The Long Road

A BIG congrats goes out to my old buddy Dean and TJ for making it official last Sunday! They are gonna get hitched! Doing it up in style too on a Caribbean cruise over spring break. We are totally pumped for you guys and looking forward to whooping it up with you over the Canada Day weekend. Congratulations guys!

PSA: Dean wants it to be known that they are having a HUGE, ROCKIN’ reception in Terrace on the Canada Day Weekend. You are expected to be there! And you know who “you” are.

Well Mich and I always are interested in Komodo dragon news ( ever since we visited Komodo Island in Indonesia to see the dragons). This is a cool story, followed by super rare footage of a deep sea shark that was captured in Japan and filmed before it died (too shallow). Get comfy, vid is a little over 3 minutes…

I’ve been going through some pics from our travels over the last few years. Came across this one of of an old lady we saw on the seaside at Qing Dao (where they made Tsing Tao beer - which is actually pronounced Ching Dow). She had the most amazing face, as you can see, and I just had to capture it on film.

Congrats go out to Craig, Kristin, and Magnus!! Welcome to the world, Svea Elina Engleson (pronounced Svay). Woo Hoo!!

Heard some numbers on CBC today about the fact that many of us are still leaving the tap running while brushing our teeth. Why do people do that? Stop it eh? It’s a pretty easy way to save, by CBC’s count, about one olympic sized swimming pool’s worth of water per year per average neighborhood. Hmmmmmmm.

Don’t wanna do that? OK, how about going to the double, or even triple pee before you flush system? Think pee looks/smells nasty in the pot? Well, that’s just a good reason to put the lid down now isn’t it?

Something is kinda “F’d” on our blog. Those of you using Firefox might be seeing some strange formatting here on The Long Road. I have no idea why!!! I’m actually using IE to blog until I figure out what’s going on. So I’m sorry… Anyway, I’m getting frustrated, and hearing the Darth Vader theme in my head when blogging now… the dark side of the force is certainly at work here, and it’s strong!

Well we had a great day in the back country behind Sun Peaks today. Christian, Michelle and I did a little hiking, avalanche training, eating, and even got in a few turns. All in all, it was a beautiful day to be outside in the snow.

Well, it’s -13 degrees here in Kamloops. Tomorrow we are skinning into the back country atop Sun Peaks. Next weekend we are likely to skin into the Wheeler Hut in Glacier Park. Yes, we love winter!…

…However, it is halfway through January, and for three years of our lives that meant… traveling in S.E. Asia. Part of us is still not used to Canada yet, is pining for it, expecting it.

**Updated Jan 9** Simon has come through with a super cool video of our Kicking Horse Adventure. Who knew he was a “Director”? I only wish there was more Simon content, but he was the one with the camera! Thanks Si!

Jan 7
Got back last night from Kicking Horse Resort outside of beautiful Golden, BC. The highway was cleared of avalanches and opened just in time for us to drive in, and then again just in time for us to get out again. The snow gods smiled on us with 55 cm of “steep and deep champagne powder” just before we arrived. Lots of turns, lots of burn in the thighs, and lots of smiles were had over two days of pushing ourselves through tons of black diamond and double black terrain. And Simon was a trooper doing it all on totally old school gear! We are totally going back!

**Updated Jan 8**
Similar heartfelt tributes can be found here and here and of course here

Can you feel it? I sense a great disturbance in the force…

First it was Blake over at Now You See Us, and now this. A quick trip over to Potting Along shows that Grant, the dude that inspired us to get into blogging is pushing the keyboard tray in for good. Grant was pretty much the first person we knew that had a blog. And he kept up one of the more interesting and innovative ones, with engaging and diverse content and a sprinkling of great mp3 tracks. But he has always been a bit ahead of the curve relative to the rest of us, so as more and more of us are adopting the blogosphere as our own, Grant is getting out. Grant, while we are saddened at the demise of your blog, we are looking forward to the bigger and better things you hint at - you are always on the cutting edge of techie land. So here’s to you dude, and here’s looking ahead to GrantWeb 3.0

We recently received an email from our friends in Revelstoke, Rory and Sarah reminding us of the MEC ecological footprint quiz. I think it is a bit better than the one found on the Climate Crisis site. Click to check it out and take the test!

My results: (I’m sad to say…)

CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD 3.1
MOBILITY 0.7
SHELTER 1.8
GOODS/SERVICES 1.9
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 7.5

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 8.8 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 4.2 PLANETS.

Looks like I’ve got some work to do…