Let's Make Some Art, Dammit

January 31, 2021. It was very cold today so we went snowshoeing only for about a mile alongside the tracks. We extended our range a bit over a bit of a brook, where I captured an image of these cattails. Otherwise it was a quiet day; no coding today, just catching up on email and writing posts. https://flic.kr/p/2kxx1x6

January 30, 2021. I woke up this morning with an idea that wouldn't let go and except for a short walk to this park mid-afternoon I spent the whole day working on it. The result: an implementation and blog post about Remote Comments, a way to create a distributed social network. https://flic.kr/p/2kxd9CH

January 29, 2021.   I walked back to the construction site today because ti was really cold and I wasn't able to think of anything more imaginative. I still have no better idea than I did yesterday about what they're building. Today was a day of progress in inches, as I had several false starts. But I think I have cron working properly in my containers. Next step: volumes. I'm aware I'm doing everything the hard way (ie., in Perl) and that people mostly won't use what I'm building, but I'm learning a lot and will have a good platform for experimentation when I'm done.

January 28, 2021. There should be a rule that construction sites should have a big sign telling people what's going on, since in the absenbce of any news media there's no way to know any more. Anyhow I see lots of cement pipes, but it still could be anything. Today was the Day of Cancelled Meetings (yay) and was also really cold out, which made for a brisk photo walk. https://flic.kr/p/2kwCpQP

January 27, 2020. We're just a block or so from home snowshoeing through a little wooded area alongside the railroad tracks. More meetings today, plus I managed to send a newsletter to a test mailing list from gRSShopper using the MailChimp API. I also fixed a bug in cron which should allow all this to be automatic (no more missing newsletters!) and I can get back to the main project of making it all work in a container. https://flic.kr/p/2kwhK5T

January 26, 2021. This is inside the Tim Hortons just near the Costco. Though you can buy coffee inside (which I did) the seating area is closed due to the pandemic. I felt a bit under the weather today but I think it was less about Covid and more about the back-to-back-to-back meetings to start my day (using Zoom, Teams and Meet respectively). https://flic.kr/p/2kw42x4

January 25, 2021. Today's walk took me along the Nation River again, under a canopy of snow-covered trees. I published my MailChimp Perl module to GitHub and progressed well in testing; soon I can get back to fixing gRSShopper proper. https://flic.kr/p/2kvKipA

January 24, 2021. It was too cold to go out today, and in any case I've been caught up in a coding project, so it was indoors all day today. So today's photo of the day is a cat photo, specifically, Charlemagne as he prowls around looking for Lexi. https://flic.kr/p/2kvDP9N

January 23, 2021. I doubt newspapers are even being delivered to these paper boxes any more, but there was a time not so long ago they lined the roads in the countryside. I used to deliver the Ottawa Citizen (yellow box) as a kid and I've thought of myself as a member of the press ever since. It was quite cold and breezy today under a brilliant blue sky, so I kept my walk brisk. I spent the bulk of the day writing a Perl Module for MailChimp so I can have more control over my newsletter mailout schedule. Yep. Member of the press to this day. https://flic.kr/p/2kv4SMC

January 22, 2021. This stately building is right next to the church in the middle of Casselman. It was the objective of my walk today when I thought it would make a nice photo all decked out in snow. I also had a data literacy meeting, caught up on my time sheets, and wrote enough API code to successfully create, define content for, and send an email from MailChimp all from my own website. https://flic.kr/p/2kuFFnd

January 21, 2021. I tried out the new snowshoes today, walking about along the tracks for a little over a kilometer round trip. The snow was fresh, soft and powdery, so it was difficult as it's ever going to be. I didn't move quickly through the snow, but it was overall a success, and I'm sure I''ll improve over time. Other than that I worked on coding for the MailChimp API and had a meeting on AI in learning for the public sector. https://flic.kr/p/2kurzjH

January 20, 2021. This is the plant from my office. Not my Ottawa office - I assume those are all dead by now. No, this is from my Moncton office, and so is maybe 10 years old. Now it's in my hbome office, and since I cut back all its long tendrals it has been positively thriving. You can also see me in the photo, the mirror my brother gave my parents, my Jose Bautista poster, a Jeff bannister bobblehead from when I went to a ball game in Arlington, and the top of a stack of keyboards. Today was spent finishing off the IRAP work, recording the last video in the Learn Next.js series, and cleaning up the gRSShopper install. https://flic.kr/p/2kuftvT

January 19, 2020. We picked up our new snowshoes today and on the way I stopped into timmies for a couple of apple fritters and a coffee. It was a good day today as I managed to get an SSL site to load automatically in a Docker container. https://flic.kr/p/2ktQwKa

January 18, 2021. Today was clear and blue and cold. The snow the fell over the weekend lies heavy on the trees, bending them double or twisting them into contorted shapes, like these just past the park along the tracks. I did a presentation on OBS today and had a meeting, did some newsletter posts, and took my walk, plus some video gaming in the evening, and that was my day. https://flic.kr/p/2ktsJm1

January 17, 2021. Because of the deep snow we couldn't go for a hike, so this is a scene from my short walk around town after the snowfall. On the bright side, our new snowshoes will be ready for pickup on Tuesday. My big accomplishment for the day was getting a gRSShopper application to run in SSL, which is a major step toward usable containers. Now I just need to automate the process. https://flic.kr/p/2ktbF1P

This is a bonus daily photo featuring the antics of the birds at the back yard feeder (whihc has attained a new popularity with yesterday's snowfall). https://flic.kr/p/2kt2tWT

January 16, 2021. We had the most substantial snowfall of the year today. I thought I would go out and get some nice photos in the woods but just got stuck in the driveway. So this is a photo of our back yard. Besides digging out the car and going for a walk, this was a day of puttering - I fixed most of what was wrong with gRSShopper but still need to figure out how to make it https in a container. And I did more building in No Man's Sky. That's about it. https://flic.kr/p/2ksRQHi

January 14, 2021. I walked over the bridge into town and turned up this lane for a shot of the Nation View Farm. I spent a lot of time rebuilding Docker images after some of the binaries for my old image disappeared from the repository. It was one little thing that cascaded into a series of issues. Unlike in the past, though, I'm a lot more confident I can work my way through the issues. https://flic.kr/p/2kscCxP

January 13, 2020. This is another photo of the Gloucester branch of the Ottawa Public Library. I'm sure it was not intentional, but I can't help being reminded of Munch's The Scream when I look at it. Hence the title. I was on a walk while we were at the Costco over lunch. Monday was more CovidEA, afternoon was email and newsletter, evening was No Man's Sky. https://flic.kr/p/2krUS9A

January 12, 2021. My walk today took me to Du Boise St and along this birch forest. A regular work day today; I spent the morning working with CovidEA and afternoon working on a VR project and catching up for yesterday's missing newsletter. https://flic.kr/p/2krF99T

January 11, 2021. It was milder today but this was accompanied with a bit of a snowfall that was at times heavy during my walk. I had an internet outage but was able to do some writing this morning and coding this afternoon to preserve a reasonably productive day. https://flic.kr/p/2krnT9h

January 10, 2021. This is the wier in Casselman, with ice and snow forming around the edges. It was a cold day and it looks even colder in the water. I focused pretty much all day on gRSShopper - I have a bee in my bonnet about making the havester work reasonably well. And also having it interact with the gRSShopper application via an api. https://flic.kr/p/2kr3oLZ

January 9, 2020. Spotted during my daily walk. I'm not sure whether the moose has even been on Sesame Street, but I think the monster was (Sesame Street was after my childhood viewing age). Another classic type of day: I recorded a video (Learning Next.js - Part 2), worked on gRSShopper, played some No Man's Sky, and went for a walk. A good day. https://flic.kr/p/2kqH72D

January 8, 2020. These are some trees growing along the railway line spotted during my daily walk. I had such a good day today, I recorded a video about next.js where things mostly just worked, I did some coding this afternoon which also just worked, and my project work went fine. Even my video game cooperated. https://flic.kr/p/2kqpPx5

January 7, 2020. This is around four p.m. - the photo is a bit darker than it was actually outside, but the sun is still undeniably setting behind the bridge. Today I learned about Javascript templates - these have existed since 2016 but I found about them today. Also spent some time on the topic of data literacy. https://flic.kr/p/2kq3pyY

January 6, 2020. I know it's a favourite of people who go back to the land but I'm not a fan of wood heating. It's even more polluting than oil or coal. It's selfish. Anyhow. Today I spent the day working with fetch() and managing JSON data, all in the interest of building a better harvester. https://flic.kr/p/2kpKi42

January 5, 2020. Today's photo is the humble shopping cart, n iconic symbol of today's society. This is a Costco cart, left abandoned at the side of a road. In addition to a lunch-hour trip to the store I worked on fixing issues with gRSShopper's page script and a bit more IRAP stuff. https://flic.kr/p/2kpqz6f

January 4, 2021. On my one mile photowalk (a new habit!) I captured these backhoes near the edge of the town, proof that Casselman is continuing to grow. First day back at work. I spent the morning attending to an IRAP thing and the afternoon fixing issues with Cron jobs in gRSShopper. https://flic.kr/p/2kpbwWm

January 1, 2021. The text inside reads "If you want one I will make you one." It's along the tracks a couple blocks from my home, near where I took a photo yesterday. Aside from that, my day was spent working on gRSShopper and playing video games. https://flic.kr/p/2knZFCK