Marketing is key to engaging people. Causing individuals to begin examining and questioning their current behaviour has the potential to instigate change — even those who are reluctant may just turn their heads to see what the noise is all about. Well done Dave Schlafman.
Archive for the 'nature' Category
I will be leaving in a few days for New Hampshire with a couple of my friends. The last time I was in New Hampshire was with my family in 2003. We didn’t really hike, my family being primarily non-hikers, but we did see a lot of the White Mountain Region including Mt. Washington of course. Ever since I felt the clouds rushing past me on the summit, I’ve yearned to return — but by foot rather than by car. It’s not going to be an easy hike up, but I am persistent and this is something that I’ve wanted to do for myself since 2003. While most people were much less enthusiastic about the idea, I’m glad that I have a couple of friends who are coming along whom I can share the experience with.
For the past month, I’ve been hiking up and down Rouge Park with my insanely heavy pack and new boots, eager to wear them in. A lot of people wonder about the big hill that I talk about in Rouge Park (or more specifically Glen Rouge), so here are a couple of photographs that I took in order to show how big the hill really is. I haven’t seen anyone mountain bike up the hill, but then again I don’t know if bikes are allowed anyways.
Notice how the hill just drops down and how small the trees are down there? Nothing compared to the mountain of course. Nevertheless going up and down the hill got me gasping for air … tough stuff nonetheless …
I really admired this elderly gentleman who hiked up the hill. It’s not an easy task. One time I encountered football teams using this hill for training!
No one said reaching the summit was going to be easy … next Tuesday is when we start hiking up. Packing and gearing up right … now …
So I am in the middle of recovering from my hike yesterday. I said I would provide an opinion on the pack and the boots I got a couple weeks back and I’ve come to the conclusion that the pack is of an excellent make, although I think I am still getting to used to carrying such a huge bag. The boots protected my ankles well along the way down some steep slopes which is important for all hikers, especially for novice hikers whose ankles are not strengthened enough for the rougher trails. My only concern for the pack may be that I have to adjust the waist belt a little as I felt it wasn’t firm enough around the hip bone. As for the boots, they were really comfortable and most likely saved my feet from the 8 hours of hiking or so yesterday, but oddly enough I got bruises in different areas of my feet … I don’t know if this is due to the boot or just the way I walk. I will test everything out again next weekend.
The hiking party of seven people including myself had travelled to Battlefield Park in Stoney Creek, Ontario where we hiked a number of trails, only to find ourselves hiking through the suburban neighbourhoods of Hamilton! I have to say that concrete just makes the temperature feel that much higher. My friends and fellow hikers did enjoy a good laugh on my part since I was the only one carrying a huge pack, hiking shoes and all through the streets of suburbia. Nevertheless we survived. One of our stops was the bottom of the Devil’s Punchbowl which unfortunately did not have any water flowing down, not that you’d want to get near that water anyways. It was amusing to see all sorts of garbage (i.e. computer parts) lying around. Apparently people can’t seem to figure out the difference between a conservation area and their garbage can.
I thought this was pretty neat … despite it being in the wrong place
I will have more photographs posted soon enough. On another note about testing … I think I am going to try out Ubuntu on a test computer. I am impressed by its capabilities and relative user-friendliness. I don’t mind the command (DOS-like) interface as I grew up with it when my dad got us the first 386. It was a sad moment though as our Commodore Amiga 500 was no longer the main family computer.
Take a look at this video clip of what Ubuntu can do …
We have a month or so until a couple of friends and myself trek down to New Hampshire to hike in the White Mountains Region. As exciting as the trip is, it also takes its toll on the wallet with backpacks and new hiking boots. Nevertheless at least I don’t have to purchase new equipment.
A friend and I made our way to Mountain Equipment Co-op in Toronto thinking we could definitely find some good selection only to realize that they’ve turned the entire Toronto location into some trendy urban lifestyle environmentally friendly store with poor selection of backpacks, shoes and other hiking gear. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad at all but the store really has a big box feel to it that makes me feel icky. My friend and I then walked across the street to Europe Bound, a smaller store with a focus on traveling but with hikers and campers in mind. As soon as I walked in, I actually felt pretty comfortable, no big box feel. The selection was definitely better but then my friend suggested we go on over to Hiker’s Haven the following week.
So fast forward a week and this morning we ended up at Hiker’s Haven all the way in Oakville, Ontario. After some snail-paced traffic, we were finally able to check out a vast amount of hiking gear. The feel of the store was definitely pretty good with no corporate big box influences. Perhaps it’s just my instinct but when I see a mess (not literally) of hiking gear rather than simply wide-open spaces and neatly-stacked clothes, I feel more comfortable going through and finding what I want.
Anyways, thanks to a very kind and patient woman who helped two of my friends and I for hours, we were able to find what we were looking for and I was able to get an excellent Lowe Alpine pack and some good comfortable hiking footwear. There were more things but nevermind …
Click here to check out the Lowe Alpine Wilderness Pack and the Montrail - Torre GTX Classic. Not quite exactly what I got but it’s close! I’ll let you know what I think of them in a couple weeks when I take them for a test run on a “pre-hike”.
I am always feeling peaceful when I see robins hanging out in my neighbourhood. They are quite friendly actually …
My friend Rochelle sent this to me via email and I thought it was an awesome way to get the word out and have people get involved in helping endangered wildlife in gradually shrinking natural habitat, in this case, tigers in China which are also being speed bred in anticipation of government permitted sales of tiger-related products. I can understand the demand for these products but at the same time there has to be some way to stop the massive consumption–at the very least moderate it.
I think WWF was quite innovative here and made use of one of my favourite hobbies–photography! But really the WWF got people involved by simply sending in their own photograph to join the thousands of other people to come together and make a photo mosaic of a tiger. It is very impressive when I see all the different people around the world coming together in this act of visual activism (for lack of a better word).
Latest Comments
RSSnatech
Ehren, James
The Politics of Lining Up (for a Bus) at one little cog, Ehren, Samer Ziadeh, Ehren, Tess, Tales from the Subway Rider » Blog Archive » Thank you for your patience, an operator will be with you shortly…, Packed At The Doors, Empty In The Middle., thedailycommuter, How the Toronto Transit Union Failed their Customers at one little cog, Shey [...]
bookhound, davidmiller
Ehren, davidmiller, William Deed
Erin W