Re-re-retired

There's an old joke that I hope won't be too offensive. A wealthy man is chatting up a beautiful woman at a social function. Eventually he pops the question, "For $100,000 are you willing to go up to my hotel room with me for an night of wild and crazy sex?"

She responds "Sure, once we get the payment sorted out, you can't have that much cash on you."

"All right," he says, "How about for $100?"

She slaps his face hard, and yells, "What do you think I am?"

He rubs his face, having not ducked quite quickly enough. "Oh ma'am, we both know what you are, now we're negotiating the price."

I was thinking of that last week. It's what almost all of us are, trading our time doing things that we're told to do and probably wouldn't do on our own, in exchange for money. The difference is that some people have different standards, and different needs. If you need a job to pay the rent and put groceries on the table, it's very difficult to say no to an employer.

The rich rely on that, and take advantage. It's the main reason they want to keep people poor, so they can continue to take advantage of them.

But what if you don't need any particular job? What if you're working because you want to? Maybe the work is interesting, or maybe it contributes to something you think is important, or you're doing a favour for a buddy, or any number of other reasons. But you aren't working because you need the money. What then?

You can walk away from a job. You can fire the company that has employed you. I did. I decided I wasn't going to deal with a certain situation any longer. I had pushed back on the situation a while ago, and it got marginally better. Then it got worse again and there was no indication things would change. Enough was enough. I don't think they thought I was serious. Now I'm retired again, and I'm thinking I'm not going to take another office job again.

So what did I do this week instead of working? Being busy, wondering how I ever had the time to work. In no particular order, a nice walk with Linda, lunch with a buddy, a (smokey) bike ride up to the reservoir on the newly overhauled hybrid, lunch with Linda, shopping for bike accessories, a (smokey) photowalk downtown, lunch with another buddy, shopping for a winter vacation, thinking about several photo trips, investigated buying a specialty lens for astro photography, received a pitch for another office job, chatted to a buddy met by chance on the street, worked on my novel (that one germ of an idea, two characters meeting over a dead lawnmower has sprung wings and flapped off in several directions), had several afternoon naps, attended a fireworks event, and here it is Friday afternoon. Wow.

So if you're looking for a buddy to go on a photo ramble with, get in touch with me. Or if we haven't seen each other for a while and would like to catch up over lunch or coffee.

A few days after that big event, I got news that an uncle of mine had died abruptly and unexpectedly at age 71. That is an uncomfortable small number of years older than I am now. It makes me ask myself how I want to spend the remaining years I have.

These are a couple more hand held shots with the 600 mm lens, before the smoke rolled in and made the very concept of such a lens useless.

I've looked at this scene almost every working day for more than 5 years. I park and walk past it to take the stairs. This ramp leads to a pair of slow elevators. I can reliably beat them going up 4 floors. A buddy once asked why I parked on the bottom level and walked up 4 flights rather than park on the +15 level. The difference is that I can walk up or down those flights much faster than I could drive them. It's a process thing, thinking it through on a holistic level.

One night of fireworks at Globalfest done 4 more to go. No, I didn't take the camera. I'm not sure if I will. For these sorts of things I'd rather watch them with my eyes and enjoy the experience. Then I don't have to mind an expensive camera, and get all worked up about the shots I might or might not get.

150 to 600, or the behemoth

If you've been keeping up you know a buddy has lent me a Tamron 150-600 mm lens to see if I like it enough to buy. It weighs a ton, but is half way to being a telescope, and that's on my full frame camera. On my old T6 it would turn into 250-960 mm lens. I'll have to try that sometime.

These are the first mostly serious photos. I think one is cropped slightly just to get the horizon level, but the rest are as is. The point here wasn't to get artistic photos (It just KILLS me not to crop those two poles out of the first one!), it was to get a sense of what the lens would shoot, and what the photos would look like for colour and sharpness. All of them are hand held, with minimal processing in Lightroom.

In one sense, it was a bad day for this, and you'll see why shortly. The construction photos are from the ring road. These first two are from the top of the sound barrier near 130 Ave looking west at the new intersection. First at 150 mm, then 600 mm. You can see how much closer the lens takes you. I'm not sure how far away that bit of scaffolding is, but it's down the sound barrier and across 4 lanes of highway and a bit of a median, plus a construction zone.

These are from just before the bridge on 37th St, looking mostly south towards the new bridges over Fish Creek.

These next ones are in about the middle of the zoom range, where the lens ought to perform the best. Yes, there's a hill. Yes the bright hazy sun washes out the yellow a bit.

This is from 146th Ave, what used to be a little known or travelled short cut to 22X. I've ridden my bike past here a great many times, but without this view. They cut down all the trees to build the highway. Now I wouldn't dream of riding my bike here. This is at 150 mm. Note the excavator bottom centre.

From the same vantage point, this is the skyline at 150 mm.

This is why it's a poor day to test a lens. From the same spot at 600 mm. Look at the haze! This is even with more processing than the rest of the photos to try to reduce the haze.

The excavator looks sad sitting there all by itself. Same one as a couple photos ago, at 600 mm.

All the rest of the equipment is neatly lined up in a herd.

Then down into Fish Creek park near bridge 2, just to see how the lens deals with green and water, though there isn't much water just now. The first is at 150 mm from the bridge, then the same rocks at 600 mm.

Bridge 2 from the bend in the river downstream. Some of you might remember several winter shots from a little over a year ago, three different lens at 3 different distances. This is about the same place as the last shot in that blog, only a bit to the right and a few feet higher. I tried a panorama at 600 mm, but but goofed. Next time. It would be a whole lot easier on a tripod. There's some haze showing up in this shot as well, and the direct overhead light sucks for colour.

This is the part of the bridge at 600 mm that is almost in focus. I got rid of most of the haze in Lightroom.

Even at low water, the stream is pretty.

I hung around for a while looking for dragonflies, but they were too quick for me. Lots of wildlife photographers carry around a big lens so they don't frighten their subject. This is the only bird I saw the entire time. Then again, it wasn't the best time for birding.

The toughest target in all of these. Embiggen and look at the terminator line. There are craters! This is uncropped, on a hazy morning, no tripod but resting on a support, 600mm, ISO 6400, f 6.3 (I think that's the fastest the lens is at that zoom), 1/25 of a second. If you look really carefully you can see some stars. As I've said before, the moon is a tough target. I'll have to work on this more on a less hazy night.

This is a tough lens to hold up to your face for any length of time. I might need to start pushing some weights at Repsol, instead of just hitting the pool, if I'm going to do some serious shooting with it.

Hunting for a road

I have a writer buddy that has asked me to keep an eye and camera lens out for some specific things. Tonight was a an evening to try to get some of what she is looking for. There is a Google photos folder for her to look at.

Along the way I found these. The first few are on the way out of town, looking over the ring road construction. The inversion was pretty bad so you can barely see downtown. I figured that might make for some nice sunset shots, and I was not wrong.

Construction, it's gonna be a swear word

There is going to be lots of road construction near here over the next several years. There are two roads in or out of my neighbourhood; one is under construction already, and the other will be happening soon. I was out for a walk to scope it out. This may be a recurring blog theme or I may be so sick of it I may decide to retire elsewhere for a few years, preferably where there is an ocean beach and lots of sunshine.

 This is the remains of Bullhead Rd, where Anderson turns into 37 St, or vice versa if you like that better. They will be starting to construct bridges here later this year. It's going to be lovely, I'm sure. The main highway will run north, with an interchange for Anderson, and more roads for all the businesses going on Tsuut'ina land.

This is 130 Ave. There are lots of homes for sale nearby. Just saying.

There is a hole inside the fence, and two large plastic tubes emerge, with wiring. I don't know for what.

Lastly, the prettiest shot of the day. The water is disgusting of course, but the sky is such a pretty blue it's reflected nicely.

Looked at Image of the month for February and made a decision. It will be a new one for all of you. Stay tuned tomorrow!

Reading and movies stuff

So last you heard I was giving Facebook and Instagram a vacation till the end of Feb. You might imagine me locked away for my own good, typing fingers twitching feebly in social media withdrawal. Bah, I say!

This has been good. About the closest I came to looking at Facebook was during a slow grocery store line up. Instead, I looked at the other people and what was going on, as if I had to put it in my book as a scene. That passed the time really quickly. That one clerk really has the most amazing beard.

For a while Co-op had some ok self checkout machines. I got walked through the process and it was pretty good. Then they updated the machines a while ago, and the new ones are brutal. Won't be using them again. It was more fun hanging out in line and watching the clerk go through the items.

Not missing social media at all, aside from being mildly curious about what great stuff Jayne has shared, and what a few people are up to. Down at the bottom of this blog I'd given a list of stuff I'd be doing instead of social media. Loving it!

So. The Expanse.

We had borrowed season one from the library, and I reviewed it here. Since then I've bought the first three books, and we borrowed the second season. We were disappointed to find the first disc missing from the second season. Who does that? None the less, we carried on.

If you're a reader and a watcher, AND you like to avoid spoilers, you're going to have a tough time here. The seasons don't line up with the books. It's actually a pretty good example of why novels are not screen plays. There are some differences between the two, but it's the difference between presenting a scene visually, and writing description, and making things more dramatic for TV.

The first two books are essentially one big story, but you could stop there if you wanted. The end of the second season doesn't line up exactly with the end of the second book, but it's pretty close. Then third book opens it up dramatically. There was one sub-plot in there that I didn't care for, but that's just me. We haven't seen season 3 yet, I think it's just coming out this year.

I was delighted to find Chrisjen Avasarala even more potty mouthed in the books than in the show. I think the casting people for the show absolutely nailed it in casting Shohreh Aghdashloo. They did well in casting other roles, even if they couldn't find a 2 m tall 140 kilo woman for one of the roles. Still they did really well there, in finding someone 6 feet tall.

There are places where in the books you see what someone is thinking, and that adds interesting  complexity. (The beginning of chapter 42 in book 2!) Then again, in the show you see the spaceships and can hit pause to admire them all you like, but you might not particularly realize how big they are, or how big in relation to each other.

This is very much a used universe place. The ships and places are usually scruffy and beat up, except for the places the rich live. At some point someone is going to have to start cleaning up all the bodies and spaceship debris floating around the solar system. It would totally ruin your day to run into a chunk of anything at the speeds they are going.

It's a complicated show, and there's lots to keep track of. The Belter lingo is really hard to track, and sometimes you have to watch what their hands are doing, rather than their heads. Usually in most shows there's the good guys and the bad guys, and it's easy to tell which is which. There is a lot of grey in this, with people having good motivations to do bad things. Loving it!

We started season 3 of The Librarians last night.
This is the TV show, not the movie series called The Librarian. What had me confused for a while is that a few of the characters overlap. What you need to remember is that the TV series is infinitely better. In fact, I'd say bypass the movies entirely, unless you're in the mood for a cheese-fest. Though the Librarian-girl in the second movie (used in exactly the same way as 'Bond-girl') was actually the best part of the whole movie.

The Librarians is goofy fun to watch if you're in the right mood. It's all about preventing evil magic or bad guys/girls from taking over the world. There's a good bunch of "script-babble" to explain things, but who really cares. For sure a wine and snacks kind of show.

I'm working on some non-fiction as well. Home Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. It's really interesting, but really wordy. A good editor could have chopped about a quarter of it out, I think, maybe more. It's interesting and thought provoking. He asks what are we going to do? We, as in humanity. Going to do, as in, many of us no longer have to worry about war, famine, or plague. Yes, some of us do, but it's a small fraction of humanity, and it would be a smaller fraction yet if it weren't for those anti-vax idiots, and right wing bullies pushing military solutions into unsuitable places.

I'm about half way through it now, really enjoying it. Some of the bits may show up in blogs where I comment in more detail.

I just got Other Minds, the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. I have often though that octopus were a lot more intelligent that we give them credit for, and am happy to read more about these fascinating creatures. I've often though that one day we are going to prove that some of the other species we share this planet with are sapient, and that humanity's leaders are going to get dragged into a cross-species court and charged with speciecide.

But the photos, you ask? Where are the photos? Patience. Yes, I'm working on photos. There's a backlog, and I'm considering the next subject for Macro Monday. It's snowing out, so it's a good day to be downstairs working with bright lights.

You might think this one is from my photo ramble with Sean out in the scenic boonies between here and Red Deer, but you'd be wrong. I know for a fact at least several of my readers will have seen this in person on their commute to work, and all my readers of this particular blog have seen it. Look closer.

These three are from the snowy night shoot a couple weeks ago now. I hope people don't think there's too much tree in these. I've seen them all many times, of course, but with the snow and the light, they really seemed to stand out.

Yes, that home really has a green lightbulb happening. No idea why. I suppose it's much better than a red one.

Mostly we stand at the top

Every photographer in Calgary knows these stairs.

Some of the iconic shots of the downtown skyline are to be had from up there, for some distance either way from the stairs. Any random evening you'll some of the photographer community up there, especially when the light is promising. Many of the runners in Calgary know these stairs too. They, and the sloped path up the hill are a fixture in the running community. There is a reason runners mutter "hills are speed work in disguise." Or maybe they're swearing.

One morning as I was shooting sunrise, I was watching some of the runners. Up, down, up, down. I think I've run the path, but I don't recall running the stairs. Then again, there are documented cases where my memory is faulty.

The most extreme example of running the stairs is better termed hopping. A female rugby team was training by hopping up the stairs. At each landing they'd switch legs. I was impressed. I'm breathing pretty hard at the top of the stairs, and that's taking my time.

I was downtown having coffee with a buddy, and delivering a hand made hat for another buddy, plus looking for photos. This was the first time I'd actually looked at the stairs and the hillside as a scene. One of the many suggestions for photographers is to be looking in the other direction from what is assumed to be the main attraction. I've often seen that with sunrises and sunsets. I took some shots of the buildings, but the light was nothing special.

Here's two shots that haven't made it into the blog for whatever reason. Linda thinks the first is a lemon meringue pie, and has no idea about the second. You?

I'm not sure how I overlooked this one. Lately I've been liking the shadows on snow thing. No shortage of those.

A sunrise to lure you in.

It's still winter in Calgary. Really winter. Cold, snow, the whole works. At least we get nice sunrises. This is from a few days ago. I'm told that today's was nice too, but I was still in the pool.

Now that you're here, lured in, (Linda is laughing!) here's winter at night. We've been getting lots of snow. I was all set to shovel, when I was struck by the pattern of tracks in the snow, and a bit of house light reflecting off the snow.

This is the tail end of lots more snow. I shovelled first, as it was tapering, then still liked the snow against the streetlights. Yes, I'm standing in the middle of the road for this shot. I was thinking of trying to get the brake lights as the cars go around the curve, but the first several drivers didn't cooperate, and I wasn't inclined to stand there all night. The snow is light and fine, and swirls like dust.

Maybe it's the green lighting around the tennis courts and ice rink, but this shot makes me think of Christmas.

This shot amazes me. I stood there a moment in real life, liking the darkness of the shadows and the light from the streetlight, and the nice colour of the sky. I took the shot figuring lets see if the camera captures the magic of the sidewalk. Call me surprised. Maybe you had to be there, but this totally draws me in. You?

One of the roses, struggling to keep branches above the snow. I think it's completely buried now.

Recent hidden gems

As I've been going through 2017 photos, there have been any number of times I've thought to myself, "what on earth was I thinking?" Most of them it's a bad photo, and I can't imagine why I clicked the shutter. But there have been some winners that I can't understand why I didn't edit them at the time. In no particular order.

Oh, and you may have missed the December Image of the Month, since I've snuck in an extra blog today, so my readers could see these gems before I lost them again.

Most rose hips are bright red, but I liked the almost diseased look.

 I love the these peachy orange tulips.

Celina on the hunt.

No idea what flower this is.

This one is more what you'd call a documentary shot, of my buddy Sean hard at work capturing a photo you can see here.