Mike Pearson's Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot

I've seen Kent's work  between 2nd and 3rd Beach for years now, but never met him. On this day I woke up with nasty allergies that forced me out early to get fresh air. I grabbed a McD's coffee and headed out for my usual Lost Lagoon/Seawall stroll. It was a perfect morning, still air, warm...and my favourite part...friendly people. That part is not always available in Vancouver, but on this day, most everyone insisted on saying good morning and hello. When I came across the stones that were oh so carefully balanced on the large beach boulders, I decided it was good enough scene to grab a few pics. If I had my cameras with me. I took the 10 minutes to head back to my apartment to load up on cameras, luckily noticing the missing battery in one before I got too far. The next lucky thing was that the stone artist, Kent Avery had returned to his beach studio to disassemble the balancing acts. Kent was very friendly and open about his art form and spoke at length in his ...

I was invited to help a friend take two boats from Vancouver to Garden Bay, BC. He drove his 1957 Grenfell "Heaven"....and I took his 24 ft 550hp "Hellfire" 1957 Grenfell "Heaven" Hellfire...24ft Zeta hull...all other is custom built We ended up in Garden Bay..returning to the scene of the crime...as I was born in the old hospital 54 years and one month previous to this visit. We tied up at a private dock a little more than 100 yards from Bill Thompson's classic and rare biplane/floatplane. the story about Bill and the N3N is here   http://www.canadianflight.org/ content/bill-thompson-and-his- n3n

A Fathers day weekend roadtrip with my son and daughter up Hwy 1 and then over to Lillooet BC. Nice warm, dry weather there to help peel away the chill of the less than stellar weather down in Vancouver. The airport was busier than last year when Brian Fitzpatrick and I went up there. For some reason there was a cluster of spray bar equipped helicopters. I had to do a bit of research to figure out the type of machine that we were looking at. There are 2 different manufacturers represented on the field. The most challenging for me was what turned out to be Hiller UH-12's that were converted to turbine power. I found out ( 2 minutes ago ) that the turbine model is called a UH-12E3T, and apparently they pack more weight than any other light turbine helicopter on the market. Update. ( later that same day ) I read the Lillooet newspaper that I brought back. The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is spraying 5390 hectares of forest with Foray48b to fight against the Western S...

A bit of chainsaw work and hacking  gave us a better view of these machines , than we had last year. The 892 has obvious wear and tear...likely ended up as a tail-hold machine for a grapple yarder. The TD-20 looks pretty good, but perhaps had some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure...or maybe it just wasn't the tool for the job in a changing business world. Video tour of the machines S tanding on top of the Madill...looking over at the TD-20 and 892 I think that ol d hulk was a D-8 at some point the stripp ed out C at View from the office Standing on the TD-20...looking over at the Madill/Mack LRSW