B. Mann Consulting

As of Dec. 23rd (this coming Tuesday), I'm heading up to "the cabin" with my parents. First, I love that I'm back in BC where it's called a "cabin" instead of a "cottage". Second, this is a resumption of long-standing family tradition, to escape the coast over the holidays and be away from ringing phones and electricity.

For some background, you might be interested in Deka Lake - The Beginning. Lots of pictures of a very young Boris.

More recent pics are to be found in Deka Lake 2003. The cabin is now substantially different than it once was, and I haven't seen this final edition in quite some time. In fact, I think the last time I was up was one Christmas when Kate and her dad joined us.

And yes, it is slightly ironic that I'm heading back into a snowy landscape. I should be able to handle it for 6 days or so.

Actually, thinking about the 7 hour drive and counting up the number of books I have packed (Bowen Island Library to the rescue), I debated buying some sort of portable audio doohickey. I saw a really nice CD-MP3 player at London Drugs. It's the Panasonic SL-CT700, which at London Drugs is $40 below the MSRP.

The main things I was looking for included a corded remote (this one has an LCD screen with the MP3 info) and...well, that was about it. You can get really cheap CD-MP3 players for a lot less, but one without an LCD screen and without a remote is a lot less useful. The SL-CT700 also comes with rechargeable batteries and an AC adapter. Yes, they are proprietary batteries, but this means "up to 80 hours of playback" (that's a lot!). Predictably, getting another pair of batteries would set you back around $40.

In any case, I passed. That's almost $200 that can be put towards some sort of MP3 player. Like the fancy Bluetooth MP3 Player Handsfree headset, which I've got noted in my T616 section. Yes, it is Memory Stick Duo only, and it is $250US, but it definitely has cool factor. Of course, now that I look again, the very affordable ($50US) Stereo FM Radio corded headset (the HPR-20) seems to have disappeared completely. Enough with the techno-money-hemorrhaging.

I'm going to be taking Greyhound back, from 100 Mile House. Here's the schedule for Dev. 29th, which of course you can't link to directly. No, you also can't link directly to a location. Sorry, I lie -- here is 100 Mile House, except all of the links just get you back into searching: clicking "Schedules and Fares" just points you back at the beginning of the search loop, even though you're likely going to be wanting info from the location you're currently looking at...

Anyway, enough web design griping. Here's the schedule. I'm kind of debating between the afternoon departure and the red-eye.

Schedule  Depart   Arrive
1255 3:45 11:05
1251 13:35 21:00
1253 22:206:00

And tomorrow (urg...today) I drive around town and do all sorts of last minute errands. And SantaCON pics have to be uploaded (yes, it was fun).