Yeah, the obligatory photo album:
back from the west
Tag: bc
on missing the boat
Nothing quite like missing the Tsawwassen ferry by one minute.
(And this post was photographed and sent entirely on blackberry. The geotag I cheated and used my Garmin. I had time to kill …)
owl
You can tell I’m a towny when I get all excited about a blurry picture of a Hawk Owl:
It was kinda windy, and it was taken at maximum digital zoom. The Wikipedia link has a much better picture.
(almost) one third of the world away
I’m in Fort St John, BC – which appears to be exactly 116° due west of the hills around Arrochar where I used to stomp around. It’s also the furthest north I’ve ever been in Canada.
pretty much it for now
Well, that’s pretty much all for my BC trip. Got another day in the office, then fly out this afternoon.
I managed to be a bit more sociable this time. Dinner with Dave and Leanne in a very high-tone restaurant, curry with Kelly on Davie St on Halloween, then dinner with colleagues last night.
why is it … ?
That I always get sick when I visit Richmond?
in and around the van
Spent a pleasant, if damp, day scooting around Vancouver and environs with Dave. After a quick tour of Granville Island, we headed off to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. We then had lunch at Fuel, which is extremely good.
We had to work off lunch somehow, so we hiked around Lynn Canyon Park, which includes the nifty and shoogly Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge. Back at Dave & Leanne’s place, we decided on dinner and a movie, but I had to bail on the movie ‘cos my cold was getting bad.
Vancouver is so green. I like it.
I’ve never been to BC before …
Can’t say that any more. I was struck by how much one of the mountains looked like Dumgoyne, which we used to see out the kitchen window in Kirkintilloch. The one here’s probably a bit bigger …
the reluctant rockstar of climate change
I was at Nicholas Stern‘s presentation to the Economic Club of Toronto today (as was Bob, David, Deb, Glenn, Paul, and about 490 others). He was very low-key; not sure if his dry sense of humour got the response he expected. The CBC covered it.
T’aint what you coup (it’s the way that you do it)
I know I shouldn’t, but every time I see the name of Fijian military coup leader Frank Bainimarama, the songs of this eighties girl group come to mind.
bye bye bikeshare
house concert!
We went to a house concert last night to hear Chris Coole & Erynn Marshall play some Kentucky duets. Erynn’s back from BC to record with Chris; today’s a long day in the studio.
Great music, nice venue, excellent evening. Maybe we’ll eventually get enough money to buy Chris a new banjo head; his current one looks stricken with some dread skin disease …
a good reason to blog less
Yesterday went to The Twelfth Fret and traded in the Goodtime for this:
It’s a Gold Tone Bob Carlin Signature. It sounds beautiful, and unlike me, plays like a dream. So if I’m not blogging so much, this might just be the reason.
boo {gerund} hoo
[Rick Ciarnello, president of the Vancouver Hells Angels chapter] claims he has been treated rudely by his local supermarket staff, and he says many people are no longer friendly toward him, and instead fear him or avoid him altogether.
och jings, we won!
Scotland beat France 1-0 yesterday. Here are some Scots enjoying the health benefits of smoking in the drizzle:
providing cannon fodder for empire since 1867
I reckon that if I took a random street poll anywhere (anywhere outside Canada, that is), no more than 3 out of 10 people would consider Canada as having a leadership role. I do not wish to make light of the soldiers’ plight; I just don’t want them there in my name.
(I was going to make a comment about the nearest thing to a role to most Canadians would be a Swiss Chalet 1/4 chicken dinner, but that doesn’t work in a written context, and barely works when spoken.)
half-yay pedelecs
Electric bikes hit the road in Ontario — but you have to wear a helmet, for some reason.
Goodbye, childhood
Goodbye:
- headache glue cracking from finger tips
- badly-painted pilot with obvious thumb-prints
- squint and/or torn decals
- undercarriage installed backwards, if at all
- spilled tin of Humbrol enamel
- leftover sprue rattling in cardboard box with an unidentified piece still attached
- curious v-shaped stand that never quite stood level
- hung squintly from bedroom light by white thread until dusty wing missing from too many runins with parental heads
- taken down for final flight whirled round head on string until dashed against clothespole or arcing up up into neighbour’s fir tree (it’s still there today)
- when older, packed with cotton balls nicked from sister, doused with turps, crashed flaming kamikaze onto the compost heap (sorry dad, your onions never did well on paint thinner and burnt plastic)
Happy Nuke Day!
Yup, Chernobyl was 20 years ago. Let’s just have a wee pause for a technology that’s still messing us up, yet we’re told it’s the green technology of the future. Yeah, and I bet it’ll be too cheap to meter, too.
There are still farms in Scotland affected by the fallout from Chernobyl. Though, what with all the nuke plants in Scotland, it could be any one of them that’s the real culprit.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a wind farm to survey …
Sarah’s Solar Art
Sarah Hall works with glass and light, and her most recent commission for Regent College in BC combines solar photovoltaics and an LED light show into the installation. It’s a beautiful design, and I’d like to thank Sarah for inviting me to the official unveiling yesterday.