Archive for: 2007
I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
iPod charged? Check. Seriously West Coast downloaded? Check. Camera charged? Check. Cell phone charged? Check. Chargers for all aforementioned gadgets? Check. Ticket confirmation? Check. Yep, it’s time to fly out to Ottawa to reconnect with the family.
The Search For…
So… I’ve got two options here, neither of them totally satisfactory.
1) Use the built-in Wordpress search function. It’s pretty basic, though you can install plugins to make it search pages as well as posts, and nicely highlight search terms on the results page. Pro: it only searches post/page content, and title (this annoyed me before). Which in fact is a bit of a con, because now I may want to search the comments.
What don’t I need?
I’m still working on the new site design. It’s slow. And frustrating. I want to do more than just giving my site a face lift, but honestly it’s damn hard to be creative when I’m still learning the tools. So I experiment. And I play. I add stuff. And I subtract.
Subtracting’s important. There comes a point when pretty styles and frills are just too distracting, too showing, too hard to maintain, too much.
I’m cultured, y’all
Last Friday I went to the Eastside Culture Crawl. And I haven’t blogged about it not because I didn’t enjoy it or it didn’t make an impression me, but because I just didn’t know what to say. It’s… art. I don’t know much about art. Like the saying goes, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” And I feel the same applies here. Still, let’s give it a go.
Enlightenment For Sale
Sunday was quite a full day of volleyball. A reffing clinic around noon, then dropping in to Intermediate 1 (I figured I’d have a good shot, since lots of people would be away for the long weekend), then my usual Intermediate 2 play. There was also a beginner reffing clinic between I1 and I2; I’d already taken it, so it gave me a chance to go grab a bite to eat.
“i used to <3 life.”
Thanksgiving photos are coming soon. Meantime, here’s what you might call an anti-Thanksgiving photo. I saw this graffiti for the first time as the train pulled into Waterfront station, and took this photo during lunch.
Enjoy. Or, not.
Giving Thanks For Whistler
Boo on me. Working so hard on my blog & gallery redesign that I totally forgot to write about Thanksgiving. And it was pretty special, since I spent it in Whistler with a few close friends. Just one day (Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon), but it was a hell of a day.
Monsieur Smartypants
Okay, The Tick vs. Reno, Nevada is far from my favourite from Season Two (that would be Grandpa Wore Tights, with its brilliantly hilarious parody of Golden Age heroes), but the title seemed appropriate. After a hiatus of a few weeks I’m back at work on my site redesign, and making good progress. I’ve got a pretty good structure for the blog and assorted pages, though there are still some open questions and many tweaks to be done. And, I’ve started looking at customising my photo galleries. Yes, it can be done.
If I lived downtown I’d be home by now
(Arrr!)
Well, I’m blogging from home, but still. It hit me tonight, with a dazzling clarity, as I grabbed a bite just before catching the last Trainbus: if I lived downtown I wouldn’t have to commute way out (okay, not way way out, I know) to the boonies, on top of an exhausting day at work.
Flown The Coop
They’re definitely on their own now. Since late last week, none of the juveniles have touched down on the roof for more than a few minutes, and haven’t even been fed by their parents. At least as far as I could see. Even the runt I worried about so much is flying like a pro, its flight strong, its gliding smooth as silk. It’s such a joy to watch them go after seeing them grow up. Funny to think just a couple of months ago they were still downy little chicks with useless wings and ravenous stomachs.
Up, Up And Away
Holy cow, it’s flying!
And not just little Kitty Hawk laps around the roof, but soaring beautifully, higher even than my floor. It’s still got a lot to learn–it’s flapping too much, using up too much energy, and when it does try to glide its wings are all twitchy and hesitant; also, the landings need work–but damn that’s impressive. Just a week ago it was confined to the rooftop, and now… the sky’s the limit.
They loved the t-shirts, but the fridge magnets were a hard sell
It was the August long weekend so you know what that means? The Vancouver Pride parade. The sun was shining, the rainbow balloons were floating, the leather queens were buff and be-harnessed. The idea this year was to have a moving game: a few players would bump the ball around while two held up the net, and a few more would run around giving out free junk to the crowds.
The Myspace Blues
I haven’t been working much on my site lately. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to set up a Myspace page for his Blues band. He doesn’t know HTML but I do, and I was happy to help, but damn that was a painful experience.
That’s Natural Selection For You
I was off for the first week of July. When I came back on the 9th, I found the nest on the cathedral tower had ben abandoned. My theory—shared by my neighbour, who’d also been keeping an eye on the birdies—was that the metal surface on which the nest was built just got too hot, and the chicks cooked. (Yeah, it’s not always survival of the fittest. Sometimes it comes down to dumb luck.)
Reinventing The Wheel
It started when my old camera conked out. No display in shooting mode, no images recorded. Ah, we had some good times these 4 years, but I guess nothing lasts forever. So I bought a new one. And then I started thinking more about photos, and the work I have to do to put them online.
The Blessed Event
They’re here! They’re here! The eggs on the bell tower have hatched sometime last night, and the nest is now home to three adorable seagull chicks.
Bell tower? Yep: in the last couple of weeks I noticed another seagull nest, built on the southwest corner of the Cathedral’s taller bell tower. But since it’s almost exactly at eye level with my work, I couldn’t see the eggs.
lol
I think this meme is getting out of hand.
Okay, so first we had lolcats. Then they upped the ante with lolbots.
And now they’re shacking up
Well, that answers that question.
A couple of weeks ago I wondered where the two gulls would settle down. Turns out they settled down right on the roof where they consummated their union. At least I assume it’s the same couple—not to sound speciesist or anything, but seagulls all kind of look alike to me.
Today I saw two seagulls doing it
Heh. Well, it’s that time of year. They were on a roof, across the street and a few storeys below my window. The male was sitting on top of the female for a couple of minutes after a co-worker pointed them out. Just… sitting there. Not moving, no bamp-chicka-bamp music. Then he flapped his wings a bit, and the female scooted out from under him. They hung around the roof for a couple of hours. Frankly I was a bit disappointed, but I assume they enjoyed it, and that’s what counts, right?
Burn in Hell, Jerry Falwell
Okay, I wasn’t going to write about Falwell’s death… but then I thought, what the hell, all the cool kids are doing it. Let’s start with a stirring eulogy by Christopher Hitchens:
