Well she made me proud despite chasing a lamb beside Loch Turret earlier and with the odd frustratated whimper Oreo fought her way through and over heather 3 times the height of her. Dad also had to fight his way through bushy heather, having lankier legs and being half Dad’s age I had an easier time of it.

After the heather battle it was the summit slog; I say slog but the views were brilliant, with the weather on our side. I think I was just a bit hungry and wanted to get to the top and munch on my “surprise” of roast lamb.

I agree with Dad that it is a fairly easy munro in the terms of steepness of climb (the steepest bit being at the heather battle) but its quite a walk in and the route we ended taking back made me use muscles I’ve not used for a while. Overall the climb up is fairly easy.

Anyway as we grew closer to the top and inevitable cairn it got colder and windier. I stopped to put my jacket on and put Oreo’s wee jacket on too, as I did this I broke out the Soreen and tore of pieces for Oreo while Dad and I munched chunks of our own. Oreo loves Soreen, well don’t we all and it helped us boost up to the top. We found what little shelter there was in the shadow of the cairn, which looks as if it used to be more of a rock igloo at some point in its existence. In the chilling, strong wind we ate the lamb, sandwiches, tomatoes and a nicely spicy raw chillie! Wee Oreo ate as much as wee did almost but was suffering from the cold more than us. I tucked her in my jacket to give her a bit of warmth as we ate but as she was damp underneath the wind must have been uncomfortable for her. After taking some rushed pictures and getting a second wind after our munch we decided to descend (see the ice on the post, snow and cairn shots below).

As I alluded to earlier in this post we took a different route down and in the process skirted another peak, I found it quite difficult to walk along the hill as walking at an angle uses different muscles as your legs and ankles twist and slip. Also by this point the weather had turned as it so often does and we were enjoying an icy cold drizzle. It turned out that we should have just braved the other peak (it may have been an easier walk anyway) because as we emerged over a crest to finally get a view of our destination we found ourself at the brink of a rather dangerous sheer drop. It could have been a different story with heavy fog but thankfully there wasn’t and we walked the edge before finding a point to go down.

With all the twisting and flexing my boots were beginning to really hurt my feet and I was wishing I’d worn thicker socks. Any time we stopped for a drink, a breath or a photo Oreo would voice her displeasure. She was obviously cold and wanted the comfort of a warm lap to sleep on, I fed her some more Soreen to keep her strength up.

We got back to a proper path and had a gentle/blissful stroll back to the car passing some “geo-cachers” looking for hidden treasures.

Although not a bird watcher its always cool to see birds of prey; a red kite (quite close too), a peregrine and the ubiquitous buzzard. Overall I think Dad is right it isn’t the hardest Munro I’ve ever done but I don’t think its the easiest either! At least now I can call the dog MunrOreo.

I took a few half descent pics on the way but still have to read up on how to “really” use the Canon EOS, see below:

where? well that’s the first question, now if you didn’t know where it was you now do. There are a  few “stans” out there beyond India and Pakistan. And beyond the pale is Uzbekistan’s policy of involuntary sterilisation of young women. It is hardly believable that women can be treated this way as “a policy”, then for a government statement to say their policy is advanced and a model for others to follow is infuriating. Avaaz where are you on this?

Do click on the link, it is harrowing, but you need to know.

Meant to add these some time ago, these are before the recent solar flares that meant the Nth lights were seen as far south as Lincolnshire, the same photographer Peter Sevill was out on those days but clouds were a severe set back. These are his pictures from early February. Note the plough configuration in each shot and the perhaps presence of batman. I have never seen/experienced the northern lights yet. Bummer, need to stay awake longer!!

However I have been contemplating the oil’s industries situation where they seek to micro manage their projects by strict adherence to what they want sub-contractors to adhere to born from risk analysis of the cost of failure. Having a QC background in construction, I appreciate and fully endorse QC. But does micro managed QA fulfil a proper function with all systems? I feel that Oil & Gas micro management is born from being able to afford it, along with the tools (computers) and document controllers, to expedite it and the very necessary need to build a safe plant from multitudinous sources of equipment.

So far so even handed, but to use a QA system where everything has to be approved by the main contractor and the ultimate client, is for simple civil works, just nuts. An inability to run two systems depending on complexity and criticality of failure. The oil and gas industry have one system of max control. and i am beginning to see the use of computers as key to the functioning of such systems. Imagine using a manual document control system?! using pen and paper and draughtsmen doing drawings. You would think twice about having weekly meetings where monthly ones would suffice, or daily conversations would suffice, the ease with which computers can draw, copy amend, type, track, amend and save as a pdf  have made us slaves to the computer.

I do regularly hear senior managers complain about numbers of emails and the time to deal with them. It is so easy to cc everybody or a trail of people into an email, email systems need to have a system of must read now, must read, read when time allows, read only if  the date is etc.  That is one measure that could help control having useful time at a computer instead of clicking to delete unwanted or unessential emails.

We must use computers to help us manage better, that means managing time at computers to give us more time to manage the business of construction, health care etc

two pics from latest trip and two for guessing what they are

This incense is under threat according to news i heard, the Boswellia Sacra tree produces incense when tapped like a rubber tree. It grows in north East Africa, Yemen and Oman. Cited causes of decline are climate change, over tapping and over grazing.

From Yellow taxi, ” well you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone”, and Elton ” its sad. so sad, its a sad sad situation”  its all in the songs but we don’t learn from them or any other medium.

Been trying to get the Science magazine that has an article on the plight of sea birds, heh seems we are over fishing the oceans, who will eat the last sea caught white fish, in a supper?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change

we have had 17 conferences of the parties (COPs) on climate change, many more than i had thought, so where are we on controlling harmful emissions? I would say deadlocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist

A flickering light of hope from a Danish Candle? well I’m sceptical about that now, where to turn?

no leadership, single malt and a single fish sir?

Seems to me that politics and economics are failing each other and the people it is meant to help prosper, hence the  99% demonstrations. The system has failed and is failing, I do not believe the Euro zone will cohere to a unified whole all acting for the “zone”, in the UK the pension costs are a tad below 6% of GDP, in Greece they are 12% and in Italy they are 14%, can you see the rest of the Euro zone paying for that? or can you see the people of Greece and Italy taking a hit on their promised pensions? This is just one example of many of the fiscal fractures over which plasters are being stuck down with rhetoric.

Why is it so difficult to predict what will happen? it’s Global, interlinked, a woven web, relies on confidence, will not rely on altruism, money is a commodity, it must make more money for those who have it and control it. The market place will suit the market place, that’s why we have institutions and companies that are too big to fail, a global political failure now well observed. The purpose of this post? frustration at politics and economics and failure of it to work for the people or be understood to the extent that measures can be taken to make it work.

Those cynical and or wise could postulate that “who said it should work for the people?” at some point if it does not, it will fail anyway, especially with the new democracy of social internet sites, just look at Moscow and the peoples reaction to the recent election.

What is chinas economic model? for it has lifted 627 million people out of poverty, unprecedented in human history, India another billion person economy has the largest difference between rich and poor, a system that democracy (with corruption) seems to develop. Russia I have never understood but appears to be like India, super rich, and queuing poor, again with corruption.

In this global inter-weaved market place, if Brazil, India and China don’t buy our goods or services, we will be in decline, which I believe will happen anyway due to the UK’s governments cuts and not trying to grow the economy. What can I say, another failure!

This is a belated birthday gift as I just couldnt finish the damn thing in time (probably because I didnt start it early enough). Its still a work in progress however so updates will be fairly regular!

Ive also upgraded to the latest version and done all your plugins too.

When you see a crowd of photographers around a celeb or person notorious, you see/hear many £k’s worth of cameras on multishot or continuous shot. I just wondered about the number of photos now taken daily in the  digital age? Most phones have cameras, ipods, tablets all take photos. Lets have an estimate just to get a number, lets say a quarter of the population have a means to take a photo, 7 billion/ 4 = 1.75 billion and they take a photo at least once per week, that’s 91 billion annually, and for a range say once per day that’s 638.75 billion annually!! That is a staggering amount of photos, to take, to review, to select. Those of us who do exactly that, take, review and select,  will be cursing the luck of  the photographer of the dragonfly above, taken on Arran in October 2011, with as CH says “a diddy camera”. Well I have stuck various cameras at dragonflys and to me this is a beauty, it just shows you what you can achieve if the light and camera settings are right. My Wife was ushered in to admire this pic and was so taken by the wing pattern that it will no doubt cost me plenty in art materials to “do something” with the design. She is presently knitting, hasn’t done that for years!!

Now worried.