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Fictalicious

It’s been a good few months for my fiction consumption. After losing interest in science fiction after high school, and getting really into non-fiction, I haven’t really read much. Vacations are good for my intake, and so is riding transit to work. I’ve had a bit of both in 2006, and so far I’ve made it through the following books, fiction and non-fiction:

  • Eleanor Rigby, Douglas Coupland
  • The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
  • A Wild Sheep Chase, Haruki Murakami
  • The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
  • The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
  • Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
  • The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte
  • The Lost Painting, Jonathan Harr
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers

… plus the recently mentioned Paris 1919. By my recent standards, this is a redoubtable feat: two books a month! (Even if 40% of those were still non-fiction…)

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Transit measurement

I’m now two weeks into a contract with TransLink, the Vancouver transit agency. It’s a big shift – last month, I was still doing cloth simulation and telecommuting for a Toronto firm.

The job itself involves measuring the performance of the transit system – what fraction of the population lives near frequent-service bus/SkyTrain, how full the buses are, etc. It’s mostly straightforward GIS and database work, both of which are fairly novel to me. I’ve been playing with Safe Software’s FME, a sort of graphical programming language; it’s surprisingly similar in philosophy to Houdini and the cloth simulation I was working on before.

It’s nice to be in the transportation industry. I’ve been mulling a switch for some time now, and I’m glad I took the plunge. It’s great to be around other people who are really excited by this stuff. The contract itself is mostly a chance for me to get a feel for the industry, before I return to Toronto for a degree in transportation planning.

After two and a half years of telecommuting, working in an office is also refreshing. I was never a “working in my underwear” telecommuter (to the great relief of my housemates), but it’s still a bit of a shock to work in an office with a dress code. I’m treating it as a novelty for now, and enjoying it. I’m biking two days a week, getting through some fiction on the bus+SkyTrain the other days, and taking in a lot from the iPod every day. There’s not much free time left in the day when I have a 50 minute commute each way to Metrotown, but I can deal with that for a few months.

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Tofino

I’d heard the buzz. Tofino: a kayaker’s heaven, the Canadian surf experience, stunning landscapes. I was perhaps a bit blasé, having already hiked the West Coast Trail and visited the Juan de Fuca trail. But Tofino and the neighbouring Pacific Rim National Park were well worth the while. For those who don’t know, it’s on the west coast of Vancouver Island, on the only real stretch of regular highway that goes out that way. I think the map tells you how geographically isolated it is better than I can.

You need at least three days, since getting from Vancouver to Tofino takes about 7 hours between transit, ferries, renting a car and doing the driving. I took four days, to make it worth the while. I tried to go bodysurfing with a wetsuit, but failed since I didn’t know how to put the gloves and boots correctly, and created too much drag when they filled with water. I spent an afternoon kayaking around Clayoquot Sound and visiting Meares Island. And I took a surfing lesson down at Cox Bay, managing to ride the whitewash within an hour. I got through a few books, and took several pretentious photographs.

My suggestions for other travellers: take a surfing lesson, go kayaking (and take a lesson if you’ve never done it, or if conditions are rough), visit Wickaninnish Restaurant for a coffee, and go to SoBo restaurant in the botanical gardens. I heard some good things about the whale watching and hot springs, but I’d seen a lot of similar stuff already so I skipped them. Rent a car; it’s just too much of a pain getting around otherwise. Food is pricy at most places, so plan on cooking when possible.

See the pictures here, or for the impatient see the slideshow (no captions).

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Paris 1919

Book cover

I just finished Margaret McMillan’s book this week. It discusses the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles (and others) following World War I, led by Britain, France and the USA. The Austro-Hungarian empire and the Ottaman empire had both collapsed as the war ended, leaving many new ill-defined nation-states in their wake. The treaty was born of noble intentions: an idealistic American president wanted to do away with the old ways of diplomacy, and draw borders based on nationality and ethnicity rather than imperial ambitions, drawing on the language of “self determination”. Those ideals were diluted by the ambitions of the various European powers, by shifts in popular opinion back home for each country, and by simple inattention to countries outside Europe itself.

The author presents the material in context, and it’s very interesting to see the foundations laid for future conflicts, from World War II to Kosovo and Kurdistan. I found it fascinating to see so much of world politics interlinked. In one section, she describes Japanese aims at the conference: they wanted the new League of Nations to include racial equality as a founding principle, and they wanted to take over a German colony (Tsingtao) on the Chinese mainland, largely for their own imperial ambitions. Due to racism at home, the American delegation could not accept racial equality, but felt the need to placate Japan. So, they gave way on the principle of “self determination” in Tsingtao, and handed it over to Japanese control, where it proved valuable to later Japanese ambitions. To me, this speaks to the conflict between the purported ideals and actual behaviour on in the international stage. The USA is largely presented in a sympathetic light in this work, but the period also predates America’s true rise to power. The great powers of the age (Britain and France) are seen in a much harsher light, and their behaviour is strikingly similar to contemporary American action.

Yes, it’s a tough slog: you could describe the book as 500 pages of geographical and historical minutiae. But the content is compelling, and the writing keeps the pace moving by including details of the personalities and charisma involved in the negotiations themselves. I really enjoyed the book.