Fairy Land 3D

We went camping last weekend and had lots of fun. Trish got the kids making "Fairy houses" and she blogged about it. Don't get me wrong... I'm not claiming that fairies exist; they're only slightly more probable than God.

We took a bunch of pictures of the fairy entrances, and I noticed that two of my pictures -- when shown in succession -- give the illusion of 3D.

How to start a fire (if you're a pyromaniac)

Here is how my (pyromaniac) friend likes to start fires.

Step 1: Carefully place sticks and cardboard in fire pit.

Step 2: Generously sprinkle fire pit with fuel.

Step 3: Light a match.

Step 4: Stand back.

Step 5: Toss match into fire pit.

Step 6: Stop, drop, and roll.

Enjoy!

New tent

We have a very small and light 2-man tent. I bought it just before my first bike trip in 1994. It works for Trish and I. But once we started family camping, we bought a HUGE tent; it has a hinged door, light fixture with remote-control, and I can easily stand in it. We set up two queen-sized mattresses and a playpen inside, and still have ample room for storage. It weighs about 50 lbs, and takes about a half-hour to put up (if I have help).

I wanted something in between, that we could set up in the backyard in short order, and I could "camp out" with Heather and Addie and sleep in it over night. So, I looked on Kijiji and CraigsList, and found someone in Kitchener (near Victoria Park) who was asking a mere $30 for this tent.


The guy that sold it to me was honest and told me that the zipper often sticks and splits (the two sides don't interlock even after the zipper passes over). I bought it anyway, and he was right. The zippers were almost useless... at first. Then I did a google search and found out that zippers sometimes need to be lubricated. Dishsoap did the job.

Looking forward to some backyard camping.

Camping panorama

Being an image-processing nerd, I made sure I took a high-resolution set of pictures of our campsite so that I could make a high-quality panorama. I took about 35 photos in total, at 3 different levels (horizontal, looking upward, and looking downward). Then I used a piece of software from a professor at UBC named David Lowe to create the panorama. The program is called AutoStitch, and runs on Microsoft Windows (luckily I keep a Windows machine around for just such an occasion).

Below is a small version of the panorama, but you can see a larger version here.

This blog post is from

intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Family Camping

For the second year in a row, 7 families camped for a week at a group campsite in Pinery Provincial Park. Here are some highlights (and lowlights).

We saw very little sun throughout the week. It rained quite hard at times. The tarps over our kitchen area created a semi-dry area.
Here we see one of the leaks, and the basin to catch the water.

Yes, we walk on water.
We let the kids watch about an hour of Dora/Backyardigans/Blue's Clues. We set them up like in a cinema and gave them popcorn. You can see the laptop in the foreground.
We did manage to make it to the beach on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, one of my daughters (Addie) turned into a mermaid, and the other (Heather) turned into an octopus.

Each family had one of those Coleman stoves. They are great. Though, each has its own personality that shows itself when you try to light it. This one was in a particularly bad mood.
I love the irony of the charred WARNING label.
I believe it was Connell who suggested that portaging on foot was too easy, and that it would be faster on a bike. Greg, recognizing the rare occasion that all the required gear was easily at hand, decided to give it a go. Here is the video. In short, it was going well until the tip of the canoe happened to hit a 4x4-inch post.

All-told, we had a good time despite the weather. Actually, I find intense sun difficult to handle, so the clouds were welcome. I even like the sound of rain at night. All the families are proud that we stuck it out in the face of warnings of "incessant rain" reported by our BlackBerries and iPhones (this is how you distinguish normal campers from yuppie campers).

This blog post is from

intelligent-falling.blogspot.com