Weblog: Hornby Island
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I placed my first Geocache today on Hornby Island! As soon as I started Geocaching I knew this was where I would eventually place a cache, so I'm glad nobody beat me to it.
I was on Hornby Island for a gathering of people who took a cob workshop at Artemis Studios last summer. We built (partially) a cob oven but never got to try it out. In the last few weeks, they finished it off and yesterday was the first test. Unfortunately, I was the only one who showed up, but that's okay. We were a bit worried that the oven might explode, or at least crack to bits, since there's a cast-iron chamber in the bottom which will expand at a different rate than the cob. Luckily, other than a few big cracks (not unexpected) it held together and got hot surprisingly fast. We baked some bread, but didn't leave it in for quite long enough, but it was still really tasty and cooked a crab in aluminium foil.
The trip to Hornby was also my first siginificant outing on my bicycle since moving to Parksville (though I cheated and drove the van to Buckley Bay, so I only cycled on Denman and Hornby). I did a bunch of work on the bike during a weekend some time back and it sure payed off. It hasn't performed this well for a long time. Finally my shifting problems are fixed (I thoroughly cleaned and lubricated the derailleurs, gears, and chain). Now I just need to get that new seat...
I'm still very happy with my move to Parksville, discovering more and more great places. Mike, my office-mate, told me about a great swimming place in the Englishman River (near, but not in, the park) with cliffs to jump off. I've gone there a few times now and it's exactly my favorite kind of place to swim.
I've recently discovered the greatness that is real IBM buckling-spring keyboards. I picked up a used IBM Model M keyboard (the keyboard that came with their PS/2 computers) and I'm absolutely loving it. Big, well-spaced keys, excellent tactile and and audio feedback (clicks), and strong and heavy enough to do some serious damage (it's so annoying when in frustration you pick up your keyboard and bash the monitor when you can't find a bug, only to have the keyboard break into pieces). Yes, I've found something I like even better that the old Fujitsu keyboards that Dave and I always raved about at the old office. Now I'm looking at picking up an Endura Pro/104 from Unicomp, which is IBM's old keyboard division. Same keyboard technology, layout (with the addition of the Meta and Menu keys), and sturdiness, but a smaller footprint and includes pointing stick (i.e. erasor-tip mouse) in the middle, which is something I've always been looking for in a keyboard (it's nice to be able to move the pointer without your fingers having to leave the home row).
!Music in heavy rotation: Sterelab-Sound Dust, Anokha:Soundz of the Asian Underground, Kocani Orkestar-L'orient Est Rouge, Brian McDonald-Experimental Horse (mix), Dan the Automator-Do You Wanna Buy a Monkey (compilation), Varttina-Oi Dai, Antibalas-Liberation Afro Beat Vol. 1, Waking Life soundtrack, Indigo*Tropical (compilation), Bjork-Vespertine, Lisandro Meza (mix CD from grant).
Reading: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (thanks Chelsea), A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram.
Posted on Sun, 14 Jul 2020 at 16:54
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