The Long Road

Back on March 27, 2006 I created my first post on this blog. I’ve written and reported a lot since that day with varying frequency.

However today when I when I went to The Long Road there was an unexpected corner in the road. The site is reporting that it will be shutting down all lickety split. Yep, by the end of the first week in December they will no longer be operating. More on that in a minute. But this page may or may not be up after that date.

The good news is that I’ve already exported the content of this site to a new address. I haven’t tweaked anything yet, it’s just a ready made template, but it’s there and you can find my new posts waiting for you.

The new address: http://kctlr.wordpress.com/

Ultimately, this is an interesting move. I’ve long heard that Wordpress is a better platform as far as being user friendly. In fact, I heard about about many free blog sites when compared to Blogsome over the years, but have basically been too lazy to switch and learn a new interface. But alas, that day is upon me.

The funny thing, and one that is making it much easier to go, is that Blogsome is doing next to nothing to explain what’s going on, or to facilitate their users to move somewhere else. Unless they’ve been hacked and this is some kinda scam, then I’m quite disappointed in how it’s been handled. There were few details on how I might successfully move this blog elsewhere. Blogsome suggested three ways of “backing up” and so being able to effectively export to another site, but absolutely no deets on how to actually do it. After two hours on other sites (mostly dead ends found on Google), I FINALLY found something, one tiny little detail, that made it possible to move the whole thing over in a matter of a minute or two. But it sure as heck wasn’t Blogsome that provided that info. I don’t know, but perhaps its that approach that has brought on the demise of this site.

Anyway, rant over. Please come check out the new site and update your bookmark while you’re at it too!

Over and out.

Take a look at that graphic. I mean really have a look. That is the proposed site for the Ajax gold/copper mine in Kamloops. You’ll note that I said “in Kamloops” as a large part of the proposed site is actually within the city limits. The company is sticking to it’s “10 km outside of Kamloops” mantra that they developed relatively early in the process. Though with a little digging it seems that if one takes the Coquihalla Highway, the mine site is 10 km from the PetroCan station near the outskirts of the city. What Ajax isn’t saying is that much of the mine site (though not quite the open pit) is actually within city limits. And really folks, we are talking about a site that rivals the physical footprint of the city itself. Yikes. Check out the graphic below from Google Maps.

In addition to the physical proximity to Kamloops of this monstrosity, consider the environmental impact to the area. That is one thing that the Stop Ajax Mine group is asking the federal government to do. Let’s hope they listen, as this entire idea is ludicrous. But sadly the people with the idea also have a bunch of money and that seems to soften the blow when government is involved. Let’s hope that’s not the case here.

If you are like me and would like Ajax to take a hike with their mine:

Read more in the media. Here’s an interesting place to start.

Go out to the public meetings and get the facts.

Phone your MP and MLA.

Find out what the municipal candidates think of this (thought that’s been quite difficult so far - aside from Donovan Cavers, they’ve mostly shown themselves to be a bunch of spineless fence sitters). Vote only for the ones who support your beliefs on this issue.

Check out the Stop Ajax Mine group on Facebook. They are motivated people (residents of Kamloops) and have a lot of compelling things to say about this proposal.

http://www.facebook.com/stopajaxmine

Sign their petition

So here’s a great clip. Imagine being out for an innocent little paddle and have this lot happen by. Once in a lifetime.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

***Updated Oct 24***

My buddy Glenn has been making short films for a few years now. It stems from a great idea - he’s got a small group of friends who have a yearly film fest. Basically to attend, you have to make a film to bring and show.

So, when we were in France a couple of summers ago with Glenn, Jacqui and Andrew, Glenn was looking to work on a film. He had an idea and wanted me to be a part of it. I was game of course. Especially when I learned that I got to be the star. Ha.

As we started filming, I had a cool idea. I was involved in a film now as an actor, so I was now thinking creatively and having cool ideas. Anyway, we’d discussed the project, Glenn’s story idea and a few more ideas about what we could do and what direction the film could go. So I proposed that at the end of the trip, when we’d shot all the raw footage, that we both take a copy of it and separately cut a version of the film without any further discussion with each other about it. Glenn thought that would be a fun experiment.

So that’s what we did.

Except Glenn has a Mac.

At the time I was new at this film making thing, and basically only had Windows Movie Maker at my disposal. Well I got about 95% finished and my MM file corrupted on me. I was stalled. Stupid Windows program. Glenn, of course, had a film fest deadline to deal with so he pressed on and finished his version on time (well actually, with minutes to spare as I recall). My project was shelved due to the feelings of extreme frustration I was feeling. I didn’t actually throw my computer through the window, but man did I want to. Glenn debuted his film to rave reviews (well, of course I wasn’t actually there, but I’d like to think that the reviews were rave). I still haven’t seen it, even though he’s been done for like two years and posted it on Facebook a long time ago. It’s the principal of it all - it’s up there, I can watch it any time I want. But I haven’t.

Time passed.

And we got a Mac too. And I started to put together little vids myself on iMovie. And then I thought “Hey, now I can finish the France film!!”

And so I did.

Glenn doesn’t know this. However, we are going to see him and Jacqui tomorrow. I called him last night to ask him to bring a copy of his film. He laughed and said that of anybody, I really should see it. It’s been two years after all. He laughed again and said that really I’m the only one who hasn’t! Well, it is on Facebook, so I suppose that’s pretty close to being true. The funny thing for me is that at no point in the conversation did he ask after my version of the film. I guess he’s given up on it (me)!

Well he’s in for a surprise tomorrow baby, because it’s done. And it’s here for you to see. It’s just under 9 minutes (including bonus material) so get comfy!

Tell me what you think in the comments…

***Update***
OK. Glenn has seen the film. And I have seen his! It was a pretty fun moment as we were in the hotel room and I hooked his Mac into the flatscreen on the wall. We watched his and I fully enjoyed it. And STILL he didn’t ask about my version! And so I pulled up this blog entry and he read it! It was great when he realized that I had finished the film and he was about to see it. His eyes popped right outta his head! Anyway, he enjoyed it on the same level that I had enjoyed his just minutes earlier. Was fascinating for both of us, I think, to see the different decisions we made with that same raw material. It was great too, to reminisce about France, and the process of filming the scenes.

So… here is his version! I dig it a lot. I was worried that Glenn would be a bit critical about the length of mine. Turns out that his is about the same! ha. There are a few moments when the video kinda flickers a bit. That wasn’t in the original mix - we don’t know why it’s there now. Let’s not hold it against him!

So I was fooling around with a new little photo editing software thingy called Pixlr-O-Matic today. I found it because of the rash of Hipstamatic pics that are all over Facebook these days. I like ‘em! But I don’t have an iphone. And… no Hipstamatic for BlackBerry yet. Wow, I just counted the brand names in my previous few sentences. Yikes! But, I digress…

Anyway, here are a few shots I messed around with from my “Harvest 2011″ folder of summertime pics!

Never mind the cool effects I now get to use, Pixlr-O-Matic is worth having just for the borders alone. You can use it online or download a stand alone version here.

Well, although we are into October, today has that lazy summer day feeling. Despite the beginnings of splashes of color bleeding into the green leaves in our yard, it has been quite warm enough on the deck to bring me back to the days of shorts and no shirt, condensation of the outside of a cold drink, the sound of distant neighborhood lawn mowers and yes, running through the sprinkler.

For the second straight year, a small group of us were able to arrange our schedules enough so we could converge on Tofino for some fun. Some made it for the weekend, others were able to stay for a week. We upgraded the lodging arrangement significantly from the previous year (and there’ll be no going back from that!), the weather was fine and life was grand.

We surfed every day. And we ate like royalty - copious amounts of seafood coupled with lots of garden fresh veggies that we brought with us. We also discovered the growlers from the newly opened Tofino Brewing Company. Basically, life was grand.

So the garden is looking good! We’ve been eating fabulous fresh fruit and veggies for a while now, but of particular note for me right now is that I pulled the garlic out of the ground the other day. Last year we only planted six or eight plants, but liked them so much that we did a bunch more this year. Looks like we have 24 yummy heads of garlic this year - about four different varieties. They are hanging to dry and will be ready to use soon!

My dad is now 70 years old. So to help him celebrate, I put together this little flick that features a car he bought new back in 1966.

It’s a ‘67 Pontiac GTO.

It’s also the car I was brought home from the hospital in after I was born. It’s the car that I remember taking family trips in when I was a little kid, fitted with a bench in the back seat where you’d normally put your feet so that the bench seat extended into a great play area for me and my siblings. It’s the car that I learned to drive on. It’s the car that should have gotten me more girls when I was a teenager than it did (which, I think, is zero). It’s the car my dad drove though endless northern BC winters and amazingly still owns (though now it gets stored for the winter).

It’s the car that has shared a lot of good times with me, my dad, and our whole family.

**UPDATED** YouTube is slow today in processing my video. In fact I fear it may not allow me to share it as I may have used a song that might be all messy regarding copyright. I think that’s kinda silly. So if and when the video works, I’ll share it here.

Thanks to Colin for showing me this cool clip.

Had an outing last weekend with the gents from the FotoGeeks. It was quickly put together, but we ended up with a perfect day for snapping pics in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Here are the results. Click on the slideshow if you wanna see ‘em bigger.

I’ve done another little project for my group called the Foto Geeks. This time the assignment was to paint with light. It was a pretty cool thing, a concept I’ve long known about, but never really tried.

So I did a few shots in the house one night. And Mich and I tried a few things in the backyard too. Probably my favorite shots came from a dinner party up at Luz and Kev’s place. There were a bunch of nice people there. I let them have a few drinks, fill their bellies with yummy food (there is always yummy grub at their house!), and then I randomly passed little colored LED lights out to folks. I didn’t tell them why I had given them a light and really, most just looked at me blankly for a sec and then went back about their business.

I later asked anyone to had a light to amass on the back lawn. I set up the camera on the deck overtop. I then asked them to do creative stuff with their lights for the full 30 second exposure. Karin took the opportunity to film it with her phone. At some point someone suggested that perhaps I was just making them act like idiots so I could put it all up on YouTube! And so… here are the results of my little painting with light experiment.

I’d really like to get my taste buds on what these guys are making! You’ve gotta love their spirit.

Farm to Barrel from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

You know, I feel bad right now for Canucks fans.

However what runs deeper is the embarrassment I’m feeling at the behavior of the crowd after the loss. Vancouver had done so much to build up their reputation over the last 10 years. Tonight is a giant black mark on all of that.

People are asses.

Game 7 is starting in about a half an hour. So we will finally see how this is all going to end. Until then… this is a pretty cool video that goes a long way into what it is like being a Canucks fan.

As he’s been doing every year for a while now, my buddy Brook is again fundraising for cancer research. For some reason I missed posting about his efforts last year. And though I’m pretty late on it this year, I’m not missing again. Like I said before, he’s stepping up and actually doing the relay and raising the dough. I’m simply clicking a few buttons to give some money.

That said, it’d be super cool if you could give some money too. You know why. Do it now. Because if you don’t, you probably won’t later either.

So please… Click. Here. Now.

So today we found out “officially” what we’ve basically known to true for over a week now and suspected for a lot longer than that. NHL hockey will return to Winnipeg next year. Just think about that. We’ve got a new Canadian NHL team. Damn. That’s just super cool.
Add to that the fact that the 2010/2011 Stanley Cup finals begin tomorrow, featuring the Bruins and the fairly tale, and favored Canucks, and you’ve got yourself one good day for hockey in Canada!

One of the exciting things for me when we travel to certain locations is to find Magnum bars. Yes, that’s right, ice cream is a factor for me when we travel! We discovered the Magnum bar in China, and were able to get them with a fair degree of regularity. Not always, but often enough. They really weren’t something special (like the amazing Häagen-Dazs Crispy Sandwich bars that I’ve ONLY ever seen at the JAL hotel in Narita, Japan), but they were the best ice cream bars to be found. Chinese ice cream bars are kind of a different animal, coming in different flavors (like red bean, and corn) that are quite good once you get used to them. My favorite of those was the cantaloupe bars. Yum. And a bit hard to find. Anyway, I digress. Magnums are about as close as we ever found to an ice cream bar that tasted a bit like home.

When we traveled outside of China, it was also a bit a thrill when you found the country you were in also had them.

Like Thailand

And France


And Spain

And Dominican Republic

And Indonesia. And… I can’t remember if Vietnam had them, but that’s okay because they have Cafe Fin. Best. Coffee. Ever. But again, I digress. The other cool thing is sometimes you found awesome flavors like raspberry that were unbelievable.

The point of all this is that the other day the world changed a little bit for me. All of a sudden at least two major grocery chains are carrying…. you guessed it… Magnums! They don’t have any awesome, exotic flavors, but I can groove a while on Double Caramel or Double Chocolate or White Chocolate. Fer sure. Though sadly, I won’t have to travel farther than to the corner store to get them.

WTF are Canadians thinking? I can hear the collective toilet flushing….

So, Monday is election day of course. I had my students do a mock election last week. While I can’t yet publish the results, I will say that they resoundingly rejected the current regime. Maybe they’ve been to Shit Harper Did.

I finally got around to uploading some Costa Rica pics. Didn’t do any captions, but you’ll get the idea. We had tons of FUN!!

So this is my new favorite blog! Why? Because of this. Money. And the fact that the recipe made enough for us to enjoy tomorrow for lunch too!

I liked my dinner tonight so much that I think you should go here as well, and vote for this site! Of course, I’m going to check out the other sites that are up for this award too, but I’m voting for EatingAsia.

A little something to think about today.

It’s being sold only on his European tour at the moment, but a North American release is promised for the coming months. If you’ve ever seen Josh Ritter in concert, you’re going to want this. If you haven’t been so lucky… what’s with you? See him this summer as he tours.

Here’s a taste:

So a week after getting home from Costa Rica…. my skin is peeling off. I’ve been hitting it hard with moisturizer since we got back, but I guess it was inevitable. The tan seems to be holding on though, even if the skin isn’t.

If I was a reptile, I’d say I was about to grow!

I woke up this morning and told Mich that Christy Clark had resigned. Seeing as I got her before her cup of coffee, I was at least able to fool her for about 5 seconds with this tasty tidbit. Alas, it was April Fools today and that’s all I had in me. We had a (very) short chuckle over it.

Google however did a bit better than I did. They put a bit of time in, which I suppose one can do when you are worth billions. I’m not, so my trick was lame. Google’s is pretty good though, and worth a couple minutes of your time….

Walking out into the beach break can be such a rewarding experience – the heat of the sun melts away as the perfect temperature begins to liquid cool your body (even at Costa Rican water temperatures) and the bottoms of your feet forget the fire walk you just put them through. You begin to feel the buoyancy of your body in that great warm salt water as you jump on your board and begin the paddle into the break.

However, on much such occasion I had a slight hitch in the plan. Unseen and underfoot, a crab was minding his (her?) own business, letting the water wash past and presumably grabbing tasty vittles to munch on. My foot was a rude interruption of that routine. Yes, it’s a big beach, but the Stars decreed that both my foot and that crab were destined to meet at that time in that place.

I was walking confidently at the time, Michelle a few meters to the side. We were looking seaward, scoping for one of those juicy lulls that allow you to slip out between and past the breakers to catch the big waves (we don’t really have the skills yet to surf that way, but it’s sure fun to try…). I was thus feeling pretty surfy cool.

And down came my foot. On that crab. Can’t blame it for pinching me can I? Man, did I bleed. And now, a week later, it still hurts!! And if you think that sounds whiny, you should have heard my girlish squeal when it put the chomp on me! Ha.

We’ve been in Costa Rica for 10 days now. Wow, time flies! I haven’t taken many pictures (strangely as this is one of the most photogenic countries out there), but Jamie has and Luz and Kev have done a few too, so we’ll end up with some. Nothing to post now though. Sorry!
Life has been pretty low key. We get up, we have coffee and breaky out on the covered porch (as it’s already too hot to be sitting out directly in the sun!) and we head to the beach for the morning surf. Luz and Kev found a great spot that’s about a 15 minute (at most) walk to get to. There’s lots of shade, then sunny sand and then the water. Perfect for all conditions!

The surfing has been quite interesting and tons of fun. We started doing what we’ve always done, surf the foam, closer in. There were a few sorties out to the deeper water and the big ass waves, but those tended to end with a good “maytagging”. Though Saturday was a bit of a breakthrough. We had found a dude on the beach that was giving lessons to some beginners. So we asked if he’d do an intermediate lesson with us. He was all over it (and kept referring to enjoying the “advanced” lessons, cause he got to surf too!). Um, “advanced”? When the hell did we say “advanced”?

Anyway, we made arrangements to meet, and the lesson was done. Patrick (the intructor dude) did indeed get to surf, but only got one run as he snapped his (borrowed) board in half on it! So he ended up with a good, though unintended work out as he swam back out to coach us for the next hour or so. He did a great job too as we all got up on the monster (to us) waves. Maybe we weren’t up as long as on the foam. Maybe we didn’t rock out the killer tricks and moves. But we did get up and surf it!! So awesome. Of course, we each got worked pretty hard a few times too, but it was soooooooo worth it. Of course, the foam just doesn’t satisfy anymore, and we aren’t so good yet on the big ‘uns, so we are in a tough stage. But we also have some understanding of why people choose surfing lifestyles too.

After the morning surf, we hang out on the beach a bit, then wander back for some lunch. We’ve been mostly cooking for ourselves, sprinkling in a few visits to the local eateries. The top one for me so far is Chicken Joe’s, run by “Joe” the Peruvian who roasts up a bunch of tastey birds for the night and serves them with your choice of various sides (like Yuca fries or an amazing cabbage salad with his own fresh mint and basil) and sauces, including his very own Peruvian hot sauce. Damn fine sauce that one. Might try to find a way to bring some back! When we’re not up for Chicken Joe, we’ve done lots on yummy cooking on our own too, including some great BBQd chicken and fish washed down with the local swill Imperial, or G ‘n T’s or the ever popular Muddled Mish (made with that awesome Nica rum Flore de Cana). Mmmmm.

Typically we’ll do an afternoon surf too, watching the sun drive straight into the sea from the comfort of our surfboards on the waves. Pretty sweet!

We did a great hike in Caba Blanco National Park yesterday too. We piled into a rented (and small!) 4x4 and Jamie drove us 35 minutes (about 10 km!) to the park headquarters and trailhead. Walking the trail (1.5 hours one way) is a sweaty affair (think sauna kinda sweaty and then double or triple it) over a well maintained trail through land forested with all kinds of (new to us) trees. As you walk you are serenaded with all kinds of bird song. We passed a hollow tree that by day doubles are a bat cave. Super cool little bats hanging around, chirping at us when we got too close. Sweat a little further and we saw monkeys, crazy birds and some kinda four legged critter that we couldn’t quite make out clearly enough to positively indentify. At the end of the trail you reach (another) beautiful beach, this one quite exclusive. There we lounged, had lunch, hydrated and watched birds dive bomb for fish. Of course Mich did some beachcombing and founds some super cool rocks.

Tomorrow after surfing we’ve got a boat lined up for some deep sea fishing action. We’ll just have to wait and see if there is something to BBQ at the end of the day!