A few recent goings on

On Tuesday, once the weather cleared up a little, I made my way to Point Pleasant Park for a little while. Once in the park I made my way down to my favourite beach where I sat on the rocks and threw a rock or two and watched sailboats sail around.



As the sun was setting I spent most of my time facing in the opposite direction, which was fine as it allowed me to view the aforementioned sailboats more clearly.



Eventually, before the sun set completely, I made my way back to our neighbourhood. On my way back I stopped at the nearby grocery store and picked up a few items, including a few vitamins and some coffee. For no particularly good reason I decided to switch from one store brand of coffee to another. So far I am quite pleased with the change, though I think that at some point, for variety, I might switch back to the original brand.

Yesterday afternoon I was in my room looking through my window when I noticed that someone was sleeping on the lawn across from my window. Given that they positioned themselves behind a cement structure so that they weren't visible from the road I imagine that they thought they weren't supposed to be there (or maybe they just didn't want people to interupt their sleep). By mid-evening they had moved on, though I don't know if this was because they were asked to, or if the person simply finished their nap and was ready to move on.

A further fire update

Below is a selection of short clips of the fire/smoke that I took at the same time as the photos from the previous post.

Sorry for the shakiness of the camera and the relatively grainy quality of the images. Unfortunately the sun made it a little hard to see exactly what it was I was doing as I was filming.



[Embedded Video]

More on the Halifax Fire

After making the last post I decided to head to Point Pleasant Park to see if I could get a better sense of exactly where the fire CBC was reporting on was, and how large it was.

Almost as soon as I started upon my trip I was able to see that the fire was certainly pumping out a fair bit of smoke. Actually, given what I know now what I thought were clouds were actually likely smoke from the fire. As you could likely figured out on your own, all of the dark stuff behind the grocery store is smoke.



As I continued towards the park the smoke from the fire continued to be visible, and that the source was across from the park became clearer. From the Young Avenue railroad bridge the smoke is visible.



Obviously once I was in the park and on the trails I had an even better view of the source of the smoke.



As I was approaching the beach I happened to run into two friends who had been on the beach watching the progression of things. They suggested that where I was planning on heading was a great place to get a sense of things. They were hoping that I might be able to provide them with a little more information on the source of the fire. Unfortunately, I didn't really have much more information than they did, though I had heard that at least a few houses had been lost.

As soon as I made it to the beach it was clear that there seemed to be at least two fires. One of the fires was directly across the water from the park. This fire appeared to be behind the a ridge, so the flames were not visible.

A second, larger, fire appeared to be further south. Again, this fire also appeared to be behind a ridge.

















I spent a few minutes on the beach watching the progression of things. One of the most noticeable thing was that there appeared to be a number of planes and helicopters flying around. Some of these were clearly being used as water bombers, others I presume were surveying the fire (and I suspect some may have been removing people given that they kept going up an down).









By the time I left it seemed that the fire directly across from me had either been controlled, or had started to burn itself out as there was much less smoke than when I arrived.

The second, larger, fire seemed to still be pumping out a fair bit of smoke and was receiving the most attention from the helicopters.

All in all, this is quite the fire and disaster. I really hope that they were able to evacuate everyone in time.

I thought I should also point out that when I was in Point Pleasant Park earlier this afternoon this is what the view looked like.

A Few Quick Notes 291

-We are in the midst of another beautiful day in Halifax. The only complaint that might be reasonable given the present conditions is that it is a little on the cool side, being just above freezing. As I tend to think things cooler rather than warmer, I don't tend to complain about such things, so I won't in this case. I might even go as far as to suggest that the weather deserves to be given two thumbs up.





-While taking the above photos I decided to take a 'self-portrait' along the same lines. It didn't work out quite as nicely as I might have hoped, but that isn't particularly surprising, as I didn't wait for sun to be where I wanted it to be, nor did I really take much time to plan the shot.



-It seems that our Ultimate season ended last week, though we didn't know it until this week. A shortage of gym space meant that our game that was supposed to take place this week was cancelled. This was a somewhat anticlimactic way to end the season. It is also disappointing from the perspective that I now will no longer be playing Ultimate on a regular basis for at least another few weeks (if I end up signing up for a summer league).

-Last night a friend and I went to Point Pleasant Park for a while. It definitely reminded me of Newfoundland to be able to climb along a rocky beach and throw rocks into a bay. I think that I will have to make an effort to make repeat trips this summer.

-Yesterday I made a batch of humus. It is quite tangy, which is just the way I like it. I am looking forward to consuming it over the coming days.

-I am hoping to make some gingerbread tomorrow. For some reason I have been jonesing to make this recipe for a few months and haven't quite managed to find the time or reason to make it, until now. Should be fun.

-The new beans in my bedroom are continuing to develop rapidly. Between a few days ago and today they have all grown several inches. I will probably need to set up the climbing string by the end of the weekend.

A Few Quick Notes 235

-While we had some rain yesterday, things seem to have turned around today. We had a pretty nice fall day as far as I can remember, though I feel as though I spent much of it inside.

-Yesterday my class was canceled. It seems that my professor was ill. The result is that the presentation that I was supposed to give yesterday has been postponed until next week, which is fine with me. Now, instead of preparing for a new topic I can spend this time trying to catch up on other work that has started to pile up.

-Because some of my time was freed up because of the canceled class I felt that I could take the time to head to Point Pleasant Park for a stroll, which is a trip that I have been meaning to take since I arrived. As expected, the visit was quite nice, though it would have been even better had the skies not been overcast and threatening showers. Maybe I will try to head back at some point in the coming weeks, but I can see that I might be on the busy side.

-Yesterday Neil and I got around to mailing absentee ballots for the upcoming American election. It ended up costing us $2.17 per envelop to send our ballots to US. This seems a little high as they weren't particularly big envelops, and as it only cost the New York Board of Elections 97 cents to send them to us. Can it really cost that much more to send things from Canada to the US than from the US to Canada?

-It seems that I can avoid my TA obligations no more, I will finally have to start working on the three lectures that I have to give at the end of October. On Monday I will get a final confirmation of the topics/unit that I will be covering. Unfortunately, this really doesn't give me all that much time to prepare, and as I still don't have a copy of the text book I imagine that I will even have less time. Anyway, how long can it possibly take to prepare for three one hour lectures that I have never given before? Surely not more than 2 or 3 hours and I can probably count on the class jumping in with contributions to fill up any extra time I have. Oh, I also need to come up with an assignment/essay topic that relates to the as of yet unknown lecture topics.

-I recently had a few ideas about the recent Canadian election and proportionality, if they come to anything I may try to post them here. Basically I am trying to find a way of determining if the elections are becoming more proportional or not, or if there is even a trend in either direction.