Touch my Striate Cortex

Bug stuff

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:26 -0800

The Victoria Bug Zoo is the most awesome place ever! And they have the best warning sign in the gift shop: "Abandoned children will be given an espresso and a puppy."

road not taken...

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:07 -0800

Sadly, the weather ended our trip short of Banff at the Saskatchewan Crossing. This picture was taken (sniffle) from the front seat of a pickup truck taking us and our bikes into Banff. We were given the ride by the very very generous owner of The Crossing Resort. Thank you, Mike!
That's it for the bike trip report!

Are you f#$ing kidding me?!

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:07 -0800

Snow?!!!

Triumph over self-imposed adversity

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:52 -0800

"Strange, but there don't seem to be any bear lockers in the campgruond. I guess we'll have to hang the food from a tree. Jonathan, will you hang the bear rope?"
"Sure, where's the bag [that we keep the bowls and swiss army knife in and is just the right weight for throwing]?"
"Why don't you use a water bottle? It's less likely to get stuck in the branches."
"It'll be fine."
Later...
"Excuse me, sir, we're at the campsite up the hill and our swiss army knife is stuck in a tree, and my boyfriend is throwing rocks at it. Do you have any suggestions?"
"How'd you do that? ... You know there are bear lockers next to the shelter right there, don't you?"
Embarassingly long time later...
"Wow, you got it, are you serious?! Let me take a picture!"

that's what a glacier looks like when you paint it purple

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:33 -0800

I upgraded to Adobe Lightroom 3 today, and it has a whole whack of new creative presets, of which this is one. It also corrects lens distortion and improves noise reduction, and other things. This is the toe of the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefield. We took a rest day here and hiked out to the toe (a very short hike). If you look closely you can see that some people have been walking on it, despite the rather distressing signs posted all over the place with stories about the poor little children who died as a result of stepping out onto it. Those signs really kinda put a downer on things. And obviously they don't keep people off it anyway. It seems people feel a strong urge to do things that they imagine they can impress someone else with later ("I walked on a glacier!" vs. "I looked at a glacier!"), while in reality, I imagine stepping out onto the toe of the glacier is a lot like walking to your car anytime between November and March in Northern Ontario, unless you have the good fortune to fall into a crevasse and die of hypothermia, which I suppose I have to allow would be impressive if you were able to tell about it later. Sigh. (By the way, you can walk on the glacier, safely and legally, if you pay $50 to the local tourist-fleecing outfit for the ride out on an overgrown humvee to a safe spot to stand around and take pictures of your feet in snow. We didn't.)

Ants on a glacier

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:33 -0800

Here are the tourists scampering up to the toe.

Champs de glace Columbia

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:33 -0800

In the museum they had a relief map of the glaciers. The museum and chalet is located where the paint is rubbed off from pointing.

Jonathan again

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:33 -0800

I can't resist putting up another picture of Jonathan, looking very happy to be done with the day!

What does that sign say?

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:33 -0800

Did we take a wrong turn and end up on mars?

Sunwapta pass: the view

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:33 -0800

... and now that we're done rejoicing, look at that view!