Goldschmidt Etcetera

I've been at the Goldschmidt conference all week, which has been different from other conferences I've been to...in a good way. My talk was this afternoon, and I'm pretty happy with how it went, and I think it got a good response from the audience.

Then, after the session, I went out to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival at nearby Jericho Beach Park. It is a really nice outdoor venue, and the weather was of course beautiful like it has been here all week. Now you might be wondering why I would take time to go to a folk music festival, but it just so happens that Aimee Mann was playing tonight. She played a great set, mostly songs from her new album, but also a few older songs, including a couple of my absolute favorites, "Today's the Day" from Lost in Space (which used to be my cell phone alarm clock when I'm on travel--now it's "Skin of the Night" by M83) and "How am I Different" from Bachelor No. 2. The headliner for the night was Ozomatli, which I had heard of before but never really listened to, and who are now going on my list of bands who sound crappy on CD but awesome live. They really got the crowd standing up and dancing (except for the hippies, who will dance to anything). Speaking of hippies, there were tons! Old yuppie hippies too. Vancouver used to be the hippie capitol of Canada (true!) and I guess many stuck around. But I guess hippies like to hang out at folk music festivals. This was also the first festival where there were trash nazis making people separate plastics, trash, and compost!

Between Aimee Mann and Ozomatli, there was a little feature showcase with one of the performers from later this weekend named T. Nile, and she was fucking brilliant! Great singing, harmonies, original songwriting, and banjo! It was basically an acoustic set, and I wonder if her songs sound much different with a backing band. I'm pretty sure I'll buy her new CD when it comes out.

Garibaldi Lake

Here's a panorama of the lake. I think that might be the remains of a dying glacier in the center. The two Canadians in the foreground kept complaining about their lack of catching any trout, even after the park ranger came around and told them they were using the wrong lures.

Great White North

I slept in really late on Saturday, since I was out until 2am, so I got a late start up to the mountains. My goal was to hike up to Garibaldi Lake, which I did, but I really pushed it. The trail up to it was 9km and rises almost 1km, meaning it was pretty fucking steep the entire way, and I was trying to keep my Brad pace. There was a bit of snow on the ground, but the temperature was 30 degrees (Celsius)! It was also the first time I've been to an actual glacial lake. The water was clear and blue like everybody says, thanks to finely ground silt, or glacial flour. When I filled up my water bottle for the hike back down, I couldn't see anything floating around in it, unlike every other lake water I've sampled. I started up just after 3pm and made it back to the car just after 8pm, including a nice long snack and rest.


On the other side of the gorge is something called The Barrier. It is a giant lava flow that cooled up against the giant glacier that used to be here. Now the glacier is gone and there's this huge unstable cliff of volcanic rock. There were continual small landslides as I was hiking.

Vancougar

After I reclaimed my lost bag from the airport, I had the afternoon left to fill, and the sun doesn't set here until after 9pm! It was too late to do any driving excursions like I had planned, so I decided to get a little tourism in. I rushed through the aquarium (because it closed an hour after I got in) and saw the baby beluga whale swimming with its mom (it was born just last month!). I think they used to have a killer whale too, but I think public protest forced them to release it. The aquarium isn't huge, but the few exhibits they do have they do pretty well, like the frog exhibit and the BC coast exhibit.

Then, only because I had a free admission ticket, I checked out the Capilano suspension bridge. There's really nothing there except the bridge itself, but there's a whole bunch of other crap to try to add value. They even had singing minstrels in olde tyme garb. Not worth the price of admission.

By then it was around 8:30, so I headed to the west side to see the Vancougar show. The venue was pretty cool, and the opening bands were interesting. The first played instrumental surf/rockabilly jams. The second played loud annoying punk. The third sounded a lot like the Hives to me, but I guess they are a Vancouver staple and fan favorite for many years. Then Vancougar came on and played a really fun show. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, and a couple people even tried to crowd surf! I got to chat a bit with the band afterwards, they they are nice people. Maybe they'll come to DC one of these days.

"Delayed" Luggage

...because if you call it "lost", that would be a bad thing.

So I guess my bag decided it didn't want to go to Vancouver, and it hopped back on a plane to DC. When it arrived there, the authorities captured it and sent it back to Minneapolis (I assume under armed guard). I hear it will soon be on its way to Vancouver and be here midday, but we'll see. Luggage can be pretty coercive when they put their mind to it.

As for me, that means I can't take my drive up to Whistler this morning, but I might try to squeeze something in this afternoon. Or today might just be a random sightseeing day, since Budget gave me a bunch of free admission tickets to various museums with my rental car.

Welcome to Vancouver

...Hope you like being a dirty hippie!

So I'm here in Vancouver (British Columbia, not Washington) for the Goldschmidt Conference, but Northwest left one of my bags back in Minneapolis, so while I have my dress shirts, sweaters, and jacket, I don't have a clean change of clothes. The bag was supposed to come on the next flight and was supposed to land tonight around 11pm, but it was delayed an hour. So right now I'm waiting for a phone call telling me they have my bag and I can pick it up. Otherwise, I'm going to be hiking around Garibaldi in the same clothes I've been wearing for almost three days (did I mention I didn't go to sleep last night because I had to be up so early to make it to the airport today? Yeah, so I feel like a zombie too).

All that aside, Vancouver is an awesome city. The weather is great and the mountains and trees are beautiful. I checked through the local entertainment paper for interesting concerts or events this weekend and discovered one of the most awesome band names: Vancougar! They've got a show tomorrow night at some burlesque-themed club, which sounds kinda cool, so I might go to that. Also, Wolf Parade is playing this weekend here, but the show is sold out, which is OK I guess since I don't like them that much.

Air France

This music makes me smile. Reminds me of the Avalanches.

Caprese!

Although my cilantro plants have all but died, my basil is growing like gangbusters. Kirsten had a bunch of tomatoes left over from this weekend, so we picked up some local delicious mozzarella from Whole Foods and I threw together (with slight supervision by Kirsten) a fresh caprese salad . It was really good. I'm having some more with my lunch today.

The Fourth

Kirsten's friend Maria came down from New York City and we all went to Baltimore for the 4th of July. Actually, not quite Baltimore but Catonsville, which is a strange place because it has that small town community feel even though it is a suburb of Baltimore. The 4th is a big deal there. There's a big parade and a big fireworks display down at the high school. Then there was a large neighborhood party on the street where Kirsten grew up. All the neighbors were hanging out, eating, and listening to a live bluegrass band.

So that was Friday. On Saturday the three of us went into Baltimore proper to check out the Visionary Art Museum. Being an outsider art museum, they had a bunch of kitschy stuff, which doesn't appeal to me, but also a lot of cool inspiring art as well. One of the most compelling was a series of Post Secret cards about religion. Some were about Christians who hide their doubts; a few were about atheists who are afraid they might believe in god; and many were about duties and obligations brought on by organized religion. Then we had a late lunch on Federal Hill overlooking the harbor area. There were three distinct wedding parties taking pictures while we were there! After that we went back to Kirsten's parents house, packed up, and headed back to DC.

Then was an hour in hell (for me). Maria wanted to go out to her old neighborhood in DC, called Adams Morgan. I had heard about it a few times--how it was the clubbing area of DC and full of drunken partygoers. When we got there, it didn't even seem like DC anymore. It was like spring break or something. Girls in their hoochie dresses and guys with their popped-collar polo shirts milling around like ants. Maria and Kirsten said this was only about 1/3 as bad as normal! I was just completely uncomfortable. We ate at this place called the Diner, which was really good, and then we went to Kirsten and Maria's favorite dive bar, Dan's. It was completely packed with loud drunken revelers, and I was so glad when they decided to leave. Apparently, Dan's had recently been written up as DC's best dive bar in the Washingtonian or something, so the atmosphere had changed from what they remembered. Plus, I think they would go there right after work instead of at 11pm at night. So Maria was supposed to meet a friend at another Adams Morgan club, so we went there, and as we were walking it started to pour. We waited a bit under a McDonalds awning for it to die down, but we finally made it. This club was better--less crowded although still loud. By then I needed a stiff drink, so I got myself a couple vodka tonics and everybody had a round of shots. After that I was having fun. Kirsten and I didn't get to sleep that night until 4am.

Sunday was a day of rest and recovery. Of course we all started pretty late. I drove everybody out to Virginia for pancakes about a half hour before the place closed, and then we went to my house and played some Guitar Hero. By then the day was pretty much over, and I think everyone was equally exhausted from the busy weekend.