Was running down Hall Street by Whitby yesterday morning, when a car in the opposite direction drove up. The guy rolled down his window and warned me about a wolf they just saw at the trailhead into Lynde Shores Conservation Area (~500m ahead).
I don’t know about wolves in Toronto, but I’m guessing they saw a coyote. Nevertheless, I was about 15-20 km into my run, I doubt I had enough hp to outrun or fight off a coyote spawn. Maybe I could bribe the coyote with some powerade and gel packs.
Speaking of gels, I almost barfed the first time I tasted these GU energy gels. However, that sugar rush feels so good. I need to optimize my gel consumption some more.
My mom called me today to say that I have a surprise waiting at home. With my interest perked, I came home to find a copy of 四十二章經! WHAT!!! NO WAY!!!
I was awestruck in reverence for all the wrong reasons. This scripture exists for real?! I should have known!! And more importantly, where is the secret treasure map?!!?
第一章 出家證果... lol
This video was too cool for me not to share. Vodafone, premium sponsor of the McLaren Mercedes F1 team released this viral video ad for the Blackberry Storm. Hopefully, my non-racing-addict readers will also enjoy this video. I wet my pants the first time I watched it.
Now, how do I go about retrofitting my MP4-23 model car?
My wisdom teeth were extracted yesterday. I survived!
A bit of history first… In the consultation meeting with my dental surgeon, he hyped up the operation by telling me about all the hazards and risks. This guy really loves numbers. There is an 8% chance my wound would get an infection, which I’d thought was quite high. Since my lower wisdom teeth were pushing against the molars in front, there was a <1% chance that these adjacent molars will be damaged during the extraction (though they can be filled up). Furthermore, my left lower wisdom teeth overlaps with my nerve, so there was also a <1% chance that when the root of the wisdom teeth gets yanked out, it’ll clip the nerve line. If my nerve was damaged, I’d feel numb only on that side of my face. There is an even smaller chance that this numbness will be permanent, but I was assured that it will NOT deform my face. At least other people won’t notice it, which makes me feel so much better!
He said any pain, bruising and swelling usually peak on the 3rd day and take the rest of the week to subside. The operation could get messy, so I should wear some old clothes on which I won’t mind getting blood stains. Small amounts of bleeding may still occur around the area of surgery during the first day, which might drool onto pillows during sleep.
A small tangent, I was really amazed at how high-tech this guy’s operations were. Everything was computerized. My panoramic X-ray was taken digitally and accessible from the many computers in his office. He totally didn’t mind emailing me a copy of it (unlike my optometrist… grr). His patient notes were entered electronically as well. He showed me 3D computer models of how the extraction will occur for my type of cases. My medical prescriptions were printed out. I bet the pharmacy guys must love him. I do wonder what contingency plans he has if the power goes out.
Anyway, after knowing about all these risks (and realizing almost everyone I know had their wisdom teeth extracted already!), I came in with the worst-case scenario mentality. Not that I was too worried, but I made preparations to make sure I won’t get blood stains on my car, pillow, bed, etc.
I love the nurses here. Karen and Chloe are always so upbeat. They got me settled down in the surgery chair, before the anaesthetist dropped by to put me to sleep. My arms were strapped down to the chair, which made me think I was in a psychiatric institute. The oxygen, heart rate and blood pressure monitors were attached. My heart rate was about 55-60 BPM. I always thought my resting heart rate was usually higher than normal ~75 BPM. Perhaps the marathon training is paying off. XD
The anaesthetist had prepared 7 needles – 1 small, 3 medium, 3 super huge (4cm diameter, 20 cm in length) ones! She was busy preparing my hand to insert the needle tube thingy. I was watching her work until she looked up all of a sudden, and exclaimed, “Put your head back on the chair and relax!” She inserted the first needle, I felt the cold fluid flow at an amazing pace up my arm and a few seconds later, I was out.
I have a vague memory of being helped out to the recovery room. Soon after, I woke up, though I was quite drowsy. The nurses were amazed that I had awaken and could sit up so quickly, about 10 minutes after the surgery. It made me think that it would have been quite shocking had I woken up during the operation! lol. After some pictures, post-surgery reminders and collection of my wisdom teeth fragments, I was heading home. Walking while drowsy is a weird feeling - not having full control over your legs. It made me appreciate more of what Roy must have endured during his recovery and when he and Siegfried did that final show.
So I came home and slept for 2 hours with ice pack around my face. Except once when I drank water and accidentally swashed some over the surgery area, the pain was a lot less than I expected. The Tylenol 3 codine definitely work as expected! My chin and lower lips were quite numb for several hours after the operation. My chin and lips felt swollen (even though they were not) and felt like blubber. Given the risk my surgeon had told me about earlier, I had some cause for concern! However, since both sides were numb, chances were that it was just the anaesthetics.
By evening, I was feeling quite normal. My jaw regained most of its range of motion and I was able to talk normally. The pain was almost non-existent. I was careful when I ate to not accidentally aggravate the wounds. No bleeding that I could observe either. My pillow was clean this morning. :) I am a little disappointed that my face didn’t really swell this morning, since I wanted to see what my chipmunk face would look like. :(
Now what am I going to do with all this yogurt and ice cream sitting in my fridge? :|
Motivated by BlueOrca’s photos and my recent acquisition of a McLaren-Mercedes MP4-23 #22 1:18 diecast model ($$$), I finally sat down to finish up Monaco.
Monaco’s only geocache is Top of Monaco, although it is technically not within her borders. Situated near a paragliding platform at the top of a hill in France, you get a spectacular view overlooking the city-state. When I saw this cache listing, I knew we had to do it. BlueOrca had acquired the GPS track logs from GeoBear, another geocacher who had recently completed the hike up to the cache. From the track log, the hike didn’t seem too bad - about an 8km hike with a 600m change in elevation.
We bus-hopped from Jardin Exotique (#2 / #4) and eventually arrived at Saint Roman. The first part of the hike was stairs through some residential neighbourhoods - lots and lots of stairs. We had also passed into France and I didn’t even notice. A lot of stray cats were also scurrying along the drainage and walls, which made BlueOrca really happy. Once out of the residential neighbourhoods, the hike turned into dirt paths leading up to different road tiers running across the side of the hill.
The hike turned out to be longer than I expected. Despite setting off at a pretty good pace, every time I studied my GPSr, our progress was a lot slower than I’d expected. It was so demoralizing that I got fed up and put my GPSr away.
Initially, I thought some parts of GeoBear’s hike log were pretty stupid. For example, in one instance, instead of turning left, he made three right turns and did a mini loop. It was not until we got to that section that I realized we had to go through a tunnel, make three right turns in order to reach the trail leading over top of the tunnel. Ugh. GeoBear’s track logs were totally accurate – no shortcutting for us.
It started getting dark as we neared the summit. We ran into a local French resident, who was bewildered that we were scaling this thing at night. We assured him that we had brought flashlights and we’d be okay. :) BlueOrca raced on ahead, while I managed to steal Segamatic’s Canon gear at some point; I don’t know if he’ll let the same happen again with his 5D2 and TS collection. I left a tripod and some secret stone markers at the forks to guide those who followed.
BlueOrca found the geocache quickly enough and we got onto the paragliding platform for some photos. Actually, I didn’t realize the pad was used for paragliding at the time. The green artificial turf resembled the tee off at a driving range. It would have been cool to bring a golf club and get a picture of myself launching a golf ball towards the Monaco backdrop.
I spent some time setting up my tripod to take some night shots. (I’m not sure why I didn’t borrow Amos’s tripod). It was quite windy up at the top (imagine Bay Bridge caliber winds), and my tripod was unfortunately <Too Weak!>. With the slanted slope, I was worried my tripod would topple and pull a RC238. Stupid me also FORGOT to bring my external flash. I’d brought it on the trip just for this one occasion and I left it in Nice.
Ironically enough, I was being rushed to finish taking the photos quickly, so we won’t miss the train back to Nice. This didn’t help me at all as I did not properly set up and check my shots. I did not even get a chance to take a single photo of Cap-Martin. What a wasted opportunity. :(
We soon began our descent. Some geocachers are pretty hardcore in that they go night hiking without bringing a flashlight. We ended up sharing a single headlamp between the three of us. The sky and city lights just kept on getting better and better as we headed down. I manage to drop back a few times to take some photos, before catching up with the group. At least I got one photo that I’m happy with - Click Me To View Larger. :)
I had mentioned in previous posts that I had misplaced our 2L bottle of water somewhere in Monaco - teaches you a lesson about leaving important things with me. :( Anyway, the only water that we had left was whatever I had in my Nalgene, which wasn’t a lot. Feeling partly guilty and seeing that the others needed the water more than I did, I sacrificed my precious water supply for the greater good.
Segamatic knees started to hurt on the way down, so we eased the pace and took more breaks in between. We were also very hungry and had finished our water supply a long time ago. In a yet-another-stupid-thing of the night, I offered Segamatic a granola bar. He accepted the bait and we each took half. Lesson learned. Granola bars are NOT to be consumed when you are thirsty. It just sucks the remaining saliva from your mouth and tastes totally horrible. I cannot think of anything more disgusting that I’ve eaten in my life. Sorry Sega!
We had no idea what time the last train to Nice was leaving, though I was hoping that there will be late ones, given the Grand Prix. It soon became apparent that we were not going to make it back into Monaco by midnight. Segamatic was in quite a bit of pain from the hike; I was trying every trick in my bag to offer some motivation.
It is really tough to know what to say in such situations. We were only about halfway down the mountain. We talked about catching a taxi back to Monaco. In the end, I suggested we hike down to the next major street and look for a taxi there. I really hated myself for saying this at the time, because I knew that we had no chance at catching a cab. I guess it's my "Jack Bauer" decision - to resort to deception for something this serious, since there were no other alternatives. The lie did its trick and Segamatic willed himself to make the heroic hike to the street.
Once there, we sat around waiting for a taxi. After a while, as I had dearly hoped would happen, Segamatic realized the futile nature of our situation and we resumed our hike. I tried to distract the conversation to other topics (BUNNER and LLAMASERY) to make Segamatic feel better. Retracing the path we took to come up, we finally got back to Saint Roman.
We waited at the bus stop for a bit, hoping to catch a bus and/or flag down some taxis. Found out after a while that buses do not run this late on Sundays. Our taxi strategy failed just as spectacularly. The one taxi that had stopped refused to give us a lift when he found out we were going the train station (5-10 min drive). Bastard.
The city was eerily quiet, as we hardly saw anyone on the streets. I thought that was really unusual given the Grand Prix festivities this weekend. It was as if the hordes that amassed earlier in the day just disappeared into thin air. I mistook an elevator sign for WC. I didn’t even realize until we took the elevator and couldn’t find the washrooms. Not that I had much urge, as my body consumed most of my available fluids.
Our quest to catch the last train was superseded by our quest for water. We stopped in a few condos begging for water. Everyone suggested we head to the casino - lots of water there. I wonder if the casino will let us in, dressed and smelling as we were. We finally found a hotel clerk who offered a 500ml bottle for 3 Euros. We drained that bottle pretty quickly. :|
By the time we made our way to the train station and took the long escalator down to the terminal, guards were already clearing people out of the station. The last train to Nice had left at 11:50pm. We were several hours late. :( We begged them to allow us to grab some water from the vending machines before being escorted off the premises.
The first train runs at 6am, so I strongly considered finding a place to just chill for a few hours in Monaco. BlueOrca was adamant about taking a taxi back and Segamatic seemed a bit zoned out from the ordeal still. I couldn't really ask a girl to sleep out in the streets, so it was better that we tried to get back to our hostel in Nice. BlueOrca flagged down a really fancy Mercedes-Benz taxi. The drivers were now very willing to give us a ride… pfft. 130 Euros definitely buys service.
BlueOrca and Segamatic were passed out in the back. I tried mightily hard to stay awake, just in case the taxi driver decided to take us to some other Nice. This experience totally reminded me of trying not to doze off during a boring lecture after a few all-nighters (a nearly impossible task)! The highway from Monaco to Nice was really beautiful - four well-paved, well-lit lanes each way, passing through some really nice scenery. I didn't get a chance to admire the sights on the train ride into Monaco earlier. Once I saw the exit for Nice, my mind succumbed to my body urgings and I dozed off. When I woke up again, we were already back at Nice's train station. This ride may very well go down as the most luxurious international taxi trip I will ever take. :)
We had quite a Monaco experience and got to see some unique aspects of this city-state. I’d have to return one day to check out the more typical Monaco sights and definitely drive or get a ride through the Fairmont tunnel.
Monaco – 5/5.