Moose family on Gantahaz Road.

Morfee Mountain Summit looking East toward the Pine Pass and Powder King.  One positive of the recent recession was the make-work-project initiated to clear trash off the mountain and old vehicles from the bottom of the bowl.  People still feel the need to litter as evident by the numerous empty cans found on the way up.  A trait more characteristic of a developing country.  

Gantahaz Subdivision.  My home is down there somewhere.

Morfee Mountain ptarmigan.

Morfee Lake perspective courtesy of a new trail created from recession make-work money.  Forget ad-hoc trail construction, this baby is professionally built and connects into the new mountain-bike park and trail system.  I wish this stuff was around when I lived town…I just had a bunch of cattle-tracks to bike on when I was growing up.  I’ve inherited my dad’s old Garmin Etrex GPS unit and have started to map out some of the trails one openstreetmap.org (possibly more on that soon).  This old yellow-clad black and white LCD beast cannot run internal maps but it seems to grab points fairly accurately.

My brother being chased up the chair-lift by a mean black animal.  We found a couple of dollars in the hill parking lot and under the lift line.  Searching for lost money was a former childhood spring activity.

Azouetta Lake and Murray Range.

Still no jobs or interviews.  Frustrating, which would probably explain the relative lack of blogging…I’m also quite familiar with these areas and Mackenzie life and should have more to say about them.  Often the things one is most acquainted with need less words.    

Technorati Tags: azu, canada, gantahaz, mackenzie, moose, morfee lake, morfee mountain, murray range, photography, pine pass, powder king

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My job stalking landed me at the City of Surrey website tonight where I noticed an open Planner I position.  Surrey, like most larger communities, operates a rather silly and confusing online application system.  One doesn’t need to create an account to view available positions, but I thought it might be a good idea in case registering brought up anymore information on the positions.  So I set up an account and attached my resume and browsed back to the Planner I page.  No new information, so I logged out.

A minute or so later Outlook complains that it has new mail to push on me. It’s from the City of Surrey.

Dear Bryan,

Thank you for taking the time to apply for the Planner 1 job opening. Due to the volume of applications received, only applicants being actively considered for this job opening will be contacted for further discussion. Please do not be discouraged by the passage of time – as we often handle 100 vacancies or more at any one time, its not unusual for 2 – 4 weeks to pass before we have an opportunity to touch most files. We will do our best to work as quickly as we can.

Thank you for your interest in this opportunity and in joining a team focused on serving our community.

Problem is…I didn’t bloody apply for the job!  I didn’t click apply, or touch anything that would indicated that I wanted to submit a resume for the position.

I just wanted to look at the job…and was considering making an application…but it seems now that I’ve applied for it.  So I had to come up with a cover letter and fill in all of the redundant online forms (full of the same information that is on my resume).

I had a similar experience with the City of Calgary online application system yesterday.  To apply for a job one has to create an account and fill in the same kind of crap that is already on your resume.  One will then select the job in question and attach a resume.  One would then assume that there would be a box to attach a cover letter.   Nope.  That’s it.  Once the resume is attached the system locks out and the application is sealed.  Turns out…(in small print on a completely different page) that your resume and cover letter need to be in the same document.  So I sent a resume to a job, but no cover letter…unlike the Surrey job, I actually had a cover letter ready to go for this one. 

These  City HR sites operate some of the worst internet scripts I’ve ever seen online.  Even free do-it-yourself message forums offer up an infinitely better user interface and file management tools.  It’s unbelievably sloppy work.

What ever happened to old fashioned emailed cover letter/resume?  Too common for the big cities?

Technorati Tags: application process, canada, city of calgary, city of surrey, job hunting

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Actually, there were more trees then I thought there would be.

Technorati Tags: canada, photography, praries, sunset, train, traveling, via rail

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I picked up Gavin Menzies second book 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance  for eight clams (hard-cover).  Mr. Menzies is most known for this highly controversial 2002 book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World.  I’ve always digged stories about exploration…and remain puzzled why I haven’t read 1421 (it’s always been a hefty price everywhere I’ve seen it…) 

Many of the criticisms are listed here, but generally I get the feel that the exclusive academic community got its knickers in a knot over an ‘outsider’ drafting up a theory that didn’t conform to their notion of proper history.  As John Ralston Saul writes in A Fair Country (which I also picked up for 10 big ones…great read too) "The higher your studies go, the more they are built around narrow exclusionary ideas of truth, tightly tied to a world of people footnoting one another” (Ralston Saul 2009; 36). 1421 also ties into A Fair Country in the sense that both books are advocating a version of history that distances itself from (without necessarily marginalizing) a European-influenced story of Canada (A Fair Country) and China (1434). 

That said though, after reading a few chapters, I can see where some controversy might lie.  Mr. Menzies is quite fond of the “If A, B, C, and D occurred, then E must have been the outcome” logic used to create conclusions about Admiral Zheng He’s naval expeditions.  It can be quite inferential at times, especially when one considers that something this logistically large escaped solid, undisputed documentation (on both the European and Chinese sides).  Still, the theory is tantalizing…even when one remains skeptical, there is some evidence to suggest that it might have happened.

Ralston Saul, J. (2008). A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada.            Toronto: Penguin.

Technorati Tags: books, canada, chapters-indigo, china, gavin menzies, john ralston saul

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Showing the luge crash???  Bad taste.

Off to the show.

I could have swore the opening snowboarder was former Alpine Olympian turned Whistler ski bum Rob Boyd.

Rather phallic looking totem poles…

We say Z?  Oh boy…talk about an inside joke that only Canadian viewers would understand.  Could have left that one out. I think there was a missed opportunity with that poem.  If a new understanding of Canada was the goal, one should avoid stereotype references.

Switching over to NBC during the athlete entrance was interesting.  NBC operated a graphic map which would centre on the  USA and then zoom out to the relevant country situating it nicely in the minds of our neighbours to the south.  

Great light snows.  Nelly and Bryan lookin’ good.  Ohhh…Hallelujah?  Good voice, not the best song choice.

Hydraulic failure, well, that is what you get when you let a pod of whales swim through your mechanics. As we concluded at our Olympic Potluck last night…3 out of 4… and you know, in Canada…that ain’t bad.

Rumor has it that immediately after the mechanical fiasco, Gordon Campbell’s head exploded and VANOC CEO John Furlong was last seen being eaten by a giant spirit bear.  The loss of top leadership resulted in a complete breakdown of VANOC torch management and decision-making.  With Catriona Le May Doan frozen in disbelief at the strange absence of her pillar, Rick Hansen bound by his wheels, Steve Nash smiling with fear and Nancy Greene screaming that Senators don’t run anything there was only one person left to take the Olympic Flame…

Quick!  Do something Wayne!

No self-respecting Canadian would ever attempt to steal the torch from the Great One. Not even the most bitter, cynical protestor…it would be safe with #99.  Only Gretzky would be able to run the rainy public gauntlet to the outdoor cauldron.

And it was so.

VANOC, notoriously infamous for it’s top heavy, micro-management,   Goebbels-style control of all things Olympics.  VANOC, with a billion dollar security budget…15,000 troops, police and private security operators decided to take a little risk…and freakin’ let loose.  I think they just got tripped out by their own massive light and hologram show.  

Awesome…

I think it was, by far, the best part of the Opening Ceremonies.  It took the opening ceremony playbook of  exclusivity, wrapped in around a doobie-like torch, doused it in seal oil and lit it on fire.  Polish and production be dammed.  Maybe it was planned, but approach and execution was completely adhoc.  From Gretzky stuck in the exit doorway at BC Place, to the pick-up truck, to zero crowd control and hastily erected police blockades.  Even the video cameras didn’t have time to set up proper angles. 

People just poured into the route, right up to the torch.  Brilliantly raw, in-your-face Olympic.  I can’t think of anywhere else that an opening ceremony could have closed like this. 

Nice show.

Technorati Tags: canada, media, olympic torch, olympics, opening ceremonies, sports, vancouver, wayne gretzky

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Tremblant is an IntraWest instant resort-in-a-can, with the standard pedestrian village,  hot spring spa, tubing, skating and over-priced food stuffs.  

Snow conditions were very good, although some of the terrain became very slick in the late afternoon.  I’m told that Tremblant is usually like that.  Hard ice (not surprisingly) is quite difficult to cut across and I definitely felt my Western weakness and instability when navigating through some blue ice patches.  

Tremblant has the largest number of good skiers I’ve ever seen on a mountain.  All hills have their share of good skiers, and in the case of Western hills, they usually cluster around the alpine bowl and other steep areas.  In the case of Tremblant, they are all over the mountain, 80% know how to carve an arc and hold a bump…and there are lots of them.  I credit the strong racing program at Tremblant, the multi-generational nature of skiing culture in the area, and the hard snow conditions.  I also could argue that the limited terrain options on the mountain has everyone slicing corduroy at a young age.  Boarders, however, are a minority

Despite terrain limitations, it’s a good hill and left me with a fairly decent  impression of Eastern skiing, but I think that two days is enough on the trail system.  Run design is really good where a combination of long verticals and wide cuts creates excellent cruising trails.  The hill could use about an extra foot of snow to cover up the numerous rocks, roots and stumps that are very common throughout moguled and gladed areas.  My skis sure were not happy about those.   

I had a fairly close encounter with a tree somewhere in the glades.  Actually, close encounter is kind of an understatement.  I bear-hugged this tree, bounced off it like a rubber ball hitting a wall and slid a good 15 metres down the hill before realizing what happened.  In my whole life of skiing, I’ve  been sucked into tree-wells, smacked branches, face-planted, yard-saled, landed in open creeks and fallen down rock faces…but I’ve never hit a tree.

I’m quite confident in the trees and know how to move through them, yet snow-snakes attack the best of us and that was what sent into a juvenile maple tree.  I wasn’t moving fast at at all.   My up-hill ski hit a hidden root, knocking it off and causing me to pivot sharply on  my downhill ski.  With one ski off and no balance, the pivot acted somewhat like a sling shot and blasted me counter-clockwise directly into the tree below, which promptly threw me back  down the hill like a rag doll.  I consider myself very lucky.  My upper body took most of the hit, avoiding my face but the shock vibrated up through my helmet and into my head where I probably suffered a mild concussion. 

I now fully appreciate the danger of trees.  I didn’t hit the tree that hard, the force being nothing more than the momentum from the pivot, but it totally knocked the wind right out of me.  If someone hits a tree at even at moderate speed…it’s death.   

I took a 40 minute break after that, but was back at the moguls a run or two later.  Battered ego more than anything, especially after I just said to my friend “just follow me” :-p

Technorati Tags: canada, laurentians, mont tremblant, mountains, quebec, skiing, travel

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Like most Generals, Vance is well-read, well-educated, well-spoken and very rationale and pragmatic when it comes to discussing the situation in Kandahar.  He provided an brief outline of the events of previous strategies employed from 2006-2009 and spoke about General McCrystal’s (apparently General Petraeus’ protégé) new approach to the situation.

He discussed the immense complexities of the conflict, the fragmented and under-strength efforts of past ISAF/Alliance initiatives and where Canada wants to be/accomplish by 2011.

Some interesting items that I took away.

• ISAF made friends with the wrong folks in 2006.  Friends with people the local population wasn’t friends with.  The war waged was counter-terrorism, not counter-insurgency.
• The Taliban is a player, but not nearly as large a player as one might think.  The stage is opaque with a myriad of actors, gangs, corrupt officials, tribalism and narcotics among others.   
• 85% of the population of Kandahar province is centered very close to Kandahar City.  As the core of counter-insurgency is to protect the people, this is where ISAF/Alliance efforts must concentrate on holding Kandahar and it’s suburbs.
• This leads to the Canada’s deliverable by 2011 – A stabilizing Kandahar city and surrounding suburbs (I wish I had a map of their goal).
• This stabilizing area consists of the city proper and surrounding suburbs/villages.  Villages are targeted for heavy infrastructure investments beginning with large, visible signature projects like water canals and wells.
• Low home front support for the mission is a product of media failure to properly convey a detailed overview of the Canada’s 2011 goal.
• The Canadian battle-group is the best equipped, most agile force in Afghanistan and is the only organization to have US forces under direct command.

I like the last point.  I follow our folks in Afghanistan and while I’m aware of McCrystal’s much vaunted urban strategy, there has been nothing regarding what Canada is planning to accomplish by 2011.  Vance outlined it in less than 10 minutes.  A simple map.  A simple strategy, and based on his opinions, it is apparently working.

I built up enough courage and asked a question about the stabilizing (model) villages being invested in regards to types of infrastructure being constructed, how they were being built.  I sort of have a latent interest in post-conflict urban planning.  Actually, luxury interest is a more appropriate term as it is an interest that is quite far from the task at hand (ie. Canadian planning, finishing my report, and getting a job).

I got a “good question” response :-p

Apparently the Canadian military is the only organization willing to tackle mosque repair and reconstruction.

Proper water facilities is of main concern, as is adequate roads and transportation networks.  One thing I found interesting was the addition of solar-powered lamp posts in the markets to extend their business hours.  Micro-loans to women for poultry farms is another. 

I still have concerns regarding the sustainability of the strategy.  I still believe that Greg Mortenson’s (Three Cups of Tea fame) efforts represent the golden standard of development in conflict stricken areas. Mr. Mortenson can travel and operate in areas no other western organization (government, military, NGO) can based solely on his 20+ solid years of building relationships in the region.  He is completely trusted.

Canada rotates new guys in every 10 months or so resulting in a substantial number of new faces that have to be introduced.  I’m skeptical about building a meaningful relationship in that area of the world in 10 months.  Even if a unit is rotated back into country, they will have been absent for about a year…and they won’t be keeping in contact via Facebook.

I’m curious about how they maintain relationships within the transient nature of deployment.

Best question goes to a fellow who drilled Vance about what ISAF/Alliance is doing on a regional basis (think Pakistan, Iran, India) and the notion that Pakistan, for example, is not too inclined to take the fight into Waziristan because of the perception that ISAF won’t stick around.

Really good presentation, although there was an element of government spinning at work. 

*General Vance was commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan from February to November 2009.

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, canada, general jonathan vance, ISAF, kandahar, military, military planning, queens university

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Distributed in kind of a webGIS format, the webpage presently incorporates parcel data, forest covers, health services into Microsoft Bing Maps.  Fairly basic data set at the moment, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it expanded in the future.  Some data analysis is available via a link to BC Hectares.  There is also some free .kmz files which can be downloaded and inserted into Google Maps as an overlay.  I haven’t played around with that too much yet.

The real benefit is the high quality ortho images.  I was able to drill right down to the building level.

Mackenzie BC – Land Fabric

Azu, BC – Land Fabric

Powder King and Azu Subdivision…kind of 3D (old photos of the area)

Technorati Tags: azu, bc, canada, geobc, gis, mackenzie, maps, powder king, urban planning

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First, it was Nanjing, city of 6 million….right past my apartment accompanied by 500,000 screaming well-wishers.

Now it’s tiny Kingston…this time it is on a boat, but it still manages to swipe right past my apartment…I swear, it’s out to get me.

The 2010 Torch…floating it’s way into Portsmouth Harbour, site of the 1976 Summer Olympic sailing events.

I must say…one Torch relay is not like another.  While the international portion of the 2008 games could politely be called a disaster, the domestic legs brought out the best in authoritarian organizational guile.  500,000 people perfectly lined the designated streets of Nanjing as early as 6am in early 2008, all in the appropriate colours and pre-approved paraphernalia (apparently sponsored Coke) and bused in from surrounding campuses for an 11am Torch arrival.  Bigger than Mao and Deng combined is the phrase I would use. 

Not really keeping up with Torch news that year, I had completely forgot that that day was Torch day, and the big cross-town four lane street near my apartment was part of the relay.  Completely oblivious, I stumbled out of my apartment in search of breakfast and a cab to work and fell directly into a storm of Torch craziness.

I didn’t find breakfast or a cab, was late for work and scuffed my shoes. 

That silly Torch, but it apparently wasn’t finished with me yet.

Contrast that to Portsmouth Harbour, 6:43am 15 December 2010.  A few hard-core Torch fans, a handful of folks who missed the downtown Torch arrival yesterday afternoon and people like myself who just happen to be in the way crowded (kind of a relative term) on the the piers of the harbour as the Torch sailed out into Lake Ontario, fired itself up and sailed back into the harbour.

There is a funny thing about a Torch relay…

…if one finds themselves right smack in the middle of all PR…

…in the centre of a disorganized democratic mess…

…and actually ends up jogging a bit with the crowd and the Torch as it continues its journey…  

…without any security…

…and a bare minimum of harmony crowd control specialists/VANOC micro-managers…

…it can make one pretty happy and surprisingly proud.

Torch groupie :-p

Technorati Tags: canada, Kingston, olympic games, olympic torch relay, olympics, portsmouth harbour, sports

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1. Romaine Hydroelectric Complex Project $6.5 Billion
   • Hydro Quebec’s monster generating project in North-eastern Quebec.  1550 MW with a completion date of 2020.
2. Bruce A Nuclear Generating Station Restart $5.25 Billion
   • Refurbishing of two CANDU reactors 250km north of Toronto on Lake Huron and construction of two additional reactors to be completed by 2013.  It will increase nuclear powers share of Ontario’s power to 25%.
3. Eastmain-1-A/Sarcelle/Rupert Project $5 Billion
   • Yet another Hydro-Quebec mega project!  918MW of hydro-electric goodness built on the Rupert River.
4. Spadina Subway Extension $ 2.63 Billion
   • Toronto’s first extension of their subway network outside city limits into the York Region.
5. Albert Clipper Project $2 Billion
   • Big ass Enbrdige crude oil pipeline to from Alberta to the United States.  Slated to be competed in 2010, it is expected to transport approximately 800,000 barrels a day.
6. Canada Line $2 Billion
   • Probably the best thing about the 2010 Olympics.  A underground/at grade rail-transport system will connect downtown Vancouver with Richmond and the Vancouver International Airport.
7. Port Mann/Highway 1 Project $1.6 Billion
   • The Canada line may be a great step forward in terms of sustainable transportation, but that is probably going to be erased by the lane expansion of the Port Mann bridge.  Nothing like four more open lanes to get one into their car!
8. Keephills 3 Generating Plant $1.6 Billion
   • Tasty coal fired power!  In Alberta, of course.  Apparently clean, due to be online in 2011.
9. Autoroute 30 $1.5 Billion
   • Quebec is home to 30% of the top projects in Canada.  Private-Public highway project in the Montreal area.
10. Edmonton Ring Road $1.42 Billion
    • Roads make people happy!  27 bridge structures, 2 rail crossings, five fly-overs, and eight interchange.

Kingston, clocking in at a mere 152,000 souls managed to make the top 100 three times!  First at #37, the Wolfe Island Wind Project with a price tag of $450 million.  I’m watching this baby go up across from my basement suite. Second is the the renovation and expansion of Kingston General Hospital ($142 million) and at #85 Queen’s own Queen’s Center Phase One at $115 million – which apparently is now up to $250 million, but that could include phase 2….I am not entirely sure.

Technorati Tags: canada, Kingston, nuclear, oil, olympics, Ontario, pipeline, pla, quebec, rail, toronto, transportation, wolfe island

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