In my neighborhood

                                                           The queen has spoken.

The Alex Fraser Bridge looking upstream. Our friends house, on the near right river bank is presently being demolished.

in the middle of the bridge looking upstream. Our friends dock is more visible in this pic.  Its just north of the white roofed building, which is a fish cannery and we live just a few houses off to the right.

Two properties of 2 brothers and their families, both friends our kids grew up with.

                                                
                             Fire in the bog 2005 They don't usually get this fiery.

                                         Sandhill cranes in Burns Bog

"Accused" pub destroyed by fire and other neighborhood disasters.

The pub used in Jodie Foster's 1988 film The Accused burned down early Fri. morning.
The Tidewater was the setting for the infamous rape scene at the heart of the revenge movie.

The pub, which used to be called The Sidetrack is just a few blocks from my home. It sits on the banks of the Fraser River under the Alex Fraser Bridge and it was used for several months during the filming of "The Accused."

The courtroom drama, which stars Kelly McGillis as lawyer Kathryn Murphy and features Jodie Foster as a rape victim out for justice, nabbed Foster a 1990 Oscar for Best Actress.

The pub owner says he'll rebuild. I'm still scratching my head in wonder. The new highway South Perimeter Road which is in progress will link up hyws. #1, 91, and the 99 freeways and the Golden Ears Bridge.   It's slated to go under the Alex Fraser Bridge and overpass the existing River Road.....now thats going to be a tight squeeze of a bridge, an overpass, a pub and a well travelled road.

It's going to get real hairy around here.....

About 75 riverfront properties and houses inc. some of our friends, have been sold or are being expropriated inc. some heritage homes and most have already been removed to make way for this road. The land could easily feed 100,000 people.

The highway is going through 7 envoiromentally sensitive ravines and will be a hazardous goods route risking chemical spills.
Can you believe it - right alongside the mighty Fraser River! OMG what are they thinking?

Trees will be or have already been downed that shaded the creeks and sheltered 150 species of birds en route, as well as numerous species of plants, mammals and animals found nowhere else in the lower mainland.  Many of these are threatened or endangered species.

Archeological sites are being pile driven or capped in concrete.

Last but not least this road will pass on the edge of the world famous Burns Bog.

This project which has projected costs of over a billion dollars appears to have no care for what its doing to the land. And some say traffic conditions will get worse, not better.

The Burns Bog is a unique ecosystem due to its chemistry, form, flora, fauna and size as one of the worlds largest undeveloped ecosystems in an urban area.

Its a sanctuary and home to black bears, deer, fox, coyote, porcupine, racoon, badger, beaver, voles and shrews, Canada geese, herons, falcons, Trumpeter swans, owls, gulls, cranes, frogs, turtles, butterflies, dragonflies and many other life forms.

However, thats never been an issue as the landfill for Vancouver is in it and has been for many years! 

Fires of course are a natural part of a bog, although i think a lot of them have been man made in the past. These fires burn for sometimes months underground and pop up now and then, often requiring water bombers to help put them out.

Sometimes called "the lungs of the lower mainland" the bog is thought to be a major regulator of the regions climate since theres no drainage and all the rain that falls there eventually evaporates.

The Burns Bog is the largest domed peat bog in North America.  It covers 40 sq. kms. and 1/4th of  the municipality of Delta, British Columbia.

This project will obviously kill or mortally wound the lungs of paradise.

How can a government be so envoiromentally insensitive?

Disasters happened on earth all the time.  Some by natural causes, some by man and insane governments.

This one is virtually right at my doorstep and will be completed by 2012

Lost again

Its Victoria day in Canada today; Queen Vickies bd as well as the day we celebrate  Queen Elizabeths bd as well.
Lots of stuff going on around the lower mainland, this being the official start of summer. The rodeo is in town, popular with alot of folks but the animal cruelty despised by me. Theres carnivals and fireworks etc. but it's  a lazy day for us and for me that means art and of course reading all the theories and mulling over what last nights episode of LOST was all about.

OMGosh, where to start. Generally speaking i think i'll stick with my take but other fans have some of the greatest theories. Heres a few of their ideas:

They were dead before they even boarded the plane. So they were ghosts in various stages of waiting atonement or punishment. There had been clues for each that they had all died from earthly things: Kate shot by police or she got the death penalty for the killings she had done; Jack drank himself to death; Sawyer in a work related shooting; Locke committed suicide; Hurley stepped onto a balcony that collapsed; Charlie a drug overdose; Rose of cancer and on and on, a death for each, even some of old age. The island as a waiting room to heaven is timeless so the happenings there didn't matter.

They were alive but died in the crash and the end was a sideways world where they were dead.

It was a tale of a sideways life that was real and the island time wasn't.

They were alive and survived the crash. The end was only a sideways world where they were dead. This is also supported by the fact that they had all died at different times, some died before Jack and some decades later. Vincent the dog had no real affiliation with Jack and no reason or need to die with him, but thats a coincidence that happens in life sometimes.

The time on the island was the most important time in all their lives. They had all died together so suddenly and unexpectedly but people don't always accept that they are dead. (Jack was the last one to figure it out)  Maybe when a massive amount of people die at the same time and place they become bonded together and they live a "life" of sorts going through all their own individual trials and tribulations while waiting for the truth.  Their redemptions all happened in their own various ways and at different times but they waited for each other to show up at the church so they could then all move on to the gates of heaven together.

Some of the reviews i read say stuff like "some" had to die. I don't get that angle so not going into it.  I think they all had to die or were already dead upon arrival.

Someone pointed out that Jack had taken over the island and he then left it in Hurleys care. The idea of Hurley looking after it either in real time or a sideways time is awesome.
But this of course would mean that he, the one most likely to go straight to heaven, would have to stay back in case others shipwreck or crash and end up there.

Anyway, the whole thing was awesome. I'm still reeling.

Lost and gone forever

It was sad saying goodbye to Lost and all the characters tonight. I'm going to be lost without it.
While i really wasn't expecting it to end like a fairy tale with everyone living happily ever after its still hard to come to terms with knowing that they're all dead....
maybe by tomorrow i'll see some redeeming qualities of that idea but right now i just feel sort of lost.....
my God, they were dead all along!

How can this be?  I should have known!

Lots of questions went unanswered but then, i knew they couldn't answer for alot of stuff; writers got creative and then couldn't backtrack or fill in. Some of the story lines were so crazy and some so great, especially in the love and romance dept.  They ended up with no chance of any sequel, probably the actors want to move on with their lives and other projects.

Still though it would have been nice to end up something like Six Feet Under did a few years ago; now that was a great ending! But of course they wouldn't want to copy-cat.

Come to really think about that - it would have sucked.

I didn't know what the hell was going on around that island; couldn't even begin to sort it all out and certainly couldn't explain it to anyone.....flash back and flash forward is easy enough but then they added flash sideways and that got me a little lost.  And yet, it was entertaining enough to keep me glued to the screen for 6 years. 

Now that its soaking in a bit i see that the island was the gateway between heaven and hell.

I'm sure others will have their own thoughts about this ending and i might change mine, but i don't think so.

The best thing about Lost - the show made us think and its all open to interpretation.  So, there's probably no right or wrong answer or conclusion. At least we have this - they're all together; Kate and Jack, Sawyer and Juliet, Sayid and Shannon, Jin and Sun, Penny and Desmond. Charlie and Claire.  Those that were with them on this journey - Hugo, John, Boone, Rose, Bernard - are with them, and they're all happily re-united, albeit dead, at least in heaven. 
Benjamin stayed out in the dark so i suppose that means he went to hell. I don't think the bit players were there but that dosnt mean they went to hell; i guess they could show only the major ones. Ditto the dog; in heaven i know.

It was a great show while it lasted; highly entertaining, great characters, beautiful Hawaiian scenery and exciting to the end.

So i guess it was the perfect ending; perhaps the only ending they could have.

They're no longer lost, so its a closure of sorts.

My garden May 17

Ok i tried to be neat but blogger does its own thing. Enjoy anyhow!

Fowering Ash

This is a shot of my next door neighbours yard, showing her next door neighbours sharing of her wisteria thats on her side of the fence.  This neighbour who is 2 doors up from me also has another wisteria on her opposite fence. Its a different variety and colour and is a little too far away to capture it with my camera very well. You might be able to see it in the long shots.  Just call this address Wisteria Lane.

My garden May 10

Blogger is placing the pics all out of order again, sorry for the mish-mash. 

Hope you enjoyed the visit to my garden.

I've come to realise my pictures are quite washed out in colour and blurry; especially the long shots.  I was thinking of blaming my camera; Olympus FE 230, 7.1 megapixels with image stabilization.

But it's such a cute little thing; 3 1/2" x 2" x 3/4" deep. Fits easily into my hand, pocket or fanny pack.  

A better new one would be nice but....... 

maybe its just the time of day - 4 or 5pm when i take pics that might be the problem. I should try the am's but well, its not likely as i'm a certified night owl. Perhaps a dull overcast day will give different results, not that i'm asking for one, but you know, as long as the rain dosn't come with it.

Or maybe i'm just not a great photographer; no patience to fiddle; no time to stand around adjusting; i just want to aim and shoot in auto mode. 

One thing for sure is what i see and what the camera remembers are two different things. 

May 5 goings on in the garden this week

Wisteria maybe a little fuller but the flowers havent started to lengthen out yet.

                                                                    Heres a little different view

                                                                      This type of lilac isn't as fragrant but its a

                                                                         nice compact plant better suited to some locations.

ok i give up on trying to keep titles with the pics.

Wisteria update

May 1st, a little more blue showing now. Notice my neighbour 2 doors up has a wisteria on both her fences, which the neighbour in between gets to enjoy, or maybe abhor from both sides. The 3rd fence plant looks to be more colourful....oh wait, maybe thats a lilac tree. Time will tell.

May 2nd wisteria may already have a little more colour after just one day. What i really took this pic for is to track the progress of the Locust tree, which is just starting to show a little yellow.  The colour combo is quite nice if they both co-operate.

Notice my neighbours yellow flowering Laburnum tree; more noticable in the May 1 pic. I don't know if she planted it to co-incide with my wisterias bloom time which would be awesome if she did.  It, however is planted way too close to the fence and i can see twining vine problems in the future.

Photoshop update - i made a new blog to put my art and bitchings re that art. It has a few kinks i'm trying to sort out, one of which is type thats too pale and it won't let me change it and odd coloured titles that i didn't ask for.  Also my profile must have left here to go there and i don't know how to make them link or have my profile on both.  Anyone know?

Have you had time to laugh today?

http://www.emotioneric.com/

Eric conveys his emotions. Send him an emotion that he hasn't already acted out and he'll do it for you.