There is much to report from Vancouver, however, I will have to fill you in on those details once I am in Kelowna tomorrow. This morning, the Palm Pilot wouldn't start (I'm hoping it's just the battery) so I'm going to wait until I can recharge it and post the update that I've written. In short, Vancouver is a splendid cosmopolitan city, but I am ready to move on and started on the meat of my project. Today was mostly spent digging through the collection in the Vancouver Public Library - an amazing structure, modeled in tribute to the coliseum. I was pleased to find several rare texts on lake monsters.

As happy as I was for that, I was ecstatic this afternoon to find an email from Loren Coleman, a respected cryptozoologist who's written several books on lake monsters. He's interested in my project, and has volunteered to send a copy of his newest book! As you could imagine, I'm really psyched about this and can't wait to read it.

I wish I had more to tell you from my own experiences, but in the meantime, there's a plethora of lake-monster related news on the radar lately. Earlier, CNN reported a sighting on a lake between China and North Korea. Now, a BBC team has supposedly proven via sonar that no pleiosaurus could exist in Loch Ness.

CNN Debunks Loch Ness Monster?

As you probably know, this doesn't negate my project in the slightest. Some are suggesting that the BBC science team's results are merely indicative of the London envy of tourism revenue in the Scottish Highlands. Indeed, even with the issue supposedly 'debunked', the heightened awareness of the debate will probably aid my project. What I wouldn't give to be in an Inverness pub right now.

To quote a few responses to the BBC article (via Plastic.com's forum on the topic):

from shantih: I rarely find Plastique's bon mot-erators comfortable with a forbidding uncertainty about any subject. I note, for instance, that some in this thread will only address tourism revenues, which can be counted, of course, in the cold light of day. The dark things under dread (or the dread dark underthings) won't be measured at all, nor otherwise tamed by clerkwit. A monster's power is that it makes every ordinary recourse moot, which makes for sustained and inescapable uncertainty.

Here's a fresh and mostly successful take on the monster as a problem of context. For the kids, the special effects are fun, and there's an orgy scene. If you have enough scars, you ought to love the monster.

from gonzocanuck: I liked your comment. I seem to have retained a few shreds of child like wonder into adulthood. I think some people just can't see the beauty of mysteries and nature any more. My neighbour and carpool friend can't figure out why I find the wild rabbits so fascinating. Every time I see one I feel it is a gift from nature and a very special thing.

Were these events coincidence or mystic messengers of some sort? I can't offer any explanations, I'm just left here to believe that there are stronger forces in this world that no one can comprehend or measure. You can try to explain them in scientific terms, but it only takes the wonder and enchantment out of life.

from mayorbob: For all the folks who really believe in ghosts and Nessie, all the scientific hoo-hah in the world isn't going to debunk anything. They are still going to buy into stuff like the Amityville legend or the Jersey Devil or the Bermuda Triangle or crop circles or Chariots of the Gods or whatever they would prefer to believe in. I'm thinking that stuff like those things are comforting retreats from the real life horrors of AIDS, blood diamond trading, kiddie soldiers with automatic weapons, an endless war on terrorism, people who fly 767s into high rise office buildings, young men and women who strap on explosives and blow themselves and innocent bystanders to smithereens over some arcane political philosophy. How threatening really is the notion of a largish, leftover from the Pleistocene paddling about a Scottish lake? How afraid do you really become at the thought of a wild proto-humanoid running around the Cascade Mountains or the Himalayas? How threatened in say, comparison to the possibility that someone may mug you at the ATM or mindlessly plow their SUV into you because they were paying more attention to that cell phone call?

So the people who believe in that stuff will hang on to those beliefs despite all the efforts of all the debunkers to prove otherwise. Me, I'm just glad that one fantastic, mythological concept has finally been proven to be false — the possibility of ever experiencing a budget surplus in my lifetime.

If you would like to read more responses to this, head on over to Plastic.com's posting.

I'll write more from Kelowna!