Linda's Seasonal Decorations

During the summer we have flowers growing in the many decorative pots Linda has picked out over the years. For winter, she loves to use them as a base for seasonal decorations. Here's this year's efforts.

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The latest ear worm. Actually a brain worm

I know you've had the experience of getting a song in your head and having it play over and over, till something else displaces it. For writers the same thing happens with words. We play conversations or descriptions over and over, relishing the flow of words. If they're your own words, you try different combinations, and my characters like playing different roles to see what works best for them and the book. And photographers, don't get me started. Sometimes we see a photo, and we're just struck by the brilliance of it.

One photographer in particular has been hitting the brilliance button so often for me that I can't say enough about him. In case you can't read the print, the photo book is by Neil Zeller, taken during the first wave of the COVID pandemic.

It's a big book, full of socially distant portraits. They are everything under the sun, funny, moving, improvised, posed, with and without props, mostly on the front steps. Not famous people, though one of the photos has an extremely famous Calgarian. It's ordinary people, struggling through an extraordinary time, most of them telling a little bit of their stories. Some will make you cry, most will move you to all sorts of emotions.

I'd seen some of the photos on display during his show at the Glenbow Museum, and had chatted to Neil about some of the adventures along the way. The book has some of his own adventures along the way too. Last I heard there are still some copies available. Buy it here.

One of the fun things about the library is putting things on hold. I tend to go in spurts, putting a bunch of things on hold, and gradually have them trickle in. Some people are obsessed with seeing a show or movie as soon as it comes out. My response is the library is free. We don't mind waiting. We like to try before we buy.

It's actually kind of fun to watch the number of people in line gradually dwindle, and the anticipation begins. One of the longer waits was for both seasons of American Gods, and so well worth it! Once the last season is released on blue ray I'll probably get the whole set.

Good Omens has been ticking down for months. I think I put a hold on it shortly after it was released, and there were several hundred people in line in front of me. No surprise. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are both brilliant writers, and the translation to the screen is superb! If you haven't seen it, set aside 6 hours for total enjoyment. It's fun, funny, witty, profound, and the actors are all at least good, and the leads are amazing. 

(Oh, and now with the new COVID restrictions coming in, you'll have lots of time again. We're planning a run to the library to pick up a big stack of books. Don't get me started on the wretched UCP response to the pandemic.)

But just now I've got the theme song running through my brain. It's kind of a wonky waltz, with lots going on in the title credits. The show and the music suit each other perfectly, and then to have the running Queen joke was a cherry on top.

We watched it in two long sessions, utterly in thrall. There was no question about watching the next episode. I almost want to put it on and watch it again. Except, work. This is a busy week, with people shovelling frantically to get stuff done before they go on vacation. I think my entire team is off starting Friday, which means then I'll be able to chug away peacefully, transforming, massaging, organizing, and migrating data. They will love the results. 

Even after reading the book a really long time ago, the show felt fresh and natural, an unfolding story going new and strange places. And it's a long complicated story, much like life. Obscure in most places, more complicated than seems possible, and shit happens. No matter how much you think you have a plan, you aren't in charge. Things will change. Your choices are to deal with it, or go under.

In the stay tuned department, Linda has finished her seasonal decorations, and I got photos of them yesterday. Good thing. It snowed last night, and it's snowing now.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Paperweight

Glennfield day area

One fine day earlier this year, Sean and I agreed to meet up for a socially distant walk in Fish Creek. However there was a nasty gate across the entrance and firm wording about construction zones. We drove a very short way, parked on top of the hill, and walked down to explore in the other direction. We had a wonderful walk west of bridge 8.

Our original destination, Glennfield Day Area in Fish Creek is now open. There's new washrooms and what looks like a thoroughly renovated soundstage. My strongest memories of this particular part of the park are from my first half-ironman, about 13 K into a brutal run, with one of my socks trying to eat my baby toe. That's where I met Kelly and she dragged me along to finish. I might not have made it without her.

Today I wandered through, along with about a bazillion other people. The huge parking lot was nearly full, but I still managed to find some peace and quiet in the lovely afternoon light. My MTO loved it. (Hint, see yesterday.)

Wishing I could get out on the river for this shot, but the ice here didn't look safe at all.

The lead shot and the rest of these were all shot quite close together. 

Two similar shots, with the main difference being the crop, but there's some minor edit differences.

I have to admit, as much as I love distressed wood, today I like this shot less than I did yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I'll like it more. 

One of the many people out enjoying the day. I liked his old school bike, narrow tires, no battery. I see so many of the 'fat' bikes with more rubber in the tires than what's on my car.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Serendipity from 2017.

Paperweight

Cranky but untopical

Normally I'm pretty good at dealing with messy thoughts. Put all or most of the them related to X in a bucket where I can get at it, and then make up a to-do list, or blog, or organize something, or do a spreadsheet in a particular way to spin one particular person's eyeballs. (Hint, she loves it!) Whatever it takes, then move onto the next bucket.

All the other thoughts ferment together in their individual buckets with like thoughts, while a meta-thought organizer  (MTO) scampers between buckets assuring them that they are important and will be dealt with in an orderly but semi-timely fashion. Occasionally the MTO carries messages between buckets to keep thought-relatives informed of important developments. 

It's much less chaotic than it sounds. Or rather, it used to be. But just lately my brain has been a confused hot mess. I think what's happened is that my system evolved then things were simpler and didn't move as fast or erratically. And now my poor MTO is overwhelmed. Over-heated. Overstimulated. Overworked. Just plain over.

Once upon a time I was involved with the SCA, and in one of several positions of authority I had what I now view as a preliminary event. A premonition. An early warning. One of my tasks was to chair meetings. It could involve a dozen or so people discussing various issues. On some issues I was a senior advisor while a particular pair of people said the words that actually made the decision. On other issues I was the decider. 

Other meetings involved a lot more people, and if you think of a town hall meeting put on by a local politician, you've pretty much got the idea. I was in a distant town to chair such a meeting, amid other events. I knew perfectly well that it was a polarizing issue, and I had close personal friends on both sides of it. Both sides had assured me they trusted me to listen and come to a fair decision, and to abide by my decision. 

Something you need to know about this group is that people were known by two names. One was the name on their official ID. The other was a name of their choosing to use within the society. Depending on the circumstances, one might call them by either name, and in some confusing cases, the one name was also a nickname suitable to be used almost any time. 

So there I was, seated in front of about 50 people. I'd walked one group through their view of the issue, knowing perfectly well that a good friend, who I had known for years, was waiting patiently to give the other side. I had this lovely segue in mind, and started into it, and got most of the way through, and turned to her as her name was going to be the last word of my introduction, and my name server failed. Completely and totally, and for pretty much the first time. Not even the tip of the tongue, thing. It was gone and I knew it wasn't coming back any time soon. I changed on the fly and turned it over to her, apologizing about the name saying my brain was so focused on their issue it had pushed her name out of mind. Everybody understood, since it was well known we were friends. None the less, I was embarrassed and apologized profusely later.

Shortly after that I had an incident at work where I got handed a spreadsheet of data, and was asked to bring it up to date with regard to some sold properties and updated inspection dates. I had a bad half day there. I recognized my own work, since I had produced that spreadsheet a little while previously. But I could not for the life of me figure out how I had done it. I'd done something really cute in SQL and then tweaked it in XL. 

Then while doing some preliminary investigation I realized someone else had made a cut at tweaking the data, and had corrupted the spreadsheet. I managed to recreate my work to generate the original XL, and from there it was straightforward to do the updates required. Straightforward as in taking about 15 minutes to go through a list, muttering to myself, this sold property is number n1 and exclude it,  that's n2 exclude it, while updating the SQL. The updated inspection dates took care of themselves.

After that I started keeping more formal notes, a logbook of tasks done,  snippets of SQL, draft emails, cost codes and time taken for later billing. One of my bosses came across me updating my notes and asked what it was. Now, this was a much older guy, older than I am now, and lets just say actually typing something was an ordeal for him. He couldn't fathom it, because all he could think of was how long it would take him to do that. Fortunately for me, my mom insisted I take a typing class in high school, and to this day I maintain it was the most useful course I've ever taken, and I've always been grateful to her for insisting, even if her stated reason was "there will be lots of girls in that class."

Which also explains this blog. The question I'm asked most often is "where do you get the time?" Well, the big thing is that I don't watch much network television. The other is that MTO. One of the things it does in the background is organize thoughts to go in the blog. For years I'd be out training for Ironman, and the MTO was scurrying around, doing it's thing, and when I sat in front of the computer the blog would write itself. I don't have any real idea how fast I type but it's pretty quick. 

Sometimes that leads to a full blown rant, and I know you guys love my rants. But just now, while I'm cranky enough for a rant, I'm not organized enough.

The longest and most frustrating part about blogging is usually loading photos. (Though I've got a grip on it just now, fingers crossed, knock wood.) Which gets me to this. Just as I write this, I have no idea which photos I'm going to include. The Of the Day ones are easy. But right now I only have 59 in my not blogged in 3 months folder. That's the lowest it's been in years. 

So I think of the things I'm going to do for my poor MTO is go take more photos. That's almost always a soothing activity, even if I'm not on a beach in New Zealand. So where then? Decisions, decisions.

The other thing is to dial back on Facebook. Just lately it's been a bit of a chore wading through all the crud to get to what I want to see, which is stuff my friends post. And news, holy doodle the news is full of stupid people doing stupid things, and I'm sick of it. 

I'm seriously contemplating an experiment where I review and tweak Facebook settings, then only look at it once a day. No scrolling. Only notifications and a couple specific groups I belong to. For now I'll continue to post notifications about when I blog. And no more news. If anything important happens, as in, more important than COVIDIOTS doing stupid things, and less important than an asteroid striking the earth, I'll probably hear about it whether I want to or not.

Which is another thing. In 2019 I blogged more than once a day, on average. I guess a trip to New Zealand and Yukon helps. This year I'm way down. Today will be blog 239, and I'm guessing I'll end up the year at about 250. This is on par with my historical average, blogging every day and a half or so. But I am thinking about alternatives to blogging and Facebook. No, not Parler like Trump and his idiot followers. Something civilized. Stay tuned.

As I was scrolling through unblogged photos, I found this one from a walk on a cold snowy day with two friends. My MTO loved the patterns of rock.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Paperweight

Sometimes a mineral

Water is one of the better examples of our brains seeing things one way, and a camera seeing it another. Our brain inherently sees the motion of water ripples and light playing on the surface. If we watch carefully we can see a drop of water spray, and track it downwards until it lands on something. 

A stills camera can't do that. With a fast shutter speed it will produce an image with every drop of water sharp, clear, and motionless. Or with a slower one the image will show that drop as a streak, and if the shutter is open long enough it will show the water turning into that milky look. 

The photographer's artistic vision drives the choice of camera settings. If you're doing a shot of triathletes splashing into water at the start of a race, you probably want the fast shutter speed. If you like the milky look, get a tripod and neutral density filters and have fun. I find the in between shutter speeds to be the most interesting.

This is an attempt to thread the needle, showing a bit of motion, but not too much. 

I've taken lots of photos of water, and often I'm not particularly satisfied with the results. Often I'm doing it because there's a reflection involved. So here's some attempts at water photos that have not been previously blogged.

My favourite bridge is in there somewhere. Just out of the photo on the bottom left is a series of footprints ending in a wet spot. I couldn't get to the spot needed for a photo without risking leaving my own wet spot.

Ice and water and rocks can be enormously photogenic. Or not.

Here's another version of the November runner up photo. Not a re-cropping of that one, it's taken from a different place.

Fish Creek is full of tiny little constructed waterfalls. People love wading in the river, building little pools or dams. The water flowing over them fascinates me, even if the camera isn't fascinated. A walk through the park, listening to the water over the rocks, and the wind in the trees is enormously relaxing.

Reflections are always fun, if surprisingly hard sometimes. Oddly enough, dark murky water usually gives the best reflections.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Paperweight

The road trip with that sunset

Early in the pandemic, someone on Facebook joked that their car was getting a day per litre as milage. We normally filled up every 10 days or so. That changed to about once a month early in the year. Even now, it's 15 to 20 days between fill ups. 

There aren't a lot of places to go, and many of those aren't much fun. Go, (remembering to take a mask), stand in line to get in, follow the arrows on the floor, try to be polite while shouting through a mask and plastic barriers at cranky people tired of explaining the rules, remembering to keep your distance, and all that.

I'm not complaining. It's the way to deal with a pandemic. But it does put a crimp on some activities. As most of my readers know, I'm a shy, reclusive creature. It hasn't been particularly difficult to be home.

However, I do get the itch to get out to new places with my camera. Sunday was that day. I'd been thinking about Image of the Month, and November had been a bit of a skinny month for photography. I had a few I liked, but not a lot of choice. I got to thinking some new sights for my camera might be a good thing.

Wyndham-Carseland is just south of (duh) Carseland, a bit south and east of Calgary. It's mostly a boat ramp just upstream of a drowning machine. There's a bit of a bend in the Bow River, and I thought there was potential for lots of old log jams and dead wood. There's a bit, but not so much as I had hoped for. It's mostly scrub bush and some kind of trees.

And a serendipity shot from the Yukon in 2017.

I'd thought of this mostly as a scouting trip, just to see what was there. But as I was driving out I kept looking over my shoulder. The chinook clouds promised some interesting light later in the day. I had hopes.

Not many of the shots within the park did much for me. Even what turned out to be the Image of the Month was almost a speculative shot, just to see if the camera would pick up the sheen of light on the water. Here's another example of trees reflected in the water. Kind of blah, compared to the other one, don't you think? And yet I didn't do anything particularly special to that one. I didn't paint in those colours.

Once done exploring I zoomed up and out, and headed south across the bridge on highway 24. Sometimes bridges in nice light can be fascinating, but this is a boring bridge, and the river valley is nothing to write home about.

However the light was getting fantastic. I was thinking of a scenic hilltop mostly on the way home and was pretty brisk about heading to it. Along the way I passed a ruined round bale in the ditch. I could see the shots, and I darned near stopped, and thought about it for the next couple K. But I didn't, I had high hopes for the sunset, and it's better to get there too early, rather than too late. 

Seeing some kind of deer in the other ditch just a bit further tempted me. I had the right lens on the camera. They didn't seem spooked. There was no stupid fence in the way. The light was nice. I could have shot without getting out of the car. But I didn't stop. I'm not particularly a wildlife photographer.

However, remember that shed in the sunset from Tuesday? (Same link as above.) I stopped for that. While I was doing that, another car stopped and asked if I was ok. When I said I was photographing the shed in the sunset, they looked baffled. Oh well. It was nice they stopped to check.

I didn't get to the spot I was thinking of, but found another much like it. I could see Calgary downtown off in the distance, and tried for some of the leading lines in the clouds. Not.  There were lots of shots, and I had time to play with different lenses.

Rule 4 in photography is always look around, no matter how interesting the view in front is. When I turned around I got this, looking east. Again, no special work done to the photo to add colour. That's the way it looked.

The first photo in todays blog, the road westward, was taken about now. Then I nearly drove into the ditch when I looked south. Of course I stopped.

There was one failure coming home. Typically when coming home from the south I'll exit onto 22X, and go over to 37th St to avoid city traffic. However, construction. Eventually there will be a superhighway connecting the exit off MacLeod Trail to the entrance to our neighbourhood. Let's just say it's a work in progress.

Part of that progress is to change the exit ramp, and remove the signs. It's changed a lot since I was last there, and I was still sort of looking at the clouds to the west, and what with no sign, I missed the exit. Crap. I'd sort of hoped to see the state of construction along there. Another time.

Sometimes sunrise and sunsets are blink and you miss it. This one went on and on. I don't know how long exactly but at least the better part of an hour, maybe more. It was so nice to get out. I'll have to do this more often.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Paperweight

November Image of the Month

That was a surprise. One of the experiences photographers live for (although there are far too many such to list here) is to see an image that was at least ok enough in real life to take the photo, and then discover it goes wow after editing. And remember, every photo you've ever seen has been edited. The trick is how much. It can be easy to over do it.

The second runner up is new to everyone, since I only took it last Sunday and haven't blogged since. The Image of the Month has been shared with photographer buddies on Facebook, so some of them might be seeing it again. I'm sure that just kills them.

And as an aside, I goofed in the title of last month's image, calling it November instead of October.  My bad.

Second Runner Up

On the way home on Sunday afternoon the sunset was spectacular! I wasn't quite in the perfect place for it, but on the way there I saw this hut, and some sundogs just above it. Unfortunately, no matter what I did for editing, I couldn't get that bit of rainbow colour to show up in the image. There were several other 'Stop the van!' sights, but I was eager for the main show and pressed on. I'll blog some of the other sunset shots soon.

First Runner Up

This scene in Fish Creek is one of my favourites.

Image of the Month

This is in Wyndham-Carseland Provincial Park. I'd never been, and was itching to show my camera new territory. When I was looking at the scene, the light and reflections were really nice on the water, but what the camera showed me was pretty drab. None the less, I persisted. Then upon editing, wow!