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March 09 2010 - CANWARN Training Dates - The schedule for the 2010 Ontario Storm Spotter training sessions is now set. Each year environment Canada trains ham radio operators and other weather enthusiasts how to observe & recognize severe weather features and the procedures used to report them to the weather office. If you're in the area and are interested, just show up to any one of them.   Note: Environment Canada does NOT endorse or support storm chasing. They train their spotters to observe from a safe distance.

Windsor - Mon. April 12, 7PM - Caboto Club, 2175 Parent Ave. London - Tues. April 13, 7PM - Four Points Sheraton Hotel, 1150 Wellington Rd. Hamilton - Sat. April 17, 9AM - Nash Auditorium, Wilcox Building, Chedoke Hospital, Sanitorium Rd. Sarnia - Tues. April 20, 7PM - Kinsmen Centre Oakroom Room, 656 Lakeshore Rd. Peterborough - Tues. April 20, 7PM - Canadian Canoe Museum, 910 Monaghan Rd. Kitchener - Wed. April 21, 7PM - Bingemans Conference Centre, 425 Bingemens Centre Drive. Orillia - Sat. April 24, 9AM - Highwayman Inn, 201 Woodside Drive. Toronto - Sat. May 01, 9AM - Environment Canada Headquarters, 4905 Dufferin St. Cornwall - Sat. May 01, 9AM - Cornwall Legion, 415 Second St. W. Ottawa - Sat. May 08, 9AM - Kanata Legion, 70 Hines Rd. Sudbury - Sat. May 15, 9:30AM - Lionel E. Lalonde Centre, 239 Montee Principale, Azilda Sault Ste. Marie - Sun. May 16, 7PM - Waterfront Inn, 208 St. Mary's Drive Timmins - Mon. May 17, 7PM - Days Inn, 14 Mountjoy St. South North Bay - Wed. May 19, 7PM - OPP Communications Centre, 877 Gormanville Rd.

March 08 2010 - FHM Magazine - The latest edition of the India edition of FHM magazine has just come out and it features a 4 page interview with me. In the article, I discuss storm chasing, common sense and nature. I got a kick out of the article because it says that I have "balls of steel", uh, OK.   The magazine is on news stands in India right now and the full article can be read here.

March 05 2010 - New Music Video - I have just recently updated the music video I use whenever I give live presentations for groups of people. The old one hadn't been updated in years so there was a lot of new material to add.   Take a look, I guarantee that you'll say to yourself: "holy crap" at least a couple of times while watching it.   I call it "Exploring the Extreme"   Enjoy it. Now I'm off to the Explorers Club Film Festival. I hope to see you there.

March 02 2010 - Tune in to City TV Toronto tomorrow morning. I'll be a guest on the Breakfast Television morning show some time after 7:30 A.M.   I'll be showing video clips from the new season of Angry Planet which premieres this Sunday at 10:30 on OLN. I'll also be promoting the Explorers Club Film Festival coming up this weekend. I'll be giving the keynote address on Saturday night.

Feb. 26 2010 - Update - It's been a while since I updated this blog. It's mainly been due to the fact that I've upgraded my computer and I haven't been able to do website changes for a while but I'm back!   What's new? Well, plenty, but I'll keep this post short.   I'll be attending the Outdoor Adventure Show this Saturday at the International Centre near Pearson Airport in Toronto. If you see me there, please come over and say hi.   Tonight I'm going to be a guest on my buddy RJ Evans' internet radio show "American Heathen. Check it out at 9:00 PM Eastern HERE

Feb. 14 2010 - Jungle Cat World - Orono, Ontario - I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. My wife and I spent the day visiting with friends, one of whom is the program director at Jungle Cat World, about an hour east of Toronto. What a great experience it was. We got the rare opportunity to interact with numerous species of animals including a lynx, ring tailed lemur, snakes and even a 3 month old baby Siberian Tiger. Talk about cute. She was absolutely adorable but it won't be too much longer before she gets too big to hold in your lap.   Jungle Cat World has a very active breeding program and they have successfully bred numerous species of big cats. Check out the photos from the visit while I got and tend to all the scratches that I have now.   At one point as I was feeding the big male lion, I was crouched down beside him while he was chewing up his chicken dinner I was on the other side of the fence, but only a few inches away and just when I turned my head to look away for a second, he let out a roar that made me almost jump out of my skin!   What an impressive animal. I love these big predators and it is a shame that they keep losing their habitat. Several of the species I saw will likely become extinct in the wild eventually.

Feb. 12 2010 - Get Ready for Season Three - Here we go... The third season of Angry Planet is getting ready to broadcast in Canada. The premiere will be Sunday, March 7th at 10:30 P.M. eastern time zone on OLN. As they say... "Check your local listings".   It has been a grueling year and a half of production leading up to this and I'm very proud of this third season. It'll feature some of my wildest adventures yet, in some of the most odd and inaccessible locations all over the world. New episodes will air every week for 13 weeks, then they will likely be re-run them again so that you can catch any shows you might have missed the first time 'round.   Angry Planet Season 3 Broadcast Schedule

Feb. 11 2010 - Discovery News - Jan. 2010 - Photos from my exploration of the Naica Crystal Cave have been showcased on Discovery Channel's news page. See the photos & article here.

Feb. 10 2010 - Africa Geographic - One of my photos from the Nyiragongo lava lake in eastern Congo appears this month in the Africa Geographic digimag.   To see the entire online magazine go to : africageographicdigital.com   Other photos from my expedition to this incredible volcano can be found here Nyirogongo was one of my favorite volcanoes to visit, but it is not so easy to get there and the weather conditions at the 11,000 foot summit can be harsh. We were pinned down in our tents by storms for 3 nights.

Feb. 05 2010 - Toronto - I'm back in Toronto after my latest Asian explorations. On a whim, I decided to started my stopwatch as I was leaving the guest house in India and I turned if off when I finally reached my front door at home. The total travel time was 43 hours!   Coming up - I will be speaking at the gala dinner of the Explorers Club Film Festival coming up on March 5th and 6th in Toronto.   The festival will showcase numerous programs and documentaries of exploration from around the world. It is sure to be an interesting time with plenty of tales of adventure.   Everyone is invited to come. Please see the poster for more details.   ..And yes, that's me on the poster, climbing up a huge frozen waterfall in Alberta.

Jan. 31 2010 - Kshitij 2010 - Kharagpur, India - After a great series of adventures in the United Arab Emirates, I've relocated to Kharagpur, India where I am a guest speaker at Kshitij 2010 which is Asia's largest technology management festival. It is held each year at the India Institute of Technology, one of the most prestigious schools in India. One of the most incredible things about this festival is that it is completely organized by the students.   I gave my presentation on the Saturday and the response was so great that I was asked to give another one on Sunday. Each time, the theater was packed with about 1000 people. Everyone at IIT was so welcoming and warm, I felt right at home.   Kshitij also featured lectures from film makers, physicists, entrepreneurs and many others plus it showcased robotics & computer programming competitions, 3D holographic motion capture demonstrations and other eye popping technologies.   One very cool part was learning the ancient art of breathing fire. On my last night there, a few of us were practicing it in one of the courtyards... It was fun and spectacular (not to mention dangerous)

Jan. 26 2010 - Shark Diving in the Dubai Aquarium - What a surreal experience. After several days of diving along the east coast of the United Arab Emirates and Oman with poor visibility, the "Angry Planet" crew moved on to a spot where we were guaranteed to have clear water, plenty of fish life and an abundance of sharks...   The Dubai Mall!   SCUBA diving inside this massive aquarium was so much fun. Everywhere you looked, there were grey reef sharks, sand tiger sharks, rays, giant grouper, moray eels, you name it! The craziest part was being at the bottom of the aquarium and watching sharks swim past only a few feet away and seeing people in the background shopping in the mall's stores and shops. Very weird, but wonderful.   The aquarium is about 40 meters long, 20 meters wide and 12 meters deep.   This mall is just one example of the countless extreme engineering projects that have been built in this incredible city.

Jan. 23 2010 - In the Empty Quarter Desert (United Arab Emirates) - The vastness and inhospitability of this place is overwhelming. The sand dunes stretch on forever and our pace getting through them is slow. Every few seconds we have to re-evaluate our route and adjust according to the terrain. There is no such thing as driving from point A to Point B in a straight line.   Despite the harsh, hot days, windy, cold nights, blowing sand and endless wasteland, I find myself really loving this place. It is an intimidating, daunting, hellish landscape almost completely devoid of life but yet it is beautiful and enchanting at the same time.   Last night we camped out close to the Saudi Arabian border and I realized that most of this desert lies beyond its borders. This place is so vast that it is hard to wrap your head around it.   It's like being on another planet. A planet made of shifting sands where very few life forms can survive and any underestimation of nature's power could spell disaster.   More photos from this incredible place can be found here.

Jan. 11 2010 - Departing for the Empty Quarter - I'm in the final processes of getting ready for my next expedition. This time I'm off to the Middle East to explore the Empty Quarter which is a huge, almost completely uninhabited desert wasteland that stretches across 4 countries - Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. The Empty Quarter (also known as the Rub' al Khali) is one of the most harsh places on Earth filled with huge sand dunes and not much else. This desert is larger than the Netherlands, Belgium and France combined!!   My journey will begin in Abu Dhabi and then I'll be taking a four wheel drive vehicle out into the vast emptiness. This should get interesting...   This trip was originally supposed to have happened last month but for various reasons, it was postponed until now. In addition to the Empty Quarter, I'll be spending a few days in Dubai and then I'll be diverting to India briefly.

Jan. 05 2010 - House Fire - At about 1:00 A.M. last night I was out photographing a 4 alarm house fire in the Beaches area of Toronto.   Firefighters were called to Wheeler Ave. just before midnight where they found a home under renovation engulfed in flames. 20 fire trucks and 85 firefighters were called to battle the blaze in the house which was gutted for a major renovation. Flames spread to two adjacent homes, with total damage estimated at $1.5 million. A couple and their five-year-old child were evacuated from one of the neighboring homes.