...constantly cracking my skull against things.

I’m freshly back from seven days at sea. It was a good trip – lots of work, though. And after the second day or so it’s really repetitive (like most field work I’ve done), although I got to see some cool stuff: giant lobster, octopi, and lots and lots of scallops. Also, one cod! The cod was the highlight of my trip. It’s been…(doing the math)…8 years since I’ve held a cod. It was only a little guy, though. I’m pretty sure s/he survived.

Alej and I finally went sea kayaking. It's one of those things we always talk about, but never get around to doing.

Of course, my eyes are closed in most of the pictures, but here are some good ones Alej took (again, I'm using these without permission. Thanks, Alej!).

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

NOAA’s 2011 Atlantic seasonal outlook calls for:

• 6-10 Hurricanes (maximum sustained winds: 119+ km/h)
• 3-5 Major Hurricanes (maximum sustained winds: 178+ km/h)

If you were wondering, the new Paul Simon album is awesome. Also – dude is 69!!

The 8th time I saw U2…

…was very different from the 7^th time, despite very similar set lists. Actually, I was hoping for the same set list as the show earlier in the month, just so I could experience again those songs I was, let’s say, distracted during.

Let’s begin with the difference in location. This show, the last show of the endless, 2+ years 360degrees tour, was at Magnetic Hill in Moncton, New Brunswick. If you happen to read the U2 fan sites (c’mon, admit it: you check them every day), you’d see fan reaction to the announcement of the last show in Moncton was generally “Where?” and then, after they googled it, “Why there?” My reaction to the rumours was “U2 will never come to Moncton.” I was wrong. I’m still not sure why they came here, but I suppose a venue that holds 100,000 people in the middle of three provinces they’ve never played before kind of guarantees a large audience. Also, they’re Freaking U2. They can play wherever the hell they want. They could play a show on a floating barge in the arctic and people would go.  

'cause I eats me spinach

I gave blood today and it went well. Again. I'm so pleased. The one iffy moment came when they tested my iron and -for the first time in my long and storied donation history - it was one point too low to donate. The tested it again, though, and the second time it was 12 points higher. Yeah me! Apparently there was plasma or something in the blood drop that brings down your iron reading.

I had my usual healthy amount of concern about donating this time, due to my donation history, my recent episode at U2, and the rumours going around that lots of people were fainting in today's clinic. While I was donating, someone who had donated earlier in the morning and fainted was brought back in  from their workstation. I guess they were still feeling badly, so someone wheeled them in on an office chair, and the CBS people laid her down and got out a monitor of some kind. At least I've never had that bad a reaction. I don't think sitting in the library would have helped her.

If y'all had told me that you can get free coffee with cell phones, I would have gotten one years ago.

The 7th time I saw U2…

…we got in line at 8:40am and were 411^th in line. Really, we could have been there earlier, but the tradeoff for sleeping longer is being further from the stage, and we were aware of that. It was already an improvement from our first GA experience in which we got in line at noon and were 600+ in line. This time I could indulge my “first in line” fantasy and it didn’t seem so crazy.

Zombie Walk!

 

Today was Hali's zombie walk. It was much larger than I expected - and very impressive. My favourites were Super Mario Zombie and the baby zombie. 

Hell's Gate

(Shout out to Alej for the photos, which it occurs to me I'm using without permission, so I hope she'll forgive me...).

 Two weeks ago, a group of us had planned to go surfing. We were unable to do so due to annoying fine print on the groupon we were going to use for the lesson and gear. Instead we decided to do this hike we'd heard about called Hell's Gate/Three Pools. It's a series of waterfalls and swimming pools. Since it's on NS Power land, it's technically trespassing so isn't in any of the published hiking guides that I've seen, but it's one of those things that's well known among locals. We found some ill-described directions on the  net and took off. It's out past Wolfville, about an hour outside the city. We parked and entered at a what looked promising but ended up being a very wrong spot.

 We ended up fording a stream, and bushwhacking for about an hour. We were on trails occasionally, but for the most part we were just following the river and assuming we would come to the waterfalls eventually.