It had better be a joke.

I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing one little bit.

"Abomination" is not a strong enough word. I will never, ever, ever support something like that. A "duality flag". Yergh. It boggles my mind.

If we are going to change anything, we change our national flag to this.

Stanley Cup Ring to Darcey, who ain't laughing either.

Justice?

Three years behind bars for mocking and abusing terrorists.

Two years of not being allowed to go out after 10:00pm with a speaking tour for defrauding Canadian taxpayers to the tune of 1.5 million dollars.

Guess justice is blind, after all.

Latest Standard

It would be negligent of me to forget to point out the the lastest edition of the Red Ensign Standard is up.

Kate has put a heckuva lot of work into it, so go check it out. A first Class effort from a first class lady.

Site o' the Day

Now those romance novels I could get into.

Hudson Bay Mountain

Always a beautiful mountain to photograph.


 

Hudson Bay Mountain, Smithers, British Columbia. If you click to enlarge, you can really see the ski hill runs on the left side. This photo was taken from a field near the home of a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless but who teaches at the secondary campus here).

The mountain received its first snowfall while I was in Kelowna last week. In a few weeks, the top third of the mountain should be completely covered with white stuff. Now THAT is a picture worth taking.

A walk in the park.

Yesterday morning, I went hunting with two friends. One of them was the same guy that shot this bear, so I was pretty confident that we would catch another.

Well, we did. At first, each of us thought it was a bear. But once it was skinned and gutted we realized it was nothing more than a black greyhound. Poor thing, never even seen it coming. For you gore-lovers, there are no pictures of this one. Sorry. But this bear wasn't wasting battery power on.

However, we did see some other excellent wildlife.


Mama and three cubs 

My friend really, really wanted to shoot this bear. Until it's three yearlings came out of the grain field.

Mom and Cubs again 
When the mom saw us, it immediately made a B-line for the tree, and the cubs were in hot pursuit. They stayed there for a good twenty minutes, and only left after we had walked the length of the field and back.

And don't even get me started on the deer.


Deer Heaven 

We counted something like 27 deer in three hours. Insane!
Only one was a buck, and it wasn't a white-tailed either. My friend is still optimistic about getting one soon.

Good luck, man!

I may have begun a new phenomena... I think I'll call it "photo-blogging".

Heh.

Kelowna Trip

Kelowna is a great city.

As I mentioned earlier, my boss sent a co-worker and I down there for some training. The Carpet Cleaning Technician course was Monday and Tuesday. It was really informative and I enjoyed sitting through the classes. The course outline included Fibre Types and Identification, Cleaning Products and Procedures, Spot Identification and Removal, as well as a host of other topics. Much of the course was review for me; I have seen and learned a lot in the past year-and-a-half. Nonetheless it was very good go over things again, and I certainly did learn a few things.

We arrived on Saturday night, and left Wednesday morning. That meant we had an awful lot of time to see the sites and enjoy the culture.

Yeah. Right.

We both blew a pile of money and had an incredible amount of fun.


Good Times 

Errr, here is one example of the fun we had :-)


Hot Tubbin' 

Here is another.


Salty hangin' out Downtown. 

And another.

But it wasn't all crazy-good times. We also enjoyed good food, courtesy of Vern's Pizza. Honestly folks, I have never, EVER seen more toppings on a pizza than I did at Vern's. Hokey Dinah, if you are ever in Kelowna, GO THERE AND EAT WELL! It is on Harvey Ave (Hwy 97) near the Chevron and Esso gas stations:


Best Pizza Ever 

The return trip was exceptionally nice. Here are a few shots of and from the floating bridge that connects Kelowna with Westbank. The traffic was pretty crazy, at least for my Telkwa Redneck co-worker!


Traffic 

Da Bridge 

Westbank 1 

Westbank 2 

Westbank 3 

We couldn't help but stop and snap some pics of the the Highland Valley Copper Mine, located on the Coquihalla Connector between Kelowna and Merritt. If anyone has more information on the Copper mine, could you answer me this: what in the world is that salty looking lake? As you can see, it is dammed at one end. At places it almost looks like the Dead Sea! Is it a tailings dump? Is is an artificial lake?


Road and Dam 

Open Pit 

Salty 

Temujin 

Salty again 

And a really neat shot of Ashcroft,


Ashcroft 

All in all, it was a great time. Rick, you live in a great city, I hope you know how lucky you are.

Oh, I almost forget. All those pictures were taken with my new digital camera. Welcome to the 21st century, Temujin.

Pictures o' Smithers

So you wanna see pictures of the town I live in?

Beautiful Smithers, B.C.

Thanks, Ang.

I'm outta here

On Saturday I am heading to Kelowna for some training related to my job. I'll be there until Wednesday night, so posting will be non-existent unless I find an internet cafe near my hotel. The great thing is, it is all-expenses paid. My boss is paying for my ride down there, the course, the hotel, and picking up the tab for my meals too. Not to mention I get paid a solid 8 hours for the days I am in class.

That's a pretty sweet deal, if you ask me. A nice little mid-September break that I have been looking forward to for a while.

Sadly, I don't get to go to Banff or anything, but I'll settle for Kelowna anyday.

I may or may not be around tonight either, as I really, really, really need to tidy up my place... and maybe get around to packing my bags as well.

Restaurant

Heh.

'nuff said.

That about sums it up

That has nothing to do with California, Joel, and everything to do with Central British Columbia.

Great find.

I want to move to Vancouver

But now may not exactly be the best time for that:

The wafting of the smoke has permeated the city and ash has been found on cars nearly 20 kms away (including my own). It smells like one huge campfire.

Doesn't sound like much fun to me. Get that car washed quick, Sue!

Which Robot?

Heh. I like that.

Stanley Cup Ring to Jeff the Baptist

CBC Forgets

Take a look at this screen cap from CBC's website. Notice anything missing?


9/11- Distant Memory? Click to enlarge 

Today is September 11th. You might think that on the fourth anniversary of those heinous terrorist attacks the CBC would cover some of the memorials going on. You might think that, but only if you are not familiar with the See Bee See.

It isn't until halfway down the page that you finally get a link to "Sisters, brothers read loved ones' names on fourth Sept. 11 anniversary"

But I guess the photo of 1500 nude lunatics in France is more important. This is obviously headline news in Canada, and the Canadian public needs to hear about it. Because I mean, I for one am enthralled by seeing that picture on the publically funded broadcaster's homepage. My tax dollars at work.

Great job, CBC. I hope the strike results in the whole lot of you being removed from your cushy gub'mint-funded novelty job.

Sad.

Moment of Silence

Moment of Silence.

Never Forget.

NEVER EVER EVER EVER FORGET.

Happy Belated Birthday

Happy Birthday to Me.

Sept. 8th was the big day.

Oh geez... 27... how the???

It was a good day, a very good day indeed.

Christ in Action, Indeed.

Despite the seeming incompetence of many involved with the Katrina evac/clean-up/restoration/etc, there is a lot of good work going on down there right now. Case in point, Seth and his crew from John Brown University have just returned from three productive days of helping folks who have little or nothing left.

Everyone worked together beautifully; no power struggles or egos bumping. They also let us take charge of something if we saw a need. The four of us from JBU basically oversaw the entire organization effort of the truck's cargo on Saturday into a gymnasium. We had only just arrived the day before, but we took charge of the effort and made the locals who were volunteering work together.

Fantastic job, Seth. I am certain that many were grateful for your efforts.

Victory Photos

Yes, we were victorious on our hunting trip. Here are some pics.

***Warning Extreme Gore Alert!!!!! AND I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT AL GORE HERE PEOPLE (although any pic of him is disgusting in and of itself)!!!! If you are at all squeemish, or sensitive to blood and guts, DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER!!! You have been warned!!!***


Big Bad Bear 

Yes, that is Temujin. No, I did not shoot the bear myself. But don't I totally look like an experienced hunter??? And no, this is not the goriest photo from the trip (although with my ugly mug one could argue it is...).


He had it coming 

He didn't suffer. Much. My friend shot her in the shoulder, and she hit the dirt, got up, and began running around. Last year, we lost a bear to the forest when it got up and ran away after being hit. That was disappointing on so many levels, and my friend was not about to let it happen twice. Two more shots hit it before it got into the bushes, and a fourth to the skull to put it out of its misery. Granted, four bullets is a bit excessive, but we weren't going to take any chances.

Ever gutted a bear before? It ain't pretty.


Guts1 


Guts2 


Gore1 

That is not my hand you see in the pic. However, I did put my hands in there and got some kind of bloody. Not to mention my pants and shirt! I wish I had taken a picture of the Gall Bladder. That thing is worth a fortune on the black market, as Chinese people in Vancouver (and all over the place, for that matter) use them in medicines and stuff. Alas, we are honest-type Christian folk, so it was tossed into the forest. I am certain the crows were satisfied with it.

The whole gutting process was over within half an hour. My friend is quite skilled, although he is far to modest to say so. He was even gracious enough to split the meat with me. His unwritten rule of hunting is that whoever hunts with him gets half the spoils. That a pretty sweet deal for me, a guy who enjoyed a leisurely walk in the park and really didn't contribute to the hunting process at all! Next week I hope to have a heaping helping of Bear pepperoni, and maybe even some hamburger too.

The Meatriarchy would be proud.

I can't wait for the next trip.