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San Francisco

 

compare and contrast

My parents are coming to visit from Montreal (et environs) tomorrow! I'm excited to tour around San Francisco together while they enjoy a respite from the cold and snow and, undoubtedly, compare this city to their hometown. When visiting a new place, it seems like human nature to construct an impression based on the familiar. Indeed, having had a few months to explore this city I find myself subconsciously comparing it to the other cities in which I've lived. 

My preliminary conclusion is that San Francisco is a nice hybrid of Vancouver and Montreal. It has a west coast vibe but also the artsy, cultured, historical elements of Montreal. Using a food simile (the best kind of simile, if you ask me), Vancouver is like a lightly-dressed salad while Montreal is like shepherd's pie (or, as the Québecois refer to it, pâté chinois). And San Francisco is like shepherd's pie and lightly dressed salad, together in a tortilla, à la burrito. Yum (assuming that the beef is pasture-raised and organic, of course).

I don't seem to be the only person comparing San Francisco to Montreal. I came across this blog post, in which the author postulates that historic Montreal and San Francisco bear many geographical similarities based on these two photos:

   
Click here to download:
compare_and_contrast.zip (381 KB)

Among the many differences that the blogger fails to note is that, with the exception of Mount-Royal, Montreal is way flatter than San Francisco. Google should include contour lines for its maps of San Francisco, or at least advise when walking will suddenly transition to stair-climbing.

 

Filed under  //   Quebec & Montreal   San Francisco   Vancouver  

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learning to program through osmosis

There are times when I wish learning by osmosis was less dream and more reality. Studying for exams is probably the circumstance where I wished this the most (you know: step 1 - place textbook under pillow, step 2 - sleep, step 3 - wake up refreshed the next morning knowing the contents of all 14 chapters and the glossary, step 4 - ace exam). But I've also fantasized about learning by osmosis when it came to developing some basic web design and programming skills. Before I mislead you into thinking that I developed a way to do just that, the closest I've gotten to living the dream is by moving to San Francisco, being unemployed, and living with four YC alumni.

I've created some websites in the past using WYSIWYG editors. I won't be posting links to them here because they're, well, ugly. At the time, I didn't have time to learn enough HTML and CSS to do away with Dreamweaver and tables and all of their inherently frustrating limitations.

In contrast, when I arrived in SF I had time. Lots and lots of time. And I had a premise for a site. And I was surrounded by guys and their Macbooks and their nearly constant creativity. Not only were they creating things, they were creative in the sense that creativity is synonymous with innovation, initiative, enterprise, and resourcefulness. And I was inspired. I bought a domain.

After asking my roommies a few questions, I concluded that I was starting so close to knowing nothing about web development that perusing the results of Google searches would suffice as my guide. Sensei Google. I borrowed an O'Reilly book, but found myself returning to Google for tidbits of assistance (with a background in biology, most of my time with the O'Reilly book was spent speculating on what the species of fish was on the cover... salmon, in case you're also curious).

I began by mocking stuff out in Photoshop by following a few online tutorials. One of my roommies was hosting a houseguest who worked as a graphic designer, and he shared a few tips and tricks. I played with colours and wondered aloud why Photoshop tools were so counter-intuitive. Needless to say, the ++Z keys got a lot of use. 

Once I had a better idea of what the site would look like, got some feedback from a graphic designer friend, and determined the extent of the site's functionality, I debated whether I should learn Ruby on Rails (the language of choice around here) for the backend. Ultimately, I decided to create a custom theme for Wordpress (despite being warned that Wordpress could be a nightmare). Enter more tutorials.

I started with a template from a tutorial and started modifying it. Trial and error was the name of the game. I came to appreciate that the method isn't called "trail and flawless" - there was a lot of error. Starting with the CSS in a TextEdit window, I made changes, saved, and refreshed. And I did that again and again and again. For awhile, I would enter #000000 and expect white to appear. I then realized that, because the absence of all light/color is black, the nomenclature actually made sense. I got pretty far just by editing the CSS, but reached a point where I couldn't ignore the HTML any longer. 

More trial, more error. I'd think that I was on the right track, then I'd make a change, save, refresh, and (fingers crossed) ... error. I began to understand more of the nomenclature. I developed a love-hate, or rather hate-love, relationship with semicolons (hating them when one was missing and the structure of the page suddenly collapsed in a heap of div rubble and loving them when inserting one would miraculously fix everything). When trying to float divs, I found myself envisioning the position of lily-pads in a pond. Eventually, I got to the point where I would make a change in the code and was no longer surprised that the desired change would materialize in the browser window. The code made sense and I was able to appreciate that the code I was using as template was inelegant and inefficient. The experience was analogous to learning the basics of a foreign language using a textbook only to discover that the textbook was poorly written.

Then came Wordpress. Kevin graciously set up the server side of things and I began the process of integration. The tutorial was less than helpful, but I followed it to the best of my limited abilities. Ultimately, Kevin helped me navigate the intersection of HTML and PHP. More trial. More error. But I was learning. As a result, I have a website: www.amerishock.com

It's not perfect, but it's far from fail and it's mine. The design is mine. The underlying structure (minus the Wordpress code) is mine. The idea is mine. And, most importantly, I learned to program. Admittedly, what I learned was very basic but it can still be classified as learning.

While it wasn't learning by osmosis, the learning process was relatively friction-free. Being immersed in a culture where spending hours at home staring into the glowing screen of a laptop is seen as creative and productive, rather than antisocial, makes it easy to put in the time and effort needed to learn to code. And if you already code, I can't help but conclude that living in SF can only be good for productivity. Sharing an apartment with YC alumn can't hurt, either.

Filed under  //   San Francisco   science & technology  

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the common bond between worms in SF and cassettes

No soil or earth of any kind is allowed into the United States without a permit issued in advance by USDA Plant Protection and Quarantine Permit Unit
(U.S. Customs and Border Protection

USDA permits were not my top priority leading up to our move to San Francisco. As a result, I had to leave my plants and the vermicomposter behind in Vancouver. Most of the plants were left in the care of my cousin and the worms were adopted by Miss Maggie. I miss them all (the plants, the worms, my cousin, and Maggie).

In San Francisco, I have yet to acquire new plants (with the exception of this, which I might need to dedicate a blog post to in the future) or a vermicomposter. While I intend to add some flora to spruce up (hehe) our apartment this spring, I won't be procuring any non-arthropod invertebrate fauna. 

Given my success with the vermicomposter in Vancouver, I wouldn't hesitate to set up a new bin if I were looking for a sustainable way to dispose of my food waste. But I'm not. To my delight, organics are collected curb-side, along with recycling and trash, in San Francisco. The worms have been rendered obsolete [1].

Our building has a green cart in the basement and I've set up a small organics bin in our apartment, alongside the recycling and the trash, lined with compostable bags and labeled ".compost". Cute, right? Okay, maybe it's just geeky, but I couldn't resist.

[1] Nope, the title of the post has nothing to do with tapeworms (thankfully), in case that's what you might have been initially thinking.

Filed under  //   San Francisco   sustainability  

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year in review

The start of a new year inevitably prompts me to assess the year that just ended and ponder what the year ahead holds. In my case, on January 1st of last year, I didn't predict the events that transpired in 2009. If asked then where I'd be one year later, I would've responded "Vancouver". If you told me that I'd be married, I would've called you crazy.

Actually, I assumed that 2009 would be a replication, with some small, inevitable mutations, of 2008. Analogous to evolution in a relatively stable environment. But, as you probably know if you've been following hyphenated, the environment in 2009 was unpredictably stochastic. 

Stochasticity is not a friend of mine. Nonetheless, I survived the ups and downs and the instability and the unknown. Despite poor forecasting, the outcome has been positive. I feel stronger for having ridden the wave that was 2009. This strength helps me to look at the blank 2010 calendar without panicking (too much). There are a few dates with pencil-marks, but the bulk of the year remains uncharted and unplanned. 

I'd be lying if I said that I loved the predicted stochasticity, but I can acknowledge it, take a deep breath, and trust that most of the bridges that need to be crossed will appear on the horizon in due time. And if the bridges aren't there, we'll build them or find an alternate route.

Where will I be this time next year? I honestly can't say for sure. It could be Vancouver. And, despite the risk of mimicking Oprah, I do know one thing for sure: I'll be married. 

Filed under  //   family & friends   San Francisco   Vancouver  

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cinémathèque

In the past, I watched a movie every couple of weeks - roughly twenty-five movies per annum. I think I've watched at least that many movies in the last six weeks. My movie intake has substantially increased thanks to a roommate who watches movies like other people listen to music. While he works with movies playing in the background, I get sucked in and, voila!, I find myself watching yet another movie.

Of the movies that I've watched in the past months, a few stand out. Inglorious Bastards, Moon, and Empire of the Sun rise to the top of the list. I hadn't seen the first two movies before, but I had seen Empire of the Sun and watching it a second time confirmed for me what a great movie it is.

Christian Bale, who was thirteen when the movie was made in 1987, and John Malkovich are great in their respective roles, but the cinematography, the story, and the themes underlying the story ultimately steal the show and resonated with me (this might have something to do with my affinity for books and movies set in historical China and Japan). 

Empire of the Sun provides a captivating perspective of the occupation of China by the Japanese in WWII. Elements of the war are relayed to the audience through the eyes of a rich, spoiled foreign boy who is suddenly transplanted to an environment where his affluence and status become instantaneously irrelevant yet his sense of entitlement takes time to fade. His childhood innocence evaporates rapidly in the POW camp and is replaced with a cocky adolescent naiveté that is simultaneously endearing and exasperating. I found this paragraph from a 1988 article in the New York Times to be quite interesting:
''I was attracted to the main character being a child,'' says Mr. Spielberg [...]. ''But I was also attracted to the idea that this was a death of innocence, not an attenuation of childhood [...]. This was the opposite of 'Peter Pan.' This was a boy who had grown up too quickly, who was becoming a flower long before the bud had ever come out of the topsoil. And, in fact, a flower that was a gifted weed.''

I also appreciated the humanity instilled on the Japanese as a result of telling the story from the standpoint of a boy whose outlook hasn't been tainted by political rhetoric and wartime propaganda. Rather than being a black-and-white war story of good-versus-evil, the lines are blurred and the audience is left having to reconcile with various shades of grey. The subtly clever title alludes to the ambiguity by combining Japan's "land of the rising sun" with the idea that "the sun never sets on the British Empire".

Filed under  //   books & art   San Francisco  

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thanks, again

In October, I celebrated Thanksgiving in Montreal. With turkey and all the fixings, I reflected on all I had to be thankful for. At that point in time, my mind was mainly focused on the upcoming move and I was mainly grateful that the long-distance had come to an end. I also appreciated the fall colours, the warmth of the fire, and (last but not least) my wonderful family and friends.

This past Saturday, I celebrated Thanksgiving in San Francisco. While turkey and family were implicated (I was following Elaine's turkey instructions and I was flustered when the bird looked done about 3 hours before our guests were set to arrive - a call home resulted in some motherly advice and everything turned out fine), fall foliage and warm fires were not. Given that current ambient temperatures are such that many flowering trees are still in bloom, it didn't feel like time for the harvest. Of course, the pilgrims didn't take San Francisco's climate into account.

As I've explained countless times to Americans over the last month, Canada's Thanksgiving occurs earlier precisely because the harvest occurs sooner further north. Goes to show that there was a time when Canadian politicians didn't make decisions simply by looking to the south and copying (unlike Harper's recent change of heart regarding his decision to attend Copenhagen).

In any case, despite the lack of snow and shivers, Christmas is right around the corner. The holiday decorations and eggnog at the grocery store will have to serve as reminders, since looking out the window does not conjure up visions of sugar-plums.

Filed under  //   family & friends   San Francisco  

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urban expedition

The Twin Peaks are well positioned to provide great views to those who venture to the top: 


So, I resisted the temptation to keep playing DoodleJump (a highly addictive iPhone game) and made my way there to check it out. Although buses stop not too far from the summits, I decided to walk through the Mission and the Castro to get there and back - about 3 miles (4.5 km) each way. Given the warm temperatures and cloudless sky, today was a perfect day for a long walk. 

Obviously, the trek there was largely uphill, with many stairways offering pedestrians more direct routes up the steep, urban terrain. The energy expended was well worth it - the views from the top are great on a clear day (as per the pictures). Visible landmarks include the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid, the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street, the Bay Bridge, the Bay, and the Pacific ocean. Apparently the peak is a favourite destination for tour buses bringing loads of tourists to take in the vistas, but I was lucky to have the top to myself for most of the time I was there.
 
And, as a comedic aside, the name of my destination today reminds me of a Monty Python skit involving a man with double vision leading an expedition up Mt. Kilimanjaro...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=46btEgKmCTo

                                         
Click here to download:
urban_expedition.zip (9484 KB)

Filed under  //   San Francisco  

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ocean beach

Dear Pacific Ocean,

I've only known you for five years, but it feels much longer. I think that a few years spent living so close to one of your many bays was enough for us to form a strong bond. I awoke this morning feeling that it'd been too long since I last saw you (three weeks ago today, and it was only a quick glimpse from the span of the Golden Gate Bridge) and I decided to be proactive and do something about it. San Francisco is "The City by the Bay", but visiting the bay seemed insufficient given how long it's been since I've seen you. So, I decided to put in the effort (really not that much effort, but about an hour on transit each way nonetheless) to see you in all your glory. And it was well worth it. Thank you for the fresh, invigorating air and the soft sand and the big sky. And, given the fire pits on the beach, I'm happy to note that this city welcomes people to enjoy your beauty day and night. Feel free to pass the message on to Gregor Robertson.

I hope to see you again soon!

                         
Click here to download:
ocean_beach.zip (3867 KB)

Filed under  //   San Francisco  

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home sweet home

"Do you miss Vancouver?"

I don't know how many times I've been posed this question in the past two weeks, but it's come up more than once and I find that it's difficult to answer. Part of me feels compelled to answer "Yes!" emphatically because there are so many things that I love about Vancouver that I haven't yet found in San Francisco - great, cheap Japanese food, the ability to walk to a forest and a beach simultaneously, good friends, mountains... 

That said, I'm not homesick. I can only presume that this is because I already consider this to be home, which seems like an uncharacteristically rapid adaptation. I mainly attribute the ease of the transition to the "home is where the heart is" factor that I contemplated in a previous post. Having hauled all of our stuff here also helps. I try not to become too attached to material possessions, but climbing into a familiar bed and lounging on our sustainable couch is rather comforting.

Then there are all the great qualities of San Francisco that serve as excellent distractions from any potential feelings of homesickness. When we first visited a few years ago, my first impression of the city was that it was an awesome hybrid between Vancouver and Montreal. San Francisco has the scenic, west coast vibe of Vancouver combined with the history, character, and charm of Montreal. My first impressions have been validated so far and I'm really enjoying life here. Being able to wear sandals in November is just an added bonus.


Filed under  //   San Francisco   Vancouver  

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plenty of fish

When we left Vancouver, our friends Mark and Stephanie gave us some money as a gift with specific instructions for spending it. Mark described a place in San Francisco that he had read about consisting of an aquarium, a biodome, and a planetarium under one roof and insisted that we visit it. Kevin and I forgot the name of the attraction, but intended on looking it up once we got settled here. 

Yesterday morning over coffee, we were discussing weekend plans with our roommate and the latest houseguest (houseguests are a regular occurrence here). We had none and Paul was going to the California Academy of Sciences (the CalAcademy) with a friend. I asked what that was and Paul described it as an aquarium, a biodome, and a planetarium under one (green) roof. Assuming that this must be the place Mark referred us to, we went along.

The CalAcademy was great, especially the aquarium. The re-created tropical seascape reminded me of the course I took at McGill that involved two weeks in Barbados studying the coral reef ecosystem (Kevin claims that I only enrol in programs where I get credits to travel to warm destinations - I also went to Baja Mexico for a grad school course). Many of the fish were familiar, but many of the names had evaporated from my memory. Proof of the "if you don't use it, you lose it" principle. 

The dark rooms of the aquarium were packed full of families (consequence of going on a weekend), including small children captivated by colourful fish schooling amongst the coral in the huge tanks. Unlike me, they had names for many of the fishees, such as Nemo and Dora.

Standing before the glass, mesmerized by the fish swimming to and fro in their limited habitat, I couldn't help but contemplate the potential for coral reefs to become artifacts in my lifetime, seen only in aquariums and natural history museums. The prospect of not being able to snorkel in natural living reef ecosystems with parrotfish, eels, butterflyfish, angelfish, urchins, groupers... the list goes on, is disturbing and depressing but highly likely, due in part to climate change:

It is clear that anthropogenic climate change is already negatively impacting the world’s corals and coral reefs. The threat will almost surely grow over the next several decades as the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases and ocean warming and acidification accelerate. Predicting future impacts of climate change on corals and coral reefs is complicated given all the uncertainty about the political response, future technologies, changes in human behavior, the earth climate system and the actual effects on reef inhabitants. But even conservative forecasts suggest that we could loose coral reef ecosystems by the end of the 21st century. 
Bruno, John (Lead Author); Mark McGinley (Topic Editor). 2008. "Coral reefs and climate change." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth December 19, 2007; Last revised August 26, 2008; Retrieved November 8, 2009]

We didn't make it into the biodome because of the long line, but I'm thinking we'll get a membership to the CalAcademy and go back.

           
Click here to download:
plenty_of_fish.zip (2321 KB)

Filed under  //   San Francisco   science & technology   sustainability  

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