Archive for the ‘Canada’ Category

Lunar Eclipse 2008

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Lunar Eclipse 2008We all went out to see the Lunar Eclipse this week. I was sadly confused about how far I would have to drive to find a nice dark site.

Of course you don’t need a dark site to see an Eclipse, but for the rest of the experience it is nice to be able to see the stars too. We were able to show Cassie Orion and Sirius. I was sadly unable to find her eponymous constellation.

I was able to take these pictures hand held with my camera. Using the manual settings – including manual focus was a bit of a fight. Remember when taking pictures of the moon to use the sunny f/16 rule – on the Moon it’s sunny right now – even if it is nighttime. After the Moon is in Shadow (the colorful part of the lunar Eclipse) you have to experiment, or bracket, or have a really good spot meter to get the exposure right. My camera couldn’t get much image during totality – I think all of my pictures are during the lead up to totality.

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Posted in Family, Ottawa | 1 Comment »

Shark feeding.

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

Last night we went to a local fish store and saw the shark feeding. I think it was a black tip shark, but I’m no expert. It was cool watching the shark hunt highly dangerous squid meat squares. Cassie is excited by the prospect of Santa bringing fish.

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Posted in Ottawa | 2 Comments »

Ottawa Municipal Election, 2006, Mayor

Sunday, October 1st, 2006

Candidates:

I am happy to link to more official candidates webstites – these are the best I could quickly find.

Ottawa Municipal Election Info:

Posted in Ottawa | 4 Comments »

Ottawa Municipal Election, 2006, Ward 13; Rideau-Rockcliffe

Sunday, October 1st, 2006

Candidates for Ward 13; Rideau Rockliffe, Ottawa Municpal Election Nov 13, 2006.

Ottawa Municipal Election Info:

Posted in Ottawa | 3 Comments »

Intelligence

Monday, September 4th, 2006

Haddock Entertainment – who I know and love because of the DaVinci series is starting a new one called: Intelligence.  Intelligence is a new show including Matt Frewer – Famous as “Max Headroom” but also brilliant in “Taken“, and “Doctor Doctor“.  DaVinci was so good I’ll definately be watching this new one.

Posted in Canada, Television | No Comments »

Working out.

Friday, August 25th, 2006

You may never believe it.

I’ve been going to the Gym almost every workday for more than a month. I’ve been taking Cassie to daycare for just after 7, and then I have about an hour for workout and shower before I have to head off to work. Weights 3 days a week, and cardio 2. I guess everything Mike and Mark taught me didn’t go to waste – I’ve remembered a fair bit of the proper technique.

Cardio kicks my ass. I’m enjoying the recumbant bike, but I know I should be using the cross trainer. I tried the cross trainer one day and had to give up after 5 minutes, then I tried to finish up on the bike, but had to quit after just 6 more minutes – ARGH. I’ve tried the other way around – 20 mins on the bike and then I can do 7 on the X-trainer.

I complained a bit today at work that I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere – I’m staying at the same weight on the machines – althought cardio is a bit better. My boss said that one of his trainers told him – “it took you quite a long time to get chubby….”

Foolishly I didn’t do a lot of measurement baselines before I started so I’m a bit blurry about how I’m doing. Current goals are all about getting to the gym consistently and I’m very happy so far.

Posted in Coming Apocalypse, Ottawa | No Comments »

Big Bang

Monday, August 21st, 2006

Big Bang Another set of fun fireworks here in Ottawa, this time from the fireworks competition over in Gatineau. My new camera continues to rock.

Sandra is actually starting to think I’ve got too many pictures of Fireworks – it seems they all start to look the same after a while. Fortunately the Balloon Festival is next weekend so I’ll have pictures of hot air baloons to post. Sadly there will also be more Fireworks….

Posted in Ottawa | No Comments »

Sitewide GeoURL Implemented here

Friday, May 5th, 2006

I’ve added GeoURL tags back to the site. using:

GeoURL Tags at The Aquinas Hub
This is a really simple plugin to add GeoURL tags to your blog. It isn’t supposed to do anything more than that, but it’ll save you having to modify your header file everytime you change theme. This lets visitors to your site find other sites near you in ‘meatspace’.

You can see sites close to me in the real world. I was reminded that Gabrielle is living in Ottawa – I’ll have to get in touch with her. Hmmm, it seems she’s moved back to the Moncton area and hasn’t updated her GeoTags.

I’d like to be able to tag specific posts with GeoLocations of some sort, but I’ll have to investigate this further. I’m not sure that the GeoURL technology is the most appropriate for this.

Update:  May 9.  I’ve changed from the GeoURL plugin to the Geo plugin At the suggestion of Aquinas.  This plugin allows me to tag posts with different locations.
GeoPlugin

The Geo plugin allows you to attach geographic coordinate information to posts. It also lets you specify a default geographic location for your entire WordPress blog.

Posted in Ottawa, Technology | 1 Comment »

Allan Bales Creek

Friday, April 21st, 2006
Allan Bales Creek

The Toronto region is trying to get local people to care more about the local headwaters. Part of the work they are doing is naming things after local residents. My Grandfather was Allan Bales – I have his name as my middle name. This picture is just below the Mill pond falls just north of Mill St. in Richmond Hill, ON

Posted in Ontario | No Comments »