Ursine Toilet Fashion

This bear's stern glare will help remind your man to keep the lid down. If you've neglected to decorate the bathroom in bears, here's your chance to address the issue.

Panda See, Panda Do

Bai Yun naps in four random positions, wakes up for a drink and decides "I'm hungry as a bear".

During her meal, li'l Su Lin wanders through the 'boo, most likely on her way to go up a tree (pink arrow).

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Video links with bears in them

An unlikely relationship between a polar bear and monkey make an endearing tv commercial for the Buenos Aires Zoo.

The dexterity this polar bear displays in the water is amazing. I recommend fast forwarding to the middle of this video.

I don't really see a difference how bears and men behave in the outdoors... they all act the same to me.

This bear is having fun exploring how some people sleep outside. Click on this link then click the media player to the top right of the screen.

Illustration Friday; Rain

...just gotta be very specific with bears regarding pronunciation, that's all.

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Fertile Desert

I was pleasantly surprised in Nevada to be proven wrong by my westcoast bias towards sterile desert thinking. The hills and crags are alive with bright coloured flowering bushes, all the more contrasting to see beside the red boulders and sand dunes.

House of Nikon

Nikon FM and D2X

Dave recently got his old Nikon FM (film) back from a good friend who borrowed it for 17 or so years ago. Couple that with the new D2X (digital) he bought two months ago and you have quite the generation gap as seen here. Like Dave, most of his collegues haven't used film in ages so the FM will sit on a shelf with all the other film cameras.

huggy bears

huggy bears

Last chance on a unique miniature sculpture folks, check it out here. The guy on top is getting the excercise of his life!

Panda Sarcasm

Bamboo dinner _ Shuan Shuan
Originally uploaded by pyongphoto.

...love the expression on this panda's face. My attention would wander too if I spent hours and hours eating every day.

Only in Japan

tanuki

I was hankering for a Tanuki figurine (from eBay of course) after reading this blurb from the Buddist Corner. He comes with a wide brimmed bamboo hat, not seen here as I impatiently unpacked it at the Starbucks down from the Post Office. Holy smoke, I've never seen a nutsack on a national mascot, let alone a pair as big as paws.

This Tanuki looks normal, except for the red rope presumably tied around its scrotum. Not something you want to gaze at while waiting at the Urologist's office, eh Dave?

Its massive 'endowment' has functioned in folklore as a parachute, knapsack, drums and a symbol of good luck. It also makes for some pretty crazy looking fairy tale illustrations.

Part IV of V: Red Rock Canyon, Nevada

Good god has it been a week already since my last post? In the meantime I've gone to the Oregon Coast and back, and tucked into a spate of minor house renovations and bookings for wedding videos and sewing jobs. Summer is usually a busy time for most people who work in Whistler, not quite as hectic as winter but busy nonetheless. Lets get to the Nevada pics shall we?

Just like that Beatle song 'The Long and Winding Road', we enter Red Rock Canyon...

Taking pics in high sun is not ideal and the red rocks look somewhat faded here. In reality they hey are a deep sienna hue.

I'm loving these petroglyphs. These folks really had a good time here.



Magical shapes abound, like this one...

... and so on.



Night falls quickly and I turn around for a parting shot of this natural arch. Wowsers.

Last one in this series: Part V of V, Points of Interest

When life gives you wood, make a bookcase

I spent my recent blog break making and installing this new display case in the den. It provides 40% more storage space and visually anchors the room from what used to be a mishmash of unconnected shelves all over that particular wall (wish I had taken a 'before' pic to show the difference). Most of it is made from a recycled futon frame found last week at the local dump and as I was there a big male black bear skulked off in the far distance, probably drawn to a nearby municipal compost heap.

To the right of the new display case are my pets 6 1/2 year old Woodstock(foreground) and 2 year old Lieutenant Dan(background blur). They live in a spacious cage 5'x3'x2' Dave made out of an old shelving unit and air duct grating. When they feel like getting vocal, their chirping can drown out whatever is on the tv.

Insatiable Eater

Nice to see Gao Gao again, eating bamboo with the gusto of a hurricane whipping through South Asia. For brevity's sake I cropped the truckbed sized bushel of 'boo in the foreground.

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One of Vancouver's Cultural Hotspots

I uploaded these pics a month and a half ago and came across them today while looking for something else in my Flickr account. I completely forgot about that quiet saturday afternoon on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, poking through used books and eating oddly tasting pizza with salty sesame seeds all over it. Dave picked up some old equipment previously owned by the Canadian Railway at an auction and I bought a bird bath shaped like a bedpan at Ten Thousand Villages. A good day all around.