Pointless photography, yet again.

I should just call the blog Photo Dump at this point, since I haven't felt much like spouting off lately. Ah well.

I got the real, actual camera out yesterday for a bit, as opposed to being lazy and just using the cell phone. Let me tell you, phone cameras are getting pretty good, but they're never going to beat a dSLR if you really want to compose things. I'm not saying that I worked especially hard at composition yesterday -- I was pretty much just taking snaps -- but playing with the bokeh on a prime lens is somehow just plain satisfying. Let's see what we've got, then:

Buds on the apple tree that produces big apples.

Buds on the apple tree that produces small apples.

Double-flowering Plum. It doesn't actually glow; that's just from the sun's angle.

Saskatoon flowers.

These next few are from the phone, because cats. And Forsythia.

The Forsythia wasn't clear on the camera (bad angle), so here's the phone version.

I used this for a catsandbirds.ca post on work's FB. Nice of the Turkey Brothers to pose.

And finally... the usual. One in a basket, one figuring out chairs.

That's it for today. I'll see if I can come up with a blather sometime in the future so that this place can be a bit more bloggy again.

And for those interested, http://catsandbirds.ca/

Pointless photos; now including philosophical cats

Didn't bring my camera with me to Dad's this time, so it's all phone pics all the time. Let's see what's up:

What's literally up are the tulips and daffodils. It's a bit of a cheat, though. This corner gets warmed by the dryer vent, so it gets a head start on spring. 

March 30th was Pencil Day, in honour of the first end-of-pencil eraser. Here are some (some, yes) of my art pencils which, ironically, never have erasers on them.

Two cats outdoors. One enjoys it; one doesn't. Guess which is which?

Cat philosophy. The yin yang of sleeping in a too-small basket together.

The dawn of a new age

The pointless photo is not exactly picturesque, but then it's also slightly -- just slightly -- not pointless. Not enough to turn the blog orange (old, old joke, so never mind), but there is somewhat of a point to it.

This is my Dad's new modem.

Because of weirdness in his line, he's had to use an external modem since he first got internet service. A while ago an electrical storm fried it (which also managed to screw up his phone service, of course), so he had to call a serviceman in. The guy's reaction? "Wow. That's an old one". Cue forward to just about every phone-related switch and box connected to the line being checked and replaced where necessary, and everything works again. And, as I said, this is the new modem.

Note the antennae. Yep, built-in WiFi.

My Dad has WiFi for the first time, and he's found out that it causes what most of us have known for a while: constantly fiddling with your phone. Now, personally I don't even have internet at home (I don't have a computer, so it would be kind of silly), so I usually save most of my phone-fiddling for when I'm at work, but it's nice that now when I visit here I don't have to burn through my phone data. It's also nice that I can use my tablet for something other than saving things for later (when I can find WiFi). For Dad, though, it's been the revelation of doing his e-mailing and whatever else without having to come downstairs.

Like it says above, the dawn of a new age.

Good thing or bad thing, do you think? I'm of two minds, I suppose. None of us needs to be sitting more than we already are, really, but at the same time it's the way our world operates these days. I think that rather than good or bad I'll just say inevitable, and get back to the phone alert that rang while I was typing this.

After all, I don't have to feel guilty for checking them anymore. Dad's probably doing the same...

Pointless photos of the day:

Dad's Mock Orange bushes were absolutely full of blooms this year. Here's some phone shots:

Pointless photo of the whenever

Actually, I have a bunch of flower photos (taken with the phone since I didn't bring my real camera this week), so there may actually be a few posts in the future.

Don't fall down in shock.

After all, there may be new photos, but they may all be of mating insects like you see here. Oh, you didn't notice the mating insects? You will now.

Anyway, this post is mostly just to say that I'm still around, and it's short of necessity since I have a few things to do before I take Dad out for a belated Father's Day supper (I had to work last Sunday).

Aaand the dryer just went off, so this will be even shorter. Later, folks.

Any moth people out there?

I noticed this outside our back door at work the other day, and haven't had time to ID it yet. I'm curious.

I haven't had time is the theme of the blog, by the way. Sorry for the lack of posting.

And the short posts.





Like this one.

Yet again, rocks

Yes, my car veered towards the rock shop again on my way to Dad's place yesterday. It was on purpose this time: I wanted something to go a little better with my uncle's diamond stud earrings. I've been using them in my second lobe holes a lot, but to be honest, some of the earrings they get paired with are a little odd some days. Nothing wrong with that, of course -- it's practically my earring MO -- but I figured that it might be nice to have something that harmonised a bit more with them for those occasions that I don't want to look so much like a weirdo interpreter.

So to speak.

It wasn't like I was going to get anything expensive, naturally. Just something a little more faceted. So as you see above, there are green onyx studs (yeah, I usually avoid dyed rocks. They were nice, though), a rose quartz pendant (yeah, it's not earrings. Whatever. It'll go with some earrings I already have), and citrine and pearl drops.

Gah. Citrine. It's basically just yellow quartz, for those of you who are unfamiliar, and I've said before that I wouldn't ever have any since the jewellery industry switched the "modern" November birthstone from topaz, which I grew up with, to citrine. A matter of (misplaced, yes) principles, I suppose, but when you grow up with one thing and then it's arbitrarily changed to another thing by an industry that wants a cheaper alternative, isn't it a cheat?

Besides, I already had my grandmother's topazes...

Aaanyway. Here's a completely unattractive shot of the side of my head that I was too lazy to crop, in case anyone wanted to see what these things look like on. I think that either of them should go okay with the diamonds when I'm in the mood, really.



And just to get that last photo out of your brain a bit, let's end with today's pointless cat pictures:

Bob under the piano bench

Tom the Hamper Boy

That should do me for now, I think. Stay tuned for some actual camera photos tomorrow, since there are finally growing and flowering things to look at in the yard. And yes, that means that you get to look at them too.

Where I work

No, I'm not officially back yet, but I did go for a walk (in the wind) today. Here's a couple of things I noticed:

Just going down the path.

Neat lichens, tree.

Windy out on the West Lake.

Silver Berry (Wolf Willow) leaves.

Thin-legged Wolf Spider

Balsam Poplar bud.

No blather today, though. Time for me to find some lunch.

Random signs of Christmas

1. Very annoying music in stores. Seriously, there are plenty of good Christmas recordings out there. You must have to work hard to find such bad ones.
2. My Dad playing Santa at local functions.
3. My Dad putting reindeer antlers and a red nose on his Trail Blazer. Because Santa.
4. My Dad finding out that the Santa costume scares the bejeezus out of his cats. Wish I'd been there for that one.
5. Books of Christmas carols on my desk in case anyone at work feels like playing the piano. It won't happen, but I try.
6. Inappropriate music on TV ads. Actually, I might save that one for another post because it's a good topic.
7. The food in the usual staff snack area gaining an astonishing amount of calories.
8. This:

Oddly enough, not my usual work attire. Ah well, if we're lucky it won't be cold enough this year for me to break out the Christmas stocking cap.

Yeah, I have one. Made it, in fact.

Anyway, there's your quick post of the day. Bad to work for me.


Enjoy the pseudoselfie.

Phone games

This'll be quick. I have work to do. Actually, that's what led to this.

I was out taking phone shots for work instagram (I'm not on instagram, but work is. I'll give the handle another time if anyone's interested) and twitter, and decided on my way back to the office to try a panorama since I've never done that with this phone. Or anything else, for that matter. Anyway, for a first go it turned out not too badly:

As usual, click on the thumbnail to see the bigger version.

And that's my workplace. On the phone you can pan across the photo, which made Wheat a little jealous since his doesn't do that. Maybe it's a feature of newer Android phones? Dunno, but I'll probably be taking more of these now.

Spider photo of the day:

Ok, this was actually for work twitter and you're going to have to click on the thumbnail to see what's going on, but this spider's too cool not to mention here.

Grass Spiders (Agelenopsis sp.) are funnel weavers. What this means is that instead of spinning the stereotypical sticky orb web, these things spin a web that at first glance just looks like a flat sheet. A better glance, though, will show you that the sheet actually curves down into a funnel shape. At the bottom of the funnel, the spider waits for vibrations on the web that will tell it that a prey animal has landed. Then the spider comes out of its hidey hole, grabs the insect (or other spider), and takes it back down the funnel to finish it off.

Pretty damned neat.



Is too.

The spider looks roughly like this (note the long spinnerets typical of the genus) and, even though you may be completely freaked out by it (and if you are, why are you on this blog?) it's considered harmless to humans.

Its Australian cousins, though, can sometimes be deadly. Apparently.

Sometimes I think that everything in Australia is at least somewhat deadly. That's certainly the press we get here, at any rate.

Anyway, look for the webs in the morning dew if you're out for a stroll, especially this time of year. Then look for the hiding spider. It's fun.



Is too.

And a lovely "good morning" to you

And I thought yesterday's photo was a tad fuzzy, having come from my phone and all. Well this one takes the cake.
(and what a silly phrase that is but I'm guessing it has very real roots somewhere and I'm equally sure the OLF will provide).

Annnnyway, I feel this is worth posting because of all of the auras around everything. It looks like I totally intended all of it but we know, don't we.

This is on the far side of where the pups and I go walking and yes, Virginia, that is one big sheet of ice in the foreground but again with the auras, it's pretty. Gotta love those clouds.

And so. Let's see.

Nope, got nothin' else. It's cold and the snow we've received thus far in only December has begun breaking records.

You can see from the date at the top of this post it's only the 21st of the month and we have several months of winter left, yes?

Let's just hope the photos continue to be pretty and inspire happy thoughts to type. Oh lordy, let's just hope.

And I really did have an actual topic in mind when I sat down. It hasn't been encrypted for you to find, no. Clearly I'm just not caffeinated enough. Maybe tomorrow then.