3D Marvin

July 25th, 2022

I’ve been playing with a 3d printer. Already printed several items some of which have been practical. This one is simply for the fun of it.

La Machine

August 21st, 2017

Like the other 1/2 million people who saw La Machine I was impressed by the mechanics of the machines (monsters).  My first sighting was from the back of a field of other people so I did not get a good look at Long Ma.  Shortly after that I was able to see both of them from a window.  Finally, I stumbled across Kumo later in the day and was able to get close.  Enjoy these pictures.

Blue Heron

July 26th, 2014

We recently had a visitor at our cottage.  A Great Blue Heron stopped by on the dock to do a little fishing.  I took some pictures of it from the deck but wanted to get some closeups.  After going down the side of the property and moving behind some trees I managed to get relatively close to the bird.  I’m still not sure if it new I was there or not; it looked directly at me a few times but didn’t make any nervous motions.  As it flew away, after catching four or five fish, I was able to get some photos of it in flight.

Costa Rica

April 7th, 2014

We had a recent trip to Costa Rica. The weather was great (although it was too cloudy when we went to see the volcano), the food was great, the entire trip was great. Here are some pictures of the trip…..

Angry Bird

January 18th, 2014

I’m sure that we all have heard of angry birds. Well, I have one of my own!

Angry Bird

Cardinal just leaving a branch and heading for my window. Look out piggies.

For some reason there is a cardinal that keeps flapping at one of my windows.  Usually early in the morning; by early I mean before I get up.  The noise wakes me up.  It started in the spring but has continued off on on since then.  I’ve heard that cardinals are territorial and they attack their reflection in the window during their nesting season.  That makes sense to me but this bird is so persistent that even a stupid bird should be able to realize that it is a futile endeavor.  And it is still going on!  It’s January for pete’s sake, give it a break!  Go south or something.  During the summer I had to put a net over the window to help stop the flapping and pecking but the bird simply used the net as a perch to peck at the window.  At least no it is infrequent but very frustrating when it happens.

Update:

The cardinal eventually stopped coming around but since May time frame there has been an oriel doing the same thing.  The only difference is that this bird is smaller so it is only tapping at the window instead of banging at it!  It is now August and the oriel is still at the window most days.

Orchids

April 25th, 2013

I can’t believe that it has been over a year since I last posted something.  The more that is going on the less time that I have for things like updating this web site.  This tells you that I must have been very busy for the last year.  I can’t begin to tell you what has been happening, or is it just life.

So I finally got around to posting something.  I recently stopped by an orchid show.  It is amazing to see all of the different types of blossoms that this family of flowers has.  Some people put so much time and effort into maintaining these beautiful displays that it is mind boggling.  Here are a few pictures that I took at this year’s show.

It has been a while

October 4th, 2011

I’ve been planning to post some articles but I never get around to it.  I still have some ideas and hopefully I’ll get to it on the near future.  Of course, ‘near future’ could mean many different things to different people.   There’s been a lot going on recently, maybe I can think of something to add to these posts.  Keep watching.

Cell Phones Don’t Like Water

October 26th, 2010

Cell phones, like most electronic items, do not like being dunked in water.  That seems obvious to most people but accidents do happen.

I was in my boat, preparing it for winter storage.  Wanting to look over the back of the boat to look at something I checked my shirt pocket to make sure that nothing would fall into the water.  Feeling ‘safe’ I leaned over the back of the boat and ‘clunk’, ‘bump’, ‘splash’!  The cell phone fell out of the holder on my hip, hit the back of the boat and fell into the water!  It took about ten minutes to move the boat, get the hip waders, get a fishing net and retrieve the phone.  Obviously, the cell phone was dead.

Having heard of a possible solution to the problem I removed the back cover, battery and sim card and buried them along with the phone in a bowl (with a lid) of uncooked rice.  Leaving it alone for about 36 hours except for turning the bowl upside down once or twice I removed everything, reinstalled the battery and sim card and turned it on.  Surprise, it started to work!  The only problem was that the volume in the earpiece was very low but after another day or two it returned to normal volume.  Success!  I got this idea from someone who left a Blackberry in the rain and followed the same steps which worked in that case too.  So, if you have the same cell phone and water accident give the bowl of rice tip a try.

Another recent incident happened when I was on the top of a ladder doing work on the roof of a house when, you guessed it, the cell phone snagged on my coat and fell off.  It hit my foot and fell to a wooden bench before hitting a cement pad.  The cover and battery popped out.  Putting everything back together I was relieved to find that the phone still worked!  (This is truly ‘solid state’.)

Maybe I should consider purchasing an insurance plan from my carrier before the phone loses any more of its nine lives.

Make Your Own Word Cloud

May 28th, 2010

I came across a site called Wordle which caught my attention. I’m sure that most of you have seen those “word clouds” or “tag clouds” on various web sites, you know, a collection of words of different font size. A larger font word is used to visually indicate that the word has been used or tagged more frequently than other smaller font words in the collection. With this site you supply text or a web link and it generates a word cloud based on the information supplied. I played with this site for a while and had fun trying different texts such as the national anthem, song lyrics, political statements, etc. It is also possible to select various properties to get different styles, colours, fonts and more. You can save your creation to the on-line gallery for others to view your work of art. I was surprised to see how frequently new creations are being published to the gallery. To save the cloud image to your own computer you have to perform a screen capture as the site is using a Java applet which cannot write anything to your computer.

Give it a try when you have a few spare minutes and thinking of what to do next. You can ‘Google’ “word cloud” to find other sites that perform similar functions.

Here is a word cloud of this article.

With Glowing Hearts

February 28th, 2010

The 2010 Winter Games are now over.
Canada received a total of 26 medals during these games which is the best showing it has had at any Olympic games. 14 of these medals are gold medals which is more gold medals than any other country has won at any other Winter Olympic games! These games have raised Canadian patriotism to a very high level; the World has even noticed the change. I believe that Canadian’s have always been patriotic but simply do not show it publicly; Canadians are too polite to boast. The question now is… is this new enthusiasm going to stay or is it going to fade away once the Olympic success becomes only a memory.