Those picture things

So, due to being freakishly sick, and other complications and considerations, since leaving my job last month, I've only had one job interview. In an email to the guy to be interviewing me, I joked that to get ready for the interview instead of brushing up on a bunch of concepts, I had instead decided to spend my time on a project I'd long wanted to tackle: writing my own online photo album. This was somewhat related to the job, as I decided to create the photo album using the primary tools that job was advertising for. I quipped that by taking this approach of writing software using these tools to prepare, whether I turned out to be right for the job or not, I could not loose because even if I don't get the job I still have the software.

I didn't get the job. But I was right! Now, some weeks of "feverish" coding later, I have the software in good enough shape to share...

The hope is that this will get me posting pictures more often, more easily. It was always so awkward with the other software I used (which is currently totally broken, to add to my motivation).

The software I created is entirely under my control. It still lacks some features I want. But crucially, it integrates directly with my desktop photo management software. It is intended to be very tag-centric (so hopefully I'll be more exacting in my tagging). One a superficial level in this way it sort of is inspired by flickr's focus on time (stream) and tags. But it integrates with my desktop photo software directly; and it's entirely under my control.  Did I say that already? I don't mind repeating.

Anyhow... never mind. Even so, all this being said, the photos here aren't quite up to date. And in fact I haven't taken hardly any in quite some time now.

But nevertheless... a gimpse (click the pic) of the possibilty to come....

(The slideshow system I integrated in is pretty good too...!)

Just Sunday

As usual, I don't know how we pack as much as we do into weekends. And we didn't even get to all the things that turned up in the agenda. And we started late.

For us the day started out with a bike ride to Friends Meeting House, where we hung around for another benefit-lunch in support of some Jamaican school teachers who are up here getting some training. In fact I believe they were at the conference/workshop thingy at U of T that Selena was at all day Saturday (Educating for Peace and Justice).

Anyhow, Istra really loved the Jamaican-style food we picnicked with. She went so far as to say these people cook better than mommy! I was sure to jump in, however, and assert that she shouldn't be so hasty, because mommy's stuff is okay sometimes! She did relent and said that these people and mommy really know how to cook good.

From there we hit a computer shop as I needed new gizmo. Turns out the place is closed on Sunday.

But that's okay, our next scheduled stop was right around the corner: Kensington Market. Selena has a friend who has been having a Vegan Bake Sale table there on the weekends. Selena's been wanting to get down there to check it out all summer. Finally she managed to bribe us with promises of sugary baked goodness that we let her bring us along.

It's been a whlie since we were down there on the weekend. Selena's friend told us that it was a pretty slow day for them. The crowd as a little sparse towards their end of the street... but to get to that end we had to navigate through thick crowds of folk all over the street, and no less than 3 or 4 different live bands playing (one of them being something like a 16 piece brass outfit playing swingy-style jazz), belly dancers in the middle of the street, and on and on. Kensington market is still pretty crazy on the weekend. Anyhow, we got through all that to our reward: hanging out on the steps in front of a vacant storefront, and munching on rainbow sprinkle covered cupcakes and listening to yet another band playing on the front lawn two doors down.

We were -- and this was to be the main activity of the day -- heading to the Word on the Street festival at Queen's Park. But after all this it was already around 4pm, and we were all already feeling pretty worn out from all our traipsing around; and Selena decided that what we really needed, and what she really wanted to do, was to get some groceries at Karma Co-op before it closed... so we headed up there.

Shopping trips to Karma always being mini-adventures in themselves. Admittedly not altogether pleasant ones with the kids! The co-op store is relatively small, and the kids tend to go nuts in there. They seem to like it a lot. Today Istra decided to wear a shopping basket on her face and run around the store; meanwhile Emeth decided his shopping basket would make a good home away from home and spent a lot of. And on and on. Whee.

Well, i got some pictures anyhow. Click the first pic to see more.

Photo dump

A whole bunch of pictures...

Steven & Megan's wedding.

Aunty Belle's Birthday.

The old and the new ferret.

A whole bunch of misc pictures from our summer.

Check the cantaloupe

The garden is... er... interesting. The tomatoes sort of overshadowed everything. But still we have some melons and weird stumpy cucumbers and a couple of viable cobs of corn... it may work out. Basil trees! Noodle, the ferret, is sick and flea ridden. He's on medication. But we wanted to try to get the infestation cleaned off a bit. He really, really didn't like the bath. Poor Noodle.

Bicycle of the gods (when they wanted to miraculously ride side-by-side)

Selena found this crazy bike for sale online some time ago. It's so crazy, we eventually decided to buy it. Strangely, no one had snapped it up yet. We had access to a car on our way up north, so we stopped by the seller's house to take a look at the thing and try it out. Trying it out we discovered Selena was too terrified of the thing to let her feet leave the ground. But she wanted to buy it anyways. So we did! Taking it with us up north we got a few opportunities to practice riding the thing. Selena even managed to get her feet off the ground for maybe half a kilometer (though not without extreme anxiety, and a resultant headache). Whee! So we left the thing up north at Selena's mom's house. We'll have the whole summer to master riding the insane thing, right?

The way the bike works is that one side controls both steering and breaks. The non-steering/breaking side is the passenger side. Both sides pedal.

Doing some research it seems it's pretty common for the first reaction of the "passenger" to be terror. But apparently most people can overcome it fairly quickly. We shall have to see what happens with Selena. (I have suggested she take the driver side, but the thought of that seems to frighten her even more than she already is.)

These bikes (ours being the cheap mass-produced Asian build) were manufactured in the 1980s, but apparently never caught on for some reason.

If you want more pictures of our "buddy bike", here!

I mentioned to Selena that maybe this bike is sort of like that classic trust exercise whereby one person stands in front of the other and lets themselves fall straight backwards, trusting that the person behind will catch them. Selena says: "Oooo, i hate that! I could never do that!" So we may have a few issues to work out. (-;

2010 to date

Finally have got most of this year's photos accessible online for the curious. (Here's Elena, Selena's friend from York, who came and had some fun with Istra, as you can see.)

Also still have a fair bit of fun stuff from end of 2009 which hasn't yet made it off my laptop...

Hello Noodle

This'll teach you all for giving Selena "birthday money"....

don't eat anything bigger than your head

Almost certainly Selena will post this to her face book, but I'm going to beat her this time and post it here for the few that visit here first! It's Michael Pollan talking about his new book, which is (or contains at least in part) a collection of "wisdom", folk and otherwise, about food. Here's some favorite quotes from me...

"If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, you're probably not hungry."

"The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead!"



Another interesting one:

"Sweeten your food yourself" (He observes that in most cases it'd be better for kids to give unsweetened cereal and tell them to put on all the sugar they want, because they can put many many spoons of sugar on the cereal and still have less sugar then many sugary cereals. Maybe not so applicable around here... but still an interesting observation. Ditto for making ice tea or lemonade... no sane person would themselves put in as much sugar as is found in popular commercial drinks of that sort.)

When the rugrats away, the cats will...

Gramma took the kids for a few days again, so Selena could get some quality studying time in before her final exam next week. But it looks like all this freedom has once again gone to her head, and off she goes, hitting the streets and rallying against the prorogued government. Well, what can do when the Samba Squad calls?

Howdy New Year

Well, everyone missed a fantastic New Year's Eve party here at our place. Yes, it was awesome. It was awesome that you missed it, I mean. I mean, it's awesome you were somewhere else that is not here. So, I just want to extend a heart felt thanks to all who did not participate. Thank you. And Happy New Year, also.

Besides us not having to take you on an delightful evening walk around the neighbourhood through the rain/snow (including the icy and unlit Wytchwood Park hill --- whee!), under our big umbrella, it also meant we didn't have to share our crisped-to-perfection traditional home-made new year's egg rolls with you. Horray! Selena also whipped up some hot and sour soup, which turned out quite nice (though a lot more of the hot than the sour).

Conscience is starting to suggest my tone may be coming across a wee bit on the selfish side? Furthermore, I'm just starting to feel terribly sorry for all you poor unfortunates that were not here for such an awesomeness (the likes of which you can probably not even imagine). But, this was the first holiday evening of any kind that Selena and I have gotten to enjoy just by ourselves since... since I can't even remember. It was too nice. It was too good. So I hope you can somehow forgive us for ignoring your knocks (we may have been out) and rejecting your rings (our phone line must have been down)?

There are a few egg rolls and soup left over. But you better get over here fast if you want some, because they won't last long! And the kids will be back soon...

The Seven Stops of Christmas

We had an even busier than usual Christmas this year, largely due to my determination to connect with some extra relatives which had been out of the picture for a long time. (Ironically, I got hardly any pictures of these extras.) All told, we had a chunk 'o Christmas in seven different places over five or so days!

We started here at home on Christmas afternoon. We Quaker potlucked Christmas eve. We then headed to Ajax where we stayed over night. After Christmas morning breakfast and presents in Ajax, with Gramma (and a phone call to sing the Hippopotamus song to Auntie Anne), we headed out to Dundas to meet up with some odd Middleton's, we extremely rarely see (including one cousin I'd not yet ever met before, and a bathroom -- except for the seriously nostalgic drawing -- never seen before either), for Christmas dinner. We stayed over night in Hamilton and had a second Christmas morning there on Boxing day, with Grammie and Aunty Belle. In the afternoon we drove to Kitchener for a visit with Grampa. Coming back to Hamilton again to stay over night, the next day we congregated with Selena's family and family friends for a big Christmas brunch at the Suggitt's.

It was touch and go at times, but it all worked out quite nicely (I think). And it's continuing to work out nicely, now finally home again, just Selena and I. We left the kids, with their new toys, for a few days with Gramma. (And Grammie had them most of the week leading up to all this.)

So all is Merry until Happy New Year! (Here's all the xmas pics...)

Noel in Season

I was lucky to be able (with Anne and Sandro, no less) to get to the little gallery space where Noel, and other local artists, were opening a new exhibit. My pictures linked here are not very good quality, but some may be interested to see some of the people and scenes... there's also some more examples of some of the art work here."

Parading

A week or so ago I got a strange email from a friend whom I'd not heard from in many years. He was apparently tipping me off regarding the awesome bargains to be had at some chinese web site. I prompt wrote him back thanking him very much for the tip, and expressing my eagerness to accept any and all spam from the few old friends I have lingering out there somewhere. The fellow wrote me back and affirming that yes, this spam certainly has been more effective than even facebook at getting him in touch with everyone in his address book from many years ago. It turns out an old webmail account he used once upon a time was compromised and the spammer used it to send out messages to everyone in the address book. My friend reports about half of them responded in one way or another (if you follow).

Take that, facebook! You're not even as effective as random spammers, as much as you may try to encourage your own special brand of spam which had now addicted half of humanity.

Anyhow, that being said, this weekend we hooked up with someone Selena hadn't sen since high school, and has been in contact with via book-o-face. She and her husband and her daughter (around the same age as Istra, coincidentally) came down from Cambridge and met up with us at the Santa Claus Parade. After the parade (shoulder's aching), we grabbed some yummy food from Gazelle and took it up a block to a small leaf-strewn-park for a little leaf-strewn picnic.

Also, I took pictures of random people at the parade, for bonus points. More interesting (to me) than the floats, you see.

And, on the way home we went by a house right near Istra's school with two chickens running around in the fenced in front yard. Just like Selena's dream!

Holiday III: The Farm

I've finally put some more pictures from our holiday travels last August online. I hesitated on this particular set, probably because there's so much to say about it. It is hopeless to find the time to even begin to explain the background or describe the scenes portrayed.

In a nutshell, my grandfather bought this land to retire on to many years ago. Some say he was trying to recapture something of his youth, growing up on a farm. He built the farm house seen here, after the original burned down. My granddad died over a dozen years ago. and I hadn't been up to the farm since probably a few years before that. Owned now by an uncle, it has sat mostly unused all these years. The front yard, which I remember as a grassy hill leading down to a creek, is now a forest. The farmhouse, up on the edge of a hill, is barely visible from any direction anymore, ensconced in trees. Yet it remains deep in its grove, a hidden treasure box of memory and curiosity.

Then there's another reclusive uncle building himself a log house way in the far back of the property, barely accessible by anything half resembling a road. But that's yet another long and curious story.

The New Kitchen Help

She was here when I got home from work tonight. The kids seem to like her... i guess we'll keep her. (The funny thing is, she looks sort of almost exactly like Selena in her almost entirely regular clothes... but I'm told she's a gypsy or a pirate or something, all dressed up for something or other, which she rushed off to...

Dragons

The dragon Istra got for her birthday, so many months ago, finally hatched this chilly, wet weekend. The winds lured it from its nest, and launched it... well... into trees... and Selena's face... the ground... oh, and also the sky! From there, it also appears to have swooped down in an attempt to snatch Emeth up in its claws and carry him away to its lair....! Watch out, Eme!!!!


It missed.

So we all survived. And got exercise. And even seemed to have a fair bit of fun, despite the terrible danger.

I found more mushrooms to coerce portraits out of. (Oh wait, have I even posted my vast array of mushroom pictures from our last holiday?) Anyhow, while stalking the "shaggy manes", I noticed the ground beneath my feet started to feel rather weird. I looked down and found myself treading across large clusters of what we've finally decided are "pear-shaped puffballs". Selena, in her amateur mycological lust, was so excited she quickly abandoned my lovely shaggy mane, and started maniacally harvesting.

Two meals later, we are still alive. We win, again!

There was also dinner guests. A gigantic wasp nest. Turning off of water, window plastic. Fresh beaver trails. A farmer's market. Munchkin measurements. Still water. Rough water. Fantastical vehicles. Braids. The lowering of a flag. GPS. The moon at noon. Puzzles (including some which may never be solved). Warm snuggles. Cold feet, and shoulders. Genealogical encouragements. Surprise recovered apple crisp. Popped corn.

And we've maybe survived all that, too! We shall see...

Healthcare reform

Aunty Belle says she's tired of looking at people falling out of houses every time she points her web browser in this direction. To be absolutely honest, I'm getting a tad bit weary of it myself. But what can I do? Evidently not much. It was a tired week ago the aforementioned comment was made... and still no update?

Well, how about a chipmunk?

Oh wait. Have to get Istra in here somewhere before leaving, right?
Well, there you go. Her gloriousness.

Actually, oddly enough, I have a little something for Whitney that I've been wanting to get out here for some time also.... enjoy the (audio) snack.

Sorry about the extreme lack of updates, family (& friends).

Emeth, our cute little vector

So, the nose did not stop running. It ran onto Istra, who's nose started running. It ran onto mommy, who's head nearly exploded. And finally it ran into me, too stuffed up to sleep. Sigh!

Speaking of Emeth though, perhaps he is trying to make it up to us. He peed on the potty for the first time a few days ago. It seems it was more of an accident than an intentional act, he hasn't done it since, but we'll happily take whatever we can get in that area!

Speaking of Emeth speaking: he still refuses! Apparently he has better things to do. Well, the only two words he uses regularly are "car" (kaw), and "hot" (haw). Oh, and i guess maybe "ball" (baw).

The radiators in our apartment run along the base of the walls. They are fairly big. In the bedroom our window reaches almost to the floor. It has a wide sill just above the radiator. Emeth often goes to lean on the sill to look out. He often has nothing on when he does this. When he does this his penis often rests on the radiator. Selena reports that after a while he will return from that pointing at his own crotch and proclaiming "hot! hot! hot!" (haw! haw! haw!).

In Istra-land, Istra and mommy had a frank conversation the other day about where broccoli comes from. Istra patiently listened as mommy explained how the farmer grows it, then picks it, then trucks take it to the store where we buy it. Three and three-quarters year old Istra, however, suddenly proclaimed that "NO! THAT IS NOT HOW THE WORLD WORKS! GOD PICKS THE BROCCOLI AND TAKES IT TO THE STORE!" (I didn't personally hear this conversation, but there is no doubt in my mind Istra did indeed speak in all caps.) Where does she get this stuff? We know not. But her faith is not weak, that is for darn-diddly-darn sure.

Just another weekend...

Ever try, after a significant snowfall (the snow in fact still falling), to lug two mysteriously identical 20 pound suitcases across downtown, with two little kids and a stroller, with just a transit day-pass for assistance? Welcome to our weekend. If this journey does not sound wacky enough, let it be known that on the way significant time was spent under an old desk in a Quaker library. (More photographic evidence is available on the previous link.)

Post-Christmas Round-up

The main event this year was in Orillia--specifically, in Grammie's new kitchen. Having lived for the first 18 years of my life in a house with a kitchen in various states of renovation, it was quite a shock to walk into this kitchen for the first time since the demolition this summer. I must say, Grammie's new kitchen was a beautiful place to congregate with family this holiday.

We arrived in Orillia in the afternoon on Christmas Eve day, slightly ahead of Gigi and Auntie Belle. Presents were unpacked and stacked under Grammie's modest Christmas tree, ready to be ripped into the next morning. One good thing about Istra and Emeth's age (among many good things, of course) is that they do not yet anticipate Christmas with trembling, sleep-depriving excitement; so, we all got to sleep in on Christmas morning... at least a little bit. Though I will add that by the time Poppy got up, Istra had already ripped into a few things and started to dismantle her stocking.

Most Christmas traditions around here are food traditions and one of my favourites is stollen on Christmas morning. For the past couple of years I've been responsible for baking the stollen; last year I went with the traditional recipe, but this year I couldn't resist an experiment. A month or so before Christmas I bought the book Wild Fermentation and started playing around with making sauerkraut, pickles, kimchee and sourdough bread. When I searched online to see if anyone had ever done a sourdough stollen, I found that (apparently, according to the Internet) stollen in Dresden is done this way. So I tried it. I modified the recipe a little bit further to include dried cherries; our traditional stollen always included red and green candied cherries, but I thought the dried natural variety might go better with sourdough.

The stollen baked to brown, round perfection and on Christmas morning I iced it with a lime frosting. This is not traditional (the recipe called for a dusting of icing sugar on top), but I always loved the icing my mom made for the stollen and couldn't bear to change it. The experimental stollen was enjoyed by all--the addition of dried cherries especially--but next year, unless my sourdough improves with practice--I think we'll be sticking to yeasted bread.

Anyhow, the tale of our Christmas is best told in pictures: the kids opening their presents, a foray out onto the frozen lake, certain members of the family dancing naked to Dan Zanes, and a cottage keys-locked-in-car adventure. Sounds wild, doesn't it? Take a look."