Buying Local vs. Fair Trade

An infographic too good not to repost!
Buying Local vs. Fair Trade Food

via Ethical Ocean – eco friendly products, fair trade and vegan shopping.

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Progress

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Bountious fecundity

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Harvest-time is upon us and for those of us that don’t farm this simply means we get together with folks we love and stuff a lot of meat in the oven, or rather we do it the night before. This is that:

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Fuel

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Today while I was out someone enetered my office and left me four gorgeous carrots. Two went in my tummy before I thought to take a photo. The other two have since joined them.

To my mystery benefactor: whoever you are, thank you for the love! I was thinking fondly of you all day. What a stunning example of how beautiful the people in my life are.

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santaween devastation

My dreams were recently reduced to a smouldering rubble.

I have far more emotional investment in Hallowe’en than Mythmas. This year I thought I might merge them. At Hallowe’en I typically dress as someone I perceive to be a superhero. Usually someone who wears a cape. Santa is a big enough hero that I was ready to dress as him despite his usual lack of cape.

I had begun the process of growing my hair and beard long to facilitate this masquerade adventure. I called upon my friend Shannon in Kamloops for help as she is a hair dresser of much repute. After outlining my plan to her I waited excitedly while she considered my requirements. In what may have been the most heart wrenching moment in my recent personal history, she reduced my santaween dreams to a smouldering rubble.

Shannon thinks that dying my hair and beard white will require such a strong bleach that it may badly burn my skin. Even if I am soooo tough (like santa) that I can deal with that, it may all just go yellow and dead. Dreams = rubbled.

But they smoulder yet. She has been given that task of monitoring hair and beard dying technology for the next 30 years. If technology catches up with my dreams, I will revisit santaween.

I now open the floor for alternate Hallowe’en outfit suggestions.

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gnarain

I, scooter, technically, guest blog now (avec rifffflandia totally pilsner) to discuss manners of the night that it was.

So when you go to the arain in the dark, be sure to  bering a yur friends and a camera. the rain helps to but a drink will still come in handy becasue you cant drink it. and now Some perspextice:

lets start woth picking up your riend from the far norte. he drove most of the way so that was good. but that made him hungary like a wolf, he has a photo of ones paw print, its nice. then you pick up his girl, with th e kat in the car, from her school of apple mac, then proceed to eat the tandoor pizza and such. fine times all around. I’m sorry for improper capitalization, it”s my only flwa.

luckyily it was a successful night and kyle felt warmed by our warmth and good times wree had. So kana was busy while there was happeneinf . scooter max. soorry that sentence didn’t fit in but its me. but we need to discuss kaano’s prioer engagement because he was powereinf the gnar of the celebrations of the 4-0 anniversary of the green-peace movenemt on jericho beach, yup, he and his fine flat mate dylan–of burning men fame, supplied the 100%, most all cleanand fossil free elec-tricitty for the event, via solar power. This happended, I say quite prowdly, despite the rain that fell and the cloud-shine that glowed dimly lut. Nevertheless, the power flowed and the celebration of greenpeace was a success most grand!

Then Kaano drove back on his scikle to take in the also important, very much so, but less worldwide event of kylie’s return so we went to the park with kat and me for furtherphoto extrapolation of the nights verve de esprit, dans le rain so that lie down kisses may ensue between him and the lady meggles, mas fina. And for you we made these photoblogs and I hope you will most greatly enjoy with viewing pleasure and happinesses.

Another inmportant issue here is that we collectively spak to acouple of important–pretty damn improtant, actually, folks tonight. Gunn and D. Boland . Gunn runs a ranch and makes chickens that are blue but also she is just the epitome of all thinks fine and lovely and amazling ad wicked cool. Her ranch is out of this land and back and beyind. D. Boland is in Ghanda which is in China or Afirica, you decide. And let me tell you, this guy gets the job done. He is engineering the data of the people with unbridled fierceness and the results are somethin else. So we talked to them and it was quite nice, in the rain. and the resulting exploits hithertoo ensued:

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wet wacky and wild but not weak nor weary
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dodging a bulletflare of sky fire

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pouncing the night, from above, to below

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wirth my legs in the air cause i just dont have to foll ow the gravity

No relation, except kinda and yeah when asked.

15 second exposures in the nightraimn.:

in the park, sunnyside park, a miracle occured…

sparks transfortransudated and daylight shon upon us despite the clokc insisting it was well post-midnight and not near sunrise.

bridges were crossed.

mountains were mounted…and good times were had here and there, then and now forward.

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parking

This weekend I am off to explore the Stein Valley with a few friends. I am pretty excited about it.

I think this is a great year to visit the Stein Valley. The valley follows the Stein River (or is it the other way around) meaning the elevation change is not dramatic. This is usually the opposite of what I long for but my knee is still giving me trouble on downhill terrain. If I could find something that was all uphill with a great view and then no descent (or maybe a zip line or nice paraglide exit) that would pretty much be ideal.

Also, the snow line is rather low this year meaning most higher altitude hikes still have (at least) a couple metres of snow. This place should be a bit milder.

Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park has a rich cultural heritage. I look forward to examining the petroglyphs. I bought some fresh sage at the farmers market on Wednesday. I am drying it and bundling it into a smudge so we can make an appropriate offering and blessing to the park and its inhabitants – past, present, and future.

Adding to my excitement and fueling my love for the outdoors, I recently came across this Parks Canada video montage from one of their cameras in Banff National Park (Colleen posted it to facebook). It spans one year and features deer, sheep, black bears, grizzly bears, elk, moose, crows, squirrels, cyclists, hikers, skiers, wolves, cougars, mountain goats and more. I was grinning for four and a half minutes. I love this country.

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flute

Saturday I hiked the signing pass with Katherine. She has done a blog post about the adventure so you can read her trip report. To add to her tale, here is a photo from me. Click on it for the full view. It was damn beautiful.

View from the top of Mt. Flute

This photo was stitched together from 5 shots I took with my phone. I used Hugin to do the stitching. In case anyone else tries to do this with their Google Nexus S, here are the lens details you will need for the stitching (it took me a while to dig up these specs).

Rear Camera Field of View – 66.41°
Focal Length – 3.43 mm

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Gnarsnight

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I just raced a Ferrari three blocks and won. On my bicycle. Roundabouts are a bitch when you can’t lean into the turn.

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Video: night flight over the earth

What do you do with your “spare time” when working on the International Space Station? How about shoot some time-lapse video and set it to music.

Here is a rough cut of the latest piece that Ron Garan is working on.

His blog is here.

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