Thanks to an unusual constellation of work trips, I've spent 7 days of the last two weeks in Canada, on two separate visits. First I was in Victoria BC for three days, then in Vancouver for four days the following week (with three days at home in between). Since I was getting reimbursed for expenses, I didn't have to wince too badly at the US dollar being at par, though that did curtail my recreational spending a bit. Not that I had much time to shop; I only had a few hours one afternoon to walk around downtown Victoria, and no time at all in Vancouver, even in the airport - when I checked in I got put on an earlier flight, and barely had time to get some lunch before I had to board.
I really enjoyed both trips, though neither could be termed relaxing since the work was fairly intense. But I met some great people, ate some terrific food, tried some great local beers, and generally had a good time. I now need to re-learn how to spell words such as enrolment and licence. There were absolutely no hassles with Customs or Homeland Security at any point (!), my luggage arrived intact, and travel was smooth all the way around.
My Victoria trip was by passenger ferry and I managed to sail the day before and after a major storm came through the Northwest. On the trip up, the crew gave multiple dire warnings about the advisability of taking Dramamine (which I had already done - I'm not a rough water sailor) but the ride was really quite smooth. Not so the following day - the Clipper sailing was canceled, and this page has photos of what happened to one of the Washington State ferries that day. This was on an inland waterway, too, not the open Strait -- oh, my. By the time I went back to Seattle on Friday night, it was a bit breezy, but thankfully nothing like that.
Great trips -- but it's nice to be at home.
October 29, 2007
O Canada
October 28, 2007
Back Home
Thanks to those of you who have checked in recently, and apologies for the lack of updates. The first week of October was pretty smooth sailing, and then chaos descended again. That was followed by two weeks in a row of travel to different places in British Columbia (one car/ferry trip, one plane trip). The travel went amazingly smoothly, even the customs and security parts, and both trips were productive, though exhausting. I even managed to avoid a multi-hour airport wait by getting onto a connecting flight at the last minute (the times were too close together so the airline wouldn't issue me a ticket, but I got there right as it was boarding and got the last seat). Hope that bodes well for our upcoming Thanksgiving trip. We have direct flights, and we're not flying on the peak days, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Now for some family time - maybe even outdoors to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather we're having.
October 02, 2007
Milestone
OTOH, that gives me an overall comment rate of 2% - maybe you're not actually reading?
The Great World Wide Star Count
Want to assist in an effort to gauge the impact of light pollution on visibility of the night sky? Check out The Great World Wide Star Count and get yourself outside about an hour after sunset by October 15. The activity guide explains how to observe and report your findings.
I've been thinking about this topic recently; in the past few weeks I've watched Tim Ferris' film Seeing in the Dark on PBS, and read through the stories that Chris at Creek Running North collected about first viewings of the Milky Way. We live in a small-medium city, with streetlights, and playfields that are astoundingly brightly lit (Son is playing 7 PM soccer games on these fields), so visibility from home isn't that great. [It's too cloudy tonight to do the Star Count observation, but I'll report back on what we can see.] But we have been able to view satellites and the Space Shuttle from my parents' house, which is farther from the city center. And there is enough rural land just outside of town, either undeveloped or in orchard, that's easy to get to and opens up the sky considerably.
I can't really remember a time when I hadn't seen the Milky Way - between camping trips and night walks on the beach, and later backpacking in the High Sierra, there were lots of opportunities. Due to light pollution, that's not the case for most people - up to eighty percent of the population alive today has never seen it, according to Ferris. That's a loss. And one that's fixable, and worth doing something about.
