Uncategorized

I had the chance to get out sans kids to see friend and former work-colleague Michael Willems’ photography exhibit Intravenous gallery showing at the New Gallery at New Gallery in Parkdale.

Labels: Michael Willems

Purple and white Bleeding Heart (Dicentra) flowers. Can’t help but think of the logo for “Hairspray” when I see these.

Fern “fiddlehead” unfurling.

White Bleeding Heart flowers close-up.

Labels: Bleeding Heart, Fern, fiddlehead, garden

I picked up a netbook today: an Acer Aspire One. I felt a little bit guilty about buying something which is powered by our main CPU rival, but I haven’t been able to find one made by AMD as yet and, well, this was on sale.

My plan is to use it for writing while commuting. You will likely will see more written blog entries as a result.

One word of warning for those contemplating getting one of these: it takes a good half-hour or more for it to set itself up with Windows XP before you can actually do anything with it. Didn’t get a lot of time to spend with it, though I did manage to install a few programs I expect to want, such as OpenOffice, Winamp, a movie codec pack and Stellarium to start.

Thought about going with a Linux-based version, but in the end I like convenience, and venerable Windows XP still delivers. (I have two machines that came with Vista, and much prefer the older OS, if only because it doesn’t get in my way and is as top-heavy as the new OS).

A couple of other observations: I hate the fact that somebody decided that it would be a good idea to sacrifice a double-width Shift key for a single-key sized version adjacent to the little-used pipette/forward-slash key (I wonder if I can easily remap it?). Also, am amazed that Microsoft or Acer didn’t reduce the multi-level nav-bar for Internet Explorer, as the default config takes up well over a third of the display. I ditched that almost immediately for a lightly customized Firefox browser.

Needing to take a picture of the day, I chose my new “toy”.

Here’s a close-up of its vast keyboard. 😉

QA

Close-up of the screen (displaying Stellarium) using the macro lens.

Labels: Acer Aspire, macro, netbook, Stellarium

The trilliums (trillia?) in our front garden have finally bloomed. Here’s a close-up of one of them using the macro lens.

Being squawked at by a red-winged blackbird down at Woodbine Park. Unfortunately the bird is not in as sharp a focus as I would have liked, but the expressions is great.

It’s warm enough now that our dog Yo-Bob can go fetch balls thrown into the pond by Woodbine Park. I bought a throwing-stick for dog-balls today and we got him good and tired having him chase the ball all over the park.

Labels: red-winged blackbird, trillium, woodbine park, Yo-Bob

Another pic from Annie’s soccer class. Best pic of the bunch, where unfortunately she gets faked-out by the boy beside her, while another boy in goal looks on.

Labels: Annie. soccer

Some minnows swimming above a lost license plate in a small creek.

Playing with the macro lens again: a close-up of a small centipede (maybe a couple of centimeters in length) who stayed still long enough for the shot.

More macro fun: small bleeding-heart buds against the stony face of our garden gnome-guy.

I thought I was done for the day, and then I heard this Cardinal chirp away in our backyard tree. He posed for this shot and then flitted away.

Labels: cardinal, centipede, garden gnome, minnows

YoBob happily fetching a stick from the pond.

Another male-red winged blackbird claiming territory at Woodbine Park.

The girls playing around with the water fountain.

Labels: Annie. Vanessa, red-winged blackbird, woodbine park, Yo-Bob

Annie at Another Soccer Practice

My youngest daughter at her soccer class.

Love how everyone’s in motion in this pic.

Saw this in a neighbour’s front yard, and I manged to get this shot before it flew away a second later. I have no idea what it is — doesn’t have the right markings for a Black Swallowtail, and it does look kind of beaten up.

Bought some flowers for Erika, and I took some shots while in the store. This one of cala lillies was my favourite.

Still sick with a cold, but the dog still needs his walk, and I need to take my “Picture of the Day”. So we went down to Woodbine Park, where we heard the loud squawkings of Red-winged blackbirds claiming territory for themselves and picking the fluff out of the bullrushes in order to line their nests.

A nice shot of a male red-winged blackbird among the bullrushes. Love the telephoto lens — what you see here is maybe 15% or so of the original size of the shot.

A relatively dowdy-looking female red-winged blackbird. She didn’t like me one bit and kept sending a warning squawk to her mate, who only moved when he felt the dog was getting too close.

Another male red-winged blackbird, this one basically claiming that the tree he is in is his.

Labels: red-winged blackbird, woodbine park