Playing with a new computer

A couple of days ago, just as the latest weather front was approaching our area, my wife noticed an unusual cloud formation almost overhead.  I quickly grabbed her little digital camera and took a picture.

Since I just purchased a new iMac a couple of weeks ago, and am still "getting the hang of it", I decided to play around with a third-party, inexpensive graphics program I bought on-line (Pixelmator, recommended by Derek) to play around with the cloud picture.









This is the original image, including a flaw in the camera which appears when the zoom is set to higher than 1.5 ( I'm getting the camera looked after under warranty).












This is a negative image, after painting out the flaw, and rotating the original. To me, it looks like a number of jet fighter planes flying in formation. Maybe aliens?

Part of the family?

Today, I decided to give my comfortable old slippers an honourable "burial".  As the oldest "member", they joined our slipper family at Sechelt, on the Sunshine Coast, and served me well for over ten years. They were "born" at a shop that specializes in sheepskin products; the shop is still in business, so far as I know. Over the years, the left slipper has had a couple of duct tape repairs, but now it's time to say goodbye. Perhaps we'll get a replacement - I do occasionally go to the sunshine coast on business.

A happy occasion

Yesterday, our family and friends took part in one of the happy events which are part of a family's history: Our niece Tarya married the love of her life, Taylor James (T.J. to all of us). We are proud of both, and wish them a long, happy, and healthy life together.

Many pictures were taken; the ones we took are on flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157624842227574

This morning, we had more happy news: Tarya's uncle became a grandfather. Congratulations to his family, too.

Another family occasion

In order to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Tarya and T.J., we had an unconventional "shower" for both of them, with family and  friends. Here are some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157624791112672/

A family reunion

Every now-and-then, our entire Canadian family contingent comes together to celebrate an important occasion, anniversary, or birthday. This happened yesterday, and Hilkka took these pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157624514188971/

Click on the link.

Little spider

The weather has been marvellous for the last two weeks or so. We take advantage of this; we have breakfast on the back porch or the courtyard, eat lunch and supper there, all surrounded by sunshine and flower pots (meticulously tended to by my wife), and generally enjoy the summer. In the late afternoon, we pull down a sunshade. About an hour before sunset we noticed a little spider's web, being illuminated by sunlight at just the right angle, which a little spider had put up after we had lowered the sunshade. It was suspended from that sunshade, and the downpipe from the roof. The web must have been constructed within an hour by that little spider. The sunlight passed through the web just like through a spectroscopic grating - which breaks up the light (like a prism) into its constituent colours, mostly reds, because the sun was so low in the sky. It was worth a picture.

The web stayed there for a couple of days (we took care not to disturb it when rolling up the sunshade); in all that time we saw a trace of only one "catch". It seems like a lot of work for that little spider to find only one meal in all that time. Then, the next morning, both web and spider had disappeared without a trace. Did the spider "eat up" the web, so that it could spin another one somewhere else?

Sure signs of summer

This week is forecast to be clear and sunny all the way. Today we placed the weeping hoses around the hedge and hung the sunshade for the back porch (our favorite place on days like this). The porch has no windows, but has a solid cover with just one smallish glass window. Those of you who attended Derek's birthday party last weekend will remember, no doubt, because his side is the mirror-image of ours (both sides are only separated by a door - usually open). Also set up the large sun-umbrella, table, and chairs in the courtyard below.

The porch is south-facing, so the temperatures there are usually about three to four degrees (C) higher than in the courtyard and inside the house. They tend to correspond to the "inland" temperatures which are forecast on the local stations. As I write this (11:40 am), the temperature on the porch is 28 C. We've been sqwaking about the cool temperatures up to now, so we got what we wished for.