Newfoundland Bound

Gros Morne National Park, originally uploaded by Westbound.

...so i'm feeling like the luckiest girl in the world while planning for an upcoming trip to Canada's East Coast, focusing on Newfoundland. Not only do I get to participate in a very exciting conference Valuing Nature: Stewardship & Conservation in Canada 2006 but I'll get to spend the week beforehand visiting friends in Halifax, then hiking and sea kayaking in Gros Morne National Park(!!!!) and exploring the viking settlements (L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site) and french ports along the rest of the west coast of Newfoundland - all with camera and adventure shoes at the ready!

Aquariums and tides!!!

Apparently there is a bonus tour of a constructed wetland/salt marsh area near Halifax to add to the fun - does it get any better than that?

Can you hear the continuous clicking of the camera shutter and the whales a-blowing???

I have very fond memories from my last trip to this part of the world, over a decade ago (!) back in the honeymoon phase of my love affair with ecology and research and matters environmental, back when I didn't even own a camera (again, !!!!) for an amazing Marine Biology Course at Huntsman Marine Science Center in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. Tidal flats, salt marshes, burning chip trucks, crazy adaptations for nitrogen excretion in those amazing little intertidal sculpin, incredible nudibranchs, stron-gylo-cen-tro-tus droe-bach-ien-sis and many latin fish names long forgotten. Didn't like the lobster (later learned it wasn't in season - can't wait to try fresh out of the ocean again!). I also remember being frustrated my doctor wouldn't clear me for diving back then (before I stopped listening to such nonsense) since everyone else got to go diving and check out the real deal...grrrrr......

Definitely time for some new adventures (and some new photos and maybe a new blog or two).

Lucky moi, pauvre Oilers...so close! I'll never forget my night at the Varscona and walking down Whyte Ave. after they won the first playoff series!

Country Wedding

After 15 years of supporting each other through thick and thin, they decided to make it official on a beautiful day in May, surrounded by friends and family...

Their theme song: "Look at Us" by Vince Gill

Look at us
After all these yars together
Look at us
After all that we've been through
Look at us
Still leaning on each other

If you want to see
How true love should be
then just look at us

Look at you
Still pretty as a picture
look at me
Still crazy over you
Look at us
Still believin' in forever

In a hundred years from now
I know without a doubt
They'll all look back and wonder how
We made it all work out

Chances are
We'll go down in history
When they want to see
How true love should be
They'll just look at us

word of the day: crocodilian

time for a swim...

i think maybe i'll go here in my dreams tonight and swim with the fishes for a few hours...

(btw the picture is from one of the links in the petra blog (not mine - havn't been to belize, yet!)

la marche de l'empereur

How's that for a perfect Valentine picture?

Hard to believe it took so long to get around to seeing March of the Penguins...though it was worth the wait.

I'm sitting here wondering how the experience changed the people who filmed it...can you imagine?

These creatures are so so so so so so beautiful and amazing in every way... Crazy to think that they might not be around today had they not managed to thrive in such an inhospitable climate (for people and their bellies).



Yipppeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Petra

Petra, originally uploaded by nasnas.

got to visit the Petra: Lost City of Stone exhibit at the Glenbow this weekend...

which led to some interesting websites:
UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Forgotten Wonders
which led to...
Natural Wonders
all the Wonders
Anthropology perspective
Nabatea
raingod

and some great photos...
trekearth

Little Petra - Facade, originally uploaded by Iago in the Middle East.

platforms...

originally uploaded by rica500ml.

radio-canada summary
cbc summary
ctv summary
Green Party Energy Platform
Liberal National Ecosystem Initiative and Revitalization Plan
where to put your green vote
opinion

Apoptosis

rhymes with???

"In biology, apoptosis (from the Greek words apo = from and ptosis = falling, commonly pronounced ap-a-tow'-sis[1]) is one of the main types of programmed cell death (PCD). As such, it is a process of deliberate life relinquishment by an unwanted cell in a multicellular organism."

...heard this one during a great talk at the SCL/CCFFR conference in Calgary this weekend, in the context of sub-lethal indicators of environmental stress in fish exposed to increasing salinity. Great speaker, fascinating story and amazing photos from California's Salton Sea and Qinghai Lake in China...

Qinghai scale-less carp: Tibetan cultural icon and all-around cool little fish...

Exodus

10 sleeps until it's time to head home for Christmas!

Illecillewaet (and the bare necessities)

one of my very favorite place names, along with Terwillegar...

though some mistakedly think that Illecillewaet is a native word meaning "fast flowing", i was told by a certain smarty pants (after one too many inquiries about what fish might be found in the incredible snow fringed streams at the base of the climb up to the Dome at Rogers Pass) that it means "river without fish"...

so i'm ecstatic to report that i survived my (long awaited) very first backcountry ski adventure (yippppeeeeee!!!!). though the first day could pretty much be summed up by the word "awkward", and the second day up to Balu Pass by "awesome", my introduction to touring also included falling A LOT, skiing (or should i say falling with fluffier landings) on phenomenal deep powder, falling A LOT some more, endless beatiful snow covered trees, the sound of mountain streams (with which i narrowly avoided having intimate encounters on several occasions), discovering a latent talent for getting tangled in alder (and a disappointing lack of talent for getting untangled from alder), skiing in the dark (falling in the dark hurts just as much as falling in the light, in case anyone was wondering), a broken binding (nothing a little duct tape and a super handy strap-a-roo couldn't fix), pretty much constant song and laughter (what would the world be without 80's rock?), and one of the best meals I can remember (at least since my birthday!).

While touring around in Balu, I was thinking about the devastating avalanche that happened there two years ago that kept me out of the back-country that season (despite being all gung-ho after taking an avalanche course)... It all looked so peaceful and innocent in there - made the seriousness of avalanche danger really hit home.

Just might have to try it again sometime - and will definitely have to rent The Jungle Book to celebrate!

Bagheera: Now this takes the brains, not the brawns.
Baloo: You better believe it and I'm loaded with both.

ps - all photos are "borrowed" since it was all could do to keep up without trying to deal with a camera this time around...

Hotel Rwanda

using this weekend with a cold to catch up on movies from 2004 (while I'm still only 1 instead of 2 years behind!)...another that leaves you completely speechless and stays with you...

• Rwandan Genocide

word of the day...

Rhymes with Raven...
after hearing the reference to "music mavens" a billion times on cbc i finally had to check the exact meaning.

MAVEN: A maven (also mavin or mayvin) is an expert in a particular field, usually one who is self-appointed and who seeks to pass his knowledge on to others.

• Wikipedia

million dollar baby

...very powerful movie, the speechless for a while afterwards and in your head for much longer, kind.

A Few Words On The Soul

whale, originally uploaded by damslfly.

We have a soul at times.
No one's got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood's fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It's picky:
it doesn't like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren't two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we're sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from
or when it's taking off again,
though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.

Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by
Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Birthday Tradition

Just returned from seeing the latest Harry Potter...looking forward to watching it a few more times in my living room! and definitely excited to see the Narnian adventures...how fun would it be to make movies like that?

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Massey Lectures

ever since a very very cold winter of labwork and radio listening when i heard john ralston saul "the unconscious civilization", i've loved the massey lectures - always great food for thought...

"Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up."

• A Brief History of Progress

"Lewis recounts how, in 2000, the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York introduced eight Millennium Development Goals, which focused on fundamental issues such as education, health, and cutting poverty in half by 2015. In audacious prose, alive with anecdotes ranging from maddening to hilarious to heartbreaking, Lewis shows why and how the international community is falling desperately short of these goals."

• Race Against Time

bubaloo IS number 1!

bubaloo and the technicolor dreamsocks, originally uploaded by damslfly.

the story of the baby foot travels continues...

(had to post this because it makes me laugh every time i see it - and because i think the world would be a better place if everyone wore orange socks).

fallen heroes

fallen heroes, originally uploaded by damslfly.

November 11th - significance through time and space (wikipedian perspective)...

1215 - The Fourth Lateran Council meets, adopting the doctrine of transubstantiation, meaning that bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.
1620 - In what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, the Mayflower Compact is signed on the Mayflower, establishing the basic laws for the Plymouth Colony.
1634 - Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery" (anal sex).
1675 - Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function.
1831 - In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.
1864 - American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea - Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.
1889 - Washington is admitted as the 42nd U.S. state.
1911 - Many cities in the midwest broke their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through. (see The 11/11/11 cold wave).
1918 - World War I ends: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France. The war officially stops at 11:00.
1918 - Józef Piłsudski comes to Warsaw and assumes supreme military power in Poland. Poland regains its independence.
1930 - Patent number US1781541 was awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
1933 - Dust Bowl: In South Dakota, a very strong dust storm strips topsoil from desiccated farmlands.
1940 - Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in U.S. Midwest.
1962 - Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.
1966 - NASA launches spaceship Gemini 12.
1968 - Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal was to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.
1968 - A second republic is declared in the Maldives.
1969 - Jim Morrison (The Doors) is arrested by the FBI after repeatedly prodding a stewardess.
1975 - Angola becomes independent from Portugal.
1975 - Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam and commissions Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister, and announces a general election to be held in early December.
1986 - Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to form Unisys, becoming the second largest computer company.
1989 - Fall of the Berlin Wall.
1992 - The Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
1993 - Australian Prime minister P. J. Keating makes a famous speech at the dedication of the tomb and the burial of the unknown Australian soldier
1997 - Mary McAleese inaugurated the eighth President of Ireland.
2004 -Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization minutes after the death of Yasser Arafat.

for more see:

• Wikipedia - November 11

• BBC On This Day

• In Flanders Fields

wind and the mountain

black and tan, originally uploaded by damslfly.

the trees have settled into winter thoughts and so have I...

"Wind And The Mountain" (liz phair)

You lose your way
You've gotta land
You've gotta make another plan
But sometimes I am too tired

You've gotta smile
You've gotta play
You've gotta work another day
But sometimes I am too tired

You've gotta raise your hand and say
I don't understand
But there are days when I'm to tired
There are days when I'm just too tired
And the wind that I'm in
Screams on me
Howls around me

And I feel like I am a naked man
I've got nothing and no one in a stranger's land
And the wind will do me in

Everyday
You've gotta run
You've got a job
You get it done
But sometimes I am too tired

You wanna roll in the grass
Kick your shoes off
Have a laugh
But sometimes I am too tired

I wanna raise my hand and say
I don't understand
But there are days when I'm to tired
There are days when I'm just too tired
And the wind kicks in again and says
Lean on me
Rise above me
And it says
Sailor don't leave the channel now
Deep blue rollers are breaking across your bow
And the wind will guide you in

So I went up the mountain
But all I saw was another mountain
So I came down the mountain
And I said, "leave me here lord"
So I went up the mountain
And all I saw was another mountain
So I came down the mountain
And I said, leave me here lord
Leave me in the valley
Let me rest my weary head
Give peace to your survivor
Put all my fears to bed

You lose your way
You've gotta land
You've gotta make another plan
But sometimes I am inspired

You're gonna sing another song
You're gonna right another wrong
And sometimes I am inspired

You're gonna raise your hand and say
I don't understand
There are days when you get an answer
There are days when you find your answer

baby feet

lots of roads to travel ahead! wonder where these little feet will take him...