Craig Atkinson

Today I was suprised to see a related link come up while viewing an e-mail in Gmail. It was a bizarre connection to say the least. Actually I find frequently that the articles suggested by Google are not very related to the topic of the e-mail.

In this case, I was reading the weekly e-mail update from Junchiro Koizumi. He happens to be the Prime Minister of Japan and is gracious enough to fill my inbox once a week with an report on his activities! Now if only we could get him podcasting too!

The related link to his e-mail was from the Borneo Times newspaper. If you can’t read it above, click on it for a larger image. Now check out the red box in the picture! Here is the link to the newspaper for the full story. I can’t believe Borneo is that small that they don’t have anything else going on to report about!!!

On the map when you search for Boreno it appears pretty big! But if you look deeper, this little newspaper is only for the tiny country of Brunei!

Now I love pizza! But I’m pretty happy not to have it regularly featured in my local newspaper as a story of interest!

A story I heard on the CBC radio about Australia complaining about imported pigeons from Canada having Bird Flu antibodies got me thinking about another story I saw on TV fairly recently.

The TV story was about the massive losses that hobbyists were experiencing this year in their flock of homing pigeons. Apparently this year a massive number of birds have gone out and never returned to their home. People do not have any idea where the birds are ending up or why their internal homing instincts are not working.

It could be that Global Warming is causing it, that their internal magnetic compass suddenly points to a new magnetic pole, or that they are infected with Avian Flu. I wonder what is going on?

I am finally up to date on processing all the pictures I took this summer and fall. The best ones are all put up on my flickr account. Here are a few from a weekend on the North Island. We left Vancouver friday afternoon and drove to Qualicum Beach where we spent the night sleeping in the tiny rental car. It was a nice wake-up to the sound of the ocean and the rising sun. Then it was off to Port McNeill, Port Hardy and Cape Scott Provincial Park. We spent only Saturday night camped on the beach and drove back Sunday night. A long drive but a magical place well worth it!

Map of the North Island

Waking up in the car

Enjoying Sunrise on the Beach

Our Tentsite on the Beach

The Rugged Coast

Smokey the Bear!

More pictures from Cape Scott on Flickr

Mizue and I went to Seattle one weekend in July. We visited Pike Place market, took the Underground Tour, went into the Seattle Aquarium (my favourite!) and ate some amazing Seafood Bisque!

Seattle Aquarium

Starfish and Friend

Mizue-chan

River Otter dozing..

More photos from Seattle on flickr