sandy amongst us

Today Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the Eastern Seaboard of North America. I won't go into a lot of what makes this hurricane significant from a meteorological point of view, but will instead let my thoughts and prayers extend to those who have been and continue to be affected by this storm.

Here, far inland like we are, not much is going on (yet). The satellite image (GOES Eastern Canada) looks like this around 10pm.

It has not really reached us yet.

Around town, we have been very fortunate so far, to my knowledge at this time. Power was knocked out for some of the city, but crews were able to restore power fairly quickly. Leaves are everywhere, and some light weight branches have been knocked down - that is all I observed while I was out at a meeting tonight. Winds are gusting to 67kmph at the local airport, but are expected to reach 90kmph (higher in exposed areas).

Otherwise, it seems business as usual.

We shall see what the morning brings.

baby therapy

I got some much needed baby therapy today. They are wonderful to hold :)

Mommy is an old friend of mine that I have known since she was four years old. She is a marvelous person:) She and her sweetie have two miracle babies - twins born early - that are doing very very well right now. I got to hold this one for about 40 minutes this morning. It has been a long time since my own little one - now approaching 11 - was this size.

I really am quite a sap.

(The pictures are a bit squishy and soft due to no flash and lousy light - they got pushed a bit more than I usually push files from the Fuji X10.)

hacky hallowe'en

Today was Hacky Hallowe'en, an event brought to the community at large by kwartzlab, a delightful group of making strange things for the sheer fun of it types in the KW area. They have a space for doing stuff - games, work, hobbies, etc and people interested can join for a nominal fee per month and use the space.

Since today was a lousy day weather wise...

And we know some of the people involved with kwartzlab...

We decided to go to Hacky Hallowe'en. The idea is to carve a fancy pumpkin, and use an LED as the light source for it. The LED and the circuits needed to make it go and power it are put together by the person carving the pumpkin themselves, with assistance offered by kwartzlab people as needed. We have done this before, and the kid has enjoyed herself very much.

It is held each year - this is the second year I believe - in the atrium of The Museum located in downtown Kitchener.

Everyone has a wonderful time carving pumpkins - templates are there for those wishing to make something fancy - and putting together their LED packs. A photo station is set up so that people can pose with their pumpkins should they desire.

Some come in costume...

While others do not.

Next year, if you are in the area, take the time to come down and make a really cool pumpkin.

bicycle ambassador

Waterloo Region is getting some things very right regarding my favourite way of getting around the place.

This makes me happy.

For one thing, increasingly, there is a recognition that the bicycle is a valid transportation option. We are slowly getting more MUPs built which actually go someplace vs purely for recreation MUPs in suburbia which seem to just go in circles within one large suburban block.

A new(ish) MUP style, for here anyways, is in place on Fischer-Hallman Road which formally divides pedestrian and cycling traffic and attempts to ease some congestion. The idea is to make things safer for all trail users and see if people want or will use MUPs which link together existing trail infrastructure. This idea is not new, and has been in place in other parts of the world for decades. But it is very nice to see it happening here at last.

Also, the Region, in conjunction with its planners and The Working Center, have hired some bicycle ambassadors to hang out in places that bicycle riders are and, well, be friendly to people.

Here is one, perched atop one of Kitchener's trail blocking gates along the Iron Horse Trail. (I am not a fan of these stupid things - they are dangerous, and have contributed to injuries in the past and one person's death.)

Anyways, I digress, like normal.

These ambassadors meet and greet people and are there to promote cycling safety by educating bicycle riders on how to ride in a safer, legal, and more friendly manner. Motorists are also being given an education under this program.

Personally, I love it. My friends and I have been trying for a while now to figure out how come the cycling community, such as it is, seems to be on the receiving end of harassment on the road ways of this region. The idea is that if we could understand what motivates some people to act in a psychotic manner, that we might be able to come up with actual workable solutions to a real problem on our roads instead of just becoming upset. We made the following observations:

• People in the last few years seem generally angry - cue higher cost of living, cost of gas, poor economy, job losses, etc
• People, when angry, act out in ways which they would not otherwise - people are generally good I think, right? When given half a chance?
• There are elements in our society who think, erroneously, that gasoline tax pays for roads - property tax does, as well as transfers from higher levels of government - this is an often expressed comment that I have heard more than once from more than one source and is a source of contention for some people.
• These same people think, again erroneously, that cyclists are freeloaders who do not pay for the roads (read comments in the local paper whenever an article about bikes is written to see what I mean) and therefore have no business being on them. The law says otherwise, and historically, the roads as we know them today in North America were the result of lobbying by cyclists who, numbering in the tens of thousands, wanted better surfaces to ride on than were needed by buggies...
• Traffic is heavy and congested and is getting worse. I cannot believe how long it takes to get around this city now in my car compared to how long it takes on my bikes.
• Cyclists are not affected by traffic much because of the size of our vehicles and dedicated lanes - add to that we often don't have to stop (it is far easier to time it with traffic lights on a bike than in a car because traffic pressures are different)...
• Many cyclists are total scofflaws who run red lights, stop signs, ride on the sidewalks, go the wrong way on the road, have not figured out what a light is, and generally are a pain in the ass which causes the already frustrated motorist to say "See?!?" and respond negatively towards people on bikes. 
• The flip side of this is that many cyclists see the atrocious behaviour of some members of the motoring public towards cyclists and say "See?!?" right back at them and respond negatively as well - dumb dumb dumb all around.
• Regarding the sidewalks though, consider this: Why do cyclists use the sidewalk? Many are just plain scared to ride on the road because of the behaviour of motorists. They say that they would rather take the car than put themselves at that kind of risk. They say they want to ride, but are to afraid to and this pushes them onto the sidewalk where they are actually more at risk and can harm others. Personally, I think the risk of riding in traffic is overstated, but people make decisions based on their perceptions of facts, not on the facts themselves (you are more likely to die falling down the stairs in your house than riding your bike for example, yet people keep going into those basements!!!) Edit to add: This does not excuse the riding on the sidewalk, but does explain it. Speaking for myself, when I feel forced onto the sidewalk - something which happens rarely - I get off the bike and walk.
• Also, many people in North America see bicycles as toys or sporting equipment only and do not understand that in most, if not all, jurisdictions in North America bicycles are considered a vehicle and must follow the same rules as other vehicle traffic when using public roadways. People on bikes need to realize this and behave accordingly and respect other traffic. People in cars need to realize this and recognise that bikes have a right to be on the road and must treat cyclists as if they were any other slower moving piece of traffic when passing, etc. Co-operation is the key.

So what to do?

A basic understanding that everyone is just trying to get someplace and would like to do so in peace would be a good way to start. How someone chooses to move about does not matter, what matters is that they want to do so in peace.

That's it.

Something else to think about though.

Cyclists take note - you are not being picked on by people in cars. Honest. People in cars who "teach you a lesson" by getting too close, buzz you, honk in a way to cause you to startle, cut you off, etc are not giving you any special treatment. They do this to other people in cars as well. Just watch traffic carefully sometime. Some people just, as they said in the movie Groundhog Day, drive angry. Sadly, the consequences of this behaviour almost always end in tragedy for everyone involved when a car connects with a bicycle. It would not surprise me if those on bikes who break seem to break every rule in the book would do so in a car as well. It is people, not their chosen mode of transport, that is the issue.

Which, in a round about way, brings me back to the ambassadors. They are wonderful. cheerful, and put a happy face on the cycling world for both users of bikes and others. They are giving out these nifty booklets as well to help educate people on bicycles. Here is a pdf of it from the region: http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/gettingAround/resources/CYCLING_SAFETY_BOOKLET.pdf

It contained no surprises for me, but is a very good idea for those who may not be aware of what it contains.

Good job Region.

fog is better

One of my friends, a fellow photographer, made an excellent observation on facebook this morning that goes something like this: "this light and fog is killing me slowly as I weep in my cube :("

What light you ask? Why this light.

It was divine. Just enough light to make everything glow, and just enough fog to put a sweet sweet soft filter over everything visible.

Unlike those in this building, I got to spend my morning in a cubical free world (although, to be fair, I am not sure that there is a single cubical in the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, but still and all, I was outside, they were inside. 'Nuff said.)

My office looked more like this.

It is not that I had no work today, it is just that it did not fall first thing in the morning. Thus, I was able to get out and about on the bicycle and really enjoy myself before heading off to my job for the day. 

My favourite way of photographing fog is to do what I usually do not do which is to shoot directly into the sun. The contrast and shadow it produces is marvelous as the fog acts like a huge light diffuser over the sun. The results attained when shooting like this appeal to me very much.

This may be it for the sun for a while; the weather forecast for the next week, starting sometime tomorrow mid-day, is for a serious amount of rain.

I do hope they are in error though as I wish to ride the bike. I worked out that I need to do at least 30km a day until the end of the year if I am going to reach my mileage goal of beating last year's total of 8345km. A recent and painful crash sidelined me for almost two weeks from any real riding, and mechanical problems on my cyclocross bike cost me almost 2000km of mileage due to it being out of commission while a frequently breaking wheel and some drive train woes got sorted (turned out the whole entire drive train, including the rear derailleur and the inline barrel adjusters were smoked, so too was the rear hub - I had cracked it!) 

Now though, I am good to go and am hoping to make it.  

Incidentally, I neglected to mention that I was able to ride the 'cross bike today for the first time since my crash a couple of weeks ago. It was like being gifted with wings.

out riding because I had no other choice, really

It happens to me sometimes. I have no choice. A bicycle has to be ridden.

Today, I spent a rather pleasant half hour talking to a person I have not spoken to, but have seen before; had a nice visit with an old friend I "bumped" into while riding; and talked to a very nice construction worker building a new high rise condo about the rigours of working through a Canadian winter. He says he has done this for years, and is dreading it.

Oh, and I used my new light as a bright "lookit me!!" light again. A review will be forthcoming when I get the rest of my pictures taken with it sometime this week or early next. I also logged a pitiful 32km or so - at least 30-50km per day needs to be logged by year's end if I am to break 8.5k km by New Year's Day.

But here is the light:

And some more of the new building going in at Allen and Park Streets in Waterloo. I have been watching this go up with interest all year as it is going to change the face of the neighbourhood I grew up in rather significantly (and that is a neighbourhood that I still love.)

why I sometimes like jpeg

Approximately six or so years ago, I revived my interest in photography with my first "good" digital camera. It was one of those Canon super zoom things with just enough manual controls to give the illusion of full control without really allowing it. Today, I use a blend of gear - an Olympus E-3 dslr which is showing some wear but generates lovely results, and a Fuji X-10 compact for taking everywhere.

It was, and is, fun

Today, though, I do things a little differently than I did when I started working with digital cameras. My technique is better, my understanding of how to expose and compose a picture is better, and I have developed a work flow that serves my purposes very well.

For example, I always shoot raw and expose to the right. At first, I had no choice and shot jpegs but when I have a choice, I shoot raw.

If you are interested in photography, you know about the raw vs jpeg debate. If you don't it goes something like this: raw = more flexibility, more depth, better highlight recovery, better shadow detail, a higher level of detail because there is no data loss, etc etc etc while jpeg = faster, more convenient, nail it in camera and don't need pp, etc etc etc.

Funny thing is, both sides of the debate are right. And both are wrong.

In reading about the X-10 that I use as my take anywhere camera, it would be easy to come away with the idea that the raw functionality of the camera is not needed since the jpegs out of the camera are somehow sprinkled in magic pixie dust or something which makes them better than any other camera's output under the sun.

Part of this has to do with fanboyism I am sure. And part of this has to do with lousy raw format support by Adobe and Apple (through no fault of their own - does Fuji give over how to process the EXR sensor raws? I am not sure) and rather lousy software from Fuji to process raws. And a large part of this has to do with the truly excellent jpeg engine that Fuji has in their cameras.

The trick, by the way, when shooting raw with the Fuji is to shoot raw and jpeg at the same time, select size medium and fine output, set the DR to 400%, and use LR4 to convert the half size generated raws into DNG upon import. This gives nice and chunky low res raws with huge dynamic range which are very flexible and somehow the aberrations that people have reported from EXR raws seem to be gone. I don't know why, but I do know I get my best results this way.

However, for those who like to just shoot and who are not into a lot of pp work, jpegs are much much easier.

Which brings me to why I sometimes like jpegs.

Every one of these pictures is a straight from the camera jpeg from the Fuji X-10.  All I did was crop the picture a bit, and in the case of the motorcycle, remove the number plate data. For shooting in black and white, the jpeg engine in the camera produces exactly the results I like with no messing around at all and does so consistently and well. All I have to do is remember to tweak the exposure compensation dial on top of the camera and focus on composition. The camera does the rest.

For colour, and for my Olympus gear, it is raw all the way. But when I feel like shooting black and white, it is, in my opinion, hard to top what I am getting out of my Fuji.

Incidentally, for those who use this camera, the settings I used for the above pictures are as follows: Medium Size, Fine, DR at Auto, Sharpness -1, Highlight Tone +1, Shadow Tone -1, Noise Reduction -2.

why looking down can sometimes matter

I have been enjoying a rare perfect fall day. The appointment that I had for the day fell through, which left me at loose ends for part of the day. I took advantage of that, and the perfect weather, to head out for a walk around a local plot of land owned by the University of Waterloo. Often, it is possible to find and record a significant amount of wildlife at this location if care is taken to be quiet and respectful of animals and their habitat.

A family (I assume it is a family - but I have seen only one of them) of beavers have moved into the area and have made a dam on the stream that feeds Columbia Lake. This has resulted in the creation of a duck pond and a deepening and widening of the creek back of the dam. It is quite impressive actually:

The above video shows the dam, and the new pond which was created back of it.

Here are some of the other things I found while there.

And here is why you look down...

On snow and the need for Frankenfenders

Here is the Frankenfender MKII. MKI Frankenfender was great, but had a problem in that the whip part (shown here - the front fender off of a cheap set of mtn bike snap on fenders) was too narrow and my back, rack, and bags were getting "trashed" when riding in the snow with the new and improved huge snow tires of doom. The problem that required the reinstallation of the Frankenfender MKI was the fact that the new tires simply could not be mounted in a standard fender without the studs picking. There would have been no clearance for snow or water and this would have resulted in some serious spray back and annoyance. So, after some experimentation, I decided that the good old "slice the vinegar bottle in half and bolt it to your bike like a geek" approach was much preferred to being wet. 

Makes me want to get out on the bike and see if I stay dry!

The afternoon today ended pleasantly with a walk around the Huron natural area in Kitchener. I went with Martin, and we brought the dslrs and tripods along. Somewhat optimistically, I brought more than the wider of my lenses in the hopes that we might see some beavers, but we had no luck there with that today. What we did manage to get was some nice enough wintery landscapes. I want to return there later in the winter, after a huge heavy snow fall, and take these over again.

Lately, I have been trying to stretch myself a bit photographically and think of new ways to convey an image I have in my head.

Take the simple image of someone drinking a mug of hot chocolate in a cafe. On the surface, it is a simple enough thing, but I wanted to have a little bit of fun with it and fit it into an idea I had. The idea is straight forward - compose a picture as a cube. Square crops, six photos, all showing part of the same thing. All the pictures related to each other. It would be more of a study of the subject matter than just a single photograph, and, for photographers like me who really got going when digital photography was taking off and who never worked with square formats in their composition, a real challenge.

Here is my first attempt at what I am talking about:

Another new direction?

Some frustration is coming out here I feel.

I have been hosting my photos all over the place since I got back into photography in 2007.

I have tried flickr, and still have a pro account with them even though I am not a huge fan of the way the webpage displays work - I mainly use it as a way of keeping in touch with a few nice people that I have met. I find the "white" background and no options to be limiting and not flattering for picture display. White is great for text, but not so much for pictures. Very very few of my pictures are there.

I have tried smugmug, and while I liked it, I found that after a year of using it that it was a bit too cartoony for my liking. I prefer something a little less flashy. So I left them. This is a personal preference thing and not a reflection on the service or its stability with which I never once had a problem. It is a question of the style sheets and interface more than anything. I don't have the time to devote to writing my own, and while they support that (if memory serves me correctly) I don't have the interest in learning how to create one of my own which suits me better. Also, I found that virtually no one found my pictures and looked at them while they were hosted on smugmug. I don't really care if anyone comments, but there is, in my view, very little sense in taking a lot of pictures and sharing them with people if no one looks at them. Granted, I am not the world's best photographer or self publicist (not by a long shot), but the baked in community on smugmug seemed somewhat lacking. At least for me.

Which brings me to pbase. The community is great, the service is great (customer service, when I have needed it has been first rate), and the options for photo display are nice and streamlined (if limited) and suit what I am displaying very well. There is an active group of photographers who are highly talented, who produce work on a regular basis, share it, and visit other people's work. I cannot say enough good things about the community. However, the site is not always stable. And that frustrates. Frustrates to the point where I am considering completely changing the way I share photography with the world.

The solution I have come up with goes something like this. Host the best of my photographic work on a webpage which is stable, suits the kind of work I am displaying, and is very slick in its operation. The rest of what I want to share I can do via blogger here along with stories to go along with it.

what cycling has done to me

It has made me happy.

I spend a lot of time on my bike - every other day is "ride day" and that means I try to log about 110-140km on those days. My off days are either spent not on the bike, or biking with family, or running around doing errands (on my bike, of course.)

It has prompted a collection of bikes. I have four of them right now. One old race bike (does not get ridden at all but is a classic and I have had it since I was about 14 or so), one old mountain bike (does not get ridden much - 128km on it this year), one cyclocross bike (2464 km on it this year and climbing, rapidly), and one commuter/city bike (3079km on it and going up rapidly). I don't have enough bikes. For some reason, there is always one (or six) more that deserve a hook in the basement to hang on. For example, right now I want a Kona paddy wagon (because inexpensive fixies rock!), a Kona Major Jake (because, well, because!), an Electra Rat Fink (because it is just so cool), and a Kona Dew Delux (not because there is anything wrong with my Dew City - far from it - but because this one is just that bit lighter, and has disk brakes which I think I would really appreciate in the snow.)

My fitness is better than it has been since I was 29, a long time ago. Then, I spent hours in the gym and did five spin classes a week (two back to back often) which ripped the excess weight off of me and made me strong as all get out but did nothing for my endurance. Now? Big time endurance and I feel very fit, but have not ripped off the excess weight like I did before. It is a slower process, but one which is more sustainable and long lasting. More lifestyle related if you will.

It has proven to me that it is possible to significantly cut down on my use of vehicles powered by fossil fuels. I have been bugged for a very long time about the destruction of our environment by our habits in our culture and have decided to do something about it. Being one person, my ability to effect systemic change is limited, but I can and do make a difference when and where I can and am not shy about talking about it. Yes, I still own a car because yes, I need it for some aspects of my work (variable work locations some of which are too far away to bike to in the winter and none of which have shower locations I can use spring, fall, or summer) but no, I don't use it all the time and in fact up until the recent travel for vacation (a few out of town trips) I had almost the same km total on the car as on the bikes this calender year. A real switch and one which I hope in future years swings even further toward the bikes. Using steak powered vehicles really makes you consider how much energy is used for transport.

The most important thing though is that it has made me happy.

Thoughts on car free city centres

Initially posted as a response to this post on Take the Lane, a blog from the Kitchener Waterloo Record.

Car free? Fantastic. However, I do think that it has to be more than a venue for entertainment.
Some of you might find this interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/the-dutch-way-bicycles-and-fresh-bread.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
In particular, the notion of shifting planning focus from car friendliness to overall livabiltiy resonates with me.

I have seen first hand what a city looks like that has banished cars from its interior and they are very people centric. The city I am thinking of (in Germany) has ample parking near the core, but no cars allowed in it. Prior to switching to this, they had streets which allowed cars on them right through the middle of the city and the place was a congested mess. Now? It is very active and places people, not cars, first.

Waterloo is very close to being able to pull this off. Last night, I had cause to be out late with my daughter and she, with the clarity of thought that is often shown by the young, pointed out how many people there were on the street. She was surprised that it would be so active so late. She was right. The place was packed. At times you could hardly move on the sidewalk. Was there something special going on? I don't think so. What she pointed out is that there is already a large amount of people traffic on foot in the core. The public square at Waterloo Square, much maligned by nay sayers at the start, is almost always busy. It would not be a huge step for the city to widen the sidewalks so that traffic is down to one lane in each direction with no street parking and reduce the speed limit to 30kmph (this would be a positive step towards no cars on King Street) between Bridgeport and William streets. At the same time, allow merchants to spill out onto the side walks and increase significantly the infrastructure for parking bikes.

I do hope that something like this gets done - the more liveable and people friendly the core is, the more people will come to it. Making the core people - not car - centric is even more important when you consider the push in Waterloo right now towards intensifying housing in the Uptown. The Bauer buildings, the old Seagram ones, the project going in at Allen and Park, and at least one more which I forget right now all intensify housing right in the core of the city. Add to that the town house developments on the old Labbatts and Canada Cabinets properties and all the single family dwellings already in existance, and you have a lot of people right on the Uptown's doorstep who don't need a car to get to the core. Given half a chance, these people will walk the two or three blocks to the Uptown and will use it for their shopping and entertainment.

It sure beats driving to a big box store.

trying to up my game

I am working hard at the moment at developing one specific area of my photography - taking pictures of birds.

A lot of my earlier efforts did not come out so well, and left me frustrated. I was not using my camera correctly, I was using too slow a shutter speed, I was in the wrong shooting mode (not thinking), I was using too high an iso, etc, etc, etc. The excuses for operator error were incredible and rather pointless really. The good thing is though that I learned from the process and became better at exploiting the tools that I have availible to me.

In the process of trail and error as I got a bit better at bird photos I discovered a few useful things:
1) The light. You can have the best gear, the best lenses, camera bodies, and skill, but if you don't have the light, it won't help you all that much.
2) Being there. There is where the birds are. I used to get frustrated at the selection of birds I had to shoot around where I live until I realized that they are all beautiful, and if all I can find on a routine basis is a sparrow or two, then it would benefit me to learn how to better shoot them, wouldn't it?
3) Get close. Get as close as you can to your target without spooking it. If you are making a photo where the bird is the total focal point of the picture (like a portrait) the more of the frame the bird fills, the better. If you want a more environmental shot, a bird in context if you will, then close is still good, but not a critical (that rather depends on the focal lengths availible to you).

Here are some recent samples:

 

 

All for now.

Now enjoy the good weather, and bring a camera along.

Back here in blogger land again.

It has been a very long while since I have written anything on this blog. I have been preoccupied with my other project over on pbase but have decided that it is time to work on this some more. Not everything I want to write about fits well with my other project, so I am starting this one up again.

not here much and here is why

You see, my bike related photo a day project over on pbase is turning into a bike related photo a day photo blog project.

If you are interested, check it out here.

It is much more interesting than what I am doing here, which is nothing.

I still read blogs I follow here though. I just don't bother with writing much of my own.

Cheers.

pitter pat pitter pat

Run: 12.56 km @ 8.36kmph taking 1:30:08
Run km Total: 99.61km

Time to assess how the 1500km goal for November 28, 2011 is going.

On the surface, I am going to miss it. However, I think I am on track to making it with ease. In the last 33 days, I have had two days out for Christmas, and no less than 15 out from being sick. Factor that in, and I am on track to blow past the 1500km mark with ease.

Now all I have to do is do it.