A love story

USA border control. I'm going to come right out and say I don't like 'em.

We have a relationship that goes back some five and a half years (with one casual encounter prior to this). Some might even consider it semi-serious, especially if you view my move to Canada as a way of spending more time with them. They, however, have denial issues. No matter the frequency of my visits, they refuse to acknowledge that I have ever passed this way before and behave as a jilted lover with a vengeance fetish.

This time, our date took place at the Niagara border on the way to Buffalo airport. I had driven that way twice previously but, out of caution, had allowed an extra hour for bad traffic or a queue at the gate. However, once I had skirted the school buses piled up outside my house, neither of these concerns manifested themselves. The drive was easy and the bridge over to the USA entirely empty. Well, we had been winning the hockey; why would anyone go that way?

What I had not allowed for was the time required to get a visitor visa. The I-94 slip is valid for three months and the last two times I had driven over the border, I had one that was in date. But come on; it's a one page slip that they deal with in five minutes at the airport. How long could this seriously take at the much quieter land crossing?

The answer, it transpires, is 45 minutes.

It also costs $6 USD. I guess the cost is including in your plane ticket when you fly. While not exactly a substantial sum, the problem with requesting USD from people who are in Canada is .... Yeah. I had plenty of CAD but no USD. Well, OK, I had $1. It seems to me that it would make more sense to accept Canadian dollars at the Canadian border but no, apparently not. Fortunately, they do accept credit cards. I waved VISA then I left, now eying the clock.

Almost directly after the border is another bridge. It's a toll one. Did I mention I had no USD? It was possible that the amount they wanted was only $1, but there was no sign before the one and only turn-off before the toll booth, so I couldn't risk it. I pulled into a small gas station and ran my debit card through their ATM. Then I put my foot on the gas, staying slightly behind the guy who obviously was speeding and looking decidedly less innocent than a bright yellow VW beetle.

The bridge toll, incidentally, was $1.

I arrived at Buffalo airport exactly an hour before my flight. In theory, I was fine but I still had to park and I'd been caught out before by over zealous airport attendants. Not waiting for the shuttle bus, I cut across the grass to the terminal, rushing in to find it ... complete deserted. Like really, it was quite eerie. The check-in desk was devoid of human life, but I talked to a machine that printed me a boarding pass but refused to assign me a seat number. Ominous. Was departures empty because everyone was in fact flying to NYC and my flight was packed? I took my ticket and hurried to security.

.... it was also empty.

Seriously people, what do you know that I don't? Feeling like the lead in "28 days later", I pushed my bag through the x-ray machine (this was at least manned) and went and got a sandwich from the food court. Everyone smiled, everyone was nice and everyone was not a passenger. Hmm.

Arriving at my gate, I found three other people there. Somewhat reassuring. I passed my unassigned seat boarding pass to the airline steward at the desk. He frowned and went to his computer to print off a new one. It also had me on the reserve list. The steward raised his eyebrows and tried again. Same result. It appeared that despite this flight being seemingly empty, the computer was determined that I would stay behind. Perhaps it found an empty plane aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps it was in a love affair with the US border control too.

Two phone calls later and I do now have a seat. We will see if it's on the wing.

Roll to me

I have always found feet a disappointment. I mean, they work and everything but life is so much more exciting when you have alternative transportation as footwear. It seems I am not alone in this desire and with the snow and ice gone, many Canadians have switched blades for wheels. Skaters pass me on the way to the University, around town and along the tracks surrounding the lake. Since I possess a pair of roller blades (two actually, for various reasons) I am totally up for joining them ... except for the fact I haven't the foggiest how to stop.

On ice, the sharp sideways pivot hockey stop can bring you to a direct halt almost instantly. On wheels, such a maneuver would result in full body contact with the ground which, while technically fulfilling the intended purpose, lacks a certain something. This restriction is reflected in the rules of roller hockey where the game is played four-on-four, rather than five-on-five, and with no off-side rule. Recreational skates have a back break, but how do you use this without falling on your arse?

This issue is exasperated still more by the difference in intended skating location. In the rink, if I didn't stop I ended up crashing into the barrier or a member of (hopefully) the opposite team (did I take out your ringer? My bad). Here, I would likely end up sprawled in the middle of the highway. Not cool, free health care or not.

There was really only one thing for it and I signed up with a competitive roller blading guy who was offering lessons in Toronto. The class I joined was for beginners and he did warn me over email that they might not get onto stopping in the first lesson. But, he said (and I quote):

"I can make you more confident and stable so stopping won't seem quite as important."

Yeah! If I'm confident I can just go play chicken with those cars! Bring it on! .... I dug out my helmet and pads from the basement.

There were five of us in the class ranging from raw beginners to people lacking in confidence and needing a bit of advanced instruction. It was actually very good and I learnt a bunch of techniques for stability over rough surfaces. I also found that I could stop slowly; when approaching a wall, I stepped inwards to slow myself down. One of the other girls in the class noticed and commented:

"You stopped. How did you do that?"

".... I don't know."

"I think you know more than you realise."

Possibly she was right and it's probably likely that a few years ice skating plus a few more on quad skates helps with the learning process if not technique. I am still, however, going back next week. Life is full of surprises, but I'd rather mine didn't involve a dog's leash (horror story from our instructor), a small child armed with a bicycle (horror story #2) or a large truck (what I'm trying to ensure isn't horror story #3).

Mudball

Canadians, it transpires, have a similar stiff-upper-lip attitude to weather as their British counterparts. Given their notorious winters, this perhaps isn't surprising and the upshot of this truism found me in ankle deep wet grass, weighing up whether it was really needful to remove my hands from my jacket sleeves as the other team came up to bat. I would have been feeling less hard done by if every day when I wasn't outside, it hadn't been gorgeous sunshine. For the last four weeks, mind. Still, I could hardly complain; I am British after all. I was also keeping a wary eye on a flock of geese that seemed to have taken over the right outfield. I found this somewhat unnerving since rumour had it that, should these fowl be involved in play, there would probably be two loosing teams.

By the time we had reached the forth innings, I had concluded there must be a more civilized way to settle our differences. A coin flip perhaps? I was even prepared to weight the coin to allow for their indecently competent first baseman. A friend suggested we put in an offer of 12 to 14 and call it a day. Admittedly, it would have been rather generous to us but then it was our suggestion. Instead though, I was left to peer through the netting and wonder why the umpire had not invoked the mercy rule as the other team went on a batting spree. The answer to this turned out to be because the man in question had a second game after this one and wanted company while he waited. As a result, we played all nine innings although our sodden score sheet is only testimony to about the first six. After that, it was home runs from everyone all the way....

..... >_> ..... <_< .....

There is nothing water resistant to prove otherwise.

Thwack

First softball game of the season after, uh, two practices one of which I didn't make. But I was unperturbed; I had all that extensive rounders experience under my belt and well, I promised nuffin' when I was conscripted for this team. I felt I fulfilled this obligation when I showed up with a glove stolen from my office. It was a great start.

The team we played were from material engineering. This, someone suggested, surely meant they were unlikely to be any better than us. That cheerful, brash assumption transpired to be entirely false. The game is governed by basic projectiles and as physicists we could all calculate the ball's trajectory to within three decimal places. Unfortunately, as engineers, our rival team could actually hit it to within 1.  It was revealed somewhere around the fifth innings that the other team has actually won the league last year. The person with that knowledge had kept numb on the subject until he thought it might sooth our lack-of-home-run pride.

Nevertheless, the weather was warm and it was great to be outside. I discovered that catching with a GIANT HAND is not easy. For a start, I really had no idea where the extent of this mutant appendage was, so getting the ball to hit the glove centre was hard going. It was also difficult to bend the glove, so the ball tended to drop from it rather like a marshmallow from the mouth of a stunned spectator. After determining this, I was put to be a rover (woof!) which involved standing between the diamond and out field where most balls that come your way will be rolling.

About half way through the game, someone asked if us on the bench wanted to know the score. We all cheerfully declined. I did hit the ball when I batted though. That was almost useful and I felt cool baseballer on TV.

I need a cap.

Free food

So phdcomics.com? All true, in case anyone was in doubt. My group meeting today can be summed up by the reoccurring theme presented in this strip:

We had gone down to our usual location of the second floor coffee room in the science building to find the scant remains of a pre-Chemistry lecture snacks. Evidently, the speaker had been someone important since the nibbles had consisted of prawns, olives, good cheese and a variety of raw vegetables with dips. We concluded from this two things:

1. Firstly, the Chemistry department had too much money and Physics should either raid it or grass them up to the Dean.
2. We had to devour the remains before they were cleared away.

A couple of the grad students went to work filling their plates but had to up the pace when a guy appeared pushing a trolley to wheel the dishes away. A basket of crackers, plate of cheese and a pot of olives was swiftly secured for our group meeting table which we had safely surrounded. The rest of the discussion then went like this:

Student 1: "I need to calculate the full width half maximum of this graph."

Student 2: "Hmm, crunchy."

Student 1: "..... I have crumbs on my graph."

When people stopped eating, our adviser declared the meeting over.

Hot bubble

Montreal (East) has snow. Alberta (West) has seen a sudden severe spring blizzard sweep over it. Us, in Toronto? Hot bubble.

The only thing wrong with this image is that's it's taken from inside the Physics department at the University of Toronto, rather than outside on the lawn balanced precariously on an ice cream cone.

*Steams*

Rounders for boys

Spring has sprung and in the wake of the shock that followed the melting of snow and ice, the Physics department has formed a softball team. Softball, fellow Brits, is exactly like rounders except not socially confined to small school girls in gym skirts. The ball, also, IS NOT SOFT. This horrifically inaccurate misnomer is doubtless there to lure innocent postdocs away from their desks with the thought 'Eh, what's the worst that can happen?'[*]. On a plus side, I did get to wear a mit so I had one GIGANTIC hand. It was ace.

Despite being reassured that it was fine to play with only one day spectating the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team as way of recent experience, I was mildly apprehensive about batting. I mean, my memories of outer fielding told me that, positioned carefully, I could probably play solitaire on my iPhone inbetween pitches (except I had this GIGANTIC hand, did I mention?). Batting, on the other (smaller) hand, puts you front stage. There's even a diamond to emphasise this. Fortunately, I didn't turn out to be as big a failure as I anticipated. Metal hit ball frequently. Sometimes the ball even went somewhere. This was almost certainly due to our skilled pitcher, but hey! If he plays with us in the games who's to know? The bat, incidentally, is way heavier than the little wooden rounders bats I used to swing. My wrists got quite sore after a few.

Returning to fielding, I discovered a clash with my game play in other sports. I had an unpleasant habit of stopping the ball with my shin or shoe. I do this with the puck in hockey all the time; stopping it on the side of my ... padded ... skate or, um ... shin pad. Ah yes. That would be why it didn't hurt then. A friend commented I 'took one for the team'. I grimaced and tried to pretend that I was just hard like that.

Next practice, I'm going to stop staring at my GIGANTIC hand and catch a ball in the glove. Small goals. It's going to be great. 

[*] The answer to that quandary will doubtless be covered in future posts.