"Better Late Than Never"
“Better Late Than Never”
These words are ringing in my head quite a lot these days.
I’ve had the intention of putting together an adventure travel/photo blog for years now, but the simplicity of traditional social media, and likely just a lack of time and focus, has continually pushed it down the priority list. Entering a new decade, midway through my 30s, and sitting at a major crossroad, it seems the timing is apt to take on a new challenge/project.
My intention is to collect and formalize my rather chaotic journey into a format that is my own; free from the structure, advertisements, and ethical dilemmas of social media, with an aesthetic look and storytelling format that I think better represents life as an adventure to be shared. The Gallery will hold a collection of my favourite images captured over the years, and I will likely aim to separate into different categories eventually once I dive under the hood of this whole Squarespace template business. Content from over the years is scattered and incomplete between social media or local backups, and so I would like to build out a more proper timeline of events in an Archive to bring everything together.
I have no intention of monetizing this. Like most primates, I hate ads. I also hate the idea of outside pressure to generate content. If someone is interested in any photos, please let me know, and I am happy to share them at full resolution.
And with this being January 2020, the year of “clarity”, and finding myself at another significant crossroad in life, writing has a strong grounding effect, providing thoughts, ideas, and reflections a solid platform to drift down upon, instead of spinning endlessly in the mind. I’ll try my best to keep it light, and keep crap like that last sentence to a minimum.
Christmas Day 2019 - The Beginning
Let’s start at the beginning, which is generally a good idea for any story, unless you’re Tarantino writing Pulp Fiction. Plenty of time for mountains and oceans and sunsets and all that later. Christmas 2019 was spent with my folks and grandparents on tranquil little Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada. So with respect to my personal story, this really is “the beginning”.
Don “The Hustle” Russell, my grandfather on my mother’s side, is a retired geophysics professor and former department chair from UBC, with a lifelong passion for Computing Science. One of his early mentors convinced him that computing was likely to remain a small niche field in academia and beyond, though tectonic plates were likely to be around for some time, and so professionally he remained in geophysics, though he’s been what I would consider a top shelf “computer geek” for decades before I even knew “Command and Conquer: Red Alert” existed. Over Christmas, we noticed he is still using old assembly-level punch cards used in 1960-70s era computers as scrap note paper.
He also apparently shares my love for downhill skiing, which I asked him about when I saw his sweater, but apparently he only skied once as a teenager, and barely lived to tell about it. Total poser.
Virginia “The Muscle” Russell, famed children’s book author, makes one helluva minced tart. She has in fact written multiple published children’s books, including a wonderful story of a boy, loosely based on yours truly, who discovers an ancient First Nations artifact in the same old giant cedar that sits on the same old Mayne Island property I enjoyed this Christmas. He then embarks on mystery-soaked adventures, learning more about our local First Nations people. A fantastic opportunity for children to learn more about the ways of the ancestral peoples of the beautiful unceded lands we’re lucky to call home.
”Voices on the Bay” is the book. I don’t think she was operating as “The Muscle” back in the early 90s, so you’d likely find it under “R”, for Russell. Quality stuff, and I’m beyond impressed and inspired by her initiative and creativity to spin up a story that helps preserve a fading culture.
Linda “The Friendly Foghorn” Jones (that one is actually real) put in a fair bit of work getting me to where I am today. She’s put up with a lot, and after 35 long years, I still stress her out on a daily basis. Thanks Mom.
Christmas Day, 2019. The Gulf Islands: reason #12,498 that BC is a magical place to live.
I left Mayne on the 25th to collect my grease-snooted floof-monster, Nootka (@nootkathefloof), as Faith took off for Indonesia that evening. After some hard goodbyes, I carried on to Squamish to figure out my life, and get organized. For a variety of reasons, admittedly I had been putting off and neglecting keeping Smash Mountain organized of late (or ever?), so it felt really solid to post up there for a few days, organize, and decompress.
12/27/2019 - The Greasy Snoot In full affect
Well, this seems like as good place as any to wrap up. Shit, I actually did it. I started a fucking blog. I think I can get into this. But that did take a full evening, and an hour past when I told myself I would stop and try to sleep… I didn’t exactly have a ton of spare time before, and I seem to be getting more busy every year… Fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea.
But I guess it’s better late than never…
Build a cabin in the air. That is where it should be.