one happy Icelandic Sheepdog
Viggo’s Adventures In “Roverdale”
Viggo and the Swans on Christmas Morn
Dashing Through The Snow: Viggo Has A Winter Blast!
Goin’ To the Dogs: Dogspotting In Riverdale
A Little Bit of Family History – Skonsa Vists Her Bro Viggo!
An Introduction To The Post-Apocalyptic Charms of Toronto’s Lower Don Valley
Ice Storm Patrol: Viggo On Watch in Toronto’s Riverdale
A Winter Morning’s Ramble Up The Don Valley And The Moore Park Ravine
The Last Of Autumn’s Colours – A Walk Up Toronto’s Don Valley To Mud Creek
Ramblin' Boy 
Thank you for posting so many nice stories of you and Viggo! We also have an icelandic sheepdog and it is always to read stories of people who are not breeders haha. Especially the biking part! We live in Amsterdam and are slowly introducing our dog to biking with us 🙂
Aafke, I’m glad you enjoyed reading about our little adventures! I tried jogging with Viggo but it was clear that what I thought was a good pace was just not enough for him! I can jog maybe ten km per hour while I have measured with my bike speedometer Viggo running at thirty kph! Big difference!
I always tell people that bicycling with your dog is like learning to dance with an new partner! We started off with short distances in a quiet area of the park when he was a bit more than a year old. Now he is three and a half and we have bicycled/run as much as thirteen kilometres. He always runs on the same side of the bike – the right-hand side – and I try as much as possible to find places where there is grass on the side of the pavement. We even have our favourite places to stop for water breaks. We do our runs maybe three times a week. I am sure that some people we pass by must be thinking that I am abusing my dog!
Hello, I am very impressed with your photography, and am wondering what camera you would recommend for my wife’s and my upcoming (October1 to December 17) trip to Nepal? We are doing the 3 passes trek over 31 days and then some volunteer work and home stays, in order to get a good understanding of the culture and people of Nepal. We are looking for a camera that is not too heavy, as we often backpack our way around mountains and passes. Recommendations? Thanks:) Dan in Enderby, BC, Canada
Dan, thanks for the compliment! I really enjoy the act of framing and capturing moments in time and space and sometimes surprise myself with a decent photo.
I’m not sure what pix you were looking at – if they were the Everest/Annapruna ones, they were taken with my first digital camera. It was a six megapixel Sony H2 with a little-finger size sensor which would be totally outclassed by any camera on the market today. In 2006 it actually garnered some praise from the experts! It recorded some fantastic images. One nice thing about it was that it was fairly compact and the lens was built in to the body of the camera. No need to change lenses in the field – and no chance for dust to get in and mess up the sensor as with dslrs.
There are some great travel all-in-ones out there now. Depending on how much money you want to spend, and how long you want your lenses to go – 250mm or 450mm or 700mm!, how big of a sensor you want inside – you can spend from $400 to over $1000. I bought my wife the Sony RX100-Mark II which she loves for its pocketable size and excellent quality pictures. It does have a zoom range which is limited to 28 to 120 (I think). My brother has a Canon SX280 complete with GPS that is also an excellent p&s travel camera – small, great zoom (24 to 450 or so!).
Since this is the time of the year when camera companies are introducing all their 2105 products, you should be able to get a pretty good deal on last year’s model.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is dslrs. I am not sure how obsessed you are about your photos. Given that you will be doing your trek with only a day bag containing some water and a extra jacket and a few other things, taking a dslr on trek is not that big a deal. If you don’t have a dslr already, last year’s Nikon 5300 looks to be a great deal at Best Buy or elsewhere. You would need a couple of lenses – the kit lenses and maybe one telephoto plus a spare battery or two.
This September I will be doing a three-week trek in the Cordillera Real above La Paz in Bolivia and I will definitely be taking my Sony A77 plus a four lenses. Total weight = 7 lbs. but I know the camera well and love shooting with it. I can definitely carry the camera gear for the day while the donkeys do the rest of the hauling! I am also taking a Sony A6000 – a compact camera with a dslr-size sensor. I always take my Canon Elph 330 along. It weighs maybe 5 oz and is always in my chest pocket.
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/canon-canon-powershot-16-0mp-12x-optical-zoom-digital-camera-elph-340-hs-black-9344b001/10282808.aspx
While you can’t go wrong with most cameras out there these days, the one you pick will depend on your particular list of requirements – size, price, sensor size, zoom range, interchangeable lenses, etc.
Something I really am loving is the tilting screen which allows me to take shots without pointing my camera – especially at people. It made a real difference in Myanmar as I walked through markets and around temples and down the street. Both my Sony A77 and the Sony A6000 have the feature – as do many other cameras these days.
Check out this website for pretty reliable reviews of the many fine cameras out there –
http://www.cameralabs.com/buyers_guide/best_digital_cameras.shtml
Another great website for gear-obsessed camera geeks is this one – http://www.dpreview.com
When you get your camera, make sure you get familiar with it before you land in Kathmandu! I still remember guys who had borrowed cameras before the trek taking dusk pictures of Mt Everest with the flash on. When I asked one of them if he figured it would help brighten up the shot he admitted he didn’t know how to turn off the flash.
BTW enjoy your walk. It
may beis the finest extended trek of them all!Leaving March 17 to do the Torres del Paine circuit with GAdventures. Thank you for the blog … I can’t wait!