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"A lemon for my water..."
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 1129
This is one of those things that pissed me off, and I could never quite figure out why, like people demanding hot water instead of cold, it's a trifling inconvenience, and then it dawned on me. You bring someone a water - for free - and they immediately begin to bargain with you. They want the water for free, now they want a lemon for free. If you let them they'd demand their meals for free (and some have). It's just fucking bad manners. If I owned a restaurant I'd throw it on the menu - "Add a lemon to your water - only $5.00", an upsell for everyone that didn't know to leave well enough alone...
The Map is not the Territory (2)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Places
- Hits: 3256
I'd been there last year, with James, the old homeless waiter, and we'd walked the long way, up overgrown logging roads, a total of 10 KM in and 10 KM out for what amounted to about half an hour of looking around for gems. An old aquamarine claim, apparently, and now it's open and I want to check it out. From the parking lot it's about - judging from my satellite map on my phone - about half a mile, but you have to walk up about a half a mile, then cut over, across the creek and a short hike later you're there!
Easy-Peasy.
But - this proves the adage - the map is not the territory. Everything - until crossing the creek - is easy, but climbing the other side, up, up, high stepping over countless fallen trees, this hike, mountain, it's a steady upward 45 degree climb, Up, Up, Up. Check your phone, have to be close...
Nope. And for every step I take that little dot on my phone stays further and further away - this forest, it's not been logged for 100 years, just deadfall, logs to be gone over, under, around, and always up.
3 hours later I'm at the heart of the claim, only - no one, not even the owner of the claim, has been here for 100 years. There are trees 3 feet in diameter growing up through what must have at one time been an old logging road - and this makes perfect sense, most claims are founded on logging cuts, someone finding something after they've cut the road, but the cut, it's under 3 feet of moss - the presence of the road reassures me I'm close, but everything is overgrown and like before night is falling, the daylight's off this side of the mountain and there's a long trek down the mountain to get back to the car.
Probably a great claim, but you need to camp up there for a week, bring in supplies, and in addition to a pick you'll need a rake to clear the cuts and see where to dig. And given it's relatively inaccessible position it's not my first choice of where to prospect. Maybe another summer...
A UFO Over Tofino
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1153
By that I mean probably not a flying saucer, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, but looking at the stars, satellites, and I see two moving - towards me, and the rising moon, and as they approach they diverge somewhat, between them circles another light.
Quick, the whole thing maybe 4 or 5 seconds before they disappear into the light of the moon. Now curious, it's not a plane, or two planes, so then...?
It reminded me of once before, when my son was young and we were camping at a lake north of Cranbrook. And - looking at the sky, 3 lights - dim like stars, flying south in a triangle. And high and so you think maybe they're planes flying in formation, but the stars disappear behind them.
Again, no explanation. Sometimes you just got to accept it.
I know of people that swear as to the existence of flying saucers and ET and regularly spot wonders in the night sky, but it's usually a sign of other things. Nelson is home to a lot of alternative thinking, if you get my drift. But I'd consider myself pretty - well, dry and in this - Open, but skeptical.
Just a little mystery I thought I'd share.
A rectangular hole in a rock
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 586
I thought it was curious, spotted while beachcombing, speculating what caused it - perhaps a crystal long since eroded? Who knows.
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