Nothing gold can stay 2014 Edition

Other than summer, this is my favorite time of year.  I don't particularly like aspens or poplars, but it is at this time of year that Robert Frost's poem so aptly describes the fresh foliage of the aspens in the parkland of western Canada.  I don't have any sunflower seedlings sprouting this Victoria Day weekend.  Not much has grown for me and the trees in my yard are still budding.  Often, the apple blossoms are already out and my Ohio buckeye is starting to leaf.  Not this year though.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Last Thursday, my Earth Science 30 class went on a field trip to observe building stone in downtown Saskatoon.  Tyndall Stone is from the Ordovician (about 450 My). There is a lot of Tyndall Stone in Saskatoon and here is a crinoid fossil near the main entrance of the Delta Bessborough:

There are several great references about the fossils found in Tyndall Stone:

• Manitoba's Tyndall Stone
• Tyndall Stone:  Manitoba Rocks!
• GAC PDF reference
• Fossils of City Hall (Edmonton)

Elk Island National Park

Today's Route Map.  We went to get some music stuff at Long & McQuade Whyte Avenue (formerly Gordon Price Music) and the downtown store.  We then headed to West Edmonton Mall to buy food at T&T.  Next stop was Elk Island where we saw a couple of elk, a lot of beaver lodges, a baby bison and finally, a herd of bison at the Bison Loop as we were preparing to leave the park.  There were lots of signs of heavy oil production around Lloydminster.  Interestingly, there are very few pumping wells now and it looks like the storage tanks have been upgraded. A final stop at Lloydminster for gas and we finally arrived home at about 9:10 PM.

Suncor Edmonton Refinery

Lone bison calf grazing

Elk crossing the road

Lloydminster

Marshall

Jasper Skytram Opened for the Season Today

We were up at the Jasper Skytram early today, but they're credit card payment system wasn't working, so we didn't get up to the top of Whistler Mountain until the third flight up.  It was the first time for our little guy and second time for our older son.  A great view and the weather held up quite well.  We went to Maligne Canyon for a walk before heading out of the park.  On the way out, we saw a small herd of bighorn sheep which galloped along at 20 km/h with our car for a few hundred metres!  Route map for today.

Mount Robson Park

We have not been to Mount Robson Park the past two years and decided to head out there today after a visit to Pyramid Mountain.  A little cloudy, but the weather was fair.  A snowstorm is on the way tonight.  The skytram also opens on April 25th, so hopefully, the weather won't affect its opening tomorrow.  We walked through thick snow and fallen trees to finally arrive at Overlander Falls.  I last saw these falls in 1998 on the way back to Saskatoon from Vancouver.

Pyramid Mountain

Can you see the rainbow in the cloud?

Mt Terry Fox

Overlander Falls

Route Map

Avoiding the 6 hour detour

We found out that the Icefields Parkway was closed today until 8 PM.  We were on our way to Saskatchewan Crossing planning on taking the 6 hour detour we took 2 years ago (when the same closure was in effect for avalanche control), but I thought we could wait it out by going to the Roger's Pass and then coming back to Alberta in time for the opening of the Icefields Parkway in the evening.  As it turned out, when we arrived back at Lake Louise from Revelstoke at 5 PM, it appeared that the Icefields Parkway was already reopened.  It was and we arrived at Jasper at about 8:15 PM.  We saw a 'rainbow' cloud about 25 km south of Jasper and some elk just south of the town.

Can you see the rainbow cloud?

Revelstoke

Revelstoke Dam

Columbia Ice Field

Just south of Jasper town

Route map (click for link)

Radium Hot Springs

I am very glad I discovered Radium Hot Springs 3 years ago.  The path down to Sinclair Falls was closed today, but it was still a great trip.  We've never seen a bighorn sheep so close!  We also saw white tailed deer and mule deer in Kootenay National Park today (route map).

We also saw this interesting display (just one of 14 stations) which were so appropriate for our Easter Break!  The Stations of the Cross depict the Passion of Christ.  This is just behind the Kootenay National Park visitor centre.  We didn't notice it the previous two years when we visited Radium Hot Springs.

We didn't drive down to Invermere this year, but we viewed the Columbia River Wetlands from the top of the campsite beside the visitor centre.

On the way back to Banff we stopped by a footbridge over the Simpson River.

The regular hot pool was closed for maintenance (started today until May 3rd).  We got to use the other pool with the water set at 38°C.

Lunar Eclipse

This is the only picture that turned out for me (shortly before 1 AM Saskatchewan Time).

I was watching the live feed from Slooh as well.  The weather actually cooperated!

After the moon fully entered the Earth's shadow, I either lost it, or it clouded over again.  It was overcast all evening, so I'm glad I was able to observe and capture the beginning of the eclipse.

Here is my video:

My water colour paintings from April 10

This past Thursday, I had the opportunity to paint with water colours.  It was something completely different for me.  A nice change of pace indeed.

4-4-14 Orchestra Tour Day

Today, the two kid's orchestras of the Saskatoon Suzuki Strings played at St Peter School and Dundonald School.  The program for the concert can be heard here.  Each orchestra played their program four times (twice at each school).  This is our fourth year in the program.  You get what you put into it, and violin is a challenging instrument.  However, it is a more social instrument than piano (which I like the most).  These opportunities to perform are great for kids.

St Peter School Large Gym

Here's a science question for you.  This is a photo of a street that runs east-west.  Which is the north side and which is the south side?

Linsanity

We watched this DVD tonight.  The most significant thing for me was a question my son asked me after watching it "Is Michael Jordan Christian?".  My brother sent this to us for his birthday.  Jeremy Lin is not the big star of two years ago, but it looks like he'll make a contribution to the Rockets because of an injured team mate!  More important for us, he speaks about his Christian faith.

2-28 Film, Voices by Jimmy Hsiao

Every year, I watch the film Voices, by Jimmy Hsiao to commemorate the 2-28 Incident.  We had a showing of this film at the University of Saskatchewan back in 1999.  Jimmy Hsiao made this film as an undergraduate at Yale.  I think he is now a doctor.  I wish the film were on YouTube.

It is very sad.  Families which were victims of this atrocity committed by the Kuomingtang troops which occupied Taiwan after WWII are interviewed.  My son watched it with me and noticed they were speaking Taiwanese (Hoklo) which he has some understanding of.  Some of the victims shown in the film were profiled in the brochure we made back in 1999.  My son said I should have shown him this in the morning (there is no time).  I said he shouldn't be afraid to tell Chinese people about this (just as he shouldn't be afraid to tell people he is Christian).

I can forgive, but I will not forget.  When I first read George Kerr's account in Formosa Betrayed, I was so moved and angry that I set to put the book on the internet.  I bought a scanner and the book was published on the internet 1997 November 11.  My anger is gone as bitterness is not the answer.  We need to forgive because of Christ's payment on the cross.  My late father-in-law saw the dead bodies lined along the streets of Tainan as a child in March 1947.  God bless Taiwan.

Géza Anda set arrived from Hamburg on February 10

I have admired Géza Anda since high school from his complete set of Mozart piano concerti.  This set of older mono recordings arrived from Hamburg on Monday.  I notice Amazon has a 10 CD set with some of these recordings as well from another German company.  I did get the Troubadour of the Piano as an MP3 download from Deutsche Gramophone a few years ago.  I often listen to those Schumann recordings (Fantasie, Symphonic Etudes).  I like those more than the SWR recordings from Hänssler I got from Musical Heritage Society.  I hope to listen to this set during the winter break.

Rusty calculus

I was asked about this integral yesterday:

I went off on a tangent by trying to use

cos(x + x) = cos(2x) = cos(x)cos(x) - sin(x)sin(x)
sin(x + x) = 2 sin(x) cos(x)

Today, I noticed this integral equals sec(2x)/2 -- from what I recalled of what the students showed me.

It's easy to show the derivative of sec(2x) = 2 sec(2x) tan(2x) by using the chain rule:

I wrote the above with LibreOffice 3 and found it easier to use than MS Word Equation Editor.  I then used WinGrab to capture the formulas to an image.

In numerical analysis, integrals are easy to calculate since you are summing areas, so the usefulness of analytic solutions seems unimportant.  Derivatives are harder to deal with numerically since you have to calculate a difference and divide.  However, I recall reading Russian geophysical papers from the 1960's which showed analytic solutions for some integrals and that is sure more elegant and exact than the numerical solutions (Russia didn't have very many digital computers back then!).

A package arrived from London on February 6

We met Alexandre Da Costa at Mont Tremblant in July and he signed his Lalo CD for us.  His newest CD (Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra) arrived from Presto Classical on February 6.  I listened to part of the first movement today.  The album also features the Beethoven 7th with the TSO.  This is also the first CD I have of an orchestra from my homeland.  I don't listen to the Beethoven Violin Concerto very much.  For some reason, I'm not as attracted to it as say the Bruch G minor, Brahms and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.  The first movement of the Beethoven violin concerto has a part in the opening tutti that is very majestic and often gives me the shivers though.

A package arrived from Rome on February 4

Many years ago (in the 1980's), I saw a PBS documentary featuring Carlo Maria Giulini conducting Beethoven's 5th with the LAPO.  It was during that time that I bought my first Brahms symphony record, an LP of the 2nd symphony with the LAPO (I recall buying it at The Bay in Calgary Market Mall - what a different era that was!).  I've always wanted to get his CD of the Beethoven 5th with the LAPO.  My Giulini collection was rather sparse and consisted of 2 CDs with the LAPO.  I had his recording of the Schumann Rhenish coupled with Sinopoli's Schubert Unfinished - it has given me great pleasure.  I do have several CDs where he accompanies soloists and some he recorded for Sony Classical in the 80's and 90's.  I also bought his LAPO recording of Brahms' First Symphony coupled with Schumann's Manfred Overture.  His Brahms First was playing in the home a last week when my wife cheered with approval upon its triumphant close.  It is the music to the hymn "We are God's people" which we sometimes sing at church.

Well, this past Tuesday, a package arrived from Rome with the 16 CD Art of Carlo Maria Giulini.  I now have that Beethoven 5th!  I did not actually pick it up until Wednesday.  And I listened to the Brahms First he recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic.  The following day (Wednesday), the 17 CD Giulini, The London Years arrived from Amazon.ca which I picked up on Thursday (I've not listened to these older EMI recordings yet).  I'm thinking Giulini's recordings of the Bruckner symphonies 7-9 will be my introduction Anton Bruckner - a composer a childhood friend of mine has long admired.

Giulini was a nice person on the podium and he did what was right - he opposed the Fascists.  A kind and generous soul indeed.