Signs

This I saw in Juneau, Alaska. I kinda want to know and kinda don't.

"Non Style": sushi for the unfashionable.

They neither encourage nor discourage it, but what is it?

Probably my favorite sign ever, and also my new motto:

!!!!!

At the SFO airport. The same sign was also up when I went through security.

Proof that Ikea is reading my mind:

I am a recent convert to the joy that is texting. But even I didn't know how powerful it could be. Wait 'til the Transition Homes hear about this!

How to play hockey

The strategy, as expressed by Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock, during this morning's playoff game: "It's a sixty minute game. Let's start at minute one; let's finish when it's over."

The charming obviousness of sports metaphors.

Kids in a mall

I went to the redwoods....

...but not much was going on.

Except:

Trees like these can really calm a person down.

Children can be so ungrateful

More sights of Vancouver

The ugliest M&M ever:

I got these hairy condoms from a gay bar on Davie. They were projecting the awesome cheerleader movie Bring It On on the back wall. Also, I like sexy unisex bathrooms.

The most phallic hedge ever, on Cambie Street:

"Soapy Soap"!

Passive aggressive note in the staff washroom at Pearson Hospital:

I wanted live music. Spoon, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and The Black Eyed Peas were all on offer on a Sunday night. Not a bad choice. Here's Spoon, the band, from the Orpheum balcony. I think the last show I saw there was the great Rolf Harris. That was say, 30 years ago.

How much? Not much!

Notes from out and about in Vancouver:

A photo of my coffee, from 49th Parallel espresso. It tasted as awesome as it looked.

I borrowed an out-of-tune bike and wobbled my way around U.B.C. My mother lives near the Triumf (there's something hilariously goofy about that acronym) Research Facility, where they do particle and nuclear physics. I'm not sure how they do it, to be honest.

But I found the following on their website, in case you're asking yourself, "what is the cyclotron":

What is the “cyclotron”?

A cyclotron is a special type of particle accelerator that accelerates protons as they follow a spiral path through it. The TRIUMF cyclotron accelerates particles inside an air-free chamber between the poles of an electromagnet whose magnetic field guides the particles in an expanding spiral path. The particles are accelerated by 'kicks' of electric voltage every half turn. When the beam reaches the outside edge of the tank, it is bent into pipes called beam lines, which lead to experimental halls. The cyclotron at TRIUMF, the largest in the world, accelerates 1000 trillion particles per second to speeds of 224,000 km/s, making TRIUMF's proton beam one of the most intense in the world.

Cool! I've also been told my proton beam is one of the most intense in the world. We have that in common.

Outside Triumf is this ring of 7 blossoming apple trees, with a plaque stating that they are direct descendants of Isaac Newton's apple tree, from which he watched fall the apple that got him started thinking about rules of gravity. (On a related note it apparently said on my grandparents' wedding announcement that my grandfather, Robert Lovett Duff Cuthbert of Pitlochry, Scotland, was a 'direct' descendant of Isaac Newton. However, I have discovered that Newton died a celibate, possibly gay bachelor, which puts this somewhat into question).

I locked up the bike and descended the long set of wooden stairs to Wreck Beach. It was too early in the spring to see anybody naked, but the beach was very pleasant.

I saw this sign on my grunt back up the billion stairs:

Today I rode the bus. Out the window I saw that Our Lady of Perpetual Help Elementary School was having their "Annual Manure Sale" - bags of mushroom manure going for 4 bucks a pop. Ha ha! Catholic schools selling a load of manure.

I got off the bus and walked past the Faculty of Dentistry, except I thought for a second the sign said Faculty of Destiny.

I feel like I am studying in the Faculty of Destiny these days.

Fayetteville

What do I know about Fayetteville, Arkansas?

It is in the Ozark Mountains. They get snow there, in the winter. So it is in The South, but not the sticky south. I wonder if they get tornadoes there? I am scared of tornadoes. (I wonder how much this Wizard of Oz legacy affects others? I have nightmares about tornadoes chasing me across the landscape. When I was bicycling through Alabama a couple of years ago, we went to a cocktail party. All the southerners sipped their drinks and mingled while I stared transfixed at a television set (who leaves a t.v. on at a party?), at the bottom of which a red line scrolled “Tornado Advisory”. One man came over to see what I was looking at. “Dang,” he said, “My daughter’s driving through Mobile County tonight. Hope she pulls over.”

Ellen Gilchrist lives there. A favorite writer of mine since I was in my teens, she has a house on a hill, designed by the architect E. Fay Jones. Not too many years ago, she started teaching in the creative writing program at the University of Arkansas. She took up teaching in her 60s. Ellen Gilchrist is the author of the story collections In The Land of Dreamy Dreams, Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle, and Victory Over Japan. I like some of her novels too, especially The Anna Papers and Net of Jewels, though I suspect they’ve never matched the literary merit of those early story collections. In fact, I think some of the novels aren’t very good, but I love Ellen Gilchrist so I don’t care.

The creative writing program at U of A (it will take me some time to get Alberta and Alaska out of my mind, I think) was run by Miller Williams for many years, the poet and father of Lucinda. Lucinda was raised in Fayetteville, I think.

Bill and Hillary lived there.

When you look at Fayetteville on Google Earth, the biggest feature is the dark oval of a football stadium. This football stadium holds more people than even live in Fayetteville. Football is big there. The Arkansas team is called The Razorbacks. Razorbacks are wild pigs. The time name was changed in 1910 after coach Hugo Bezdek proclaimed his team played "like a wild band of Razorback hogs". According to Google, there is a tradition at football games known as ‘calling the hogs’. The famous yell, “Woo, Pig! Sooie” has been heard since the 1920s.

The staff and student as U of A creative writing department are incredibly friendly and welcoming. They have been thoughtful and generous with advice and information. They don’t seem to hold to regular office hours, calling and emailing me evenings and weekends.

I think I might go there come September.

Razorback figurine from Noah's Animals.

The fine Italian chandeliers of Nanaimo

My mother's house in Nanaimo was formerly owned by a woman who won a lottery and, it appears, spent the winnings on antique fixtures.

They are ridiculous and extravagant and overdone and I kinda like them.

I think these glowing torches are my favourite:

Just a simple coat rack:

Perhaps most stunning is the glowing red globe at the foot of the stairs (note leopard carpeting). My mother wants to remove the globe, but I'm making a case for keeping it.