Matt & Shane

My brother Shane and his son made the trip from Ontario to be a part of the birthday celebration. It was great to see Shane again and to meet his son who I had not seen since he was about 6. Matt was haming it up with dad for some happy shots
 

Harry & Hazel's Boy

This is my dad. Caught here during a lunch with his kids during the birthday visit

The Siblings

During our visit all four of Mr. Butchers kids got together for the first time in 34 years. A historic occasion. This a little picture of the youngest and the oldest. Derek and Ginger respectively. 

Mickey's B&B

This is the B&B that Derek found for us in Kitsalano two blocks from the beach. We all gathered to honor our father on his 69th birthday The rooms where nice and the beds very soft. If you need a place close to the city and beach Mickey's is a good choice.

Kitsalano

This is the view from Kits beach back to Vancouver 

Let The Sun Shine

We made a little trip to Vancouver and decided to make a stop at Bridal Falls. While the falls where great the sun pouring through the canopy was also very nice. I loved the dappled effect of the sun straining to reach the foor of the forest 

Kubuntu 6.06 Desktop

Well here is another screenshot of a Linux desktop. This is as the title says Kubuntu. It's Ubuntu with the KDE desktop environment. I have made several mods to the desktop. I love the wallpaper and it's message just double click to see it larger. I hacked the menu to hide itself and then used Super Karamba to setup the OX 10 style menu and added a system monitor to keep an eye on the internal goings on. Just need to use Gimp to get rid of the penguin from the bottom right

The Ceiling

Here is a view of the ceiling of the cave showing the beautiful mineral deposits 

The Entrance

During my visit to Vancouver Island I decided to stop and take a look at Horne Lake Caves. It was worth it. The picture you see is looking back up at the 2 foot square opening that is called the entrance. They have a very strong steel door that is locked open when there are tours and closed when they are not. You climb down the steel stairs to the base of the cave to start the tour. More pictures to follow. 

A Walk In The Woods

Justin and his Grandpa (me) took a little walk around Cathedral Grove during our visit to Vancouver Island. You have to see these trees to believe the size of them. I have seen these woods several times and I still stand in awe. The oldest trees are over 800 years old. Think about it they where good sized trees before Columbus even thought about stopping by.

 

Electric Scooter aka the "Blue Bomber"

Well we have had the bike for a few days now and made a few discoveries. The bike goes about 40 km and still has some juice left. The brakes are terrible. They are noisy and hard to setup. But they stop good. We took the rear box off as it was kinda noisy. And we replaced it with our soft bag for our regular bikes. This works very nicely. I have taken it to work and found it runs great on level ground. Hills are a bit much with me on it. It is rated for 220 pounds and I meet or exceed that. Jackie has gone to work and back several times and it had done well except the brakes. We estimate the route to be about 34 km perhaps more and the bike does the return trip no problem. So I will keep you posted. 

Not A Big Motorcycle (Just a groovy little motorbike)

Well we took the plunge. With rising gas prices we decided to try one of the new electric assisted bicycles. They are considered bicycles so no licence and no insurance. The claim is about 25 cents to charge with a range of 50 km. The top speed is 32km but I think that is optimistic. This translates into 875 km per gallon I'm told. The hope is that this little machine will get Jackie to work and back on a single charge. That should save us about 60 to 80 bucks a month. And zero emissions. I will keep you posted on how it all works out. 

Oh yah My Eye

Well I returned to Dr. Hopp today concerning my torn retina. He took a look and decided that I needed some laser surgery to help the healing process and to make sure the retina was firmly attached. Apparently the air bubble that he injected into my eyeball will take a few more days to dissipate. I gotta tell Ya it is the strangest thing to look out your eye and see half your vision blocked by a blue green semi transparent bubble bouncing around inside your eye. Doc says all will be well in a week or two. It has been a strange journey that I hope I never have to go through again.

I Love Linux

This is a screenshot of my dual booting laptop. This is PCLinuxOS with some serious hacking to the GUI. I used a fractal generator to create the wallpaper and I like the results. Just click on the picture to see it full size. You gotta love a completely free OS that is fully customizable. For more info on all the Linux distros out there check out distrowatch

Doves In The Yard

Jackie pointed out to me the other day that this dove returns every day to take a look around our back yard. So I pulled out her Minolta and got a few pics. He seemed interested in my antics and watched as I "shot" him. We hope to see him stay a regular visitor 

Torn Retinas

I just finished typing a long story about this eyeball of mine and lost it all in a formatting issue so the new story is. Here is my eye after surgery. I had been suffering with some problems with my right eye and after much persistance it was discovered that I had torn the retina loose in the back of that eye. I was sent to the hospital and was quickly met by a surgeon and we decided on a method of treatment. Within a few minutes he was sticking needles in my eye and then injecting air. Which will remain for 10 or so days to disapate. I will keep you posted 

Just Another Screenshot

I have tried several, well many versions of Linux and I have consistently come back to PCLinuxOS. This is a screenshot of the latest fresh install. I have found this version of Linux to be fast and stable. It can be downloaded from their website or at Distrowatch.com . Distrowatch is a great site to explore if you are remotely interested in Linux. There you can find all the active distros and what they are all about. They include reviews and links to all sorts of resources. Take a look and have some fun.

Where There Is Smoke....

Just over the mountain there is a little fire burning. The ash is beginning to fall and the wind is blowing hard. I can hear the roar of water bombers and I'm hoping they kill the beast. 

Oh The Oldies

Here are a couple more shots of the same group of cars and trucks. I love these old wrecks. 

Old Truck Are ......

We where out for a ride on Canada day and rode by these trucks and I just had to stop and snap a few shots. a little Photoshop tweak and here they are. 

Family Get Together

Here they are folks. from left to right. Kristine, Ralph, Mom, Jessi, and Xavier. We where able to have a little family gathering this Canada day and it was fun. 

Just Another Day In The Park

It it a good day today. Time to breathe time to think. A little John Hiatt on the cones and the sweet fragrance of peace creeps in. Music is such a wonder. Harry Chapin said it well when he coined the line "music it's been my greatest friend and my fiercest foe. Cause it can take you so high and bring you so low". I always like to think of it as math made fun. If you look at written music it is a series of sounds and silences carefully laid out in structures of time. Different beats with the silence as important as the noise. And when it all come together it is some kinda sweet.

Dapper Drake Has Arrived

My Linux fever remains unabated. I have been waiting for the arrival of the latest Ubuntu. This latest incarnation is called "Dapper Drake" and I must say it is very nice. It is a nice evolution from "Breezy Badger". Funny thing with most Linux distros; they come multimedia crippled. After some reading I have discovered that this is due to legal reasons. But Thanks to some dilligent users two different scripts have been written for Ubuntu to download and install all needed multimedia codecs. One is called Automatix and the other is Easy Ubuntu. Both can quickly and easily add all the nessasary plugins for music and video. This is a reaaly nice distro and I would even say ready to replace "Windoze" for most users. Why you ask would you do that? Can you say no viruses, no spyware. This is Linux and so no problems in that area. It is stable clean and free. Oh did I mention free. Yes Ubuntu and many other good distros are absolutely free. Go to the Ubuntu site and do a little reading I am sure you will be amazed at what is going on in the Linux comunity.

Windows Vista Beta

Well Jackie downloaded the new beta from Microsoft and we installed it on the test mule I use for linux. While I'm not sure how the old girl feels about sharing a drive with Bill's OS here it is. It looks kinda cool but all the new stuff is alread out in linux for free.

And So It Begins Again

And so it begins again. Devon the son of my brother Derek has recieved his grad present. a shiney hardly ridden Yamaha Seca II 600. A really nice machine. We spent the morning giving him tips and teaching him how to keep the shiny side up. We used the test lot for the motor vehicle branch and watched as he learned how to handle his new ride at low speed. He learned quite quickly. And here he is leaving for Dad's house on his first solo ride with Dad in tow. Good luck Devon and I hope you enjoy the new ride!

The Lens

You may remember last year I bought the Sigma 70-200 2.8 APO DG HSM. It has proved to be every bit as good as the Canon. I have found it to be a superb lens for sports. The 2.8 aperture works great for hockey and other indoor sports. Well soccer season is apon us and I picked up the Sigma converter it's a 2x EX DG. Here is the picture of it all assembled. It's freakin huge. The 20D body looks dwarfed. I am glad I have a mono pod. I will let you know how it performs and post some samples. 

The New Wheels

As I had mentioned I had my trusty Giant Sedona bike stolen from my garage. Locked and all they cut the lock and gone gone gone it is. So..... I bought a new one this time I got a Gary Fisher hybrid. It is a very nice ride and time will tell how durable 

Ridin and Shooting

Jackie and I where out for a bike ride to the airport and on the way back we where both takin a few shots here and there. She had grown quite fond of her Minolta Dimage Z3. It is a pretty good camera to bad they stopped making them.