Super Moon of 2014

 

I had not had time recently to get out and do the thing I enjoy most, which is photography. I thought the Super Moon event would be a good chance to get some unique photos. The moon shots were taken on South Gladwin road just north of the Canada/US border. It is a nice vantage point.

 

 

 

The bad air gave the moon a very yellow/orange hue.

 

I was going to delete this photo but when busylizzy saw it she loved it. Is it worth keeping? She likes the glow in the window.

 

This is Mt. Baker from Gladwin Rd. just south of King Rd. This photo was taken only minutes before the moon broke over the ridge of the mountains just to the north of Mt. Baker. I jumped in the truck at that point and headed further south for the preceding photos.

 

 

Tree Stories

 

In Feb. of 2011 I posted the saga of the butchered trees in my back yard neighbour's grove of Birches. It was a massive and severe pruning that killed the two birches in the photo above. Now, more than 3 years later, I am getting concerned about the possibility of these trees toppling down and doing damage, not so much to my house, but my next door neighbour's house. There are also two small boys playing in the shadow of these 'stumps' daily, and this concerns me greatly. When Birch wood is not split, the tight bark seals in the moisture and instead of the wood curing hard as it dies and dries, it turns pulpy and soft. The weight of the tree will then topple it without notice. These are massive trees and their weight is considerable.

I contacted the engineering and parks dept. of city hall and explained in an email, with the above photo, the situation. They stated that it was a dispute between me and my neighbour, on private property, so they suggested that I talk to him about it, send him a registered letter, and then see if he does something about it. Because I was contacting the city on behalf of my endangered neighbour, it is not my dispute. But, my neighbour is on holidays and only the renters in the basement are home.

The issue was driven home to me on Saturday afternoon when I was in my driveway washing my truck. I heard a loud crashing across the street and looked up in time to see a tree falling into the back yard of the house. Before I could check to see if anyone was hurt, the lady of the house came running over in a panic asking me who she should call at city hall. She is new to the house and our city, and was eyeing the trees on the adjoining property and was going to get an arborist to check things out. But now a big rotten Birch tree had fallen across her fence, destroying her dog run, clipping her patio on which she had been sitting, and smashed into a trampoline and sand box. Fortunately her young son was not in the yard at the time. Had the big rotten trunk struck him, he may well have been killed or maimed.

A few minutes later a city arborist did show up on the scene and investigated. As he was leaving, I accosted him and pointed to the big dead birch across the street behind my house. He was quite taken aback when I told him the trees had been standing dead for more than three years already. Because of their size and their tendency to lean over already, he took photos and was going to pursue the issue.

Now I have to wait for the city or wait for my neighbour to return from holidays. (Aug. 14th) I have done what I can.

A Pleasant Diversion

 

The night time marathon continues as we do the long commute, work until 2 am, and then drag ourselves home to flop into a sleepless stupor.

Our job site is immediately next to a 24 Hr. A&W restaurant. This usually provides some entertainment when we have a chance to look out the windows from our second storey vantage point. It is surprising that there is a steady stream of vehicles using the drive-through in the middle of the night. Of course, we also use it for the occasional cup of coffee or bag of onion rings.

Last night when we got to work, there was no parking in our usual spot between the restaurant and our building. The parking all around that area was full of 50's and 60's automobiles as the restaurant was having a nostalgia cruise in. Even the big furry A&W Root Bear was there. There were car hops serving up frosty mugs of root beer and plenty of rock 'n roll blaring on the outdoor speakers. Had we not been on a tight agenda that night, we would have stayed in the parking lot and joined in the merriment.

By 10 pm the last of the boomer's and their hot rides had dispersed to their homes and their cozy beds. This boomer was just getting ramped up for a hard night's work.

Just feeling a bit sorry for myself today.

AC Addendum

 

After a promise that the air conditioning problem was solved, we were dismayed to find that at 9 pm the system again shut down. It seems that the hallways outside of our work area were cool all night, but inside, it was warming up quickly and the humidity was increasing. I think that what happened is that they tinkered with the wrong zone on the main control panel.

After more complaints, we hope that it will have been rectified for tonight's job.

On the bright side, there is no shortage of fans on the premises. Downside to that is the fans makes us comfortable but the application process is greatly hampered by too much air movement.

So I like things perfect.

G B and U

 

We started something I have not done in many years, and that is a night job. We enter the vacated physiotherapy clinic, after a 45 minute commute, after closing hours and then worked well into the wee hours of the morning.

After a brief walk-thru, we got right to it and by 9 pm were ready for a coffee at the adjoining Tim Horton's. There we assessed what we had done so far, how it would play out for the next 8 days, and then rejoiced in the fact that the working conditions were great, especially the air conditioning on a 30C night.  That was the GOOD.

 

Little did we know, but soon found out, that the whole building air conditioning system was on a timer and it shut off at 9 pm.

With no windows to open, and the humidity increasing together with the heat, it became an endurance test. Not only that, but I had forgotten my work glasses at home and my progressives were murder on my neck as I strained to see things above my shoulder height. That was the BAD.

 

By now my circadian rhythm was obliterated and I got home at 3 am tired but wired. I went to bed after a cool shower and then lay there, waiting, in vain, for sleep. I think I dozed from 5am to 7 am and after that a road crew began working on the sink hole on our street that has been tagged for repair for the last three years. Jack hammers, dump trucks, backhoes, and backup beepers, not to mention the ground shaking, prevented any further sleep. That was the UGLY.

 

It may get uglier when, a few hours from now, we go back to put in another night of work. There was a hope and promise that the air conditioning situation would be rectified. That remains to be seen.  

Hollyhocks

 

We have Hollyhocks growing on the south side of our house where they do very well. The stalks are about 10 ft. tall! Here is a photo I took just before the rain beat them to the ground the other day.

 

These flowers remind me of my mom who loved them and planted them all around our house in Lanigan Sask. We did not have enough water for them and they were stunted, but did add a bit of colour to the drab browns of a hot, dry Saskatchewan summer.

Garden Goods

 

I have been busy working lately and have been quite tired in the evenings so not much motivation to blog these days. I just thought I would say that for those of us who have veggie gardens, this is a great time of year. We have been harvesting carrots, beets, peas, cucumbers, and the zucchinis are coming on strong.

 

This is the second crop for these ever bearing strawberry plants we have.

The money tree we planted is not doing so well. I guess we need to spend a little more on it to get it going.

Water Water

 

On Thursday I renewed my home owner's insurance and the saleslady told me of her recent experience with her city water bill. It seems she got a letter from city engineering stating that she had a leak in her line and her water bill for that month was $11,000.00!  Yes, you read that right. It was a long story and a few years ago my neighbour had the same experience.

 

24 hours later I get a letter in the mail from city engineering saying I had a leak in my water line. I immediately checked all my plumbing and then went to the meter and removed the cover. The meter was not moving at all. I then turned on the hose and watched as the meter crept forward. I turned off the hose, the only water running anywhere near or in my house, and again the meter stopped dead.

I then called city hall and as it was a late Friday afternoon, there was no help there. I then went to city hall and found someone (yes a real person) in the engineering department and we looked at the computer record of my address. Yes, there was heavy use in the evenings, but it has been dry and we have been watering the garden and flowers. The early hours of the morning showed zero consumption.

Deduction: If there is, at times, zero consumption, how can there be a leak. They were puzzled and did not know why I received the letter. The person in charge is supposed to call me, but so far, no call.

 

False alarm? I certainly hope so.

A Travel Book

 

This is a book for someone who wants to travel but needs a little encouragement and a bit of advice. "Off The Map" is a collection of 25 true stories written by mostly very young women who have experienced and enjoy travel. Some of the stories are nothing to write home about, and some are not well written, but there is enough good to glean from the pages that it was worth reading.

 

Some of my favourite chapter titles were "How to survive a night in the Malaysian jungle", "On being a traveller and not a tourist", and "Our mountains, our struggles ... Mt Kilimanjaro" . Many stories are not stories at all but lists of advice and things that people have learned through and from travelling.

It is short book, and a bit disappointing as I was expecting more adventure as opposed to advice on how to get children to be your tour guides.

 

This book was in the top 100 Kindle bookstore free downloads.

 

1 Star

Just Another Day at Work

 

After doing some work in the builders home a few months ago, he asked me if I would like to hang some wall coverings in the show home of his new townhouse development in Langley called "Walnut Ridge".

 

Most wallpaper jobs these days only involve feature walls and bathrooms, powder rooms, master suite bathrooms and the odd entry. This was no exception and we did a feature wall in the master bedroom and the powder room off the kitchen on the main floor.

 

These new non-woven fabric backed wall coverings are wonderful to work with and look great when they are up. They seem to be coming down in price a bit too, but only on select brands.

 

This wall took only about 1/2 hour to do. I paste the wall, like painting, and apply the material to the paste. Works like a charm with no bubbles or lifting seams. The edges are accurately cut and the seams are almost invisible.  

 

All done. We also have photos of the powder room but they did not turn out well and I do not know how to  turn them and 'save' them when they are on their side.  

A nice little job, a quick commute and home to a cool house to beat the heat of the afternoon.

Forever Young

 

In 1891 Oscar Wilde wrote his one and only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". It caused quite a stir at the time, and because it first came out serialized in a magazine, there was ample opportunity for the censor's knife to chop away at it. At the time it was considered indecent, but, believe me, it is extremely tame and leaves almost too much to the imagination.

 

The story is about a young man, strikingly handsome and full of youthful charm and vitality, who has his portrait painted. While sitting for the artist, he got to know a friend of the artist who happened by. After much conversation, the young man was smitten by the idea that youth and beauty were the only thing in life that was important. When he was given the masterpiece, he fervently wished and prayed that he would keep his youthfulness and that the image in the painting would age with time.

 

He discovers, much to his delight, and then later much to his horror, that this is exactly what is happening. He finds true love and then cruelly rejects his bride to be. It is the beginning of the fall. His moral values deteriorate and he begins to lead a hedonistic life, jumping from one sensual experience to the next and as he does this, the face on his painting takes on a sinister and evil look, while he remains young and handsome.

The drop into moral decay becomes swifter and things come to a head. Without giving away the plot, I can say that things end badly, but the reader could see it coming.

 

The book is social commentary more than anything. Moral duplicity and self-indulgence are not exclusive to the late 1800's so we today can learn lessons from this novel. We have the choice between spiralling upward or spiralling downward. It is up to us which path we choose in life. In every action and decision, we should be looking forward to future ramifications or outcomes. The consequences are part and parcel of the decisions we make and the actions we take.

Which journey do we take. There is no neutral ground. We do not want to end up like Dorian Gray, a wreck of a man, so aptly portrayed in this book.

3 1/2 stars

3rd Annual Mill Lake Cruise In

Super Moon

 

I took one of my Grandsons with me to the High Street Mall on Saturday night to photograph the Super Moon that was hyped in the media. There were a few other photographers out with their iPhones and Tablets but none with any serious cameras.

We set up the tripod and fixed the settings on the Nikon and then waited. It was 20 minutes later than the night before but well worth the wait.

 

These next three photos show the slow progression, some zoomed in and others zoomed out.

 

At one point I just stood away from the camera and stood in awe of the moment, drinking in the warm night air and watching the moon visibly rise above the mountain ridge.

 

Next time I will try a different location, a bit closer and a bit further south to get the moon rising over Mt. Baker.

 

One last photo to share and that of the evening light kissing the glaciers of Mt. Baker before the moon made its appearance.  

The Time Machine

 

"The Time Machine" by H.G.Wells  (1898)

 

This is one of the first novels to explore the idea of travelling through time. After a lengthy discussion on the 4th dimension, with several friends, the time traveller proceeds to announce that he has indeed built a machine that will transport him through time. He is met with raised eyebrows but sets out soon enough to prove his theory.

 

 

He pushes the lever to fast forward and lands in the same location as he left, but more than 200,000 years in the future. What then begins is the story of what and who he discovered. The future becomes a platform for some philosophical ideas on mankind, civilisation, as well as talk about political models. What he discovers, and I will not give it away, is that mankind has degenerated.  He observes that there is no war, sickness, disease, want or hunger. There are no weeds, etc. etc. But what has happened to mankind as a result of all this security? I quote

"This has ever been the fate of energy in security. It takes to art and eroticism and then comes languor and decay."

It becomes evident that the struggles that mankind and civilisation encounter are the very things that draw out new ideas and innovations. Struggle, as in the case of the metamorphosing butterfly, gives it strength. This is also true on the individual level. We should not disdain struggle but embrace it, for without it we atrophy and weaken.

The ideas put forth are worth reading, but the story, of course, is pure fiction. It is pessimistic in its outlook for the future of our world, and we are left hanging at the end of the book by the disappearance of the time traveller. (Temporarily or permanently?)

It is a topic that tickles the fancy of all of us, but at least in this life, there will probably not be any time travel for any of us.

                                                 2 1/2 stars of  5
 

 

 

A Most Interesting Life

Revolution in Mind  a book by  Roger Brian Neill

 

The last two books I have read are both autobiographies, that of Roger Neill and of Bill Vanderzalm,  but the two lives and the two books are worlds apart. What they do share is their Christian faith, but even there we see how divergent that can be. I was given this book by a friend of his and because he lives locally I thought it might worth my while to read it. It was!

 

Mr. Neill starts his autobiographical journey with a picturesque description of him, as a young boy, growing up in the Maritimes. His love of nature and outdoor adventure are nurtured early on and remain with him throughout his life. His schooling takes him to university but along the way he has numerous adventures as he finds employment on the ski slopes and on the trains.  

The mind revolution that the title refers to begins in University at the very left leaning Simon Fraser University in Burnaby BC. He paints a picture of revolutionaries and radicals and his temptations to follow that path.

He came from a family of achievers and after doubting he would fit the mould, he does achieve his degrees and establishes himself in a career in social work where his efforts are very successful, working with the mentally ill, something that would help him to achieve a very fulfilling task later in life in, of all places, Jamaica.  

 

His life is a series of adventures, both in outdoor activities, service opportunities, and inner discoveries, always interesting and always prompting the thought in me that I have lead a dull life.

 

Mr. Neill's writing is very articulate, and he particularly excels when he is describing nature, whether camping at Green Drop Lake in the dead of winter or scuba diving in Jamaica. I believe he would be a wonderful adventure writer. His descriptions are poetic and have the ability to draw the reader easily into the situation.

 

His desire to be of service leads him to unlikely places such as Kosovo, Jamaica, and a few stints in the Israeli army. I was hoping for more insight as to how these assignments appealed so greatly to him and what was the motivation to take them on.

 

I was also hoping for a some additional insight as to how his radical ideas were transformed into his desire to follow Jesus.

 

One other minor criticism is the fact that I found the flow of the book a bit jagged, a bit of jumping back and forth with some minor repetition and events happening out of sequence. At the end of the book he reveals that he has been journaling almost all his life. Perhaps he has taken many journal entries and tied them together.

However, this does not distract from the fact that Mr. Neill has led a most interesting life and has written a most interesting book about it. The final chapter entitled "The Hurt Locker" brings together the philosophical elements of his life and I found it to be an integral part of understanding this most interesting man.  

3 1/2 stars out of 5 

 

BC's 28th Premier

 

My good friend Ray Hall gave me an autographed copy of Bill Vanderzalm's autobiography and I could not wait to get at it.

 

Bill starts right at the beginning and chronicles his life as a boy growing up in Holland. It moves rapidly at first and I enjoyed hearing about his exploits in my home town after he and his family moved to BC.

 

It is interesting throughout and for different reasons. How does a young man with just a basic education establish what becomes a thriving business and eventually leads to the world of politics? His good looks, sunny personality, and optimistic attitude were definite assets, but his work ethic, creativity, and honesty were keys to his brilliant future.

 

He leads us through the days of municipal politics and his being wooed (and lied to) by Prime Minister Trudeau to run for the federal Liberals after being such a popular mayor of Surrey. It seems that he was successful at almost everything he put his hand to but he gives ample credit to both his wife Lillian and to God. 

 

The book gets really fascinating when he recounts the Social Credit party's leadership convention in Whistler in 1986. I remember it well as it was the time in my life when I was starting to get really keen on the political scene both federally and provincially. He tells of the handshakes and deals, the jealousy and backbiting, the subversive pranks and manipulations of the power brokers and the media. 

 

Bill, at all times, was honest, above board and was what is known as a populist, an advocate for the rights of the common man. He was not manipulative, wishy-washy, or duplicitous, but was honest and forthright, and you always knew where he stood. He was not afraid to make a stand based on his moral convictions even if it was not popular with the media or his enemies. It was refreshing and he was enormously popular. BC had some of it very best years under his premiership.  

 

But for this very reason, he was made an enemy of the establishment and the media was on the side of the establishment, or at best on the side of left leaning policies, something Bill would not tolerate. The book becomes a diatribe against the media who eventually destroyed him. 

 

As I observed the Victoria actions and reactions, I sometimes thought that Bill had a sour grapes attitude toward the media but after having read his book and the record of how he was hypocritically treated by print media, TV and radio, I must agree with him. The attacks were at first subtle, but became blatant, biased and fabricated as time went on. There was almost a race to the bottom to see which reporter could dig up the worst dirt and lie to spew in order to drag Bill's name through the mud. 

It all reached a climax during the Fantasy Gardens affair when Lillian sold the gardens when it became too stressful for her to see protesters day after day plugging up her parking lot and driving business away. The Vanderzalms were treated horribly and the media were having a heyday. 

It did not stop there but continued until his resignation and even into his later years. There is no shadow of doubt that the media were very biased against him, labelling him with negative epithets at every turn.

Bill's very strength became is downfall. He was too trusting and took advice from people who were out to get him. He thought everyone was honest like he was and he thought that all politicians had the good of their constituents at heart, when it seemed at times that all there was, was a struggle for power and influence. 

If ever I was disillusioned about politics, I am even more so now. That which I always suspected has been confirmed by this revealing book. But unlike Bill, I have a difficult time putting a happy face on in spite of it.  

When one clearly spells out where he stands on every conceivable issue, he will make wonderful friends but will also make bitter enemies. This is the story of Bill Vanderzalm in a nutshell. I suppose it is why one encounters so few principled people in these days, especially politicians. When you try to be all things to all people, for the purpose of pleasing all people at all times, you become like jello and keep sliding off the plate. Soon you do not even know where you stand and everything you say and do is irrelevant because it does not come from firm convictions. 

Late in the book, Bill gets into his own personal convictions and beliefs on a variety of issues. He leaves no stone unturned and there is nothing ambiguous in what he says, but the reader knows exactly where this man stands, whether you agree with him or not.  

I find this an admirable characteristic and one lacking in our leadership today. 

4 1/2 stars