Vancouver, Snowboarding, and GNCTR

At the end of January, I took a bit of a breather from writing conference papers and TA-ing to travel to Vancouver. This was a combined weekend of visiting Chris and Jill, getting some snowboarding time, and watching the University of Waterloo 2013 team compete at the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race. 

This was the first time I flew out of YKF (Waterloo International Airport), and it was quite interesting because there was no way to be at the wrong gate. It is a very convenient airport compared to Pearson or Buffalo, but the only thing it could benefit by is some public transit access. It seems that GRT is struggling with some more fundamental transit issues at the moment, though.

Landing in Vancouver, it was drizzling, and it had be about -26C in Waterloo, so I definitely felt that I had travelled. I got to take the train out to Kitsilano, which luckily had lots of space for my board bag, carry-on, and backpack. Arriving late, Chris stayed up to meet me, and then I happily fell asleep.

The next morning was catching up time with Chris and Jill, and after they headed off to work, I took my board on the bus, across on the amphibus to North Vancouver to catch a shuttle to Mount Seymour. This was where the 2013 GNCTR race was being held. The schedule this year was a bit different than last year where the TechEx day was on Thursday (missed it unfortunately), race day on Friday, competitor interaction day on Saturday (sadly not skiing), and headed home on Sunday. I had thought that if the setup was the same as at the Olympic Park in Calgary, that I would be able to snowboard for a bit and just pop by the race to watch the UW team race. The first thing I noticed when driving up to Mount Seymour was the constant uphill and my first thought was "yeah, I could totally bike this", somewhat jokingly. The way Mt. Seymour was setup though was that the tubing park was well removed from the skiing hill, so I just stuck around the competition. The snow was ridiculously soft, and would have pretty bad boarding conditions anyways. 

When I arrived, the track was covered in fog, making it really hard to see what was going on at the starting line when standing at the finish. Due to the soft snow and surprisingly shallow run, many of the teams (including UW sadly) did not even make it to the finish line. Watching the teams race, I remembered the excitement that we felt last year in Calgary (minus the panic of getting injured by a super fast track with super fast snow). The themes were fun (classic Batman, elves, RRC were hunters, UW was Mario Kart) and the cheers were contagious thanks to Queens and Mac. Even though the UW team captains were a bit disappointed by their performance on the hill, they ended up getting first on their technical report and second in brake design.

About to push off

The 2013 UW GNCTR team

By the end of the race day, the sun broke out and it was really pretty.

Graveyard of toboggan crates

Coming back to Vancouver, Chris and I met up with Jill and some of her friends from work to hang out  downtown. The evening was nice and relaxed, just playing some games :)

The next morning was super early because I was off to Whistler. Chris had been sending me Groupon links for shuttle deals from Vancouver to Whistler. Luckily, there was one that did a pickup 4 blocks away, so heading out at 6am, I was finally on my way to Whistler after many years of wanting to go to Whistler.

It happened to be Australia Day, which meant there were a bunch of people with Australia-flag capes, and some that also were brave enough to wear only swimsuits on the hill. This added some liveliness to the hill.

Whistler was amazing though! After doing runs on both Blackcomb and Whistler, I think I'm in agreement that Blackcomb is nicer. And yes I went to the top of Blackcomb, and almost to the top of Whistler. 

At the top of Blackcomb

View from the top of Blackcomb

Regardless, the runs were all really fun! I may have accidentally gone through a few scary-steep glade runs and a few double blacks with moguls, but that's part of the fun about discovering a new hill. I definitely found that you had to be on the watch for the signs because the runs split and rejoin a lot.

When on gondolas or chair lifts, it was common to find out where people were from. Surprisingly, lots of people knew about Waterloo since many people had friends/family that went to UW or worked at RIM/Blackberry. To one group of people who saw me a few times on the hill, I was hailed as "Hey Waterloo!". Interestingly enough too, I met a friend of a friend from Waterloo in EngSoc, so we hung out for a bit and since he was from the area, had great suggestions on where to go on the hill. By the recommendation of the GNCTR team the day before, I took the Peak-to-Peak gondola which has the longest free span between cable stay towers of 3.1km.

View from the Peak-to-Peak gondola

Sadly, after a great day, it was time to pack up and head back to Vancouver. Chris and Jill made dinner which was awesome and also tasted even better after a full day of snowboarding.

Sunday was an exploration day around downtown Vancouver, Stanley Park (didn't get too far because the trolleys don't work off season), and a fun sushi place. After having two days of intense transit planning to get far out, it was nice to have a day of just walking around in rainy Vancouver (a nice break from the stupid cold of Waterloo at the time).

A very enjoyable trip, and I got to basically do everything that I had hoped to! I always enjoy the west coast, and even better when there's mountains and snowboarding :D

To Montreal and back again

From November 20th to 21st, I returned to Montreal to do more testing on the bridge in Brossard (now called the Daigneault Creek bridge in literature). Ayan's wireless sensors were ready for testing and I was to go with him because I knew the bridge, knew the testing procedure, and I could drive.

It was a really crazy schedule on the Tuesday since I had class until about noon and then I raced to the car rental place at Weber and Columbia, picked up the car, tossed our equipment in the back (which was nothing compared to the last trip), and picked up Ayan. The only equipment we essentially had was a laptop, two wireless sensors that had 2 axes of measurement, a receiver plugged into the laptop, and double-sided tape. As a side note, this was the first time I got to rent a car since my being under 25 normally makes this a more costly venture.

We made it out of Waterloo by 1pm and made it into Montreal just before 7:30pm, we were lucky with traffic. I had booked the same hotel as last time, and this time I brought my swim suit just in case. As background, Richard the lab tech gave me a hard time that I neglected to tell him that the hotel had a pool before we left. After a yummy meal across the road (Boulevard Taschereau is convenient like that), and taking home a piece of tarte au sucre, I went to sleep quite quickly after a long day.

The next morning we both got up at a good hour, got breakfast, and headed out, not needing to be crazy early for a long setup. We got to the site and started to check the equipment and go a few tests. Being very scientific, I used small rocks to delineate the location of the sensors (since I remembered their location with respect to the trusses from last time).

November 21, 2012 at Daigneault Creek Bridge (rocks on right side to mark location of sensors)

The accelerometers were a prototype design from a subsidiary company of PCB piezotronics, so it was simply a board on a battery pack. There was apparently a casing available, but it did not fit well. The sensors measured acceleration in the long direction of the board and out of plane. Since we were measuring the vertical and lateral accelerations, I picked up little aluminum angles from the UW machine shop to attach to the sides of the battery pack with double-sided tape. Double sided tape was also being used to attach the angles to the top of the bridge girders.

Wireless accelerometer setup. Double sided tape held the aluminum angles to the battery pack and to the bridge

Me with the installation of the wireless sensor on the bridge girder

 Since we only had two accelerometers, but three sets of locations to acquire data (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 lengths of the bridge), we had to repeat all tests three times over. We ran all the tests that we were capable of replicating (which excluded the crowd, bicycle, and car loading). This time I was the test subject while Ayan stopped and started the data acquisition from his laptop setup from the truck of the rental hatchback (which turned out to be handy).

No cart, no filters, no DAQ, no signal conditioners, just a laptop and a receiver this time around

The last test was really funny to do because Ayan wanted to try a forced loading for a minute by jumping and then wait a minute to measure free vibration, doing this at all 6 sensor locations). After the first few tests though, he cut the jumping time to 30 sec because it was a lot of jumping!

This time around we didn't have any visitors, and Sriram was willing to come down from Ottawa if we had any issues, but everything went smoothly. The only thing we found was that the sensors on occasion would just stop talking to the receiver, which might have been attributed to the cold (around 7ºC). We were done by 1pm, so we hopped back in the car and headed back to Waterloo. We hit a bit of traffic west of Kingston due to construction and got caught in the tail end of commuter Toronto traffic, but overall not too bad.

It was a very brief trip, we didn't get to go to Montreal proper this time around, but I still enjoyed the trip (and got work done). Oh, and as a plus, I got to learn more about Ayan and had some really interesting conversations with him along the way. :)

Research field work in Montreal

I've noticed that since I started grad school, the next question is often 'So...what do you do?' Well, in short, I do this:

A well-thought out setup. I'm serious, it worked out really well :D

Reusing covies, thanks GNCTR!

Promotional picture worthy, couldn't have done it without Richard

It can hold a car!

The subject for our running tests

Those are the 'yay for good weather and successful experiment' smiles

So, a bit of backstory, I had just returned from New Orleans 9:30 pm on October 1st. I was to meet Sriram at 8:00 am on October 2nd to get the last of things to pack in the CPATT Sprinter van before we departed for Montreal at 9:00am. Needless to say, all of my planning had to happen before I left for NOLA Thursday, so I was super prepared, and yet I still forgot my pajamas (don't worry I packed spare clothes and I didn't embarrass myself).

Sriram and Scott left in the rental car to take care of some errands and they would be meeting us at the ONroute stop past Toronto. They were also in charge of picking up the a 12th cable to run from an accelerometer to the signal conditioner. I couldn't find the last one in the lab so we unfortunately had to order one. Upon calling the supplier than morning, I had a bit of a panic when the receptionist said 'Oh ya, we shipped it'. Luckily they also had one at their office which we had to get before 5 pm.

Richard, Pampa, and I tossed the rest of the equipment that Richard had not yet packed on Monday into the tall van (as wide as a pick up truck but tall enough to stand in). We knew what we were generally getting ourselves into thanks to some pictures and dimensions courtesy of Alex's people at MAADI doing some surveying for us in the summer. We knew we needed long ladders to reach the midspan of the bridge from the underneath complete with fall arrest equipment for Richard (the only one trained). We had our non-destructive accelerometer mounting brackets all machined and ready to go. Toss in our personal luggage, about 4 laptops, Sriram's bicycle and all the cabling we'd need and away we went. Driving to Montreal was so uninterrupted, we forgot to point out the CN Tower to Pampa (this also happened on the way back!). Even just driving on the 401, Pampa was impressed by the colours of the leaves, which reminded me that she's only been from Pearson to Waterloo since she moved here on September 1. Well, she was going to drive through/visit Canada's two largest cities, a great outing for her!

Arriving to Brossard, we park the van up on the path and we have our first look around. The first impression while walking along the bridge was that 'wow, this is bouncy, yay we'll have data!'. We all got excited because we have known about the bridge for almost a year but we finally got to see it in person. Due to the embankments, 3 of the 6 locations (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 bridge lengths on the north and south side) were easily accessible from the ground without a ladder. The centre north location required the long ladder off of the embankment and the centre south location was over the water. For this one, Richard put the base of the ladder in the creek and used the step ladder horizontally from the channel side to walk out to the ladder. I trust he knew what he was doing because he worked extensively as a rigger on telecommunication towers.We decide that since they're easily accessible, they could easily be taken/vandalized during the night, so we waited until the morning. Sriram and Scott met up with us with the crucial cable. Apparently there was a giant traffic jam and Sriram walked the last 1/2km to the supplier to get it before they closed (and it was still after 5pm but we got lucky). We had a nice relaxing dinner, talking about the future of the structures lab, planning and such (not that I could really contribute but it was informative none the less). Oh yes, and Richard (and Scott somewhat) gave me grief for not letting them know that the hotel had a pool and a sauna. :P

Wednesday morning we wake up nice and early, get breakfast at the hotel, and head out to site. Unloading stuff bit by bit, we all have our own tasks to do, and it worked out really great. Richard got the mounts on the bridge, Sriram installed the accelerometers on the mounts, I laid out the cabling with Pampa's help, while Scott fielded questions from Jaques from the Aluminum Association and Alex from MAADI. Alex was a really interesting person to talk to because he's the owner of the company that made the aluminum pedestrian bridge that we were working on, and that would also be providing UW with our own 70' aluminum pedestrian bridge. He's clearly excited about his work and puts all his effort into his company. It only took a couple of hours to set up, checking the working condition of the accelerometers, signal conditioners, low-pass Butterworth filters, and data acquisition software. I didn't want something to bugger up and not know where it was coming from.

Tests we did were; heel drop for free vibration, single person walking, two people walking synchronously or asynchronously, a runner, a cyclist, jumping off the railing, a walking crowd, a running crowd, ambient vibration, and (our favourite by Alex's request) driving a car. What I found funny was that I was left on the bridge for an extended amount of time to wait for random pedestrians and run the data acquisition for them. Meanwhile, everyone else went for lunch, though they also picked something up for me, I felt funny being exiled to the middle of the bridge. Then when Sriram saw someone coming he'd yell and point saying 'Ann! Random person!'. Now, being Montreal, not everyone would speak English, so I thought that it was rather funny for pedestrians.

By mid-afternoon we were done collecting data, cleanup was fast and we were all done. I'd say it was a super successful day, especially since even the evening before, it was calling for rain. It was dry and fair all day. It looked a little cloudy towards the end but we got lucky. We headed back to the hotel where we regrouped and went downtown to join Alex at a pub. We first dropped in on the MAADI office, which was in a tech incubator-type centre like the Accelerator Centre in the Research and Technology Park at UW. Since Alex was crazy busy, we decided to meet him downtown later, and went for a walk. This is when Pampa got really excited about being in Montreal (which made me proud of my hometown). Walking along Peel and then St. Catherines, we stopped for a few pictures.

Meeting up with Alex, he talked about some of the interesting projects he has been a part of, including floating barges in Florida and pedestrian bridges around Quebec. We were able to stop by his one project, which were bridges leading from an old boat renovated into a floating spa docked at the Montreal harbour. Needless to say, the pictures show that it is a very high-end trendy place now.

Bridge to Bota Bota, a floating spa in Montreal, actually I didn't realize this picture has me (left), Pampa (center), and Sriram (right)

This also meant that we walked through the old part of Montreal, cobblestone, European buildings, and all. It was great, I hadn't personally been there in...ages really. It was great for Pampa and a bunch of the others either hadn't been before or hadn't been in a while. I love Montreal <3 p="p">
The next morning we took at a leisurely pace where Scott took us to see his family house. The Walbridge family had a large plot of land near Bedford, QC, about an hour south of Montreal in the townships. On the land is Quebec's only 12-sided barn, still standing from around the 1880's. It was really neat to see because inside the barn, the centre platform rotated to allow easy entrance/exit of horse and wagon, but also easy loading of hay bales into the stalls. The roof work on the barn was complex and quite remarkable. Richard was very interested in the history and was gushing over how things were built. We went for a bit of a walk in the forested area, passing an old sugar shack where they made maple syrup. Since the trees were changing colours it was really something special. While Scott had to meeting at the family house, the rest of us ventured to the café in Mystic (the hamlet). They had an extensive set of chocolates, preserves and everything made form scratch. This is where Richard found maple syrup pie that was closer to my mom's tarte au sucre than the one we had the first night. I was all excited, yay French Canadian dessert that's pure sugar.

Oh yes, and to Bedford and almost all the way home, I drove the Sprinter van. That's right, on the 20 I drove the van, and confidently at that! :D I was proud, though I did have a bit of guidance from Richard to start since I had never driven anything bigger than my family's Chevy Malibu. Getting home at 9:30pm, I was tired from having travelled over 4000km by plane and 1200km by car, but I had a lot of fun, and the research trip seems successful (from what I can tell so far). Of course, here's hoping that the data looks nice, then it'll all be worthwhile!

Ultimate Lindyhop Showdown: Day 5

Last day in New Orleans! :'(

After only a few hours of sleep, our bags already mostly packed from the night before, Dean, John, and I were off to the airport, bidding farewell to one of the most awesome cities in North America. Both of the guys were dressed up really nice (John because it was Oct 1 and the start of Oc-tie-ber and Dean because...well it's Dean), so I had a very nicely dressed entourage. We got to MSY really early, but whatever we were awake anyways. We hung out with Mel at breakfast until her flight to Montreal took off.

All was well on the trip home, I got to read some papers, Dean slept, John listened to pod casts. At the Atlanta airport, we hung out with Amanda Stock, who had the same flights as us. As a pass time, I took pictures of Amanda and Dean lindy-bombing the Atlanta airport thanks to Dean's portable speakers, for which they got applause.

Dean was kind enough to drive John and I all the way back to Waterloo but he was ridiculously tired, poor guy!

Overall thoughts:

ULHS 2012 was quite a different experience than last year, but I still loved it. The weather for some people was a downer, and yes the second line parade was cancelled. However, I looked at it and saw it as typical New Orleans weather, I thought it was almost more genuine. Plus, you're not made of sugar, so go run through those puddles, do the 'Singing in the Rain' routine!

I danced with lots of new people, but I found that a large proportion of my dances were people I knew from Canada/Northern US. I thought I would change that and be that person who dances with everyone, but I was still really happy with my dances since there are a lot of people that I don't have as many opportunities to dance with. I had awesome dances with some of the best swing dancers around, too!

I went for a run in the French Quarter the morning, which I'm still ooo and aaa-ing about, I don't know the architecture is just so neat. Plus, my route took me around some of the more normal local area, so it felt like actually being there, rather than sticking to touristy things.

Also, I really appreciated the down times with Erika and John individually since this is when I connect with people the best. Amongst all the craziness of meeting up with people and events and such, it's my time to be grounded.

Will I go again? Hmm tough to say, since I really enjoyed my time there, but it's not the same feeling as I had after going my first time. I think it depends where I'll be in my life and research work. Would I recommend it? Absolutely :D

Ultimate Lindyhop Showdown: Day 4

It was already Sunday! And all through the hotel, not a creature was stirring before 9-10 am. It was a late night before, much fun had by all. Dean was off to the World War II heritage museum, Erika went on a photoshoot with Dave. Dave liked the rain in NOLA and how it worked for photos, I hope his pictures capture that because I too saw the magic of the pouring rain in the French Quarter.

John and I went for a leisurely IHOP breakfast thus I replaced Dean in the 'breakfast buddies' team, and we meandered the French Quarter. And it poured. Oh goodness did it pour. The gutters were overflowing into waterfalls, the second floor downspouts were streaming high velocity jets of water into the middle of the streets, it was really cool. Retreating into a courtyard, we found a little coffee shop where I found the most awesome smelling 'cinnamon bun' and 'red velvet' flavoured coffee beans. I have tried the first one so far at home, but yet to try the second, they smell like happy warmth!

The one thing on my shopping list for New Orleans this year was to buy a parasol since I really wanted one since last year. We wandered the French Quarter and found the one stall with the parasols, and I found a really nice pink and purple one (surprising colours for me, I know!) After having checked out the dancing in the French Market, we went to a Mexican restaurant nearby that Nyree recommended for the table-side guacamole. Avocados, who can resist! The afternoon was more walking and enjoying the French Quarter and meeting up with people after their adventures.

Ee had dinner at Coops again so that Erika could also try it and then headed to Generations hall again for the evening dance. The competitions that night were the partnered slow dancing and solo blues dancing. I don't know, I mean sure they're good dancers, but I don't really understand the solo blues dancing. Or at least I don't know why just the most daring should win, I can more appreciate the control and isolation of movement (so I liked Sharon's dancing more than Evita's).

After the dance we stopped at Café du Monde, which we had to make sure we got to before we left (like last year, we went on the Sunday night). Beignets, powdered sugar, coffee, and paper hats. It's always a fun time, especially since Dean finds something interesting to do with icing sugar and 4 days of unshaven face!

Erika and I passed up on the late night (at Maison) since her flight was around 6 am and had to leave the hotel around 3:45 and I had had my fill for the evening. Dean and John went onwards, but soon returned to the hotel because it was the soul night (so it wasn't the swing they were hoping for) and a lot of people didn't show for the same reason Erika didn't. Though it seemed like she was going to fall asleep, Erika made her taxi and was off to the airport.

Ultimate Lindyhop Showdown: Day 3

This morning started off with a nice swim in the hotel pool since everyone else was asleep which was refreshing, plus the ceiling was glass so I could watch the rain fall.

At around lunch time, a bunch of us including Toronto, Hamilton, and Waterloo, ventured out to Magazine Street where there is a bunch of shopping, vintage stores, and stuff we had not seen even last year. After spending a bunch of time in Trashy Diva, Erika and I had a nice relaxing time in a nearby café just chatting. You realize that in such a big group, the small intimate conversations are hard to come by. I have to say with all the nuttiness of the big group, this was my favourite part of the afternoon. In the French Market that day was the showdown prelims.

We heard adventures from the guys (Dave, Dean, and John) where they went hat shopping at the Goorin Bros (I approve!) and they met a man in a wheelchair with a dog sometime after the cigar shop that upon them telling him they were from Toronto, he told them they had a messed up mayor. Oh my goodness, people outside of Toronto area know Toronto politics!

This evening's dance was held at Generations hall, a big hall with a second floor balcony and a good dance floor. The competition of the night was the showdown finals and the showcases. Chance and his partner won, but I was quite inspired by some of Sharon's flow and moves. What I also found refreshing was the lack of aerials, this was actual swing dancing, not 'let's throw her around in crazy ways'. This makes it so that what you see is more repeatable on the dance floor.

The late night was again at the US mint, but I almost didn't go because I had a bad pain around my kidney (not a new thing for me but it was pretty darn bad), and I got stomped on pretty fierce. I did  make it, but I hung out outside the dance room blowing soap bubbles with a bunch of folks. I had a good time regardless :) wow, bubbles was a theme of the weekend, I just noticed...

Ultimate Lindyhop Showdown: Day 2

Having woken up and feeling slightly less congested than the night before, I grabbed my gear and went for a morning run. I took a tour of the residential area north of the French Quarter and down Esplanade. By the end of my trip I was so sweaty and warm, it was totally not appealing due to the humidity. After coming back and showered, people were waking up. It wasn't until noon (and I had read papers) that I got out to meet people for brunch (tasty blueberry pancakes!).

In the afternoon I went preliminary shopping for shoes, dresses, and lingerie with Jay, Liz and Vanesser around Chartres. It poured so much, it was kinda magical in the 'this is New Orleans rain' kinda way. What was funny was that I guess I didn't fully rinse my shoes after I last washed them, because shortly after my feet got soaked, bubbles were growing around the toes and heel of my shoes. Jay lovingly gave me the nickname of 'Bubbles', and it seems to be sticking...well knowing Jay it could be way worse so Bubbles it is.

That night was at the Wax Museum where I had some of my favourite dances of the weekend. Many of the really good dancers were around and not too tired (yet from the weekend). Also the floors have a pretty good slide to them without being dangerous. Though, I learned to keep track of your glasses because a turn could result in flying glasses, luckily Mickey picked them up before they were stepped on. The jack and jill competition was fun to watch and we were super excited that Caitlin got into the finals. Though Toronto's cheering was louder, the other couple had a dynamic that couldn't be beat, but Caitlin did awesomely.

The late night was at the US Mint, which was an impressive building in the Quarter. The dancing room had a very cool vibe, very different than the bright grandiose architecture of the rest of the building.