Friday, February 21, 2014

Danish Roots Found - Visit To Denmark


As Annette and I had gotten a taste of Europe by travelling to London and Paris on two different occasions, we were ready for some place a little farther on the European mainland. Annette had her sights on Belgium, and I thought as long as we were in the neighbourhood, I wanted to visit Denmark - land of Vikings and populated with people with names like "Pedersen".

Rick Steeves the travel guy had visited Copenhagen in Denmark  on one of his shows and ever since I had wanted to go there and touch bases with my Father's roots. So, off to Europe we go to explore the "old countries". In Denmark we visited to the Island of Aero where many of my family members are from; in particular we visited the town of Aeroskobing, one of the main towns on this small island.


 Turns out I have many distant cousins living in Denmark; and, through joining a Descendants of Aero FaceBook group, and a FaceBook group of Aero residents, I have recently found many family relations. Some are close by, in the form of a cousin who lives less than a day's drive away, and another, whom runs the Aero FaceBook page on Aero and is apparently a distant cousin 9 or 10 generations back....I can't even think what that makes him to me. First cousin 9 times removed, 9th cousin on my Father's side? Who knows...all I know is that is pretty interesting to go from knowing very little about your heritage to having an explosion of  familial knowledge at your fingertips!

Click here to be taken to my Flickr page where you can view all the pictures of our visit to Aero.


Sunday, February 16, 2014

Fordson Tractor



Annette and I ran out to Mission, the neighbouring community to Maple Ridge, to buy gas (it's a'ways about 15 cents a litre cheaper) and pick up a few groceries while we were there. Coming back we took the scenic rural routes as we were in no hurry to get home. Along the way I spotted this old tractor rusting away at the edge of a patch of black berries. Notice the name, it says "Fordson"

Click on any picture to make them full size.................


Henry Ford and Son company made the Fordson tractor in the U.S. from 1917-1928 when they shifted production overseas.


The Fordson Model F revolutionized farm work the way the Model T revolutionized human transportation. This downsized tractor was affordable to the masses and on many farms one tractor replaced a team of horses and handlers.


The Model F was not the most well built of tractors and in  just a few short years under went several modifications. You can read more about the Fordson tractor here.
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A short drive today reinforced my rule of thumb - "always have a camera with you"! 
Hope you enjoyed this quick peak at our past.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Vancouver Geocaching In The Fog


A week or three ago The Pedersen Brothers got together again to do some geocaching in the Vancouver area. Usually Vancouver is a mild place during the winter but the weekend we picked was cool, hovering around 3 degrees Celsius. Doesn't sound that bad to the rest of the world, but coupled with the thick fog that had been hanging around for a week, it was the kind of day where the dampness in the air just gets right into your bones. With the same temperature, had the sun been shining, we would have been wearing light jackets - today we were layered up to keep the chill at bay.

Click on any picture to make it full size - you'll see much more when you do!

We started the day on the north side of the Vancouver-Burnaby border doing a few caches around Boundary Rd, hopping back and forth across the road dividing the cities while we picked up a few easy caches to warm up to the day. A small park on one edge of one town, then a few blocks over to another city park, back and forth we went until we came to a small plaza in the historic area of Burnaby known as "The Heights"


I always find it rewarding when I see a city taken pride in it's past and making an effort to remind its citizens of the rich history of their neighbourhood. Here Burnaby and The Heights Neighbourhood Association, with help from local merchants have sponsored a full length wall mural on a prominent business
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Those were the days when shopping was a major event and kids of all ages marveled at the new fangled gadgets on the shelf or the latest advertising gimmick in the large display window.


Shopping days were also a chance to meet friends whom you hadn't seen for a while - no FaceBook or Twitter back in the olden days. For many it was a party line phone with an exchange name like "Fairfax" or "Alpine" or the like....ours was Hemlock as we  were in East Vancouver sharing the exchange with Burnaby.
That's right, we're East Van boys through and through....if you wanted one of the Pedersen kids, six in all, you dialed our Hemlock number.


The geocaches I had picked out for the day had us skimming the north edge of Vancouver hugging Burrard Inlet, a major port on the West Coast. As such, we would be at water's edge, prime territory to hold in the foggy weather. Besides being surprised at how frigging cold we were, we were surprised to find brief spots of beauty in little city parks that gave views of the marine traffic in the harbour. Small green spaces among houses provided contrast to the bright colours of shipping containers, tugs, and marine docks.


It was a bit surreal - the close by views of marine barges and tugs in Panasonic vision was back grounded with a grey wall of shifting fog. A freighter would silently appear, cross our vision, then fade away to grey. The only clue to life beyond the fog was the continual sounding of fog horns from marine traffic feeling their way through the shipping channels.


Like a true tease, occasionally the fog would pull back allowing us to see for a half mile or so, letting us spy on the cranes loading containers bound for lands unknown. Or maybe the ships came from lands unknown...hard to tell.


We got treated to a brief respite from the fog when we moved into the heart of Vancouver and gained a few hundred feet in elevation in the Kensington area. Here was a true sample of community spirit - the local neighbourhood association has sponsored a series of small book libraries at curbside. Looking more like a large birdhouse than a library, neighbours can come to these street boxes to trade books. Finished reading a book? Drop it off at the corner, pick up a new one, toddle back up the street to the house, put the kettle on for a cup of tea and tuck your feet up under you on the couch for a lazy Sunday afternoon.These we really liked - what a great idea!


Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, second only behind Hong Kong. Vancouver city hall is helping with that as they recently approved of the building of "laneway" houses. These are typically small houses set at the back of the property with lane way access. They are the best of several worlds - the tenant gets an affordable house to rent instead of just a basement suite, they also get the privacy a house brings, the property owner gets a legal tenant to help with the mortgage and, best of all, lane way houses have a tendency of helping to reduce crime in the area as there are always "eyes" on the rear alleys.


Throughout many cities in the Greater Vancouver region you will come across community gardens - usually a piece of city property that is going unused. Sign up a few willing citizens and voila, instant gardens appear. People have their own little plot they take care of, and they can grow what ever they like. This time of year the gardens are dormant and bleak looking; in a few short weeks spring time will be showing its face and the gardens will be ripe with green shoots.


Refusing to give in to winter, green brussel sprouts stand proud on long stalks. I can honestly say I didn't know what these were at first until one of my brothers told me.


Here's something you don't see everyday in Vancouver - a rocket ship! Shades of Rocket Norton!


This rocket design brings to mind a 1950s vision of inter-planetary space travel in the far fetched future in the years past 2000


What's that I see? A few strands of sunshine lighting up downtown Vancouver? And a pretty sight it is, we feel warmer already!  :)


At the turn of the century, as a reward for making Vancouver city the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, CPR was given approx 447 hectares in the heart of  Vancouver. Just bush back then, CPR set about selling the vision of estates and mansions to the cities rich. Shaughnessy was designed to draw people away from the up and coming elite West End of Vancouver. In the true fashion of their British aristocracy, the wealthy named their mansions. The one pictured here is Rosemary, built by whiskey baron Edward Tulk and named after his only daughter.


Kudos to the city's heritage foundation for taking the time to highlight these historic locations and publishing information to the public so we could all share in our city's heritage.


One could only imagine the history that unfolded under these portico - horse drawn carriages bringing gentlemen callers, the first motor cars, the advent of Vancouver changing from left hand drive to right hand drive, faster cars and a faster life would all sail through these arches.
What's that, you didn't know that Vancouver originally had left hand drive roads? That's right - up until January 1 1922 Vancouverites followed their British cousins and drove on the left side of the road. At 2.00 AM on January 1 drivers made the switch. Ironically, the first motor car incident in Vancouver was reported that night as the maintenance worker changing the street signs had his work vehicle hit by another car!
If you enjoyed spending the day with me exploring Vancouver's history, drop me a line and let me know.

All pictures, and more, can be viewed at my Flickr photo web site here
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Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Where In The World Have You Geocached? - Seeing Is Believing






Thought I would post an interesting visual that's available as a free download for geocachers; it's a geocaching stats program that allows you to download your 'finds" as .gpx file from Geocaching.com and then import the file into Cache Stats. Once done you can view a series of charts and graphs highlighting various POIs like "first find, "100th find", countries you've cached in, etc.

Here's a look at my stats so far; hard to believe I found my first geocache back in January of 2005, that's 9 years ago!.Since then I've been in the pouring rain, out in the summer sun, 4x4'd up mountains and crossed swollen creeks with water halfway up the doors of the Jeep. All in search of a $2.00 tupper ware container, which, when I write it out, sounds like some kind of "not quite normal" obsession!

All well, just a few more and I can say I've found 3,000 of those little containers...which, again, doesn't sounds like anything I should be proud of, or even speak of in public.
Have a look at the stats and the country maps below, if you have a comment, leave one in the comment section and let me how crazy I am!  :)

Oh, and just how far have I gone? According to my personal Travel Bug that I use for tracking distances between geocaches, I have gone 48,367 miles! More to come........

My Cache Stats as of 2/5/2014 (Generated by CacheStats 3.0. Get your own stats at www.logicweave.com)
Cache Finds
Total Found: 2932 (# found/attended logs) Find Rate: 0.885 per day (6.2 per week, 323 per year)
Caches: 2923 (# unique caches visited) Avg. difficulty / terrain: 1.75 / 1.64
# Archived: 1388 (47%) FTFs: (unknown)
Avg. in 1 day: 6.8 Oldest Cache: Treehugger (BC's First Cache) (GC1DD placed 2/2/2001)
Most in 1 day: 60 (7/18/2009) Most in 1 month: 139 (8/2011)

Days Cached
Total days cached: 430 (every 7.7 days or 13.0%) Most consecutive days with a find: 6 (3/20/2005 - 3/25/2005)
Most in 1 month: 22 (3/2005) Most consecutive days without a find: 181 (2/14/2013 - 8/13/2013)

History
Year Total Found Rate Days Cached / Frequency
20054401.232132 / every 2.7 days
20063801.04184 / every 4.3 days
20073570.97852 / every 7.0 days
20083771.03343 / every 8.5 days
20093460.94836 / every 10.1 days
20104241.16241 / every 8.9 days
20112640.72316 / every 22.8 days
20121590.43611 / every 33.2 days
20131410.38612 / every 30.4 days
2014441.2573 / every 11.7 days

Milestones
Number  Date Cache # Days between
#11/9/2005Some Things Fishy
#1004/6/2005Cache Blitz: "A Pickle of a Cache"86
#2006/5/2005Hyland Hockey Hunt60
#3008/6/2005Burnaby History Tour: Gilley's Gully62
#40010/26/2005SkyTraining: Sperling - Burnaby Lake81
#5002/17/2006Admiral's cache114
#6005/3/2006Child's Play #6: Silvertree Park74
#7007/16/2006Water Tower Wonder74
#80011/15/2006Manitoba-Not!122
#9004/3/2007Tall Twin138
#10005/29/2007This Is Where My Addiction Began56
#11009/9/2007Valley View103
#12001/21/2008What’s My Number? #3 - Dogwood Trail134
#13003/30/2008It's not easy being green68
#14009/1/2008Turtle Conundrum #3155
#15009/23/2008Mill Creek22
#16003/22/2009It's A Gimme!180
#17007/4/2009Gold Country-St.Alban's the Martyr Anglican Church104
#18008/8/2009Home Run Hitter35
#190012/27/2009grafinator's First Ever Meet & Greet141
#20001/31/2010Bellingham Neon Art #1 - The Shark35
#21003/21/2010FRANKENSTEIN48
#22006/13/2010That Dam Bridge84
#23008/4/2010B10: Skihist Cliffs Earthcache52
#24004/3/2011Kaymar Creek Ravine242
#25008/9/2011Rick's Cache 2010 (#8)128
#26002/5/2012In-Tree-Ging180
#27008/14/2012Comstock Donatello190
#28008/19/2013You Are Here370
#29001/19/2014South Of The Hill153

Size Breakdown
Size # Found Percentage
Small98433.6
Micro89930.7
Regular79026.9
Not chosen1113.8
Other1003.4
Large270.9
Virtual210.7
Type Breakdown
Type # Found Percentage
Traditional Cache262989.7
Multi-cache1254.3
Mystery903.1
Event Cache371.3
Virtual Cache220.8
Earthcache200.7
Letterbox Hybrid60.2
Webcam Cache10.0
Locationless10.0
Cache In Trash Out Event10.0

Difficulty Breakdown
Difficulty # Found Percentage
165322.3
1.5104535.6
276626.1
2.52107.2
31645.6
3.5491.7
4281.0
4.570.2
5100.3
Terrain Breakdown
Terrain # Found Percentage
170223.9
1.5128743.9
258920.1
2.51946.6
31053.6
3.5351.2
4110.4
4.550.2
540.1

Difficulty / Terrain Combinations
Terrain
Difficulty  1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 total
1 296 264 61 22 7 1 1 1 653
1.5 191 614 168 41 22 5 4 1045
2 124 236 265 78 45 15 3 766
2.5 42 80 45 27 12 3 1 210
3 30 62 26 19 16 9 1 1 164
3.5 12 15 14 3 2 1 2 49
4 3 9 9 3 1 1 1 1 28
4.5 2 3 1 1 7
5 2 4 1 1 2 10
total 702 1287 589 194 105 35 11 5 4 2932

61 out of 81 combinations found

Finds by Day of Year (all years combined)
Day of Month
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 total
Jan 13 24 8 1 20 1 1 10 27 2 21 7 17 11 10 21 6 15 4 4 38 261
Feb 10 5 8 17 2 24 13 11 17 5 16 2 1 2 20 8 12 5 15 1 13 1 6 x x 214
Mar 1 17 34 3 28 24 1 28 6 1 2 7 3 11 16 1 14 33 28 21 3 19 12 11 20 13 24 1 382
Apr 1 3 33 27 22 1 2 6 5 38 2 5 9 2 13 15 5 17 39 12 5 2 1 1 11 5 x 282
May 13 33 2 2 1 8 2 8 4 5 4 1 19 2 5 1 6 3 9 2 3 1 2 16 25 6 183
Jun 21 2 9 2 42 8 23 4 1 2 19 29 13 4 3 3 1 4 4 9 1 1 2 8 26 1 12 10 x 264
Jul 12 26 16 20 17 7 3 5 1 3 6 3 5 13 2 81 3 43 1 13 1 2 1 1 1 7 293
Aug 3 16 27 14 3 3 54 63 85 14 28 3 82 9 6 10 1 14 5 1 2 23 1 1 14 9 491
Sep 2 14 6 10 9 13 2 11 2 5 32 24 41 12 35 54 17 17 1 1 10 x 318
Oct 1 4 12 1 2 5 11 1 3 2 4 11 15 1 16 2 7 1 7 1 107
Nov 2 1 9 4 2 6 19 4 13 8 17 x 85
Dec 1 4 4 3 1 1 10 18 10 52
total 50 83 124 144 133 86 88 92 125 145 76 91 79 120 56 98 62 126 123 162 85 78 166 74 74 42 79 63 67 80 61 2932

Found caches in 265 days of the year

Locations
US States (6): NV (6), WA (97), ME (1), MT (6), ND (2), OR (2)
Canadian Provinces (4): British Columbia (2796), Manitoba (2), Saskatchewan (4), Alberta (1)
Other States (4): Niedersachsen (1), London (1), Île-de-France (5), West-Vlaanderen (1)
Countries (9): Canada (2803), United States (114), Netherlands (1), Sweden (1), Germany (1), United Kingdom (3), France (5), Belgium (1), Denmark (2)


(map from world66.com)

(map from world66.com)

(map from world66.com)

(map from world66.com)