Author: admin

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Ashes to Ashes

My server’s hard disk seems to have died, one hour before I left the house for a two-month stay in Toronto. Since it hosted my website, I lost a lot of data, including everyone’s comments to this blog. Meanwhile, I’m doing the web hosting through another company, and on a new domain (davidpritchard.org). I’ve also killed off most of the old website and I’m slowly moving everything into WordPress.

I’m convinced of the blog way of doing things. It means admitting that most of the content on my home page is just a snapshot in time, and inherently dated information. Instead of trying to keep categorized information up to date, I keep my dated information categorized – a more honest representation of the underlying data, I think.

But I’m sure I’ll change my mind again soon. The one true good thing about the blog is that I can coast on other people’s templates, and get an attractive look for the whole thing with relatively little effort. Sure, I had to customize the title bar, but everything else is borrowed.

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Fog

So what’s up with the weather? After four days of living in a cloud, it’s starting to feel strange. This would never happen in Toronto. I was out biking on Sunday night, and I really couldn’t see more than two metres ahead of me in the dark alley, and maybe 15 metres ahead on the brightly lit streets.

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Hallowe’en

Hallowe’en was my first attempt at zombiehood. I’ve still never seen a zombie movie (unless the Army of Darkness movies count), but Eric’s so fond of the genre that I decided to join him and others in costume. Kathryn hosted the party, which was quite fun.

I don’t have any of my own pictures to contribute, but I’ll just point to a few pages with other Kommunists’ coverage of our Hallowe’en costumes (Eric’s comments and photos, and Hendrik’s photos.

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Vacation II

I left Jasper by Via Rail, catching the train from Jasper to Kamloops, which is about halfway between Edmonton and Vancouver, a little north of the Okanagan Valley in the lesser-known Thompson Valley. While the train ride was a little disappointing, that part of BC was quite beautiful. The Okanagan is essentially a desert, with sagebrush, tumbleweed and all of that. Kamloops lies on the edge of the desert-like bioregion, with more typical BC landscapes further north.

Kathryn met me in Kamloops, and we drove north to Wells Grey provincial park for some hiking and waterfall viewing. It’s a huge park, and looks like it’d be great for canoeing or longer hikes. We saw some nice alpine meadows on our dayhike, and just basked in the beautiful quietness.

On the second day, we drove south to the Okanagan, intent on getting some winery and orchard tours. We settled on the Mission Hill winery. Their estate winery was beautiful, and quite a pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon. It really felt surprisingly European; you’d never guess that nearby Kelowna was such a sprawling, boring town. From there, we drove up to one of the orchards, and did a quick self-tour through the apple groves.

Finally, we drove back to our Kamloops hostel and caught a bus back, enjoying the scenery through Merritt and Hope along the way. Quite a good time, all told. Check out the photos too. There are even a few shots of me, sans hair.