Help Yourself if You Dare

All Hallows Eve has finally arrived, or at least the daytime part before the actual Eve is here. This will be my final Halloween post, for which Barbara R will be very grateful.

My neighbour finally completed his very busy display, from which I was able to extract two more subjects to set in different scenes. I tried something different with the ghost, and you shall see anon what Gemini gave me. BTW I do a little more processing of my AI results, darkening or lighting them to suit my taste, but AI sets the scene. Some ideas and requests work better than others, but it is really a one-shot deal unless one wishes to pay your way for extra, which I don’t  

In the first image, the ghost and two tombstones are from an original photo, the rest is AI's interpretation of a slummy, industrial area. As slummy as the case may be, it is a sacred site to Mr Ghost, for his corporeal days expired right there many years ago. As usual, I extracted the subject from the original photo and sent it to AI, in this case Gemini.

Place the subject in a bleak and dingy industrial scene at night with several overturned garbage cans and black cats on either side of the subject.

Neighbour also moved the clown to a spot where I could get a photo. I had the top half of the clown to work with. These were my instructions to ChatGPT.

Complete the bottom half of the subject clown and show it standing threateningly over a scared student in an old-fashioned, dimly-lit schoolroom in black and white, but keep the subject in colour. 

Finally, there must be treats on this day, so I ordered AI to fill the container which I found empty in D&D. Of course, in addition to the candy, everything else in the image, aside from the skull-like container itself, is AI-generated.

Take one if you dare, little darling.

For a personal record, I have uploaded to Facebook here most of the images that I have published on this blog in the past month or so.

It's been fun. After tonight, Bleak November begins and finding photos becomes more challenging, but there will still be small pockets of colour for just a little while longer, and, eventually, but hopefully not too soon, there will be snow. Oh yes, there will be snow and cold: much snow and cold.

The Greeter and the Altar

Yesterday, we followed the Lady in Red from one haunt to another. As I mentioned, she is one of the characters in the Dark and Deadly Cafe. There is another character who wanted to get out of the coffee shop for awhile, so I took him to the haunted house that actually exists on the lake just outside of town where he found temporary employment as a greeter.

Yes, both the house  and the character exist; this was not an AI set.

Also from D&D, a sweet lil doll.

I also previously showed you the devilish altar outside of neighbours house, but I did not show this version of it that I relocated to just outside the gates of heck.

Relax. That is most certainly AI, except for the actual altar, of course.

We're almost there to the Eve, folks, and I am afraid that the good times will have to stop after tomorrow.

But we do have tomorrow, and I'll see you then for a final Halloween Hurrah

Lady in Red

The Lady in Red usually looms inside the Dark & Deadly Cafe, but she likes to get out every now and then, and I like to help her 

Sometime ago, I took her to an old residence to meet her former friends, and I got a shot of her standing by the door and looking very pretty. Apparently, there was a lot more red inside before the night was over.

On one recent night, and I went for a walk with Dog. Red Lady met us outside her cafe in her usual, cheerful and friendly manner. She invited us inside but Dog had more bushes to visit, so we demurred.

On another late walk with Dog, the lady was strolling along the path in the park. She waved for us to join her, but Dog turned tail, and I don't understand why. I was certainly ready to meet her and maybe even have a little dance.

I could have brought her forward in that last photo, but it wasn't worth the extra effort.

Three Weeks In

We are completing our third week with Dog Jake with four more weeks to go. It is time to report on how it’s going  

We are doing lots of walkies with him. We usually take him our mid-morning for a longish walk. By that, I don't mean that we trudge for miles, but we go a little farther than up street and back. The photos in this post are from the day that we walked around to the near park where Sue took more bench photos  

Daytime goes well enough, at least it does once we all up after feeding the beast at 6 or earlier  

The thing is that Dog wants both of us up. So, even if Sue is up first and trying to let me sleep, or vice versa, he will usually find a way to bark the other human awake. After that job is done, he'll go to sleep leaving both humans bright-eyed and bushy-tailed dragging their sorry and bewildered selves about. 

It's to the point where sleeping in until 6 is the goal that eludes us. He is supposed to have his breakfast then, but he's generally up earlier. I take him downstairs and open the back door, but he reneges. So, I lift him up and carry him down the deck into the back yard. I have flashlight in hand and use it to try to highlight the stairs so that he navigate his way back to the house, for doggy doesn't see well.

You get the fact that I (or Sue) have been outside and carrying Dog before 6 in the morning when it is dark and sometimes below freezing and sometimes wet?!

He comes in and gets fed. It takes about three seconds for him to inhale his food. Then, he expects treat rewards for being such a wonderful and clever boy. I give him one treat downstairs, and then he wants another upstairs (they're very small). Unfortunately, he wants more, which he doesn't usually get, and also, he then wants the second human up assuming that second human is still abed, which isn’t always the case as I have previously mentioned. It is difficult for second human to continue to sleep given dog's piercing bark.

As for walkies, we are still working them out. We have a pre-supper walk, usually up the street and back. We eat at 6, and Jake gets fed at 7. Sue goes to bed around 9, and sometime after that I been taking Jake to walk #3. It is pretty late on some nights, and we have gone long on some of those nights.

It's all to tire him out, so we can all sleep during the night. But as I compose this, I have not even managed my meagre 5 hours for 5 consecutive nights. It seems like the night walk may be having the reverse effect of waking him up and is getting him revved up.

The night after he woke up poor Sue at 4 in the morning, I decided to set an alarm on my watch for 5am. Sue needs her sleep more that I, and she was kind of burning the candle at both ends. Recently, he has been sleeping until a little after 5, and I have been awake enough to take him down to at least give Sue another hour. we had only one morning when I was able to keep him quiet, and let Sue sleep until 7. That was good, but it was only one day.

So, that is how it is going, three weeks into this gig.

I will leave you with a composite that Sue made combining both bench photoshoots with a third bench added for good measure.

 

happiness is a walk in the park

I posted this photo last week. It was taken on a dull day, but I still liked how the colour sat in the frame  

Our Sunday morning walk took us back to the park. It was a brighter day, and the tree called to me again although it was also evident that the tree had lost more leaves. I never know which focal distance I will like best once I see them on the big screen, so I often take several photos at different focal lengths. 

My focal preference changes from one shoot to another, but in this case, I like the 4x zoom the best although I probably should have taken another 4x shot from the spot where I took the 2x shot, without the other tree trunk in the way, but somehow I like it better with the tree in front. Go figure.

I do like the other two, though, but I wonder what dear reader may think. 

normal focal length

4x zoom
my fave of the three
among other things I think the orange leaves are highlighted best in this one

2x zoom

On the same walk, Sue was looking for bench photos for a prompt and took a few of Jake and me on a nearby bench.

Then, she took a selfie.

I guess, happiness is a walk in the park on an autumn day.

More Halloween Spookiness

We are getting closer to that Hallowed Eve, so it is time for AC to post some more spooky photos  

You might remember the two ghoulish motorcycle riders that began as a daytime photo that I converted into fun but scary night scenes with AI. Well, I have imagined two more from neighbours' display.

I followed the same procedure: extracting the subject from the original photo and then describing to AI the scene that I wanted.

The Original Daytime Photo

Using the above photo (with only the subject remaining in what I sent to Gemini), I wrote the following instruction: Put the grim reaper subject in front of a spooky house within a dark woodsy area but keep some spooky red light on the subject itself.

The Result

Next

The skeletal dog subject is facing a black cat with raised hackles plus a nasty witch behind the cat. There is a Frankenstein monster behind the skeletal dog subject. This all takes place on a dark path on a moonlit night with a full moon in the frame.

I had some fun, and there will be more, but I don't foresee too much of an AI future for me.But it is interesting for now and especially in this particular season.

My Four-Minute Siesta

When I opened my Sudoku app in the morning, I was surprised to see this screen of an incomplete game staring back at me. Of course, I quickly remembered what had happened the previous night and that I had awakened, after a surprising and spontaneous map, to this very same screen.

You see, I often play Sudoku as well as other games to help me fall asleep. Sudoku requires a lot of concentration, which can tire my mind.

Sometimes on my night Sudoku games, I nod off mid game, usually for only a fleeting few seconds. On one occasion, though, I nodded off three times but, oddly enough, resumed and completed the game without error. That was weird because I often make errors when I am ostensibly awake.

Usually however, when I come to after a brief nod-off, I simply close the tablet and roll over.  On the particular night in question, however, upon coming to I was shocked to see the game still open on my lap. It sure felt like more than the usual 30 second nap.

You can see that the timer had stopped at 8:56 into the game. In the morning, I timed myself, and it took me four more minutes to finish the game. Since I usually complete a hard level game within 9 minutes or less, I must assume that I had slept for about 4 minutes on the previous evening. Oddly enough, I continued to play an error-free game in the morning despite the sleeping and the gap between my two separate attempts with that particular puzzle.

A four-minute siesta in the middle of a game must surely mean that the game was doing its part to tire me out.

Leaves Up and Down

On a dull day, we took Jake to the park. As soon as I was out of the car, I was taking this photo of the distant orange tree along with the carpet of leaves and the lady and her dog. It was a dull day, but I liked what I saw, regardless. The first photo is at normal zoon, and the second at 4X zoom. The entire park is covered in fallen leaves, which was a main point of the shoot for Sue although she did wish for better light.

After we walked around the path off to the right of the above photos, I took another of the same tree using the path in the photo.

Later, I captured the same lady, staring back at me while I took her picture.

There is a stand of very red maples at one end of the park, so Sue took some angled shots, possibly for an upcoming leaf prompt although I suspect that we shall be returning on a sunnier day. I like today's duller photos well enough, however.

Jake's Timetable

Jake came with his own bed that we keep on the floor in the bedroom. Otherwise, he very much likes the cat bed on the couch, exactly where it used to be for Lacey. More often than not he rests his head on the edge.

In point of fact, he is down there now while we are upstairs, just around 9am, after both of us being forced to rise at 6.

I had been awake since 5:30, hoping to get him out back quickly and quietly and allow Sue a little extra sleep when Jake would arise at 6. Yes, he is very punctual. In the event, I did take him down, but when he came in, he was not content until Sue got up too. Once both of us were up, he went o the cat bed for a nap.

His alarm also goes off at 7 in the evening for his supper. As the clock struck 7 last evening, I thought that he was going to sleep past his time, but then his head popped up.

We were told about the 6 and 7, and they were right.

On our last evening walk, I was able to find less sinister Halloween decs, that some of your seem to prefer. I guess you can thank Jake for them.

And just around the bend as we neared home, is a prettily decorated porch, more Thanksgiving than Halloween. I posted it last year, but this years' photo didn't expose well. I blame the dog.

Winding Down

Autumn is winding down, but as is my October habit, I will likely keep on shooting colour until there is no more. I will make hay while the sun shines, so to speak, because bleak November is creeping its way toward us.

The first three photos are from Riverside Park on Monday. Sue and Jake are in the first photos.

On Tuesday morning, Jake insisted that I take him on a walk while Sue was out for coffee with a friend. I took him around the corner to the neighbour hood park. I sat on the bench beside the pond for a little bit and took this photo. The tamarack in the centre will continue to change and then drop its needles. Tamaracks (also called Larch) are conifers that drop their needles will be the last trees to change and drop their leaves (needles are leaves btw).

Come Wednesday, we offered out bare arms to the pharmacist for our annual flu shot in one arm and the COVID booster in the other. We then indulged ourselves with coffee and sandwiches in the car by the park. We have only done that once this summer, but come winter, we will likely do that every three weeks or so. It’s a cheap treat for us, and there is something satisfying about repeating a familiar and pleasant event.

This ↓ was our view of Riverside Park to the right of our parking spot near the boat launch after which we went for a park stroll in the cool but sun-heated day.

And if you don’t already know that fall is winding down and that winter is approaching out the back window, here is a reminder that one truck food vendor is shutting 'er down until sometime in May 2027.

Finally, the service guy made his annual fall servicing of the furnace to make sure that all was tickety-boo. It was, but we told him to go ahead and leave the heat on. I am sure that we could have lasted longer, but there comes a point when a few extra days wouldn't make much difference, and the nights are going down to freezing.

A Few Halloween Decorations

My nightly walkies with Dog are continuing, usually sometime around 9:30. A few more Halloween decorations are appearing in the hood. When I wish to take a photo, I lay the leash down and step on it. I throw my gloves beside the leash, and pull out my phone. I take a quick photo.

Our neighbour has added a few decorations to the very full display from last year. This is the neighbour with the motorcycle ghouls. It's a helluva ornament, so to speak. Straight photos today, no fancy AI-ing.

From up the street, you have seen the tall red dude at the top of the street before, but the rest of the display was lit better one night, so I took two more photos.

One night, I took a very short clip of the highly stylized house that I previously showed in a photo.

I have already done some more spooky AI, but I have to keep some things in the queue until we get a little closer to Halloween.

Shoes and Jake

My running shoes, or most of them, are about to go into a dark recess until, probably, May. So, I thought we should have a little primer on AC's runners to commemorate their imminent winter fading.

Stay until the very end to see why I typed, Poor Jake.

kidding — emulating typical clickbait 😁

More than 40 years ago, I had a pair of red running shoes, but then my footware became quite ordinary. For many years, they were always white — those were my tennis years. After that, in my more senior years, my casual shoes became a basic brown — functional, but blah. 

Then about, let's say, 7 years ago, I saw pair 1 ↓ advertised on sale by Merrill. They are quite dingy now, but they were spiffy then. I liked wearing them, and I got a few notices and comments.

Traditionally, because I have a stupid gait, I tend to wear my shoes down in short order, so it has been good practice for me to replace them regularly. While I still have the original orange pair, they have been at the back door all season, and I have probably only slipped them on about four times. That has been their only function for years. I really should part with them.

Pair 2 was also on sale by Merrill. In fact, all of these shoes have been purchased online and were all on sale, so I haven't spent a fortune. Like the previous orange shoes, some people noticed and commented favourably.

You can hardly see the number 3 on the red pair. Also Merrill's, they have not been my fav pair because, although they are red, they are a dull red. However, they are the one pair that will remain at hand during the winter, for they are more or less waterproof and useful for the wetter days on either side of winter, or even in winter on a day when I don't require boots.

Like the previous 3 shoes, 4 are also Merrill shoes that have received public notice and comments. They are much like shoe 2 except maybe even a bit spiffier. But when it was time for new shoes this year, Merrill seemed to have jettisoned their bold shoes, and I didn't know what I was going to do. 

Failing with my standby Merrill's, I came across 5 for sale on a Skecher ad. I figured that, with the yellow and green trim, they would give me some pizazz. Sadly, no one oohs and aahhs over them. I shall return to these shoes again in a bit, but let us move on for now.

6. After I received pair 5 this year, I saw these on another online special. At their price point, I realized that they wouldn't be great shoes for walking, which my poor feet require, but they could serve me well for a few hours to go out for coffee. In fact, one server raved to Sue about these very shoes, assuming that Sue must be dressing me doing. However, she is not at fault, for all of this is strictly on me. 

7 My favourite old shoes were probably the orange number 1s. When I saw these lululemon beauties on sale, I purchased them for next year. I have worn them only twice this year, very briefly each time.

So that it the story of AC and his remarkable running shoes.

Well, almost. But I must return to pair 5, the Skechers, before we are done here.

Although I haven't loved their looks, I have loved the feel of these Skechers and also how they slip on. I have perused the whole Skecher site and eventually found a spiffy-looking orange pair. They were not on sale, and while I already have the 7 orange pair lined up for next year, I will be very tempted to purchase these orange Skechers if I ever see them discounted.

Meanwhile, winter is coming and I have come to learn that Skechers makes winter boots. My present boots are a pain in the unowhere to lace up, so I may be forced to break down and purchase Skecher boots, but I doubt that they will be on sale as winter draws nigh.

Now  . . . TaDa! back to Jake. Poor Jake.

I have told you that Dog has very poor vision, I think much poorer than his owners thought because he probably was getting around very well in his familiar home territory. But, while he is generally doing well enough here, the poor fellow lost the awareness of the steps when my shoes were on them. Unfortunately, he stepped off the deck just to the left of the steps, hit air, and had quite a tumble. He was shook up for a few minutes and came close to vomiting. I was quite concerned, but fortunately, there seem to be no lingering effects.

Speaking of Jake, Sue tried to make him a warm cover for our colder walks. It was once a Christmas tea cozy, but she hasn't yet figured out a way to fasten it. We all had a laugh, but Shauna is appealing online to see if any of her friends might have a suitable coat for poor, old Jake.

Ghoul Riders

The neighbours across the street have quite a Halloween collection in their yard, some of which I dropped on you last year.

When I went out with Dog to get a pic of the two motorcycles one evening, I was disappointed to find that there was no light on them.

The next day, on yet another dog walky, I thought of trying to shoot them in the daylight and just lowering the exposure in post to make it look like night.

The Original

After Adjusting

I think it worked pretty well.

AI Version

I extracted the subject from the original and asked for the elements that you see in the photo.

To be clear, I did the two edits in reverse order: AI first and my normal edit second. The AI version is impressive and fun, but I like my own plain version quite a lot. It has a different mood.

Maybe I will be able to do something similar with some of the other figures in that yard.

More Bits of Colour

Autumn continues, and I saw photo-worthy bits here and there Saturday, yesterday. I took the first three photos at Riverside Park. Yes, that would be Sue and Jake in the third photo.

This is the trail (the OVRT if you ae familiar with the area) that extends a long way north out of town. It is used by snowmobiles in winter and buggies in other seasons. In fact, two buggies zoomed by me on their way north right after I squeezed this photo.

This ↓ is near the Yard Waste Depot where I dropped off two bags of leaves and clippings on Saturday morning. (Leaf pickup won't occur until November, and we don't want bags hanging around for two more weeks.) The path on the left extends into the St James Woods. I should like to go for a walk there sometime soon.