We rode up Highway 40, over the Highwood Pass. The highest paved highway in Canada. It's closed for the winter, and doesn't open to motorized traffic until June 15, so it's wide open for bicycles for the short period that it's passable before being open.

The route we chose wasn't long - total ride was just shy of 34km. Nothing fancy. But the elevation gain was 1850 feet, over the 17km climb to the summit. When we got to the top, there was still several feet of snow on the ground (recently cleared from the highway by road crews).

@noiseprofessor provided an artist's rendition of next weekend's planned Highwood Pass ride.

Not sure how fast it'd be, but it's good to have a backup plan...

> sorry, but there's no way in hell you'd ever get me to use blackboard again.
>
> - a prof, after switching to wordpress

Awesome. Doesn't help my MSc thesis research progress much, but the whole blogging platform thing is making a real difference on campus. Love it!

A blog of funny faux-historical tweets published a book a couple of years ago, and used one of my photos as the background for a twitter account of a caveman. Pretty cool. They're going to print again, and the photo's still in there.

The book's available on Amazon.com. I don't see a penny of sales, but I wouldn't have seen a penny for that photo anyway...

This was taken during a session as part of the Open Education 2009 conference in Vancouver. David Wiley and Stephen Downes were meeting, to prepare a manuscript for a book on open education, and they agreed to conduct the meeting as an open conversation. The venue that was provided set the tone - the meeting took place in an old courtroom, with all of the trappings still visible, abandoned, behind them as they talked.

I’ve been experimenting with bits of software to take control of my online content. The functionality is all there for me to run my own stuff, without feeding corporate silos. I can post text, images, photos, videos. I can store files and access them from anywhere. Without having to hand my bits over to any company.

Except when I want to play with others. To do that, I still need to wade into the silos. Flickr isn’t about photo storage or hosting - it’s about seeing what my friends and family are photographing. Twitter isn’t about posting 140char updates - it’s about seeing the flow of activity from the people I care about.

An awesome video/ad by the great Camera Store in Calgary. These guys take photography pretty seriously.

the after-conference gatherings at northern voice have always tended to be rather musical, so this year Grant went out and booked a rehearsal studio for us to jam without annoying neighbours. The Sanctuary, in East Van, is an incredible rehearsal space. I only recorded a small clip from the 11 hours (!) spent in The Sanctuary over 2 days. It was awesome, in every sense of the word. Seeing people I know share music together, with skill and talent I didn't know they had? Inspiring. It was my first time ever playing music with anyone else. I'll definitely be trying to do that some more...

Back in 2007, I was in Vancouver for a meeting, followed by hanging out for Northern Voice. I had to go straight from the airport to the meeting, which was down in the east side of downtown along Railway. After the meeting was over, I was waiting to meet up with Brian, so was lugging my suitcase and gear up to Hastings. I knew it was a colourful neighbourhood, but I must have been a little obvious as an out-of-towner. I wound up waiting in a little Vietnamese cafe, where I could be slightly less conspicuous with my suitcase and camera pack.

Kim found and scanned the class photo from our grade 6 class at Eugene Coste Elementary. Mrs. Hanson's class. I love everything about this photo. 1980 was awesome. I'm the dorky kid in the front row, with glasses and denim jacket.

I wasn't allowed to wear jeans for much of elementary school. So, I guess, once my folks lightened up I needed to clad myself from head to toe in the stuff.

I took this during a rest stop on day one of the 2009 Ride to Conquer Cancer, after pulling into a schoolyard in [Longview, Alberta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longview,_Alberta). This is absolutely gorgeous countryside, with rolling foothills building to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The highway is called [The Cowboy Trail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Highway_22), because this is serious ranch country. Clint Eastwood shot [Unforgiven](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unforgiven) in the area. **Serious** ranch country.

I was crazy enough to lug the DSLR with me on the bike, with a heavy 17-35mm L lens, and was [really glad that I'd done so](http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnorman/sets/72157620560454637/). I know several people who are doing the 2011 ride (I opted out this year) and know they'll have a blast. It's a hard, painful experience, but totally worth every second.