Sep 22 2023 - This Day in History

 

It is 22 years since the catastrophic event of 9/11.  It had a lasting emotional toll in America and was catastrophic for Afghanistan and Iraq.   The role of media expanded to transmitting and amplifying tragic events live.  Airplane travel wasn't so safe anymore, and Muslims became the target of discrimination which has lasted for decades.  I wondered why there are no reflections this year in the Google retrievals. Google has become so aggressive in shaping and deciding what is retrieved that I have come to downgrade its integrity rating.  I hopped over to DuckDuckGo.com and find quite the list of reflections.  There was breaking news from CNN in which two more victims were identified through advanced DNA testing. That article says that 40% of the victims - 1,100 people remain unidentified.  So one would expect the timing of the identification was done to coincide with the anniversary.  That tells us a lot about how news is made for the media today.  I came upon this November image.  I expect this is along John Street in Vineland.  The sun was reflecting up into the sky and the road shone brilliantly with the reflections.  I think this vertical extension of light is called a sun pillar.

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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.

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May 11 2020 - Snowbirds vs White Mercedes

The Snowbirds flew right over our houses yesterday.  They are heading out west after this.  The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds are doing the same in the U.S. - they flew over New York City and New Jersey for 35 minutes.  We got a 'swoosh' - I was able to get 8 shots so not even 35 seconds. Look at the stunning Canadian Press picture of the flight in Toronto yesterday.  I would expect the photographer Frank Gunn has taken that picture of the skyline from the Toronto Islands a few times.       How fast does a Snowbird jet fly? 190 km/hour - 590 km/hour.  How fast was the 19-year-old driving the Mercedes on the QEW in Burlington on Saturday night?  308 km/hour.  What was he charged with?  Stunt driving and street racing.  Stunt driving carries fines up to $10,000 and six months in jail, and a loss of licence for up to two years. I expect no Mother's Day will never be the same for that family.  Tomorrow is the start of road safety week.  Here' the philosophical quote from the Officer. "You may think you're in control until that moment you're out of control," said Schmidt. You can see that the sky was a flat grey yesterday, so we give thanks to Luminar4 for these California sunsets showing off the Snowbirds' formation.  How far apart are they?  The separation between aircraft can be as little as 1.9 metres in some of the formations.

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April 28 2020 - Sunset Ride

The earliest written words are 3400-3100 BC and the earliest coherent texts about 2600 BC. The earliest form of musical notation found is about 1400 BC. It contains fragmentary instructions for performing music.  It is music composed in harmonies of thirds.  The scholar and music theorist Isidore of Seville, while writing in the early 7th century, considered that "unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down." But they were written by the 9th century to capture the Gregorian chant sung in monasteries. The earliest is about 850. Notation developed fine for melody, but took longer for rhythm - and in the 13th-century a treatise explains a set of six rhythmic modes in use at the time.  The pictures of early music notation show blocks rather than our current ovals.   I quite liked the blocks and yet am equally attracted to ovals.  I find musical notation visually pleasing without knowing what the song is.  That certainly isn't the case with mathematical notation which seems visually dense.  I guess it doesn't have rhythm portrayed. So our pictures today are an appreciation of the great rock face on the train layout in Sacramento.  The first image has the sky replacement so that sky and rock seem to meld together.  It is as thought the sky is flowing into the rock and down the cliff. In the second you can see how amazing the colours and details are.  Such an artist - it seems too bad he wasn't creating sculptures rather than sides of hills.

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Apr 4 2020 - Bad Dog

All those dog and cat jokes that I didn't know about.  Here's the Bad Dog joke: What are all the bad dog behaviours? Things like digging, chewing, begging, not coming when called, pulling on the leash, separation anxiety, whining for attention, barking at the door, jumping, biting, aggression, barking all the time.   What are the bad cat behaviours? Scratching, biting, yowling at night, spraying and aggression towards other cats are common bad cat behaviours.  The article says they can be rectified by the owner.  What are bad human behaviours?  It turns out there aren't any bad human behaviours listed - there are bad people, people who do bad things, probing the good in bad behaviour,  and bad habits.  Our two skies today have the same dramatic sky replacement from Skylum.  Isn't that interesting how it creates reflections in Port Dalhousie Harbour in the first, and the second, with the choppy water, gets nothing.

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Convert to Canadian!

I found this yesterday as I was researching British and American sports humour. We Canadians look so tough that it makes me want to 'convert' everyone to being Canadian.  Enjoy this comparative story. Canadian Hockey Conversion Table 50° Fahrenheit (10° C)  New Yorkers try to turn on the heat  Canadians plant gardens 40° Fahrenheit (4.4° C)  Californians shiver uncontrollably  Canadians sunbathe 35° Fahrenheit (1.6° C)  Italian Cars won't start  Canadians drive with the windows down 32° Fahrenheit (0 ° C)  Distilled water freezes  Canadian water gets thicker 0° Fahrenheit (-17.9° C)  New York City landlords finally turn on the heat  Canadians have the last cookout of the season -40° Fahrenheit (-40° C)  Hollywood disintegrates  Canadians rent some videos -60° Fahrenheit (-51° C)  Mt. St. Helens freezes  Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door -10° Fahrenheit (-73° C)  Santa Claus abandons the North Pole  Canadians pull down their ear flaps -173° Fahrenheit (-114° C)  Ethyl alcohol freezes  Canadians get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg -460° Fahrenheit (-273° C)  Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops  Canadians start saying "cold, eh?" -500° Fahrenheit (-295°C)  Hell freezes over  The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup source: http://www.jokes4us.com/sportsjokes/hockeyjokes.html Our pictures today glow with the Topaz Filter Restyle intensifying the sunset colours of Florida's Lido Beach.

Fifty Years a Ruler

Black Friday sales reports violence across the U.S.  It seems regrettable that this shopping day has an association with the Black Friday label.  Black Friday 'days' commemorate catastrophic events such as scandals, stock exchange crashes, fire devastation, military operations, and so on. There's an entry for Black Friday 2016 for the United Kingdom - the day after the Brexit vote - when the financial markets lost 2 trillion dollars in the worst single day drop in history.  Fidel Castro has died at 90 so today's photos show scenes from Cuba.  Here is his most famous quote: "Condemn me.  It does not matter. History will absolve me" And an historical fact I'd forgotten: "Castro’s speeches, lasting up to six hours, became the soundtrack of Cuban life and his 269-minute speech to the UN General Assembly in 1960 set the world body’s record for length that still stood more than five decades later."

To Capture Speed

Each Florida day has begun by taking pictures of the rising sun.  Today the sun is behind a veil of grey that is so uniform the camera struggles to focus.  Mist has been floating in and out of the shore and the inland clouds look like they will bring rain.  And then in 10 minutes, everything changes.  The sun rises above the cloud bank on the horizon and a glorious sky emerges.  The ocean and sky are still merged and without a clear distinction.  Because the sun has risen high enough, there isn't the orange or red colours.  What occurs instead is an ocean and sky that look like grey pearl. The camera sees more colour than I do:  As the sun rises into a cloud, there will be oranges in the image which I barely see.  And then the sun is up, and the sunrise picture-taking is completed.   Today's images were taken on the trip down to Florida.  These are motion blur pictures - where the car's speed is faster than the camera's shutter speed to give that wonderful sense of movement.

So Many Footprints in the Sand

These footprints are bigger than bird tracks in the sand.  We got to see repair work on stairs that go down to the shore. This was on the unit a few doors down.  How does something this large get onto the beach? Lucky for this house there is an empty lot a few doors down for access.  You can see the tracks up the incline.   While we face the sunrise, the sunset colours also show in the sky and water, and the last two pictures are from yesterday's sunset.

Florida's East Coast - Sunrise and Sail's Up

This was yesterday's sunrise as it bounced off the sky looking north along the beach and then looking towards the sun as it rose in the sky.  The pinky coral colour was very pronounced. The progression of the day in pictures went:  Before Sun, Sun's Up, Surf's Up, Sails Up... I was told by a boater yesterday that this is unusual to have such windy weather and such waves.  He wasn't able to launch his boat because of the winds.  There were a few hardy athletes out on the water. I wondered about those trademark names like Kleenex and Windex as I was walking through the grocery store.  Here's my answer: An eponym is someone or something whose name is or is thought to be the source of something's name (such as a city, country, era, or product); alternately it can be used to refer to the name of something that is based on or derived from someone or something else's name. Albert Einstein is the eponym of the element einsteinium; conversely, einsteinium is an eponym of Albert Einstein. Active Trademarks Often Used Generically Alka Seltzer AstroTurf Band Aid Beer Nuts Benzedrine Boogie Board Breathalyzer Brillo Pad BVDs Chapstick (Chap Stick) Cheerios Claymation Coke (Coca Cola) Cola (Coca Cola) Cool-Aid (Kool-Aid) Cuisinart Demerol Ditto Machine Dixie Cups Dumpster Erector Set Fiberglass (Fiberglas) Fig Newtons Freon Frisbee Green Stamp Hacky Sack Hi-lighter (Hi-Liter) Hoover Hula-Hoop Jacuzzi Jeep Jello (Jell-O) Jockey Shorts Kitty Litter Kleenex Laundromat Levi's Life Savers Mace Magic Marker Microchip Novocain Oreo Palm Pilot Parcheesi (replacing the generic word "Pachisi") Ping Pong (replacing the generic term "Table Tennis") Play-Doh Plexiglas Polaroid Pop Tart Popsicle Post-It Note Q-Tip Rollerblade Roller Derby Scotch Tape Scrabble Sellotape Sheetrock Skivvies Styrofoam Super Glue Teflon Teleprompter (TelePrompTer) Teletype Teva Thermos TV Dinner Tylenol UNIX Valium Vaseline Velcro Walkman Welcome Wagon White Out (Wite-Out) Wiffle Ball Windbreaker X-Acto Knife Xerox View this email in your browser