A Saturday Afternoon Hike To The Kinsol Trestle

We were up a little earlier than normal on Saturday morning as Paulette was heading down to Victoria for a big neighborhood community garage sale she likes to go to each year.  By 7:30am, she was already out the door and on the road.  That left me with lots of time for an extra cup of coffee before taking Molly and Rylie for a morning walk and then having breakfast.

The only job on my schedule for Saturday was to cut the back lawn.  I’m actually getting to like pushing my little gas powered Lawn Boy around the yard.  We’ll see how I feel about that as the summer and fall months go on. 

Paulette got home from her garage sale just after lunch.  I was kind of surprised as I didn’t expect her back until closer to 3pm.  That worked out well though as after we had a bite to eat we decided to check out the Kinsol Trestle for the first time this year. 

Although we’ve been to the Kinsol Trestle quite a bit, we never tire of seeing this magnificent wooden structure that hails back to the early part of the 20th century here on Vancouver Island.  Long before the Island Hi-way was built, the railroad was the only means of transporting logs, lumber and coal down to Victoria.  How they managed to build this trestle by hand is still a mystery to me.

One of the reasons we like visiting the trestle so much is because it’s a good hike to get there.  Once we park the car, it’s about a 1.5 mile walk along a nice wide crushed gravel trail to get to the actual trestle spanning the Koksilah River.  A 3 mile hike is good enough for me most any day!

We ran across a few dozen other people, and several dogs too, who were also taking advantage of a nice afternoon to go for a walk.  We spent about 2 hours walking around the trails by the trestle before heading back down the trail to where we parked the car.  The trail is pretty flat so it’s a fairly easy hike for us.  Still, it was good to get back to the car and sit down!

I bet if who ever owns this house became an RVer, he’d be a boondocker!

Last night, I watched one of the Stanley Cup playoff hockey games while Paulette was busy in her sewing room and listening to one of her audio books.  Later, I read a few blogs but even Blogland was relatively quiet yesterday with not much going on anywhere.  In fact, there was more action taking place over on Google+ – it has really been picking up steam lately, especially over the last month.  There are a of RV bloggers showing up in G+ Circles that I’d never read before.

Shortly after dinner last night it started to rain which was a very welcome sight to see and sounds to hear.  As I’m finishing this post it’s just after 9pm and it it’s still continuing to rain.  I hope it pours all night as we sure need it. 

Have a great Mother’s Day, and thanks again for visiting!

Reuniting With My Old Retired Friends For Lunch

This coming June will mark my 14th year of retirement.  Since then, as I’ve written about many times before in this blog, I’ve been getting together for lunch once a month, except for July and August, with a few of the guys I’d worked so long with.  I miss these lunches, of course, when we’re down in Palm Springs but I was happy to get a reminder last week that the “ole retired guys’ were meeting up again for lunch on Friday! 

A great place for lunch or dinner in Victoria

We met at the Four Mile House Pub and Restaurant in Victoria.  It was great catching up with my friends again as I’d worked with Dave, Nirmal and Cliff for 30 years before retiring.  We also welcomed a newcomer to our group yesterday – my friend Jim who retired just this February.  Jim’s pretty much a rookie as he only worked with us for a mere 12 years.  We had a great time rehashing old times, solving all the worlds problems and straightening out a few sports teams!

Looks like I left a few readers “stumped” about default image sizing

In my recent post talking about the change to my blog’s template, I inadvertently left a few readers “stumped”!  That was my fault when I said the following:

“Perhaps the biggest change in this new template is that my photos will now display with a default width of 520px rather than just 420px.”

I’ve received a few  emails asking me where in the Blog Template or Layout did I make this change to the default size?  All I can say is “oops”!!  The default size for images has nothing to do with the Blog Template or Layout is a function of Live Writer which I use for writing and publishing my blog.  I should have made that clear in my post.  My Template change simply increased the width by 100 pixels.

It was around 2pm by the time I got back from lunch in Victoria and after a quick check of my emails and other news on the computer, we were off to Cobble Hill Mountain with the muttzo’s for an afternoon hike up to the Water Tower.  Even with the lack of rain over the past month, the forest is still lush and green. 

 

That’s attributable to the heavy growth of ferns and other plants covering the forest floor.  We noticed a lot of trees down that had been blown over in winter storms.  It used to be, in the parks, that trees knocked over in storms were cleared out of sight.  Now, they are left where they fell unless they are blocking a trail.  Naturalists determined that it was much better to leave the trees as they provide shelter and nutrients for thousands of insects and other creatures.

When trees do block trails and paths, crews are soon sent out to cut them up and haul them away to prevent any injuries caused by people tripping over them. 

Back home after our hike, I spent some time answering emails with respect to questions about Google+ and comments etc.  It’s a complicated situation but for now most bloggers and, I think all RV Bloggers, are sticking with the basic Blogger Comment System instead of the just announced Google+ Comment integration.  I think that’s a good plan because Google is assessing the feedback they’ve been getting and I expect we’ll be hearing more about this before too long.

Have a great Saturday, and thanks again for visiting!

Picasa Photo Editing Tips, G+ Quick Comments & More

Questions from readers about computer stuff, Blogger and Picasa, which I welcome by the way, have been coming in fast and furious for the past week.  I hope I’ve answered everyone directly about their specific issues but, if not, shoot me a reminder and I’ll get right on it.  Sometimes I’ll get questions that are generic to all of us who blog and that was the case just this week regarding 2  photo effects I use on my blog – ‘rounded corners’ and a ‘white border’ Header photo.

By default, Live Writer imports my photos with rounded corners

By default, I almost always put rounded corners on pictures I insert in my blog.  it’s simple to do using Live Writer’s photo editing functions but impossible using Blogger’s Editor.  The very strong photo editing capabilities of Live Writer is one of the main reasons I’ve used Live Writer almost from the time I began blogging.  Google does come through though with its excellent free Photo Editor, Picasa, and that allows us to easily put corners on any image we choose to.  Here’s how:

How To Add Rounded Corners To Your Photos With Picasa

If for any reason the above video clip doesn’t work with your browser, then click on the YouTube link below, that should work:

YouTube Video Showing How to Add Rounded Corners With Picasa

How To Add A White Matte Border To Your Header Photos With Picasa

If for any reason the above video clip doesn’t work with your browser, then click on the YouTube link below, that should work:

YouTube Video Showing How To Add A White Border To Photos With Picasa

Image 1.  Clicking on the G +1 Share Button shows you read this blog

Some time ago, in a long forgotten post, I remember writing that I thought it would be nice if there was some simple way to acknowledge that I’d read a blogger’s post without having to leave a comment.  My reason was simple – sometimes blogs I read just don’t connect enough for me to make a comment; or, maybe I’m in a hurry or on my “2-thumb typing” iPhone.  In these cases, I thought it would be nice if there was some simple way to acknowledge to the blogger that I had at least read the blog.  Guess what?  With Google+ Membership there is a way!

Image 2.  Gail Houle’s Gypsy Turtles blog and the G +1 Share Button

In blogs that show the ‘G +1’ Share button, all one has to do is click on the G +1 and it will add 1 to the count of how many have shared this post and it will also show your smiling face on a small icon.  The reason why my face is on the icon on my blog is because that is what I use to share my blog to Google+ each day.  This is, like most thing’s Google these days, restricted to those blogger’s who have a Google+ membership………just sayin’!!  The big train is coming down the track!

Paulette thinks this looks like a Monet Painting.  I say Lime Jell-O!

While I’m on the topic of photos, how about the one above that I shot while looking down into the Koksilah River the other day.  I happened to be looking at it and thinking to myself that it looked a bit like a bowl of Lime Jell-O.  Just then, Paulette happened to walk in, look at the same photo, and say “that looks like one of those Monet paintings”.  First off, I’ve heard of Monet but I have no clue what his paintings look like.  What do you think – Lime Jell-O or Monet?

I went to Costco while Paulette worked manure into her Rose Garden!

As for Wednesday, I was off to Costco to pick up some groceries and supplies while Paulette spent the morning spreading manure in her Rose Garden – which job is worse??  We went to the Cowichan River Estuary for a walk in the afternoon and later I BBQ’d burgers for dinner.  Last night, Paulette was off to her Sorority Meeting so I watched a few hockey games with the volume up really loud!!!

After a layoff of a little over 2 weeks to rest up, Paulette returned to Blogland yesterday.  She says she is going to keep on blogging but not on a daily basis anymore.  Instead, Paulette said she’ll blog when she gets the urge or when something interesting is happening with respect to quilting.  I know that will make many of her quilting followers very happy to hear.

Have a great Thursday, and thanks again for visiting!

Another Summer Like Day Leads To Two Hikes

Paulette was off to Victoria early on Tuesday morning to meet up with friends at the Cloth Castle Quilt Store.  They have some kind of a ‘quilting club’ that meets on the first Tuesday of each month.  Afterwards, they usually go for lunch so that meant I had the entire morning to myself – except for the muttzo’s of course. 

This is where most of those 20 bags of manure were used

After browsing around on my computer for a couple of hours, I headed out to our back yard to putter around for a bit.   Around noon, I got tired of that so I thought I’d take Molly and Rylie over to the Koksilah River for a walk even though I knew when Paulette got home from Victoria she’d be all gung-ho for a hike.  At least Koksilah didn’t involve a whole lot of hiking.  Basically, it’s just park the truck and follow a winding path down to the river.  All was going well until…………

“I’m sorry, Dad.  I didn’t mean to try and smash your nice new camera to smithereens.  I just had to get outside because I thought that nasty cat was in our front yard again and I just wanted to chase him out”!!

Thankfully, my Canon G15 camera is built like a small tank so it’s still in perfect condition after it was pulled from my hand, by Rylie, fell and skittered across our hard tile entrance floor. 

I was holding Molly and Rylie’s leashes in my right hand along with my camera while I opened the front door – big mistake on my part, I should know better! 

As soon as the door opened, Rylie bolted out at full-speed pulling her leash and the camera out of my hand and crashing to the floor!  I gingerly picked up the camera expecting to see a crack, dent or scrape – nada, it looked perfect.

After snapping off a dozen or so pictures and testing the telephoto lens and anything else I could think of, I determined there was no harm done.  I’ll just have to add this experience to Rylie’s long, long list of petty crimes and misdemeanors.  It brought back memories of time 3 years ago when Rylie chewed my Motorola Bluetooth Phone earpiece to bits.  She was only a puppy back then – but nothing has changed as she still must think her full name is Rylie, Nooooo!!!!

Koksilah River

It took us about 20 minutes to drive out to the Koksilah River Park and on the way we drove by the entrance to the Kinsol Trestle.  That’s another place we haven’t been back to this year so I’ll have to remember that one.  It was another summer like day here with sunshine and temperatures in the 70’s again.  This is the type of weather we normally don’t see until July.  We’ll take it though.

The park was extremely quiet with no one there at all other than us.  We took the stairs down and were soon standing on rocks overlooking the river below.  The Koksilah is a much smaller river than the Cowichan but it can really rumble along the canyon walls at certain times of the year too.

We sat on some rocks for a while just watching the river flow by before climbing back up the long staircase to where my truck was parked.  The last few thousand yards of the road to this park is gravel so my nice clean truck now has a thick coating of dust all over it.  We got back home at 2pm and not 10 minutes later Paulette arrived and, as expected, was all set on hiking up to the water tower on Cobble Hill Mountain.  So, off we went for another hike only this time a bit more strenuous.  By the time we got home, I was beat.

My favourite room for a late afternoon siesta after a long day has become the upstairs den we renovated just last summer.  It’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer as the room faces east so the sun doesn’t beat in the windows.  Since we moved the second Lazy Boy chair out of our 5’er and up into this den it is a very comfortable spot to rest up.  As soon as I sat down in the Lazy Boy, Molly and Rylie hopped on my lap, I tilted it back and we had a nice long nap.

The walk down to the river was easy – going back, not so much!

I had an email from fellow blogger Mary Tipton (Heart of Carrot) yesterday asking “how were you able to get round corners on your images?”.  I told her it was one of the nice advantages of using Live Writer to publish blogs as the image tools are far better than Blogger’s Editor.  However, it’s easy to round corners on images using Picasa as well.  I’ll show how in the next few days.

Have a great Wednesday, and thanks again for visiting.

Another Blog Milestone Brings A Template Change

In just a few more days, May 10 to be exact, I will celebrate the 4th year of Rick and Paulette’s RV Travels.  That, assuming I post for 3 more days, will mark my 1,442nd consecutive post without ever having missed a day of blogging.  I’m not sure if this deserves some kind of an award, or a fully-paid visit with a shrink to diagnose a treatment for Compulsive, Obsessive, Blogging Syndrome. 

 I didn’t really like any of these Blogger Template choices

To help celebrate this addictive behavior, I’ve decided to make a change to my trusty old Blogging Template.  I’m doing this mainly because Blogger no longer supports my original, heavily customized 2004 Blogger Rounders Template. I wasn’t even aware of this until last week when I went to my Dashboard and tried to make a few custom changes to the format like column widths and even a change to the sidebar – nope, not allowed and not supported!  Time for a change!

I finally chose a Simple Template to start with and then customized it

It wasn’t time, however, for me to go all crazy with bells, whistles and a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors.  I wanted to keep my blog simple and minimalist as possible.  Blogger offers a variety of templates in categories named Simple, Picture Window, Awesome, Watermark, Etheral and Travel.  After considerable experimentation, I chose what else – Simple with just 2 columns, the main blog body and 1 sidebar.

Again, I didn’t really care for any of the stock custom color themes

Blogger’s Simple Template offered 7 basic color schemes – none of which I liked.  I chose the Simple template with a light blue image background that would allow me to select and change the colors for each element (i.e. main body, outer body and sidebar columns).  The first thing I did was to remove the Template’s Background Image thus allowing me to replace the light blue with my familiar navy blue.  I also got rid of the sickly green on my old top sidebar and made the new one plain white.  I decided on just one long sidebar for my new blog.

After selecting the ‘blue’ theme, I set about customizing the backgrounds

The reason I went with white backgrounds for the body and sidebar was because of it’s clean, simple look.  I find a white background is easy on my eyes for reading and I suppose that’s why newspapers, books and magazines are printed on white paper.  I also like a white background for displaying my photos because I find my eyes are naturally drawn to the color in the images and not distracted by any dark type of background surrounding them.  As a result, the overall look and feel of my new template may seem immaterial to most readers, but I like it.

Maximum image width using my old template

Maximum image width using my new template

Perhaps the biggest change in this new template is that my photos will now display with a default width of 520px rather than just 420px.  Blogger does a lousy job of compression with all of our images so the larger the image the better the quality on the blog.  One only has to enlarge a blog photo to realize what a difference a bigger image makes. Other than these visible changes everything else about my new template is “under the hood”.  The new Blogger Dashboard now includes some neat tools for customizing and tweaking templates.

Backed up to the recycle bin at the garbage dump and ready to unload

Yesterday, I was up to my hips in yard clippings, garbage and manure!!  But, before I could tackle any of those wonderful tasks I had to take care of one small item – getting new license tags for our 8’ utility trailer as the old license expired December 31st.  It’s a good thing I happened to spot that or I could have been in for a big fine if I’d been caught.  So, first thing, I headed into town to an ICBC agent and paid $44 for new tags. 

20 bags of ‘fine manure’ for Paulette’s Rose Gardens

After putting the tags on, I loaded up a bunch of green garbage bags, hitched up the utility trailer and I was off to the garbage dump with Molly and Rylie acting as supervisors.  It was another hot, summer like day here with temperatures well up into the 70’s.  On the way home, I stopped at Walmart to pick up 20 bags of manure for Paulette’s Rose Gardens.  It was on sale for $2 a bag.  After getting home, we unloaded the manure bags and I headed for the showers!

With the great weather we’ve had, the farmer’s are already making hay!

Later in the afternoon, we took Molly and Rylie over to Cobble Hill Mountain for an afternoon hike in the cool shade of the tall Cedar and Fir trees lining the trail.

It was nice and cool in the shade of the forest yesterday afternoon

It was a nice, cool relief from the blazing afternoon sun.  We climbed up as far as the Water Tower which is just enough to get our blood pumping without over doing it.  One day soon, I know Paulette is going to want to go all the way up to the top.  After getting back home, we still had a little over an hour before dinner so that was just enough time for me and the muttzo’s to enjoy a quick siesta after our hard day of hauling garbage, yard cuttings and manure.

Have a great Tuesday, and thanks again for visiting!

Apple’s New ‘Mothership’ And A New ‘GooglePlex’

In his last public appearance, June 7, 2011, Apple CEO Steve Jobs appeared before the Cupertino City Council to present plans for a new corporate campus.  It was a Steve Jobs “special event” that Apple fanatics had become used to – bold, incredible and visionary.  He likened his proposal to a “spaceship designed to hold over 12,000 employees” and perhaps “the best office building in the world.”

Apple’s new “Spaceship” headquarters planned for Cupertino, CA

Since 2011, the budget for Apple’s “Mothership”, as Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong dubbed it, has soared to almost $5 billion.  That cost would eclipse the $3.9 billion being spent on the new World Trade Center complex in New York City.  It helps when a company, like Apple, has $135 billion in cash reserves.  Man, that’s one heck of a lot of money from iPhones and iPads – its spaceship kind of money!

Jobs vision isn’t likely to run into any civic obstacles either – after all this is the Silicon Valley and one doesn’t bite the hand that feeds you.  Cupertino expects to have completed an environmental impact report by July and City Council doesn’t anticipate much in the way of community opposition. Demolishing the 26 buildings on the old Hewlett-Packard site will begin as early as next month.

A cynic’s impression of Apple’s new Spaceship Campus

Steve Jobs, before his untimely death, took his famously wonky attention to detail in all Apple products to his plans for his new pet project.  The plans call for unprecedented 40-foot, floor-to-ceiling panes of curved glass.  While the structural shell will be erected on site, the 6 kilometers of curved glass that forms the exterior walls will be bent and framed in a factory in Gersthofen, Germany.

Both Apple and Google are located just minutes from Hwy. 101

Both Google and Apple headquarters are located just a few minutes off of Pacific Coast Hwy. 101.  I don’t know whether they have gates with armed guards, dragons or maybe even drones overhead.  I’d sure like to have a drive around and snap a few pics though!

Conceptual design of the new Googleplex adjacent to Google HQ’s

Meanwhile, less than 10 miles away in Mountain View, CA and only a few blocks off Pacific Coast Hwy. 101 sits Google, Inc. and they too are preparing to break ground on a new 42 acre 1.1 million square foot Googleplex.  This new campus will have nine 4 story tall buildings shaped like bent rectangles to make room for courtyards and will be connected by bridges leading to green, rooftop cafés.

This project will be the first time Google will be building a campus from scratch.  Previously, they demolished the inside of buildings once owned by Silicon Graphics in Mountain View.  Currently, about a third of Google’s 37,000 pus workforce is spread out in 65 buildings.  Google is famous for pampering to the needs and desires of its gifted type-A workers and this complex will add even more luxuries.

Who needs stairs or an elevator?  This slide is much faster and fun

There is a method to Google’s madness with these bent rectangle buildings all connected by overhead walkways.  The J-shaped buildings and overall design allegedly ensures that every single employee working at Google's new complex will be, at most, a 2.5-minute walk from any other employee.  Seattle-based architecture firm NBBJ is handling the project.

Who knew that workplace cafeteria’s even had pots and pans??

Hand tossed Pizza at my former workplace cafeteria?  Yah, right!!

How did Google come up with this weird looking design?  Well, in typical Google fashion – by gathering a mass of information (their specialty) on how its employees work and what kind of spaces they wanted.  This new Googleplex was started from the inside out and not with the normal architectural design and then trying to fit the employees into the structure.  What a novel idea, Google!

Even dogs come to work at Google

Although none of us actually pay much to Google directly, a lot of us have forked over cash to Apple for our iPhones, iPads, iMacs, iPods and so on.  I just thought I’d like to show you how these 2 successful tech giants are spending some of that money and just how many employees these corporations have on their payrolls.  Just remember it wasn’t that many years ago when there was no Apple or Google!  What would the economy be like today without them??

Have a great Monday, and thanks again for visiting!

Saturday Chores - Weedwacking & Grass Mowing

Paulette and I both ran out of our favourite cold breakfast cereals a few days ago and we haven’t had a chance to stop by Costco to stock up on more.  So, in the meantime, she’s been making us Oatmeal instead.  I’d almost forgotten how much I liked oatmeal especially with brown sugar.  It was a staple for us as kids growing up only then we called it porridge. 

Mt. Tzouhalem on Friday

It was back to work in the yard for us on Saturday.  We got off to a kind of slow start so it was getting pretty warm by late morning and by early afternoon it was all the way up into the mid-70’s which is quite warm for Vancouver Island even in the summer.  It’s actually a great temperature though and perfect for wearing a t-shirt and shorts for working outside.  Hopefully, we’re in for a nice summer.

For the first time this year, I bravely hauled my Stihl Weedwacker out of the shed to see if it would start.  This machine and I have had problems communicating over the 5 years I’ve owned it but late last summer I decided to add just a bit more gas to the 2-cycle mix with oil and that made a huge difference.  Anyway, I primed the pump on the Stihl, set it in choke position and pulled the cord – nada, zilch!

I pulled the cord again and this time I heard the engine try to spurt to life for just a second – there was hope after all.  About then, I remembered the Stihl repairman telling me that after I heard it try to start while the choke was on to turn the choke off and set it to run.  I did that, pulled the cord and vroom, vroom, vroom – it was off and running.  Only 3 pulls on the cord – simply amazing.  I love this Stihl.

It didn’t take me long to whip around the back yard and trim all the edges of the lawn and Paulette’s rose gardens.  I tried to very, very careful anywhere near the gardens though as I’ve been known to get kind’a wild with this weedwacker.  Flush with success from starting the Stihl, I pulled our Lawn Boy gas mower out of the shed, started it up on the 2nd pull and cut the back lawn.  By then, I was finished.

Neither Paulette nor I felt like a long hike yesterday after climbing part way up Mt. Tzouhalem on Friday.  Instead we just took Molly and Rylie to one of our old stand-by’s – the Mill Bay Nature Park.  It doesn’t seem to matter where we take the muttzo’s as they seem to enjoy all of them the same.  We spent a quiet evening at home doing whatever each of us felt like doing – sewing for Paulette and flipping back and forth between a few hockey games for me.

Have a great Sunday, and thanks again for visiting!