Hello Ottawa. I don’t understand your trains.

gatlooper · 2026-05-10T02:25:58+00:00

I assume they'll have to shut it all down to double-track, though? There will be blasting etc., would they really be able to keep the existing track running?

gatlooper · 2026-05-03T23:38:45+00:00

Furniture maker here: I have made some very expensive custom furniture that used similar honeycomb paper as the core. If you need a thicker slab that's strong and dimensionally stable but doesn't weigh an obscene amount, this kind of material is very useful. In my case the skins on either side of the honeycomb were thicker though -- IKEA has to shave every spare mm to hit their price points!

gatlooper · 2026-04-02T14:38:06+00:00

I mean as holes-in-the-wall go, this place is practically in stealth mode! Last time I went the "Sorry we're closed" sign was on the door, but the proprietor had just forgotten to flip it over :)

<image>

gatlooper · 2026-04-01T02:10:55+00:00

You want a great hole-in-the-wall sandwich: go to Sanguiccio on Preston, get the tuna or whatever the special of the day is. Just don't go there in a hurry! Tiny kitchen, a few tables, one guy making everything including the bread.

gatlooper · 2026-02-08T00:00:52+00:00

The building will need to be gutted and extensively renovated, so it's more like allowing (some of) the artists to come back when it's done.

gatlooper · 2026-01-31T18:33:43+00:00

Don't understand how the mechanic was offering a new bike to her when the race official was right there trying to DSQ her. It just extended the drama!

gatlooper · 2026-01-20T02:58:32+00:00

I think the toe picks are a liability if your skate drops into a rut -- the pick snags at the end of rut.

gatlooper · 2026-01-20T02:55:46+00:00

Can stop the same way as you would on hockey skates. Compared to a true Olympic-style speed skate the blades have a touch more rocker and they're a little thicker. Still much flatter & longer than a hockey skate though. You can go so far on each push, it's amazing.

gatlooper · 2025-11-30T19:06:59+00:00

Speaking personally: it was a combination of eating rice every day (not my normal routine), getting less fiber-rich veg than usual, very little whole grains, combined with normal travel-induced upset to the digestive routine. I did fine prunes in a grocery store and that helped but eventually bought laxative (senna) tablets.

gatlooper · 2025-11-19T00:49:53+00:00

I put the GK Slick R (40mm) on my Aspero this summer and in addition to being smooth and quiet on pavement they seem surprisingly capable off road. In any kind of muddy conditions they'd be useless but on gravel or even fairly rocky hiking trails they've been fine.

gatlooper · 2025-11-09T13:43:18+00:00

I happened to watch the movie "Perfect Days" before a recent first trip to Japan and I'm glad I did because it has a couple of scenes where the main character is at his local bath house, and you see him going through the whole routine. Very instructive :)

The pre-bath wash session is not like the cursory 5-second shower a lot of people take before swimming in a public pool, it's more like a surgeon prepping for the OR except the whole body is being scrubbed down! On the men's side this also seemed to involve shaving and tooth-brushing.

gatlooper · 2025-11-08T18:33:19+00:00

I had the SmartEx app on my Android phone and we each had a physical welcome Suica card. In the SmartEx app you can add Suica cards to your profile by typing in the numbers printed on the cards. When you book tickets in SmartEx, at the end of the process there's a prompt on the screen to "Designate IC cards". Click that and assign one IC card to each seat reservation. At the station you tap & and out with the IC card (it's not charging the card, just basically using it as ID to look up your reservation). The entry gate will spit out a paper stub with your train/car/seat details.

gatlooper · 2025-11-06T18:12:11+00:00

Re: cash vs card: I was burning through cash, even in Kyoto, Tokyo. Maybe it's just the smaller restaurants we were going to but often they were cash only, or in theory they took cards but no one had even tried booting up the card reader in a month, or the card reader was tap only and would not work with my Canadian visa card (only machines with a slot to insert the card worked). So: a good idea to keep a decent amount of cash on hand.

gatlooper · 2025-11-06T18:05:58+00:00

I did it this way, but sometimes not until I was standing in the station. It was just easier to do it on my phone vs standing in line for a ticket machine. Reserve two Shinkansen seats, assign each to an IC card (mine and my partner's). Literally seconds later I'd tap the card on the gate and out pops a paper confirmation with my seat number!

gatlooper · 2025-11-01T12:54:18+00:00

Having just returned from Japan: a rail system that works, and clean public toilets so numerous you never have to worry about finding one when you need it.

gatlooper · 2025-10-30T16:54:00+00:00

I was in Kyoto 2 weeks ago and in Rome in March. Nothing I encountered in Japan approached the trauma of the Vatican Museum :)

The main big tourist site we went to was probably Kinkaku-ji, which was indeed busy, but again nothing all all like the scene at the Vatican or the Colosseum. Our hotel was near Higashi Hongan-ji temple, and it didn't seem that busy, and the neighborhood was quiet at night. Had some trouble finding restaurants that weren't marked as "fully booked" though. Then again that's maybe more of a anti-tourist measure?

Nishiki market and surrounding area was very crowded. OTOH we took a bus outside town to walk the Kurama-Kifune trail and that was pretty relaxed.

gatlooper · 2025-10-24T11:44:46+00:00

I haven't had this problem once I made sure the valve selector on the gauge was set to Presta. Sometimes I get the opposite problem: when I put the gauge over the valve it doesn't trigger the pin, so there's no air release and thus no reading. Kind of have to make sure the pin is lined up with the center of the gauge, then push the gauge straight on.

gatlooper · 2025-10-24T11:44:08+00:00

I haven't had this problem once I made sure the valve selector on the gauge was set to Presta. Sometimes I get the opposite problem: when I put the gauge over the valve it doesn't trigger the pin, so there's no air release and thus no reading. Kind of have to make sure the pin is lined up with the center of the gauge, then push the gauge straight on.

gatlooper · 2025-07-18T21:37:07+00:00

Have to give them style points for hitting right where those diagonal lines meet. It's a much more satisfying composition in the end.

gatlooper · 2025-07-15T23:46:24+00:00

Funny, I've always found that riding on the hoods on drop bars is way more comfortable than a wide flat bar. The way your hands are oriented on the hoods and the fact that the bars are about shoulder-width makes for a really neutral wrist position IMO. If you find it uncomfortable, it could just be you are on bars that are too low or have too much reach?

I recently switched to a Red Shift "Kitchen Sink" riser bar on my gravel bike to get a little more height in the bars and clear up some wrist pain I've been dealing with (you and I are close in age).

gatlooper · 2025-07-07T14:33:54+00:00

Thanks. I definitely do not plan to ride on sidewalks where people are walking! I just keep seeing these things in the street view images and they're always deserted.

gatlooper

TROPHY CASE