Christmas on the Islands

Well. It's been a fairly nice holiday season! For me yet again, I've been fortunate to have been invited by my gal's family to spend Christmas weekend with them on the ever-festive and smiley Saltspring Island. If you ever come to the coast of BC, seeing the gulf islands can be one of the highlights even for someone who's lived here forever like me. This is a region where breaching orcas, perching bald eagles, secluded bays and handmade crystal necklaces can all be found within a few hundred meters of each-other. You might even spot an eagle with a handmade crystal necklace on! Truthfully, the islands are a special place and there are many islands grouped closely together each with it's own wizards and vibe. Sadly though, all are filling up fast with people and cars and changing fast so pack up your guitar and head over for it may not be long before the strip malls and tech outlets descend to take over from the small hippytown charm.
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Been Just here

Logans' run

I haven't been up to the things that I'd like to lately.  Days come and days go and time seems to move by pretty quickly relative to everything else.  I've been obsessing about the future lately.  Not my petty future, but the big picture future of the planet and everything else for that matter.  The big questions still abound like, "Are there ever going to be hovercars and jetpacks?" and "Is it all leading somewhere and is that somewhere new and gleamy or is it like evolution in reverse and will we just climb back into the sea and become algae again?"  A friendly blogger friend of mine recommended a website to me awhile back and, like a lot of web stuff, I just copied it somewhere and filed it away for a time when I'd have more time to check it out.  Usually it takes me a fair amount of time to get around to finding that info again but I finally did and it's kind of a cool thing, but more topically - a true futuristic invention.  It's called StereoMood and when you go there you basically stream all this music that has been organized accordioning to mood.  What this means is that you can just dial-in your emotional state instead of the other way around.  It's kinda handy if you like your current emotional state and don't want to listen to music that may change it.  Now all they need is some computer device to tap into our brainwaves and find out how you really feel not how you think you feel.  That and then adjust some colored lights and stuff that goes with the music and then you'll be into some actual Logan's Run type of futuristic stuff.  Oh wait, Logan's world totally sucked and he was trying to escape.  Maybe it's more like Star Trek.  I'm thinking of a living room that when you walk into it immediately starts to play music and pulse lights that reflect your mood!  Anyway the website has been handy a total of 2 times over the last six months which for a website is pretty good in my books.  I'll probably come back to this one regularly.  Just don't tell me to go to carousel.  I know how that one ends and I'm way past 30.

The Pet

on good days Lloyd will hug you

We now have a cat on premises.  He's been here for about 7 months now actually, but I haven't shown any pictures of him.  His name's Lloyd and he's a friend of the family who suddenly had no place to go due to an untimely change of residency by his owner.  No matter - we took him in and although at 14 years of age he's pretty long in the tooth to be moving from place to place he's still got a lot of youthful energy for an old coot.  He chases stuff and likes to attack legs and hands at a moments notice and even draw blood if need be.  Mainly though he sleeps the days and nights away when he's not doing the eating or attacking thing. It's mainly good to have a nice omen of good luck around.  I hear that in many countries and in many cultures cats are considered a sign of good luck and prosperity, which is surprising since he seems to cost upwards of 50 bucks a month in food and cat sand.  The latter of which there is nothing "good luck" about.  I'm guessing ancient Egyptians and Japanese people had no sense of smell. 

Lloyd at rest

Nevertheless I'm planning on getting most of my investment back once I hit the casinos with this guy.  Lloyd in all seriousness is very sweet and friendly most of the time.  He likes pats and scratches even more and will sometimes keep your feet warm at the foot of the bed.  It's always nice to stare at the gently heaving belly of a curled-up cat on cold mornings or when you are totally stressed out.  Other than that though, he's been a big inspiration to me - mainly to get off my feet and on my ass and do some heavy napping with chow breaks in between.  Now i know why shut-in's always collect cats - it's a birds of a feather kind of thing. 

Just sitting around...

Basically - yeah.  I'm just sitting around.  The last few weeks have been pretty blah and the weeks before that weren't anything to get too excited about either.  Looking ahead looks pretty unexciting as well, but I am planning a trip early next year to tropical climes so I don't really have the right to complain too much.  I seem to be spending quite a bit of my free time on the "web" lately which is not abnormal, but it has gotten me to thinking - "What's with all the time spent on the web?"  What for?  What's it all leading up to?  I guess on one level it's basically a new kind of TV especially because we don't have one.  I guess when surroundings like this pic are all you have, the internet starts to look pretty interesting.  But it's also keeping me from doing fun and productive things, non-internetish things, so I think I should try and limit myself.  Things are also getting kind of Christmasy around here.  Some people in one of the apartments across (it might even be one of the ones in the picture) have already got a tree up!  Didn't these peoples mothers teach them that things are all the more enjoyed when the tension of waiting builds a little bit?  Christmas is fun, but I start to feel pretty grinchy when people get all crazy and overanxious.

Up to the BC interior to visit family

My family live in the BC interior as many of you know and it's beautiful up there most of the time and super beautiful in the summer and even the late summer so I was pretty happy to be able to drive up there and visit a few days with my father.  As usual, not much happened which was pretty much what I wanted to happen.  We sat around and talked, caught up, and went for a really nice day hike up a mountain biking trail.  Mostly I hibernated in my fathers small house and ate dried fruit and drank wine at night.  It was a nice time to be in his little town of 300 or so people as most of the tourist rush had passed and people seemed to be slowly returning to a kind of mellower way of life.  I bought a sandwich and a small pizza at a new pizza place that opened up down the road.  Those were key events.  These shots are from the day hike we went on. 

There is an abandoned mine concentrator on this trail above town as well as the remnants of an old mining camp.  The hills around here are full of discarded mining equipment both old and newer stuff left behind by hopefuls and a few lucky strikes.  Apparently the man who owned this giant affair and lived above it in a mansion was ruined by the time the mill closed; his fortunes squandered.  This camp was surprisingly developed.  It had piped water and many amenities like butchers and barbers and the like...

this trail is really nice.  It hugs the shady side of the river valley it runs along and has some nice biking spots including a tram to cross a river.

Here's where the river pours and blasts through some narrow rocks.  Well I didn't see much wildlife until I embarked on the long drive home.  Right on the side of the road I saw mountain goats, and then later a moose and finally nearing Vancouver, a bear.  It was almost ridiculous to see so many animals wandering around all at once, beer commercial ridiculous, but it's good to see the big creatures up and about even if you have to blast by them going at a hundred kilometers an hour and they always kind of have this slackjawed dumbfounded expression on - except the beaver that me and my gal saw once.  That guy was pissed off.

New Post Shmoo Post

Well, actually, it's now pretty much the end of summer climes here!  There is a distinct cold "tang" in the air now that we are into Sept.  I am thinking of heading up and over the mountains into the interior of BC for a pre-fall visit to my hometown and some "facetime" (real facetime that is, not iphone facetime) with my one and only father.  It's been more than a year since I was back there so I'm excited to get back into the swing of things and in many ways going in the late summer is good as most people will be gone back to wherever they came from and only the permanent residents will remain feasting on their harvests and figuring out how they are going to get wood in for the winter. ---- a....and I've returned!  Well kind of. I'm back in busyness here in Vancouver after hanging out with my father in the country.  He seems well and content and he is as spry as ever.  I keep wondering if someday he'll get old but he was quick to jump off on a day hike in the woods with me even though he was bagged from a hike the day before.  I was feeling kind of tired when we'd climbed a little, about half - way through, when he spotted a nice place to try and scramble up further onto some slope and up he went.  So I was pretty impressed to say the least.  I'll post some pictures later.  In the meantime another food pic here.  My gal and I made some bean tacos the other night and she stuffed and fried up these flor de calabaza or zuchini flowers!  Woah.  They were quite tasty especially when stuffed into a taco!  Some icy coconut water on the side makes a nice late summer snack!  Well, that is all for now as I'm back home I really cant say much more, but the job is plodding along and I can feel October looming. 

Swimming Summmer

Well it's the middle or maybe even the middling-end of summer and we are in it.  So far it's been good.  We've been spending most of our time in town and about the town and working in town.  Sometimes on the weekends, we go on a "jaunt" to a local hiking spot or swimming spot.  I've been swimming in a couple of small lakes and in the ocean.  The ocean is my favorite.  Some don't like swimming in the ocean because of the salt and the sharp, barnically things that slice-up your feet etc. but I like it.  Around here even though you don't get the pounding surf and roaring intensity that you do in other parts of the worlds oceans but at it's best the ocean around Vancouver can get warm enough to endure for long periods of swimming in the summer.  Fear of swimming seems to be common.  It is one of those things that some people seem to have an innate fear of water and what could be underneath it.  Somehow, lakes seem creepier to me.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's the deadness of them and the stillness of them.  It just seems more like something's lurking down there, something forgotten and nasty.