Lose 4.5 POUNDS IN 3 HOURS!
A Canada Day tradition of running from my house to the top of nasty Grouse Mountain. Only 21.4 km but mostly uphill - ending with a super steep 3 km climb that gains 853m altitude.

Total Distance covered =
21.4 km or
13.3 miles or
12,597 smoots *(see below).

(click to play the video)

SHOWDATES UPCOMING: William Jans' LIVE shows don't happen all the time and they often sell out by word of mouth. New showdates for Vancouver will be posted here (it will update too as I add shows for Victoria, Courtenay, and maybe Seattle, Kelowna and Nelson.

If you have enjoyed the shows, I would appreciate if you could pass this along to people you think may be keen. Thank you.

*REDUCED TICKET PRICES FOR 2010
*NEW CHILDREN'S TICKET PRICES :-)

VANCOUVER:
Tales from Tanzania. Thursday, Oct 14. Hollywood Theatre (info) (buy tix)
Trekking in Tibet. Thursday, Oct 21. Hollywood Theatre (info) (buy tix)
VICTORIA:
Tales from Tanzania. Thursday, Nov 4. David Lam Auditorium (info) (buy tix)
COURTENAY:
Trekking in Tibet. Saturday, Nov 6. Stan Hagen Theatre at N.I.C. (info) (buy tix)
Tales from Tanzania... Tuesday, Nov 9 Stan Hagen Theatre at N.I.C. (info) (buy tix)
SEATTLE: Planning stages. TBA. Please email if you have venue ideas?

(Click here for info about the shows if they are new to you).

SMOOT: As you may have noticed, the house to grouse trip was calculated in kilometres, miles and smoots.

Google earth includes "Smoots" as a unit of measurement... and wait till you hear how Smoots were derived. A fun story and arguably a perfect definition for Irony.
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Back in October 1958 students at M.I.T. hatched an absurd plan to measure the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge from Boston to Cambridge in units based on “the length of the shortest person in their group who ALSO had the most scientific name” Oliver Smoot was 5’7” and "Smoot" does sound scientific…

At first Oliver was getting up to advance to the last line drawn but after they found it was too slow having him get up and down, the group took to lifting and placing him each time the draw lines (apparently they moved him almost 364.4 times too).

The smooth marks were almost forgotten until the next years pledge class of sophomores were told to repaint the Smoot marks. It turns out each subsequent year kept carrying on the tradition.

Smoot graduated MIT in 1962 and didn’t give much thought to their “smoot marks” – little did he know they were becoming more legitimate over time. Eventually the police started referring to smoot marks in their reports when referring to incidents that occurred. This was becoming a bit of a standard…

And weirder still…. Once new paving was to take place, instead of doing the crack lines at 6 foot, the cement crew apparently ALSO echoed the smoot lines at 5’7”

The legacy continues now too since in Google earth maps you can calculate the distance of your local trip from your house to the grocery store in Smoots. Cool!

The most ironic thing is that Oliver Smoot became a decorated professional in the standards industry as the Vice President of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) that devised an array of standardized measurements… It is pretty cool that he was, in fact, one himself.

William’s trip running from his house in Vancouver to the top of Grouse Mountain May be only 21.4 km (13.3 miles), but sounds way better in 12,597 smoots (plus or minus an ear).