Around the world in 80 days, or so

I'm not sure how old I was when I discovered Jules Verne. First was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, then ATWI80D, then Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon. It was probably grade 4 or 5 or so. Reading was an escape. 

Some things I figured out on my own, that a giant cannon isn't a practical way to send people to the moon. In high school I revisited the FtEtM and actually did the math. I wanted to research how long it would take to replicate that journey using modern shipping and rail routes, but never got there. I never thought about it at the time, but Nemo's Nautilus seemed to have a great deal of it devoted to Nemo's comfort, and not that of his crew. I hadn't quite grasped how much pressure deep water exerted and what that does to submarine design.

I've seen several versions of ATWI80D, and you can look them up yourself, but I missed the 1989 version with Pierce Brosnan.  As I was browsing through the DVD collection at our library I saw a recent version  and grabbed it. This is the Masterpiece version from 2021. We're part way through and mostly enjoying it so far, though I suspect not for the reasons the makers expect.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to address novel to movie or TV show conversions. They are different mediums, and what works in one might not work in another. Plus, ATWI80D was written in 1872, and trying to show the mores of the day, or even the mores as presented in the book, would make a movie nearly unwatchable. The point these days is action, or rather ACTION to the exclusion of essentially everything else. Thus the recent outbreak of comic book movies.

I'm most disappointed in the character of Fogg. In the books he is a precise, time driven man, so he and his money drive most of the action in the book. As is to be expected, shit happens and he deals with it. Mostly, as I recall, by projecting the British stiff upper lip and a spirit of derring-do, along with spreading money around liberally. When in doubt, offer a bribe. He of course finds true love along the way. 

In this version he is weak and helpless. It's almost painful to watch. Everybody else is driving the action, mostly (to my surprise), Miss Fix, a journalist who attaches herself to the trip. She's the most fun to watch. I just hope the show doesn't bend her character to fall for Fogg. So far there is no bank robbery or resulting detective. 

They've rearranged some of the plot elements. Maybe that's to keep watchers on their toes. I was disappointed to find there were no elephants in the India portion of the trip.

Next, if I get through it, is The Dawn of Everything, A new History of Humanity, by Graeber and Wengrow. This is a seriously thick book, with the notes and other stuff starting on page 527 and going on for another 160 pages or so.

Today's VERO post, which hasn't been blogged. There's a link up at the top of my blog roll where you can drop in on my account and see what my daily post is. Sometimes it's been blogged, sometimes not.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Linda

Peony

Flower

Yukon (Miles Canyon)

Film (new)

Film (old)

The story here is I'd just captured Linda's mom on film, to the cry of "Keith! Is there film in that camera?" The hands are demonstrating what she would do to the camera. Or my neck.

Comment response

I have two main commenters on my blog, with a few others commenting via email or other channels. Often those are not especially for public consumption, though sometimes I'll ask permission to publish. In case you hadn't known, I love getting comments on the blog! Here's a big thank you to my readers and especially to the two prolific commenters.

Janice has inspired today's blog by her comment this morning.

"I'm glad you're still blogging, albeit less frequently. I'm going to try to write one today for the first time in a long while. I think it gets harder when you write less often. How do you pick just a topic or two when you've had so many floating around in your head over weeks or months? Lots of great photos here. I especially like the aurora, the second driftwood, and the long exposure. Your technical skills have really improved overtime. It's hard to imagine you were ever satisfied with just using a cell phone camera. Are you still using an iPhone?"

Thanks for your kind words about tech skills. I've almost certainly passed 200K photos taken in the last 7 years, given I've deleted a bunch of rubbish over the years. Do something that many times, and you've got to be getting better at it. In fact, even before I started carrying around a film camera, I was looking at potential photos much more carefully, wondering if this would be a better version of something I already have, or if I'm saying something interesting about it, or if it's a documentary there I was photo. Here's a year by year break down for those interested. The number for 2023 does not include July.

Of course, the majority of those photos are not edited. About 15% show up as edited to some degree or another, though that's complicated, depending on images for time lapse photos.

The cell phone camera is an interesting comment. I'd used an inexpensive digital point and shoot before cell phones came along, but it was mainly capturing vacation photos. I didn't think of myself as a photographer. Then the cell phone and I took lots more photos, and still didn't think of myself as a photographer, but I was becoming aware of the limitations of the cell phone. I decided to pick up a mid line 'real' digital camera with a nice lens and instantly fell in love with the image quality and flexibility. It's gone on from there. Generally now I only use the iphone camera to take a photo of a document to send someone, or I want to take a photo and that's the camera on hand. The sort of exception is when I use the phone as a light meter for the film cameras, that's using the camera and a pair of specialty apps.  You can read more about which camera I use for what, here. If you really want to know more about the specialty apps, you'll have to ask.

Blog topics are hard sometimes. When this was mainly workouts and related activities, blogging was easy. They often wrote themselves during the workout. Being out and about in the world leads to adventures, and that can lead to blogging. Lots of topics/rants/essays came to mind and usually mostly wrote themselves between coming to mind, and my fingers landing on a keyboard.

But as time goes on, the number of interesting topics that have not been blogged gets smaller. Retiring from triathlon training and regular paid work cuts off two rich sources of blog inspiration. Retirement is busy, but much of it is not particularly blog fodder.

As Janice said in her own blog, getting old isn't for sissies. Younger people don't want to read about the various indignities that creep up on people as they get older. I'm acutely aware I'm heading into the time of life where some men fall apart, and have tried to be as prepared as possible. There's lots of situations now where I pause and channel the various safety people I've worked with over the years, to ask myself, "how could this go bad or end painfully?"

Still, shit happens. (Excepting those people with IBS or other digestive issues.) Something will catch up to me sooner or later. I try not to obsess about it, for all my comments about being dragged off by the glue factory wagon. (I just watched the Monty Python 'bring out your dead' sketch.

We have wills, of course, dated July 7 1996. Yes, 27 years ago almost exactly. Please don't laugh at us. We are in the process of updating them. This has been on our to do lists for at least 5 years. The only reason I had one in the first place is that I needed one to become a client of a financial advisor. That was her version of my putting some skin in the game to show I was serious. We've been building a list of all the things to be considered. It's longer than you'd think. For some people it's easy - sell everything and split it between the kids. Done.

But for those of us without children it's a different story. Yes, the theory is that you spend the last of your money the day you die, but that's not terribly likely. At the least another pension cheque will be along soon. We have the simultaneous desires to enjoy our money while we still can, yet not outlive it, and not leaving some huge estate. It's a tricky balancing act. Small changes multiplied by decades can have big outcomes.

For example. Our financial advisor has software that feeds in pensions, investments and projected returns, tax rates, inflation, desired income and it generates a graph. Right this moment I'm getting CPP and an investment account payout. It was a bit of a guess balancing how much I need vs how much I could take out. It's pretty much balanced. If I were to take out, say $10K a month, the software would show me running out of money as a bright bloody red graph bar in an easily foreseeable timeframe.

It's kind of neat, actually. They use fairly conservative estimates for financial return and inflation. You can tweak those, and your withdrawals, and see when you run out of money.  OAS, for example, isn't a lot of money in any month. I'm eligible for it in a few months, and I've no reason not to take it. But initially when we built the plan, I said keep my income the same when OAS rolls in, and lower my withdrawal rate. That left me with still having money at 95. But we looked at what happens if I keep my current withdrawal rate, and it turns out I run out of money late 80's I think. It's been a few months since our last meeting. On the other hand, tweak a couple of assumptions and live frugally, and at 95 I'd have a million dollar estate.

Here's a quick and dirty rule. As long as your investment nest egg is in a balanced and diversified portfolio, or it's in an index fund that tracks the overall market, and you have the wit and discipline not to sell off during market volatility, you can take 4% out every year for the rest of your life, however long that is, and likely still have about the same amount of money in that nest egg. Take out 5% and you're probably ok. Take 6% and there isn't much wiggle room. 

The key question in retirement planning is of course, how long are you going to live. Knowing that would simplify planning enormously. If you were to know you'd only live a short time because of cancer, or driving stupidity, or bad luck, then you can spend big and live it up. (Which might lead to one of those mentioned causes of death, which as an idea has generated lots of science fiction stories.) Or maybe you'll take after Jeanne Calment and live to be 122. The oldest man lived to 116. Maybe I'll beat that, but that wouldn't be a safe bet. Age table here.

According to Stats Canada figures, I'm good for another 17 years or so. What that means is that half of all men my age will die before that 17 year mark, and half after. I think beating that is a reasonable bet, given that all my grandparents dramatically exceeded the life expectancy at their time of birth. That was about 50 years, and the men made it to mid 70's or so (after a lifetime of hard physical work farming and logging), one grandmother to mid 80's, and one to her late 90's. My mom is still with us, though slowed down by a broken leg just now. My dad just missed his life expectancy, cancer.

So if I want to still have investment income for a comfortable old age, I need to be cautious how much I take out. There is math that suggests I should have deferred taking CPP till I was 70, since I stood a reasonable chance of living long enough to have the larger payments for a shorter time add up to more than smaller payments for a longer time. 

So last night we rounded up a couple of people willing to be the trusted contact people, and us them. They even have a child who is currently not of legal age, but that will change soon. That's a new thing for investment firms. Next is power of attorney to deal with things in our dotage. Right now that's someone living in Ontario, which might not be the smartest choice. This is a much tougher decision. There are several people I'd cheerfully trust now, but I need to think about 20 years down the road. Those people aren't much younger than me. Maybe pick one of them now, and revise as necessary. Hmmm. 

When you blog nearly every day, it's easy to carry on with the habit. Blogs can be topical and tightly edited. The less frequent the blog, the more you want to say, and the more it's likely to ramble. But sometimes it's hard to find the time to blog, especially if you have a broken wrist, or you're out of the habit.

I always say I'm not a wildlife photographer, but when they pose nice I'll usually oblige.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Linda

Peony

Flower

Yukon (Miles Canyon)

Film (new)

Film (old)

Frost on stuff was common at the WWT plant.

9th to 19th

I think that's the longest I've gone without a fresh blog since I started blogging. I've been busy enough, and my brain is full enough that it hasn't been writing blogs while doing other things. Sometimes swimming is good for that, but lately I seem to be having to concentrate on my stroke and avoiding the floaties that don't know lane etiquette, and that doesn't leave room for blogging thoughts.

It seems like the busy is a bit of this, and a bit of that, with some space in between so I'm not feeling particularly overwhelmed. I just don't seem to have anything pressing to say on the blog, and I don't seem to have the time to settle in and focus on it, to see what comes out.

So no words for a while, but don't think there aren't photos. There are 6 rolls of film in the lab for development and while I know there's going to be a couple that are evidence of rookie mistakes, I have high hopes for some of them. Plus just over 1500 digital photos, of which about 160 have been edited, and there's still a bunch of aurora photos that I should look at again and maybe try to assemble into a little movie. Don't forget the 70 or so photos edited for a private client. Plus at least part of a roll of 35 mm film.

Yes, the peonies are doing really well. Celina is fine. We're fine, both of us busy.

One of the bits of busy was a day/evening trip out to Takakkaw falls, Moraine Lake, and some lovely aurora on the way home. This is from the parking lot, and I gradually worked closer.

Moraine lake. Can you believe I've lived in Calgary for 43 years in a couple months, and I've never, ever been to Moraine Lake? This is a long exposure hoping to bring up the reflections in the water, during a smokey sunset. I'm told that it's kind of eerie seeing a completely empty parking lot, ever since they enacted the no private vehicles rule. If you want to get there you need to take a shuttle, and leave no later than the last shuttle. Or go with an accredited tour operator. Guess which I did.

The aurora was essentially invisible to the naked eye. All we saw was some greyish streaks across the stars. If I'd been driving along I probably never would have noticed, let alone stopped and set up my camera. I'm glad we did. I've never seen so much purple. It was quite the show. Not up to Eagle Plains, but still...

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Linda and driftwood

Peony

Flower

A forest serendipity scene from 2017.

Yukon (Miles Canyon)

Film (new)

Just upstream of Elbow Falls, a long exposure.

And a pano serendipity from 2017, just upstream of Fish Creek bridge 1.

Film (old)

Dealing with winter at the plant where I used to work.

The state of peony

The light was nice in the garden this morning, and since I wanted anyways to see how the peonies were doing, it was natural to take the camera along.

1. One of the new peonies in the front patio bed.

2. The famous white peony featured in so many of my photos.

3. The almost as famous red peony that I struggle to capture the colour correctly.

4. One of the new peonies in the side bed.

5. Same one. This is leading the race to be the first bloom. Almost there.

6. The pink one in the side bed determined to put on another good show this year.

7. The back patio bed, but there's no blooms on it yet.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

More pareidolia.

Flower

Yukon (Miles Canyon)

Film (new)

A long exposure from just upstream of Elbow Falls.

Film (old)

Linda and her mom and me playing Empire Builder. It's a moderately complicated board game that's lots of fun to play. Normally it's pretty even; when someone wins, another person would have won on their next turn, and someone else would win when they delivered a cargo in a couple of turns. Linda is a ferociously good player at it, winning most of the games she plays. (We live in fear of the triumphant doot-de-doo!) I'm pretty good at it and often win when Linda is having bad cards. Linda's mom whipped our butts, and she had never played before. I mean, totally whipped us, we were barely started. "How much money do I have to have?" she asked innocently, as she shuffled and counted out this huge wad.

For those that have only seen our house without the kitchen wall, this is what it looks like with that wall.

Unarchived

I'm not sure what this blog post will turn into. You might want to fasten your seatbelts.

We start with the movie Unarchived. Michelle invited me to attend a showing of this at a meeting of a group she's involved with. It sounded interesting and turned out to be fascinating. 

The word "story" has many meanings, but I'm thinking about the meanings that writers and photographers are concerned about. "What is the story?" is a common question when starting to write something, or thinking about how to photograph a particular subject.

Just as photography has a concept called negative space, what doesn't get said, or is said in a negative context such as police reports, can be as illuminating as the words on the page. And there is much that hasn't been said in the story of Canada.

The story of Canada that I learned in grade school is of heroic white people, pretty much mostly British men, conquering a harsh landscape. Indians, as they were called then, were mostly a dangerous adversary to be overcome, though there was minor mention of them as allies in some war accounts. I didn't learn of the residential school system even as a concept, let alone the racist brutality it was in practice, until I was well into adulthood. Women didn't get mentioned until the famous five. Unless they were actually working on building the railroad, Chinese people were "The Yellow Peril." I didn't learn that some people were gay until high school during the mid 70's, when Toronto police were raiding the bathhouses. One teacher quietly expressed the opinion that anyone "found in" as the saying went, should be shot in the street because they were deviant and a menace to society.

The story is much more complex than that, though even today there are people that want to retain that simplistic view of Canada. Some people know the world is more complex than that, but choose not to think about it. Some politicians dog whistle that view as they troll for votes and support.

There used to be a saying that scientific progress happened one funeral at a time. That is, people that grew up in a world shaped by a particular viewpoint, can't move past it till the proponents of that viewpoint have passed away, and they have time to become accustomed to a newer viewpoint. 

Think about who is running our collective memory. The senior levels of library and archival systems are being run by people about my age, who grew up in a world shaped by that colonial history view. Some of them know the world has changed and have tried to change with the times, but they're pushing a big rock up a steep hill. It's easy to keep on telling the stories we've always been telling, with the methods that have always been used. Adding video, or computer databases isn't a change in direction, just a change in method.

One example in the film was an archivist showing some materials relating to a First Nations community to someone from that community. She recognized some of the people, and hadn't known there was video footage. Her point was that those materials should be returned to the community so the people there could not just access them, but add context to them. The archivist was only saying noncommittal "mmmm-mmm' noises, and those materials hadn't been released as of the film production date. There was even hesitancy about making a copy of a copy of the original.

One of the phrases in the movie is "nobody was doing the filing." People were out living their story as best they could, but nobody was writing it down. Women, gay and trans people, immigrants, First Nations people, all struggling to make their way in Canada. If their story was being told at all, it was being told from the perspective of that White British male colonial perspective. Thus the police reports of bathhouse raids, and  newspaper articles about crimes imputed to just about anyone that was "other". 

Change is happening, and that's to the good. But the materials are ephemeral. People's memories fade, and then they die and those stories are gone forever.

There was about 10 seconds of the film that I really want to watch again. A man wearing a cap and working clothes walking up to and posing with some people in front of some machinery. That man dressed exactly like my maternal grandfather, including an uncommon style of cap. There was only a fraction of a second showing his face, but I'd love to get another look. He was certainly alive then and I'm pretty sure he was living at least not too far away then, but it struck me that I don't actually know all that much about his life.

And that is true of all of us, collectively. There are many stories about us, and some of them have been ignored or buried, leaving us all a bit poorer.

After the film Michelle and I strolled back to her car, enjoying a warm summer evening. On a whim we stopped for a gelato and watched the world go by for a little while. It's a different world and fascinating to visit. We were easily the oldest people in the gelato place. Lots of the people wandering by were of an age to be  my children or younger. The kids running the gelato shop could be my grandchildren. The two nearest conversations to us were not English. I'm pretty sure one was Spanish, and the other sounded Eastern European. I don't get out much in the evening like that. After dinner I'm home and certainly when I was working I had no desire go go out again. Even now, once home in the afternoon after whatever, I'm not likely to go out again, and almost certainly not as far as downtown.

(photo by Michelle)

Of the Day

Driftwood (BC)

Driftwood (NZ)

And a Flower serendipity

Peony

Plus a serendipity kitty.

Yukon (Miles Canyon)

Film (new)

Film (old)