Shadows, Fixed and Otherwise

The Practical Advantages of Hexaputing

2011-04-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

Several people have asked me, after they've read or heard about the Hexaputer, what, exactly, I need 'all that power' for.

Here is a rundown of tonight's activities:

25 Firefox windows, most with multiple tabs, some with more than 10.

2 Google Chrome windows, each with a few tabs

VLC - VideoLan player playing successive one hour episodes of some of my favorite TV (on monitor 2)

1 Adobe CS4 processing, one at a time, multiple 16MP raw images from a recent photo shoot on monitor 1.

Various other programs and utilities running.

And, like my first 750cc Yamaha Virago, none of these programs realize they're carrying a passenger.......nothing waits for anything else. The video is very smooth. The pictures open just as quickly as if that was all I was doing. I am probably browsing, roughly, 300 websites (no, not all at once, but it takes me a while to read the material, and I'm always opening new links), enjoying the smooth clean video, and at least taking the first steps needed to process the 100 RAW pictures I took this weekend into something that can be posted on the web.

And no, despite all that, the Hexaputer still can't, quite, keep up with my brain....but damn...it is close....it doesn't keep me waiting.

Recently, after analyzing several BSOD crashes, I had to downgrade it slightly. Initially, I thought the instability was in the video driver (and it may have been). I dropped it to a multiplier of 20 from 20.5. Around the same time I nudged the bus speed up to 203MHz from 200, and increased a few voltages.

Since I did that, I've noted the following:

1) Not one single crash

2) NorthBridge temps have never gone over 40C

3) CPU temps have remained under 35C

But, I have to admit, I haven't even come close to hitting the wall yet, and I am not sure that even I have the range of attention necessary to make this machine start to grind. I could try to watch a movie, play a game and process images, but I'm pretty sure if I did that, I'd become the bottleneck......

But then, I think, that is appropriate. There is always a bottleneck, in any system. In a personal computer, it really should be the user...... :)

The Last Thirty Years

2011-03-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

When I first moved here, the plan was we would be here for three years, then we would go 'home'. Home at the time was Southern California.

If you've seen Braveheart, you'll understand what mean when I say 'The trouble with California is that it is full of Californians'.

Moving to Nova Scotia was a bit like stepping back in time. Halifax then, was nothing like what Halifax is now. For example, the recent outbreaks of gun play on the streets that are news here, would not, in many cases, have even made the papers there, then. That was just 'normal'....There....Then...it isn't 'normal' here or now, which really is a good thing.

When I moved here, I'd lived in many places, including Europe, for an extended period of time. And I'd visited several other places, for shorter durations. At first, all I could think about was getting 'home'.

Somewhere, somehow, somewhen, that changed. This place became home.

I've now lived longer, here, than I have ever, anywhere, by a very large margin. The fact that I've been here for 30 years boggles my mind. This outcome wasn't in the original plan, but if I didn't like it, I would've left a long time ago.....this is a pretty neat corner of the world.

Early on, in our stay here, I drove out to Peggy's Cove to catch a metor shower. At night. I'd never been there before, and the road at night was a challenge. Thirty years later I've made that exact same trip many times, in many different conditions, and yet the destination is never the same. Oh, to be sure, it is the same place. But it feels different each time.

I've been back to the US several times over the years. Invariably I get greeted with 'Welcome Home' by US Customs and Immigration. Gradually, over the years, that has become more incongruous....as each time I feel more and more like I am leaving behind my home country, and entering into a foreign land.

In one sense, it is a land into which I was born and raised. In another sense, that land, the one I grew up in, is long gone. It has changed, and I have changed, and we've both changed in different directions.

As an 'immigrant' I don't trust Ignattif. Canada has changed while he has been away, and coming back here, and staying for a while is not enough to get the full measure of who we have become and, more importantly, who we can be moving forward. He can insist he gets it, and us, all he wants, I don't believe him.

I like the NDP as the official opposition. I feel, in that role, they add some much needed heart to government, while their wackier ideas remain restrained.

If I could pick, I'd vote for the Liberals under Paul Martin....but I don't get that choice, because he's out. I do not want to see Harper's conservatives with a majority, though I'm quite content with them as a minority government that is forced to work with the NDP and (to a lesser extent) the Liberals. I.e. I really don't see a good reason why we have to have an election right now.....

No, the Tories aren't perfect, never said they were. But so far, the scandals they've been involved in pale in comparision to the Liberal sponsorship scandal. Many might find my support of Paul Martin ironic in light of that comment, but I'd suggest he was likely more an observer, than a participant, in that fiasco.

So, now, there is an election coming. If, like me, you aren't particularly dissatisfied with the status quo, here are your choices, as I see them:

1) Vote the same way you did last time
If everyone does this, the result will be the same. The risk is, maybe not everyone will do this.

2) Vote for the current incumbent in your ridding
Again, if everyone does this, or most seem to, things won't change a lot. The risk, of course, is that you have one vote, and 'everyone else' may vote differently.

3) Vote for someone else.
I, personally, am toying with this idea.....I want, above all, to send a message to all four parties....the message reads 'get along, work it out'. So, do I vote for the Green party? Can I, outside Quebec, vote for the Bloc?

And that, at the end of the day, is my current electoral dilema. How do I use my one, single vote, to send a message to Ottawa, in the clearest possible terms, that says 'Stop playing games, work together, and put the interests of the country ahead of your own'......?

Hexaputer Overclocking

2011-03-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

You might be asking 'Why do you want to overclock a hexaputer?'. As I indicated in my original post, AMD processors have not kept up with Intel in recent years, but they represent a great performance per dollar proposition.

Especially, when you buy a Black Edition CPU like I did.

Way back in the dark ages of computers, people discovered you could run them faster than 'stock'. Early 8088 machines often had a 'Turbo' switch, which was usually superfluous, because (at least on my machines) it remained forever in one position......ON......

Later, computer manufactures started to get in on the game. They bought cheap low rated CPUs from Intel, overclocked them, and sold them to consumers as higher end PCs. Intel didn't like that, and savvy computer users knew they could do the same thing (for less), but then, as now, savvy users were at a premium.

Feeling left out of the party Intel (and later AMD) locked down what is referred to as the multiplier on the chip.

CPU speeds are determined by two things. The core bus speed, and the multiplier. If the multiplier is locked then you can't overclock the system that way. You can only mess with the bus speed. Note, jacking up the bus speed isn't a bad approach, but as I will detail, it can raise some issues.

Both AMD and Intel sell 'unlocked' versions of their CPUs. AMD charges a lot less for those than Intel does. AMD refers to them as 'Black Edition' CPUs, while I believe Intel usually appends an X to the CPU designation (eg. i7-980X, and yeah, go ahead, price one of those).

So my CPU is the (current) top of the line AMD 1100, in an unlocked Black Edition.

It turns out, that the initial overclocking I did via the motherboard's automated system, assumed I was using a 'locked' multiplier. So it didn't try to change it. For the 1100, the default multiplier is 16.5 and the bus speed is 200. Multiplying the two numbers yields 3300, which is the stock speed of 3.3 GHz.

When the motherboard's AI Overclock feature upped the system bus speed, it downgraded the speed of the memory to the next level to ensure the system would boot. Trying to force the system to apply the correct timings for 1333 RAM failed. So, with the 'bus overclock' approach, the system clock was around 3.8 GHz, but the RAM was running with a transfer rate around 980. Not exactly what I would call a great result.

I wanted 4+ GHz and 1333 RAM. And I got it.

The first step was to save the AI Overclock configuration. The ASUS Crosshair IV Formula motherboard lets you save (I think) 8 different BIOS profiles.

Next, I reset the BIOS to the factory defaults. This is where paying attention to which drive went into which SATA port would've paid off. When I did that, and rebooted, the system tried to boot into XP because it found the old 1TB XP System Drive. XP of course was horribly confused. It went to sleep in an NVidia world and woke up in an ATI one. I rebooted, re-configured the boot drives, then saved that configuration as well.

Once back in Windows 7 I verified that the memory was running at 1333 MHz via CPU-Z....sure enough. All good. Then, I went back into the BIOS and explicitly set the RAM settings.

DDR3 RAM usually has at least four numbers associated with it. Mine is 9-9-9-24. You can look up what that means, but once you know, it is easy enough to see where to enter it into the BIOS, and with this motherboard, when the RAM is on Auto (as it is by default) the actual value it is using is printed to the left in grey lettering. It is a fairly easy process to make sure the manually entered number matches the number displayed. Once that was done, it was back to Windows and CPU-Z to verify the configuration.

Check.

Next, I went back into the BIOS and increased the multiplier to 20.5, then explicitly set the CPU voltage to 1.4 (I have CPU Overvolt protection on). The official range is up to 1.475, but CPU-Z frequently shows it well over that without any complaints from the MB when the system is under a heavy load.

I picked those two numbers based on the results from a couple of reviews. I might be able to get away with a lower CPU voltage (that means less heat and less wear and tear on the CPU). But so far the system seems stable at those settings, and I may drive the multiplier up farther yet.

But, now, with very little work, I have a core speed of 4109 (4.1GHz), and the memory operating at its rated 1333 MHz. I haven't tinkered with the bus speed at all, and I could do that too. The trick with that is to up the bus speed a bit, then, when it becomes unstable, up the North Bridge voltage.

I should pause here and point out that upping voltages and speeds has the potential to put extra wear on your system. It might not last as long. And the secret to overclocking is not to max out everything, but to increase performance to a suitable stable point. I appear to be there, at least for now.

I ran a Passmark performance test and got 7903 for the CPU. This page http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html give you a sense of where that fits. It is well above the Intel i7-975 which comes in at 7035 with a price of $1044 (yeah, that's just the cost of the CPU).

Not a bad showing for a CPU that cost around $200. I'll take it.

So far, the air coming out of the case is nice and cool....CPU temps with the H70 cooler are in the 30C range......nice and cool. Maybe, if I drive the multiplier up a little farther, I'll be able to roast hot dogs over the case, but do I really want to do that? No, that's what the BBQ is for...... :)

Think about it. Six cores, each running at 4.1 GHz........

I processed the pics for the last post in Photoshop from RAW images taken with my DSLR. All I can say is 'Wow'......what was once slow is now so fast, I almost don't notice something happened. I didn't have time to go get a cup of coffee before, but I certainly had time to yawn. Now, if I blink, there's a good chance I'll miss it.

Welcome to The World of Hexaputing.....

The Hexaputer Project

2011-03-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

What is a Hexaputer?

In general terms it is a six core computer. Both AMD and Intel make six core CPUs now. That's like having six computers in one little package of silicon bliss.

My last computer was an EMachine T6250. Bought almost exactly six years ago it was at the time a reasonably good computer for the $800 I paid for it at FutureShop. It was the first 'full' system I had ever bought myself. Before that, I'd always bought just a new CPU, or a new monitor, or upgraded the CPU, or....well, you get the idea.

The T6250 is based on the Athlon 64 3200+ CPU and is a 64 bit capable CPU. I confess I never really leveraged the 64 bit abilities. A lot of things, at the time, didn't run under 64-bit XP, and I had an XP Pro copy that I received (free) when I attended the launch event. It was 32 bit, so I flattened the XP Home the machine came with, installed XP Pro 32bit, and only looked back once in a while.

In hindsight, I'm surprised it lasted me this long. That it did is a testament to the amount of headroom that little beast had. In the days before XP supported SATA, it had SATA ports. The factory configuration didn't use them, but I eventually did. Over time, I added more memory, a nice 24" Dell monitor, a BFG 8800GTX NVidia card, and 2 1TB SATA drives to that box.

Recently, I was considering trying to upgrade the CPU. The factory CPU cooler was making ugly noises, so I bought a replacement unit, but never ended up installing it. I sat on the fence for over a year, debating what to do. Meanwhile, friends of mine bought i7-920 Intel systems, and other newer machines.

Oddly enough, the breaking point came when I got a new DSLR. The new camera is 16Mp and the images are just enough larger that copying and processing them in CS4 was starting to become a pain.

So, I did some research. No point in getting a 64 bit computer, with a 64 bit copy of Windows 7 if the things I use a lot weren't going to work. Adobe CS4 works. Spyder 3 Pro (my monitor profiling tool) works, my photo printer and day to day printer from Canon appear to have 64 bit drivers.....the planets were starting to align.

The next question was what to get. I like the look of the Alienware computers from DELL, and friends of mine have them. They're nice. I customized one one night. When I was done, let's just say the $ figure I arrived at was more than enough to send me to bed empty handed. It wasn't that I couldn't afford it, but if I had bought it, it would have hands down been the most expensive computer I've ever owned.

I felt I could do better.

I've been happy with the AMD Athlon. Even though AMD has been lagging behind Intel for quite some time in raw performance, they have some things in their favor. But there was a LOT to learn.

First of all, with any motherboard out there, you can run a single graphic card (either ATI or NVidia) no problem. The potential for trouble arises when you want to run two cards that communicate with each other. Both ATI/AMD and NVidia have well proven solutions for that, but the catch is, most motherboards only support one or the other (and from what I've read, although some might let you mix and match, you really don't want to go there).

This led me to realize that the choice of components was a tricky one. First, I decided on an AMD 6 core processor. They do not have the same raw performance as the Intel CPUs, but in 'bang for buck' terms, they rock.

Then, after thinking about it, for reasons I'll get into shortly, I decided to go with an AMD/ATI Crossfire motherboard instead of an NVidia compatible solution.

My current graphics card was long ago eclipsed by newer technologies, so there was little sense in trying to bring it across. And Tiger Direct has barebones kits.

These are a great solution for someone who wants to save a little money, build a computer, and know first hand the details of everything that is in the box, without having to make sure everything works with everything else. They do that latter part. So, I ordered a barebones kit with one addition. Here is the Hexaputer:

CoolerMaster 932 HAF Case w/700W Power Supply
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula Motherboard
AMD Phenom II 1100T Black Edition
8 Gb 1333MHz DDR3 RAM
XFX Radeon 5850 Graphics Card Black Edition
Corsair H70 Liquid CPU Cooler
1 TB HD
Sony Optairic DVD/CD
Windows 7 Ultimate

I didn't, upon seeing it, buy it right away. I read several reviews. There are cheaper AMD 6 core chips that appear to overclock just as well......but the price differential was not that great. Certainly nowhere near like the difference between the AMD and Intel CPUs......

So I pulled the trigger. The packages arrived while I was away but Shauna was able to pick them up (thank god, I hate dealing with UPS). So when I got back from my latest trip, I had a new computer. There was only one catch.

Some assembly required.

I unpacked everything, looked it over, browsed the manuals, cleared a place to work (the dining room table is a great place to assemble a computer when you're single, especially if, like mine, your dining room has a wooden floor) and got started. The power supply was pre-installed, so the first thing I did was install the bracket for the cooler on the motherboard.

The H70 uses a custom bracket. I was glad I didn't wait until I had the motherboard mounted in the case. There is a cutout that lets you get at part of the back of the CPU mount, but it wouldn't have been enough to mount the custom H70 cooler bracket if I had already installed the motherboard. Fortunately, removing the stock bracket and installing the H70 mounting system was the first thing I did.

The next thing I had to do was set the standoff screw mounts for the motherboard in the case. This isn't too hard, you look at the holes in the motherboard, lining it up roughly where you want it to go, look for a nearby hole in the case, and screw in a brass standoff screw mount.

I had 3 screws in the motherboard itself before I realized I'd forgotten to install the backing plate in the case......and no, you can't 'finesse' it. I undid the motherboard screws, put the plate in, then got back to the business of screwing in the motherboard.

The next step was to put the CPU in the socket. This isn't hard.

Next, I hooked up the Corsair H70 cooler. This was not part of the kit, it was something I ordered separately at the same time. I decided to buy this system because the reviews said it was fairly easy to overclock. They also said, if you were going to do that, some form of liquid cooling was a very good idea. The H70 has a radiator sandwiched between two fans. One pulls cold air in, the other pushes hot air out. The idea is, you mount it so that cold air comes in from outside the case, blows through the radiator and then gets sucked out of the radiator and into the interior of the case.

Doing this in many system cases could pose real problems, as you're dumping a lot of hot air into the case. The HAF 932 though should handle this without trouble. It has a large fan near the floor to suck in cold air, and a large fan on the top to blow out hot air. I've checked, they're both working properly. High Air Flow for sure I think. The only catch was, I had to remove one of the 'stock' case fans to give me a place to mount the H70. Four screws....no problemo.

Next, I installed the CD/DVD Drive and the 1Tb hard drive that came with it, and hooked up the relevant SATA cables. I didn't pay a lot of attention to which SATA port I plugged what into, which really isn't that big a deal, but, as I'll detail later, can lead to some excitement.

Then I hooked up all the leads from the front panel and a plate that occupies an expansion port back panel (it provides more USB, etc). And, of course, I connected all the fans.

After installing the memory and the graphics card, it was time for the first power on test. I didn't install a monitor for this. I didn't really care if anything appeared on the screen. Instead, I just wanted to see it turn on properly and I was especially hoping for a lack of any sizzling sounds.....the first power on was (after a double check of the connectors) a complete success.

After that, I hooked up a monitor, and played with the overclocking functions a bit, then installed Windows 7, Adobe CS4 and MSOffice (200-and old). All without difficulty.

At that point, I decided, it was time to take the plunge. I'd done all the Windows 7 updates (that was a chore), updated the BIOS (that was easy), and generally had enough experience with the system that I decided to decommission my old computer.

So, I shut everything down, pulled the 1Tb drives from the old 'puter (along with their SATA cables), plugged them into the new box, hooked EVERYTHING up (my USB collection resembles a Christmas tree) and turned it on.

Pretty much everything worked. The Hexaputer didn't like the new USB keyboard at first (no drivers), but the on screen mouse oriented keyboard fixed that (gotta figure out how to turn that off now), the drivers for all the USB devices and printers appeared to install OK (getting that in top shape remains a todo) and generally, everything just worked.

There was one catch. CPU-Z showed my memory was running at a much lower rate than it should be. This bothered me (maybe it shouldn't have, but it did), so I set about learning how to overclock.

Keep in mind.....I was overclocking computers before some of you were born. Yes, a lot has changed since then, but I used to low level format my hard drives at certain pre-determined interleaves to ensure they gave me the best performance. Trust me, that makes a few reboots and performance tests look like a cake walk. Still, there are things to learn, which, at the end of the day, was part of the reason I embarked on this project in the first place.

Stay tuned for The Care And Feeding of Hexaputers....... :)

In the meantime, here are some photos:

The back side of the case, showing cable routing:

The motherboard, showing the cooler:

Last, but not least the drive bays. Note, in order to use all of these I'm going to need a beefier PSU..... :)

The Last Of The Beothuk

2010-10-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

Her name was Shanawdithit. She was most likely, as the post says, The Last Of The Beothuk. That is also the title of a book by Barbara Whitby, which I have just finished reading.

Years ago, many years ago, I took a journey by motorcycle to L'anse Aux Meadows. That, if you don't know, is the site of a Viking settlement in northwest Newfoundland. I was in a hurry to get there, and in a hurry to get back, but in between there and Port Aux Basque there was a museum to the Beothuk, with many artifacts. I think, while I was there, I was the only one there 'from away'. I spent a long time, wondering who these people were, what happened to them, and why.

The Last Of The Beothuk, as a book, is a narrative account. There is a good list of 'Further Reading', and a good bibliography, though the text is devoid of explicit references. This, sadly, sets it somewhat apart from Farley Mowat's Westviking, which was the inspiration for my journey. Farley was meticulous in his citations, and unsparring in his criticisms of 'current' academics. Both aspects of that work attracted my interest and respect.

Barbara's book contains neither of these attributes, sadly. But, it has something else, which Farley's book lacks. Barbara has a level of empathy with the topic that is difficult to put into words. She discusses the situation compassionately from both sides, without taking either side. One gets the sense that she empathizes equally with the settlers and the Beothuk.

And, to be fair, atrocities were committed on both sides. It is a good study in what can happen when two loosely affiliated 'confederacies' interact and compete for the same resources. The Beothuk were traditionally a coastal people. Confronted with the presence of a diverse seafaring people, they retreated inland....declined, and were annihilated. Or, as Castor and Pollux would say, they were driven into the Nile.... ;)

And yes, that is me, resorting to my inner defense....humor.....and yes, it is very black humor. We now have a word for what happened in Newfoundland. It is not a pretty word. The word is genocide. In some ways, it lacked the organized, methodical, and diligent efforts shown by the Germans, and others when it came to the eradication of the Jews, but the intent was the same. Alas, these early settlers in Newfoundland were much more successful than the Germans ever were. But we can not escape the fact that it was practiced by a largely English speaking population.

On the whole, I would strongly recommend The Last of the Beothuk to anyone who was interested in the early history of North America. I, for one, seriously doubt that the other tribes were ignorant of what happened there, and I would bet the events in Newfoundland shaped the response in the rest of North America. The Pilgrams didn't land until 1622, an eternity after first contact in Newfoundland.

What haunts me the most is the fact, and I view it as a fact, that in the circumstances and reality of what was, there is no other outcome that could have happened. I would've liked to have seen more coverage of 'Jackatars', as per the Farfarers, by Mowat.......were they descendant's of European and Micmac origin, or European and Beothuk? Given the Beothuk's expressed antipathy to outsiders, I suspect the former, but my romantic side would sing at the knowledge that some remnant of the Beothuk live with us today. I, personally, suspect there might be a slight echo....but I doubt there is much, if anything, of them that remains today.

Mowat talked in The Farfarers about genetic testing. I'd like to see, and have not yet seen, the results - maybe I haven't looked in the right places. We must have contemporary Beothuk bones that could be sequenced.

In short, as all good research should, Barbara's book raises more questions than it answers. And, as I've recently re-discovered, Picasso was right, when he purportedly said 'Computers are useless, because they only give us answers'......on a profundity scale that pales compared to the other things he's said.... :)

"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun."

"Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility."

"Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint."

One can, I think, learn to be a better artist. But one can not, I think, ever learn how be an artist. One is, or one is not.

Barbara Whitby is an artist. She transports you to another time, and compels you to see things from both sides of a very great divide. Whether or not her narrative is 'accurate' it is 'authentic'. And above all, it is 'empathetic'.

Can we ask for more? Perhaps some can, but....haunting, alluring, frightening, and most of all, true to the subject....This book paints a picture, using words, that would rival David...and yeah, I've seen the original David, and several 'incomplete' sculptures. The latter are, I think, like this book, more haunting......

It would be easy to paint Europeans as the 'bad guys' in this narrative, but Barbara doesn't do that. Nor does she sugar coat their actions. Instead, she acknowledges that such things have always happened when two different groups of hominids have competed for resources.

Why do we treat each other, historically, so poorly? Because, we all recognize that the most dangerous predator on this little blue ball walks on two legs. We are now in a position where we do not share this planet with another hominid species. But that has not always been true, and our sense of the 'other' has been shaped by our evolution as a species. We 'pre-judge' because there was a time in our evolution when that was very much to our advantage. We 'stereotype' as a short-hand way of identifying 'the other', because, likewise, there was a time when that was to our advantage. We have these things wired deeply within us. Neither is inherently wrong, but it is wrong to solely rely on them.

In the story of the Beothuk we can see what happens when two civilizations collide. In a word, only one result can be reasonably expected....and that is chaos. On both sides.

The Beothuk had, by this account, a long oral tradition. One that remembered 'men who skimmed the sea'....most likely the Vikings. The Viking sagas speak of 'skraelings' who were quite hostile. If one realizes that the Micmac made repeated incursions into Newfoundland, it is easy to see the source of the Beothuk's hostility to outsiders.

I would've liked to have seen more treatment of disease in the role of colonization discussed in The Last Of The Beothuk. To what degree was tuberculosis endemic? Did it exist before European contact? Shanawdithit died of it at the presumed age of 29, which would suggest she and her people contracted it from outside their community and had no immunity against it.

Nathaniel Philbrick's book, Mayflower, evocatively describes the early days of the Plymouth colony. There is a monument in Leiden, Netherlands, to a John Robinson. He is my ancestor. His son eventually reached Plymouth. That may account for my sense of belonging on the eastern seaboard of north america. But then, there are rumors of native american influences, and genetic tests have suggested a strong tie to West Africa, so who knows? :) I don't. I just know that anywhere on this coast feels like home.

Warsaw In July

2009-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

I was in Warsaw, Poland, for a good part of the month of July. Unlike many of my trips to Stockholm, on this one there was ample time for sightseeing in the evenings and on the weekends. I have to say, Warsaw is probably the most hard done by city I've ever visited. It was pretty much completely destroyed in WWII, then with much of the rest of eastern Europe it lived through several decades of Soviet rule. Despite that, it is today, an incredibly vibrant city. I would have to say, I think of all the places I've visited, Warsaw is the one that is most loved by its inhabitants. The picture above is looking down on the Old Town square. This area was completely destroyed during the war. It has been rebuilt with such care and attention to detail that it is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This is one of the few places in Warsaw that look old. I did not, during my time there, see an abundance of old people, buildings or trees. There are, to be sure, some of all of the above, but not a lot.

There is so much to see here. Many buildings that look old have a plaque that reads something like this:

Designed 1775 by so and so
Constructed 1776-1784
Destroyed 1944
Rebuilt according to original plans 1949

The dates and the names vary, but the theme remains the same. The citizens of Warsaw will not allow their history to be erased. It is very cool.

I came across this site on one of my walks. They are re-paving the walkway in this area with two inch granite slabs. Not concrete. Not cheaper, smaller pieces of stone. No, not for Warsaw. Barring another war this walkway should still be here in 2000 years or so.

While there is some crime in Warsaw, it is mostly of the non-violent sort from what I saw. Some petty theft, etc. Never at any time did I feel afraid for my safety. I didn't stray far from my hotel after dark, a rule I generally follow in every place where I travel alone. But I never felt threatened in any way. The people were generally pleasant, cheerful, and helpful, even if they sometimes didn't speak much English. By and large the average citizen of Warsaw speaks much better English than I do Polish. :)

I stayed at the Marriot hotel. This was the view from my room on the 34th floor. It was very nice. From the skybar one could see across the city in the other direction, toward the old town, pictured above.
Many of the intersection in Warsaw have no way to cross them above ground. Instead, there are tunnels that go under the streets, sometimes very elaborate ones. These are filled with small shops, kiosks etc. It is almost like a second city down here.

This is one of the few remaining pieces of the wall that enclosed the Jewish Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. All around the city there are discrete plaques marking the corners and intersections of this wall, but there are very few actual pieces of it that remain.

This building is the 'Palace of Science and Culture'. It was a 'gift' from Stalin, though most view it as a not so subtle way of saying Big Brother is watching you. It is I believe the tallest building in Poland, although there are now a few other skycrapers in Warsaw that are giving it a run for its money. The one nice thing I can say about this edifice is that it is visible from many distant parts of the city, and since I knew it was right next door to my hotel, it made it very difficult for me to get lost....... :)

This is another view of the Old Town, looking back towards the Palace. You can see what I mean.....I never had to worry about being lost.....

There is a lot of modern construction in Warsaw. This is one of many bridges over the Vistula river.
This is another perspective on the Old Town. You can see the flag stones (probably similar to the ones above).I visited several other historical places. The monument at what used to be Mila 18 really stuck out. Though it looks like an L in the name, its actually a little different. It is pronounced Meewa in Polish, and means nice. I had trouble pronouncing several of the street names in my head here, though I did learn some of them eventually

This is the monument to the Jewish fighters who died here during the Ghetto Uprising. It is on the plot of land that was once Mila 18. Leon Uris wrote a book about it, which I recommend. I visited this site several times, and each time I found it very difficult to keep my emotions in check. It is both one of the simplest, and most moving monuments I found in Warsaw.

This is the Umschlagplatz. I think I spelled that correctly. It is the place where Jews were required to report for deportation from the Ghetto to such well known places as Auschwitz and Treblinka. I hadn't realized it, but near the end of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw there was also a concentration camp in the city. As they pulled out, the commander asked everyone who didn't feel up to making the long journey to not be shy and please speak up. Some 180 souls came forward. They were left behind, but only after they'd been summarily shot.

This is what remains of the tree that once stood outside Pawiak prison. The prison was used by the Czars and the Nazis. The tree was eventually replaced by a bronze cast of what remained of it when it finally died, and it is today emblazoned with obituary plaques of many of the people who were executed here.

There were actually two major uprisings against the Nazis in Warsaw. The above is part of a monument to the Warsaw Uprising which was conducted by the Polish Home Army as the Nazis were preparing to leave. They fought long and hard, and ultimately were defeated. The Soviet Red Army sat literally on the opposite bank of the Vistula river and let the Poles and the Nazis tear each other apart. This was made all the more appalling by the fact that the Polish Home Army was, by this time, formally a part of the Soviet Army. Stalin no doubt thought it expedient to let Nazis and the Poles destroy one another, making it easier for him to occupy and hold Poland as the Nazis withdrew.

I never did cross the Vistula. I was warned by my hosts that that was a somewhat more dangerous part of town, and that it would be highly advisable if I didn't look too much like a tourist during the day, and especially not at night. I did however walk along the river. There are spots, like this one, where you'd hardly know you in the middle of a large city.
The river is lined with this stadium seating style structure that goes on for miles. I saw several people fishing in the river, but none of them spoke English. I stopped a young couple near the end of my trek. They spoke enough English to communicate. The gentleman suggested that fishing in the river was perhaps more of a 'Polish meditation', and indicated that he was very doubtful that there were any live fish in there. The woman looked absolutely horrified when I asked if anyone would eat something they'd caught in the river......horrified.....Hopefully the river can be re-rehabilitated.
I'll close with what is truly the most bizarre thing I saw in Warsaw. This was in the Botanical Gardens. I have no idea what the significance of a 'Ladybug/Bull' is, let alone what it is doing standing up against a tree.......it was just so weird, I had to take a picture of it.

Too Busy To Blog

2009-08-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've been too busy to blog lately. I will get caught up. Here's a few of the highlights that I'll cover in coming posts.

Trip to Warsaw
I wasn't able to secure a K7 before my flight, so I took my trusty K10D and several lenses. Warsaw has to be in the top three of the most loved cities I've ever visited. History is everywhere. There will probably be more than one post on this in the coming days. With lots and lots of pictures.

New Camera
Shortly after my return from Warsaw I bought a Pentax K7 and a 300mm F4 SDM lens. That should about do it for the time being (though the 55mm SDM lens looks.....hmmmm....interesting..... :) Subsequent posts will feature pictures from that camera, as my K10D has been kinda lonely since this new baby showed up.

MS Bike Tour
A week after I returned from Warsaw I rode in the NS Rona MS Bike Tour. Roughly 92km over two days. Since the first and second day were the second and third time I'd ridden my bike this year, I took it easy. I still made respectable time (I walked a lot in Europe this year) and raised over $2000. Exact numbers, photos, and more detailed descriptions to follow.

Vacation
The day before we were due to start a week's joint vacation my other half was laid off. Long story, won't go into details, but we didn't let it crimp our style too much. Two days after the bike tour we went on a 5+ hour hike up Cape Split, Nova Scotia. That's roughly 2.75 hours up and 2.25 hours down. I got several good pictures with my new K7, including some of a patient Bald Eagle. It was overcast and foggy though, so by the time we got to the top, we could see the beach 300 feet below us, but that was about it. I'll post some links to the view from Cape Split when it is clear, so you can get an idea of what we missed.

House Sitting
The weekend after the bike tour friends of ours, who have a pool, and live on a lake, asked us to stay at their place to look after the house and the cats for the weekend. The weather was wonderful, the scenary was wonderful, and the wildlife was wonderful. I've got several pictures of most of the above. We had a great time.

Since then, I've been back to work. I've taken a few additional photos with my new camera, but not as many as I might like.

I wasn't feeling well last Friday, but by Saturday I felt good enough to start mowing the lawn. Considering some of my lawn had not been mowed yet this year due to travel and rain, the yard looks much nicer now. The scary bit is that after six hours last Saturday I wasn't done. I'd made great progress, but I wasn't finished. I probably should've stopped sooner.... :)

I'm also having the outside of my house painted, so that's exciting.

Last Sunday we went for a short walk, and then took in an exhibition basketball game put on by the Rainmen. That was fun, they rock. After that, we just took it easy.

A friend of mine sent me some links from his recent trip to Guatamala, which if he agrees I'll post here. He hiked a live volcano, hopped over a couple magma flows, generally had a good time and managed not to get incinerated.

Last but not least, I've ordered a 24" monitor (to help with my photography) and a monitor calibration tool. Hopefully they will both be here soon. I can't wait.

That's all for now....rest assured, I'm still on the right side of the grass... :)

More Vacation Shots

2009-07-05T18:23:00.001-07:00

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 50, F2.8, 1/20, ISO 100

This is another shot from the Hemlocks and Hardwoods trail. Yes, it was handheld at 1/20th of a second.

Look at the debris at the bottom of the tree. I don't think it all fell there naturally. I didn't pack a knife for the trek we took in the Seaside Adjunct park (though maybe I should've) but I did wear one for this hike. Why? There are black bears here.

Black bears rarely attack humans, but if and when they do playing dead doesn't help. Fighting back does. Maybe when I get back from Poland I'll post some macro shots of my knife collection. It includes an Arkansas Toothpick (that I made from a CVA kit), a flaked Obsidian blade (modern reproduction by a local craftsman) with a cactus handle and sinew binding, and a Groman knife with a horn handle. I used to have a Kabar hunting knife, but it disappeared around the same time the ex did.....I haven't seen it in a while. I took the Groman knife on this trip. Turned out I didn't need it.

Mind you, I view a knife against a bear (or any other large predator) as weapon of last resort. My best weapon in such situations sits between my ears...... :)

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 135, F2.8, 1/125, ISO 100

Back at the Seaside Adjunct, we came across this frog pond. There must have been at least a dozen frogs in this pond. It wasn't big, not much more than six feet across. But clearly, it was frog central. These two were just sitting there, staring at one another.

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 135, F4, 1/250, ISO 100

This little guy was sitting right by the pond. There were several there, and I almost stepped on a couple. They are sooooo hard to spot. This shot shows what the Pentax 50-135 can do. The depth of field is very shallow, even at F4. That lens just so rocks, but I think for wildlife I may need both the 200MM and 300MM primes. I am biased in favor of primes, though the 50-135 and 16-50 have been going out of their way to teach me that zoom lenses can be a very good thing. Some think, from the reading that I've done, that using them at the limits of their operating range is a 'mis-use' of sorts. I would say if you only ever use your zooms at the extremes, then yes. However, doing that sometimes? No problemo.

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 55, F2.8, 1/90, ISO 100

If you haven't noticed by now, I like to shoot at ISO 100. Way back in the 'old days' when I shot film (I still do sometimes, I admit it) I really liked Kodak Royal Gold 25. Yeah, that was 25 ISO. As I understand it, 100 ISO is a 'native' setting for the sensor in my K10D. In the new K7 (and I think the K20) the 'native' setting is ISO 200, with ISO 100 being accomplished through software. I'm looking forward to it, because I will probably put the K7 on ISO 200 and leave it there most of the time. Though, that said, I've seen some kick ass shots from the K20 at high ISO when they were exposed 'to the right' to improve the signal to noise ratio. Early shots from the K7 suggest they will be even better....

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 135, F3.5, 1/250, ISO 100

We came upon a porcupine on our hike. As you can see, wildlife doesn't always co-operate ('cause its wild). This is the south end of a north facing porcupine......For a porcupine he was really rushing. Lucky for him, we weren't really hungry, and I didn't have my knife......I'm kidding, I'd never hurt him, unless I was starving. This food group comes with its own toothpicks..... :)

Pentax DA* 16-50 @ 36, F6.7, 1/250, ISO 100

I just couldn't resist the rain drops. This was taken in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. We stopped there because I wanted to visit the Sherman Hines Museum of Photography. It was very, very cool. Apparently Sherman used Hasselblad cameras exclusively at one point, until he discovered the Pentax 6x7. That's one I don't have yet. I, too, like the rectangular image format (I own a Seagull 6x6) over the square 6x6 image. So, do I get a Pentax 6x7 on the used market, a 6x4.5, or the new digital 6.x4.5? Decisions decisions.....I predict that in 10 years it will be very expensive, and difficult to purchase color film. I have done a lot of B&W work as well (yes in the darkroom, with trays) and I may be biased, but I think B&W film will live forever. It is simple to use and develop. Color film, I think, is going to become increasingly exotic.

When APS film came out, we were promised a new breed of SLRs. They would be smaller, lighter, record more information about the shot on a magnetic strip along the bottom of the film, etc. That never really happened. As John Lennon said 'Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans'. That's exactly what happened here. I think the digital APS-C size sensor is here to stay. It seems to be 'good enough'. One of my favorite sayings is 'The best is the enemy of the good'.....

If you want to, and some always will, you can go full frame. Increasingly, you'll need 'new' lenses, as a lot of manufacturers, including Pentax, are fullfilling the promise of APS in a digital world with lenses that will not cover a 35mm frame. I will admit, I'm intruiged by the Canon 5D Mark II, but not interested enough to switch. Would I switch if Pentax came out with a full frame camera? I don't think so. I would probably buy one, as I have a lot of manual focus and FA lenses, but would I commit to it exclusively? I doubt it.

I'm personally a lot more interested in the 6x4.5 digital. That's a much bigger sensor, giving the option of fatter pixels (higher ISO performance) and more of them (lots more). Plus, any lenses I'd have for the 6x4.5 should work with my APS-C SLR, which I'm sure will be less kit to drag around.....we live, as per the ancient chinese curse, in interesting times.

Hell, people could upsize images from 6MP cameras and print 16x20 prints no problem. And that, in a nutshell is my threshold. If I can take an image, make a 16x20 print of it, and proudly hang it on my wall........I'm SET.

Pentax DA* 16-50 @ 31, F6.7, 1/350, ISO 100

What better way to celebrate Canada Day than sitting on the beach? If you don't live here, you might not get it. It ain't THAT cold out. So, why not go to the beach?

Warsaw here I come...has anyone warned them? Are they ready? I bet not...... :)

NOTE: I have not been able to secure a production K7 prior to my trip. They are arriving in North America, and there are places where one can buy one in Canada, but Henry's doesn't have them on the shelves here in Halifax yet.

So, Warsaw will get my K10D treatment. No K7 for you! If you know history then you realize what an incredibly awful 'joke' that is.

Just remember. A new camera will not make you a better photographer. Your eyes and your brain can do that. All a new camera can do is create a more faithful rendition of what your eyes and your brain see. I see alot, and I NEED a new camera..... :) Seriously, I do not own a K20. My K10 has impressed the pants off me (it is my first digital SLR) and I NEED a K7. To quote Dilbert, 'I gotta get me some of that'. :)

Vacation

2009-07-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 50, F2.8, 1/45, ISO 100

I, my partner, and my Pentax K10D went on vacation on Thursday (I'll leave it to you, the reader, to determine if that is my partner, or my K10D in this shot).... :)

I was test driving a new wrist strap. She said it made me look like a Borg. The only thing I didn't like about it was that some of the clips didn't hold (that's easy to fix) and it tied up my right hand (that's harder to fix). It wasn't a Pentax strap, but as soon as I see one of those rare beasts here in Canada I will buy at least 4 (one for the LX, ME Super, K10D and K7).

We went to Kejimkujik National Park, here in Nova Scotia. First we went to the main park, and the Hemlocks and Hardwoods trail. This trail goes through a stand of old growth Hemlock trees. Some of the trees are upwards of 400 years old. I wanted to see it up close, because when the first Europeans arrived in Nova Scotia much of our forest probably looked a lot like this. Now a lot of it is scrub pine, with underbrush so thick a squirrel sounds like a herd of elephants.

After the main park, we went to the Seaside Adjunct and Historic Site. Its a historic site because Champlain camped within the boundaries of the park in, I think, 1604. Yes, that's 405 years ago. Some of the oldest trees on the Hemlocks and Hardwoods trail were seeds or seedlings when Champlain landed.

In each park we went on what was billed as a 6-7km hike. My pedometer registered over 20,000 steps for a single day. This is a good thing because the Rona MS Bike Tour approaches (end of this month) and I haven't done nearly enough biking. But I have been doing a lot of walking and hiking, so I am quite active.

All the pictures in the main part of Keji and the Seaside Adjunct were taken with my Pentax K10D and my 50-135 lens. Day two, the trip home, I put the 16-50 on. I'm glad I didn't take the 18-250 into the forest, because it was dim. That lens would've really helped bring in the seal in the Seaside Adjunct, however. Pictures are below with commentary. Most of these are very lightly edited, and no effort has yet been made to remove dust spots (there are a couple).

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 50, F2.8, 1/30, ISO 100

This tree started its life as a seedling in the moss on top of this rock. Its a large rock. The stretch from the base of the tree trunk to the ground (where the root goes) is about 3 feet. This is a large old tree. It found the ground. It put down roots here. Pretty impressive.

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 135, F8, 1/500, ISO 100

This little guy was shadowing a group of sea birds that were floating in the water. I didn't get the sense that he was really hungry (seals do sometimes go after birds)....it seemed more opportunistic or playful than that. If a bird had been foolish enough to let him get close he probably would've snacked on it. But he wasn't trying very hard. This was one time when I wished I'd had my 18-250 with me (it was in the car). On both of these hikes I traveled very light. One camera. One lens. As you can see, it was a bright enough day that the 18-250 would've worked very well. That's very much what it looked like. I, too, was surprised by some of the meter readings I got.

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 135, F8, 1/750, ISO 100

The surf was breaking on the rocks constantly, and some of the waves were fairly large (> 3'). The Marblehead to Halifax Race starts this weekend. The weather here is unsettled and foggy. I've been threatening to crew in this race for a while. It goes every two years, and for personal reasons I wasn't able to participate two years ago. For work reasons I can't participate this year. But, mark my words, in 2011, I'll be there. I'll probably hook up a Pentax W80 to a troll line and tow it behind the boat, as long as no one thinks it slows us down.....Who knows, maybe in two years I'll have my own boat. That would be cool. I've been swimming for as long as I've been walking, and sailing since I was 12.

The other plan I have is to charter a boat in the Caribbean, in what are known as the Windward Islands. I hear there is good sailing there..... :) If you haven't read Sailing Alone Around The World, by Joshua Slocum, you have to. He was the first to circumnavigate the globe single handed. He sailed a 36 foot sloop named Spray. This was an old oyster boat someone gave him as a bit of a joke. It was about 150 years old when he got it. He rebuilt it from the keel up, then took it to sea. If you love the smell of the salt air as much as I do, and you haven't read this book, you must.

Pentax DA* 50-135 @ 135, F8, 1/750, ISO 100

Three old ladies sitting on a rock. OK. I can't be sure about their gender, and I have no factual information about their age....but.......you tell me...are they gossiping? Of COURSE they are! :)

Pentax DA* 16-50 @ 24, F6.7, 1/250, ISO 100

This was on the way home, on Friday, at Risser's Beach, a Provincial Park on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. What interested me was the rust, in the salt water on the beach. Obviously, there is iron here. This is at low tide, as the tide is coming back in, so, for this much rust to have accumulated in a relatively short period of time, even in the presence of salt water, suggests there's a fair bit of iron here. I wonder if Champlain saw something like this, and moreover understood its significance.....

Pentax DA* 16-50 @ 16, F6.7, 1/350, ISO 100

Yeah, maybe I got a 'good one'. I've heard a lot of negative flak about the 16-50 SDM lens from Pentax. Maybe there were some early quality control problems. My guess is there were a few bad lenses, a few cameras that exhibited front/back focus, and a few users that couldn't find their butt with both hands. As the above shot clearly shows, the 16-50 lens sucks.....SO NOT.

It is worth reflecting, at this juncture, on what I like about my Pentax gear. Ned Bunnell, on his blog, mentioned the term Adventure Proof, to refer to the new Optio W80. That's a great tag line. It sums up my thoughts perfectly. My watch is Swiss. It is mechanical. It is automatic, so it winds as I move my hand. It doesn't need batteries. It has a 316 stainless steel case and bracelet that's been bead blasted, so its dull. It has a sapphire crystal, which can be broken if I hit it VERY hard (a hammer blow in the centre of the watch would probably do it), but only a diamond will scratch it. And it is rated to 660 feet or 200 meters. It is not just waterproof. It is 'Adventure Proof'.

My Pentax gear lived up to that moniker on this trip. In many cases the fog I traveled through was indistinguishable from a light, salty, rain. My Pentax K10D and my lenses met the forces of nature, and remained undaunted by them. What good is a camera, if you're afraid to use it?

When I get my W80 I'm going to tie a rope to it, put it in movie mode, and throw it off a bridge on the Margaree River. There be salmon down there. I'm going to use it to do a little reconnaissance. :-)

Next on my list is the K7. The very second I see one basking under the florescent lights of my local camera store I'm going to give it a new home..... :)

Stockholm at Night

2009-06-17T02:51:00.000-07:00

I did some night photography on my last trip to Sweden. Actually, this time of year it was more like dusk photography.....:) This time of year it doesn't ever get really dark in Stockholm. That's in stark contrast to my first trip in Dec. when the sun went down around 3 in the afternoon..... :) That's the Swedish Parliament building from behind, at around 11pm. It was a 30 second exposure on my Pentax K10D using my 16-50 SDM lens. Let's just say that the in camera level that is a new feature of the upcoming K7 would've helped...... :)

I downloaded and ran PhotoMe recently. I had no idea there was that much EXIF data in my photos.

If anyone has any recommendations on places to get 16x20 prints made I'm all ears. I've got a half dozen or so recent pictures I want to get printed large, including that one. There's a dizzying array of places to do this, including some that can print on aluminum....that's expensive (by my standards) but it looks very cool from what I've seen so far..... :)

Warsaw is next on my list....and yes, I'm taking my tripod.... :)

Great Pumpkin Arrives In Nova Scotia

2009-06-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

March 10th! How did that happen? That's the date of my last post. Since then there have been not one, but two more trips to Sweden (one in April and one in May) and I'll have more pictures from those to share soon. I may start using Picassa for photo sharing, we'll see.

Last night was election night in Nova Scotia. As predicted the New Democrat Party (NDP) (party color is orange) squashed (pun intended) the Tory minority government we had before the election. You did know that pumpkins are in the squash family didn't you?

Voter turnout was 58%. That is, 58% of the eligible voters cast a ballot. Since the NDP won a majority with 45% of the popular vote, that means that 26.1% of the population (45% of 58) determined the newly elected government. Am I the only one who finds that appalling?

The NDP have never formed a government in Nova Scotia before. We'll see how they do. I find myself possessed of a certain morbid curiousity.

After one of the last Federal elections a few years ago, when the Liberals won a clear majority by sweeping Ontario and a couple of seats in Quebec, I took to referring to them as the Federal Government of Ontario.

Would the results have been different if more people had participated? Given the mood here I'd suggest probably not. Still, I'd feel happier if I knew that the government was determined by more than 40% of the eligible voters.....

Not only did I vote yesterday, but I also acted as a 'scruitineer'. What that means is that I went to one of the polls, on behalf of one of the candidates, where I witnessed and participated in the counting of the votes. The early results were telling. The candidate I was representing surged ahead for a bit, then gradually lost ground. Then he lost more ground, and well before we got to the last of the votes, it was clear. There was no hope.... :) Despite the disappointment it was a very interesting insight into the political process, and part of it that I'd never witnessed before.

If I can find a good picture of a pumpkin I'll add it to the beginning of this post later. In the meantime, did anyone bring some whipped cream? I feel like a slice of pie..... :)

DPReview Challenges

2009-03-10T02:58:00.000-07:00

Recently, I submitted a photo to the DPReview challenge for faceless portraits. I placed 126th out of 427 entries. Not bad, considering my subject material was neither nude, nor female. :)

I still have a lot to learn about this whole digital photography thing. Lately I've been playing with different programs for converting the raw image the camera takes. Usually I use UFRaw (gotta download the latest version of that shortly) which is a free open source utility. I've also used Adobe Lightroom, DXO, and Capture One (version 4) on an evaluation basis, and I have a copy of Capture One LE that's pretty good too.

What this means in practical terms is that I don't just process each image once, but often once per raw converter, and then compare the results. So far, none of the commercial packages have been substantially better than UFRaw. Capture One LE came with some of the memory cards I purchased. The package from DXO purports to correct barrel distortion and chromatic aberration. My Pentax 16-50 lens does exhibit some barrel distortion wide open at 16 when shooting square subjects (like paintings) but as you can see below, that's easily fixed by zooming in a bit.....Keeping track of all these pictures isn't easy, but I'm slowly developing some semblance of a system.....Now, if GIMP would hurry up and release version 3, which is supposed to have support for 16 bit TIFF images, my toolbox would be close to complete...... :)

A Walk, My Favorite Thing!

2009-03-10T02:36:00.000-07:00

Shauna and I decided to take advantage of the awesome weather on Saturday and go for a walk. The temperature was above zero, it was sunny, not a lot of wind......the only thing we forgot to take into account was the amount of snow and ice still on the trails. We didn't get far, I think we were out for maybe 20 minutes tops, and I spent a good chunk of that time taking a few pictures.

These are a couple of shots of the trails we were on. You can get a sense of how icy the they were.

I'm inordinately pleased with this picture, the subject isn't very remarkable, though it does give you a sense of how thick the ice was on the trail. The reason I'm pleased with it is that I've been learning a bit about what's referred to as 'exposing to the right', and I did that in this shot. It isn't always possible, and I won't bore you with the details (you can look those up if you're interested) but its a way to reduce the signal to noise ratio in a digital image. The caveat of course is that you don't want to shift the image histogram too far to the right, or you'll overexpose the highlights.

I've had this camera for a couple of years now. It assigns each image a sequential number. I'm pretty sure you can reset that, but also pretty sure I never have. I find it useful for tracking image. Recently (not sure when exactly) I passed 2000. That means, over the last couple of years, I've shot over 2000 photos. If that sounds like a lot, keep in mind that years ago during one two week trip in Europe I shot about the same number, and I was being very choosy.... :)

More interesting (at least to me) is the fact that before my first trip to Stockholm in Dec. I was at around 650 images taken with this camera.

Below is a video I thought folks would enjoy. Probably want to watch this when the small kiddies aren't around..... :)

You Lookin' At Me?

2009-03-07T07:08:00.001-08:00

We had a wicked ice storm here Monday morning. I looked out the window and saw first one, then two, then three deer out in the back yard. Eventually, they made their way to the upper part of the yard, where I shot this picture through my sliding glass back door. They were originally facing away from me, so I made a few quiet clicking noises. This one turned around, stamped its foot and snorted at me a couple of times. He knew something was there, but since I didn't move, and being inside, he couldn't smell me, he didn't know what it was. Too funny.This was shot through the glass door and at least two windows, on an angle from the same position. Not bad, all things considered. They ambled off to the lower backyard after this, and met up with their third compatriot.
A short while later I walked out of the kitchen into the living room. All three of them were helping themselves to the bushes at the front of my house. They were about 4 feet away from me, and kinda startled me.

My neighbor said he's seen as many as 8 gathered around the shrubs in my frontyard. No wonder they look a little chewed up....They seemed to be focusing on the shrubs, and any maple twigs they could reach. They must be a bit hungry, but don't look like they're starving.

Once the snow melts, and the grass comes out, they'll probably enjoy that. So far, I still have to mow. :)

By the time I made it back with my camera to the living room they were long gone, unfortunately.

Going for a hike today, its supposed to be sunny and plus 8, and so far looks like it might live up to that promise.

Eagles Flock

2009-03-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

Back in Nova Scotia, for a bit at least. I'm slowly getting caught up on my pictures and my posts. More on that in my next post.

You've probably heard the phrase, Eagles don't flock, they soar. They do soar, but if you throw a bunch of chicken scraps out as food in the winter time, they flock to them. I counted about 60 of them in this set of trees on a recent trip to Sheffield Mills. If you don't know the place, it is near Canning, in the Annapolis Valley. Every winter, barring bird flu concerns, the locals throw spare chicken parts from the local chicken processing factories out in the snow to feed the eagles. Its only advertised for about three weeks out of the year, but they feed them every day.

As a consequence, I think every bald eagle with a brain in the province over winters here..... :)

Eagles in flight are very difficult to photograph. I usually end up with a small eagle, or two, surrounded by a large portion of empty bluish film. With my new Pentax K10D, and my 50-135 zoom lens however, I took some of the best pics of them I've ever gotten. This has me thinking about either the 200mm or 300mm DA* lenses, or both.... :)
I like all of them, though the above is particularly nice, the one below is pretty much my all time favorite.

Relax, he didn't take out the crow. It just looks like he's about to...... :)

So, next time you hear 'they don't flock, they soar' remember......eagles do both...maybe I should use the Despair website (one of my favs FYI) to create a poster that says something like "Eagles don't read..." :)

Next time you have chicken, keep this in mind: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-04-12-trex-protein_N.htm

The Nordic Museum

2009-02-27T16:33:00.001-08:00

Seen from the Vasa Museum, which is right next door, the Nordic Museum looks huge. We were anticipating being there for most of the rest of the day, and perhaps not being able to see all of it.

Wikipedia has a good article, together with an arial shot (on a much nicer day than when I visited) of the area.

After a morning of looking at the exhibits in the Vasa museum and taking countless pictures, we were hungry. We debated where to eat, so we decided to ask the lady at the entrance to the Nordic Museum if there were any good places to eat near by. She said they had a very nice cafe in the museum, and though we were a little skeptical we decided to try it. The food there, like pretty much everywhere else in Stockholm, was amazing.

On the way in, we realized it was not going to take as long to see everything as we originally thought. Most of the interior of the building is empty space.

This shot was taken from one of the balconies, looking the other way. The exhibits are all around the exterior walls on three floors.

This statue of Gustav Vasa, Sweden's founding king, was about the only other thing there that I took pictures of. The other exhibits were interesting, but didn't trigger an impulse to raise my camera to my eye and press the shutter. The forhead of this sculpture, which is entire done in wood, is said to include wood from a tree planted by the king himself during his lifetime. The statue is positioned so it is pretty much the first thing you see inside the museum as you walk in.

After we were done here, we walked back to our hotel, got showered and changed and, of course, went to work...... :)

The Vasa Museum

2009-02-12T03:19:00.000-08:00

The Vasa Museum in Stockholm is an entire museum dedicated to a single thing. That thing is a 17th century warship. It is nearly intact, and is the best example of its era in the world. The Vasa is a 64 gun warship that sunk on her maiden voyage in the year 1628 in Stockholm's harbor.

The sinking killed approximately 50 people, some of whom would not normally have been aboard. After the ship sunk, the story lived on, but the details faded, until no one knew exactly where she'd gone down.

She was salvaged in 1961, largely intact. More information on the ship itself can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship).

The image above is the first thing that greets you as you walk through the door. She looks every bit as though she was plucked from Davy Jones' locker.

This is a model of what she looked like after being built. According to our best ability to determine, she was too tall, too narrow, and too lightly loaded with ballast to pose a real threat to anyone. The exact reasons for this remain a mystery, but an inquest held after the sinking suggested the King (Gustav) had a very direct hand in her construction.

The vessel you see today is drab.....as you might expect of anything that spent that long on the seabed. On the day she sank, the Vasa was painted with a variety of pigments, all derived from natural elements, which are shown in this display case.

This is a view from the stern. You can see the cannon ports, including the aft ones. The Vasa was intended to be a force on the world stage, but she never made it out of the harbour.....she sunk after travelling less than one nautical mile.

Each cannon port held an embossed lion, like the above. The Vasa was intended as a serious tool of international diplomacy. She fell short of that mark.

Here you can see the array of cannon ports. There's another batch of the same on the other side..... :)
During this period, it was considred important for rulers to draw paralells between themselves and the long lost Romans. The King of Sweden did just this, and the Vasa was one instrument in that approach.

This is reflected in the carvings on the stern.

Perhaps the spookiest part of the entire exhibit is looking into the faces of some of the people who died when she sank. Forensic reconstruction techniques have been used on some of the human remains discovered on the site. In some cases, we know not just what they look like, but a great deal about how they lived, and how they died. In other cases, there were so many bones clumped together it was a challenge for the investigators to separate them out, let alone determine anything remotely resembling a cause of death.

Our next stop was the Nordic Museum...which will be the subject of my next post.

Beer

2009-02-11T20:32:00.000-08:00

On our first trip to Stockholm, we stayed at the Amaranten hotel....the rooms there were very small, but they redeemed themselves at the bar, which had a great selection.

This time, the rooms were bigger, but the bar was....hmmm...not as nice?

Luckily for us, just down the street was a place called The Bishop's Arms. That is one of best bars I've ever been in. Good food, and the selection of beer and whiskey is phenomenal.

The night the above was taken was we were having a beer education seminar (we had a couple of those). Four people, five beers (between us, not each), and I won't even mention the cost, though, it wasn't cheap.

They probably haven't recovered from our visit yet....might take 'em a while...... :)

Chilling

2009-02-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

It wasn't all work. It just felt that way sometimes. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Its not the entire team, but its a lot of us. Around the corner from our hotel was the Absolut Ice Bar. One night a bunch of us descended upon it for a little R&R. Everything in the bar, all the furniture and glasses, and art, is ice. They give you those big blue ponchos so you don't freeze to death.....its cold in there, which with my fever felt kinda nice.

My parka came pre-perfumed... :)

You can see the glasses there. From my perspective, the only thing wrong with the place was alll the drinks were vodka based....I think Jeff was getting hungry, hint, his glass has a big bite out of it. Mine is the one full of red stuff......Wolf's Paw....vodka and lingenberries..... :)

Someone got bored, and decided to see if they could glue a glass to the decor.....wonder who that was....wasn't me...or Yan....or Jeff....or Ghola....... :)

I ain't telling.....the Swedish police carry guns..... :)

Blondes

2009-01-17T05:17:00.001-08:00

I've been trying to get a picture of this sign all week, and I finally did, but Yan's is better so I'm using his. Its tricky because its about half way up the huge escalator in the subway.

I don't speak or read Swedish. Sometimes its better that way....for instance, I interpret this as 'Somone is selling blondes for 60 kronor' (that's about CDN$ 9.00). While the idea intrigues me, I have several questions:

1) Who do I call?
2) Is there a catalog so I can pick, or do I get what I get?
3) Are there volume discounts?
4) Is shipping and handling extra?
5) If so, whose going to be 'handling' my blondes and how?
6) What does it typically cost (per blonde) to maintain them?
7) Do I need an export license from Sweden to take them home?
8) If friends of mine back home want some blondes am I allowed to charge them extra?

I love this place.....like I said, lots of interesting signs..... :)

Walking Around Stockholm

2009-01-15T06:45:00.001-08:00

I've been too busy working to do any real sightseeing yet, but the office I spend most of my time at this trip (so far) is within easy walking distance of my hotel, so I've been taking advantage of the opportunity to get some exercise.

The sun has shined three days in a row so far, this is a huge improvement over the previous trip, and I've actually seen the sun (not just the reflected light) each day. It still gets dark early, but the days are getting longer.

I took this picture on the way to work. And yes, I stood in the middle of the street to take it. Most streets (this one included) have a little pedestrian safety zone in the middle, so I wasn't in danger of getting run over (OK, not much danger). I liked the light reflecting off the building in contrast with the deep shadows.

There is construction everywhere, hence the scaffolding.
It was colder the other day. Wind chill made it fill like -9, which made the walk to work a tad brisk (I walked faster). I'm taking the subway back tonight, not just because of the cold, but there's another sign I want a picture of (more on that later).

Sweden is full of interesting signs, like this one that I found yesterday. No mother in laws...... :)

Frankfurt and Beyond

2009-01-12T04:46:00.001-08:00

The flight to Frankfurt was uneventful. Security there was tight....tighter than last time. I got a a very thorough going over, but made it to the gate in time to board.

They made me check one of my bags. The self important clerk at the counter decided my tiny camera case counted as a third carry on bag (thought that might happen) and so I checked the rolling bag in at the gate. Forgot that had my other two lenses in it, but they appear to have survived the ordeal intact. I tested them out when I got to Stockholm.

I'm at a different hotel this trip. The rooms are nicer, and bigger. When I get a few minutes I'll post some pictures. After an hour or so to clean up, get changed, and get online, we went into the client's office, where we stayed for five hours or so before heading out to eat. Got back to the hotel around 1am local time, so I was pretty wiped at that point.

Sweden Round II

2009-01-12T04:31:00.000-08:00

Montreal here I come. I know, that sounds backwards, but I fly from Halifax to Montreal, Montreal to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Stockholm. Three flights in less than 24 hours.

Since I have a lot of time to kill here, no internet connection, and I don't really feel like reading, I thought I'd take some time to blog a little bit about my latest trip to Sweden.

The flight in from Halifax was largely uneventful. The plane was a CRA 100 regional jet, very tiny. I did get a brief visit from my good friend Klaus T.R. Phobia. Klaus and I are old friends. He doesn't usually visit me unless I'm in a very confined space. I had a window seat, the guy next to me was huge, and my carry on suitcase just fit under the seat, not leaving much room for my long legs, while the cabin roof was brushing the top of my head.....gulp.... :)

I was better when the air came on. As I waited for us to roll out to the runway I closed my eyes and thought good thoughts until I felt the plane move. I love take off. As we started to roll I could feel the engines spool up to speed, and a little voice in my head said 'kick it'.....they did, and we lifted off without incident.

The skies were very clear, and I stared out the window while we flew over Nova Scotia, and then out over the Bay of Fundy. Looking down I was able to see Cape Split clearly, which I haven't climbed in a while (far too long) and then the eastern shore of New Brunswick. After the fasten seatbelt sign went off I took a couple Advil Cold & Sinus, put the seat back, and did my best sleeping impersonation. I didn't sleep, but it was somewhat restful.

Roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes later we landed in Montreal. I had just a twinge of pain on the right side of my face, but it didn't last long. That's what the Advil is for. Without it pain, if it comes (its highly unpredictable) could range from downright annoying to the point where I'd be very afraid that I was NOT going to die. Yeah, it can get that bad, and when that happens it lasts for days, so to have that happen on the first of three landings I'm doing in the next 24 hours would be double plus ungood.....double double plus plus.....

They made us get off on the tarmac, and walk to the terminal. Kept my jacket off because I was warm, and it was a short walk. The cold air felt nice, and by the time I got inside the pain had subsided. Just a little bit of pressure there now, almost unnoticeable, which is a very good sign. Next landing tomorrow morning in Frankfurt, so that's good. Time between landings helps.

I have quite a bit of time to kill here. About four hours between flights. I'd have to pay for an internet connection here (unlike Halifax) so I'm writing this 'offline'. Maybe the next post will be on the perils of being offline. :) I'll probably write something on the plane (maybe a couple somethings, had an idea), we'll see.

I'm sitting in the restaurant, staring at what I believe is the plane I'm taking to Frankfurt. It is, an Airbus 333. A great big giant tube with wings. Klaus doesn't tend to visit me on those, so this is very good.....

I had a steak and fries for supper. Really didn't need the fries, but I haven't eaten much yet today, and something is better than nothing. The steak looked suspiciously as though it had been pre-grilled, flash frozen, and then nuked by the famous chef Francois Le Poof. I wish I could take credit for his creation, but he's the creation of whoever masterminded a series of brilliant local radio commercials for a great Halifax resturant named Dofsky's (http://www.dofskysgrill.com/).

No pictures with these travel posts. I carry a digital SLR, and while security here seems fairly tolerant of picture taking, I have no wish to attract their attention. They have the ability to make Dante's 9th ring of hell look like a summer picnic with friends. Besides, there's not that much to take pictures of here. The moon is beautiful, big and fat and low in the sky, but its just above one of those walkway thingys, I'd have to shoot through glass at an angle.

I'm getting more interested in candid street photography than I've been in the past. Quietly catching people in public from so far away they have no idea they're being watched, and then posting that online might provide some entertainment for both myself and you my readers. We'll see. Last night there was a lady at the Rainman basketball game who looked a lot like Caribou Barbie.

There are a lot of gate change announcements flying over my head. Must make sure I don't get too distracted.

Still no sign of my co-workers. I was pretty sure they were on the same flight that I'm on, but maybe they're arriving here in Montreal with less time to spare than I have, or maybe they found a better place to hang out than a seat at the gate. (They got in later, and eventually appeared).

I've Always Wanted a Walk In Closet

2008-12-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

That was my first thought when I stepped into my hotel room. My second thought was "But I never thought of putting a bed, a desk, a TV a bathroom (with shower) a cupboard and an easy chair in there too!"......LOL.

The above shot was taken from the far corner of my room (shown in the next picture). If you look closely, you'll see you can see the bathroom reflected in the mirror.

That corner is where I took the previous image from, the bed is there, easy chair to the right (it didn't show up too well).

The desk, desk chair, minibar, and closet are shown in this photo. The closet doors have mirrors, and there is a helpful space underneath for putting shoes.

The room is small, but honestly all I do there is sleep. There hasn't been time to do anything else. I was going to order room service my first night here, but decided to go downstairs instead.

Many of the everyday things are different here. Sweden, like much of Europe, runs on 220 (or is it 240?) V AC power. The power outlets are (of course) different. So interestingly are the light switches. The light switches are large rocker switches (2" x 2" square usually) and, I'm assuming, better sealed against moisture than switches in North America. Standing on a wet bathroom floor and hitting a light switch with 220 V with a wet finger could be really really bad if it isn't sealed.

Door locks also look a bit different........I've seen a few North American cars here, but mostly not so much. Our computer chairs in the lab are much fancier than ones I've seen at home, very ergonomic.

Toilets flush differently, with a handle that you pull up mounted in the top of the lid, rather than a handle that you push down mounted on the side of the tank.

The computers look about the same......except when they're displaying Swedish messages.

Sightseeing

2008-12-16T03:46:00.000-08:00

Yan and I got to do some sightseeing on Sunday. The weather wasn't great, but it was largely dry. So far with the exception of Monday (which I spent mostly indoors) the weather in Sweden has been (one of each) either grey or dark and dry or wet. So grey and wet, dark and wet, grey and dry, you get the idea. Sunrise here is about 8:30am this time of the year, and sunset is around 2:50. The days are getting shorter by at least 2 minutes and 5 seconds per day, so over the course of the nearly 7 days we've been here we must have lost at least 15 minutes of grey-light...... :)

Monday was lovely for a while, but I was only outside briefly on Monday. These pictures were taken on Sunday.

Yan and I took the subway to the Kings-garden area in downtown Stockholm. One of the first things we saw was this guy fishing in the river in the above photo. It may be a little hard to make out, but he's there. The current was quite strong, and there aren't a lot of easy ways to get in there, so we weren't sure how he got in, and we didn't see him get out. The water must have been very cold. Some more clever people were fishing from boats and from high up on the walls.

We found the above sailing ship over by the National Museum. The museum didn't open until 11am, so we had some time to kill. The ship is a youth hostel, and as near as I can tell hasn't sailed in quite some time (it looks pretty securely attached to shore).

This shot was taken down by the aforementioned ship. I think the orangish building houses the administrative offices of the hostel.

A little way farther on (the ship is on the left, just out of the frame in this shot) I came upon this old tree on the ground, with a plaster bust embedded in the ground. No idea what's up with that, but I thought it was a pretty cool shot.
On the way back towards the museum I saw this tree. I just liked the texture of the bark, so I took a shot. I find with the digital SLR I'm much less fussy. I brought about 14GB of SD cards with me (7 2GB SanDisk Extreme III cards) and so far I've only used about 2.5. I wanted to bring more, but couldn't find any more on short notice in Halifax. I'm sure there are some there, I just didn't have a lot of time to look. In any event, I only got to go sightseeing once, so no danger of running out.

Speaking of trees....

Just behind the big white ship is an enormous Christmas tree. This thing was massive, and though this shot doesn't do it justice it was lit up quite nicely. Our next stop was the National Museum. There were several temporary exhibits as well as some permanent ones.

This shot was taken from a painting by Carl Gustaf Hellqvist and is called Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361. In one of the temporary exhibits someone threw a brick at us, I ducked.

Ok, I'm kidding. That's one of the temporary exhibits. We found out (after I took this shot) that we weren't allowed to take pictures of the temporary exhibits......c'est la vie.....

After we left the National Museum we walked over to the massive Christmas tree we had seen earlier. It was on the other side of the water, so we crossed the bridge and headed down towards the tree. I forget the measurements but its huge.

It turns out this tree, which is awesome, is actually a sculpture. They start by looking for a tall straight tree trunk, and then cut it down and cut all the branches off of it. Then they harvest branches from trees which grow on the south side of hills and meadows (makes them greener), and then mount them on the cleaned trunk.
The branches are then wired together. There is a competition in Stockholm for the best Christmas tree, but this tree is no longer allowed to compete because if it did no other tree would stand a chance. Its just that impressive.

After wandering around the waterfront for a bit, we headed over to the Royal Palace. No photography was allowed in the palace itself, but we showed up in time to catch the changing of the guard. Yan took some videos while I looked after the still photos. Most of my pictures aren't great because I had to shoot over the crowd, but Yan had a bit more luck with the videos.

Watch the guy with the big drum........its crazy what he does.

After wandering through the royal palace, we found a local pasta bar and had a bite to eat, then we wandered through an outdoor market, wandered up a couple of city streets, and then decided to go back to the hotel since it was getting dark. We got back to the hotel for about 3:30, and then off to the office for another long day.

Stockholm Subway

2008-12-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

There are several subway lines in Stockholm, each on a different level. I take the blue line every day. Its at least six stories down....at least it feels that way. This is the escalator out of my regular station.

A couple of us went sightseeing the other day for a bit (there's only about six hours of daylight this time of the year). The image below is the escalator at the Kings Garden station (end of the blue line). That's Yan at the bottom of the escalator, one of the people I work with. We were taking images of each other, one from either end. Having trouble spotting him? Its a long way down, and I didn't zoom in......

As you can see, there's not much space between the tunnel wall, the platform, and the train. Best to be on the platform when the subway arrives. The blue line is powered by 750 volts DC (according to what I've read) and travels about 80km/hr most of the time. Its pretty quick.

Sweden

2008-12-09T09:21:00.001-08:00

Off to Sweden shortly for work. Stay tuned for photos.

NS MS Bike Tour

2008-08-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

Cycle-Dude-Delics

Since I do a fair bit of photography myself, and this blog's name is a reference to that (if you're wondering) I should point out that none of these pictures are ones I took. They've all been stolen from elsewhere (mostly from Denise). :)

Shauna and I both rode in two Multiple Sclerosis Bike Tours this summer.

This is a summary of the NS tour.....

We're both on a team of outstanding individuals who refer to ourselves as the Cycledelics. This year we were the Cycle-dude-delics.....as our theme was surfing, and all other things Hawaiian.

Where to begin? Ahhh....that is really the question, because, you see, this year's bike tour really started about 2 hours after last year's ended. At least for us.

That's when we met at Denise's place to plan, scheme, and concoct our theme, for this year. And shortly after last year's tour, Shauna and I were on the trails and roads of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, riding, training, having fun, call it what you will (we don't call it training, because our team has a prohibition against that, we just like to ride bicycles).

But weeks before the bike tour, preparation begins in earnest. There are gizmos to be bought (I bought a couple Puka shell necklaces, one of which actually fit), shirts to be ordered, decals to be ironed on, and decorating to be done.

Last year, we went with a cow theme, and the year before we'd gone with a prison theme. This year, a surfing theme. We decided on a single shirt for this tour, the idea being that people would wear riding jerseys, and such like, on day two. On day two of the year before last, we wore bright orange shirts (with inmate stenciled on the back). We discovered that made people really easy to identify, imagine that. In recognition of that fact, this year, we went with a bright yellow, with blue text.

A couple weeks before the ride, we gathered to decorate the shirts. There were decals to be ironed on, and there was lots of fabric paint. Some people went nuts. I was restrained.

Shauna and Denise Iron on Decals

We had a little surfer dude on the upper left breast of the T-Shirt, so I put a palm tree in front of him, and a shark fin behind him. :-)

Between the Devil and The Big Palm Tree

It was a great afternoon, with excellent food, company, and of course a few beverages.

On the actual day of the tour, I got to the starting point (Kings Edgehill School in Windsor NS) at about 7:30, a full 30 minutes before registration was due to start. The volunteers were in place early so by 8:30 I felt I was in good shape. I had the bike unloaded from the car, bike shoes (with cleats) on, and then, as I reached for my brain bucket and gloves, I realized I'd left them behind.

Before I left to go back home, I spoke to our team captain to explain to the situation. I could have ridden without the helmet, but the gloves were essential (OK, you figure it out). :-)

I streaked back home, got the missing gear, and streaked back to Windsor. Officially the ride started at 8:45, but because there were 475 riders this year (yeah, that's a lot) they were starting in groups.....The route is not closed to traffic, we compete with cars for space on the road, but there are signs warning motorists that go up a couple days in advance.

Everyone wore their yellow T-Shirts the first day (as you can see above), and not seeing any such shirts upon my return, I surmised that most of my team were already en route, so I tried to sneak out.

I got caught. I had to wait in the pack to be released with the next group of riders.

Fortunately the wait wasn't long, and while I was waiting I saw two of my team mates behind me, so I wasn't last. I did miss out on the team's starting pic as a result of my stupidity however.

Once released upon the course I motored. Shauna, my other half (who has MS) was out there somewhere. She left early, before the official start, to maximize her exposure to the cool weather. If you don't know, heat is really hard on people with MS. In fact, an early diagnostic technique was the hot bath test: http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=show&pageid=1708

I caught up to her just before the 3rd rest stop (the last one before Acadia University). At the third rest stop my average speed was 20.5 km/hr, which represented about a 3km/hr increase over the year before.

The rest stops are great, and the 3rd one won the best rest stop award. All the rest stops are staffed by volunteers, and this one included a Hawaiian theme, completely independent of us.

At this point most, but not all, of my team was behind me. We were strung out on the course, over 30 kilometers. That's what we do. Some of us ride in groups, some ride at their own pace. The main goal is to have fun, whatever that translates into for the individual. Improving my level of physical fitness is one of my motivations for doing this, so I like to push it. Plus I like to go really fast down the big hills.... :)

Last year, when several of the team members arrived at Acadia, there were no sandwiches left. People were tired, hungry, and cranky, and it was a long time until supper, so this year we decided in addition to the rest stops, we would run our very own team support vehicle, with food.

Cranky Sandra

One of our team members, Sandra, injured her knee this year. Badly. Surgery was required, and she's still in Physio. She couldn't ride this year, unfortunately, but instead she worked as a volunteer in the NB ride (more on that in another post) and in the NS ride, she fed the team by staffing the support vehicle with the other Shauna. She even fed a few members of other teams.... :)

Sandra Hand Feeds a Live Wire

Given how spread out our team was, Sandra's job was very challenging. I never saw her on Day 1, until I got to Acadia. I did get a sandwich though, and all I can say is it was well worth the wait. I had lots of snacks to eat at the rest stops, and I'd packed about a pound of beef jerky on the bike in case I got desperate. I didn't need it, but it was nice to know it was there. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, that is what was sticking out of the back of my pants..... :)

From the third rest stop to Acadia University, it is mostly uphill. My average speed dropped to 19.5 km/hr by the time I reached Acadia. I elected, this year, not to go out to Canning. I did that the previous year, and while it is a wonderful ride, I decided to quit while I still had a bit of energy. I grabbed a wrap from Sandra at Acadia (yum) and chilled.

After the ride, the team gathered at Denise's dorm for the after ride party. There was lots of beer, wine, chips, and various other food groups.

Denise and I

Party Time

After the team festivities, we went down to the banquet. Doug had THE MOST AWESOME SHIRT! It had drink recipes on it. WAY COOL! Even cooler, was the fact that he'd bought two of them at a yard sale for the princely sum of $1.50. :) Doug is a character! He's on 24x7, fun to be around, and a wonderful person.

The Walk To Dinner

Doug

I WANT that shirt, if only for the recipes......come on man, you've got two of them..... :)

Denise had been down there to decorate our table. I'd walked down (and hiked back up) a couple of times, but managed to miss her. I wanted to help, but my timing was off.....no matter, she got it done, and our table rocked!

Our Table With Trohpy

One of our new teammates, Alex, was feeling a little warm. It was warm in banquet hall, which is even worse when you've jolted your metabolism into high gear by peddling all day. At one point, during the banquet, she started fanning herself, and said 'I'm hot'. I told her to stop bragging..... :-)

Alex

Shauna and Cranky Baby were there, of course, along with Les, who got lost later (see below)....

Shauna, Les and CB

After the banquet I got a ride back (uphill) with Woody and his wife. It took me a long time to go to sleep, almost 0.003 microseconds........

Woody

Woody is a little bit older than I am, and this may be the last tour he rides in.

He and his wife went to Scotland this year (hence the mixing of themes, though thankfully not Scotch in the above image) and I expect to see him as a volunteer in the future. Regardless, this man's indomitable will is an inspiration. If I can do that at the tender age of 37, like him, I'll be set for life! :-) OK, Woody might be a little older than 37 (I am) but DON'T TELL ANYONE! He and Imhotep guard their real age CLOSELY.....:)

The next morning, I got up at 6am. I was pleased to see it was foggy and cool. I was hopeful it would rain the second day, like it did last year. I went into breakfast around 6:40 with that wish firmly in mind, but when I came out at 7:10 the fog was gone, and there was a mostly clear blue sky overhead. I knew then it was going to be a hot day.

I went back to my room, packed, and went to get my bike at the bike storage area. I was on the road by 7:45. Despite being low on caffeine, I caught up to Shauna at the top of the hill coming out of Acadia. I rode with her for a bit, and then streaked down the hill that I'd climbed the day before, hitting 53.7 km/hr. Someone really should repave that hill.....OK, OK, and/or I probably should slow down......but....WHEEEEEEE :)

At the bottom of the hill was the Gaspereau river. This is where Shauna and several other cyclists refreshed themselves the day before.....I waited, and waited, and waited for her to arrive., several other cyclists came down, but none of them were her.

When she finally arrived I learned that Cranky Baby had fallen off, and may have suffered a back injury, so she'd been strapped to a backboard for the duration, until she could receive proper medical attention.

We passed a neurologist en route, but he was performing surgery on a mountain bike that I think he'd borrowed from one his great great grandsons.....he was, to say the least, preoccupied...I think it was Cranky Baby's first introduction to waiting times......probably not her last.

The neurologist we passed is one of Shauna's doctors. He deserves every accolade in the book for even attempting the tour on that bike (especially since he's at least over 40 years of age). My only advice for next year would be a non-mountain bike..... :) Dude, you rock!

At Hantsport I stopped at the local Tim Horton's coffee shop, a tradition with us Cycledelics (at least after last year). After about 30 minutes, Shauna showed up and we sat and enjoyed our coffee. Shauna got a ride from our support vehicle to the top of Mount Denson from there, and I arrived shortly after they stopped and had a bit of the food that was left over from the day before.... :)

After my brief snack, I hit the road again. Shauna had indicated she thought the remainder of the ride was 'fairly flat', but a couple of the hills I encountered made me wonder if she would hitch a ride. She didn't, she persisted to the final rest stop before Windsor.

The last rest stop on the tour on day two is also the first one on day one. This is about 14 kms out of Kings Edgehill School, at the Sainte Famille winery: http://www.st-famille.com/main.htm.

Doug was talking up a wine there. He insisted that they were doing tastings inside. Eventually, a group of us followed him in.

Doug is the same individual who promised us all a piece of Key Lime pie on my first tour, just over the next hill...repeatedly.... :) I'm still waiting...in fact, I'm no longer sure he knows, exactly, what Key Lime Pie is..... :)

I was, as I said, cautious, but optimistic.....It turned out that they were sampling the wine that Doug was bragging about. And better than that, it was EVERY bit as good as he said it was...plus the room was air conditioned, which after 34 kms made everything taste better!

When Shauna arrived I waved her up, and forced her to try some wine. I really had to insist, she.....OK....truth here, she didn't put up much of a fuss. After tasting it, she suggested that I return later to acquire some, so I did....

Shauna and Woody decided to call it quits at the last rest stop. Their bikes were loaded onto a car, and driven back to Wolfville.

There is absolutely no shame in this. Shauna has MS, and it is remarkable that she can do 20 km, let alone the 80 over 2 days that she actually did do....Woody is, uh, over 40 as well.... :) He was going to be a volunteer this year, but decided to ride instead. He stopped because he knee was bothering him. Kudos to both of them for knowing their limits and riding within them.

Just outside Kings Edgehill School, we all stopped, in ones and twos, until the whole team was gathered, or most of it. Missing was one person, whose plight I will get to shortly.

When 'everyone' had arrived, we took off for the finish line. Alex suffered a chain derailment, which prompted 'someone' to point out that hills should be taken in 'low' gear not 'no' gear..... :)

After we had all crossed the finish line, Les' wife asked the pivotal question.....

Where is Les?

Les lives in the area. He had to go to the airport that morning, but was supposed to ride out to meet us at the last rest stop. We couldn't figure out how he missed us (or we missed him),at least until we heard the story.

Les knew a short cut to the rest stop that involved fewer hills and was faster, so Les took that route. The other route, the one that none of us was on. We were on the official route. Based on the fact that we arrived at the last rest stop last year, Les thought he had lots of time. He actually had 'Les' time than he realized! :-)

After reaching the rest stop he engaged the volunteers in conversation, and eventually learned that there were only 'a couple of stragglers' left on the course. About this time, as it turned out, the team was sitting in Windsor wondering:

'Where is Les?'
'How did we miss him?'
'How did he miss us?'

Les biked home, and took the car back to the King's Edgehill, where, posterity will record, his wife called him a twit.......:)

Been there, done that, all I can say is 'Dude, sucks to be you!'.

And no, you will probably never live that one down.... :)

The team gathered at Denise's place after the ride for BBQ, swimming and tales of the invisible ghost bike ridden by Les.... :) And of course to start planning for next year... :)

Important stats from the weekend:

My average speed: 19.5 km/hr over two days
My Top Speed: 53.7 km/hr
Total Monies Raised: 478,945.33
Team Total: > 26709.30 and counting
Team Top Fundraiser: Shauna @ $5233.86 and counting
My Fundraising: $1679.00 and counting
Riders Registered: 475
Cycledelics Awards Won:
Team Spirit
3rd Runner Up (Team Fundraising)
Team Cheer (Keep it simple, and you won't be MOOOOO'd)

A special thanks to our sponsors. This year we wore only one team shirt, as opposed to the customary two, as everyone dressed 'tropically' for the banquet. Both Lawton's Drugs and Ocean Nutrition were recognized team sponsors. Ocean Nutrition covered the cost of our bright yellow T-Shirts, which everyone wore on day 1.

My personal sponsors also deserve a special round of applause. First and foremost is Felcor Lodging Trust. This company, headquartered in Texas, has been a big sponsor over the last three years, and deserves special recognition for their consistent support. If you're ever in Halifax just call me. We'll find the time, we'll find the leaves, or the pools of fish, or the deer...moose are harder to find, but I know people, I'm sure we can work it out. Seriously, room and board covered for hunting, fishing or photography. If you want to go Salmon fishing on the Margaree River, let me know. I know people, we can work something out..... :) Just remember, Cranky Baby might want to help you land that fish.... :)

The Brewing Centres (now known as Noble Grape) have also been big supporters of my efforts in the bike tour over each of the last three years. Hats off to all for that!

Another big supporter has been the Sylvan Learning Centres of HRM. Sylvan has been a strong contributor for the last three years.

My employer, Syntact Consulting, deserves a lot of credit! Not only did they give me the time off, but several people contributed to my fund raising efforts.

Last but by no means least, I have to mention a 'rival' team. An individual named Larry Creaser (whom it was my pleasure to meet this weekend) was diagnosed with primary progressive MS about 8 years ago. Last year, they had 50 riders, and caused quite a stir. This year they were over 100 riders, and by themselves raised over $175,000, with one single rider raising over $30,000 by cycling from Toronto to Lunnenburg.

When I started riding in 2006, I took 3rd runner up in fund raising with $5500. This year the bar was raised, and 3rd runner up was was over $8000. It is hard to be disappointed with my own shortcomings when I realize that I've helped raise the bar. This year the Atlantic Division started recognizing their top 50 fundraisers.....kinda scary to realize that I was #47 last year, and yet, this year I'll be lucky to place in the top 100 in the Atlantic Division.

Planning for next year has already begun. Trails are being ridden (its NOT training, we just like it) and ideas are being floated. As always, next year's possible themes are a closely guarded secret...I could tell you, but then, well, I'd have to keep you on ice in an undisclosed location for the rest of the year......:-)