Tempus Fugit

Latin (tem-pu̇s-ˈfü-git): Time Flies

Month: August 2006

  • Pirate Ship

    I promised more on the Pirate Ship sighting, so here is the straight goods. There are pirates roaming the bay in front of our cottage on Lake of the Woods!

    Last Sunday we spotted their ship and took our own ship out for an exploratory mission. As we approached the pirate ship, which was flying a very official looking Skull & Crossbones flag, we were greeted by several young pirates on board looking quite friendly any waving at us to come closer.

    As we slowly approached the excitement on their ship seemed to increase. Were they really that glad to see us? Then we could hear whispers, “wait until they get a little closer”, what could this mean? Then, with a flurry of action a towel was whipped off what looked like a turret mounted machine gun on the fordeck and the sounds of a gas powered water pump roared to life. The machine gun was actually a water canon and we were under attack! After getting quite soaked we beat a hasty retreat, obviously over powered by superior fire power. As we returned to the dock we started formulating plans for our response to the pirate ship. Perhaps as British Man of War. Hmmmmm. 

    Lake – Good Times – Tempus Fugit

    Then there was the pirate ship sighting. Yes, that’s right a pirate ship, complete with a water canon, pirates and flying a very official looking Skull and Cross bones flag above a make shift sail with a emblazed with a Canterbury Cross. But there are no pictures.

  • TED

    A friend’s blog introduced me to TED, Technology, Entertainment & Design. You can learn more about TED here.

    What is really cool is that you can see the videos of many of the presenters at the conference. They are very interesting and very well known folks such as Nicholas Negroponte, Rick Warren, Tony Robbins & Al Gore.  I’ve watched these and plan on watching a few more they are all very interesting. I was especially facinated by Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 One Laptop per Child Education Program.

    At 18 minutes a segment they really pack in the content and deliver a solid message.

    Some have been reviewing the presenters for their presentation capabilites, and while that’s certainly important and makes the presentation more interesting I prefer to focus more on the content and the message. Lots of food for thought here.

  • Boat seats


    Boat seats
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    It was a quiet day around the cottage today. After 23+ years of wood bench seats I installed these comfy deluxe seats and we took them out for a spin. It was a little choppy, so we didn’t go far. Out around the south end of Sotty’s Island, up the Second Channel and back down Kewatin Channel to home. We investigated some nice properties and some unusual constructions under a warm and sunny sky.

    The day wound up with a little reading on the dock, painting one more side of the tree fort, dinner and a movie.

  • Water Bombers


    Bombardier CL415
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    While we were out in the boat with Debbie & Craig this afternoon a water bomber made a low level pass over Henan Point head and then circled around to pick up a load in the bay in front of out cottage. Very shortly another plane came in and made another pickup run. It seemed like there were two planes making loops of about 5-8 minutes to fight a fire in the area. They made perhaps 5-6 passes and then they were gone.

    In each pass the plane picks up 6137 litres (1621 US gallons) of water in 12 seconds! The full specs and capabilities can be seen on the Bombardier CL415 site. A great video of the CL415 fighting fires in Northern Ontario is here, and another video of forest fire fighting air traffic control with multiple planes can be found here.

    UPDATE: A reliable local source told me they were bombing a fire at the intersection of the Jones Road and the railroad line. Apparently, a train triggered a small fire which was quickly contained.