Doves In The Yard

Jackie pointed out to me the other day that this dove returns every day to take a look around our back yard. So I pulled out her Minolta and got a few pics. He seemed interested in my antics and watched as I "shot" him. We hope to see him stay a regular visitor 

Torn Retinas

I just finished typing a long story about this eyeball of mine and lost it all in a formatting issue so the new story is. Here is my eye after surgery. I had been suffering with some problems with my right eye and after much persistance it was discovered that I had torn the retina loose in the back of that eye. I was sent to the hospital and was quickly met by a surgeon and we decided on a method of treatment. Within a few minutes he was sticking needles in my eye and then injecting air. Which will remain for 10 or so days to disapate. I will keep you posted 

Just Another Screenshot

I have tried several, well many versions of Linux and I have consistently come back to PCLinuxOS. This is a screenshot of the latest fresh install. I have found this version of Linux to be fast and stable. It can be downloaded from their website or at Distrowatch.com . Distrowatch is a great site to explore if you are remotely interested in Linux. There you can find all the active distros and what they are all about. They include reviews and links to all sorts of resources. Take a look and have some fun.

Where There Is Smoke....

Just over the mountain there is a little fire burning. The ash is beginning to fall and the wind is blowing hard. I can hear the roar of water bombers and I'm hoping they kill the beast. 

Oh The Oldies

Here are a couple more shots of the same group of cars and trucks. I love these old wrecks. 

Old Truck Are ......

We where out for a ride on Canada day and rode by these trucks and I just had to stop and snap a few shots. a little Photoshop tweak and here they are. 

Family Get Together

Here they are folks. from left to right. Kristine, Ralph, Mom, Jessi, and Xavier. We where able to have a little family gathering this Canada day and it was fun. 

Just Another Day In The Park

It it a good day today. Time to breathe time to think. A little John Hiatt on the cones and the sweet fragrance of peace creeps in. Music is such a wonder. Harry Chapin said it well when he coined the line "music it's been my greatest friend and my fiercest foe. Cause it can take you so high and bring you so low". I always like to think of it as math made fun. If you look at written music it is a series of sounds and silences carefully laid out in structures of time. Different beats with the silence as important as the noise. And when it all come together it is some kinda sweet.

Dapper Drake Has Arrived

My Linux fever remains unabated. I have been waiting for the arrival of the latest Ubuntu. This latest incarnation is called "Dapper Drake" and I must say it is very nice. It is a nice evolution from "Breezy Badger". Funny thing with most Linux distros; they come multimedia crippled. After some reading I have discovered that this is due to legal reasons. But Thanks to some dilligent users two different scripts have been written for Ubuntu to download and install all needed multimedia codecs. One is called Automatix and the other is Easy Ubuntu. Both can quickly and easily add all the nessasary plugins for music and video. This is a reaaly nice distro and I would even say ready to replace "Windoze" for most users. Why you ask would you do that? Can you say no viruses, no spyware. This is Linux and so no problems in that area. It is stable clean and free. Oh did I mention free. Yes Ubuntu and many other good distros are absolutely free. Go to the Ubuntu site and do a little reading I am sure you will be amazed at what is going on in the Linux comunity.

Windows Vista Beta

Well Jackie downloaded the new beta from Microsoft and we installed it on the test mule I use for linux. While I'm not sure how the old girl feels about sharing a drive with Bill's OS here it is. It looks kinda cool but all the new stuff is alread out in linux for free.

And So It Begins Again

And so it begins again. Devon the son of my brother Derek has recieved his grad present. a shiney hardly ridden Yamaha Seca II 600. A really nice machine. We spent the morning giving him tips and teaching him how to keep the shiny side up. We used the test lot for the motor vehicle branch and watched as he learned how to handle his new ride at low speed. He learned quite quickly. And here he is leaving for Dad's house on his first solo ride with Dad in tow. Good luck Devon and I hope you enjoy the new ride!

The Lens

You may remember last year I bought the Sigma 70-200 2.8 APO DG HSM. It has proved to be every bit as good as the Canon. I have found it to be a superb lens for sports. The 2.8 aperture works great for hockey and other indoor sports. Well soccer season is apon us and I picked up the Sigma converter it's a 2x EX DG. Here is the picture of it all assembled. It's freakin huge. The 20D body looks dwarfed. I am glad I have a mono pod. I will let you know how it performs and post some samples. 

The New Wheels

As I had mentioned I had my trusty Giant Sedona bike stolen from my garage. Locked and all they cut the lock and gone gone gone it is. So..... I bought a new one this time I got a Gary Fisher hybrid. It is a very nice ride and time will tell how durable 

Ridin and Shooting

Jackie and I where out for a bike ride to the airport and on the way back we where both takin a few shots here and there. She had grown quite fond of her Minolta Dimage Z3. It is a pretty good camera to bad they stopped making them. 

Windy Landings

I was out at the airport for a bike ride and this came in low and slow. The pilot was landing into a gusty 40 km head wind that was trying to blow him all over. 

Kris and I got out for a quick burn around McArthur Park. We discovered that it is about 4 km from door to door doing one lap. Kris averaged about 18 km per hour. I took this shot from my perch atop my bike. i must say its kinda hard to get a shot while riding using my trusty little Kodak 7440. 

You Just Never Know

Jackie and I where out for a bike ride the other day and we passed the skate park. Well I had to try and get a shot with her little Minolta Dimage Z3. While it's no 20D I managed to capture this shot. Not to shabby for a point and shoot. This kid could really fly. It's allways easier to get the shot when the subject is doing this. If you want to see this full size just click on it. 

Cruisin

This here is a short video of my bride on her new ride 

Strange light Strange Night

We had some strange weather the last few days. This night the light turned erie and the clouds where very groovy as you can see. 

Purple

This a another shot by Kris. She seems to have the eye for it. 

This Be Kris Be

My youngest was fooling around the other day and this a shot she framed 

It's Monday

Monday morning came faster that you can imagine. The week-end has slipped away and back to work we go. No complaints though I love my job. We where able to get the yard in shape and clean out the carport. Tossed in a bike ride with Jackie with coffee & Cowboys. Oh ya had my bike stolen two weeks ago. Right out of the carport locked and all. They rode in on a bike, cut my lock and rode away. i was kinda bummed out but live and learn. I have purchased a new bike and it gets locked in the back yard. I found a very nice Gary Fisher model that seems to fit well time will tell. On another note my friend Cathlene Gilmor passed away and i am involved in her service tomorrow. She will be missed. I look forward to holidays this year I am taking Justin my grandson to Vancouver island for a visit to the ocean and his grandparents. I find I'm getting kinda tired latley looking forward to a rest.

Practice Practice Practice

Here is another look at the dynamic duo.

The Teacher and the Student

Sister Denise comes to visit us here at the Mission every week to play the organ and visit the ladies here at the Mission. During her spare time she has taken on the task of teaching Karl the guitar. We hope to enjoy the fruit of thier labour in due time. On the lighter side you will notice the color coordination with the sweater and the guitar. 

The first broken bone

This is the hand of my youngest daughter Kristine. She broke her index finger at the joint while playing basketball. Doctor says tape and 4 weeks of rest will heal it. I'm glad it was not too serious. She was a real trooper and weathered the pain well.

This picture was taken later during the same walk. I have touched up the contrast and the saturation for effect. 

The Wall

It has stood the test of time. A walk in the downtown area brought me to this old brick wall. A nice old wall. I thought of the story behind the the building and wondered who had laboured to build it. Each brick nestled into place by hand. Simple things to amuse an old man. 

As you know I have been trying out various Linux distros and here is one of the most popular distros out there. It is called Suse Linux. it uses the KDE desktop. The learning curve has been a bit trying as there is a new language to learn. And while all the basic tasks are no brainers. Surfing email and chat are easy to learn, with programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, there is no difference. Messenger is replaced with multi protocol programs like Kopete and Gaim which where easy to learn and in my opinion better than MSN as there are no advertising. Photo editing and other tasks require learning new software choices like Gimp instead of Photoshop. While I have not mastered Photoshop I have become comfortable with it and Gimp has proven to be challenging. I am finding that I am using Linux more and more all the time and hope to make a complete switch soon. I will still need Windows to run Photoshop for working with my brother Derek. I do a little sports photography for him and we are setup with Windows. So for now at least I will continue to run a dual boot system.