just needs to have a member that is part of the police force. Or maybe they just need a banner to cary in front of the group. Or maybe they really don't want all the flashing lights when they're running, and it's not worth the effort to have people staring at them as they run slowly. It does look a bit like a funeral procession... ok, scratch that idea.

Is that my picture?

Oh look! Schmap has included one of my photos of Vancouver's West End on their website.

It's the picture of rainbow flags if anyone wants to wander through the link on the right side of this page to see it and other photos of Vancouver.

Am I hallucinating or is this an illusion or am I delusional?

I've notice recently that a lot of medications warn of hallucinations as one of the possible side effects of taking them. Am I hallucinating a huge increase in seeing this warning? Or are the warnings an illusion that I haven't actually read on all the labels - just on one? Or is this really a conspiracy by aliens trying to fool us into thinking they aren't actually here, it's just our medications that are tricking us into thinking we see them.

A definition of hallucination from a medical dictionary:

Hallucinations are false or distorted sensory experiences that appear to be real perceptions. These sensory impressions are generated by the mind rather than by any external stimuli, and may be seen, heard, felt, and even smelled or tasted.

Some interesting boundaries around this and related word definitions:

Hallucination: a sensory perception without a source in the external world.
* I taste strawberries.
* Wow man, that elephant has been sitting there for days now.

Illusion: a mistaken or false interpretation of a real sensory experience.
* That's not water, that's ice.
* The wind is talking to me.

Delusion: a false belief that a person maintains in spite of evidence to the contrary and the fact that very few others believe them.
* I'm going to go on the next UFO to Jupiter. I have a ticket.
* No, the world never changes and you never have to rethink any of your ideas.

So are all those tiny little black flies just in my head - or is this place just really dusty - or have they been flying over the text on the medication labels when I've been reading them just to make me think I'm hallucinating, so I won't catch on to their evil plans?

What is that sound?

It's been foggy here in downtown Vancouver for about a week now. It sometimes clears for an hour or two at a time, and the fog shifts in heavy and light pockets around buildings, but we've mostly just been socked-in. This has led to many weird sounds!

Just after midnight one night we were being kept awake by someone pounding plastic buckets. When I got up to find out what was happening I saw a man in the loading docs of the building across the alley from us pounding at these buckets - probably to empty them. I yelled at him to stop the noise - and he heard me! I don't have a booming voice and he was half a dozen stories below me! He said something like sorry, and I heard him! It was like we were in the same room!

We are very close to the water in the Straight of Georgia and Coal Harbour which has many ships sailing into it. We've heard fog horns sounding many times... but there have been many times that we've noticed that we don't hear any fog horns! I'm sure they've been going almost constantly for a week now but we don't always hear them.

There seems to be more police around during this fog - which makes sense, when you can't see more than a block in front of you, you know people can be doing illegal things almost anywhere - and probably are. The sirens from the police cars are either incredibly LOUD or tiny little sounds even when they speed by!

Fog is cool (downright cold, actually) and it really distorts sound.

I've been surfing around the web looking at fog related items. It seems that fog is quite the subject to study for people interested in sound. I just gotta say, wow. I grew up on the prairies so ocean related weather is fascinating for me.

This is a neat link - Open Source Audio has recordings of fog horns on Ferries going through Howe Sound from Bowen Island.

How many English words are there for precipitation?

The snow has finally gone away from Vancouver's West End! Three Cheers for the warmer weather! It's amazing how many people are swearing they will never complain about rain again... at least for a few days anyway (of course that lasts as long as the average new year's resolution, we do love to complain about the weather). So how many different ways can weather forecasters describe precipitation? This is the list I've come up with so far:

• accumulation
• blizzard
• blowing snow
• cloudburst
• deluge
• downpour
• drizzle
• electrical storm
• endless rain
• flood
• flurries
• fog
• freezing drizzle
• freezing rain
• gale
• hurricane
• ice pellets
• light rain
• lightning storm
• maelstrom
• mist
• monsoon
• pouring
• precipitation
• rain
• rain showers
• rainfall
• raining buckets
• raining cats & dogs
• rainstorm
• relentless rain
• severe thunderstorm
• showers
• sleet
• slush
• snow
• snow dump
• snow showers
• snow squall
• snowfall
• sprinkle
• storm
• storm surge
• thunderstorm
• torrent

Do Yeti do Yoga?

Last night I watched and episode of "Destination: Truth" on TV and saw a cast of a Yeti footprint from Nepal. You can see a picture of this on the cryptomundo website.

My question is, does this Yeti do Yoga? If he does, he has very good Yoga posture.

In Yoga, stability of the feet and hands is encouraged by the instruction to lift your toes or fingers and place them on the ground one at a time a splayed position so your feet or hands cover as much surface as possible. The Yeti footprint is very large, and the toes are splayed very well for good Yoga posture.

Check out this fun website that has pictures of a plush Yeti toy positioned in Yoga poses!

So is that really the footprint of a Yeti? These footprints are often dismissed as bear paw prints, but If you look at bear feet there is the possibility that they could splay out those toes, but I think it's unlikely a bear would (unless they were deep into Yoga as well). See the grizzlybay website for an image of a bear paw.

I think the investigation into Yeti should include the question of do they do Yoga. Would those Yeti toes really be that wide apart if the splaying wasn't intentional? And it would be easier to find them if you caught them during Shivasana.

Does anyone want some toast?

Happy New Year!

Talkie Toaster on YouTube