Hawaii Part II: Some more fer ya

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.

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Jasper Mountain Trek: Windchill

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

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...

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...

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

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...

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.