You'll note a couple of entries below that I mentioned that my anemone in my marine aquarium was doing much better, and was well recovered, but I was concerned that it had taken to its wandering ways again. That is how in got into trouble in the first place. Anyway, my fear was well founded as I came home tonight to find it once again trapped in the filter intake. And, once again, it is NOT in good shape. I don't know if it will survive this time around, it looks like there's even more damage than last time. We'll see I guess... Stupid invertebrate....

Anyway, I thought I'd throw in another picture - this one is also from the Fundy Trail and is a nice waterfall called Fuller Falls. For a portion of the day, there is a nice rainbow that forms over it (if it's sunny of course...)



I wish I had more interesting things to say in my blog entries - on a day to day basis, my life just isn't very exciting I guess.

After my day at work today, this quote is appropriate...

"Man creates problems. Government and bureaucrats magnify them 100 times." --George Van Valkenburg

To alleviate Tuna's boredom with sleeping hamsters, I mean bloggers, I thought I should make a post.

Although one of the things that P's me off the most is people who drink and drive, I have new reason to be annoyed. A drunk driver has messed up my PC!! Let me explain... On Friday night, while innocently participating in HT chat, a brief power failure caused my PC to reboot, and then it failed again for a second - causing another reboot right away. Turns out that that night a drunk driver had run into a utility pole a few miles away and caused a power failure in the immediate area and brief brownouts further away. Anyway...... Now my PC will not boot properly, but rather gets a BSoD (blue screen of death) everytime, unless I use the "Last Known Good" configuration menu. I can still get into my computer, but I will likely have to rebuild WinXP from scratch... Hmm. Maybe this is a good time to go ahead with a new hard drive and the dual boot Linux/XP setup that I've been thinking about.... and maybe a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to go along with it...

Okay, I know it's been a few days since my last post, for which I have already beaten myself up, but it was a fairly "distracting" week to say the least. In any case, things are back under control and here's another post!

Here's a great pic of yours truly doing a little scrambling in Salt Creek Canyon (a side canyon of Grand Canyon) during my April 2003 hike. It was a pretty challenging little day hike that we did on a "free" day during the backpacking trip. There were parts (like this one) where it looked fine to get down, but getting up seemed to me to be a bit dicier proposition. Everything worked out fine, although I did wind up putting my hand square into a prickly pear cactus and wound up with about 200 tiny needles in my palm. So, I spent the hour after we got back to camp picking them out with tweezers one by one... Did I ever mention that cactus needles are covered with some kind of alkyloid which is an irritant? Well... ow.



Oh - interesting side note - it was almost in this exact shot that my shorts gave up the ghost in an unfortunate tearing sound.... That's what happens to pants I guess when you slide down enough rock on your butt with them..

I should update those who know Charlotte Wormsign with "her" current condition. Some may remember Charlotte's most unfortunate encounter with the filter intake in my marine aquarium and how it lost most of its tentacles.. Well, Charlotte is still recovering well and has actually grown back a lot of the lost appendages! I need to get (or borrow) a digital camera so I can take a picture of the blobby little invertebrate and post it. "She" has taken to the tank wandering again though, so that concerns me a little bit...

Finally I just want to say thanks to ChefGrace for "listening"... :)

Do I have a quote for today? Hmmm..... How about:

"I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that remains." -- Anne Frank

Do any of the HT chatters remember a ways back when someone found the site for ordering a free Mr. Clean Miracle eraser, but it turned out that you could only order it from Canada, so I did. Remember your disappointment at not be able to because you lived in the U.S. Well, anyway, the eraser in question finally arrived!! And yes, it does work as advertised! Scuff marks on wall? Gone! The thing is a brilliant invention.

Anyways, today outside would be a beautiful day - if it was December 24th. My back yard looks like a Christmas Card, with sticky snow all over the tree branches. It being March 21st - bleh. However, it is supposed to get a little warmer through this week so most of the new stuff at least will probably melt away.

Well I would feel remiss if I didn't post at least one picture in my entry, so here goes. This is a "flowerpot rock" which is along the Fundy Trail. This is a multi-use trail/parkway which goes along the coast and is not far from the Fundy Footpath, where I have done some backpacking. It is beautiful scenery along here.

I thought I should do a post to catch everyone up on what has been happening the last few days. Well... not much. I have been pretty busy, but mostly just with work and doing some freelance computer consulting that I do on the side. Thank goodness the Active Directory course is behind me, but that being said, I think I have actually retained of few of its major points, so perhaps it wasn't totally worthless after all.

On the weekend I went for a walk in Saint John's large municipal park, Rockwood Park.

It is really one of Saint John's gems, a very nice park where you can do hiking or even pretty challenging mountain biking on some of their trails. I just hiked along one of the main trails though, and there is still enough snow on the ground that the walking was a real good workout! It was a beautiful day, sunny and (fairly) warm. There were lots of people out though!

Here's a picture of a covered bridge which is not too far from where I live (about 10 min drive away). It was built in 1914, but is no longer used as a traffic brdge (they built a new concrete bridge beside it) but you can still walk or bike over it. There are a lot of covered bridges in New Brunswick, and most of them are still used. In the "old days", they used to be called "kissing bridges" because as you rode your carriage through it, it was an opportunity to steal a smooch from your loved one....



Quote of the day? Hmmm... How about:

"Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail." --Navajo Song

I finished the painful Active Directory course yesterday, after a big delay in the start of the class. Turns out the instructor had to run off to fix a server in some legal firm that they do consulting for. So, we finally got going about 11:00 am. At least he bought us all lunch to make up for the delay. Luckily, the day was going to be short anyway, and we finished at 3:00. So, yay(!) the course is over. Now if I could just remember anything that was taught!

Here's a cool picture from a couple of years back on a hike in the White Mountains, NH on the King Ravine trail. This is part of the section called the "Subway" which is about 240 yds of going, between, under and over huge boulders. In some places it's pretty tight! There were places smaller than this, in fact you had to take your pack off and push it through in front of you.



You know, I don't have a lot of really close friends, but the ones I do have are great. I found this quote which pretty well sums it up..

"A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day 3 of the MS Active Directory course and I am still surviving! It is pretty boring though... Other than that, not too much has been going on. As far as the binary quote goes - "10" is binary for "2" in decimal notation. Just for those who may have been wondering....

Here's a morning picture of a section of the Greenleaf trail in New Hampshire's White Mountains, just before breaking the tree line. The hike was in Sept. 2002, and it was a beautiful morning, but the weather got pretty cloudy for a good part of the day, with the Franconia Ridge in and out of the clouds. It was very busy coming down the Falling Waters trail though - it was a Saturday and there were lots of people coming up. It's always funny but a little bit scary to see how ill-prepared some people are for the hikes they are trying to do, both physically, (and from seeing one group of guys coming up, I can tell you that being 20 yrs old and buff does not necessarily mean you're in shape) and also for the weather, which can turn very nasty on those high peaks. A T-shirt and shorts isn't going to cut it when it starts to rain and the wind hits 80 mph...



Oh, the woodsy quote for the day! -

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -- Henry David Thoreau

Well, today I was on the first day of a 5 day course on Microsoft Active Directory services and it was, uh, not exactly exciting. There was a lot of useful technical information there, but as a typical MS course, it wasn't presented in a way which really holds your interest. A lot of theory, very little hands on...

I thought I'd throw in another picture for all to see from my Oct. hike..

This is Ribbon Falls, just off the N. Kaibab Trail..


You can actually climb up behind the falls - this is a view from behind at the top of the falls...


Anyway, quote of the day (you may need to be a computer geek for this to make sense..):

"There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't..."

Well, I was trying to think of something else to write in here, and as TV has suggested, will probably have a complete travelogue eventually. But for now I'm throwing in a couple more pictures from my Oct. hike..

Here's a nice close up of damsel fly..


Also, a nice one of a formation viewed from the North Kaibab trail. I think this is a morning picture...


I guess I'm supposed to record my thoughts or daily experiences here, but to be honest, my life isn't all that interesting. I used to (try) to keep a handwritten journal, but after a couple of months that kind of fell by the wayside. Maybe this will be different! One thing that I would like is to keep these entries positive - maybe I'll even throw in an inspirational quote now and again! There's really enough negativity in the world that I feel ill disposed to pass any more of it around. I will keep it all in reserve for my one outlet of disdain - reality show contestants! ;)

Anyway, here's a good quote that I always thought was rather cool - it expresses my thoughts, and experiences, exactly:

"I am in love with this world. I have nestled lovingly in it. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings." - John Burroughs

Here is my attempt to paste in a picture. This is me on my Grand Canyon hike last Oct. hydrating near Ribbon Falls...

Do you realize how great all those posters are at Hamster Time? And the ones in chat? Yoohoo! They are the best!!

My first blog entry!!