At 9:44pm this evening our little girl turned 2 weeks old. It's hard to believe that she has been with us that long, and yet it also seems like the delivery was a life away. One little life I suppose. We have been blessed with a healthy daughter, born 6 pounds 6 ounces on September 16. We've named her Charlotte Noelle; her first name from her great grandma and the second for her yuletide conception. Who says we aren't sentimental?
I think parenthood sneaks up on you in certain ways, and barges in on you in others. It seems like it still isn't real that she will be with us for the long run. And yet we are rushing time by breaking her life into stages - get through the first six weeks to get our sleep back, the first four months to get her on a sleep schedule, the first year to get her into daycare before mat-leave ends, the first two years to fly with her for free, and on and on. It's hard to think of that as raising her. And then at other moments time is surreally suspended where minutes and hours don't exist outside of the tiny sphere of her cries or her breathing as she sleeps on my chest.
We constantly look for signs of who she might be or might become. Worry, love, and responsibility fight for our energy, met with weary patience and hope. We are lucky and blessed for all that hasn't happened on her way into this world and scared for all that could happen now that she's here. And then some days we don't think of that at all. It's just a little person lying on your chest hoping that you stay warm and don't move. And that is so much more than enough; it's all we want.
Sorry for those who have been waiting and aren't on Facebook that this wasn't posted sooner but my oh my where does the day go? I suppose the whole day is still there, it just gets used a little differently now...
Babywatch; the hours post due date when at any moment the first stage of labour might begin. Rather than be surprised and caught off guard we are now on the other side of the hill and awaiting the arrival of our little one. Everyday brings renewed hope that we'll have a delivery at a decent hour. Every night brings the worry of a 2am wander around the apartment, with pauses for contractions, as we both blearily try to remember where the overnight bag and diaper bag and the baby seat was put. Actually, the baby seat is already in the car. We're not completely unprepared.
It's been a short sumer with a lot packed into it. I suppose things really started rolling with my dad heading into hospital at the end of April. There followed phone calls and emails and family conferences and the kindness of friends as we pursued his care and worried over his health and recovery. As stressful as it was for us, it was an even longer three months for him and when he finally got out on August 6 it was a bittersweet moment. He is cancer free but the process took a lot out of him (more than just the parts they removed and the plumbing they reworked). It will continue to be a road of recovery for the next little while. However, with the first grandchild on the way we are certainly glad that he's resuming his life again!
And us? We visited, we saw people wed, we saw them break up, we sang songs around campfires, paddled kayaks, we biked and hiked. We traveled to Montreal, North Carolina, Hornby Island and the wilds of Meares Island. I drank for three several times. Not a bad way to spend the summer (unless you're 30-odd weeks pregnant for some of it). Some mountain biking was thrown into the mix (thank you Geoff and Mike) and we collected baby gear. Lots and lots of baby gear. We're lucky to be in the second wave of babies in our social crowd, with hand-me-downs and loaners galore. We've rearranged our small apartment to have a space for the stuff and a space for us. The baby fits in somewhere amidst all of that.
The thesis continues to be the elephant in the room, pooping on the couch and stealing food off my plate. I was set to defend at the end of August but my committee rejected the paper I had submitted. So I'm in the midst of rewriting and hoping for an October conclusion to it all.
And I really need to find a job.
Ah, the thoughts that keep one from sleep in the wee hours of Babywatch, high on the ramparts with the fires of the enemy in the valley below. When you dread the fray but would rather be in the midst of it than on the edge of it slowly and stealthily approaching...
Back in 2005 when I was working for the UBC Faculty of Forestry the Forestry Undergraduates Society wanted a band made up of their professors to play some songs at their end-of-the-year party, called 'Coconut'. Despite being just a staff member I was roped into the band and we played three songs, one of them twice. Well, the tradition has continued and now we're up to ten songs and we're no longer the opening band! This year we rounded out the show with Neil Young's 'Keep on Rocking in the Free World'. The first time I ever played that song on stage was in front of the Steer Inn in Bragg Creek on a chilly February afternoon in 1988. Ian, Dave and I were performing in the Olumpucks as 'The Most Improved Band'. The year before we performed as the 'The Worst Band in the World'. Yes, in Bragg Creek you get to design your own Olumpuck categories, and the torch relay is rarely protested (or hidden in a warehouse in San Fransisco). Anyway, the Forestry prof band calls itself "The Trudeaus" and if you are savvy enough you can find us on YouTube.
It's a blast playing music on stage, as good as theatre and more relaxed than doing commercials. Speaking of which, a copy of the SHAW commercial is now on YouTube as well.
The weather is trying to be like Spring but with snow in Calgary and the continued gloomy, chilly business we've been having in Vancouver it's more like November than April. The thesis continues to claw at my knees. Silly thesis kitten. I'm having stress dreams about chemistry exams for some strange reason...
One more rant today. I was recently in a poster session for a research night here at UBC. I developed a lovely poster (click on the image to see a larger version) and thought it to be a pretty good graphical presentation of my research. There were prizes given for the "best" posters of the evening. I didn't make the top three. Now, I don't want to give the impression that I'm a sore loser (and yes, there was money involved), but three days later folks are still commenting on my "Forester with the Meatgrinder Head", and have therefore taken away the essence of my research, but they can't recall any details of the research in the winning posters. A poster with that kind of graphical impact should at least have warranted third place, darn it. Yes, I respect a poster that can distill a complex research problem down to a 35" x 40" bit of paper, but impact on the viewer has got to count for something as well.
It can't have helped that I was the only qualitative researcher surrounded by the much more "scientific" quantitative studies of seedlings, aphids and sparrows. All with the hallmarks of "real" research such as pictures, tables, and graphs. But in the end I feel that I'm studying the one thing that makes or breaks any of their research; the foresters themselves. Do all the research you want, deliver all the computer modeling tools you can, but in the end the practice of forestry is at least 75% social science where professional people are charged with balancing society's resource values, economics, and the needs of the environment. I'm sure that I'll calm down in a week or two.
I realized that I used to Blog for fun and then it became linked to traveling with pictures and all, and it was hard to go back to just writing the everyday stuff.
So here we go with just writing a couple of everyday rants.
I have a beef with people who carry umbrellas on rainy days and subsequently walk down the sidewalk under the awnings of the buildings fronting that sidewalk. The awning is not for you. You are carrying your own awning. The awning is for people like me who don't have an umbrella. Move to the curb umbrella people, I'm cranky enough with wet feet on rainy days.
Second rant, I recently went shopping to try and find a pair of casual pants. I hate button-up flies on men's pants and jeans. The button fly was invented by a jerk. The fashion industry people who are now putting button flies on every pair of men's casual pants out there are also jerks. It's impossible to "quickly" try on a crisp pair of button-up pants. And any fellow who has had to go really badly in between commercials hates these buttons. I'm going to loose a button in the mad rush to relieve myself one of these days. Because in the rush one doesn't daintily open the lower buttons, you unhitch the top button at the waistband and pull. Which is another problem, because as a guy I actually don't need to undo my waistband to pee, I have the ability to stand up and "produce the tap" (as it were) external to my clothing through a localized opening in my pants which was previously provided by a zipper. Woman of course need to lower their pants. Men do not. Button flies that force us to undo the waistband suggest that we do and I strongly suspect that this fashion trend is just women getting even and forcing long line ups in men's rooms as guys try to unbutton and re-button at the urinal while several gents shift from foot to foot behind them. The only good thing about button-up flies is you can't get "caught" in them which must relieve long line ups at the ER. Or something. Long live the zipper.
Oh blogging muse, where art thou? Why hast thou forsaken me? Why do I waste my wittiest quips and cleverest lines on Facebook? I have to admit posting photos and videos to Facebook is easier than with Blogger. But let us not dwell on these insignificant factoids and rather let us catch up...
After we returned from Patagonia I had a brief visit to Alberta as my Dad has been having some health troubles – an aneurysm and bladder cancer. The aneurysm was successfully stented, but the cancer will be a longer road. He's currently in chemo therapy which has been tiring for him but something that he has met with typical perseverance. He attends his sessions once a week and then continues working the rest of the time. I hope I have inherited his amazing resolve!
Christmas came and went, that short holiday between Hanukah and the Super Bowl, and Rosemary and I spent it at her parent’s place in Telegraph Creek. It's a remote spot, snuggled near the Alaskan panhandle, that provided us a beautiful and peaceful place to spend the holiday season. Days were spent chopping wood, visiting neighbours, and eating Christmas baking. Positively splendid. We flew in and out of Whitehorse, whose weather hovered around -35. So yes, my Albertan friends, I do know how cold it has been for you. Once it passes -30 it's all just numbers isn't it? We returned to Vancouver in time for New Year's Eve and had a great time at the Cypress Mountain tube park with friends.
January has flown by. I've been busy working on both contract work for the Association of BC Forest Professionals and also helping with two major forestry conferences. This of course has been a huge diversion from my Masters, which still awaits my full attention. Or any attention. It mews like a forgotten kitten on the windowsill of my intellect. I will strive to feed it healthily this month and change its litter box weekly.
One of the most exciting happenings has been the release of a commercial I shot for SHAW digital home phone service. Unlike the other commercials I have done (all precious 3 of them) this one is being shown across Western Canada. This has produced numerous emails asking if it was me on TV? Yes indeedy it be me flogging SHAW's phone solution. I shot the spot in Calgary at the end of last October, a whirlwind trip there and back before our trip to Patagonia. I've only seen the spot twice as we don't watch much TV so I can't be sure if it's any good, but hopefully it will catch the eye of numerous directors who are looking for just the right fellow to head their new film/television/internet gambling project.
February has already brought its mixed bag of fun and punishment. This past Saturday/Sunday we had an awesome weekend visiting friends up in Whistler, staying at their condo and celebrating a birthday. But in my first outing to the downhill ski slopes in seven years I succeeded to dislocate my shoulder in a slow-speed topple in deep powder on the third run. It's an old injury that has never healed, and is now freshly insulted so it wasn't as serious as it sounds. But it did slow me down on the next six runs and makes high fiving a bit painful.
Anyway, apologies for not blogging sooner. Will be trying harder this month to feed the hungry minds of friends and family not on Facebook…
Having once been where the sidewalk ends, it seems only fitting to finally be where the road runs out. We are currently in Ushuaia, almost the southernmost community in the world. At the southern tip of Argentina is Tierra del Fuego, a national park that sits a scant 1,000km from Antarctica. Within its borders are the tail ends of the Andes overlooking the Beagle Channel and on a clear day (which we've had very few) the Straights of Magellan. This is an historic part of the world in navigation and biology, lessons in introduced species running amuck (who knew 25 mating pairs of Canadian beavers would cause so much trouble?), and our own species running amuck in the elimination of the native peoples of this region. In fact there is only one old pureblooded woman left of the Yamana who lives in a small fishing village near here. A bit apocalyptic if you think about it too long.
But those of you who have been waiting for me to blog, I must apologise. One thing that seems to happen on a 'short' trip is that internet time is sacrificed in favour of eating and moving to the next mini-adventure. On longer trips entire afternoons can be devoted to checking email, uploading photos and writing eloquent blogs. So anyway, this is it until we get home. Unless something extraordinarily blog-worthy happens.
We began our travels in Santiago (Chile) and traveled south the next day to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world. We then promptly traveled north by bus to Puerto Natales. From there we headed into Torres del Paine, the northern tip of the Patagonia region that runs along the Andes spanning areas in both Chile and Argentina. Like swarthy mailcarriers we hiked for five days through cloud, rain, snow, wind and some sunshine, but luckily spent nights in refugios along the way. It is a beautiful park filled with river vallies, jagged mountains and glaciers. Who knew spring at the other extreme of the latitudes was tempestuous? It's like holidaying in Alaska in March. Maybe April.
We crossed the Andes, and the border, and arrived in El Calafate, Argentina. The town is the staging ground to Los Glaciars national park which has within it… glaciers! We visited Porito Moreno, a huge 60m wall of ice and one of the few glaciers still moving forward at 1.5m per day. This means that huge chunks of the fractured face of the glacier calve off into the lake it feeds causing a big splash and the whirring click of a thousand of camera shutters. I was a little too slow to catch the big drop while we were there, but I bet somebody has posted it on Youtube by now.
We then headed a bit further north to El Chalten and the home of Mt. Fitzroy for an overnight camping trip and a chance to trek out onto a glacier and try our hand at some ice climbing. Of course, the weather followed with us and as we hiked through the linga (beech) forests wind and snow swirled into our faces and ears. We had a freezing night in a tent, having to double bag sleeping bags to stay warm. However, the next day was a stunningly beautiful blue-sky day, and our trek to the glacier was flawless. We stayed an extra day in El Chalten to gain the view of the famous Mt. Fitzroy that we were unable to enjoy two days before due to the socked-in conditions. We hammered our way up to Laguna de Los Tres, a small lake at the foot of the Los Tres Glacier that spills from between Pincenot and Mt. Fitzroy. For Pete and Paul, we made it! We hammered back down the trail in time to catch our bus back to El Calafate.
A long set of bus rides south brought us to where we are now, in Ushuaia. It has been a fantastic trip to a beautiful part of the world. We have been cold, hungry, tired, elated, and rewarded, sometimes all at once. We fly to Buenos Aires in two days, and in six days we will sadly be winging our way home. Despite our worries about the weather, it hasn't hampered us too much and in fact has given us a true flavour of the Patagonia experience.
Oh my gosh we're leaving tomrrow!! Another trip, this time for three weeks to Patagonia, which is a region that spans both Chile and Argentina. We fly into Santiago and out of Buenos Aires - an open jaw as they say. We decided to go south, but as the late spring weather in that part of the world seems to be holding around the "chilly" mark perhaps we have chosen poorly...
I will blog and post pictures as much as possible, but three weeks goes by so quickly, we may be home before the ink dries on the first posting!
Life continues but we haven't taken any stellar pictures which makes me less likely to blog. Ah, the days when all I used to do was text...
I entered the Canada Writes contest in the hopes that I will be able to meet Jian Ghomeshi in person and mispronounce his name. I submitted 200 words in the "Blog" category, so if they're clever they may Google me and so I felt that I'd better put up some recent musings.
Unfortunately my muse is being abused by the transcription process of my interviews. I finished all of the interviews for my Masters last week, which involved a lot of driving aorund the Interior and a chance to visit my sister and friends in Kamloops. It was a tiring process and gave me a lot of respect for those who interview folks for a living. I promise not to dis George Stroumboulopoulos anymore. The next step is to transcribe all of the interviews and then begin the end process of analyzing and writing my thesis. Yippe haw, I'm almost done.
So I'm going to apply for a job in Denmark. Hamlet and cartoons aside, I understand it's a lovely place...
A friend recently emailed me after finding me through an "old-fashioned" Google search, reminding me that Facebook has yet to fully take over and hence there is still some value in having a personal webspace and a Blog. And it also means I should keep throwing up content like spaghetti at the wall...
Picking up from where we last left off, Erin and Darren's wedding was a lovely success in that the couple were married and we drank and danced the night away. The couple were last seen escaping the festivities hoping that no one would notice two people in a tux and white dress strolling through Kamloops.
Moving on in our Summer of Adventure we headed north to Bowron Lakes Provincial Park, rated as one of the top ten destinations for canoe tripping. With four friends (hello Brenna, Jenny, Mark, and Geoff) we spent the next 6 days paddling the chain of lakes that form an amazing rectangular freshwater circuit. We rented canoes and put in at the shore of Kibbee Lake, and there upon began to learn that paddling a canoe is not like paddling a kayak. After spinning dramatic doughnuts, veering into bullrushes and generally having a swearing wee of a time we portaged to the next lake, reassessed our skills and put me in the back and Rosemary in the front. We then went slowly but mostly straight.
Bowron Lakes is a very well-serviced circuit with clean, numerous maintained campsites along the lake shores with pit toilets and sturdy metal bear caches (which avoids the old hanging your food from a tree difficulties). Luckily, a canoe holds even more than a sea kayak, so our commitment to cooking gourmet foods whilst camping in the backcountry continued its mad pace. Fresh curries, Cornish game hens, eggs benedict, vegetarian chile, blueberry pancakes, and hot soup lunches were all trotted out using fire pits and white-fuel stoves.
Evening sing alongs courtesy of my Australian guitar featured repeat renditions of Jenny's new favorite campfire ditty "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate". Under overcast skies and intermittent rain we paddled sometimes on glassy smooth water and then in the next moment across chilly wind swept chop where it seemed our strongest strokes were only keeping us from being blown backwards or into the rocky shoreline. It was a mix of beauty, physical discomfort and quiet contemplation.
After a particularly trying day, which included 8 hours of padddling, Rosemary spent her birthday on the shores of Sandy Lake, where we stayed up late sining songs and having shots of Fireball whisky to warm our bones and ease our aching arms. The full moon came out in the first cloudless sky we had seen in three days, and the brilliant light was enough for a long shutter speed on the beach. We awoke to sunshine that went a long way to drying out damp gear and soggy spirits.We passed by indifferent moose feeding at the shoreline, skittish deer, spawning salmon but, thankfully, no bears. It was truly a unique experience!
Returning back from the lakes we were thrown into wedding celebrations with Arwyn and Rich, and then back full-swing into the school year for Rosemary in her CMA program and me in my Masters. I'm sitting in on a course and pecking away at getting the last of my interviews organized. Hopefully one more trip into the interior will have my research phase completed and I can begin the long process of analysis and writing. For the scholastic ventures we're seeking to finish and the life-long unions we've been witness to this summer, what else can we wish for but smooth sailing and a good J-stroke.
The summer continues to roll along and I'm finally beginning the interviews which will be the 'data' for my thesis. It's nice to begin the work which was the reason for my starting this Masters thing anyway! I've posted more pictures on my Facebook site but for now here are a few...
A news report this morning on CBC related the story of a war monument near Buckingham palace that was falling into neglect and had kids climbing all over it partly (as the reporter would have us believe) due to Conrad Black's legal troubles. I've seen the monument and it really is an effort to restrain yourself from climbing up it. And as for Lord Black, is it really his responsibility to maintain the monument? Aren't we all responsible? I'm not a fan of Black, but he did get it built in the first place which is more than I've done. And as for the kids playing on it, as the US and Russia re-escalate the Cold War, I wonder if those who fought and died and continue to fight and die hoped someday children would lay claim to the war monuments as places of laughter and play. Rant's over.
We have just returned from a great four-day kayaking trip through Desolation Sound. The Sound is along the Sunshine Coast, north of Powell River. Our group was quite big, and the 16 of us rented single and double kayaks and put in at Okeover Inlet. We paddled to Grace Harbour and camped there the first night. The nearby fresh-water lake was a relief from the warm, salty day, but the leeches had us cutting our swim time short! As you can carry quite a bit of stuff in a kayak, the food was phenomenal. Geoff and Jenny cooked us fresh vegetables and tenderloin steak topped with blue cheese. Camping schmamping. The next day we continued up the sound to Tenedos Bay, stopping along the way for lunch in Gailey Bay. The water was like glass heading past Mink Island and the paddling was easy. It was so easy Rosemary fell asleep with her legs propped up on the bow. Yup, pretty easy...
After another great dinner (we made a coconut chicken curry with chapattis and fresh veggies) we enjoyed a quiet night under skies filled with stars and the constant rush of a small waterfall nearby. The next day we explored further up the sound towards Prideaux Haven. We snorkled, dove for oysters, explored various bays and inlets, and had lunch on Melville Island. On the way back to the campsite we circled around a few rocks that were a great sunning spot for seals. They were initially quite nervous but soon settled back into their tanning when it was clear we had no gaping mouth with which to eat them. Just a camera. A 'shower' in the water fall near our camp site eased weary shoulder muscles and washed the salt away. After an oyster feed followed by veggies in black bean sauce (did I mention the food was great?) we were lulled to sleep by the hits of the eighties booming across the bay from a moored boat. Who needs my guitar when Sade's 'Smooth Operator' drifts along with the evening breeze.
The last day we left early and started out for Okeover Inlet. The weather had turned decidedly grey and slightly windy, making for a brisk paddle. We made good time, and decided to stop off at the beach front of a cabin owned by a fellow that one of our group had met (is she the one he blogged about falling for on Aug 7?) while we camped at Tenedos Bay. He appeared on the porch of his cabin and invited us in to warm up. We scrambled up the bank and plopped down in his living room. The fellow turned out to be Grant Lawrence, lead singer of the now 'retired' band The Smugglers. He now does pod casts on CBC 3 (see pod cast #115 for a taste of his tastes). We warmed to his coffee, his stories and the walls which kept out the wind, but soon it was time to get back in the paddling chair. We were quickly back in Okeover Inlet and grinding onto the beach that we had left from four days previously. It was a tired drive back to Vancouver, but well worth it for yet another summer adventure completed! Next will be Darren and Erin's wedding in Kamloops!
For those of you wondering if the view from our front window has changed, yes it has. Unfortunately what could have been a pool in the courtyard, where I could have fixed my motorbike with my shirt off, was filled with dirt and covered in grass and now has noisy children playing on it. Hoo ra.
What have we been doing lately? We managed to get away to Tofino for the long weekend, did some surfing and did a whole lot of eating and drinking. Ah, to be twenty again. Or twenty pounds lighter. One or the other... still, Rosemary makes even a cold-water wetsuit look lovely in the sun.
The surf was a little quiet but the weather was unexpectedly beautiful, so there could be no complaining.
As a side project, over the winter I decided to join an adult gymnastics class. Once a week we throw ourselves around onto crash mats, try to walk on our hands, and generally challenge the body to do silly things. The experience has been great but has also shown me the limits of my flexibility and strength to weight ratio (ah, to be twenty again). Still, it's damn fun and a bit like being set loose in the adult version of McDonald's Playland for two hours. Did I learn anything useful? Why feast thine eyes on this...
Five months. That's some kind of record. That's long enough to lose those readers who were keeping my blog in their favourites to see if Rosemary and I magically started trekking in Burma or something. We didn't (sorry). Hence now I'm back to entertaining people who only want to voyeuristically know what we're doing or have done recently in a more mundane setting. Or for those who think my blog is amusing. So I'll write about someone other than us in an amusing fashion.
My cousin Tristram recently published a book. Well, it's actually a web-based comic turned into an "order the book online and a company will print it when you order it and then send it to you" for a certain number of US dollars. Read it online for free. The comic is by both Trit and his friend Peter, although Trit assures me he does everything. Peter stands by his elbow and chuckles as the strip takes shape and murmurs "Oh, that's good!" at which point Trit shushes him.
As you can see Rosemary and I delight in the zany antics of the characters in 'Benson', and there is no substitute for a printed tome to enjoy on the couch. However, please don't buy the book. If you do, it will become popular and they will print another one which means I will have to shell out more money over the internet or Trit will think I'm not supporting him and he will do something artsy and drastic. Most likely to Peter. You see my point? For Pete's sake don't buy the book.
Anyway, I hope to Blog more consistently now, post the odd picture and keep y'all up to date on our (or my) goings on's. For instance we recently had pizza for dinner. It was tastey and in no way resembled eating in Myanmar.
