Hot'nnuf4ya?

It's close but not yet May. Today the temperature is going to be 26C (78F).

The Term SUV was N/A

I re-read yesterday's entry and decided that in 1983 we really didn't call Trevor's GMC Suburban an SUV. In fact, I wondered whether the term had even been coined yet. It took a bit of a search but I found an answer.

I am pretty sure that in reference to that vehicle we used a localized Kuwaiti term for GMC, pronounced as, Jimce.

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The Word Spy

The phrase sport utility vehicle (SUV) entered the language in the 1970s, although in its earliest incarnations it most often shows up as sports utility vehicle (as well as sports-utility vehicle and sports/utility vehicle):

"Four-wheel drive is increasingly popular. A decade ago, about the only U.S.-made '4 by 4's,' as the industry calls them, were Jeeps and International Harvester's Scouts. Today every truck manufacturer offers four-wheel drive not only on sports utility vehicles but also on pickups — where it is a more and more common option — and suburbans as well."

—Charles G. Burck, "Trucks Muscle in on the Car Market," Fortune, February 27, 1978

The abbreviation SUV didn't get a toe-hold in the lexicon until about 10 years later:

"Ford, meanwhile, is planning to freshen up or completely redesign all of its light-truck recreational vehicle products in the early 1990s, in part to take full advantage of expected demand in the SUV segment of the market."

—Al Wrigley, "Ford picks Budd to supply Bronco II components," Metalworking News, June 29, 1987

Wadi Rum

I feel a bit lazy today, so I thought I'd just look for a photo to include with a short explanation. On my hard disk, I found this scanned image of an actual policeman.


This picture was taken on a trip that I once mentioned in this blog. During a journey from Kuwait to Syria and Jordan by SUV, four of us drove into the desert here. This was taken at an entrance to Wadi Rum in southern Jordan. This is one of the filming locations for the movie, Lawrence of Arabia.

At the time of this photo, the epic movie would have been 21 years old, but now we'll have to add another 21 years to that!

Disc Mania

(Okay. As I've discussed this topic before, I generally receive a fair number of blog hits from people who google to learn about online, Canadian DVD rental companies. So, I'll write more for my 'fans' out there!)

I gave up on www.zip.ca during the trial period as it took too long to send and receive discs between Ottawa and New Westminster. BC. Then we joined www.dvdflix.ca and have been with them about 7 weeks. Here's a list of most of the DVDs they've sent here:

A Streetcar Named Desire - Director's Cut (1951)

American Splendor (2002)
Beyond Borders (2003)
Big Fish (2003)
Boat Trip (Unrated / Widescreen) (2002)
Cold Creek Manor (2003)
Donna Summer: VH-1 Presents Donna Summer Live & More...Encore! (1999)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within: Special Edition (2001)
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (1977)
Freaky Friday (2003)
Gladiator (1992)
House Of Sand And Fog (2003)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life (Special Edition)
Le Placard (2001)
Lost In Translation (2003)
Party Monster (1998)
Prince: The Hits Collection (1993)
Ripley's Game (2003)
Seabiscuit (Widescreen)
Simone (2002)
Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (Widescreen)
The Legend of Suriyothai (2003)
Thirteen (2003)
Trois (2000)
Under The Tuscan Sun (2003)
Veronica Guerin (2003)
Whale Rider (Special Edition)

That works out to be an average of 15 discs per month. I've no complaint with the speed of their service as it's a 'local' business. Once they neglected to input the receipt and subsequent shipping of several DVD's, yet a simple call to customer support promptly fixed it.

I think, however, I will switch over to www.vhqonline.ca which is a new name from the previous www.cinemaflow.com. They cost a bit more but their selection seems larger and their tie-up with a large video store chain will probably provide them more flexibility for future growth.

Little Boy Blue ...

Yesterday was time for the truck to have a major health appointment. I had my local Canadian Tire do a complete tune-up, radiator flush, and oil and grease. Imagine eight, shiny, new sparkplugs for those four, tiny cylinders!


Although some of last week's trip occurred in the desert, here you can
see this pass on the North Cascades Highway had a bit of snow left.
(Elevation: 5477ft / 1669M)

Oh, and my horn hadn't been working for the last half year. You never know how much you need one, until it doesn't work. So, I asked for them to fix that too. It took them a long time to troubleshoot the problem. My bill included labour charges and a $40 electrical relay that they had to procure from the Ford dealer. I've now invested a hundred dollars in order to honk. I feel as though I must use it so if you get in front of me on the highway, you're definitely going to hear me coming.

Neither Snow, nor Sleet, nor ... Poodles?

I'm proud of friend, Bret Wirta, for downloading new software and creating an email attachment from his video clip. Here's the tiny video of the family dog going absolutely postal after a mail delivery.

Streetcar

It's a beautiful sunny afternoon. The balcony door's open and the trees are now full with dark-green leaves.

I put on a copy of A Streetcar Named Desire. There is something extremely seductive about a clear black and white print. One had to pay a lot of attention to dialog; whereas, in many current flicks, the action takes a front seat.

Vivien Leigh was extraordinary; Blanche DuBois is an dream role. I had only really known big Marlon Brando as in the Godfather trilogy but in 1951 he was quite a hunk.

The film was shot eight years before my birth. It's a gift that I can view it at home in 2004. I find it absolutely amazing that celluloid (transferred to mpeg files on a shiny disc) can still arouse such emotion after more than a half century. I felt as though I had crawled right into a place and era long gone.

How stunning!

Dammit!

You'd think I was talking about the Columbia River. Last week, my entries included photos from Grand Coulee Dam.


Okay here's the real stretch in logic. I
searched my musical database and came up
with this gem, Dammit, Janet, from the
Rocky Horror Picture Show. I recently got
that DVD and found it most definitely ...
before its time.

Messaging About Messaging

Can you send text messages internationally on your mobile phone, and if you can, are they cheap or expensive?

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My cell is not a full featured service. I have a 'pay as you go' and only use it for emergency (to have in truck in winter) and for student contact. I don't really know.

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No matter.

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Many of my students have photo phones that play mp3 files and can practically mow the lawn. It all seems silly to me.

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Yeh, my students and friends have mobiles that do everything except make toast. I'd like to have a photo phone and one so that I could text message.

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Too cumbersome for me.

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I used to ba able to text message from my computer and it was free but now they charge. I would pay but it's only available to ------- Mobile Plus service and most of my friends don't have Mobile Plus.

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You need something like a Blackberry.

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I've heard about the Blackberry, but too expensive and technology more than I need or could handle. Text messaging is possible from even the cheapest phones.

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Okay, but keying in is way too slow.

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The Philipinos here are real adept at it. Most of the world except North America do lots of it. In Thailand even, everybody is always text messaging.

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Why not just talk?

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The Philipinos I used to work with text messaged all the time to the Philipines, back and forth all day long. Each texted message only costs 50 fils - 12 cents from here. My friend is in Dubai. If I call his mobile, it is a long distance call for him to receive it.

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Still seems like a stop gap measure, til we use messenger on wireless net devices.

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Or if some one is away from the mobile or can't answer it, instead of just seeing a number of someone who called they can read a message when they get a chance. It's actually real handy.

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Yeah, all right. I will take your word for it.

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i thnk U wll B 2 bsy 2 gt bck 2 me so i snd u a txt mssg. This is the way my students are starting to write.

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I think how most people use cell phones is also stupid and they are always chatting and never saying anything. Too bad more people don't know where the off switch is.

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But like when I'm at work or out in the cinema, somebody can send me a txt mssg and I can read it in the cinema without the phone ringing or when I get back to my office. It would be great if they put answering machines in mobiles, but it seems txt mssging has precluded that.

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Voice messaging is available on my cell. If I switch it .. it informs me .. but I turn that off too. If I can't answer then, I don't want to have to 'catch up' later.

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I agree. Most mobile calls are useless, but then on the other hand, i was a the gym yesrterday and then went to the car wash and supernarket. By the time I got home and checked my message machine, it was too late to go to the cinemas with my friend Richard. If I had had a mobile with me, I would have not gone to the car wash and supermarket and met him at the cinema.

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Very few businesses require such immediate, in-one's-face connections ... almost no ordinary people should.

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Most don't but the example I just gave was one of those times when a mobile would have been handy.

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No wonder half the world is on medication. People complain about stress .. then think of all sorts of ways to invite it into their lives! Good conversation ... dinner is ready now though.

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Bye.

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A Half Dozen Cheap Shots

I was at the mall so I picked up a SmartMedia reader, thinking that maybe my camera's USB cable had gone wonky. I unplugged the card from my camera, inserted it, and the photos were all available. I've put a total of a half dozen on two seperate pages. If I want to include pictures on this page, they have to be made very tiny. Even compressing to 640x480 never does a digital picture much justice, but feel free to take a look:


North Cascade Mountain Pass

Coulee Dam, Western Washington

Deer Migration

Near Soap Lake, Washington

The Thomas' Porch

Lake Kachess, Washington

SmartMedia is Not So Smart

Hum, I have 46 super-high quality photos sitting in my camera but when I plug it in, WinXP isn't recognizing the device. Eventually, I'm sure that I'll get it sorted out so as to add some visual representation of our recent circle trip to Washington state. The differences in geography were stunning. We saw temperate rainforest, a moutain pass where there's snow in July, dry desert grasslands, and prductive farms and meadows. The trip was was only 700 miles (1100 km).


It was a nice time. Oh and thank you, Thomas family, for a nice evening, good dinner and a great hike up your front-yard mountain!

A Hike

We walked to see a beaver dam then up the mountain near Lynne and Joel's home.

Dam It!

We spent the first night in Grand Coulee right near the dam.

The North Cascades Highway

We've travelled on thousands of kilometres of road in this province. British Columbia is huge but there are, relatively speaking, very few highways here. So, past journeys mean we've already been to almost every place that is a comfortable two or three-day drive.

We find ourselves with a few days to spare and will, therefore, drive to Washington state again. A few weeks back we headed down I-5 to WA Route 20 and headed over to Port Townsend to catch a ferry to the peninsular. Today, we'll go back to Route 20 and travel eastward. Just a few weeks ago, the North Cascades Highway reopened after its annual closure for the winter.

The weather is not supposed to be very good but maybe it'll get drier when we get out to the semi-desert. We could try to stay near the Grand Coulee Dam. Then, we will also stay with the Thomas family on Wednesday night. We've not visited them for years!

Old But Not Forgotten!

DVD's are a great storage medium; not just for new Hollywood Blockbusters, but increasingly for entire seasons of television programming. In addition, because the of the vast improvement and convenience over tape, studios are releasing old movie classics which never made it onto VHS.

It was merely a few years ago when one of the only ways to see a foreign or an older film was to live near a city that had an art-house theatre. Trying to catch a showing on television was difficult and the commercials annoying. Now, a trip to the video store opens almost the entire world of cinema for personal, watch-anytime viewing.

I've been on a Hitchcock kick recently viewing:

Rear Window (1954)

North by Northwest (1959)

Psycho (1960)

Birds, The (1963)

There are so many more! Also, I've started to research Tennessee Williams and have selected to rent A Streetcar Named Desire from DVDFLIX.CA.

Give Life

If you're reading this in British Columbia, you can check anytime to ensure that you are registered for organ and tissue donation upon your death. I cannot imagine any reason that would prevent someone from choosing to give life.

BC Organ Donor Lookup

Over the Fraser

In this picture we are approaching the Alex Fraser Bridge from the
south. Note the mountains to the north. Westward (to the left) near the
mouth of the river is the Vancouver Airport. I live upriver (to the right).

Viewer-Supported TV

I've never actually become a "member of quality television" by sending them a cheque. Yet, I do get WGBH-Boston and KCTS-Seattle via satellite. Public television seems a bit of an anachronism in the current, 200-channel universe. (I hold the same view towards Canadian taxpayer supported CBC.) There are many specialty channels which carry PBS-type programming.

That said however, I do enjoy their science programming and have recently set up the PVR to record, NOVA. The topics are diverse and always interesting.

I was simply amazed by this week's show (which first aired in 2001). The photography was amazing and the specifics are both humbling and awe-inspiring. The processes are so complex that it really is a miracle that any pregnancy can actually end with birth.

NOVA Online | Life's Greatest Miracle

Email to Web Page

I was nearly at a loss as to what to write today. Then, I just happened to be cleaning up my Outlook folders. I discovered an email that was written by Jay and me after a BC trip taken last April. That was before my blogging began, so many friends and relatives may have missed it. As some of the pictures are interesting, I've taken the liberty to format the note as a web page.

BC Coastal Ferry and Road Trip - April 2003

... More'n Four Decades Ago

And tied for first place in the silly-photo department, is this b&w wonder. What were my parents thinking?


Apparently, I'm in the company of two snow people in front of our house in Wendell, New Hampshire. Do you think I could yet walk? It was probably 1960.

... Two Decades Ago

Everybody needs a challenge.

My goal was to find the silliest photo of myself that I could. (Well, we know how the truly awful ones were usually ditched when they came back from processing.)

You are witness to the result of my search. This was actually a passport-sized photo that I must have used when leaving the U of WA to travel to my first job in Saudi.

The perm actually looks quite cool but the chin hair is a bit much. I do see that glasses with large, loopy frames are coming back into vogue though. Does fashion have only a twenty-year cycle?

Many people find blogs as a place to comment on important, world events. Yet, I can manage quite nicely just talking about myself, thank you.

There's a Mag for Every Interest!

Here are some current stories from the Astrobiology Magazine:

Easter Parade

Antique Cars on Easter Day - New Westminster Quay




Antique Car Parade - New Westminster Quay, BC
Pictures Taken: April 11, 2004

Happy Easter! I hope the Peeps don't melt as it's going to be 26C (78F) today!

Peeps on Parade

16333 Days and Counting

I received an e-mail talking about biorythms. I remember little PC programs that used to calculate these. Nowadays, there are tons of web sites which do.

Google Search: Biorythms
Interestingly, I found out that I've been alive 16333 days as of today. I surely have had enough time to accomplish a lot of things, eh?

Iceless Follies

You know there are deals just too good to pass by. Sears advertised an extra ten bucks off pairs of in-line skates and I just couldn't help but to spend a little to save some.

How hard could skating be? I am Canadian now, so be it on ice or pavement, I should have acquired the skill by osmosis, right?

The weather today is excellent. It seems as though there's a high-pressure area over us that reminds the weather prognosticators of a summer pattern. It is also Good Friday and therefore a vacation day for most workers. What a great day to walk to the New Westminster Quay and strap on the new devices.

As strange as it may seem, I never really spent time on ice skates as a New Hampshire kid. I do remember that one of the town road ploughs used to get out on Sunapee Harbor on years of sufficient ice. It’d dig down and create a rink. I wonder if that still happens. I am sure I spent a few days skating with school kids at rinks in Kuwait and the UAE; not necesarily the first places one would consider taking up ice skating.

Regardless, the process today surely wasn't like riding a bicycle. In order to move well one has to be on a smooth hard surface. The problem with that is when one falls, it also occurs on a smooth hard surface!

My ankles hurt. I only fell down once but there was enough of an audience at the busy Quay today. Practice will make perfect so I have to promise not to let 'em sit in the closet.


For some reason I just had to include this
song by Melanie. I guess this goes to show
my age as I thought of this song before
Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi.

Don't Worry ...

I am sometimes amazed how outside influences can affect personal moods. For example, a bad day at work can make everything about life seem grey. Conversely, a run of good weather boosts one's spirits.

Olympic Peninsula

Port Angeles was busier than we'd have thought.

I understand that it's an important 'jump-off' point to the Olympic National Park as it's a relatively close destination for vacationers from Seattle.. The port must attract lots of business and then there's logging. However, the area really appeared to be growing quickly.

We did loop down through Olympia. We'd always raced through that city on I-5 so this time we drove up by the state capitol buildings. I've got to do some more research on the history of that city.

We got back here early.


Jay in front of a mural of old Port Angeles at their Visitors' Center.

Deerly Beloved

It was a relaxing drive with only a two-minute wait at the border. We arrived at 12:30, so we had to wait an hour for the short ferry ride over to Pt. Townsend, WA.


Unconcerned deers munched grass a mile from the ferry terminal.

Smile: You're on a Road Cam!

Neither of us has to work for a few days. The weather promises to be nice. We've never really spent any time driving the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. So, we're off for a few days.

We'll head down to Oak Harbor and then the half-hour ferry to Port Townsend in order to make it over to Port Angeles. We'll probably then loop around the bottom of the sound stopping in Olympia or Tacoma. I wonder if the Thomas family will be home at Snoqualmie Pass?

We should be back on Thursday evening. So, tune in then for a few photos.

It Used to Be Fun

I was thinking about how quickly we take advantage of technology and stop being amazed by it.

I was just checking through our city library's online catalogue. I put holds on several items so I'll be informed by an automated phone-messaging system when the items are available.

Yesterday, I completed and filed our tax returns online and arranged for a payment through online banking. (I sort of miss chatting with the bank-teller gals.)

I haven't mailed a letter for so long that I do not know the current postal rates.

The Net has ceased being an avenue for nerdy entertainment and has become an indispensable utility.

Spring Forward

Last night we set the clocks ahead before going to bed. Daylight Savings Time is now in effect. Windows XP knew and didn't even bother to ask if it was okay to change.



This song by Styx seemed appropriate
for today! Although I lost an hour of sleep
last night, I've got extra time this evening.

Enough, Already!

Is this a continuing salute to spring?

My blog entries, when archived, show Saturdays at the top of the pages so I had to place a picture here. I promise to add no more Oriental Magnolia tree pictures for the rest of the season!

(However, don't forget to click any larger text links of the past few days to view selected, bigger photographs.)

Slurp!

Drinking straws are for kids, right? Look around at all the adults sucking their drinks from paper cups the next time you pass the food court in a shopping mall. It looks a little silly.

Minding My Own Business

I'm off for a bit (from work not the blog). After working three intensive courses in a row, I am taking a break until May. I will teach through the summer this year though. It feels so good getting back to myself. I think perhaps I take my work too seriously. I really enjoy spending some time focusing on just kicking back.

I believe many people are completely crazy about their need to work. I genuinely feel as though, for most of our evolutionary past, humans were attuned to the ebb and flow of nature. The industrial revolution is but the blink of an eye in terms of human development, yet we often incorrectly think this is always how we've always lived.

I'm here to disagree.

I do not replace my paying job for other tasks. I simply relax. Those who feel they'd be bored must not have very active minds! Are they trying to define or add meaning to their lives through work? How sad that must be! I am comfortable with myself and can always find something to think about. There's a park only 3 blocks away near city hall. I sat on a bench for an hour yesterday. I was just enjoying the sun, the new spring growth, and the sound of the stream.

Pretty in Pink

In some places there are just two seasons: hot and not so hot. After living in some of those places, it is still a very special treat to live in Vancouver. Spring is such an inspiring period.


Cherry trees seem to get all the gossip and buzz, yet the Oriental
Magnolia trees impress me more. How come they put so much energy
into making flowers even before they grow leaves?


My Building from 4th & Carnarvon
Picture Taken: March 31, 2004