A photo from the best day of my vacation

yarmouth beach
Originally uploaded by iTripped

So I finally got around to putting this photo together. I took a series of pics from this spot to capture the surf coming in and then put them together as an 'animaged gif' sort of like what Greg does.

The primary difference between his gifs and mine is that he takes two photos from slightly different angles to simulate a more 3D viewing experience, whereas I was merely hoping to animate the motion of the waves on the beach. It means less shake in mine.

To see the animation, I suspect you are going to have to click the photo and go to flickr, where you can see it full size.

I say this was the 'best' day of our vacation because it was the one time we got out to do some exploring. My dad took us out to do some beach combing, where we collected up some smooth pebbles and took the photos from my last post too. One last thing: the black specks in the picture are actually some of the flies we encountered on the beach and not birds. I was kneeling, which is why they appear so high in the frame, although I do remember they were a bit of a nuisance even while standing.

My mother has lost her marbles

I did not take nearly enough pictures. It seems I rarely do. But we did have a good visit with family this trip, and did manage to get my parents set up with a new computer, which was one of the goals I had when I left.

I've already seen my mother on facebook, which is a milestone in itself. My father figured out by himself how to watch a TV show on the computer too. They like the show but usually miss it because it is on Sunday nights, when they are out.

The first picture here is of a section of coastline we visited. I wanted to take pictures of this scenery, my father wanted to comb the beach for plastic bottles and my wife wanted to explore and have some fun. Since it was deer hunting season, we all dressed in bright orange sweaters and headed out. Along the way we saw some very typical sights in Nova Scotia, including many of the lobster boats that were getting ready for the start of the season (it starts today, exactly one day after I returned home. sigh)

This was perhaps one of the most enjoyable days we had, in part because the weather, while a bit windy, was very nice. The cows were grazing on a field directly behind the beach and weren't too thrilled to see us. The metal things on the horns are to prevent serious injury in case that particular bovine decided to use them. Since they weren't on all of the animals, I suspect that this one had a tendency to use it's horns once in a while. We gave it a little extra space.

We spent a couple hours on the beach before returning to visit with more family. I'll post more after I have had time to go through the photos I did take.

I got the sickness!

I have been trying to shake this cold all week. I'm not really complaining about it though because as far as colds go, this one is tolerable. But it would be nice to be done with it before returning home, where I am sure there is a whole host of other virii waiting to infect me.

At the very least, maybe I can pass it along to my fellow passengers on the plane. I'm sure they will love me once I start coughing.

One of the purposes of making this trip, aside from seeing family (that's really the primary reason) is to help get my parents set up with a computer that works for them. If all goes well, they might actually be able to read this before I return home to Vancouver. When I left the east coast back in '95 I rather naively assumed I would be able to keep in touch with folks back home with my computer. Turns out, I was about ten years too early by the most optimistic estimates. It will be exciting to get my parents hooked up - they already have internet and a digital camera so really all they need is a stable platform to connect it all together. Well that, and some typing skills, but that's another story. Sorry Mom, but it's true.

Homecoming visit
How much colder is it there?
That is the question.

The Time change is always best in Autumn

Here we are on the eve of another election. Not just any election, but the biggest presidential race in the world. Make no mistake America - the rest of the world is going to watch with great concern. After watching the last couple races I am not able to let myself get my hopes up too high. I have a training course tomorrow so by the time I get out of there things should largely be decided. Probably for the best, as I would have been watching the results pretty closely.

My wife was able to vote in this election through absentee ballot. The form arrived in the mail today which was the absolute last day that it could have arrived and still be valid. We mailed that ballot off and then went out for dinner in an impromptu mini-celebration over the fact that we made it. Knowing how the postal service works between countries, we had practically given up hope.

Today's photo was taken from the roof of our office building at sunset. While this photo does not show it, the sky had a vibrant colour that contrasted nicely against the skyline. The other thing I noticed, which you can see in this photo, is that the local mountains have received their first snowfall of the season. These two things (the sunset and snowfall) signify changes - hopefully ones reflected in tomorrow's polls.

Yeah - I bet you were wondering where I was going with that one, didn't you? Okay, time to close this out with a haiku

America votes
With the world as it's witness
Hopefully for change.

Weekend to recover

Let me just say one thing real quick: rum does not go well with root beer. Nasty.

Last night we rented another PS2 game, Lego Indiana Jones. Once again I seem to fail spectacularly at playing cooperatively but somehow we still manage to have fun struggling through. Of course, this morning I find myself humming the theme song, which plays throughout the game. My wife was surprised at how many details from the movie she still remembered since it had been years since she saw it last.

I would have had more fun if I wasn't fighting with a controller that was not working well. Since I normally play games on the PC with a mouse and keyboard, I had forgotten about issues with gamepads and joysticks. To say I was getting frustrated with it was an understatement.

I know this haiku doesn't have a nature reference, but here it is just the same: I call it neo-haiku.

When playing a game
of the console persuasion
try to keep your cool.

Haiku for You

Sometimes I commute
with headphones in, but no sound.
Hear a city breathe.

One bad habit I have is that I will sometimes artificially limit myself. I do this in subtle ways in most areas of my life and most times I don't even notice. One example of what I am talking about can be found right here on my blog. I often have ideas that I could post about, but don't for one reason or another. Sometimes they are valid reasons, such as the idea is not complete or well formed, but at other times, it is because I don't have a photo to go with the post. This is an artificial requirement I placed on myself. Often, the photo I include has absolutely nothing to do with what I am talking about, so why is it essential that I include one with every post? It isn't.

Another thing I have been thinking about is including a haiku poem with my posts. I often have little bits of verse floating around inside my head, so I am hoping this is at least one possible outlet for that. Today's poem came to me as I was walking into the office. I usually listen to podcasts from the CBC - it's the closest I can get to news radio on an ipod and overall it's an enjoyable experience. But a lot of the time my podcast ends before I make it into the office. Sometimes instead of switching to music (which is always available on the ipod) I just listen to the surrounding noises from traffic, the harbour, etc. I suppose I could always take the headphones out to hear things better, but somehow, leaving them in helps to remind me that I am 'listening' to something.

Maybe I should leave my headphones in when talking to my wife...

Avian street performer works the waterfront crowd

I don't know if it is because I truly like birds or if I just like finding things to take pictures of. But when I take Louise for her walks, I tend to notice a lot of the birds in Vancouver. Including this fellow, who was fishing in the fountain in front of the Westin Bayshore.

He was surprisingly close to pedestrian traffic and was not bothered by us at all. It kind of felt like being at a zoo. Keep in mind that my compact camera only has a 3x zoom, so I had to be closer than about 10 feet to get photos like these.

You know, I just realized that after getting the photos of this heron, I really didn't notice any of the other birds on the rest of that walk.

I was really hoping to catch him in the act of spearing a fish, but maybe that was too much to ask for. When the dog and I returned ten minutes later (after visiting the dogs hanging out at the newest Starbucks in town) I was a little surprised to see the bird still there. Crowds of people would gather for five or ten minutes and then just as quickly disperse. I'm sure if this bird had an upside down hat near the pond he could have made enough to buy a fish dinner.

I guess it's just another one of the cool things about living in Vancouver. It's not quite urban enough to prevent nature from dropping in.

Election Season

We are having an election this year, just like the Americans. I saw an interview of Stephen Spoonamore from back in 2005 on youtube and it left me disheartened about what might yet happen later this year. He basically suggests that election results can easily be fudged by whomever is able to hack into the electronic voting systems widely used today. Of course, he's completely right as well.

The ramifications are plain to see for the American contest, especially in light of the fact that the last two presidential elections were contested. But it made me think - is this also a problem we would face here in Canada? While I have not seen the touch screen voting system often criticized in America, I have seen Diebold voter card counting machines, etc. - all of which are equally non-transparent.

Why is it such a stretch for a company that builds ABM machines (such as Diebold) to apply the same standards of openness to certification? In the banking case, every part of the machine and code is scruitnized by both a third party analyst as well as a customer appointed one. No such practices are put in place for the voting machines, however.

If the Canadian election was to be stolen, that would be very bad in an ideological sense. But for the American election to be stolen, possibly again, well that would be a tragedy that has far larger ramifications for the rest of the world.