A Moment In Time

It’s been a while since my last post. The summer flew by fairly quickly. My wife, kids, and I had a great trip to Banff and the Banff New Media Institute (http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/). For those that have not been there, Banff is a small town situated in the middle of a national park in the midst of the Canadian Rockies. Surrounded by nature, the Banff Center is a cultural hub that includes musical performance, theater, writers and artists in residence, and scientists (Banff International Research Station). Surrounded by nature and with so much creative people to connect with, one cannot help but become inspired. The Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) provides excellent facilities for new media including a CAVE, TV studio, computer labs, etc. They also have a wireless research laboratory as well. What a fun place! Relaxing, yet so full of activity! The Banff Center provides a conflux of diverse activity, an ideal environment for synchronicity to happen. During our stay there, I was able to meet many interesting people including renown pianist Anton Kuerti, author Jeff Warren (http://www.headtrip.ca), Richard Miller (http://www.nondual.com), and Bill Mckibben (http://www.350.org).

The kids loved the animals that we were able to see (elk, coyote, and even saw a bear), the dinosaur remains (Drumheller made a great day trip), and the glaciers (Columbian Ice Flow). Lake Louise was quite spectacular, though it was raining on the day we were there and wasn’t able to take the kids canoeing (though we later went on a raft ride down the Bow river). On our drive up to the Columbian Ice Flow, I took a wrong turn and we ended up driving through Yoho National Park, home of the Burgess Shale. For those of you unfamiliar with the Burgess Shale, they are fossils of creatures (Trilobites) that date back 500 MILLION years ago. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around the idea of 500 million years. Lets see… college was 20 years ago… The Declaration of Independence was 200 years ago… Jesus was 2000 years ago… early man was 20,000 years ago… Dinosaurs were maybe 65-230 million years ago (big jump there)… to the trilobites of 500 million years ago. Kind of boggles the mind to look across that vast span of time and the accelerated technology driven by the mind that has led us to where we are today.

And what better way to spend today than with family? School starts again next week. It has been a great summer spending time with our children. Our trip reminded me a lot of the camping trips that my parents took me on to Yosemite and Disneyworld when I was trowing up. After we returned home from Banff, the two older ones went to Japan as part of a trip with their Japanese School, leaving me with our youngest, Orson. We had a great time spending one day at Disneyland and another at Ocean Park. We also watched a lot of the Olympics together as well. These trips have been an absolute treasure, bonding with our kids. In the vastness of time, each day can be such a joy to savor with the ones you love.