Cat and Shanmao's blog

Yesterday I fedex'ed my passport renewal application along with my old passport, birth certificate, and passport photos. The documents should be in Gatineau, QC by now.

It was actually cheaper to get overnight delivery rather than the 2 or 3 day delivery due to the low weight of the package. The cost for overnight was $31 and the cost for delivery by Friday would be around $50. Kind of a strange pricing scheme. The longer it takes, the more expensive.

Last night in the latest New Yorker magazine I read about a new ... fad? discipline? sport? philosophy? entertainment?

Well, whatever the classification it's called parkour. This name is a modification of parcours du combattant which is a French military training system. Parkour changed the 'c' to 'k' signify a little more aggression, and dropped the silent 's' to denote efficiency.

The basic idea is that of the 3 possible actions in a combat situation, speak or fight or flee, parkour explores the possibilites of the 3rd - flight. The practitioner, known as a traceur, uses a combination of running, jumping, somersaults, climbing, and gymnastics to move.

The experts in this field can be observed in youtube postings doing all sorts of stunts that you'd typically expect from a Jackie Chan or James Bond movie. The non-experts are likely typically a group of local teenagers or 20 something students picking themselves up from failed stunts at the local parking garage or monkey bar park.

One of the big names in parkour is David Belle from Paris. Search on youtube to get an idea of
what inspires people who take up this activity. Here's one video I found.

My passport expires in August. With potential trips to see Ashburn, perhaps Gui's parents in Beijing (if their green card doesn't come in time for her dad's birthday), and simply to renew it on time, I've begun the process of printing out the forms, trying to get the photo, get the photo signed, etc.

The passport photo system in Canada is a little arcane in this age of automatic self-service and a constantly relocating, rootless workforce. The passport application process goes by more quickly if you have a guarantor sign your photo saying that this actually is you. The guarantor must be a doctor, chiropractor, pharmacist, or a signing officer of a financial institution. Essentially, a respected member of the community. The passport photo must be sized correctly and of a certain quality. The passport photo should be stamped on the back with the commercial photographers stamp indicating his/her name and address.

If you can't get a Canadian quality (sized and stamped) then a US passport photo is acceptable provided you live in the US.

In the US, few people or photographers have experience with this system. Most photographers take only US sized passport photos. The US size is square, Canada's is rectangular. Photographers don't have a stamp to put on passport photos. They have to write out by hand, their name and address. Most dentists, doctors, etc. won't have guaranteed a passport photo.

Well, I had a passport photo done at Long's Drugs. I assumed they would get at least the US criteria correct. When I went on the web in the evening with the photo in hand I realized that my head was too large on the photo. The head should be between 1" and 1 3/8". Mine was a whopping 1 1/2". I'm going to return and demand that they retake the photo.

Hopefully there won't be a part 2 on this issue because things will go very smoothly. I'm not so confident though.

Today Gui and I headed into San Francisco for a few activities.

Since mom and dad had strongly recommended The Lookout we went to see the matinee. Definitely recommended, one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Without giving away too much, the movie is about a young man who received a serious head injury in a car accident, is now trying to regain some independence in society, and has to deal with those who would take advantage of a disabled person.

After the movie, we headed to a free classical music concert I had read about on the website San Francisco Classical Voice. Davide Verotta played music by Debussy, Scelsi, Fouillaud, Castiglioni, and Beethoven. Apparently, not only is Verotta a musician but this is merely a sideline or hobby for him. His main line of work is as an associate professor of pharmaceutics at UCSF.

Later we went to Green Apple Bookstore, a large used book store.

Browsed some interesting topics including

• McSweeneys quarterly which is a literary quarterly that seems related to the '826' family of youth non-profit organizations dedicated to teaching 6-18 year olds creative writing.
• Patrick Dougherty's 'stick work' architecture
• Electroland urban architecture - including an 'urban nomad' concept inflatable shelter (!)
• Some books by the 80s musician David Byrne