Let's Make Some Art, Dammit

May 2, 2026. First Trillium. Woke up really early, picked up my bib for tomorrow'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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 12, 2026. Beaver Crossing. We took the ferry across the Ottawa River today to walk along the pathway at the Parc de Plaisance. It was cool and rainy and almost empty, which led to us seeing wildlife, including this beaver crossing the path. #SDDaily #photography. URL: https://ift.tt/9Qav6yM

April 11, 2026. Lurking. #SDDaily #caturday. URL: https://ift.tt/IbdviZh

April 10, 2026. Char on the shelf. Today was shopping day. Other than that I didn't get much done, aside from petting the cats. Cold and hard rain outside. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/kulnH1j

April 8, 2026. Robin on the fence. First day of retirement. I slept in. The weather was bad so I stayed in and puttered on the computer (formerly known as 'working from home'). I watched the afternoon ball game. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/XNY1EFK

April 7, 2026. One last look out the window. This was the scene on retirement day... Not the beautiful spring day I was looking for, but instead another dose of winter. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/hISgAvF

April 5, 2026. We took a walk up and down the Rideau Canal today. It's probably the worst time to do this - it's not all snow-covered and frozen, as in the winter, nor all lush and green, as in the summer. But it's still interesting and it's nice to show what the off-season looks like. https://flic.kr/p/2s677Ar April 5, 2026 at 10:02AM

April 3, 2026. Lunch. I liked how bright my lunch looked today. Today was very much a rest day - any ambition I had disappeared with the need for an afternoon nap. They say retirement is one of those stressful life events. I can relate. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/mxT7PMd

April 2, 2026. A last look at my office before I take things down. It was a decent office but I never felt any love for it. My last day in this building will be next Tuesday, with my only objective to take my own stuff out of it and leave NRC's stuff behind. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/1evmAV2

April 1, 2026. Sunshine in the Back Yard. The weather has turned a bit. Working from home, getting files archived and my post-NRC Web page set up. #SDDaily.. URL: https://ift.tt/jyDMZxl

March 31, 2026. Productive day. Went to the dentist for the hygienist, X-rays and a checkup and left with zero cavities. So yay! Got my final time sheets completed, and wrapped up the project with DRDC. Also we had our last team meeting. Brought home many of the speaker's gifts I've accumulated over the years - not sure where to put them but I value them. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/5veiTCE

March 29, 2026. We went for a walk along the Ottawa River Valley today - it's that point where there's not enough snow for winter sports but there's too much snow for bicycles - the perfect day to walk these trails. https://flic.kr/p/2s4Mjdo March 29, 2026 at 09:02AM

March 23, 2026. Robin. They have finally arrived, but the whit behind the bird here is snow. They're probably thinking, what did I do to deserve this? #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/PLUWmiV

March 20, 2026. Rabbit. We don't really have a pet rabbit but it feels like it as this one lives in our cedar hedges and frequents the back yard, nibbling on whatever's there. Worked in the office today and hit Costco on the way home. Nice to see the Jays win. Spring training is almost over. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/Cpe61Gv

March 19, 2026. Spring? The weather is not cooperating with my desire for winter to be over and spring to begin. Meanwhile my scramble to get things ready for retirement does not mesh well with days spent in the office (where the e-infrastructure really lags behind what I have available at home). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/9Wnl3R0

March 17, 2026. Ricola. A work-at-home day, some writing and some coding. This is a late-day photo at the bedside. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/ivP9NXn

March 16, 2026. Looking up. This is the light as seen from the dentist's chair. It was one last detail from my trip to Iceland last summer - getting a crown on the tooth I broke in the eastern fjords. Hard to believe I'm going back, but I will be. This time, though, with fewer knee injuries, lost passports, illnesses and broken teeth. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/DIaHw9t

March 15, 2026. Fallen. We went for our snowshoe this week in Pine Grove forest again. There were no birds, squirrels, anything - everything is waiting for spring. More trees down after the recent ice storm. https://flic.kr/p/2s2wei9 March 15, 2026 at 08:55AM

March 14, 2026. Snow on a Saturday. Some abstract snow and weeds in the back yard. Working hard to get everything set up in my VPS before I retire. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/zYc1HgR

March 13, 2026. Repairing the bridge. This work on the main bridge in Casselman is long overdue. It has always been a crumbling rumble strip, a real pain on a bicycle. Work will continue all summer, with traffic reduced to a one-lane flow. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/97Zuv2z

March 11, 2026. Freezing Rain. This is what it looked like out the window today as freezing Rain shut everything down. It was good for me though as I took the full day to migrate my newsletter from Mailgun to Amazon SES. Claude helped a lot; it would have taken me a full week to work my way through Amazon's Byzantine interface (and to make signature validation work in Perl). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/saOxfhI

March 10, 2026. The tile on the basement floor. Good day today, got lots done - a fully automated backup system and a proper access logging system for the VPS, plus archiving all my CPanel sites. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/8B7WTfM

https://www.youtube.com/watch/wemfqgn873I

March 9, 2026. Sky and tree. Worked from home today; this scene is from the Independent in Embrun where we went over lunch to get some Scotch Bonnet peppers for my curry. It was a good day today; I'm feeling more right with the world, after what has been a lot of disruption. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/MvjFQ3V

March 8, 2026. Wall. We went to Tanger Outlet today, where I photographed this wall. I also bought a new rainproof jacket for Iceland. I'm going to be better equipped and better prepared for what I'm facing there this time. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/8Oc5dno

March 7, 2026. Fake moon. A photo taken from my home office window. The 'moon' is the reflection from my giant LED light bulb. I thought I would be productive today, but I wasn't really. Mostly I just watched videos. I started a new med this week so everything is a bit... off. Nothing serious but the delicate balance of energy and motivation that keeps me productive was disrupted. Waiting for spring, still. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/ZrTWatO

March 6, 2026. Easter bunnies. I can only stare at these 4.2 kg chocolate bunnies in Costco. Today I worked in the office, mostly pruning and fixing my RSS feeds. Not a lot of energy. Waiting for spring. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/cpoxOKf

March 5, 2026. Tree and red shed. Worked at home, keeping up with reading, a little coding. Waiting for spring. Under the weather, started on Wegovy yesterday. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/l61fMig

March 3, 2026. Sunset from the Car. Finally got all my pension paperwork sent off. It's an odd juxtaposition - living in a world where AI can create applications from scratch, and fighting with printers so I can send stuff that MUST be in paper to the government. Another meeting today, counting them down by the day. Deleted all the recurring meetings from my calendar. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/sZrRObe

March 2, 2026. Sunset through the front door. Working from the home office today, most on newsletter posts and organizing my website content. Did an interview in the morning. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/uHyxCIi

March 1, 2026. It was a bit cold today but we went for a snowshoe in Pine Grove Forest. Just at the end of the walk a couple of nuthatches made their presence known. It was a very bright day, but with a chilly wind. https://flic.kr/p/2rZ7gLb March 1, 2026 at 10:06AM

February 28, 2026. Rabbit. Late evening, in the back yard, under the bird feeder. The rabbit is a local resident; we see its footprints all the time. The debris around the rabbit is bird seed scattered there by the squirrels. We have a good population of squirrels here. Not seen in the photo is a cardinal trying to sneak in for a snack. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/JFjZy1h

February 26, 2026. Emma. Getting Emma to be still enough to photograph is an art in itself. Work day in the office today and tomorrow. I'm also having my first-ever ultrasound Friday (purely precautionary). Long, busy week. No photo from Friday because I was so tired and went to bed early. #SDDaily #caturday. URL: https://ift.tt/NiUzevZ

February 25, 2026. View from Timmies. Looking out the window at the Riverside Hospital. As we get older the doctors want to do more testing to anticipate problems before they arise. I don't disagree with this perspective, and not having to pay at the front door makes it a lot easier to do. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/Tk2Ol45

February 24, 2026. Metro. A quick trip to pick up ingredients for this week's curry. Otherwise I spent the day in the home office working on getting my online life sorted. Still waiting for the nice weather. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/f0XZmok

February 23, 2026. Paperwork. I'm pulling together all the stuff I need to make sure I get my pension. I wonder what happens if I don't do it - do they just not pay me? I'm not going to try to find out. But it is the sort of question that passes through my mind. What really bothers me, though, is that this can't be done electronically. It's paper all the way down. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/zBoST5L

February 22, 2026. The forest in winter. Our walk today took us through Pine Grove forest. Conditions were poor; we should have used snowshoes but didn't. Not too cold, though. https://flic.kr/p/2rXXfHB February 22, 2026 at 09:57AM

February 20, 2026. Service Ontario. Worked from home today and took time to go to the local Service Ontario to renew Andrea's ID and my license plates. Half an hour from home, a huge pain if I'm working in the city. Another reason to resist 'return to office' mandates. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/K5LQBVP

February 21, 2026. Red cardinal. Spent the day working on a report while watching the first ball game of the year. Like most indoor days like this, we're lucky to get any photo at all. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/q4Fav8c

February 19, 2026. Cat in a Box. Another day working in the office, mostly on posts and background reading. This is Char in the new box that contained power adapters I'll use next summer in Iceland. #SDDaily #caturday. URL: https://ift.tt/UQbecva

February 18, 2026. Back Road. This is a scene from the Navan Road on my way home from the office. I took the back roads home today because I didn't feel like driving on the highway. It's too stressful and I don't get to enjoy actually living in the country. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/xOi3EoS