Saturday, June 24, 2006

Jumping the snake

So tonight Taita, Keira and I headed up to Anderson lake park to go for a quick after dinner hike. It's one of our favorite "quickie" hikes, as it's got a nice 15 minute walk down to the reservoir where Taita can get some swimming in. As I was unloading Keira from the car and getting her tucked into the backpack, a convertible pulled up with a woman with two very excited dogs. The dogs immediately jumped out of the car, and ran past us headed for the park. I was busy futzing with the backpack trying to put the sun shade on it, and Taita was locked up in the car, so I didn't give them a second thought. The lady chased after them yelling at them to get back here this instant, when all of a sudden I heard her scream. I quickly stood up and looked around the car just in time to see one of the dogs get struck by a snake that was lying in the middle of the trail. I don't even think the dog had noticed the snake, and if the lady hadn't screamed it probably would have ran right by, but unfortunately "Jackson" had frozen at the sound of the scream, and ended up standing right on top of the snake.

Jackson came back to his owner immediately and hadn't yelped or anything, so I don't really think he got bitten. I think the snake made a mock attack to try and scare him away. The lady appeared to be a little confused and not sure what to do, so I told her to get Jackson down to the vet immediately to get him checked out, and to tell the vet that she thought Jackson may have been bitten by a medium sized Western Rattlesnake. She asked how I knew it was a rattler, so I stepped towards it and settled any doubts she may have had. (click here).

While she was loading her other dog in the car, I quickly examined Jackson and didn't see any bite marks. He also didn't seem too upset to have me rubbing up and down his legs, and since I understand that rattlesnake bites usually have a burning sensation, he should have gotten at least slightly upset about me checking him out. The lady was understandably upset, but I think I calmed her down a bit when I told her I couldn't see anything, and that even if he did get bitten, that snakes only use venom about 50% of the time. It's actually between 50-75% of the time for rattlesnakes, but I was trying to make her feel better while at the same time still keeping her scared enough to go to the vet immediately for Jackson's sake.


She finished loading the dogs and sped off down the road, I went back to the trail and watched the snake for a minute or two. He was about 60-70 cm long, and was quite happy to shake his rattle at me while I watched him. I found a stick just off the trail, and used it to convince him to disappear into the grass. After making sure he was going to keep going I went back and grabbed Keira and Taita and we headed off on our hike which was pretty uneventful after that, although I must admit I was a bit more careful about where I stepped, and kept Taita's leash a little tighter than usual :)

Click here to download a Google Earth link to where it happened.

Jumping The Shark

I recently heard someone use the phrase "jumped the shark" and had no clue what it meant. As per usual, a quick search found a great definition which cleared things up immediately. Well this week I saw something that causes me to believe that our entire species has jumped the shark, and really we should just give up now:

Humanity has truly reached a new low.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Understanding Boredom

OK, I like being bored the same way that Dave gets bored. It can be fun out here in Geek-land.




(See? I always wanted to be a Disney Princess....)

Monday, June 12, 2006

Public Service Announcement

Please ignore the pain-killer junkie lying in the corner. We'll try and get him out of here ASAP.

/me goes back to hugging his bottle of Tylenol...

Sunday, June 11, 2006

My morning workout

So I decided yesterday to sign up for the Californiaman 1/2 Iron Distance Triathlon. It's called an Iron Distance, because it's the same length as a 1/2 Ironman, but Ironman is a copyright of the World Triathlon Corporation, and they viciously defend their copyright, so everyone who isn't "officially Ironman" have to call it Iron distance to avoid being sued.

The interesting thing about signing up for this race was that the race was this morning (the day after I signed up), so 7AM this morning found me in Uvas Reservoir swimming 2 km, then biking 90 km, and running 21 km with virtually no "official training". Honestly I haven't done any swim training for well over a year, and I don't think I have ever biked 90 km in one shot on my road bike.



It ended up taking me 5:32, which is really cool because I was shooting for 5:30. I actually did come close to hurting myself when I crashed my bike about half way along the ride, when a crazy squirrel darted out in front of me on the road, and I tried to dodge it and ended up bailing off of my bike. Luckily, nothing was injured except my pride.

Thanks to Jen for the picture. Also congratulations to Eric Paton for running the race as well and surviving :)

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Crater Lake

The Crater Lake area received a record snowfall this past winter. Don and I drove through the area in early May. Most of the roads were still closed, but we were able to see the lake--and to take a few photos to show how deep the snow was. Two feet of snow had already melted according to the ranger.

Monday, June 5, 2006

Make your own Bellagio

Check this out:

The Bellagio!

Now that takes dedication....

Saturday, June 3, 2006

More Inconvenient Truth

It's getting great reviews, and appears to be working. For our Canadian audience, here's all the opening days. If you are in the States, you should be able to find a theater near you here.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, click here.












CityDate (M/D/Y)LocationPostal Code
Calgary6/16/06Globe LandmarkT2P 1H1
Edmonton6/16/06Princess Magic LanternT6E 1Z9
Halifax6/16/06Parklane EmpireB3J 3RH
London6/30/06Galleria Magic LanternN6H 3N7
Montreal6/9/06AMC Forum AMCCANH3H 1N2
Ottawa6/9/06Bytowne IND, BruceK1N 5Y4
Toronto6/2/06Cumberland Cineplex GalaxyM5R 1A2
Vancouver6/9/06Fifth Ave. IND, Leo ShineV3R 2D5
Vancouver6/9/06Tinseltown CinemarkV6Z 1K3
Victoria6/16/06Odeon C'plex Odeon V8W 1L4
Waterloo6/23/06Princess Theatre INDN2L 2X8
Winnipeg6/16/06Globe LandmarkR3B 3H6
It just opened near us on Friday, but I haven't had a chance to go see it yet.