A moment of silence for the lightning tree

I just got back from a three week vacation. Even unemployed people need to get away, you know? I want to extend my personal apologies for the lack of new content to Kimm, whom I think accounts for a good 50% of the hits my site gets. (That reminds me of an episode of DNTO I listened to on the drive from Cobourg to Halifax, and it made the really good point that things like blogs and email are so addictive because the rewards are unpredictable, and if lab rats have taught us anything it's that we will perform a behaviour more often just at the chance for a reward. Or, something like that. Second year psych was the only class I ever took where I actually failed a test, so that would suggest I have a pretty weak grasp of psychological things).

I have every intention of writing about my trip in more detail. In the interim, Kimm, you can look at a picture of me with Joel Plaskett.

And here are a picture of water, and some downed trees from my cabin:

And, just to make this post even longer, I'll tell you that I was really sad when I saw these downed trees. One of the trees that came down was my favourite tree - it's was this tree:

It has a strip of bark missing that spirals down the tree. When I was a kid I told myself that the mark was made one day when a bear slid down it, using it like a fireman's pole. When I was older, I thought that maybe lightning had done it (we all called it "the lightning tree"), but I don't really know. It was such a distinct tree, and has always been there. RIP, lightning tree.