We’ll be spending the month of November in Almonte this year. This hasn’t always been the case for at least part of this gloomy month. In 2007 we were in the Mediterranean, starting in Barcelona. In 2010 we went to Nassau. In 2011 we cruised to the Caribbean from New York. And in 2016 we ...
One thing about living in the Valley is you are not going to escape the specter of winter. However, October is a little early for the whole scenario. Snow at this time of year is possible, but with cool and rainy November on the horizon we don’t expect it to last for long. Besides, I ...
October is a major family birthday month with daughter’s near the beginning, younger granddaughter’s towards the middle, and Maria’s coming near the end. When we first met, Maria was nearing what we used to call “the age of majority.” It arrived later back then. She was already playing a number of recurring roles as daughter, sister ...
The last couple of posts were rather depressing. Let’s face it – nobody wants to live in the UNFriendly Town. And in spite of some bitterness over the election results on social media, the fact remains that by and large most folks you meet in Almonte will be kind today. The election day is just ...
Whoa! Or is it Woah? Either way, life in the Friendly Town might be a bit more problematic after yesterday’s municipal election results were published. The time leading up to the election was dominated by sniping between the incumbent councilors and a newly formed ratepayers group that was determined to bring them down. Did they? ...
When I was a small boy, I was fortunate enough to get to know my dad’s uncle Eddy. Born in 1884, Uncle Eddy was a lifelong railroader. He started out with the tiny Bay of Quinte Railway, then worked for Canadian Northern and later on joined Canadian National. He was a freight engineer most of ...
I’ve been a hobby photographer for at least 55 years. Forty of those years were with film and fifteen with digital and maybe 4 years of overlap. I have made images with paper backed roll film, 35mm slide and print film, various and sundry electronic sensors. I’ve used box cameras, rangefinders, single-lens reflex, compact digital ...
This isn’t so much a post about photography as it is about how a technology-driven company can make products that are a marketing and financial disaster if they don’t understand their customer. Nobody can dispute Nikon’s place as an optical and camera giant. They started out in the 1940s by knocking off Leica rangefinders, created ...
When I started out in photography and for many years after I just had one camera at a time. First I had a cruddy old 127 roll film compact, then a 35 mm rangefinder, and finally a Nikon film SLR. During this time I was obviously shooting film of some sort and didn’t travel all that ...
Nothing like ending a cruise with a couple of sea days – so we did. The spectacular weather we’d had for two weeks continued right to the end of our cruise (and beyond.) The seas calmed down and it was smooth sailing for the 1000 mile trip back to home port. The kids continued to enjoy ...