Neat quotations

I'm gonna put a few quotations here, when I see one I like, starting with:

If, at first, an idea is not absurd, then it has no hope at all. --Einstein

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Take heart -- truth and happiness will get you in the end. You can't lose in this game. Have fun. It goes on too long to be taken seriously all the time. -- John & Lyn St.Clair Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Men are disturbed, not by things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen -- Epictetus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be realistic: Plan for a miracle. -- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Drinking water joke

Near Fredericksburg, Texas, where there is a large German speaking

population, a farmer walking down a country road notices a man drinking

from his pond with his hand.

The farmer shouted: 'Trink das wasser nicht. Die kuhen haben dahin

gesheissen.' (If you don't understand, find out what it means.)

The man shouted back: 'I'm from New York and just down here campaigning

for McCain & Palin, I can't understand you. Please speak in English.'

The farmer replied: 'Use two hands, you'll get more.'

More Politics + Bailout

It's not just MY Humble Opinion after all. There are many others, including Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders. He said:

"In our country today, we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth, with the top 1% receiving more income than the bottom 50% and the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90%."

The bailout does not address ANY of the basic causes or effects of the "meltdown." The URL is http://www.truthout.org/100208J . Read it, and weep.

Politics & Bail-Out

We've been following the election, debates & economic "meltdown"/bail-out in the U.S.

What a circus! Or is it Soap Opera? What a country!

I'm very disappointed in Barak Obama. I was hoping he would not go along with the "Wall Street Bailout", but he did. Just tweaking it does not hack it, it needs to be scrapped and start over, IMHO.

Been busy

It's been awhile since I've put something here. I've been quite busy working on my new wiki about Mac computers. See the link on this page, Ask Geneva (about Macs). It's been fun working on something so new and different. It still has a long way to go, but I hope it is useful for people who have finally "made the plunge" and gotten a Mac. I'll be back, but, in the meantime, have a look at askgeneva.

Signs of the times

You might think the reason for this photo is the ad for storage -- it is rather weird that we need to pay $$ to keep our stuff out of our living area so we can buy more stuff. And if you look closely, the website is a .ca -- that's dot-CA, which means Canada (the Canadians have copied the Americans in their acquisitive habits). In Canada, billboards are illegal. The only place they can exist is on Indian Reserves, where not all White-guy laws apply. The Reserves make money by charging the White-guys plenty to put billboards there. This photo was taken just outside of Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia, Canada. The funny thing about that is the 2nd billboard... if you click on the picture, to enlarge it, you can read "United States of America" in the red strip at the bottom.

Cool new iPod

We have gotten this really great new toy -- an iPod "Touch". It is sooo coool. It syncs with our computer's email, address book, calendar, photos, movies and music. It goes anywhere on the internet and is especially good for viewing videos on YouTube. It does maps with directions and satellite views, and does lots of other cool things. You have to find a hot spot, just like with a computer. It really works so there's no need to take a computer with you for those things. It doesn't store documents or work with a wireless printer, yet, but I'm sure it will. Hundreds of people are working round the clock to make new software for it. And, it has that awesome iPod sound! Mozart never sounded so good!

"Fat Loss 4 Idiots"

That's the name of this diet. It's the one you always see advertised: "Lose 9 lbs in 11 days" Well, that didn't happen for Manfred, but he is not at all discouraged. He is learning a whole new way of eating: * eat 4 meals per day (he used to eat 2) * stop (eating) before you get full (he thought full was the purpose of eating) * combine food groups in unpredictable ways (scrambled eggs + grapes.) * drink lots of water (this is the only part that he didn't really try) Some meals are all meat. There is an all-veggie-&-fruit day. It's very low carb, and the carbs are mostly fruit. You choose the foods you like from 2 lists. A computer generates an 11-day meal plan schedule, with those foods You follow it exactly. You can cook the food any way you like, or get deli versions so no cooking at all.

Manfred's new diet

Today's the day! Manfred just started his NEW DIET. It's the Fat Loss 4 Idiots diet (fatloss4idiots.com). For the curious -- it advertises "lose 9 pounds every 11 days". I checked out (on the internet) people who had tried it, and they figured the weight loss was between 6.5 & 10 pounds. You pay $39 and you get a downloadable book.pdf and unlimited access to an online meal plan generator. It asks you to choose your favorite foods from 2 lists, then generates an 11 day regimen for 4 meals each day. You must eat four meals, and you can eat as much as you like, but don't stuff yourself. The meals are super-easy eg. turkey slices, cheese slices, yogurt; tuna salad plate, walnuts, apple; etc. There is an all-fruit day, an all-vegetable day, an all-protein day, and some meals are all-meat. The idea is to change the eating habits so there is no longer a pattern, which ups the metabolism (and puts you into a different frame of mind). After the 11 days, you eat whatever you want for 3 days and then get a new meal plan and do it again. You get to make new food choices, if you like.

Back in Victoria

We drove back pretty directly. We checked out the mudslide that detoured us-- didn't look like much. We saw lots of snow on the passes, and lots of waterfalls. We came back through the Frazer canyon-- spectacular, and I took the cable car down to "The Narrows". In Vancouver, we took the Horseshoe Bay ferry, which cost an extra $23, but it's the big new ferry from Germany. We got back to our apartment just after midnight Thursday night. I have been sick, with a cold and haven't downloaded our last photos. I also have a toothache, so don't expect much coherence from me at this time. Anyway, we are back at the phone. When we are gone, we get messages left on our phone-- they come in eamils.

Wednesday evening

We are sitting on a big balcony of a small motel outside of Chase BC, overlooking beautiful lake Shushwap, surrounded by beautiful mountains, and the sun is just about to set in a sky full of fluffy clouds, and we have just finished our pizza, and are relaxing with a glass of wine and the MacBook. What a life! Maybe we will never go home. It's been a perfect day, we made many little stops to admire trains, waterfalls, stopped for snacks and deserts. The drive from Lake Louise to here has been very scenic. Tomorrow we'll make it home I suppose, even though we have the car until Friday 5pm. It is quite warm, hot here today. It was only two days ago that one could see one's breath, around freezing, and today it was at least 24C. The pizza lady said, from winter to summer in 2 days.

Tuesday evening - Loopy train

We went to Kicking Horse Pass to see the trains come and go in the spiral tunnels... It was so cool. We saw one train going down, and it had to wait for another train going up, so we saw both. The pictures show the upbound train going into the lower opening and just beginning to come out of the upper opening. Then, a little later, totally crossing over itself.

This is frozen Moraine Lake (left). These (right) are frozen Moraine Lake as we saw it. Naughty clouds obscured the rugged peaks, and kept the colors greay

Catching up -- Banff

On the way to Lake Louise, we stopped and hiked up to a waterfall. Yes, Charles and Diane, new hips and all, hiked there. And here are the pictures to prove it. When you get to the falls, you cross a bridge and go through a little tunnel and take a picture. Then your camera gets all full of spray and the next pictures you take are very strange.

Finally... back on line.

The nifty condo that Charles and Diane got in Canmore is very nice, but -- no WiFi. So eventful days have come and gone without posts being posted and blog being blogged. We went first to Lake Louise. Unfortunately, it is too early. We thought, with all the "heat wave" and the excessive snow melt (which caused the mudslide that blocked our road), that the ice would be gone -- NOT. The whole lake is frozen over, except for a tiny bit on the edge. And there is worse to come -- the road to Moraine Lake is still closed by snow, so we can't go there at all. It is a big blow, a major setback. But we will weather the storm. Charles & Diane's anniversary was yesterday, and our extra special friend, Bill Jones, paid for a nice anniversary dinner at the world-famous FAIRMONT CHATEAU LAKE LOUISE. It was a most memorable dinner, with a special dessert plate and champaign.

Connection made

We finally met up with Charles and Diane at the Calgary airport, just as planned. But there were (mis)adventures along the way. We could not go on our planned route on the Trans Canada Highway all the way to Calgary, because there was a big mudslide (due mainly to excessive spring snow-melt) and the road was closed for an indeterminate number of days. After waiting as long as possible for better news, we back-tracked 100 km to take an alternate route that added over 400 more km to our trip. However, the alternate route took us through Jasper National Park, which was well worth the extra gas money and driving time. We were rather in a rush, so I had to take most of the photos through the (dirty) windshield. Here are some of them, even some that are "not good enough". If you click on the map in Sunday's post, you can see the two routes, the straight one and the big loop up north to Jasper and back down. We are now in the Days Inn at the Calgary Airport, and tomorrow we drive (back) to Canmore to move into the condo where we stay a week, while exploring Banff National Park. The weather has been good, so far. Rain on the road yesterday, in places, but didn't bother us. Nice and cool.

On the road again....

Tripping away. We left Victoria at 7am this morning, took the 9 o'clock ferry to Tsawwassen, and here we are on the mainland. There was a rodeo and a big fair and other things going on, people everywhere. We drove right past Hope and Kamloops and ended up in a B&B in Salmon Arm -- see pics. The other picture is of the last spike driven in the Canadian trans-continental railway. I got up at 6 am instead of my usual 9 am so I'm too sleepy to write more.

More about Banff

Got some nifty pics of Banff National Park.  

The first 2 are Lake Louise.  The one on the previous post is Lake Moraine. 

There is a webcam here, looking out over the town of Banff (upper right photo).  

We will be driving from Victoria (lower left of map where it says "Saanich") to Calgary, which would be a bit farther than driving from Salt Lake City over the Rockies to Denver.  

Then we back-track to Canmore, Alberta, where we stay for a week in the condo.  We will take day trips to Lake Louise, Banff town, and all the "must-sees".  

Click on the map to enlarge it.  Click here for video.

We return late on the 30th.

Planning a trip...

We are in the throes of planning a trip to Banff National Park, with Chuck & Diane. We will leave on the 16, driving in a rental car to Calgary, spending 2 nights on the road. In Calgary we obtain a hotel and meet Charles & Diane's flight from CA. The next day we all drive to Canmore (pop. 10,275) where the Fitz's have a condo for a week. We use the week to explore the Park and the Lake Louise area. We will return to Victoria late on May 30. Photo: Lake Moraine, near Lake Louise

New Year has come and gone

2008 is chugging along quite nicely. Great lunar eclipse just happened. We are sort of marking time here, just messing with computers and going to movies. That new MacBook we got is just awesome! Can't leave home without it. I just finished putting ALL of our CDs on it, on iTunes. It took about 2 weeks. That's 180 albums -- over 42GB, including cover art. It's so nice to be able to play any tune, any time, without searching thru CDs. And we got a set of JBL (Harmon-Kardon) speakers called "Creature II", so the sound is beautiful. And we can put any combination of tunes on the iPod to listen to anywhere, even walking around, just like a "young person"! We have also acquired a big tower computer, called the Mac Truc. It's just as awesome. For you people who know Macs, it's a G4 867dual, 2GB RAM, 4 HDs (2x250 + 2x180), running Leopard. Fast & powerful. Still in the same place, same addresses & phone.