Spring

Winter here is awfully cold, dark, and silent. But that just makes spring so much more of a contrast. (Of course, my father would have said that's a bit like banging your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop!)

The grass is starting to turn green, the trees are budding. And the birds! When I walked home the other day I was listening to a podcast, as I often do. When it ended and I took out my earphones I couldn't believe all the bird songs - crows, gulls, geese, sparrows, robins. Glorious!

Early Spring at Beaver Creek

Snow Geese

Spring in Saskatoon

Spring in Saskatoon involves more melting snow and ice than flowers blooming. But it's nice to see the geese returning and you can't complain about the sunshine.

from 2009-03-29 Saskatoon

It was such a beautiful morning I had to escape from the computer and go for a walk.

Beautiful Close Up

25 Beautiful Macro Photographs

1% for the Planet

I've been a fan of 1% for the Planet since I heard Yvon Chouinard talk about it at the Banff Mountain Film Festival several years ago. I was happy when Mountain Equipment Coop joined.

It's nice to see they're doing well: National Geographic Blog - Go Green: Are Values-Oriented Companies Recession-Proof?

Yvon's book, Let My People Go Surfing is a good read if you're interested in his business and environmental ideas.

Clark Little Surf Photos

These are some amazing photos!

Clark Little Photography

I've always loved water and its colors and reflections.

Mountain Rescuers Getting Taken to Court?

A post on the National Geographic Adventure blog says prosecutors in Argentina are investigating an attempted rescue on Aconcagua for possible negligence. And this isn't even in the USA, where you expect everything to be taken to court.

Apparently a video from the rescue has caused huge controversy because the rescuers were "just standing around".

I don't know any more details, but on the surface I'm flabbergasted. What do people expect the rescuers to be doing? If the guy can't even get up, how do you get him down? The rescuers were probably pushed to the limit just to reach the guy. People who have no experience of high altitude or even mountaineering should not be judging.

I've often talked to non-climbers who read about climbing incidents, especially on Everest, and ask my opinion. How could they have left someone to die? How could they have just walked by? They don't realize that you barely have energy to move yourself, let alone enough energy to help someone else. And if you did help someone, you're placing yourself in serious jeopardy and may just end up with two casualties. And lastly, the person in trouble chose to be there, chose to take the risks. And often what got them into trouble was ignoring advice and common sense. If I say "don't walk on the ice, it's too thin" and you ignore me and walk on the ice and fall in, am I still obligated to jump in and try and rescue you?

These were volunteer rescuers. If they end up being prosecuted or sued, then who is going to volunteer to try to rescue anyone?

The Ultimate North American City

I recently got back from a week long trip to Arizona, mostly around Phoenix. We were visiting Shelley's Dad who has recently taken to spending three or four months of the winter down there, like so many other "snow birds". I can't blame them for wanting to escape Saskatchewan winters.

Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the USA. Its metropolitan area has over 4 million people sprawled over 37,000 square kilometers (16,000 square miles).

Phoenix seemed to be the ultimate North American city, the distillation of our suburban culture to its essence of cars, freeways, malls, and planned communities.

In case you're at all unclear, I don't think that's a good thing. I found it appalling. Even more disheartening is that I don't think most people see anything wrong with it. I think they think that's how it ought to be.

One day when we foolishly picked a climbing area across town we spent more time on the freeways than we did on the rock. And that wasn't even on the opposite side of the city, we just had to cut across a corner of the metro area.

Like the rest of North America, the automobile rules. If you're not in a vehicle you're screwed. The nearest coffee shop is probably 6 miles away. And even if you did feel like a two hour walk to go for coffee, you'd better be prepared to play Frogger with the traffic.

Despite a great climate for it, less than 1% of commuters use bicycles. I'm surprised anyone does.

I like the desert and the climbing was good, but I'm not going to be in a rush to go back to Phoenix.

National Geographic Photo Contest Winners

Some great photos from National Geographic's Photo Contest.

The second last picture of the squid is amazing, and it's amusing how the photographer had to push her husband out of the way to get the picture.

Baby Chameleon

I think chameleons are cool regardless, but this baby one is amazing.

These pictures are from Gorilla.cd. A park in the Congo having their own web site and frequently updated blog is also pretty cool. They've had a lot of troubles lately with the fighting there, so it's nice to see something positive.

Climate Change Skeptics

Tim O'Reilly had a good post responding to people who don't believe in climate change.

An Amazing 2008

2008 was an amazing year for me. I can't believe how fortunate I am.

Shelley and I spent a month in Ecuador and Galapagos - a fantastic trip.

The WestJet in-flight magazine published an article about adventurous couples that included Shelley and I.

I spent a week in San Diego at ETech and then three weeks in Baja Mexico in Loreto. Shelley joined me for the first week in Mexico. I got my advanced open water diving certification while I was there. Just living in a different place (albeit only for three weeks) was a first for me.

Shelley overcame her fear of the water and got her scuba diving certification. If you'd seen how nervous she was around water only a few years ago you'd know how impressive this is!

We spent a week in and around Portland, Oregon in conjunction with RailsConf, another computer conference.

I organized the Prairie Pitch Adventure Race for the third year, including five trips to the race area totaling 14 days.

We spent a month in Australia, a new country for me, and another wonderful trip. Shelley and I did our first scuba dives together.

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

We spent a week diving in Cuba (another new country) bringing me to a total of 45 dives. I no longer feel quite so much like a beginner.

Adding up all the travel gives roughly 17 weeks or about 4 months! Wow, I knew I'd traveled a lot, but I didn't realize how much it added up to. Like I said, I'm amazingly fortunate. Here's a map.


View Larger Map

I bought my first digital SLR at the end of 2007 and took roughly 15,000 photographs in 2008. I even think a few of them are half decent.

I wrote 75 posts on this blog and another 110 on my computer blog.

I read about 140 books, coincidentally, the same number as my sister Penny. At first I thought I had read less (eek!), but then I realized I wasn't counting the computer books.

Quite a year.

Driving Down Western Australia

I know this is out of order and overdue, but I'm still trying to catch up. The first part of our trip to Australia we drove down the West coast of Australia from Broome to Perth. Google says it's 2638 km. We put over 4000 km on the odometer. Good thing we had unlimited mileage on our rental car! It was a great drive - not too many tourists and lots of great country. Here are more pictures from this part of the trip. Sorry, there are quite a few, I got tired of whittling them down.

2008 Australia West Coast

And here's a map of our route:


View Larger Map

In Distrust of Movements

This article by Wendell Berry makes for interesting reading. I have to say I've had my own doubts about "movements". My question has always been what the alternative is.

* Thanks to Tim O'Reilly for the pointer to this article.

Ktrak Christmas Gift

My business partner gave me an interesting Christmas present - a Ktrak add-on for my mountain bike. I think this is what you'd need in Vancouver right now if you wanted to ride your bike!

It was relatively easy to install. The only real problem was that I didn't have the right tool to move my brake disc so I ended up with no brakes. The front ski is optional, for downhill. You can ride uphill with it, but it's hard work!


Here's a video of one of my first test runs:

Kingfisher at Work

Pretty cool photos of a diving Kingfisher, especially the last one.

Recurring Mouse

Notice the tracks leading to the bottom of the tree.

The mouse obviously likes the bird feeder. She* seems to take up residence most afternoons now.

Now I'm reluctant to fill up the feeder because she won't be able to get inside, and obviously she likes it inside!

Those of you that have spent time and energy trying to eradicate mice will no doubt think I'm crazy.

* I have no idea if the mouse is male or female, but "it" sounds too impersonal.

Heroes

If you're a climber it's hard not to be inspired by Fred Beckey. Check out the story and especially the video (better full screen) from the New York Times. I wish I could say I'd devoted as much energy to climbing (or anything, for that matter) as Fred. I can only hope that I'll be a fraction as active when I'm his age.

My first contact with Fred Beckey was through his guidebooks. As much as we appreciated having the guidebooks, we always ended up cursing them (and him) as an innocent sounding single sentence in the guidebook routinely turned into hours (if not days) of horrendous bushwhacking or tricky climbing.

I remember some years ago we were in the parking lot at Skaha (a climbing area near Penticton) and my friend Ian Marsh suddenly started pointing at a car in the parking lot and saying "that's Fred Beckey's car!". It was a nondescript car so I couldn't figure out how he would know. The answer was that there had been a picture of Fred and his car in one of the climbing catalogs that we used to spend our time poring over when we weren't climbing. Sure enough, Fred and an entourage of much younger climbers were at Skaha that day.

Second Class Citizens

Walking or riding my bicycle I often feel like a second class citizen. The first class citizens, of course, being the cars. Even when they do add sidewalks or bicycle lanes, there doesn't seem to be any consideration that they have to connect, and actually go where you might want to go. And then there are all the places where the "freeways" (funny choice of name when you think about it) virtually block any foot or bicycle access to large areas.

It's nice to see signs of this improving, like this article on WorldChanging:

Copenhagen, Melbourne & The Reconquest of the City

I wonder how some of these approaches could be adjusted for cold climates like Saskatoon. No one is sitting at sidewalk cafes at -30. Maybe we could design our malls using some of these ideas. (Not that I'm a big fan of our current malls.)

Climbing Mouse

I went out to fill up the bird feeder the other day. As I walked up, I could see something inside the feeder, which seemed odd. It turned out to be a mouse! He sat inside, looking back at me through the Plexiglas side. He didn't seem too afraid of me. I left him alone and didn't fill the feeder.

It's been really cold here lately (-30c) and I wondered if it was looking for shelter. But thinking about it, it's got to be warmer under the snow. I guess he was just getting a free meal. But even that doesn't quite make sense because the birds scatter lots of seed on the ground, so there shouldn't be any need to climb the tree to get to the feeder. Maybe it's safer (e.g. from cats) in the feeder rather than on the ground.

I wasn't quite sure how he got inside. The gap that the seed comes out is quite narrow, only half an inch or so. That night I worried that it might have been trapped in there and maybe I should have let it out. I was afraid I'd find a frozen mouse in the morning. But it was gone in the morning, so obviously it can get in and out on its own.

Sorry, no picture - it was getting dark and it's hard to see inside the feeder. Instead, here's one from Flickr by yeimaya.