Life through a lens

Stuck

2012-02-10T22:37:00.001-07:00

Help! I am trapped by the warm cuteness!!

:-D

12

2012-02-09T17:37:00.001-07:00

Our pleco is now officially 12 inches long.

Watching over me.

2012-02-03T13:59:00.001-07:00

Have come down with a nasty cold. Trying to sleep on the couch. I open my eyes, and this is what I see.

Stoic

2012-01-31T14:59:00.001-07:00

On Jasper Ave. at 112 St.

Watching

2012-01-31T13:36:00.001-07:00

Statue on Jasper Ave. near 112 St.

Strays - still with us

2012-01-16T14:44:00.002-07:00

Our co-op has been good enough to allow us to hang on to the stray and her kitten through Christmas. The little one is now weaned and old enough to leave his mother, which should make it easier to find homes for them.

Here they are!

Mama looks less then pleased to have the flash in her face! Freya is such a sweet cat and a good mother.

Finnegan is the name we've given to the kitten, and WOW is he growing fast! He's all ganglely legs and spine right now. He is so adorable, too! When in an active mood, he thunders through the house like a storm, tackling his mother (who has the patience of a saint!), ankles, dust motes and things only he can see. When in a calm mood, he is very affectionate and loves nothing more then a nice warm human for a bed.

He's also stack-able.

Neither of them are fixed, and we can't afford to do that for cats we can't keep, so we really need to find a home for at least one of them before Finn reaches maturity. If anyone in Edmonton is interested in one or both of them, leave a note in the comments.

Filming

2012-01-13T10:37:00.001-07:00

This is what our street looks like right now. All those vehicles and what looks to be a generator belong to the crew filming a movie in an historical building at the end of the street. Some sort of romantic comedy.

They have also rented one of the multipurpose rooms in our Co-op to film in.

They are supposed to be all done by the end of the day.

Getting along

2012-01-11T13:27:00.001-07:00

Yes, we still have the stray and her kitten living with us. We've gotten the okay to hang on to them a bit longer, rather then send them to the pound when we couldn't find anyone to take them.

This is my older daughter's cat with a kitten that's growing so fast right now, you can almost see it!

Tiger is getting on in years for a tabby, and having two new and active cats in the house is a bit much for her. My suck of a husband ;-) created a haven for her. By opening a desk drawer and putting a couple of seat cushions on it (including the stadium seat cushion I made to experiment with a new yarn), he made a nice little bed for her to hang out that was above the fray. She often curls up there to sleep while we're on the computer.

Finnegan, the kitten, took a long time to warm up to Tiger. Tiger's other favourite place to nap is on the top level of the cat tower, so we just tossed him on there with her a few times. Tiger, being the sort of cat she is, promptly held him down with one paw and started grooming him. He didn't appreciate that at first and ran off.

Over time, however, things have changed. Though Finn and his mother are still a lot more energetic than she has patience for, they both turn to her for cuddles.

Finn is old enough to be weaned, but he does still nurse when his mother will let him. A short while ago, he was such an adorable bundle of napping fluff, I picked him up to snuggle while sitting at the computer. He noticed Tiger on the drawer beside me, however, promptly hopped over and started looking for boob. Yes, he tries to nurse on her now, too. When he found no sign of a working teat, he settled for cuddles and Tiger, as she is wont to do, started grooming him.

As I write this, they are looking even cuter, with Tiger curled up around Finnegan, her chin resting on him, their legs entangled. I'd take another picture, but the camera disturbs them.

The cuteness is overwhelming.

Tiki

2012-01-07T20:34:00.001-07:00

My older daughter and I went to The Carrot on 118 Ave tonight. We descovered several blocks were closed off for a festival. After our drinks, we checked out the ice and snow sculptures, including this Tiki.
Not sure what it has to do with the Byzantine theme of the festival.

Getting ready

2011-12-31T17:21:00.001-07:00

Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. This brewhouse's lights change colour. There are a series of giant, plastic walled "icebergs" for various events prepping for New Year festivities.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T15:04:00.001-07:00

Wishing you all a Joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year. May this time be one of peace and happiness, and may 2012 be a year of good health and prosperity.

Pretty

2011-12-20T15:57:00.001-07:00

I'm not a coffee drinker, but after being up almost all night making tourtiere, I need the caffeine!

The things you see...

2011-12-04T17:57:00.001-07:00

My older daughter and I headed to the bookstore this evening to do a bit of shopping. We had split up to look at different things when she suddenly came up to me, grabbed my sleeve and dragged me across the store. There sat a wagon with a bin holding a tortoise, of all things. She asked somebody about it later. It turns out that there is a regular customer who comes in every Sunday with his tortoise and does his shopping while leaving it in an aisle near the door.
To the guy who takes his tortoise out for walks, thanks for making my day!

Loom

2011-11-28T17:29:00.001-07:00

I, for one, welcome our giant glass overlords.

Napping

2011-11-24T23:01:00.001-07:00

Yes, I've got more cat pictures. How can I resist?

First, the kitten decided to go for a nap on my daughter. He slowly slide down her neck from this position. Finally, Philippe came along and rescued her.

Which did not interrupt his nap in the slightest.

Whoever finally adopts this kitten is going to have a very well socialized cat.

Cold mornings...

2011-11-20T12:48:00.002-07:00

(Philippe)

There was a four or five minute window where the light was hitting things just right, before the sun burned everything away...

Another follow up

2011-11-14T08:54:00.001-07:00

Since I've already done one follow up post, I may as well do another.

I wrote some time ago about the stray cats visiting our balcony that we were trying to adopt out. I did have someone interested in taking the pregnant mama. Unfortunately, before that could be arranged, she had her kittens. We had no idea where, so we delayed until we could find out and keep them together. The papa, whom we call Horatio, was still visiting fairly regularly, but mama's visits were much more sporadic. When I did see her, I checked and she did seem to be nursing.

With the temperatures dropping, we made a few changes on our balcony. With a new dining table coming, we took the old table we'd been using and put it on the balcony. It was a patio table, anyhow. We shoved it against one wall with the cat tower and pet carrier under it, along with plant pots, dirt, and so on, all put away for the winter. We'd put an old blanket inside pet carrier to make a warmer shelter, but it hadn't been enough for Freya (which is what my younger daughter has named her). The table has one of those vinyl table clothes on it, which is large enough to hang down and hide most of what is now under it.

I guess that made the difference.

Seeing Freya on the balcony one day, I headed outside to give her some attention. The food and water was all topped up, so I sat down on the balcony swing to spend some time with her. She's affectionate but nervous, and constantly dashing around, distracted by noises, in between cuddling. Then she disappeared.

She hadn't left the balcony, as I was facing the doorway to the stairs and knew she wasn't there. She wasn't at the food or water bowls. She wasn't under the swing. I finally got up to figure out where she'd disappeared to when she dashed out from under the table.

Could it be?

Looking under the table and into the carrier, way in the back, I saw movement. A single kitten. It's eyes were open, but from the looks of it, they hadn't been open for long. I was totally thrilled.

After spending some time with the kitten and mama, who became incredibly calm when in the carrier with her baby, I happily sent off an email to the person who'd said she'd be able to take the mama and kittens and adopt them out through a vet's office.

I never heard back.

So now we're in a pickle.

We'd heard from someone else interested in taking the cats to their farm, but on discovering Horatio was male, they changed their mind. Now we didn't even have someone taking Freya and her baby.

As long as the weather held, they would be fine.

The weather didn't hold.

Finally, it got to the point we just couldn't let them stay out there. The kitten was too small to survive the dropping temperatures. Things have warmed up since then, but I really doubt it would have survived if we hadn't taken steps.

We now have them inside.

We're not allowed to have more than 2 pets, but we've cat-sat before without issue, so for a temporary situation, we can do this, but we can NOT keep them.

Our cats aren't too happy with the situation, either.

The kitten, however, has become well socialized.

Just look at those eyes!

My daughter named her (him?) Finnegan.

That, by the way, is my nose. I lay down on the couch for a nap and Finn joined me. After thoroughly licking my forehead, s/he grabbed my nose with both paws and started licking it. Then s/he fell over backwards, got jammed on her back between my hand and my face, and stayed there.

Finn napped with me like that for almost two hours.

The kitten has gone from barely able to crawl out of the cat cave alone, and needing help to get back in, to running around the house and tackling ankles.

Our cats are very unhappy with this situation.

Needless to say, we are still urgently looking for a home for these two. Taking them to the local humane society is not an option. For all that they're supposed to be a no-kill facility, they actually euthanize more animals than the pound. My friend at the pound says we can take them there if we have to, but advices against it. There are just too many cats at both locations.

Here is Freya and Finn. A fantastic pair of cats. Freya is still a bundle of nerves. As affectionate as she is, she clearly had to fight off other cats to survive and is still a bundle of nerves. Finn is a calming influence on her.

Anyone up for taking in a lovely stray and her baby?

(Since taking these two inside, we haven't been seeing Horatio on our balcony, so we don't know what's happened to him. )

Follow up.

2011-11-14T08:18:00.001-07:00

No picture again with this post, but I thought I ought to follow up with what was happening in my last post.

After spending almost 8 hours at the dealership garage, I finally brought my van home, and it only cost me a little over $30 for the headlight bulb change, which wasn't covered in our insurance package and hadn't been done the day before for some reason. Though the previous bulb had not been burned out and the headlight had been working sporadically, if the headlight goes out again, they'll look elsewhere. So far, I still have two headlights. It may well have been that something was loose and that, in changing the bulb, they inadvertently fixed it.

The hazard lights thing hasn't changed. They had installed a new multi-function switch to fix the problem with the signal lights doing weird things (like switching back and forth, or not working at all). So now when the sliding doors are opened, the hazard lights no longer turn on. Although I explained that and it was written down very clearly, when I got the van back near the end of the day, one of the things I was told was that the hazard lights are working just fine. Well, yes, they were. It wasn't until later that I opened the sliding doors again and saw no lights that I realized that they'd simply tested the hazards. At this point, I don't care. The lights turning on when the sliding doors open is not a big deal. The important thing is that the other light problems were fixed.

The van got moved over to the mechanical department so they could figure out what the grinding noise was. A mechanic drove it around to hear the noise I was talking about. After some time, the woman who had been taking care of me all this time went back to get some news for me (her name is Steph, and for all that she was new and didn't know how to do some things, she did take really good care of me and sat down with me several times throughout the day to explain what was going on). When she came back, she was all but laughing out loud.

It seems that, during the complimentary inspection, they had used twist ties on something. Those twist ties had not been removed or trimmed. They were on both sides, but on the right, when I turned the wheel, the tail end of the twist tie made contact with the tire. The mechanic had showed it to her, and she had been surprised that I could hear something like that at all, but he told her there was no missing it - it was really quite loud.

Now that was a relief! No expensive fix there.

That left the brake warning light.

According to the readout, we do need new brakes. I got the printout and estimate, and Steph went over it with me. They are recommending total replacement of the brakes and pads. We were also due to get all the various fluids changed, including brake and transmission fluids. This is something we were already planning to have done before winter, however if we did everything on their list as once, we'd be paying almost $1600. Ouch! Meanwhile, the break fluid was a little low and that was topped up for me (I'd actually checked that myself recently, but I couldn't see very well. It looked to be about on the line at the time). Technically, they shouldn't have done that, but they did and I didn't get charged for it, so I appreciated that.

Now, brakes are not something we want to mess around with, but at the same time, we've been horribly mislead and cheated by garages in the past, and have had no trust built up with this garage yet. In fact, as I sat there with my crochet, a number of people passed through the waiting area and there were a few times I heard someone sit down with the customers and convincing them to get work done that hadn't been expected. Even if it was just a change in filters, it had my scam radar going. Where they scamming? No, I don't think so. Where they convincing people to get repairs done that probably weren't as urgent as they made it seem? Very likely.

Anyhow, I finally got the van back and headed home. That is when I discovered...

They had inadvertently fixed my brake warning light.

It seems it was letting me know I was low on fluid. If the fluid levels were so close to the line that I couldn't tell if it was actually low or not, that might explain why the light kept turning on and off. A dip in the road might have been enough to change the height of the float, or whatever it is that's used to keep tabs on that.

The story doesn't quite end there, though.

I got a phone call from Steph the next morning. When she had processed my payment the first time I went in, she had been unsure of what the actual amount I was supposed to pay was. Since they were closed and no one was there who could explain it to her, she charged me the full amount she was sure of, left the file open, and promised to call me back after clearing it up. She did that and found that I was now owed $50. Since I had other errands to run, I was able to head back that afternoon. By the time I got there, she told me that there was more owed and, with tax, I ended up getting a refund of just under $80.

Final verdict?

Well, Steph had gone a long way to repairing any damage done as far as my anger on discovering all those problems after I'd left. I do hope they are paying her well, because she's earned it.

They did fix the problems I'd brought it in for, eventually, even if some of it was inadvertent.

Would I go back?

Probably not. We've had a couple of private garages recommended to us and when it comes time to get the big work done, we'll likely go to one of them rather than back to the dealership. Unless we need more work done that's covered by our insurance package, I just don't see us going back there.

Sorry, Steph. You weren't quite enough to win me over completely.

More to the story

2011-11-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

No picture with this post, and this is going to have to be a quick one. I am tethered to my phone for wireless, and that drains the battery like crazy.

I headed to the garage to be there when they opened. Told them what happened and they took me in right away. Got to talk to the same woman who helped me last night. I hope they are paying her well!!!

It's now past one and I've been here for 4 hours-ish. The word so far.

The brake light thing is apparently because we actually need new brakes... at an estimated cost of $1600 or so. After being burned by garages before, I find myself cynical and utterly not surprised.

The headlight thing... the bulb was changed, which apparently should have been done last night. It's working now,I am told. Except bulb wasn't burned out in the first place, so I will be checking on that later.

The grinding noise is being checked right now. They took the tires off for the inspection and I guess that's what they are doing again to find out what happened. Considering it started after they did their work, the cynical side of me is expecting them to tell me about some new, expensive fix that will be needed, but the hopeful part in me is thinking they will find something had been left loose and they are sheepishly fixing it as I write. The cynical part of me is winning right now.

As for the hazard lights, I didn't get a definite answer but it looks like it's connected to the multi-function switch they changed up last night.

We shall see what the final verdict is...when? Dunno.

Steaming mad. The Saga. (updated)

2011-11-08T06:54:00.004-07:00

See this picture? This is the front of our van.

Note that there's only one headlight.

This is *after* I took it to the garage at the dealership we bought our van at 2 years ago.

So why is it still out?

Good question.

We had some weird things showing up with our electrical system involving the lights that goes back a while. It started shortly after the left headlight burnt out. We replaced both headlights and it was fine until the right headlight went out. Strange that a new bulb would burn out so quickly, but we replaced it again.

It wasn't the bulb. To make a long story (involving changing the bulb 3 times) shorter, the bulb worked fine, but we still didn't have a headlight.

Annoying, but not too big a deal.

Then other things started happening.

The left turn signal started blinking at double time. Then it would blink normally again.

Then the dashboard brake light would turn on with a ding. Alarming, since it's supposed to mean that there's a problem with the brakes. Then it would go out again. Then start turning on and off (dinging only rarely) continually.

When I took it in for an oil change and they did a quick check, all the lights were working normally, but I asked the mechanic about it. My main concern was the brake light. In describing what was happening, he told me it sounded like a bug in the electrical system and that a garage would have to track it down - something that might take a while. With how much garages charge by the hour, I was not looking forward to getting it checked.

Things worked normally for a while, but then the headlight died and wouldn't turn on again, the left turn signal stayed at double time, while the brake light in the dash kept turning itself off and on.

Then we discovered the rear driver's side light was out. The whole unit, including tail light, signal/hazard light and reverse light. Then they all started working again, except the signal/hazard light. We noticed that when opening the sliding doors one time. The hazard lights turn on when the sliding doors are opened, but the amber light in rear driver's side wasn't working. How long this had been going on, I have no idea - I'm usually driving, so I don't get a chance to see the rear lights.

Things got really weird with the signal lights not long ago. I went to signal right one time and it started blinking normally, then double time,then back again. My first thought was that the right turn signal was starting to do the same thing as the left, but when it happened again and I was actually able to look at the dash I discovered it was worse. The light would start signalling right, then switch to left, then back to right again! Later on, I'd start signalling right but the left signal would start blinking. Then they would simply stop turning on at all. I'd turn them off, then on again at the lever and they would work again, but this was not a good sign!

Then it went back the way it was - left signal on double time (not visible in the back, as far as I knew) with the right signal worked normally.

I finally got around to calling our dealership about several things a little while ago. One of the three things I asked about was whether or not our Ultimate Wrap coverage, the highest level of coverage available that we've been paying on for the last 2 years, would cover such a problem. They tried addressing the first two concerns, but never the coverage question. Of course, they did try to get us to trade in the van for a newer one and we were actually going to come in and take a look at that possibility, but things went downhill rather quickly - I won't go into detail here - and we ended up not coming in and being quite unhappy about it. In an email to the person we were supposed to meet, I explained what happened, why were weren't happy, and asked (for the third time) about the coverage.

He never responded.

I finally called the insurance company directly. We talked for quite a while and it was very informative. They couldn't tell me specifically what would be covered - that required a diagnostic - but I was satisfied that the insurance company was at least on the ball. All the agents are mechanics, which doesn't hurt. Anyhow, the agent told me they deal with this dealership on pretty much a daily basis, so he suggested I avoid the front end completely and deal directly with the service department and go there (rather than hunting for a garage that would honour our insurance package). I was looking through the dealership website trying to find a local number for the service department (rather than the toll free number) when someone popped up on the live chat and offered to help. Before long, I had an appointment for Monday morning.

So far so good.

The dealership has moved since we bought the van and I was able to get in to their new location (finding them is part of the problem we had when we tried but failed to visit previously) and entrance. It then drove around in confusion, trying to figure out where I could park near the service area and go in to ask about my appointment, which was was half an hour early for. I ended up pulling over next to some people talking and asking. It turns out there is no such thing. I had to go to one of the service entrance doors and drive in. Not too happy with driving into the garage when I had no idea if I was in the right place.

Once in, a woman came over with a clip board. She asked me a bunch of questions and I explained what was going on. She checked the lights, took notes, then I went over to her little island workspace and we talked more while she inputted it all in the computer. There was a bit of confusion as she was new and used to GM vehicles, but that got cleared up. It was eventually worked out that I would get a shuttle ride home while they did the diagnostic. If the problem was found and fell under our coverage, we'd pay the deductible and whatever else wasn't covered (bulbs, switches, some parts, etc. are exempt). If it wasn't covered, we'd be stuck paying for the diagnostic. At $140 an hour, with it possibly needing 2 hours to do.

What choice did I have? Without the diagnostic, we'd never know what was wrong or whether or not the work was covered. Meanwhile, it turns out our airbag was recalled, so that would be fixed regardless.

Home I went, and it was a waiting game for the phone call. Of course they called while I was at my daughter's guitar lesson, but Philippe was there to take the call. He sent me a text telling me the repair was covered, so we'd only have to pay $50 of the deductible, plus $60 for some bulbs. They'd recommended other work, but he gave them the okay only for the stuff we'd brought it in for. We figured we'd end up paying something like $150 by the time they finished tacking who-knows-what on. Cynical? Yes.

Then it was again a waiting game to find out when it would be finished and I'd get a shuttle ride over to get the van. It was starting to get late enough that we weren't sure we'd get the van back the same day at all - an issue since I had to drive my daughter in for her 5am shift this morning.

We got the call and I got the shuttle ride, arriving just as they were shutting up shop for the evening. The woman who had helped me before stayed late to process my file.

Did I mention she was new?

There were a few things she didn't know how to do and she had to phone someone, but she walked me through the charges as best she could figure out. The diagnostic and repairs were paid by the insurance company, while I had charges for bulbs, etc. The $60 in bulbs, plus the deductible, turned out to be about $155 with everything, plus tax.

There's a reason we're cynical.

So I paid the bill, got my key and headed out. I eventually found the van and could immediately see the plastic cover was still on the seat. I went to the drivers door but it was parked next to a truck. I ended up going through the passenger side, removing the plastic seat cover and cardboard from the floor in the process.

The first thing I noticed as I backed the van out was a strange grinding noise. WTF??? It seemed to go away as I drove out the lot (left turn signal working fine!). As I got clear of the lot's lights, I found myself thinking that the fixed headlight must be seriously misaligned, because I can't see very well.

*ding*

WTF?!?!

Yup. The brake light in the dash turned on again, then immediately turned off again.

No. Way. This can't be right.

Sure enough, as I drove along, the light kept turning on and off, though it didn't ding anymore.

Then I noticed the grinding noise again. It only happened when I turned right, then straighted the wheels, but not when I turned left. It sounds like something is dragging or rubbing somewhere.

Along the way I stop at a grocery store. As I pull into a parking spot, I come up behind another car and immediately notice...

There's only one headlight reflecting back at me.

Seriously?

So it looks like they changed the bulb (which wasn't burnt out in the first place) and that was it. The light still doesn't work.

Needless to say, I was seriously pissed off.

When I got home, I took the time to check the lights. Front headlight is still out. Rear lights seem to be working except...

On opening the sliding door to see if the hazard light was working, no hazard lights turned on at all.

Nothing.

I checked the hazard lights by pushing the button in the dash and all 4 lights are working fine. They're just not turning on when the sliding door is opened.

So I had taken in the van to get the signal light, dashboard brake light and front headlight fixed.

I left with a fixed signal light, still no headlight, still a problem with the dashboard brake light, a grinding noise and the hazard lights not turning on at all when the sliding doors are opened.

The van is actually in worse shape now then when we took it in.

I drove my daughter in for her shift this morning. We were both rather disturbed by that grinding noise. When we got to her work, I had her look while I tested the rear lights (brake, reverse, signals) and they are working fine. Only the left rear signal light, which is also the left rear hazard light, had not been working before. Aside from that one bulb, the hazard lights had been working when the sliding doors were opened, but now there's nothing.

Going back to sleep after dropping her off was not going to happen, so I wrote this instead.

I am now waiting for things to open. I'm going to call the insurance company first and let them know they're being charged for work that wasn't done, and that the van is in worse shape now than before.

The woman who'd helped me at the dealership is supposed to call me today. I'll be calling them as soon as they open.

At this point, I am wanting to take the van in and basically stay there until I get it back. I've got work I can bring me that will easily occupy me for several hours.

I'm sure as heck not going to pay again for work that I already paid for but didn't get done.

I am also spreading the word.

Feel free to do your part and share this post. Let everyone know how this dealership treats its customers.

Update: So I've been looking through the paperwork while waiting for the place to open. I'll be calling the insurance company when I'm done this. Looking through it, there is nothing written down about changing the front headlight bulb. In fact, while the front headlight is mentioned under section A, then refers to section B for repairs, section B only talks about the signal lights. Nothing about the headlight. It looks like the headlight wasn't touched at all. There is no mention of the dashboard brakelight (even tough it was written up in the sheet I signed at the garage) at all. They did replace the upper mount brake light bulb - I vaguely remember that it was noticed as being out when I got my last oil change, but it's not something we see, so I will just assume it was out and needed changing. There's nothing about them even looking at the problem of the dashboard light problem. They replaced a multi-function switch and the left signal bulb, which apparently was the fix for all the signal light problems.

So.

Why do the hazard lights no longer turn on when the sliding doors are opened?

Why does my van now make a grinding noise when making a righ turn?

Why was the brake light in the dash never looked at?

Why was my front headlight never fixed?

Time to start making phone calls.

Morning Traffc

2011-11-01T08:24:00.003-06:00

This is a view I see every morning on my way to work; figured it was about time I tried capturing it :)

No spam zone

2011-10-25T22:26:00.000-06:00

Folks, we really appreciate it when messages are left in the comments. Feedback is great and we welcome and appreciate it.

Unfortunately, I've seen an increase in pseudo spam, where people leave messages in the comments that have nothing to do with the post, but are brazen hooks to get people to look at their websites. To the folks doing this, I don't care how "complimentary" you think you are being. If you're waxing poetic about how meaningful my post is, and all I did was post a photo of a stick of deodorant on a sign, it's pretty obvious you haven't actually read the post and are just phishing. I consider these spam and delete them. Please stop it. I do not want to have to start moderating comments.

update: And I immediately get a spam comment. *sigh*

Switching the comments to moderation. Sorry, folks.

Uhm...

2011-10-22T20:59:00.001-06:00

Why is there a stick of deoderant here?

Morning fog

2011-10-04T08:52:00.001-06:00

One of the nice things about morning walks is that I get the opportunity to see things like this. The fog ended up burning off within 20 or so minutes, but I got a few worthwhile shots while it was there :D

Writers' Corner

2011-09-25T13:54:00.001-06:00

Susan Juby at the EPL Writers' Corner.

update: I sent this photo from my mobile phone with little explanation. I was more interested in the talk than my phone. ;-)

Our local library branch has started up something called Writer's Corner, with a series of guest authors coming to speak. When my friend asked me if I was interested in going with her, I really didn't know what to expect. I'm glad we went. Susan Juby was a great speaker and had a lot of interesting information to share. I really enjoyed it.

Now I'm curious about her books, and the other Writer's Corner sessions! :-)

My food is looking at me.

2011-09-23T13:05:00.000-06:00

Today the girls and I headed to Kyoto for lunch. Handily, it's close to my husband's office, so he was able to join us. This has become one of our new favorite restaurants. Well, for the food, anyhow. Unfortunately, their service is touch and go. Today, when the girls and I arrived in advance of my husband at about 11 (we go out of our way to avoid the lunch crowd), we told the hostess there'd be 4 of us, not three. As we were being seated, we were asked if we could possibly not take too long because they had a lot of reserved tables for noon, and it would be really appreciated if we would be able to finish before then. Uhm. Yeah. An hour is more than enough time to eat there, but still... it was awkward. Then we sat down to our menus and realized that one had not been left for my husband. It ended up not mattering, as he ordered his usual (Gyu Don), and it took long enough for him to join us that he could use one of ours, but still...

Yeah.

Anyhow.

My younger daughter and I love their Bento Box D, which has chicken, beef, green salad and their awesome tempura vegetables and seafood. Their tempura is excellent. I seriously considered their tempura vegetable lunch as an appetizer, but decided against it. We wanted to be out by noon, after all.... My older daughter, on the other hand, has discovered their chirashi and LOVES it.

She is much braver than I am, when it comes to food!

You see that battered, spiky thing in the back, with the lettuce leaf behind it? It's a tempura battered upper body of a prawn. See that dark spot under the piece of crab leg?

That's an eye.

Yes, her lunch was looking at me as I took this photo.

And then my daughter ate it.

Cold Night

2011-09-14T00:03:00.002-06:00

The nice things about cold night is the fact that the sky is so clear. :)

These two shots are essentially left and right views of the same river bend.

Wind up toy

2011-09-09T17:39:00.001-06:00

This is the cutest thing ever!!!

Sonic Boom

2011-09-04T14:32:00.000-06:00

In between sets at the Sonic Boom music festival.

Strays

2011-09-03T20:34:00.000-06:00

We've had a couple of stray cats showing up on our balcony in the last while. Today was the first time both of them showed up at the same time.

My younger daughter has named this one Freya. When we first saw her, she still had an old red collar around her neck. The first time we saw her without it, you could see a patch of skin where the fur had been rubbed all, and a smaller area where the skin was rubbed raw.

Clearly, this had been a house pet. She loves cuddles. Every time she comes to visit, she's rubbing all around our legs and rolling on the floor of our balcony. When we sit on the patio swing, she likes to sit beside us for pets. This time, she was comfortable enough to climb into my daughter's lap and even started to doze. She doesn't like to be picked up, but if you pick her up and put her down beside you, she immediately starts to purr and snuggle.

While I was taking pictures of Freya beside me on the swing, we heard some meowing and off Freya went to check it out. Here, the other stray - my daughter has named her Horatio - is squeezing under the door to the fire escape. They seem to know each other, and be comfortable with each other.

As you can see, Horatio is in rougher shape.

Though more cautious than Freya, Horatio also seems to have been a house pet and is very friendly. She's constantly on the move, so it was hard to get a good picture in the fading light, even after giving her some food. She will lie on the seat of the patio swing as well, accepts pets, but is not quite as cuddly. She's more nervous, and I think she's seen some mistreatment. That doesn't seem to stop her from seeking out human company!

My daughter is still out on the balcony with both of them, in her glory.

Sadly, we already have 2 cats and that's the limit for pets in our townhouse. Not that our cats like seeing these two around! They'll sit in the window and hiss at them.

With winter coming, they are going to need some shelter. Time to ask a friend at the pound for advice.

UPDATE Sept. 22, 2011: Well, now.

The first thing my friend suggested was to see if they have microchips, so I took them in to an animal hospital to have them checked. They were really great about going into the old dog carrier (went in voluntarily) we have. They were checked thoroughly, but have no microchips.

Horatio, however, was hiding a secret under that long fur. Testicles. Yes, Horatio is a male. No surprise, then, that Freya appears to be pregnant. I was hoping that belly she was getting was because she was finally getting enough to eat.

There are so many cats at the SPCA and the pound, that we're going to see if we can adopt them out on our own. The chances that they will be euthanised is too high for our comfort level. They are such sweet and affectionate cats, but who would be willing to take on a pregnant cat?

Reflections.

2011-08-30T21:32:00.001-06:00

They say the best camera is the one you have on you. So here is a cell phone photo of City Hall reflected in the wading pool. Here I sit with my daughter, listening to the strains of Peter, Paul and Mary.

The Hippy Bus is Dead

2011-08-27T17:38:00.002-06:00

Long live the hippy bus.

Living Book

2011-08-26T14:08:00.005-06:00

Today my older daughter and I headed downtown for a library event. Along with a book sale, entertainment and more, they had several people acting as Living Books. This is my friend Laura. :-)

She's awesome, has had an amazing life and, from our past conversations, I know she would have been a most interesting Living Book! I look forward to hearing more about how it went from her perspective.

Living Books is a very interesting concept. Volunteers are chosen to represent various groups. People can "check out" their Living Book and ask whatever questions they want about this person's experiences. In Laura's case, she was The Life of a Traveler. Others shared their experiences as a Cree woman, a formerly homeless man, an adoptee, an immigrant, a mom of triplets, and many more. Each person could be "checked out" for 45 minutes and did 3 time slots. Each time slot got reserved weeks ago! This has turned out to be a very popular program, and I am tickled that my friend got to take part. :-D

Walking

2011-08-25T12:57:00.002-06:00

At Churchill Square, swing by from the library to see what's going on. I saw banners reading Celebrate Edmonton, and more BBQ's going than I have ever seen before! Rows and rows and tents full of them, with a cloud of smoke and the delicious smells of charred animal flesh hovering over the square.

Now I'm hungry!

Trying new things.

2011-08-17T14:44:00.002-06:00

IMG_5087-50%
Originally uploaded by amkb

The girls and I like to try new foods now and again. My older daughter has particularly adventurous tastes. *L* Today while shopping in a grocery store we don't often visit, she went through the import aisle and found these. Taro flavoured mochi.

How... fascinating. *L*

We had no idea what it was, though after looking it up I realized it was just a matter of forgetting the name. I even have recipes for mochi. We just never had the chance to try it before.

I'm not sure if I like it! The taste is sweet and I like taro, but the texture...

... it's like flesh. That's all I can think to compare it too! When we opened the package, we all just sort of looked at them for a bit. It did not look much like the photo on the package. Then I poked at it.

Gah!!!!!!

So... fleshy.

That didn't stop us from trying it, though.

We've had two each, and I still don't know if I like it or not. That weird, chewy, fleshy texture.

I just asked both girls what they thought. My younger daughter can't get past the texture and has decided she finds it icky. My older just said, "skin!" *L*

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Yet I can picture myself suddenly craving this stuff at some point!

Floating

2011-08-16T20:46:00.002-06:00

IMG_5081crop50%
Originally uploaded by amkb

A pair of hot air balloons as seen from our balcony. What a view they must have up there!

Click on the image to go to my flickr page and see a few more photos.

Wishing I had my real camera

2011-08-06T18:16:00.002-06:00

Wishing I had my real camera! Cariwest in Churchill Square.

Friday Night Folk Fest

2011-08-06T02:39:00.002-06:00

2011-08-06-FolkFest
Originally uploaded by amkb

My first attempt at time lapse photography. I don't have all the equipment to make this easier - namely, I lack a timer! I spent the evening sitting on the balcony with a tea timer. *L*

I used a Nikon D80 with a Nikkor 70-300mm lens. I had the ISO at 100 and the camera set on Program. To reduce vibrations, I weighted the camera with a bag of lentils. *L* Most of the images were taken at 5 minute intervals, but after it got dark, the timing relied more on whether or not something interesting was going on. I did move the camera every once in a while. At one point, I noticed the crowd seemed to congregate off to the side for a while. Later on, when the shutter was open for several seconds, some bright lights near the tents were overwhelming the shots, so I adjusted to move them out. As the festival wound down at 1 am, I adjusted to better view the people leaving.

The images were put together using Magix Movie Edit Pro15 Plus. Each image is set to 0.15 seconds. The music is called Serious Curious, and is proprietary to the Magix software.

Playing

2011-08-04T22:36:00.003-06:00

It's that time of year again. Music from the annual Edmonton Folk Festival is drifting in through our windows, and out our south facing windows we can see the crowds on the hill. Every year I think that maybe this year, I should get tickets and actually go to the festival. I only ever hear rave reviews.

Then I see the crowds on the hill and realize that, as much as I'd love to check it out, I just don't have the temperament for it! *L*

Instead, I enjoy the view and take a few pictures. Once it gets dark, I like to start playing with the camera. For tonight, I'm particularly happy with this one.

There's a bit of noise reduction and local tone mapping done to this, plus it's 50% of the original size. The timing worked out rather well. I started off zoomed in as far as I could, then while the shutter was open, zoomed all the way out again. (Nikkor 70-300mm lens) In the second or so that took, the stage, which faces away from our balcony, suddenly lit up with a bright blue-ish white light, adding an extra element to the photo.

Hmm.

2011-08-01T17:04:00.004-06:00

Every now and then, you see something that makes you wonder how the heck someone managed to do something. Take this little escapade.

We came out a couple of mornings ago to find this, which is across the road from our home and part of the housing co-op we live in. If you visit my flickr set, you can see the damage to a willow tree outside of this shot, too.

Now, for someone to jump the curb, run up against a tree and a street sign, through a hedge, then back onto the street it odd enough. It gets more interesting when you see the angle from the other side of the hedge.

Yes, there's a retaining wall there. You can see the black marks left by the tires as the vehicle, whatever it was, went over it. The tire marks continued down the lane, then went off the road to the other side of a power pole, through some mud and grass, before joining up with the lane again and eventually disappearing onto the road.

Just how, exactly, does one do something like this? And what kind of vehicle was it that could do it? I'm guessing it was something jacked up rather high, as there's no sign that the body of a vehicle scraped anywhere on the tree, sign or retaining wall.

Hmm.

2011 Taste of Edmonton - part two

2011-07-26T18:53:00.005-06:00

Well, our plans to head out early today were ended by the deluge of rain this morning. What a downpour!

By mid afternoon, it was looking safe to head out. My older daughter decided to stay home, but my younger daughter, Danielle, had to go to the library. It's right at the square the festival is being held at, so she decided to take it in after all.

For our first tastes, we picked up a Hurricane Potato from Korean Village, then went back to Lit - Italian Wine Bar for their Basil stuffed Bocconcini with Prosciutto Wrap.

The Hurricane Potato is a really fun dish! Danielle is not a big potato fan. She likes her mashed potatoes and that's about it. She's the only kid I've know who didn't like french fries. So when she says she found the Hurricane Potato delicious, that's pretty impressive! *L* I found it very tasty as well.

As for the stuffed bocconcini...

Wow. That was SO delicious!!! Danielle didn't know what bocconcini was (I have bought it once before, but we really didn't know what to do with it), so she wasn't sure what to expect. When I asked her what she thought of it, all she could say was "MMMMMmmmm!!!" while savouring every bite. Both this dish and the Ahi tuna salad Nicole and I tried there yesterday took longer to get than at any other booth we tried, but they were well worth it. It was fabulous!

Next up, we went to The Palace Banquets for their Bacon Wrapped Scallops, then to Kyoto for their Canada Maki and Tempura shrimp. These were all sure things for us. The scallops are a tried and true favorite and one of the things we get as a treat after we've tried all the new stuff we were interested in. I had the maki last year, but Danielle hadn't, so it's a new one for her.

As expected the scallops were wonderful. So much flavour! What a treat.

Of the other two, the tempura shrimp is another treat. The downtown location for Kyoto is near my husband's office, and is among the places on our list of restaurants to go to when we meet him for lunch every now and then. Their service kinda sucks, but the food is always really good. The shrimp did not disappoint. The tempura batter is light and crispy and it's cooked just right. We both liked it.

Danielle is new to enjoying sushi type foods. Last year, she wouldn't even try it, but since then she's developed a taste for the California rolls Nicole and I sometimes get, so she was willing to try it this year. She liked the maki, except she wasn't big on the cucumber. She just doesn't like cucumber much. Still, she found it good. I found the flavours very fresh and light, and really enjoyed it.

Our next stop, we again went back to booths Nicole and I had gone to yesterday. I knew Danielle would like to try the chocolate shooters from The Sutton Place Hotel (I was right, she loved them), and I wanted to try the Grilled Hungarian Sausage with Potato Salad from Bistro Praha, which is the same place we got the marinated strawberries and vanilla whipped cream from.

Danielle is indifferent to sausage at the best of times. She found it good, but not good enough to actually eat all of her half. She liked the potato salad better - another surprise from her! I, on the other hand, found it amazing. Grilling really took the sausage a step up, and the potato salad had a wonderful lingering flavour. In fact, it was so good, I gave my chocolate shooter to Danielle, because I didn't want to spoil the flavours by eating something sweet. It was just so satisfying - comfort food at its best! In fact, as torn as I am by the prosciutto wrapped bocconcini and the bacon wrapped scallops, I really thing the grilled sausage and potato salad was my favourite dish of all.

For our last dish, we went for stuff we like, but from places we've never been to before. We got hooked on Taro flavoured bubble tea just a few short weeks ago, but this one was from I Love Bubble Tea, which is new for us (sorry, can't seem to find a link for them). It was delicious. The tapioca balls on the bottom were a different size that we were used to, and the texture was remarkably like a slushie, but these were not negatives, by any means.

I was a bit nervous to try the pad thai. I love pad thai, but have only ever tried it from one place, which allows me to choose the amount of heat I want. Being sensitive to spicy foods, I always picked the least amount. This pad thai was from Numchok Wilai Restaurant (their booth was one of my favourites for their decoration). I was really surprised by the quantity they gave, which barely fit on the plate. It was mildly flavoured, so my concerns about heat were for naught. It was slightly sweet, which is not something I am big on, but quite tasty. The bits of sprouts added a nice crunch. It was one of those things I liked more, the more I ate of it. Danielle, on the other hand, doesn't care for pad thai at all. She took a small taste and that was it. Not her thing.

At this point, we'd used up all the tickets budgeted for this year.

Today we had a lot more hits than misses compared to yesterday, which was strangely disappointing. We've got a couple of new restaurants on our list of places to look for, that's for sure!

I'm already looking forward to trying more new things next year!

2011 Taste of Edmonton - part one

2011-07-25T23:41:00.003-06:00

Hello again!

With various goings-on in our home, we've missed out on some of the festivals being held in downtown Edmonton. Taste of Edmonton, however, is one I didn't want to miss!

My younger daughter isn't as interested this year, so it's just my older daughter, Nicole, and I this year. We usually split things between two days, focusing first on trying new stuff before we finish off our tickets on some tried and true favorites.

The festival runs from 11am to 11pm. Usually we go during the day to beat the lunch rush, but with the heat, we tried going in the evening this time. Unfortunately, that meant my pictures sucked. I did manage to fix some to upload to my flickr account, but most weren't worth making the effort. We're planning to go back for 11am tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll get some better shots.

You can see all the photos in the set I made for this year's festival. For now, I've just got the booths we bought from and the dishes we tried.

Here are our first dishes.

First we checked out Lit - Italian Wine Bar for the Seared Galliano Crusted Ahi Tuna Salad, and Hoang Long Restaurant and Noodle House for Grilled Quail with Pomegranate Sauce.

Nicole was really looking forward to trying the Ahi tuna salad, but I was much more trepidatious. I don't like tuna much, and have a real problem with raw or seared flesh. I like my protein cooked! No surprise that Nicole loved it, but I surprised myself in being able to eat the tuna without shuddering. That's a big accomplishment. *L* As for the rest, it was very tasty, and an interesting combination of flavours and textures. The touch of salt really made a big difference.

We were both looking forward to the quail, which neither of us have had before. We both love pomegranate, so this should have been a shoe-in.

Surprisingly, it wasn't. Nicole's verdict was "not bad." I found it good. We both found it difficult to eat. By the time I finished getting the meat off all those little bones, I felt like I hadn't actually eaten anything. It was tasty but... not as good as we'd hoped.

On to the next two dishes.

Here we have Teriyaki Salmon on Rice from Zen and Lamb Tostada with Avocado Creme Fraiche from Zinc.

Zinc is a rather new restaurant we've been interested in trying out, so we were pretty happy to see them represented at the festival. I found it very tasty. It had more heat than I expected. I have a very low tolerance for spicy food, but this wasn't too much for me. The tostada on the bottom really added to it. Nicole, on the other hand, found it tasted like a burrito, which was a touch off-putting for her. She didn't find it bad, but it wasn't what she was expecting, and not as good as she'd hoped.

As for the Teriyaki Salmon, we had an interesting diversion of opinions. I don't particularly like salmon. That part was all right, but for me, it was the sauce that made the dish. Nicole, on the other hand, loves salmon, but doesn't care for teriyaki. She found the sauce much too salty for her liking, but really enjoyed the salmon (she is indifferent to rice). There was only one small piece of salmon for us to split, which she found a bit disappointing.

Next up, we went for something sweet.

The marinaded strawberries were from Praha, and the cappacino chocolate from The Sutton Place Hotel. (Note; I'm using the spelling from their sign.)

The shooter cups were easily the most adorable items being served! At only one ticket each ($1), they were also the best deal. They had a very intense chocolate flavour. In fact, chocolate was pretty much all we could taste. I happen to love chocolate, especially dark chocolate, but Nicole can take it or leave it. She didn't particularly like the texture of the dark chocolate cup, but it was nice. Neither of us could taste the cappacino.

As for the strawberries, they were good. We both love strawberries, and we both like whipped cream. Neither of us could taste the Grand Marni er the strawberries were marinated in, so it basically just came across as ... well, strawberries and whipped cream. We quite enjoyed it, but nothing made it stand out for us.

For our last dishes of the day, we mixed sweet and savory.

The Mango Lassi was from Khazana Authentic Tandoori Cuisine, while the wasabi beef on a bun was from Hawkeyes Too.

We are not big mango fans, but Nicole wanted to try it out after seeing how good they looked on display. I chose the wasabi beef.

I found the wasabi beef to be delicious and tender. The wasabi wasn't overpowering, but my inability to handle heat did me in. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't finish it off. Nicole enjoyed it as well - more than she expected.

As for the mango lassi, she really enjoyed it and, surprisingly, I did as well. I found it quite sweet, but the smooth creaminess countered the spice from the wasabi very well. The mango flavour was quite intense. We both liked the texture of it.

In the end, we enjoyed all the dishes, but still found it rather disappointing. It was all good, but nothing was really exceptional. We actually both settled on the Ahi tune salad as our favourite (even though I would have preferred it without the tuna, which my daughter finds quite amusing).

What I found strange is that, even after having 8 different items between two of us, we didn't feel like we'd had much at all. Last year, with 3 of us sharing 9 items, we were usually very full by the time we had dessert. This time around, we found ourselves debating going someplace to sit down and eat. The quantities don't seem to have changed from last year, and we're splitting 2 ways instead of three, but it just didn't feel like we ate much at all. Very strange.

In fact, I'm rather hungry right now. Time to find something more substantial to eat...

Road trip 2011, part four

2011-07-25T00:22:00.003-06:00

Well, I'm finally back and catching up on the road trip photos. This time, I've uploaded a few taken at my sister's farm.

My younger daughter and I got a chance to spend the night with my sister and her husband. Of course, what country visit would be it be if we didn't get a chance to check out the garden, barnyard and cows? *L* Their farm is alongside a creek, with some pretty gorgeous views. As we were walking along the shore, their heifers saw us and decided to check us out. The first time, the path took as through a small bunch of trees. Before long, we were completely surrounded by cows! They were curious and willing to come close, but not too close! After a while, we continued on our way and they stopped following us. On the way back, however, they all gathered around us again. The dog kept coming in between us and the cows, barking if he felt they were getting too close. In the above picture, it's the dog they're all staring at.

As you can see, they aren't particularly intimidated!

Day Three

2011-07-17T09:47:00.001-06:00

Part of my daughter's booth, newly set up for the third day of the Art Walk. It technically doesn't start for another 20 minutes, but just about everyone around us is up and ready to go.

Art Walk

2011-07-16T16:44:00.002-06:00

The section of the Art Walk my daughter has a booth in. There is some awesome talent represented here!

Road Trip 2011, part three

2011-07-13T14:03:00.007-06:00

I've added a bunch of photos to my flickr set for this trip. While out, we stayed with my parents on the farm I grew up on. One of my brothers has his own place just up the road, a handy little walk away.

A lot of the farm shots have stories behind them, and will probably get posts of their own. Until then, here some others for you to enjoy.

This is one of several gardens my mother has. The vegetable garden has gotten smaller over the years, though it's still quite large. There are flower gardens, fruit trees and berry bushes as well. This little garden was mostly flowers when I was growing up on the farm. Now it's got more veggies in it - handy to have, closer to the house. With all the rain and cold in MB, the gardens when in a month late and the ground has often been too muddy to tend. It was just starting to dry up a bit during our visit.

There is a new addition near my parents' big garden - a couple of honey bee hives! My late uncle always kept bees, and he loved tending them. After my uncle died, one of his son in laws took over. Now my cousin in law runs Honeybee Meadows and he and his wife sell their honey as a nice little business. I made a point of picking up a big bucket of honey from them to bring home with me! :-) These are their hives, taking advantage of the many seasonal flowers my mother has, though from here, clover is all you can see. The row of trees behind the hives is mostly lilac, though there is a chokecherry tree in there as well (which my dad has used to make wine in the past). I'm sure there are others my mom has added over the years I don't know the names of! *L*

The ditch between my parents' place and my brother's was filled with flowers. Mostly Daisies and Wild Roses, but also Black Eyes Susans, creeping Buttercups, and many more I just don't know the names of.

During one of our walks back, however, we spotted this single Lady's Slipper that suddenly appeared. It wasn't blooming when we walked past the day before. It was hard to get a photo with the breeze, but I think this one worked out all right. We had found two more of a different type of Lady's Slipper in the spruce grove near my parents' house that I just wasn't able to get a good shot of.

It was a beautiful evening when we visited with my brother, so we sat outside to chat - thoroughly covered in bug spray, I might add. It was so nice to sit out there, surrounded by trees and flowers, several cats and the dog, enjoying each other's company. While there, we saw several deer passing through a clearing. They were a bit too fast for me, but I did manage to get a couple of shots.

Gotta love country living!

This is a neighbour's field we pass when driving from my parents' farm to town. When I was a kid, I loved bison, so I was pretty thrilled when people started to keep them. The babies you can just see over the tall grass are so adorable! They're such fascinating animals to look at.

Tasty, too.

Road Trip 2011, part two

2011-07-10T00:16:00.006-06:00

I've added a few shots to my flickr set of some of the areas we checked out while in Manitoba. Here are a couple of them.

This is taken from Fraserwood Park, in my home town. You see that building way in the background? When I was a kid, that was my first school. It was a two classroom school, though at the time I went, it was K-3 (it used to be K-6), all in one classroom. The other was used as a gym. Where I'm standing to take this photo was nothing but a marshy area. Now it's a park with a pond, public bathrooms, hand pump, areas large enough for RVs to park, with firepits available.

What you can't see from here is the house we used to live in. There's also a hockey rink and a sports club (which now owns the old school building) and a play structure, basketball court and baseball diamond. My kids were pretty young then, and spent many happy house exploring. One year, we gathered some frog spawn from one of the ditches and raised them in a makeshift tank. Out of the many eggs, only 5 froglets survived, and we released them in this pond.

Also released in this pond was a huge snapping turtle! I have no idea if it's still there. A friend called us up one day, asking for help. She'd seen something odd on the side of the highway, in an area surrounded by farmer's fields. It turned out to be a snapping turtle the size of a steering wheel! With no water in sight, and no idea where it came from, it was brought over to our place and we soon let it go in the pond. I must say, driving the car with that thing in a bin on the seat beside me - a bin it barely fit in! - was rather nerve wracking. Especially when the darn thing almost got out!

This is a Purple Martin tower by the marina in Gimli, Manitoba. They don't hang around long, but when they do, they eat a whole lot of mosquitoes, so a fair number of people build "apartment style" birdhouses to attract them. This tower is the largest such structure I've seen.

Click here to see more photos.

Road Trip 2011, part one

2011-07-08T16:41:00.005-06:00

As you may have noticed with some of my previous posts done through my phone, I've been on a road trip. My younger daughter and I drove from Edmonton to Manitoba, visiting various places in the Interlake, not too long ago. We also took oodles of photos. I brought along my old Canon S3, since it also has video capability. Little by little, I'll be adding some to a set on my flickr page and highlighting a few here.

The drive out was quite the adventure. We took the Yellowhead (Hwy 16) out of Edmonton, all the way through to the Trans Canada. We drove through and were surrounded by thunderstorms pretty much the entire Alberta leg of the trip.

When I saw this sun drenched field, with its old cabin, sillouted against a distant thunderstorm, I had to pull over and get a shot out the driver's side window. This particular shot was taken at maximum optical zoom (see my flickr set for a different version). We also found ourselve driving into a spectacular double rainbow. We knew we'd driven under it when it abruptly disappeared.

Our plan had been to find a rest stop and camp out for the night. We weren't in any hurry, so an early night would have been fine. Unfortunately, we discovered there are very few rest stops along the Yellowhead - at least in Manitoba! We ended up stopping at a rest area near Minnedosa in the wee hours of the morning. We broke out the foam mattresses and crashed for the night.

It wasn't until morning that I realized the parking spot I stopped in likely wasn't a parking spot at all! *L*

It was a gorgeous morning, so we had ourselves a breakfast picnic before hitting the road again. Quite a few others were taking advantage of the lovely morning, including a fisherman who set up at the river that's just behind the row of trees you see on the right.

View Larger Map

I don't know the name of the river we were beside. It sure is a squiggly one!

When we left, we saw one more rest area to the East of Minnedosa, and that was it. Not what we were expecting at all!

A treat

2011-07-08T14:36:00.002-06:00

I have never had Bento before.

Border

2011-07-04T14:56:00.002-06:00

Heading home by a different route and finally able to use my phone again. I forgot MB was a dead zone for the phone i have.

The rest area on this route is a lot nicer than our usual one.

Double rainbow

2011-06-25T20:11:00.002-06:00

Taken east of Foam Lake.

Surrounded

2011-06-25T17:57:00.002-06:00

Thunderstorms all around us. Taken east of Clavet, Saskatewan.

On the road

2011-06-25T13:29:00.002-06:00

Let's see how this mobile blogging works with a photo attached.

We have been driving for about 2 hours now. This photo is taken from a mall are we stopped at to get gas, on the west edge of Lloydminster. Time to stop for lunch, too.

No matter how often I take this trip, I am always struck by the beauty of our countryside.

Testing

2011-06-24T21:36:00.001-06:00

Just a test to see if i can blog from my phone. My younger daughter and I will be heading to Manitoba tomorrow morning. Hopefully I will be able to post some photos while we are away.

Out for a walk.

2011-06-19T18:35:00.003-06:00

Philippe and our older daughter went out for a walk this morning, and she got some photos she said I could post here.

We've had a lot of rain in the last few days - with more rain while they were walking. Edmonton is split by the fast-flowing North Saskatchewan River. The last few years have been quite dry and, other than spring run off, the river is typically rather low.

Not at the moment!

Here you can see some of the taller bushes barely visible above the water's surface. The river valley is enjoying the moisture, though, looking like a lush, green jungle.

While crossing the bridge the above photo was taken from, my daughter also found this.

A pigeon nest with two chicks. The mother was nearby, keeping an eye on things. They were quite surprised by the next being in such a relatively exposed area.

Gosh, baby pigeons look... alarming! *L*

Lookin' good!

2011-06-13T22:56:00.004-06:00

Got a huge job done today. We made the mistake of replacing our apple snails with black snails. Unfortunately, the type of snail we got was a pest variety (how nice of the pet store to be selling those...) and before long, there were hundreds of tiny snails. It turns out they don't need to get very big before they can start laying eggs, either. Those hundreds of tiny snails laid thousands of eggs. When I took the decorative items out to clean them and change out some of the water, they were slimy with eggs, inside and out, and minuscule snails layered the inside. Thousands more began to emerge from the gravel. Since our pleco, Boris, had so enthusiastically eaten our apple snails, I thought he might eat these, but I guess they don't taste good or something, as he ignored them. Even when they crawled all over him.

Today, we put an end to it (I hope!). We fished our Danios and Boris out and into a bucket. Boris was not happy with this. It's remarkable just how far he could splash water while trying to not get netted! When I put him into the 10 gallon bucket, there was just enough room for him to sorta rotate on the bottom - he's bigger than the diameter of the bucket!

Next was getting the decorations, filter, thermometer/heater and aeration stone out and into another bucket. Everything was slimy with eggs. Even the suction cup holder on the thermometer had to be taken apart for cleaning. The filter we were using was a type that had most of it in the water, and snails were actually getting inside it. I couldn't touch anything without hearing little crunching noises as tiny snails were crushed by my fingers. Gross!

Then there was the fun job of emptying as much water as I could before I could bring the tank down to the floor from its pedestal so I could reach the bottom - ours is a tall and narrow hexagon, rather than the usual rectangular tank. After scooping out even more water, I reached down to start scooping out the gravel and stopped in horror.

I could actually hear all the snails moving around in the gravel!

Ew!

The gravel got scooped out into a water proof bag, double bagged, sealed tight and thrown away.

Yes, I am a snail murderer!

Then it was time to clean everything. Lots of soap, scaling hot water and scrubbing! The tank had to be washed out twice, and everything got an extra rinse in scalding hot water. That all took a couple of hours.

While my older daughter started setting up the aquarium again, my younger daughter and I headed out to try and find filters. Among the stuff we got with our aquarium, which we bought second hand, were a couple of pumps of a different type, with only an intake pipe going into the water. I had no idea if they worked or not, or if the filters for them were still available. Since I needed some chemicals for the water anyhow (and more gravel, it turned out - we went colourful this time), my younger daughter and I visited a couple of pet stores to get what we needed and look for more filters. It turned out they were easy to find, so it was just a matter of testing the pump to see if it still worked.

By the time we got back home, the tank was half re-filled with water. Little by little, everything got put into place and more water was added until we could safely put the fish back.

Oh, dear.

The Danios were easy enough, but Boris was not a happy camper! I ended up having to use both the net and my hand to get him in, though he left us with quite a lot of water to clean up in the process!

Boris, I discovered, has very course scales, like very rough sandpaper.

When I finally got him into the net and into the tank, I found another problem. I couldn't get him out! At first we thought he'd managed to tangle himself somehow and get stuck, or had hurt himself somehow. After several attempts to swish him gently out of the net, I finally had to use my hand to get his body out of the net. I couldn't get his head out, though. It turns out he'd bitten onto the net, and wasn't letting go!

No, they don't have teeth. They do have grasping mouth parts, though.

Once his body was free of the net, Boris finally let go and dashed off. He is one ticked off fish! As I'm writing this, I can see him now, with his sail and fins in full aggression mode.

The tank looks good though! And so does Boris! :-D

I just love his markings! See those barbels on the sides of his mouth? That's what he uses to grasp and manipulate his food (and grab onto nets!). They're surprisingly dexterous.

I couldn't resist. He was posing so well! I got some more detailed shots. Check out this sail!

You can also see the spiky ends of his scales. No wonder he was so rough to the touch!

He was watching me the whole time I took the pictures, too. His eyes move almost like chameleon eyes.

Did you know plecos can blink? It's only about once every minute and freaked the heck out of me the first time I saw it. I had no idea there were fish that could blink!

So now our tank if finally all clear of snails. I hope! It's still possible we missed something and they could come back. If they do, we'll invest in an assassin snail. They eat other snails and nothing else.

If we'd known about them earlier, we could have saved ourselves - and our fish - a lot! You'd think, with all those snails, the tank would get really clean, but it got really disgusting, instead.

Live and learn!

Checking out the museum

2011-06-12T21:30:00.003-06:00

The Royal Alberta Museum opened a new temporary display this weekend, Creatures of the Abyss (pdf). This is a favorite theme for us, and my older daughter and I both really enjoy the museum, so we made a point of checking it out. We like to head over on the weekends (half price admission before 11am on the weekends), hang out in the displays until the cafe opens, have a delicious lunch (very reasonable prices and generous portions - almost too generous!), wander around some more, checking out any new stuff, then hit the gift shop before we leave. A lovely way to spend a few hours. :-)

Today was a bit of a surprise, just as I drove into the parking lot. Some time ago, I'd found myself driving behind a vehicle with the back end painted. It rather perplexed me. When the vehicle turned, I could see it had paintings on the doors, but I couldn't make out what they were (one side was just a glimpse in my rear view mirror). It was a bit of a surprise to pull into the parking lot and see it again - with more paintings added, since I last saw it, including one that was unfinished. I couldn't resist getting photos.

If the owner of this vehicle happens to read this, I'd love it if you'd leave a comment explaining what it's about.

This is the view I had when driving behind the vehicle, the first time I saw it.

Click on the image to go to my flickr page and see the other views, including the writing at the top.

None of the others are giving the finger, except the one showing the top of the trunk.

Based on the photos, I get the impression the driver 1) hates cell phones, 2) hates God and 3) hates people.

But I could be wrong.

As for in the museum itself, we had a lovely visit. Here is what greeted us when we went into the new display.

Except there's a side view on entry.

The eye on this guy moved. :-D

Once again, click on the image to see more.

I have to admit, we were a bit disappointed in the display. With how much there is to explore in the deep oceans, we really expected more. There was a lot of open space around the displays, and a fair number of hands on stuff. Parts of it were preachy in an eyerolling sort of way. We think it was really aimed more at young children, and it seemed rather dumbed down to me.

We loved seeing the hagfish, though. That's one of my daughter's favorite creatures.

Our crazy cats

2011-06-09T22:59:00.003-06:00

What is is about cats? They are just so weird sometimes!

Take our Crack Kitty, otherwise known as Harley.

Every now and then, my daughter plunks her down on her lap like this, and the cat just stays there.

Sometimes for hours.

My daughter doesn't get cuddled by her cat very often. Harley is more likely to suddenly attack. Not in any serious way, but in a very crazy way. Or she stares, with wide, insane, slightly murderous eyes. Hence her alternative name, Crack Kitty.

Other times, she suddenly runs throughout the house before using one of the walls as a brake. Which seems to work fine, as I don't think she has bones. Just cartilage. There's no other explanation for the way the turns into a black, furry puddle when she lies down.

Then there's my other daughter's cat.

This cat is much more dignified. No furry puddles out of this cat. She is very particular about how she tucks her feet under her, making this elegant little package of composure. She's a total Queen. Unfortunately, she's also half deaf and insanely loud. Especially in the wee hours of the morning.

She also loves to cuddle. Even if it's a pillow. Then she does that thing with her head, exposing her chin. I couldn't resist... after taking this photo, I just had to scritch her chin. She didn't even wake up.

Cats are crazy. Maybe that's why I've come to like them so much! ;-)

Being all cute and stuff...

2011-05-19T11:27:00.000-06:00

My younger daughter bought herself a book of crochet patterns recently. This morning, she sat to work on a hat when her cat, Harley, decided to come over and cuddle.

She's a big bundle of squishy adorableness.

Spring!

2011-05-03T15:35:00.000-06:00

We are finally seeing leaf buds. :-D It was a beautiful day for a walk, so I dug out the Canon S3 (smaller, lighter) and took a few shots. Click on the photo to go to my flickr page and see a few more.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T10:50:00.000-06:00

Our Easter brunch, using the contents of our basket.

For the Devilled Eggs, the prosciutto rosettes were chopped fine. They were then mixed with some shredded cheese, egg yolks and mayonnaise for the filling. Once filled, the eggs were topped with a sprinkling of grated horseradish root and a bit more shredded cheese.

Wishing you a joyous Easter!

Our Easter bread

2011-04-22T18:38:00.000-06:00

We're busily preparing for Easter right now. Today, that included baking bread for our traditional basket.

More photos of our preparations are at my flickr account.

More on my craft blog, too.

Spring?

2011-04-14T10:21:00.000-06:00

A few days ago, it was warm and sunny and I was getting my planters and soil out of their storage corner and into the sun to thaw out.

Now there's this.

What you can't see? The river, about half the houses and condos down there, and the big hill on the other side of the river.

What you can't see? The bright blue bridge over the river, more housing and the valley walls.

What you can't see? The 24km/h winds that have taken our temperatures of -3C to a windchill of -10C (actually, I'm pretty sure the winds are higher in our location) and causing the snow to start drifting in front of our balcony door.

Ah, spring in Canada!

My kids are actually looking forward to walking to my daughter's guitar lesson in this.

I guess it's a good thing I hadn't packed away all the winter gear yet.

23 Years

2011-04-06T16:54:00.002-06:00

23 Years
Originally uploaded by amkb

Celebrating 23 years of marriage.

The Truth

2011-03-27T00:03:00.000-06:00

If there is any doubt as to who the true masters of the household are...

They are also very warm and comfortable.

And adorable.

note: we finally got rid of the "attack site" warning, though it meant getting rid of our blog roll and removing the labels list. They'll be rebuilt, when I have the chance. Until then, we will hopefully be posting photos on a fairly regular basis again.

Edmonton Collectible Toy and Comic Show

2011-03-20T17:15:00.000-06:00

It's been far too long since we've posted. For some reason, this blog is getting an "attack site" notice when people try to visit it. I have not been able to find the problem. Hopefully, we'll be able to clear it up soon.

Today, my elder daughter and I took in the Edmonton Collectible Toy and Comic Show, held at the Shaw Conference Centre. We've never gone to anything like this before, though we've certainly heard plenty of stories from people who take part in shows like this, either as visitors or vendors. I'm really glad we took it in!

The star of the show was LeVar Burton. There was a huge line out the door of people waiting for his autograph. He was really fantastic, taking the time to talk to everyone, posing for pictures and giving hugs. He seemed to have endless patience. The folks waiting in line were a great crowd, too. When we left, there was still a long line, patiently waiting for Burton to come back from a much needed break.

There were, of course, other people at the autograph tables. It must be a bit hard sitting at an autograph table next to someone with as large a draw as Burton! *L* The others at the tables included Wrestling superstars, The Dudleys, comic artist, Ron Wagner, comic artist, Cary Nord, Star Wars Visions and aviation artist, Robert Bailey and Star Wars super collector, Gus Lopez

There were, of course, plenty of people in costume! Some were visitors to the show, while others were from the The 501st Legion: Badlands Garrison and Rebel Legion - Outrider Base of Alberta. All were great about posing for photos.

There were, of course, plenty of vendors and displays of all kinds, including My Little Pony, Matchbox cars, costumes used in various movies, board games, paintings and prints, dolls, artists at work and yes, you could even visit one of several artists available and get a tattoo.

It was a really fun event, and I'm glad we went. In fact, we're considering going to the next event coming up in May!

If you want to see more photos, check out the set of photos I have on my flicker site.

Cats are insane...

2011-03-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

... and annoying. Yet the manage to be adorable in the process.

My husband has his work laptop set up on a dock behind the desk. Since our desktop computer is on the same desk, there's not a lot of space and a whole mass of wires. Especially since there's also an ergonomic keyboard, a mouse, headphones and the USB charger for my phone attached.

My older daughter's cat has a thing for me being on the computer. When I'm on the desktop computer, which has some space in front of the keyboard, she will jump up onto the chair, walk across in front of me, clamber over the speaker on one side of the monitor to get to the back of the desk, walk across the laptop keyboard (which is kept on top of the closed laptop due to lack of space), then either tries to squeeze between the monitor and the tower, which has the other speaker in the way, or around the other side of the tower, generally knocking over whatever happens to be there for good measure. Then she'll clamber across in front of me again, block my view of the monitor for as along as she can get away with, then finally settle down in between me and the keyboard, with her front paws draped across my wrist. My mouse wrist. Limiting my ability to use the mouse and preventing me from using the keyboard with that hand entirely. After tossing her off, she comes back and does the same thing all over again.

This morning, my daughter was using the desktop, so I popped onto my husband's work laptop to read my morning news. As usual, the cat's all over me. From perching on my shoulder to doing her circuit around the monitor (though I manage to keep her from walking across the laptop while I'm using it, and so on.

Then, she did this.

Yup. She curled up on the mass of wires, leaned right against the vent on the laptop, and used my mouse hand as a pillow. Not only was she on top of the mouse wire, rendering it immobile, but the weight of her head was enough to press both right and left mouse buttons at the same time.

And she looked so darn cute, too!

Even after I finally moved my hand, she kept using the mouse as a pillow.

Then I left.

So did she.

Apparently, it's only comfortable if it's inconveniencing a human! LOL

In the strangest of places...

2011-02-14T00:10:00.001-07:00

My older daughter and I went scouting around for a suitable location to do a yarnbomb tonight. In the process, she showed something I'd made as a yarnbomb, but wasn't able to get out and do it myself. I asked her and her friend to do it for me. Today was the first time I actually saw it, some 8 months or so ago.

My daughter's friend climbed the tree to put it up some 10 feet above the pathway.

Not what I expected them to do! *L*

Meanwhile, she and I have just got back from doing a Valentine's Day yarnbomb. Check out my craft blog to find out more.

Winter sun

2011-02-07T22:59:00.002-07:00

Winter sun
Originally uploaded by amkb

I was playing around with my camera settings to get a nice starburst going. I did some moderate post processing to reduce the brightness and bring back the deep blue of the sky.

Illuminations

2011-01-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

Our city is holding a multi-event festival called Winterlight. Tonight, my older daughter and I took in their Illuminations show in Churchill Square. Going over the itinerary, we decided we wanted to take in the Illuminations Choir, stop at a nearby Second Cup for some hot chocolate, then head back out to take in the choir again, and Circus Orange.

We didn't actually have very high expectations for the circus and figured we'd catch a bit of it, then head home. It was, after all, -20C.

The choir performance was really excellent. They did two songs, but the second song lasted some 8-10 minutes! The first song was a powerful demonstration of gorgeous vocals. The second was fascinating - if somewhat strange. *L* It actually drove away some of the people listening. Especially when the sopranos started up and the feedback from the microphones kicked in! We liked it, though.

There were also three pairs of actors, all in white, including their faces and hair. They wandered around, with slow, deliberate, motions, while abstract music played on the sound system. They'd pause to interact with each other, the other couples, and festival goers, all while staying in character, with their dramatic movements and poses.

I'm glad we went for the hot chocolate as quickly as we did, as we actually got seats! It wasn't long before it was standing room only with people trying to warm up. Back at the square, people were tightly packed around several fires. Two of them were inside barrel sculptures. Two other barrel fires were in special frames with rings around the top that allowed people to come close, but not close enough to burn themselves. A fifth fire was in a huge, shallow bowl with an inner ring to hold the fire. The person responsible for adding more wood would actually climb into the outer area of the bowl to feed the flames. I was never able to get close enough to any of these to get good photos, the crowds gathered around them were so tight. It was COLD! *L*

When it came time for the final performance, the choir gathered again at one end of the square. My daughter and I managed to be right in front. They sang one song, then when they broke up, they each took one of the luminaries on poles behind them, then walked off into the crowd. Turning around, we saw one of the glowing boxes among the trees now had a person on it, dressed in white. She did a bit of a performance, and there were people dressed in red holding flaming torches and others dressed in black, many with round lights on their torsos (some of them were more to keep the grounds back from the performers). One of the characters in black was one of the vocal performers. After a while I realized he was "talking" to someone behind me. Turning, I saw a clown at the staging area behind where the choir had been. Things went back and forth for a while, then the black and red clad performers had a bit of a procession through the crowd to a spot off to the side of the staging area - where another staging area was set up. There was this huge tricycle thing. Unfortunately, I couldn't see very well, being rather short and somehow managing to have someone tall stick their head in front of me every time! I had brought my old S3 with me so I could take both stills and video shots and spent most of the time holding it up over my head, hoping I was getting things into the frame.

I ended up seeing more by looking at the pictures and video later on than while I was there! What I could see, however, was pretty amazing.

At first, there was some entertainment around the tricycle and they worked to get it started. When it did, it was with flames belching out of a tall chimney and other pyrotechnics. That was interesting enough, but then the dang thing actually started to move! Music started up and the tricycle made its way down a section of street that was closed off for the festival, the crowd following along. At the other end was another staging area where it stopped for a performance. There was lots of enthusiastic audience participation involved. Lots of flames and stuff, too. Then the tricycle started moving again to another staging area. More flames, though at this point I couldn't see what was going on. Eventually I could see that some sort of wire frame was set on fire and I went around to get a better view (at this point, my daughter and I got completely separated in the crowd). From this other vantage point, the clown (who was driving the tricycle) began to make motions, pointing behind the crowd. Sure enough, there was something else going on!

For this part, I was able to get right in front, where a pair of "snow demons" performed with legs and arms on stilts. There was another performance as the clown "tamed" the snow monsters, then led them back to the tricycle. The whole procession moved to yet another staging area and another show, adding another character to the procession. A performer in white was hooked up to a crane and did an aerial performance, too.

By this time, my camera batteries were getting so cold, I was getting the low battery indicator. I started tucking it away under my coat to warm them up. Unfortunately, in taking it in and out, I must have accidentally turned the settings wheel. I couldn't see what had happened until later on, but the accidental shift had my exposures at 1 second, so I got a lot of crappy shots.

I also got this one.

For an accident, this turned out to be a really great photo! This is the character the joined the procession from the last performance before the grand finale.

The whole group moved yet again (with a pause as the tricycle "broke down" and after a while, audience members were enlisted to grab a rope and pull it along to help get it going). Back we went to the main staging area. At this point, I could only get a few shots or a few seconds of video in before I had to tuck the camera back into my armpit to warm up! A few times I'd start to take video, only to have the camera automatically shut itself off due to low battery. I still managed to get a few shots and clips, though.

The grand finale was really something! The front wheel of the tricycle came off and it, with a woman inside it, was rolled forward and hooked up to a crane. While others performed on the stage with flames and sparklers (I couldn't really see them due to the crowd), the wheel was raised high above the crowd. As the woman inside it performed and got it turning, it suddenly began shooting sparklers. After they burned out, there was a bit of a pause, then the whole thing seemed to explode with pyrotechnics spinning around, while more fireworks were shot off from behind, illuminating the pyramid-shaped City Hall behind them as well as the performer above the crowd.

It was a spectacular performance! I mentioned we didn't have very high expectations to start with, but the reality more than blew those expectations away. We spend an hour and a half in -20C cold, and it was worth every second! We were both so glad to have made the effort to go.

If you want to see a few more photos that I took, as well as some video, I have them at my flickr account for viewing.

They don't do the show justice at all. If you ever get the chance to see Circus Orange, I highly recommend them!

Eddie channels his inner dazzle...

2011-01-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

This morning, I set myself down at the computer, and suddenly THIS appeared over my monitor.

What a way to start the day!

I thought the zombie arms were particularly appropriate.

My apologies to the Twihards out there. We're not fans. At all. However, my younger daughter has been seeking more realistic dolls, preferably with articulated limbs. They're hard enough to find among female dolls. Male dolls that aren't deformed looking are much harder to find. This is one of the better ones.

Even with the sparkly, sparkly chest.

Boris

2011-01-20T17:48:00.002-07:00

Boris
Originally uploaded by amkb
This is Boris.

When we first got our tank with a few Danios, I wanted a pleco. I didn't know what they were actually called. I just like the "sucker fish," as I called them. We got two of them. Wee little things, not quite two inches long. They were different enough to tell them apart, so we named them. Boris and Allister.

Then Boris ate Alistair.

Little by little, he ate our snails, too, though that took quite a bit more effort on his part.

He's now 10 inches long.

Did you know plecos blink?

Did you know they can get this big?

(photo taken by my daughter)

The Birds are Back

2011-01-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus, the waxwings came back with a vengeance! The Mountain Ash outside my daughter's 3rd floor window has been decimated of berries.

The first few shots I took were with the 18-55mm lens. Unfortunately, I forgot to check the ISO, which was still at 1600 from the last time I used the camera, so they turned our rather grainy.

This photo shows just a few of the birds as they constantly fluttered around, in and out of the tree.

In a nearby willow, more were waiting their turn. Every now and then, the entire flock would suddenly leave, then zoom back in again. At one point, while my daughter was watching through her window, one of the birds slammed right into the glass! It seemed to be okay, though.

After switching to the 75-300mm lens and fixing the ISO (I used different settings as I took the photos) I got a lot more photos. A few of them have been uploaded to their own set in my flickr page. There you can see photos from the last time this happened, a couple of years ago.

In just a few hours, the tree has been pretty much stripped of all its berries. The first two photos above show the tree at about the half-way mark, so you can imagine just how full it had been!

Ouch!

2011-01-08T13:50:00.001-07:00

Ouch!
Originally uploaded by amkb

My daughter was opening up a can and had an accident, slicing two fingers. The other one isn't as bad this one.

Ah, the things that inspire macro-photography! LOL

Flare out

2010-12-30T00:52:00.002-07:00

Just outside of Edmonton is an oil refinery. Like all oil refineries, it has a flaring stack. The lights of the refinery are visible from much of our city, including our downtown balcony. Depending on the size of the flame and the weather, we can usually see the flare itself, or at least a cloud.

Today is somewhat different.

I happened to be watching the news, which I normally never do, hoping to catch a friend of mine in another province being interviewed, when I caught a story about the flare being unusually large. Emergency services have been getting calls about it all day. The station's helicopter was over the area, filming the blaze and smoke, and we were assured that the refinery was doing this on purpose. Then they moved on to other things. Eventually I change the channel to another news program where I was hoping to see my friend while working on a scarf I was crocheting.

Now, picture this scene. In the living room, I've got the tv on. My husband is playing WoW with headphones. My friend's son, who is living with us right now, is on his laptop with an earbud in one ear loud enough that I can hear him playing WoW, too. There's also conversation and a very loud cat to add to the volume level.

Through all this, I'm noticing a strange, pulsing noise, just barely auditory. It was loud enough, however, that my husband took off his headphones, wondering what was making it. I had been wondering that myself and got the impression that it was coming from outside. I muted the tv and we listened for a while. Then I realized what it might be. Grabbing a pair of slippers, I headed outside and saw this.

We grabbed the tripod and tried for a few shots, but they mostly didn't turn out. Since it's -20C with a wind chill, I didn't try too hard, either. I did, however, switch from the 18-55mm lens to the 70-200mm.

It's kinda got this whole Mordor look to it, don't you think?

This is as far as I could zoom in, with the ISO at 1600. I missed a lot of potential shots, as the flames would occasionally spurt high up, but with the long exposures, it was rather difficult to catch them.

This was, indeed, the source of the noise. In fact, I could still hear it when I started this post, though it seems to have stopped for now. Though this refinery is visible from our balcony, it's not anywhere near us. It must have been quite the thing to hear in the neighbourhoods at the outskirts of the city!

I can certainly understand why so many people were phoning emergency services about this!

Oh, and while I was freezing outside, getting these shots, I think I missed seeing my friend on tv! Oops.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-12-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

Wishing you all a joyous Christmas, and may 2011 be a year of peace, happiness and prosperity for you and your loved ones.

See you next year!

Lunar Eclipse

2010-12-21T01:52:00.001-07:00

Lunar Eclipse
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: Dec. 21, 2010. The first time in almost 400 years that a lunar eclipse has fallen on a solstice.

These photos were taken by my daughter. They are 30% of the original size, but I have done no other adjusting to any of these images. Any blurring or double images you see are due to the movement of the moon and starts during long exposures.

Click on the image to be taken to my flickr page and see the rest of the set.

Day two, part one

2010-12-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

Head over to my craft blog to see today's photos.

Rather than repeat myself...

2010-12-19T02:10:00.002-07:00

... you can check out today's photos on my Get Crafting blog.

Valley Snow

2010-12-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

Valley Snow
Originally uploaded by amkb

Step one: look outside the window and notice how lovely and fog-like the falling snow looks. Decide it's worth going outside to take a picture. Grab grandpa slippers and camera, check the settings, move the draft stopper and open the door to the balcony.

Step two: put away the camera. Grab hat and neckwarmer. Grab shovel.

Step three: shovel off nearly two feet of snow. Maybe we should do this more often. Think about how putting on a jacket probably would have been a good idea, too. Sure it's only -12C, but it *is* snowing, and the wind is blowing clouds of it off our roof. Onto me.

Step four: track snow across the house while returning the snow shovel to the front door. Return for camera. Quickly run out and snap several pictures and hope at least one of them looks all right.

Step five: stop to remove grandpa slippers before tracking snow across the house again. Replace draft stopper. Remove wet hat and neckwarmer. Upload pictures to computer.

Step six: look at photos and realize my shoulders are rather wet from melted snow.

Step seven: choose photo, resize in PSPX2, write blog post. Shiver. Time to go change into something dry!

Sun Fog

2010-12-02T07:05:00.001-07:00

This is a six picture stitch of the morning sun on the river valley.

Night Lights

2010-11-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

My older daughter and headed out to see the city Christmas tree, which had its official lighting this past weekend, and to experiment with a few other night shots.

Of all the shots I took, I ended up going with a relatively low exposure time. High winds ruined the longer exposures.

The downward streaks seen in various places are "dripping" lights that move down the entire length of the tree.

To give an idea of just how strong the winds were, this shot was taken with a tripod and 4 second exposure.

This one is another 4 second exposure. The longer exposure times had the flags virtually invisible.

November Sky

2010-11-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

The joys of having a husband that's a morning person. He gets shots like this while I get to sleep. ;-)

Remember

2010-11-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

More photos from today's morning ceremonies at Edmonton's City Hall.

Goodwill Treasure

2010-10-30T15:46:00.000-06:00

Anna: I took our younger daughter to Goodwill yesterday, as she was on the hunt for a Halloween costume. While there I spotted a fascinating treasure, unlike anything I've seen before. It was so beautiful and unique, I couldn't resist grabbing it. I'm now posting a series of pictures. See how long it takes you to figure out what it is - it should be obvious fairly soon.

First, the bowl.

Starting from the bottom, up! Here's an inside view of the bowl. The bowl actually gets covered, so I didn't see that it was decorated until I was standing in line to buy the set. A pleasant surprise.

A side view; there are three of these little focal points around the bowl.

Here is the tray, which fits over the bowl like a lid.

There are four of these matching, handle-less cups. It was the cups that tipped the balance in my decision to buy the set.

Looking at the inside, do you notice how strangely thick the sides are? Yet it's not as heavy as one would expect. Here's why.

The cups are double walled. The liquid tight plug can be removed, revealing the narrow space in between the walls.

If you haven't figure it out yet, yes, this is a tea set, and here is the tiny little teapot, barely bigger than my own hand.

It comes with a strainer for loose tea leaves.

I love the little decorated lid.

The pot holds just enough water to fill the four little cups. No room for seconds!

Finally, the entire set put together.

What I figure is, boiling water is meant to be put into the bowl to help keep the pot and cups on the tray warm, and the cups get boiling water poured into their double walls as well. The pot and cups are so small, however, I can't see how any tea would have a chance to get cold before it's all gone!

The bottom of the bowl reads "Taiwan Ei-Long Art Ceramics." I've looked through their website, but haven't found another set like this, though I'm in love with their celadon line. I've have found some similar sets, though.

Note the prices at those links?

I got this set for $19.99

I don't know why this set got donated to Goodwill, but to whoever decided they didn't need it anymore, thank you!

Morning Snow

2010-10-25T09:24:00.001-06:00

Morning Snow
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: The snowfall we woke up to this morning. Certain family members were as excited as little kids!

Personally, I could see it holding off for another month or so. ;-)

At least it shouldn't last long.

Bliss

2010-10-12T12:22:00.000-06:00

One last photo to catch up...

Take one sun spot. Add cat. Blend thoroughly.

The Harley-bug is so cute, she makes my teeth ache. LOL

Proud Owner

2010-10-12T12:19:00.000-06:00

My younger daughter decided she wanted an acoustic guitar. Since then, she's been setting aside half her allowance and any birthday money she got towards buying one.

Yesterday, after almost a year of saving, she became the proud owner of an acoustic guitar. We know nothing about guitars and will now be looking into lessons.

I hope she has many years of enjoyment out of it. :-)

Zombie Zone

2010-10-12T12:16:00.000-06:00

Anna: I've been remiss in posting photos here. Most of my photography lately has been for my craft blog. I just haven't got around to uploading other photos here. :-(

To make for that, let's start with this one.

Not too long ago, the girls and a friend took part in a local Zombie Walk. My husband was with them taking pictures until he used up both memory cards. I was waiting at where they were supposed to finish the walk, but ended up meeting them part way through, getting shots of the zombies as they walked past me at an intersection.

I was trying to avoid using flash, so a lot of my photos just didn't work out. Some of the failures, however, were still very interesting. Like this one. It looks so surreal.

I like it. :-D

Fall Colours

2010-09-26T16:42:00.000-06:00

Anna: Some views of the beautiful fall colours, taken on our balcony.

(Click on the image to go to my flickr site and see more shots.)

After living for 3 years with a view of a back lane, parking lots and high density housing, I'm really appreciating the valley views we have now!

Harvest Moon

2010-09-23T20:12:00.002-06:00

Harvest Moon
Originally uploaded by amkb
A view of the harvest moon from our balcony.

Click on the image to be taken to my flickr page and see other images.

Watching...

2010-09-19T14:56:00.000-06:00

We have a very large, wide desk. Large enough that we can have the desktop computer in the usual place, and still be able to use the back of the other desk. Philippe has his work laptop there, set up on a dock with a full size keyboard.

One of the cats has claimed it as her personal butt warmer.

So one day, Philippe is at the desktop playing World of Warcraft, when he suddenly sees a paw reaching up over the top of the monitor, batting at... something.

Then he sees this.

Then this.

After several attempts to get a photo without flash, he finally stood up and got this...

...just before she reached up and tried to attack the lens.

Because this is our muderous crack kitty who attacks ankles and hates to be petted, when she's not crawling under the covers to cuddle.

As I write this, her wide-eyed face has been popping up over the top of the monitor. I think she's upset because the keyboard is on top of the laptop.

Yes, she's sitting on the keyboard, anyway.

Learning to Fly

2010-09-12T13:30:00.002-06:00

DSC_6299-50%
Originally uploaded by amkb
Looking across the valley from our balcony, we saw this guy "flying" down the park across from us. He'd fly his parachute down the hill, then gather it all up, trudge back to the stop and do it again.

Looks like he was having a blast!

Gone Batty

2010-09-07T14:06:00.003-06:00

Gone Batty
Originally uploaded by amkb
Anna: The Little Brown Bat is still hanging out above our door. It looks like it's chosen that spot to hibernate. I tried to get some different angles, but it's so close to the corner, I can't really get the camera in there.

It's so cute! While I was taking pictures, I could see it's furry little sides moving as it breathed. I just want to scoop it up!

I'm not sure this is a good location for it to hibernate, though. It's well sheltered from the weather, but not the temperature. I'm a little concerned it will freeze. Will have to look for some information about that, and see if there's something we can do to protect it.

Itty Bitty Batty

2010-09-04T22:56:00.003-06:00

Itty Bitty Batty
Originally uploaded by amkb
Anna: As a friend of my daughter's was knocking on our door, he noticed this little smudge of fur above the doorway. As soon as he realized it was a bat, we immediately grabbed the camera! The gap it tucked itself into is about 3-4 inches wide. As I write this, it's still there. This tiny, adorable ball of fluff. It's all I can do not to try and pet it, or scoop it into my hands.

I love bats.

Price Point

2010-08-22T18:10:00.003-06:00

Anna: I was out for a walk today and ended up swinging by The Bay in a nearby mall. For those of you outside of Canada, The Bay is a department store that's a step up from Walmart. They've been trying to re-brand themselves as higher end, but they're still a pretty basic department store. One I don't normally shop at because I find it too expensive.

But this... this takes the cake.

I have a daughter that loves to drink tea and is acquiring a substantial collection of teapots and mugs. So when I saw some mid-size teapots at the end of a table, I went for a closer look.

At first glance at the price tag, I thought for sure there was a mistake. There was no way they'd have teapots that expensive just sitting on a table, and besides... this is The Bay. Why would they have a single teapot priced to high? A tea set, perhaps, but just the pot?

On looking at the other pots, however, they all had the same price. Then I saw the matching sugar bowl and creamer.

Yes, the price tag on that pot, which holds perhaps 6 cups, really does say $304.99, and the sugar bowl really does read $173.99. I didn't take pictures of the others, since security might get a little nervous, but the matching creamer was just under $150. There was a tiny plate of completely different pattern, about the size of a saucer, for $18.50. Plates big enough for entrees ranged from almost $80 to about $100. A salt shaker was priced at almost $40. The pepper shaker didn't have a price, so I'm guessing they weren't being sold separately. At that price, that band of gold on the bottom had better be real!

So why are these priced so high? I have no idea. Perhaps that's real silver around the edge, but that wouldn't be enough to explain it. About the only thing I can think of is that it's Royal Daulton bone china.

As for why they were all on the table, there was a big 75% off sign above them. Even at such a steep discount, we're still looking at over $75 for a teapot.

Now, I'm all for things being priced for quality. I've seen a tiny tea set that included pot with lid plus 6 tiny handle-less cups that might have held a quarter cup of liquid each, at most. The pot might have held 2, maybe 3, cups of tea. The set came in a satin lined box with recessed spaces to hold all the pieces. It was priced at $1000, and I felt it was worth every penny. Why? Because the entire set was hand carved out of a single block of jade. BC jade, to be exact, with it's distinctive deep green colour. It was being sold in a shop that specialized in rocks, minerals and fossils, many quite rare and fragile, and most of which were found by the geologist owner who also hand carved many of the finished pieces himself.

A far cry from a rather plain bone chine teapot at The Bay.

No surprise to find these on a clearance table! :-P

Still smoking.

2010-08-20T14:07:00.000-06:00

Here's what our valley looks like today.

A great improvement from yesterday, though we're still supposed to be smokey through Sunday. I've heard that there are as many as 292 fires burning in BC.

Good morning...

2010-08-20T02:29:00.002-06:00

Good morning...
Originally uploaded by amkb
The view from our 3rd floor window at about 2 am. Not sure what's going on. Perhaps we'll see something in the news tomorrow.

Where there's smoke...

2010-08-19T13:19:00.003-06:00

Where there's smoke...
Originally uploaded by amkb
This is the view from off our balcony today. Edmonton is overcast with smoke from the forest fires in BC.

Update: Philippe took a photo with his Blackberry from his downtown office.

Back at Taste of Edmonton 2010

2010-07-27T16:52:00.000-06:00

Anna: The girls and I were planning to use up the rest of our tickets for Taste of Edmonton today, but my older daughter wasn't feeling well, so it was just two of us, this time. It was quite a lovely day for it, and the crowds weren't as thick as they were yesterday. That didn't make it any easier to find someplace to sit and eat, though. The space with grass and shade had very few picnic tables, but the beer garden was full of them - mostly empty.

First, we stopped at Hawkeyes Too Restaurant and Bar. We were going to have their Lemon Grass Chicken Wrap, but it had tomato in it, so we went with the Dry Ribs. They were quite delicious, and the portion was quite generous.

Next, we visited Firestone Restaurant and Bar for their Bacon Wrap Scallops. They were rather steep at 5 tickets for only 3 scallops (tickets are $1 each, or 10% off if purchased in advance, as we did). There is very little seafood that I like, and I liked these scallops a lot, as did my daughter. Comparing the amount we got to the dry ribs, which only cost us 4 tickets, did have me debating whether or not they were actually worth the cost. I still haven't decided.

Either way, both dishes got a positive vote from each of us.

Our next foray led us to Zen Shabu-Shabu Japanese Cuisine, Sushi and Grill for their Beef Tenderloin Wrapped in Bacon. There were 4 pieces of bacon wrapped beef on the skewer, and they tasted quite good.

We also stopped at Tropika Malaysian & Thai Cuisine, getting their Roti Canai (Malay Bread). Half the fun was watching the bread first being grilled, then smooshed on all sides before being hacked by a cleaver, then plated with some dipping sauce. I really liked it, though my daughter could take it or leave it.

So that's two positive votes for the beef tenderloin, but one enthusiastic vote for the Roti Canai tempered with a "meh," neutral vote.

After this, my daughter and I were in need of hydration, but after seeing the prices on the vending machines, we decided to go to Three Bananas for drinks, instead. Not that we ever need to have our arms twisted to go there. We've often had their delicious pizzettes for lunch.

Next up, it was time for dessert. Sorta.

We searched out the Strawberry Cheesecake for my daughter, who is an absolute cheesecake nut. This was offered by The Old Spaghetti Factory. No surprise that my daughter loved it, but I find it too sweet. One vote for, one... meh.

Then we got tempted by an old favourite, Green Onion Cake from Hong Kong Bakery. Because we just can't go to a local festival without having some green onion cake. Gotta have it. Two enthusiastic votes in favour of the cakes.

At this point, we were ready to go home, but not without picking something up for my other daughter. We picked up a few more tickets and got another Green Onion Cake, as well as...

...some Vegetable Tempura from the Korean Village Restaurant, where we got the Seafood Pancakes yesterday - a treat I look forward to every year (I got a second one for myself) and Deep Fried Wonton with Crab Meat and Cream Cheese from Panda Hut Express. Those are another treat we look forward too. I was really impressed with the portion size for the Tempura Vegetable. My younger daughter doesn't care for either, but my older daughter and I love them.

We're now out of tickets, but the festival runs until August first. Who knows. We might head back at the end of the week. ;-)