The Long Road

Tomorrow we set out on the first trip of the summer - The Broken Islands Group, Pacific Rim National Park. We’re very excited about this as it’s been a while since we’ve done a multi-day paddling trip, we’ve yet to paddle on the ocean, this is our first trip of that sort with Tod and Catherine, and the weather forecast is getting better each day! As a bonus, this trip got me to get my butt in gear on a project that was started BEFORE we moved to China! It’ll be done today, so more on that later.

Wow. It comes every year for me, but every year it seems as fresh and new as ever. Summer holidays!

“They give us those nice bright colours.
They give us the greens of summers.
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day
So, mama don’t take my Kodachrome away.”

- Paul Simon -

Well Eastman Kodak has announced that after 74 years, production of Kodachrome, the film that made color photography what it is, is coming to an end. The end of an era? Certainly. But with the masses eschewing film for digital instant gratification (myself included) this hardly comes as a surprise.

I’m sure someone will come up with a “Kodachrome” plugin for Photoshop. Heck, maybe there already is one…

Anyway, take a few minutes to check out the slideshow that Kodak has posted to pay homage to the late, great Kodachrome. They are stunning images.

Food, Inc. opened in theaters a few days ago. I have my doubts that it will actually make it to my town (though the local film society might bring it in….), but if it does, you KNOW I’ll be there to check it out.

How cool is it when out of the blue on a Friday night you get a cryptic text from your bro saying “if r u home look in the sky in ten minutes to the north”?

It’s even cooler when you do look north in ten minutes to see, in the distance, a chopper piloted by your brother flying past your city slinging a big fire fighting water container.

Kamloops is home to one of BC’s regional Fire Centers. So we see and hear the water bombers coming and going as they head out on fire suppression missions. Today as Mich and I and Lindsey paddled the North Thompson from McLure to Riverside Park, we floated right on by a fire. As we approached it was amazing to watch up to four planes (three water bombers and the bird-dog plane) buzzing around the fire site. They seemed highly organized and coordinated. Good thing as they were all in pretty tight.

Mich and the bombers.

Lindsey wondering if peeing on the fire would help out any.

Anyway, we got closer and closer and came around the last corner in time to see the last run. Yes we ended up a little close, but these guys are pretty precise with their placement of the fire retardant. It was a sight that we likely won’t see close up again anytime soon.

Lindsey thinking about peeing for a different reason.

I find it absolutely super cool that I can throw all my kitchen scraps into a bucket, add some dried leaves from the yard and… with a little stirring now and then, it turns into this!!

Every year around this time I’m able to harvest this black gold. We (ok, mostly Mich) dig it into the veggie garden and where ever new plants go in. This year with the doubling of the veggie garden and the growth of some of the other flower gardens we used the wheelbarrow load of compost up pretty fast. I think we got the best stuff so far this year too as I made a little compost sifter to separate the good, finished compost from any larger, not-quite-done pieces (like corn cobs). I added the stuff I sifted out to the new batch of decaying material already started in our second compost bin.

Anyway, both the flower and vegetable gardens are looking great this year, and this compost certainly plays a part. Not only that, but it helps cut down on our need for curbside solid waste (garbage) disposal quite significantly. Of course we are not totally satisfied so we have also started a worm composing bin. Those little red wigglers should produce buckets of nice worm castings (organic fertilizer!) in no time. The best part of all of this? Higher yield from the veggie patch! Yum!

Got back last night after a few days away at the Sasquatch festival. I’m off to work now, but I’ll try to write more soon. All in all we had a great time - great bands, great weather and great friends (Glenn and Jacqui) adds up to great fun.

You know, I never thought I’d be happy to do yard work on a long weekend. Never. Not ever.

But today that is just what we did. And I’m pumped about it. We rented a sod cutter and took out a ton of grass. And for the second time since moving into our house we doubled the size of our vegetable garden. TWICE as much harvest of tomato, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, beans, herbs, onions, asparagus and peas this year. AND enough room left over to put in 4 or 5 blueberry bushes.

Man, my life really does revolve around food.

Anyway, we are going to do some other fun stuff this weekend too - including bike rides and perhaps paddling too.

Hope you are enjoying yours too!

Click here if you are a Canucks fan.

My yearly prediction rings true. Let the abuse begin…

Today was a near perfect day. We got up, packed up and paddled the South Thompson from Chase to Pritchard with my co-workers Gillian and Lindsey. The weather was amazing, the water great and fun was had by all. We relaxed afterward on our deck with a few cold ones. Then Mich and I capped the whole day off with a great meal. Awesome.

Gillian

Lindsey

A little over a year ago when we were in Laos during Spring Break, we discovered a great little open air bbq place overlooking the river in Luang Prabang. And though it was hotter than hell out, we sweated away as we enjoyed this SE Asian style bbq over red hot coals. It was so good that we went back for more another day.

And while I was able to find one of the bbq contraptions in the market, I ended up not buying one as I didn’t really want to pack it around for the rest of the trip. It was a bit bulky for the backpack and I was also worried it would get all bent up. I’ve regretted that decision ever since.

Good thing my bro-in-law Jamie is a world traveler. He picked up not one, but TWO of ‘em in Thailand. Nice.

So Sunday night we tried it out. Jamie was in town for a couple of nights, and the weather was grand so really conditions were perfect. Jamie hit the hardware stores earlier in the day so we could make up a base for the thing and that was it.

Mmmmmmm, BBQ

In Luang Prabang, Jamie tries to feed Mich raw meat.

In the back yard, Jamie tries to feed Mich raw meat.

Here’s a track by Bon Iver that I just can’t get enough of. It’s a wonderfully haunting track with fascinating sonic qualities.

We’re gonna be lucky enough to see this band in a few weeks at the Sasquatch Festival. Great looking line-up this year. Very pumped.

My buddy Brook is a darn good guy. Among other things, he raises money for cancer research annually via the Relay for Life. As cancer is likely to touch pretty much all of us in some way during our lives, this is a particularly worthy cause. Brook is super cool on this one, ‘cause he (and all the others involved of course) not only talks the talk by fund raising, but walks the walk (literally) by participating in the relay. Brook you rule.

Last year he was able to raise $750 for the cause. This year his goal is $1000.

If you are able to support him, go on over to his website and donate! It’s quick and easy to do online.

Click HERE to visit Brook’s site and help him with his cause.

If Brook has inspired you beyond simply opening your pocketbook, head on over to the Relay for Life site and start your own team as there is likely a relay in your town too!

Here is Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann on carbon dioxide. I’m relieved to hear that actually everything’s cool - that is we don’t have to worry about all this CO2 stuff because really it’s such a small percentage of our atmospheric gas, and really, the human contribution to this small percentage is also very small, and further, that because it’s “a natural byproduct of nature”, we need it, and all the little critters and plants on the earth need it! So really, we don’t need to erode our nice cushy way of life here to fix it ‘cause it’s not a problem! Phew, glad she cleared that up for us.

Where the hell do these people come from?

Not sure what to call this thing. Perhaps it’s a privacy screen, but we wanted it more as a trellis for support for the grape vines and morning shade. Anyway, pretty cool that we now have a second summer project finished and it’s still April!

Before:
You can see the spindly little grape vines just calling out for some support. Hopefully they will continue to grow up and over, providing nice cool shade from above.

After:

Earth Day is tomorrow, April 22. Just like it is every year. This year by happy coincidence I get to go to a worm composting seminar at TRU. I started with red wigglers last year, but didn’t really give them the attention they needed early on so lost most of my population. This year, it was too good of a deal to pass up. For $20 I get the seminar and $60 worth of worms, worm bedding and the composter. Awesome.

There are LOTS of other things I’m interested in as far as keeping our organic garden going and finding other ways to improve our footprint by decreasing it!

Anyway, happy Earth Day everyone.

Looks like JJ Abrams has put together the perfect amount of cool retro feel and modern sci-fi eye candy. Me Likey!

Yuck!

It’s early in the outdoor project season, but we’ve got one under our belt already. Way back when we stained the siding on the house I remember Craig commenting that the fence is gonna have to be next. Honestly, at that point the fence wasn’t even on the radar. It looked lousy, but I guess we’d just gotten used to it. Time ticked away and the fence got to looking even worse. We didn’t get to it in time last spring - seemed like we blinked and all the plants were up against it. Too late!

Yum!

Determined not to fall into that trap this year, we started early. We began with a good pressure wash. The results? Astounding. It looked like we just built the thing.

Sparkle!

Next step - protect the wood. Now we had a lot of time to consider this. In the end we decided on a product that is all natural, water based, non toxic and mixed on site from a powder. So, no cans, so nasty chemical stain and TINY cardboard packaging. It’s called LifeTime Wood Treatment. Basically it helps the wood quickly take on the grey patina finish that weathered wood naturally gets to after a few years in the elements. I’ve always liked that look, so this stuff is perfect for us. Also it’s a one time deal. It won’t crack and flake off the wood after a few years in the Kamloops sun. Parks Canada has been using this product for years. I think BC Parks might use it too.

So, after treating the fence today, it looks a bit grey, and will hopefully get better and better over time. It is a bit risky as I’ve not used this stuff before, but I’m happy with the results so far. Time will tell.

Before and After

Next up… replacing the eve troughs and installing our rain barrels.

From Mustang Powder - Easter Weekend

Well a BIG thanks goes out again this year to Heidi. She is a part time tail guide for Mustang Powder Lodge cat skiing. One of the things she likes to do is go up to the lodge after their season is over and ski tour. I think it’s pretty awesome that her boss is cool with that. Anyway, this is the second year that she brought us along. Phil - who we met just a week ago - joined us too at the last minute. It was great to get to know him.

One cool addition this year was that we got to actually ride in a snowcat as it was down at the parking lot. Last year we took snow machines in, which was much faster, but this was pretty cool. This year it was “Freya”, their back-up snowcat (the fancy Piston Bully cats are already put to bed for the off-season). Heidi showed off her driving skills by getting us up to the lodge. On top of that, Wayne, the summer caretaker needed a bit of training time in the snowcat, so he took us up onto the slopes on the first day. So I guess you could say that we’ve gone cat skiing now!

The snow was not as good this year as last, but we had tons of fun on terrain mostly different from last year. There was some new snow on the second and third day too which helped.

Anyway, didn’t take a lot of pics, but below are a few highlights…

Because we aren’t ready to give it up yet, we’re heading to Mustang Powder again for a little après-season ski weekend with Heidi. She is so awesome for inviting us along!!

Well, with the forecast calling for highs of 20 and 21 degrees over the next two days here in Kamloops, it is time to try out the beautiful hammock we got over the winter in Nicaragua. Looks like it’s gonna work out just fine!

The Photo Geeks

The guys I’ve really enjoyed taking photographs with over the last few years, Blake, Hubert and Paul and I have started a new project together. As we are in locations rather distant from each other, (Dalian PRC, Vancouver, Kamloops) it has proven rather tough to get together regularly to shoot. So we’ve decided to give ourselves “assignments” and shoot together virtually. I’m happy to present the results of the first assignment. We had a couple of weeks to gather our shots for it and present them to the group.

The topic was “Hands”. Below are the results. I think the boys did rather well… Click on each photo to link to its album.

Blake

Hubert

Paul

Me

Please feel free to indicate your favorites via comments…

I’ll post the results of the next assignment when it happens.

** Updated March 29 ** Well looks like we didn’t do so well. In BC power consumption dropped 1.1% on Saturday. That it dropped at all is a positive, however last year the number was 2%, so this seems like a step backward. Hopefully increased awareness of the issues improved…

City Lights from Space

Hey folks. Tonight you have an opportunity to participate in a symbolic move. Earth Hour is tonight between 8:30 and 9:30 pm local time. To participate all you need to do is switch off all your lights! Doesn’t sound too tough eh? This idea started a few years back in Australia, went global last year and tonight, hopefully, will happen on an even more “viral” scale.

There is actually a cool plug in for blogs that will “shut down” your blog for the hour, instead displaying a splash screen showing that you are participating. Unfortunately Blogsome does not let users install third party plugins at will, so you won’t see it happen on this site. If you have a (non-blogsome) wordpress site though and want to install this super cool item, click here.

If you’d like more info on this, go to the Earth Hour site here.

Remember… 8:30 to 9:30 pm… turn ‘em off!

… comes from one of my favs. Vancouver’s Matthew Good with Black Helicopter.

I love the line “Hey Sammy, ain’t you heard? Only killers call killing progress.” Enjoy.

We spent some of the last days of spring break in Whistler of all places. Several things came together to make it happen.

First, while we were enjoying wonderful snow at Revy we kept hearing reports of the epic snow that was coming down on Whister/Blackcomb. Hmmmm.

Second, snow, but not epic snow was in the forecast for Revy and Golden. Hmmmm.

Third, while we were enjoying ourselves at Revy we got a text from Kath who was in Whistler at the time, raving about the snow and suggesting we might like to come down and get a piece of it for ourselves. Hmmmm.

Fourth, when we got back to Kamloops we checked into the forecast for ourselves, saw that MORE epic snowfall was expected on Whistler later in the week. Hmmmmm.

Fifth, we checked out the last minute deals on Whistler’s website and found, wonder of wonders, that there were some “suite-ass” deals to be had. It’s a cool system where you are told a bit about the hotel and room, but not which it is. Hmmmmmm.

Sixth, we looked at each other, smiled and said “Let’s just do it!”. We booked. It turned out that we got a $370 room for 130 bucks a night, right in the village, literally 2 minutes walk from the gondolas!

Friday morning we awoke to 20 cm fresh pow. Kath joined us at Blackcomb where it continued to come down at a feverish rate all day, the effect of which was that the powder never, ever ran out! Unreal. Simply unreal.

Mich ripping up the bowl!

Saturday was a whole different kind of awesome day. More great snow fell overnight. Jeremy and Kath both joined us for First Tracks at Whistler, which includes a breakfast (and “fast” is the word here) at the top and access to the runs before all the rest of the chumps down below are allowed on the lifts. Nice. Jeremy took us all over, showing us great terrain that included some of his secret stashes. The alpine was open for the first time in days and we certainly got all kinds of first, fresh tracks that morning! And it was bluebird to boot!

Probably the only downside was that after skiing in the interior for so long, it was rather tough to come to terms with the rat race that is Whister Blackcomb. Though in the end, it was worth it to see what the fuss is all about, get amazing turns in, a good deal and spend time with good friends. Thanks Kath for getting us down there. Thanks Jeremy for being an awesome tour guide. And thanks to Ullr for the great snow all week for us in the backcountry , at Revy and Whistler, but not when we had to drive!

Life is good.

That’s a question I’m sure we are all asking. Anyway, props go out to Dean for sending this my way.

We are a couple of days into SB now. I think we’ve started it all off well with our first backcountry ski trip of the year. Wow, not sure how that happened, but indeed it took until halfway through March to get us into the backcountry. Oh well, it was worth the wait as we had an awesome day at Needle that was filled with some beautiful, fluffy fresh powder.

We’re thinking that some more turns are in our immediate future as we are likely to head east to Revy and Kicking Horse in the next few days. Snow is in the forecast!

In the meantime, we’ve had a few beer suggestions from that post a few days ago. Keep ‘em coming!