Imablog

October 16, 2026October 16, 2026

RIP Jared

I was saddened to hear yesterday about the death of Jared Smith.

Most people today know him as the guy behind CHSWX where he did a lot of local weather reporting, and quickly became the source for information during severe weather events for lots of people across the Lowcountry.

I know him as an tech and weather geek who spoke about everything with excitement and enthusiasm.

I first met him a long, long time ago (if you call 20 years a long time) in a place not far away, when a group of local bloggers started getting together in person. Jared wasn’t part of the group of bloggers, but he was one of those “Twitter” people who joined us at our quasi-regular meetups.

Jared with Dan Conover (L) and Mike Courtney (R) at a Lowcountry Bloggers picnic, September 2006

Tech, baseball, and weather (not necessarily in that order) were the things he was always enthusiastically talking about.

Lowcountry Bloggers meetup at a Riverdogs game, April 2008

Jared’s death is a huge loss for all of us who knew him, and I know we’ll all miss him.

August 9, 2026August 9, 2026

At the Alberta Aviation Museum

The Alberta Aviation Museum is located at what used to be the Edmonton City Center airport (I know it as the Edmonton Municipal Airport). I still remember it as an airport, so seeing that a bunch of houses had popped up near what was one of the runways was an interesting sight.

I happened to see it on the map, and decided to go check it out on my trip to Edmonton at the end of July. Two airplanes and a missile outside makes the museum pretty easy to find. The museum is in a giant hangar, and there’s lots to see.

One of the neat things about all the planes on exhibit is that they all have some element of Canadian history, and in many cases Alberta and Edmonton history as well. While some of the planes are models or reconstructions, most are actual aircraft. One particularly nice example is a Cranwell CLA.4 built by Alf Want in his basement. He ended up having to cut a hole in his basement wall to get the plane out (something that might sound familiar to NCIS fans).

There are also several planes on display outside the hangar, including a business jet that was parked at the airport, and then apparently abandoned.

Hawker Siddeley HS.125 business jet abandoned at the airport

Good place to spend a day learning a little bit about Alberta and Canadian aviation history.

August 8, 2026August 8, 2026

A visit to Fort Edmonton Park

During my trip back to Edmonton last week, I was looking around in Google Maps to see what I wanted to do and came across Fort Edmonton Park. It’s a place I hadn’t visited since elementary school, probably around 3rd or 4th grade which puts it at close to 50 years ago.

Needless to say, the park has changed a lot. It’s definitely a lot bigger than I remember.

You can walk around, ride the steam locomotive, hop on the electric trolley car, or do all three to get around the park. There’s lots to see and do as you wander the park going back through Edmonton’s history.

Inside the park past the train station, there’s the Midway and Exposition area with games, a ferris wheel, and other rides for the kids to enjoy.

Keep wandering through the park, checking out the various historic buildings. Most are original and transplanted to the park, some are replicas.

Interact with the park staff dressed in period outfits.

Eventually you’ll reach Fort Edmonton, the fur trading outpost that eventually became Edmonton.

Inside the fort, you can get a glimpse of what it was like to live in the fort. People seem to have been a lot shorter back then, and there are a few places where tall people might have to duck down a bit.

It was fun revisiting a place I hadn’t been in a very long time. There are a few other places that I’ll have to revisit on my next trip.

August 3, 2026August 3, 2026

Fig harvest

In addition to a bounty of blueberries this year, the two fig trees have been pretty productive.

A few of them got munched on by some critters (birds or insects maybe), but I still managed to get a bunch (maybe a bit more than 0.5kg or so of figs). These were really good and super sweet, like eating candy.