I’m using “BSG – Phone Ring” as my ringtone (it’s the sound the telephones make on the ship) and the others are handy alarm notification sounds.

Download the ringtones

Red Dawn. 1984. A bunch of misfit high school kids work together to defend their town from an invading Russian military force. Patrick Swayze as the cool older brother. Charlie Sheen. Lea Thompson (I had such an ’80s crush on Lea…). Jennifer Grey. What’s not to love? WOLVERINES!

I was in grade 10, a misfit outcast just starting high school, and watched this movie maybe a dozen times. It was set in small town redneck Colorado. Which felt not too different from Calgary…

There was something about the threat and horror of nuclear war, “the enemy” on North American soil, and an underground guerilla resistance movement that stopped and repelled the invaders that captured my imagination. It’s something that would be simply taught in history class for anyone growing up in Europe – but here, safe in Canada, we’ve never had to put much serious thought into aggressive invading armies (well, not for a few years, anyway, but we showed them! *shakesfist*)

I guess what caught me was the forced self reliance, the adaptability, the absolution of caste, and the need to work together to survive. Sure, the movie was violent, but it was a guerilla war movie. It needed to be violent. The fact that it wasn’t a shiny, happy, “good guys always win” story was important, too. The Wolverines didn’t magically kick Soviet ass, as they would have in a Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay film. They struggled. They died. They sacrificed. And in the end the remaining survivors withdraw in the hopes of finding others.

Growing up in Canada, I wasn’t living in daily fear of Soviet invasion, or nuclear warheads raining out of the skies. We figured if anything went down, we’d likely be catching the debris as Reagan’s Star Wars™ shield zapped Soviet missiles over Canadian airspace. Boom and sizzle, sure, but not invading occupation forces. During the olympics in ‘88, the Soviet team pins and jackets were the hottest items for trade. Everyone wanted to get Soviet stuff, and meet the athletes. Certainly no fear, at least.

And now I see they’re doing a remake of the movie, due out in 2010. Not sure how I feel about that. The TV series Jericho, which was a thinly veiled revamping of Red Dawn, didn’t do so well.

I love the project for a few reasons. First, it’s a crowdsourced, grassroots community project. I described it at the first project meeting as being more of a community art project than a photography project. It brought together 32 photographers, with 32 different views, perspectives, and styles. The end result is an incredible, beautiful book of photography that is a wonderful representation of the city of Calgary and those who live here.

The other reason I love the project is that it is a non-profit endeavor, raising funds for the Brown Bagging It for Calgary’s Kids charity – a local charity that is devoted to providing healthy meals to underprivileged Calgary kids.

It was truly an honour to have been a part of this project. The photos in the book are amazing, the photographers are inspiring, and the book itself is gorgeous.

If you’d like a copy of the book (for the awesome page 12 photo *cough*, or to support Brown Bagging It for Calgary’s Kids) head over to the Blurb store to get yours now.

We had to leave at half time, because it was just too much sun for The Boy™ to endure, but the first half of the game was a great one. When we left, the Dinos were ahead 10-8 over the Golden Bears. Sounds like the second half was exciting, too, with the Dinos holding onto the slim lead to win the game. Whew.

Thank you to everyone that supported me in any way – it definitely made the pain of the ride easier to push through.

Full resolution photos are available on Flickr, and I apologize for my severe lack of video production skills…

Here’s the first half of my ride home from UCalgary campus through the streets of NW Calgary – sped up about 3x. I was averaging between 30-40km/h for this portion of the ride.

(video doesn’t show up in RSS feed. grumble.)

I still have a few things to figure out – the clamp isn’t quite level, so I need to MacGuyver a way to level the thing so the footage isn’t all leaning to one side – but it’s getting close.

I took my cheap little Flip Ultra video camera, stuck it on the rear rack of my bike, and fastened it in place with a pair of bungee cords. It wasn’t ideal, but should have been good enough, as long as I didn’t wipe out or hit anything big.

I took the longer route home, climbing the big fracking hill at the south end of my home community. And Patrick Kelly joined me for the first part of the ride (you’ll see him a minute or so into the video). The video is sped up – it was a 45 minute ride, compressed into under 9 and a half minutes. I gave up on fancy titles and music, so you get the raw (but time-compressed) version here:

The movie was Alligator. Not great cinema, but it was memorable. It scared the crap out of me. I remember being scared to sit on the toilet for a long time after watching this – and having to flush a few times beforehand just in case an alligator was stuck in the pipe. I still think about this movie. Giant man-eating alligator, terrorizing a city. Because some schlub kid flushed his pet down the toilet.

B Movie Monster Sci Fi at its best, and worst. I remember the acting being terrible, but somehow compelling. I remember not seeing the alligator for much of the movie – being more afraid of not seeing it than when it was attacking. Not as powerful as Jaws, but more terrifying because it was lurking beneath the city. It could be lurking beneath my city (if I forget for a moment that my city is well below freezing for much of the year, and there’s little hope that an alligator would survive there, never mind thriving to 2000 pounds of man-eating terror).

Yet another of the films that affected me while growing up, with a strong zoological (or at least cryptozoological) angle. This does explain the whole BSc Zoology thing (although – was the fascination with these movies correlative or causative?)

My goal is to raise $2500. But I need your help. If you can, please sponsor me.

I will be training for the ride, to build up to the longer distances and mountains that will be part of it. It’s going to be one hell of a challenge, but it’s also going to be well worth it.

If there was ever a reason to tap into the power of my PLN, this is it.

A simple bottle of pilsner, when placed in the bright morning light, comes alive with refractions, reflections, and shadows. It doesn’t hurt that the bottle is so beautifully designed in a clean and strong 50’s aesthetic with thick green glass and a stylized painted label.