The Big Surprise

So for two weeks now Rodric has been telling me about this "Big Surprise" that he has planned for us after I finished teaching. He wouldn't tell me what it was, but kept giving me hints like "we need to take a ferry", "You need your tent", "It is really fancy and expensive", etc. etc. He said that we wouldn't be able to leave on this trip until Sunday or Monday, but that we could go for as long or as short a trip as I'd like and to celebrate my last night of school he would borrow his buddy's boat so that we could cruise around in English Bay for a couple of hours on Friday night. He even suggested that I invite friends along on this evening journey, so I asked Tom and Cecile if they'd like to cruise around and share some wine with us as well.
Meanwhile, in preparation for "The Big Surprise", Rodric has been running around like a madman, not sleeping, giggling at all hours of the night, and telling me repeatedly that I am "going to flip". I started truly believing that he really is nuts, because all the while he was also suggesting things like, "I think I'll go get us a little place up in North Van on the water..." "Don't you think we need a new vehicle?" "I think I'll put an offer in on a charter yacht..." "Maybe we should get some crab traps."
Now, after all of this, in my logical mind, I'm thinking that he has a serious spending issue and can't tell dreams from reality. I'm envisaging a) a new vehicle b) a very expensive open-ended journey c) a new water-front apartment in North Van d) a huge mortgage on some cruiser in the Caribbean... and all of this while we're planning to leave the country in 2 months for an unknown length of time. I'll admit that I had a breakdown on Thursday while he was in the middle of telling me about all of his dreams... he promised that it would all make sense soon.
OK. So the point of this story.
I finished work yesterday. Rodric told me to go to the Granville Island Ferry dock, so I did... with a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers, all ready for an evening of floating in English Bay on his buddy's boat.
Sure enough, he showed up, in this:


And I hopped on board and said that his buddy is Mr. Fancypants. Rodric said, "Do you like it?" Of course I did, and was immediately wandering down into the cabin and opening doors, etc...
He then said, "Good. Because it's ours."
We also own the boathouse that it's parked in, under the Second Narrows Bridge in North Van. This is the new apartment and the holiday (he's taking me cruising through the Gulf Islands this week) and the reason for all of the odd giggles and unexplained stress. It's been his life-long dream to own a boat on which he can travel, so now we have her... all 30 feet of her, with new teak throughout and a brand-new engine that hasn't even been broken in for 6 hours yet.
I'm still trying to absorb it. In the meantime, we're off to spend the night at a local island. (The hints about the ferry ride, tent, etc. were all just to throw me off... as if I'd guess it or something!)

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.

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....)

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...

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 :)

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.