Saturday Stickers 3

It's Saturday, and it is pouring. I hope you that one or two of these amuse you. Have a good weekend.

4 minutes to kickoff

That was just about a record yesterday morning -- waking up at 2:30. I did stay in bed until 3, hoping in vain to get back to sleep. But I didn't and once up, I figured I could take my sweet time and still get out to take some photos, which is what I eventually did.

One never knows how the morning will break, but when I saw a faint strip of orange from my bedroom, I thought I'd better get out there. I was thinking that I might try for a silhouette of a nearby silo, but I didn't get that far, for the light that I saw coming over the trees as I was driving,  just a block away from home, was looking very good. I figured that I could use the communications tower as an anchor or focal point of sorts.

This was what I saw. Remember that I am not trying to photoshop these images, but it is quite possible that I did add a little to the reality -- just a little though. I mean you get back home, and you go by your impression of what it was like. The camera never gets it right anyway. 

This is what the sky looked like just 4 minutes later. Isn't that an incredible change? It's from a slightly different position using a slightly different focal length, so the photos don't line up exactly, but close enough.

It was a stunning display. Various people posted their own versions of that spectacular sunrise to our local fb group or commented something like they saw that incredible sky on their way to work.

I was at quite a distance for both of the above photos and was using my telephoto lens, so I couldn't take in a lot of the scene. To get more of the view in, I then took 4 photos and stitched them in post.

Actually, I took 6 shots in sequence, but Photoshop only managed to 4 of them. I think the sky was changing so fast that it could not line up all 6.

Then as I was turning to go, I spied a kiss of light on the water tower in the opposite direction. However, by the time I drove near to it and then trudged some distance to get to a good spot, that light was gone and the sky behind was a pale blue in the other direction form the sunrise. Because I was there, I took a photo anyway and added a sky in post, just for fun.

Yup. Fake sky. I mean, it's a real enough sky, but it sure wasn't the one that I saw in that direction yesterday morning.

PS: I guess I was fated to wake up so early because I went to bed early, at 9:30 on the previous night. I was so tired that I almost had to, but it sure resulted in an early morning.

JJ, the Tree, and Camera #3

I need to keep hitting out with many pics but not a whole lot of prose. I was using camera #3: not my big Canon, not my iPhone, but my Canon compact camera. 

At the end of JJ's stay, we took him back to the dam, but so many kids were there, and older kids too, that the sometimes shy boy decided not to join in the fun.

The other side of the dam (from what you have seen recently) is deep enough to jump into, but they were not only jumping from the dam itself but also from some overhead apparatus. My goodness.

We ended up at the park along with Danica whom we picked up along the way.

JJ is a bit of a climber, and I will let the photos tell the tale.

Poor Danica. When she was young, she wanted to climb so badly after seeing Mowgli climb the tree in Jungle Book. She was too young then and discovered later that climbing is not her forte.

We will meet again, for my birthday next week, before school begins. Then, as mentioned previously, we'll keep our distance for a little while. I think that school will probably go well, but Sue and I are in our 70s, so it is best to take care.

JJ Sleeps Over

I must confess to being a little overwhelmed with sleepovers. We are now into our 4th day (JJ will go home later today), and I feel as though I could still write more about Danica's sleepover, nevermind JJ's. Maybe it will all get written -- maybe not -- time will tell.

This post will be a quick overview of time with JJ yesterday.

As with Danica, we also took him down to the dam. I didn't take my big camera this time. Actually, the phone works well enough for snapshots in decent light. In fact, when I process my RAW snapshotty type of photos from the big camera, I sometimes ask myself how the phone would process the rather flat shot. With all its computing power, the phone does very good processing much of the time, boosting saturation and contrast. While phone photography is not great for controlling the light etc, it is often just fine for record photos.

Anyway -- down at the dam.

After playing below the dam, I let him onto the dam, despite the Danger No Trespassing sign. Don't judge me too harshly, for playing on the dam and jumping off it is not uncommon. He's a boy, and a little adventure is a good thing IMO.

Time to go home, but I had to wait while he played at driving. I remember the feeling although I was a little older, and we didn't even have a car when I was 11, but I can remember really wanting to drive. He'll have to wait 5 years though.

For dinner, we picked up shawarmas and ate them by the river behind townhall. By then it was quite windy and chilly. The 14-day weather forecast does not include a heatwave, for which we are grateful.

Back home in the evening, I showed him the basic chess moves. We didn't play a game, but he learned how the pieces move, and we set up the board, so he could checkmate me. In this photo at the beginning of our tutorial, I show him the king.

Later, we all played a few games of Sorry, each of us winning once.

Then he was allowed on his phone until bedtime. He has gotten his clock turned around during this huge time off from school, so it was lights out at 10 and set the alarm for 9 if he is still asleep, which he is at 7 o'clock this morning.

Down by the Dam with Danica

A friend, who is also a senior and also somewhat hobbled, found a spot where he could get down to the river by the dam. I asked if he thought I could also accomplish that feat, and he did think it possible. So, I headed there with Danica. What with branches to grab and an occasional hand from Danica, I made it.

I found a few possible compositions that might work in good light and with a tripod. That wasn't the case yesterday, but I have an idea or three for future reference.

But the outing was mostly for Danica who could get around while I kept myself fairly close to our point of access.

She got right below the dam itself. Of course, we disregarded the Danger sign. The water is low. One would most certainly not be allowing children or anyone to do this at some times during the year. Spring runoff can be quite torrential.

I do like the juxtaposition of Danica and the Danger: Keep Away sign in the next two photos.

This was part of the path, below, to get to and away from the river. The actual path veers off to the right once one is partway up, so it wasn't quite as it looks in the photo.

I took a few short video clips (17 seconds), which I see that New Blogger handles differently. I shall worry about the sizing at some other time. For now, just click YouTube or the fullscreen icon (bottom right) beside the word.

Note: I chanced to see my blog on my phone yesterday, The photos were quite distorted. Does anyone read blogs via phone? BTW it works fine on the iPad.

Ship of Fools and No Dessert

Danica is here for a sleepover because school starts next week, and we will semi isolate from each other for a little while until we see how the COVID wind blows. Since our area has been free of the dratted virus for a number or weeks, we all have hopes that there that the breezes will be fair and uncontaminated. But people travel, and the virus could reassert itself at any time.

So, Danica is here, and JJ will have his turn in a few days — tomorrow, actually.

For a bit of a treat for supper last night, I decided to bring home fried chicken from Pitmaster BBQ on the highway. We got there only to discover that the fryer was busted.

Alright then. We decided to head to the newish fast food place on the other side of town, Buck and Bull, but on the way there, we changed our minds and decided the shawarmas might be a better option since we know that we like their food. We parked the car, walked around the corner on Main Street, but lo and behold, Lakeside Shawarma is closed on Sundays. 

Back to the Buck and Bull plan. Also closed. While a sane person might think that Sunday evening dinner might be a prime time for restaurants, they obviously feel differently in this town.

With few options remaining, it was to be burgers or some other takeaway from A&W. Dani and I had decided that it would be easier to make our choices if we were to go in rather than just yell through that infernal speaker contraption in the drivetrhru lane. Got to the door. “We will be pleased to serve you from the Drivethru.” Sheesh! What a rigmarole! We were on our 4th stop, and they were still throwing roadblocks in our way.

But we did use the drivethru and made our order. I was somewhat flabbergasted at the cost which was $42 -- not for a party of 8 but for just 3 people, if you please. From a fast food burger place! Now A&W is a step or three up from McD’s, but $42?!

Anyway, we brought it home to Sue, and it was good, and we were all sated. But my goodness, after going to 4 different restaurants and then paying that amount of coin for fast food for only 3 people, I rather felt like I had been on a ship of fools for awhile.

Forty-two bucks -- and there was no dessert!

Calliope

I did write that I would post about Heather's dog, Callie, or more formally, Calliope.

Heather's favourite dog of the past was named Zeus. When Heather adopted Callie last year, we mused about a name. Somehow or other we came up with Calliope who was a daughter of Zeus. Of course, she is almost always just Callie.

During a very difficult year for her due to both the pandemic and otherwise, Calliope has been a companionable source of joy to Heather.

Of course, Callie would tag along when we visited with Heather.

What an exuberant dog!  Here she is meeting Molly in the park. She is on the left in the first photo and on the right in the other two photos.

To repeat -- very exuberant. She climbed on me twice and managed to stick her paw in my mouth more than once. I still have the mark to prove it. I was more ready the second time and kept her at bay a little better.

I am currently using the last photo as my profile pic in FB.

I decided to play around with one of her other pictures and took it from this . . .

. . . to this.

I converted it to  monochrome and then toned the white parts to something resembling her actual colour/