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Sunday, April 18th, 2010

Playing with the Devil by skarpi on Flickr

This week’s edition of my what I’ve been reading on the internet is slightly different to last week’s. At times I may have to replace the word “reading” with “viewing” as a lot of it is quite visual. This week’s “This Week In Reading” is a “Volcano Special”.

You will not have escaped the news. A volcano blows its top in Iceland (not a rare occurrence) and as a result all aircraft in the whole of the UK, in fact most of Europe, are grounded (that is a rare occurrence).

Dr. Erik Klemetti is a geologist so he knows a thing or two about volcanoes. His blog titled Eruptions seems to be one of the best sources of information there is on Eyjafjallajökull.

The BBC are good at keeping us in the loop with their live volcano updates online.

The Yahoo Editors picked the best of the volcano images online. There are some truly spectacular photos in that set. But the best image of the week had to come from *ice on Flickr, a very rare photo opportunity captured on camera.

While you could smell the ash in Aberdeen during the week (smelt like blocked drains), you couldn’t see it. It’s too far up and too dispersed. From space however you can, and Nasa have a photo set on Flickr showing you trails of dust.

Sometimes I read stories and see pictures online that bring out a side of me that wishes I was back home in Shetland. Fellow Zetlander Tom Morton managed to achieve this on Friday after he posted a couple of images on his blog of the ash that had fallen from the sky overnight.

With all this fire, explosions, airplanes being grounded and dust clouds, it doesn’t come as a surprise to find that the Top Gear team had an involvement in all this. I predict that when the next series of Top Gear starts, it will turn out all these grounded planes was the biggest stunt the show has ever done (after the Richard Hammond crash stunt that is).

Best find of the week is the RaderVirtuel.com site. It’s a tracking site for planes. Except looking at it when everything is grounded you may as well just look a normal map because there’s not a lot going on.

The most unlikely headline of the week award goes to: “Showaddywaddy gig in Shetland cancelled because of volcano“. That’s the sort of headline you’d see on Mock The Week. Gutting for all concerned I’m sure.

And one final link. While the end to the airspace restriction doesn’t seem to be in sight, it may be worthwhile keeping an eye on every one’s favourite volcano.  My dad e-mailed me this link, a webcam at the base of Eyjafjallajökull. At the time of writing she was still grumbling away. Volcanoes are she’s right?


Monday, June 1st, 2009

Since I announced the other week that we were thinking about heading over to Canada in twelve  months time for a whole year, you’d be amazed how many people I have spoken to who have either been to Canada, know someone in Canada or would love to go to Canada. Mostly all think that it is a great idea.

Emma is the one who’s been doing the planning. She’s been sitting down night after night working out the best ways of getting visas, how to get there, how long to spend in each place, accomodation, employment, things to do, people to  see. She has had exams to study for which is why I think she’s been putting so much effort in to Canada, or anything that would take her mind of university.

Having done all her vast amounts of research so far, she is one hundred percent convinced that Canada is a good idea.

I too am one hundred percent convinced that Canada is a good idea, and I’ve only done one piece of research. I found this photo of Vancouver smothered in fog and it convinced me.

Can I move abroad for a year on the basis of one photo? Seeing as I am easily convinced on most things, I’m prepared to give it a go.