Let's Make Some Art, Dammit

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

February 17, 2025. Bird Feeder. Another day spent working in the home office; this is the bird feeder as seen through the window. It's not a great photo but when I have an office day like this I'm luck to get any photo. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/2sZpq5t

February 16, 2026. Lights. This is a detail of the bright light I use sometimes in my office to ward off seasonal affective disorder. I need light, as bright as possible, to thrive. Winter is hard on me. I can't wait for spring. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/M7R9aDO

February 15, 2026. Branches. Yesterday I spent coding indoors all day, so no photo. Today we got out for a hike in Warwick Forest, but there has been a lot of damage caused by loggers (including an entire adjacent forest clearcut to the ground). That made me sad; I can at least understand selecting logging, even if I don't like it, but wiping out a forest just seems barbaric. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/mLTI8Sf

February 13, 2026. Clarke. Another day in the office today. I consider the office days as lost days because I can't work on anything significant, so I focus mostly on writing posts. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/p3Xm2CL

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch/qlG_pL2tRJg

February 12, 2026. Costco. Drove into the office today and realized I had left my badge and passkey at home. That's what happens when my routine changes, as it did yesterday. So I went to Costco and then worked from home. Commuting once per day to work in the office is more than enough; I'm definitely not doing it twice. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/R7YZKDF

February 9, 2026. Forest. I'm showing a photo from the walk because I like it so much. And also I spent the full day indoors working (except for the five minutes I took feeding the birds). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/AoL7u0d

February 8, 2026. Bonus daily photo. A woodpecker in the trees, contemplating the universe. -20 weather (-33 with the wind chill) but in a brilliant bright sun. https://flic.kr/p/2rVGCsD February 08, 2026 at 08:04AM

February 8, 2026. Snowshoeing in -20 weather (-33 with the wind chill) but in a brilliant bright sun. I'm pretty happy with the way I was able to focus on Andrea between the trees. https://flic.kr/p/2rVHYK3 February 08, 2026 at 08:56AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch/LLBKTQXx0vI

February 3, 2026. The view from below. Scene in my back yard. Another day spent looking at VS Code. Getting closer. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/A48GlbV

February 2, 2026. Coding. This is how I spent the day today, staring at VS Code as I migrate my website. Even more importantly, I'm really getting a feel for how ChatGPT does things. It's so good sometimes (and essential for me to navigate AWS or Git) and so bad at others (it is especially forgetful at times). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/AO5CmD7

https://www.youtube.com/watch/RZCI8SpAIe4

February 1, 2026. It was freezing outside today but we wore many layers and had a nice and relatively warm time wandering around Winterlude 2026 in Ottawa https://flic.kr/p/2rUEzeM February 01, 2026 at 08:59AM

January 31, 2026. Borb. Another day with very cold temperatures and this morning dove is all fluffed up to escape the cold. I escaped the cold by working inside. Still transferring my site to a new VPS. Also finished the last of my Iceland photos. Yay! #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/FH95UWX

https://www.youtube.com/watch/A6Lrgthd_dA

https://www.youtube.com/watch/7Y7MNt8Pswc

https://www.youtube.com/watch/W9e3M4HOz0w

January 30, 2026. From above. This is a grove of trees I see from my office on the third floor. It's so evident that the whole NRC complex was designed for a different era. There would have been many more people working in these buildings as many secretaries and staff as researchers, and things like the picnic tables and baseball diamond would be used, not sitting empty. Each building had its own cafeteria. It was an era of paper and memos and urgent meetings and camraderie. No more. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/pBKETQb

https://www.youtube.com/watch/6DCWBT1RbUI

January 29, 2026. Trying to improve my photography skills skill, getting the clearest and sharpest photo I can (even though it's short from behind a dirty window). I actually don't mind the squirrels eating the bird seed; they need to live too. https://flic.kr/p/2rUaZ4z January 29, 2026 at 06:21AM

January 28, 2026. Morning light. Everything about the day this morning says change. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/bqZlRoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch/ZFhpr85uxPY

January 26, 2026. Snow Dump. Most of the snow happened overnight, but I still worked from home. I'm still migrating my web sites to the new VPS. I want to set up the archive so it's as cheap to maintain as possible. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/BrcLsne

https://www.youtube.com/watch/BKINz4YT5CE

https://www.youtube.com/watch/KG8sI8cgKCw

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

January 25, 2026. Lights. This is a detail from the light in my office at home, where I spent the day working on setting up my new VPS (all lavishly documented on Youtube, the world's most boring videos). #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/orN8Su4

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch/r-Yg5Tyik5E

https://www.youtube.com/watch/zCDgYxKGeS8

January 23, 2026. Mounted police. I want to the Canadian Tire to buy bird seed over lunch and just happened to spot these mounted police just making their way through the parking lot. Presumably they were taking advantage of the freezing weather to get some training in. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/HUygIcC

January 22, 2026. Boot Brush. It always amazes me how we combine a high-tech information age society with the most simple tools, in this case, the boot brush at the office. Another day driving home through snowstorms; it gets old fast. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/E6c7FQy

January 21, 2026. Dim Sun. I'm in the city early for a medical appointment (nothing serious). It's a cold morning with low haze. Snow is forecast. I'll be working in the office this afternoon helping with a research ethics board review. #SDDaily. URL: https://ift.tt/87khTIY