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Showing posts from 2026

Daily Photo July 1, 2026 at 03:23PM

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July 1, 2026. Colossus. Iceland, Day 7. The photo doesn't do justice to the size of my new tent neighbour, which I call Colossus. It's battery powered, air cooled, and holds four (though they had extra help setting it up last night). I'm not going to let it get to me, though it did have me thinking thoughts about how to be more happy and less grouchy. It's not so easy some days. Ah - but this campsite is beautiful, I'm staying extra days. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/z90s13q

Daily Photo June 30, 2026 at 05:17AM

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June 29, 2026. Iceland, Day 5. Recovery Day. This is a fledgling robin busy molting its baby feathers to reveal it's full colours. Apt. I spent the day at Reykjavik campsite recovering, doing nothing but reading, writing, and eating a lot of food. By the end of the day I felt human again. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/nrUMs29

Daily Photo June 28, 2026 at 03:17PM

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June 28, 2026. Art Museum. Iceland, Day 4. Spent at least a little time admiring the art while I stopped for an emergency break. A rough day today, and I bailed part way through (but late in the afternoon) and went to Reykjavik campsite. Still ill and tired. I will probably rest here for a day even if I feel good to go. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/EVTOAgI

Daily Photo June 27, 2026 at 12:05PM

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June 27, 2026. The watch. 1991 by Timo Solis. Stands above the Hafnarfjordur campsite where I've been all day, doing nothing. I'm under the weather and really needed a rest day. This isn't the best place for that, as there are no services, but it will have to do. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/YQHhgfr

Daily Photo June 26, 2026 at 10:01AM

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June 26, 2026. Iceland, Dar 2. Nardvik to Hafnarfjordur. Cool, but not too rainy, wind at my back. Most of the ride was along the major highway. Caught a cold, naturally. Trying to balance the physical exertion with the various meds I'm on is a trick. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/mYzI5iy

Daily Photo June 25, 2026 at 01:41PM

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June 25, 2026. I'm in Iceland now, in a tent, and recovering from an Odyssey that took me from below the equator to the edge of the Arctic Circle. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/KQecFr6

Daily Photo June 23, 2026 at 09:08AM

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June 23, 2026. Union Station. After a bus ride, two flights, and the UP train, I'm at Union Station in Toronto, there to catch a train to Ottawa, from which I'm supposed to drive home (don't bet against me just booking a hotel room and then driving home and thence to Montreal tomorrow. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/yh7mF6p

Daily Photo June 22, 2026 at 05:19PM

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July 22, 2026. Andes. Took the bus back from Cuenca to the coast and had a much better view of the mountains. It really is spectacular scenery, with steep slopes and narrow winding river valleys. Taking the red-eye to Toronto tonight, then the train home tomorrow. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/LTUDKx5

Daily Photo June 21, 2026 at 09:03PM

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June 21, 2026. Cuenca. Went for a long slow walk through the city today, taking great care not to injure my knee (don't want a repeat of last year). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/cM5FeNZ

Daily Photo June 20, 2026 at 07:56PM

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June 20, 2026. Cuenca. I'm in a little pub & restaurant in Ecuador's third largest city watching their team in the World Cup. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/K4XNSfw

Daily Photo June 19, 2026 at 01:23PM

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June 18, 2026. Guayaquil. Switched hotels today, spending time exploring a different part of the city. Most of the day, though, was focused on preparing my talk #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/P8Y4wte

Daily Photo June 17, 2026 at 04:14PM

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June 17, 2026. Iguana Day. I gave my online talk this morning and then went for a walk in Guayaquil where I spotted this beauty. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/F9EVt2O

Daily Photo June 16, 2026 at 07:10AM

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June 16, 2026. Plane Day. This is the international concourse at Bogota. I'm on my way to Guayaquil, Ecuador. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/12lwHni

Daily Photo June 15, 2026 at 05:04PM

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June 15, 2026. Train Day. I spent yesterday getting my bike packing gear ready for Iceland, and today travelling by train to Toronto to catch a flight to Ecuador, where I will be keynoting in a few days. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/sVUOANv

Daily Photo June 15, 2026 at 11:43AM

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June 13, 2026. Went for a longer bike ride today in the hot sun, including a stop to visit Bernie and the kids. :) The ride left me pretty worn out, and caps about 1,100 kilometers of training rides in preparation for my Iceland trip. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/HX3kyuf

Daily Photo June 15, 2026 at 11:37AM

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June 10, 2026. Another normal day - writing, coding, cycling. I take big ski photos like this so they look better as backgrounds to my cycling posts. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/8goSmxC

Personal Learning in the Age of AI

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https://www.youtube.com/watch/UYl3Xpqx8HM

Daily Photo June 7, 2026 at 07:14PM

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June 7, 2026. Moth. Today's walk was back in the familiar forests of the Mer Bleue bog, in Ottawa, where we spotted this moth disguised as a dead leaf. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/oztjdkZ

Daily Photo June 6, 2026 at 07:10PM

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June 6, 2026. Let's go RedBlacks #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/AHaJMf9

Daily Photo June 5, 2026 at 11:08AM

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June 3, 2026. Scene from the biking trail at Mont Tremblant. We started early in the morning - Andrea went for a hike up the mountain while I cycled to Labelle and back. Then we drove back home. It made for a pretty long day - it's about a 2.5 hour drive each way. As an experiment though it was a success. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/3H5Gh6R

Daily Photo June 5, 2026 at 10:46AM

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June 1, 2026. A typical day - newsletter, coding, bike ride. This cluster of flowers was by itself on the roadside just north of St. Albert. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/atQCsK3

Daily Photo June 4, 2026 at 09:33PM

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May 31, 2026. Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea). We went to one of the new trails just opened up near Alexandria and were rewarded with this sighting. It was a nice day for a walk, a little cool, with showers in the distance but nothing but blue sky where we were. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/ft34pMS

Daily Photo June 2, 2026 at 01:38PM

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May 30, 2026. I went for a nice long ride today, along the Crysler trail (pictured), down to Finch, and then back up along the gravel roads to St.Albert. It was a beautiful day and a great ride. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/BPEg8Cz

Daily Photo June 2, 2026 at 01:20PM

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May 29, 2026. Football under the cranes. It was a cold evening but we got to enjoy our RedBlacks in a romp over Montreal. I know it's only the preseason, but there's room for hope, right? The cranes, by the way, are building an undersized arena; then our football stands will be replaced with something smaller, uglier, and without a roof. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/tRh2JCl

Daily Photo June 2, 2026 at 12:34PM

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May 28, 2026. Blue sky and pines. Another new typical sort of day - writing OLDaily, coding CList, going for a bike ride. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/vo9Ablw

Downes Intro

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https://www.youtube.com/watch/80e5dS2B7C4

Daily Photo May 27, 2026 at 08:31PM

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May 26, 2026. Mountains beyond mountains. The Costco parking lot. Today was errand day; we picked up stuff, we came home. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/1tHwCAl

Daily Photo May 27, 2026 at 08:26PM

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May 25, 2026. This is a flower from our now very robust front yard apple tree. An ordinary Monday: did the newsletter, codedCList, rode my bike, watched the ball game. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/UE3nlPs

Looking Down

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May 21, 2026. Back up the mountain. We're along the front side, looking down through some brush at Lac Tremblant and the resort village Really feeling a lack of energy today, so we didn't hike very far. It was cold, but beautiful. Drove home in the afternoon and - yep - it was another nap for me. <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2sezsjF">https://flic.kr/p/2sezsjF</a> May 21, 2026 at 07:56AM

Tremblant

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May 20, 2026. The view from the top of Mont Tremblant. We woke up early and drove to the mountain to pick up our summer gondola passes and have a short visit. Now that I'm retired we don't have all the time constraints, so we can do more frequent shorter trips up and back, spending more time for less money. <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2sexNqG">https://flic.kr/p/2sexNqG</a> May 20, 2026 at 11:42AM

The Road Home

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May 19, 2026. Intersection at the Warwick Forest about 15 km from Casselman. Cycled back home in the morning, then went into the city for a doctor's appointment (follow-up on weight-loss program). Got back home and took a well-deserved nap. <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2sewETc">https://flic.kr/p/2sewETc</a> May 19, 2026 at 06:31AM

Stone Silo

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May 18, 2026. Farm just a bit south and east of Maxville on the road to Warina. It was another beautiful day for cycling - started cold but got quite warm in the afternoon. 50 km day with a full load, a lot slower than I would like (need to address stamina and energy issues). <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2sextZp">https://flic.kr/p/2sextZp</a> May 18, 2026 at 01:17PM

Long Weekend Bikepacking

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https://www.youtube.com/watch/0sdIzrOvVGY

Trillium

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May 17, 2026. Second day of my bikepacking trip, on a beautiful clear Sunday. Cycled from Whispering Pines through Alfred and then up to the Ottawa River and back, a mixture of farmlands and forests. This trillium was spotted along the bank of the Nation River across from Plantagenet. <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2sevr4L">https://flic.kr/p/2sevr4L</a> May 17, 2026 at 07:01AM

Daily Photo May 16, 2026 at 06:51PM

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May 16, 2026. Whispering Pines. First day out on the trail this year. :) #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/LMHj7Pn

Daily Photo May 11, 2026 at 10:33PM

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May 10, 2026. Egret. We went for our hike along Black Rapids Creek in the Greenbelt just west of the Rideau River in Ottawa. I expected a lot of flowers, but instead we were treated to numerous wading birds, including this Egret. Weather was cool, grey, and sometimes rainy. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/ILvmJwF

Daily Photo May 11, 2026 at 03:00PM

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May 9, 2026. Seeding. Out for a longer ride on the gravel bike today. A little cool and windy, but still a beautiful day, and the farmers were all out sowing seeds or fertilizer. More progress on CList today - probably nobody will ever use it but I&#39;m still engaged, because I want to show what we can have if we want it. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/CvJG8gM

Daily Photo May 9, 2026 at 12:09PM

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May 8, 2026. Ottawa Titans. We went to the home opener today - we had to arrive early to get the free jerseys and then we settled on to enjoy a ball game in a sold-out ballpark (something that hasn&#39;t happened in Ottawa for a long time). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/kdLgKDG

Daily Photo May 8, 2026 at 01:24PM

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May 6, 2026. Cart Corral. Seen at the Metro here in Casselman as we picked up stuff to make curry. Other than this brief trip, it was another indoor day working on CList. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/LgN6YdV

Daily Photo May 8, 2026 at 01:16PM

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March 5, 2026. Chinese food. Andrea and I had dinner with Bernine and Debby at the Embrun Asian Express this evening (the blurred people in the photo are strangers, not us). It doesn&#39;t look to busy but it picked up, and they did a constant delivery business as well. Good food. Otherwise, it was a quiet day working indoors, while cool and very windy outside. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/9qGBYN3

Daily Photo May 4, 2026 at 09:45PM

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May 4, 2026. Geese. A lot warmer today and though windy still a good day for a bike ride. Spotted these geese along the Nation river. Other than that, a quiet day spent tweaking Claude and reading. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/iGwleHQ

Daily Photo May 4, 2026 at 08:58AM

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May 3, 2026. CHEO 2026. This is me at the start of the ride. Apparently I set a number of personal records for the climbs in the Gatineau hills. It felt like a lot more work; I thought the road bike would be better on the hills than my touring bike, and it was but it took a lot more out of me. It&#39;s not a race, but there is a time limit. Missed the cutoff to ride the full 100km by about 20 minutes. I wasn&#39;t dead last this time; there were three people behind me. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/mr5Nfe3

Daily Photo May 2, 2026 at 04:54PM

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May 2, 2026. First Trillium. Woke up really early, picked up my bib for tomorrow&#39;s ride, went hiking with Andrea at Stony Swamp trail (where we found the first flowers of the year blooming), home via Costco, and to bed very early. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/djXLtWR

Daily Photo April 30, 2026 at 10:36PM

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April 30, 2026. Seedlings. I had a fun day today, coding and cycling (and learning all about DID). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/B9yj1cs

Daily Photo April 28, 2026 at 07:07PM

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April 28, 2026. Countryside. Out on my bike ride, thinking 'this is where I want to be'. I had a fun day yesterday coding all day, and then a fun day today out riding. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/fUJ9xn7

Daily Photo April 26, 2026 at 04:53PM

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April 26, 2026. Chickadee. We walked in Pine Grove forest today, not a long walk as I was pretty sore from yesterday. It was pretty photogenic though, with (of course) the chickadees preening. #photography #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/jL29u3E

Daily Photo April 23, 2026 at 12:16PM

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April 22, 2026. Goldfinch. Spotted in the back yard. Went to the city today for a followup doctor's appointment and otherwise rested sore muscles. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/gyF5GYw

Daily Photo April 22, 2026 at 09:05AM

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April 21, 2026. Nuthatch. I've spent the last couple of days resting to relieve a sore oblique. This means I've been working on my CList software. Meanwhile, enjoy this nurhatch. #SDDaily #bird #photography. URL: https://ift.tt/sGDoJw2

Daily Photo April 19, 2026 at 06:16PM

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April 19, 2026. Meltwater. We went to Mer Bleue trail today; there's a lot of melting, but it is probably one of the drier trails at the moment. Sore and resting today. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/7zcI65Y

Daily Photo April 17, 2026 at 09:03PM

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April 17, 2026. We finally had a nice day. I stretched my cycling distance a bit to visit family in Embrun, but nobody was home. Still, it was perfect cycling weather and I made much better speed than I thought for this time of the year. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/r9AbT2O

Daily Photo April 17, 2026 at 08:53PM

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April 16, 2026. Last year's goldenrod. Steady rain today so aside from a trip to the grocery store I stayed in and watched the baseball game. It's odd not having 'work' though I'm keeping busy. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/viJa4No

Daily Photo April 17, 2026 at 08:42PM

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April 15, 2025. Rabbit. Back home from my short bike ride, spotted the rabbit again. It's getting to the point that it feels safe in our yard. Today was a good test for my rain gear - even after being drenched by a sheet of water, courtesy a gray pickup truck, I stayed dry underneath. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/vlW8UpC

Northern Flicker

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April 13, 2026. Northern Flicker. Rainy day today - got out for a bike ride and also photographed this northern flicker in the back yard. Otherwise,just puttered on the computer. https://flic.kr/p/2s7tGtf April 13, 2026 at 07:53AM