Toronto photo journal - September

Went up the CN Tower recently.  Great lunch.

Went to see Jimmy Rankin at the Docks (Sound Academy it is called now)

(had a birthday)

Threw stones in Lake Ontario at Kew Beach.  Dan throws rocks.  I keep telling him they don't skip as well...  kersplash!

Took a picture of the building I work in... can you guess where this is?

Went for a lunchtime walk and took a photo of the trees.  Nice.

Remove wires from photo using CS5



Wires in photo





Wires removed with PhotoShop CS5 using the technique below



HOW TO: remove wires in Photoshop CS5:



- Open PhotoShop CS5

- Open the photo where there is a line across the image

- Click on the calligraphy pen (the path tool)

- Click on one end of the wire

- Click in small increments along the wire to make a path that is right over the wire

- Click on the healing tool and make sure content aware is selected along the top of the screen

- Click on the brush size and make it only as wide as the wire or a bit wider and make it 100% hard
- Click on "Window" on the menu bar and open the Path panel

- Click within the Path panel on the path that you just created 

- Click on the circle at the bottom of the Path panel (hover over it and it will say: "stroke path with brush"
- There will be a pause, then you will say "Eureka!" 
- The healing tool will attempt to remove the wire along the path and replace it with neighbouring conent
- Your wires will disappear.
- Delete the path and do it again, if necessary

Love it. 

Top 10 electronic devices for cottage kitchen table

It is 10:30 in the morning and we are at the cottage.  The lake looks beautiful.  We go to clear the breakfast table for the next person to eat. 

Look - we have 10 electronic items on our cottage table.  Three Kindles, an underwater camera, a digital cameras, 2 Nintendo DS's, 1 Blackberry, a cordless phone and a laptop - which is on the internet.  And it's only breakfast.  Outside Alicia fishes for chipmunks.

We are Stardust after all...DNA components found in meteorites

DNA components found in meteorites

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A recently published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America indicates that the essential building blocks for early life on Earth may have indeed been delivered through extraterrestrial material such as meteorites. These molecules, known as nucleobases, are key components of DNA and have been found in meteorites several times before.

However, until now, scientists could never be certain that these compounds were native to the meteorites or if they were simply contamination from the terrestrial environment in which they landed. To this end, researchers analyzed eleven different organic-rich meteorites, called carbonaceous chondrites, for the presence of nucleobases and found that three of these molecules are very rare on Earth.

Additionally, none of these nucleobases were found in the soil or ice in close proximity to where the meteorites were found. This led the researchers to conclude that it was likely that these molecules were extraterrestrial in origin which could mean that life on Earth may have originally been seeded by such material.

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Earthquake in Toronto and G20 remembered

We just had an earthquake in Toronto! The building shook and creaked! I am on the 11th floor - ah!

Last year at this time there was an earthquake as well and I was on the 4th floor downtown, supporting some guy on his computer. What a feeling to look at someone and think the person may be the last person I talk to. I took off downstairs. I went outside (not too smart in hindsight because things drop on you – even if you are looking down, Pooh.) I walked to a place with a wide open space – Queen’s Park. There were cops everywhere and horseback cops and cops with bulletproof vest and helmets and riot gear. There was a protest group with signs that were being marshalled down University Avenue. There were people everywhere in disarray. Somewhere a car burned. The G20. Remember that?

Wasaga Beach is calling



Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada


Wasaga Beach... ah... the long shallow sands, the water lapping at your heels, the sun glistening on the waves.  It is a place of peaceful memories.  

We had a family reunion there in 2009 with my Dad's side of the family.  Uncle Ken has a cottage right on the beach.  I hope to go up for a few days this year. 
We all had a great time!  Thanks, Uncle Ken.

Birder by fluke - the saga continues...

So.. the other day I was standing on my front lawn, taking my annual photo of the tree that blooms at the side of my house, when all of a sudden a hawk swoops down and grabs a bird then flies up to a tree.  I did not see anything, just heard it.  It flew in out of the sun.  Dan was there and says it was a yellow bird.  After my shock, I realized I had a camera in my hand.  Dan pointed to where the hawk was up in a tree.  The back of the hawk was towards me, but I thought I would try to get a picture anyway.  I pointed the camera and the bird moved to lift off - what a great shot I ended up getting!  See for yourself... amazing, eh?

Oh, and here are the amazing blossoms from the tree...

Lineart Doodling and Fingerpicking on my Taylor guitar

I am addicted to pens, markers, lineart and fingerpicking on my Taylor guitar.  I carry at least 20, if not 30 pens/markers with me at any time.  I am not the only one - my brother and my daughter are pen freaks, too.  I love walking into Curry's or Staples and walking down the pen and marker aisle.  I gave each of my daughters a whole new set of Sharpie's for Christmas - and Easter.  There is nothing like a new marker - except new great paper to draw on.

I like to draw on paper that is slightly rough - like oatmeal paper, manilla paper, cardboard, rocks.  I use a .5mm black marker most of the time.  How can I be so addicted to different pens of the same size and colour?  I don't know, but I am.  If not that, I use a calligraphy pen and India Ink.  Sometimes I use India Ink in different colours - oooh - so daring, eh?

Once or twice I watercoloured my drawing.  It was nice. I like watercolour painting, but I need more time to experiment with it.  My daughter bought me a bamboo easel for my birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day.  She likes to save it all up and come back with a bang.

I like doing these because they are a luxury to me - I immerse myself and don't think about time, or chores, or the gym, or problems.  I escape and doodle. 

The only think I like more than lineart doodling is fingerpicking, writing songs and singing.  I must be OCD. But, hey - everyone has their foibles.

Artificial leaf! I thought of it all by myself! Psychic or what?

One day we were driving to Niagara Falls.  We looked at all the power lines overhead and started thinking about how they actually have power lines that go across the province (Ontario) just to carry electricity as it is generated to the homes that need it and whatever is not used is wasted.  It occurred to me that it is such a primitive system. After all these years, couldn't we store the electricity? To make a long story short, I looked over at a greenhouse and said: "We should just figure out how to store our energy like nature does - in plants."  Well, that got a laugh, a few guffaws and lots of ribbing, but I stand vindicated - and only a few weeks later:  scientists have actually done it!

Scientists Create First Practical Artificial Leaf, Producing Power Through Photosynthesis

My question is - how did I pick up on that?  I feel like the 99th monkey once again.  This happens to me quite often - I think of something or invent something and then I hear of it a short while later.  It reminds me of the story I heard about people on two sides of the ocean both inventing something and rushing to get to the patent office first (was it a bomb or something?)   That is a little more understandable due to the fact that they are working in the same field and are aware of the same advances in their field - but me?  I know very little about science on a daily basis, so how did I pick up on that?  Needless to say I went straight to the corner store and purchased a lottery ticket.

Happy Easter!

When I was young all the kids had to fnd their baggie full of chocolate

The older kids (of 13) hid the baggies in the hardest placest.

I remember one year, I could not find my baggie anywhere.

I had checked and checked, but nothing.

My brothers laughed at my despair.

Finally, one relented and got mine for me -
It was behind the clock.

Happy Easter

 

Dundas Square, Toronto is like Times Square now

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles
Forget all your cares and go
Downtown!
- Toronto, that is.

Banff, British Columbia, Canada 2000

Birding, my Hummer and San Diego Photo shoot

Wow! My birder brother invited me to go to San Diego on a birding photo shoot.  I've never been officially invited by real birders to go on a birding trip, and it is pretty exciting, even it I can't go.  I just took my vacation and have none left until summer.  Wah.  Work sucks.  But it is nice to think I could have gone.

My daughter and I are part-birder, not full-fledged.  We get excited when we see a fresh bird and always keep our eyes peeled for unusual birds around, then look them up in our book that shows a picture and makes the call sound of the bird.

When she is bored, my daughter likes to sit on the front porch and call the rock doves - she does a really good imitation of the bird - then when they come in close and tilt their head to listen to her call, she presses the button on the book and it makes the screeeeeech! of the red hawk and scares the dove away. But they always come back for more. She likes the hawks better than the doves and sees them flying over her schoolyard. She points them out to the other kids - "Look! A hawk! A hawk!" But they answer - "So?" So, we are part-birders. She is also demonstrating a good eye for photography lately, so she has the birder/photographer family blood. She wants to go on a bird/photo walk through the Rouge and I know a guy from work who does the tours through there.

I do, however, have a bird-photo-trophy.  It is a hummingbird. Taken in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, at the top of a huge mountain. I heard it fly by my head and go into the bush, so I took about 10 pictures in the direction I heard it land, but the sun was too bright on the viewfinder so I could not see what I was shooting. Turned out pretty good. My birder brother says it is a cool Hummer.  He thinks it may actually be sleeping -awesome - I caught a hummingbird sleeping!  But, I think it still has it's eyes open.
 
Check it out...

How I know it is spring despite the ice wind

In the cold sunshine,
On the stone wall,
By the wide, black highway
Oblivious to rush hour
Or the whooshing multitude
Of frenzied vehicles
Perched two puffed-up pigeons
Kissing

Code is not poetry, Wordpress

Wordpress.org has a slogan - Code is Poetry.
As a web developer, I thought that it was cool when I first saw it, then ignored it, pretty much.  But after writing a piece recently - a song - I started thinking about it.  I thought about all the poems I have written and then compared it to the code I have written.  I think I have come to my conclusion on the issue. Code is not poetry - but poetry can be code. The purpose of poetry is to encapsulate emotion. To create emotional bullets. Code does not. It does not contain an emotional punchline as you can find in most poems.  Songs can be poetry. Comedy can be poetry. Rants, rhymes and curses can all be poetry.  Code can be concise, precise and efficient - which some people may call beautiful, but it does not evoke an empathetic response in the reader and enhance the sense of human unity through shared emotional experiences - like poetry does.  Code is code, Wordpress, and even all your popularity and all the many pageviews by all your many daily users cannot turn that slogan into truth - or code into poetry.

Grateful Today: for the rainbow I saw through the rain while driving the highway to work. (Not a double rainbow, but I have seen one of those as well.  If you have never heard about the Double Rainbow YouTube thing, click here for more. )

Songwriting while driving?

I know you are not supposed to drive and talk on your cell phone, but
what about driving down the 401 singing and recording it on your
Blackberry? Well, I was only going 20 km in bumper-to-bumper traffic,
so it's not as bad as it sounds. Crows cawing as I write this, yeah.
So, I wrote these lyrics long ago and could never come up with a melody
to go with them - until today - and it happened to happen as I was
driving on the 401.
They go like this:
"Change is the only constant in life,
Forget the past, it only brings strife,
Move with the moment, learn how to dance,
Tomorrow's a dream. Today is your chance."
So, I had to record it before it got away - like the scent of a passing
woman's perfume.
No wonder I am not good at the high-profile jobs I always manage to get
myself into. When I focus on the job, I am great, "always on" and just
what everybody wants me to be, but as soon as I figure out how to do the
job and it gets to be second nature, I start songwriting in between
tasks and then juggling gets tough. But I can't help it. I am a
songwriter first. Everything else is really just the things I have to do
to maintain a life of status quo.

How to Modify the "Send To" Menu

When you right-click a file, you can send it to a program to open.  For instance, if you want to send your .avi file to VLC player and the file is currently associated with QuickTime, you can right-click the file, choose "send to" and you will see a list of programs in the menu.  But what if the program you want to send it to is not on the list?  Here is how you can modify that list:

 

To add a destination to the Send To menu, add a shortcut to the Windows\SendTo folder. To do so, follow these steps:

Click the Start button, and then click Run.

1. Type "sendto" (without quotation marks) in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Add a shortcut using either of the following methods: (Go to the program files folder and make a shortcut from the program file - the .exe file)
• Drag a new shortcut to the folder:
  Use the right mouse button to drag a destination to the SendTo folder, and then click Create Shortcut Here on the menu that appears.
• Create a new shortcut with the Create Shortcut Wizard:
• 1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Shortcut.
  2. Follow the instructions in the Create Shortcut Wizard.

Removing a Shortcut

To remove a shortcut, use the right mouse button to click the shortcut in the SendTo folder, and then click Delete on the menu that appears.

Harry Potter scarf - in the round

Harry Potter Scarf

Supplies

2 skeins red heart super saver in soft navy

2 skeins red heart super saver in lt. gray

Size 8 - 16 inch knitting needles that are attached to each other with a string of plastic (circular needles)

- yarn needle for sewing the ends together.

- crochet hook for making fringes



Scarf:


Using navy, cast on 72 st.itches.

Work in stockinette stitch.  When you are using a circular needle, this means just knit every row.  Put a safety pin at the start of the row so you can tell when you have finished a row.  Knit 21 rows of navy.

Switching color to silver/grey after 21 rows.  To switch colours, just cut the navy thread, leaving about 4 inches hanging on the inside of the work.  Then take the grey thread and leave about 4 inches hanging to match the navy on the inside of the work, knit a few stitches using the grey thread, then go back and tie a knot using the navy and grey 4 inch hanging pieces. 

Knit 21 rounds of each colour until 19 stripes are completed. Put the dark colur on the outsite - Red/Yellow scarves had red on both end. 

Bind off in the colour you were knitting.  Iron flat, then sew together. 

Make fringes.  Cut yarn into 14 in. pieces, enough for fringe.

Use the crochet hook and in groups of 4 fringe the ends together alternating colors.

Wear and enjoy.

Smile

 "A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he cannot get along without it, and none is so poor that he cannot be made rich by it. Yet a smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give." ~Author Unknown

Kindergarten rules - a guide for life

Click here to go to my site for the poster to put on your fridge.



"All I really need to know about how to live and what to "do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.
Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum].

They are only young once

My twelve-year-old daughter was excited because it is her cousin's 13^th birthday.  She is excited also because she will be 13 in a few months.  She said:

 

"Then you won't have any kids anymore, just teenagers."

 

Then she started teasing me:

 

Then I won't run to the door when you come home.

Then I won't tell you I like your songs.

Then I won't hang out with you anymore.

Then I won't go to the movies with you.

Then I won't  colour with you.

Then I won't come with you to the store.

Then I won't give you a hug or a kiss anymore. 

 

I thought about my two other teenage daughters.  She is pretty much right.  Dang, what a good reminder to enjoy kids while they are young instead of hurrying them to grow up.

Win a car!

Did you know that you can Google "Win a Car" and you will find sites where you can win things?  The downside is that you have to give out your information, but hey, you may win a car...  http://www.win-free-stuff.ca/contests/contests-by-prize/win-a-car-contests

 

I dubbed her "562" - now has a home

Thanks to Animal Services in Toronto East and to Elle in Oshawa.  I drove to Oshawa twice today to make sure the kitty has a home. 

Happy Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Day, I usually put the turkey in the oven and go somewhere to see all the beautiful fall leaves.  Today, I was not feeling so well, so after putting the turkey in the oven, we went down to the bluffs nearby to look at the swans and the waves and the trees on the cliffs. 

A dog was barking at this swan and he had his wings up and was barking back.  The dog got a little freaked out after that.  Dang - what is that thing?  He wanted to leave, but his master thought it was all very amusing.  Eventually, the swan assumed he had won and swam away. 

We strolled around on this, the fourth beautiful day in a row, and then went home and had a lovely turkey dinner.  The cranberries were spoiled, so my daughter made a nice, but different, mango chutney.