The new skate park at Kensington Park at Knight and 37th in Vancouver. The Rasta red, gold, and green are part of the memorial to Don Hartley - also known as Don the Mad Carver RIP.

That’s an opinion I heard today from someone who wrote in to the Province newspaper about how upset she was to see the paper’s story and photos of people at the new park skating without helmets.

“What disrespect to Hartley!” said Rochelle Hepworth of Port Coquitlam. “So I’m back to asking — how much more than a death will it take for some skateboarders to protect their brains?”

That’s a tricky one. I wonder if the helmet-less guys feel like they are disrespecting The Mad Carver. What are their reasons for not wearing one?

Personally I would wear a helmet and I would make my kid wear one too. He would choose to wear one on his own, anyways. I would advise others to wear one, but ultimately it’s a personal choice. In my opinion, not wearing a helmet is a bad idea.

But is it disrespectful to Don Hartley? I don’t know. What do you think?

Don Hartley memorial at the new Kensington Community Centre skate park on Knight and 37th in East Vancouver

Don Hartley was a famous local skate boarder known in skater circles since the 1970s. He died a year ago, at 52 after a collision at a Canada Day skate competition at Seylynn Park in North Vancouver. He was not wearing a helmet, though he usually did. He wore a helmet during the competition, but had taken it off on his way out of the skate park. I learned the info about what happened – along with a mass of condolences to his sons and family – from the Wall of the Rest In Peace Donald Hartley Facebook Page

Our first visit to the new skate park

It was glorious. The sun was blazing and people of all ages were riding in the bowls. Toby circled the edge of the park on his BMX – not finding a lot of opportunity to go into the bowls with so many skaters there.

I asked one of the skaters about the etiquette of riding a BMX in a skateboard park. He was taking a break, on the grass, near where I sat on my lawn chair. He said the skaters didn’t mind, as long as the BMXers watched out for the skaters, who get the worst of it in collisions with bikes

In any case, I’ve been scanning great reviews of the park and its retro-California style. More reports to come…

The new skate park opens officially on Saturday, July 17, will officially open from 11am to 1pm.

“The event will include a ribbon cutting, cake, skateboard demonstrations by local skaters and a helmet giveaway. The Vancouver Skateboard Coalition and Concrete Powder skateboard magazine will also be hand. The park is located at 37th Avenue at Knight Street, east of the Kensington Community Centre,” reads a press release from the Vancouver Parks Board.

Broiled basa with oats and dijon

“Basa is a species of river catfish farmed extensively in Asia. Catfish farmed in the U.S. is considered a ‘Best Choice,’ as it’s farmed in a more ecologically responsible manner.”

Seafood Watch Pocket Guides for your region to help you choose ocean-friendly seafood wherever you live or travel.

Now I see some information about basa on Seachoice.org – a group of five conservation organizations from Canada, including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecology Action Center, Living Oceans Society and Sierra Club British Columbia. They give basa a rating “Some Concerns.”

One reason for concern is: “The high occurrence of open-cages and the high stocking densities within indicate that there is a clear risk of pollution and habitat effects. This risk is tempered by the already degraded state and high water flow of the Mekong River Delta where the farms are located.”

I ate it anyways…

I thawed two basa filets from the freezer, and prepared them based on a recipe by Jamie Oliver in his 2009 book Jamie’s Food Revolution (Broiled Trout Topped With Mustard and Oats, p. 253).

fyi, this is the first time I’ve written out a recipe – and I have changed some details from the above, so maybe I don’t even need to tell you where I got the idea originally, but it seems like credit is due. Except I didn’t use trout; I used basa.

Basa filet recipe

1) Turn the oven on to broil
2) Put the basa filets in a pan with olive oil and a little salt and freshly ground pepper
3) Spread dijon mustard on the fish.
4) Put 1/2 cup rolled oats in a bowl and add a tablespoon of olive oil.
5) Arrange the oat-oil mixture onto the fish (on top of the mustard, salt, and pepper)
6) Broil for 10 to 15 minutes (and keep a close eye on the fish, because all broilers are different and I don’t want yours to burn, if you try this at home…)

Serve it with some kind of carb – pasta, baby potatoes, or rice – and some kind of veg item like green salad or maybe steamed asparagus.

"The Nutcracker" Dec. 18, 2009 at The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. iPhone photo by Susan Main.

A night of ballet followed by an afternoon of power pop punk… Good cutural balance, don’t you think?

Last night my son and I saw a beautiful ballet performance of “The Nutcracker” at The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. The sets were lavish and the tiny dancers were adorable. We sat in row D and enjoyed an amazing view of nearly 200 dancers in beautiful, colourful costumes.

The Georgia Strait calls this version of the Nutracker “a gift.” For the first time in Vancouver, this Christmas classic is by a local ballet company: Vancouver’s Goh Ballet. And the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra played the Tchaikovsky flawlessly from their pit in front of the stage. It was a treasure my son and I will always remember.

The Evaporators @ The Rio Theatre, Vancouver, Dec. 19, 2009, iPhone photo by Susan Main

Then today we went to the Rio Theatre in East Vancouver for an all ages punk rock show at 2 p.m. The Evaporators were full of crazy antics and lyrics – like: “I’ve got a disease: I’m addicted to cheese… pieces of cheddar make me feel better.”

We also enjoyed a great performance by big, local, pop-punk stars The Pointed Sticks. The crowd was dancing and a group of kids was cheering for their teacher playing guitar and little toddlers wearing ear muffs ran in the aisles getting chased by their tired mamas. Good times.

Painting by Toby Main

Today in Vancouver, B.C. my son Toby and his step dad Dave Dawson had the H1N1 vaccination at our family doctor’s office on Commercial Drive.

Before we went to the scheduled appointment, nine-year-old Toby painted this image. He was terrified and almost ran out of the room at the last minute. But it took only a second and he later rated it a “zero!” on a pain scale of 1 to 10.

He told the doctor: “Thanks to you, my needle phobia is gone!”

It felt like an easy decision to get the vaccine for Toby – who sometimes gets asthmatic when he has a cold or flu. After much consideration and Googling, I’ve decided the risk of H1N1 itself seems much greater than the risks of this new vaccine against it. I made this choice despite much speculation that H1N1 is over-hyped.

One of my Facebook friends says: “Pharmaceutical companies are raking in the dough. Scare tactics abound. Here in Edmonton, the first five pages of the newspapers talk of nothing but H1N1. I don’t trust the f**kers one bit.”

Then another Facebook friend says: “My 16 yr old nephew, a ridiculously fit and all-around great kid is having his lungs drained in emergency right now because of the pneumonia generated fluid collecting around his lungs. Pneumonia was the secondary infection brought on by H1N1. Went to hospital on Thursday because he was having trouble breathing (after being fluey for a week), they sent him home, and he went back tonight because of his pain and coughing.”

So we went for the shot.

I made my decision based on first-hand information from someone I know – not just because of media hype. I hadn’t heard any first-hand stories about anyone getting ill from the vaccine – aside from a few stories in the U.S. news.

Rationing vaccine is something I have never seen in Canada. It’s unusual to see the doctor’s receptionist going up to a mom in the waiting room and telling her the 2-year-old can be vaccinated but the 5-year-old is not yet eligible. Toby and Dave qualified due to asthma, but as a healthy 42-year-old, I was not eligible. So I left with a Tamiflu prescription and instructions to fill it if I get an actual bone-aching fever.

*Update: 10 hours later, Toby reports that his arm hurts so much, he can barely move it. Dave’s arm also hurt and felt heavy before he left for his evening shift tonight…. Three days later, arms still hurting but pain is nearly gone.