Sep 7 2023 - Unruly Fans

 

In the headlines today is news of American tennis fans screaming from the stands and interrupting play.  A fan using language from Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime was thrown out this year.  Last year two men were engaged in giving one of them a haircut.  That was considered unruly. So I guess there are people over-involved in the game and those under-involved.  Somehow, they are at the game - who knows if they are there to watch the players play.  Everyone seems to have unruly fans.  Adele had the problem in July.  At a baseball game in Washington, unruly fans were pulling up chunks of grass.   What was the unruly fan doing at a Maple Leafs game in April?  The young fan was spotted eating "liquorice with mayo" during the game.  I guess he was dipping liquorice sticks into a jar of mayonnaise.  Supposedly fans were left in "shock".  I guess they weren't at the CNE this year with its special food fare.   It seems to be a part of sports - one can go to Wikipedia to find a year by year listing of unruly/violent incidents at sports games. It goes way back to the 1800s.  It is HERE. Its most recent entry is December 17 2022 in Melbourne, Australia.  There are other articles ranking the NFL's rowdiest/most annoying/obnoxious, and most arrested fans.  And hop over to the Guinness Book of Records.  What do you get for a search on unruly fans?  You get the loudest crowd roar in a sports stadium.  Would that be unruly?  It was 142.2 dbA in Kansas City in 2014.   Here's a view that could only be from a plane - between the clouds at sunset.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Aug 10 2023 - Angels Calling

 

Angels Calling is a song by The Tenors. It is played regularly on the Zoomer FM classical music radio station - “Beautiful music for a crazy world.” It is one of those songs requested as a tribute to a loved one who has passed away.    Can’t you hear the angels calling, me up?  Up above? Can’t you hear the angels calling me home?  Me home? Where is home? From Wikipedia:  "In the New Testament, the existence of angels, just like that of demons, is taken for granted. They can intervene and intercede on behalf of humans. Angels protect the righteous (Matthew 4:6, Luke 4:11)They dwell in the heavens (Matthew 28:2, John 1:51), act as God's warriors (Matthew 26:53) and worship God (Luke 2:13). In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, angels behave as psychopomps." And a psychopomp?  That’s a guide of souls.  Their role is not to judge the deceased but to simply guide them.   That’s the key to this song seems.  It is compelling and comforting as it gives the sense in the music and lyrics of being guided and taken care of.   How would you know when you look up that you are being guided by the angels?   I think these are the clouds that go with the song.  That guide one up.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 22 2022 Near Death experiences to Hell

 

Did you know there are lots of articles on "terrifying visions of Hell by survivors of near-death experiences?"  I didn't.  These descriptions come from the website therichest.com A few survivors who have had a near-death experience and were sent to hell have said that they remember feeling extremely sleepy. They claim it was as if they were being forced to close their eyes losing the ability to remain conscious. Many of the NDE survivors who have seen hell say that they moved right through walls and doorways as if on their way to someplace. They claim that they remember being inside of a spiral vortex filled with darkness falling to their inevitable demise. Imagine standing there feeling your skin begin to burn from the extreme heat as the doors swing open inviting you and your soul in. Hearing stories about endless amounts of corpses, skeletons, and skulls from near-death experience survivors who have seen hell are rather common. Walking the path into the deep dark pits of hell would be a traumatic experience for any person.  ...seeing was other people that had a significant part of their body missing.  ...stories from people who have passed on and then returned that some of them were unable to speak. Some of them claim they were consumed with an uncontrollable fear. People who have died and been to hell and back tell of how they experienced an intense sort of anger unlike they had ever felt before taking a hold of them.   After returning from their near-death experience those that have seen hell describe a putrid, toxic smelling hell where corpses lay rotting all over the landscape  Many of hell's NDE survivors speak of begging and pleading for their life and to return home. Survivors of hellish NDEs report being dragged, beaten, and tortured by Satin's most viscous monsters. The extensive Maclean's article on near death experiences - HERE - focuses primarily on Heaven experiences.  It covers Bill Wise's 23 Minutes in Hell.  "A California realtor, Wiese was sleeping peacefully on the night of Nov. 22, 1998, when God pitched him into hell at 3 a.m., so that—Wiese later decided—he could warn others of their peril. He landed abruptly in a five-by-three-metre cell, shared with two gigantic, evil, reptilian beasts who proceeded to smash him against the walls before shredding his flesh... At precisely 3:23 a.m., Jesus rescued Wiese and returned him home, where he landed, terrified, on his living room floor." And what expression is in the Maclean's article?  Heaven Tourists.  Can you imagine planning your NDE experience?  Heaven our Hell.  Choose.

A few views of clouds today. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 15 2022 - That Happy Little Cloud

 

Wake Up on the Bright Side      This comes from Weird Facts on Bored Panda.  These are compelling one-line stories.  You can page through all 50 of the stories HERE.  I include the link because this is a  Is this one true?  I haven't found out.  The treasure trove of Bob Ross's life is reward enough.   Bob Ross's biography has many more events that are stranger than this one.  For example,  he was never paid for his PBS series show.  Another fact:  his 30,000 paintings and the Bob Ross brand and name went to his partners after his death - Walt and Anne Kowalski, and not to his son and brother.  A Netflix documentary tracks the legal battles over the rights to the Ross name after his death at 52.   The Kowalskis had a painting supplies company in partnership with him and they backed his PBS show.  They won the rights to his likeness and name squeezing out his son - even from painting for a period of time.   And then there are all the plush toys and similar products. "Ross painted an estimated 30,000 paintings during his lifetime. Despite the unusually high supply of original paintings, Bob Ross original paintings are scarce on the art market, with sale prices of the paintings averaging in the thousands of dollars and frequently topping $10,000. The major auction houses have never sold any of Ross's paintings, and Bob Ross Inc. continues to own many of the ones he painted for The Joy of Painting, as Ross himself was opposed to having his work turned into financial instruments. In contrast to more traditionally famous artists, Ross's work, described by an art appraisal service as a cross between "fine art" and "entertainment memorabilia" — is most highly sought after by common fans of The Joy of Painting, as opposed to wealthy collectors. The artwork circulating among collectors is largely from Ross's work from before he launched the television show." And remember Bob Ross's voice?  It had a calm, soothing tone.  "Twitch streams created a new interest in Ross and caused his popularity to grow. His videos subsequently became popular with devotees of ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response). ASMR refers to a pleasant form of paresthesia, or tingling, often brought about by specific visual or auditory stimuli. Many viewers found that listening to Ross triggered an ASMR response. According to Joan Kowalski, the president of Bob Ross Inc.: "He's sort of the godfather of ASMR.  People were into him for ASMR reasons before there even was an ASMR." This is repeated in another article:  "Even today, Ross has become an ASMR star...  A video of Ross painting a mountain has a staggering 7.7 million views, with others regularly surpassing 2 or 3 million views." A few of Bob Ross's words are notable and quotable:    We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents. “There's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend. “I guess I'm a little weird.  “Let's get crazy.” “Lets build a happy little cloud. Lets build some happy little trees.”

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ... Daylight Savings Time

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW...this is a regular headline in the internet.  Today's topic is what you need to know about the time change to daylight saving time this Sunday.  There was nothing that I needed to know in the article on Daylight Saving Time from Globalnews.ca.  But it got me to look at it.  What if there is something important this year and this weekend? When I think of a clock - I see one of those regulation school clocks. Isn't this such a familiar sight all through my generation's childhood and well into adulthood.  We would see these clocks in schools, hospitals, industries.  What does the ITC stand for on this clock?     It stands for independent transmit clock.  Looking at pictures of classrooms, there is the electric clock high on the wall in most of them.  I assume they are electromagnetic. It is interesting how little moI know about the time-keeping of clocks and yet they are so ingrained in everything we do today. Remember the school bell in the classrooms?  It signalled the end of class.  It must have also signalled the beginning, but it is the end that seems more appealing to the memory.  The move to Daylight Savings Time is a welcome one - it signals the end of winter approaches and the beginning of spring is here. Today's image was taken at Vineland Research - one of its buildings has a wall of boston ivy that turns a beautiful red in the fall.  The windows seem to be eyes reflecting the sky.

The Sun Will Rise Again

It is only a few days to the Winter Solstice and then the sun will start to rise again. As we approach Christmas, we focus on its traditions instead of the dwindling light.  In Niagara, we have Dutch Bakeries.  This time of year is when Dutch baking reaches its zenith.   Yesterday at the Old Post was a series of almond baked treats.  The bakery rack was set up in the middle of the store, and piled with these.  One of the bakers gave me a tour of what differentiated the many treats. The most frequent Dutch treat that is available all year round is Boterkoek or Dutch Butter Cake.  It comes in a small round just over an inch high and is a dense, slightly raised cake with almond flavouring and garnished with almonds. A flaky puff pastry that encases a soft, flavourful almond paste centre is made for Christmas.  It is a very small roll, so that when cut is the size of a cookie.  This means there is a lot of almond with just enough flaky pastry. There were many Dutch stollen piled high - it is a cake-like fruit bread with yeast.  The Dutch version has almond paste in the middle. And a Christmas bread was out yesterday - - Kerststol.  It is an oval-shaped fruited Christmas bread - and it what is filled with?  Almond paste. The Old Post is no modern bakery.  It has no relationship to Tim Horton and McDonald's monster size muffins or Starbuck cookies the size of plates. What lines the shelves are dozens of old-fashioned treats.  Cookies like we made when we were small - they are small. Scones, pies, squares, breads, tarts are sized for one person to eat - not for a crowd.  The staff range in age from young to older and all enjoy their products and tell you about them. It is a wonderful experience to enter that world each week. Today's sunrise pictures come from St. Augustine, Florida.  I noticed a pair of dolphins in the lower left of the second image, swimming through the golden waters.

Lake Check

November is the month of storms on Lake Ontario.  So if we go to the International Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Board website - ijc.org and the weekly regulation summary, it says that the outflow is expected to be the what's in the plan. For the week ending Wed Nov 1 2017 the reading was 74.84 m (245.54 ft) and the average this time of year is 74.56m (244.62 ft).  So it looks like about a foot above last year's levels.  We have a strong wind warning in effect.  With a weather buoy located in Grimsby, we can look at our readings.  The current conditions say that the wave height is 0.1 metres, while other places, such as South Georgian Bay have wave heights of 1.0 metres.  I hadn't realized that there is a temperature measurement in Grimsby - we're at air temperature of 12 Celsius and water temperature of 13C. There are colour charts of the Grimsby Buoy at  windfinder.com. Our spring and autumn lake 'breezes' delay the onset of frost.  This would be of note for our  wine harvest.  It began in September, and concludes in November when later season Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon are picked. Of course the ice wines wait for the frozen temperatures of minus 8 Celsius.  Our pictures were taken last weekend with those 'breezes' quickly moving the brooding clouds past vineyards and fields. The large tractor in the vineyard is a mechanical picker.

August Vacations

I don't think of August as a travel month.  I get the impression the travel industry thinks the same:  the articles give a few examples, and then skip ahead to September and autumn.  TripAdvisor's Travelers' Choice Awards says that the best vacations in the world are: Bali London Paris Rome New York City Barcelona Prague Phuket Dubai These all look like expensive vacations.  Back in 2012, the Globe and Mail had an article on how much is too much to spend on a yearly vacation? The article says that Canadian should allocate no more than 4 per cent of their after-tax income to yearly vacations. According to American Express, the average vacation expense per person in the United States is $1,145 per person or $4,580 for a family of four.  "In the States, financial experts suggest that the average family vacation costs between 5-10% of total income.  If your family makes $40,000 per year then experts say your yearly family vacation budget should average between $2,000-$4000." That's double what the Canadian article recommended to Canadians. It doesn't seem like there's an intersection between a trip to London and taking pictures of clouds as vacation activities.

A Foggy Brain

The Google search image today links to an announcement that NASA has discovered 7 Earth-like planets orbiting a star just 40 light-years away.  There's an article on it here.  They are being called the seven sisters of planet Earth. We had a day of fog yesterday.  These is an expression known as Brain Fog.  "It's a vague sense of what you're trying to retrieve, but you can't focus in on it and the effort to harness the thought can be as draining as physical activity." I won't give you the link as the web page  is full of junk and keeps shifting.  Wikipedia's entry for it is "clouding of consciousness." Our fog yesterday was perfect for orchard images.  I found the infra-red filter in Topaz Black and White Effects, and that's the result in the two bottom pictures.  They have an eerie snow-quality to them.  And how different the light was during the time I was out.  The first picture is taken towards the west with a blue fog, and the second picture is taken towards the east with the grey fog.  You can see the orchards are being worked on.  There are piles of branches on the ground. The third picture shows a row or corkscrew willow graft trees.  This looks like a corkscrew willow and pussy willow crop.  They may even be harvesting the pussy willows now as I could see the pussy willows on the stems..

I am Joe Canadian

We find out that it might be Joe Trudeau rather than Justin Trudeau in the U.S.   It seems that Justin was too hard to pronounce for Sean Spicer, the White House Press Secretary.  The hilarity that ensued on twitter was entertainment for most people on Valentine's Day. I enjoyed the tweet that said "not only do we have alternative facts now, but also AlternativePrimeMinisters". We are at that time in February when the Yosemite Horsetail Fall has the optical illusion of the "firefall." The natural effect gives the illusion that bright orange lava is flowing off the cliff at the park in California. This magic trick is a natural occurrence that only happens for a couple of weeks each February and draws hundreds of visitors each night. The "firefall" comes to life when the angle of the setting sun causes light to hit the waterfall just right; making for some amazing Instagram-worthy photos.  You can go to images for yosemite firefall. Today we see some of Florida's sunrise fire in the sky, 2016.

Summer Skies

Here we are with the grapevines ripening under sunny skies and the golden wheat in the fields that looks ready for harvesting.  Our tender fruit is abundant everywhere - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries.  Last week's market had the first tomatoes ready, too. One can stop along the country roads at fruit and vegetable stands and buy directly from the grower.

More Purple Hills and Swirling Clouds

I return to last weekend's weather and the clouds in the sky in the Purple Lavender Hills around Creemore.  It was a spectacle of swirling clouds that seemed to resemble icy mountains of snow. There's a new computer on my desk now and the photography software is getting downloaded. Here's the difference between the original out of the camera image and one processed using HDR software, which brings out the dynamic range and the brightness and contrast that is present.  You can see the trees better in the bottom of the image, along with the distant hills.   Facebook Twitter Website Blogs at: MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "marilyncornwell.us2.list-manage2.com" claiming to behttp://opengardensniagara.blogspot.ca http://blog.marilyncornwell.com