I am not the Walrus. I hope.

I went to sleep last night with "I am the Walrus" running through my mind. That happens sometimes, a song or chunk of a book, or a snippet of real life gets caught in a loop and goes around and around. Sometimes it goes away by itself. Sometimes I forcibly evict it by thinking of another ear worm, and then at least I'm listening to something different for a while.

I woke up in the night to deal with bio-pressures, and then couldn't go back to sleep. A text worm took over my brain starting to write the president's report for our community association's AGM. After a while I gave up, got up, and started typing. 1,000 words or so later I had lots of what I had been thinking about safely captured in text. It still needs editing, of course, but that's a different task. 

Most people get into trouble writing stuff because they start by trying to produce polished prose when they don't know what they want to say. The way to do it is to start with a short statement of the core message. That might be 'you're fired', or 'give me my money back', or any number of other messages. Profanity is encouraged. Then keep that in mind and barf out anything that is associated with that message to add detail or supporting facts. Add in different ways of saying the same thing, trying to be more polite.

Then comes the important part. Editing. Prune away the words you don't need. Say the Strunk and White's advice to yourself, or out loud. "OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS!"

The actual fingers on the keyboard thing is a problem for most people. They were never taught to type, and when forced to use a computer just made up a system. Usually that involves only two fingers, and looking at the keyboard to do it. It hurts my soul when I see that. I was taught to type in high school, while not looking at the keys. It kind of disturbed some of my co-workers over the years that I could be looking at them and carrying on a conversation, while typing something else. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that typing course was the most useful course I've ever taken. Mom was right about it, even if the reason she gave at the time was there would be lots of girls in the class.

When I was doing software training I knew everything about how my day was going to go when I watched people log in with the user name and login I had just given them. This wasn't some arcane series of mixed case computer generated letters and numbers. It was their name, and the password was the plant name with a 2 digit number. The people that whizzed through it got recruited to help the ones that struggled. I heard of one guy that had been bribing the plant admin staff to do his timesheet and expense report for him, but he was told that it was his fingers that had to deal with my database, and they would be watching. He retired instead.

1. This is a display at the central library for your amusement.

2. A very detailed part of the above image.

3. Another part of it. See if you can find it.

4. Information about the work.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Serendipity

Another FC walk, not in voter's flats

Voting has been much on my mind lately. The UCP wasted an estimated $84 million dollars on the recent unwanted referendum. The only person that wanted it as is was Smith, trying to save her job. It seems to be intact for now, but with any luck she will be spat out of office at the election a year from now, back to the radio dregs where she belongs. She should be looking at how riding gerrymandering turned out for the Republicans.

And then there was the great Trump repudiation earlier this week. They're still counting a couple of races. I have hopes that the Democrats can achieve a veto proof majority in house and Senate, forcing Trump to sign bills he hates. 

I was actually walking near Votier’s flats on US election day. This area was named after James Votier; one of Calgary’s first settlers. I've often heard it referred to as "Voter's Flats". 

Fish Creek has been going upscale lately. Tired old washrooms have been replaced. The main pathway from end to end is being widened. Any luck this will give the cyclists and pedestrians more room to dodge each other. 

1. The view from the top of Votier's Flats. The wind and water was so calm I couldn't help myself taking reflection photos.

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5. Brand new, almost unsullied pavement.

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Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film. The other swampy image from near last month Image of the Month.

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago. Part of the entrance to the downtown public library.

Flower. That one rose blossom, still hanging in there on Nov 1.

Landscape

Serendipity. The year we didn't drain the water barrels before the snow. That was no fun at all.

A Halloween walk near bridge 1

We've had a few cold and almost snowy days, but Halloween was nice. I was itchy to get out of the house and take one of the cameras for a walk. I went down to Fish Creek, walking a short loop from Shannon Terrace to bridge 1 and back.

Just so you know, none of these photos are immortal winners that will change your life. These are whatever caught my eye, without thinking about it much. I've been mostly doing film lately, and I think about that completely differently. 

All of these are places I've been before, but things change. Trees fall down, the river changes course. A couple of them I know I have photos of that same place taken from the same spot or quite close to it. Just different light, different season, different photo. What was important was getting out into the fresh air and enjoying the experience.

As a side note, we had 39 kids come to the door then we ran out of candy. Just as we were shutting the lights off another 5 came along. This is about the average number of kids lately, and they seem to be trending younger. We used to get a lot of tween and early teens, but not so much anymore. I'd have to go back and look at my photos from previous community association events, but I think the same is true.  Also more people coming to the events and public parties, fewer trick or treating on the street. There's probably social commentary there, but I'm not up for it.

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I was sad when I saw this stump. That's bridge 1 in the immediate background and the highway off in the distance. I've walked past this tree many times, and there was a big interesting burl on it. I've taken lots of photos of it, but it was a tough subject for me. You can see some of my history with it in these posts, here with a political rant, here with another walk through Fish Creek, here with amusing speculation, and here along with Dinosaur Provincial Park photos. 

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You might not be able to tell from the photo, but it looks like ants have chewed it through and through. No wonder it got blown over with some of the wind we've had lately. I looked, but if the burl is still on the trunk, it's on the bottom.

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Bridge 1 itself is is a utilitarian concrete structure that I typically wouldn't take photos of. But the view from it is nice, this happens to be looking downstream. The view upstream has changed, and if the weather stays nice I might go explore.

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A lady walking her dog had seen me taking the photo, and asked if there was an interesting bird. She was a bit confused when I said I'd just taken a photo of the trees because the light was nice. She didn't quite edge away and run, but I could see she was wondering a bit.

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You've had lots of photos so I'll pass on the Of the Day feature for today.

October Image of the Month

Not a huge photographic month for me, but I'm still pleased with these, albeit for different reasons.

2nd Runner Up

I saw this, clicked the camera, and moved on. It's only when I started editing it that I realized it looked like a painting. I've no idea how I did that.

1st Runner Up

There's a bit of a trick to getting a starburst effect, intentionally, where you want it. I'll admit to it taking a few tries to get it right.

Image of the Month

I can hear you saying, 'A swamp? You took a photo of a swamp?' Yes I did. They're usually really good for reflections. What my eyes saw was really striking, and it came out much as I had hoped. I'll probably try to print this in the darkroom, since I think it would be a bit of a challenge.

Flowery Friday redux

Flowery Friday is a periodic feature of the blog, usually during the summer as various flowers bloom and die off. It's fun trying to capture the various flowers throughout their lifecycle in different light. Part of the challenge is that they're always in the same place, with same background, and limitations on where I can hold the camera because I can't step into the garden itself. Ants, bees, and water droplets add to the interest and challenge.

We've had a wonderful long fall season, but winter is setting in. The clouds are grey and heavy. I was chatting with some buddies during water running the other day, and they were saying winter has only been a week and it seems like forever already. It's harder to get out in crappy weather when you're used to the nice weather.

So I thought I'd go back through this year's flower photos that were not blogged for whatever reason. Give my loyal readers a hit of summer on a grey day. Well, it's grey and foggy here today and that's a good enough reason.

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Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film. Christmas is soon.

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower, from mid October. These roses are tough. There's still a faint remnant of blossom even today.

Landscape

Serendipity