Kitchen renovation

Our kitchen renovation began yesterday...after 6 years of planning and saving.

The photos give a sense of my labours on Sunday in final prep for our contractor to start work. I spent 9 hours clearing out the contents; some went into boxes placed in the dining room, and some went downstairs to our temporary kitchen set up in the laundry room. I lost track of the number of times I went up and down those stairs!

Later I'll post a "before picture" of the kitchen taken the day we took posession of the house back on Nov. 11, 2003.

Blowin' in the Wind

Have you seen the new wind turbine on the top of Grouse Mountain? Somehow I had my head in the sand and missed all the news stories leading up to its unveiling.

I was traveling to work on Skytrain one morning a couple of weeks ago, gazing at the local hills as I often do, when I spotted a tall white spire just East of the seasonally brown ski slope. The angle of the sun at that time of the morning was reflecting off the white paint bringing more attention to the tower than would normally be the case. That’s probably the reason I noticed it in the first place. It looked like the tip of a tent pole poking through the roof of a tent. I looked at for a few minutes, and as Brentwood station approached, I decided to get off there and see how close my digital telephoto lens would get.


That camera never ceases to amaze me. Not only did I get a much clearer view of the still unidentified spike, I also saw a construction crane beside it. I hadn’t seen the crane from the train platform. The image is a bit hazy, mostly from the atmosphere I would think, but the strength of the digital zoom is definitely space age.

As to what it actually was, I guessed it was either a communications tower or an extension of the chair lift. Not being a skier I really had no idea if a ski run existed in that location of the mountain or not.

The next day I was listening to my new favourite radio station, The Peak, when the host mentioned that the latest “green” technological wonder to hit Vancouver could be seen atop Grouse Mountain; a wind turbine. It’s supposed to provide up to 20% of Grouse’s electricity when it’s finished.

Plus (!), it’ll be crowned with an observation platform.

And no, for all of you fitness fanatic Grouse Grinders, you won’t have to climb a million stairs to reach the top. There will be an elevator to the observation deck.

How cool is that?

Sunrise

It’s that time of year again where the sun is blinding when I leave the house in the morning. It happened to me twice today (Sept. 11).

Since I’ve had this job (about 3 years now) and have been riding to the Skytrain station most mornings, I’ve been much more aware of how the sun arcs through the morning sky during its yearly cycle. Also, because I’m into photography a lot more in recent years (the convenience of digital), I’m more keenly aware of light in general.

I took a photo on January 30 from the back steps at the office in Burnaby that captured the intensity of the sunrise reflecting off the glass envelopes of the twin office towers at Metrotown. I’ve noticed since that the same reflection can’t be obtained at other times of the year.

This morning was the first time this year that the sun was exactly at the crest of the small hill on my street so that I couldn’t see the hill at all as I approached the stop sign. I had to use my hand to shield the entire top portion of the hill from view in order to see the hill at all. And forget about seeing oncoming traffic; it was impossible. I stopped and moved the palm of my hand in a circular pattern to see as much as I could before proceeding. That intersection in particular is notorious for glide-pasts. People seem to think that despite not having clear views in either direction due to parked cars that there’s barely a need to slow down, much less stop. Anyway, that’s fuel for a rant; I’m getting off topic.

The same situation presented itself again (the blinding sun, not people ignoring a stop sign) a few minutes later at the bottom of Keith Drive where it intersects E. 7th Avenue. I turn there to go to the Clarke Drive Skytrain station most mornings. It’s a longer hill at that point so it wasn’t quite as problematic to see oncoming traffic.

What’s interesting to me is the fact that by Monday (three days from now) the sun’s arc will have shifted a few degrees South, just enough to eliminate that glaring condition, and corresponding photo op, at those hills at that particular time in the morning.

(I’m posting this blog post late because it took me 10 more days to get the right photo of the scene that I describe in the post. And the scene I did capture was 5 blocks South of the street I live on. That illustrates how far the sun has marched South in only 10 days.)

That’s the beauty of living at this latitude. Not only do we get all forms of precipitation and cloud cover, we also get a wide array of sunlight scenarios. My wife works with a guy from Cuba, and he tells me that the sun doesn’t have nearly so much of an arc in that region of the world. The temperature stays relatively constant all year, and the hours of daylight don’t change much. I’d never really thought about that before, but of course, it makes sense. The closer you get to the equator, the smaller the sun’s arc will be.

Despite the allure of wearing shorts and sandals year round at Cuba’s latitude, I wouldn’t trade it for the wide variety photo ops in Vancouver.

Orbits

I was walking Shelby this evening and watching the early evening sky, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if I happened to see the International Space Station fly overhead again?”

Then, as if I'd willed it to happen, it gently glided past overhead. I’ve seen it three times now completely by accident. Now I can say there is definitely a pattern in terms of the time of day it passes overhead; early evening.

The first time I saw it was at the Summer Sessions concert at Ambleside, and the second time was while I was standing in my backyard waiting for my dog. Tonight I noticed another pattern; its navigation through the stars. At Ambleside I was a bit disoriented in terms of where exactly North was located, partly because I don’t live on the North Shore, and partly because we were in the park and I had no roads with which to locate myself. At the time I judged the ISS to be moving from NW to SE.

A few days later when viewing the ISS from my backyard, it was definitely more West to East. It passed just South of the handle of the Big Dipper, then seemed to run parallel to E. 33rd Avenue until it faded quite quickly from view as the Sun set on the much higher Space Station orbit. After seeing the West to East arc I seconded-guessed myself for a moment and thought I’d been wrong about the trajectory of the Ambleside fly-past.

But way back when, I do remember that I thought I was wrong once, but alas, I was mistaken. :-)

Upon seeing the ISS fly over yet again this evening, I can now say with surety that its arc was different from the 33rd Avenue parallel of a couple of nights ago. I first noticed it at 8:20 p.m. PDT; a small bright orb devoid of blinking aircraft lights traveling at a very uniform pace. (That thing must get phenomenal gas mileage, doing steady 'double nickels' down the interstellar interstate. The ultimate cruise control.) It approached the tip of the Big Dipper’s handle, but by then it was already heading off that bearing. It seemed to crest right over our back deck and it finally vanished from my view between two massive Cedar trees two properties to my South.

Theory proven; it’s orbit isn’t static. It’s changing.

One more thing I noticed tonight was that another smaller, dimmer satellite was leading the ISS across the sky, as if it was a tugboat pulling a freighter, tethered by an unseen thread.

The weather is supposed to be clear for the next 7 days according to the most recent forecast so I’m going to try to remember to watch for the Space Station each evening at around 8:15 or so. I want to see how the orbit evolves.

Fading ISS orbit

“Normally, the best times to see the ISS are within an hour or two before sunrise or after sunset. During those times your sky will be dark (barring urban light pollution) but the high-flying ISS can still be sunlit. In the evening the station will look brightest just before entering the Earth's shadow and suddenly "disappearing" partway across the sky. Early in the morning the ISS can abruptly "appear" as it emerges from Earth's shadow.”

Courtesy of http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast01dec_1.htm

I decided to actually look up why the Space Station fades from view as it passes overhead. I’m relieved to find out that my theory was right.

An Eventually Identifiable Object (EIO)

Last night I took Shelby outside for her next-to-last visit to the backyard for the evening. I was leaning against the side of our garage looking at the slice of night sky that is visible between the two houses across the back lane. I noticed two really bright stars and I thought to myself, “That’s odd to see two bright stars so close together.”

Normally there are a handful of bright stars on display that really stand out, highlighted against a multitude of stars that are at least semi-veiled from view due to the lights of the city. At various times of the year local solar system planets park themselves in an orbit that makes them visible to the naked eye. In other words, they show up looking like bright stars in Earth’s evening blackness.

I thought these two bright objects must be a planet and a star, or two planets in complementary orbits. I watched them for a few seconds; then I turned to see what Shelby was up to, then back again to the stars. I could swear that one of the bright objects had moved in relation to the electrical power line that crossed my field of vision. I looked at it more critically this time, with specific focus on its suspected travel.

It was indeed moving. Next I had to determine what it was. I had a pretty good idea in mind already. As it approached I detected no blinking lights, which would have been the tell-tale signs of an aircraft.

The reason I was somewhat confidant that I was watching the International Space Station (ISS) is that I saw it on Saturday early evening at Ambleside Park when I was at the Summer Sessions concert. The only difference was that on Saturday night it was traveling from South West to North East, and tonight its trajectory took it from West to East.

The thing that intrigued me the most the other night, and again this night, was that I wasn’t able to watch its whole arc across the sky. I thought I’d be able to follow along until the ISS was obscured from view by the roofs of houses, but it faded from view long before that. I was craning my neck almost straight up when the ISS started to become dimmer and dimmer. In a matter of seconds it was entirely cloaked in inky blackness.

I kind of felt like a scientist at that point, putting an experiment through its paces in hopes of finalizing a thesis, or verifying an assumption. The first time I had witnessed the ISS fade from view before it could cross the horizon line was Saturday night, and now I had my confirmation; for reasons yet unknown the ISS traverses a portion of the visible night sky, visible to all that look up, and then fades when it reaches a certain altitude, or orbit, or intersection of the sun’s rays in the upper atmosphere.

I know I could look it up on the Internet if I felt like it, but I’m really more what you’d call an 'armchair astronomer'. I like looking at the night sky, the darker the better, but I’m not interested enough to crack an astronomy text book and actually study it. Somehow for me, knowing the answers to some of nature’s celestial charades (i.e. orbits) would take away from the wonder of the moment.

Sarah McLachlan’s Summer Sessions concert, Sept. 12, 2009, Ambleside Park, West Vancouver

I can’t remember if Sarah McLachlan specifically said, “The stars have aligned for this event,” but they actually did in many respects.  For one thing, a shooting star skidded across the sky at dusk, between sets, eliciting a burst of applause from the audience.  I only caught the tail end of it; my wife said it was a long comet.  The portion I saw looked like a trail of fireworks not unlike something from the Nights of Fire celebrations.

Later in the evening, as I was listening to Neil Young’s set, my gaze travelled up and I noticed that the stage was perfectly placed under the Big Dipper.  In the city, star constellations are generally a bit dim but the Dipper was easy to spot.  Only the top attachment point of the cup to the handle was obscured by atmospheric haze.

The last sky-related item was the passing overhead of the International Space Station.  I’ve heard radio announcers say lately that they’ve seen it pass overhead. My eyes have followed the slow arcs of satellites through dark night skies in the past; this slow-moving speck in the sky was a lot larger and brighter than any satellite I’ve seen.

But of course, the stars Sarah was referring to were the scheduled line-up for the day and evening performances.  We arrived in time to hear Luke Doucet.  I “ iTuned” his latest release “Blood’s Too Rich” at Christmastime, just minutes before we had to leave for the airport to catch a flight to Winnipeg.  The flight was delayed and I listened to that CD about 3 times that evening (and that was just in the airport).  I really like it.

I didn’t know of Melissa McClelland prior to the show, but it turns out that Luke and Melissa are married. I have to say, I was impressed with Melissa’s bluesy style. She has a really good voice. The set Luke and Melissa performed was acoustic, just the two of them with guitars, and it was a nice blend of each one complimenting the other’s songs. Both have CDs out. One part in particular stood out for me, because I’m familiar with Blood’s Too Rich. Melissa vocalized the notes to a guitar riff for one of Luke’s tunes.

Sheryl Crow was the rocker of the night. She performed a string of her hits, one accompanied by Sarah McLachlan, putting to rest early any doubts that Sarah’s voice wouldn’t be up to snuff after a bought of laryngitis this past week.

Neil Young’s set was a bit late to start but well worth the wait. This is the third time I’ve been to one of his concerts and there are definitely two styles: rocker and “intimate session”. It’s almost like two different performers. Of course, I never saw him perform until recent years so I probably missed his hard rocking prime. I’m sure he wasn’t crowned “the grandfather of grunge” for nothing. But this Summer Session was like singing campfire songs with your favourite, though somewhat non-conversational, uncle.

Banter between songs was very minimal, and sometimes inaudible because Neil was reaching for a guitar, or busy plugging one in. I guess that’s all part of the draw of a front row seat. He spoke about Sarah McLachlan briefly to say she had been very supportive of the school that Neil and his wife, Peggy, were involved in running. “You’ve got a good one there,” he said when speaking of Sarah.

It struck me that it’s almost like a spiritual experience to see Neil Young; a pilgrimage of the faithful to witness the culmination of forty-some years of rock and folk wisdom dispensed by a veteran of sixties culture. It was quite fascinating to sense the vibe of the crowd during Neil’s set. The word that seems to fit best is ‘reverential’. It was a service conducted by Reverend Neil, and it seemed especially fitting that it was an outdoor service. Somehow that seemed to make it all the more congregational .

Neil was the top draw for a substantial portion of the audience. His stage set-up was to sit in the middle of a circle of various guitars and one banjo. Most of the songs were played with one of those guitars, or the banjo, or guitar with harmonica, and one selection he played on the piano. He was accompanied by Peggy on vocals, and a fellow musician on the slide guitar.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when Sarah’s turn came. I like her music, but to be honest, I thought it would be a bit too mellow for such a large outdoor venue. I was wondering if it would be only Sarah and her piano. That turned out to be the case for her opening song, but after that she continued with Sheryl’s back-up band for a few faster paced songs (plus a duet with Sheryl), then some quieter songs with Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland helping out with guitar and vocals respectively. She even did a cover of a Beatle’s tune.

All in all it was a very enjoyable afternoon and evening of diverse musical talent.

And yes, the food was expensive, but at least the barbequed burgers were large and tasteful. And your three bucks got you a twist-capped plastic bottle of Pepsi instead of merely a can. I’m no event organizer to be sure, but it seems to me that it can’t be cheap to set up three temporary camp kitchens on a grass playing field, truck in all the supplies, get permits, rent portable power generators for electricity and refrigerant, rent tents and cooking equipment, assemble a serving staff, employ trash removal services, rent portable toilet facilities, etc, etc. So lets lay off the “Gee, the food was so expensive!” Live entertainment, refreshments and sanitation services cost money.

The end of the evening came after Sarah’s two song encore; then everyone packed up their things and filed out of the fenced concert area. We headed for the East gate to follow the bike trail to buses parked at Park Royal mall. As we approached we could hear a DJ that had set up at the smaller stage. Mo-Town tunes were pumping and there was a small group of people dancing to the groove. Then I noticed the fire jugglers (two of them), and a fire breather of all things! It felt like we’d stumbled upon Burning Man; a real carnival-like atmosphere to be sure.

After watching for ten minutes or so we continued our walk along paved pathways lit by generator-powered flood lamps. To top it all off, when we arrived at the water’s edge, there was the Lion’s Gate bridge, with its gracefully arched cables outlined in lights and the uprights brightly backlit.

It was indeed a summer session.

p.s. I wanted to 'fess up about the grainy photos that I used in my post. I used the "hyper" digital zoom on my camera, with no tripod, at dusk (and even later), from a distance of 1/2 a soccer field away. Oh yeah, and I photgraphed the huge jumbotron screen, not the actual performers themselves. I tell ya, that camera is magic! Plus it fits in my pocket. I'm the kind of hobbyist photographer that's all over getting the biggest digital technological wonder that will comfortably fit in my pocket.