-eh, a little sleep and a new morning might make all the difference.

—————Jim

Interesting video effect, looks like moon flakes or moon petals

Sunday, 20 March, 2011. Last night’s full moon was the closest it’s been in 18 years. I tried to capture it on a small video camera. The effects were neat. What I saw in the electronic viewfinder was a thick wide halo. What came out here looks like moon flakes or petals flaking off. In all fairness, I realized I was shooting through a bush whose branches haven’t sprouted yet (heck, we’re way up north, somewhere around 45˚N, right around Ottawa, Ontario, Canada).

-The ‘still’ shot/clip from the video looks a little more purple than the actual video did. So the photo changes/looks different every time I do something else with it. (& I haven’t gone near photoshop yet.)

-We reached 50˚F/10˚C – last week and then dipped back into ‘brrrr’ territory. And an ex-military ‘psychic spy’ says that we do not live in one of the safer areas of Canada, but right now it’s about +2˚C/+36˚F & I can’t see any snow lingering outside the window. We’re supposed to get 5-10 cm (uh-between 1 & 4 inches?) of snow tomorrow. But today there’s the teasing possibility of Spring in the air.

—————Jim

Yeah, that’s about right. Maybe I’ll add some kind of photo later.

—————Jim

January 1st, 2011 in Arnprior

The year 2011 bloomed foggy and damp in Arnprior. Connecticut is buried under a blizzard’s wrath, but way up north (here) it is uncharacteristically warm. And rainy.

A flash of intuition (or possibly delusion?) came to me…. This will be the weirdest winter on record. Places that usually get clobbered with snow will seem to miss most of it, but then Mother Nature will decide to be ‘fair’ and no one will escape at least one nearly crippling storm?

—————Jim

Jassper likes the white stuff.

I’m thinking this winter is going to be a sonofagun, even if it got off to a slow start.

Typical back yard in Arnprior? 14 December,2010.

-ah well, we will wait and see….

—————Jim

Yeah, I’ve been busy.

Anyway. (George Clooney is accepting a humanitarian award on the taped version of last night’s Emmy Awards. (I didn’t watch it live. Not really all that interested.) )

Below, Is a photo of me trying to get into character, more or less, for shooting video at Arnprior’s big “The Prince and the Prior” event.

Auditioning looks for the Prince & the Prior.

(I actually didn’t use the hat during the shoot. I wore the TVCOGECO white hat that day.)

I could get a job as a garden gnome.

Yeah, I was stricken at how gnome like I look in this photo, which is of me trying to keep the dog from bouncing around at least 3 feet off the floor.

Jim "Before" August 19, 2010

I thought I’d take a photo of me before I trimmed the beard and coloured it.

Jim "After" August 19, 2010.

This is me after the trim. Funny thing is, nobody said anything for a couple days. Then somebody thought I looked different because I’d gone out in public without tying back my hair first. Reactions I noticed, though: Women who wouldn’t give me a second look when I looked closer to my age were suddenly giving me second, third and fourth looks.

Office Area. Before.

I spent about five hours (or more) in the wee hours of this morning, trying to rearrange my computer area. My creative work space is just not working at all.

Office Area, August 30, 2010. "After'

Did the rearrangement work? I don’t know, but I am sitting here doing something, I’ve felt like doing a couple things in the last couple months, but when I sat down, just couldn’t get around to it.

After the rearrangement, I actually got outside into the sauna like atmosphere and banged a few nails into getting our front porch project a little closer to fruition (froo ishun?) ((I must have spelled it right, there aren’t any red dots beneath the word.))

—eh

—————Jim

Cathi smiling throught the backdoor's window. May 26, 2010

It’s been a while since I stole the time to do anything like update the postings here.

Unexpected flowers on a bush or tree with varigated leaves.

I’m not sure what kind of bush or tree this is, but Cathi got it for its varigated leaves and we’re pretty much happily surprised when our plants survive a winter and this one’s been with us through a couple winters, and this spring, it’s flowering. (happy smile).

Our Front Porch on a Grey Morning. June 3rd, 2010

Cathi couldn’t stand having a ‘normal’ grass front yard and started planting flowers the first year we were here. There is a bit of a sidewalk in from the driveway (often called a ‘laneway’ up here) but we have a note beside the front door, “PLease use back door” and if anybody tries to sell us one of their snar energy plans we can threaten to let the dog loose. (He’d probably try to lick them to death, but a bounding- over energetic Large Lab “Puppy Horse” could probably scare a confirmed con artist into going straight… well, at least scare them back down the laneway.)

The Weir on a Grey Morning in Arnprior

A ‘weir’ is a curved dam. This weir is on the Madawaska River in Arnprior. The island is where the fire department volunteers set off the fireworks on Canada Day (July First). -Love the dramatic curves.

Weir and Island to the left, Church and Construction across the river.

Looking just a bit west of Due North across the mighty Madawaska (The Weir is just out of sight to the left). The Church is Saint John Chyrstostom’s. (sp? It’s spelled differently every time I see it listed anywhere.) and the Construction at the river’s edge is a waste water treatment plant expanding. Local Members of Parliament got in big trouble by ceremoniously presenting cheques that tried to advertise the Conservative Party and prominently displayed their own names, as if the largess was all theirs and the funds hadn’t come from everybody’s tax money and had to be approved by Members of Parliament from all kinds of political striping. (How’s that from bad grammar?)

The Madawaska flows into the Ottawa River at Chats Lake beyond the trees.

Looking slightly East of North (I think). Construction to the left across the water, beyond the trees on that side there is a park and a beach on Chats Lake. Jutting out into the river on this side is a boat club, another park, and a rocky point. Chats Lake is a pretty darn wide section of the Ottawa River. I’m thinking it’s at least a mile wide here. Quebec on the other side.

—————Jim

Working on lots of things

and somehow

managing to

continue

breathing

and

growing.

—————Jim

Last Night On Coast To Coast AM, Ian Punnett Interviewed a guy who had a much more positive vision of the future than most of the people who have been forecasting what the immediated future holds in store for us, Especially those of us in the U.S. (and maybe north america).

This guy’s angle on things involves his keeping his finger on the pulse of emerging new technologies, like the carbon fibre nano-tech breakthrough that is developing a synthetic paper that is lighter and stronger than steel. (I was wondering why nobody asked if it was flammable.) But they were talking aout being able to build cars that would take much less fuel and create building material that they could wrap around aging bridges to shore them up against the rust that is probably eating away at their structural viability.

Then I fell asleep on the couch and dreamed I accidentally cut my favourite cat’s head off, I then had him flash frozen and was racing the pieces of him to a vet to have them sewn back together, and when I woke up, went and found him to make sure he was still alive and okay. He’s currently curled up in my spot on the bed behind me.

We went to see Rob and Vic last night, I was impressed by the evening star that was glowing brightly in front of us. Then I grew slightly paranoid, thinking MIBs were following us as we turned onto a not very heavily travelled road and the vehicle which had been behind us, speeding up when I sped up and slowing down when I slowed down, turned onto that road behind us.

Then I forgot the name of the “Quadrantids” meteor shower, which Rob and Vic had seen, and I also forgot the name of the web page/organization that “Block and Bird” belong to, it is not EarthStar dot Org. it’s earth something something dot org. ((earthandsky.org?))

-tough to get older and feel your over-flowing memory begin to fail to hang on to things that you think should have been easy to memorize-

—eek

—–Jim

Amd I found out we live at

45˚N 21.215′

76˚W 21.907′

hmmmmm-

—–Jim