Let's Make Some Art, Dammit

July 11, 2024. This is the Riviere Rouge at Brebuf, which I finally visited by bicycle. That wan't my plan, but there was a lot of construction on the P'tit Train du Nord trail between Tremblant and Labelle, so I took an alternate - and much longer, and much hillier - route back. Almost 70 km, but more importantly, about 400 m elevation gain. https://flic.kr/p/2q3MynU

February 11, 2024. Spotted this squirrel in the bird feeder along the Mer Bleue trail on our walk today. I was trying to photograph birds (without a lot of success) with the telephoto. Puttering on some projects otherwise, maybe watching football this evening. https://flic.kr/p/2pxGmCU

April 27, 2023. Just another dreary spring day commute. I spent the morning preparing all my slides for my presentation (I didn't even have time to join the strike over lunch) and then the presentation was postponed for a week. These things happen. https://flic.kr/p/2owYQAA

March 9, 2023. This is the Nordstrom at Rideau Centre in Ottawa. I had never been to a Nordstrom, and with news that the chain is now closing in Canada, I thought I'd peer in before they disappear. So today I had a doctor's appointment in the morning (where I discovered that my kidney is fine after all, and got some hoped-for relief from my itching), and we had time to wait for the prescriptions, so we went to Rideau Centre. https://flic.kr/p/2omnGji

February 17, 2023. A pair of blue jays on the back porch after a snowfall. We've been more popular with the jays recently; must be a good selection of seeds and nuts in the feeder. Today the full day is devoted to my technology barriers report. https://flic.kr/p/2ohtKVL

January 15, 2023. Snowshoeing in Larose forest. Then football. January winter Sunday. https://flic.kr/p/2obBnBz

January 7, 2023. It took a few days, but the birds have discovered we put food in the feeder again. We had stopped over the summer because of avian flu, and we didn't want them gathering all together. This is a female cardinal; we haven't seen the male yet, but we hold out hope. There have also been chickadees, blue jays, and dark-eyed juncos. spent the full day toying around with node,js on the cloud, trying different things. https://flic.kr/p/2oavRDs

January 6, 2023. We had freezing rain yesterday and today with the result that there's a layer of ice over everything. It makes walking treacherous but I was till out for my lunchtime walk. It's good to take a break, especially in winter when the office walls close in on you. Same work today as yesterday, with about the same degree of progress. https://flic.kr/p/2oaw5MV

January 5, 2023. It hasn't occurred to me to try to make my own hot sauce, but Andrea picked this up in the Costco yesterday and it seems to me like it would be worth a try. I'll report on any results. I've been back to work all week, focusing mostly on instructional strategies, but also trying to make node.js work in a cloud environment using ssl. Slow progress on both fronts. https://flic.kr/p/2oauRX4

January 4, 2023. It took most of an afternoon but I was able to get my blood tests and an ECG done. All this is part of a regular checkup. I do notice that the private clinics of Doug Ford's Ontario are a lot slower, and a lot harder on their employees, than proper hospitals or public health care clinics. Sure, the tests were still covered by health care - this is Canada, after all - but by chipping away at the corners like this, conservative governments are making basic health care harder and harder to access. Which, of course, is their game plan. https://flic.kr/p/2oatseB

November 7, 2022. Charlemagne is a very long cat, which means that when he gets up on hind legs (as he often does) he's a very tall cat... almost as tall as the railing. Today was a day for catching up on a mountain of work after being sick for three days or so. https://flic.kr/p/2nZbTTr

March 27, 2022. I know I already shared a version of this, but this is my official 'daily photo' version. Yes, we're headed to the world cup. I watched the game (and also the Blue Jays game before it) as I worked all day on my data literacy presentation. For the record: I'm a long-time soccer (football) fan. I played on the high school soccer team and have been a World Cup junkie ever since - I have many memories of watching the games over the years. I even worked at soccer games during the 1976 Olympics! https://flic.kr/p/2nbdZDZ

December 18, 2021. End of the day, watching The Expanse, cat at the foot of the bed. I took a bot of a busman's holiday today, making minimal progress on the course, but writing a long post about Taylor Swift's 10 minute song. https://flic.kr/p/2mRH3Wb

October 8, 2021. This is a very healthy spider sheltered just outside the downstairs bathroom window. I liked the way just the centre strands of the web were lit up by the sun. Tough day today as I couldn't figure out why my presentations weren't displaying properly - and were even crashing my course website! It took pretty much the whole day to figure it out and create a fix. https://flic.kr/p/2mznpt8

September 3, 2021. This is on display at the RedBlacks game and inscribed on it are all the season ticket holder names (I looked and ours were there ). The game itself was one-sided the wrong way, but we saw enough flashes to give us hope. I also had a productive day as a whole, going to the dentist, consulting on a MOOC, preparing some paperwork. https://flic.kr/p/2mm94PV

April 23, 2021. This is a Robertson screwdriver, also known as an ANSI Type III Square Center screwdriver. It's one of several I keep handy at my work desk and became my photo of the day for lack of anything else to photograph. Had a meeting today, a doctor's checkup by telephone, did some evaluation work, and postponed cycling yet another day even though it was beautiful out. https://flic.kr/p/2kUJEqM

November 10, 2020. It was another beautiful day today but I was stuck inside working. Still, I did enjoy looking at it outside my window, watching the late afternoon light paint the trees orange. Another presentation today; it's one of my busier fall seasons, even if I'm not traveling. https://flic.kr/p/2k5gGrQ

November 7, 2020. This is the last leaf on our mountain ash in the back yard. I thought I'd go for a bike ride, or maybe work on my upcoming presentation, but I have no discipline, and ended up writing a blog post. https://flic.kr/p/2k4jzn9

March 10, 2019. Cats love routine. Even shy skittish cats like Polly. These days, every time I go down the stairs, she sets up by the railing to get petted while I'm on the way down. So there I am, head at floor level, on the stairs, petting Polly. Every single day we do this. Anyhow, I had a productive day reading the Kubernetes book and doing the examples. https://flic.kr/p/2f9wcBe

February 25, 2019. This is our Ottawa Redblacks blanket, tossed over a chair and ready for use. Less productive today https://flic.kr/p/24mJJ6V