Sunrises are limited time offers.

My ride in the other morning made me think about the sunrise I was watching.  I could probably have spent an hour photographing the event.  But I was on the bike heading for work and that prevented me from stopping.

I thought about it as I was pedalling that sunrises are limited time offers.  Much like a store with a limited time offer not all of them are outstanding.  But in my case the one I was watching was amazing.  It started with dark clouds to the west and clouds to the east.  The sun then lit the sky in a beautiful pink and rose colour.  As I rode along the path I was stealing glances.  The dark clouds to the west remained.  The pink slowly gave way to a brighter red, that made the clouds appear like they were on fire.  Slowly this progressed to an orange colour.  Just amazing sights at this time as the dark clouds to the west were now under the spell of the sunrise and they to gave off the pink colour.

Wow! amazing stuff, I was riding and trying to not run into something or go off the trail.  It is one of the joys of being up at that time and being out on the bike path.  Slowly this sunrise like the limited time offer became the sun light of the day.  The clouds were no longer colourful or on fire.  I was saddened at how quickly it left.

But like any limited time offer it expires.  Until the next time.

May your sunrise give you the best limited time offer.

cheers

No headphones

My days are usually spent traveling in to work during the week.  During the summer and warmer days I am on my bike pedalling into the downtown.  I have never been one to wear headphones on the bike.  Despite my love of music I am usually happier without headphones on my ears.  Especially when I am on the bike.  My main distrust is the lack of hearing somebody or something that would catch me unaware.  But my second factor is the solitude that I get.  The sounds that surround me on my ride are vast.  I have cruised past deer that I could have tapped on the nose.  I have dodged beavers and skunks.  But as I ride in I am fortunate, I get the sound of nature and city in unison.  I get to hear a city as it shakes off the sleep of the night before.  I am given a chance to listen to many birds and other critters as they begin or end their day.  It is amazing, like looking at the night sky outside the lights of the city.  You are amazed at the number of stars that are present in the sky.

So why I prefer the music of the things around me?  I am unsure, I just know the sounds are so much better than if I had my favourite album playing.  Which brings me to the point of this discussion, taking time to see and listen to the things around you.  There are many times I have wanted to experience more nature.  To get out of the city and see something without the drone of the cars or other sounds.  Not every time can I escape but I do get to skip past some of the other stuff when I ride in.  It is simply put peaceful.

Little did I know....

Little did I know that I have gone down a dark hole.  I am now looking at diy videos.  Not for anything in the house mind you.  Not to build out anything in the yard, fix the car.  Nope, it is diy videos for light painting.  I am now on eBay ordering lights that I will make into light tools for my painting.  I think I may be drunk with anticipation.  But on the plus side I may take more photos as well.

ugh!  Now I have to wait for shipping from china....sad.

Help or just hot air?

The other day somebody told me that they were interested in cameras.  I am not the most in depth person when it comes to cameras.  I know what I know and a little beyond that.  It seems to me that I did do a lot research over the past few years as I have grown with my camera and photography.  So what do I know?  Is it a lot, a little or just what I think matters?

Photography opened me up to things that are simply right in front of you.  You never realized that object or that sky was the colour or formation that it is.  But then you took a photo and looked at it.  Suddenly you see it.  You see its imperfections, it beauty and colours.  That is when I got into cameras.  That is what drove me to learn a little more about how to work my camera.  It is a journey, a long distance run with no finish.  The end is never really in sight when you have a camera the limits are not there.  You simply push yourself to try and or fail but try none the less.

So when my Aunt asked about cameras I started to respond with a simple email and it turned into a long winded email on cameras from my thoughts and perspective.  I have often thought about doing something on the side that would let me teach people how to take pictures or even how to work the camera on a basic level.  Am I qualified?  Sure, what would make me less or more qualified?  I take photos I use my camera and I know enough to talk about it.  But what I found fun was just offering my opinion on cameras.

This all leads me to think more about photography and how it impacts my world.  I have become more in tune and aware.  Photos are created when you look at your surroundings.  To me the best thing is how different you look at things.  As I mentioned earlier you really are able to see the world in a different light.  Now I have a long way to go to be a pro or even a great photographer but I do this for the enjoyment and what I get to create.  The experimenting and challenges that photography offers.  Each time I am out with my camera I am taking photos and then I come home to unwrap them in my computer and see them.  See what my eye was telling me it saw.  Sometimes and in a lot of cases I have found that the most impressive images are the unplanned or unexpected.

So at the end of the day I truly enjoy photography I could probably rattle on about it at length.  I have started to come up with some ideas and thoughts on how I could do something with it in my spare time.  I have thought of offering a helping hand or instruction one on one sort of class via kijijii but that is a thought right now.  To me I am happy editing and doing what I enjoy.

So next time you pull out your phone or camera of any type enjoy that moment and then look close at that image you may see something different.

Summer at the halfway point

Summer has reached that halfway point, almost.  Seems very quickly we will be talking about fall and then the next season will be here.  I am hoping to see some time spent doing something fun, and not so much time spent doing nothing.  We have been busy with stuff.  Nothing crazy or outrageous but we have been busy.  I am really wondering if we have taken full advantage of the summer though?  Mind you it does not really help when we had a week of rain with no let up.

So as the month progresses I am looking back and not every day can be an adventure but it can be something that you feel satisfied with.   Like today we clean up in the garage all morning.  Not fun but it need to be done.  So open the door put the dog on her leash and get to it.  Warm and sunny, dusty and so on.  But we got the job done and now the place looks a lot better.  I think that in some cases that is the point.  Get things done but make sure you enjoy the moments beyond that.

What is next?  No idea, I am off for a few days on the long weekend.  Work has been a big pain as we have been migrating and doing other things that involve a lot of pressure to drive things through.  I am doing fine but I need some help from people that I work with and they are busy on their stuff so it has placed a lot of burden on me.

I am now looking at what is to come.  Well hopefully a really awesome long weekend and we will see from there our next trip is out to cypress hills in september for night photography.  But in between that I am hoping to get out for some hikes and bikes and so on.

I am always happy behind the camera, photography has made me a happy person at times.  The trip out to Hinton and Jasper was great, it was the unplanned moments that made me the happiest.  I got to photograph a thunder storm, with lightning so crossed another item of the list of things to try.

But that is point it was a trip of trying and doing and that is what we did.  So invent those thousand ways not to do something because that is how you try.

Well have a great summer I may be back but for now please check out the pictures on my 500px page!

https://500px.com/sfisc

What now?

seems to me I owe some people a short and quick summary of what we are doing or what we have done.  I think for the most part we have been enjoying ourselves.  Most of the time we are trying to find creative ways to get out and do things.  I am still biking every day that I can.  I have been working a lot of extra hours lately which is due to our storage systems being migrated and our backup solutions changing.  I get to manage all of this stuff, which has positives and negatives but it is what I do for a living and hey it is better than digging holes or a lot of other jobs.

I have made a date to spend a weekend taking photos with my dad.  Really looking forward to that.  It is a plan that my dad has had for a couple of years.  But I think I put it into motion for him.  I am really just looking forward to going out and taking photos of areas I have never photographed.  Fun stuff.

We are also doing a short stay in cypress hills on the saskatchewan side in September.  that too will be fun.  Somewhere in there we are hoping to take the trailer out for a couple of trips if we can.  I think mostly it is about enjoying ourselves.

Along the way we have been working on our kitchen trying to finish the little things.  Backsplash is finally up it took a very long time, mostly due to delays in the tile and then we really just needed a break from that stuff.  It is a lot of effort but we are getting it done.  When I look at how it is now it is amazing to see the transformation but really it is so nice to have a wonderful space in our house.

With that I am going to sign out.  Check out the pictures at my 500px location.

https://500px.com/sfisc

I will continue to update this with new photos.

Have a wonderful summer if I forget to chat or post it is because I am doing something fun!

So you went on vacation and you took a lot of pictures right?

Well it has been a couple weeks since we got home from vacation.  Seems like a long time ago that we managed to get off the road and back home.  Not saying the road was a bad place but travel makes me happy and it also makes me realize that home is a comfortable place.  It was an amazing trip.  I can only say we saw some amazing places.  It was also very relaxing.  It is one of those trips that we had no agenda and we just went with the flow.

So you may be asking where are the amazing landscape photos?  Why are you not updating 500px with amazing pictures?

The answer is?

Our iMac died.  No sooner did I get the photos off my camera and our iMac took a big grey screen dump.  Now this is not really the time to replace a device as we are truly getting our house finished up and we are just getting our feet back under ourselves.  Reno's cost money and it does not grow on trees.

Back to the pictures.  Gone? or what?  Well I was stressed as all our photos and so on were on the disk, the iMac I tried to rescue, many steps, I do not shy away from working on these things.  So I hit the web and made the effort but it was done.  We pulled the sheet over its web camera and walked away.

What is a guy to do?  I did what any IT storage guy does.....scream!  I actually did not do that but I wanted to.  I went out and bought a storage device, a qnap to be exact.  This was something I had wanted to do for a while but was busy with other projects.  So now we have a lovely storage array with redundant disks.  What next you say?  Well I started the recovery process via our Macbook.  Sadly the macbook is also old and tired but it start the process and I know I am getting my files back.

Then we did the next logical step and ordered a new iMac it is beautiful, we are very happy with it.  I am still restoring data but it is looking promising.

I have also started to do amazon glacier backups.  Very economical and integrated into the qnap.  So at the end of the day I have files stored in the cloud and redundant network storage and a new iMac to speed up the photo editing.

Now I just need some time to get the apps all setup and working not easy with things like lightroom as my catalog files are going to be tricky.

But such is the way things go around here lately it is one after the other.

But keep in touch I will have some pictures posted maybe by next week on Wednesday.  I am hopeful.

By the way if you are not backing up and storing your data on another disk at the minimum you really should because the thought of loosing all my photos was pretty scary.

Happy Backup!  Even Happier Restore!

PS:  Your backups are only as good as your last restore!  That is my IT tip of the day.

Time again for a recap or maybe a night cap

Much time has passed since the last post.  Seems our days were quite full and my desire to update those that are interested in my ramblings was low.  I think today is a day for a bit of a look back on the last 2 months.

First off, cycling has started again.  I decided a much more relaxed approach was required this year as it was an early start to the riding season.  But to date it has been very nice to get back on the bike and ride in to work.  I have been able to ride about 3 days a week on average depends on weather and temperature.  But there was a break in the riding due to a vacation so I am going back this week coming up and I think it should be a good week of riding.  We are out of the deep cold weather and so on.

Sinclaire arrived home from University.  Year 3 under her belt.  She may have made the deans list this year.  Amazing to think she is doing this well and I think it is also just amazing that she loves what she is taking.  But we will see how much time she spends at home.  Now that she is 20 she tends to spend more time with her boyfriend then us, so natural but strange.

Work has been a full plate lately and is about to step up again.  I am not complaining I like when work is busy it is just a lot of effort navigating the internal workings of our groups.  There is a lot of red tape to process and get through in order to even begin the work I have in front of me.

Vacation?  Yes there was a holiday.  We went to Phoenix for a week and then drove home with the folks.  It was an adventure.  I have to admit I saw some things that are truly amazing when it comes to the beauty of the landscape.  I also was able to cross a couple of locations off my list of places to visit.  I took a lot of photos and did some very fun stuff.  the last half of the drive home was hellish.  we hit a snow storm in the hills of Montana and it was a long couple of days driving from salt lake city to Calgary.  We survived but just say it was not pleasant.

Photos?  Just downloading those now.  I am sure I will have a bunch for the 500px site soon.  I again find the process of going through the pics a long one.  I am sure it will take a couple weeks.  As I am working a lot of extra time coming up so not a lot of time to do post processing.

Kitchen wise our backsplash tile is in.  Now we just need to install it.  Oh the joy.  Almost to the finish line.

Well that is my recap.  Next up is a quick piece on how to survive an extended road trip with your parents......kidding

Middle of the week and we are moving into the weekend

Well I did not get too far on the house this week.  I think some time off was in order or maybe it was just a little less desire to work on things.  I have been really doing whatever I want most of the evenings which is usually filled by walks with the dog and some general clean up of the house.  I can tell you that mostly it is me time and I am ok with that for now.

On the photography front I did not get to the project that I had hoped for and friday is a day off from work but it is filled with waiting for the city inspector and then costco for supplies for Sinclaire's bday party.  Big 20 this year so where did that all go.

Back to the camera what I am thinking about is long exposure stuff, but we are talking about 100 plus seconds of exposure, really long.  I picked up a second neutral density filter today it is a variable 1 to 8 stops.  I have a 10 stop filter so this will really let me do the long exposure shots during the day at any brightness.  I am looking forward to trying this out but not sure just when yet.

Along with those ambitions are the desire to simply get back to taking pictures.  It is funny how natural it becomes when I am shooting a lot, the adjustments flow and the photos are better so when i say getting out and shooting lots I would really like to be doing a lot more than I am now.

With the pictures out of the way I have house items still on the list, these are those small tasks that take up time. I again hope to work on these while I am waiting for the home inspection by the city they are coming to look at the furnaces that were installed.  Along with that I am sure they may look at the kitchen but that is not on the building permit so it is not really an open item.  Who knows what they will think.

I am also planning a bit of a weekend away for Traci and I, we need a weekend to go and relax, more so just a day than an overnight stay, we bought a national park pass this year so we intend to use this as it is the 150 year of Canada they give you 2 years worth of park pass for the price of 1 year.  So Banff and Waterton here we come for sure.  With that in mind mostly photos are on my mind maybe a bit of hiking.  When it is all said and done we will use the pass I am sure but we need to just get out of the kitchen so to speak.

I have been watching the ice on the pathways as biking is right around the corner for this year.  I need the exercise.  But I am not willing to ride just yet maybe in another week when he ice is reduced on on the pathways.  we will see.  if I do start next week it will be the second half of the week not the first.  Also it will be a very early start to the riding for me but I love not taking the train so we will see how it goes.

So lots to look forward too, maybe spring in the air.  Oh, the time change is also coming up, man I hate that time change in spring it hoses me up for a month.  But until the get rid of daylights savings I am stuck with it.

Until next time.  A straight out of camera shot from Feb 3rd.  Enjoy.

Nice to have.

Hello again.  I have returned from the land of working on the house to find myself with some free time.  Oddly it is valentines day and I am not spending it with my very special person.  She is however enjoying a short holiday with our daughter and her mother.  She has earned every minute of this so I do not begrudge her one second of it.  They are in New York City, having just arrived it sounds like it is cold and so on but they are troupers and will weather it out.  Nothing they are not prepared for.  That has however left me to my own devices, my son and I anyway are left on our own.  Bachelors for a week.  What to do you say what to do?  Well first off, clean the house.  Yes chores came first, I am truly a boring guy but I am thinking tomorrow is more my time and I am hoping to do something with it.  It is a holiday here so no working but to be honest I am sure I will be doing something very exciting, what that is we will see.

I want to move away from talking about remodelling and back to more what I have going on in my head.  So since it is Valentines Day, I am thinking about how awesome it is to have a person that just simply loves you.  I saw the Bloom County cartoon of opus and the mayfly.  I think of all the cartoons I enjoyed Bloom County was one of my favourites.  They political satire, they have all sorts of person demons to bemoan.  But the valentines day cartoon to me why Love is and always will be something we can not live without.  You can have food and water but I think love is also required.  So check it out on Facebook folks it is an amazing image of Opus and the mayfly.  It humbles me a bit as I think that my wife loves simplistically and wholly and that to me is amazing and truly something I never want to be without.

With Love out of the way I am turning my attention to time behind the lens again.  I have taken very few images lately, mostly due to finding the time to get out and take some.  In most cases this is just an excuse to stay home and catch a few extra winks.  I am really worn out right now.  But with all that said I am seeing some free time in my future, that means trying to come up with ideas for pictures.  I took some criticism for not taking more family pics.  To be honest most of our family is seldom around to take pictures.  This would require scheduling and some other tough calls to get it all setup.  But I am ok with what I photograph.  I like trying things out that involve less human and more objects.  Humans tend to be a bit less interesting to me to photograph, I could do it but it is something that is a little further down on the list if you get the drift.

Well what is next you say?  Aurora is always fun, I managed a quick trip out the other week but still need to post process the images.  Maybe some time on the computer tomorrow will give me a better idea what I have form that outing.  But I have found another item of interest.  Very long exposure.  VLE for short.  I watched a tutorial on this today, 100 to 200 seconds.  So how or what do photograph for that long?  Anything really.  I am thinking if I can find a situation where the light is not too bright I can try it out.  So stay tuned and if I get some time you may see some test shots.

Ok! The kitchen.  Well lights are all in.  Amazing what it does for the house.  I am hoping to do some other work this week in the evening.  I have some painting to do and baseboards.  But that may happen on Friday this week.  like all renos I am suffering a little burn out so taking a week off is maybe not the worst idea.

Well, Happy Valentines Day!  Love often!

This is a big one!

Hey after many weeks this week is one of the big ones in our effort to remodel.  We have reached a stage were the kitchen finally gets back together!  We have traveled through many challenges on this wondrous journey but to start to see a bigger and bright light at the end of the tunnel is something that I am very happy for.

Wednesday we get our glorious counter tops installed and then the wonderful sink and faucet.  This allows us to put the rest of the stuff back into the correct locations.  Then there is backsplash and hood fan to consider after that we are down to the small finishes.  Which I am thinking will simply be a lot easier to handle.

The very thought that this is slowly coming to a close is amazing to me.  We did so many things in our house.  The sweat equity they call it is all around me.  I know some of it may not be 100% professional but we did not stop trying to do our best job.

So when those counter tops arrive and get installed I will be sending out the pics to those that are curious.  As we cross another big milestone on the project at hand.

For now I am going to enjoy a little TV time it is well earned.

Stepping lively!

Wow what a week so far.  Yes it is only Monday but I feel like it is a wedding or something.  We have been planning for a long time to get the kitchen into order and now the boxes are sitting in our kitchen area.  Feels like Christmas for sure.  All these boxes with no indication what they contain.  Surprises I am sure.  I can hardly wait for the opening to start.  It is amazing to think in 4 days we have our cupboards installed and at leas a mostly functional space again.  What a very long road this has been.  There is some light at the end of this renovation tunnel.

Moving past the obvious excitement I have for the kitchen space.  I am really trying to find the amazingness that exists in each moment.  Now that 2015 is in the books a person must embrace the new 2016 with optimism and a bit of reality as well.  Lets face it the economy is not handling things very well.  We need a lot of strength in our government and in Canada in general.  There are a lot of unwanted forces acting against us to try and see us fail but we will not roll over.  The reality is life must be lived and adjusting your sails to the headwinds is a must.  Move past and move forward.  I know we have chosen a few things that maybe make little sense to some but to us we are truly happy with who we are and what we are doing.

Back to my other passion, the camera.  I am trying to find some time to get out and photograph stuff.  Not sure but it looks like that will take a bit of time before there are lot of windows to do things.  I am  very busy with the work around the house and with that comes a sense of completion.  So the camera will wait it always does.  We are planning some time to go south and get some interesting shots in areas of the US that I have never seen.  A little road trip to satisfy the traveler.  Then we are planning a trip to the cypress hills in saskatchewan.  That will be so wonderful and I am definitely looking forward to the lens time there.  I know the year seems so long and far away but time is moving forward and so will I.

Well it is time for me to get back to work on floors so off to the salt mine!

Stay warm and keep it rollin!

All the best

I am back for a small post today.  I can only tell you how much I am hurting right now, the knees, back and so on.  But it is all for the best which is the install of the kitchen.  I will get back to that in bit.

Firstly, New Year.  What does that all mean to you and I?  I spent the new year with Family and at about 1am took off to photograph the aurora's it was awesome.  I am thinking a lot more about positiveness and putting good out and getting good back.  I know most people have done the new years thing, but I am bit behind due to renos.  That being said no resolutions not changes to me.  Just another opportunity to be me and be happy.  I have so many wonderful things in my life how could I not be that way.  It is sometimes challenging I will admit but that is ok.  Take it for what it is as for me it is another year to celebrate try different things and be a better person than I was yesterday.

Now onto the better news and reason for the aches and pains.  The kitchen arrives this week.  Oh yeah!  it is finally here.  It will take a while for the install and the counter tops but that is all part of the game.  I am stiff and sore from ripping the last bits of stuff out of the old kitchen.  Had to spend a week removing old lino off the floor, killer on the knees and back.  Along with that the need to remove a section of the flooring to level it off, so let me tell you I hurt after that one.  But do it right and it will look amazing, details are always tough and I think if we were not to level the floor I would not be very satisfied and the flooring would probably not go down very well.

On that note welcome 2016 and I hope to be sharing the news of the kitchen install with you soon.