Swarms of Dolphins

One last blog post for 2016 as Kathryn and I head off on our first big adventure in far too long.
This summer we made our annual visit to Telegraph Cove and had a delightful encounter with a HUGE pod of pacific white-sided dolphins. Long-time readers may recall (with some prompting) that we have had pretty amazing sightings of these animals in the past, but this time put all others to shame.

 There were an estimated 500 or so individuals (common rule of thumb is there are 4-5 animals underwater for every one you can see at the surface at a given time) and they were VERY interested in our boat and playing in our wake. Large groups of them were playing at the front and back and a few Dahl's porpoises even joined in the fun to race past them and shame everyone with their speed.

 Not only were they following along and playing, but they were constantly leaping out of the water so close to our boat that I actually had to switch cameras because my telephoto lens was too tight to capture the whole animal. They followed along with us for a good 10-15 minutes before flocking off to their next point of interest.

Big thanks again to our dear friend Roger for taking us out and sharing the incredible beauty of his part of the island with us. If you're ever in the Telegraph Cove area, we strongly recommend an outing with his company Stubb's Island Whale Watching.

Happy New Year and we'll have lots of new photos and stories to share in 2017!

Awards season

 Each time I apply for any sort of scholarship/bursary at BCIT, I never hear a thing back, but every now and then the system gives me awards I didn't even know where up for grabs.  This was my 4th scholarship, and I was delighted to be one of six people in the part time degree program to receive it. Better yet, I was able to share it with several clever and talented people I have had the good fortune to get to know over the past 16 months.

My friend Julia (left) helped get me through tax, audit, and finance, and we're taking another course together in January before she finishes her degree entirely. Luba (right) was in one of my courses and is always outspoken and on topic. Derek (absent) has had a few courses with me and also do a great job of participating and generally keeping things moving ahead. We were all given our awards by Jennifer Kerr (centre) who has been an incredibly helpful and supportive instructor in both the diploma and degree programs.

Congrats to my fellow scholarship winners and thanks to the staff and BCIT and people who oversee the Linda and Allen Stefanson Memorial Awards for their support. I've been doing courses back to back this term and its been particularly exhausting when combined with a busy job, but moments like this really helps make it all feel worthwhile.

John Cleese and Eric Idle: Live

John Cleese and Eric Idle are (of course) among the founding members of Monty Python's Flying Circus and currently doing a live tour together. This was clearly too good an opportunity to pass up, so Kathryn and myself made sure to not only attend, but make sure we snapped up good enough seats that we could have one look at a pair of comedy legends that changed our lives. And of course the promo artwork for their tour was done by a friend of a friend of ours, because its a very small world indeed.

 I don't think its possible to overstate the impact these two men had on both of our lives. I remember watching reruns of Monty Python on PBS with my dad as a young 'un, and their style of comedy made a clear impact on both my and Kathryn's personal senses of humor. From the dead parrot sketch to wink-wink nudge-nudge. From the ministry of silly walks to the end song of Life of Brian.

Of course those sketches were all a long time ago and both men are now in their golden years, but are still certainly worth the time to go see if you have the chance. It was also sad to hear that Terry Jones has dementia now and that so many stories involved friends (Graham Chapman, George Harrison etc) that have passed away. Ultimately, the show contained a few more video clips than either of us needed, and the history of Monty Python is so covered that its hard to find new things to say, but just being in the same room with two of our childhood heroes for a couple of hours was a once-in-a-lifetime treat for us both.

Beachfront in Kelowna

 On our drive to Vernon this summer, we took a break from driving to stretch our legs and enjoy the scenery in Kelowna. The downtown core beside Lake Okanagan is very popular and built up, with all manner of fancy boats and hotels, but they have done a good job of keeping the waterfront itself open to the public in large areas. This allows for some nice paths, food vendors, beach access, open-air piano spaces, public art, and a general feeling of community.

 The interior of the province also gets hotter than we are used to on the coast, but Kathryn was prepared (as always) and took the opportunity to go frolic and splash in the water.

 Jared and myself declined to get in the water, but had a nice wander along the lakefront and took a moment to pose for a picture with Ogopogo, the famous (however unlikely) lake monster of the Okanagan.

Hiking in Vernon

 We had a spare afternoon before the wedding in Vernon, and luckily Kathryn had booked a nice room at the Silver Star Resort. They cater to both the mountain biking and the snowboarding crowds (though clearly not at the same time) and have a rather vibrant colour scheme which Jared (as an art director) took a little while to comes to terms with. Kathryn and I expect that while its a little jarring in the summer, in the winter it must stand out for miles around in a sea of white and grey.

 The mountain bikers had lots of clearly marked trails to enjoy, but there were also some nice hiking trails from the resort up to the peak and back. After months of schooling and life in Vancouver, it was really nice to get away to somewhere wide and open for a few hours.

 There were several warnings about black bears and plenty of scat on the trails, but none to be found. Funnily enough, Jared carried a few rocks that he clacked together which he thought might keep the bears away and Kathryn and I worried would scare them before we could spot them. Then when we got back, people at reception told us that's a bad idea because territorial males will gnash their teeth and make a similar sound to show dominance. So we took a walk in bear country and worried we'd scare them off while simultaneously sending out a challenge call. City people, am I right?

A Few More Animal Encounters

 The Kangaroo Creek Farm had quite a few non-marsupial animals which you could spend time with depending on your comfort levels. Being a very tactile person who wants to experience everything, Kathryn waded through a scrum of children in order to be covered in birds for a few minutes. The grey parrot in the left of frame was particularly friendly and started nuzzling up to her right after this picture.

 A slightly more confusing encounter occurred shortly thereafter when this juvenile emu took a fancy to our friend Jared and began assuming a mating position. Apparently many emus go through a curiosity phase where they are more attracted to people that other emus. While its a pretty funny situation in hindsight, being pursued by an amorous 4 foot bird is a bit alarming at the time. Maybe its for the best that the dinosaurs are all extinct...

 Rounding out or visit with the most relaxed animal you could ask for, I was able to check an item off my bucket list and spent a bit of time patting a capybara. For those of you who are unfamiliar, they are the largest rodent in the world, hail from Patagonia, and feel quite a bit like a bristly inner tube.

Hands-on with Marsupials

 On our way through the Okanagan on our way back from the wedding, we stopped in Lake Country at the Kangaroo Creek Farm for some one-on-one time with a variety of marsupials and other oddities. Based on advice from both my boss and the people at the gate, we started immediately with the line to hold baby kangaroos. There were about 6 which ranged from 3 to 5 months of age since first coming out of their mothers pouch. They come wrapped in little blankets as shown, and are just about the cutest things you can imagine.

 Kathryn also had the chance to hold a sugar glider, which is another tiny marsupial similar to a flying squirrel. We learned quite a bit about them, the good pets they make, the long lives they have, and the trouble they can have at the vet (since their veins are too small to treat in any way). They are also ridiculously soft and very patient with the number of people holding and cooing over them.

 This albino wallaby was a little strung out from being followed around by small children most of the day and was quite happy to relax with me and have its ears scratched for a few minutes. It actually leaned against me and had a little snuggle before the next batch of jam-covered urchins started chasing it around again.

 Fun fact: kangaroos often have a life-long obsession with pouches, such that grown adults will try to get into baby carriages and juvenile animals will eat my ratty pants at the knee trying to make room to climb in.

Kalene & Blair Pt 2: The fun and games

 Blair and Kalene are both talented artists and know how to host a good party, so there was plenty of style and fun to be found at the wedding. The picture below is of a huge banner they had on the side of the barn as well as on a number of the take-aways from the event. Anyone with goggles on their cat is pretty awesome in my book.

 Speaking of awesome books, they had a little kiosk which would record 7 seconds of video and convert it into a flipbook which was printed and ready within minutes. To add to the fun, there were also silly costumes and accessories available. We did a few as a couple and part of a larger group and have to say that it was a brilliant and memorable little take away :)

 And after every wedding comes the dinner, drinks and dancing with a great mix of familiar friends and new faces. We were seated at a table with other visual effects people and a university friend of Kalene's. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable evening spent with the special new couple :)

Kalene & Blair Pt 1: The couple and the locale

 Our friends Kalene and Blair got married on August 27th and were good enough to invite us. Better yet, they were good enough to give us 10+ months notice, which ensured we had time off, a place to stay, and a car booked since they had their ceremony in Vernon, BC.

 Vernon is just a little north of Kelowna in the Okanagan, and was a new place for us both. They chose a lovely spot with sprawling wheat fields up to gentle mountains under striking skies. The weather was rather variable on the day but they had gorgeous sun for the ceremony and reception, with only a little wind and rain later in the evening.

 The reception and dinner were held inside a barn, which comfortably held the entire group and was very charmingly decorated with family photos and mementos of their adventures together. Just beyond the door was a saloon for refreshing beverages and a wide open field. There was a very nice buffet dinner with pie for dessert and lots of dancing to round out the evening.

Thanks again to the happy couple for including us on their special day, and we wish them years of happiness to come :)

Sociable Summer

Between my summer schooling and Kathryn's multiple jobs, its been a very hectic but well spent summer so far. We've still managed to fit some socializing into our evenings and weekends, with a few highlights shared here. First off, I helped my good friend Vicki with her small business selling crystals at a Latin American Carnival festival for a weekend recently. While I spent most of my time in helping in the booth, these Brazilian drummers walked right around our area, and they reminded me so much of Kathryn's drumming days that I had to snap a picture.

 A few weeks later, we had back-to-back dock parties with various whale watching groups. The community is pretty small and Kathryn wanted to be sure to visit everyone, so we had one evening on Granville Island with the folks at her company and the next night we caught a ride down to Steveston for another party held by another group. The trip was entirely worthwhile if only for the amazing burgers and salads, made all the better by a nice chatty evening on the pier in the far south of the city where Vancouver seems a little less omnipresent.

 Rounding things out, we have had one of three evenings of fireworks in English Bay just recently. We had a nice cross-section of old friends, classmates and coworkers come by to enjoy the sun, watch the fireworks, and indulge in a post-explosions Mojito.

 

There's still plenty of summer to come and while Kathryn is working like a Japanese beaver, I am hoping to savor a few moments of relaxation before September rolls around and I go back to BCIT part time to finish my degree.

Vancouver Concert Band

 Kathryn has been playing a couple of instruments as part of the Vancouver Concert Band for the last 10 months or so and enjoying herself very much. They have been holding a number of summer performances recently, one of which I was able to attend since it fell on a Saturday at the "Hats Off Burnaby" festival, rather than a Wednesday evening.

 She can be a little tricky to spot in the picture above, but the flute section (which she primarily plays in) is located on the right hand side of that picture. Below is a zoomed photo of her playing flute.

 The summer concert had a Caribbean theme with some bongo drum pieces, and her years of playing various drums for capoeira groups made her a natural choice for those parts. My favorite was a mombo they played where her drumming was a very significant part of the music and she played very well indeed.

I brought our pocket recorder with us and got quite a nice mp3 file of the event. If you want to hear it and we haven't sent it to you already, drop me an email and I will get you the file to listen to.

Outbound Inlaws

 Bevan and Valerie stayed with us for a few days before departing for their Alaskan cruise, which gave us a nice opportunity to have a visit and share and take in a little culture and relaxation. Between leaving work a little early and a whale watching cancellation due to bad weather, we were both able to be around for the majority of their time with us which was very nice. Here they are at the departure gate for their ship.

 Which was an enormous monstrosity of a ship! Apparently their room is midships on the starboard side. I think we'll stick to our small boats and nature tours for a good long time to come, but maybe the day will arrive when we'd like to be pampered in a giant floating hotel ;)

 On a very rainy Saturday before they set out, the four of us took a visit to the art gallery, which had a display called 'Mashup' which was an assortment of modern art, collage, and video editing. That sort of art in particular I find is a healthy split of 50% clever and 50% utter garbage (yes, signing a urinal maybe re-contextualizes the object from its original purpose, but it's a little too nonsense pretentious for me...) The highlight of the gallery was a small "dub room" where they were playing Jamaican music which introduced us to the fun album "Super Ape" by Lee Perry and the Upsetters. The photo below shows the main rotunda with a fancy modern art paint job.

Steven's visit and the various animals that ensued

 Kathryn's brother Steven was in town over a weekend recently and while showing him the sights, we managed to fit in several animal related photos worth sharing. With only a few days in town and an existing familiarity for much of the city, we spent most of the time at Granville Island or English Bay with a little visit to the aquarium tucked in. First off is the obligatory "Everyone Loves the Cat" photo in which all guests must smile as though pleased with the animal while he is digging his claws into their arm.

 The dolphins, belugas, and otters get all the mainstream love, but my favorite things at the aquarium are always the weird little fish tucked into corners that nobody notices. Like this Warty Frogfish, which I did not even know was a thing. Modern marine biologists have yet to quantify how much this creature sounds like Gilbert Gottfried, but hopefully someone is doing their doctorate on the topic right now.

 The baby geese are all hatched and their parents are both fearless and belligerent, but it was still surprising to see this sizeable family step into the busy traffic of Granville Island and stroll across the street. I even had a trace of my faith in humanity restored as all the drivers stopped and let the entire family cross.

Prepping the balcony garden

Every spring there is a big plant sale at the VanDusen garden, and every few years we manage to make our way down to take advantage of it (and fight old ladies over the last kale). This year we went with our gardening aficionado friends Ginna and Travis, and even managed to snag a friend with a ride of theirs, making it far more pleasant than taking the bus.

We were quite early so there was plenty to see and choose from. Kathryn was even sweet enough to pose with all her new acquisitions for a little photo in the checkout line. I unfortunately underestimated how much space we had available on the balcony so she didn't get as much as she might have if I wasn't along, but we still have a lot of nice new things in our little garden. All told we now have tomatoes, rosemary, fuchsias, tomatoes, miniature rose, kale, and a sundew now adorning our apartment.

Kathryn has been making so many nice little pots in her ceramics course that I wanted to be sure to highlight at least one of them with a plant. Neither of us are huge cactus fans, but they had a goodly assortment of succulents, so I picked one out to perch on the living room window and put some of her hard work to good use. 

Three Very Different Nights Out

After months with few performances of interest in town, we had 3 nights out in the space of 10 days recently. We started off with Metric, who we saw open for Imagine Dragons last year and were totally taken with. Kathryn is not tall enough to enjoy floor tickets at concerts, but she got us some great seats to enjoy the show from. David Suzuki showed up as a surprise guest and the picture below captures the intensity and energy of the evening, even if the performers are almost impossible to make out.

 Shortly after that, we went to see Chris Hadfield perform with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra doing a mixture of songs and anecdotes about his time in space. While he mostly plays smaller guitar pieces, there were also several classics by Holst and modern composers on a space theme which made the whole night quite fun. The Orpheum Theatre is quite striking in its own right as well, and I thought a picture of the venue is more distinct than the performers in this instance.

 Rounding out our trio, we saw Noel Fielding live at the Vogue theatre, and while I will totally admit we forgot the camera at home that night and the picture below is not ours, it is representative of the weird nature of his act. He starts out normally enough with a bit of standup comedy, but the show gets gradually weirder until the end where a member of the audience dressed as a night, Fantasy Man (played by Noel) and a harlequin (think deranged jester rather than romance novel) travel to the plasticine world to fight a minotaur (and a reverse minotaur with a human head) and a lecherous triangle to save Noel the dark side of the moon. We really enjoy his work in the Mighty Boosh and it was fun to see him live :)

Pinawa Wildlife

We spent a few days in our recent Manitoba visit back in Pinawa, and while it's too early in the year to see many of the insects or amphibians that live in the area, there are a few iconic mammals and birds which are either easy to find or striking enough that I thought we should share a few pictures. First off, there are white-tailed deer EVERYWHERE in town, much like this little fellow wandering along the ice by the beach. These guys seem to know very well where they can and can't be hunted, and subsequently congregate in town where they eat people's gardens and generally wreck havoc in the most adorable way possible.

 Great grey owls are very striking and impressive birds, despite the fact that a sizeable proportion of that bulk is made up of fluff and feathers when compared to smaller owls such as the great horned. Regardless, they are often obliging birds that perch out on telephone poles at conveniently observable heights. This fellow was out during a snow flurry so we didn't get as much time to watch it was we would have liked, but it was a great sighting all the same.

 Rounding out our set with admittedly a bit of a cop-out, Kathryn and I always enjoy seeing my parents cat Darwin. He's a very friendly little fellow, and while he has his own heap of weird kitty quirks, he is very good about being picked up or having his feet patted. Every time we visit, we make sure to get our kitty feet fix before returning to our own reprehensible animal who in no way tolerates such things.

And apologies to anyone who has noticed our 6 week gap in posts lately. I have had a particularly punishing tax course lately which ends in 10 days and took up a disproportionate amount of my time. Regular weekly posts to resume shortly for both of our loyal readers ;)

Frosty Forms

 While we were out enjoying our walk along the riverside dykes in Squamish, I couldn't help but notice the stunning blades/feathers of frost which had formed. I expect it was some combination of wind from the sea picking up moisture from the open river, but if anyone out there has a better explanation I am all ears. Even to the naked eye the ground looked like a little forest of ice.

 Luckily I had both my macro lens and my wife's patience, so I took a few minutes to hunker down and get some close ups of these shapes at the same time. Between the bright light of the sun and the contrasty highlight nature of the frost itself, I was able to shoot handheld with a high aperture and capture some very interesting images that would be invisible to average passerby. One thing I have truly learned to love about macro photography is finding the surreal or beautiful in day-to-day events we take for granted.

 There were lots of twigs and grasses poking above the snowline, and a totally different type of columnar frost had formed on them, radiating out at every angle. These shapes really remind me of the crystal plinths in Superman's "Fortress of Solitude." So for any of our snowbound readers out there, remember that even though you're sick of the snow by now and ready for summer, there are some pretty spectacular aspects to it if you only take a minute to stop and appreciate them.