I edited and uploaded my favourite photos from our trip to Nova Scotia. I think the slideshow looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Here's a few to whet your appetite. They all have Alt/title text, so hover over a photo without clicking if you're curious.

In Pinochet's Chile, a poet held and tortured in the dictator's jails named Raúl Zurita imagined "writing poems in the sky, on the faces of cliffs, in the desert."

In 1993, this poem was etched into a mountain-base: Ni Pena Ni Miedo.

No shame nor fear.

It is three kilometers long. If you zoom in on the google map in that link, you can the attention to detail. The desert has been reclaiming the field, just as the thousands of victims of Pinochet were disappeared.

But it is said that every Sunday the children of the nearest village go out with shovels and turn the dirt inside the letters to refresh them. My mind is boggled at the scale of this.

(I originally saw this on Google Sightseeing; there was more info in their links, and more also in the translation translation of his wp page here.)

Happy Inauguration Day, everyone.

Rover, age 4 months, taken just before Halloween 2002.  In Elora Gorge, if I'm not mistaken.  On a day with weather much like it was earlier today- warm enough, but most definitely Autumn.

- - -
* Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
* Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
* Include these instructions, and share the love.

Somehow, I expect the overlap set on my friends list is... kinda large.


So pretty:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/22/10

University of Manchester Library to share 14th-century royal cookbook online. Look at that pic. I can't wait for it to go live.

So scary:
http://lovelylisting.blogspot.com/2008/09/listing-listing.html

lovely_listing (It's Lovely, I'll Take It) is "a collection of poorly chosen photos from real-estate listings". This one had me chortling out loud. Even now, after I've snuck looks at it all through the afternoon, it still makes me chuckle.

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

This photo's a bit unusual in that it's how I see myself; Mac Photo Booth automatically does a mirror on it. When I flip it back to how you usually see me, it looks way out of kilter.

So I heard we had rain warnings this weekend for 5-10cm/2-3.9" total. The first storm is due today; the second, tomorrow, the remnants of hurricane Ike.

That seems like a lot of weather activity, but Google Maps makes it seem more immediate with their Fall Hurricanes map.

( Hello there. )

In 30 minutes I'm supposed to go stand on a bridge in Victoria Park and get photographed. I wonder if the rain will hit before, or after?

Wow. 19 photos by London photographer Jason Hawkes, shot from a helicopter with gyro-stabilized mounts...

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/london_from_above_at_night.html



The photographer's site is pretty spectactular.

There's a BBC video about the making of the "London at Night" series (linked on the front page) but it's limited to UK viewers- maybe somebody over there can let us know whether the video's any good!

I got a panorama picture of tonight's storm. We were out for ice-cream just before it hit.

I stood outside the Sobeys and watched the heavy clouds cross the sky in just about five minutes, and then we had a few minutes before the heavy rain and lightning started!

So I was a bit amused with flickr stats just now; it tells me these photos are unaccountably highly ranked in google image search: first-row results for: dandelion puller (hey, I know those guys!) and phonographic photos.

There's the odd Canada Yellow Pages search result where my candid photo is the top link (for a restaurant!).

And then there's mormons on yahoo search- that's a bit further down, link 65 or so. (But aw! They're all so cute!)

But the best best thing I just found was stumbling driftingfocus's stumblr account:

Apologies for teh blurrinees, but I think we captured one of the rare photos of the fabled Alpha Jelly-fish.

It's in the left hand wall hanging, and the only detail that I think is fuzzed out in the photo is a few vertical lines on the pink jelly-fish body:



Alpha Jelly-fish, second cousin to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, protector to the Virgin Mary.

Yes?

The weekend was fun. Conveniently, the chest-cold I've acquired didn't show itself until last night late- well *after* the Easter dinner out with melted_snowball and his colleagues. But last night I went to bed with a tight chest and woke up at 5ish this morning feeling pretty icky. Today was blah, but manageable.

I'm drinking tons of fluids and hope I can get over it quickly- if I'm still likely infectious on Friday, I'll scuttle my trip to NYC to see my grandmother... ("Happy 100th Birthday! I brought you a cold!")

Anyhow. This weekend: I slept in (till 8am! wow!), did more paper-sorting in the closet (getting down to the end on the left-hand closet!) did some art-wrangling [1] (three more framed pieces in my study: one by catbear of d. [2]; one an odd-sized matted piece I bought and promptly stashed in the closet when I realized it would cost a mint to get it properly framed, but catbear's advice gave me the proper $30 solution; and finally, I bought a frame for the LP album fuzzpsych gave me when I became a citizen) [3].

[1] Ugh, apologies for the dreadful sentence structure. I bet you can guess what my excuse is?

[2] which looks like a much wider view of this:

[3]

We also attended the baptism for tbiedl's youngest, who's young enough that neither d. or I had met her yet. It was a sweet welcome to her; though the church service was long- it included four readings, three skits, an outdoor portion, two candle lightings, and communion. Whew! :)

We also saw the Phil perform St. John's Passion, with surtitles and projected art. I don't have the oomph to properly review it, but I'm glad we went.

We shared two quite enjoyable dinners. One with catbear, dawn_guy, and Boy; it included scads of double-entendres, talking about games, food, and favourite stories. And the miracle of the Uncovered Pie. The other dinner was with colleagues of dan's, plus other academics at the Other University. It included no double-entendres, some French, many bottles of wine, shop talk, favourite stories, and a Devon Rex kitten who looked much like this. (Awwww!)

Hm. It's probably a good idea for me to go thud now. Hopefully I will wake up well-rested and less sick than today.

Yesterday's Globe and Mail included these two comics. "Pooch Cafe" is often funny, but "Betty" is seldom worth a chuckle for me, but the pair of them next to each other at Valentine's Day were appreciated.

So, whether or not you celebrate today, whether or not you're looking, happy with the love or loves you've got, or desperately wishing the media would just stop trying to push stuff down our throats (hi)... Hope you have a happy day.

Here are 11 photos from Friday and Saturday (click on the photo below to see them). They include graffiti, Imperial Storm Troopers, many sonic screwdrivers, a dragon, a very fine cat, and Princess Di.



We're coming home tomorrow morning early- I will likely wait until then to write up any more of the trip, as my brain's sort of fried. See you then!

I seem to have misplaced my last entry. Here are a few Boxing Day photos. (there are seven that were at the "crop and post" level, though I like a few of the photos I took quite a bit, I'll probably do more with them later). 

Yesterday's high points:

We saw Cabaret, which I think was more affecting live than film. I certainly came out depressed. It was a good show. 3.5/4 stars, we agreed. 

The National Gallery is wonderful.  Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers', a few Caravaggios, Reuben's 'Massacre of the Innocents' and a few other 'wow they have that too' moments. 

In the morning we went to the Tate, which was neat, but we only spent an hour and a bit. We left without seeing the featured exhibit, a retrospective on Turner Prize winners, which looked good but cost 11 pounds.  As d. put it, we have a lot of London to see that costs less than 11 quid. :)  Of things I saw, I was taken by  Shedboatshead which was a large shed, turned into a boat and filled with the rest of the shed, sailed down the Rhine a few miles, and rebuilt into a shed.  In the gift shop, I found a book by Banksy that I like quite a lot. He has a few things to say about surveillance.

And now we're off for the morning!

click through for 7 photos from Boxing Day evening in London.

Friday:

- I caught the first half of the Critical Mass ride. I chatted and rode with nobody_here and psychedelicbike and peeled off home at a convenient point. I continue to be conflicted about the message they're sending- a bulk of the people wanted to take both lanes, so both lanes we took. Sigh. Also, the fraction of people wearing helmets felt, um, quite low. I'm pondering how my own energies might be best spent, and after this last ride I'm feeling less like it's via the "unfocused protest" route. *ponder*

[edit to add: Bike odometer has 4950 miles; exactly 800 miles this calendar year, or about 1280km (see previous bike post about nice round numbers). I'm hoping to get another 50 miles before it gets icy and I put away the bike 'till the warm season again.]

- Dinner and movies chez chezmax and the_infamous_j. I liked Perfect Blue, though not as much as Paprika, but it was neat to see some of the same character touches used in more ominous ways- such as the spritely evil Mima skipping around just like Paprika had. I'd give it 3/5 stars. Then we watched a bit of trippy anime as a palette-cleanser, Azumanga Daioh, which is addictive in much the same way chocolate-covered espresso beans are, that more than a bit tends to make the brain hurt some.

Saturday:
- Low energy day, because I didn't sleep very well. I might blame the chocolate-covered espresso beans, though I expect that's only an excuse. Saturday I ran errands, and cleaned the vegetable drawers of the fridge. It was too pissy out to do much else outside. I bought new pants.

Sunday:
- I was out the door before 8, and off with two other Quakers to Sparta, just a few km from Lake Erie, for a regional meeting. These were the first Canadian business sessions I've attended outside our local Meeting, in the six years I've lived here. The business sessions felt to me like going-through-the-motions, rather than something at all spiritually led, and the afternoon presentation was... a mixed bag. The best part of the trip was meeting people at lunch- including one family who got excommunicated at their last church. Also, singing this hymn set to "Finlandia", which I've always enjoyed. (I didn't think I knew it; but I remembered harmonies from the second bar onward!)

On the drive, we passed Mapleton's Taxidermy and Cheese Store.



Finally, I was glad to see d., since he got home before I did; and I was happy to take him out to sushi in the evening, but otherwise, the day felt frustrating.

This felt like a full weekend.

Friday afternoon I took part in a Critical Mass ride (post updated with more detail).




In the evening, melted_snowball and I celebrated our 11th anniversary with dinner at Bhima's, which I had bicycled past a mere 90 minutes earlier. We made an early night of it, due to exhaustion for the both of us.

Saturday morning I ran errands, and I stopped by catbear 's photography open-house.


In the afternoon, I played Arkam Horror with the_infamous_j and two of his friends, Chris, and MJ. The game went faster than we expected- only 4 hours, including explaining the rules to MJ. But he was an extraordinarily fast learner, and he kept us on-track during the game as well. I played the salesman, just because. He wound up collecting some nice toys, but didn't buy either of the Elder Signs we used to win. We did less story-talking during the game than the other time I've played; which was OK, but it sort of made it seem less epic. :) We randomly chose Azethoth again (we even re-drew because both the_infamous_j and I played against him the last time too). But he kept coming up. Meant to be. We lucked out in having monster-surges instead of new gates early on, and a few times, new gates were to appear on already sealed locations. We squeaked to a win in the 12th turn.

We had pizza, then broke out the Singstar 80s edition. melted_snowball and I know all but a few of the songs. And I even hit some of the notes. I still had a lot of fun, even if MJ and Chris were looking a bit leery at the videos. But c'mon- it's our childhood here! :) J was game and played a few songs he'd never heard before. Then a bit of anime video, and home.

Sunday morning was Quaker Meeting (small turnout- four regular attenders and three visiting Bible School students!). We spent a while answering their questions afterward- I think we did well. I'm glad I took a workshop on outreach this summer; the students seemed to be really working to try and fit Quakerism into their own religious models.

Sunday afternoon, melted_snowball and I went to a local-food tasting where we ate foods from 19 of 20 local farms, prepared by local restauranteurs. We ate very well.

A CSA basket.



Arctic char by Peel Street Bistro.

Oh, you, Timex. Radium watches were manufactured and sold by Timex up until the '50s, and they still will sometimes light up a Geiger counter even if they don't glow at night.

Timex Indiglo watches, on the other hand, excites a phosphor (zinc sulphide atoms) using a high-voltage field through a thin conductive indium tin oxide layer. Unfortunately, wikipedia and howstuffworks lack enough detail on how the physical process works, which is what I was aiming for when I did this googling. Time to call in the experts. (hey, lightjen!)

But the neat thing about Indiglo, that I will perhaps remember for my next McGuyver moment, is this: it uses a 100:1 transformer to generate enough voltage over the watch face, 150 volts AC. I didn't know that, and it's even probably less dangerous for my wrist than radioactive paint.

A brief diversion down memory lane: the song Puff the Magic Dragon holds up so much better than the cartoon version, which I remember being deeply affecting when I saw it on TV. At age 4. I'll stick with my memories, thanks. I was confused about the colours being all wrong in the cartoon, until I realized that I had seen it in black and white.

I wish that my camara-phone would take photos like this:



Instead of like this:



The former is what the free astronomy program Stellarium says the moon looked like at 10:30 last night, and y'know, it was more or less accurate, save the remarkable colours. The latter, well, it got the colours. And, being phone-sized, doesn't quite have room for any optical zoom. Oh well.

Finally, my sweetie makes an awesome fishcake with apple ginger chutney.

This was a great weekend, slightly better 'cause I took a partial mental-health day on Friday. The campus had no network, and I wasn't going to be terribly useful twiddling my thumbs, so I had lunch with melted_snowball, chezmax & the_infamous_j and came home. :)

Saturday d. and I drove into Toronto for chickenfeet2003's Thai Birthday Bash. We had some good gallery visits in the Distillery District (and a just a few bad ones). My favourite was a photography studio that is going to display Heidi Leverty's prints next month- I liked the stuff of hers that they showed us. Also, they have the Epson competitor to catbear's Big Ass Printer (BAP? ...does one name printers the size of a human? Who knows.) Anyhow, the guy talked about how neat it was to just try things out on a printer that's got four-foot-wide paper in it. Yeah, I could see that.

Aaand I took a few photos I like.



Then, to chickenfeet2003's for dinner and company. Awesome food- my tastebuds were singing, and not just from the spicy. Though that was part of it. It is such a good thing to get well-made hot food that wasn't prepared by my sweetie. (Mmmm, lemongrass and fish sauce.) We knew more people there than I expected, including beable and amarylliss. Good times.

Sunday, I went to Quaker Meeting, after which we talked about my hopes that my parents can move to Ithaca NY. People were quite supportive, which felt good. ...I don't think I've mentioned this trip here; I'm taking this Friday off, and meeting my parents in Ithaca- we're all staying at EcoVillage, because my mom thinks they might like it there. I've visited friends who live at EcoVillage; and even went around on a tour once; I think it's possible they could fall in love with the place. Above all, I hope my folks get enough of an urge to consider a move seriously! (To Ithaca? Elsewhere? I just think they'd be happier in a more interesting town than where they currently live.)

Also at Quaker Meeting, we collected together a big bag of kids' clothes and $60 worth of over-the-counter drugs, which are going to Burundi. I've never sent stuff to Burundi before. :)

In the evening, melted_snowball, the_infamous_j, chezmax and I went off to the cinema- to see Stardust. It was a charming movie. Not too heavy, not too light, a bit campy and cheesy, and some pretty flying and magic sequences.

And that's the weekend that was.

...From the middle of the 2nd Vermillion Lake, in a canoe with melted_snowball this afternoon. (Click on it for 3 more photos, including a bald eagle.)