Lots of robins out in the park early this morning. The early bird, after all, gets the worm.
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Birders in Camo
Out with the dogs this morning, I spotted some birders set up on the beach by the filtration plant. The zoom on my little camera is not much compared to the heavy duty equipment these guys are using, but it was good enough to show they even have camo on their cameras. These guys appeared to be interested in the various ducks, geese and swans that hang out in the water in front of that beach. Maybe there has been some exotic specimen visiting?
I like the idea of taking photographs of unsuspecting birders taking photographs of unsuspecting birds.
Morning
Keep a song in your Soul
Here’s Little Miss Higgens and the Winnipeg 5
Sweet Retirement Jam
Last working day at the mothership. Enjoying some sweet retirement jam (thank you Miss Polly).
Lunch at the Chinese Mall
I don’t know what the Chinese Mall is called. I never noticed. It sits on the east side of Dixie Road, south of the Gateway postal plant, south of the funeral home and the BMW dealership. There is an assortment of businesses. If you’re looking for a cell phone case or a Chinese video, or a passport photo, or some Asian sweets, they have it covered. It has a food court, which has for many years been a lunchtime haunt of employees of the postal plant just up the road. I worked out of a cubicle in that building for years and I don’t know how many times I’ve had lunch there with my work buddies.
There are several food kiosks, perhaps 7, set up side by each, much like in other malls. These are not your basic chains though, oh no, no, no. These are mom and pop outfits, cash only. They do a booming business, including catering. If you go on a Friday, better get there by 11:45 if you realistically expect to get a table to eat at.
Most of the kiosks are Chinese but on the west end there is also a Vietnamese pho place and a Korean place. The Chinese places have hundreds of menu items, most of them illustrated with photos. As well there are some choices only written out in Chinese characters. One place has multiple sets of numbers, so saying, “I’d like a number 14 and a Coke” is a no-go because the proprietor can’t possibly know which number 14 you want. Pointing is involved.
For a long time, whenever I visited the Chinese Mall for lunch, I would always go to a particular kiosk. This is because the woman who runs the place has magical powers and tractor beam eyes. She would see me as I approached the food court, lock her tractor beams in and pull me to her kiosk. When I arrived, I would look at the hundreds of lunch choices and before I could begin to absorb many of them, she would point to number 2 in the list of sizzling hot plates and say, “this one is good”.
I’d think, I’m a free man. I will not have the one this woman is pointing at. I’ll choose another. Any other. She turned up the intensity of the tractor beams.
“Ok, I’ll have the number 2 sizzling hot plate.”
“This one?”
“Yes, this one, and a coke please.”
The number 2 sizzling hot plate was a dish made with enormous quantities of thick noodles fried with beef and onions, a portion enough for about 3 people. It was really tasty, tasty enough that I would invariably eat more than reasonable and regret it later.
One day I decided I would eat at another kiosk. Yes, I’m a free man I thought. I can overcome the tractor beam. It took several attempts, but finally I did it. I looked straight ahead, refusing to meet Tractor Beam Lady’s gaze. I walked past her kiosk and turned down the aisle to the pho place. I ordered the vermicelli with pork and a spring roll. It was very tasty.
The next time I was there, weeks later, I did the same thing, heading past Tractor Beam Lady and turning down the aisle to the Vietnamese place.
“Would you like the same, sir?””The same?”
“Yes, the same as last time?”
“You remember what I had last time?”
“Yes, vermicelli, with pork and spring roll…….and a coke.”
“Yes, that’s what I want.”
One day my answer changed.
“I’ll have the green curry please.”
“Oh, sir, not the same today?”
“Yes I feel like a change.”
“OK, the green curry is very nice.”
Next time: “Back to the usual today sir?”
“Yes, back to the usual.”
Then I moved my office to another location and to complicate matters I badly broke my ankle. I didn’t visit the Chinese Mall for a very long time. After I finally recovered and returned to work, I met up with a buddy at Gateway for lunch. By now I was strong. Tractor beam lady had no affect on me any more, no, no, no. I was a free man. Now I always visited the Vietnamese joint.
“So nice to see you. Usual for you? Vermicelli, grilled pork and a spring roll right? Do you want a coke with that?
As my final week in the workaday world winds down, I’m pretty sure one thing I’ll miss is occasional lunches at the Chinese Mall.
Long Branch Parking Sweepstakes Part 2
Some of you will recall my Parking Sweepstakes Part 1 post. I have another installment today. On the way home from work I had to stop to pick up some food for the partners and also had to visit Silver Lion Framing. These Long Branch businesses are right near the parking pay station which generously spit some money out at me last week. I didn’t want to put more money into a broken machine so I went into Purrfect Pets and did my business there, then looked around outside for the parking vulture before going into the frame shop. All clear.
While in the frame shop I watched the street, and when I stuck my head out the door, I could see buddy in his hi-vis vest advancing towards me, only about 100 yards away. Crap. All I had in my pocket was a loony, so I dropped it into the machine. I thought I heard a gentle satisfied burping sound, but it would not give me my ticket. Buddy was getting closer. I pounded the machine with my fists, then turned the placebo cancel knob. Winner! It gave me back my loony + $0.45. With buddy the parking vulture approaching, I took a quarter from my winnings and carefully inserted it. Ah, perfect. Printing. I took my ticket and put it behind my windshield in the nick of time.
I’m not calling 311 again. Too bad, City of Toronto, if you want your 45 cents, come and get it. And while you’re at it, fix the machine please.
If I could only fly
RIP Merle
Book Review – Outside the Board by Hajin Lee
When I became aware that Hajin Lee had written a book I wanted to read it right away. She is the Go streamer known as Haylee and I have been following her games on her YouTube channel. I know you’re thinking, what is a Go streamer, right? Haylee plays online games of Go, recording commentary (in English) as she plays, and makes them available on YouTube. She is a professional Go player in Korea and as well she is the Secretary General of the International Go Federation.
Here in Canada the idea of a professional Go player seems strange and exotic. Many people I know don’t know anything about Go or maybe can recognize it but don’t know how it is played. In Korea, China and Japan, there is a professional Go community in which “pros” are paid to play, whether they win or lose. Of course winning means playing more games and scoring prize money as well.
Regular visitors to this blog know I play Go and love the game, but I am a weakling by comparison. I’ve been watching Go lectures and following games with commentary in an effort to improve my game, which I felt needed a kickstart. That’s how I stumbled across Haylee’s YouTube Channel. Her games are very advanced for a weak player like me. Sometimes I don’t understand why she makes some of her moves until a few moves later when the complex sequences she has read out become clearer to me and I can see what she is aiming for. Other times, I’ll be thinking of an entirely different direction, but when she makes a move it becomes obvious it is just right. Still, I think I’m learning from watching these videos and I hope to be able to put some of the ideas into play in my own games. For sure I need to improve my own reading ability when I’m playing Go.
Outside the Board is a set of essays Hajin Lee wrote about her life in the Go (or Baduk as it is called in Korea) world. We learn about how she went away to Go acadamy as a child, studied hard for several years, and achieved the status of professional in her teens. To give you an idea of the intensity of her studies, here is a quote from the book in which she talks about studying life and death problems, which she refers to as L&D:
“As I was getting close to the pro level, my teacher came up with this special L&D training method. He assigned each of us a L&D book, and gave us one week. In the book, there were about 200 problems without answers, and we were to solve all of them and memorize the answers, without writing the answers on the book.”
For me as a social Go player, this seems impossible. I think the danger for a prodigy in any discipline is that it leads to a life which can be very unbalanced. Hajin Lee writes about a teacher who saw benefit in a broader education and as a result she spent more time doing other classes than some of her peers in the baduk world in Korea at that time.
In her essays, Hajin writes about wanting a wider range of life experience than she would get continuing to focus strictly on tournament play. She made a decision to go to university and study business, and also to study English, and she hatched a plan to use that education to work in the Go world later. As it turned out that is exactly what happened, an today she works for the International Go Federation. In fact, in her current role, she was working behind the scenes on the recent Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo challenge match. Here is her video about that experience.
Outside the Board was initially interesting to me because I like the game of Go/baduk, but this book would also interest anyone who enjoys reading stories about unique individuals and their achievements and experiences as well as anyone who enjoys learning a little about other cultures. Of course it helps if you also know a little bit about the game.
There is one aspect of this book I haven’t tackled yet and that is the appendix, in which the author presents a selection of her own games, with some very brief commentary. I’m looking forward to playing these out on my own Go board. I bet, combined with her stories the games will offer additional insight into this remarkable individual.
Artifacts
Bathroom reno continues. When the south wall came off, it revealed some curious artifacts. 
These were part of an old window. They hung along the sides and must have been used as ballast to make the window function smoothly. When the old window was replaced, they were left in the wall. We’ll find some way to re-purpose them in the garden.
27th Street 