Last week, a tree that John and I have passed many time on the Third Beach Trail was toppled by Mother Nature.

…Staff report that likely the heavy rains on Sunday morning weakened the root mass, and the severe easterly winds that followed later in the day were the cause of the demise of the ancient Western Red Cedar.

When the tree fell on Sunday, it split in half, falling across Third Beach Trail. The tree will be left where it fell and the trail around it adjusted to allow safe public access.

The Western Red Cedar gained widespread recognition when it was featured in the October 1978 edition of the National Geographic magazine. [Vancouver Parks Board]

The last time I walked by that tree it was during one of our early morning walks. I was huffing and puffing up a hill with John leaning back, “almost to the top!” when suddenly we heard the faint sound of music coming from the bushes below. It grew louder and more audible and I soon made out the lyrics, “And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto – For helping me escape just when I needed to…”. That park is always full of surprises.

This morning’s update is that the Sea Wall is expected to re-open next week.

The opening will finally afford public access to the most heavily damaged area of the park, 15 hectares of sloped terrain between Third Beach and Prospect Point. Merilees trail, which runs southwest for about 1.5 kilometres from Prospect Point to Third Beach and Ferguson Point resembles a disaster zone. [VancouverSun]

The article ends by saying more closures will come in the spring, but as for opening next week? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Is there politically, socially and culturally aware a female in Canada between the ages of 16 and 36 that doesn’t love this guy? Former MuchMusic VJ, and current host of the award-winning show, The Hour on CBC, George Stroumboulopoulos is coming to Vancouver airwaves starting next week.

Kicking off November 4th, between the hours of 2:00pm and 5:00pm, Canada’s beloved pierced and leather-bracelet wearing media hunk will be spinning tunes (although on-air personalities don’t actually spin the records anymore… and well they’re called “on-air personalities” instead of DJ’s again, for that reason), conducting interviews and leading discussions on 99.3 The Fox.

Strombo is no stranger to radio, it’s actually where he got his start.

Since hosting Punkorama and Live In Toronto on 102.1 the Edge in the late 90’s, George has gone on to interview the biggest newsmakers in the world… [CNW]

I must admit that even though all the AC/DC they play drives me nuts, I do love the “rock talk” content the Fox provides; from Taggart’s Take to my personal all time fave… Alan Cross’ “Ongoing History of New Music.” The fact that Cross is one of the executive producers of The Strombo Show definitely means I’ll be checking it out.

If you’re not in Vancouver you can still tune in on these other stations: Power 97 (Winnipeg) from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm CT and 102.1 the Edge (Toronto), FM96 (London) and Y108 (Hamilton) from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm ET on Sundays.

What a long weekend and yet I still don’t have much of a voice due to gitis of the larynx that has plagued me over the last week. Since we’re uber tired and I promise to have many quality posts up for the rest of the week, this entry just purely warrants a photo montage.
Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

Nobody seems to be into Halloween this year, well except for a few people who came together thanks to Mel. John and I have had some fun putting together our costumes, admittedly he’s been enjoying that wig + sunglasses way too much. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

Although I’d rather hear about how to survive this wicked cold, I got a shout out on Digg this morning from Darren regarding the latest video from Common Craft. Lee and Sachi LeFever create these simple and “in plain English” demos (see my write up about Lee in the BarCamp live blog) for anything from wikis and RSS, to client-specific productions.

Since ’tis the season, they’ve just posted “Zombies in Plain English“. It’s rather amusing, especially if you’re familiar with their other work, and since I pretty much feel like a zombie today, it just fits. Enjoy!