Finally, an update

Looks like I will be able to skim in with an update in under the one year mark. Not exactly impressive in staying current, but there are a whole lot of things that have been taking more than their fair share of my time. Not least among them is this little monster.


Further, we have uprooted ourselves from the hamlet of Grande Prairie and taken up residence in the quaint metropolis of Calgary, Alberta. This change has gone far from smoothly and stresses about housing prices, the Canadian Dollar and government royalties prey on the mind.

It looks like we will have to make very little on the sale of our Grande Prairie home, if we can indeed move it and start all over yet again here in Calgary. That said, at least now we are in the sort of place we can settle for years to come and raise the little one.
Calgary's proximity to the mountains has been a wonderful draw, and for the first time in years, I have waterproofed my boots, thrown on a macpac (albeit a baby carrier) and felt the crunch of gravel beneath my feet while rocky precipice soar above.

Wen-shu is also enjoying getting into the great outdoors lifestyle and Tatiana (that's the little bergfly) loves to sit snug in here carrier while I cautiously pick my way up paths and mountain streams.

Why I use Linux

As just another normal techie type, I read as much slashdot/digg as the next guy. And if you have spent more than a finger hovering second on those sites you will no doubt have noticed the OS flame wars. That is the endless Windows/Linux triad shouted across the ether.

I would put myself clearly in the Linux camp, but not quite at the fan boy status. The reason for this is I do not think that Linux is technically superior to Windows. I fully realise I am not knowledgeable enough of either operating system to make that call. I use Linux as much for its philosophical superiority as for any other reason.

It must sound strange to claim one operating system is philosophically better than another, but let me explain. Windows is all about business. Bill Gates set out with the noble sounding goal of putting a computer into every home. Now, in the first world he is almost there. Yet he did not do this for any reason greater than the almighty dollar. Yip, any way you look at it he did it to get rich, and succeeded on a never before seen scale. Is this a bad thing? No, not in and of itself, but now literary millions of people rely on his product for their very livelihood, and in some cases lives. And ultimately Microsoft will only care for these people if they can make money out of them. Whatever direction they take, products they produce or problems in their systems they set about fixing, they are always bearing in mind the driving principle, “Will this make us richer?”. Because of this they cannot afford to let others see how their system works. The source code is hidden. Their plans for the future of their systems and file formats cannot be revealed. Everything they do or don't do is completely outside our control as users of their systems. We either tolerate it or shut up. Until recently there was no other option.

Linux is an altogether a different kettle of fish. It is not, never has been, and lets hope and pray never will be about the money. Sure people make money off it, but at its core it is about creating a legacy. Everyone who is working on it, is doing so for their own reasons. (and I thank them all) but ultimately they are doing it to make Linux itself a little better in some way. To create something that anyone can use, without cost or obligation. Some people might be tempted to try to make themselves a fortune out of it, but the vast majority of people working on it do so for little reason more than the technical challenge, the advancement of knowledge and to gain bragging rights with their peers. Yet by coordinating these efforts they have created one of the largest and most complex technical achievements in human history.

And this achievement is for all of humanity. Ok, you do need access to a computer, but that all. After that anyone can use this tool for all of eternity. They need never pay for it, need never be barred from their own data due to file format or licensing changes.

Often when we think of the future we think of robots, super computers and AI as a reality in our lives. I hope when that day comes we might be using a Linux like OS to run them. So that whatever code is running these machines that will not be locked away in some corporate vault, with the only people understanding the motivation behind it been a exclusive corporate elite. Rather I would like to see a future which is more equalitarian than the present. Where the average Rwandan citizen has the same access to understanding the workings of the operating systems running the planet as the president of the European union. Of course the likelihood of the president of the EU understanding it is the same as the Rwandan citizen, but the fact is they have that access not whether they use it or not. Of the operating systems in place right now, only Linux offers that possibility (OK, free BSD too, plus a couple others, but you get the idea)

It is this philosophy that I like, this dream of the world being a better place for all that I feel like promoting by using and to some degree championing Linux. A society where excellence is more important than money and the spread of knowledge more desirable than the hoarding of it. Of course Linux and the Open source software movement is not perfect, with its own set of petty rivalries, personality clashes and bitter disagreements, but as long as the final choice lies with me the user, I can live with this.

My home

So we went home recently, and here are a few shots from the great land down south, completely at random and out of order!

A giraffe in Hluhluwe

Elephant in Kruger



Zebra!



Hyena



My niece Maria


My other niece Angelique


Vervet monkeys


Another elephant in Kruger, somewhat crazed!
Fish eagles over the Sabi


Africa penguin

A wine estate


The farm house in Boshcendal


A waterfall in the mountains


Angelique on a trampoline!

More Algeria pixels

The view from my hotel room. Tizi is full of half finished buildings. Nobody seems to know why


Walking down to the office in the morning. Traffic is insane, to put it mildly


The street below our office window

Tizi Ouzou indeed!

I am sitting on the fourth floor of an office building in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria, listening to the constant shrill of a traffic warden's whistle as he tries, with some success, to untangle the mess that is Algeria road use. On top of this building a massive 3.8m satellite dish lean out over the street below, and is the reason myself and another Justin have flown half way round the world. Everything going well we will be pointing that dish in a days time to another satellite and taking over this system and all the complex networking associated with it.

Algeria is an interesting mix of cultures, in a pleasant and laid back sort of way. Not typically African in the more normal sense of the word, it is not really European either. In fact it seems to me to have more of a South American feel if anything. The town we are in is not that big a city, which means it lacks the cosmopolitan feel that one can perhaps find in the capital. It has those typical little first floor sell everything kind of shops that one finds across most of the globe in countries that might once have been referred to as third world. What we call them now, I do not know, but there is certainly more character to them than a Tesco's or Walmart. That said there is precious little to buy other than the daily essentials, at least in the part of town we are in.

We have been running around a bit, building 3 dishes to date and have the skeleton of a network up and running in preparation of the big switch! When that will come, we cannot say, but as there is little to do here we are hoping the sooner the better.

On American Authors

I must admit to not having read a lot of American authors. And sadly, never to have liked any I read. It could have something to do with my bias towards Yanks. A rather negative bias. It could also have something to do with the fact that there are not many American authors worth reading. It could also be that I simply don't get Americans, hence my bias an hence my feeling that there is a lack of decent American authors.

In any case, I was looking for a good read to while away some more airtime. I have become a much traveled lad of late, and my crappy laptop can barely manage 1 hour on batteries (DELL suck, massively!)
So, I have rediscovered my love of reading. The other day, in Ottawa, I had run out of reading and took a brief stay on the ground to restock. I couldn't find anything that perked my interest until i spotted “The End of Vandalism” by Tom Drury. The blurb on the cover says “Remarkably funny, astonishingly vivid”. So, I bought it. It further goes on to say “laugh-out loud funny”

It is a well crafted tale. But funny it is not. I can see why it should be funny, and can even find parts that I think should be considered “laugh out loud funny” Once in the whole book did I smile. Its not that I don't get it, its just not funny. The characters are interesting, and you do take them to heart, but by the end of the book you find yourself simply saying.....So what?

If anyone knows a really good American writer, let me know. Canadians, yes. I still like Douglas Coupland, and Annie Proux is great. I just read “Three day Road” and was lost in its wonders. So why can't they produce anything south of the border. I guess the Hemingway novels are OK, but I can't stand the non fiction. Self absorbed alcoholic! Twain is perhaps good, but he has been dead 100 years. I mean from most other countries I can think of a few great authors. Even back in SA there is JM Coetzee and Justin Cartwright. And Tolkien spent his youth there.

India is simply bursting with talent and the South American Continent is awash with great authors, even if they don't write in English.

Midnight Sun

Since I read a book called Arctic dreaming, I have been enamoured with the place. One of the last great wildernesses on this planet, it has held a strong draw for me. The question had always been how to get there. How to visit this gem without months of planning and a second mortage on the house. Not that I had a house to mortgage, but it costs a bit. The solution turned out to be patience. Get a job connecting internet “Simply anywhere” and off we go. Sadly, from a purely co-ordinatary point of view, I did not cross the arctic circle. Yet, I was within spitting distance of it and there is no difference in the land one side or the other. Indeed the sun even stays up 24 hours a day this late in June. The photo you see above was taken at 00:07, seven minutes past midnight, looking almost due north.

I got to walk out of camp one night, out of the valley we were in an onto the plains above. Truly, it felt like another planet. Aside from the lichen and snow, I honestly felt like I was on Mars. After my interest in the various Mars missions and seeing amazing photos from that planet, I felt like I was on a different world. A little rover moving around looking at rocks would not have been out of place here at all.

The other thing that you are struck with up here is the space. For 2 hours we droned north in a twin otter over endless waterlogged tundra. Endless. From horizon to horizon, flat like the sea. For two hours of flight, almost 450km. Not a living soul, not a hut, not a road, just tundra. And then a camp, in the middle of nowhere. We flew low most of the way, really low. We buzzed the camp at only a few metres above the ground and pulled an amazing turn, out wing tip only metres off the tundra.

The place has infected me even more, like I thought it would, and I eagerly anticipate return with more time and friends.

Labrador

Once more again in planes. This time across the whole North American continent as far as the province of Labrador, and then up north into the bush. The country up here is Canada as I imagined it. Lakes and trees and glaciated granites sticking out. No roads, no towns or farms. Float planes and helicopters only. Which is exactly what it was. The 40minute flight out of goose bay took us up into true wilderness, complete with black flies and mosquitoes. Only now, a week later am has the itch finally subsided. The camp itself, there for a Uranium deposit, was a ramshackle collection of structures on the shore of the lake. I flew in by twin otter and a helicopter sat in a tiny clearing. Two teams of geologists and two drilling crews were on site, and they were shuttled around by some very deft flying by the pilot. After most of my work was complete I got to go for a little spin in the helicopter to pick up some geologists. It was good to get out the camp and above the biting flies. Not that I mind the wilderness, but would lack to meet it on more intimate terms. For despite our truly remote location, we lacked for nothing, and I even put in the high speed internet. I personally would prefer to have a bag on my back, or maybe a canoe and truly explore this place, rather than spin in and out. I never got much out of camp on foot, always having too much to do as there were issues with the system.

Still, I would rather be doing this that stuck in an office, as in the world of internet connectivity technicians, I have the coolest job!

Homed

Dandelions stick their too yellow heads through my motley lawn. At last I have all the cares, concerns and stresses of the newly mortgaged. My weekend was spent measuring, cutting and nailing baseboards to the downstairs living spaces. A slow, easy and rather relaxing task, it has no doubt added a miniscule value to our rather budget but overpriced home.

Wen-shu and I have spent a lot of time and even more money going from a scantly furnished apartment to a filled out and cosy duplex. Sofa's, desks, dining table and "accessories" have caused more wealth gathering for the likes of VISA, Mastercard and American Express than any prudent person would be happy with. Yet, although no one likes to spend lots of hard earned money, the effect of spending it has been rather grand, and I am more than satisfied with the house. Wen-shu adds those fine finishing touches I could never think of that make a house a home. Three cats roaming around round off the feeling, and we lack for nothing as far as essentials go. Sure, we would like the 72 inch TV, but right now make do with all 19 inchs of the hand me down we presently own.

Trips to the Ocean

Yet more travel and sites seen. A trip that included four large planes, a couple of float planes and time on a small boat. Added in was an expensive hotel or two, a large 4x4 in a city (not recommended) and a canoe.

I had the privlage of doing my little bit to make the magic of the 2010 Olympics happen. Although rather indirect, it was at least something. I put in a dish to allow the team building the ski ramp to communicate. I then had a day off in Vancouver and was lucky enough to be able to help Daniel and Lorida move to their new apartment. They didn't know that I was coming and I rolled in with the truck just in time to move the big stuff.

I then had a night in the fairmont in the Airport, a rather swank hotel, miles above what I would ever spend money on myself. But who's complaining. I was in the airport as I flew out early the next morning to Prince Rupert up north on the BC coast. The whole place reminded me wonderfully of southern Chile, with mountains and snow soaring above the narrow channels and inlets. I got to flit over this in a little 6 seater float plane, strapped in to the co-pilots seat.

Low clouds meant a flight no more than a couple hundred metre above the rippling ocean and endless trees.

We skimmed to a halt at the tiny hamlet of Hartley Bay, and jumped into a boat there for the bone jarring hour and a half crossing to this place

Buying houses and giving blood

Yes, it has been cold. Didn't see -30 this winter, but pretty close!


Ice roads are just that, ice. Don't believe me, then why is it so shiny??



And this is what I do, load up satellite dishes and travel into the forest to set them up.

The rather strange title sums up my life of late. It has been more than a little stressful and we have run around a lot. I put in a 98 hour week a couple weeks back, which was actually not that bad all told. I had the privilege of heading into the North West Territories, my fourth Canadian province. But not by plane or the one main road that goes in. Instead it was in the bush, GPS guiding my crossing of the 60th parallel as night fell and the hoar frost coated the trees. The road was narrow and slick, the trees stunted. Outside my truck was telling me it was -25degrees C while I enjoyed an amaroked playlist on my laptop. Surreal, beautiful and unforgettable.

On the home front, we have a home. Well, I will believe I am a home owner when I actually sleep beneath a roof we own, but we have signed contracts and purchased mortgages. Getting some random stranger to give us $230000 was not easy, but I managed in the end, and come April 16, will finally have a place in this world!

On a bizarre front, I have been a little sick of late. Weird acid indigestion and aching kidneys. Nothing typical of any illness, so I visited the local South African doctor to get checked out. I checked out normal except my blood is like syrup. Way too many red blood cells, I would fail an EPO doping test instantly. The cure: give a pint of blood. Which I did.
Aside from a sore hole in the arm I feel about the same now, but we will see in the morning.

Update of many things

Sitting in my truck on a site, waiting for the shack to be hauled onto site, leveled and powered so that I can begin my work, I am struck by the fact I have not blogged for far too long an interval. And despite the fact I might claim otherwise, there is so much to blog on. I guess often we get to a point where there is so much to do, inactivitiy seems the better option. Well, not any more. So many aspects of my life need attention, I guess I simply need to tackle them one at a time. The good thing about blogging, or diary keeping or whatever you want to call it is that is forces us to take stock to some degree and focus attention on our actions. Even if only to record them, but hopefully a bit more.

Recently much has happened. We have been working hard, and I have put in a few 80 hour weeks. These can be tiring, even exhausting as endless early wakings follow late nights. But time passes quickly and money starts to slowly accumulate.

Also, we have a new kitten, a ball of fun, nuisance and happiness. Java, as we have called him, certainly upset the brittle balance of feline power in the household, but our other two seem to have settled back into their lives. Butter is still a bit put out, but change normally takes her months to overcome, so there is no reason to stress.

My attempts to study towards my CISCO assocaite level have been stalled by the endless work, and despite valient tries, my efforts to study after a 14hr day fail. No reason to panic though as there is time and summer will be a lot more sedate. I have been learning a little of linux also, and happily have Kanotix running on this laptop. In fact I am presently using it to type this blog.
As much as I know I should love Ubuntu, being of high south african content and possibly the future of the desktop, I find it confounding and have exhausted my patience with it. I need a root password, simply because that is how I work. I want to be able to watch movies and play music right out the box and I really hate spending hours getting such things running. If I wanted a system that takes 5 hours to build to a level of usefulness I would be using windows!

The latest Kanotix has been rock solid, even working with my wireless card be default. This has me rather happy with life and I am trying to set it up to be useful for everything at work. Already I have found a networking tool far better than anything we have on windows, a packet sniffer called ethereal. Nice!

White horse wall murals

Just because I have them, lets publish them. Here are some shots from a while back in white horse. Random street art. I like it, especially the last

A new de vlieg

We have been talking for a while about adding to our family. No, not a little Wen-Shu just yet, but rather another cat. Why exactly is hard to say, but if we can help out another street cat all the better. So a couple weeks back, on a Sunday, we headed down to the local SPCA to see what they had avaiable. Sadly, we did not have all the paperwork in order at the time, so left a little heartbroken and kittenless. I have been keen on getting a grey tabby for a while and they had the cutest little kitten.

Finaly this week we got our paperwork into some form of shape and had a moment to spare when we could get to the SPCA together during the day. Work has been mad for me and Wen-Shu has been grinding out the hours, and coffee beans recently, so it took some scheduling, but we managed to get a chance today.

Shame, my poor wife did not want to face a room full of needy cats knowing we could only take one home, so the choosing was left up to me. I wanted two things: A grey tabby, and a young cat. Our two other cats are very well established and we needed a kitten so it could grow up knowing its place in the pecking order, rather than an older cat that our two nearest and dearest felines would have to adapt around.
I found a little grey tabby a few months old. A male with medium length hair, so not perfect, but full of spunk and personailty and we have since adopted him and named him Java. He is presently meowing and complaining locked away in the bathroom. We are introducing him slowly to the royal highnesses that rule the house and I have been spending a lot of time with Oreo (and around Butter, she doesn't like me too close!) to try and alay their fears. This is not the first cat we have brought in to meet them. Over the years they have had another cat, Santa who staywith us for a good few months, as well as visits by a kitten, a dog and a rabbit.

Lets hope they all get on well!

Banks just don't care

I guess we all know this already, but it is always fun to get a nice stark reminder when you are confronted with it face to face.

When we first came to Canada a few months ago we had a huge collection of things to do, one of which was to set up a bank account. Initially we went with Bank of Montreal, for no reason other than we knew where they were. We deposited a few thousand in there and applied for credit cards. To get credit cards we were told that we would need to put up cash collatral in lieu of our credit limit (not much of a "credit" card if you think about it). I understand the need for this as new immigrants, but it is a little aggravating when you have gold cards in other countries, but won't be given any line of credit. We were told that we would need to leave this money with the bank for a year until we had a credit history in Canada. As much as this left us $2000 out of pocket so to speak at a time when we really needed the money, what could we do. So we complied and set about living in Canada. Since then months have passed, we have opened a number of other Bank accounts and as it turns out we have now obtained a credit history in this country.

As the card has been very active and yet paid off, we actually have a good creidt rating and were offered a credit card by another bank the other day. No cash desposit, no horribly restrictive credit limit, just a normal card. At the time we turned it down, but it got me to thinking.

If we have a credit rating here and are now past the cash desposit hurdle, why are BMO still hanging on to our cash deposit. Surely they could free this up and increase our credit rating due to the fact that we

1 Have a credit rating
2 Are both employed
3 Their compeditors are willing to do this

Against these facts is the fact that we were told we would have to wait a year. To me that is pure buearacracy and not a real reason. So I called them up the day before I was due to fly out to Whitehorse and asked to have my credit limit increased and the cash freed up. They said no, as we had to wait a year. So I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told they would call me back. I asked if they could call me back before 3 that afternoon. (They called back 3 days later). So I called back after 3 and got a little uppity with them. The woman on the other side refused to pass me on to any supervisor and when pressed, gave me the number of a car rental place just to get me off the line.

That just got me pissed and I called back to place a complaint against the person who did that. While I respect the balls it takes to be so dismissive of a customer, it was a little much. The complaint call achieved nothing as they said they would call me the next day, but never did.

So I had to call them again the next morning. I was not in the best frame of mind with them at the time as I had once again run up against my credit limit. I travel on expense a lot and often spend $1000 in a week on hotels/rentals/flights etc. Having a limit less than this means constant paying into the account and as it sometimes takes 4 days to go through I have suffered the embarressment of having my card refused, as I did at the hotel the night before.

So when they listened to my request and told be directly that they were not interested in helping me I was a little put out. No one tried to even increase my credit by a dollar. They simply said no and when I told them that other banks were more understanding, they were not interested in the least. When I told them that I would be closing my accounts if they didn't think of some way of helping out, they simply said we won't help.

Ok, so I am new to this country and they need to be careful, but consider the facts. I am employed full time. They can verify this. I have a lease that binds me to an apartment. They can verify this. I have used the card very extensively, yet never missed a payment or failed to fully clear the card. They can verify this. My wife and I are in the market for a house, and potentially we are going into debt to the order of many thousands of dollars. You would think a bank would be falling over itself to get that mortage of 2 university graduates working full time. But no, they would rather try to hang on to a mere $2000 dollars for a couple more weeks. And they will lose that too. So, as soon as the other creidt cards I have since applied for come through, I will close all my BMO accounts down and never do business with them again. From potentially having a client for life, they will have a vocal critic for life, with my little bit of money they have leaving and someone actively discouraging others from investing with them.

Atlin!!!

During the course of my global wanderings I always liked to seek out the unusual and out of the way places. I wanted to find and authentic experience, not just a generic touristic holiday. Thus, instead of Annapuna I went to Dalhagiri, instead of Arusha, I went to Amali. To Puerto Williams, Sucre, Dodoma, Megahalia etc etc. Places it is unlikely most people have heard of and few have been to.

Coming to Canada has not dulled that thirst for the unique and remote and my job has the added advantage of taking me to remote places. For the most part though I am in the bush with my truck, far from towns in endless forest, with a view of little more than trees. Sure the drives are great and the scenery can be stunning, but I long for more.

I was lucky this week to thus visit Atlin. If I was backpacking through Canada, Atlin is just the sort of place that I would seek out and spend some time in. Because not only do I like to find interesting and unheard of places, but I enjoy spending time there. Why go to the effort of hunting out these gems, only to pass through.

Unfortunately I do now work and only had a day in Atlin. But I will be back. With only 400 people living here it is a small town at the end of a 100km long dead end road, the turn off from which it starts been a further 90km from Whitehorse, the nearest town. Decidedly remote. And as such they use our Satellite internet services, which brought me in along the mixed gravel and tarred road on a cloudy Tuesday morning. Being the dead of winter the sun only started to get up around 10, shortly before I came into town. Still, there was enough light around for me to enjoy the view and pull over to the side of the snow covered roads more than once to take a photo or two.

Coming in a grand total of 3 cars were seen on the road, 1 more than I saw on the hour and a half long drive out.

Atlin began life as a spin off of the famous Klondike gold rush of the 1890's with a little gold being found some way from town. The area itself is truly stunning and I think this natural beauty has been enough to keep the town going. Located next to the largest natural lake in British Columbia, the town looks directly across on stunning mountains, which made an appearance out of the ice fog as I rolled into town.

My work in town involved a service call to replace all the components of our system and this took the better part of two hours to have up and running again as before. The guys in our NOC (network operations centre) wanted to watch it a bit before I left site, so I had a couple hours to kill. I took a short lunch in the only place in town to serve food and then went on a bit of a walk around town, taking in the lake front. The lake is all of 300m deep and thus takes a long time to cool down in the winter. Although most other lakes in the area are under a sheet of ice, the lake here was still lapping its crystal clear waters on shore in places. This resulted in an ice fog above the lake as the warmer water laden air left the surface. The surrounding ring of mountains came into and out of view, and the fog itself gave an at times eerie and lovely light to photograph. I took a few shots, some of which are the best I have taken in a while. I particularly like the shot of the house overlooking the docks, with its menacing sky which is at the start of this post.

The town now survives on a summer tourism trade and was mostly boarded up for the winter. Indeed the only shop in town had closed its doors for the winter, resulting in the petrol station being the main place of trade. During the summer the lake must be stunning and it runs right up to the glaciers that carve directly into it in the south. This is something I want to see and the single government agent, Glen, liked my suggestion of a summer holiday return enough to offer his boat. He was an interesting character in himself, having lived here for 9 years as the sole representative of all things BC government. He has also traveled extensively and we chatted a bit as the satellite system passed its testing hours with flying colours.

It was with reluctance that I left around 5pm, with the light almost gone for the long trip back to Whitehorse and my hotel room.

Yukon

There are a few places in this world which beckon to adventurers everywhere. Their names are such that the very mention of them get some of us dreaming of wild days and remote nights under the stars. Patagonia, Mongolia, Tibet, Serengeti etc etc. I am sure we all have our own personal list, but on my list there has been "The Yukon"

The river itself is central to that longing I have for the region. It is one of the great watercourses of the world, up there with the Mekong, the Orinoco, the Congo,the Nile or the Amazon. Sure there are other big river like the Mississippi or the Rhine, but to me they do not mean "adventure" The Yukon does. So it was with childlike excitement that an email arrived in my inbox last week from our operations Centre. Clay, who has a similar love of the open road and wild places as me, had simply entitled it "Atlin!!"
Now I am almost certain that people reading this would never have heard of Atlin, which is why I have a whole entry dedicated to it. But I knew it enough to know I was off the the wild blue Yonder!

The Air North flight was on time into Whitehorse on Monday, and I touched down in this regional capital on the banks of the Yukon a little before 22:00. Gone are the hard traveling days of hunting the cheap bus into town and then stomping around under a weighty backpack looking for the cheapest sleazy dive in town. I now get to expense things, and Clay had organised everything in advance. So, despite the fact I was still heaving the same old Macpac on my shoulders, I got to stroll over to the rental cars and pick up a nice to little SUV and drive into town to a rather swank hotel complete with Jacuzzi.
Yesterday saw me do the work needed out in Atlin and get back late after leaving early. No time to explore this town, although a truly wonderful trip with some of my best photos in ages.

Today was although more touristic. The flight back leaves a little before 15:00, giving me the whole day really with only a couple packages to send. So I have been walking around in this nice little town, taking photos. It is clearly NOT tourist season and there is not much to do. It is a Balmy -10 outside, which for this time of year is outright hot. So I took the chance to stroll all over town. Aside from the standard photo in front of the boat I was rather amazed with the murals in town, so I took a number of shots of them.



Lastly and maybe most importantly for me, I got to meet the Yukon. Ask my friends, I like to meet things up close. Merely taking a photo of some famous landmark in the background does not cut it for me. I want to touch it, feel the texture, examine it from different angles. The Yukon should be met in a canoe if you ask me, with days of paddling and nights on remote shores. But failing that at least I want to touch it, taste it and be at one with it. In summer I guess swimming it would count. Now, I took a photo, not in the river, but on it. Standing alone on the ice 100m from shore, with its once famous rapids (form where the name Whitehorse comes, since dammed out of existence) somewhere below my feet I at least met the river enough to feel satisfied with my brief and interesting visit.


Hopefully my work will bring me this way again, and hopefully I can bring Wen-shu with too, to see this outpost in the True Northern wilderness. The remainder of my time in town was spent in a fruitless search of some worthwhile trinket to take back to my loving wife as a memento of the trip. Sadly everything is brutally overpriced here and nothing I saw in the shops I visited was interesting or unique enough for me to part with the better part of $50.
Next time my sweet!

Toaster away

Success, finally. At last the home desktop is burning CD's and DVD's. Finally the last hurdle in the Linux build is over. The issue as it turns out had to do with permissions of cdrecord, the underlying burning program. My good friend Tophe pointed me in that direction and I now have it up and running. I would be a very happy camper were it not for the fact my laptop refuses to burn CD's from MP3 files. I know this is an Ubuntu issue as the codec is not GPL. What that means in simple English is that the way of compressing the sound uses software that is not freely available (free as in beer!). Ubuntu only installs completely free software by default, so things like MP3 support are lacking. While I understand the arguement behind this, most of us have thousands of MP3's on our machines we want to play and burn. Using Ubuntu out the box makes this impossible. IF it were a simple "click here to install this capability" I would be happy, but it is a lot more complex than that. Something I need to solve tomorrow!

Oh, Happy new year, by the way. Here's hoping for a great 2006 for everyone, planetwide