Arctic Mark in Stanley Park

This sign adorns a lamp-post as you enter the City of Vancouver coming from the airport in Richmond.  The first time I saw it, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief: finally - a safe haven!!  After years of trying to negotiate the endless proliferation of missile silos which are now clogging the streets and suburbs of Toronto, and after mistakenly thinking that Ulukhaktok, a small remote fly-in community in the NWT, would be free of nuclear weapons (only to discover that a local resident who is a Vietnam vet has a nuclear missile from his old US Navy jet openly displayed right in his house!), I have finally arrived in a place where I can at last get a peaceful night's sleep, free from the worry of instant overnight annihilation due to the accidental detonation of a stray missile from our ever-growing nuclear arsenal. Oh those crazy west-coast peaceniks (of which I am apparently now one)!

Well, I might be able to sleep, if I could only erase the image in my head from this past Monday's Vancouver edition of the The Globe and Mail, which featured a photo (taken from behind, thank the photographer's discretion!) of several dozen joggers (mostly men) taking part in the Annual "Naked Buns Run" on Wreck Beach, the "clothing optional" beach near the UBC campus. There was also recently a "Naked Buns Bike Ride" (can you say "chafing"?) Okay, people, there's a reason (apart from sweat absorption and UV protection) why clothing was invented....Oh those crazy west-coast nudeniks (of which I most definitely am not one)!

 I saw this sign on the same corner as the previous sign, and felt compelled for some strange reason to snap this photo of it.  Oh those crazy west-coast door enthusiasts (of which I guess I might be one, being quite fond of doors - second only to walls - as handy room-separation devices)!