The Coldest Walk

When I checked on family whereabouts yesterday morning, I saw that Jonathan was still at home. I wondered if he were ill but discovered that he was enjoying a snow day. That makes two consecutive days of scholarly reprieve. Living in a largely rural region, it takes time to plow out, so the buses were inactive for a second day.

However, your two beloved oldies kept up their rhythm (the spelling of which throws me every time) by opting for a walk along the nearby trail. The wind was up, so we reasoned that we might be more sheltered along the trail. Indeed, we were a bit more sheltered but not completely, so it was a cold walk as you might deduce from seeing from our rosy cheeks, Susie's especially. We felt the cold more than on the recent Coldest Day, even though the temperature was somewhat higher.

Our Cheeks Were Nice and Rosy
but we were not totally
Comfy and Cozy
Whatever the song might say.

The trail was still walkable because there remains a softness to the new-fallen snow, but like Riverside Park, there will come a point after hardening that we will necessarily need to choose route with surer footing.

At one point the ducks were congregating in a spot near the trail. They didn't flee in terror this time, so I got the shot. Unlike we of the great ape family, these fowl beings never get cold.

Snow and ice are visible at the bottom edge of the photo

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With your indulgence, I will just add this photo on our neighbour clearing his car in the morning. It's a task that Canadians have been doing forever, so I have chosen to try to make the photo look old, even if the car gives it away. I managed to time the shutter to get the snow falling off the vehicle.

Code Yellow

Yesterday morning's sunrise was very pretty — a bit pastel-like rather than the bright, vibrant oranges that we all love so much.

A little later in the morning, I found myself sitting in that ever-so-comfy dentist’s chair for a semi-emergency appointment for a lost filling.

It was not any sort of lost filling but from the tooth that I broke badly, earlier in the year, by biting down on a carrot that was baked to hardness. Back then, I was warned that the filling might not hold, and it eventuates that the dentist was correct.

She proceeded to inform me that she could only do a quick patch before sending me to a periodontist for an extraction and implant. After some discussion, she revealed that the procedure would cost between $6000 to $8000, and that it wouldn’t be covered by my free government-provided insurance. Well actually, it possibly could be, but this specialist does not particulate in the plan, that being his or her option. This insurance exists freely for people like me who live under a certain income threshold and who do not have other dental insurance. It's a plan that has saved me quite a lot of money over the past year or two.

After more discussion I revealed that I wouldn’t be spending that kind of money on an implant and that I would settle for an extraction only. I looked at her and said, “I’m 78,” which, of course, meant that my old head with not too many years remaining would not be worth it. She looked back at me, quite understandingly, and replied that I didn’t look 78. I guess that was the nice part of the session. :)

I asked her if she could do the extraction without sending me to the specialist. She replied that she would ask the boss, Dr Li, if she could do the extraction. I paid my $30 co-pay and left waiting to hear whether Dr Li could do it.

That afternoon, I got a call and was informed that Dr Li thinks that she can save the tooth and that it would involve a root canal and that my co-pay would amount to $200 with government insurance covering the considerable remainder.

That will occur on Friday afternoon when I shall endure a not too comfortable hour or two.

Meanwhile, this morning is not looking pretty like yesterday morning, and we have code yellow (a new designation) for a winter snowstorm. School buses have been cancelled, so Jonathan is, doubtless, happy and probably still snuggled in bed. Now I have to worry about Shauna driving a half-hour west to work, and then I will have to worry about Danica driving almost an hour east into the city tonight to sit for an exam after the storm has hit.

That, above, is what is to come, but our neighbour was kind enough to clear our driveway of the little that had accumulated overnight. I caught him over yonder, just having finished his own driveway before heading off to work. Although he has cleared the snow, I notice that the windows of his van are quite frosted over.

79

It was almost three months past that I stopped on our main street to photograph doorway 79, one of the two doorways in the former Federal building. Without looking up the information again, I believe that this building once housed local branches of both the Canadian Postal Service and Inland Revenue. The property no longer serves federal functions and now lies within the private sector.

Obviously, I have passed this doorway many times, but I stopped to take a picture back in September because I was drawn to the shapes and textures on that particular day and also probably because I am always keeping my eye out for grist, no matter how familiar, for my little blogging mill.

I experimented with styling (or developing) and three very different images emerged from the same original photo.

I put the three versions in Blogger Drafts way back then but never got around to posting. For awhile I have been thinking that I would like to add another variation with snow; it's a Canadian thing after all. Yesterday was the day. There was snow, and I was downtown, so I took another photo. The snow was all out front on the railing, so I had to compose differently to include it. Once again, I developed two versions from the same basic image.

The post is finally out of a long lingering in the Drafts folder.

The Coldest Day

It was the coldest day of winter although it isn't technically winter yet. I woke up to Alexa telling me that it was -22C out there, which makes it about -8F for that single country that can't quite manage metric.

But let us begin with the previous evening which wasn't very cold when I shovelled up the lights snow from the driveway. While the contractor did plow overnight, we always try to shovel by the garage door first because neither he nor we want the huge plow to go crashing into the house.

Late the next morning, we bundled up and headed to Riverside Park. The cold wasn't as terrible as you might think because it was sunny and calm out there. It's the wind that really penetrates, but straight cold can be endured up to a point.

The river was pretty well frozen over. Even the darker spots in the photos were mostly frozen but just not snow-covered.

As you know by now, I am forever drawn to the birches across the river. You can see them in the previous photo, but I zoomed in from the same spot for this photo.

The town does not plow the paths in the park, so there will come a time, possibly soon, when they will become too deep in snow to tread easily. The other likelihood is that thawing and freezing will make the footing treacherous. However, we were able to trudge through comfortably on this day.

It was rather an invigorating walk on a good day to be alive.

An Impressive Restoration

Sue has a photo, about 1" x 2" in a tiny frame. It shows Sue's grandmother adjusting Sue's mother in the stroller. Pearl's twin brother sits in the adjacent seat, and Sue's Aunt Elsie is about to take the twins on a stroll. It was Aunt Elsie who somehow had the photo restored — poorly restored — long ago. I assume that she also had a larger copy made and gave this smaller one to Sue. It sat in a kind of oval frame, which is why the corners look as they do.

In addition to the print being tiny, not much larger than how it appears above, neither the photo nor scan was of high quality. In point of fact, I had already improved the tonality a bit, but I didn't keep a copy of the lighter, original version.

Some time ago, I enlarged and adjusted the image as best I could, but one has to work with the pixels (dots) that are there, and, unfortunately, poor Uncle Syd's facial features were blank, so there was nothing there to enhance. Below, is the result after doing what I could using manual methods as well as calling upon AI to fill in the corners. It is better but a little disappointing.

There was nothing else that I could do, so I just filed it until this weekend, which is when I came across a tutorial using Adobe's latest and greatest AI tool, called Gemini 3 (with Nano Banana Pro), and I kid you not about the Nano Banana Pro part. 

I went back to the original scan, not my adjusted version, and asked Gemini to Restore and Remove. I was almost stunned by the result. The tonality is so much better, and the noise is gone.

Unfortunately, grandma and the dog were also gone, so I tried one more time with just the command to Restore and omit Remove. Presto! Grandma and the dog were back, and Uncle Syd was miraculously given facial features. One doesn't know how accurate Syd's face might be, but Sue thought it looked plausible. Of course, Sue's mother's face was also enhanced very nicely from the original scan.

I remain pretty impressed by the results including the next photo, below. I won't show multiple versions of this one, but it was the faces that were significantly improved.

Sue holds her mother's hand (left), her best friend doing the same with her mother.
People did dress up to go out in those days, circa 1950.
Sue's mom likely made the outfits for both girls.

Unfortunately, when I tried to process one more photo, Adobe informed me that I had reached my limit and had used all of my free trials for Gemini 3. You see, this heavy-duty AI-ing must go to Adobe's mega computers, so they charge extra for the service.

I did not wish to add to my monthly subscription at this time, but there might come a day that I do because the results are pretty impressive. Meanwhile, I can still do some AI processing on my device but not with the Nano Banana Pro version.

Saturday Smiles

How about some Saturday Smiles whether they be comedically funny or just pleasing?

I came across some posts that really did make me laugh out loud, especially the first but also the next two.

This got me too.

Then this.

On a cold morning, we just undertook the relatively short walk to the near coffee shop where we both enjoyed the apple and caramel flavoured coffee. You never know about flavoured coffee, but we both enjoyed this drink although you'd be excused for thinking otherwise when you see my face. However, I think our misguided effort to attempt Sue's Whimsical photo prompt ↓ for the day is, indeed, pretty funny in its own way.

In the Dark & Deadly Coffee Shop

Finally, I am hopeful that these next and final images will evoke warm and pleasurable smiles. Both are Sue's prompt results. The first photo was Sue's response to A Character with a Treat. The second was her interpretation of Whimsical that she, for some vague reason, thought was better than my grimace, above.

I hope that at least one of the images caused you to smile. If not, well Happy Weekend anyway, you old grump.  😁

Ice and Moon

Last week, I showed a picture of ice on the river. This week, we saw that ice was overtaking the pond. There is an unfrozen section near the intake where the ducks can swim and forage. A significantly smaller portion will remain open all winter. The ducks do have a free-flowing river nearby just beyond the trees in the background, however, so not to worry.

I called Sue over to my den just before we went down for supper last night to see the the Cold Supermoon shining brightly over the opposite houses. I thought the scene looked appealing along with the snow and lights, especially the Christmas lights. Out came the phone.