Journeys in Outer Space: Uncle Traveling Matt

Week 4: Goal achieved, almost back in the black

2012-01-28T15:00:00.004-06:00

This week the cold and dark was really starting to get to me on my runs. I wasn't feeling very motivated, but nonetheless made sure I got out for at least 8 km each time.

Breakdown by day:
Sunday - another blizzard, which kept me indoors.
Monday - 8.32 km at 5:09 min/km pace.
Tuesday - 8.03 km at 5:06 min/km pace.
Wednesday - stayed in to help out with Alexa as Christine wasn't feeling well.
Thursday - 8.09 km at 5:12 min/km pace. This was a nasty night, -47 with wind, that kept me close to home. The wind was so bad I ended up doing ~1.5 km laps in my immediate neighbourhood. I also had problems with one of the traction devices I wear on my shoes, the one on my left foot slipped off four times - I ended up swapping which shoe they were on, which seems to be helping, but I really didn't like having to stop repeatedly to pick it up, and put it back on.
Friday - 8.64 km at 5:08 min/km pace.
Saturday - 9.00 km at 4:52 min/km pace. I really enjoyed my run today, because it was in daylight! This is only the third time in 2012 I haven't been running in the dark. It's also my quickest run yet this year. It's not exactly a screaming pace, but it's not bad either for -31 C and being bundled up in three layers pretty well head to toe.

Total kilometres for the week is 42.08 km, which leaves me only 0.54 km in the red. Overall I've run 153.46 km since January 1. I'm hoping the forecast for the next two days is accurate, since it's predicting temperatures warmer than -20 C. That will be a real treat, especially since it's supposed to get colder again after that.

If I can find time, I'm hoping to do six runs this coming week, and perhaps the week after as well. I'm off to Cambridge Bay for the Kitikmeot Trade Show the week of Feb. 13 to 17, during which time I may not have many chances to run, so I'll need to start banking up a few extra kilometres.

Alexa continues to grow, 10 lbs. 15 oz. as of last Wednesday, and is learning quickly. She has started mimicking Mom and Dad - if you stick your tongue out at her, she does it right back, and if one of us lies on the floor next to her and raises our arms or legs, she does her best to do the same. It's pretty cute. Earlier today she managed to roll from her back to her side, which is also good progress.

Week 3: Goal achieved, but still in the red

2012-01-22T15:16:00.002-06:00

This week I achieved my objective, but wasn't able to put much of a dent into my deficit from last week. I only managed to get four runs in, since there was a bit of a blizzard on Sunday and I was fighting off a cold on Wednesday and Thursday. However, the runs this week were all longer than the ones I had done previously. Here's the break-down by day:

Monday I did 9.17 km in 47:16
Tuesday I did 9.74 km in 49:27
Friday I did 10.01 km in 52:27
Saturday I did 9.71 km in 50:48

My total this week was 38.63 km, and the running total is 111.38 km. I still have a little bit over 4 km to make up, but if I can get in five runs this coming week I should be able to address that. I've decided to hold off from much in the way of interval training until we get some warmer weather. So far this month we've generally had base temperatures approaching or colder than -30 C, and wind chills colder than -40 C, which isn't very conducive to speed-work.

As for other events in my life this week: my mother arrived on Tuesday, and has been really enjoying some bonding time with her granddaughter. Alexa was baptized today, with many friends, and what family was available, in attendance. I took a bit of time off work for my mother's visit, and won't be going back until she heads home around lunch-time on Tuesday.

Week 2: Came up a little short

2012-01-15T13:30:00.002-06:00

Well, this was an interesting week.

Last Sunday night I went out for a nice run, but just as I was coming home ran into a pack of four loose dogs. Two of these dogs I'd encountered twice before since early December, and generally they act aggressively. Now there were two more added to the mix. What I view as the lead dog, a huskie, was growling, and staying right in front of me, while the other dogs tried to circle around from behind. I slowed down to a walk, not wanting to trigger a chase response, and just kept trying to face them, and not expose my back to any of them for very long. I only had maybe a hundred metres to get home, but it seemed to take a long time. I got up the stairs, and managed to get our gate closed (we've had a bungie cord holding it open since the frame of the porch is warped enough it won't close in this cold) when a vehicle pulled up to make sure I was okay, and that got the dogs moving away. I got inside, and phoned animal control, but I assume they didn't get there in time to intercept the dogs.

I didn't get bit, but that encounter certainly got the heart pumping!

Monday night I took off because I was feeling really tired, and Tuesday night because of an extreme wind chill warning (-52 with wind). Wednesday and Thursday nights were both fairly cold (-38 and -45 with wind, if I recall correctly), but I got in good runs both nights. There was a big water main break on Thursday night/early Friday morning that basically shut down the city on Friday. Twenty million litres of water escaped a broken pipe in twenty minutes, effectively draining the water storage at the treatment plant. We were without water most of that day, and I opted not to run because I wasn't confident there would be water to bathe with when I got home. Service was pretty much restored on Saturday, although there is still a boil water advisory in place and we're being warned to use water sparingly, but I got in a run last night and had a quick shower afterwards.

Totals for the week: Four runs; 33.87 km; average pace 5:12 min/km. A bit slower than last week, on average, but it is was also colder, and I have been taking fewer breaks during the runs. Last night was the first run I haven't stopped at all. Running total (pun fully intended) is 72.75 km, giving me a deficit of 4.25 km. Given that there is a blizzard warning in effect here right now, it doesn't look good for getting out today, either.

I got some sad news this week, my uncle Jim passed away on Tuesday. He collapsed while out clearing snow, and didn't make it. The medical examiner said he had advanced heart disease, but apparently wasn't showing symptoms. I feel really bad for my aunt Eileen, as this is her second partner to pass. I'm sorry Christine, Alexa and I won't be able to make the funeral, but the internment is being postponed until the summer, so we may be able to make that.

A somewhat happier subject is that my Mom is coming up for a visit this week. She arrives Tuesday, and will depart the following Tuesday. She's very excited to see her granddaughter, and we're looking forward to having her.

Week 1: Goal achieved, 38.9 km done

2012-01-07T09:54:00.003-06:00

At the end of the first week of January, here's where I stand on my resolution:
I ran five times this week, skipping Tuesday and Friday. Total distance ran is 38.88 km (I need to do 38.5 km per week to meet my goal); average pace was 5:09/km. I did over 8 km on four of my runs, but did only about 6.5 km on Monday, due in part to the temperature (-45° C with the wind chill). I feel pretty good about it. Mostly I have been going out around 8 p.m., after Christine and Alexa have gone to bed, and it leaves me feeling energized. After I get home generally I get in some chores.

I'll update again next Saturday.

New Year, New Goals

2012-01-01T15:12:00.002-06:00

Hello all, and happy New Year!

I was a delinquent blogger in 2011, and that is unlikely to change much in the new year. With a one month old daughter (welcome Alexa!), and other interests and responsibilities, regular blog entries about my life are not a big priority.

However, I do intend to use this space to track progress of a goal - I intend to run 2,012 km in 2012. I consider this an achievable, if not particularly ambitious, goal. After completing the Saskatchewan Marathon and winning a local 10 km road race in 2010, my running in 2011 was infrequent. So, I'd like to get back into it.

Thanks to the Garmin Forerunner GPS watch I got for my birthday, I can (reasonably) accurately track how much I've run. Today I did just over 8 km, averaging just under five minutes per kilometre. I'll spend a couple of weeks doing runs of 6 to 10 km per day, five times per week, while I get back into shape, and then start introducing interval training, hill training and longer runs into my routine. I fully expect there to be times (notably when I'm in the field) when I will not be able to run, but I'll try to post up my weekly totals here to keep me motivated.

Better than late than never

2010-11-10T18:51:00.034-06:00

It has been brought to my attention that my promises of posting about my travels in Nunavut never quite materialized...so here goes. Pardon the "stream of consciousness" nature of this post; a lot has happened since we arrived in June, so I'll be writing things and adding pictures as they occur to me.

5 months now into my job, I have made four trips from Iqaluit to other parts of the territory. Those trips include:
-Kivalliq region (central Nunavut) and portions of the Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island and the High Arctic)
-Kitikmeot region (western Nunavut)
-Arctic Bay and the former operating Nanisivik Mine
-Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord

During these trips I have visited or stopped at 12 of the 25 communities in Nunavut, including a recent visit to the northernmost civilian settlement in Canada, Grise Fiord (and third-most northern settlement, after Eureka and Alert).

Some interesting experiences during this trip include traveling by helicopter, staying at a DEW (Defense Early Warning) Line camp, and seeing a variety of arctic wildlife, including:

Muskox

Caribou

Wolves

Grizzly bears

Polar bears

DEW Line Camp

Grise Fiord was neat. It is located on Ellesmere Island, slightly higher than 76 degrees latitude (for reference, Iqaluit is at about 63 degrees, and our former home of Saskatoon is at 52 degrees), and the trip was made in late October. As such, the sun hung just above the horizon during the brief daylight, and the moon was always visible. The settlement sits right on the coast, with mountainous terrain behind it.

An interesting encounter we had in Iqaluit was with a women named Kristen Keller, who is traveling across Canada teaching kids how to make "robots" out of recycled material, a small rotary motor and markers for legs, as a bridge between the art and science world. We got together with Kristen a few times while she was in Iqaluit, and attended a robot race she held. We even made our own robot (which didn't work very well), but it was fun spending time with her and hearing about her project. Here is a link to the project's website, and I've attached a picture below of some of the robots. Kristen is looking for donation's to support their efforts - take a look at the website to see if it is something you would like to support!

I'm pleased to report that our kitties are doing well. We received a donation of a tall scratching post from some of the friends we have made here, which the kitties have been enjoying immensely.

The observant among you will spy in the background the picture of Gir that Noel gave us before we left for Iqaluit.

The Anglican cathedral here, which was burned down in 2005, is in the process of being rebuilt. It will be in the shape of an igloo. I've attached a shot at the beginning of construction, and the current state.

At this point enough money has been raised to construct the shell of the cathedral, but another $3.5-4 million still needs to be raised to finish the interior and make it fully usable. Christine and I live rather close to the cathedral; I just took the above shot leaning out of one of our upstairs windows!

I had a faithful traveling companion during my trips around Nunavut, pictured here:

This is my "Gnome Away From Home", which Christine bought me some time ago. I decided that he should come traveling with me, starting on my second trip away from home. He has been to some interesting places.

You may wonder what's the deal with this last picture of the gnome. He is standing on a caribou skeleton, one that has been died faintly blue by sitting in copper-enriched waters, hence the name of the showing we were visiting: "Blue Caribou" Original, isn't it?

What else is there to tell?

Christine started a job as a communications specialist in September, which will run until the end of the year.
I was recently informed that I was the successful candidate in a job competition for a District Geologist position, and started that new role this past Monday. This new position will mean an increase in responsibility (and pay). I am responsible for the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, as well as the High Arctic (not that there is very much mineral exploration going on there).
I leave for Yellowknife tomorrow for a week, which I am looking forward to. While there I will be presenting a talk on Nunavut mineral exploration at the NWT Geoscience Forum, and also attending a short course. A trip to Yellowknife also affords other opportunities, such as stocking up on various goods that can be bought at more reasonable prices there. Having access to a highway must be nice.
Finally, Christine and I are at long last planning our honeymoon. As I will already be in Vancouver next January for a conference, we are going to leave immediately after that for about a week and a half on the north island of New Zealand! Some of the exciting activities we have planned include visiting volcanically active Rotorua, blackwater rafting (underground rafting) in the glowworm caves of Waitomo and Cornevil in Auckland, where actors wielding chainsaws (and other implements of destruction) chase you through a corn maze. It should be fun! For those in Vancouver and area, my conference is from Jan. 24-27, and I expect to be there no later than the 23rd, possibly sooner, so if it can be arranged I would love to meet up. We fly to New Zealand on the 28th, and Christine will be coming a few days before that.

To sum up: the move to Iqaluit has been a good one for us. Although we miss our friends and family in Saskatchewan (and elsewhere), we both feel that we are contributing here, and experiencing many wonderful new things. As always, we extend an invitation to any of our friends and family who are interested in traveling up here - it is expensive, no doubt about it, but it is also beautiful.

I will leave off with some sunset pictures of our city:

Iqaluit Part Two - The First Two Weeks

2010-07-05T16:48:00.004-06:00

Continuing where I left off...

The day after we arrived (a Thursday), we were invited to a BBQ thrown by my department as part of environment week. So, we wandered over to my office just before lunch time, and then walked over to the BBQ with some of my co-workers. Free food is always good (especially up here!), and we got to meet some people, including one of our neighbours who lives in the same building as us. We also did some wandering around to see our new home, picked up a few groceries, and managed not to faint at the prices (we're kind of used to them now).

On Friday, we went to the movie theater to see the new Shrek movie, and then we had a fairly relaxed weekend. Saturday morning Karen invited us over to her place to sit on her deck, so we met her cat, relaxed, visited and enjoyed fresh baked muffins! I've got a good boss!

Sunday morning we went to the Anglican church here for the first time. The Anglican Cathedral here burnt down a couple of years ago (arson), and is still in the process of being re-built, so the congregation has been meeting in the parish hall. They also are without a permanent priest at the moment, but they do have an interim priest, Brian, who has lived in Iqaluit before. He's probably around 75, give or take, but really good at what he does. He always makes sure to do something special with the children, and we've found him to be very welcoming. There is both an English and an Inuktitut service here, and the English one is by far the smaller.

After church on Sunday, we were invited out to brunch with some of the other people that attend, so that was nice, and another good opportunity to meet people. Christine was also invited to a women's study which happens every Wednesday night. She's continued to go to that ever since.

Monday is when I started work, at long last. I spent the first week mostly in training. Tuesday through Thursday I was in a wilderness first aid course, along with the other staff geologist, Steve, and then Friday was a mandatory Anti-Harassment course, which I took with my manager, Karen, among others. Fun! The first aid course was good, there were a few things covered that I hadn't learned before, so that was helpful, and the instructor was pretty cool. His name is Dominic, and he's part of a French society that translates roughly to 'the Gnome Liberation Army'. He says he has liberated a few gnomes himself. It sounds like my kind of organization!

The next weekend, we went to our first yard sale in Iqaluit. We have been to a number of them since, and we have quickly learned that it's a good way of keeping down the cost of living up here. Since people are moving away so often, there are lots of such sales, and you can find many things cheap, including food that they've had sea-lifted up here. We continued this over the next couple of weekends, and ended up with a big tub of Lego ($10), a fan for our room, a corded phone to replace the one that stopped dialing out, several bags of rice, a power bar, several boxes of cereal, among other treasures.

The next week at work, I continued doing various mandatory training (mostly online courses) and reading up on the exploration work being done in the territory. At this point I was getting kind of antsy, as I wanted to be doing some actual work, but that would come soon enough. On Friday morning there was a community clean-up which we were encouraged to participate in, so I got out there with my rubber boots and filled 6.5 bags of garbage from a stream that runs not far from our home. There was a good turn out for the clean-up, and it was obvious the difference it made.

Friday afternoon there was a BBQ and awards ceremony for INAC. Again, free food is always appreciated, and it was interesting to learn how many people had been here for two years (quite a few) and five years (a bare handful), and also how many new people had arrived since they had the last one of these in November 2009. We also met the next-most-recent hire, Stephen.

The next day we walked up the hill to the neighbourhood known as Tundra Ridge, where there were a number of moving sales and yard sales happening on the same street. It was there that we got the Lego, as well as a 10 lb. bag of Basmati rice (mmm!), and we also ran into Stephen again. We ended up helping him carry some of his purchases home, and he invited us in for a visit. We made a friend! I think he especially appreciated having someone to talk to, as his wife and children haven't moved up here yet.

Well, that's enough for this post, although I will also add that yesterday there was a running race held as a fund-raiser for a local volunteer-run gym. I found out about it a few weeks ago, and managed to raise some money for it at work. I ran in the 10 km portion of it (there was also a 5 km fun run), and won! That's my first time winning a race, so that made me pretty happy. I had some good support, too, as Christine came out to watch, as did Karen and her husband, and they were kind enough to give us a ride home afterward. That saved us a 30 minute walk, and considering I had already run about 17 km that day, I was appreciative of the chance to rest my legs.

Journeying to Iqaluit - An Adventure of Airplanes and Cats

2010-06-26T14:12:00.002-06:00

Good day silly creatures! So, Christine and I have made it to Iqaluit, and have been busy adjusting to our new home, but I will get to the details of that shortly.

The moving company we hired came to pick up our household goods on May 27th (a Thursday). That was the point at which we could breathe a sigh of relief, as that meant all we had left to do was clean the house, and move our little family to Iqaluit. Cleaning and some visiting took up the next couple of days, and then on Sunday May 30 I ran in the Saskatchewan Marathon.

I decided that since I had failed to finish a marathon by the time I was 20 (due to injury), I would strive to finish one before I turned 30. I was shooting for a time of 3 hours 10 minutes, but really just wanted to finish. The marathon went fairly well, I went out too quickly for the first several kilometres, and was on pace for my goal time through the first 14 km, but then began tightening up in the cool weather. I ended up finishing in 3 hours, 30 minutes and 14 seconds, in something like 38th or 39th place out of roughly 200 participants. It was satisfying to finish, although I'm not sure I'm likely to do another full marathon. I had an excellent support team and cheering section, consisting of Christine, my mother, my sister Jen, and our good friends Joel and Sherie.

The next day is when the fun (using the term loosely) began. We had decided to fly out of Regina rather than Saskatoon for two reasons:

We were going to be leaving Christine's car at my parents' so we would have something to use on our visits back to Saskatchewan.
We could get a direct flight to Ottawa from there. This compares with having to fly to either Calgary or Toronto, sit there for three hours, and then fly to Ottawa. When traveling with cats especially, this becomes an important difference.

So, Monday morning we loaded the cats into their new soft-sided carriers for flying carry-on, and drove down to Regina. This did not make Mirri happy, as she proceeded to chew a small hole in the screen on one side of her carrier. Once we reached Regina, we spent a frantic couple of hours driving around to pet stores to see if they had any recommendations for repair, before finally picking up some aluminum screen and 25 lb. test braided fishing line from Canadian Tire, and using those materials to reinforce the existing mesh sections in her carrier.

While in Regina, we got to visit with my family and a little bit with friends before going to bed early in preparation for our early morning (4:00 am wake up time) the next day.

On Tuesday, June 1, we got, got the cats into their carriers, and then my parents drove us the short distance from their house to the airport. After checking in, the first hurdle of the day was getting through security. Since the cats were flying as carry-on baggage, their carrier needed to go through the security screening. When we were told that we would have to take the cats our of their carriers and the walk through the security door-frame with them, a vision flashed through my head of Mirri running full tilt around the airport. Christine is not a morning person at the best of times, and was already stressed about the move, so she asked whether I could take both cats through, one at a time, and the security personnel were nice enough to allow this, so I took Mirri out of her carrier and with a tight grip on her brought her through. I then went around, got Alice, and brought her through. On this second time, I was tagged for random screening, so they patted me down, but fortunately allowed me to put Alice back in her carrier first. Although earlier in the day it was somewhat of a struggle to put the cats in their carriers, they sure went in quick enough after carrying them through security - it turns out that the world is a big, scary place, and the carriers seem a whole lot safer than the unknown.

The next fun part was the flight. When booking the flights, I made sure I selected our seats so that Christine and I would be together, and that we wouldn't be in an exit row or anything like that so we could have the cats under the seats in front of us. We got on the plane all right and got the cats settled as best we could (Yay advance boarding!), and then tried to relax. The cats weren't happy, but once we got in the air, we got them settled down a bit and they had fallen asleep when we were informed by one of the stewardesses that we would have to move. Apparently the woman two rows in front of us had raised a stink about having pets on the airplane, and gave the airline personnel a hard time about it. So, we gathered our belongings and the cats, and moved further back in the aircraft. Our new seats were directly behind another woman with pet allergies, although this one was very calm about it, and simply asked whether she could move up a few rows so as not to chance an allergic reaction.

After these incidents, we got through the flight all right (I got to watch Alice in Wonderland), and ended up sharing an airport shuttle to our hotel with another couple from our flight, who were very nice and understanding about the cats.

We stayed at the Les Suites Hotel in downtown Ottawa, and it was very nice. The suite was big, with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchenette and a dining room. It was a on a very high floor (the 20th, if I recall correctly), and Alice settled in on a window sill and was perfectly content to sit there watching the city. I think she had decided this was her new home, so we knew it would be hard getting her back in her carrier the next day.

Christine has family in Ottawa, who were kind enough to invite us over for supper. We had a nice meal, and played some games in the evening before we were driven back to the hotel. As it was going to be another early day, we went to bed early, but not before I did some more repairs to Mirri's carrier.

The next day, after loading the kitties back into their carriers, we caught the shuttle back to the airport, went through security again (this time without incident), and boarded the First Air flight to Iqaluit. The First Air crew were very friendly, and really seemed to like our cats, so that was good. It is about a three hour flight from Ottawa to Iqaluit, and it is pretty luxurious; there is a complimentary meal on every flight, they come around passing out heated towels to wipe your face with, and the crew is very friendly. Best of all, there were no complaints from other passengers about the cats.

Our flight arrived shortly after noon, and we were met at the airport by my manager, Karen. In addition, a number of other people from my department brought a second vehicle to the airport in case we had a large amount of luggage. Since we had to wait until lunch time was over to be let into our new place, Karen brought us back to the office, and we had a nice little visit while we waited. Just after one, we were driven the short distance to our new residence, in what is creatively named 'Green Row', as it is a series of row houses with green siding. Teri, the excellent housing and relocation coordinator we dealt with, did the walk-through of the place, and gave us some paperwork to fill out, before we were left to our own devices to settle in. Karen just lives one building down from us, and she generously lent us some essentials until our own belongings arrived, and also gave us a pizza for our first supper in our new place.

Alice settled into the new place right away, as there were many window sills to perch on. Mirri was a bit out-of-sorts for a few days, but she's quite happy now. As for Christine and I, we have both settled in quite nicely.

That's all for now. I have more to write about, but I figure I should get this posted before starting on the next section.

If anyone is in need of our new address and phone number, just post a comment to that effect, or send me an e-mail.

Regards,

Uncle Traveling Matt

Heading up to the north country

2010-04-09T08:27:00.005-06:00

Well, at long last I received my official job offer from INAC on Tuesday. It has since been signed, accepted and sent back, so this is really happening. My start date is June 7, so Christine and I will be heading up a few days before that. This also means that I will be able to run in the Saskatchewan Marathon on May 30th before we go. Unlike my previous attempt, I hope to finish this one. I didn't end up finishing a marathon before I turned 20, but I'll do my best to finish one before I turn 30!

Right now we are scrambling to get everything in place we will need up north. We will be trading my car in on a SUV or truck, something with 4WD and clearance, to better deal with pot-holed streets and heavy snow. We also plan on purchasing a deep freeze to bring up, and various other items that will make life more pleasant up there. Finally, we have tentative arrangements for both a property manager to look after our house and a potential renter, which gives some peace of mind.

It is both an exciting and somewhat sad time. I will be glad to be working again, in a job with more stability and less time away from home, but Saskatoon has become my home over the last six and a half years. Christine has handed in her resignation at her job, effective the end of May, which she is saddened to leave, and some of the congregation are taking her departure pretty hard. Our departure also means I likely won't be able to attend my friend Lee's wedding, nor be able to stand up for him as a groomsman, but I'm glad that Lee understands that it would be difficult to make it back so soon after we get there.

Given that we have almost two months to prepare, I hope to travel to Manitoba to visit family, and will also make one more visit to see friends and family in Regina. There are two going-away parties being planned that I know of, one being thrown by Christine's friend Sara and the other being held at the church she works at, so it's nice to know that we will be missed.

This Sunday I will be flying to Ottawa, spending the night there, and then continuing on to Iqaluit on Monday. I am being flown up for a geological conference there, which will give me the opportunity to meet the people I'll be working with, and get exposure to what's going on up there. I'm excited to see our new home for the next two+ years, and I have instructions to conduct research on food prices and other things that it will be good to know before we head north.

We are living in exciting times. May you do the same.

Easter Fools!

2010-04-05T11:07:00.003-06:00

This past weekend, Christine and I were in Regina visiting with my family. Christine came up with the idea of hiding Easter eggs to surprise my parents and sister. Once everyone had gone to bed we laid down trails of little chocolate eggs leading from the front door, through the living room and kitchen, up and down the stairs and up to bedroom doors, as well as individual eggs hidden in various spots.

In the morning, we heard my mom giggle as she went down to the kitchen and saw eggs everywhere and apparently my dad said "holy crap!" when he saw how many eggs there were. The best part is that I was able to convince them that Christine and I knew nothing about it, and that it must have been Jen that had done that. This lasted until my mom went to wake Jen up, and got a rather confused response from her, but it was a pretty good prank. We had fun.

The video below shows the trail of Easter eggs through the house.

Edit: Unfortunately, the video as shown here is quite a bit darker than what showed up on the camera, so you can't see much in the latter part of the video. If anyone has suggestions on how to rectify that, please let me know.

Funny Cat Moments: Mirri

2010-03-02T08:37:00.004-06:00

Mirri is a bit of an odd cat, as compared to Alice. Mirri always wants attention; Alice wants attention strictly on her own terms. Mirri will follow Christine or I (or visitors) from room to room; Alice pretty much does her own thing. In some ways, Mirri really behaves more like a dog than a cat.

One of Mirri's quirks (not exactly dog-like) is a preference for jumping up on people's shoulders and riding around up there.

To better understand this next bit, I will try to re-create the layout of our bathroom.

The image above is not to scale, but I'm sure you get the idea. Anyway, Mirri has a habit of jumping up on the shoulders of anyone standing at the sink. She perches on the edge of the tub, and then takes a flying leap, ending up on the back or shoulders of the individual in question. Not the most endearing of habits, especially if you don't happen to be wearing a shirt when this happens.

This morning I saw Mirri sitting on the edge of the tub, wiggling her rump as she prepared to jump on my shoulders...while I was in the shower. We have a free-standing shower with clear plastic doors, so you can see that wouldn't be the best idea. She didn't quite build up the courage (or some common sense took over), and she settled back down, so I thought that was done with. Then all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw the spread-eagled form of the cat hit the doors about 4/5ths of the way to the top, and drop to the floor. The silly thing had tried to jump through the doors onto my shoulders!

Fortunately, she was all right (brain damage requires one to possess a brain), and hopefully she has learned her lesson!

In other news: my employment situation (or lack thereof) remains unchanged. I have received the conditional offer from INAC, I submitted my security clearance, Christine and I have submitted our health clearance forms, and now we wait for those to be processed before receiving the official job offer. Hurry up and wait.

Going North?

2010-01-22T11:13:00.004-06:00

For those who don't know, I was laid off from my job in December. A couple of days ago, I received a job offer, for a position in Iqaluit; I'm still waiting to hear back what the exact terms of the offer is, they had to keep the call brief because of a blizzard which forced them to shut their office down for the day.

I am feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation about this. If I accept the position, we will have to move to Baffin Island, to an isolated community with no road access to the rest of Canada. Christine will have to leave a job she loves, and we will have to either rent out or sell the house we bought less than a year ago.

However, there is a certain appeal to the idea. Few people get to see that far north, and experience the unique beauty of Nunavut. Accepting this position would also get me into the federal government system, which gives the potential of transferring to a job elsewhere in a couple of years time.

Waiting to see the offer and determine whether we could make a go of this is hard, as well as wondering whether I could get a job that would allow us to stay in Saskatoon, but unless some other employer calls in the next few days, I will have to give my decision on this one.

Christine has been trying to find people who would be willing to come visit us in Iqaluit. It is not cheap flying up there, but if we do go, we're hoping a few people are willing to make the trip.

May you live in interesting times.

If you're planning on time traveling, get one!

2009-11-26T14:11:00.005-06:00

This is a handy cheat sheet for many modern inventions if you happen to travel back in time, although I suppose it would be useful too if civilization collapses around you and you happen to survive.

It is apparently available as a poster or t-shirt, but if you really wanted to make sure you had it with you, why not get it tattooed on?

Brilliant!

2009-11-22T08:09:00.004-06:00

I would trade my worthless gold in for cats, wouldn't you? Cats for gold

Poor Warbot

2009-10-27T08:35:00.003-06:00

Poor Warbot. I would step out in front of a bus to save a cat, too, if I was a heavy warmachine.

Follow the link, the image is too awkwardly shaped to re-post here. Brian Clevinger does some good (if odd) work.

In other news, we're having people over for Halloween this weekend! Should be good times, and Christine is making all sorts of strange Halloween goodies for the gathering.

Introducing Alice and Mirri!

2009-09-22T19:39:00.009-06:00

We got kitties!

Last Thursday Christine and I went to the local SPCA to adopt two cats. We decided that this would be a nice way to celebrate our anniversary, each giving the other a cat as an anniversary present. As any of my friends know, I love cats, so these will be welcome additions to our household, and they should be good company for Christine when I have to go away for work.

It was kind of heart-breaking to see all of the animals at the SPCA that need good homes. The board they have up to track the animals which come in showed that 2900 animals had arrived there this year, of which 900 were adopted, 500 returned to owners, 1200 were euthanized and the remainder were in residence there. There were more than 90 cats which we looked at, and most of them didn't seem too happy to be cooped up in cages. If any of you are thinking of getting a pet, please go to the SPCA or Humane Society and adopt one from there.

The kitty I chose responded right away when I walked into the room where they were kept, and I knew she was the one. She was a bit of an escape artist right off the bat, jumping out of my hands as we headed to the room where you can become acquainted with your potential pet, but she warmed up pretty quickly. Her name is Mirri (she's the one on the left in the picture below).

Christine selected a kitten from another litter, a grey, brown and black tabby.
Unfortunately, we found out her first choice was a male, and we had already decided to get females due to past experiences with males spraying, so Christine had to go back and get a different one. She chose a female from the same litter. Her kitten is named Alice (on the right above).

We found out when adopting them that they share the same birthday. Both were born July 19 of this year, which makes them just a little over two months old. Boy are they ever tiny things! Alice weighs in at 0.68 kg (about 1.5 lbs) and Mirri is a little bigger at 0.8 kg (1.75 lbs).

The kittens didn't much like the ride home, but they sure have enjoyed exploring our house. Alice was a bit uncertain at first, she was very jealous about attention, like she was worried we were only going to keep one of them. Alice took to Christine right away and somehow knew that she was her human. She follows Christine around like a little puppy dog at times, which is rather endearing.

Isn't she cute?

Mirri seemed more confident off the start, and has been quietly content in her new home. She also seems to know that I'm her human, as she likes sitting on my shoulder and runs to see me when I get home from work.

Alice and Mirri have become fast friends, or perhaps more like adopted sisters. They play together and like to snuggle, but they have their little scraps, and can get competitive for the wet food we give them at supper (even though there is plenty for both of them).

The trip to the vet on Saturday was a bit traumatic for them, as there was another car ride, and they were perhaps a bit worried that we were taking them back to the cage at the SPCA. However, once we got there the vet was very nice, and they were reassured once we got back home. Both kitties checked out as being healthy, for which we are very grateful.

They have been really well behaved kittens. During the night they mostly stay in our bedroom with us, and they seem to try to keep quiet. Both of them like to come snuggle with us in bed. They have got into trouble climbing up the dining room chairs and going on the kitchen table, but otherwise they are both very good.

They like snuggling with "mommy"

We are very happy to have these little lives under our care, and are trying to do our best to keep them happy and healthy. They both seem very grateful for the home we have given them, and sure lighten up our lives! Hopefully some of you will get to see them before too much longer.

DDR Training?

2009-04-28T18:58:00.002-06:00

Greetings all,

I know it's been some time since I wrote, but it has been a busy time settling into the new place.

Over the weekend, Christine and I had our nephew, Cody, come to stay with us. Seeing as how I haven't spent a lot of time with children in recent memory, I found it a bit tiring, but we had fun. We played video games with him, went to the mall and went for a couple of walks. Sunday morning we attended Christine's church, then afterward went out for lunch at Arby's, before heading to the movie theatre downtown to watch Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D.

We arrived early at the theatre, while the previous showing was still on-going, and sat down at a table near the arcade games. After hearing a bit of a commotion in that area, we turned around to see a guy playing on a game, the title of which I believe was "In the Jam 2", a "Dance, Dance, Revolution" variant. The curious thing was that it looked like this guy was training at it. He was dressed in workout attire (shorts and a light shirt) and had a water bottle along. We watched him go through several songs on it, and he was really good, scoring better than 99% accuracy on one of them. He was on his own, so it looked like he had come to the theatre for the express purpose of playing this game.

I wonder: are there Dance, Dance Revolution competitions out there?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2009-02-07T12:11:00.001-06:00

I just found this link, and knowing some of my friends, I thought they would want to see it.

Oh, and for those who don't know, Christine and I have bought a house! We take possession on February 27, so we're pretty excited about that.

In other news, it's really nice outside for February.

That is all for now. I go.

The Rumours Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated...

2008-11-02T07:07:00.002-06:00

Although I have not posted in a bit, I am alive and wel...tired.

I have been in the bush since September 22, making this six weeks straight at this point. I anticipate being back in Saskatoon hopefully by next weekend, and will hopefully be taking a well deserved two weeks off, which will also include some important time spent as newly weds. Although we've been married for almost two months now, we've spent less than a week of that time together.

It will be nice to come home, although I'm not sure I'll recognize the apartment. Christine has had the run of the place for more than a month, so who knows what I'll come back to?

The Wedding Went Off Without a Hitch! Er....well, just one hitch.

2008-09-19T14:18:00.003-06:00

It's weird to think, but I've been married for almost a week now. It's a good feeling.

I would like to thank so much all of those who helped with the wedding, and all of those who traveled to be there.

The wedding ceremony and reception went better than I could have hoped. I played the processional on my guitar (an arrangement of Israel Kamakawio'ole's medley of Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World), and am told that I did all right. I'm not sure whether it was recognizable as Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but it was well-received. My first performance in front of a crowd!

Christine pushed her father down the aisle in his wheel chair, and Eddie's brothers and sisters certainly found that touching.

Christine's sister, Carla, also made it through the ceremony without giving birth, although there is now some concern about the baby (still to be born), so prayers for both mother and baby would be appreciated.

David Gabruch, whom some of you will know, performed the ceremony. Thank you so much Dave, it really meant a lot for you to be there.

The reception went well. The food was excellent, mostly prepared by Christine's mother and her family, but the catered roast beef was also very good. My mother and aunts were kind enough to prepare assorted dainties, which were also well received.

The speeches were kept short and sweet, with toasts to the bride (delivered by a good friend of Christine's, Sara), and groom (delivered by my best man, Bryan; thanks very much Bryan, you did great), as well as a welcome to the family on each side, by Christine's brother Kirk and my sister Jen, respectively. Jen's speech was also very good, concluding that Christine and I are suited to one another because we, "are almost equally silly."

I prepared the song list for the dance, which was challenging as I needed to include a good distribution of various genres for the different groups present, including rock, country and fiddle music, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and it was sometimes surprising who danced to what. Many of Christine's aunts and uncles, some who are in there 70s, were showing up the younger people on the dance floor, and I noticed Gary and Suzanne, parents of my good friend Chris, sure know how to dance!

Christine and I also had two pinatas at the wedding, one for us, and one for the kids. We had the "wacking of the pinata" in place of the "cutting of the cake", which really made the reception our own. The kids enjoyed their pinata as well, especially the bouncy balls I put in along with the candy!

Right now I only have one picture from the wedding on my computer, although I hope to be getting more in the near future, so I'll just leave you with this one for now.

Musings from a Matt

2008-09-06T07:28:00.002-06:00

Well, here I sit. A week from today I am getting married. Work is crazy busy (I was the first person into the office yesterday, and the last person to leave, for example), and I'm going to the bush on Monday, only to come back Wednesday so that I can go to Hudson Bay on Thursday, so that I can get married on Saturday.

My masters is not done. There were some unfortunate delays, but it will get done.

I found out a couple of weeks back that I won't be moving on further in the astronaut selection process. C'est la vie. At least I tired. Oops...Freudian slip. That should be "tried."

I have a cold. I'm hoping I can get over it by the wedding.

In a week I will be surrounded by family and loved ones, and by the end of that day I will have a wife. There will be both good and stressful parts to that day, but when it's all said and done we will have celebrated with family and friends, and then we can start building a life together...as soon as we can manage to both be in the same place.

Christine will be joining me in Saskatoon sometime around late September-early October, and I just hope I can be there to greet her, as it sounds like I'm going to be spending more time in the field in the coming months than I had anticipated.

For those not able to join us in Hudson Bay, you will be missed, and I'll be thinking of you.

See some of you in a week!

-Matt

Excerpts from Semi-conscious Conversation

2008-08-01T21:46:00.003-06:00

Matt: "I want to replace your head with a robot head."
Christine: "What?"
M: "It would be like Lego pieces."

M: "I dropped my eyes!"
C: "What are you talking about?"
M: "In my dream."
C: "Are you sleeping?"
M: "I don't know. Am I? I moved my hands and my eyes fell. Now I have to pick them up."

M: "It would be better if it was caramelized."
C: "?"

The end.

Now you're one year older....

2008-07-30T07:35:00.003-06:00

Happy Birthday to me!

Today shall be a good day, including Buffalo Days festivities with the lovely Christine and my sister, Jen. We may go see the Trews tonight, which would be fun.

Yesterday was full of wedding stuff, including purchasing the marriage license, my wedding band and pinatas! I don't know how to put the little accent above the 'a' in pinata.

Lately life has been busy, between putting in my application for the Canadian Space Agency's Astronaut Recruitment Campaign, working on my masters (so close, but so very far...), getting ready for the wedding, in addition to the usual things, such as work and running.

I am now enjoying two weeks of vacation in Regina. My plans while here include finalizing wedding preparations, writing my masters report (as much as I can), running with Ted's group here (and possibly racing in a 15 km road race) and, of course, visiting with fiancee, family and friends. I also plan to go to Medicine Hat for a day this up coming weekend to watch my dad drag race.

Yesterday I bought the first season of Meerkat Manor, which I thought was pretty neat. I like meerkats.

On Monday I got to go for a picnic with crazy fun people, like Miss Maryanne, her crazy husband Chris, and the newlyweds Trouble and Derek. We played frisbee, including instruction by Derek in the wrist-flick/back-hand style of frisbee throwing (thanks Derek!) and had cheesecake as an early birthday celebration. Good times!

I am also starting day five of my vacation. I have managed to be awake before six every day, and usually up and active before seven. Sunday I was out for a 20 km run starting around 6:30 a.m. I being to understand why people think I'm a little nuts sometimes.

Oh, the other exciting thing is that my good friend Bryan has organized my bachelor party for August 9th, which will involve paintball in the afternoon followed by a nice supper in the evening.

All in all, life is pretty good. I hope to see some of you in the near future.

Uncle Traveling Matt out.

I know, I know...

2008-06-01T16:04:00.002-06:00

It's been a few months since I've last updated this, as several people have pointed out to me.

Since the end of January my life has consisted of:
Regular stints in the bush. I've been working a schedule of two weeks in the field followed by a week at a time in the office. This has been pretty much unbroken since mid-January, with the exception of a two week period in April while I was away in Sudbury completing the last course of my masters program.

February and March were occupied with running a drill program, but since April I have been doing underground exploration at the site of what will hopefully be our first mine. It has taken some getting used to working underground, but like many things, it became routine surprisingly quickly.

For the underground work, we have been working on two levels, one of which is about 75 m straight down from the surface, and the other which is 100 m down. We access these by walking or driving down the decline/ramp, which goes down at a relatively gentle slope, and loops back on itself. The main part of the job is going down two or three times a day to access an ore heading, map and sample the most recent face that has been blasted, and giving direction for the next round of blasting such that the miner's can stay on the mineralized structure.

As mentioned, in April I was in Sudbury for the last class of my program. It went fairly well. I got to go on a tour of Copper-Nickel-PGE (Platinum Group Elements) mine, and was about a mile below the surface of the earth (which is kind of cool). I also had a bout of stomach flu (not fun), but somehow managed to make it through. I ended up with 89% in that class, and an average of 87% from all of my courses, so that's not too shabby. Unfortunately, I still have my project report to finish before I can put this masters behind me. It's taking a little bit longer than I would like, but I'm trying to be done by the end of August (before the wedding). We'll see how that works out.

In other news: my sister finished her PhD of History not long ago (congratulations Jen!) and Christine got a job as a Publicity Assistant for the television show Corner Gas, which is kind of cool. My buddy Steve finished his first full marathon this past week, completing the 42.2 km course in 3h24m10s, placing 22 out of 205 participants. I had been coaching him, so I rode along the course on my bike, made sure he got the food he needed at the appropriate distances and yelled at him when he was running too fast or too slow. Good times. I figure I logged 50 or 60 km on my bike that morning, so I got my exercise, too.

My summer is looking busy between field work and weddings. In addition to my own wedding in September, I have at least two weddings to go to, and possibly another two or three.

Well, that'll have to do for now. If I think of something later, I'll add it.

Uncle Travelling Matt out.

xkcd

2008-02-29T08:17:00.002-06:00

This post is not going to contain any significant details about my life or my pursuit of planetary conquest. I'm busy.

However, I love this comic.

Enjoy!

Got the Winter Travel Blues...

2008-01-28T10:24:00.001-06:00

It looks like I'm making a tradition of posting while winter weather delays my travel plans. Today I was supposed to travel home for a week in Saskatoon after spending my two weeks in the bush, but the storm raging through much of the province (and adjacent ones) has resulted in a change of plans.

It has been an interesting two weeks up here, though. After a bit of dithering on the part of another exploration company, we got permission to work out of their otherwise unoccupied camp, and drilling finally started six days after I left Saskatoon. In addition to the normal activities that are part of a drill program (spotting holes, setting up the drill/shutting down the drill and logging core), I participated in a three and a half day mine rescue course.

Work decided that I and another geologist should take the course, along with two experience miners, one of whom has worked in mine rescue before. It was pretty interesting stuff (for me, anyway). In addition to the theory component of the course, we got to do a number of exercises, which were pretty fun.

The course took place on-site at what will, hopefully, become my company's first mine. We should be starting underground exploration there sometime this winter, although the exact timeline is in flux.

We went down the decline (shown above) while wearing SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) to rescue two "trapped miners" and to put out a "fire" on a scoop truck. This also illustrated the point that facial hair can be hazardous to your health; it prevents the SCBA from forming a proper seal around your nose and mouth, so much of the air that should be getting to you escapes. So, you end up running out of oxygen much faster than someone with a proper seal, although you are still protected from toxic gases as the oxygen leaking out would prevent anything hazardous from leaking in.

I got quite a bit of razzing from the instructors about my beard, but in my defense I found out I was taking this course two days before I took it, and nobody mentioned anything about facial hair being a problem.

Let's have a moment of silence for my beard, it may not be long for this world.

In mine rescue, standard practice is to operate in teams of five:
Captain, Vice-Captain and three mine rescue techs, who are each responsible for one of the following jobs: checking for ventilation, checking for gas readings, and first aid. The SCBA units are good for up to 4 hours of oxygen, but missions are of much shorter duration, generally two hours at most. Standard policy is to use no more than one-third of your oxygen on the way in, leaving two-thirds to get out safely and have a generous margin for any difficulties encountered on the way.

In addition to the underground exercise above, we practiced working as a team while carrying a stretcher loaded down with gear (or people). There was also a neat simulation where we went into a "smoke-filled" shop (we used safety glasses with a piece of tissue paper inserted between the glasses and our eyes...cut visibility by a lot!) to rescue a worker overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning resulting from a ventilation fan that had started on "fire". We managed to get the casualty onto our stretcher, but then our captain became disoriented and had difficulty leading us out.

We all completed the course successfully, and once we take and complete the provincial exam we will be certified as mine rescue techs. I'm not sure how thrilled I am about this, or even about working underground in general, as mines can be fairly risky places to work. Some component of underground work is likely to be part of my job for the next while, and I don't want to judge something before I've tried it, but overall I have the feeling that I will try to minimize my time at the mine. I like my fresh air and open spaces too much to trade it for a cramped, dark cave where the roof could collapse on me (or the floor out from under me).

Hopefully later today (or at the latest, tomorrow) I will get to return home for a few days in Saskatoon. I'll need to spend at least one day at the office, but I will try to take a day or two off to relax and to try to find some time to work on my master's project, which has been neglected during the drill program. When you are routinely working twelve hours or more per day, it can be hard to find the energy or motivation to do much of anything else.

If all goes well, Christine will be coming to visit me this weekend, when we will celebrate Valentine's Day a little bit early (as I'll be in the bush on February 14), so I'm looking forward to that.

Oh, one other thing I should share with a few of my friends. I found out something that is a little bit funny and a bit unfortunate. I was in communication with Jessica, who is also getting married this year, and found out we had set our weddings on the same day, and about a four hour drive apart! I would have liked to made it to see her get married, and this may make for a difficult decision for some mutual friends, but there's little to be done about it. At least I shouldn't have problems remembering her anniversary...

Ball Lightning

2008-01-05T10:13:00.000-06:00

My holidays are drawing to a close, which brings some degree of sadness, but it was a very good break from work. I had opportunity to visit with family and many friends, and made a very momentous step in my life. On December 28, 2007, I proposed to my girlfriend Christine, and we're both very happy.

I tried very hard to surprise her, but she was kind of expecting it. I guess the tip-off was when I said, "we should go on a date on December 28", because apparently I never ask to go on a date. Christine went so far as to set-up a code word with her best friend Laura, to be used in the event of proposal. I proposed on top of Douglas Hill, with a lovely view of the city, and then we had to go back to Christine's place so she could tell Laura. The first words out of her mouth were "Ball Lightning", and then they chattered happily together for a few minutes. For those interested, the code word references an episode of Christine's favourite television show, Titus.

Below are a few pictures we took right after getting engaged, including two of the ring.

We've set our wedding date as September 13, 2008, and it will most likely be in Hudson Bay, SK. 252 days of freedom and counting. :P

Stuck in Sudbury

2007-12-16T08:59:00.001-06:00

It's been quite a while since I posted last, but I find myself with ample free time right now, while I sit on-hold waiting for someone at Air Canada to pick up and tell me when I'm going to be able to fly home.

I've been in Sudbury since December 4, taking a Geophysics course as part of my masters program. The class wrapped up yesterday afternoon, I had a somewhat restful night and then found out my flight for today was cancelled. I wasn't able to get through to speak to anyone at the airport last night, either.

Earlier this morning I spent an hour on hold before the cordless phone I was using died. Now I'm on a corded phone, and have been on hold for 45 minutes, listening to Christmas music, over and over and over again. Sigh.

However, there's no use getting upset over it, so I plan to use today to finish up the Christmas cards I've been trying to do but have lacked the time for during the course, as well as a few other things on my do-to list that I've found time for.

Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope to see some of you soon...provided I get out of Sudbury.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

2007-10-27T08:31:00.000-06:00

Last night I attended Christine's IVCF Halloween party. There were some very original entries in the pumpkin carving contest, including an elephant (with someone's arm as the trunk), a neat tableau featuring a cat sitting under a tree with a moon above, and the Saskatchewan Rough Riders symbol. There were also some more standard pumpkins, including the Cheshire Cat done by my group (Christine and Thu, a student from Vietnam for whom this was her first pumpkin carving experience), several crosses (okay, so not exactly standard, but not unexpected at a Christian event), and miscellaneous other scary visages.

After this, all* the costumed people in attendance walked, strolled or meandered down the "cat walk", strutting their stuff and showing off their costumes. We were judged for the best "cat walk" (won by "Cleopatra" doing a "Walk Like an Egyptian" performance), and then people nominated the five best costumes. Those selected then got up, were asked to say a few words in character, and then asked a few questions (including "what would be your perfect date?"#), before the winner was decided by most applause from the audience.

My costume was a big hit: I won the costume contest, in large part due to my portrayal of the role:

As you can see, Red gets a little manic about duct tape:

I'm not sure it's a good thing that I can pull off a convincing Red Green.

It is a good thing I had the handyman's secret weapon around because there were a few costume failures (not to be confused with "wardrobe malfunctions") that had to be repaired with it.

Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

*: except the spoilsport Christine.
#: my answer was, "Me, Bernice and the 'Possum van. Need I say more?"

Here are a few pictures from the party:

Christine in her nurse costume...with a gun she borrowed from someone

Red Green, the nurse and a less reputable character

My pumpkin design, the Cheshire Cat...not the most original, I'll admit, but it was fun.

A very original pumpkin design:

These parties can get violent!

Matty B and friends

One last shot of me as Red Green

And the obligatory group photo!

I love this.

2007-10-07T18:15:00.000-06:00

Credit for this goes to xkdc. Go here. Enjoy.

Edit: You might also want to check out this, if you want to realize this dream.

Arrogant Worms

2007-09-21T08:25:00.001-06:00

Well, last night I saw the Arrogant Worms perform for the sixth time. As usual, they put on a great show, and it was nice to have Mike McCormick back (who was missing last time due to a family emergency).

They performed at the Knox Metropolitan church in downtown Regina, it was pretty well packed, with a wide range of ages represented. I went with Christine and my parents, none of whom had seen the Worms perform before; I think they were all impressed.

Chris, Trevor and Mike played many of the concert favourites, including "Jesus' Brother Bob", "Carrot Juice is Murder" and "Mounted Animal Nature Trail", complete with 'moos', 'oinks' and 'meows' (for the bear) from the audience. After the show I bought a copy of their latest album, Beige, and lined up to get it signed by Chris Patterson and Trevor Strong (Mike hadn't shown up yet). I asked Chris whether they had ever performed "Mounted Animal Nature Trail" and not had the audience fill in sounds for the dead animals; he said that it had happened a couple of times, but the song went really slow when that happened.

One thing I noticed is that Mike McCormick is actually quite good with that guitar of his; I'm itching to get back into playing mine, I missed it when I was in Ontario.

So, the concert gets a big thumbs up (although Worms don't have thumbs...), and I'll be happy to go see them again in the future. They've had quite an impressive run, more than fifteen years now, but the Arrogant Worms enthusiasm remains undiminished after all that time.

Oh, and of course, they ended the set with "Last Saskatchewan Pirate", and only a day late for International Talk Like a Pirate day.

Good to be home....oh, and "Arrrrr!"

2007-09-19T11:59:00.000-06:00

Ahoy me harties! It be "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" again! Another year has walked the plank and is swimming with the fishes.

For a fortnight I bin sailing through the murky waters of northern Ontario, payin' careful attention to every spit and shoal I came across. Me treasure map must've been drafted by a bilge rat, fer no treasure was to be found. Treasure hunting 'tis tiring work, and most of it was in foul weather, until I found a sheltered harbour at North Bay. I wanted to plunder a mighty silver cup there, "Stanley's", but it was guarded too well. This cup wasn't even buried! Those scurvy dogs won't last long as pirates. 'Twas a brief sojourn in North Bay, before the tides drew me out again, and I sailed for me home port.

When the sun rises again, I be sailing south, with a "hee-ho, hi-ho, coming down the plains", for a buxom wench is waiting for me 'round Regina way. We be going to see some stalwart balladeers, the Arrogant Worms, beloved by every pirate for immortalizing our profession.

Now be the time to caulk the boat, mend 'er sails and stock in grog and other vittles, for winter be comin' upon us. I gonna be sailin' again two moons hence, for a salty sea-dog is said to be a master of finding buried loot. I be goin' to find his secrets, else he'll be finding how sharp the edge of me cutlass be!

May the seas treat you well, and fine weather be ahead! Arrrr!

Please leave a message after the beep beep

2007-08-02T17:46:00.000-06:00

I'm suddenly feeling very tired. Looking at my schedule for the next month and a half is a little depressing and daunting. I return to the field tomorrow, will be there until hopefully no later than August 29, so that I can have a day in Saskatoon before I fly to Sudbury for my class, which runs from September 1-15. Then I'll be going to visit my sister Jen for a couple of days in North Bay, before returning home for a while, hopefully.

I had a nice break, although didn't get to do quite as much socializing as I might have liked, which is the problem with being on vacation when everyone you know has to work during the day.

So, if you don't hear from me for a bit, you know why.

Uncle Travelling Matt out

Happy Birthday to Me

2007-07-30T16:39:00.000-06:00

Hi everybody! Well, I'm in Regina, and it feels good to be home.

I'm still crazy though: I woke up at 5:30 a.m., on my holiday and on my birthday, so that I could go for a run. In my defense, it was going to be my only chance to see my friend and running partner Steve before I headed down to Regina and then back to the bush, but I'm still crazy.

I told this to my friend and former co-worker Tyler who said, "No, you're just Matt". I'm not sure how to take that.

Anyway, to the silly people in this neighbourhood, I will be in town until Thursday (well, Friday actually, but since I plan to be on the road by 5:30 a.m., it hardly counts).

Hope to see some of you!

(Meg and Karl I'm looking in your direction, although nobody was answering the number you gave me).

Is anybody home!?

2007-07-28T17:21:00.000-06:00

Yes, it has been a little while since I last updated this thing.

I've been a little busy.

For the last six weeks I've been the project geologist for a bush camp with twelvish people looking to me for direction. It's been a learning experience. And tiring. Oh, and I try to get some actual work done, too, once in a while. I've been mapping a 26 line-km grid with a lot of surface exposure, when I'm not flagging trail, building bridges, going to La Ronge to pick up supplies, and guiding assorted auditors, consultants and visitors around.

sigh

Yesterday I got out of the bush for a well-earned break. I'm spending the weekend in Saskatoon (was out at Wakaw Lake for part of today, yay for beaches!), then off to Regina for a few days before returning to the north.

How have you been? I hope everything is going well, and I will hopefully try to be in touch with as many of you as I can in the near future*

*: defined as, "in the next couple of months or so"

Brief Update

2007-05-30T16:11:00.000-06:00

Hi everybody. I know, I know, as usual I haven't posted in forever and a day. Over the last month and a half I have been keeping busy.

Activities have included:
-frustrating apartment searching
-cleaning and packing current apartment in preparation to move into new one
-a trip to Regina
-a 10 km road race (somewhat disappointing, time of 40.11), which included about 4 km of battling people out for the MS Walk, which was through some very poor planning schedule at roughly the same time and place
-a trip to Manitoba with the lovely Christine, including time at the drag races, meeting assorted members of my crazy family, a visit to the Winnipeg Zoo and to Lower Fort Garry
-a week in the north doing some preliminary work for the field season

Tonight will be my last night in the apartment, tomorrow I move out of this place, and then on Friday I move a grand total of twelve blocks to a two-bedroom basement suite, two blocks away from Shannon.

That will have to do for now. There were various minor adventures during this period (squirrel fishing in my parents' backyard in Regina comes to mind), and perhaps when I'm settled down again I might share some of them.

Some enchanted "meme"ing

2007-04-11T12:34:00.000-06:00

Well, since Trouble insists I complete her meme, I will.

Rules are as follows: "Here are the rules: Each player of this game starts with the 'six weird things about me' blog post. People who get tagged need to write their own six weird things post and state the rules clearly. At the end of the post, tag six more people and don’t forget to leave a comment on their blog to tell them they have been tagged and tell them to read your blog."

1. Physical abnormalities: I'm a lefty who does a lot of stuff with his right hand (not that uncommon); my eyes change colour; there is a yellow corona around my pupil; I sneeze when exposed to bright sunlight.

2. Cultural abnormalities (i.e. ways I am different from the cultural norm in North America): This seems to consist of a lot of "I don't..."s. I don't drink alcohol or coffee (try to stay away from caffeine in general), I don't watch television, I certainly don't do drugs, I don't smoke. Hmm...reading this, I seem like I must be a very negative person!

3. Mental abnormalities: Where to begin? I sing songs incessently, especially prompted by words or phrases in normal conversation that bring to mind oldies. I am an incorrigible punster (do not incorridge). I have a fondness for fabulous felines (and get flustered around flirtatious females). If you couldn't tell, I also have an ardor for alliteration, almost an addiction.

4. Abnormal hobbies: First and foremost, would be distance running, letting neither rain nor snow, nor excessive heat or cold to keep me from my shoes. Then there's memorizing lyrics to songs (such as Modern Major General. I'm working on the periodic table of the elements song, as well as the alliterative monologue from "V for Vendetta").

5. Abnormal career: I am a geologist. Although that seems pretty normal to me, many people perceive it as something of an odd profession, and me as odd for choosing to be a part of it. I don't know many people who would voluntarily spend half or more of the year away from home, in a camp with a dozen people at most, working seven days a week. The world takes all kinds.

6. Miscellaneous oddities: some of these may fall into other categories, but I don't care. I'm quite comfortable sleeping on the floor (or pretty much anywhere). I used to eat sandwiches made from onion 'n' garlic chips and honey. My favourite movies both feature characters named "Elwood". There! Is that enough?

Anyway, I will tag some of the more inactive bloggers I know, like Karl (who probably won't fill this out), his lovely wife Meg, Julia, a certain Mr. Reed, his lovely wife Maryanne (hardly an inactive blogger, I know) and last, but certainly not least, the ever cromulent Ky!

Postcard from Uncle Traveling Matt

2007-04-11T12:13:00.000-06:00

Dear Gobo,

It has been almost a month since I wrote to you last, so I thought it high-time to send you another postcard from the outer space!

When last I left off, I was in one of their "cities" known as "Re-gina". I spent the weekend there, and even found another Fraggle, named Christine! I got together with some silly creatures at a wonderful place, where other foolish silly creatures bring you food in exchange for some scraps of paper, or even just borrowing little pieces of plastic! I ate well that day!

I then went to a building where the silly creatures gather once a week to worship their God. It seemed like there were a disproportionate number of ancient silly creatures there; I could only conclude that this must be a privilege reserved for the very old.

After that, I'm not sure what happened, because I found myself in a land with snow higher than my head! I didn't like it there very much, even though some of it melted. I got dropped into one of these snowbanks, and it took me weeks to tunnel my out of it! I managed to stow away on a large white beast and was thankful to see the amount of the snow diminishing.

I found a nice hole to rest in for a few days, when suddenly I was whicked off again to another "city"! There were hundreds of silly creatures there, and they gathered in a large building twice per day. All they seemed to do is stand up and sit down at random intervals, and make a lot of noise. It was horrible! (Note from the editor: it was actually really good!) After a few days of this, I was taken back to the "city" they call "S'skutoon".

I woke this morning to see that, somehow, the snow had tracked me down! There wasn't much of it, but this snow must be a scout for the larger mass I left behind. I fear for us all, if the snow comes to find us!

I miss Fraggle Rock, nephew Gobo. I hope to see you again soon!

Hey Eugene - Pink Martini

2007-03-16T09:01:00.000-06:00

This is a cool song I heard on the community radio station in Regina yesterday. I heard it once before listening to Freestyle on CBC. I like it. Very jazzy.

Adventures in Regina

2007-03-16T07:37:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning my supervisor drove me out to the town of Brabant where we had left the rental truck I was taking back to Toon Town. I continued onto La Ronge, dropped off a consignment of rock pails at our expediter, and then drove to Saskatoon.

I spent less than two hours in Saskatoon: stopped by my apartment, picked up a bag I had packed for this weekend, and the garage door opener for my friend's garage, stopped by the office, then took the rental truck back to Driving Force. They dropped me off to pick up my car, and then I continued onto Regina. I don't mind the highway driving, honestly the hardest parts of these trips is getting in and out of the bloody cities.

My parents weren't expecting me until the next day, so my mom was pleasantly surprised to see me when she got home around supper time. My dad was filling in for a friend, administering an exam at an evening class. My mom and I decided to surprise him, so when he phoned for a ride home, I went to pick him up.

He was waiting outside of the university, and I pulled up right in front of him. He sort of continued looking around. I pointed at him, and then he turned his head to see if I was pointing at someone behind him. Finally, I opened the door, and he said "you're not picking me up". It was funny. I had to say, "Dad?", and then he figured it out and got in. In his defense, it was dark, and I guess there was something going on at the university such that many vehicles had been coming through there to pick people up. Also, he was expecting an SUV, not my little Focus, but it was still highly amusing. That's been the highlight of my trip thus far. I expect it will only get better!

Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons -or- Ways To Tell You've Been In the Bush For Awhile

2007-03-09T19:26:00.000-06:00

First, the pictures:

Actually, I'm not sure how much more needs to be said. The snow wasn't quite moist enough, so I had to bring a bucket of snow inside to allow it to warm up and become a little sticky so that I could make these abominable creations. Have I mentioned I really loved Calvin & Hobbes as a kid?

Maybe I really can do this stuff...

2007-02-26T18:53:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post here: I finally got my marks back from the classes I took in September and December. I got 80 in Exploration in Volcanic Terrains, which is pretty decent, but was pleasantly surprised to get 96 in Exploration Geochemistry! I guess all of that hard work and the long nights at the university paid off!

That feels good.

Posting Sporadically since April '06!

2007-02-23T20:12:00.000-06:00

Oh, yeah. This thing.

So, I received an e-mail from Trouble inquiring about where I am, whether I'm still alive etc. since I apparently fell of the face of the earth. I figured I'd let anyone who actually checks this know what I've been up to.

I went into the bush around the middle of January, and spent a month in camp. It was "interesting times", with lots of problems with camp infrastructure: we had two camp generators break on us, which is not good when we have combination diesel-electric furnaces heating our trailers. We also had a great deal of difficulty with the plumbing and furnace in our washcar...to the best of my knowledge that should be all fixed now. We'll see. I'm happy to report that our new cook, Kent (whom some of you may know), has been working out pretty well, and even under some difficult conditions at times he's done a good job and seems to be enjoying himself.

Currently I'm in Ottawa (well, Gatineau, QC to be more precise) for a modular course that is part of my Masters of MinEx program. I left camp on Feb. 14th, then spent a day in Toon Town before flying out here. I was scheduled to fly out at 8 a.m. on Friday, the 16th, and got to the airport around 7. I was lucky that I did; the attendent at the check-in desk said that my flight was really running late, so I got bumped onto flight leaving in about 15 minutes, and got upgraded to executive class, a first for me! Executive class was kind of nice: I was seated right at the front of the plane, they took my jacket from me to be hung up and then brought it to me near the end of the flight, there was more room, and I got a decent meal. Not bad at all.

My original flight was scheduled to go through Winnipeg, and would get me into Ottawa around 1:30, and the revised flight plan went through Toronto, and would get me in about 20 minutes early. Of course, the plane was late leaving Toronto, so I ended up getting in right around the same time I would've got in anyway. Eh. Whatever works.

I'm staying with my friends Greg and Jenn, who have been kind enough to put me up in their apartment. I was best man for Greg at their wedding last summer, and this is the first time I've seen them since then. It's been nice visiting with them a little in the evenings.

The course I'm taking is out of the University of Ottawa, an 8 day course consisting of four two-day modules on Hydrothermal Ore Deposits. It's been pretty good, and well attended with ~45-50 participants. The majority of the participants are masters students, but there are some undergrads from the U of Ottawa, four people from my program, a few PhD students and some industry participants. Twelve universities are represented, from as far away as Munich, and I believe one participant is here from Australia. I also know of at least one student here from the U.S., and students from as far away as Vancouver within Canada, so there's quite a diverse group here.

There've been a few familiar faces at the course, and I've been having a good time meeting some other students as well. The course involves 6 1/2 hrs of lectures today between 8:30-5, with two half-hour breaks and an hour break for lunch. Each day we have a short assignment, in addition to a take-home exam which covers the entire course, although they decided to give us the exam questions early so we could get a start on them. Most nights I've stayed until 8 or 8:30 in the evening working on the assignments and take-home exam questions with a couple of other students (from UBC and U of S), but I took off a little bit earlier tonight. Seven days in a row of 12 hours+ at the university are starting to take their toll, and none of us who had stayed to work were getting much done, so we figured it was best to take a break.

Tomorrow is the last day of the class, and then I fly back to Saskatoon on Sunday morning. After that I spend a day at home before I return to the field. In a way, being in the bush will be a nice break, it should be fairly restful. There are definitely perks to being out there: you get up, you work, and if there's time, relax a little in the evening. However, you don't have to worry about traffic, shopping, money...you just do your job. I have something to look forward to, because I'll only have about two and a half weeks in the field before I get to come out for a week, and then I'll get a chance to go down to Regina and see Christine for a couple of days!

After that, I'll be back up in the bush for the end of the program, but it'll be finished before too much longer, somewhere around early April.

There, all updated!

A Sense of Peace

2007-01-13T11:03:00.000-06:00

Often I feel there is too much that needs to be done: people to keep in touch with, chores around my apartment, my running, my work, and all the other little things that fill the day. So, it is a real treasure when you find something that just calms you down, that makes you sit back and reflect, and say, "Well, that's okay then."

Listening to Stewart McLean does that for me. The combination of his voice, and his masterful storytelling just leaves me feeling peaceful, and generally well-disposed towards the world.

I was out scrambling to buy a few things before I head into the field, and I managed to listen to almost all of the Vinyl Cafe. When I got home, there was still fifteen minutes left in the show, so I just sat in the parking lot, in my car, and listened to it, because I didn't want to miss another minute of the show.

I guess Harvey makes me feel the same way. I get the feeling Stewart McLean, his pal Dave, and Elwood P. Dowd would all get along famously. Harvey too, of course.

Life is fun!

2007-01-11T14:40:00.000-06:00

So, I'm at home at 2:40 p.m. On a Thursday. I have caught another cold, the third I've had in the last several months. I don't know what has happened to my good health/strong immune system. In September, I missed a day of work due to illness, which was the first time I had missed work or school due to illness in more than a decade. Now, here I am a few months later and missing again.

I probably could've gone to work, but I thought I'd better try to get over it before I leave for the field on Monday. I also thought I should be considerate to my co-workers and try not to spread it around.

Oh, yes, yesterday we got what may be the worst blizzard I have ever seen in my life. I ended up leaving my car at work, and got a ride home with a co-worker who has an SUV. I like my car, but it is perhaps not the best suited for traveling through huge snow drifts and such; I probably could've made it, but given the number of stuck and abandoned vehicles I saw, I think it was the right decision.

I spent an hour shoveling snow to clear out my parking space and enough of the parking lot at my apartment building to allow me to get my car in and out (my co-worker picked me up and brought me to work long enough to get my car and drive home again).

Now I'm debating over whether I should try to get some work done here or whether I should go to bed for a while. I really do need to get some work done, but it's awfully hard to focus with a cold.

Oh, the other detail I forget to mention is how it's -28 C, -40 with windchill. Fun!

I'm aware that is probably a rambly mess of a post, but at this point I don't care.

My New Year's Eve

2007-01-01T17:42:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas, everyone!

2006-12-25T11:30:00.000-06:00

It's Christmas morning. My family and I have had a lovely morning, with presents, and a cinnamon bun christmas tree for breakfast. We've listened to good music (including Bob & Doug McKenzie's "Great White North"), and talked to some relatives on the phone. It's a good day.

Shortly I will go out for my Christmas day run (sadly, most of the regular attendees of said run aren't in the city this year), and work up an appetite for our family Christmas dinner!

To all of my friends and family: I wish you all a merry Christmas. Enjoy the company of your family, and give thanks for all the past year has brought. Please keep in mind who this holiday is really about, too. For those reading this who don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a happy holiday season.

Stay safe, enjoy yourselves and try to relax a little!

I'll put up some photos of our festivities a little later, but for now I just wanted to share my happiness with you all.

So, a funny thing happened about a month ago...

2006-11-15T10:01:00.000-06:00

On Thanksgiving weekend, I went to Regina to visit my family. It had been some time since I'd managed to get home, between the craziness of the field season and my first masters course. It was the first time I was back since mid-July.

I made a point of looking up Meg and Karl, particularly to show Meg my beard (so I could cut it off - at least mostly. I knew she'd want to see it first). On that Friday night they were having some people over from IVCF. I came over to ensure I would get to see them at least a little bit. I had also made plans with Bryan that evening, so I knew I couldn't stay long. I wasn't really expecting to know anyone there other than Meg and Karl (apparently, the fact that the Ramsey boys were still around had slipped my mind).

To my surprise, I met a rather interesting young woman there - Christine. We'd been introduced several months before at Meg and Karl's gift opening the day after their wedding, but that was the extent of our interaction. She was rather fetchingly dressed in this outfit:

I talked to Christine a little at the IVCF gathering. Meg made her feel my beard (after Meg had done the same). I certainly found her intriguing, but, with some regret, I left for my plans with Bryan.

Afterwards, I got in touch with Meg, and asked her if, by chance, Christine was single. Meg offered to ask Christine whether it was all right to pass on her e-mail address to me. I sent her an e-mail saying I'd be interested in getting to know her. Luckily, we got in contact by other means quickly after that, as her first few e-mails were lost because of a filter on my e-mail account.

Over the past month, we've talked a lot and managed to briefly meet for supper when I was in Regina for work in late October. It wasn't until this past weekend that we were able to spend any real time together.

On Saturday, we had our first official "date". We went out for supper, played mini-golf, and then rented a movie; it was wonderful. On Sunday, I attended Christine's church with her, and then we spent the rest of the day together. We officially became a couple this weekend.

Christine's room-mate, J.J., was kind of enough to take a couple of pictures to commemorate our first date. I'll put up two here.

It seems that, in the immortal words of Mike Myers, "I'm smitten. I'm in deep smit", and I couldn't be happier. Although this is a long-distance relationship, over the next month and a half we've arranged to see each other often. That'll be great. It's important that we see each other as much as possible, before I head off to the field in January.

One last picture: Christine taking a nap with my cat, Bilbo, on Sunday afternoon.

Oh, yeah, this thing...

2006-11-02T21:43:00.000-06:00

So, I've been a little busy/distracted, and I guess my blog has taken a low priority.

Continuing with adventures in Quebec:
The first day we toured some outcrops in the Rouyn-Noranda, area looking at some of the features we would need to be able to recognize in the following days.

We saw some neat stuff, including some well-formed basaltic pillows, as well as pepperite which formed at the edge of a flow (both appear below).

The really neat thing this day was crossing a beaver dam to get access to one of the outcrops; as you can see, it was a bit of a balancing act, and some people got wet feet in the crossing, but no one got really wet, so it worked out okay.

Here's a picture of the beaver lodge nearby, and a close up of it.

Unfortunately, after that there was very little time for pictures. The next day we did two mapping assignments, on very short time limits, one in the pouring rain. The following day we did some more touring of sites, and started our third mapping assignment, which we then finished the field portion of the next day. During this time we were pretty constantly on the go, out in the field from about 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. each day, and then working on assignments in the evening; I usually got to bed around midnight. It was a good experience, I learned a lot, but boy was it tiring.

On the Saturday, we looked at a couple of other outcrops, and then returned to Sudbury. I spent the rest of the day working on assignments, and then over-nighted in the same B&B that I covered in my last post. On the Sunday, we had a lecture in the morning, and then we were responsible for getting ourselves to Toronto in time to catch our early morning flight the next day. I traveled down with one of the other students, we worked on the assignments on the way there and at the hotel, before getting up at 4 a.m. Monday morning so that we could get through security in time to catch our 7 a.m. flight to New Mexico.

Next post: New Mexico (hopefully sooner rather than later).

There and Back Again

2006-10-14T11:50:00.000-06:00

Well, it has been some time now since I took off and returned from my first masters course. I just haven't felt all that inspired to write, but I'll put up a brief account here, at any rate, while I procrastinate from further apartment cleaning.

I left Saskatoon early on Sunday, Sept. 17 (plane flew out at 6:00 a.m.) for Sudbury, with a brief stopover in Toronto. I arrived in Sudbury early afternoon, and got a shuttle bus to the bed & breakfast I was staying at. The Sudbury airport is really far away from the city, it was something like a 40 minute drive from the airport to where I was staying, which is quite a bit for a city of 130,000 or so.

The bed & breakfast, Sudbury South Suites, is just breathtaking. It's run by a husband and wife, and they're both very friendly and helpful. I originally planned on staying there for a week, but then I found out that most of that week I would actually be in Quebec, so it ended up just being two nights. They were very understanding about the changes, and I've already booked a room for December (although I may end up having a place to stay with one of the other students, in which case I'll regrettably have to cancel again).

The B&B has five rooms available, I stayed in the Kimono Room. It is possibly the nicest room I'm stayed in.

After I got settled in at the B&B, I figured I'd walk down to the university to get the lay of the land. I've since learned there is a shorter route to get there, but I took the simplest one given my unfamiliarity with Sudbury, and it ended up being about a 75 minute walk each way. Note to self: hiking boots are excellent for walking over rough terrain. They suck for walking over pavement. My heels were sure feeling it the next day.

The next morning, I managed to get myself and my luggage to the university via the bus system. We had a lecture for a few hours, going over some of the things we would be seeing in the course, and then left for Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec around 3:00 p.m.

We arrived in Rouyn-Noranda that evening, and stayed in a hotel which the instructor, Harold, has been staying at during his visits for the last twenty years or more. Not a bad place, but the restaurant was slow and a little pricey, and there is very little around for other options. If I were to go there again, I certainly would pick a different hotel.

I think I'm going to have to split this up into a few posts. I'll continue with adventures in Quebec later.

Black and White

2006-10-07T07:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, my dad suggested I give a listen to the Raconteurs, a fairly new band, and so-called supergroup which includes the likes of Jack White. Now, in the past, I've been somewhat prejudiced against Jack White. I remember seeing the video for Seven Nation Army, one of the songs which really shot the White Stripes into popularity, and being rather unimpressed. Admittedly, it is a fairly catchy song, but not overly complex musically. All of the fuss made over the controversy of his relationship with Meg White, and his other eccentricities concerning colours and numbers, combined with this song did not leave me favourably inclined to Jack.

Since then, I've heard many good things about Jack White, which made me think that perhaps I had misjudged him, at least to some degree. Oh, I've no doubt that he's a little wacko (but aren't we all?), but musically, at least, I've been converted.

The Raconteurs are actually really good. All the writing is done by Jack White and Brandon Benson, a solo artist who has enjoyed some success, and who is now a member of the Raconteurs. Listening to the album they have come out with, Broken Boy Soldiers, at least two tracks on it sound like they could have come off of a Beatles album, and another seems to have some definite Black Sabbath influences. Much of the other stuff has a unique sound all their own. The remaining members of the band are Jack Lawrence (rivaling White for the coveted "creepiest looking member of the band" award) and Patrick Keeler, both members of the Greenhornes.

Another musician I find somewhat fascinating (in the much the same way as a car wreck), is Jack Black. One of the duo Tenacious D, as well as a successful actor, he certainly seems hard to avoid in recent years. I genuinely think he has an amazing singing voice (as showcased in High Fidelity, among others), and is a talented musician, but it's just a shame that so much of his energies are directed to fairly objectionable humour. I know many people feel his acting ability is somewhat lacking (many similar characters), and one has to wonder whether the character of 'Jack Black' is simply one lengthy role spanning multiple projects.

What I really think needs to happen is a duel between Black and White. I don't really care about the format of said duel, fisticuffs, dueling fiddles, whip-cream pies at ten paces, but I think a showdown is necessary (and potentially hilarious). Who's with me?

Talk Like A Pirate Day!!! Arrr!

2006-09-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

Arr, mateys! This be the day we be long-awaiting, when we can, nay must, speak like our pirate brethren! So says Brown Beard!!

So, gather up ye peg-legged, patch-eyed, parrot-adorned comrades, attack a few ships, and gather up some gold dubloons today, to celebrate yer pirate ancestry!

Oh, and if ye should perchance upon some busty lass (or brawny lad), throw yerself a pirate wedding, and walk that long plank with he or she.

Be sure to raise a mug to Stan Rogers on this day, too, for he be having a bit o' pirate in his soul. We miss ye, Stan!

Now, time for me to go gather up some treasure of me own!

Random Thoughts

2006-09-16T07:16:00.000-06:00

Okay, I figured I should put something here, as I haven't in more than a week, and will not have another chance until October.

Since my last post, I've spent a couple of days in the office, returned to the field for a weekend, came back to Saskatoon, and caught a cold. Since Wednesday I've pretty much been confined to my apartment, trying to get better before today so that I could go watch my dad drag-racing at Saskatchewan International Raceway and be relatively healthy before my flight tomorrow.

I was rather excited about the racing, as some of the Young People from church were going to come out, but unfortunately all the rain we've had caused the track to re-schedule the race for the end of the month. I was talking with Ian G. on the phone last night, and he informed me that, according to their rain gauge, we've received 3 3/4" of rain over the last three days (~95 mm). That's a lot.

I'm not really looking forward to my upcoming masters class. There's been so much frustration trying to prepare for it, and I'm just too tired to comtemplate being on the go constantly for the next two weeks, but I'm pretty well committed now. This week I had to re-schedule a flight because it was going to be departing too close to the time that I would be arriving (I hope that sentence makes sense: I've tried re-writing it a couple of times now, and it doesn't seem to have become any clearer). I've also had to cancel most of my reservation at the B&B where I'm staying in Sudbury, because I found out this week that I'll actually be spending most of next week in Quebec as part of my course.

To sum up: it has not been a very good week. Mainly due to illness, I've been forced to miss several opportunities for socialization that I could've really used, and I've been unable to run. I'm not sure which is worse.

I'm also comtemplating shaving my beard off, as it's staring to get in the way. However, there have been some that have suggested I keep it until Halloween, in the hopes that I could incorporate it into some fabulous costume. We'll see. Any suggestions?

Thanks go to a certain Maryannish one, who still looks out for me even when I'm too stubborn to let her.

Prayer would be appreciated for my friends Chris and Claire, and their yet-unborn child. The baby was due earlier this week, I gather that if he or she has not come by Tuesday they will induce labour, but I'm sure they're eager to greet the new little member of their family without resorting to that.

I'll leave you with a few pictures I took at Tower lake during my brief sojourn back there. The morning these were taken it was very foggy, which makes for some very nice pictures.

I particularly like this last one.

As always, for Meg and Julia:

Crazy Train

2006-09-08T20:37:00.000-06:00

So, a week and a day ago, our exploration manager mentioned to me that, since the drill crew was not likely to show up until after the long weekend anyway, myself and a coworker could head south for the Labour day weekend.

This was an exciting prospect, as I had worked for seven consecutive weeks by that point, however this was somewhat mitigated by the thought that even if I did head home, there weren't likely to be any of my friends around. So, I gave Joel a call, and found out what his plans were, and that got the wheels turning in my head. He and Sherri (a YP who had recently moved to Saskatoon) were traveling through Regina to pick up Bronwyn, and then continuing on to the a church camp near Winkler, MB. Since my dad was drag-racing near Gimli, MB that weekend, I figured I could travel with them, and then show up on the Saturday to surprise him.

With some help from Joel and Sherri, we arranged to get the oil in my car changed on the Friday, and I managed to get away from camp at a semi-reasonable hour such that I was ready to leave Saskatoon by 5:30 p.m. or so. We didn't actually get away for another hour, and after a brief stop in Regina, we were finally on the road to Winkler by about 9:30 p.m. Losing an hour to the time zone change, this meant we pulled into the camp around 4:00 a.m. So, I crashed for about four hours, attended the morning church service, had lunch, and then jumped in the car and proceeded to Gimli.

I got there just in time to see my dad go down the track, and then was waiting for him in the pits when he came back from the pass. Everyone seemed quite (pleasantly) surprised to see me, although the beard did throw them off a bit. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday, I saw most of my relatives on my dad's side of the family, which is always nice especially since I don't get out that way as much anymore.

On both days I helped out with my younger cousin's junior dragster, and took pictures of my dad's, uncle's, and "adopted" uncle's car whenever they went down the track. The Sunday race turned out quite well, my dad ended up 3rd out of 25 cars, losing in the semi-finals by two-hundredths of a second. It was a good race, and it could have gone either way, so what can you do?

My aunts told me that, between the beard and the hat I was wearing, I look like Fidel Castro, and seemed generally to be of the opinion that I should shave it off. There are critics everywhere, it seems.

Monday morning I took off around 8:00 a.m., swung by Winkler, and then picked up Joel, Sherri and Robin (a trade-off for Bronwyn, who had went back in another car to give the sole driver a break; I was fairly sure we had gotten the short end of that deal, but he was surprisingly well-behaved. Maybe marriage does that to a guy). We passed through Regina, and I took a bit of time to visit with my parents, and then continued onto Saskatoon. We kind of got there in the nick of time; after dropping Robin off, we went to Angela and Stephanie's where Sherri had been staying, and found a small troop heading out the door to go for supper. Since we hadn't eaten, we came along, and had a good time at Chianti's. It was really nice to see a few familiar faces after a several month absence.

Now for the pictures!

As mentioned, I helped out with my cousin Gareth's junior dragster last weekend. These dragsters are basically a wire-frame built around a heavily modified riding lawnmower engine. This doesn't sound all that impressive, I admit, but they still hit 70 mph or thereabouts. Also consider, my cousin has been doing this for three or four years, and he's twelve years old.

Here is my uncle and cousin getting the car ready to go.

This picture is of my cousin in the car. You may notice the straps leading off the front, we use a golf cart to tow the car up to the staging lanes, and to bring it back after a pass has been made.

Here we are at the line, Gareth is doing a burn-out to warm up his tires prior to the run.

And here is his first time trial of the day.

Right after the run, we head up to the end of the track to tow him back.

Sometime during the weekend, my relatives were telling I should go sit in the junior. I didn't figure I'd fit. Guess I was wrong.

Now for the pictures of the real show. The junior is cool and all, but it's just not the same as my dad's car.

What you're looking at here is a 1967 Mustang Fastback. My dad has been racing it since 1988, although the car looked a lot different then. For one thing, it was street legal and about a 15 second car. Now he races in the superstock category, dialing in at 10.90 seconds, and his fastest pass has been in the low 10 second range.

Here is another burn-out shot.

This is a picture of his launch off the start. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of the launch this time around, so this picture is actually from the May Long weekend.

My dad had a good day on Sunday, but he lost in the semi-finals, in a very good race to Brian D., driving the car you see here. They have faced off before, and any given day it could go either way. Two hundredths of a second isn't a lot, but it makes a big difference when your race is done in under eleven seconds.

Here is a caricature of my dad, painted on the side of his car by a family friend and fellow racer, Bryon L.

When my uncle Fred isn't dealing with his boy's car, he races this 1968 hardtop Mustang. Kept in working order by our crew chief/mechanic (who also happens to be my uncle Don), the car is a real family effort. It wasn't raced at all last summer, so it's good to see it back in action again.

Last but not least among this motley crew is a friend of the family, Bryon L. Bryon has been racing since 1978, and has really become a part of the family. He paints cars for a living, and did the paint job on both my dad's and uncle's cars, and of course his own as well. His car is a 1970 Nova, the "Reston Rocket", and he also goes by the name "Rocketman".

As you can see, his truck (built from the body of a Ford Econoline van) is painted to match the car.

This next picture may well be the highlight of the post for a few people (Ky, Meg and Julia, I'm looking in your direction).

Bryon has a really good beard, but I'm catching up! Oh, and just in case you can't read the warning label on his truck behind us:

It was a good weekend.

Narrow Lake and Core

2006-09-06T12:18:00.000-06:00

Well, this is post is a bit overdue, but that would be because I had a rather busy weekend, the details of which I will relate in due time.

There is (or rather, was) an old camp site on the shore of Narrow Lake, near the Kaslo Showing. I don't recall what there was in the way of infrastructure there, there may have been a shack tent frame or two, as well as an outhouse and six core racks. It's rather a moot point now, as last summer there was a fire which swept through the area, and burnt everything.

These fires were hot: there are no remnants of any of the (wooden) core boxes used to store the core, only charred fragments of the pressure-treated 4" x 4"s used to make the core racks, and many of the pieces of re-bar used in the racks were warped from the heat. We even found a glass vial that had melted in the heat.

So, what this means is that where previously six racks of core (very similar to those shown in some of the pictures from my previous post) stood, now there were six piles of rock, with bits of charred wood and pieces of rebar. This core is no longer of any use to us, because we can't verify which hole and at what depth any of it is from.

I figured I'd take advantage of this opportunity, so I found some old core boxes drillers had left at one site, brought them out there, and filled them up with some of the larger, nice-looking pieces of core. Why, you might ask? As a present. I'm bringing this core down for my mother, as a nice border for some of her gardens in our backyard. Gardening is something she has become quite involved with for the last few years, and she's always happy when I bring her attractive rocks to put in them. In total I'll have in the range of 50-55' of core to bring her, which should serve nicely to border a small garden. Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, she doesn't read this blog, and so it will remain a surprise until the 16th, when she is coming up to Saskatoon for the day with my grandmother to watch my dad who will be racing at SIR.

Without further adieu, pictures!

Here is my buddy Rich, who I met through our mutual involvement in Scouting. We hired him on as a summer student this field season, and he did very well. Ky may know him, as he would've been a year ahead of her through basically all of her schooling.

This is a close-up of a burnt rack.

As you can see, this is a Cat with a backhoe mounted on it, standing over another pile of rock. I expect by now it will have bulldozed the remains of the rock and the core racks, as part of our site reclamation.

You can see on one of the quads there the bundle of core boxes I brought in to haul out selected core.

Now, I realize not everyone finds rocks as interesting as I do, so here are a few pictures of Narrow Lake. You will see it is rather aptly named.

Next up: My crazy weekend, and an updated picture of my beard!

Tower Lake Camp and Beard, Week 10

2006-08-26T18:07:00.000-06:00

Well, it took us a few days to get settled, but we've moved back into Tower Lake. It sure has changed since I first stayed here; the first year all we had were two shack tents (one for sleeping, one for logging and splitting), and an old trailer used as our kitchen and office. This year, we're living in the lap of luxury, comparatively.

We have a washcar with four showers and eight sinks, and the water pressure is better than I get at home. We have two nice, new accomodation trailers, each with four, two-bed rooms. And they have real beds!

We also rented a large camp generator to power this whole operation, and that means power 24 hours per day.

Now for some pictures of our little operation - This first series is taken from atop our core logging trailer, roughly central in camp, in a circle surrounding it.

To start off, here you can see our kitchen trailer with a shack tent built onto it to serve as a dining area, and behind that our washcar.

Next, looking down the hill towards Tower Lake, is the caboose where our core splitters are staying, the core splitting trailer across the trail from them, and our storage trailer (which in the past served us as a kitchen and office).

This is the trailer where I stay, my room is in the second one in from the right.

Next to us is the other sleep trailer.

The next couple of pictures are of the many, many core racks at Tower.

The two shack tent frames in the next picture are where the drilles will stay if they ever show up. We were supposed to see them on Monday, now that's been pushed back to Friday...who knows when they'll actually show.

And this is where all the previous pictures were taken from, our core logging trailer.

This is another nice shot down the hill, including the little island in Tower Lake I really like.

Next is our wash car from the front. It's so very nice having real showers!

This is a cool little cabin down the hill from the camp. We've used it as storage in the past, but it really is a historical site, it was built by a prospector, Eric Partridge in the late '50s.

Here are a couple of pictures of my room, quite a change from the old camp.

Well, I'll pretty much wrap this up here, but I'll leave you one last shot of Tower Lake.

And, of course, the beard, week ten. Seventy days.

Camp Move, and Beard, Week 9

2006-08-19T20:13:00.000-06:00

Well, tomorrow is our big camp move to Tower Lake. It'll be nice to have a change of scenary, and I'm really looking forward to not having to make that commute out to Tower every day; a one hour, 16 km drive is not fun, let me tell you.

As soon as we've made it into camp, and the internet is up again, I'll take some pictures of the new set-up to share with all of you lovely people.

Oh, and for my beard fans (all two of you), here is beard, week nine. It's getting pretty bushy, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be keeping it (at least without significantly shortening it), so enjoy it while you can!

Camp Life Addendum

2006-08-18T18:58:00.000-06:00

Well, a little later than promised, but better late than never! Here are a few additional pictures from camp.

Here is our wash tent:

In the interior, you can see the corner of our washing machine (new this year, and boy is it nice being able to wash clothing that way, rather than in a 5 gal. pail), and our propane heated shower.

The hot plate, wash basin and mirror where, if I was so inclined, I would shave...

...and the large container we use to store water for washing and showers.

Next up, here is our generator shelter. This is what keeps our camp running!

To close off, here is a picture of the trail going down to the lake we camp (and our dock), and then another shot of the dock and the bay. I don't often sit on the dock of the bay, but sometimes it's kind of nice.

Almost Famous

2006-08-14T21:29:00.000-06:00

So, I just finished watching the movie with the same name as the title above. It was, quite simply, excellent. It kind of makes me feel like I wasted my youth; I mean, which is cooler, going to university, or touring around with a band?

I finally saw the famous Tiny Dancer scene. The sound track for the movie is awesome; lots of Zeppelin, plus some Skynyrd, Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart, and The Who, among others. The songs in this movie are the sort of ones that made me want to take up guitar.

It seems like so many of my favourite movies have a strong musical influence, and Almost Famous has joined those ranks. The Blues Brothers, High Fidelity, and Empire Records are some other notable names in that collection.

That's it. I just thought I'd share.

Camp Life and Beard, Week 8

2006-08-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

Well, I figured that I would show you guys what the camp is like where I have spent each of the last three summers.

First, where I live, in the geologist's shack tent.

Here is the tent from the outside:

Below are three of the corners of the tent: Mine, Richard's, and the stove's. The other corner, previously occupied by Tyler, just has a bed with a foamie on it right now, as Ty's gone on break, so I won't bother including it.

Next, here are a few pictures from the "parking lot", where we keep our quads and various trucks, there is also a tool shed there, an area we use for fuel storage, as well as our logging and splitting area.

Next up is our processing platform, sort of the central area of our camp, although it's getting used less and less as run out of places to till sample. Here are shots of it from two sides. For those who are unfamiliar (pretty much all of you), our primary reconnaissance exploration method is taking till samples, which we process on-site, and then count the gold grains to determine where there are anomalous concenrations of gold in till.

Next to the processing platform, we have the lab building, where the microscope work takes place, as well as serving as a makeshift office.

Here are a few interior shots of the lab:

This is the office and accomodations of the head geologist in camp, formerly Klaus, now occupied by Ron.

Next up, possibly the most important structure in camp, the kitchen! Below is an exterior shot, as well as a couple of the inside.

That's enough for now. I've got some more pictures to upload, but I'm wearing down, and I've still got to go for a run before supper. I'll continue with part II in the next few days. So, for my beard fans (Yay Meg and Julia!), I'll leave you with my beard, week eight!

Trip to Flin Flon

2006-08-05T18:59:00.000-06:00

Earlier this week, Tyler, Mary and I traveled to Flin Flon for the field trip organized to present the TGI 3 (Targeted Geoscience Initiative involving the Saskatchewan Geological Survey, Manitoba Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Canada, along with involvement from Laurentian University) mapping results in and around Flin Flon.

I met Harold Gibson, one of the leading volcanologists in Canada, who will be teaching the first class in my masters program, staring in September. It is happening a bit later than I was expecting, from Sept. 18 to Oct. 1, but it sounds pretty cool. In addition to touring outcrops and such in the Sudbury area, we will be going to Albuquerque, New Mexico for several days! Also, for this first class, all of the assignments will be completed during the course, rather than having additional work after the class is over. It'll be nice to be able to come home without anything else hanging over my head.

We received a short course in shear sense indicators from Bruno LaFrance (who will hopefully be my advisor for my masters project), and then spent Tuesday afternoon, all day Wedneday and Thursday morning touring outcrops, looking at the mapping results of several of the individuals working in that area. There were some viguourous debates among the experts that have worked in these areas, which sometimes got a bit esoteric and more than a little boring for those of us less familiar with the Flin Flon area, but despite that we saw a lot of neat stuff. It was also a nice opportunity to meet some other geologists that I wouldn't have normally encountered. I met a number of masters students from Laurentian; I'm hoping I'll run into some of them again during my brief sojourns to Sudbury.

On Tuesday evening, I went out to my aunt Eileen and uncle Jim's place, about twenty minutes outside of Flin Flon. Eileen served us a wonderful supper, including a blueberry pie she baked in honour of my birthday, and we had a very nice visit.

Unfortunately, Tyler and I were called back to camp early, so we missed Harold Gibson presenting his results on the Thursday afternoon, as well as the wrapup barbeque on Thursday evening, which would have been a lot of fun. That was disappointing, but at least we saw as much as we did.

Okay, now for the stuff most people are probably looking for, the pictures from this outing!

Here is easily the most prominent landmark in the Flin Flon area, the huge smoke stack that vents the smoke from the smelter there. This picture truly doesn't do it justice!

The large red building in the picture below, which looks like a grain elevator, is the head frame for the mine in Flin Flon; this contains one of the elevators which gives access for men and equipment to reach the mine depths.

In the picture below, we see another head frame, giving access to another part of the mine.

Here is the field trip group on the first outcrop we visited on Tuesday afternoon.

And our group marching along the train tracks out to see some outcrops; as you can see, there were quite a few people out for this the first day, somewhere around 30-35.

Warning: the next several pictures are probably really only of interest to geologists and other science freaks. To the best of my knowledge, there are very few such individuals who read this thing (pretty much Chris Reed, I would think), so I guess I'm just putting them up for completeness' sake.

This next picture is of Bruno LaFrance, heading up an outcrop with some very nice quartz veining.

This is the same outcrop from the opposite side. For those of you less inclined to look at quartz veins, a girl wandered into the shot while I was taking it.

Look at those shear sense indicators! Okay, you can just smile and nod.

Here's a nice 'S' fold.

Below, there are nice pillow selvages, showing the border between three basaltic pillows.

Here is a quartz vein that has been micro-faulted.

Okay, now I'll put up a few more scenic pictures.

How could I forget, Isis, the rock dog? Having her along was a big distraction, but she was kind of fun, too.

Week 7

2006-08-05T18:54:00.000-06:00

I'm considering decreasing the frequency of these "beard posts"; I really don't think it changes enough week to week to keep this up. There also doesn't seem to be enough interest in these to keep them up, but if you disagree, let me know.

Happy Birthday to me!

2006-07-30T17:57:00.000-06:00

So, as of eight or so minutes ago, I'm officially 26. Kind of scary. Getting to 25 didn't seem too bad, but 26 seems kind of...old. Today I got to celebrate my birthday by going out to Tower Lake, re-logging some core, and working to put together a representative rock suite for one of our project areas. Whoo!

I've spent five of the last six birthdays in the bush, and it's really not that bad. They are, at the very least, memorable. I have already celebrated with my family, and I've received a number of birthday wishes from friends today via e-mail.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for a geological field trip in Flin Flon, which will be a nice break from the field work here. This will also afford me the opportunity of visiting with Eileen and Jim, my aunt and uncle who live out in that direction. Should be good.

Week 6

2006-07-29T19:14:00.000-06:00

Oops! My First (And Hopefully Last) Quad Roll-Over

2006-07-28T17:19:00.000-06:00

Alternate title: More things I shouldn't tell my mother (but probably will).

Today I and my supervisor, Ron, were heading out to one of our project areas to see what the drilling conditions will be like. Right now our heavy equipment operators are working on upgrading that road to year-round truck driveable status. We were going out by quad, and came to an area where they hadn't finished work, that we needed to get through; the only really way of getting to where we were going was to go down a ~6 foot drop, at a 50-60° angle. I knew from looking at it that there was potential for a roll-over, but I squared myself to the trend of the edge as best I could, and gave it a try. Part way down the quad over-balanced, and began to roll; this was happening slow enough that I was able to roll in the same direction as the quad, and get myself pretty much out of the line of descent. The quad went all the way over, and ended up partially on my left leg, but there was never any real pressure on my leg. Ron came down, helped me right the quad, and checked me over, but I came through okay. My shoulder is a little sore, but otherwise not even a bruise nor a scrape. The quad, too, came through virtually unscathed. With some difficulty, we got Ron's quad down safely, and continued on our way.

I'm sure some will be glad to know that I was wearing the proper safety gear, I had on a motorcycle helmet, was wearing long pants and shirt, as well as gloves, so if it had to happen, I was as prepared as I as was going to be. I knew going in the potential of danger, but we needed to go out there, so I took the course which I judged as giving me the best chance of succeeding, and went for it. If I had been on my own, and was confronted with a similar situation, I probably would've said, "nope", turned around and either convinced one of the heavy equipment operators to clear a path for me, or come back another time. In the end, no real harm was done to either myself or my vehicle, but I recognize that I was lucky.

Going over like that was kind of a strange sensation. I've been in a car accident before, and there everything was over in an instant, and I was left wondering what happened. In this case, time seemed to slow down; I was fully cognizant of everything that was going on, and I attained an almost clinical detachment about the situation. I was aware of what was going on, decided how I should act to deal with it, and then followed through with that plan. I'm unsure how long it took, I was going at a crawl, so it could've been 5 seconds or 15, but it seemed longer.

Perhaps God was watching over me today. The situation could easily have ended up much worse than it did. As it is, I didn't strike my head, I was able to roll with the quad, and roll over on my shoulder to absorb the force of the impact. However, I could've broken a limb, or my neck, if I'd been a bit slower to react. They say that God watches over children and fools, and I certainly am a member of both categories far more often that I would like. I just give thanks that I'm able to be sitting here typing this now, rather than the alternative.

Day 11: London & the Journey Home

2006-07-22T18:56:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it's been more than two months since I've been home, I really should finish this chronicle.

On Sunday, my family hopped aboard the train to London, and then took the tube around central London. By this point in our travels, we were all wearing out a little, so we only hit a few must-see sites before returning to Reading.

Of course, one of the chief places to go on this list was the Beatles store, shown below. You will also note that I'm wearing the fabulous John Lennon sunglasses I purchased at the store.

Our travels then took us to the near-by Abbey Road, and below is a picture that my dad took of me crossing that famous street.

We then continued onto Picadilly Circus, where, inexplicably, we ran into several hundred people roller-blading through the streets of London.

After that, we stopped by Trafalgar Square.

Hey look, the Canadian Embassy. Sanctuary! Sanctuary!

We passed by Lord's Cricket Grounds, where a rousing game of cricket was going on. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any white robots there. We couldn't find a decent game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket going on anywhere around there, either, so we decided not to stay.

That pretty much wraps up our day in London. At Paddington Station, we of course tracked down the statue of Paddington Bear. Here's a picture of my mom with him. Aren't they cute?

The next morning, my sister saw us off with twice the luggage we came with (we brought back some of the stuff she had over in England during her three year stay), and we flew to Regina via Toronto. I met a rather nice man from Portsmouth, who was traveling over with his wife to tour part of Canada by train. It sure made the nine hour flight go by more quickly, having someone entertaining to visit with. My parents and I then carried onto Regina, arriving late Monday evening. Air Canada, of course, had lost one of my bags, but it turned up the next day so it all turned out okay.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip, went by far too quickly, and was quite exhausting by the end of it! Now I just have to figure out where next to go in my international travels. Taken from Ariann, here is a map of the countries I've visited...right now it sits at a somewhat pitiful 4, only 1% of the countries in the world. I'm going to have to try to better that!

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Week 5: Full, approaching Bushy

2006-07-22T18:49:00.000-06:00

For my adoring public. A warning to all of my fans in law enforcement, the style of these pictures may look familiar (especially to my parole officer).

I like people

2006-07-20T20:18:00.000-06:00

After my week in Regina and all the visiting which ensued, I was perhaps feeling a bit let down suddenly not talking with people. Then today, I was in communication in some form or another with Ariann, Bronwyn, Chris, Jeremy, Ky, Scott, my parents, Jen, my grandma, and Bryan! Yay!

One step closer...

2006-07-17T20:22:00.000-06:00

As a follow-up to this post, I finally received notice back from APEGS. I passed my professional practice exam, which brings me one step closer to having my professional geoscientist status. I was a bit nervous opening it, I figured I had passed, but wasn't sure. At the exam, I went through all of the questions, and tried to gauge how many marks I should get on each question, and whether it would be enough (yes, this is the sort of person I am); although I was pretty sure I had, I wasn't totally confident.

That's all for now.

Adventures in Regina -Or- Uncle Traveling Matt, Social Butterfly

2006-07-16T12:25:00.000-06:00

So, my break has now come and gone, but I thought I'd relay a bit of what went on. I had a very busy weekend, with much visiting and socializing. It was tiring, but fun, and I'm glad I got in as much as I did, since it'll be a while before I have the chance again.

Resuming from my last post on the subject:
Monday I had a eye check-up (with favourable results: the short sightedness in my left eye had slightly improved, eye health was excellent, my right eye continues to compensate for my left such that I don't need glasses. Yay!), did a bit of running around in the morning, and then met with my friend Kent for a while in the afternoon. That evening, I got together with Jessica, saw her new condo, and generally got caught up on what had been going on in her life since last we spoke. It was a nice visit.

Tuesday, I picked some raspberries from the bushes in our backyard, filled up a bird feeder, and did some other tasks around the house before going to meet my friend and coach, Ted, for lunch. I then proceeded pretty much straight from lunch over to the Reed household, where I had a nice visit with Maryanne while we waited for Chris to return from some running around. They also had Kevin over, a friend of Dan Modderman's, and both of Chris' siblings, Dana and Jeff, were about for part of the afternoon. We mostly chatted and played Loot, a Mensa-approved card game, concerning pirates. It was fun, especially since since this soul enjoys sailing the seven seas! Avast ye scurvy bloke, ye will be planking the plank by dinner-time! Arrr! Yarr! This chair be high, says I! ...okay, I'll stop now.

Once the afternoon festivities had wrapped up, I continued onto Mike and Julia's apartment, as they were kind enough to invite me for supper. We had excellent home-made Pad Thai, and some good conversation. It was really nice to get to know to Mike a bit better.

From there, I continued onto Galaxy Cinemas, at the Normanview mall, to meet Chris, Maryanne and Bronwyn. Kevin and Jeff also came along. We watched X-men 3 (which I had seen before; I was there more for the company, and less for the movie), which is a decent show. After that was done, Jeff departed, but Lyn joined us at Brewster's, just across the parking lot from the theatre. So, then more visiting ensued. I finally got home around 1:00, quite exhausted from a full day of socializing!

On Wednesday, I saw still more of Chris and Maryanne, we got together for a walk along the bike trail near Maryanne and Meg's former apartment, then continued onto Dessart on 13th ave. After that, we returned to my parent's house, where Maryanne told Jen about Ky's recent visit to P.E.I., particularly as it related to L.M. Montgomery.

In the afternoon, I got together with Karl for coffee (well, a beverage, at any rate) and a walk. He also showed me some pictures of his honeymoon, through which I was struggling to stay awake, not due to the content but simply because I was so tired! Sorry Karl!

That evening, my family celebrated my birthday (a little bit early), organized primarily by my sister. Thanks Jen!

On Thursday, my dad left for Gimli for the weekend. I packed Thursday morning, and did some shopping, then in the afternoon met Tom and Helen for coffee. That evening was Karl's birthday celebration, at the Ethiopian restaurant at Broad St. and 13th Ave. We had a good time, and man was the food filling! Once supper was finished, I met my mother and sister to watch the Da Vinci Code (eh. It was okay, I guess.)

Friday morning, I got up, drove back to Saskatoon, and then caught a ride up to La Ronge with Alexander.

Sadly, I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to on this trip, but there's only so much time. I was really hoping to get together with Joel on my way back north, but due to his busy schedule and my own, it didn't work out.

It was a great week, but I had to go back to work so I could get some rest!

For the Love of Ky and Trouble

2006-07-15T07:18:00.000-06:00

Well, I suppose it's time I put something else up here. So, as quite a few people are now aware, I started growing my beard back, due to popular demand.

This post is dedicated to two individuals who have had notable reactions to my facial hair in the past: Ky, who loves beards, and Trouble, who, when I first returned from the bush with a beard, asked something along the lines of, "What's that growing on your face?!?"

This picture is my beard at four weeks less a day.

At the request of Meg, I will be taking a picture each week to follow the progress over the summer.

As a bonus, here is a picture of me with a beard, and sporting my amazing John Lennon sunglasses, purchased at the Beatles store in London! I don't care what Bronwyn says, they're fabulous!

Home!

2006-07-10T08:11:00.000-06:00

Well, I did eventually make it home. We ended up flying out to La Ronge via a Turbo Otter on Saturdy morning, then drove to Saskatoon. I made a brief stop at my apartment, packed up a few things, and then continued onto Regina.

I had a pleasant surprise Saturday night, because my friend Bryan had come back from his work term in Swift Current; originally he was supposed to be working this weekend, which meant that I wouldn't have been able to see him until the fall. After I had supper with my family, I got together with Bryan and hung out for a bit.

Yesterday there was no church to go to, because everyone else from church was up at the North Battleford camp. So, I went out to Noel's parent's cabin, near Regina Beach, with Bryan and Noel. We swam, played frisbee, ate fish 'n' chips at Butler's at the beach, and in general had a good time. After we returned from that, I got together with Scott and Jeremy to catch up a bit.

So, I've got another four or so days here, in which I have to do some more visiting with my family, along with Maryanne & Chris, Meg & Karl, Jessica, Ted, Marion, and possibly Julia & Mike, among others. Busy times.

It's good to be home.

Update: Stupidity and Bureaucrats

2006-07-07T21:24:00.000-06:00

So, it's now 9:20 p.m. and, lo and behold, I'm still sitting in camp.

As the day wore on, the plan evolved to having a float plane leave La Ronge at 6 p.m., bringing in several people and then returning to La Ronge with Ron and I. However, we got a call about 6:20, and were told that the plane was unable to take off because of poor visibility, due to heavy rain in La Ronge.

One would think that this would solve our problem: it's raining heavily that planes can't take off from La Ronge, which would seem to suggest that the forest fires are no longer a problem in the vicinity of La Ronge, and therefore that the highway should be open to traffic.

This simplistic solution to the problem overlooks the fact that people, particularly those in government, are frequently idiots.

Apparently, although the highway is safe to travel over now, the opening of the highway requires the approval of a bureaucrat in Regina. Right now, the closure of the highway is being enforced by the RCMP. Since it is now the weekend, it seems unlikely that said bureaucrat will grant this approval until Monday. So, many people are unnecessarily inconvenienced (keep in mind: the highway has been closed since Tuesday and it is the only road access to communities north of La Ronge), because some government official can't be bothered to say, "Oh, yeah, you can probably start letting people through now."

That's the situation as it stands. The plan for tomorrow is that a flight will be attempted for 8:00 a.m., provided visibility has cleared up sufficiently for the plane to take-off. This will put us in La Ronge for hopefully 10:30 or 11:00, which means I'll get to Saskatoon late afternoon, and then continue on into Regina that evening. I'd be mad if the whole situation wasn't so funny; it's the kind of thing that would show up in a movie, not in real life.

Hurry up and wait: The Frustration

2006-07-07T11:58:00.000-06:00

So, in theory, I should be on my way to Saskatoon right now (en route to Regina) for my break. However, highway 102 has been closed for the last several days, so getting out by truck isn't really an option.

We were planning to get a float plane to come pick us up (as well as to bring in a couple of people who have been waiting for the highway to open), but there was some rain overnight, so that idea was scrapped because rain means the highway should open up. It's noon now, and I still have no idea when and whether we will be leaving. Kind of frustrating, especially since I had plans to meet a friend (Joel) for supper tonight in Saskatoon.

As is often in the case in this profession, I've just got to hurry up and wait. Not much else I can do, but it's still frustrating.

I hope to see some of you soon!

Day 9 & 10: Lyme Regis

2006-06-30T20:23:00.000-06:00

All right, I'm not sure that anyone cares at this point, seeing as how my trip was a month and a half ago, but seeing as how I have some time and the internet connection is pretty good right now, I'll start on this post.

Lyme Regis is a town on the Dorset Coast of England, which I first read about in one of my sister's guidebooks on my first trip to England. I wanted to make the journey out there then, but it proved to be too far away for us to do it as a day-trip, and we already had too many other things planned. So, when I learned that I would be going back to England, I made sure we put it on our itinerary.

The big attraction of Lyme Regis is the fossil hunting that can be done there. Near the town are large cliffs consisting of alternating layers of limestone and clay, within which many Jurassic age (on the order of 190 million years old) fossils can be found. Periodic mud-slides carry fossils onto the beach, and after being reworked by storms and tides, this means the beach is a great place to find fossils. Due to the abundance of them, you area allowed to keep whatever you find, and there are a number of individuals in town who make their living off of fossil hunting.

Anyway...
My family and I took the train to Axminster on the Friday, followed by a bus to Lyme Regis. We arrived mid-afternoon, but by the time we got there it was too late to go fossil hunting on the beach east of Lyme Regis (because of the tides), which has better prospects, but we did wander along the western beach, and within five minutes on the beach I found a decently preserved ammonite! We wandered all along that beach, finding a number of ammonites, as well as a broken belemnite, and what we later learned was a vertebrae from a dinosaur or possibly an ichthyosaur.

The next day, we wandered around a bit in the morning until the tides were sufficiently low to go out on the eastern beach (between Lyme Regis and Charmouth), and then did more fossil hunting. Between the four of us, we found quite a few fossils, nothing spectacular, but something to remember the trip by. I also met the geologist, Paddy Howe, from the Lyme Regis museum, who has been working in the area for the last thirty years. He was very friendly, we had a good visit, but told us the fossil hunting prospects weren't very good right then; the best time to go is in the winter, but when we went conditions were unusually poor. He took pity on a fellow geologist though, and gave me a couple of fossils he had on him, including a pyritized ammonite (that is, an ammonite fossil where the shell had been entirely replaced by pyrite)!

Okay, on to pictures!

Here is The Cobb, which divides the two beaches I mentioned earlier.

Next, here is a picture of the beach to the west of Lyme Regis, where we started out on Friday. We walked all the way out to the point you can see at the left-hand side of the picture.

Here you can see my family fossil-hunting.

Below are the cliffs.

I'm only going to put up a couple pictures of the fossils I took here, because there are a lot of fairly similar ones.

Awwww...

Here's the town hall, it looks pretty neat.

And this is part of the beach between Lyme Regis and Charmouth

We wandered along the beach to Charmouth, where we stopped for lunch. We did a bit more fossil hunting on the way back, but by then we were running a little short on time (both in our trip and due to the tide starting to come in), so we returned to Lyme Regis, and visited the fossil shops as well as some other sights in the town. Then we picked up our bags from the hotel, caught the bus to Axminster, and from their took the train back to Reading. The next day, was our trip to London, and after that it was time to go home!

Fire! Fire!

2006-06-30T20:02:00.000-06:00

So, nothing really to be concerned about, but there seem to be fires burning EVERYWHERE around us. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit. Depending on who you ask, Highway 102 is closed north of the La Ronge airport, between La Ronge and Missinipe, or south of South End (which is actually north of our camp). I know that Neimeiben Lake (where my friend and co-worker Tyler was headed today, to spend the long weekend with his family) was evacuated. Also, that there are fires burning north of us, south of Brabant (the closest community to us), near Missinipe, and of course near La Ronge/Neimeiben Lake.

I should phone my mom and give her some more grey hairs. :P

I'm not overly concerned, but it is something we'll be keeping an eye on.

Lack of inspiration

2006-06-25T22:13:00.000-06:00

So, I'm sitting in northern Saskatchewan, and a couple of times now I've thought I should put something here to update my loyal readership (yes, all three of you) on what's been going on. But, I really haven't had much to say. I thought about doing a photo documentary thing about my work, because while many of you know what I do (gold exploration), few know what that entails. I don't know, in the evenings I just haven't felt like it.

In brief: I've spent the last week grid mapping, and probably have another week to go before I finish the grid. My leg (the one with tendonitis) is holding up okay, and slowly seems to be getting better. It's been really nice having internet access in the evenings, as well as the Vonage phone which means we can call people for free (as opposed to ~$1.00/minute with a sat-phone); the combination of those makes it a lot easier to keep in touch with friends (yes, I do have some) and family. So, can't complain really.

Please drop me a line via e-mail or otherwise and let me know how you guys are doing.

Go north!

2006-06-19T17:53:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm back up in the bush. The trip up was interesting; highway 102 (which goes north from La Ronge) is in somewhat rough shape from all the rain that's been coming down, so I had to take that portion of our trip a little slower than usual. My co-worker Mary picked me up this morning, and will be heading back to Saskatoon tomorrow with a different truck that came up a few days ago.

I will be up in the bush now for about three weeks, then I get a week break, and after that will be here until the end of August before I head to Sudbury for a couple of weeks to take my first class towards my M.Sc. in Mineral Exploration.

Let me tell you, very nice having internet access in the bush. Up until this summer, we have been able to e-mail over sat-phones, but you have to keep the file size down, and actually loading a web-page is virtually impossible. Think slow, unreliable dial-up that is prohibitively expensive.

So, this means that you all won't be free of me this summer, even if I'm not around in person. Now you can never escape...unless you, I don't know, turn off the computer, go outside and enjoy some fresh-air and exercise.

Two Weddings, Father's Day, and into the field

2006-06-18T22:13:00.000-06:00

In brief for now:
I had a very nice weekend. I got together with Maryanne and Chris Reed for a little while on Friday, and then my coach Ted in the evening.

Saturday, I watched the Beat Beethoven race, which Ted won. I then traveled with my former training partner Marion Craig out to the wedding of Greg Wilson and Jennifer Neiszner, at the Neiszner family farm near Weyburn. I was best man, and it was really an honour to be there. Greg and I first got to know each other competing at track, and then became training partners when he moved to Regina for school, and have stayed friends ever since. They are moving out to Ottawa, and will be sorely missed here. It was a very casual, laidback affair. The service lasted fifteen minutes, but was beautifully delivered by Greg's former coach, Jorin Green, who is now a professor of theology. The pictures were very nice, the photographer was great!

The wedding wrapped up quite early, such that I was able to get back to Regina around 9:00 p.m., and was able to attend the reception for my friends Meg Lipskey and Karl Persson. They were surprised to see me, and it was good to see so many of my other friends there.

Today, I attended church at the Regina Fellowship Assembly, and then went to Meg and Karl's Hawaiian themed gift opening and reception for close friends and family. It was great fun, although I had to duck out a little early so that I could spend part of Father's Day with my dad. I then returned to Saskatoon, and tomorrow will be heading into the field. I get a break from July 8-14th, and will otherwise be in the north until around the end of August.

So, my friends, please keep in touch with me by e-mail or over MSN/Skype. I'll hope to see some of you on my break, and everyone have a great summer!

Day 8: Avebury

2006-06-13T22:22:00.000-06:00

-Updated June 18-
On Thursday, we all hopped on the train to Swindon, and from there took the bus to Avebury.

Avebury is a small town with some very significant archaeological sites in and around it, most dating back 5,000 years. Jen and I came here on my last visit, so we tried to see some different sights this time.

The town is just beautiful: the local pub, the Red Lion, has a thatched roof, there is a small visitor centre, and, of course, the best feature is the stone circle which runs through the town. This circle is similar to Stonehenge, but older by about 500 years, the sarcen stones are unshaped, and the circle covers a much broader area, as you will see from the photos below. Also, nice from our viewpoint, Avebury is not the tourist attraction that Stonehenge is, so you can still go touch the sarcen stones, and it is much less crowded.

The Red Lion Pub:

The stones run through the town, and across fields, many of which are populated with sheep. There is also a ditch surrounding the circle of sarcen stones.

Here you can see some of the stones (and sheep):

Next is a close-up picture of one sarcen and a couple of sheep:

Below is a good picture showing the curve of the stones, the ditch, and part of the town.

Here is another good view of the ditch.

Sheep!

Okay, I can't resist, one more picture that shows the sarcen stones, taken near Avebury Manor and Farmhouse, part of a heritage site run by the National Trust.

The real black sheep of the family.

I like this sign. Helpful, isn't it?

Next, we walked out to Windmill Hill. This site is not much to look at, but is of great historical significance, having been the site of the first neolithic community in the area, older even then the sarcen stones, the barrow, and Silbury Hill (which i will tell more about below). There are also a number of unexcavated barrows near Windmill Hill, which were created two or three centuries after the village was abandoned.

As you can see, we went through some interesting terrain getting there.

The approach to Windmill Hill.

And the hill itself. As mentioned, not much to look at.

King of the Castle!

Here is a wacky spire, taken from far away using my zoom. I have no clue of its name/history/purpose.

On my first trip to Avebury, Jen and I got as close as we could to Silbury Hill, but this time we just took pictures from afar. It's pretty easy to make out for miles around, as it is the highest structure in the area. This hill dates back to ~2600 BC, and is a man-made hill approximately 40 m in height, comprised primarily of chalk. There has been speculation as to its purpose, but no definite answers; one popular theory is that it is a burial mound. It represents an estimated 4 million man-hours of work!

A notable omission from this trip was taking in the West Kennet Long Barrow, shown below. This was a burial chamber for many people; fifty bodies have been removed from it, and that from an area that only represents one-sixth of the length of the barrow. It was constructed approximately 5,000 years ago, and was sealed up about a thousand years after that.

Baptism

2006-06-12T17:29:00.000-06:00

Well, as many of you know, I was baptised yesterday at the Regina Fellowship Assembly church. This was something that was a long time in coming, as it had been more than a year since I first made it known that I desired this experience.

The baptism took place as part of the morning service. Many of those who I attend church with in Saskatoon came down to visit this event, including David Gabruch, an Elder there with whom I have formed a particular friendship. The usual attendance at the Regina church is about twenty people, but it was more than doubled yesterday (by Joel's count, 42! Yay Douglas Adams!)!

The service was ministered by David Cotcher and Trevor Sunbow (whose last name I have undoubtedly mangled...someone please correct me), with some additional words of encouragement from David Gabruch.

I would just like to thank all those who came to the service, and the others who could not be there, but whose prayers and thoughts were with me.

Day 7: Reading

2006-06-12T16:47:00.000-06:00

The day after we got back from Ireland we had originally planned on doing some traveling to see some other sights, but by consensus we decided a break was in order, so while Jen got some much-needed work done, my parents and I wandered around Reading a bit, and had a bit more restful day.

During our stay in Reading, some of the neat things we saw include:

A big lion, in a park in downtown Reading

More pictures of the park

The remains of Reading Abbey

More of downtown Reading

Poor Queen Victoria. A roost for pigeons, and seriously in need of cleaning. Royalty just aren't treated as well anymore, I guess.

The following were taken along the canal.

The crane (above) was taken on behalf of my mother. Yay 12x optical zoom!

There were a few other neat things in Reading, but I've covered the highlights, in brief here. Sorry for the lack of commentary, I'm feeling somewhat pressed for time right now.

Ky look-a-like

2006-06-05T21:22:00.000-06:00

I was out shopping this evening for some supplies for the field, and saw a girl that had an uncanny resemblance to Ky. I did a double-take at first, thinking it was her, but that was not the case. The real clue-in for me was that she was talking to a boy! Indeed, very possibly a boyfriend! :P

Day 6: Dublin continued and the journey home (well, to Reading)

2006-06-05T20:39:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday, our ferry back to England was scheduled to leave at noon, so we had a few hours in the morning to roam around. We went to Trinity College, as well as a beautiful park not far away, and saw one or two other things.

Here is the entrance to Trinity College.

This is part of the central green area.

Next, here is my sister snooping around.

This is a nifty sculpture (kind of reminds me of the chestburster from Alien)

Best. Sign. Ever. Need I say more?

Next, is a picture of my mother taken with Molly Malone.

We then continued on to Saint Stephen's Green Park.

There are pretty flowers surrounding a pretty rock.

And look! A picture of me! I bet some of you had forgotten what I look like.

"C D E-D B-D ducks?" "M aren't ducks!" "S M R! C D E-D B-D wings?" "L I'll B! M R ducks!"

Isn't it a pretty place?

I just had to take a picture of this place.

Cool statue.

That about sums up our stay in Ireland. We took Irish Ferries to Holyhead, and it wasn't as pleasant as the ferry from Fishguard. It probably didn't help that it was full of rowdy Irish football fans, or that it was smaller than the other ferry; although faster, it just wasn't as enjoyable. Plus, at the end of the ride, they kept giving us contradictory orders about where to disembark, and none of the crew seemed to speak English. At any rate, we made it back safely to Reading, which would be our base of operations for the rest of our stay in England.

Day 5: Dublin

2006-05-31T12:35:00.000-06:00

Monday morning we took the train into Dublin, where we stayed overnight before heading back to England. This was the only day of our trip where we experienced adverse weather, as it rained heavily for much of the day.

Despite the rain, we did catch a few of the sights in Dublin, but not quite as many as we had hoped.

First, we went to Dublin Cathedral, at the insistence of Jen, as some of the sermons she has written about in her studies were penned there.

Here is a plaque in Latin, which says something like "Jonathan Swift has been interred here", as far as I can tell.

Next up is a statue of St. Patrick casting the snakes out of Ireland. When St. Patrick casts you out, you STAY OUT!

Here is an picture of the interior. It's a big place.

Below is a picture of the Door of Reconciliation. Rather than recounting the story here, I would encourage you to read it yourself.

It's a beautiful place, but it's hard to imagine actually going to church in a place like that.

Next, we went to Dublin Castle, and took a tour there. It's really hard to capture how big this place is in pictures, but I'll try.

This is a very cool painting in the entrance hall. It didn't turn out as well as I would've liked, but you can still get the effect of it.

The receiving room, where eligible young ladies would wait for a man to come ask them to dance; each pair of chairs are angled such that there will be no doubt which lady said gentleman has come to ask, thus sparing the other embarrasment.

The throne of Ireland. Need I say more?

Next, a rather marvellous chandelier in the throne room.

This was formerly a ballroom, now used for governmental purposes, with beautiful paintings on the ceiling, one of which I will show below.

The aforementioned painting:

Adjacent to Dublin Castle, the Dubhlinn Gardens.

Well, that's enough for this post. I will put up some more pictures of Dublin later, covering the following morning, before we took the ferry to Hollyhead that afternoon.

Day 4 continued: Tintern Abbey

2006-05-29T20:06:00.000-06:00

Well, if anyone is still interested, I will continue my account of our travels over seas.

After we were finished our exploits along the coast of Ireland, we took a trip out to Tintern Abbey. This is a beautiful building, currently undergoing restoration, of (I believe) 12th century origin. It also has some significance to my family, in that my great-great-grandmother worked there in the 1800s as a lady's companion. On my previous trip over to Ireland, Jen and I were able to go inside and look around, but this time it was closed. However, there are some beautiful walking trails in the area, a neat old cemetary, and a wonderfully overgrown tower.

Above is a picture of the abbey, and you can also see the scaffolding where restoration work is going on.

Next, here is a picture of the grounds, including a lovely old bridge.

Above is the remains of an old church (as near as I can tell), there are a number of tombs inside it, and an old graveyard surrounding it.

Here you can see some of the gravestones, and below is the interior of the church.

Next we come to one of the neatest parts of our afternoon, an overgrown tower hidden away in the woods surrounding the abbey. None of us, our hosts included, had seen it before, but it's really neat. For all you can tell, all the vines and foliage growing on this structure may be the only thing holding it together!

Here is the interior:

And a picture of my family, taken through a window in the tower.

Last, but not least, is a photo I took of a sign explaining about the walkways, and the origins of the abbey. This is primarily put up for Karl's sake, as I know he has an interest in monks and the like, although I'm sure some others will also find it of interest. (Note: You'll have to click on the picture and enlarge it to make it readable; sorry, this is the best I could do in the post.)

Next stop: Dublin!

Sometimes life is good

2006-05-28T19:43:00.000-06:00

I had a good day today. Although I would've preferred to be running in Saskatchewan Marathon this morning, my injury prevented it, so I made the best of things and headed out on my bike. Jason Warrich and Martin Keino were competing against one another in the half-marathon, along with Ted Jaleta, my friend and coach. So, I got a few pictures of them, and then spent a good portion of the half-marathon riding along beside Ted, cheering him on.

From left to right: Matt Scobie (doing the 10km), Jason Warrick, Martin Keino, Ted Jaleta.
Jason ended up edging out Martin at the finish, and Ted came in third.

It started raining quite heavily partway through, and I ended up getting soaked, but had a good time despite that. After Ted finished, I went out looking for my friend and training partner, Jason Tomaz, who was participating in the full marathon. He was doing well when I found him, but may have pushed the pace a little bit too much, as he had a difficult second half. He managed to finish in 6th place, with a time of 3 hr 11 min, which isn't bad, but still considerably slower than he had hoped for.

The rest of the time, I was cheering on pretty much everyone else. You can really tell how much some of the people out there appreciate the encouragement, they always give you a big smile. Sometimes one of the runners will be suffering a bit, or getting tired, but a few words are enough to get them to dig a little deeper, and pick up the pace again. I'm glad I could do my little bit to help out.

I ended up being out on my bike for about 4 hours, and by the end of that my leg wasn't particularly happy with me, but I'm really glad I was out there. I ended up being about an hour late for church, showing up just before they took communion, but I think I made the right decision to go out there and cheer people on. I could've stayed home and felt sorry for myself because I wasn't able to run the race I'd been looking forward to for the last eight months, but that wouldn't have accomplished much, and I think this is a better way to deal with adversity.

When life gives you lemons, spray the juice from them into their eyes, and blind them! Or something like that.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled posts about Ireland.

Hiatus done...One task done, one task not happening

2006-05-27T13:01:00.000-06:00

So, this morning I wrote my professional practice exam, it went fairly well, I guess. I could have used a little more time, and my hand was sore from writing so much, but I'm pretty confident I passed. All it needed was a 65% passing mark, so that's not so bad.

I won't be running the Saskatchewan Marathon this year, which really sucks, especially since I've been planning on doing it since last fall. However, tendonitis in my right leg is a real pain, and right I'm doubtful that I could run 2 km at race-pace, much less 42. I've been out for a couple of runs in the past few days, and although I can run for a little while at a slow pace, there's no way I could sustain the kind of pace I'd want to run at the marathon. I walked to and from my exam, about a half-hour each way, and on the way home even that was painful.

On my walk home I got to thinking about this. Now, it's looking like I'm going to have to rest my leg for some time to let it heal. However, I don't want to go without doing any exercise during that time, so I have to find something that will give me a bit of a cardio workout without using my leg. Then I remembered a post that Shannon put up a while ago, and the solution came to mind.

Even though I disproved (or, at the very least, cast serious doubt on) the position put forth in Shannon's post, the basic premise might still be a valid form of exercise, just not burning calories at the inflated rate put forth in the post.

So, if anyone would like to participate in this form of exercise with me, the offer is open. Note, applicants must be female, born between 1977 and 1983, and, preferably, be residents of Saskatoon. Any takers? :P

Oh, and pretty soon, I'll have up more pictures from my trip. Just not today.

Hiatus due to Insanity

2006-05-23T21:38:00.000-06:00

Well, for all those eagerly awaiting the update of my blog with the rest of the Ireland pictures (including Tintern Abbey, which I almost forgot to include!), you will have to wait a little longer.

I have just returned from my various adventures, and now have to go back to work. Any time I'm not working over the next few days will be spent:
a) Studying - My 3 hour professional practice exam is on Saturday.
b) Marathon prep - The Saskatchewan Marathon is this Sunday. Right now I'm taking anti-inflamatory medication to deal with the tendonitis in my right leg. I need to get out for some runs in the next couple of days to determine whether I can actually run the marathon, as well as make sure I'm eating properly and hydrating. I also need to find some way to carry an energy bar that won't be annoying during the race. I'd appreciate prayer for the healing of my leg.
c) Miscellaneous every day tasks that need to get done when you've been gone for almost a month. Like grocery shopping. Mmm...food.

When life is sane again (next Monday), I will continue with discussion of my trip, and see if I can get some of my pictures up on Flickr as well.

Day 4: The Irish Coast

2006-05-19T06:24:00.000-06:00

This day we returned to Ballyteige (the cats needed feeding, after all), and then took a drive to Kilmore Quay, and Ballyteige Bay. I'd like to spend some more time along the coast at some point. As one of the prairie-folk, I didn't even see the ocean until my first trip to the U.K. a couple of years back. It's really quite breath-taking.

This first image is near the town of Kilmore Quay.

Next, is the harbour at Kilmore Quay. It's amazing seeing all of these ships, although some were real rustbuckets.

This image is of the harbour edge, with numerous, massive concrete breakwaters. They look just like big jacks.

Finally, from the Quay, I give you Jake. Jake is a seal that's been living in and around the harbour for quite a few years. Actually, given that "Jake" gives birth to a litter of seal pups every year, maybe "Jackie" would be more appropriate. "If I should die before I wake...feed Jake." Got to love the Pirates of the Mississippi!

After this, we wandered back to Ballyteige Bay. This is a lovely beach, but unfortunately the water was a bit cold to go swimming. We did do a bit of wading, though.

Here is a view of the length of the Bay. Pretty, isn't it?

Here's my dad playing in the water. I think he got a bit too close!

Finally, I give this lovely view, taken a little ways back from the shoreline.

Day 3 Addendum

2006-05-19T05:52:00.000-06:00

Okay, I'm going to put up a few pictures from the Irish National Heritage Park. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that my pictures really do this site justice, nor are they as spectacular as some of the other ones I've posted (or have yet to put up!).

First up is an early Irish farmstead, from the Neolithic period.

This is part of an early Christian monastery.

The above image is a Crannog. This is loch-dwelling settlement, of a type found in Scotland and Ireland. They were built out in the water for defensive reasons, on artificial islands. From what I've read about them, it would've taken a lot of work to put one of these together.

This is a Viking shipbuilders yard. There is a man from Denmark that works at the Heritage Park who builds ships using the same techniques and tools they would have used back in the 12th century. He was kind enough to show us the ship he was building, and tell us a bit about what he does. The following picture shows inside the workshop.

I'll wrap up with this rather spectacular view taken from a hill at the end of the Heritage Park walk...nothing to do with the park itself, but doesn't it look nice?

Day 3: Ballyteige Castle, Johnstone Castle and the Irish National Heritage Park

2006-05-18T05:16:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, one of our hosts took us around to see some of the local sites. I had been to two of the places before, Ballyteige and Johnstone, but I was happy to go see them again!

Ballyteige Castle dates back to the 14th century, and came into the possession of part of my mother's side of the family in the 19th century. Up until the early 90's, our relatives lived in the adjoining house, before moving into Tullabards House, shown in the previous post.

We heard about this place so much growing up, it's really neat going there. Ballyteige is one of the few privately-owned castles left in this part of Ireland (incidentally, we saw one of the others, Ballyhealy Castle, and it's up for sale. Anyone have a million Euros floating around and looking to buy?), and although it's not in the best of shape anymore, it was still wonderful to see. There are a number of feral cats who live in some of the buildings there, and our hosts, the McMorris family, feed them every day.

After our visit there to feed the cats, we went on to the Johnstone Castle Gardens. Johnstone Castle is a 19th century Gothic revival building with a 15th century tower castle at its core.

The castle itself has been converted into governments offices(!), and there are lovely walking paths surrounding a small lake. The trees here are gorgeous, with a great variety of species.

There is a walled garden area, although unfortunately coming at the time of year that we did, it had not been fully planted yet. There really is so much to see here, it's hard to know what to show you! There are swans swimming in the lake, peacocks roaming the grounds, and a couple of towers, ornamental in the style of Johnstone Castle, and more original dating several hundred years earlier.

Here are a few of the many pictures I took there:

We then moved onto the Irish National Heritage Park. This is an interesting place, which includes seventeen archeological and historical reconstructions of how people lived in Ireland, from 7000 B.C. up to the arrival of the Normans in the 12th century. I'll add some pictures from this site later, but for now I'm running out of steam.

Day Two: Travel to Ireland

2006-05-18T04:58:00.000-06:00

Friday morning (May 5th), my family and I took the train from Reading to Fishguard, Wales, and then proceeded to travel by ferry to Roselare Harbour on the southwest coast of Ireland.

There was one item of note on the train journey: our train was stopped outside the town of Cardiff for about 20 minutes, due to an incident involving armed police. We later learned that there was a man carrying a machete and a gun on the platform, and he had to be removed by the police. Fortunately, no one was harmed.

Here is a view of Roselare Harbour taken from the ferry as we came into port.

Over the weekend we stayed with some of our relatives (on my mother's side) who live in County Wexford, at their beautiful home, Tullabard's House.

The rest of the day was mostly spent visiting, and resting from all of our journeys.

Day One: Reading and Oxford

2006-05-17T06:24:00.000-06:00

So, here I will begin to recount our trip.

We flew from Regina to Toronto, and from there onto Heathrow airport in London, arriving on Thursday, May 4th. Jen came to meet us at the airport, and from there we took the bus to the Reading. We dropped off our luggage at her place, and then took the train to Oxford, where we spent the afternoon.

Since we were there in the middle of exam time, the colleges were closed to the public, but we did tour around the exterior of some of them.

We also returned to two museums Jen and I visited on my list trip to England, the Oxford Museum of Natural History, and the connected Pitts River Museum, which is an archaeological/anthropological museum. Both are very cool, with lots of neat things to see. Here are a few pictures from these two sites:

Here is a rather large fossil ammonite. We were hoping to find similar samples during our later visit to Lyme Regis.

More fossils, this time of plesiosaurs (I believe).

The above image is from the Pitts River museum, featuring a very intricately carved set of concentric ivory balls. The picture truly doesn't do it justice.

This really gives only a bare glimpse of that afternoon, but it's impractical to put up more than a few photos per post here. As previously mentioned, I hope to put up some of my pictures on Flickr, or a similar site, and perhaps will get to share them with some of you in person. Nex on our tour: Ireland!

Home

2006-05-16T06:19:00.000-06:00

Well, I have returned from my trip to England and Ireland. It's nice to be home, even though I'm a bit under the weather, and have been up for several hours now. (yes, it is 6 a.m. sigh.)

We had a really good time, although, sadly, I did not meet a pretty Irish lass. Such is life.

I'll put up some posts detailing the trip, soon, for those who are interested.

Brief Update

2006-05-10T02:40:00.000-06:00

Hi everybody! I'm enjoying my time overseas, returned from Ireland yesterday and everything is going well. We're spending the day in Reading, which will be pleasant; it'll be nice to not spend hours on the train.

Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the means for a more extended update on my trip, and likely will not until my return.

Take care all!

Departure...T-3 hours and counting

2006-05-03T06:50:00.000-06:00

Well, the day has finally come. Today, my parents and I leave for England. Yay! It doesn't seem quite real, yet, but I suppose it will soon. I'm packed, I'm taking my huge backpack, and a carrion bag (Oops! I meant carry-on...really) I borrowed from Joel.

We picked a pretty good day to leave, too. It's been raining here in beautiful Regina, and there's even been a forecast for snow! So, soon we'll be heading to rain...I mean, sunny London, for two weeks of travel in England and Ireland.

I don't know how frequently I'll have access to the internet during my travels, but I'll try to put up posts of the various places we visit as often as I can.

For those who care, our itinerary is as follows:
11:20 a.m., Woden's Day: Leave Regina.
some other time, same day: Arrive in Toronto, sit there for a while.
mid-morning, Thor's Day: Arrive in London. We are then going to spend the afternoon in Oxford. I've been there once before, there are so many neat places to see there! I particularly liked going to the various colleges, including going to the one where Tolkien lectured at.
Freya's Day: We've got a 'sail and rail' package set-up to head over to Ireland. We take the train to Fishguard, Wales, and then take the ferry over to Rosslare, Ireland. We'll be spending Saturn's Day and Sun's Day with our relatives in Ireland, and, among other sights, will get to see the castle in our family, Ballyteige.

On Moon's Day, we head into Dublin, and spend the rest of that day and half of Tiu's Day there, before taking the ferry from Dublin to Hollyhead Island, and then the train back to Reading.

After that, the itinerary gets a little fuzzy...I know we'll be spending a day at Avesbury, we have an overnight trip planned to Lyme Regis, and a day in London. There will be a few other places as well, I'm just not sure yet what they will be.

Then we return to Regina on Moon's Day, May 15th! Anyway, I will take many pictures on my trip, and will hope to show them to all of you upon my return...unless I meet a pretty Irish girl and decide not to come back. You know how it is. How can you say 'no' to the Irish?

As I don't have any more pictures from the current trip, and the one of the castle above was sort of cheating (seeing as how it was from last trip), I leave you with a picture of Bo. Isn't she cute?

Friends

2006-04-28T10:02:00.000-06:00

Recently I had a conversation with a friend, concerning the ease in which others meet people and make friends. For arguments sake, we're assuming that these friends you make are not robots, clones, or other artificial constructs. :P

I know a few people who are highly gregarious; making friends and meeting new people comes to them as naturally as breathing. Some of this may stem from the line of work such an individual is in (some vocations involve much more human contact than others), but that does not account for it alone. I question whether this ability is a result of their upbringing, an inborn characteristic, or conscious choice?

I know more people who have difficulty making friends and meeting new people, as well as many others who fall somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. Personally, I sometimes have difficulty meeting new people, particularly in a setting where I don't know anyone else, and there's no obvious common ground between you. If I'm out shopping for books (which I do with some regularlity), I'm unlikely to start up a conversation with the other customers; it is even more unlikely that any such conversation will lead to continuing contact and friendship.

In particular, since I've moved to Saskatoon, and away from the group of friends I had back home, I've found it difficult to meet new people. Certainly, I've met quite a few people through the church here, but only a very small number of them would I consider to be friends. Outside of this, I have few avenues to meet new people. My work has few employees, so the opportunity to meet new people there is limited. The frequent absences required by my work also limit the extracurricular activities I can get involved in, as many require more of a commitment than I can make. Where does one go to meet people (not speaking in a dating sense here, although that certainly can stem from friendships)?

Last year, I joined the Brainsport running club. I was tired of running on my own, and it did not require any great commitment. They meet every Wednesday night at 6:00, go for a run, and go to supper afterwards. On the surface this sounds ideal. However, it's more complicated than that. The club is divided up into groups, based upon the sort of pace you expect to run. I, naturally, ran with the advanced group, which has at best half a dozen regular members, all of which are male and for the most part considerably older than me. Also, I have yet to be able to attend one of the suppers, as I attend prayer meeting at the church, which begins at 8:00. I have come away from the experience with a friend and training partner, but this friend is older and has a family, so our time together typically is limited to one or more runs together each week. Now, if I really wanted to meet more people there, I could run with one of the slower groups, or skip prayer meeting. However, this would compromise my own running, and prevent me from participating in a part of my walk with God.

It is (relatively) easy to make friends in school, at a technical institute, community college or university; in those places, there is a large group of people who have come together for a common purpose. However, once you leave these institutions, the opportunity for new friendships seems to dwindle. Am I alone in feeling this way? I don't know.

My apologies for a somewhat rambling post. To this issue I bring no answers, only questions. To my small readership, I ask you to comment and share your own thoughts on this.

I had a good day. I caught a new fish

2006-04-21T16:51:00.000-06:00

Well, really my good day started last night around 11:00. I got to talk with the lovely Ariann over Skype, which was great fun, got to talk with my friend Tennille as well, and still managed to get in 5 hours of sleep or so.

Work went well, I got everything accomplished I set out to do, and the day seemed to go by fairly quickly. I just got some good news from a friend, so I'm happy.

To make it better, I'll be having Karl staying with me overnight before we head to the wedding of Saryn and Dan tomorrow in Rosetown.

Matt is happy. All is well with the world. That is all.

On Running - A Minor Rant

2006-04-19T07:31:00.000-06:00

On a number of occasions of late, someone has learned of my running, and subsequently referred to it as 'jogging'. Naturally, I protest the use of this term to describe my sport. I don't 'jog', I 'run'; there's a difference, to me anyway.

I began running seriously at age 16, and as of this coming September will have been at it for a decade. I competed for my university track team for five years. I have, as a conservative estimate, run in the range of 25-30,000 km, and that number may be low. I have put thousands of hours into my sport.

In my mind, 'jogging' is what casual runners who are trying to get into shape do. 'Running' is something that requires effort, that takes you out of your comfort zone, and is fast; what constitutes 'fast' is a matter for debate, but even my resting pace at ~12 kph is faster than many people can do.

Please don't mistake this for arrogance on my part. I don't think of myself as being a great runner. I know, and am friends with, people who have competed on a national or international level; I can do respectably at local road races and such, but I can't aspire to that level of performance.

Up until I began my job, it was unusual if I wasn't running six to seven days a week. Now, with the amount of time I'm away for field work, I find it hard to stay in the same level of fitness, but when I'm back in the same city I'm still at it everyday. When someone calls me a 'jogger', it seems a diminishment of all the hard work I've put in, and of all the sacrifices I have made for my sport.

To sum up: please don't call me a jogger; I'm not. I'm a runner.

Journeys in Outer Space: Uncle Traveling Matt

Week 4: Goal achieved, almost back in the black

Week 3: Goal achieved, but still in the red

Week 2: Came up a little short

Week 1: Goal achieved, 38.9 km done

New Year, New Goals

Better than late than never

Iqaluit Part Two - The First Two Weeks

Journeying to Iqaluit - An Adventure of Airplanes and Cats

Heading up to the north country

Easter Fools!

Funny Cat Moments: Mirri

Going North?

If you're planning on time traveling, get one!

Brilliant!

Poor Warbot

Introducing Alice and Mirri!

DDR Training?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The Rumours Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated...

The Wedding Went Off Without a Hitch! Er....well, just one hitch.

Musings from a Matt

Excerpts from Semi-conscious Conversation

Now you're one year older....

I know, I know...

xkcd

Got the Winter Travel Blues...

Ball Lightning

Stuck in Sudbury

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

I love this.

Arrogant Worms

Good to be home....oh, and "Arrrrr!"

Please leave a message after the beep *beep*

Happy Birthday to Me

Is anybody home!?

Brief Update

Some enchanted "meme"ing

Postcard from Uncle Traveling Matt

Hey Eugene - Pink Martini

Adventures in Regina

Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons -or- Ways To Tell You've Been In the Bush For Awhile

Maybe I really can do this stuff...

Posting Sporadically since April '06!

A Sense of Peace

Life is fun!

My New Year's Eve

Merry Christmas, everyone!

So, a funny thing happened about a month ago...

Oh, yeah, this thing...

There and Back Again

Black and White

Talk Like A Pirate Day!!! Arrr!

Random Thoughts

Crazy Train

Narrow Lake and Core

Tower Lake Camp and Beard, Week 10

Camp Move, and Beard, Week 9

Camp Life Addendum

Almost Famous

Camp Life and Beard, Week 8

Trip to Flin Flon

Week 7

Happy Birthday to me!

Week 6

Oops! My First (And Hopefully Last) Quad Roll-Over

Day 11: London & the Journey Home

Week 5: Full, approaching Bushy

I like people

One step closer...

Adventures in Regina -Or- Uncle Traveling Matt, Social Butterfly

For the Love of Ky and Trouble

Home!

Update: Stupidity and Bureaucrats

Hurry up and wait: The Frustration

Day 9 & 10: Lyme Regis

Fire! Fire!

Lack of inspiration

Go north!

Two Weddings, Father's Day, and into the field

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