Showdown

Krugman vs. Lomborg

http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/podcasts/fareedzakaria/site/2009/12/13/gps.podcast.12.13.cnn

Radiohead And Dave Brubeck

The view from the back porch on a rainy afternoon.

We were there - all of us!

The kids are alright.*

* Townsend (1965)

Testing

Meat Eating and Global Warming Rethought

The Carnivore’s Dilemma

Ace Ventura...Pet sitter

Dietary Do's and Dont's

Michael Pollan is featured in next weeks New Yorktimes Magazine, here's a preview:


The Food Issue

Fall plantings

Here is a small sample of what we have been planting this fall, for fall colour. More to come on next posting.

Is it ikebana?

Is it ikebana, or just the inspired art of two of our blog members? Thanks to Care and Peter for the artist rendition of our beauty berries, and a special mention to the pruner who carefully selected these delicate twigs.

Dog of the month is back!

Many apologies to our many blog fans who have been missing our most popular feature. And now, without further ado, but a few days late...September's DOG OF THE MONTH. And its.....LUCY!

Before and after: day one of the tree cutting

okay, one of these pictures is before, the other is after.

We are kayakers

With our Costco wetsuits we braved the icey September waters of Boot Cove in our Kayaks.Think Care looks great in a tight fitting wetsuit? Wait till you see me.

We didn't master the Eskimo roll (next lesson) but we loved our kayak lesson.

More Filling, Less Phytonutrients

Broccoli

Iron: -27%

Calcium: -60%

Vitamin A: -52%

A slideshow from MotherJones on the declining nutrient content of vegetables since 1950. It is believed that breeding for size and colour since the 1950's came at the cost of these nutrients.


http://www.motherjones.com/photoessays/2009/08/veggie-slideshow

Do not fish for Ling cod here

Boys, this is the area that is closed to catching ALL rockfish. DO NOT jig for cod in this area -- wait for your dad (who has his pleasure craft license, and GPS device) to make sure you do not fish in this restricted area. If you hear anyone complain about this closure just shout at them "The Grand Banks are dead, where's your brain"; that will give them pause for thought. (don't do this in a bar).

Stein Valley, British Columbia

Plenty more photos such as these that may be seen by request!

I am the rock, the rock is me,

that's what makes serenity

NEW RADIOHEAD!!!!!

One new song: "These are my Twisted Words"

AND....hints there could be more:
"We've been recording for a while, and this was one of the first we finished.
We're pretty proud of it.

There's other stuff in various states of completion, but this is one we've been practicing, and which we'll probably play at this summer's concerts. Hope you like it."

Obviously its legally free

Les Paul Dies

Les Paul, Guitar Innovator, Dies at 94

Shocking Fact of the Day

Studies at the University of Washington and the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., have estimated that a sixth of the mercury now falling on North American lakes comes from Asia, particularly China, mainly from coal-fired plants and smelters but also from incinerators.

How's the weather on Saturna?

Well, check it out! Here's the radar map for the region, and there is one little spot on the west coast where its NOT raining...can you identify the island?

Synthetic Biology - reprogramming life

“I view DNA as an analog information system, and I hope to convince you in fact that it is absolutely the software of life.”

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/synthetic-life/

What is sythetic biology? A primer

The most terrifying country on earth

"Anyone with an interest in China, its economy, its place in the world, or the kind of future it will fashion, please take note: This is a big deal."

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2009/07/where-is-xu-zhiyong.html

Great Photo

Julia Child from "The French Chef"

Moon Landing Anniversery Day

Turns out it Neil's foot wasn't the first thing to hit the moon, how depressing is that?

As I was geeking out and reading the official Apollo radio transcripts, I was intrigued to find that six minutes before stepping onto the moon for the first time, Armstrong took a "jettison bag" and dropped it onto the surface.

The bag, NASA explains, contained "empty food bags and other things"...including bodily waste collected inside their space suits. In other words, garbage.


One Small Schlep for Mankind

Science is Liberal

“The facts have a well-known liberal bias” Stephen Colbert

Adam Smith versus Darwin

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/business/economy/12view.html

This brings evolution and economics together in a really nice article.

10 most influential columnists

Top 10

NYTimes go nab the top three, not bad.

What are the old folks doing this week?

Sunset from our back deck - or is it the front deck?
more photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.ca/walter.sudmant/SaturnaJuly2009#

The Evolutionary Arms Race and the Futility of GMO

What's the Mendealio? 07/07/09

The Red Queen: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”--Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking Glass”

The Red Queen Hypothesis: “For an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with.” --Leigh Van Valen (1973)

The Red Queen Hypothesis has been demonstrated in many different biological contexts. This phenomenon, also known as co-evolution, describes how (in the most simple case) two biological systems with opposite goals, must continually compete to out-evolve each other, in order simply to maintain existence. Coevolution is most often demonstrated in sexual evolution, (interesting article about immaculate conception in sharks,and further reading for those interested), one example being sperm and egg proteins in a single organism. Sperm will be naturally selected to fertilize eggs (organisms with more fertile sperm will be more successful), and as such there is selective pressure on sperm proteins to better fertilize eggs. As a result of this however, "polyspermy," or, the situation in which multiple sperm fertilize a single egg, is selected for. Polyspermy, however, is not in the best interest of the egg. Multiple sperm fusing with a single egg ends up being detrimental to the overall fitness of an organism as this results in either the splitting up of the precious resources of a single egg, or the complete failure of the fertilization all together. Ultimately, what results is an evolutionary arms race between egg and sperm proteins. Fascinatingly, when scientists measure the rate of evolution in egg and sperm proteins in organisms (including humans!), sperm and egg proteins are some of the fastest evolving genes, and furthermore appear to correlate in their evolution as a result of co-evolving.

This evolutionary arms race takes place on an evolutionary time scale, which, for different organisms means different things, but, for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has meant a sudden unexpected mass armament at the hands of man. This arming of organisms in the case of GMO crops like corn or canola has allowed humans to impart a significant evolutionary advantage upon these plants over their natural predators, insects and other pests. Unfortunately, as organisms have a tendency to do, the pests are evolving in response. As commented on in the journal Nature, and reported in this weeks edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, in a laboratory setting insects have evolved to survive two individual pesticides created by synthetic genes in GMO cotton. What makes this result so important and indeed worrisome is that the insects evolved to simultaneously thwart two individual genetic pesticide onslaughts. Recently, to counteract the effects of evolution companies have been placing multiple genes which target the same pest in different ways into their products, a process known as "pyramiding." This most recent result demonstrates that natural evolution could successfully counteract our synthetic attempts. It is important to note this phenomenon has yet to be observed in nature, and was carefully constructed in a lab environment, however, implications are clearly alarming . Now, given that pests can and will evolve to combat our synthetically evolved organisms, will we be able to counter their new evolved onslaughts?

In the world of nature co-evolution is not usually the case. In fact, most people are probably more familiar with evolution as a means by which organisms out-compete each other through natural selection. What separates selection from co-evolution when competition is at stake is the ability of an out-competed organism to evolve in response, and as such propagate the arms race. In the case of synthetic evolutionary advantages conferred on organisms by humans, it is not clear that we will be able to respond to the evolutionary weaponry challenge set forth by nature. Indeed if current bacterial antibiotic resistance is any indication of our inability to confront evolutionary assaults, this is one arms race that we will most certainly lose. This of course is extremely worrisome if the players in this race constitute the worlds supply of food. And so of course if one cannot run fast enough to remain in the same place, the Red Queen's solution? Off with your head.

The Malthusian Insult

Great blog entry from Krugman, The Malthusian Insult

What very few people realize is that Malthus was right about most of human history — indeed, he was right about roughly 58 out of 60 centuries of civilization: living standards basically did not improve from the era of the first Pharaohs to the age of Louis XIV, because any technological gains were swallowed up by population pressure. We only think Malthus got it wrong because the two centuries he was wrong about were the two centuries that followed the publication of his work.

Went for a lovely hike on Sunday. The two highlights being the candy shop in Port Townsend, and mountain goats! Stubborn guys though. They would much rather stand in the path and root around in the dirt for tasty grubs and munch on lichen than give way to a group of hikers. Sometimes you'd look way up on a castle like tower of rock and some guy would be happily up there snuffling around.

Recreation of the day

Great creation of a bear sighting in the US.

"This is what the bear probably looked like...accept real"

A good rant

I thought a good rant would be good to get the blog going again:

Farm Fetish: (a rant about America's obsession with the farming ideal)

Four million people in the US play World of Warcraft. And yet, do I ever hear:

ANDERSON: We stopped by the gates of Ogrimmar in Durotar, on the east coast of Kalimdor, where one local told us Hollywood just can't relate to the level-grinding life.

UNIDENTIFIED ORC: They've never been back here, questing Razormane or Drygulch Ravine, y'know ... or farming for Peacebloom and Silverleaf. They're out of touch.

Must Reads From MotherJones

Two great articles:

Your Electric Car as a Battery in the Grid

Can Jet Stream Winds Power The World?

How Canada Does Banking

The first of a series from the NYTimes on.... Canadian Banking???? Should be good eh.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/canadas-way-how-our-northern-neighbors-do-banking/

Bill Frisell at the Village Vanguard

Here's Bill.

And here's Bill's gear. He fiddled with it all the time, especially the box on the stool. What is that, some sort of pre-amp?

Up on the Roof

ok, not exactly daily reports, but finally, here's the New York vacation feature. In no particular order, let's start with this: The sculpture on the roof of the Met. More pictures on Picassa (so as not to clog the blog). Also, check out the web-sites for the sculptor: Roxy Paine.
up on the roof

Lando's Lesson

It's a new feature!! 

Lando Calrissian knows what's up, what's down, what's kickin' around! Ask Lando!

Lando's thoughts today: It's damn hot in Vancouver today so keep cool, keep hydrated with blue space milk, and remember to "just get goin' you pirate!!"

Official Business

SudmantFamily.blogspot.com is the 7,837 ranked blog on the internet!

http://izearanks.com/sites/sudmantfamily-blogspot-com

Currently we're averaging 10 page views a day.. but only one "unique" visitor.

Poetry Corner!!!

Lugubrious limp

By Adam Sudmant

Lugubrious limp, lopes down lane of loserdom.

Staining stigmas swallow sequacious cyborgs,

fighting trials of terra's trickery.

Blowing devilry demoralizes, 

whilst water washes away,

waning weak

Image of the Day

If you don't find this amusing you're on the wrong blog. (Paul, as in Paul Krugman, won last years nobel in economics)

What's the Mendealio? 26.05.09 - Mind Control

Mind control might seem like the realm of science fiction rather than science fact,  but as the above Planet Earth clip beautifully documents, parasitic manipulation of brain chemistry is very real.  This interactive Discover Magazine feature further exhibits some more examples of parasites hijacking host brains and manipulating behavior.  Surely this is limited to the realm of insects and mollusks though?  Perhaps not, consider Toxoplasma Gondii, a parasite found in as many as half of humans.  Research has linked Toxoplasma infection to increased schizophrenic risk and aggression.  

What's the Mendealio?

I've been planning on it for a while, but Andy's last post finally set the wheels in motion. I'm pleased to introduce a new feature to the Sudmant family blog, the "What's the Mendealio?" Science feature!

So, what is the Mendealio?  Stay tuned to find out.  Epigenetics is just the tip of the iceberg.  Future installments will include links to current scientific literature spanning topics from molecular psychiatry to nano scale self propelled  DNA bipedal machines.  

Epigenetics

very cool article, very short.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/05/new-evolution-100-examples

Operation Sudmant Family Goes to The Olympics

location: respective internet portholes
date: June the 6th 2009
time: 0001 hundred hours. (it looks like they go on sale at midnight, stay posted for changes)
special considerations: the olympics only accepts visa
equipment: walter/caroline's visa number (since mastercard is not allowed)
communications: landlines and cellphones avoid skype and email (tie up the internet porthole)
purpose: as per the round table (dinner table) discussion of the 21st.

How Cities are Like Organisms

Math and the City

Quote of the Day

From the Sunday NYTimes: Legalization? Now for the Hard Question

marijuana's political progression:

Stage 1. Bill Clinton: I smoked but I did not inhale.

Stage 2. Al Gore: I smoked, it was wrong, I regret it, shame on me.

Stage 3. Michael Bloomberg (asked if he’d tried pot): “You bet I did and I enjoyed it.”

Stage 4. Barack Obama: “I inhaled frequently — that was the point!”

Sugar Substitutes

Ever wonder about all those artificial sweeteners in our foods? Sweet 'n low, Aspartame, Sucralose, what's what, where did they come from and why is there controversy?

This article is from the fda, so there's no need to take it with any salt:

Sugar Substitutes: Americans Opt for Sweetness and Lite

New Feature: Caroline and Walter Abroad!

Curious to know what's happening at the Guggenheim? Wondering what's on Broadway?

In the place of "Foreign Food of the Day", "Foreign Modes of Transportation" and "Moroccan Minutes with Andrew" The SudmantFamily would like to introduce, "Caroline and Walter go to the Big Apple!" (and the east coast). Over the next week expect regular updates, new flashes and the occasional blackberry blerb along the lines of "Where in the World is Walter?" and "Caroline's Choice" (though Im sure they will think of some better alliteration).

Obama Moves to Cut Corn Based Ethanol Subsidies

who says Obama's "roots" are in Illinios? From MotherJones:

Via the LA Times, this is the best news I've heard all day:

The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed renewable fuel standards that could reduce the $3 billion a year in federal tax breaks given to producers of corn-based ethanol. The move sets the stage for a major battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.

....While biofuels as a whole — including grasses and even algae — are considered promising alternatives to petroleum, some researchers have begun challenging the use of corn for this purpose.

In particular, they point to the "indirect land-use" effects of pulling corn out of the world food supply, which could force farmers in developing nations to clear rain forests — and release massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the process — in order to plant corn.

Please dump the corn ethanol subsidies. Please, please, please. Dollar for dollar, it might well be the stupidest use of taxpayer cash in the entire federal budget.

Upcoming Events

Sat. May 9th

1. UBC Perennial Plant Sale 10-4

2. CHEFS’ TABLE SOCIETY ANNOUNCES THE FIRST ANNUAL SPOT PRAWN FESTIVAL!!
Launch date: Saturday May 3rd, 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Duration: The Spot Prawn Festival will run for six to eight weeks.
Buying times: The estimated time of arrival of the boats is 4.30pm to 5.30pm every afternoon.
Location: False Creek Fishermen’ Wharf
(1505 West 1st Avenue, North-West of Granville Island, between the Burrard Street Bridge and the Granville Street Bridge

Theo Jansen's "Strandbeests"

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/theo_jansen_creates_new_creatures.html



wow.

New Features

Hey SudmantFamily! What's up with all the new features????

As some of you have surely noticed SudmantFamily has been undergoing some long put off site maintenance. With help from our friends at Kontera, Amazon and (hopefully) Adsense, SudmantFamily is hoping to be revamped, remonetized and reininvented in the near future. Until then contributors, keep posting your stories, whether they be eagle photos, Steely Dan updates or fan favourites and traffic drawers like that video of the pepubescent boy singing opera, its all appreciated :)

all the best,

the SudmantFamily

Where's Jimi?

If you weren't able to be there in person, here's a little taste of last month's big sudmantfamily event. Play along at home: can you name the great man on the cake? This is a free ad for the clever folks down at the Dunbar Dairyqueen.

Blog Contributors

Searching through my mail to see what I missed over the last few weeks I ran into this:

apparantly im not a contributor on this blog, and it seems i have two accounts, one being a mac account that my mac computer decided to create by itself, and i dont want a stupid mac account because mac is annoying, i would like to create a one single blog account and be a contributor with absolutely no mac or apple affiliation just gmail and this is really pissing me off because i can't post anything i don't think. what do i do, i need to be invited to be a contributor.

thanks, really appreciate it.

sincerest regards,

****,

angry.


Im glad that was all worked out (no names mentioned) :)

"and a hot dog every month and a half "

Im glad we're off the red meat wagon:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/health/28brod.html

on a related note (that made me hungry until I read the preceding article)=

"Same Cow, No Matter How You Slice it"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/dining/29beef.html

"The Denver was invented after meat and marketing experts spent more than $1.5 million and five years on the largest study anyone had ever done on the edible anatomy of a steer." wow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oghj7y4hluU

peter, I found a new musical group for you to join, combining all of your interests into one: sitting on rocks, singing baritone,  and getting in touch with nature. 

Damn birds!

Well I was just going to show you a scenic shot of our Vancouver mountains when this damn bird flew into the picture and spoiled everything.

When historians look back on our blog, they may conclude that the last week of April 2009 was uneventful. Not so! I planted raspberries.
Watch the blog for weekly time-lapse photos of the raspberries -- including late summer fruition close-ups.

Paris

Hi Everyone,
Ive spent that last few days leisurely exploring Paris. Each day I try to go to a museum and site or two, see a different area of Paris (usually for the vantage of my Velib' (what's a Velib'? scroll further) and eat an icecream or a nutella waffle or a crepe, or on special occasions, like sunny days, all of the above. Today I went to the musee d'orangerie, named for being the worlds first greenhouse and the place where Napolean got his oranges. It has Monet's eight waterlilies paintings as well as a collection of renoir, soutine and souzanne paintings, I think it's my favourite museum so far. This Soutine character was especially interesting.


foreign mode of transportation of the day= Velib'
description: a bike
why its sweet= just a bike you say? not so. The Velib' system in Paris has hundreds of bikes parked at stations across Paris. Just swipe your card and you're off!
culture shock to prepare for= One rides a Velib' sans un helmet!! ("without a helmet" for you anglophone readers)
features of the Velib= a bell, a surprisingly roomy basket up front, a seat designed for comfort but build for speed and a light that runs on pedal power amongst other things.
things to watch out for= swishy sounds when you're getting comfortable on the seat of your Velib'. Odds are its bird poo. Two for two so far.
colours= gray

how's Lucy?

Andrew

Morocco Pictures

I posted my photos from Morocco and Berlin: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.sudmant

went to the Louvre today, I really missed doing side-of-mouth impressions of mom's art critiques with you Adam. "Notice how Bertrand uses bright colours...the birds...the direction of the feet.. what do you think he was trying to tell us boys?" :)

how's Lucy? is she going in the woods again?

Paris

Bonjour tout le monde!

I had a really exhausting but exciting trip in Morocco, I'll hopefully get some pictures up soon. Besides Julian I travelled with Lucas, who is also from UBC and studying at Science Po in Paris, and Jordy, who is taking a year abroad at science Po from the university of Melbourne. Our plan was to meet a guide in Marakesh and travel to M'hamed to see the desert. Unfortunately an unnanticipated transit stike forced us to make new plans. instead, we travelled by "scab" bus inland through the mountains from marakesh eventually making it to ozarate where we went on an overnight camel trek in the desert. I got lots of sweet stuff, I dont want anyone back home getting too excited.. but lets just say that I have you covered if youi're in need of anything fossil or bookstop related (or fossil-bookstop related). Unfortunately one persons givft was smashed by easyjet but luckily I decided (or more accurately was forced by its size) to carry my most prized aquisition on the plane. It was quite amusing, without giving it away, what i bought is reasonably identiable even wrapped up, so i got a few knowing nods and thumbs up from other tourists (who were less ambitious or decided to risk checking their luggage).

interesting Morocco fact: Morocco has a king! who'd a though eh? His name is Muhammed six (no typo there, that's Muhammed Six, not "the sixth") and his face is on pictures and billboards eveywhere-businessman muhammed in the cities, good muslim muhammed in the medina, army muhammed by the palace, baby muhammed in someone's house, "ballin" muhammed with a rolex like a sundial near a mall... he's apparently quite popular and has brought quite a lot of reform to morocco, including making women equal citizens in the early 2000's.

foreign food (to avoid) of the day: dates
discription: prunelike, very sweet
common mistake: assuming they will be really good because you've seen them being grown all morning on the bus and everyone in the market is eating them
tipoff: all the flies

I hope the big 1 9 went well Adam! dont worry about your port hours. they only have 2 weeks posted so far (not a month) and it doesnt look like there are many cruises for some reason. you also arent trained yet, so training will be three or four consecutive days and once youre trained and have completed your shadowing shifts you'll start getting more regular work.

Andrew

Adam*s Birthday

Happy Birthday Adam!!!!!

im sorry i cant be there but theres something should be coming in the mail any time now qnd i hqve some surprises from morocco. I just returned from a cqmel trip in the desert; it was really unbelieveable. im really strugglin with this computer/internet crashing; but i zill try to send a better updqte soon.

food of the year= chicken tangine
description= chicken potato herbs and spices qre combined and cooked in a tangine; in a clay pqlte with bowl type thing over top.
important fact=everything about the dish is hot
best part=getting to see the chicken you eat
worst part=getting to see the chicken you eat
most delicious part= dipping bread in the sauce

Special News

As I am now an official contributor to this blog, I'd like to take this moment to announce some very special news: Steely Dan is starting a new tour. They are going to the United States again after their european tour, to begin their Rent Party 09 tour. I am extremely excited, and their site has also mentioned the announcement of other "exciting new developments". As the tour is called "Rent Party", my theory is that this is a foreshadowing of the release of a new album! As their last album was "Everything must go", the announcement of a "Rent party" signals the re-emergence of the "business", and their rent party is the tour that will kick it off. I am checking the site each day, and once they announce their concert date in or around Seattle or Vancouver, I will be sure to make another post. Thanks Walter and Don!

Cage match

K.D. Lang's Hallelulah
or
Jeff Buckley's Hallelulah
^
^
^
Vote up over here, on the right margin, where the Sudmant family poll collects votes --^

marseille

Hi All,

after a grinding journey (Berlin to Basil, basel to Beil, beil to Geneva, geneva to lyon, lyon to marseille), i am now in marseille. tomorrow im off to tangiers morocco.


foreign food of the day: Rosti
description: bits of potato formed into a pancake like shape, can include cheese or bacon amonst other things.
common foreigner mistake: calling it a potato pancake
similar canadian foods: potato pancakes
origin: switzerland
main eating demographic= university students (this is highly acecdotal)

thanks for posting my photos Heidi :)

Andrew

Best Hallelujah?

Mom asked me to post Cohen's Hallelujah covered by Katie Lang. I did, but, I have to say, of all who've covered this song, I think this is the best, Jeff Buckley. It won't let me post here, so you have to click the link, please do!

Hallelujah

Berlin

Hi Everyone,

Ive had a fairly eventual last few days. Monday night I stayed at Heidi's and Tuesday i took a day trip to Luzern, a really picturesque midevil farming town on lake zurich. heidi has an amazing apartment, its on a hill about a 20min walk from downtown zurich and from her porch you can see the entire city. i uploaded photos arent her computer but didnt ahve time to put them up. originally I was planning on staying at Heidis and doing several more day trips before traveling to Marseille... but I had a change of heart and decided to hop on the night train to Berlin tuesday evening. Berlin is amazing, i definitely want to come back here in and spend more time. yesterday i took a walking tour and saw most of the major sites; sections of the berlin wall, the reichstag, the brandenberg gate and checkpoint charlie amongst others. today i went to museum island and saw one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the gates of babylon. the highlight of my day though was 'aquadom', a touristy private aquarium with a massive fishtank that has an elevator that goes through it. i leave tomorrow for a day in lyon then sat i get to marseille.

foreign food of the day= currywurst

description= a bratwurst sausage sliced up and slathered with curry sauce served with a bun
origin= indo-germanian
flavour= curry point meets jacksons. delicious.
most common tourist mistake while eating currywurst= not knowing how to use to bun to sop up extra sauce
texture=chewy

ps anything that comes in the mail is for sharing (unless it was sent to 'andrew' in which case it is onlz for 'andrew' :) )

new photos!

Dear dedicated readers,

at long last I have finally added new photos (or I hopefully will have in 18mins if I have correctly understood how to use picasa in german). These photos are of Switzerland where Sarah and I ahve been travelling for the pat 8 days. I ahve no time for captions, but the photos are of Laussane (the home of the olympic headquarters), the jungfrau region (featuring the revolving restaurant from the 1960`s James Bond movie), Geneva, Zermatt and Zurich; where we^ve been staying with Sarah^s extended family for the past day.

the photo can be found here= http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.sudmant

just had authentic fondue. fantastic stuff. going to the Lindt factory tomorrow, then Heidi`s.

all the best,
Andrew

PS check your mail in the coming week or so

More on Saturna

Yesterday we had the inspection of the Saturna place. It looks good, but one thing still remains: there is a small part of the ceiling insulation which may contain asbetos. We are waiting for it to be tested -- not likely, and if it is we'll get it removed (don't worry, I won't go up there and vac it up with the electrolux).

Meanwhile, here's a big set of pictures for you to look at the whole thing. I clambered down to the water -- proving it is indeed waterfront. Lots of work for all, as we build the path to the water front and start work on the dock! Note, it is actually very close to the government dock for boating.

What do you think, sudmantfamily? post your comments.
Picassa link to "inspection day on Saturna"

Hey Walter

Hey Walter, how do eagles catch those little fish?

Well, they circle around using their eagle eyes, then they dive -- but, here's the important part -- they dive down faster than gravity. Its amazing, and only the most perspicacious photographers ever capture the force-dive of the hungry eagle. I did.

picassa

heres the link!

http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.sudmant

no captions and so far this is jsut london but ill try to add more when we get to sarahs relatives and i have more internet access. ill figure out how to post pics tro the blog too. I hear the schnitzel next door calling me right now though... so ill have to add more exciting updates at a latre date,

Andrew

Switzerland

Hi all,

sorry for the delay between posts and thanks Walt for holding the fort in my absences :) Im now in switzerladn with Sarah and Im having a great time. The food here is fantastic, especially compared to the Uk, who knew schnitzel was so delicious? the scenery is also amazing. today we went to the jungfre region, where peolpe ski. it was a long journey, we took 10 trains (including 2 trains way up in the mounaitns) 2 buses and 6 gondolas. the view from the top was unbelievable and the little villages we went through were like christmas cards and still have lots of snow at elevatoin. i ahve a gift for one family member so far, it pretty much fits them perfectly if you think of swiss ski culture (no i did not get dad lauderhosen though that would be sweet too) we re staying in luason tonight, the olympic capital and tomorrow we er meeting our firend molly )from edinburgh) in geneva. everything here runs unbelievalby smoothly. our tiny town hasa metro, trains and buses. theres a line for internet so i better run, but its great hearing from you all!

adam, i understand that you ddi something that would make me very angry...grrrrr

ive uploaded some photos to my picassa account, ill try to adda link thuis.

all the best,
Andrew

Saw an eagle

This eagle has a small fish in its claws, which you could see if someone had given me an big honking telephoto lens for Christmas. (well, you could also double click and blow up the photo, and then you'd also see the little fish - but still, if I had that big honking lens, you wouldn't have to click on the photo)

Dog of the month

Hey Walter, what's it like where you live?

Dog of the month

Its Lucy again!

View Larger Map

We were between Hoh Head and Scotts Bluff - zoom in to see Strawberry Point and Toliac Point, where many of the photos were taken

The Wild West Coast of the Olympic Peninsula

Some photos of the hike I went on at the beginning of this week. Myself, Aaron, and our friend Sheila hiked the South Coast of the Olympic Peninsula. We saw bald eagles, seals, loads of sea critters but unfortunately no grey whales, though supposedly they are migrating along the coast at this time of the year.