The UnRead

The Northern Lites unread reading list.

Aside from the known mental condition that is my line of work, geology, I suffer from another sickness, bibliophilia, the love of books. They get read, borrowed, bought, rarely stolen, infrequently abused, and often hidden in boxes away from trouble.
A trip to the civilized world by extension leads to visits to books stores where I did not leave empty handed. Some were sought out, others sought me out. Book hunting is not a sane process. So here are the books I have most picked up last time out as I see them on the self opposite me. Un Lun Don by China Mieville, I, Robot, The Illustrated screen play by Harlan Ellison, and Rainbows End by Verner Vinge.

Of these only Un Lun Dun was a book I planed to buy, it and Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen, were part of my unofficial BLGDBLOG reading list. That is books or authors that have come across strongly in BLDGBLOG and that I happened to remember. Verner Vinge was because it was out in paperback.
Ellison's book was a must have as I did not even know it was in print. I knew of the film that was never made I just never asked what else was done with it. If any one reading this says that they made a movie of I, Robot, I will personally track them down and beat them senseless with one of Will Smith's ears. Thats it for the recent unreads.

Older unreads or unfinished include, Dead Air, Iain Banks, I have been not reading it since Christ mass, and with it is The Salmon of Doubt, by D.N.A., which I have been planing to reread. Books that I don't have with me but have left unfinished include The Origin of Species, Living Next Door to the God of Love, a book I could not make my self finish, and of coarse the greatest unfinished read in my history is the Bible.

What I have gotten out of the Bible to date has been a soap opera revolving around a petty gangster and his thugs with really bad writing.

Landing News

Landing News





Northern Lites has returned to its natural habitat, Discovery, the one time mine and its now burned down town site. I am behind with Northern Lites in Exile III, it is though post to fit together. So a short up date on being back in the north will fill in for it.

I miss the South. In the Okanagan 30 degree weather was enjoyed in the presences of mountains with real trees and nights with darkness. In the Kootenays I spent time living the slow life and afternoon naps. I did not full adjust to the heat or the short days. Failure to adapt to those features of climate and latitude is a sign latitude shock.




Jet lag is not an issue with where I fly to and from as there is only an hour difference between Yellow Knife and Kelowna, but there is latitude shock. Jet upsets the body by creating a large difference between the time your body things it is and what it is where you have ended up at the end of your trip. Jet lag has a strong association with travel from West to East or East to West flights.

Latitude shock is well more of a mental hick up, or feels that way to me at least. In traveling between 51N and 63N, I bearly move out of my native time zone but the dynamic geometry between the tilted Earth and the sun conspire to have its own effects. It comes down to the expectation of day length. The north swings between extremes and we are currently at the bright phase with the sun shining well past bed time and even thought I am too far south for true 24 hour day light it might as well be so for me as I do not see it rise or set. The south on the other hand, even though 51N still has strong variations during the year lacks the never ending brightness. As a result as I spend time off I am surprised to see the sun set and almost fail to plan for the idea of darkness.



Ironically my first latitude shock came from a visit to Hawaii. Though I understood that the tropics have nearly perfect 12 hour day night cycles all year long the application was still a shock. Hawaii has a beautiful tropical climate and to my Canadian mind warm temperatures come with long days. It really came home on our marathon hike in to the crater, we that is 9 of the 12 of us on that trip had added a new leg to the hike down into the crater. This was not planed for and brought the out bound leg of the hike to close to three hours. It was 2:30 by the time we were at the fumerals and looking through binoculars at the sky light on Pu o' o'. Leaving us with 3 hours to hike back with no twilight to stretch the evening, for not only does the tropical sun set quickly and early it darkens just as fast.

Back up north I had a fine and pleasant first full day back. I have returned to logging on the porch which today happened to be cold and windy with the days temp being close to 10 in the sun, it was a fine misery.

Back In The Day

A blast form the past care of an old friend.




Yes Its Me.

Northern Lites Small stuff


The items that inspired this post were, firstly this evenings choice of music, the compete Bach Cello Suites and a lost photo of some moss and lichens taken last summer when found my self stuck between a cliff and a small puddle of a lake. I have a weak spot for Cellos in general and for some reason I have come to associate that peace of music with writing.





Yet again I go back in time rather then report on recent events. In the hope that some one will read this here is a recap of the last month.

Get up, eat, look at rock, make some notes, eat, look at more rock or, go out and bring in more rock to look at, eat again,repeat as needed. Should I be found to not be doing any of these things I am either sleeping or killing time at a computer or near the the TV, thought he TV has lost some appeal with the hockey play offs in full swing.


Not having anything to do with the north I took a picture of a spider last summer and well the theme here is small stuff I had to add her.

The Sanest Place on Earth.

Ravens

Going back to late February early March to the core hauling project up at Nicolas Lake. When that project started the days were short and we were starting the day and ending it with the sun being down. The temperatures were at least -25 not counting the wind. Adding to the fun was the lack of shelter or fire on the first few days. Over the coarse of that enterprise conditions improved as we built a wind brake out of an old core rack and added fire to our set inventions. Our working conditions improved and our presences was quickly noted by the locals.




The locals are black, evil looking critters with attitudes as big as their wing spans.
Sitting in the twisted sticks that pass for trees in these parts, the would watch looking at you asking for food, while you can see in their black eyes that they would just as much wish for you to drop dead for a feast of fresh eye balls and end trails but they are note a awful fowl. Intelligent and curious but perhaps more the craftyness of a petty criminal rather then the charm and wit of an evil genius.



Their never ending quest for food lead to numerous attempts to break into the rubbermaid bin I was storing various bits of kit in. The first time this happened I had left it on a table and when I came back it had some claw and beak makes and when that failed to open in they had left their opinion in guano twice.




We took to feeding the out of borden just to see how close they would come to to use for food, the answer is very. The best was when sitting in the truck I through some peace of cookie out the window and birds would swoop down right in front of the truck to grab the goodies. Matt (a newfie) had gotten the idea in his head to try to chase the birds away, he would hide behind the truck door and once the birds were down he would run out and try to shoe them away. I swear that the birds just treated him like one of their own, all be it not a friendly one. That same day I saw one of the bastards having a dust bath in snow.




Ravens figured they owned everything there, sitting on the trucks looking for a way in. In one case a bird nearly worked its way into our landcrurser, the window was open and the bird progressed form standing on the roof looking down to to standing on the side view mirror to ultimately standing on the edge of the glass leaning in. Had there been any food in there we would have had a shitty situation as the bird would have been trapped and would leave behind several strong opinions. Not to mention the the fun of letting out a big bird with a bigger attitude and a beak to match.






Next post will feature some of the people of the north

Ice III The Life and Death of Rupert

The Life and Death of Rupert

Rupert the pet glacier, was born of geology but will die from global warming. I have posted before on the subject of both ice and the artificial glacier that had formed out side my work space. To recap the rock saws use a lot of water, the rough estimate is some where between 1600 letre to 2000 letre a day. The water just pass through the saw and onto the ground out side, and in winter it would flow and freeze.



Ice part I showed Rupert at the peak of its health, growing fast and as hard as some rocks. Ice part two was the start of its decline, thinning and with streamlets decorating its surface. Now a week or two later, Rupert is in its death throws, no longer a smooth unbroken surface with the ground hidden form sight.






Rupert is now patches separated by the mud that was once part of the ice by way of the cuttings from the rock saws. Miniature hydraulogies play themselves out producing deltas and canyons that with out a scale could be as big as your hand or a hole cost line. An experimental landscape escaped from the farthest reaches of BLDGBLOG.




Only in its decline however is Rupert's true depth shown. Some time at the beginning of March or the end of February our drilling contractor brought in a few truck loads to stock for the year. A few of the pallets were placed at near the toe of Rupert. It did not take long for the goods on the pallets to get frozen into place by the expanding glacier. Now thanks to the shade from the pallets there are a few small mesas, which show just how thick the ice was.