From the south-west corner, looking north-east.

From the rose gardens on the south lawn, facing north-north-west.

The Empress Hotel was built in 1908 as part of the Canadian Pacific Railway's chain of luxury hotels. The land it is sitting on is fill. The street in front, Government Street, was a bridge across James Bay when construction started. The city of Victoria originally granted the land that the natural history museum is now on to CP on the condition that they build and operate a hotel in the city for a minimum of fifty years. The architect, Francis Rattenbury (who also designed the provincial legislature buildings in Victoria and the fantastic power plants half way up Indian Arm), decided that filling the bay and parking the hotel centred in Victoria's inner harbour would make for a much more impressive presence. The original hotel (the part in these pictures) and the extension built in 1912 rest on Australian iron-wood pilings that are actually insufficient for the weight of the building - the hotel has settled about half a metre since it was constructed. I pointed out the repairs in the masonry to Elaine while we were there, but didn't think to take a picture. When the conference centre was added behind the hotel in the late 1980's stainless-steel pilings were driven nearly twice as deep as the pilings bearing the hotel and they only carry a fraction of the weight.

Some infra-red photos of Active Pass:

Infra-red only:

( Three more )

Infra-red with the red and blue channels reversed:

( Two more )

Infra-red and visible light:

( Two more )

I was just digging through my box of old photographs, looking for something in particular, and much to my surprise, I found Waldo!

Actually is name is Erie Winram and the photograph was made by my father at the Vancouver Island Swim Club Championships in Nanaimo, BC, February 1977.

I'd forgotten about the wealth of strange and wonderful things in that box. Trust me, I'll be posting more.

...but you can't take the island out of the boy!

Your Van-Goth Moderators

So Lorra and I went surfing yesterday. Forget about taking the skinheads bowling, let's take the goths surfing! Here we are in front of Live To Surf where we rented our sticks and I got a wetsuit as well (I sold my gear eleven years ago when I theoretically was moving to Toronto). I was totally surprised when we pulled in and there was a huge building just for the rental gear - last time I was at this place the owner ran the place out of her house and all the boards and suits were piled up in what should have been her living room. This picture was taken about 11 am, seven hours after leaving my apartment.

Long Beach, British Columbia, Canada.

Atratus on the Wonder Wagon. Here I am sporting the ever stylish wet-suit tan: burnt face, pasty white chest.

Last time I was in Tofino was about six years ago with Dianna. I forgot how much I like the place. Tofino is a wee little town north of Long Beach. The winter population is about 1000 people. I can't believe Lorra and I made it there and back inside one day. I got up at 3:30 am to get my shit together and get out. Seven hours later we renting our boards and were on the water just after 11 am. We surfed for about two hours out first set. It's true what they say: surfing is not like riding a bicycle. I sucked. But after swallowing some seawater and missing about a zillion waves I finally started catching a few and managed to get on my feet once.

Hand+Forehead+Staple applies even when surfing

Then we decided to take a break. I seriously need the Pepsi I had in the car to deal with the mouth full of salt water I ate and we both needed to give our arms a rest. Let me say at this point that old cars rule. Any lingering indecision I had about keeping the Wonder Wagon has evaporated. I'm going to keep it. We climbed up onto the roof and sprawled out. You can't do that on some plastic-fantastic new car. Hooray for Hamilton steel. Lorra even fell asleep on the roof of the car for a while an drooled on my roof!

While we were lounging on the car the people parked in the car next to us came to have some lunch. They were pretty cool. They were a couple of raver types from Halifax that had recently moved to Vancouver.

Lorra and the Wonder Wagon

We went out for another set after out break and I got on my feet a couple more times. Then it started getting really hard to catch anything, even though the waves were getting bigger, because my arms had turned into rubber. What felt like five minutes turned out be another hour and a half. We took a short break on the beach and played in the sand. I dug a big hole in the sand and we just generally sat there being goofs and not giving a rats ass at all.

We went out for one last set. The infamous one more. This is always the point were I have hurt myself in the past. You're tired and not too with it and you do dumb stuff. Fortunately I wasn't so dumb. I twisted my knee a bit and got 40 gallons of water up my nose, but nothing really bad .

We went back to the car to get changed and got to talking with the Halifax people (Andrea and Sanchez) for a while more. Lorra thought Sanchez was cute and I liked Andrea so we all ended up trading numbers before heading out . Maybe I'll invite Andrea out to Organix next Friday.

Lorra just about lost it laughing when I came back from the change room in my pointy 'Vogs and pseudo-vinyl Lip Service shirt with my board under my arm and had to get a picture. You should have seen it when I had my own board - of course it was black.

Goth Surfing