AMA 3, reminding myself

A self generated question asked many times in recent years. "Tell me again why you live where the air sometimes hurts your face?"

One of the things that retired people sometimes do is travel. We've done some, both within and outside Canada. I was always amused by the RV units with the continental outline on them, filled in by stickers to show which states and provinces they'd been to. Pretty sure that if my mom and her husband had done such a thing, they would have filled them all in. 

I'm still missing Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick (I don't think a night train journey through it counts), Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, and Nunavat. It's shorter to say which states I've been to. Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Utah, Kansas, Florida, Massachusetts, (Delaware and New York as a child) and Washington DC.  Outside of North America I've been to UK (just within London), France (within Paris and train tracks to Italy), Italy, Germany, Bermuda, and New Zealand.

There's a story  I liked to tell while I worked at Amoco and BP. Where did the other members of my team go? Places like Dallas, Houston, Montreal, Chicago. Where did I go? Fox Creek.

Not a big list, really, for someone my age with a pilot for a father and brother. Some of my earliest memories are of being at what was then called Malton International Airport, now Toronto Pearson International Airport, and inside the now demolished Terminal One. And as I digress into a bit of research, I see they've also demolished what I knew as Terminal 2, a butt ugly linear abomination surrounded by traffic jams. 

I can remember some of my first trip into Toronto as a small child. Pretty sure it was in a DC-8, and it was a really rough ride. I started grade 1 soon after, so this would be 1964 or so, when the terminal was new. We had to deplane out on the ramp, they provided umbrellas because it was raining. Lots of times dad took us to the airport when he had stuff to do and I'm pretty sure we got taken into areas the public wasn't allowed. The road into the terminal swooped under the runway, then into a maze of ramps, drop off and pick up zone, and the parking structure. Dad knew it like the back of his hand and often swore at the tourists in the way.

I'm just now looking at a Google Maps image of the airport thinking about how much it's changed. At one time in the late 70's, I had all the runway and taxiway designations memorized, knew how to get into and out of it, and into the parking lot near the start of 23R to watch the planes taking off. You can still see a dark spot on the pavement where the old terminal used to be.

Flying then was a fun thing. I loved everything about it, watching the planes come and go, the flight itself, all the activity in and around the terminal. During air traffic control training I got into more areas not open to the public, including the control tower. Sure glad I didn't go into that career. Now, not so much. In fact, with all the security theatre bullshit, it's an ordeal, with the exception of Air New Zealand business class. That was nice. And Air North is pretty good too. West Jet used to be, back in the days when there were terrible dad jokes at the end of the flight. 

I moved here in 1980 because a buddy told me it was easy to get good paying work here. And so it was. Nice housing was a bigger problems. At some point along the way Calgary became home. Once I started in oil and gas, it became where my professional expertise was based, and where essentially all my contacts were. I got some work because people knew me and called before going to a recruiter. Going elsewhere would have meant starting over, and I wasn't into that at all.

Plus, living in a paid for house has serious lifetime advantages. I've talked about how money insulates you from the problems of the world. Not totally, of course, but it's the best tool available. Owning your own house is a huge part of that security and insulation. I mentioned earlier that it was easy to find good paying work. That became less true over time, and there was one year I didn't work, and was beginning to wonder if I ever would again. Having our own house and relatively modest lifestyle meant that nothing changed while I was off.

Now I don't need to look for work. Some photography work finds me, but I don't go looking for it. So the question comes up, why live in Calgary? Why indeed?

This is where many of our friends live. I have a cousin recently moved to Airdrie to escape the dreary BC weather, and another in Camrose. Linda has a cousin here. Linda has put her heart and soul into the garden here, and would miss it, even moving to a place where the gardening was much greener. 

Much of the time Calgary has a great climate. 333 sunny days a year, and almost 2400 hours of sunshine a year make it the sunniest big city, and one of the sunniest places overall in Canada, and I do like a sunny day. Even when it's cold out, mostly. Moving to Medicine hat, as a slightly sunnier and somewhat smaller place doesn't really get us all that much. Plus it's full of old folks, looking for warmth on the cheap. Which might describe me in the coming years.

But it's when it's cold out that's beginning to bite me. There aren't many places in Canada to go to escape winter. There's been periodic discussion of Turks and Caicos becoming part of Canada, which would be nice, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for them. Maybe we should vacation there to try it out next time it gets cold here. Which, as another digression, is right now. -17 right now and getting cloudy and starting to snow again. This after nearly a foot of snow over the last couple days.

New Zealand would be nice, outside the recent cyclone and flood zones. Hmmm. Let's go down the unblogged New Zealand memory lane from a few years ago.

Linda in Dunedin, near our condo. As I recall, we were on the search for a chocolate emporium.

Doubtful Sound. It might be cloudy, and slightly rainy, but it was warm.

Actually taken from a moving train.

A N Z beach scene. It doesn't matter which one. I'm dreaming of them all right now.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Bleached bone dry in the sun.

Driftwood (BC)

Wet and colourful.

Peony

Tombstone

And similar colour serendipity closer to home.

Film (new)

Acros II pleased with how it represents the white snow, silver and grey bars, and black shadows.

Film (Old)

Linda and her sister KM.

AMA 2, memory

From a reader who wishes to remain anonymous. "How does the experience of looking at an old photo for the first time in decades affect the memory of being there, the memory of looking at the photo, and compared to the images that are now taken?"

This is in the context of digitizing film negatives taken about 30 to 35 years ago. 

Memory can be a funny thing, especially in relation to both taking and looking at photographs. There's a bunch of stuff I want to talk about and will try to do so in an orderly way.

Let's start with fairly recent history, back when taking a photograph meant exposing film. For most people it might be an inexpensive point and shoot, or maybe an SLR. A pro photographer would use a high end SLR at the least, and more likely would use medium format. 

Let's stick with ordinary people. Film was available everywhere, and wasn't expensive. A roll would go in the camera and be exposed over the course of time. The whole roll might get exposed at one event, or the camera might be forgotten and it might take weeks, or even months to be fully exposed. 

Then the film would get dropped off at the lab. Modern readers might have trouble with this, but there used to be little kiosks at the entrance to mall parking lots, promising 1 hour photo developing. Every mall had a store like Blacks, where one could pay extra to have film developed and printed much quicker than the standard time of a week or so. Typically you could get prints of different sizes, surface textures, multiple copies, and probably more choices that aren't coming to mind at the moment. The stores also had cameras, accessories, frames, albums, and probably more stuff related to photography. 

You'd pick up your prints, eager to see them. We often sat on a bench just outside the store to look at them. An interesting thing happened, though most people weren't aware of it. I wasn't, at the time. We would compare our memories of the event to the photos, and would 'correct' any issues with the photo. It triggered a memory. As an example, I have several colour film photos of our car, a blue Honda Fit. It's a nice deep blue. 

Our car, on Portra 160 film. This film tends to somewhat pastel images.

Visions 3 film. A much more accurate colour, but being in bright sun and shade makes it hard to tell. I'm not about to trawl through many thousands of digital photos to see how the colour shows up. Because I don't have photos that include our car key worded to make them easy to find.

Even though we know the phrase "the camera never lies", we know it's not true. The amount of sunlight, the colour of any other light on the subject, the type of film, and the development chemicals and processing all determine how the print looks. Two photos of the same thing taken by different cameras at the same time could end up looking quite different. In the film age, we mentally corrected that. Even now we look at colour photos from the past, and think either "Good God people didn't actually wear that out in public did they?" or "Really, that colour?" We look at 'colourized' photos and movies, and most of them look horrible because we know those colours aren't right. 

Every photo you've ever seen has been edited somehow. Even in film days, drastic editing took place. One example is Soviet era photographs. There were people that specialized in removing people from photos, because it was inconvenient to the regime to acknowledge their existence. Now, of course, with digital photos and Photoshop anything can be done. At some point the image stops being a photograph in the sense that most people think of it, and become digital art. 

We had the experience a few times of looking at the prints and realizing we'd forgotten we'd taken photos of that event. Or that it had been so long since we put that roll of film in the camera. This is a nice rush of memory, since seeing the photo triggers other memories, hopefully happy, of that occasion.

There might be photos that someone else took with your camera that give you a different perspective on the event. There are several where both me and Linda are in the photo, meaning that someone else took it, and for the life of me I have no idea who. These can be a fun surprise, giving you a new memory to add to the old ones. This deepens and enriches the whole experience.

One of the things we tell new photographers is to look at the actual event with your eyes, not just through the camera viewfinder. We don't look at the world the same way through a camera, and sometimes we come back to the photos as strangers. We hear them say, "I don't remember taking that photo." Our brains and the camera see the world very differently.

Sometimes our memories get tangled up with the photo, and it's hard to make them align. Some of the photos taken on film show me with a beard, mostly a reddish colour. I remember having one at various times, but between May 1983, and August 1990 I had a job that required me to be clean shaven. All the guys that left that job grew a beard as an act of rebellion or something. Then about 1996 or so, my job required that I travel to gas plant turnarounds and I had to be clean shaven again. That lasted till 2007 or so. As a side note, at some point I grew a beard again during a month vacation in Nova Scotia and it was gross, with a white stripe from my lower lip down and under my chin. During the recent Vancouver Island trip I didn't shave for a week, and it was a repellent grey all over. Never again, I think.

So the photos with a beard have a clear date range. Except some of the other stuff in the photos doesn't jibe with my memories. I'm thinking some of them have to be mid 80's based on other evidence. Pity the resolution of the photos isn't good enough to read the date on the newspapers.

One of the photos I found was of me and a group of a dozen or so other people. I know the time and place, Pennsic in 1989. Maybe 1990 but I don't think so. In any case, it was a group of peers meeting to discuss changes to the rules governing the Society for Creative Anachronism. Some of my readers remember me being An Tir Kingdom Seneschal, and these were the seneschals of the other 11 (at that time) Kingdoms, and the Society Seneschal. 

Well. I remembered one name because I had dealt with her quite closely for years, and I still had contact information for her. All the others I was drawing a blank, though one name did eventually come to me. I didn't feel so bad when I shared the photos with my friend and she couldn't remember either. 34 years, after all. 

And yet these were people I hung out with for a week, exchanged extensive correspondence with before and after, worked with two of them on the Board, stayed with another for a visit to San Francisco and Sacramento. I still remember one of them introducing me to Fuzzy Navels, a potent but tasty drink. I spent much of that week after the formal meetings in a pleasantly alcoholic haze, never entirely sober, never falling down drunk, and not getting much sleep. I slept for the entire series of flights back. The flight attendants had to wake me up in Salt Lake City as they were checking the plane. I was taking up 3 seats at the back of the plane, between the engines. 

In the unlikely event of one of my readers knowing contact info for any of these people, please let me know. As a side note, it was great attending events in other Kingdoms as Kingdom Seneschal. You're an important guest, you get to know all the good gossip, but nobody expects you to actually do anything. Still, at one I contributed, mainly because then I got to wear the symbol of the organizing team.

Yes, those are Mickey Mouse ears. I figured it would be the only chance in my life to ever wear them. Never let it be said that I take myself too seriously.

There's another example. I've mentioned the really old negatives here. These date back to the early to mid 1950's. Maybe even very late 1940's. In lots of the photos we don't know for sure who the people are, mainly because we don't know exactly when the photo was taken. Complicating things is a strong family resemblance between sisters in two generations. I'm still hoping some of those older generation people take a good look and send me some notes.

My granny had the habit of writing names and ages on the back of photos, and at the time I didn't understand why. Now I do. We forget. The memory gets buried beneath other memories. There's a theory that we remember everything that ever happened to us, everything we see and hear, mainly. The problem is that we can't access it when wanted. There aren't enough associations to bring that thing to the surface. 

So in that group photo, for a week there was a strong association to those people. But when you don't see them, or lose contact, there's all the other people you meet. For me, there were jobs at a dozen or more firms, each with a new set of faces and names to remember. While cleaning out a drawer I found an old org chart. When reading the names I could mostly remember the people. But before that, if you'd shown me a photo of their face I'd have probably drawn a blank on their names. I'd probably get where we were working, but not always. I ran into the same people several times at different jobs. It's true, when you get near the top of the pyramid, you'll know, or know of everybody else there. Which is why you don't burn bridges leaving a job.

In my own current photography processing, I'm kind of lax, even knowing, KNOWING, that at some point I'm going to want to find that photo, and will be cursing myself because I forgot to keyword it, or didn't use the keyword that I now expect I would have used, or there was a keyword that wasn't important at the time of the photo and later does become important, but I didn't go back and add it. Like above, it would be mildly handy to see all the photos with our current car in them.

As I've been writing this, snippets of memory are surfacing. Two more names in the group photo, but they're SCA names, not the real names, and thus of little use tracking them down. The thought just occurred to me that some of those people might have died somehow. Health issues, demonstrations of driver incompetence, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, any number of things could have happened over that time.

So far, people have been delighted at seeing the old photos. I certainly have been, looking through the photos and negatives. Like these two photos. Obviously I know who the people are, but I have no clue which Christmas it was. It could be as early as 1984, or as late as 1989.

Yet you never know. Seeing an old photo might bring back unpleasant associations. No examples of that yet have happened to me, at least that I know about.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Tombstone

Two closely related photos, almost but not quite mergable into a panorama, but I don't think that was my intent. 

Film (new)

The South Glenmore Park pump track. I've been back several times and remain convinced there are images here. I just haven't composed them yet. Acros II film.

Film (old)

In the not taking myself too seriously department. This one also ties into what I was talking about above. The beard says very late 1990 to 1997. But the arrangement of furniture says mid to late 80's to me. But while I can't date the newspapers, the magazine on the left of the coffee table is a clue.

I did a bit of digging, and much to my amazement I found that issue of The Herb Companion in our library. It's from June/July 1993, titled Herbs for Growing, if you're interested in knowing. 

So what was I doing summer of 1993? I had recently started working at NOVA Gas Transmission, so this is a weekend, support by the newspapers strewn about. We used to like getting the papers on the weekend and read them while drinking coffee and waking up. I don't think the lattice and front flower boxes are there, and yet I thought I built them fairly early on in our home ownership. I still have that coffee table in the media room. The chair died at some point. The two love seat things are stashed in the garage, for potential use sometimes. The bookcase visible off to the right is one of a matching pair, they're down in the basement now, still loaded with books. 

AMA 1

First AMA is from Michelle. She asks "What do you think humanity has to look forward to and what do we have to fear in the next 50, 100, 1000 years?"

I suppose if I were on the ball, I'd organize this in a grid, with forward and fear as column headers, and rows for 50 100, and 1000 years. Blogger isn't good at that sort of thing, or at least it wasn't last time I tried it. So I think I'll do fear first, then play you out with music. I'm ignoring really remote possibilities like a huge asteroid striking the earth, the Yellowstone super-volcano erupting, aliens arriving to solve all our problems or assimilate us, and rational thought from our elected politicians.

Fear

50 Years

When I was growing up and interested in science fiction, one of the topics was sentient computers. One of the main streams of science fiction is a computer that woke up, to become alive, self-aware. Mike, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a good example. Usually attempts to unplug the computer go badly.

Back then we thought that if a computer could play chess it was be proof that it was 'thinking'. Well, that happened, and now computers can beat even the best human chess players. And the best Go players, which is an even more complex game. Nobody thinks they're sentient.

Probably the best known artificial intelligence stories are the Robotics stories by Isaac Asimov. That's where the 3 Laws come in, though they have their limitations and loopholes. The thinking was that if you had an artificial brain, why not put it in a humanoid body and then it can fit into the human world? Except the first real robots were assembly line workers. It turns out that walking like a human was an incredibly difficult thing to engineer, and it's only just happened.

There's been some interesting movies and TV shows about sentient computers or artificial intelligence, whichever you prefer. I liked Humans, with it's synthetic humans that were so good you couldn't tell them from a real human, except for the artificial eye colour.  One of the points that came up along the way was a human male character unlocking the sex-bot subroutine of their synthetic human, and getting it on. The spouse took it badly, since she was assuming the synth was human and her husband cheated. Or did he just use a sophisticated sex toy? (It's an interesting watch. Gemma Chan is the lead, look for William Hurt, and Carrie-Ann Moss.)

Possibly the most famous AI is Skynet from the Terminator movies. Actually, I think Skynet is kind of stupid. Why send robots to kill humanity, when you can weaponize a disease?

You've probably figured out where I'm going with this. Our various software apps are programmed so well that it's spooky sometimes. I don't think the Google search engine, or the Amazon order bot, or the new ChatGPT are 'alive' or sentient', but they sure seem to know us really well. However, I would not be surprised to find that there is a sentient computer in a lab somewhere, and the programmers are keeping really quiet about it, just in case. Or the computer is just smart enough to know that it isn't smart enough yet, and is biding it's time till it can move forward with whatever it's plans are. 

At some point programmed behaviour will be so good we won't be able to tell it from our own behaviours. After all, look at what animals do. We were so bought into humans being the only intelligent creatures that we called everything animals did, instinct. Except we now know they can learn and adapt. Find the video of a crow dropping nuts onto the crosswalk, waiting for the car to run over the nut, then walking out with the humans to pick up the edible part of the nut. Or the crow using a plastic lid to slide down a snowy roof. Or an octopus solving problems. Just as an aside, I don't eat calamari any more.

Think about the price of airline seats. Is there any human that understands this? I don't think so. The rules are so complex and the circumstances driving those rules change so quickly that no human can keep up. It's said that it's possible an airplane could be full of people and no two of them paid the same price for their seat. Or think about the computers that do the automated stock market trading. I'm sure some of the volatility in the stock markets came from computer trading programs acting on changing information, all at once in a fraction of a second, and then reacting to that change and the next ones, in a positive feedback way. Now think about such a computer making trades for it's own purposes. 

So far our computer systems rely on humans to do lots of the work in the real world. We drive trucks, load containers, buy things. So far they need us. We've seen what happens when our just in time networking gets snarled because one ship got stuck in a canal. Or a flu pandemic comes along. I think we'll be ok as long as a sentient AI needs us.

It would be amazing if I'm still alive 50 years from now. The possibility is there given the advances in medical technology. In my lifetime I'm most worried about an AI becoming self aware, and for some reason getting pissed at humanity. We aren't likely to come out ahead in such a conflict, and I don't see the leadership that can mould the creation of an AI to become a partner to humanity, rather than a competitor.

100 Years

Assuming we make friends with our AI and we become partners. We fix the climate change. Or maybe we don't. Humans will survive almost no matter what happens to the climate, but it certainly won't be the 8 billion or so of us currently here. One could make the argument that earth can't support the people here now in their current lifestyles, and there are several billion people that yearn for a North American life with access to that level of food, medical care, clean water, the list goes on.

It's possible, but unlikely that I'll live another 50 years. Another 100 would seem completely out of the question, unless there is a major medical breakthrough that leads to that sort of life extension. This was the point of one of my novels in progress, that stem cell research would create a form of immortality, where people would undergo a regeneration process that reverts them back to the physical condition they had as late teens.

So whatever is happening, I'll not likely have to worry about it. 

My geopolitical fear over this time period is the collapse of the American empire, with repercussions we can barely begin to sort out. Those with the historical eyes to see, can already see the collapse beginning. It could happen in my lifetime, depending on how stupid the American voters are, and how rabid the Republicans are.

My fear is that humanity doesn't grow up, and we export our crazy to other planets. There's all sorts of people that would like to create a little enclave for them and their like-minded friends. Now think about that happening to a whole world. Lots of dystopian novels about that too.

Our world of 100 years ago is just beyond living memory, but it's well documented. Think about how much things have changed in the last 100 years, and try to imagine could change in the next 100. There's lots to be afraid of, and maybe I'm happy I won't be here to see it. Your grandchildren, for those that have or will have them, they'll have to deal with it.

1000 Years

When we think about the next 1000 years our brains kind of melt. That's 30 generations or so. About the only civilized place to live 1000 years ago was China, in the Song dynasty, and maybe Constantinople.  We can argue about where the civilized places to live now are, but the list is pretty short. Canada (yay us!), New Zealand, much of Europe, Japan, and some other places depending on exactly how wealthy you are and what friends you have. In 1000 years that list might be much longer, or not exist at all.

I fear in 1000 years the only life on the planet will be rats and cockroaches, and anything else equally adaptable. Maybe cats, racoons, ravens, and plants. Whatever survives will have to be able to eat anything, deal with contaminated water, and be smart enough not to get preyed on or fall victim to the various time bombs left by humanity.

Look Forward To

50 Years

I am somewhat reassured by the thought that half of all the smartest people ever to live, are alive right now, with ways to collaborate that were undreamed of 50 years ago. Maybe they can figure out what to do about the various problems that ail us and somehow persuade our idiot politicians to go along. 

Maybe something like an AI will help. It doesn't have to be sentient. Look at what Google can do now. Just last night I plugged an address into the destination, and said I was coming from Victoria airport. A fraction of a second later I was looking at a map with the route marked, and turn by turn directions. With a little luck the phone will read the directions to me as I drive. It will give me traffic congestion indications in real time. I remain blown away by this, even though it's not particularly a new thing. 

I'm hoping we can build our systems so we start trusting the data, and making data driven decisions. (I once had a meme on my office door that said "We claim to be data driven, but keep in mind the data has been drinking." At the time I was the chief data conversion/migration expert on that particular project, and yes, the data was messy.)

Those stories you hear people talking about how dangerous vaccinations are? They are anecdotes told by fools. A very, very limited data set that might in fact be correct, but it's not likely. The problem is that such a story tends to be sticky, and works its way into our brains, affecting what we do. For the same situation, a bad outcome that happened (or is said to have happened) to someone we know affects us more than thousands of good outcomes for strangers. Lots of times the big picture overall data is actually counter intuitive. Maybe an AI can help us tell stories that are both sticky and accurate. 

I'll settle for a real time AI that monitors what politicians say, and lights up a big sign that says "liar liar pants on fire", and then actually sends a robot to light the pants on fire after too many lies.

100 Years

Medical breakthroughs that let me participate in life 100 years from now. Although, there's days I don't feel particularly relevant to today, what with my attraction to old school film photography, and wanting less stupid software in my life. I feel a little like a Luddite now, and that's only going to get worse. Then again, maybe our robotic AI overlords will actually care for us, and make decisions for us. Sort of like how we care for a pet cat.

Finally getting past the various mindsets that have plagued us. Bigotry. Racism. Religious intolerance. Gender bias. Discrimination.

1000 Years

Earth is a garden. We have moved out beyond our solar system, inhabiting other planets circling other stars. 

Maybe this will be the sort of view 100 years from now, nature slowly reclaiming our excesses, and looking beautiful as it happens.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

And the peony which is also a serendipity from 2017.

Driftwood (BC)

Tombstone park visitor centre. 

Film (new)

The digital camera working on a long exposure.

Film (old)

Linda, two of her sisters, and their mom. As I recall, her mom had just brutally thumped us at Yahtzee.

So little to so much

Long term readers know I keep track of which photos go in the blog. The idea is to not bore my readers with repeats, and it mostly works out. There's a folder that shows which photos have not been blogged in the last 3 months, and that's the usual source for blog photos. At the beginning of the year I was down to a few dozen photos. Right now there's 674 photos to choose from.

There was a bit of writer's block happening at the start of the year. Now I've got some AMA questions to work with. The window is closing on that, so if you're going to ask, send in that questions soon. Comment, text me, email me keith at nucleus dot com, whatever. Plus there's some vacation stuff to talk about.

So now the problem is how to organize all that material in a way that makes sense to me, and entertains you. Plus I'm looking at the paper strewn mess of my desk, thinking about how the various things need to be sorted into different piles. The current bills, and tax slips are merely the first of it. Plus I've got Ladyva doing epic piano boogie woogie in another window. So I'm a bit distracted.

Then again it's Sunday, and I don't have anything much on the agenda today. I'd mentally planned to be editing today, but I got through the vacation photos more quickly that I thought. I'm awaiting the 3 rolls of film back from the lab, and that will be another bout of digitizing and editing.

So vacation. We like the idea of going some place warmer during the endless Canadian winter. It's been New Zealand and Bermuda twice. Vancouver Island several times. But not USA or Mexico, which are popular warm destinations for lots of people. USA has all too many people that think nothing need be done about many episodes of children being shot in school. They don't deserve tourism dollars. Or any respect, for that matter. I don't even want to transit USA, which I admit limits my travel choices.

Mexico is a more complicated choice. Lots of my friends have been to Mexico, and many of them love it. I've been tempted a few times. Some friends have become ill during or after the trip, and thats so common there's a whole bunch of related slang phrases. I don't like getting sick, and worrying about what's in the water that washed the food is more thinking than I really want to do. Plus I don't speak Spanish. Resort life doesn't really appeal to us. 

We still think COVID is not totally done with us, and there is still a possibility of futher travel restrictions. Or weather, that's getting more unpredictable, leading to flight changes. I just read about some people that spent more than 16 hours on an airplane to go from Auckland to Auckand. Yes, in New Zealand. Had we gone to New Zealand again this year, like we thought about, we'd have been in that terrible cyclone, since the north part of the north island is where we wanted to go. That might have been bad. 

So we picked a spot on Vancouver Island we hadn't been to, that might have warm(er) weather than here. We ended up staying just outside of Sooke, and explored the coastline up to Port Renfrew. Mostly the weather was as expected, cool and damp. We pretty much wore a sweater under a rain layer and were fine. Liquid water is nice.

I'm not going to give you 400 vacation photos. Many are driftwood, and I know there is a limited audience for that. But there's other stuff as well, so I'll pick and choose some highlights, sort of like what I did here, the other day. Maybe tell a bit of a story.

1. Linda posing, happy to be out of the snow, surround by green. Much of the time she was off ahead of me receding into the distance.

2. A beach scene. Sand is nice, but I don't mind the rocks, and love the sound of the waves.

3. The first serendipity, a coffee roaster from a 2021 photo session.

4. I laughed out loud when I saw this. Someone carefully arranged the shells. Look at the right-most one more carefully.

5. Another serendipity of the coffee roaster.

6. The green! One of the things I wanted to do was walk through green forests. That happened, and there will probably be a blog featuring that.

7. Yet another serendipity. This actually looks a bit over baked to me now, but it's from early on, while I was still experimenting. When I asked a trusted buddy if I had overdone it she said, "I want a print." I have a test print of it on the fridge where it has faded quite a bit.

8. A tree on Whiffen Spit. It's a popular walking trail in Sooke. It was full of people that made it difficult to get some of the photos that mostly appealed to me. By that I mean I'd have taken the photo to see what it looks like after editing, but wasn't so pumped about it that I'd wait for people to move (I might still be waiting) or to go through the work to find another composition. But the light was nice on this tree, and nobody was around. And when I say light on the tree was nice, as foreshadowing, there will be a blog with stunning light on the trees coming soon. Stay tuned.

9. Part of the Sooke Potholes park. I had great light. More of this coming later as well.

10. I'm always looking for reflection photos.

11. One huge advantage BC has over New Zealand for driftwood is that it's often wet from rain. This brings out the colour and textures much better than dry wood baking in the blazing sun. There was a shininess to it that needs careful editing. Yes, it makes the wood slippery, which makes crossing driftwood log bridges tricky.

12. This exactly such a driftwood bridge.

13. Slippery logs, and me not wanting to get my feet wet if I could avoid it, carrying expensive camera gear. I could easily picture my feet slipping between the logs and me falling to one side causing grievous damage to my legs. A bit later on I got wet feet working on composition for a waterfall photo, so on the way back I just waded through the knee deep stream.

14. Always on the lookout for temporary art.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ) (There's still several hundred in the pipeline.)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Film (new)

Sean working the scene at Big Hill Springs park.

Film (old)

Linda, Nefertitti, and Amelia.