Some photos from our day on the Ottawa River. Walked up to Garburator where some kayakers were putting on a freakin’ clinic. I don’t know how these guys do this.
Went up to Beachburg with the Ross’ for a great day on the magnificent white water of the Ottawa River. We never got the forecast sun, so it was a tad chilly, but it was still a great way to spend the day. Thankfully the camera wasn’t pointed at me during my session with Mr. Ross, but Cindy wasn’t so lucky. I was proud that she actually wanted to try to learn the basics like “wet exiting” when the kayak flips over, and attempting to learn the “Eskimo roll” so you don’t have to “wet exit” when you do flip.
Sully freaked right the hell out when Cindy was having her lesson and swam out and flipped her over in a failed attempt to “save” her. Cindy actually flipped herself over to prevent Sully’s claws from puncturing the Kayaks neoprene skirt. Once she had successfully completed lesson #1 and wet exited the kayak, he proceeded to, again in a some perverse canine attempt to save Cindy’s life, climb on top of her and force her under water. The whole time I’m yelling myself hoarse trying to get the dog back to shore so I can proceed to throttle him. Rob Ross was swimming around heroically trying to extricate the two of them. Cindy was fine and only suffered a few scratches. Sully is also still alive; didn’t even hit him (I never do), but, boy-howdy, did he know I was angry. Is there any breed that can look as pathetically chastened as a Golden Retriever? Somehow I didn’t have the presence of mind to take one picture during this ordeal. I’d make a terrible photojournalist.
Anyway, here are a few pics of Cindy and Rob.
Here’s a great campaign that has just started in Vancouver to help positively change the Chinese wedding tradition of serving shark fin soup. It’s been well documented for years now that we’re decimating the world’s shark populations mostly for their fins. It is estimated that 100 million sharks are killed for their fins annually. Experts now expect most species of sharks to be lost due to unsustainable longlining. Shark protection isn’t just about protecting the multitude of sharks species, but about protecting the oceans that ultimately sustain us. Most of us know that apex predators are essential to any healthy ecosystem. They protect against overpopulation of other species that would destroy the delicate balance needed to sustain that system.
These folks are showing how to really make changes. It’s the easiest thing in the world to point fingers and cast blame on any culture’s traditions, but doing that will only cause hard feelings, defensiveness and a complete collapse of dialogue. There’s not much hope of positive change after that. They also make a good point by saying that just banning the import of shark fins is not the way to go about this sensitive issue. The demand will still be there and will create a large black market economy. Education and, in this case, positively targeting young couples who are getting married is the perfect starting point for starting a new tradition.
Read the article and see the CBC press coverage here: http://osocio.org/message/starting_a_new_tradition/
We attended an awesome show in our friend’s living room last night as part of Crush Luther’s Living Room Sessions. It was an all acoustic show (my favorite type of show) and was a rare and refreshing way to see an up and coming Indy band. Thanks for the show guys and thanks for hosting this cool event Vallentynes.
Here are some pictures from the show:
