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ROY X CONE contest, 1.1.11 - 2.1.12


Paul T

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got up earlyish and did some chores while i waited for the shadow of the mountain to go away, so did saus

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went for a quick ride around the block, had way too many layers on, stupid winter make up your mind, lost my shell, gloves and merino top

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ready to roll

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we have choice as street names

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and stupid bridges built to perfectly catch your wheels and handle bars

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tide is in... thinking i could be kayaking instead

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off the track and up a hill

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round a few corners

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thats Manaia in the distance, ive posted pics camping under it, hiking up it and flying round it, it is my mountain

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and to the right... perfect kayak conditions

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tomorrow if the weather holds we will kayak around that island and stop and do stuff, other wise it will be weeks before they hit the water again as he has been lured away to the land of earthquakes to do engineery stuff : (

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Paul, you're photos sure brought back great memories from when I lived in New York! Wonderful update! Markus - make the most of the spa - glad you're going to get some good downtime! TG - lovely pics!

Weekend roundup… We're having a stream of family & friends visiting all summer, so we're always looking for interesting places to check out.

This weekend, a bunch of us headed out to the Welland Canal. The Welland Canal runs between Port Weller on Lake Ontario and Port Colborne on Lake Erie, enabling ships to ascend/descend the Niagara escarpment, bypassing Niagara Falls.

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The total altitude differential is about 100 meters over 42 km, and the canal has 8 locks. It was quite the engineering feat, built over a period of 20 or so years.

We arrived when a freighter was just in the process of heading back to Lake Erie. They are monsters!

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Here's a view from the bottom of the lock - I did it up in B&W for an "old world" feel!

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The kids all thought it looked like a watery version of the gates of Mordor!

Here's the view looking out towards lake Ontario: you can see the Queen Elizabeth Way in the background, and the older lift bridge in the front. We picked a great day to visit, as there was a steady stream of ships coming through.

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These guys were most likely out of the Timmins area, and had dropped off their loads of ore at Hamilton to be smelted. Hamilton Harbour : passing by at night, you get the impression of some bleak & hellish industrial landscape

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The area around the lock was really beautiful. The pups had plenty to explore too..

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There are about 50km of biking trails here, and even more mountain biking trails. For years, my wife & I used to do a mountain bike race, called "The Great Lake to Lake Classic". 50km of get-wrenching singletrack, that runs from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. We did it for it's first three years, but then it became such a cattle call, with thousands of cyclists, that we moved on to other events.

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What I was wearing for most of the weekend….

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Then we all headed over to another friend's place. She has a huge condo on Bloor Street, pretty prime real estate for Toronto. The kids had a great time cooling off in the pool

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And we enjoyed drinks & views from the pool patio.

The old & the new - the addition to the Royal Ontario Museum (which caused quite a controversy)

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Patio dining for a hot summer day

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Wanna shop? No problem!

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We finished up at one of our usual haunts, where I had my usual meal

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Not sure how much the other guests enjoyed our huge group, but we all had a great time! :)

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What an amazing bunch of posts from all of you! Riff's photo's, Paul's NY adventure, TG's gorgeous trips, This Sunday's cultural expeditions - wow! :)

But I still have the picture of Robbie with his cat in my head.... People at work were wondering why I would break into giggles for seemingly no reason! The expression on that cat's face... :D

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they are only underwear if they are worn under

not as perfect as yesterday but we went anyway

didnt have the waterproof camera so no voyage just the destination

parked up

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a piwakawaka greeted us with a challenge (or it wanted to see what grub our feet were turning up) too fast for the camera

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old living quarters

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the works

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me in my ROY nappies

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a space

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an area

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looking to the otherside of the harbour where i hardly ever go

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heading around the island and up the hill

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then

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now

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back down to the beach for a picnic (well actually we had a nut bar and some chocolate, cause i hadnt been shopping)

ruins of an old pirate radio boat

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then we battled against the wind and tide to get home so he could go back to work and i could bake muffins or something

i do wear my actual ROYs everyday just in case anyone thinks im being bad, even though they are too big for me and i have to keep squishing the voice that is telling me to take them in

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Interesting ruins Tg^^ I would bust out the shovel and start digging for old clothing, looking at the old picture you posted- has to be a trash pile or two underneath those weeds? Roy6 nice pictures-Paul T looks like a fun time with entertainment. Nice posts from you all!

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It's been a few years since I've owned a bike. The Mrs. found this for me. A 1967 Yamaha YL2c. Needs a little work, but will make for a fun grocery-getter.

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Shirt

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Pug flatulence (no vis)

RXC

I still haven't sorted out the summer fit with these joints (I normally shelf the denim once the mercury moves north of 90).

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Beautiful bike, cash!

So. I'd gone up to Boston to meet up with Al Kooper, the founder of Blood Sweat 7 Tears, who's maybe most famous for playing organ on Like A Rolling Stone. I was a bit beat by now but managed to keep it together. Wish I'd brought my film camera with me, I try and photograph every interviewee for posterity but the digital look is a bit too clean for me…

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Before the train back I had time for a leisurely lunch. Legal Seafood, by the harbor, is the place everyone knows about and it was pretty good.

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I like that you can eat at the bar in the US and get chatting to people. A lovely woman called Heather and I were laughin at how anyone can eat a cute, cuddly creature like a lobster…

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I got to hang out on the harbor for maybe five minutes before the train home. It's beautufl… funnily enough it's very similar to my hometoen, Hull, they have an exactly similar aquarium on the waterfront except that you look out over smokefilled factories and tankers, rather than the Atlantic.

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Sorry, Mark, I missed Mystic on the way back! This was the Express and it rushed past some places real quick.

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Of course, being a Brit I like your school buses, the way they're so chunky and uniform.

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SUn night I dropped into the Jones Cafe again to pick up emails - then I went midtown to meet xrevengex, unfortunately I drank too much and messed up the photos, sorry matt. As I downed a drink at the Cafe I checked out their jukebox. It's got one of the bnest selections ever - bizarrely, last time I was there I'd written Ronnie Asheton from the Stooges obit, then went down to the cafe for a drink and they had the record I'd been writing about, Down On The Street, on the jukebox. Sunday I'd been chatting to Al Kooper about the soul guitairst Robert Ward - he invented a partiuclar rhythm style, that Hendrix emulated on Little Wing etc. I told Al to check out I FOund A Love, my the Falcons, with Otis Redding. Then three hours later, there's the record, on the jukebox. Robert's dead now - so is Lowell Fulsom, another funky fella who I stayed with out in California a decade ago. ("Tramp" is the groove the Prince sampled on '7").

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THen it was a manic Monday. One meeting and four radio interviews in different bits of town, it was edgy, made every interview with two minutes, one minute to spare… so really, it was a blast.

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At this place one of the engineers noticed my watch, and then the Roys - i wonder if he's a fellow superfuture geek, was too rushed to chat…

I didn't even get time to walk into the main hall of Grand Central. It is beautiful, but even if you stop for 10 seconds you get jostled (exactly as I'd do to people in Kings Cross).

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WNYC was the biggest one of the day…

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This is Jiohn Schaeffer, who has a good show that I've only ever done remotely, from a BBC studio, before.

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Finally I made it to the Bowery for drinks with my editor and an assistant. Three quick drinks to celebrate.

Home via Great Jones again. This is the apartment that Basquizt rented from Andy Warhol - where he died from a heroin overdose. Age 27.

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But still I needed more drink, so a last one before bed to stop my hands shaking. THis is a local bar called The Scratcher.

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Now I'm over in the Village, with a cafe that has reliable wifi - time to check in online. see you back in London...

fuck, and I just got an email saying NYTimes review runs Friday, with online extract. Nervous...

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Paul,

Your NYC updates have been great! Nice to run into you and hang out! What a weird coincidence!

Also, this has become my favorite thread recently. I'm as stoked to see the contest unfold as I would be to participate.

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A few shots from some of my gardens today:

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The lady who lives here is very nice, and already knows I'm weird, so i figured why not.

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The RxC got their second real wash last week. For the first six months, before they got washed, the denim had a kind of water-repellant sheen to it. Something to do with the starch? After the first wash that's mostly gone, and they absorb water, mud, and dirt so fast now they started smelling after only a month, whereas they hardly smelled at all even six months in before their first wash. :(

So I guess they'll have to get a monthly bath from here on in.

They also shrank again, which I was surprised by. They're now too snug to wear suspenders with. Maybe just me, but tight pants with suspenders just looks like trying.

It is actually a relief to switch back to a belt after six months of wearing suspenders every day-- you really feel the pull on your shoulders from them by the end of the day. Now I see why 18th/19th century miners weren't generally fans of suspenders.

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At another garden- my clients decided they were gardeners.

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Amateurs! That germination rate is dismal.

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Roy6, those are looking great. I've held off on the hard wash, to this point, and your post has encouraged me to keep these out of the water for at least the rest of the summer. I suspected that there would be a lot of secondary shrinkage, which makes me happy as these have always been a bit too relaxed. I am worried, however, about the inseam. How much did you lose total on your inseam?

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when my ROYs grow up they want to look better than they do now

weather turned back to winter gloom

went out food shopping all wrapped up

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then home to cook a roast (rolled beef belly from one of dads cows)

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featuring 1972 Noritake cutlery used as turning devices

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seared it then chucked it in the slow cooker for a while

then on to gluten free peanut butter and banana and berry muffins

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less layers on inside

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then sat on the floor and watched them rise

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will cook the spuds and kumera and yams later

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Great stuff roy6! I have those same Filson suspenders. They were tough to put on at first the leather was so stiff. I would have to make sure I put them on the night before if I wanted to wear them so I wouldn't be late for work in the morning.

True. I like Filson stuff, and I like these suspenders, but damn, is it really necessary for the button hole tabs to be so stiff and the slot so small that you have to get out a pair of pliers to get them on?

Roy6, those are looking great. I've held off on the hard wash, to this point, and your post has encouraged me to keep these out of the water for at least the rest of the summer. I suspected that there would be a lot of secondary shrinkage, which makes me happy as these have always been a bit too relaxed. I am worried, however, about the inseam. How much did you lose total on your inseam?

I'm pretty sure I told Roy I wanted the jeans to shrink to 33 x 32. I measured them just now and they are 33 x 31, but they've stretched out some since the wash. I imagine they were 32 x 31 immediately after the wash.

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Too many great updates to note. awesome job everyone.

Cory came to town so we went to mike's house and snapped a few pics.

Mike's lovely wife Charla came with us and honored us with her presence.

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