The fellowship of the traveling kayakers

One of the pleasures of paddling is the community it creates. Perhaps because it's such a small sport, those who are passionate about it are supportive of and interested in each other. But it's more than just that. Something about kayaking seems to attract good people. Our home has become a free B&B for visiting paddlers from across the country and across the world.
We were thinking about this during the past weekend, when our friend Keith Wikle was in town for a business meeting and managed to build in enough extra time to paddle with us. We met Keith because we're fellow paddlers and have become good friends. During this visit, we filmed strokes together.

Director Alec atop the dock.

Alec and Keith check out the images.

 Lyn demonstrates effective strokes with a Greenland paddle.

Then we practiced silly kayaking tricks. 

Sharon uses her head, an essential piece of paddling equipment.

Our local paddling community is rich and varied, too. The next day, we set out with Paul Redzimski, who is preparing for a ACA Level 5 instructor certification workshop. Paul wanted to practice rescues, tows and scenarios. We agreed to be his crash-test dummies.

Paul fishes Alec out of 40-degree water.

 Alec safely lands his boat on the rocks.

Sharon ends the day with a roll. No ice-cream headache!

Autodesk opens its doors and we look inside

Its the 6th April 2010 and I have joined other bloggers, press and industry people for the Autodesk 2011 Media day. Autodesk often gets a regularly kicking from the wider user community, so this was a great opportunity to look inside this software machine and something that I have personally wanted to do for sometime. 

Much has been written about the IPD project for the Autodesk Waltham offices, but its not until you actually get here and see the quality of finish and the materials used, that you really appreciate why the IPD process really works. The quality is as good as you would expect from a high quality fashion store such as Gucci or LV. The workspace also looks fun; the guys and girls who work here look like they have a total blast and they are genuinely passionate about what they do.You get the feeling that everyone, I mean everyone wants to make the solutions better and better.

The morning starts with breakfast followed by an formal introduction to the days events from Paul Sullivan and Jay Bhatt. Jay explained that Autodesk where very proud of the 2011 release and that everybody within Autodesk had worked very hard over the last 12 months; especially during difficult economic times. He is well aware of some of the negativity that surrounded 2010, but explained that much work had taken place in terms of foundation building and with 2011 you now start to see the fruits of the labour.

So after the introductions, a number of us (me, Robert Manna, Steve Stafford and David Harrington) where sneaked out the back door for a secret gathering with Chauncey Wilson and Chris Yanchar to discuss, well…… some secret stuff! Time seemed to fly by as grilled us over some stuff (NDA’s are in place, so I can’t talk about the “stuff”). All I can say is it was good “stuff”! :-)

We then took a break for a coffee and the group split. Steve and I then meet with Erik Egbertson and Jean to discuss more “stuff” this time about railings. You should check Eric blog post as he wants your feedback on railing terminology. It was disappointing that time was not kind to us. An hour was just not longer enough as both Steve and I had so much to share with the Eric and Jean on the challenges that the everyday user encounters when using the railing tools.

We then broke for lunch and this was followed by a presentation from Commonwealth of Massachusetts who explained how they where using Revit and the BIM process to deliver their projects.

After this Robert, Steve and I where whisked off to join Greg Demchak for a scoping meeting with some of the other development team to review a “future” Revit feature. This was very interesting as it gives you a good insight into how they scope and plan for features within the time constraints of 12 months. You can see how they plan for immediate delivery as well as the long terms goal.  The whole process of scoping and planning is very much how a design team would work with a client to plan and deliver a building project.

After this we strolled over to catchup with Zach Kron at his desk.Scott Latch (RAC Product Manager) joined us as we all got geeky about adaptive points and massing! Be sure to checkout Zach’s blog and rest assure, he has some create articles coming around some of the 2011 features.

Steve had to split as he had a flight to catch and we said our goodbyes. We where then taken back to the hotel where we freshened up before being take to the Concord Inn for dinner. The Concord Inn dates 1700’s.In 1775, part of the Inn's original buildings was used as a storehouse for arms and provisions.  When the British came to seize and destroy the supplies, the Minutemen met them at the North Bridge on April 19th for what became the first battle of the American Revolution. As you can imagine I got a bit of s**t from all the Americans who where with me for dinner, about how the Yanks kicked are arse at the first battle of the American Revolution! My response was, lets just see you guys fair come the 12th of June 2010 when we meet you in the World Cup! All good fun and if you are in Boston at any time, be sure to go to the Concord Inn.

Then back to the hotel as I had an early wakeup call to catch a train down to the HOK New York office.

I have to say, I would like to extend my thanks to all at Autodesk who made this such a wonderful event. Especially David Mills, who went beyond the call of duty to get us all there and was a great host.

Warm day, cold paddle

Yesterday was warm--very warm. The air temperature topped out at 76 degrees. Yesterday was also windy--very windy. The peak gust measured at the Harrison Street crib was 50 knots.

Yesterday, in other words, was an interesting day to paddle on Lake Michigan.

Alec looks back before paddling past the "dolphins." 

Yes, that's what those pilings are called!

The water off North Avenue Beach was calm because of a jetty and the shape of the land, and the stretch south to Navy Pier was similarly protected (meaning the wave height didn't correlate with the wind speed). The water was bumpy, and we could see gusts on the water before they hit us. It was one of those days when you put into practice what you've read about paddling into the wind. If your casual sightseeing speed is about 3 knots but the wind is reducing that to 1.5 knots, then cranking up your effort to a 4.5-knot pace will effectively cut in half the time it takes to get to your destination. Talk about a good trade-off.

After we passed Navy Pier, such thoughts blew off with Alec's hat and all we could think about was, "Is this such a good idea?" That's when the wind reached its peak speeds. The water was cold (38 to 40 degrees), there was lots of clapotis, and a quick check over our shoulders confirmed that we weren't making much progress. Fortunately, we had options, and the one we chose was turning around and returning to the lee of Navy Pier.

We checked out the Chicago Fire Department boat, which was built in the 1940s and still boasts on its side in bright yellow letters, "We're there when you need us." Barry, who was on duty that day, was out enjoying the weather and appreciating a job that apparently consists of long periods of calm punctuated by moments of absolute urgency.

Barry, with beverage and books, gently informed us that we were paddling in a restricted area.

Then we flew back to North Avenue with the wind at our backs.

Where in the world am I?

Well, I’m sat in a hotel looking out of the window at a very sunny area just outside of Boston, MA. I’m here for the Autodesk AEC 2011 Media launch. This is the first time I have been to Boston; looks like a great place. Kind of strange, as on my way to the hotel, I passed a sign for “Winchester”; I had only left “Winchester, Hampshire, UK” just 9 hours earlier!

http://www.visitwinchester.co.uk/ 

I guess the first settlers who landed here couldn’t think up any original names, so to make them feel at home, they used City names from the UK. My American history is very poor, so I feel I need to know more.

Burning Hell Paddles to the Dawson City Music Festival

This is pretty cool, I heard recently on CBC Radio 3 that The Burning Hell will be playing at the Dawson City Music Fetival (#1 on the list of music festivals I want to visit some day!) this summer. What's cool about that is how they are getting there. They will first drive across the country to Whitehorse, an epic journey in itself. However, not satisfied to do things the usual way, they will then be hopping into canoes and PADDLING the 730 kilometers to Dawson City down the Yukon River. What a helluva way to do it!

In related news, The Burning Hell write on their blog about why Bruno, SK, has the "coolest indie music scene in Canada." You can read all about it at http://www.wearetheburninghell.com/node/106. Here's an excerpt:

Sorry Montreal: your glory days are over, and no amount of fires or arcades or little moustaches, tight pants and 80s sunglasses can save you. Bruno, Saskatchewan is the best indie music scene in Canada.

Who knew?


And in other news, I just realised the The Burning Hell member Mathias Kom is half of a duo with Kim Barlow known as Spring Breakup. Kim & Mathias played a house concert in my basement last year.

It's Springtime & Time To Ride

OK, so some of us haven't quit riding all year, but the number of excuses not to ride is rapidly dwindling with the warm springtime weather. My kids and I have been out quite a bit lately and my younger daughter (4) really loves being the stoker behind me on her Adams Trail-a-Bike. It's so much easier to pull than the trailer and she pedals too. My older daughter (7) loves riding her own bike but enjoys stints on the Trail-a-Bike too. When she's back there, I can really feel her contributing which is something I don't detect with the younger one. Our range so far with the older daughter riding her own bike is a 6.6 km return trip to the grocery store. I look forward to seeing that grow over the summer.

I came across this video over at bicyclesmile.com and thought I'd share it with you here. Gives lots of warm happy "springtime with the kids" feelings.

Autodesk Revit Civil - not

You only need to speak with somebody who has been using Revit for a long time and one of their biggest complaints is the limited site tools in Revit. Whilst you may argue that Revit is a building modelling application, buildings do sit on sites and are not in isolation, so this is something which is essential to the whole BIM process. Having spent many hours fighting with the terrain tools in Revit Architecture myself, it’s interesting to hear that Autodesk are starting to consider this particular area for Revit. So one thing that you may or may not of heard too much noise about is a couple of Civil focused extensions that may get released for Revit. Having spoken with a couple of Autodesk insiders these tools are in pre-alpha at the moment, but code named “Dig-it” and “Bucket”, these extensions may well start to drive a Civil focused version of Revit. “Dig-it” will be an advanced ground modelling extension, which will address the sort falls provided by the current terrain tools with ability to make road and pavements. “Bucket” will provide far more robust cut and fill calculations. So hopefully Autodesk will see the light and will release “Dig-it” and “Bucket” to resolve all our dirt problems.....