Another shot....

Here is another shot of the sky this evening...
 

A wonderful sky tonight

Today was a wonderful sunny day but the rainy weather is looming, this was all to clear tonight as a the sun set and the clouds started to push their way inland. I was able to snap a couple shots from our second level window before it got to dark. 

Hiking around Garibaldi lake

On Sunday we got up bright and early (trust me... the cows weren't even up yet) and drove with some friends to Garibaldi lake.  For those unfamilliar with the area, Garibaldi lake is a small part of a very large park called.... you guessed it, Garibaldi provincial park.

The area around the lake and the aptly named Black Tusk mountain peak was quite remarkable, lots of wild flowers and interesting vegetation at this time of year.

Without further ado, here are some photos of the area.  This first set of photos are from and area known as Taylor meadows which is one of two designated camping areas.

And this panorama gives you a better feel for the lay of the land.

After going through the meadows, we reached an area known as the Cinder Cone which is the home of a small volanic cone.  The landscape in this area completely changes and in some ways looks more like a moonscape than a volcanoe.

After a fairly big decent to Garibaldi lake, we just hung out for a while at the lakeside to recharge before doing the 9 km trek back out of the park.

Most of the scenery going out was either lots of trees or the occassion lake view, however this particular area was incredibly rugged and was certainly worth taking a moment to appreciate the forces available to mother nature.

At the end of the day, our hike took us about 30 km and at least 800 meters of vertical assent.  All of us were certainly feeling a little tired at the end of the day, so on the way back to Vancouver, we stopped in Squamish for a little bit of ice cream.  :-)

technorati tags:garibaldi, lake, hike

Networks gone bad

Sometimes networks get really bad and here is the proof.

Boring job? Listen to this!

Some of you may really relate this this remake of a popular song by James Blunt.  Really tells it like it is for some people in todays work force.

My Cubicle - Beautiful song with a blunt message - on Bore Me

   

Hiking on Bowen Island

This Sunday we went for a great hike on Bowen island which is a short 20 minute ferry ride from Horseshoe bay, just outside of Vancouver.

This photo was taken on our approach to the ferry landing at Bowen island, the inlet is called Snug cove and is certainly well named as the cove is quite narrow. As we approached the dock we took notice of a collection of geese that were paddling about right in front of the ferry. It looked like they were playing a game of who can get closest to the ferry without being over run! Some of the geese actually waited to the very last moment before getting out of the way.

Once docked we departed the ferry and were immediately in the village of Bowen island. This is a very cute area with lots of little shops for art, clothes, a museum and lots of other interesting areas. The whole area feels very different than the city we had left just 20 minutes before.

We figured we should check the trail maps before starting so that nobody gets lost! :-)

Thereare some incredible houses on Bowen inland, this one was right on thewaterfront and is probably worth a cool million or so dollars.

Here is another house tucked away in the bush with a nice little lake in front of it. Looks like they have alot of grass to cut!

Once we starting walking the trails we came across a river with a fish ladder, for the uninitiated, fish ladders allow spawning fish to make their way up river with less work than would be required in the normal course of the river. Fish ladders are also used when it is physically impossible for fish to travel up stream due to man made obstacles.

The next several photos are just various shots we took during the early part of our hike.

Some of the terrain we covered was pretty steep, the proof is in the pictures. In a couple locations there were ropes setup to ease the climb since the trails were full of roots and could be a little tricky at times.

After all of that, we finally made it to the top of Mount Gardner, the view was spectacular, the pictures really don't do it justice. You could see a large part of Vancouver including Stanley Park all the way up the Sunshine coast.

After all that hiking, it was time for lunch, a few others joined us on the peak while we gelled out.

As we made our way down, Emma discovered she still had lots of energy so she decided to do a little tree clearing.

Another shot from a view point about half way down the mountain, you can see the Vancouver island ferry in the distance.

Saw this cool fungus on our way down and just had to snap a photo.

And of course, after doing all that hard work, it was time to treat ourselves. We went to Troll's restaurant in Horseshoe bay where we had fish and chips and beers all around.

All in all, the hike was a wonderful way to spend the day, we hadgreat weather, a little bit of cloud but no rain so the temperature wasjust right. From beginning to end we took about 5 hours to completethe hike which was a little better than 17 kilometers in length. If you are interested in hiking on Bowen island but would like an easier hike or walk, check out the route around Kilarney lake. The route is quite flat and can be completed in a couple hours giving you lots of time to explore the village and perhaps grab some lunch or dinner while on the island.

Flash entertainment

A cool piece of flash artistry that you can sit an play with for quite some time.

A bit of a hiatus

Just a quick note to say I'm still alive and well. We returned from a nice trip to the Philippines several weeks ago and then I promptly became ill. Flu like symtoms turned into one of the worst coughs I've every had, which in turn meant a doctors visit (or two). After letting my immune system have a go at this bug for almost 2 weeks it seemed that a stalemate had been reached so out came the heavy artillery. My doctor put me on some antibiotics and now I'm much healthier and back into the full swing of things.

Should be more active with the blog posts once again so please stay tuned.

Cheers.

Ruby without the download

Have you ever wanted to try Ruby but really don't like the idea of downloading and installing Ruby? Well, you might want to check out try ruby!. This runs right in your browser and gives you a decent taste of what Ruby is like with no download!

Enjoy.

technorati tags: ruby, programing, development, interactive

Great photos of Mexico

Came across this very nice spread of photos taken from a helicopter in Mexico.

Enjoy

The wonderful thing about tigers....er, Ruby

Over the last month or so I've been discussing various aspects of Ruby with coworkers and technical friends. In several instances I've been asked what the big deal is with Ruby, what does it bring to the table that makes it any better than Java, C#, C++ or any other language? There are many aspects of the language that I really like but earlier tonight this blog entry came across my desk and really helped outline one of my favorites.

The fact that you can alter virtually any class or object realtime proves to be an incredibly powerful feature. Of course with great power comes great responsibility and as shown with the aforementioned writeup on Rails, this power can be used to deal with real world problems in a most excellent way.

Thanks for listening.

Ruby conference

For those of you who know me or have been reading along for the last couple of months, you probably know that I have been exploring the Ruby language. In my journey several others have caught the Ruby bug and slowly the sphere of influence reaches out. :-)

My experiences with Ruby have been quite enjoyable and that is why I'm forwarding this tidbit of information. Coming in April, there will be a fairly large Ruby conference being hosted in Vancouver! They have lined up 15 speakers of which several are prominant members of the Ruby community. I would like to attend however it figures, I'll be out of town and there is no opportunity to change plans at this point.

Anyway, you really should check this out and if you attend please drop me a line outlining what you thought of the conference.