A little lost

I had me some trouble last week. It was not the first time I had that trouble but its never any fun when it happens. I twisted my knee. I was carrying out a 20 jug of water for the cabin and as I was leaving the house coming through the door way at an angle it happened. My foot hit the floor and my momentum and the jugs kept my upper body moving. My foot stayed still and it was my knee that gave causing to fall to the floor in pain.

After a quick trip to town and a little more waiting I was treated to my monthly radiation dose. My knee was treated to a set of X-rays and my groin was treated to a lead apron. The conclusion from all that was nothing visible wrong and I needed to build up my leg muscles. As of today I have for the first time in years have a gym membership again. I will start to figure out my program tomorrow.

Prior to my booking my self in at the gym I did some skiing starting first with the empty field across from the family plot of land. I moved on to some more interesting adventures getting my self a little lost out behind the hotsprings. Now I had a map I had even packed a compass, but the reality of the ground compared to the blandness of the map had me convinced the map was wrong. I found my self crawling up a too steep slope. When I did make it up to the top I explored a little around the flat area there. Which lead nowhere. I doubled back and taking a hunch I went up a little gully. This was nearly as tough going as the first approach.





By the time I was with in twenty meters of what I hoped was the top I was back sliding so much that I was loosing more ground with each ski then I was gaining. So I took them off and half walked half crawled up the slope and found my self a few meters away from the logging road beautifully compacted with ski-do traffic. It turned up that the ski trail proper was down hill a few hundred meters or less from where I had come through but I did not care. The machines had made a solid surface that was smooth and fast for me to travel over. Had I not found that I would have turned back with in a few more meters.



With the more interesting bits behind me I headed up the road away from the ski trails but on well traveled ground. I headed this way until I started to go down hill again. Not wanting to climb all the way back home being tired already I headed back.

After that adventure a long soak in the hotsprings was much needed. For on the way down I got chilled through was the willed cut into my clothings.

Welcome to the 21st Century, Almost

At the moment I am blogging from a drab computer lab in downtown Nakusp. Its free and the library was closed. But soon I will not have to leave the comfort of home to enjoy high speed connectivity. On monday the truck came by and slung in a line of Coaxial cable which will at long last open up the house to the internet. We are currently waiting on the cable modem and the other details of the final installation. So Welcome Crescent Bay to the 21st century, almost.

The Toy Trifecta

Perhaps it is my being of the male half of this rase but I like my toys. If i am going to spend overly long periods of time away from the creature comforts of home to bring in some cash I must make sure that I reward myself at the end of the day. So to do that I get myself toys. The bulk of the money I have spent on toys has ended up in my out door recreation gear. The first to arrive and the least toyish of the lot was the mountain bike which got me around for a good chunk of my university days. It was several years before I round off the trifecta with gear for different seasons and mediums. Moving from land only to water in two of its three states on this planet. Lacking a hot air balloon I can not fly into the clouds and enjoy water in its other phase. So as of a week ago monday I completed this trifecta with the addition of a new set of crosscountry skis to my toy chest.




The snow is still thin around the house so I have had to go off to Summit lake east of Nakusp to use them. The old railway line where I have often biked proved to be a good trail. The flat railway grade is good considering the bad shape I am in. Hills would kill me. I did my best to off my self yesterday by skiing the length of the lake and back a trip that came close to 9km. It was a good thing that other people had passed over that trail compacting it allowing for me to have a nice fast glide.`

When Signs go wrong

Richard Wiseman believes that strong beliefs and a sense of humour are exclusive. This might explain the failure to see the subtext of the sign out side a christian school in Penticton.



To which I want to say

Ohhh Yess Ohh Yess.

Bagels and Blogging

Back in the Kootenays this week. Blogging Live form Castlegar.

In this weeks news all the firewood has been hauled up to the area around the cabin. So at long last I can relax and enjoy my time off no longer worrying about a sudden snow fall covering up my precious wood. Since I got back from the coast not much has happened. But I do have some photos worth sharing from the last week or two.



I had a excellent cooking experience thanks to the kindness of some friends. I got my hands on a moose roast. Mmmmm. Not having much experience cooking roasts I picked my mothers brain but I think my gut was on the right track from the start. The moose was stabbed repeatedly and garlic pushed into the cavities. The beasty was seared and left to simmer in a slow cooker for much of the day with some thyme, olive oil, a shot of red wine. At the end of the day the meat was tasty and tender, I could have eaten Potatoes with the pan juices all day. Thanks Alfi.

Lunch Time Quicky

Vancouver the second full day here

Today I actually did some business, getting some paper work started with the goal of avoiding burning through my savings. To do this I walked down to my old works home office, at last I got meat the folks there who were either names on a screen or voices on a phone.

Yesterday saw me walking around town with my camera for what felt like 6 hours, my legs are stiff today. But thanks to a new zoom lens for my camera I was able to take some good photos.







And by the way the Crow has whipped cream on its beak from raiding a pudding.

Adventure Blogging

Nerd Reasons for getting a life.

It might happen to some people that they get a life simply so they can blog about it. For me having a life is quite independent of blogging as I was blogging before my life got as interesting as it is now. However an increases quality of life those increase content of post, or it would if the act of living did not take a way from both the time and desire to blog. This week I find my self in Vancouver staying in a big shinny hotel down town. Having spent much of the morning and early afternoon walking around doing very little shopping I found my self with tired legs and slightly sore feet time for a break.

I flew here from trail yesterday, an airport that I truly can enjoy, no fuss just give bags to counter wait a few minutes get on plane. The flight was a little over an hour the weather light clouds. Points of interest on the flight were for me the Dominican Radio Observatory and Mount Baker, the clouds put on a good show as well.

So enjoy part one of the big trip.

And So it begins

Blogging is going to become a rarer even as I am spending more time in Dial-up country. Added to that is the shear amount of work I have found my self doing. For the sake of my mental health I have been keeping busy playing at being a woods man. Learning the fine art of sharpening a chainsaw and then attacking trees with it. I am driven by honest need. when I came home two or so weeks ago I had a small firewood stash one intended for infrequent short visits. Faced with a impending shortage I have kept my self hacking away in the woods most days. I am pleased to report that the wood pile is growing much faster then I am burning it but I have a long ways to go.

All that hard work is proving fun. Time has been found to enjoy the natural and nonnatural beauty of this region.
This post is being posted a week after I had planned to as it did not load the pictures the last time I was in town

All Good Things...

I write this sitting in the great center of civilization that is the Nakusp Library. The free fall that has hits the stock market has had a very strong impact on the company I was working for. I just received a note that the camp will be reduced to 2 people crew this winter and I am going to guess that it is going to be a long recovery.

I am not going to complain. I had a run of nearly two and a half years of solid employment, I was in the back of my mind expecting to be placed on the expendable list at any moment. It was an interesting time. I did not perhaps record it clearly enough in this venue as I had worries about leaking information and respecting the privacy of my coworkers. In this time I have learned to understand Newfie speed mumbling, and met folks form a large slice of Canada.

I have gained enough material resources to have the means to enjoy a healthy amount of time off to catch up on some living.
Not feeling inclined to write a long essay I will leave it at this and post some photos form the time up there.

And The Sun Also Rises

And The Sun Also Rises.

Its that time of year when the sunrises. Now the sun rises here all the time but this time of year lends it self to the right mix of cloud and solar aspect. A weather system was coming up from the south this morning making for a rich sky scape.



Now I have posted images of the morning light shows before but they bare repeating. This morning nearly an hour was killed between 0730 and 0830. In difference to my previous attempts at capturing these images I moved away from trying to capture a perfect copy of reality.



I did not plan it that way but I got annoyed with the automatic modes displaying the colours as either too bright or two pale. In an effort to correct my cameras bias I moved it to full manual. After some fiddling it proved as satisfying to alter reality by controlling apature and f-stop I was able twist the colour and light away from reality to something that starts to get closer to art.



I especially liked cutting down on the light in take for the effect of darkening the colours adding rich tones that I did not see with my eyes.

Northern Lights Squared

Blessed be Mehdi's novelty seeking soul. I was peacefully reading Salt, a world History, more on that in an up coming norther lights entertainment report when I got a diversion. I was informed that the northern lights where out. Now I have seen them a few time out here. Often they are active too late at night or it is deep winter and I can not be talked into going outside. Tonight was neither. And quite honestly it was the best I have ever seen them. A shimmering green ribbon across the sky. I do not have the interest or even the time to commit 1000 words in there place I will provide 5000 words worth of photographs.

These photos were possible because of the high level of control I have with my Canon G9, manual over rides for nearly every thing nearly never used. A tripod and long exposer times let me get enough light on the my chip with out it turning into a bury mess. I experimented with use times as long as 15 seconds, which proved too long as the brightest parts of the Aura became white with light saturation on the chip. Even imperfect experiments are worth it for a show that good. Enjoy.