Author: Tony Dalmyn

Islands Folk Festival, 2016

I camped at the 2016 Islands Folk Festival in Duncan BC. It was my first visit to this festival.

The festival is held at Providence Farm, a former convent of the Sisters of St. Ann, once a boarding school, now an organic farm. It accomodates a crowd of a about 2,000 (vaguely stated as a few thousand) comfortably. Site Map. There is trailer camping in the “Upper Field”, and tent camping on a treed hill – no parking spots or access roads.  There are a few wheelbarrows available for tent campers to move gear from the vehicle-accessible areas into the camp.  The tent area has shade and some shelter from the wind.

The main stage concert on Friday July 22 was opened by Matthew and Jill Barber, who performed songs from their new album.  They have a few original songs, but the album’s theme is songs that they have known and admired.  They did a cover of Ian Tyson’s Summer Wages, introduced with a story about summer jobs planting trees.  They shifted the emphasis to the reflective passages:

“… The dreams of the seasons are all spilled down on the floor”

“So I’ll work on them towboats in my slippery city shoes
Which I swore I would never do again
Through the grey fogbound straits where the cedars stand waiting
I’ll be far off and gone like summer wages”

Their cover (video on YouTube), like the cover by Tom Russell and Nanci Griffith on the Nanci Griffith 1998 album Other Voices Too (audio on YouTube), tours scenes of a working person’s life on the West Coast.

They covered The Song of the French Partisan, citing Leonard Cohen as their main influence, joining Cohen, Buffy St. Marie and other artists.  Joan Baez, then already an apostle of non-violent resistance, covered this song of armed resistance in her 1972 album Come From the Shadows. They also cover Neil Young’s Comes a Time, referring to the time their parents lived in Winnipeg.

Oysterband played a double slot – nearly two hours.  They performed, as they do in other concert performances, songs from a repertoire, written and polished in a 40 year career.  I don’t miss a chance to see them when they come to BC. They have changes their performing company.  John Jones, Alan Prosser and Ian Telfer are still performing.  Veterans Lee Partis and Ray Cooper (Chopper) left in 2007 and 2012 respectively.

I was impressed by the arrangements and ensemble work of Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project, at their concert in the daytime Spirit Stage venue. The busy and versatile Moira Smiley was with Jayme Stone and the project for this festival.

2015 Rides

My rides in 2015 were on my Giant Yukon until I bought a Trek FX 4 hybrid in July. After I had shifted some gear and installed a Bontrager cycling computer it became my main bike.

My logged cycling distance was 885.5 Km.

I had a few walks on the trails around Elk and Beaver lakes.

I travelled to Vancouver for the festival in July and to Salmon Arm for the roots and blues festival in August.

4 Years of IT, WordPress

I made some IT changes in the past few years.  I bought a used HP desktop in 2011 – a 64 bit machine-  and put Windows 8 Developer edition (free at the time) on it.  I have stayed with Windows 8 – using the desktop interface. I have an iPad – a gift when I was sick.  But I tried to I stay out of the Apple universe except for iTunes and an iPod to play podcasts and music.

I tried out different browsers and by last year had gone back to Firefox – I was on the Nightly releases for 64 bit machines – which seemed to work fine.  I never liked MS Internet Explorer.  I started to use Chrome when I moved to an Android phone last summer. I chose to submit to Google rather than Apple or MS. Privacy is hard.

At work, we have had an IT “refresh” last week (finally) and moved to Windows 7 Enterprise for workstation OS and MS Office 2010 for tools. Goodbye to Vista.  MS had a good idea – an OS with security, but a slow and difficult program. MS is still selling desktop Office to enterprise buyers, but it is pushing the cloud-based licensing model for the “365” product for consumer buyers. Eventually we will all be tenant-serfs in someone’s better IT world.

I had kept up with Movable Type updates, but MT stopped providing updates to old purchasers (and a shrinking user and support community) so I made the switch to WordPress.

The Movable Type editor has 2 screens to compose entries as a body and an extended entry.  The MT export and the WP import put the 2 part entries into single entries.  “Pages” and tags did not convert. Links to photos and other “assets” in entries may point to addresses in my old MT static directory, but they work. Good enough.

2012 Log

I continued my routine of walks and hikes in the park around Elk and Beaver lakes in 2012. I did not consistently enter distances in a log, and missed recording some walks

I paddled (or steered) dragon boat at VCKC, April to August.

I rode from April to June, and one short ride in December. My logged rides were 352.2 Km.

My logged walks were 238.4 Km

2011 Log

I noted I paddled in a Voyageur canoe at VCKC on the Gorge on New Years Day. I noted a couple of hikes in January.

I had a stroke in January. I was discharged from hospital in February.

I noted my first ride March 20. On the first ride, I had a moment of instability at the Saanich Road crossing on the Lochside related to disengaging the clips to stop for traffic. It was momentary and did not deter me from riding. In early May I perceived some dizziness while walking – carrying something heavy.I became concerned that I was not managing my balance and that low blood pressure due to medications was affecting my balance. I did not ride after June. My logged cycling distance in 2011 was 328.3 Km.

I started to go for 10 km. walks on trails along Beaver and Elk lakes in June. Saturday morning walks became regular. I used the GPS. My recorded walk/hikes included the early January hikes and couple more hikes on Galloping Goose in Metchosin with people from VCKC. My logged walks in 2011 were 324.2 Km.

Hypertension

I had a stroke in January. I was unconscious for a few days, hospitalized for a couple of weeks and off work for a few months.

I was hypertensive.

I thought I had been cooking healthy i.e. not using more salt than a recipe required etc.

My blood pressure dropped with medication during my recovery. My blood pressure got into a good range when I eliminated salt by switching to no sodium added broths and vegetables in cooking,baking bread in a bread machine on a lower salt formula for the recipes I was using and avoiding fast food, processed meats, cheese and processed (factory cooked) products.

2010 Log

My logged riding distance in 2010 was 704.3. I rode the Gian Yukon, with one ride logged on the road bike.

I was paddling dragon boat and OC6 at VCKC. I started to log some hikes with some people from VCKC. I was getting distance and route on a Garmin handheld GPS. I had a few rides with people from VCKC.

2009 Rides

My logged distance in 2009 was 1085.9 Km. I had the crank arms on Giant Yukon changed. I had rides in Winnipeg at the end of June and in October (at Thanksgiving) on borrowed bikes.

I was paddling dragon boats and outrigger canoes – OC6 – at VCKC.

I went to folk festivals in Courtenay in July and in Edmonton in August – not by bike!