So, about the Christmas photos...

I brought my camera -- actual camera -- to Dad's place for Christmas. It hasn't been out of its bag, I'm afraid. There's a couple of reasons for that, really. The biggest was that it's been very, very cold (right now my phone says that it's -30C. Yes, that's a minus. That's -22F, for those who find that measurement easier to comprehend. I don't, but that's what Google's for. Needless to say, it hasn't made me especially enthusiastic to wander around taking yard pictures.

The second reason for the lack of real camera is that it's too damned easy to pick up the phone, and yes, that makes me lazy. Ah well, here's a few random phone camera shots from the past week, at least.

Christmas for cats

Do I really need to caption this?

Looking at this, you'd think that the Turkey Brothers get along.

One of the two pictures I took outside, a few steps from the back door. I needed a photo for a work post. This is wild Purple Clematis, even if it is growing in the yard.

Random photo of my ear, to show my uncle what his studs look like. Nothing like wearing someone else's cast-offs. When they're diamond studs, at least.

Let's end the blog's year with a tea photo, since it was a bit of a theme.

Well, that's it for the year, I guess. I'm going to scan a couple of doodles for the other blog since I've been pretty lax at that, go upstairs to find some lunch, and then... well, probably make more tea. Did I mention that baby, it's cold outside?

Good luck with the new year,everyone.

False start

Work blah blah blah short post blah. But first, two things.

Thing one: This is Tom deciding that a staple is a toy. I changed his mind shortly after taking the picutre.

Thing two: I hate HATE remote car starters. And did I mention hate? When I went out to clear my car off of a slight bit of snow and go to work this morning, there were three cars running. Three. And not a person in sight, of course. As I finished with the snow, one of them stopped. It had been running so long that the auto-stop kicked in. And as I pulled away, it was started again. The kicker? It was -10C. That doesn't even count as cold here in February. Minus ten, a slight dust of snow, yet stupid people have to waste gas and pollute the parking lot just so that their noses don't get a chill?

Gah.

For those new to the program, I'm literally (and yes, the proper use of literally rather than the internet use of literally) allergic to the cold. If I get cold I get hives. In extreme cases my blood pressure goes down from all the fluid in my tissues and I feel like crap. In really extreme cases it's possible to have an anaphylactic reaction, but I've never had one (thank goodness). And yet, with all of that, as long as it's not too cold for me to be outside at all I bundle the hell up, start my car, clean it off, AND DRIVE AWAY.

Remote car starter not needed.



Suck it up, princesses.





Going back to work now. LLAP, Mr. Nimoy.

Oh, go away

 Winter, I mean. I'll freely admit that we had a pretty mild January (for Alberta. For the most part), but now we're under snow warning and the roads will be crap again.

That makes me terribly happy.

Does grumpy make for a  good blather? Probably not, although I really should come up with something for this massively neglected blog.

Oh wait. Maybe I have something, but it'll have to be quick since, you know, work and all.

The something is this: maybe make sure you enjoy these purty pictures of clematis seed heads if you're at all the squeamish type, because next week (or whenever I get them off the camera) there may be something much more unphotogenic. You see, the other day I realised that I hadn't really talked much about all of this medical stuff that's been going on (doing well, by the way) so I decided to take photos of my stoma.

Go on. Google stoma if you need to.

Back now? Ok. I had a ruptured diverticulum, and if that sort of thing is bad enough they detach part of your colon so that the damage can heal. Mine is sigmoid colon, for anyone who needs to google some more. The problem with that is that it leaves you no place to eliminate waste -- except inside your abdomen, I suppose -- so the surgeon needs to create a new exit point.

It's called a stoma. Mine's at about waist level.

That leaves you the problem of where the crap goes, and rather than have it run down your clothing they set you up with a system called an ostomy pouch.

We'll be talking about mine if the pictures turned out.



We might be talking about it anyway, depending.

Me, I've got snow to look not-forward to talking about before then, and probably a weekend where I don't leave my apartment.





Getting a feeling that this is your post for the week.? It may be likely. See you when I see you.

Possibly with medical photos.

You've been properly warned, remember.

Totally not recent photo of the day:

Alpine Veronica flowers in the spring, generally. It's not spring now.

I don't know if you've heard, but it's winter here.



Bah.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not unusual for it to be wintery in mid-November in Alberta. What is unusual, though, is for it to happen in a day. That's right, one day. One day it was something like 9C for a high, and the next, if I'm remembering right, the high was -12C.

Yes, that's a minus.

This week I decided to take Monday off because the fall of the Remembrance Day stat on Tuesday (and I seriously didn't realise that Remembrance Day isn't yet a national stat. Really, Canada?) made for an easy long weekend for a part-timer like me. The weather hit on the weekend, though, and decided that I was staying home anyway because it was too cold for me to be able to clear the 10 cm of snow from my car.

I am not making this up.

I had to get out Wednesday, unfortunately, because some stupid person delayed getting her driver's licence renewed until just a couple of days before her birthday. So, rather than face -- at best -- a fine or -- at worst -- redoing my driver's test after all of these years, I sucked it up, cleared the car, went to the registry, got a really bad toque-head photo taken... and then went right back home because the headache from the cold had set in and I couldn't face doing anything else.

I did manage to make it to work yesterday afternoon. On my own, even. Made me feel like garbage, but I did it. Today? Early program, expected morning temperature of -28C. Yes, seriously. Wheat took pity on me and said that he'd pick me up (thank you, and did I mention thank you?). It didn't get quite as cold as all that (only -21C, I think, when we left), but I'd've still had to scrape the windshield and that would have done it for my hands for a while.

Just so you know, being allergic to the cold isn't the best life choice in Alberta. Not that it was a choice or anything, but still.

Aaanyway, there's how things stand. They're saying that it's supposed to start warming up tomorrow, so hopefully that will give me a chance to get into Dad's and give him his birthday present (happy birthday today, Dad). Which is... ummm... probably peanuts for his bird feeder. Yeah, the crap weather meant that I didn't get my last-minute shopping done, so he'll be getting something from our bookstore. He's ok with that, though. It's not the first time.



Later, then. Assuming that I survive until the next time I'm at a computer and don't get lost in a snowbank somewhere.

I'm trying, I'm trying

To find something to write about that isn't all whingy about snow, that is.

It's kind of hard, seeing as I'm all whingy about snow.

Yep.

It's pretty, I guess.

Pretty stupid to have so much of it on the ground at the end of March, that is.



I'm not succeeding in this not being whingy thing, am I? Ah well. Let's talk about something else, then.

Um...

Ok, how about big stupid corporations killing a really good thing? In this case, I'm thinking about Television Without Pity, which is outta here on April 4th. I'm not going to include a direct link to the site itself; it's findable (for the moment) if you're in the mood to find it.

I used to hang out quite a bit on TWoP, back a few years. The recaps were fantastically snarky, the forums were fun, and the atmosphere was great. They had some wonderful writers, too; a few of whom I still follow on twitter as they've moved on to other things (my personal favourites right now? Heather and Jessica over at Go Fug Yourself. I think they might've chosen a different name, however, if they'd known that as the site became more popular they'd start finding themselves known as the Fug Girls). I stopped visiting TWoP about six years ago, though.

So what happened?

Cue Big Stupid Corporation.

Bravo Media took over, and the fun gradually started disappearing. First the original creators left, then the new forum moderators brought in some clueless and arbitrary rules that took away the feel of the place, then my favourite recappers started going one by one. Some of them, I'm sure, were just moving on, but when more than a couple do that you have to think that the working situation has changed. Big Stupid Corporation didn't get what we enjoyed about TWoP, as far as I was concerned.

So I left, too.

Well, now the site's closing down, and from what that Vulture article I linked to says it sounds like NBCUniversal isn't even going to keep the archives up. It won't affect me because I haven't been there for so long anyway, but it really seems like a waste of good writing and good discussions.

Bravo, BSC.

----------

Before I go, I should explain the bunny. My mother bought that for me on a whim back in 1999. She died a couple of weeks later.

It's her birthday today.

Miss you, Mom.

So. Not. Happy.

Know why you're getting flowers again today? Because of the amount of snow that I had to clear off of my car this morning. And the amount of snow that I had to drive through to get to work. And yes, I'm still very cognisant of the fact that the east coast is getting far, far worse, but THIS WINTER WILL NEVER END.

Gah.

Anyway. Want to see the stupidest thing I've found on the internet today, just to take your mind off of my grumpiness (because I know how concerned you must be about that)? It's this.  And since that's a news link that will probably disappear in a while, I'll just say briefly that a hotel in New York that I refuse to name because it doesn't need the publicity is offering what they call a Social Media Concierge service for weddings. That's right, bridezillas, for a mere $3000 they will provide you with someone who will live tweet your wedding, manage your pinterest and facebook and whatever else, and even create your own very special hashtag.

Because hashtags is haaard for some folks, I guess.

I couldn't believe it when I read it, but the sad fact is that there will be idiots out there who will gladly shell out the $3000. They're the same ones who pay $10 000 for a dress they'll wear once. It boggles me that they even exist, but they do.

I sometimes watch those wedding shows you find on The not-so-much Learning Channel (remember when that channel had other programming besides idiot brides and freakish families? I do. Barely), but mostly out of sheer whatthehell. The amount of money these people will spend on the stupidest things. And then, of course, they have total fits when the stupidest things aren't absolutely perfect. Starting your married life in complete debt seems like a pretty wrong priority to me.

I've mentioned this before, but back in the stone age when I actually dated and had a fairly serious guy for a while, I teased my mother by telling her that if I ever married I'd just JP it in front of a couple of witnesses. She was horrified. She tried the tack of asking whether my family didn't deserve some sort of celebration or party, so I said that I'd JP it and then have a barbecue. My dad was so proud...

I really was teasing her, but as I've got older I can't help but wonder if that isn't the smarter way to do it anyway. No pressure, no things have to be perfect, no fits, and no debt. It just seems like a much more intelligent way to start a new life.





How in h-double-hockey-sticks did this become a wedding post? Ah well, weirder things have happened on this blog. Back to work now. I may decide to work from home tomorrow, so take a few of the extra words from these past couple of days and make a new post for yourselves, if you like.

Random iris of the day:

And why? Oh, c'mon. Three guesses and the first two don't count unless they have the word snow in them somewhere.

Yeah, more snow tonight. Nothing like what Atlantic Canada's supposed to get, but still. To quote the great M. Python, bloody weather.

----------

And now, digital. I have a digital question... or, rather, a question about digital. You audiophiles out there will agree, I'm sure, that digital compression more or less flattens music, right? I'm a bad one to ask since even bad recordings can be supplemented in my brain by my imagination (yeah, I can hallucinate good music. It's a talent), but I will agree that I love old vacuum-tube speakers and things like that. Not that I own them, really, but I do have an old radio of my grandmother's that sounds twice as rich as anything that you'll find now. Add that to the tinniness of modern digital recording and I can understand that someone who loves his or her old vinyl on a turntable just cringes at the thought of MP3s played on a smartphone.

But what about digital photography? Is today's pixellated, manipulated photography a loss from the days when you had to carefully frame your shots and then go through the worries of development before you could see what you got? I do mean worries, by the way, even if you weren't the one in the dark room. A friend of mine took a big trip to South America towards what I guess we'd have to call the end of the film age and came back with several rolls of film that the photo developer at the store she took them to didn't read properly. All of her slide film was developed as negatives instead. So much for those pictures. If she'd had a digital camera she'd have known exactly what photos she had and would have been able to print out whatever she wanted herself, but would the pictures (assuming that they'd been developed the right way, of course) have been of better quality with film? Would they have been richer like analogue recordings are?

Are we losing quality in our photography in return for quantity of photographs?

Do we really need so many duckface selfies in the world?





I don't have an answer for this, by the way. I mean, I love photography. I have no illusions that I'm any kind of photographer, but I have fun with my photographs. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with having fun with photographs. There's also no question that events are being captured now that never would have been seen by so many people back in the days of film and specialists. When almost everyone has a camera on them at all times in public (hey, old people like me. Remember how stupid we thought it sounded when we heard that the Japanese were putting cameras on their cell phones? Yeah. Ha ha ha), it stands to reason that we see and learn things that we never would have imagined back when news had to be shot by professionals.

But what about the artists out there? The real photographers. Have they lost something in not having to take their time? In being able to take hundreds of shots whenever they want to? In having the temptation of quick and easy photomanipulation?

Looked at another way, have modern painters lost something by not having to mix their own pigments?

I dunno. I tend to think that it's different, not worse. And not better, for that matter. Just different.



Aaand I really need to get back to work. Feel free to comment or drop me an e-mail if you have thoughts of your own. Personally, this is the most thinking I've done on this blog in weeks, and my fingers are getting tired.

Revisiting

I've been thinking that I need to get out the modelling clay again.

I went to post my doodle for this week's Illustration Friday prompt on the other blog (not really much of a work of art this time, since I was just playing), and one of the suggested links at the bottom of the post led me to one of my old modelling clay men submissions. Back when I was making an effort to post every week -- which I should probably get back to -- I didn't always feel like drawing. On those days I'd make little men out of modelling clay and put them in various situations that fitted the prompt. Hang on... here's some of them. Weird, but fun. I'm not sure why I stopped doing it. I even have fresh modelling clay, if I'm not mistaken.

I tend to be like that with hobbies. I'm a serial hobbyist. I'll go great guns at something for a while, then I'll drop it almost completely and move on to something else. Needlework moves to knitting moves to poetry moves to sketching, and so on and so on. That's not to say that I never come back to anything. Doodling's been with me for years, for example. It's just that sometimes I get more serious about it for a while, and then I back off a bit. Same thing goes for photography, although for a different reason (a different reason than the NO reason for the other stuff. Good one, Dee). I loved to take pictures as a kid, but as I've said before things slowed down a lot when I was expected to pay for my own film and processing. I still took photos; I just didn't really experiment with them at all. The advent of affordable digital, of course, changed all that. I take a stupid amount of photos now. Occasionally of very stupid things, even. It's great.

It's also great to come back to a hobby after you haven't done much with it for a while. It's fresh again, but at the same time you remember why you enjoyed it in the first place. I can always tell when a hobby's ready to be rebooted because it'll start nagging at the back of my mind. Anything can set it off. Putting on an old toque, for instance, and realising how many years ago I knitted it. That'll get me thinking about the other neat toque patterns that I have that haven't been tried yet, and that in turn gets me checking my yarn stocks "just out of curiosity", and once that happens you just know I'll be knitting another toque soon because I won't stop thinking about it.

In other words, yeah, I've been thinking about knitting a new toque or two for next winter.

Notice that I say next winter?

After the past couple of weeks of lows in the -20s and windchills in the -30s, yesterday was finally above 0C. It's supposed to be above 0C all week, actually. I'm living in quiet hope that spring might find us sometime before August.

In the meantime, though, I took the picture to the left yesterday. The melt has a long, long way to go.

This has been such a strange, strange year.

Anyway, I've distracted myself.

I suppose it's as good a time as any to wrap this up, then. In the world of rotating hobbies most things come back, is all I was really saying. Knitting will come back (probably soon), poetry will come back (because I don't seem to be able to stop it. My poetry ain't great, folks), playing the piano will come back (eventually), photography and doodling will never go away, and prepare for the return of the Little Modelling Clay Men because they're pretty much in my brain all the time anyway.

It's an odd brain.

See you in a day or two, all.

Women

I needed a flower today. Outside it still looks like January. It's warmer today, though (finally), so maybe I'll go out and take some pictures of melting things this afternoon.

----------

So, it's International Women's Day, and I... completely don't care. I think that it's a little bit silly, to be honest.

Yeah, I know that things are far from perfect for women (and for men, for that matter, but I suppose that we're talking women here). I know that there is a lot yet to be done about workplace equality, women's rights in general, and, in many places, even women's safety and rights as human beings.

Does a Day really help that, or does it just give those who are tired of hearing the (unfortunately often strident) voices calling for changes another reason to stop up their ears even more? I dunno. All I know is that I'm already tired of my twitter feed being filled with links to "5 Inspirational Female _______" and things like that. In an odd way it reminds me too much of being Canadian.

Should I explain that?

Canada. Perfectly nice place. Massive inferiority complex. Big, noisy neighbour to the south. We're constantly playing the game of See? Such-and-such famous person is ACTUALLY a CANADIAN!!! to make ourselves feel a bit better about not being the big, noisy neighbour to the south.

That's a bit like what International Women's Days and other commemorations are for me. See? Women can do ALLLLL of these things!!!

Of course we can. So do it. It's just like all these initiatives to get more women in the sciences. You want to be in the sciences, women? Then do it. You want to do something else? Then do that.

Ok, full disclosure. The women in science initiatives drive me a little nuts because in my field (biology, that'd be. Zoology, to be more specific) there were almost always more women than men in my university courses. All that hearing we need more women in science did for me was to inform me that the people pushing it didn't consider my science to be REAL science. After all, you're not a scientist if you're wearing hip waders instead of a lab coat, right?

I wore both, actually, when I was in school.

Well, not at the same time, of course.

Anyway, since I suppose I should make a slightly more tangible contribution to the day than just saying that it's not really necessary, let me end by saying that commercials aimed at women are the STUPIDEST THINGS EVER.

Well, maybe not ever. But they rank right up there. Cascade Kitchen Counsellor helping women with dishwashing angst (because only women do dishes, I guess)? Ode to an Armpit? Have a Happy Period (gaaaaaaaaaaah)? Women, if you want to be treated as equals maybe start with insisting on advertising that assumes women have brains.

It's not exactly up there with Votes for Women, but it would make this particular woman a lot less annoyed on a daily basis.

Pointless photos of the day:

Today in pointless photo land we have before and after pictures of the same sprig of Twining Honeysuckle.

Personally, I prefer before.

I prefer it even more considering that we're supposed to be heading back into the deep freeze (oh. yay.) and as my two fans know that keeps me indoors for a bit.

In other words, it's the disappearing act for the weekend again, but this time I have an excuse other than not particularly wanting to get to a computer.

I will eventually get a computer at home. At some point. Look, I know that I won't be able to stay unconnected forever, the way the world's going. I'm just not in that much of a hurry to invite the world in with me every. single. place. I. go. And even when that computer or smartphone or both (sigh) happens, don't expect me to suddenly be the social media queen. You people don't need to know what goes on in my life every moment, and I'd actually find it creepy if you wanted to.

Just saying. And mini-rant over. Not sure where it came from, really. Probably the newsletter.

Yeah, it's newsletter editing time again, and that always sets me off because it's a job I hate. I know you hear this every quarter, but waiting for people to get their stuff in, trying to make sense of that stuff, and then playing stupid Publisher games isn't exactly what I signed up for.

Ah well.

So what else? I've complained about the cold, I've complained about computers in modern society, and I've complained about work. I should end with a non-complaint, I suppose, since this post will be at the top for at least the weekend and possibly longer.

Um...

I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

Well, congrats to the gold medal winners du jour, of course. I got a chance to see the end of the curling before I left for work, but I'll have to wait until tonight's replay to see the skiing.

I should probably get back to work now.

See you when the weather makes it likely.

Pointless chickadee photo of the day:

Technically it's a work pic, but taken with my camera by Yours Birdingly so I figure I can stick it here.

I'm liking the new lens, by the way.

I don't think you'll get too much out of me today. I've been on the go for too long since they're supposedly doing another parking lot clearing at my apartment building (you know you've had a lot of snow when the management company that's notorious for only doing the parking lots once a season has already had them done three times) and that means being out by 8 am. It was snowing (sigh) hard enough when I left that I very nearly said eff it and let them work around me, but that would've been pointless since they're also doing plumbing work today and we might not have any water until 5 pm. Crud. My neck's out enough at the moment that I have more than a little bit of a headache, and it would have been a nice day to just be lying about. Instead, I found myself having fast food breakfast and listening to the most stereotypically seniorish seniors' conversation that you could ever imagine.

And watching it snow.

Whoopie.

It's stopped snowing now, but the highways are apparently buggered. I'm hoping that the city streets aren't, because I really don't want to be fighting the idiot brigade when I go home.

When I can go home.



Ah well. The chickadee turned out pretty nicely, at any rate. That makes me happy. Chickadees in general make me happy. Art also makes me happy, and there's a new doodle (such as it is... I was just playing around) on the other blog for anyone interested.

Back to work for me now.

Pointless photo of the day:

It's snow.

Whoopie.

And with that... yeah, I've been busy with work things, so that's all you're getting. and since it looks like I won't be making it into Dad's after all today (weather's a bit uncertain, and I need to be here on Monday so no option of just waiting for the highways to de-ice), that's all you're getting for the next few days.

See you when I see you.

Some things make me stupidly happy

Snow, as you know, doesn't. The fact that I live in an area where it's common to find deer just wandering around does, though.

So what else is making me stupidly happy today? A few things, actually. The fact that we're not stuck in the polar vortex does, for sure. I'm genuinely sorry for the millions of you who are, but we get enough crap weather around here that it's nice for a change to not be freezing my behind off in January. And don't worry. That'll no doubt change. It's still Alberta, after all.

And what else? Yep, there's really a what else. You're catching me on a non- (or at least not-so-) grumpy day, I suppose. Anyway, I also found out today that I have a photo on display in our gallery. I know, I know, I always say that my pictures are pointless, and for the most part they are. Even a pointless photographer gets a good one every now and then, though, and when I do I'll admit that I'm proud of them. Well, when our public/special events/gallery coordinator (yep, she really does all of that) was looking for things for a last minute photo exhibit, I gave her the link to the blog's photo albums and told her that if anything was suitable she was welcome to use it. I'd say wanna guess which one she picked, but considering how many hundreds of pointless photos I've blogged I guess that's not fair. Check it out here then, if you want to. And I have to admit that even though I'm usually pretty leery of being recognised or having things on display, it's still pretty neat.

One last bit of happy, because I'm not sure the blog can take much more without turning into a pumpkin. I did some "art" last night. Nothing too exciting and nothing you're going to see because I was just defacing the inside covers of my new watercolour Moleskine (um... for those new to the program, I'm olf enough that I have to doodle on the covers of a new sketchbook to start them out as less than perfect, so that in my brain they're allowed to be less than perfect. Otherwise I start obsessing over the imperfections and stop using the book because I'm worried that it won't be perfect. Weird, I know, but it seems to work), but there was tracing around shapes involved. Tracing in pen. That's big. Since I buggered up my wrist I've been having trouble with pen work because too much concentration on fine muscle control makes the stupid wrist shaky. It's annoying and frustrating, but maybe -- just maybe -- last night's doodle session means that things are gradually getting better. Finally.



That would definitely make me stupidly happy.

Pointless photo of the day:

Taken right outside the workplace just a little while ago, even.

By the way... WE HAVE ENOUGH SNOW NOW. And more on the way.

Sigh.

----------

I don't really have much on the brain at the moment and I just finished blogging for work, so I think that rather than come up with a blather I'll just leave you with one last Today's Tea (last night's was Alpine Punch, for those keeping track. And if you are... why?) for the year if that's ok. Well, come down to it, my house, my rules so if it's ok with me then that automatically means that it's ok with the blog. So... Today's Tea: Choconut Oolong. Good. But I slightly broke my rule this time and added a little sweetness to it. After I tasted it, though, so I guess technically I'm still good. For anyone who reads the product link, I'd like to say that this is tea, not breakfast. Anyone who has only tea for breakfast is just a bit stupid, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, that'll be it for me for this year. See you in a couple of days, when no doubt there will be more pointless photos.

Of snow.

Sigh.

The new lens is kind of fun, at least.

So I was sitting out on the patio...

Ok, maybe I wasn't.

There's a bit of snow, you see.

Seriously, though. That's a lot of snow. I know I've been complaining about it, but since I finally got around to taking a few pictures of it the other day I thought maybe now you'd believe me.

For anyone not familiar with Alberta in the winter, we're not exactly known for having lots of snow. Some snow, yeah, and it does get cold (I'm sure you've heard about that part. Everyone seems to), but we don't usually get piled on like this. It's been pretty much unbelievable. And it's not even January yet. Almost, but it's not. To have this much snow right now? Well, I have childhood pictures of a couple of years when we really got dumped on, but it hasn't happened for a long time.

I mean, look at this. What you might not notice right away is that the hedge is so weighted down that it toppled right into the pathway. Dad went out and knocked some of the snow off after I took this photo, but it wouldn't surprise me if we find out that it's permanently bent in the spring.

The snow's up to the deers' bellies when they leave the path and try to wade through towards the dogwood.

Um, big hint, by the way. If you're in this area and you have deer around, don't plant dogwood if you don't want them in your yard. It's one of their favourite winter browses.

I actually saw deer yesterday. Two whitetails, and then later about five or six mulies. It's not all that uncommon to see the mulies, but we hardly ever see the whitetails in the yard. They're too skittish to stay around for very long. I suppose that it might seem a little odd to some of you that we have deer herds just wandering around the neighbourhood, but Dad's place is fairly close to the outskirts of town and there are a couple of wooded lots in the area, so there are plenty of places for deer to hang out.

Um, anyway. You didn't come here to read about deer and snow, I suppose. I'm not sure why you did come here, though. Maybe you want to hear about...

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS?

Yeah, I did pretty well as usual. I got a gift card that I very much look forward to using, and you'll be hearing lots more about tea (lucky you. I'm sure my two fans are really looking forward to it. Toughies, though. I like tea), but the one that's going to affect the blog the most is the fact that I got a new lens.

Did you hear? I got a new lens.

It's my first prime lens for this camera, and it's been years since I've used a prime lens at all so I'm looking forward to it. It's a 50mm f/1.8... oh, hang on. I'll just link for the nerds out there. Gimme a sec.

Here it is.

Now, bear in mind that I'm a neophyte when it comes to all the specs, but what all that stuff means to me and my style of pointless photography is that even though it's a wide angle rather than a macro (or micro, as Nikon calls them) I should be able to get some decent close-ups while still using it for more general portraits and things like that. The reviews are good, it should work well in low light, the bokeh's supposed to be great, and the little bit of playing around the house I did yesterday makes me happy.

Let the search for even weirder pointless photography begin.



You're ready for this, right? It's gonna mean more spiders come spring...





Yay spiders.

Guess what?

It's snowing. And cold.

Thus, flowers.

And grumpiness.

We were flying my helicopter at lunch hour, though, so I suppose that helps a bit. What also helps (and also is not very good at all, when you think about it) is that this place is covered in Christmas food at the moment. Some is dropped off by volunteers and customers, some of it comes from Christmas parties, and some comes from the staff. And, as is usual and predictable, I've had altogether too much of it. And no doubt will continue to have altogether too much of it.

Tis the season, and all that.

Anyway, this will have to be short (again), but blame the helicopter this time. I certainly do.

I continue to suck at the helicopter, by the way, but at least it's fun sucking.





Wait... that didn't sound right at all...

Pointless non-snow photo of the day:

Look! It's an apple. From when there were apples.

And not snow.

I'm tired of snow, in case you wondered.




And I also have nothing to blather today, which is sad considering how often I don't blog these days.


Ah well. At least there's an apple.

Forget about frightful

The weather outside is effing nuts. We've got more snow than we had by January last winter, and it's COLD. Cold enough that my car is still buried from Monday's blizzard and will probably stay buried for a while yet.

Yep, it's been cabs to work these past couple of days, because I've had evening programs and I can't exactly ask one of my coworkers to come pick me up.

Let me tell you, I don't know how people manage with cabs. Most of the drivers are nice, but the waiting. And the not having control of when you leave or arrive anywhere. And the cost, of course, but that should go without saying.

So, since I need to get back to work for a while before I go set up for tonight's performance of me pretending that I know anything about stars, I think we'll just have a mourning rose (mourning this weather, of course) for your pointless pleasure today and then I'll schedule a couple more weird photos so you don't miss me too much while I'm housebound.

Again.

This is really getting ridiculous, you know.

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Anyone who's on twitter at the moment has a feed full of RIP Nelson Mandela, but I'll add my two cents. I don't think younger adults out there can truly understand what an important figure he was. The world is a different place now because of people like him.

Hmmm. Helicopters, or the weather?

So, I was going to talk about this. But then this horrible crash happened in Glasgow, and somehow it doesn't seem appropriate to talk about fun with remote-controlled helicopters. I'll let you know in a while how many of my plants I've shredded, though.

I guess, then, you get to hear me gripe (briefly. I'm really going to try to make this brief) about what we're in store for.

The pictures you're seeing to the right are from our last big storm at the beginning of November (yeah, I only got them off the camera a few minutes ago. Didn't really want to look at them). Sooo pretty, right? Uh huh. Whatever. If you click on the photo and look closer, you'll see that it was still snowing when I took it. And it kept snowing. And snowing. Listen, Alberta's generally a fairly dry place. We get snow, obviously, but compared to the east we don't get a whole lot. Not so much this year. It's only November, and we've had more snow than we had by January last year. Last year, by the way, wasn't an especially dry one.

Later that same night...

Uh huh. Whatever.

There's been more snow since then, of course, and now we're headed for another major storm. Fun one this time, however. They're predicting 60 km/h winds on Monday, and that combined with heavy snow means that I sure as heck won't be going anywhere for a while.

Naturally, since this is Alberta, the snow is followed by extreme cold. I'd give you a link to our forecast, but it's just too depressing to even bother looking at. So let's look at something else instead. Something I was looking at this morning. Something that apparently had the shakes...

Ok, what really happened was that this was just after the sun came up, and I was shooting through my bedroom window here at Dad's on a veeery slow shutter speed. I'm surprised it looks like a deer at all.

It's pretty normal to see deer browsing the backyard here. What's not normal in November is to see that the snow is already past knee height for them.

To quote Monty Python, bloody weather.

Anyway, that'll do it for me for a few days. Again. I'm going to schedule a couple of pointless photos that I took the night of the last storm when I was bored, mostly just because I don't know what I'll do with them otherwise. See you once I've dug out, folks.

Sigh

So I post something stupid about eggs, which apparently I'd already pretty much posted about a year ago. And then I disappear for a week. And then I make a half-assed post, and now I'm about to disappear for a couple of days again.

Which means, of course, that I can't think of anything to blather about right now.

Typical for me.

Um, cosmos, then?

That's cosmos in today's pointless photo, for those of my two fans who aren't gardeners. Cosmos is one of my favourite flowers, and I plant it pretty much every year. I like the divided leaves, I like the apparent (only apparent, mind) simplicity of the flowers, and I like that they grow tall enough to block out some of my terribly exciting view of a hotel's loading dock.

Actually, I'm a big fan in general of what some people might consider old-fashioned flowers. Cottage garden stuff. I come by it honestly on both sides of the family, really: my English paternal grandmother's front garden, my maternal grandmother's yearly flats of French marigolds; I like the feel of that kind of thing. Johnny Jump-ups and other violets (heck, let's add in the violas and pansies as well, then), nasturtiums for both their colours and their pepperiness in a salad...

There's over 60 cm of snow on the ground out there right now, by the way. I want some flowers.

Time was (and I really should get back into the habit) that when winter gave me the flower blues I'd pick up a cheap bouquet at the grocery store when I did my shopping. Carnations, usually, but if something else was on cheap I'd vary it. Sometimes, if I was in the doodling mood, I'd do a vase drawing a day until the whole thing was undeniably fit for the garbage. It was good practice, documenting the changes as the flowers aged. Yeah, I really should start doing that again. If there was a holiday sale I'd occasionally buy a live plant rather than a bouquet. Plants that are sold cheap and already flowering don't usually live worth a hoot, but it would extend the drawing period.

Let's just say that I have a lot of doodles of lilies.

Anyway, doodles, flowers, and frigging snow aside, I need to get back to work. See you in a couple of days.

That's the plan, anyway.

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Oh, before I go...

Today's tea: Brazillionaire, which was a sample. I'm... I dunno what I feel about this one. It's good, but it's a little odd somehow. I think maybe it's that I'd like the brazil nuts by themselves. I really like brazil nuts.

I wonder if anyone has Christmas brazil nuts out yet...