Thoughts from a random place...

Paused

2009-08-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Moving on to other places, other directions. Look here no more...not for now, at least.

M.Sc.

2009-07-21T18:33:00.001-07:00

The official poster to publicize Crystals defence to the entire university. I dare say that we were actually out of the university and halfway through a pint by 3:00, though. Oh, she passed...

DONE!! ... in sign language.

Pop...pop...pop.....pop goes the champagne bottle.

Celebrating her successful defence with the sunshine and a bottle of sham-pain.

A toast to Crystals Masters - 3 years in Prince George completed.

Tofino Trilogy

2009-07-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Part 1: The before Tofino part (Rockin' our way up some mountains and climbin' our way up some rock faces in the deadly heat of central BC)

Part 2: The Tofino part (Rainy with wet periods, hiking our way along epic coastlines, getting lost and losing trails for 8 hours on the rocky shores, and gulping back some fine vino by a campfire whilst dinner crackles on the bbq...then glorious sunshine!)

Part 3: The drive home (Sick as a bag of bacteria, eating ice cream and muffins for four days...blah. Crystal would be a fine nurse.)

Update: Part II

2009-07-14T11:38:00.001-07:00

Woke up at 1am to some 20-something punk trying to break into my car. Chased him down the street, gave him a good scare. Fucking thieves.

Update: Part I

2009-07-14T11:15:00.001-07:00

Silence on my end. For very long. I have been mulling around inmy resignation from the School Board, organizing my contract for next year, packing and liquidating our house, and...oh yeah...getting robbed and losing our computers. We came home from a climbing trip, brought our things inside, collapsed on the bed for a moment of pause and relaxation before the all-present task of unpacking....then heard a noise. Walking. Movement. The lady that lives below us was out - her car was not in the driveway - and we were both within eyesight of each other, unmoving. Who was walking?!? Who made that noise? I got up, lurched my way towards where the noise came from, and at the same moment our door rang. The lady who lived downstairs had come to ask "what the hell is going on?!?". Then I knew something was amiss...I looked down the hallway, and saw open doors. I looked at my table and saw a blank empty space where my computer should be....we had been robbed. Called the cops, got everyone outside, grabbed my knife and started going through the house, door by door, closet by closet waiting to penetrate a mans flesh with my humble camping knife. But...nothing. Once satisfied that the robber had left, we waited outside for the cops to come. They did. They looked, they poked and prodded, and then basically told us that our stuff was gone, get on with life. End of story.

That ended our computerized life for a while...but we did not stop living the life of BC. In the meantime we have been out climbing a lot, hiking some, and taking some moments to look over our city that we once, well I guess we still do for a while, called home and considering the good and bad times therein. Mostly good, which is not exactly what I expected the firt day we drove into the city limits and set our bags down on the floor of a seedy motel to start our search for a home and for work. So long ago, so much we have changed.

Marble Canyon: First Ascent

2009-06-01T20:25:00.001-07:00

...on our new climbing rope! Our majestic yellow and blue and red baby.

The view from the road - driving out of Vancouver, en route to Chilliwack, on a gloriously sunny and warm day.

A buttercup with the pollinators doing their thing.

A lunchtime break along the backroads of BC. On our way to Marbl Canyon.

Further moments of our lunch break - pondering the canyon.....

Marmot! We also saw a baby marmot, scampering about in the rockfall below this fella.

Marble Canyon! This is me preparing the rope (which was well tangled) to set up the anchor and the climbing route.

Rope set up, harnesses and gear on....Crystal is getting ready to climb.

....I think this is her after that first climb.....

It was 4pm by this time and the heat....the heat!!!

Gear set-up. Note the cool rope!

Crystal climbing.

Us, between climbs and baking in the glorious sunshine of the canyon. Well, its more of a valley. Marble Valley.

Me, on my way down after a climb on the second route we set up.

Still on my way down.

Once we made it back to camp, and despite the raging heat and the dry air, I craved coffee. Thanks to Robin donating his old coffee pot, we were able to have a nice brew on the side of the canyon and watch the evening approach.

...and approach it did. This is Crystal standing beside the lake we camped on.

Same lake...

...and in the morning, the wildlife was taking full advantage of the early moments. Here, a loon peruses the morning mist and searches for breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast...here is Crystal over a morning bowl of cereal and cup o'coffee. Bhind her, way off in the distance, is a portion of the climbing rock from yesterday.

Duck.

And me, dufing the same breakfast, enjoying both the warmth on my skin and the glorious goodness of ceareal in my bowl.

Then we packd up, and headed home - 6 hours of BC scenery and sunshine!

Rock Climbing, again, in Giscome BC..aint life grand?

2009-05-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

This is how the evening ended - me, sucking back gallons of honey. The evening started 6 hours earlier, at the foot of the rock wall in Giscome. Crystal and I, along with the climbing folks, took to the rock early Friday afternoon and returned to our place to have a nice toasty campfire and tofu shish-kabobs. The climbing was awsome, the weather superb, the fire full of dark smokey, the beer soothing and the barrell of honey....soon to be emptied.

Throwing down the rope from the top of one of the climbs.

Me, belaying Robin as he makes his way up the wall.

Me, now in the same place as Robin was above, repelling after climbing up the wall.

I suppose this one should have been first. This is me climbing up the wall. This section caused my muscles great concern...stretch, twist and stretch...then push....up, up, up!

Same stuff....still cranking my way upwards...

...still.....

The hats...it's all about the hats......

Robin playing on the rock, Theo belaying another climber.

The climbing group taking a munchies break...

The after party....beer, fire and the worlds best cake! We made it back to our place for an 11pm dinner and popcorn fiesta.

The cake! That is actually a representation of a rock we climb, with trees on the left, and a climber - Robin - in the centre. As this was Robins send-off shindig for his life in southern BC, he got the centre spot on the cake (and I learned quickly that I love marzipan once I had a bite of this lovely artifact).

Robin having just rapelled down from the top, he readies himself for a climb, as Crystal watches on and Katrina in the background plays around in the evening sun.

Crystal, belaying another person high up above. Her harness, and all the trimmings were purchased just hours previous.

Jasper: May Long Weekend (are there any snow free peaks?)

2009-05-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

Long weekend. Tent in car, bags packed, eyes towards the mountains and the peaks. Here they were all snow covered - cloaked in a blanket of white. Eastward, to Jasper we went, in search of bare rock, dry soil, arduous peaks with now crystaline water upon them.

And dry we found. Sort of. Many hikes were perfectly summery, but once we got to the actual peak....yikes! We suffered low battery power so there are not many pictures overall, but the peak picutes that we normally aim for were forgotten as the wind tore a layer of flesh off our bodies and the cold drank itself inward, chilling the bones and the marrow. Awsome hikes, awsome views....we explored a totally new area of the park (it was actually the tip of Banff). Enjoy! Especially the embedded video!

Our tent, poised against the frigid memories of the winter snow!

Hike 1 - unnamed peak within the wilderness region just outside of both Jasper and Banff National Parks. You can see the remains of a forest fire that burned its way up the ridgeline. When we got to the peak we could see the actual size of the whole burn, which was significant, but also that it ended exactly along the ridge. The wind that dominates from the lee of the ridge must have been the barrier from it continuing over and up?

Me, climbing up the first section of the hike that took us out of the treed area and into the alpine.

A view from the first knoll that led to the peak.

Crystal, as seen from where I stand in the previous picture. Ahead of her is the first peak along the ridge. At this point the wind went from 'crazy' to 'absolutley crazy-blow your hat off'. Further along, it was raised to 'absolutley freaking unbelievable as it tears the flesh off your bone'. The points where you can see snow up the peak was almost impossible to walk upright - we had to constantly bend over and gain purchase on the rocks for balance and stability in the wind!

A finer view to the peak...did I mention the wind at this point?!?!?

...but before we tackle that "what about a little lunch?". We found shelter behind a massive boulder and sat down for some cheddar and bread. And a wee overconsumption of peanut/raisin/grape-nuts stylin' trail mix.

Me, unhappily trying to catch my breath and force a smile (inside I was filled with glee...it was the outside that was feeling the brunt of the weather!). Behind me, the peak approacheth!

Camera set. Timer on. Run to get in the picture....in 3...2....1....*wind gust - camera falls* ...1..FLASH!

D-oh!

Crystal, pausing to count snowfalkes. Or pick our next route to our next peak. Although this was our goal...we kept going up, up, up. The faint peak behind her was our next goal of the day.

And this is the view from that point. This part was crazy technical and steep...but the limestone was nice and weathered and rough so our feet stuck like it was sandpaper. Walking on a 45 degree angle with a skip in our step! Did I mention the wind?

Me, managing an actual gimace, if not a smile, this time.

Fuzzy little cutey pie. We saw this character on the side of the road....early evening after our hike.

Me, upon our return to the campsite. Priorities are priorities, and after 7 hours on a mountain ridge, hydration takes priority.

Next day, early morning mist hanging in the air, we approach another mountain along the Icefields Highway from a rockslide. Chunky boulders, light feet, and up again we go!

Now....this day turned out to be pictureless for myriad reasons. One, batteries died (dont mention this to Crystal). Two, scared (terrain was either slippery rock or steep slippery rock or steep slippery rok with mud on it). Three, peak attempt foiled by steep snow covered approach. Four, the batteries died. Honestly, dont bring this up to Crystal..... :)

And to the mountaineers are given the spoils: two days of rugged mountain climbing and tent living deserve a reward. Nachos and pints of Alberta's finest.

And on the blizzardy Monday morning that ended this long weekend, we decided to explore a wee bit more. We headed south towards Maligne Lake and took in some sights. All the snow you see in these next pic's came the night before!

ABOVE and BELOW: We fond an awsome stream that carved its way into a canyon....and spotted some killer rock climbing routes for future trips!

And, after all was said and done, we returned home to craft ourselves a pizza, a few pints of beer and an evening with James Bond, retro style.

Wildlife tally for this wee little jaunt into the mountains:

11 Black Bear

31 Mule Deer

25 Elk

1 Rabbit

1 Timber Wolf

1 Grizzley Bear

4 Mountain Goats

1 Moose

Fort St. James: Climbing

2009-05-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

Giscome: Climbing them rocks, again

2009-05-04T20:42:00.001-07:00

Well, well...another (aka the second) trip to the rocks. Last time we came here there was snow on the ground, a chill in the air and I wore a touque most of the day. This time, no chance. Sun, sun, sun and I came home with bronzed flesh. Nice intro to my summer habits in the outdoors.

Robin, playing a tune (and resuing me from having to carry down the guitar)

Me, near the start of my climb.

Me near the mid point of my climb, Prudence in the foreground.

Putting all my trust in Robins belay techniques and his opinion of what was "fast enough"...Robin S looking on.

I think at this point I was realizing that my arms were done for the day, yet the mind...the mind pushes one upwards!

And Robin, the other one now, playing some exit music to this post.

G'bye fer now.

Livinston Springs: A hike upon the snow...

2009-04-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

These are actually from a few weeks ago. The snow should have long since departed from our ample soils, but it lingered...it lingers. The thaw is definately here, and I got my first taste of a warm sun on my face as I drained a cup of java and meandered my way through thick literacy studies on my back deck tonight.

It felt good.

Well then, here are some random and recent pictures:

The first flicker of the season, at least the first one I have seen since last fall.

ABOVE and BELOW: Whipping up some pizzazi pizza on a snowy spring evening.

Old trail marker pointing the way to the Livingston Spring trapping cabin. The route is awfully flat and uneventful, other than the fact you are walking through a cemetary of pine trees. Once at the cabin though...it gets beautiful!

The cabins themselves, worth the wintery trek.

Apparently this is normal...

2009-04-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

...I say ignorant, stupid, wasteful, selfish and vain.

Rock Climbing: Giscome, BC

2009-04-07T18:38:00.000-07:00

...and away we go!

Here are some varied pics of a recent outing to climb among some geological madness. Weather was awsome, snow was melting, rock was dry (mostly).

...and there we are.

Birthday Away in Jasper You Say?

2009-03-02T21:27:00.000-08:00

Birthday morning...two suprises!! Two books I had been drooling over for a while became mine in the early morning of my 30th year.

Friday at work....push through the day, get my aged bones to 3:06 and into the car. Move East. Then South. Then East.

Jasper.

We arrived in Jasper just after the stroke of 10pm, tossed our clothes in the hotel and ambled our way down the strip towards the Brewery. We spent the evening there, then awoke the next morning to sunlight, coffee, breakfast and left for a snowshoe in the mountains. Saturday night we re-enacted our Brewery sojourn, made our way to the Downstream Pub, then off to the Ded Dog Pub...then walked the whole city looking for food. Nothing to be found, we went back to our hotel room and called it a night. Excellent food (best purchased dinner ever!), amazing beverages, and a whole birthday weekend of fun. Good times, as always, in Jasper.

Afternoon coffee break with our books...

The drive towards Maligne Lake, nearing our trailhead.

ABOVE and BELOW: Munching away on a lunch of carrots, cheese and bread in the forest. Crystal wants me to delete this picture of her....apparently she looks weird but I thik she looks lovely.

View....of.....beauty. Jasper in a frame. This was near the end of the hike/snowshoe. The trail continued through thick brush - a melee of fallen trees, actually, and perfect bear dens so we decided to leave fate alone and call it quits shortly after the lake ahead of here.

Another view along the hike...

Crystal walking ahead...

Stopping along the way to play with the antlers casually left along the trail. Beauty flogging your eyesockets from beyond....monters of the geologic realm sitting, waiting to be climbed. In the summer. Wait until the summer.....

First Drink of my 30's.

Apple crumble, and only 29 candles short.

Taking a break from rambling bar talk to learn me some astronomy...late at night....among the drunkards of Alberta.

Crystal drinks so fast the camera cant catch her....

Warming up with sweet, sweet kisses (and steaming hot pizza on its way!) after a rowdy night out.

Before we headed home we took a little tour of the area, stopping at a nice shale outcrop along the road. I, of course, decided to go play with the rocks.

Playing.

Co-Pilot at attention.

Co-Pilot and Pilot. I think shw woke up about two hours later...just in time to stop for a muffin and a coffee. Curious timing, that.

We also saw, and hung out with for some time, a woodpecker that was quite in to this one tree no matter how much we disturbed it.

Views of PG

2009-01-25T16:34:00.000-08:00

Winter Shorts

2009-01-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

A healthy hodge-podge of recent events that have made it to our camera. Hiking has been sparse, but the sky and the snow has been incredible. Here are a few sultry snippits:

Taken from the roof of the school, the moon and its celestial neighbours put on a light show!

This was taken in December, as the waxing crescent moon was slowly being hidden by the cranbrook hill.

Sign of all signs. I think the ? should have been a !, but that is open to discussion by the vociferous grammar prone.

Sunset within the milky fog of a Prince George wintery afternoon.

Moustaches are for more than just good looks....its all about water conservation!

Us, during a hike to the Cranbrook Hill Greenway Trail this latest saturday afternoon.

A borrowed 'scope that made its way to the deck last night. Crescent venus appeared in the eyepiece beautfully!!

Pumpkins and Dressing

2008-11-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent pics from the wet and wild PG of BC:

Crystal with her newly carved pumpkin. The guts, horribly, are in visual distance of the litle critter who was just disemboweled. Below, the scene gets worse....dont let the happy face of the pumpkin get you thinking it was happy to see its innards spread out around it like that!!

And then....after ingesting enough pumpkin seeds...

Say it....your proud. I know. I worked in this highly comfortable outfit (gym class and all), getting more laughs that I intended. I think most thought I looked....um....how did they put it..........like the ugliest woman they had ever seen. I took it as a compliment.

Below are random group pics from our latest "mystery pizza" affair. This party took us through nine pizzas!! The fuzzy bit on the first pic is from condensation on the camera lens...oops.

Today is the day....

2008-09-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

LHC at CERN is a go for Wednesday...naysayers beware, for proof of your err is coming. Wait for it....wait for it.... oops, still here.

Kudos, you fearless, authentic academic minds. Kudos, you inventive and questioning scientists. Kudos, to everyone involved and to the ideas and understanding to come.

Kudos.

Southern BC - Hiking the dream(s)

2008-08-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

As the beating heart of summer ticked on, we set out for the southern climes of BC where the craggy peaks reach the sky and the sun tickles your skin. Camping our way south and then west, we left PG and hit the mountains....

___________________

Our first "real" stop was in Nakusp - camping, swimming, fine pizza dinner with a fine german pint, hot springs and an evening under the starry sky...

Ferry ride linking Nakusp (et al.) to the rest of the province...well, linking them quicker than older land routes. Free... :)

Stopping along the side of the road to pump up the boat that would take us across the lake (Summit Lake) to a mountain range on the far side. Once we crossed, stashed the boat in the bushes and made the delicate climb up the bouldered slope, we were stymied by time and the cliffs...but, a glorious hike and a peaceful paddle on a hot, steamy summer afternoon!

After our boat ride, our scramble up a ridge and a beautiful drive we landed in New Denver, and ... possibly the biggest chess board I have ever seen. Here we took a small cafe break, refuelled ourselves and breezed our way south towards Nelson...

Southern BC - Hiking the Dream(s) 2

2008-08-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

After a elegant spell in Nelson, sipping beer and shooting pool, we headed up up up to the traildhead for the Kokanee Glacier trail. Here, we found, porqupines get in a tizzy and enjoy chewing on tires, wires, brake lines and anything that is rubberized and dusted with a wide range of car-based chemicals. So, we were forced to secure our car from these frenzied little beasts with the highest oder of 21st century technology - chicken wire fencing and rocks. They worked, though!

Here we planned an overnight trip to the namesake of the park, Kokanee Glacier, and back. It was abeautiful two days, a gorgeous hike and amazing weather - even an afternoon sun shower that doused us graciously with the entirety of the Pacific Ocean was pleasing and enjoyed.

Kaslo Lake, where we camped, in the evening.

An evening guest for dinner!

Refreshing our bodies after a hot, hot, hot day of walking up the mountians to this montane lake campsite.

Us, along the trail approaching Kokanee Lake.

Us at the base of the Kokanee Glacier. Getting here took some inventive scrambling and an extra shot of energy to our bodies, but worth every drop of sweat and every upward step to get here.

Kokanee Glacier with meadow wildflowers in the foreground.

Bird....

Me during one of the more tricky scrambling moments to get to the glacier.

This is pretty much the opposite view of the Kaslo Lake photo above. Taken at night before the Kokanee Glacier section...so at this point we were yet to witness the strain of the hike and the beauty of the ice.

Southern BC - Hiking the Dream(s) 3

2008-08-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

After we returned from the backcountry trip to Kokanee Glacier, we rested a night in Nelson and ased into the following day over coffee and date muffins...

Downtown cafe...

...and then took off on a shorter day hike up to Pulpit Rock. Here we pose above a vista of the city of Nelson. Off in the distance...Rossland. Somewhere.

Southern BC - Hiking the Dream(s) 4

2008-08-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

...And to Rossland we came. The goal here was to complete yet another overnight backcountry trip. We aimed our sights at the mountain named Old Glory, which we were informed had an old fire lookout cabin on the peak where we could hunker down. Wihtough wanting to take our chances, we aimed for this cabin, but also took a tent in the event that it was full, non existant, broken or soggy. After a day of heavy hiking, in thick soup-like fog/clouds and a wind that nearly took my hair off my scalp, we found that is was empty, existant, not broken and quite dry. Dry, unlike the outside, was key here. So, we stayd for the remainder of the day, the night and a good chunk of the next morning before heading back down. The wind howled all night, shaking this poor little abode on the mountain peak, but we stayd warm (ish) and dry (ish) for the night and got a pretty cool experience out of it.

At the cabin door, which was pretty much the first proof that it existed as we could not see regularly for more than 20 m ahead of us during the hike up.

Me preparing tea to fight the cold and the ... cold.

After hours of being withing the clouds, they gave us a treat of a hailstorm making the scene that felt wintery, look wintery.

This is the view from our cabin door as we pondered dinner and drank in the relative calmness of being the sole living forms on a mountain peak...perhaps there were other critter about, but they were silently bracing themselves against the storm and had no time to welcome us with chirps, buzzes or calls.

Southern BC - Hiking the Dream(s) 5

2008-08-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

After our Nelson and Rossland backcountry adventures, our legs needed some downtime. We headed towards Osoyoos where the wineries are a plenty and took part in some wine tasting and buying. The next day we headed to the Dominoon Astrophycial Radio Observatory - quite famous in the astrophysics circles.

The whole observatory. All of it searching for background radio waves that explain parts unknown of our universe.

The main building, and the first radio telescope built on the premises.

Southern BC - Hiking the Dream(s) 6

2008-08-26T14:21:00.001-07:00

So, after an adventurous set of hiking trips, a peacefull winery tour, perfect weather and perfect storms...we settled in on our final backcountry destination - Cathedral Lakes Park. Too much beauty to describe, and to an onlooker perhaps it all looks similar to earlier pictures, but this trip was a we biut more memorable. It was longer, it was harder, it was more varied and it made my legs feel like jello assailed with a gattling gun by the end of it. A good 'jello-gattling-gun' feeling, though. The feeling of accomplishment, of compeltion, of satisfaction....

We hiked up the 20km trail to the Cathedral Lakes - camped for the night - did a 20km dayhike the following sunrise to a ridgeline that parallels the US border somewhat - returned to the Cathedral Lakes to camp another night - and returned home via the 20km trail that brought us here. Alot of hiking, a lot of strenuous hiking. But, as normally happens, the harder the hike the more beauty that you are greeted with. And of course we met this relationship with each peak we summited and each ridge we clambered along.

Us on the ridge overlooking the Cascade mountains in the background.

Mornings and nights were freezing at this altitude, about 2000 masl, but the days were scorching hot. Here, we ponder ... warmth ... over a cup of tea.

We went for an evening hike after reaching the Cathedral Lakes the first night to a lake dubbed Glacier Lake. Quite a way to end the day - alone beside a glacially filled lake, within a craggy cirque of mountains, watching birds and pollinating insects ease themselves into the night.

View that followed us most of the day. Clear skies, the setting gibbous moon, and the dazzle of millions of years of tectonic crunching.

Smokey the Bear. All natural.
Mountain goats. We ended up walking by, I believe, 12 of these critters this one day!

Me on the ridge, prior to lunch on our second day.

Cathedral Park was a higher effort that we ever imagined but it was the best way to end a trip - on a ridgeline basking in the summer heat and the buzz of adrenaline in our bodies.

Morning thoughts....

2008-07-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Douglas Adams on life, evolution, philosophy, astronomy and anthropocentrism...watch both parts.

A rational look at autism, vaccines, irrationality of naturopathic remedies and the like....

Raven Lake/Grizzley Den Trail

2008-07-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday we shot east for a mind-clearing hike up to Raven Lake. This trail was established in the 70's by...um....an alpine club of some nomenclature. I forget! But, the point is that this ~40 year old trail was the one that almost stymied me this past winter. Walking along the scrubby alpine after a hefty uphill during an equally hefty snowfall left me trail-less, lost and lacking energy. This time around, the 40 year old trail held its own and allowed us to make it to the cabin on the lake with no problems, no lost ways, and no unnecessary loss of energy.

The views were, as every hike in BC allows for, stunning. Stunning, breathtaking and reaffirming a godless world. just because. So we made it to the cabin on the lake, continued up the ridge behind the lake, circumnavigated around the cirque ridge and doubled back on the tail to take us back down to the trailhead.

All in all, glorious weather, views, day, experience, effort and not one bear to worry us. That we saw, at least.

These views also come with the reality of clearcutting in BC. Again and again, everywhere....the forests are losing a battle to help us keep up with consumerism, waste and economic 'progress'. The rock will never be mined, and the snow will never be controlled, but the forests - the fleeting biological cover of it all - will, have been, and most dominantly will be controlled and defeated. Just to keep progress progressing.

Viking Ridge Video!

2008-07-21T23:09:00.000-07:00

Click on the above to see the view from the peak of the ridgeline.....its a quickie, but it is a great few moments.

Viking Ridge Trail: Version 2008

2008-07-21T22:37:00.001-07:00

Viking Ridge is a succulent little jaunt ou a mountain, across a meadow (that is permanently a bog), and up a ridge to reach a viewpoint like no other in the region. Here are some of the highlights. It was hot, then windy and cold, then I fell (Im ok!).

Here I am starting the walk through the meadow after a sturdy climb up the first mountain section. Dripping with sweat, legs aching and heart pounding I set off across the boggy expanse of the Caribou Meadows...

ABOVE and BELOW: Caught this feller (or fellette) in the meadow and was followed by its song for many minutes as I crossed its path and found my way along the trail.

Finally!! I reached Viking Lake, nestled within a cirque or barren ridgeline above in the distance. The water was clear, perfectly clear and, based on the vegetation types I saw submerged, the water level was quite high. Absolute beauty.

Me, on the top of the ridge. Tired, hungry and satisfied!

Yes, posed. However, I did take a nap in this very spot afterwards and took my time at the peak...soaking up all that the billions of years of tectonics and evolution had to offer at this place.

BUT - we cannot avaoid the inevitable truth of such a view. With a good view comes unsightly realities, especially in Prince George. Below are three pictures of a clearcut section(s). The first pic os of both, the second and third are close ups of the clearcut on the right. On average a clearcut will be ~80 ha in size, so I will assume that both of these are around that. So, most likely we have 160 ha of desecrated forests...well hidden from view of the rest of the public who dont venture into the backcountry.

...and then I found a mushroom.

Hummingbird....tasting the air?

2008-07-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

Shaky video, but after posting about the Sasquatch (or, better put - apparent sighgtings of a sasquatch) I thought I would put a real animal in the spotlight.

When I took the video I didnt realize the tongue action. Replay it and look for it. Was it 'licking its chops' as they are want to do, or was it flicking for insects as they are also want to do? Or, possibly, was it a secret morse-code type communication to a local Sasquatch telling him or her to vacate because a snoopy homo sapien was lurking about with a image-capturing device?!?

I call upon occam to resolve this one.....

Yes, a population of 4 exist. They hang out with me on the weekends. Sometimes we go kayaking together. Soemtimes we get together and share a pint.

2008-07-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

Burgess Shale Sojourn: Breaking trail for Field, BC

2008-07-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

Having grown up enamored with the aged and defunct evolutionary tangent of trilobites, the "Fossil Beds" where these, along with the perhaps more interestingly soft-bodied preservation fossils, were found held a special place in my heart and mind. I knew, as a young whipper-snapper, that I would someday hold in my hands a "real" fossil of a trilobite - not one that was purchased, not one from a museum, not one from a display case in a school, but one that I yanked from the ground with my own hands. I knew I had to go west...I knew I would.

The Burgess Shale, trapping within it 500 million year old life - trapped forever by the mineralizing efforts of time - hold secrets, a historical story and a breath of explanation on the evolution of life. It is a fantastic story told and understood by many hands and eyes and pens, none more prosaic that S. J. Gould's "Its a Wonderful Life". The key to these fossils being so important is the sof-body preservation. Anything can become a fossil - I can, you can, a tree can... . But what would fossilize is the key. Bones, teeth...no issue. Perfect fossils if left undisturbed by the savagery of time needed to produce a fossil and then erode the rock to expose it for a discerning eye to study. Skin, tongue, guts...even the food that is within the guts...different story. These things do not fossilize. Scientists can infer skin/feather coatings by fossilized bone strucutre, but rarely if ever do they get a fossil of a soft structure like skin.

But, here in the Rockies there is a story written in the rocks with all the glorifying details. The hard structures, the chitinous and calcareous skeletal and exo-skeletal cases...fossils. The skin and the guts...the last dinner of these critters...fossils. Everything...fossils. Trilobites, early limpit-like organisms....worms...mass graves...all preserved in this one stretch of shale now shunted high above the sea level at which they were laid down through milions of years of tectonics.

There is a story being told high along one craggy ridge in the Canadian Rockies. It is the Burgess Shale, telling its story one fossil at a time. Its a story I wanted to witness...so I did.

First night of the voyage, camping just south of the Athabasca Glacier...with rain, hail and, briefly, snow, accompanying me.

...and then a crow stole my dinner. Fucker.

Peyto Lake in the background...marmot in the forground giving me its best pose. Runway material...runway material... . This, and the ones below, are some wildlife encounters I got as I hiked along the quite amazing Peyto Lake interpretive trail. They all seemed to like my company..perhaps that just my perspective though :)

It would never face me, never meet eyes...but it would happily await my fumbling hands to snap a close up!

PIKA!!!!!!

Fluffy bunny....

After this hike it was back on the road to Field...the trailhead for my hike to the Burgess Shale.

Burgess Shale Sojourn: The Burgess Shale

2008-07-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

I made it to Field, BC. I managed to book a spot with the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation (lady law requires a park naturalist to accompany each and every hiker that makes a journey to the fossil beds...so you have to book a spot - this is good. How many pieces of the puzzle would be lost to science if every person who decided to take a 20km round trip hike to the beds took a little piece home with them?). I managed to lock my keys in my car early on the morning of the hike....and once that was resolved I managed to make it to the trailhead where I met with my group (imagine my luck - a group of 13 geologists! Professional people talking geology and explaining their surroundings - as common conversation - as we trudged up the mountain. Ahhh...bliss).

And off we went, up the mountain....

Trail during the forested section.

The major warning sign along the way...

Rocky section mid way up. In the distance you can see Moraine Glacier and some pretty picturesque lateral moraines.

From forest to alpine back to forest...this time we are in an alpine forest...where the snow is yet to melt.

And back out into the rocky alpine...where the snow is still falling! Well, it fell the day before we went up.

ABOVE and BELOW: Fossilized trilobite 'pygidium' (rear end) that I dug out with me own hands.

Here is a velvet worm which displays the fascinating aspect of the Burgess Shale - soft body preservation. It is within things like this, ones even more perfectly preserved, that you can see the last meal of the critter before it died...a fossil has its gut contents fossilized and they are identifiable!

ABOVE and BELOW: These are trilobite specimens that paleontologists had found earlier in the shale and set aside for us to look at. Nearly perfect preservation.

Me standing beside the main outcropping of the Burgess Shale. Within these aged rocks are preserved ~500 million year old creatures that describe an exponential increase in biological diversity. Inspiring, to say the least. They look like rocks, they feel like rocks, they smell like rocks, they seem normal. But, within these rocks are the pieces of the puzzle that tell the precise evolutionary history of our world...of us. If a pilgrimage is necessary, it should be to places like this. Forget the superstitious regalia, forget religious dogma, forget pseudo-reality. This is our world, this is our time to understand this as best we can.

Burgess Shale Sojourn: Yoho Valley

2008-07-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

After the grueling Burgess hike (8am - 7:30 pm on my feet trudgin around the mountain!!) I decided to take a campsite near the trailhead and not venture around searching. Turns out it was one of the nicest campsites I have been to. And it worked as a trailhead for yet another adventurous trail to the Yoho Glacier...perfection in a hotdog bun.

ABOVE and BELOW: Evening views from my tentsite.

The trail wandered throughout the forest, up the mountain side and out into the alpine. I thought this hike would be a simple one, 18km round trip but much less of an elevation gain, so I brought little water and little food. Bad. Mistake.

Heat. Getting lost. Getting lost again. Perching myself precariously on a cliff and attempting a rock climb to get higher. Getting lost again. Getting found. ... Getting hungry and thirsty!!

It was a beautiful hike, a beautiful (and long!) day...

Me playing in the barren rock-scape near the glacier. The view and the perspective is worth every step to get to places like this....

Burgess Shale Sojourn: Tyrell Museum (Drumheller, AB)

2008-07-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

After sifting through the remnants of 500 million year old geology, I decided that it was deserved to extend the historical voyage....so I rambled on down through, and out of, the mountains and entered the lonliness of the praries to reach the famed Tyrell Museum where some of the most remarkable fossils are kept, prepared and studied. Beautiful weather, clear sky, hot hot hot and quite perfect.

The welcome...to a town that owes everything to the commitment of erosion, over many years, to expose dino bones. And then someone had to find them....and find they did.

Presentation room where they extract fossils from the host rock and prepare it for study and display.

A trilobite, not from Burgess, but of a same species that is found in the Burgess Shale.

Dino eggs.

Fossilized feathers on an early bird species.

Fossilized turtle.

After poking around the museum for a few hours, and taking a brief hike/interpretive trail around the outside to see where they found some of these things...I got back on the road and set my sights on a campsite in.....drumroll.....Stettler, AB. ALso known as "Where? Stettler?!? Never heard of it..."

Burgess Shale Sojourn: East of Red Deer...homeward

2008-07-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Driving to Stettler, AB. Canola fields paint a bevy of beautiful views along the way.

As I approached Stettler, I heard on teh news (and saw in the sky!!) tornado warnings. So, I opted for a motel rather than the feeble protection of a tent for this night. In the morning, the rain was still playing its game, but no tornadoes to speak of. Ah well....

Breakfast in the rain, making my way to Red Deer, AB.

Alberta. Crops. Petroleum plants. Food. Energy.

Burgess Shale Sojourn: Final leg home

2008-07-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

I took a pause along the way home to scramble up a peak to see what I could see. 45 min later, I was granted this, completely unexpected and terribly inspiring, view.

...and then the sojourn was over. This one, that is.

Wells Gray: Part 1

2008-07-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

Evening fire by the river.

Hiking through (literally) the overflowing Silvertip river at the base of the falls.

Us clinging on dearly beside the banks of the Silvertip Falls.

Trophy Mountain covered in Glacier Lily's.

Trevor...me...in the meadow.

Crystal...her...in the meadow.

Glacier Lily

Moul Falls: Crystl above, me below.

Wells Gray: Part 2

2008-07-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

This is a portrait of pain. We just finished the first leg of the hike, a 5 km uphill section that almost did me (us) in. Drenched in sweat, filled with pain, needing food and water...we trudged on with thoughts of a high alpine-esque lake ahead.

After the uphill slog in the 450 000 degree heat, we made it to the lake, dipped our melting bodies in the frigid waters and drank in the view. Worth every step to sleep by these shores, and there were quite a few of them to get here!

Posing for a victory picture as the day fades away and we settle into a well deserved sleep...or was this taken the following morning.....by the look of the sun I would say it was the morning. Not too sure....fading memory. Behind us is Philip Lake, further on in the distance is the ridge leading up to Table Mountain (the peak itself not visible from our camp).

Me making dinner the first night with what little energy remained after the slog uphill...I swear it was a 90 degree slope the whole way! Probably not....but it might as well have been the way we felt at this point of the day.

Should I go for a swim?!?

Crystal taking an evening break.

Lunch break on the ridge of Table Mountain, overlooking the lakes below.

Hiking along the snowy ridge of Table Mountain in the steaming heat of the noon day sun. In the distance is Tropy Mountainn, which we hiked up to see the meadow flowers...well, we didnt hike "up" it necessarily. We hiked as far as our feet could take us without snowshoes!

**The hike down from Table Moutain, and from Philip Lake, and the raod access section allowed no photos....nor did we care. Get. Down. Find. Shade. Rest. Flat land....these were the things that mattered more than pictures!**

Crystal at the edge of Helmcken Falls, with the ~140 metre cliff a step away! This was the day after the return from Philip Lake.

Thats me, the human looking things in the foreground. Helmcken Falls in the background....the watery looking thing.
Clearwater River at sunset....

Helmcken Falls, towering in at ~143 metres over aged lava. Bee You Tea Full. This is from the visitors platform, but we were also able to hike in (8 km round) to the other side and get a view from along the rim that you see to the right of the falls....which is where crystals picture (above) was taken.

Tacheeda Lake Hike: The return trip

2008-06-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

Last time we ventured to this peak with a fire lookout perched a its humble peak we were accompanied by a gentle flood of snowflakes. As we made our final steps to the top last year we entered into an early winter.
This time, we were accompanied by sunshine, sunshine and a flutter of bird calls around us. Access to the trailhead was a wee bit questionable this time - flooded out with high spring water. We managed to find a somewhat hectic path that circumvented the main trailhead flood and worked its way around the lake itself (the one that flooded) to hook up with the proper trail. Overall, excellent hike, excellent day, excellent flood, excellent everything.

I snuck this in out of order! This was the day before when we tried to hike the Raven Lake trail but were turned around right at the trailhead by knee deep snow. As you can see the weather was fine, the heat almost unbearable, but the north facing slope and the elevation of the trailhead itself gave us a wintery reminder. So, we took an about face and climbed the adjacent south facing slope with dry soil and mossy trees. It was quite beautiful. As we have come to expect from the BC outback.

Us at the top of the Tacheeda Lake lookout - set up as a forest fire lookout in the earlier days and I believe still used randomly. It is a beautiful view, regardless!

Us pausing after the arduous push to the peak (with me flaunting a sweat drenched back!).

The Tacheeda Lake lookout.

Just before the trailhead we were forced to leave our car and continue on foot. The trail started about 1-2 km ahead, which gave us a nice opportunity to skirt around the lake on the left in the picture and gather ourselves before the hike up, up, up....

Thats it for this one.

Fixing the roof: Day Deux

2008-06-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Fixing the roof...the Observatory gets a facelift

2008-06-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

After an apparent 10 year leak, we decided to take a stand. Roof off, repairs done (for today...more tomorrow). The PG Observatory took a beating today from the amateur hands and the professional tools, and she looks all the more healthy for it!

The Prince George Astronomical Observatory

Mid way through surgery....

Me, hanging about when I probably should have been lending a hand somewhere....

Me, lending a hand when I should have been lazing about somewhere...

Portions of the crew doing what we dont do best, fixing a roof.

Links..

2008-04-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Video Link for Saturday...

2008-04-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

Click here for Canada and free speech...

Enjoy!

Hawai'i

2008-03-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

On a cold morning we left Prince George with a mind full of volcanic dreams and sweat soaked sultry days spent hiking and camping along the ocean.

On a cold evening we returned to Prince George with vivid memories of volcanoes, camping, hiking, volcanoes, hiking, volcanoes, hiking, eating raw Udon noodles by the ocean side whilst sitting atop burning ragged lava rock....and a thousand smiles to warm the evening.

From the ragged and rugged to the wet and sordid to the baked and beaming...we found what we were looking for - eventually - in the Sandwich Isles of which Mark Twain wrote of so fondly.

Approaching sunset above the clouds as the stars appear for their nightly roam.

This is all that I took from Waikiki - to add to the lack of pictures from Honolulu - that speaks of the importance of this area. We stayed here for the better part of three days, long enough to grow tired of the cosmopolitan mercantilism, groomed tapestry of cityscaped lawns, curbs and fake beaches...and long enough to figure out how to get out. We left Waikiki Beach and took an inter-ilsland flight to the Big Island (Hawai'i). The weather was beautiful, no doubt, but the atmosphere was less than appealing. Our hiking boots, tent and minds needed cleaner spaces to wander.

After landing on the Big Island, we feasted on local Kona coffee and Kona beer...in Kona, of all places! Then, we hit the road and flayed our first tent peg in the ground in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The landscape alternated between flourishing tropical forests to devastatingly vapid and desolate lava. For as far as the eye could allow us to see (and the volcanic gases!) we saw nothing but brown, ragged lava from eruptions past and recent. This picture was taken after a healthy jaunt through lava-land and back into a patch of wilderness that was left untouched from the last eruption.

Then we went out and hiked Mauna Loa. This is technically the worlds second largest mountain, measured from ocean birthing grounds to the atmospheric breaching peak. Second only to Mauna Kea, a few ghastly and lava encrusted kilometers to the north of this peak. We spent 4 hours trekking upwards, a touch greater than 12 km upwards through what appeared to be the most desolate aged lava rock...until we got higher and waled through what is the most desolate chunk of rock Earth has to offer. Freshly spewed, relatively, lava fields that tear your boots, pierce your skin and savagely allow no comfort for sitting. Beautiful and impressive, though.

This is us at our attenuated goal at our camp for the night. Behind us is Mauna Kea (if you zoom in you can see the monumental Mauna Kea Observatory sparkling on the peak). All around us, below us, above us, near us.....is lava. Some fresh (1982 eruption) and some is old (1800's eruptions) and all of it mesmerizing and beautiful. Seemingly empty biologically, but full of thoughts waiting to be though - a geologists daydream.

This is Kilauea. The part that is spewing out steam is the Halema'uma'u (hal-eh-MAOW-maow) crater that only a few days before we arrived awoke from dormancy and started acting this way. A mini-eruptive event started this exhaustive plume which, to the day of writing, has lasted for a week. The landscape all around it is lava and ash from earlier (1984 was the most recent eruption, or even activity, prior to this) eruptions. There are so many fascinating biology and geology lessons in this one picture.....so unremittingly fascinating.

Compare this shot to the one above it. Notice the colour change? Later in our trip, after a jaunt up the mountains and down to the coast, we returned to see that the vent was now emitting not only steam (heated by inner molten magma) but also ash - a sign that "activity" was picking up. It was at this moment that we imagined the most fantastic thoughts of eruptions! Nothing came to be, as of yet, but dramatic and never before witnessed sights for us as we perched upon the old Kilauea crater rim kilometers away.

So, after some time facing the frigid evenings of the upper slopes of Mauna Loa and Kilauea, we dipped ourselves down to the coast and camped three days, two nights, among the palm trees and ocean surf. We calculated that we were, on the last night, the only two people for some 100+ square kilometers - the Hawaiian coast with all its wonder, heat, sun rays, heat, heat, surf, sand, heat and, yes, clothing-drenching heat was ours. We spent the day hiking about the lava fields, trekked 5 km to the next beach and 5 km back to our beach, napped under the midday sun beside a palm tree and fiddled the day away peeking in the tide pools.

Us, taking a pause along the way home from our beach sojourn. Heat, sun, waves in the background, salty clothes and hair, parched mouthes, lacking of food, marching along hot lava - we could have not been happier. We had not eaten a "real" meal for some days now and were ever so ready to make it back to the park headquarters where we knew we could find decent fodder for our travel weary bellies. Ignore "us" in this picture and focus on the lava - it was absolutely breathtaking and frighteningly awesome.

This road block was caused by a past lava flow from Mauna Loa. It blocked off the main coastal road and to this day stands as a reminder that nature calls the shots - we just live on the cusp of what it allows.

Current lava flow from the active Pu'u O'o vent to the south of Kilauea proper. It traces a steaming path across the landscape as it flows under past lava flows until it reaches the ocean and makes its presence known in obvious posture. The activity seen here is steam rising from the lava-ocean interface, not a wave crashing.

Us, saying our heartfelt goodbyes to the days of volcano watching. This is early morning on the rim of Kilauea.

This is out of order, but never mind. Crystal pausing along the hike home from our beach camp. Again, nothing but lava and sky, with the vast expanse of the Pacific in the distance. What a way to welcome the morning sun, rising on a sandy beach, alone, and hiking among glassy lava fields beside the mother of all oceans.

Our goodbye to the park.

Then, from the volcanic peaks of the south and basking in the glare of the tropical sun for a few days, we headed north, past Hilo, through a slice of yesterday as seen through the villages that we passed...and stopped where the road ended. We made our way down to the coast, again, where we found the most wonderful black sand beach and got to douse our bodies in sun and calm. A hot, staunchly tense hike (almost) straight down and (what felt like!) straight up again - but the prize of this beach and the moments of saltwater filled swimming and thinking was more than worth it.

Waterfall. The water comes. It falls. It is pretty. There were just shy of 2.76 million other tourists behind me as I snapped this picture. The beauty is undone, somehow, but the frolicking buzz of tour buses. Amazingly beautiful, but a picture defies the reality of life, sometimes. This was one of the first moments since Waikiki where we were overcome by tourists magnetically bonded to roadside attractions - we had just spent a week camping among the lava fields, the ocean, palm trees, mountainsides - nature in its ferocious reality - and to come to this eventually made us run away and back to the volcanoes.

A close up of one type of lava - Pahoehoe (Rope Lava version...). Imagine this as liquid rock. Nature. Breaks. My. Mind.

I love it.

Geology meets astronomy - Standing on aged lava whilst pinching our celestial sibling (offspring, perhaps more properly).

These two above are from the aforementioned beach we hiked down to from the end of the road. Towering cliffs, on which he hiked down from, encapsulate this purely Hawaiian place among myriad Hawaiian paradises.

"...and then came the last wave"

A memorial for the most recent Tsunami to ravage this northern coast. Tidal wave, no....tsunami, yes.

Hawaii Part II: Some more fer ya

2008-03-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a deeper look into out cameras digital eyes:

Me, on the beach when we first arrived. We had just hiked the 12 km along the coast to get here and finally threw off our packs and rushed into the welcoming waters of the Pacific!

Can you tell this was posed? Us, glancing one last time at the ocean as we tromp home along our lava trail, trying to beat the heat and finish our trek before the noon sun pounded us into submission (or made my head blow up...)

Crystal taking her turn at dismembering a pineapple on the beach, actions slowed by the daunting heat....so.....freaking.....hot......

Puffer fish

View of Mauna Kea from Mauna Loa - note the red lava in the foreground.

De-layering in the noon sun - too hot in the rock expanse of Mauna Loa for pants.

Bird (Frigate?!?) and ocean.

A cheer to the good luck of finding good beer.

Me, hoping this coconut will bear plenty of flesh on a deserted beach along the southern coast, flanked by volcanoes and frozen lava of years gone by.

It didn't bear flesh of any sort :)

Click on this picture above to make it bigger, consider that this big ball of rock we live on actually cracks on its own accord, and listen to this ...

All found in an area no bigger than a dinner table. Same origins, different temperatures of eruption, different colours, different minerals ...all beautiful.

So cute.....so cute.

Jasper Mountain Trek: Windchill

2008-01-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

Trip to Jasper to (Crystal) go skiing and (Trevor) go hiking. I met with wind, cold and a burly moment near the peak of a mountain...frostbite staved off for another winter adventure!

All the wintry fun was soothed with fresh pizza and a few malt-bevies in the evening... soothing the curse of winter driving in the Rockies and proving a victory desserts for a hard days trek through the peaks.

These are actually pics I took for my biology class, but I thought that they were pretty and tell a biological and evolutionary tale, so I shared them. This, above, is a close up of the female cones on the upper branches of a conifer. The lesson is in the location of growth of male and female cones, avoiding self fertilization...its all about the tree-sex.

Similarly, this shows the same tree only further back. In this shot you can see both the female and the male cones.

And, although nothing special in its own right as these punctuate every rocky vista upon the peaks, this species is truly the beauty of the beauties. Douglas Fir, not a true Fir, with its spectacular female cones.

ABOVE: Me standing at the eastern side of the saddle/ridgeline that runs the alpine gauntet to the peak. I was able to make it to the second tuft of conifers on the top right of the photo, almost directly below the peak proper, before having to turn back - going higher entailed glissading up an avalanche chute on the side of the cliff...I chose against that option.

BELOW: Me, mid way up the mountain, taking a pause after putting on another layer. The wind was agonizingly strong and cold, and walking in the vapid alpine allowed for much sediment to be freed from the ground and pleasantly flecked upon my eyeballs. Pleasant, that.

Religions Touting Hate: Part n

2008-01-24T07:18:00.001-08:00

This, although not unexpected and not surprising, is disgusting.

Even if you want to go as far as suggesting that each may harbour their own feelings and post a pamphlet like this (which I severely do not suggest...but lets say you are ethically allowing yourself to let that go) there is no need for the ignorance of their proposed actions at his funeral.

I hope that his family has enough strength to get through this, the death itself, but also the raving lunatics who will try to sully his memory for their religious beliefs. Not only being gay, but pretending to be so is punishable by hell.

I can only assume, like most fundamental relgious people, that they are lacking education...and the plight of Texas and FLorida these days is not doing anything to bolster knowledge. We are not in for a rough ride, we are experiencing a rough ride with our society.

The darkening of the enlightenment - And the religions of the world rejoice, at the pain of innocents everywhere.

Meandering through the wintery days...

2008-01-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

Well, well... what do we have to show for some three weeks of the new year?

I could, perhaps, start with the most recent: astronomy! Last night the moon and mars were dutifully aligned and about 2 degrees apart from our earthly position. I tried, ever so hard, to get a good shot of this but the trifecta of cold-snow covering everything-freezing cold did not allow for this. However, I did get a few naked-hand shots of the pair. They are both blurry, of course, but the effect is not lost.

Now I go back a few days (perchance a week or two) and dip into the skiing photo's - with a brief Bohemian Waxwing interruption. Our first night ski adventure was not at all overly welcoming as the cold became more of a burden than a delight, and the snow conditions (I am thinking also because of the cold) were not he greatest. So, add up two inexperienced skiers, complete darkness, unknown trails and trail conditions, and you have a martini-like mix of good experience and bad taste. It was fun, evident by our smiles, but it was more of a challenge. However, being out again in the dark I must admit that it is now preferred - being about in the dark and snowy wonderland of the northern conifers, guided only by fleeting moonlight, and following vistas of sessile constellations...it is a most wonderful experience. What a way to end a workday.

Above: Me, cold.

Below: More congregations of the Bohemian's.

Above: Crystal skiing so fast that even our camera couldnt keep up (or, more likely, the shutter speed was too slow!)

Below: Fancy feet of ski-tastic desire.

And then, it flooded. Much earlier in the year, to be correct it was last year, the Nechako river froze, jammed and flooded. It has been a political blight on our fair town up here in the north, and a reservoir of pain, damage and anger has been festering ever since. Everyone is blaming everyone, but the fact remains that this is nature, businesses and homes developed on a floodplain, and the mix therein eventually came to fruit - the river flooded its floodplain. There is no succinct amend to this disaster but to wait, it seems, until the spring thaw.

We took a drive to see the river recently, and have these pics to show for it.

Im standing on a berm that was built to keep the water off the roadway (the road only access a refinery and two mills). to my left is the river proper - covered with ice.

Another view of the river itself. The mill you see across the river has been shut down for over 2 months now I believe. There is a hectic effort by workers to keep the ice and water away from it, but nature has, and will, and will always, win over human desires. As it should.

That's the view from our latitude - happy wintery days!

It's the birds...

2007-12-15T11:06:00.000-08:00

I thought they were Cedar Waxwings, but a higher authority decreed "Bohemian....they are Bohemian Waxwings....". So, I concur. And after looking them up for some prolonged period, I also found out that both males and females have identical plumage making identification of the sexes "impossible". Perhaps the expert eye could catch it? Regardless, some interesting evolutionary quirks with that scenario.

I must now, then, confess my adoration - breaching upon obsessive admiration - of these little species. Well, all waxwings, to be precise. It is their soft plumage, their tender cacophonous trills and of course their calm colours that make them so wonderful. Ecologically - not going there today.

They announced their winter habitat to us at home early in the season by defecating all over our house and front windows. I would assume this would make most upset, but their winter feed - blood red berries from the myriad trees around our area - makes this defecation quite pretty. A somewhat luminous purple-violet-red set of splatters now adorns our abode. Quite pretty, actually.

But the real reason for me taking pictures today was more their action. They congregate upon the tree tops in seemingly three defined groups - these congregational trees are not berry producing (in fact, they are dead pines). One group will leave, flock to another tree - wait less than a minute eating berries - and fly back. A second group will flock upon the first groups return - wait less than a minute eating berries - and fly back. This continues as the concerted songs maintain throughout the tree tops. It is credibly a sharing of a resource in groups of, what appears to me, something that is not in short supply. These berry trees are everywhere, yet they - in turn - share the feed of one tree at a time. Afterwards the whole flock moves on to another perch, and starts this habit all over again. Curious, that.

Above: Birds.
Below: Birds.

Trials of a Winter Bicyclist - going to work

2007-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here are some videos of my regular morning shtick. The thermometer was yelling quite convincingly that at -27 one should be prepared for frigid bones! At least I was bundled up, whereas Crystal had to stand on the porch with only her bare feet and grass skirt on as she filmed my departure.

Warmer days to come....

Above: Me leaving the back door and porch, wading through the snow.

Below: Me leaving the driveway and heading out. Descriptive, I know.

...did you catch my good-bye wave as I rounded the corner?!?

Interestingly enough, after weeks of contemplation as to when the streets would actually be cleared, as I left for work the city workers were just starting to clear these side streets. So, I was able to bike home to a snowy, but not icy - in the form of compacted snow - roads. Either way, I don't care. My tires ROCK and I'm beating cars on the road. Eat my snow, carophiles!

A break...

2007-12-04T21:51:00.000-08:00

The snow kicked my ass.

I had to take two steps of precaution today that inculcate in me an awareness that nature is in control.
1) Falling - much less a coherent decision as a realization during the event, but nonetheless an event. The landing is much more serene than those of the summer - less speed and more fluff on the ground to land on.

2) Walking - the decision to get down from the bike and walk the rest of the way home, albeit only a block, rendered a subtle glow of admiration of the snow in my frigid and ice encrusted eyes. It made me lose today. I fight it every day, with love, but fighting. I win every day. Today I lost. I chose to walk.

So, the biking in the snow all winter long goal is a sculpture which I chip at each day, some (most) provocatively amazing. Today, not. Safe, fine, happy, but acutely aware that I am running uphill with a few weights and not a single city worker helping to clear any section of sidewalk for me or the other winter bikers. I should enjoy a video of myself swindling my way along some of these side streets!

Although I fell prey to gravity and shin-high snow drifts, ending my ride face down in a giggling mockery of the event, and although I had to choose to walk a small section, I am starting each day with a smile and a nestled grin and ending the same days with a continuation of that pose.

I like to think that the fellow travellers with me each morning are getting used to my appearance and are aware of my presence...but who knows. I do know, however, that the city emplyees are not yet aware that either there is snow on the ground or that there are actual streets to plow. I think they are staying indoors for the winter, as a true civic employee should want to do. This is Prince George, and I am ok with it.

Ok, Ok...I get it....

2007-11-25T01:44:00.000-08:00

The snow came back. Apparently both here and Ontario! We are up to our ankles in frigid snow, and my tires should get a workout or which they were designed. Its cold, its winter and its building in intensity....

There we go. Winter in the North, and snow as the piece de resistance.

I am about to venture into the realm of backcountry skiiing these days - avalanches beware, I am out to avoid you.

T

Snow.....snowhere to be seen

2007-11-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

Yup, its gone. I'm left biking along with metal studs gripping at fresh bare pavement. If I take them off, it will snow. If I leave them on, it wont. I believe none of that baloney, but of course I think it.

So, tomorrow I take them off and return my summer tires to the rotation.

_____________________________________________

We (I) just got back from the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival on its rounds up here in PG and whadda ya know - an amazing film about the plight of the Siberian Tiger that brought a tear to my eye (eventually to my lip, chin and then the floor) as it is caught between being poached to sustain impoverished townspeople and being forced to extinction through emaciation from lack of food courtesy of the logging industry and fragmentation. Also on the list was a short film about skiing - bah. We must move away from simple minded films espousing the "look at me do something totally normal" attitude of superiority - this is the time for fascinating and philosophically relevant films to make an appearance. I get UFC plenty; I get "watch me kick this locker everyday; I get it all - I want something worthy of admiration. Watching you ski down a hill to hip hop music defies my ability to give even cadenced applause. However, overall this evenings showing, minus some technical glitches, was wonderful. A rock climb in Scotland (it honestly needed subtitles....totally incomprehensible!), ice climbs throughout Quebec (too much dick wagging machismo, but a touching ending) and a subtle commentary on life to wrap it up on the ski lift. Overall, a grand event. That was tonight. Now I sit with wine and time - too early for bed and too late to do anything - the perfect time to douse my neurons with Carl Sagan and his words....to Cosmos I go.

Goodnight!

Snow

2007-11-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Snow has come.

It is here.

My winterized studded tires are tested.

They pass.

I likes.

Me bike in snow.

Grizzly Bear Den Provincial Park - again

2007-10-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

So, I ventured into the aptly named Grizzly Den Provincial Park once again this murky fall season. I drove with one eye on the road, one eye on the rain and one eye on the approaching mountain tops to scan for snow accumulation.

Having that third eye helps.

Once I arrived at the turn off, I gathered some thoughts and decided that it was worth it. I saw wispy white clearings in the ranges above and knew what awaited. But, come on......it was a 5km hike and not too much in terms of elevation gain. I wasn't going to kill myself on this hike. This was just a small one to get me sweating and into nature before I prepared for an evening full of Astronomy chatter at (my first!) the RASC Annual Meeting. Regardless, I was thinking of a nice swift tromp up to the alpine and back without event.

But come on....this is me, and I can somehow turn buying ice cream into a dangerous event. So, danger ensued. Slight danger. Not "I almost died" danger, but "that was stupid" danger.

The Set-Up: Hiking trail that is well used but loses itself in the high alpine as there is no real trail, but km's of non-descript small spruce and fir trees dotting the landscape. At the end of the trail, a cabin and a lake (Raven Lake).

The Swing: I start walking. The snow starts. I get the first sweat-chill and know I should have brought more clothes. Whatever. I trudge on. Up. Up. Up. Up. Out - out of the forest and into the tundra-esque alpine region. I continue beyond my comfort zone into the now blizzard like conditions and scramble my way up and down the land, across a swamp and up to the clearing that opens up to offer a cabin. Rustic, rudimentary cabin. Rarely would I look forward to a cabin on a regular hike, but I needed respite from the conditions - snow was getting in my everywhere.

The Follow Through: Time to go back. No trail. Tracks covered by wind and snow. No tracks.

No trail.

No clue which way is home. Blizzard in full swing these many km's away from my parked car and my victory beer, and I cant see anything. No trail, no footprints (the snow here was about 20cm deep (base) and a whisp of about 5 cm on top of that, newly fallen - that is about 3.54 and a 1/16 horse teeth for you imperial types...you know who you are).

The Lessons:

#1 - don't hike alone

#2 - don't hike alone in the snow without proper gear

#3 - don't hike in the alpine without leaving a proper trail for yourself when it is snowing, let alone a blizzard

#4 - bring more cheese because your going to get hungrier than you think

And the most important lesson learned today?

#5 - When lost in the snowy alpine, alone, in a blizzard, with no trail to follow...just wander about. Something will work out. Hopefully.

But it did. I got to have my beer and pause in relief at the end of the trail, as the blizzard followed me all the way down the mountain and the snow vetted my realization that winter was in Prince George.

Above: Click on this to see a damn fine video of Raven lake during a break in the blizzard. Sort of. Remember, this is an alpine lake, rare at best around here. Seeing such a large body of water so high up was a startling vista.The wind actually died for a short while as I was leaving and I could glimpse fantastic geology across the lake - a lithographic twist that is obvious. The perfect fold, perhaps. Ill try to get more of it on a return trip someday.

Below: Me, in the gleeful pose that indicates my pleasure with the cold. I was, actually, pleased with the hike. I knew the trail I blazed woudl be gone at this point, and worries stopped my enjoyment a little. I hurried through the "pleasure" emotion of being there, and focused on the "oh, F**k" emotion of thinking about getting home!

Actually, in reality it was beautiful and after the scary moments and the frightful thoughts, I was reassured by the beauty and calm that the alpine always brings. It is so freaking nice to be there. So, absolutely, gratefully wonderful to be on foot and away from everything. Alone, in the mountains - life becomes real.

Winter is here...

2007-10-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

...the local store has brought in its chestnut stock from the far reaches of the world.

Harbinger of winter, if any. And snow is due tonight, making it pseudo-officially winter.

The Comet Commeth...

2007-10-25T22:25:00.001-07:00

The sky ignites emotions, again.

Comet Holmes, well established in the blog sphere and astro-literature (yet to hear about it on "real", also credited with the nomenclature "organized", news agencies - repetitive updates on strike moves, sports updates and hour long previews of contemporary celebrity lifestyles deemed far too important to shelve for a peek into our universe and a tinge of science and reality) is peering out beyond the clouds intermittently tonight, but last night it was well in the open. Cold wind abating for a few days, I was able to stand outside and revel in the inspiration of seeing a comet - a chunk of ice from the vast distance of the solar system - without the usual chill of winter forcing me back inside.

I managed a semi-decent picture of the comet, nestled piercingly within Perseus, and took photographic liberties with awesome views of other favourites of the night sky.

Comet Holmes, find the backwards "L" and it is at its bottom end. The bright one near the bottom left is Capella. Go 45 degrees to the right and you hit another bright one dubbed Mirfak. Follow from Mirfak down one bright star and then from that one go left about 4mm. That really wont help. Look it up on a site that took the time to label it prior to posting it, perhaps!

Two beauties of the evening show. Lyra, with Vega glistening its prominence of the night, and Cygnus (the Northern Cross) diving down towards the horizon.

The asterism that everyone knows and loves, The Big Dipper. You can see Polaris near the top right (follow the last two stars in the ladle of the dipper north [up] and you will run into almost true north)

Moonerific.

Just wanted to share. Go take a look at the sky tonight (to the northeast) for the comet and tomorrow morning (near Gemini, in the East) for a treat of a planet.

Viking Ridge - the real post

2007-10-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most dauntingly beautiful hikes within an hour or so of the PG territory. Rugged and placid moments throughout the trail evening out the experience and plummeting my worries away for the day. I was in another world, and as much as that cliche ravages my eyes to see typed, it is, was, reality.

I traveled on foot from misty fog and warm shrubery to frozen snow covered mountaintop wetland. It was wonderful, and trying.
Ghastly moments alone in the woods, 2 hours up a mountainside, just passed bear scat, not a sound to comfort or obstruct my thoughts - and then WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!....gluk...gluk..gluk.... right beside me. RIGHT beside me.....no room for personal space...they wait until you are 'on them' and then they go to their "whump Whump" wing flapping absurditiy of a defense mechanism.

Gets me everytime. Every time.

The beginning of the hike in interior temperate rainforest - massive pillars of aged trees abound. A veritable cloaking of green moss giving the forest the charm of life countering the stark upward phallic of trees; a cozy moment. Warm, rainy and damp at this point.

And then I snuck in my first snow chew of the year. As I worked my way up slope the meagre warmth of the lowland area left, and I felt the chill of altitude nip at my exposed face. The snow was sparse at this point but enough to elicit the glee of incumbent winter and the worries of a summer gone. The trail was much active still with no frozen sections to help my fleet footing - cold mud for the most part!

And then....the Caribou Flats of the ridge line. Atop the peak of this ridge, after hours of hiking upwards through the massive cedars and hemlocks, the green mossy floor, the running streams and nattering songbirds, the forest opened up and gave a fiesta of emotion. The snow was now ankle deep at times, enough to hide the near liquid sediment ground that allowed me to, early on, amass much mud on my boots and have it duly frozen in place! When my feet were not falling through marshy vegetation and slopping about in the watery highlands, they were feeling their way across some of the most beautiful ecology that I have found so close to home. The alpine was ahead, unattained for this trip, but after my glimpse of what was here the return is unavoidable.

I kept on through this section for a 1/2 hour or so, took lunch and bundled up to head back down. After some brief re-con with a map at home I realized that this trail actually connects to two others, and a fabulous overnight trip is available, necessary even.

The land will be wet all year long, not just a seasonal trait, up this high and with such rock below and I am wondering about the 'skitters and flies. Time will tell......

The view on the way down through the foggy conifers. Mystical, in its most non-mystical meandered meaning.

g'night.

Viking Ridge Trail

2007-10-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

Coming soon..technical absurdities with the folkies at blogspot.

I went from 10c and a wispy rain to 3cm of snow and frigidity at the ridge/peak...

Suprised?

2007-09-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

Pearl Jam, again, unwillingly abused of their rights.

But it is more than that.
It is more than a political statement, a rock band, a concert, a show, a lyric...it is intellectually more than that.

Totalitarianism lives beyond the constructs of Orwellian prose, it lives beyond the vastness of theoretical governance, and it lives in our homes. It is forced there. It is placed incongruently to our rights, and we bid it hello in the morning, we bid it goodnight in the evening, and we bid it good day...we watch as it converts our lives. But we don't realize.

Whatever your words may be, let them be spoken. Deal with the consequences as they come, but stiffle not your thoughts and your will.

Bring on the snow!

2007-09-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

Took the bait. The snow is coming, and I am fearing for the end of biking days. The snow comes and shunts out the freedom of flight, the freedom of adrenaline, and the freedom from the bitch of gasoline. And so, with this in mind, I did what any rational person would do.

I bought studded tires.

Bring on the snow. Bring on the ice.

I am waiting.....

And while I wait, I will have studs to keep my mind at ease.

peace, clear skies...

Speechless...I am.

2007-09-19T09:07:00.001-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/18/new-view-cohost-sherri_n_64864.html

If you go to the above link, please keep in mind that this is on national television and that this lady was chosen to be here permanently. She is not a guest host or an interviewee, but the real "I'm getting paid to do this" host of a show that purports intelligent conversation. At least the others were a little astounded by her position.

But, who really does think about stuff like this? Rocket scientists, I presume. That's all.

Bold move to the West

2007-09-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

Ontario plates rushed to the past.
British Columbia plates filling the void.
Void, filled.

...and it is beautiful.
And this seems to make the move official, even if it is a year after arriving.

Sultry Day of Summer

2007-09-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

After a jaunt to the farmers market and dabbling with relaxation via countless cups of coffee on a cafe patio, entranced with the nuanced defence of literature and personal integrity of "Why Orwell Matters" and then taking a significant role in ingesting a loaf of bread in one meal, I now sit and succumb to my innate need to attempt photosynthesis. The sun basks forever, finite forever, and as the sun pounds on my flesh, I pound on the keys.

Work has taken over as the important aspect of days. Planning, studying, writing lessons - the list goes on - has detracted from the veritable grandeur of montane and oceanic freedom that persists in my (new) hometown. I "see" the mountains, I "think" of the oceans, but I for now touch neither. I touch books, pens, stacks of marking and memories. Memories, of course, are the chordate-like structure that binds a life together. May all lives be bound tightly with a ferociously dense memory of happiness.

That is all. Happy days, clear skies.

Denigrating Homeopathy

2007-09-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

The Enemies of Reason Part 2 has been uploaded by the Richard Dawkins Foundation. Personally, I feel that he gets to more of a point in this one and does more exposing of pseudoscience and pseudoscientists than in the first, but alas the first part was still amazingly well crafted. In this part, which runs a little over 47 minutes, the content is mostly on the health care system and the tax-funded homeopathic and placebo-based cures. Mention is made, which it is not often unfortunately, of the links between what we see as "old" and "ancient" being given credence for the simple reason that it is aged - aged, that is, to a point where it predated germ theory and in some cases science in totality. Just because Ayurveda and Homeopathic medicine is based on "ancient" processes lends no fraction of truth or reality to it. Quite the opposite.

It is far too often that the science of medicine gets flogged by those who esteem naturality and earth-based righteousness to be higher realms of existence. It is as if we are saying that if we love nature, are environmentalists, are tree-huggers (guilty), are humanitarians or the like, then we must...must...have disdain for reality and existing methodologies. This is highly irrational. Rationality, in its truest sense, must be based on what has proven to work and on what has given the most benefit. I see no reason to accept homeopathic practitioners as reliable or commendable people. I see only honestly ignorant people being captivated by purported efficacy, when in reality they are paying good money for false functions. The dangers are really summoned to fruition when decisions are made for children, on their behalf, that negate real medicine and support fake medicine.

The most provocative point here is that self acclaimed doctors are lying to people and they have no concern with that reality. They accept it. They know it is a placebo effect at best and innocuous (medically innocuous) at worst. They know that a person claiming to have sever medical ailments will have to see a real doctor. They know that they are lying. But they continue.

This placebo effect industry must not be allowed to delude others, even themselves, at the cost of human and environmental health.

Would we support pouring oil on and oil spill in an attempt to clean it up? No, because it goes against chemical foundations, physical foundations and our common sense of reality. Why, then, will we drink poison ivy extract to cure poison ivy? It falsifies even more understood foundations of biology. Then, to take it one step further (as the video does more elegantly), the poison ivy extract isn't even in the medium of medicine you are taking. The water 'remembers' it and is able to work on its behalf. This is utterly absurd and a provocation or crackpottery.

That said, watch the video. The best part, from a comedic point of view, is when the lady near the beginning is changing Richard's DNA from a double helix to a.....watch to find out. He stifles a laugh, but I could not.

The vocal voice of reason

2007-09-02T00:52:00.000-07:00

Watch me, and follow up on the surrounding videos. It is worth your while.

"human rights are an insult to god..."

Search around for that quote in periphery videos.

...because reason to religion, is like sunlight to a vampire.

Salt Spring Island

2007-09-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

Thumbing our way through the island, trying to find some peace.

We found solitude and friendly people who were happy to drive us along.

...and there were blackberries everywhere...and there was peace everywhere.

From local market goat cheese to evening sips of salt spring wine overlooking the pacific, it resolved clearly the need for solitude.

Happy Days.

Breakfast by the ocean...

The Quad-fecta: salt spring island wine, blackberries and goat cheese ( I presume this one was chili pepper cheese)

ECLIPSE PARTY! This was actually after our trip, on the way home. We landed in Chilliwack on the night of the eclipse and sat down to an authentic west coast party - albeit a subtle and less numerous party as would be expected. Smoked salmon (not Coho salmon, though), garlic goat cheese and wine. What a way to celebrate the shadowing of our moon - local foods in the middle of the mountains. I awoke at 3:00am to go outside and watch the eclipse, but I was destined to failure because of the clouds. I sat out, in the misty chill of a late summer mountainous evening and gazed dearly at the dusty moon over the silhouette of the craggy peaks. I saw only an orange gauzy blotch in the sky - knowing what it actually was made it all worth the while, but it still would have been wonderful to witness it in completion. Next time...

Mom - Elvis lives in the BC interior. Or at least his image does!

Crystal walking, nearing the end of our 4 hour hike from Ganges to Fulford (along the way there were two wine tours to be had, so the time definitely slowed after testing the flavours of the salt spring soil).

Us, actually on the way south (these are so out of order...) with a camera timer set to long shutter speed. I could have suggested that our angles were watching over us, but then I would have so much evidence suggesting otherwise that ... listening up, christians and islamics alike...I would have to conclude that it was a trick of the camera.

Blackberries in excess, to the point that we would succumb to satiety without even working beyond one bush. So many berries, so little time.

View, obviously. The liquid stuff is water, belonging to the Pacific Ocean. The rigid stuff is land, islands in fact, belonging to the gulf island group. And the love in the air was from me. Obviously.

Yes, we made it to Salt Spring. In the frightening heat, we began our exploration alongside berry bushes and artisan workshops.

How to Rescue a Perching Bird

2007-08-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

In the process of making granola bars I came upon a crisis - after spending the morning watching and finally identifying the Pine Siskin as the species flocking around our feeder, a perilous moment arose.

Well, it actually started earlier in the day. I will start there. I was making a late breakfast and awaiting the coffee when I noticed that the far birdfeeder (im quoting my thoughts at the moment) "looked more full than yesterday". I thought nothing of it, as anyone could have filled it up, but it was noticeable enough and strange enough that there was a sudden change in the seed quantity that the memory stuck with me. Weird, but not altogether remarkable.

Then, later in the day I noticed again that the feeder was swaying much more than either the other feeders or the local trees/branches. It seemed weird, weird enough to make me put down whatever it was that I was doing and take notice of the feeder in a more analyzing manner. I grabbed my binoculars (thinking that perhaps a larger, more rare bird was at the feeder and I should gaze more acutely). I looked...in ocular excellence...and saw nothing. There was something that made the feeder swing gregariously, but I could not see the culprit.

Then, later in the day, as this post began, I was making granola bars. I was just finished making them and setting them in the oven when I poured myself a cup of coffee and gazed out the kitchen window, to the back yard, and began a scan for birds and our neighbourhood squirrel.

Then, it happened.
I looked at the feeder.
It was swaying frantically. There were no birds, but I was watching the feeder rock violently.
I looked closer, to the seeds themselves, and made the realization that elevated me to the level of Jesus (only difference being that I actually exist).

In the feeder was a bird. A pine siskin. One of the birds that has recently flocked our backyard was trapped in our birdfeeder, and had been since at least the morning. In quick mathematical fashion I quantified this birds captivity time and realized that it had been at least 8 hours trapped in this feeder! I dropped my coffee mug, dashed out the door, leaped down the stairs, bounded across the grass and took a hold of the feeder. The siskin began more violent convulsions, out of fear of a human grasping at the lure of its captivity, but I took no concern. I needed to get it out. I then was able to take the lid off, lean the feeder over and .... it held on. It didnt want to be in there, but it didnt want to leave at the hand of a human.

However, after moments of apologetic language from me, gentle nudges and slight angles, the poor little siskin crawled/fluttered out of the feeder and flew away. I felt horrible, thinking that if I had decoded to no make granola bars and instead go biking or do some work, then it may have spent (possibly another) night in the feeder. I watched it fly away and was happy to see its fluid motions unrestricted.

Here, below, I have recreated the event. I brought the feeder inside - the reason it was caught in the feeder was because of a faulty string that held the lid open, and I intend to fix that before re-setting it - and recreated the event.

Caveats.
1) I could not bring the same bird inside, nor another bird. I had to us an alternative object. I realize that the siskin bears no likeliness to a banana.

2) I didn't actually "grab the bird" as the picture asserts. I rather urged it out of the feeder.

3) There WAS melodically nostalgic music playing in the background while the entire event took place in slow motion

The feeder - the faulty design cannot be discerned form this picture, but it is there.

Normally, as this picture explains, the birds would feed from the outside of the feeder. (Note the stem of the banana trying to eat the seed?!? See it!?)

Our little siskin decided to take the buffet to an extreme and entered the feeder proper. Of course, once the seed ran out the realization came clear that it was trapped. Until then, I am sure that it was pleasure.

I gathered the birds senses and urged it to find freedom - it did, and it was free again.

Pine siskin

2007-08-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Joins the backyard. Approachable little fella's and fellette's.

Another Day

2007-08-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

Hurrumph...

Nothing, absolutely nothing, to say about today. It rained, I biked, I got muddy, I fell in the mud, I got back up and I dodged about a thousand million snails on the trail.

And then - I ate dinner.

Ornithology update

2007-08-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

One new species, two unidentified species....more to come.

I think I have spotted a flycatcher but have not been able to corroborate it to my liking, and then there is a blue one...how hard should that be to ID?!? Its a pesky little mobile thing that sits still for unpredictable bouts of <1 second. So, it is hard.

Clear skies, busy trees,

T

When you have ten minutes to spare

2007-08-19T01:14:00.000-07:00

This is what to do with your time.

Happy evening.

When they used to be alright...

2007-08-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

Scornfully stole the title....no matter.

Remember when silverchair used to rock, melodically caress out ears, calm our nerves and dignify our musical souls?

Fallen in battle, perhaps. Music changes, as it should, but beauty cannot be replaced.

A non-religious post

2007-08-19T00:20:00.001-07:00

I thought I should post at least one post that does not defame religion, god, jesus, islam, mother Theresa, homeopathy, acupuncture, the holy ghost, evangelists ...

So, there we are. I said nothing of those topics.

peace.

Video advice

2007-08-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

This is more than an hour, but worth every minute. I chose Tinhorn Creek red.

Ever lucid in his authority of history and literature, Hitchens reveals a more personal approach to religion in this talk.

"Where religion ends, philosophy begins; where alchemy ends, astronomy begins..."

Oh yeah, we moved...

2007-08-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, forever, Diefenbaker Street.

Goodbye, forever, 1370.

And in the waning moments of our tenancy, we were entrusted with a new friend. R2. Now, is he not the sweetest little creature you have ever laid eyes on?Don't you want to scratch his wee little nose and hold his subtle little paws?

R2 - come home whenever you want. You have a key.

So, we are out of the old, crusted lifestyle of insecurity to a new one of security. We are R2less, but that may change.

__________________________________________________________________

Im off to mop up my tears as I sit here typing and listening to the Rheo's 2nd last show, and witnessing the beauty of Martins most solemn laryngitis-induced Saskatchewan rendition - I am with him on the ship, I am watching the wave, I am thinking of the farm. Tears of joy, to have witnessed, but tears.

Just got me thinking...

2007-08-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

Ardent thoughts, ponderous moments, lucid memories, chords of my making.....goodgonedead.
Approaching 5 months of deathly silence.

"never to be seen again..."

Like an Apostate, is Dark Matter leaving?

2007-08-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

My use of such an onerous term as 'apostate' is without doubt only to make me giddy. Instances of apostasy are wonderful - applied enlightenment.

However, I mean not to assume any religious constant to this topic. I realize the irony there, deal with it.

Dark matter has for a long time been a stout entity on the physicists working plan of the Universe, but recently new observations have tested and appear to have questioned the entity or function of this matter. It was assumed that it was somehow the binding force, the "gravity" if you will, that held together the smallest and largest galaxy clusters. Questions are now being raised.

Science Daily has a short but coherent discussion on this, one which is basically leaving the question of "is dark matter real" alone until there is more information. However, when the 'more information' comes out I will not be surprised if Dark Matter takes a seat in the back and allows a more comprehensive understanding to ride shotgun; not that I assume dark matter to be false, but rather that I assume that it cannot be the sole entity of the answer. It may be a part, reliant on other parts. Lets let this one play out and sleep well knowing that we are not the astrophysicists dealing with this shatteringly important question (I don't believe I could sleep if I were..)

Bad Astronomy, of course, also has an excellent discussion. Would you ever expect Mr. BA not to make extremely complicated physics seem manageable?

I am sure CBC has it somewhere, but I get bogged down by all their new ads and ghastly web design that I wont look for it. They would only paraphrase the above sources, anyhow.

Clear skies...

PS - The Mars Hoax is back. Simple do a web search for it and you will come across myriad sources that explain the reality and the physics of its inability to be true. Bad Astronomy blog also has three posts about it - one from 2003, one from 2005, one from 2007...i can only guess that this one will not go away anytime soon.

PZ Seed

2007-08-16T22:16:00.001-07:00

Sitting in my gracious living room, trying to pry myself away from the auspicious lightning storm that shows no wish other than to stay and to be spectacular, I stumble upon an old(er) article by PZ in Seed Magazine. And it is pretty darn interesting. It amasses some interesting information about evolution and mammalian structure - ok , now the hail is assailing my windows - and without realizing it at first links perfectly to a book I am reading (The Evolution of Sex) in reference to fetal self-abortions and mutation rates. Takes catholic insistance of anti-abortion to the science classroom, one could say. The book, not the article.

Worth a read. Im off to count my cervical vertebrae.

1...2...3...4...5...6...

An Obvious Disconnect

2007-08-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

I love this so much, it makes me want to burn stuff and dance around in my undies.

There is such an overbearing disconnect here that I need not mention it, but of course I will. The plight of this lady is that she was caught supporting her religion:

A 42-year-old woman who describes herself as a Wiccan faces charges of
disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after neighbors complained she was
disturbing them with chants around a bonfire she had built 10 feet from her
home.

You see, all fine and dandy. The article goes on to announce her belligerence and apparent drunkenness, but it enunciates quite the article of truth about religions - there is no continuity between intentions (love, affection, truth, etc) and reality (war, hatred, murder, misogyny, rights deprivation, etc, etc, etc..). Ever. And this Wiccan example paints this picture with an apparently (self respecting, only) natural religion:

[The police chief] said Barney at one point poured lighter fluid on the
fire, in which she was burning rubber car mats and a cooler. Barney refused to
cooperate with police and was belligerent, and her breath smelled of alcohol.

So, burning rubber, a cooler quite probably made of Styrofoam and plastic, and using lighter fluid to make it larger and more intense. Excellent. Now what is your religion all about? Remind me:

Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.

Mother nature, in her non-existence, would be ever so proud of your servitude to her needs. I, on the other hand, find you adulterous to the environment. Could you say that you were praying to one god while playing with another?Either way, it is all fake, but clearly elucidating of your dogmatic ignorance.

Organic: I dont even mention my distaste for religion

2007-08-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting and coherent approach to organics and health; it is far too parsimonious to link sandal-wearing-commune-living lifestyles to the solution to environmental degradation. Although that lifestyle and schema is vitally linked to subtle and non-subtle changes and advances in human society, it cannot stand alone as the chordate of change. There needs to be evidence, strengthened with awareness campaigns and unequivocally segregated from politics. The link above (about a 10 min video with links) assumes this role.

Farmers need options that they know will work.
Buyers need options that they know will help them and the cause of environmentalism.
Politicians need to realize, through the power of vote perhaps, that conglomerate run enterprises cannot be the structure of knowledge and decisive voice in what is right and wrong; Monsanto cannot, must not, be allowed to put their bottom-line above societies health. The health or Earth, a planet of billions of species, cannot be at risk for teh benefit of simply monetary based groups.

There is fantastic science out there - not elaborate and confusing genetic science, not dogmatically boring science (not that genetic science, or "boring" science - not my vernacular usage, I assert - is bad or useless, I am just positioning that it does not catch the public eye or ear, something that science must do a better job at) - but science that does not capitulate to the masses, but rather works for the masses. It is legible, tangible, evidenced and prolific, and it just may work if given a chance.

This video ascertains some personal duty to this, and spells it out. Obesity, health problems, CO2, environmentalism, organic, local....buzz words that can be solved without the hand of corporate stock based incentives and priorities. People need to take back the world from the 'mighty dollar', but first they must know how. Step one, learn. This is a good as any of a place to start to learn.

More about religion: this time I go south

2007-08-15T19:45:00.001-07:00

Short note, not to take away from below.

Brazilian soccer is allegedly a "mans sport, in which there is no place for 'gays' ". So I assume that if a gay person wanted to play soccer, he (because only men can play, straight men) should make his own league for gay people? That sounds like a contemptible idea, to be mild. Oh, wait:

Brazilian Journalist: The judge decided that if he would have to tell the world if he actually was gay or not, and if so he would be banned from the league. It was said that it is a man's sport, and there is not room for homosexuals. Homosexuality would ruin the face of the game.

CBC: Well, would he be able to play anywhere? I mean, would he be barred from playing ever?!?

Brazilian Journalist: Yes, yes...that is what the judge decided. He asserted that he would have to start his own league...

CBC: ..his own league for "gays"

Brazilian Journalist: Yes, a 'Gay League'. The judge believed that 'gays' and 'straights' should not be forced to play together. It is a ... we say homophobic - is that term correct in English?

Yes, my friend, it more that definitely is. I must pause....calm....relax....this is just one ignorant man (the judge; the journalist was extremely and decisively critical of the judge

Now, I will solder my mouth (fingers, as it were) because I believe that it is plain enough to see the atrocity of it all. The judge was slapped on the wrist for this, temporarily losing his post as high judge, but I ask this - what would have modified his beliefs and impeded his ability to accept a soccer player to just be a soccer player, gay or straight? What would have moulded his beliefs...hey wait, isn't Brazil a Catholic occupied place?

Hmm......religion pokes its wretched head again, and, again, not for good. Love, I think not. Morals, I think not. Cosmic answers - hah! - I think not. Oppression and hate, I think so.

Religion Kills More. Is this news?

2007-08-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is nice to placate yourself and pretend that all the news that is heard on the radio (or television, for those who own one and pay for their dilapidated service) is in a realm other than your own and that it doesn't really reflect upon you at any tangential instance. your life is separate. But, of course, this is not a significant thought. It happens all the time. I am guilty. I am aware of my guilt, as many are, and I pry myself to act on that guilt and to at the very least learn from the news. The very least.

However, I must say that global news renders me tonight in a viral state of intellectual anger and disbelief.

Is this actually happening?

But, of course, again, it is. It most definitely is. And happening all the time. Not just at the top of the hour, not just a 6pm, not just when you breeze through your web-news site of choice. It happens at all the resolved minutes in between. People are dying, places are burning, cultures are ruined, pollutant spills are occurring; life is happening, some of it good and some of it bad.

This is nothing new, I realize. But sometimes the news, as I said, perturbs me to a point of despair. How would you expect a rational atheist, immune to the need to respect islam, christianity, judaism, ..., react to this (and I herein paraphrase):

CBC: So let me try to sum up all of what you just said. Are you telling us that a woman from a non-arab community travelled to an arab region and spoke with a man. After being found speaking to him at his house the community ganged up and brutally murdered her, in what was called a "mercy killing"?

Iraqi Journalist: Yes, that is correct.

CBC: And is it correct that the murderers immediately sent, via telephone camera, images of the mercy killing?

Iraqi Journalist: Yes, that is correct.

It is infuriating that this happens, in bleeding 2007, in the name of a fake myth (is there any other type, I know), a fake, misogynistic, sexist, homophobic, murderous myth that allows, with expected respect, this to happen. Was it not enough that they cleansed the earth of this heathenistic woman for 'talking to a man of a different faith', but they had to advertise, in high pride, their triumph. That an innocent, young female, young to the world and ignorantly, in its most honest invocation, living a life that besieged no one, had to die today is an account of ghastly despicable religious control of the world. Of course, I know, religious dogma is despicable, but to the end where a young woman woke up today innocent to the world, and died today innocent to the world, at the hands of unknown men because she spoke out of turn, churns my stomach and evaporates any glistening drop of belief that religion is but a entity to be scorned.

This is above the main story line. This was a small, subverted side-story to the real one! The main story was about the religion based suicide bombing that, at this point, killed hundreds. This was an appendix to the story of religion killing innocent people. But I am glad that it was an appendix, and was not overlooked. I am glad that it was not overlooked. I am sickened by its occurrence, but delighted that it made it out of the bloodied hands of the horrid men who slayed her ("her", unnamed still only adding to the faceless death and the limitless destruction of rights from religion) and to the ears of us.

Some of us will care.

More of us should.

More of us should realize that religion deserves no respect. Religion deserves no time. Religion deserves nothing but eradication, enlightenment and burying deep in the annals of history. Remember it, for sure, but forget it.

The Enemies of Reason: Dawkins

2007-08-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Prof. Dawkins laments the dogmatic reverence to mysticism, myth, religion, charlatanry that is overly pervasive in today's society. The Enemies of Reason is a four part series that will only (apparently, as yet) greet the public in the UK. However, the ideas and concerns range from such a broad spectrum of topics and contemporary issues, that this will not go unnoticed.

Most poignantly, perhaps, is his dismissal of homeopathic remedies, citing:

I say to doctors who use homeopathy: if you can identify this you’d have
discovered a whole new force in physics. Either there is no effect, in which
case you shouldn’t be charging people money, or there is an effect, in which
case you should prove it and win the Nobel prize.”

If Dawkins is as forthright with honesty, enthusiasm and knowledge as he usually is, this will be a treat. I await the DVD...

The pope Accepts Evolution: Who the hell cares what he thinks

2007-08-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

This is not new, but it is worth commenting on - the pope (lower case imperative) has decided that after myriad years of science and understanding, he is willing to accept that evolution is a true course of nature.

Now, this is wonderful. Just simply wonderful.

A man who has no discourse of any importance in this world, no parsed meaning, no education on the matter and an obviously deluded vision of nature has 'accepted' evolution. And because of that "we" (the general agnostic and or unknowing public that is waiting on every word of the church)

As if his thoughts matter? Why does the 'church' or any denomination feel that once they accept or recognize something, that only then does it become so?

But I ask this one question: If it has taken an uneducated, spiteful, hating man since the late 1800's to recognize evolution based on evidence, reported year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day - science and the study of nature goes on every moment and educated and learned people are devouring their time to try to pry off a small piece of it at a time - where is the evidence for religion? It took just over 100 years for the church to go from burning women because they were suspected witches (to be fair the last 'witch hunt' and innocent burning at the stake took place in the 70's in the religiously led US of A) to accepting evolution; the god and jesus myth has been around for much longer than that, the muslim myth a touch younger (touche), but they have both had much time to try to muster up some e

The people who spend their lives trying to figure out nature have said from time immortal of the evolutionary spectra that it is so, that it works genetically, theoretically, biologically...yet it takes a ghastly man such as this to stand up as the church and say "meh, so it looks ok to me". And the media ate it up. Well, Im not eating.

Evolution, sincerely, is to be taken as truth. No questions. Evolution should not be taken as fact because a useless tramp of a religious leader finally took off his "hatred-hat" and accepted it.

It is incongruous to assume literary or learned status - scientific, electrical, educational, photographical...anything - to a church leader. They purport to act out of a modicum of morality, which in itself has nothing to say about the truths and realities of nature, but in actuality they ac out of the antithesis of morality.

Popey, stay out of the education of the children. Stick to running your dying faith.

Ascending McBride: one more tromp to the top

2007-07-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

The most recent romp in the jungle of petrographic monuments took us to McBride, just a small jump east from PG. Along the way we stopped at an old growth forest with towering cedars, spent the night at the most mosquito ridden campsite ever known, and managed to find a wonderful railside coffee shop. Well done, indeed.

These are horribly achronological, but I can assume that the order matters not.

Me, hiking up the last section ot the peak.

Both of us on top of the peak, after following the ridgeline to McBride Mt.

A local forest fire sent quite a significant amount of particulates to the atmosphere, making an opportune setting for sunset colouration.

Crystal is hiking along the ridgeline.

Crystal, standing by a rock cairn that should have fallen over many sotrms ago. Apparently the structural support is maintained by the lone upright rock? Regardless, it was extremely windy at this section of the alpine and the cairn did not sway at all.

Me, enjoying a july 15th snowball at the top of the mountain.

The view down to the McBride valley. To the lower right an oxbow lake is visible, recently flooded.

This was on the way to McBride, at the Ancient Forest. Crystal sides up to one of the trees for comparison.

Same place, different person. I (after doing away with a Triffid) pose beside another tree.

Takng a break and a refreshing wash at the falls. The sun was blocked mostly by the forest canopy but the heat was immense regardless. There was a sweet and humid smell of the summer air which combined succinctly with the sultry forest fire aroma - which I talked about for the remainder of the trip.

Another sunset picture. We set off to find a good place that was bug free and had a clear view to the west and were granted this wonderful vantage point!

Mackenzie, BC - Murray Range

2007-06-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

A lone trip to Mackenzie, BC was in my mind as I woke up and pondered the morning sun. My bag packed, the bear spray secured and water remembered, I set out towards the northern scenery of the Murray Range.

The route; uphill for the entire 5km to the peak - no respite from gravity. This is a view of the main route that parallels, and then mimics, the avalanche chute remnant. Absolute difficulty to climb the snowy chute so I managed to find footholds along the edges and scramble along rock outcrops through the difficult narrows and steep places. And then...and then.....it began - the rocky scree-turned-bedrock slope that edged toward 80 degrees of angle. Intense.

Here is a better, and more just, explanation of the slope. This is just before the "steep" part that cost me a few years of life I am sure.

Walking on more suitable ground - above the steep part I now could take the time to stop, rest and realize the immensity of this range. This is June, please remember, as you stare past me into the background.

I almost turned around, but I pressed on. And I made it. Moments later the wind, snowfall and darkness came in and pushed me back downslope.

But I first stopped for some summit pictures...

A startling whistle caught my ear and I immediately set upon finding the 'Murray Ridge Marmot' (as I named it...). We had a brief conversation on the peak, and we then both went our ways.
The downhill trek was an adventure of glissading, falling and two moments where I had to plead with my muscles and nerves to hold on for just a few more steps to safety. Four hours up, one hour down - to the victor comes the spoils, and in my case it was a lone warm bottle of Nelson microbrew.

Then, after a nights sleep in Mackenzie, belly sated with pizza and rest, I set upon hike number two. I found a large, pronounced rock outcrop along the highway home and decided to stop. And I climbed. And it was good.

The view from the top...

Alpine meadow flower...

Me scrambling up the lower section. It became a tad rediculous near the mid section of this hike and I, with great happiness, found a more subtle route down!

The Curse of Religion...an ongoing saga

2007-06-24T18:05:00.001-07:00

Coming home today from a terse hiking adventure in the mountains of BC, muscles and lungs tried to their extreme extents, nerves tested (again...this is becoming a lurid continuing saga itself) and mind clear from time and an expanse of mountainous landscapes, I turned on the radio.

And what the FUCK?!?

One weekend, two days, 48 hours...all that has happened, or was chosen to report on, was lucid accounts of religious based bigotry and inanity.

1) Anglicans, not known for their foresight or clarity of though, astound the world - it is their moral compass that holds them true to their goal of protecting the populous from the scourge of male-male or female-female love. Can religions force people towards atheism any more pronouncedly?

2) "Militant Islam" has tied up a man, in the name of Allah, with explosives. Their religion has forced them to attempt to blow an innocent (although, I am sure he has sinned at some point in his life...there is no way to avoid sin as accusingly set up by religious myths) man up. To kill someone, because his book s different than their book. Because his myth, or the myth from the country that he hails from, is different. His tooth fairy is tall and wears green, their tooth fairy is shorter, a little more rotund, and wears blue stripes. And for this, death.

3) Lebanon vs. Israel - more sectarian christian violence and people twice subtracted from the abstract violence were killed. Maqny families now are missing a father - in their prime when they should be looking at the stars, playing with their children, telling stories, cooking with their spouses, visiting family, going on hiking trips, helping their neighbour fix a tractor, tucking in their children at night with a bedtime story and a kiss on the cheek....but now they are both in the ground, rotting. Back to the bacteria and nematodes, never again to see or be involved with their families. A religious war took them away.

4) What will come next....

Can we subtract religion as reality from our social plate? Ever? Finally?

But then, the worst of it was to come. I have no clue as to the date of this atrocity (thanks PZ) , but I hope that you are finished eating and are well digested - food may exit orifices uncontrollably if it is not well within the intestines and thus two sphincters safe from resurfacing. I wonder how many of these are teachers or community leaders - I would like to assume they are alone in their delusional understanding, but of course they are not. What kind of thinking can we suppose fed the list of three above?

In conclusion:

Lay religion to rest with volcanic gods, santa clause, the boogie man, and let these stories never be heard again. It does nothing - absolutely nothing - to better our society.

We have moved past the need for fake idols to worship - we now have meta-cognitive salience and knowledge. Revel in the truth and reality of the world and nature, leave hatred and misogynistic, genocidal, ignorant, sexist and dictatorial religion behind. It is a relic.

McBride Trekking: Bear, Bear, Cliff.....

2007-06-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

Two hours south-west of PG is a little humble town (village?) of McBride. Nothing but cowboys, out of work loggers and mountains....the cowboys avoidable, the logging aura unavoidable, and the mountains unquestionably awesome. Hunkering down in a place like this leaves you with little else to occupy you mind other than 'the mountains'.
In the crisp morning, as the sun was pouring its wealth of energy towards us in anticipation of the heated day ahead, we drove into the woods to find our trailhead among the lush forest. Found, overgrown and ominous, we packed up and began the unmistakably mosquito riddled hike. Once above the deciduous/coniferous boundary the flying critters abated, the sky opened up and we left the biological wonder of the forest and entered geological wonder of the craggy mountain ridgeline.
We climbed up and up and up, until and a ragged, soggy cliff face barked at us to stop. Our better judgement ended our hike shy of the peak, but regardless it was a hard, wonderful hike.

The next morning, waking up to our sore muscles and fond reminiscent images of yesterday's hike, we pointed ourselves toward the next target - Kristi Glacier. We soon found out, after an hours hike, that we were not going to be able to reach the glacier. So, we changed plans and decided to hike up an old(ish) landslide scar, through the eroding stream to a rocky mountain side.

Then there were the bears.....

Early on in the Eagle Creek hike we came upon an old hunting cabin - now a truncated storage place (more realistically and out of commission truncated storage place). Inside were messages from other hikers, old stores and equipment. Nothing was new or usable, but the historical merit of the place and the content were quite dramatic.

Taking a lunch break less than halfway up the mountain. After an hour of hiking along the river basin, hugging the turbid flow of the snowmelt, we came to the beginning of the arduous uphill section. Here we took our first opportunity to stop and regain our muscular composure and feed ourselves. We knew nothing of the hike above us - that which we were about to take on - but knew only of the need to go higher...

Im lichen this tree......

Further up the mountain we ambled onto a spurious outcrop for some pictures. A glorious view was granted for our labour, and we still had higher to go. But, and there always is a 'but', our travel to higher altitudes was halted by a rocky cliff that was impassable. We tried to scurry our way across the first section, learning the frightful way that cliffs and nerves don't make for fluid movements. We got across a spurious section rife with saturated scree and a rotten (geologically rotten) cliff face, only to face defeat upon eyeing the next stage. So, satisfy with our accomplishment to get this far, and filled with grief of having to re-climb across the scree-cliff, we turned back. Seven hours after leaving our car, we returned sore and hot. Exuberant....but sore and hot.

Marmot. The Whistler. The marmot is the whistler, apparently, not satan. Although....

A top-down view of one of the lower ridge lines.

Crystal posing by the side of the landslide debris. Pictured here is only half of the actual amount that covered the trail and solidified our decision to leave the glacier dream and to take on the new dream of climbing the landslide scar. Quite a good decision it was!

Me and her, the last picture before our camera died. After this were the bears....and the forest of death....and the attacking grouse.....and more forest of death...then the triffids.....then the other bear.....then the raging river of doom.....then home.

"Shaking off the anaesthetic of familiarity"

2007-06-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

A lucidly simply, yet daunting, purpose of science. Quoted from the most literate science educator I have yet to come across, Mr. Richard Dawkins. I am just dipping my neurons into "Growing up in the Universe" and already I have evaluated new ideas and changed the way I will teach science - enlightenment, if ever there was. I hope you take the time to watch it if you can.

As I sit and watch the waters of the Fraser and Nechako sweep over my new city as the people watch with a torrent of complacency, I ponder It. Science. Earth. Cosmos. Insects. Evolution. Macro-Invertebrates. Legumes. Industry. Society. Ethics. Godlessness. Not needing a myth to lean on ... It.

On a lark!

2007-06-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

....a new friend for the list.

This one is quite different from the rest in terms of both ecology and geography. The majority of the other posted birds are either from a wetland or temperate aspen forest - all indicative of lowland birds. However, this weekend gave a succinct opportunity to explore the birds of Jasper. In a high alpine region of Alberta, among the barren lichen, scree and boulder filled landscape came a chirp.

And to it I ran...

RASC: Kudos

2007-05-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

Good science comming out of Ottawa. Those fine, healthy individuals at the Ottawa Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) have put out a statement of position on...

Long Weekend: Smithers, BC

2007-05-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

Four hours drive.

Three cups of coffee.

Two roadside urine stops.

One beautiful mountain range.

Trillions of snowflakes blanketing the caps.

Smithers.

I could hear the voices of the past.

Or was that just a car passing.....who knows.

And what satiates oneself more than finding the biggest of...something....anything. Well, on the way to Smithers everyone is profusely lucky enough to witness the Worlds Largest Fly Fishing Rod.

Moon Venus encounter. More below.

We took a short drive out to (New and Old) Hazleton where we encountered utterly amazing scenery and quite a neat (Old Hazelton) city. Everything was closed, as the preponderance of biblical factories (aka churches) were strewn across the landscape - effortless suggestion that the missionaries got there first and were able to inform them of the death penalty for working on the sabbath or any other random day that warrants god resting. Regardless of the ruthless death-hold that a lived-out fictional story has on the area, it cannot suppress the beauty of the billion years old geology and biology at play here.

Close encounter; moon/venus proximity peak of the year (could I be understating this and really mean decade...?)

Me, carving up some herbivorous delight while breaking eardrums with my version of birdsong.

Here we sit on the second of our two hiking trails. Behind us, again, the town of Smithers and the Babine Mountain Range. This is the exact moment (I believe, at least) that I got too much sun this day!

What a sight to wake up to, as the aromatic morning coffee wafts through the air and birds chirp out their myriad songs.

The same mountains, but now at sunset. The last glimmer of day wastes its time on the protruding peaks of the mountains, leaving only shadows and birdsong to quell our desires of sunlit faces.

We went on a couple of hiking trails, this being the first. Where we reached the cliff we could see a panoramic view of Smithers proper, the periphery of nature and of course the mountains in the background.

Crystal bought a new knife (finally). Now I am worried. I sleep less. I wake earlier.

Talking shit...

2007-05-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

...about Mother Teresa.

An enticing quote to start:

"...faith is the surrender of mind..."

If only I could add the bible....

2007-05-26T00:40:00.000-07:00

...to this list.

I think that the world - one neo-democratic village, region, province, country at a time - would be a greater and more sustainable place. But why stop at 'the' bible. Every myth has a bible of some description, most equally fraught with horrific legalities and reverent punishments for the most insignificant misdemeanor. So why stop at one archaic fiction of hate? Add them all.

A Few (Vitally Important) Geology Lessons:

2007-05-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

There are some very cogent attempts to explain, through science and the investigative process, the inaccuracies and inanities of the chattering Young-Earth groupies. Their espousal's of a young earth (most regularly cited age is 6000 years, but some go as far as 10 000...) by this crowd are shielded from reality by their reverence to their myth-story. Well, as I have had equal opportunities to defend the science side through my myriad biblical confrontations, I thought I would link to a thorough explanation of the most basic tenants of the bible crowd.

The topsoil idea is the best, I think .

Long Weekend Roundup

2007-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

Long weekend over, almost, and my newly scorched skin now rests at home reminiscing of the mountains, trails and star filled nights in Smithers. In a laze (partially) from the sun and countless uphill footsteps of the weekend, I am simply choosing to say little and to pass along hints of my new found passion, birds, and link up with 'The List'.

When you are finished ambling through the newly posted bird sightings, check this out.

Charlie is my Darwin, alright!

A nod of my gleaming new "fake" cowboy hat to PZ for leading me to this.

Hail to the new god: Rais the roof

2007-05-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

Something to read with your coffee...

2007-05-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

Richard Dawkins has posted a relatively new article that he co-wrote with Jerry Coyne. I strongly suggest that you check it out.

The premise of the article is to articulate an educational problem, an educational issue and an educational void. I will not go into it, as work beckons, but I hope you take the time to enjoy it and to ponder its meanings.

Here is a quote that I feel enunciates the issue well:

Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?

More birds...

2007-05-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

More birds here!

Mating northern flickers, two warblers and a forgotten one from the winter. There are two species of duck that are yet to be identified, but when they are their names will rank among the already listed.