Let's Make Some Art, Dammit

May 22, 2023. This is my bicycle on day three. I made my way home along the Prescott Russell trail and then south through Larose Forest.It was tough because I had to ration water until I got to Bourget. I thought I might have lunch there but all three of the town's restaurants have closed permanently and the chip truck at Camping Paradis was an abomination. https://flic.kr/p/2oCnnhx

May 21, 2023. This was the view from the old rail bridge along the Prescott Russell trail. I rode it for a short distance along my endurance-level 70 km ride mostly into a stiff breeze on a sunny but cool day. I was completely wiped out by the end of the day; I barely got the tent up and wasn't good for anything involving fire or cooking. https://flic.kr/p/2oCo8zt

May 20, 2023. This is my campsite for the first night of my weekend trip, at Domaine du Sapin near Greenfield (just soiutheast of Maxville). Though it rained most of the day (and most of the night) it held off just long enough to enjoy a campfile and nice dinner. https://flic.kr/p/2oCnY4E

May 19, 2022. Here's my bicycle all packed up and ready to head out for a three day practice ride this long weekend. Very busy day today, as in addition also prepared my slides for my CNIE talk coming up next week. https://flic.kr/p/2oBBGem

May 18, 2023. This is my mother and Bernie celebrating her 87th birthday at the home in the city. She's not mobile and requires a lot of assistance but Bernie and his daughter Debbie are there every day and the staff are also really good to her. It's so nice to see her happy and smiling. I'm really grateful, beyond words, really. https://flic.kr/p/2oBokfg

May 17, 2023. This is an apple tree in bloom just outside my office in the city. It was a work-in-office day today (plus two hours in a traffic jam right after) but I got quite a bit done - project closing report, online course, more corporate paperwork. Pretty tired when I got home though. https://flic.kr/p/2oBtf8W

May 16, 2023. This flower appeared in the tree in our front yard. We were not expecting a flower; the tree is just this scraggly bush we've been allowing to grow because it's too much work to remove it - and then, suddenly, this! It appears our bush is actually an apple tree, and is flowering for the first time this year. Who knew? https://flic.kr/p/2oBrQc5

This is a white crowned sparrow in our back yard. As you can tell from the sparrow guide birdwatchinghq.com/sparrows-in-canada/ it's just passing on migration to the north. First one stopped and now we have a half dozen. Worked from home today, much less itching, but feeling sick (because we depressed my immune system to address the itching). https://flic.kr/p/2oAKhF5

May 14, 2023. Our walk this week took us to the Ottawa tulip festival, where we spent a cool but sunny afternoon enjoying the spring flowers. Nice win by the Blue Jays too. https://flic.kr/p/2oAzvuN

  Northern Harrier

May 11, 2023. Choir and orchestra in the Byward Market, Ottawa. I took a quick break from the conference to get more hot sauce and pasta from the European foods store at the market. https://flic.kr/p/2oA8Tmj

May 7, 2023. A break station in the cycle for CHEO event in Ottawa. I signed up for the 70 k. ride, forgot my helmet, went and bought one, started two hours late, and rode 25 km. With all of that, still a nice day: the ride, along with a 6 km walk. https://flic.kr/p/2ozozdK

If you're wondering where my photos are, the link between my photo site and this blog is temporarily broken. Technicians are working on it. Meanwhile, enjoy this:    Better quality video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUAQ6QGFJ0w Stephen Downes ~ stephen@downes.ca ~ http://www.downes.ca Casselman, Ontario, Canada K0A 1M0

May 2, 2023. This is a little creek where it crosses the road about a kilometer south of Casselman. I got out for a short 26 km ride today on the gravel bike, It would be unremarkable except for the rainstorm part way through, a hard rain, cold and wet. No fun! Today's work focused on gRSShopper for a change, as I reconciled two versions of it and updated the GitHub repository. I want to combine my websites into a single multi-site cloud instance, which will mean some tweaking. https://flic.kr/p/2oxEKiH

May 1, 2023. These are my new favourite flavours, one a paprika paste, and the other a pepper-tomato paste (I think), both from Hungary. I use them with my salmon-pasta soup, and it's out0-of-this-world delicious. Now that my projects have concluded, I can soend my NRC time on more ordinary researcher type things. Like, for example, today spent a good part of the day writing a blog post on openness. I'll be doing more things like that in the future. https://flic.kr/p/2oxtBXU