h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fellow British Columbian here. Welcome to H2G2!! I really enjoy this site and I hope you will too. There's a bunch of us Canadians here (as you have seen by the Canadian Researchers page). So what brought you to the site? I've liked HHGTTG and Douglas Adams for a long time but I didn't learn about this site until earlier this year. I live on the coast in Powell River (I'll forgive you if you don't know where it is, not many people do.
Everyone on this site is super friendly if you run into any questions.
Stop by my page if you want to hve a chat. I'm on the site at least once a day.

Have fun!

thanks, i am reading the salmon of doubt and saw the website in the book. i started reading DNA when I was a kid and haven't stopped since. This is a great site , oh and i do know where Powell river is.

AC

Excellent! So many people don't, they all think it's on Vancouver Island or something.
I found the webiste in SoD too. DNA had some very intelligent and odd ways of looking at the world. It is sad he never got to finish his last story, the first part of it sounded pretty promising. (I won't say any more in case you haven't got that far yet.)
Any plans on writing some entries for the guide? I'm still kinda working on my first one, it'll be about Powell River. I may also add some stuff about libraries once I get into the Library technician course I am taking soon.
Chat with you later, gotta head out to my sister's.

i'm still pretty new at this guide thing so i don't think i will be making any contributions. if i do it will be on the subject of coffee or teas. i saw on your web space that you like tea. whats your favorite and have you ever tried numi teas?

I'm afraid I haven't branched out much in the tea department yet, I haven't heard of Numi teas. I generally drink orange pekoe, Earl Grey or just peppermint. I also like chai. I just discovered that loose teas are much better than bagged this last year.
All of my friends and I drink tea but there aren't many places in town to get quality teas. Ah well, I'm moving to Vancouver soon so I'll be able to find better stuff I'm sure.

I used to live in vancouver for 7 years, let me know when you go and i can recomend tons of great restaurants and coffee shops. the numi teas (if you get a chance ) are a loose leaf tea in a bag. I have been spending the whole day watching the smoke from a couple of forest fires near kamloops. its pretty amazing and scary at the same time.

I read about those. I really feel bad for all the evacuated people. I cant imagine how scary that is.
I'll be going to school at langara and probably living in langley. (Im looking for a closer place) Anyway, chat later, off for the evening.

The stawberry hill fire almost doubled overnight. I found ash on my car this morning and the vally is just thick with smoke. Listening on the radio it seems at least 2 of the big fires were started by cigarettes. there is such a negative sentiment towards smokers, i wouldn't be surprised if someone doesn't get lynched. Almost every news cast has someone complaining how they saw a smoker flick their ashes or butts out of car windows etc. Tensions are pretty high, at least it might rain by tuesday.

We can only hope it's a real drencher. My roommate is a forester and the helicopter that is supposed to be flying her crew to remote locations this week is very probably going to be called to help with the fires.
I'm not a smoker myself but I don't feel all smokers should suffer because the mistakes of a couple of people. I don't think people who cast their still lit butts out the window are thinking very well but it's not a malicious thing. I am pretty sure that most of those people have ashtrays in their cars but, hey, I really can't comment on something I have no personal experience with.

it's probably just habit ( the smoking thing ). I see that you like hiking. Whats the hiking like in powell river. Up here is pretty good, I use to go to Wells Grey park quite often, although it will probably be a while before I get up there again. Your friend is in forestry, has the soft wood lumber dispute hurt her at all. A friend of mine had quite a hard time finding anything. He finally found something near midway.

The hiking here is awesome. We are surrounded by mountains where we're not surrounded by ocean. (The coast range is what essentially makes P.R. an island.) There are hundreds of trails through them. We have a canoe route that many people travel here to hike. We have literally hundreds of beautiful little lakes to hike to and camp at and there are logging roads everywhere if you want to drive to these sites. (4x4 required)
My roommate doesn't seem to have been affected too much in terms of amount of work she does. She evaluates areas that have been logged or will be logged so the actual cutting and selling of the trees doesn't change her job much. She works for a small local company that contracts its services out so she ends up going all up and down the coast.

Do you know about the perseid meteor shower comeing up in august? I have watched every year for the last 15 years.

I catch it every year i can. It's often obscured by clouds here on the "wet" coast. I'm hoping its clear this year.
Have you heard that this month will be earth's closest approach to Mars in hundreds of years? Here is the info I found.

Subject: Mars - awesome natural occurrence

Never again in our lifetimes will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history.

The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the ways Jupiters gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles and will be
(next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification, Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. But by the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has seen in recorded history.

So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share this! No one alive today will ever see this again.

I am moving to Vancouver soon and I know the star watching won't be as good there so I'm getting as much in now as I can.

when you are in vancouver you should drop by the planetarium/ observitory. you should be able to see mars great from there. My wife and I were going to go to wells grey to watch the persieds but with the fire i don't think we will be going. We will just probably watch from our deck with some friends. We might even make a party out of it. The light polution is not as bad in kamloops, I just hope there is not any smoke.