Weird that they didn't give the photographer's name, eh?
(Awesome photo, though, that is in danger of making this Yorkshire lass feel homesick. Check out the series - there are some stunning shots included in the slide show).
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Friday, November 26, 2010
Now that's an odd name for a dog.
Weird that they didn't give the photographer's name, eh?
(Awesome photo, though, that is in danger of making this Yorkshire lass feel homesick. Check out the series - there are some stunning shots included in the slide show).
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
What I Did On My Staycation - Part I
(This got way too long for one post. Also, the return to work has been a wee bit stressful, and our internet connection at home is all messed up,so it's taken me ages to write it. Boooooo. I'll try to get Part II written soon! It'll even have photos!)
Monday
First of all, I slept in - bliss! I had a leisurely breakfast, then took the bus and SkyTrain down to the Vancouver Art Gallery. This is the same route I take on work days when I'm not cycling, although I usually get off a few stops earlier, and it was so much nicer than during the rush hour! I even had a lovely chat with a woman who was, like me, trying to decide whether to take the #8 (comes every five minutes, but is usually heaving and stops on almost every block and is therefore slooooow) or cross the road and wait for the faster #33 (stops only every two or three blocks, and is generally less crowded, but only comes every 15-30 minutes, depending on the time of day). I used my Translink iPhone app to figure out that the #33 was the best option (it almost always is), saw this woman wavering between the two stops, and decided to share my information with her. We continued our conversation all the way to the art gallery. She's new to my neighbourhood and, like me, is excited about some upcoming changes to the area (post to come!) I'm used to fighting for space, having my face wedged into a stranger's armpit, getting hit by people's backpacks, and/or dealing with general commuter rage (mine and others'), so this was a lovely surprise.
The gallery was very nice. I'm not a particularly arty person, and know next to nothing about art history or techniques, but I do enjoy looking at pretty and/or thought provoking things, and I love the general atmosphere of art galleries. I wasn't allowed to take photos, but I did jot down some notes on the pieces I enjoyed most: a glass box with First Nations designs and old family photos engraved into it, with a light inside, all alone in a small white room, such that the designs and photos were projected onto the walls (Marianne Nicolson - I think it was this one); and some stunning images of the recent BC forest fires by Evan Lee, who prints photos onto the reverse of the usual paper, then smears the ink around before it dries - like this.
I had some rooms completely to myself... until the school groups hit the building. This was the hidden flaw in my cunning "enjoy popular attractions in the weekday peace and quiet" plan... man, kids are loud, and big stone buildings are echoey! I escaped to the gallery's cafe for a healthy and tasty salad, although the echoes of kids yelling and adults scolding followed me, and then headed back to the galleries once things had quietened back down. I saw everything except one room before the usual gallery fatigue overtook me, and I even managed to avoid spending any money in the gift shop (I have such a weakness for blank journals to write in, and they had some gorgeous ones, but I reminded myself that I have a couple of still completely virgin journals at home). A success!
I headed off to the Salt Spring Coffee place on Main Street (excellent as always, especially because I had an ethicalDeal coupon) for my first installment of sitting in cafes pretending to be a writer, managed to write one blog post, and then got the bad news about Mr E Man's accident. So I headed home via our usual grocery store to sympathise with him over his poor mangled finger, make a quick-and-easy dinner (baked potatoes with sauteed garlicky mushrooms, leeks, and bacon, with grated cheese on top, of course), and watch the Canucks game.
Tuesday
I woke up to find a beautiful sunny day waiting for me - but with a crazy windstorm also in progress. I'd said on Sunday night that I'd spend the first sunny day of the week biking around Stanley Park, but the wind was a little intimidating - I don't tend to enjoy riding during gusts so strong that you have to pedal to get down the hills, and from past experience this looked like just such a day! However, this being November, there was no guarantee of any more nice weather during the rest of the week, so I decided to go for it. (Mr E Man was invited, but said he wanted to snuggle on the sofa with the kitties and feel sorry for himself. To be fair he was on some fairly strong pain killers and hadn't slept much, as he kept catching his injured hand on the duvet when he rolled over, and he woke up shouting in pain several times during the night).
It was indeed ridiculously windy, and I did have to pedal down all but the steepest hills on my way to the sea wall (pedestrian / bike path around the city's ocean front) at Science World. But I persevered, buoyed by the exhilarating sun-shining-on-snow-capped-mountains-and-sparkly-blue-ocean-and-glass-skyscrapers-and-sailboats view. It was a day in a million by any standards, one in a trillion for November - truly stunning. What little skill I may possess in the wielding of words and cameras is hopelessly inadequate; I just can't hope to capture the beauty and joy of the day.
I fought the headwind all the way around the northern edge of False Creek (actually an ocean inlet, hence the name), along the beach at English Bay, and into Stanley Park. The wind died down considerably as I headed east onto the more sheltered edge of the park, and I was even able to sit outside in the sunshine to enjoy the excellent tea and muffin I bought at the totem poles concession stand. I watched bald eagles and seagulls play in the wind, seemingly just for fun, and felt exceedingly glad not to be stuck in the office.
This feeling grew and grew as I made my way around the rest of the sea wall, and when I passed under the Lions Gate bridge, around the point, and back onto the more exposed western edge of the park, the sight of the ocean waves crashing into (and occasionally over) the wall made my heart sing with pure joy. There were a couple of other cyclists, four or five joggers, and several more walkers on the same stretch of sea wall, and every single one of us wore a massive grin across our face. It was... there are no words. Magnificent comes close. I hopped off my bike, sat on a rock on the beach, and fell in love with Vancouver all over again.
If I hadn't already moved here, I would have headed from the beach straight to the immigration office. Seeing as I'm already a card-carrying citizen, though, I headed back along the English Bay beach front and over the Burrard Street bridge (LOVE LOVE LOVE the new protected bike lanes, which I hadn't used before) and went to Granville Island for a very late lunch (red snapper soup and bread from The Stock Market, an old favourite from when I lived nearby and went to the public market most Sundays). I wandered around the blissfully uncrowded market, bought dinner ingredients from several different places, then enjoyed a sweet treat and some tea at the Blue Parrot cafe. I even did some proper writing - in a journal, with a pen! I just fleshed out some ideas for a project I've been thinking about for a while, but it was fun, and just how I'd imagined it might feel to sit in a cafe overlooking the ocean and pretend to be a writer.
Dinner was three different kinds of fresh ravioli (porcini mushroom, asparagus, and butternut squash) with spicy Italian sausage, asparagus, red pepper, and a yummy cilantro pesto from The Stock Market. Mr E Man agreed that I'd spent the day most productively.
Monday
First of all, I slept in - bliss! I had a leisurely breakfast, then took the bus and SkyTrain down to the Vancouver Art Gallery. This is the same route I take on work days when I'm not cycling, although I usually get off a few stops earlier, and it was so much nicer than during the rush hour! I even had a lovely chat with a woman who was, like me, trying to decide whether to take the #8 (comes every five minutes, but is usually heaving and stops on almost every block and is therefore slooooow) or cross the road and wait for the faster #33 (stops only every two or three blocks, and is generally less crowded, but only comes every 15-30 minutes, depending on the time of day). I used my Translink iPhone app to figure out that the #33 was the best option (it almost always is), saw this woman wavering between the two stops, and decided to share my information with her. We continued our conversation all the way to the art gallery. She's new to my neighbourhood and, like me, is excited about some upcoming changes to the area (post to come!) I'm used to fighting for space, having my face wedged into a stranger's armpit, getting hit by people's backpacks, and/or dealing with general commuter rage (mine and others'), so this was a lovely surprise.
The gallery was very nice. I'm not a particularly arty person, and know next to nothing about art history or techniques, but I do enjoy looking at pretty and/or thought provoking things, and I love the general atmosphere of art galleries. I wasn't allowed to take photos, but I did jot down some notes on the pieces I enjoyed most: a glass box with First Nations designs and old family photos engraved into it, with a light inside, all alone in a small white room, such that the designs and photos were projected onto the walls (Marianne Nicolson - I think it was this one); and some stunning images of the recent BC forest fires by Evan Lee, who prints photos onto the reverse of the usual paper, then smears the ink around before it dries - like this.
I had some rooms completely to myself... until the school groups hit the building. This was the hidden flaw in my cunning "enjoy popular attractions in the weekday peace and quiet" plan... man, kids are loud, and big stone buildings are echoey! I escaped to the gallery's cafe for a healthy and tasty salad, although the echoes of kids yelling and adults scolding followed me, and then headed back to the galleries once things had quietened back down. I saw everything except one room before the usual gallery fatigue overtook me, and I even managed to avoid spending any money in the gift shop (I have such a weakness for blank journals to write in, and they had some gorgeous ones, but I reminded myself that I have a couple of still completely virgin journals at home). A success!
I headed off to the Salt Spring Coffee place on Main Street (excellent as always, especially because I had an ethicalDeal coupon) for my first installment of sitting in cafes pretending to be a writer, managed to write one blog post, and then got the bad news about Mr E Man's accident. So I headed home via our usual grocery store to sympathise with him over his poor mangled finger, make a quick-and-easy dinner (baked potatoes with sauteed garlicky mushrooms, leeks, and bacon, with grated cheese on top, of course), and watch the Canucks game.
Tuesday
I woke up to find a beautiful sunny day waiting for me - but with a crazy windstorm also in progress. I'd said on Sunday night that I'd spend the first sunny day of the week biking around Stanley Park, but the wind was a little intimidating - I don't tend to enjoy riding during gusts so strong that you have to pedal to get down the hills, and from past experience this looked like just such a day! However, this being November, there was no guarantee of any more nice weather during the rest of the week, so I decided to go for it. (Mr E Man was invited, but said he wanted to snuggle on the sofa with the kitties and feel sorry for himself. To be fair he was on some fairly strong pain killers and hadn't slept much, as he kept catching his injured hand on the duvet when he rolled over, and he woke up shouting in pain several times during the night).
It was indeed ridiculously windy, and I did have to pedal down all but the steepest hills on my way to the sea wall (pedestrian / bike path around the city's ocean front) at Science World. But I persevered, buoyed by the exhilarating sun-shining-on-snow-capped-mountains-and-sparkly-blue-ocean-and-glass-skyscrapers-and-sailboats view. It was a day in a million by any standards, one in a trillion for November - truly stunning. What little skill I may possess in the wielding of words and cameras is hopelessly inadequate; I just can't hope to capture the beauty and joy of the day.
I fought the headwind all the way around the northern edge of False Creek (actually an ocean inlet, hence the name), along the beach at English Bay, and into Stanley Park. The wind died down considerably as I headed east onto the more sheltered edge of the park, and I was even able to sit outside in the sunshine to enjoy the excellent tea and muffin I bought at the totem poles concession stand. I watched bald eagles and seagulls play in the wind, seemingly just for fun, and felt exceedingly glad not to be stuck in the office.
This feeling grew and grew as I made my way around the rest of the sea wall, and when I passed under the Lions Gate bridge, around the point, and back onto the more exposed western edge of the park, the sight of the ocean waves crashing into (and occasionally over) the wall made my heart sing with pure joy. There were a couple of other cyclists, four or five joggers, and several more walkers on the same stretch of sea wall, and every single one of us wore a massive grin across our face. It was... there are no words. Magnificent comes close. I hopped off my bike, sat on a rock on the beach, and fell in love with Vancouver all over again.
If I hadn't already moved here, I would have headed from the beach straight to the immigration office. Seeing as I'm already a card-carrying citizen, though, I headed back along the English Bay beach front and over the Burrard Street bridge (LOVE LOVE LOVE the new protected bike lanes, which I hadn't used before) and went to Granville Island for a very late lunch (red snapper soup and bread from The Stock Market, an old favourite from when I lived nearby and went to the public market most Sundays). I wandered around the blissfully uncrowded market, bought dinner ingredients from several different places, then enjoyed a sweet treat and some tea at the Blue Parrot cafe. I even did some proper writing - in a journal, with a pen! I just fleshed out some ideas for a project I've been thinking about for a while, but it was fun, and just how I'd imagined it might feel to sit in a cafe overlooking the ocean and pretend to be a writer.
Dinner was three different kinds of fresh ravioli (porcini mushroom, asparagus, and butternut squash) with spicy Italian sausage, asparagus, red pepper, and a yummy cilantro pesto from The Stock Market. Mr E Man agreed that I'd spent the day most productively.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Meep Meep!
I've discovered another reason to keep cycling on rainy days:
That's the second one this month! The first was a scruffy little fella who suddenly appeared from a patch of mist in the cemetery when I was out for a run; he looked terrified, and ran away immediately. Today's sighting was a magnificent specimen: fully grown, with a gorgeous coat and big bushy tail, a brave and handsome boy who stood and watched me for a while before deciding I wasn't a threat and getting on with his day.
I used to see foxes almost every week on my bike commute in Glasgow - usually in the woods, but sometimes in the vet school campus where I worked - and it always made my day. Coyotes still seem terribly exotic to me, and the sightings are rarer, so that thrill goes double.
I wasn't scared at all - hey, if he'd started chasing me he'd no doubt have slammed into a cliff or fallen into a canyon within a few seconds* - but it was a great reminder of why the cats need to stay inside at night!
ETA: right on cue, the BBC have an article today on the role of cemeteries in preserving urban biodiversity!
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*hi, Facebook and Twitter friends! Yes, I recycle my jokes for the good of the environment.
I used to see foxes almost every week on my bike commute in Glasgow - usually in the woods, but sometimes in the vet school campus where I worked - and it always made my day. Coyotes still seem terribly exotic to me, and the sightings are rarer, so that thrill goes double.
I wasn't scared at all - hey, if he'd started chasing me he'd no doubt have slammed into a cliff or fallen into a canyon within a few seconds* - but it was a great reminder of why the cats need to stay inside at night!
ETA: right on cue, the BBC have an article today on the role of cemeteries in preserving urban biodiversity!
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*hi, Facebook and Twitter friends! Yes, I recycle my jokes for the good of the environment.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Cath has misheard that the bird is the word
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His mouth can hold more than his belly can,
He can hold in his beak,
Enough food for a week.
I'm damned if I know how the hell he can!
(by Dixon Lanier Merritt, apparently. Not Ogden Nash. You learn something new every day!)
And I'm damned if I know how the hell I can have made the same ridiculous mistake twice.
It's all because of my habit of paying only partial attention to the TV. I'm usually doing something else at the same time - eating, talking, playing a game on my phone, reading a book, surfing the web, playing with a cat or two, that kind of thing. So some time last year, while I was "watching" the local news, I was startled to hear the anchor say that there'd been a pelican attack in one of Vancouver's eastern suburbs! By the time I'd looked up at the screen he'd moved on to another story, leaving me completely baffled and with some very odd mental images running through my brain.
Fortunately, the CBC website was running the same story - about a pellet gun attack.
Which made more sense.
Fast forward to last night, when Mr E Man and I were watching Survivor. I loooove Survivor (it's an extremely guilty pleasure), so I was actually watching it properly. However, during the commercial breaks I was paying attention to Saba, who was sprawled all over me and purring contentedly as I rubbed her belly. I was vaguely aware that there was some kind of cosmetics advert on the screen, but was suddenly snapped into full alertness by a rather bizarre slogan I'd just heard.
"The colour of pelicans???!!!", I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Mr E Man eventually managed to gasp out the word "elegance" in between fits of laughter.
Oops.
In my defense, it's still a ridiculous slogan. And later on in the show they actually showed some pelicans flying past the beach, which set us off laughing again. I suspect they'd already shown a similar shot before the commercial, which helped to trigger the confusion. Either that or I have a very bizarre subconscious.
Ooh! That just reminded me of something. Hang on a minute, Googling:
Ah, yes, I was right!
To (mis)quote Douglas Adams in The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul:
It was a couple of days before Kate Schechter became aware of any of these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world.
She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabin trunks were full of vivid, and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine-tenths were full ofpenguinspelicans, which surprised her. Insofar as she recognised at all that she was dreaming, she realised that she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storingpenguinspelicans.
So there you go. It's not my fault, it's just the way the human brain evolved.
Weirdly, like this post just did.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Environmentalist loonies
I recently came across an environmental campaign that is so unique, so creative, and so effective, that it blew me away.
This is a Canadian one dollar coin, aka loonie*, featuring an image of a common loon, and also Gavia immer on the other side (sorry, Your Majesty! Couldn't resist that one).
This is the loonie I got in my change last week:
WOW. Seriously nice work - what a striking, unambiguous combination of image and URL.
Of course I went straight to their website, where I signed the petition - Enbridge Inc wants to bring the first ever crude oil supertankers to Canada's Pacific north coast, and this group is asking Parliament to legislate a permanent ban on oil tankers in these waters.
I also found a solution to my dilemma. See, I love my modified loonie so much that I want to keep it, but I also understand that the whole point is to keep it circulating so others can see it and be inspired to sign the petition. So I've donated $10 in exchange for 42 decals that I can attach to other loonies and send out into the wild.
Seriously, the people behind this campaign are geniuses.
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*two dollar coins are, of course, called toonies. When Mad Hatter visited last year she needed change for a $10 bill for her bus fare, and the waitress she asked replied "sure, are loonies and toonies OK?" Mad Hatter turned to me with a look of sheer uncomprehending panic that was absolutely hilarious!
This is a Canadian one dollar coin, aka loonie*, featuring an image of a common loon, and also Gavia immer on the other side (sorry, Your Majesty! Couldn't resist that one).
This is the loonie I got in my change last week:
(it's a sticker, in case that's not obvious from the photo!)
WOW. Seriously nice work - what a striking, unambiguous combination of image and URL.
Of course I went straight to their website, where I signed the petition - Enbridge Inc wants to bring the first ever crude oil supertankers to Canada's Pacific north coast, and this group is asking Parliament to legislate a permanent ban on oil tankers in these waters.
I also found a solution to my dilemma. See, I love my modified loonie so much that I want to keep it, but I also understand that the whole point is to keep it circulating so others can see it and be inspired to sign the petition. So I've donated $10 in exchange for 42 decals that I can attach to other loonies and send out into the wild.
Seriously, the people behind this campaign are geniuses.
-------------
*two dollar coins are, of course, called toonies. When Mad Hatter visited last year she needed change for a $10 bill for her bus fare, and the waitress she asked replied "sure, are loonies and toonies OK?" Mad Hatter turned to me with a look of sheer uncomprehending panic that was absolutely hilarious!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Friday Wednesday Quiz-ology
Yes folks, it's time for another fun quiz from my puzzle-a-day desk calendar!
I was going to save this for Friday, but I just submitted a grant after much stress and panic and lost sleep,* so I could do with a little light relief, even as I get stuck in to the next big project.
This time the actual puzzle on the calendar was to match the -ology to the subject under study. I got all 21 right (using a process of elimination in a few cases), so the quiz is clearly too easy in this original form. Because all my readers are also highly intelligent people (with excellent taste), I'm therefore going to just ask you to define every -ology, without giving you the matching list of subjects to choose from. (It should still be easy, as some of my readers ARE some of these kinds of -ologist).
As before, answer in the comments in any order you like - but please submit only one answer per person per hour, to give as many people as possible a chance to play!
(AND NO GOOGLING!)
I'll update the post with the answers and bragging rights as and when I get time, and I'll add clues if there are any unanswered questions after a day or two.
The person with the most correct answers at the end of the quiz will be declared Ologyologist in Chief.
----------------
*the Adobe Acrobat issues I blogged about in my last post turned out to be the least of my problems yesterday. The networked drive, which the IT guys tell every new hire to save all their files to because it gets backed up every hour and has all kinds of redundancies built in and has never, ever, failed even once in the 6.5 (non-contiguous) years I've worked here, went down with all the grant files on it at about 3pm yesterday. Oh, and the head of IT is on vacation. It came back up at 5:30, and I only lost about 25 minutes worth of edits made since the last back-up, but there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh, and the actual proposal had to be pasted into a text box on the online submission form, FFS, and wouldn't recognise the line breaks from the Word document until I double spaced them all and then deleted the extra spaces. I worked 12 hour days on Monday and Tuesday, and had to come in super early today to walk the Dean through the sign-off and submission procedure. But it is DONE!
After my experiences in my last job, though, I have to say that I much prefer to get stressed about things I actually care about, rather than product inserts and email campaigns. This is some seriously cool stuff, both scientifically and because it has the potential to significantly increase the speed and efficiency of the cancer drug development process. If I had to choose just one of the grants we've submitted this year to get funded I'd pick this one for sure, even though some of the other pending grants are for much more money. (Just don't tell the department's accountant I said that!)
Oh and yes, I do intend to drink some beers at Mr E Man's birthday dinner tonight!
I was going to save this for Friday, but I just submitted a grant after much stress and panic and lost sleep,* so I could do with a little light relief, even as I get stuck in to the next big project.
This time the actual puzzle on the calendar was to match the -ology to the subject under study. I got all 21 right (using a process of elimination in a few cases), so the quiz is clearly too easy in this original form. Because all my readers are also highly intelligent people (with excellent taste), I'm therefore going to just ask you to define every -ology, without giving you the matching list of subjects to choose from. (It should still be easy, as some of my readers ARE some of these kinds of -ologist).
As before, answer in the comments in any order you like - but please submit only one answer per person per hour, to give as many people as possible a chance to play!
(AND NO GOOGLING!)
I'll update the post with the answers and bragging rights as and when I get time, and I'll add clues if there are any unanswered questions after a day or two.
- Agrology- Soil, as it relates to the growing of crops (Chall) - partial credit for Thomas Joseph, Antipodean, & Nat Blair
- Campanology - Bells (Stephen Curry)
- Cetology - Whales (Nat Blair)
- Cytology - Cells (ScientistMother)
- Dactylology - Sign language (Pika) - partial credit for Nico, Antipodean,
- Dendrology - Trees (Chall)
- Etiology - Causes / origins (Biochem Belle)
- Geomorphology - Tectonics / landforms (Scott) - partial credit (kinda) for Ruchi
- Lithology - Rocks / stones (Nat Blair)
- Meteorology - Weather (Biochem Belle)
- Metrology - Measurement (Schlupp)
- Mycology - Fungi (Ricardipus)
- Myology - Muscles (Nico (first to answer correctly) and Thomas Joseph (second, presumably independently!))
- Oology - Eggs (Nat Blair)
- Pomology - Fruit (Chall) - partial credit for Knutty Knitter
- Rhinology - Noses (Nat Blair)
- Selenology - Moon (Alyssa)
- Semiology - Signs (Lisbeth (first to answer correctly) and Pika (second, presumably independently!))
- Speleology - Caves (Chall) - partial credit for Ruchi
- Vexillology
- Vulcanology - Volcanoes (Erika Cule)
The person with the most correct answers at the end of the quiz will be declared Ologyologist in Chief.
----------------
*the Adobe Acrobat issues I blogged about in my last post turned out to be the least of my problems yesterday. The networked drive, which the IT guys tell every new hire to save all their files to because it gets backed up every hour and has all kinds of redundancies built in and has never, ever, failed even once in the 6.5 (non-contiguous) years I've worked here, went down with all the grant files on it at about 3pm yesterday. Oh, and the head of IT is on vacation. It came back up at 5:30, and I only lost about 25 minutes worth of edits made since the last back-up, but there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh, and the actual proposal had to be pasted into a text box on the online submission form, FFS, and wouldn't recognise the line breaks from the Word document until I double spaced them all and then deleted the extra spaces. I worked 12 hour days on Monday and Tuesday, and had to come in super early today to walk the Dean through the sign-off and submission procedure. But it is DONE!
After my experiences in my last job, though, I have to say that I much prefer to get stressed about things I actually care about, rather than product inserts and email campaigns. This is some seriously cool stuff, both scientifically and because it has the potential to significantly increase the speed and efficiency of the cancer drug development process. If I had to choose just one of the grants we've submitted this year to get funded I'd pick this one for sure, even though some of the other pending grants are for much more money. (Just don't tell the department's accountant I said that!)
Oh and yes, I do intend to drink some beers at Mr E Man's birthday dinner tonight!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Destination: Sound!
It always seems to take me a while to write blog posts about my favourite trips, probably because I'm in denial about them being over. So the fact that it's taken me almost a month to start writing this post is a good indication that it was an amazing adventure in my new favourite kayaking destination!
The start of the trip was an almost exact replica of our last one - drive, ferry, drive, stay at mother-in-law's, drive, ferry, drive, buy food and other supplies*, drive - but instead of continuing up the road to Lund, we turned right and headed for the kayak rental company's other location, in Okeover Inlet. As before, we'd booked a beast of a double kayak with a central hatch for all our gear, but got loaded up and in the water in record time. In fact we beat the couple next to us, who'd started loading a good half an hour before we did!
There was much friendly banter between us as we raced to launch... and again as we crossed their path on a brief trip back to the beach to retrieve Mr E Man's hat... and yet again as we passed them on our way back up the inlet, heading for Desolation Sound proper.
This part of the trip was pleasant enough, with nice cabins dotted about on the wooded slopes of the low-lying hills. As usual after a long land-locked spell, it was bliss just to be back out on the water, feeling the rhythm of the paddle strokes and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the ocean. The cabins became more widely dispersed as we passed from Okeover into Malaspina Inlet, but I was beginning to be ever so slightly disappointed in the low-lying hills, the signs of habitation, and the lack of any wildlife.
All this changed, however, when we turned right into Desolation Sound itself. There was some chop and some rebound waves to cope with as we rounded the point, but we've been through much, much worse before, and our heavily loaded double kayak wasn't going to flip unless we wanted it to**. But even as we zig-zagged around to make sure none of the many waves and boat wakes hit us broadside, we were already starting to admire the snow-capped mountains at either end of the Sound, and seeing an abundance of seals and eagles.
We kept expecting more kayakers to show up, but luckily when a group did come they chose another island, and we had ours completely to ourselves all day and all night. We cooked another yummy dinner, and settled in on the West-facing rock behind our campsite to watch the gorgeous sunset.
Sun down = bed time!
After another surprisingly decent night's sleep we got out of the tent early the next morning to find another beautiful day waiting for us, and jumped straight off a rock and into the ocean to celebrate. This was the only time on the whole trip I ever felt cold. After a brief swim and some breakfast, we hauled the kayak back down onto the beach in a series of painful steps (the low tides were all at really inconvenient times on this trip!), and set off on a day trip to Tenedos Bay. It was another gorgeous paddle, followed by a short walk through the woods to Unwin Lake for a freshwater swim. Unfortunately we had to clamber over a bunch of floating and semi-floating driftwood logs to get to the water... like that bit in Insomnia... this is the kind of thing I have nightmares about, and I fell off once into some shallow water and got covered in stinking black mud (and scraped my leg in the process), so I wasn't exactly happy. The lake was nice though,
and we met the couple we'd raced against to load and launch on day one. They were looking for a new campsite after being a little disappointed in how crowded their first two had been, so we told them how great our island was, and they promised to check it out.
After a couple of hours of enjoying the really very pleasant lake, Mr E Man said what I'd been thinking: "this is nice, but it's not as nice as our campsite. I love our campsite. It's awesome". So we agreed to head back to base to see who had invaded our island while we'd been gone. The couple we'd talked to had, as had one other couple and another group of four much younger kayakers, but we were still nicely spread out and everyone had their own space and privacy.
Our new friends from the loading beach and the lake were surviving on freeze-dried food, whereas we had an overabundance of real food, so we shared our pasta dinner with them in exchange for some additional wine. After dinner the other couple joined the four of us on the sunset rock with yet more wine (the group of four younger paddlers kept to themselves), and we all proceeded to spend an extremely lovely evening chatting and getting pleasantly drunk together as the sun went down (and for a few hours afterwards too).
After a not so good night's sleep (too much wine), our drinking partners all left for home or for pastures new. Mr E Man and I had a swim and then a discussion over breakfast, and decided that we really weren't going to find anywhere better than where we already were (based on our own observations and on tales from our new friends), and that lifting the kayak up and down all the rocky ledges was going to be more trouble than it was worth. So we celebrated BC Day by spending a lazy day at camp: swimming, playing cards, swimming, playing Scrabble, swimming, reading, swimming, eating, and swimming. It was bliss, and we felt no guilt at all about our "enjoy the destination" mode of ocean kayaking***.
Some new kayakers showed up, and we pointed out the best campsites and chatted briefly, but they seemed inclined to keep to themselves, as did the younger paddlers when they returned from their day trip. But yet again we had a fabulous evening chatting and snuggling and watching the sunset and drinking the last of the wine.
That night I crawled into the tent to sleep, little suspecting the horrors that awaited me. The first three nights had been fine, with little more than the sound of the waves to disturb my sleep, so I'd been lulled into a false sense of security. This made it all the worse when I was awoken at about 2:45 am by The Noise.
It was a kind of combination barking/snorting/coughing/teeth chomping noise. Definitely an animal. A big animal. A big, loud, scary animal. The Noise started on one side of the tent, then moved to the other.
Unbelievably, Mr E Man was still asleep at this point. But not for long, because I switched on the flashlight that hangs from the ceiling of our tent and started shaking him and frantically whispering "DO YOU HEAR THAT???!!! I THINK THERE'S A BEAR!!!!!!"
As a born and bred Canadian, Mr E Man does not share my terror of bears. I keep trying to explain to him that to Europeans, big scary animals with huge teeth that live in the woods and make scary noises are the domain of fairy tales, things that frighten and thrill you when you're a kid, but aren't supposed to be real. So when we do something ridiculously foolhardy like move to Canada, we freak the hell out as our childhood nightmares come to life.
Or something.
Anyway, Mr E Man initially seemed freaked out by the noise too, but then calmly tried to talk me out of my own fear by saying "it's probably a seal. Maybe a sea lion. It's low tide, right? It's probably eating those oysters and clams we saw on the beach when we arrived at low tide".
Yeah, nice try dude. Bears swim and eat shellfish too - our new friends had met someone who'd had a bear wander through his nearby island campsite the day before, also at low tide - and anyway I've heard seals and sea lions, and they just don't make that kind of noise. Or move that fast, on land (The Noise was moving. A lot).
At this point Mr E Man realised that I was too scared to be talked down, so he decided to get out of the tent to see what was happening. Bear spray in one hand and air horn in the other, he peered bravely out into the darkness, but couldn't see anything. A new and slightly different (chompier) occurrence of The Noise, closer this time, persuaded him that he really didn't want to startle or otherwise disturb the maker of The Noise, so he slipped discretely back into the tent. Luckily The Noise soon started to gradually move a little further away, and after a couple of hours of listening intently into the night while sitting up facing the door of the tent, gripping the can of bear spray with white knuckles, I relaxed enough to fall back asleep (Mr E Man had been snoring away within a few minutes of getting back into the tent).
I left the light on, though.
I'd had maybe 20 minutes of sleep when The Noise came back, closer than ever. It was now 5:45 and starting to get light, but it was still too dark for courage. I shook poor Mr E Man awake again, and he declared that he absolutely had to know what it was, and picked up the air horn and bear spray again. I begged him not to go outside - The Noise sounded different, more aggressive somehow, than it had earlier - and he reluctantly relented. After another half hour or so The Noise was gone for good, taking my capacity for sleep along with it.
Of course, as soon as it was properly light and I was brave (or at least slightly braver) again, I regretted not finding out what had been making The Noise. We looked everywhere for prints or scat, but none were to be found on the rocks or scrubby grass and parched, hard crust of soil. Our bag of food, hanging on the end of a rope slung over a tree branch that we'd thought was probably too low, was undisturbed. Our neighbours had all heard The Noise, too, and everyone thought it was a bear. Even Mr E Man says that the more he thinks about it, the more he agrees that it couldn't have been a seal or sea lion. (Our neighbours had met someone who'd claimed to have seen a couple of wolves a few kilometres away the week before, but that's just silly).
Anyway, the thought of The Noise made me feel slightly better about having to leave our idyllic island campsite and head home. We had one last swim before hauling the kayak back down to the beach, packing up, and retracing our route from the first two days, back along the Sound, round the point, and into the Malaspina and Okeover Inlets. It was another nice paddle, although after the splendour of the last few days, the last hour's scenery seemed rather tame and pedestrian in comparison.
Overall it was an amazing trip and I got out of the kayak at the end covered in bruises, bug bites, sun burn, blisters, cuts and scrapes, but with a grin as wide as the Sound itself. Great weather, spectacular scenery, gorgeous campsites, great people, good times. Yes there are scary noises in the dark, but hey, now that I've had a bear in my campsite at night (one of my worst nightmares) and survived unscathed, maybe I'll be a bit braver in future.
A very little bit.
Maybe.
My fear of clambering over floating driftwood logs remains intact, but I'm not going to let that get in the way of more kayaking trips, either.
-----------------
*shopping while hungry caused a serious kayak hatch overload problem. We ate a ton of food, gave some away, and still brought a whole bunch back. Maybe next time Mr E Man will take my "let's plan meals in advance and make a shopping list" idea more seriously.
**having said that, I feel more vulnerable in the front of a double than I do in a single or in the back of a double. It's all about having control of your own rudder - without that control over my direction I get a bit nervous in choppy water!
***in the past, we've gone kayaking with people whose idea of a good trip is to cover as much distance as they possibly can each day. To each their own... but what we like most about kayaking is the access you get to beautiful, isolated camping spots. So we try to enjoy them as much as we can once we get there. Also, we're a wee bit lazy.
The start of the trip was an almost exact replica of our last one - drive, ferry, drive, stay at mother-in-law's, drive, ferry, drive, buy food and other supplies*, drive - but instead of continuing up the road to Lund, we turned right and headed for the kayak rental company's other location, in Okeover Inlet. As before, we'd booked a beast of a double kayak with a central hatch for all our gear, but got loaded up and in the water in record time. In fact we beat the couple next to us, who'd started loading a good half an hour before we did!
Come on you blues!
There was much friendly banter between us as we raced to launch... and again as we crossed their path on a brief trip back to the beach to retrieve Mr E Man's hat... and yet again as we passed them on our way back up the inlet, heading for Desolation Sound proper.
Approximate routes
This part of the trip was pleasant enough, with nice cabins dotted about on the wooded slopes of the low-lying hills. As usual after a long land-locked spell, it was bliss just to be back out on the water, feeling the rhythm of the paddle strokes and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the ocean. The cabins became more widely dispersed as we passed from Okeover into Malaspina Inlet, but I was beginning to be ever so slightly disappointed in the low-lying hills, the signs of habitation, and the lack of any wildlife.
All this changed, however, when we turned right into Desolation Sound itself. There was some chop and some rebound waves to cope with as we rounded the point, but we've been through much, much worse before, and our heavily loaded double kayak wasn't going to flip unless we wanted it to**. But even as we zig-zagged around to make sure none of the many waves and boat wakes hit us broadside, we were already starting to admire the snow-capped mountains at either end of the Sound, and seeing an abundance of seals and eagles.
Calmer water = photo time!
We found an island to camp on for the night, and apologised to the couple on the beach for disturbing their solitude. They very kindly helped us to carry the kayak up the sloping, stony beach to above the high tide line - even when empty it was a struggle for me to lift my end - and we had a nice chat with them before staking out our campsite, a short walk through the woods away. They'd recently retired and had driven an RV over from Alberta with two kayaks strapped to the roof, and were spending the whole summer on the BC coast, interspersing week-long kayak trips with more luxurious RV camping in various locations. I immediately started formulating "get rich quick and retire immediately" plans in my head (still working on it. I'll let you know if I make any progress. Or maybe I'll just buy an RV and some kayaks and bugger off and you won't ever hear from me again).
We got the tent up and went for a swim. Unlike on Savary and the Copelands (our last new favourite kayaking destinations), which as you can see from the map are very close to Desolation Sound but in a less sheltered piece of water, the water was gorgeous; cool enough to be refreshing, but warm enough to swim in for extended periods of time. And it was clear, and surprisingly fresh, for ocean water. There must be some massive rivers and/or glaciers feeding into the Sound somewhere, because the water didn't taste all that salty, and even after swimming multiple times a day for five days in a row, we didn't get that icky crusty salty feeling on our skin or hair.
We had a yummy gourmet hot-dog dinner, and settled in for the night as soon as it got dark. We could hear people in the cabins on the mainland shore, and on the many boats moored in the channel between our island and the mainland, but they all quietened down within an hour and I had a surprisingly good night's sleep, for a camping trip.
On our second day we re-loaded the kayak, said goodbye to our Albertan neighbours, and headed for our main destination. We'd heard that the Curme Islands were gorgeous, but "overrun with kayakers in the summer", according to one source. However, having started our trip on a Friday, rather than a Saturday, we thought we might have a head start on the BC Day long weekend traffic.
And so it proved to be! We saw one or two other kayakers on our crossing on calm waters over to the privately owned Mink Island, but they were mostly day trippers from boats and cabins. We were the first paddlers to reach the Curme group, and had a choice of several islands. We chose the one with the outhouse, and bagged the best of the three main tent sites: close to the landing beach (although we had to lift the boat up several levels of rock steps to get it above the high tide line, which took ages due to my wussy little girl muscles), with a dining room set made of driftwood logs, and with rocks behind us from which to fish, jump into the ocean, or watch the sunset.
After we got the tent up we explored our new home, and declared it to be the best campsite either of us had ever seen. The terrain was similar to that of the Copeland Islands, but with much sparser tree coverage and hence better views in all directions. At one point Mr E Man stuck the camera in my face without warning and said "do a video for your blog where you walk people through the island as if it's our new summer home". So here it is! (Sorry about the low volume - this was our regular camera rather than our actual video camera, and we forgot that the mic isn't as good).
As well as the American Canadian bald eagles, we saw oyster catchers, gulls, vultures, humming birds, squirrels, mice, and dozens and dozens of seals.
And here are some views from the other side of the island (spoiled only slightly by some water on the lens):
And here are some views from the other side of the island (spoiled only slightly by some water on the lens):
I swear I don't work for Tourism BC, I just really really like it here
We kept expecting more kayakers to show up, but luckily when a group did come they chose another island, and we had ours completely to ourselves all day and all night. We cooked another yummy dinner, and settled in on the West-facing rock behind our campsite to watch the gorgeous sunset.
Yes, I wear socks with my beloved Keens in the evenings when I'm camping (because of the mosquitoes). So sue me.
Smoke from distant forest fires makes for spectacular sunsets
Sun down = bed time!
After another surprisingly decent night's sleep we got out of the tent early the next morning to find another beautiful day waiting for us, and jumped straight off a rock and into the ocean to celebrate. This was the only time on the whole trip I ever felt cold. After a brief swim and some breakfast, we hauled the kayak back down onto the beach in a series of painful steps (the low tides were all at really inconvenient times on this trip!), and set off on a day trip to Tenedos Bay. It was another gorgeous paddle, followed by a short walk through the woods to Unwin Lake for a freshwater swim. Unfortunately we had to clamber over a bunch of floating and semi-floating driftwood logs to get to the water... like that bit in Insomnia... this is the kind of thing I have nightmares about, and I fell off once into some shallow water and got covered in stinking black mud (and scraped my leg in the process), so I wasn't exactly happy. The lake was nice though,
It turns out that it's really difficult to take self-portraits while treading water
and we met the couple we'd raced against to load and launch on day one. They were looking for a new campsite after being a little disappointed in how crowded their first two had been, so we told them how great our island was, and they promised to check it out.
After a couple of hours of enjoying the really very pleasant lake, Mr E Man said what I'd been thinking: "this is nice, but it's not as nice as our campsite. I love our campsite. It's awesome". So we agreed to head back to base to see who had invaded our island while we'd been gone. The couple we'd talked to had, as had one other couple and another group of four much younger kayakers, but we were still nicely spread out and everyone had their own space and privacy.
Our new friends from the loading beach and the lake were surviving on freeze-dried food, whereas we had an overabundance of real food, so we shared our pasta dinner with them in exchange for some additional wine. After dinner the other couple joined the four of us on the sunset rock with yet more wine (the group of four younger paddlers kept to themselves), and we all proceeded to spend an extremely lovely evening chatting and getting pleasantly drunk together as the sun went down (and for a few hours afterwards too).
After a not so good night's sleep (too much wine), our drinking partners all left for home or for pastures new. Mr E Man and I had a swim and then a discussion over breakfast, and decided that we really weren't going to find anywhere better than where we already were (based on our own observations and on tales from our new friends), and that lifting the kayak up and down all the rocky ledges was going to be more trouble than it was worth. So we celebrated BC Day by spending a lazy day at camp: swimming, playing cards, swimming, playing Scrabble, swimming, reading, swimming, eating, and swimming. It was bliss, and we felt no guilt at all about our "enjoy the destination" mode of ocean kayaking***.
Improving our "taking self portraits while treading water" technique slightly.
Some new kayakers showed up, and we pointed out the best campsites and chatted briefly, but they seemed inclined to keep to themselves, as did the younger paddlers when they returned from their day trip. But yet again we had a fabulous evening chatting and snuggling and watching the sunset and drinking the last of the wine.
That night I crawled into the tent to sleep, little suspecting the horrors that awaited me. The first three nights had been fine, with little more than the sound of the waves to disturb my sleep, so I'd been lulled into a false sense of security. This made it all the worse when I was awoken at about 2:45 am by The Noise.
It was a kind of combination barking/snorting/coughing/teeth chomping noise. Definitely an animal. A big animal. A big, loud, scary animal. The Noise started on one side of the tent, then moved to the other.
Unbelievably, Mr E Man was still asleep at this point. But not for long, because I switched on the flashlight that hangs from the ceiling of our tent and started shaking him and frantically whispering "DO YOU HEAR THAT???!!! I THINK THERE'S A BEAR!!!!!!"
As a born and bred Canadian, Mr E Man does not share my terror of bears. I keep trying to explain to him that to Europeans, big scary animals with huge teeth that live in the woods and make scary noises are the domain of fairy tales, things that frighten and thrill you when you're a kid, but aren't supposed to be real. So when we do something ridiculously foolhardy like move to Canada, we freak the hell out as our childhood nightmares come to life.
Or something.
Anyway, Mr E Man initially seemed freaked out by the noise too, but then calmly tried to talk me out of my own fear by saying "it's probably a seal. Maybe a sea lion. It's low tide, right? It's probably eating those oysters and clams we saw on the beach when we arrived at low tide".
Yeah, nice try dude. Bears swim and eat shellfish too - our new friends had met someone who'd had a bear wander through his nearby island campsite the day before, also at low tide - and anyway I've heard seals and sea lions, and they just don't make that kind of noise. Or move that fast, on land (The Noise was moving. A lot).
At this point Mr E Man realised that I was too scared to be talked down, so he decided to get out of the tent to see what was happening. Bear spray in one hand and air horn in the other, he peered bravely out into the darkness, but couldn't see anything. A new and slightly different (chompier) occurrence of The Noise, closer this time, persuaded him that he really didn't want to startle or otherwise disturb the maker of The Noise, so he slipped discretely back into the tent. Luckily The Noise soon started to gradually move a little further away, and after a couple of hours of listening intently into the night while sitting up facing the door of the tent, gripping the can of bear spray with white knuckles, I relaxed enough to fall back asleep (Mr E Man had been snoring away within a few minutes of getting back into the tent).
I left the light on, though.
I'd had maybe 20 minutes of sleep when The Noise came back, closer than ever. It was now 5:45 and starting to get light, but it was still too dark for courage. I shook poor Mr E Man awake again, and he declared that he absolutely had to know what it was, and picked up the air horn and bear spray again. I begged him not to go outside - The Noise sounded different, more aggressive somehow, than it had earlier - and he reluctantly relented. After another half hour or so The Noise was gone for good, taking my capacity for sleep along with it.
Of course, as soon as it was properly light and I was brave (or at least slightly braver) again, I regretted not finding out what had been making The Noise. We looked everywhere for prints or scat, but none were to be found on the rocks or scrubby grass and parched, hard crust of soil. Our bag of food, hanging on the end of a rope slung over a tree branch that we'd thought was probably too low, was undisturbed. Our neighbours had all heard The Noise, too, and everyone thought it was a bear. Even Mr E Man says that the more he thinks about it, the more he agrees that it couldn't have been a seal or sea lion. (Our neighbours had met someone who'd claimed to have seen a couple of wolves a few kilometres away the week before, but that's just silly).
Anyway, the thought of The Noise made me feel slightly better about having to leave our idyllic island campsite and head home. We had one last swim before hauling the kayak back down to the beach, packing up, and retracing our route from the first two days, back along the Sound, round the point, and into the Malaspina and Okeover Inlets. It was another nice paddle, although after the splendour of the last few days, the last hour's scenery seemed rather tame and pedestrian in comparison.
Overall it was an amazing trip and I got out of the kayak at the end covered in bruises, bug bites, sun burn, blisters, cuts and scrapes, but with a grin as wide as the Sound itself. Great weather, spectacular scenery, gorgeous campsites, great people, good times. Yes there are scary noises in the dark, but hey, now that I've had a bear in my campsite at night (one of my worst nightmares) and survived unscathed, maybe I'll be a bit braver in future.
A very little bit.
Maybe.
My fear of clambering over floating driftwood logs remains intact, but I'm not going to let that get in the way of more kayaking trips, either.
-----------------
*shopping while hungry caused a serious kayak hatch overload problem. We ate a ton of food, gave some away, and still brought a whole bunch back. Maybe next time Mr E Man will take my "let's plan meals in advance and make a shopping list" idea more seriously.
**having said that, I feel more vulnerable in the front of a double than I do in a single or in the back of a double. It's all about having control of your own rudder - without that control over my direction I get a bit nervous in choppy water!
***in the past, we've gone kayaking with people whose idea of a good trip is to cover as much distance as they possibly can each day. To each their own... but what we like most about kayaking is the access you get to beautiful, isolated camping spots. So we try to enjoy them as much as we can once we get there. Also, we're a wee bit lazy.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Trees do the darndest things!
Like celebrate their British roots:
and, um, be intimate with fence posts:
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Both photos taken by me within the last week. Evolution in action, or just an overactive imagination (and a dirty mind?)
(I did try to write a proper post, by the way, but I'm too tired. I'll try again tomorrow).
and, um, be intimate with fence posts:
.JPG)
Both photos taken by me within the last week. Evolution in action, or just an overactive imagination (and a dirty mind?)
(I did try to write a proper post, by the way, but I'm too tired. I'll try again tomorrow).
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
A walk in the woods: choose wisely
Which path would you choose?
Would the adjacent sign affect your decision?
(Shmeegs?)
Would you consider the relative scariness and likelihood of this...
...compared to this?
Would the sight of vultures circling overhead affect your decision making?
(is there a fresh bear kill in the woods, or are they waiting for the siren dinner bell?)
This was our final choice.
It seemed to be a good one.
This was our Sunday lunchtime cool-down during The Big Time Out, a music festival in Cumberland on Vancouver Island. The record-breaking heat (something like 36C on Saturday - that's 97F) may have affected my opinion somewhat, but I have to say that while it was a fun weekend and an amazing setting,
the line-up was a bit of a disappointment. Lots of "this is OK" or "oh, these guys have some decent stuff", not much "WOW, these guys are AWESOME!"
Saturday was especially meh - the opening act was the best one all day, and while the headliners (Broken Social Scene) were also very good, the penultimate band had managed to suck most of the energy out of the crowd by the time they came on, so it was all a bit muted.
Sunday was better - the dip in the river was better preparation for the day than sweating in the tiny patch of shade thrown by our hastily rigged tarp had been the day before. But while the headliner K'naan rocked the house as usual, he didn't have any new songs; it was essentially the same set we saw him do in Vancouver in March 2009. I guess a whole year spent on the World Cup music tour precludes much writing of new material. But still, great set, and he and a couple of other bands we saw over the two days (Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees, Vitaminsforyou, Mutaytor, Kim Churchill, and especially Tambura Rasa) inspired some happy "dancing barefoot on the grass" moments in me. And as this was a very small festival, there was a really nice friendly atmosphere with lots of happy people and little kids running around all over the place. All very different to my previous music festival experiences - all in Scotland, at massive events with two stages, multiple gig tents, fairgrounds, and drunken Scots everywhere!
Overall though, my main impression of the event was of overwhelming, baking heat. Oh, except at night, when it was freezing! There was about an hour of comfortable temperature in the morning, and maybe a couple of hours in the evening, but the rest of the time was spent either sweating buckets and trying not to move, or shivering in all the clothes I'd brought. The festival and adjacent campsite were in an open field, with very little shade. We got lucky and bagged a spot next to the fence, so we pooled resources (tarps and blankets) with one of our neighbours to set up a small patch of (still baking hot) shade between the fence and our tents. The poor people who arrived later and camped in the middle of the field had no shade at all though. It's rained at every single other music festival I've ever been to - on one memorable occasion at T in the Park in Scotland it got so muddy that some of the tents in the sloping campsite started to slide downhill - and that's always miserable and muddy and nasty, but surely there's a happy medium somewhere!
In these circumstances, we declared this frozen mango impaled on a stick
to be the best thing ever invented in the history of humanity. I literally felt new energy flooding back into my poor heat-sensitive Celtic body as I ate it.
Mmmmmm, mangogasm.
There was also the usual lack of sleep that you get at festivals. The tents were all packed in like sardines, and some of our other neighbours were the loudest, douchiest, most obnoxious people on the site. Their conversation kept everyone in the vicinity awake from 1 - 5:30 am on the first night as one guy shared tales of all his sexual conquests in quite an aggressive, nasty way (and repeated everything at least once to make sure he'd been heard). At one point I whispered to Mr E Man "wow, that guy must have a really, really small penis", and after that we referred to him as Douchebag McTinydick, which made us feel better - as did the news Mr E Man overheard on Monday morning that the whole group had been so hungover and tired after that night that they fell asleep in their camp chairs and missed K'naan on the Sunday!
Karma - don't you just love it?!
Like I say though, overall it was a good weekend, with the swim in the river being the highlight. Oh, and we saw dolphins from the ferry on the way back, which was awesome! We might go back to The Big Time Out in the future, depending on the line-up (and the weather forecast), but our shade-sharing neighbour also gave us lots of tips about other small festivals she's been to around BC that are apparently much better. There's a jazz / world music festival in Kaslo (a nine hour drive from Vancouver) where the stage floats on a lake, and the crowd can wade in the lake up to their waists while listening.
Watch this space... Summer 2011... maybe!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sound as a pound
Right, we've got charts, a compass, tide tables, two Swiss Army knives, bear spray, and an air horn*, and we're off on an adventure! (Well, we're actually off to my mother-in-law's today, which isn't all that adventurous, even when our nephews are there, which they are. The adventure starts tomorrow morning).
If anyone needs me I'll beon a horse in a kayak, somewhere in Desolation Sound (so called because Captain Vancouver saw it on a bad day. Apparently it's beautiful and not at all desolate - at least not in summer).
Oh, and our tenant's still going to be around, so don't even think about breaking into our house while we're away! He's a seriously big dude (6 foot 7 and built like a brick shithouse) who's bodyguarded for Jean Claude van Damme and Vin Diesel, among others. He's loaned us his bear spray; he often comes across bears in the course of his (non bodyguarding) work duties, but they run away from him. Seriously. He has an example of this kind of interaction caught on a tape from a work security camera, but I'm not allowed to post it.
He's the big one in this photo - and bear (hah!) in mind that none of the other three guys is exactly petite.
He's also a fantastic cat sitter, and the kitties love him.
BTW, expect (slightly) more science blogging than you've been used to when I get back! (Don't worry, you can skip the science posts if you're not interested. Same goes for any other kind of post, obviously, although I assume that every single reader is riveted by the ongoing dental floss conversation).
------------------
*Conversation while reserving kayaks:
Me: "is there much bear activity up there at the moment?"
Woman in kayak shop: "there's one on the lawn right now! It's looking at me through the window!"
Me: "..."
Hence the bear spray and air horn.
If anyone needs me I'll be
Oh, and our tenant's still going to be around, so don't even think about breaking into our house while we're away! He's a seriously big dude (6 foot 7 and built like a brick shithouse) who's bodyguarded for Jean Claude van Damme and Vin Diesel, among others. He's loaned us his bear spray; he often comes across bears in the course of his (non bodyguarding) work duties, but they run away from him. Seriously. He has an example of this kind of interaction caught on a tape from a work security camera, but I'm not allowed to post it.
He's the big one in this photo - and bear (hah!) in mind that none of the other three guys is exactly petite.
Left to right: Mr E Man, my Dad, our massive tenant, baby Lilah's Dad
He's also a fantastic cat sitter, and the kitties love him.
BTW, expect (slightly) more science blogging than you've been used to when I get back! (Don't worry, you can skip the science posts if you're not interested. Same goes for any other kind of post, obviously, although I assume that every single reader is riveted by the ongoing dental floss conversation).
------------------
*Conversation while reserving kayaks:
Me: "is there much bear activity up there at the moment?"
Woman in kayak shop: "there's one on the lawn right now! It's looking at me through the window!"
Me: "..."
Hence the bear spray and air horn.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Land of my four bears
As you may remember from an old post, since I moved to Canada in 2002 I've spent much, much more time worrying about bears than actually encountering them. In fact, I'd only ever seen one bear in the wild...
...until Wednesday.
My Mum spotted the first bear. It was ambling through a field, on the edge of the forest and parallel to the highway, just North of Pemberton. Mr E Man thought it was a male, based on its size - and it was indeed a fine, fat, glossy, jet black specimen of beariness. We slowed down as much as the highway traffic would allow, and oohed and aahed with excitement. I was delighted to double my bear count, especially as we'd seen it from such a position of safety.
After a lovely lunch in Pemby, we proceeded South to the condo we'd rented in Whistler. Mr E Man and I have stayed at the same place a number of times - it belongs to a good friend's client, who gives our friend a preferred rate - but only during the ski season, when all the bears are (supposed to be) hibernating. The property is North of Whistler Village, and while there are new homes going up all around it, it's on the very edge of the forest and still has some untouched patches of trees immediately behind it. We often see rabbits and hares in the garden, but given the comforting presence of lots of other houses, I'd somewhat naively never thought it was wild enough that I had to worry about bears. In fact I've even walked my friend's dog - off-leash - on the road right behind the property, without a care in the world.
I won't ever be doing that again, though. Because at around 7 pm on Wednesday, after the construction crews had packed up for the day and gone home, I was sitting in the hot tub in the back garden, chatting to Mr E Man, and suddenly saw what I'd thought was a log covered in moss or lichen, situated right in the middle of the small stand of trees about 75 metres away, start... moving.
My reaction was very cool, calm, and collected.
"BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", I yelled.
Mr E Man didn't believe me at first, given my track record of false alarms when it comes to bear panic, but then he was forced to agree that the mossy log was indeed moving around. And had ears. And eyes. That were looking right at us.
Now, there was a construction company fence between us and the bear. But the gate in the fence, in the middle of the road that runs right by the back of the garden, was wide open. I didn't feel immediately threatened though; the bear seemed only mildly interested in us, so after alerting my parents (watching BBC World News upstairs) to the bear's presence, I came back down to the hot tub. My parents followed, bringing their binoculars, and we quickly realised that the bear was actually one of three. They were all of the species known as the black bear, but they were all different colour variants - the mother was a rich chocolate brown, with one jet black and one "cinnamon" cub. The latter was the one we'd seen first, and both cubs looked to be yearlings, in great condition. When they started to wander a little closer, we all retreated to the balcony upstairs that overlooks the back of the condo, and enjoyed almost a full hour (in the rain) of watching the bears eat plants, climb trees, scratch their backs (and arses) on trees a la Baloo from the Jungle Book (I instantly got "The Bear Necessities" stuck in my head), and generally get on with their daily lives with hardly a glance at the gaggle of humans chattering away about them just 30 metres away.
It was awesome, in the original sense of the word. What a privilege to watch three such beautiful animals, in the wild but from a position of complete safety. We all had massive grins on our faces for hours after they finally wandered back into the forest.
My camera batteries had died the day before and I'd forgotten my charger (D'OH!!!), and my parents don't have their photo uploading cord with them, so these photos are from my iPhone. No zoom, remember... these guys were close! At one point they were right in the middle of the road, but by that point I'd given up on taking photos and was just enjoying the show. Besides, my phone was getting wet.
Over dinner I admitted to feeling sorry for the first bear we'd seen, from the car, a few hours before - I just wasn't all that excited about him any more. My Mum replied that she felt sorry for the handsome white-legged snowshoe hare that had hopped into the garden while we were all oohing and aahing at the bears from beside the hot tub - on any other day, he would have been the star attraction, but we barely gave him a glance! It's good to know that guilt and anthropomorphism run in the family...
We looked for the bears again the next evening, but it was to be a one-off performance. But what a perfomance!
Bloody typical though, really. You wait six years for the next bear, then four come along at once...
...until Wednesday.
My Mum spotted the first bear. It was ambling through a field, on the edge of the forest and parallel to the highway, just North of Pemberton. Mr E Man thought it was a male, based on its size - and it was indeed a fine, fat, glossy, jet black specimen of beariness. We slowed down as much as the highway traffic would allow, and oohed and aahed with excitement. I was delighted to double my bear count, especially as we'd seen it from such a position of safety.
After a lovely lunch in Pemby, we proceeded South to the condo we'd rented in Whistler. Mr E Man and I have stayed at the same place a number of times - it belongs to a good friend's client, who gives our friend a preferred rate - but only during the ski season, when all the bears are (supposed to be) hibernating. The property is North of Whistler Village, and while there are new homes going up all around it, it's on the very edge of the forest and still has some untouched patches of trees immediately behind it. We often see rabbits and hares in the garden, but given the comforting presence of lots of other houses, I'd somewhat naively never thought it was wild enough that I had to worry about bears. In fact I've even walked my friend's dog - off-leash - on the road right behind the property, without a care in the world.
I won't ever be doing that again, though. Because at around 7 pm on Wednesday, after the construction crews had packed up for the day and gone home, I was sitting in the hot tub in the back garden, chatting to Mr E Man, and suddenly saw what I'd thought was a log covered in moss or lichen, situated right in the middle of the small stand of trees about 75 metres away, start... moving.
My reaction was very cool, calm, and collected.
"BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", I yelled.
Mr E Man didn't believe me at first, given my track record of false alarms when it comes to bear panic, but then he was forced to agree that the mossy log was indeed moving around. And had ears. And eyes. That were looking right at us.
Now, there was a construction company fence between us and the bear. But the gate in the fence, in the middle of the road that runs right by the back of the garden, was wide open. I didn't feel immediately threatened though; the bear seemed only mildly interested in us, so after alerting my parents (watching BBC World News upstairs) to the bear's presence, I came back down to the hot tub. My parents followed, bringing their binoculars, and we quickly realised that the bear was actually one of three. They were all of the species known as the black bear, but they were all different colour variants - the mother was a rich chocolate brown, with one jet black and one "cinnamon" cub. The latter was the one we'd seen first, and both cubs looked to be yearlings, in great condition. When they started to wander a little closer, we all retreated to the balcony upstairs that overlooks the back of the condo, and enjoyed almost a full hour (in the rain) of watching the bears eat plants, climb trees, scratch their backs (and arses) on trees a la Baloo from the Jungle Book (I instantly got "The Bear Necessities" stuck in my head), and generally get on with their daily lives with hardly a glance at the gaggle of humans chattering away about them just 30 metres away.
It was awesome, in the original sense of the word. What a privilege to watch three such beautiful animals, in the wild but from a position of complete safety. We all had massive grins on our faces for hours after they finally wandered back into the forest.
My camera batteries had died the day before and I'd forgotten my charger (D'OH!!!), and my parents don't have their photo uploading cord with them, so these photos are from my iPhone. No zoom, remember... these guys were close! At one point they were right in the middle of the road, but by that point I'd given up on taking photos and was just enjoying the show. Besides, my phone was getting wet.
Momma bear. The yellow fence at the bottom of the photo is right at the edge of the condo's back garden
Two cubs
The watchers - from left to right, one chocolate brown, one (ex) cinammon, and one (rapidly becoming ex) jet black colour variant
Over dinner I admitted to feeling sorry for the first bear we'd seen, from the car, a few hours before - I just wasn't all that excited about him any more. My Mum replied that she felt sorry for the handsome white-legged snowshoe hare that had hopped into the garden while we were all oohing and aahing at the bears from beside the hot tub - on any other day, he would have been the star attraction, but we barely gave him a glance! It's good to know that guilt and anthropomorphism run in the family...
We looked for the bears again the next evening, but it was to be a one-off performance. But what a perfomance!
Bloody typical though, really. You wait six years for the next bear, then four come along at once...
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The hills are alive...
...with the sound of cow bells
Or at least, they were. The cow bells are silent now. Yup, the Paralympics are over, and the last few days have felt very flat and empty. It is so, so sad to cycle past City Hall and see the empty poles from which the Olympic and Paralympic flags have flown so proudly for the last four years.
But on Saturday, I managed to get to one last event before the end! And thanks largely to Mermaid's fabulous guest post about the ski jump and luge events she attended during the Olympics, I was adamant that my last event should be in Whistler. My friend and I originally had tickets for the super G slalom - men's and women's standing class, but they had to rejig the schedule based on the latest weather forecasts. Our tickets changed from the original event to slalom - men's and women's standing class, and finally to the super combined (super G + slalom) - men's and women's standing, sitting, and visually impaired classes. We were extremely happy with the change; as you'll see from the video below, our day was defined by variety!
We had an absolutely fantastic day in the warm Whistler sunshine, and think our husbands were fools to go skiing instead, despite their enthusing about the "EPIC!!!" conditions*. And we saw Canada win a bronze, a silver, and a GOLD!!!** The latter was the fifth gold medal of the games won by my new hero, Lauren Woolstencroft. I have nothing bur respect for every Paralympian, but Lauren Woolstencroft stands out even in this exalted company. She was born with no legs below the knee, and no left arm below the elbow, and competes in the standing class, along with every other sighted Paralympian who skis in the standing position. And she doesn't just win, she totally obliterates the field. She ended up winning the event we saw by 12 seconds. 12!!! That just isn't supposed to happen!
I sang the Canadian anthem at her ceremony with more pride than ever before.
I may have cried.
Anyway, here's the video. Sorry for the fuzzy bits; the bright sunshine and glare from the snow were not very kind to my poor little Flip Video.
--------
*we planned to join them on the Sunday, but it was raining on the bottom half of the mountain, and all the lifts above freezing level were closed due to high winds. They did open later, but the price of a half-day pass is almost the same as a full day, and it just didn't seem worth it. This is the first time I've ever been to Whistler during the winter or spring and not skied, but it was totally worth it for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of going to the Paralympics.
**you'll notice that all three of our medals were won by women. This was a recurring theme of the Olympics and Paralympics, with women accounting for a majority of our medals in both tournaments, but especially in the Paralympics. Canadian women KICK ASS!
Or at least, they were. The cow bells are silent now. Yup, the Paralympics are over, and the last few days have felt very flat and empty. It is so, so sad to cycle past City Hall and see the empty poles from which the Olympic and Paralympic flags have flown so proudly for the last four years.
But on Saturday, I managed to get to one last event before the end! And thanks largely to Mermaid's fabulous guest post about the ski jump and luge events she attended during the Olympics, I was adamant that my last event should be in Whistler. My friend and I originally had tickets for the super G slalom - men's and women's standing class, but they had to rejig the schedule based on the latest weather forecasts. Our tickets changed from the original event to slalom - men's and women's standing class, and finally to the super combined (super G + slalom) - men's and women's standing, sitting, and visually impaired classes. We were extremely happy with the change; as you'll see from the video below, our day was defined by variety!
As if Alpine skiing wasn't dangerous enough...
We had an absolutely fantastic day in the warm Whistler sunshine, and think our husbands were fools to go skiing instead, despite their enthusing about the "EPIC!!!" conditions*. And we saw Canada win a bronze, a silver, and a GOLD!!!** The latter was the fifth gold medal of the games won by my new hero, Lauren Woolstencroft. I have nothing bur respect for every Paralympian, but Lauren Woolstencroft stands out even in this exalted company. She was born with no legs below the knee, and no left arm below the elbow, and competes in the standing class, along with every other sighted Paralympian who skis in the standing position. And she doesn't just win, she totally obliterates the field. She ended up winning the event we saw by 12 seconds. 12!!! That just isn't supposed to happen!
I sang the Canadian anthem at her ceremony with more pride than ever before.
I may have cried.
Anyway, here's the video. Sorry for the fuzzy bits; the bright sunshine and glare from the snow were not very kind to my poor little Flip Video.
--------
*we planned to join them on the Sunday, but it was raining on the bottom half of the mountain, and all the lifts above freezing level were closed due to high winds. They did open later, but the price of a half-day pass is almost the same as a full day, and it just didn't seem worth it. This is the first time I've ever been to Whistler during the winter or spring and not skied, but it was totally worth it for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of going to the Paralympics.
**you'll notice that all three of our medals were won by women. This was a recurring theme of the Olympics and Paralympics, with women accounting for a majority of our medals in both tournaments, but especially in the Paralympics. Canadian women KICK ASS!
Monday, February 15, 2010
The whales!
From Friday's opening ceremony:
Was that awesome or what??!!
Much, much less awesome was the item on the local news last night saying that due to days of warm, heavy rain, the general admission (standing) spectators' area for today's snowboard cross event was deemed unsafe, and tickets for that area were cancelled. For those of you who were wondering; yep, those were our tickets. We're obviously gutted, especially since Canada went on to win a silver medal (and came oh so close to gold), and watching it on the TV just wasn't the same.
Ah well, at least we found out last night, rather than this morning at the bus stop. (We'd gone over to North Vancouver for a sleepover at our friends' house; they live two blocks from the Cypress Mountain bus departure point, and walking there from their place for our 8:25 am bus seemed like a better option than taking the bus, SkyTrain and Sea Bus on the first morning rush hour of the games! We came home as soon as we verified the cancellation on the internet, to sleep in our own bed rather than on an uncomfortable sofa). And it must suck way more for the ticket holders who'd come from out of town.
Tonight is a much needed quiet night. Even when I was 18 I couldn't handle more than two party nights in a row, and, well, I've had three in a row since the Games began! Mr E Man has gone to see a band downtown with a couple of friends, but I'm chillin' with the cats in the name of saving myself for tomorrow, which is going to be a big, big day!
I realise I'm well behind with regular features such as Bragging Rights Central and the hockey pool update; I'll try to get that done tomorrow, sorry! Just too much other stuff going on...
Was that awesome or what??!!
Much, much less awesome was the item on the local news last night saying that due to days of warm, heavy rain, the general admission (standing) spectators' area for today's snowboard cross event was deemed unsafe, and tickets for that area were cancelled. For those of you who were wondering; yep, those were our tickets. We're obviously gutted, especially since Canada went on to win a silver medal (and came oh so close to gold), and watching it on the TV just wasn't the same.
Ah well, at least we found out last night, rather than this morning at the bus stop. (We'd gone over to North Vancouver for a sleepover at our friends' house; they live two blocks from the Cypress Mountain bus departure point, and walking there from their place for our 8:25 am bus seemed like a better option than taking the bus, SkyTrain and Sea Bus on the first morning rush hour of the games! We came home as soon as we verified the cancellation on the internet, to sleep in our own bed rather than on an uncomfortable sofa). And it must suck way more for the ticket holders who'd come from out of town.
Tonight is a much needed quiet night. Even when I was 18 I couldn't handle more than two party nights in a row, and, well, I've had three in a row since the Games began! Mr E Man has gone to see a band downtown with a couple of friends, but I'm chillin' with the cats in the name of saving myself for tomorrow, which is going to be a big, big day!
I realise I'm well behind with regular features such as Bragging Rights Central and the hockey pool update; I'll try to get that done tomorrow, sorry! Just too much other stuff going on...
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
"But the thing you don't realize is that there's good naked and bad naked"
I came home from work last night to find Mr E Man watching one of those survival shows on the Discovery Channel. Some testosterony chap was striding around the Namibian desert killing snakes and being condescending in a way that reminded me of my ex-boyfriend ("not a lot of people know this, but..." and "you might think [X], but you'd be wrong").
But the really weird part came when the show restarted after a commercial break. One of those parental warnings came on screen, and a very deep and serious voice announced that "this show contains scenes of indigenous nudity".
Indigenous nudity?
As opposed to regular nudity?
Indeed, the next segment featured Condescending Man killing a porcupine with a group of indigenous people. There were bums (as in butts, if you're North American) and boobs on display.
But...
But but but...
Is this supposed to be different to Western nudity? Like, is it supposed to be "better" (i.e. less corrupting to children) to see an African hunter-gatherer's bum or boob than a bare bum on the street in Toronto, or a boob on stage at the Superbowl half-time show? If so, why? Because "they're savages and don't know any better?" There was something about the whole show that got my back up (maybe the similarity to my ex-boyfriend, duh), which might be making me infer more from the parental warning than was actually there.
But c'mon, people. A bum is a bum and a boob is a boob.
And neither is inherently corrupting to children.
But the really weird part came when the show restarted after a commercial break. One of those parental warnings came on screen, and a very deep and serious voice announced that "this show contains scenes of indigenous nudity".
Indigenous nudity?
As opposed to regular nudity?
Indeed, the next segment featured Condescending Man killing a porcupine with a group of indigenous people. There were bums (as in butts, if you're North American) and boobs on display.
But...
But but but...
Is this supposed to be different to Western nudity? Like, is it supposed to be "better" (i.e. less corrupting to children) to see an African hunter-gatherer's bum or boob than a bare bum on the street in Toronto, or a boob on stage at the Superbowl half-time show? If so, why? Because "they're savages and don't know any better?" There was something about the whole show that got my back up (maybe the similarity to my ex-boyfriend, duh), which might be making me infer more from the parental warning than was actually there.
But c'mon, people. A bum is a bum and a boob is a boob.
And neither is inherently corrupting to children.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday Pet Peeve: common garden variety
It's a beautiful day today. After days of rain the sun is shining on the snow-capped mountains, and the trees are resplendent in yellows, oranges, and reds.
So are the roads.
Yup, the leaves are falling and winter is on the way. And gardeners were out in force this morning, taking advantage of the break in the weather to give their rakes and leaf blowers an airing.
Because, apparently, fallen leaves shall NOT be allowed to sully any perfect lawns*. They should, instead, be dumped into the road (a bike route).
Yup, I saw about eight people today moving leaves off the grass (where they run the risk of mulching in and actually doing some good), and into the road. Where they will form a nasty sodden brown mass next time it rains (tomorrow, probably), blocking the drains, and forcing cyclists to ride over a layer of treacherous slipperiness, with a couple of inches of dirty water sitting on top of it for good measure.
It's like a man cutting the hair off his head and gluing it to his back and the insides of his ears instead.
Where do my leaves go?
Some go into my compost, some go into the municipal composting bins (unlimited citywide curbside pick-up of leaves throughout the autumn), and the rest get spread over my lawn and veggie patch.
--------------
*these are the same lawns that are suspiciously green, lush, and wet in the middle of the summer sprinkler bans. As a French friend of mine once said, "this is Vancouver. Your lawn is going to do its best to be brown in the summer, and moss in the winter. Why fight Nature? Have a glass of wine and forget about it".
**sorry, couldn't resist! This photo did the rounds at work a few years back, as an email with the subject header "Leaf Blower For Sale".
So are the roads.
Yup, the leaves are falling and winter is on the way. And gardeners were out in force this morning, taking advantage of the break in the weather to give their rakes and leaf blowers an airing.
Because, apparently, fallen leaves shall NOT be allowed to sully any perfect lawns*. They should, instead, be dumped into the road (a bike route).
Yup, I saw about eight people today moving leaves off the grass (where they run the risk of mulching in and actually doing some good), and into the road. Where they will form a nasty sodden brown mass next time it rains (tomorrow, probably), blocking the drains, and forcing cyclists to ride over a layer of treacherous slipperiness, with a couple of inches of dirty water sitting on top of it for good measure.
It's like a man cutting the hair off his head and gluing it to his back and the insides of his ears instead.
Where do my leaves go?
Some go into my compost, some go into the municipal composting bins (unlimited citywide curbside pick-up of leaves throughout the autumn), and the rest get spread over my lawn and veggie patch.
A plague of hairy backs upon the leaf blowers!
A leaf blower, yesterday**
--------------
*these are the same lawns that are suspiciously green, lush, and wet in the middle of the summer sprinkler bans. As a French friend of mine once said, "this is Vancouver. Your lawn is going to do its best to be brown in the summer, and moss in the winter. Why fight Nature? Have a glass of wine and forget about it".
**sorry, couldn't resist! This photo did the rounds at work a few years back, as an email with the subject header "Leaf Blower For Sale".
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Book Reviews: the good science, the bad science, and the ugly
Inspired by Science Bear's epic book review post, here are three very overdue book reviews of my own!
The Good Science
Dry Store Room No.1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, by Richard Fortey.
I first visited the Natural History Museum in London when I was 16, and it was love at first sight. It's a beautiful building in its own right, and full of geeky pleasures ranging from stuffed dodos to videos describing chromosomal recombination and meiosis. I've since been back several times, to the bafflement of my sister, who lives in London and doesn't understand how I can spend all day in the museum (and neighbouring science museum - both free! Thanks, Tony Blair!) while she's at work. (What can I say, I had to see the new Darwin Centre when the first phase opened - I did a tour with a group of other tourists, and when they made us put on lab coats, everyone else giggled and did up all the buttons and took photos of each other, while my own coat flapped open as I walked about hands in pockets, and bugged the tour guides with questions about whether they could extract RNA from the pickled lizards).
It was actually my sister who bought me this book, a behind-the-scenes view of the museum from the resident trilobite man (and now I know how to pronounce trilobites! Bonus!) I was in heaven as I read about the dusty store rooms with their hidden treasures, and the crazy characters who populate the museum's back rooms. There were times when I felt the book went into too much detail, but overall it was a very enjoyable read. I highly recommend it if you're a fan of natural history museums in general, and the London version in particular.
8/10
The Bad Science
Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
This is one of the best, and definitely the most important, of the books I've read this year. Everyone should read this book. EVERYONE!
If you've read Ben Goldacre's blog of the same name, you'll have a good idea of what to expect from the book - a dissection of the dubious science reporting that drives us all crazy. The author's disdain for the quacks and journalists who spread inaccuracies and outright lies is clear - but the book manages to be funny at the same time!
Well, at least towards the beginning. The early chapters rip apart the more benign incidences of bad science - the detox footbaths and homeopaths of the world. As the book progresses, the targets get larger and more important - think big pharma and the anti-vaccination movement - and the tone understandably gets more serious.
As you might expect from a British author, there is a focus on the British press - for example, the anti-vaccination chapter focuses on the media frenzy around the MMR vaccine, which went largely unnoticed in North America, where people chose to panic about mercury instead. But, as Goldacre says, the fact that there were different frenzies in different countries is yet further evidence for the hollowness of anti-vaccine arguments; if there was any genuine link between vaccines and ill health, you would expect people to claim the same link all over the world. (Apparently in France the worry is that the Hep B vaccine causes MS - but who in the UK or North America has heard of that one?!)
If, like me, you're already convinced that homeopathy is nothing but overpriced water and that the anti-vaccination movement is intellectually bankrupt, this book obviously won't change your mind. It's still well worth a read, though, to help you understand why so many people have been misled by media and quack practices that range from the dishonest to the downright dangerous.
If you know someone who's not a scientist, and who is on the fence about any of these issues (using homeopathic cold remedies, for example, or (more to the point) trying to decide whether they should get their baby vaccinated), I imagine they would benefit enormously from reading this book. Buy it for them - seriously! The book started quite the conversation when I started reading it at a gathering of my in-laws, several of whom are into homeopathy and associated woo (there was some muttering about the book in the kitchen later, but don't worry, we're all still the best of friends!) And I've passed it on to a friend who has been subjected to some of the anti-vaccine woo and was starting to be swayed by it.
10/10, VERY highly recommended.
The Ugly
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
I was soooo excited to read this book. It's the third in the Jackson Brodie trilogy; the first book is one of my all-time favourites, but I found the second a little disappointing. It breaks my heart to have to tell you that the third book continued the trend of declining quality.
True to form, Atkinson's writing is still wonderful, somehow blending humour with bleak despair, and with occasional toe-curlingly, grin-at-strangers-on-the-bus moments of linguistic ecstasy. And her characters, old and new, are still amazingly vivid and real - you feel like you know these people.
But.
But, but, but.
Reading the book was like stuffing myself with junk food; pleasurable while it lasted, but ultimately deeply unsatisfying. Atkinson's trademark weaving together of several story threads felt forced and unnatural. Whereas the previous books brought characters together through asthma attacks or car accidents, When Will There Be Good News? relies on murders, kidnappings, and train crashes. It was just too much.
I can forgive my favourite author one bad book; I'll buy the next one for sure (although I'll probably wait for the paperback, rather than pre-ordering the hardback like I did with this one). But if the law of diminishing returns continues, I may have to cut my losses and stop reading before I pollute my feelings about some of my all-time favourite books.
9/10 for the writing, 4/10 for the actual book.
The Good Science
Dry Store Room No.1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, by Richard Fortey.
I first visited the Natural History Museum in London when I was 16, and it was love at first sight. It's a beautiful building in its own right, and full of geeky pleasures ranging from stuffed dodos to videos describing chromosomal recombination and meiosis. I've since been back several times, to the bafflement of my sister, who lives in London and doesn't understand how I can spend all day in the museum (and neighbouring science museum - both free! Thanks, Tony Blair!) while she's at work. (What can I say, I had to see the new Darwin Centre when the first phase opened - I did a tour with a group of other tourists, and when they made us put on lab coats, everyone else giggled and did up all the buttons and took photos of each other, while my own coat flapped open as I walked about hands in pockets, and bugged the tour guides with questions about whether they could extract RNA from the pickled lizards).
It was actually my sister who bought me this book, a behind-the-scenes view of the museum from the resident trilobite man (and now I know how to pronounce trilobites! Bonus!) I was in heaven as I read about the dusty store rooms with their hidden treasures, and the crazy characters who populate the museum's back rooms. There were times when I felt the book went into too much detail, but overall it was a very enjoyable read. I highly recommend it if you're a fan of natural history museums in general, and the London version in particular.
8/10
The Bad Science
Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
This is one of the best, and definitely the most important, of the books I've read this year. Everyone should read this book. EVERYONE!
If you've read Ben Goldacre's blog of the same name, you'll have a good idea of what to expect from the book - a dissection of the dubious science reporting that drives us all crazy. The author's disdain for the quacks and journalists who spread inaccuracies and outright lies is clear - but the book manages to be funny at the same time!
Well, at least towards the beginning. The early chapters rip apart the more benign incidences of bad science - the detox footbaths and homeopaths of the world. As the book progresses, the targets get larger and more important - think big pharma and the anti-vaccination movement - and the tone understandably gets more serious.
As you might expect from a British author, there is a focus on the British press - for example, the anti-vaccination chapter focuses on the media frenzy around the MMR vaccine, which went largely unnoticed in North America, where people chose to panic about mercury instead. But, as Goldacre says, the fact that there were different frenzies in different countries is yet further evidence for the hollowness of anti-vaccine arguments; if there was any genuine link between vaccines and ill health, you would expect people to claim the same link all over the world. (Apparently in France the worry is that the Hep B vaccine causes MS - but who in the UK or North America has heard of that one?!)
If, like me, you're already convinced that homeopathy is nothing but overpriced water and that the anti-vaccination movement is intellectually bankrupt, this book obviously won't change your mind. It's still well worth a read, though, to help you understand why so many people have been misled by media and quack practices that range from the dishonest to the downright dangerous.
If you know someone who's not a scientist, and who is on the fence about any of these issues (using homeopathic cold remedies, for example, or (more to the point) trying to decide whether they should get their baby vaccinated), I imagine they would benefit enormously from reading this book. Buy it for them - seriously! The book started quite the conversation when I started reading it at a gathering of my in-laws, several of whom are into homeopathy and associated woo (there was some muttering about the book in the kitchen later, but don't worry, we're all still the best of friends!) And I've passed it on to a friend who has been subjected to some of the anti-vaccine woo and was starting to be swayed by it.
10/10, VERY highly recommended.
The Ugly
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
I was soooo excited to read this book. It's the third in the Jackson Brodie trilogy; the first book is one of my all-time favourites, but I found the second a little disappointing. It breaks my heart to have to tell you that the third book continued the trend of declining quality.
True to form, Atkinson's writing is still wonderful, somehow blending humour with bleak despair, and with occasional toe-curlingly, grin-at-strangers-on-the-bus moments of linguistic ecstasy. And her characters, old and new, are still amazingly vivid and real - you feel like you know these people.
But.
But, but, but.
Reading the book was like stuffing myself with junk food; pleasurable while it lasted, but ultimately deeply unsatisfying. Atkinson's trademark weaving together of several story threads felt forced and unnatural. Whereas the previous books brought characters together through asthma attacks or car accidents, When Will There Be Good News? relies on murders, kidnappings, and train crashes. It was just too much.
I can forgive my favourite author one bad book; I'll buy the next one for sure (although I'll probably wait for the paperback, rather than pre-ordering the hardback like I did with this one). But if the law of diminishing returns continues, I may have to cut my losses and stop reading before I pollute my feelings about some of my all-time favourite books.
9/10 for the writing, 4/10 for the actual book.
Friday, October 2, 2009
How's this for a headline?
"Cancun kidnapping, crocodile attack a hoax: RCMP"
From the article:
From the article:
LOL! Eejit. And kudos to the CBC for their subheading: "Piddle in wrong puddle".
"The RCMP says a story about a young man from B.C. on holiday in Cancun, Mexico, who was kidnapped outside a bar, forced to fight two other tourists, shot in the shoulder and dumped in the water where he was attacked by crocodiles, is a fabrication."
[...]
"RCMP said the incident began when a 20-year-old man decided to urinate in a crocodile lagoon in the resort area of Cancun, despite signs in English and Spanish warning of its toothy inhabitants. Alcohol was a factor, police said.
The man apparently was bitten on the leg by a small crocodile and fell on the rocks in the water, where he was attacked by some other 30-centimetre crocodiles, said Cpl. Jennifer Pound, in a statement released on Thursday."
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Fun, rabbit, fun!
I got to be the Easter Bunny this year, and if I do say so myself, I think I did a stellar job of making the eggs just hard enough to find.
My mother-in-law has an amazing property. She has a cozy house that her late husband built,
a beautiful formal garden,
a small patch of 2nd growth forest,
and my favourite, the sea lion rock.
I did briefly consider hucking an egg or two into the swamp to see exactly what a nine year old boy will do for chocolate, but you'll be glad to hear that I thought better of it.
We saw the usual deer come on through, which was great. My MIL hasn't seen a cougar in years, but the bear still visits from time to time. But the scariest wildlife was spotted at about 11 am on Easter Sunday:
The hunt over, the pack of wildnephews animals retires to its den to gorge on its prey.
My mother-in-law has an amazing property. She has a cozy house that her late husband built,
a beautiful formal garden,
a small patch of 2nd growth forest,
and my favourite, the sea lion rock.
I did briefly consider hucking an egg or two into the swamp to see exactly what a nine year old boy will do for chocolate, but you'll be glad to hear that I thought better of it.
We saw the usual deer come on through, which was great. My MIL hasn't seen a cougar in years, but the bear still visits from time to time. But the scariest wildlife was spotted at about 11 am on Easter Sunday:
The hunt over, the pack of wild
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