It's been a busy week. We had a number of issues, one of which required that I run up to Pacific Shores after dark and reset several systems. The week ended on a high note though. Last night the movie channel ran It Came From Beneath the Sea, (A giant octopus terrorizes the Oregon coast and then invades San Francisco Bay. It tears down the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf before being driven off by flame thrower teams and then destroyed by frogmen). Then they ran The Monster That Challenged the World, (Giant snails from the Salton Sea try to kill everyone, or at least those that aren't very observant or can't move too fast.). Lastly they ran Them, (James Arness and James Whitmore battle giant Ants in New Mexico. There is even an uncredited, very young Leonard Nimoy playing an Air Force Sergeant). I watched the black and white goodness while Marsha watched Minnesota decisively dominate and stomp Michigan State in the Big 10 Tournament, (At least that's how she described it).

This week it turned colder. Well, OK it's colder for us. We even got snow on Friday morning. Big irregular flakes. It was all gone by the afternoon but we got some at least. This is a good thing. The snowpack is very short across the whole province and every bit of snow will be appreciated this summer. What was a little odd was that they issued an Extreme Avalanche Warning for all of BC. We don't have nearly enough snow but what is there is very unstable and likely to slide without warning. It's OK we're not really the winter sports type. If we have to skip skiing/snow camping/frozen waterfall climbing/snowmobiling this year it's fine with us.  We'll just stay here, where it's warm, and miss all the "fun".

One of the items on the news recently concerned the Cane Toad problem in Australia. (News from 'around the commonwealth' is important up here.) The Cane Toad was imported to Australia control something years ago and unfortunately it decided to eat everything BUT what it was imported to control. The Cane Toad is now a huge pest and for decades Australians have been looking for a way to exterminate them. Recently researchers came upon a way to use natural Australian predators. They discovered that if they put bait, they used wet cat food, near rivers and lakes at the right time of year, giant indigenous meat eating ants would come out of the bush and congregate around the water only to discover the freshly hatched cane toads crawling onto land for the first time. The toads were immediately set upon and devoured by the ants. When I read the story I was struck by two things. First this was a very clever way to just redirect something in the environment to solve the problem without causing any more than a minimal impact. This is very good. My second thought was along the lines of 'Australia has GIANT MEAT EATING ANTS? Somehow this wasn't something mentioned by the Australian Tourist Bureau. It would have been nice to see something along the lines of "Come to Australia and See the Giant Meat Eating Ants Devouring Everything in Their Path." I know it's something I would like to know prior to taking a trip to Australia, (which is now looking less likely).

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/02/19/tech-australia-toad-cat-food.html
Now I know where they got the idea for the movie Them.

Thought for the week:
Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes.
That way when you do criticize them, you are a mile away and you have their shoes.

D&M

Snow but the cats weren't bothered at all


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