Kimler Adventure Pages (http://randsco.com)

In 2008, I entered a photo contest at Alberni Outpost, a Vancouver Island outdoor store. We didn't win, but I recently noticed the photo was used as the background for their new website design. Have a look.

Rachel's Photo Backdrop for Local Website

We are considering purchasing a used tandem kayak from Alberni Outpost, a Vancouver Island Outdoor Adventure Store, with locations in Port Alberni, Nanaimo, Courtney & Nanoose. The fibreglass kayak has been in their rental fleet for some number of years and yesterday, we took it on a "test paddle" around Newcastle Island and to Protection Island (where we had dinner at the Dinghy Dock Pub). It was an excellent afternoon and will be the focus of an article I'm currently researching and writing.

In doing that research, I made a surprising discovery. A photo we submitted the Alberni Outpost Photo Contest in 2008 is currently the background image for every page of their website.

That photo I submitted to their photo contest can be seen in our Bowron Lakes Slide Show. It's also on the Photo Contest page (2008) on the Alberni Outpost website (their site relies on JavaScript, so I can't link the picture directly. Just click on 2008 Photos and you'll see it.)

Despite the fact that the photo didn't win, it was chosen - over all the other photos submitted over the years and over all past winning submissions - as the backdrop for their new design.

We suspect the photo didn't win because it was a canoeing picture, not a kayaking picture. No worries! Just a Photoshop nip here and photoshop tuck there and suddenly, Rachel is paddling a kayak instead of a canoe! Amazing what can be accomplished with digital photos, eh?

So, do you think the owner, Richard Antonchuk, will give us a discount on the used kayak as consideration for using our photo in his website design?

See & Compare Photos

A blast from the past. Scott used to work in the remote jungles of northern Sumatra for Mobil Oil, as a field geophysicist. In the first of a series of articles from his field journals, he examines the driving hazards in this far away land. (Note: Doubly linked, so that the article registers as a "new" RSS feed)

Real & Imaginary Hazards

Lone Cyclist: An lone Indonesian cyclist pedals his way down a dirt track, between two newly planted rice paddies, at sunrise. There are many cyclists on the roadways of northern Sumatra and they can be a hazard.

Nearly twenty five years ago, Scott was working as a field-operations geophysicist for Mobil Oil, based out of Jakarta, Indonesia. His job was to supervise two helicopter-supported seismic crews (over a 1,000 men on each crew) that were exploring for oil and gas in the remote jungles of northern Sumatra.

He kept a journal of his adventures and is finally getting around to publishing some of them here, on Randsco.com, along with accompanying photos.

In this first "Hisstory" article (a new category), he's published an article which examines some of the driving hazards encountered in the Aceh Province of northern Sumatra. To learn about these road hazards, see some pictures and a slide show from "back in the day" ... click the link and head back to May, 1986 ...

On October 26, 2009, Yahoo pulled the plug on millions of websites hosted on GeoCities web servers. It marks the end of an early Internet Era and one that affects no less than five of our early adventure journals. Restoration efforts are taking place. Learn more (including why the Internet is a house of cards)

26-Oct Yahoo-GeoCities Shut Down
Randsco Adventures Rescued from Ashes

GeoCities Closes: In a cost-savings move, Yahoo shut-down the GeoCities free online hosting servers on 26-Oct-2009. The move marks the end of an early Internet Era, where millions of users created personal websites (web1.0 animated GIF-land).

On October 26, 2009, Yahoo-GeoCities shut-down their servers and immediately obliterated 15 years-worth of personal websites, made by millions of people across the world.

We rescued our early adventure journals off of GeoCities, reposting them on the Randsco domain, including: Scott's Big Ride, Rachel's 1999 Big Ride, our Oregon Cycle Tour and Wonderland Trail backpacking trip.

Begun in 1994, GeoCities spawned "neighborhoods" and by 1997, there were over a million "homesteaders" that had created personal websites. In 1999, Yahoo! bought GeoCities for $2.87 billion dollars.

GeoCities floundered under Yahoo's leadership. Terms of service changes, monthly data transfer limits, eliminating FTP access and changing advertising strategies drove users away. (We moved our home page off of GeoCities in 2003, because advertising changes interfered with visitor experience - and shared server costs were becoming affordable).

To learn more about the GeoCities shut-down, what's being done to preserve this bit of Internet history and the pitfalls of 3rd-party servers ... carry on.

GeoCities Restoration?

I recently published an article about cross-browser font embedding, using the @font-face CSS selector. It turns out that the code I put forth causes a 404 look-up in Internet Explorer. A reader has suggested some superior code, which I put to the test

Paul Irish Sets My Morning Schedule

Geeky @font-face Newz: It's a thumbs up for Paul's "Bulletproof @font-face Syntax"! (Do geeks really look like this?)

Funny how a single comment can change the direction of my day!

Paul proposes two concepts - new to me - in his recent article, "Bulletproof Font Face Implementation":

• Internet Explorer tries and fails to download the TTF file (with 2-selector syntax) even though the 2nd @font-face selector includes a "format" declaration.
• He proposes a single @font-face selector, which satisfies all browsers (obviating the need for two selectors), searches the local computer for the font first and eliminates the Internet Explorer "file not found" problem.

Okay ... this is techie, geeky cool and - for sure - not everyone is going to want to read about this, so here is where you should get off the geek train (if you haven't already).

If you're all aboard, heading for geekdom and want to be cool, then read on brave web-font enthusiasts ...

I'm a Geek, I want More

We just got back from our first-ever sea kayaking adventure, spending 6 days exploring the Canadian southern Gulf Islands. We had a great time and are slowly getting our journal online. We thought we'd post what we have, as family and friends might like to read about the adventure, as it unfolded. Cheers! (Busily working away at spell-checking and such)

First-Ever Kayaking Trip: Canadian Southern Gulf Islands

Descriptive and entertaining entry about how lucky we are to have such a wonderfully diverse, rich and popular sea kayaking destination right in our own backyard. Till such time as I cobble all that together, just pop on in and read about our recent 6-day kayaking trip.

Though we're no strangers to camping, backpacking, cycle-touring and other outdoor adventure ... this was our first time traveling by sea kayak. We can laugh now at some of our mistakes, preconceptions and landlubbing ways, but make no mistake - we had a great time and we're hooked! There will be many more sea kayaking adventures in our future (and Alex's too, though she missed this one, away with her maternal grandparents and having her own summer adventure at Watch Lake).

Route Map: We drove to nearby Saltspring Island without an itinerary in mind. Because it was our first kayaking adventure, we had no idea how far we might travel in a day. We ended up averaging about 15 miles per day, which allowed us to visit the outermost of the Gulf Islands (Saturna Island) and nearly took us into U.S. waters.

Note: The text is a bit raw, at this point, as I've only run it through the spell-checker - still need to go through and finalize it. (Three cheers to Rachel for all her hard work writing the journal!! Yippee! Yippee! Yippee!)

What's Completed:

• Intro Text | Pictures
• Day 0 Text | Pictures
• Day 1 Text | Pictures
• Day 2 Text | Pictures
• Day 3 Text | Pictures
• Day 4 Text | Pictures
• Day 5 Text | Pictures
• Day 6 Text | Pictures
• Slide Show
• Resources & Planning