The Inexorable Grinding of My Gears

Some things really grind my gears. In the past I'm sure that I have railed more than once about people leaving their shopping carts strewn about the parking lot. I am also miffed when odious drivers who sit on my bumper when I'm already exceeding the speed limit.

But people dumping their flyers at the mailbox really jangles my nerves.

We have a neighbourhood mailbox situation. People drive up, grab their mail, and drive off.

You would think that they would be driving off with all of the contents. I mean it does not seem to this gaffer too odious a chore to bring the flyers back into you vehicle and take them to your own recycling bin. But many don't. Nope. They simply abandon their flyers.

They used to stick their unwanted flyers in the spaces between the boxes, which was rather thoughtless. I mean to say that flyers don't simply vapourize; someone has to deal with them at some point in time. But just as long as that someone ain't them, eh?

Then someone, a good someone, brought a trash can, which seemed like a better solution than just stuffing the flyers willy nilly. And it is.

Unfortunately, no one thinks to move it to the curb for recycling pickup. Except for one senior citizen, who shall remain nameless but who doesn't always remember to move it to the fore on garbage day.

And so the container can get rather full.

But the good, repsectful populace just keeps tossing their flyers on the top. The bin overflows and flyers get blown about, but still they discard the flyers.

The problem is at its worst in winter when the container gets frozen into the snow. I tried to move it to the curb for pickup. Alas, I was unsuccessful. And so, it will likely sit there until spring. Meanwhile, the nitwits good citizens will just keep discarding their flyers.

Not being able to shift the bin, I resorted to grabbing an armful of the flyers from the bin and walking them back to my house to put in our recycling bin.

That was yesterday, and the trash can is still pretty full as you can see. There also remains litter on the ground even after I picked up, most of it embedded until spring thaw.

See how full the container is? Before I grabbed a bunch, it was heaped up well above the rim, but people kept adding to the pile. And of course, it didn't stay there.

I guess carrying armloads back to my place will have to be my winter solution.

It is apparent to me that we are not that evolved of a species. I wonder if a better one will emerge in a few million years. Meanwhile, let wars rage, oceans rise, and the planet burn. Not to mention all those American evangelicals who are delirious about their president doing what he can to hasten the end times.

No, we are not nearly evolved enough.

Winter Display at the Café

I more or less update my photo displays seasonally, and I finally got around to attending to the one at the café. If I had done so before Christmas, perhaps I would have sold one. The autumn photos just weren't right for the Christmas season. But Christmas is a busy time with much to do, and so here we are.

I have another section further down the wall with three more prints. I haven't updated that section yet, but I have picked out and printed what is to go there.

You have seen a version of this photo recently, but it has been reworked somewhat and cropped for printing. We chose this because we felt that we needed a vertical print.

This one is from the first snowfall in October 2018.

And this is a real oldie from 2012. The day was perfect with those reflections, and the red door of the boathouse stands out well.

He Was Actually Number 9

I hadn't intended to post today, but after folk said they couldn't find #6 yesterday, I did a facepalm because he isn't #6; he's #9, which I think you can see fairly well in these photos (on his arm).

You see, he's always been #6 until this year, when someone else got the number first. And ... well ... being an older bloke, I sorta kinda like live in the past. lol

Just to make it worthwhile, here are some non-JJ pics from the game.

Here's two pictures of the same player on the same rush up the ice.  I like it when I can catch them charging up the ice like this. I like his expression in the second photo. I can't remember the play, but he may have just passed the puck or tried to.

Hockey Resumes

There has been a three-week hiatus in covering Jonathan's hockey games, but I am back at it. I missed one match, but the league pretty well shut down for the holidays. There were some practices, but I don't attend those although perhaps I should go to one and get different photos.

With the team short-handed about 5 players due mainly to the flu, the players who were there got more playing time than usual as they were out on every second line change instead of the usual every third change.

They hung in pretty well until about half way through the third period when a close 2-1 game became a more one-sided 4-1 loss.

One upside is that I saw more of Jonathan in action than usual, so for this post, I shall just show photos in which he makes an appearance because I don't always get the opportunity to get so many shots of him.  He is #9 in white with hair too long on one side.

On the same day, yesterday, Canada won the world junior tournament over Russia in the finals. They say it was a corker of a game, but I was involved in helping to solve a murder in Midsomer, England at the time.  😄

I Drove to the Levee

I did not take my Chevy, but I did drive to the levee — the town's New Year Levee. Yes, the levee was dry in the sense that the water was frozen.

It was the other kind of levee, the kind that refers more to a party or gathering, and not an embankment by a river.

The town has had a New Year Levee for some time now, but I had never attended. It was basically a free skate at the arena. This year it was held outdoors at the new rink by the new Junction (park, gathering place). Fortunately, the weather was mild, hovering around freezing or slightly above. Hot chocolate and hot dogs were made available and skating, of course.

The mayor and certain other council members were there. He usually takes a few minutes to chat with us. Here he is indulging me and Sue for a picture.

The horses were there to offer wagon rides to and from downtown.

This is a good town to live in.

More Snow Pics

Continuing from yesterdays post, I had glimpsed that the trees across the river looked laden, so I decided to cross the bridge.

Indeed, it did look rather grand over there, but photographing at a distance did not produce photos as nice as the earlier ones. Sometimes, the more intimate photos work better than the wider scenes like these. Still, they were worth taking.

I decided to use the island to the right to give me some foreground interest.

I also got some foreground to the left in the next photo as well as a bit of a focal point in the house across the river. Purely by accident, the dip in the ripples almost points to the house. I wish I could write that I composed this deliberately, but alas, I didn't see it at all at the time, nor even in processing until after the fact.

.Before I left, I took this shot using branches of the near tree for a bit of a frame. I should probably crop away the right equipment to the right, but for now, it is what it is.

While this lot doesn't please me as much as the previous photos, I still like these photos well enough.

New Years Eve Snowfall

We awoke to a rather nice snowfall on December 31. I mean that it was photographically nice because it was the kind of wet snow that clings to the trees well on into the day. Otherwise, of course, that heavy wet snow is not super nice for either shovelling or driving.

I didn't think I was going to get around to photographing any of it because the day didn't begin fortuitously. I arose very early in not the best of sorts but then was quite miffed when I espied a blockage at the end of the driveway from the town plows. The plowing of the road had dumped a formidable barrier which I wouldn't have wanted to drive through.

This displeased me because I has wanted to do grocery shopping very early, at 8am, to beat the New Years Eve rush. But I couldn't get out. Where was our snow removal team?

When I contacted them, they were resting after a long night and couldn't promise to be back for awhile. However, after several text messages, they did have us plowed out by 9:30, for which I was thankful.

So I did my shopping and then took a quick spin to the nearest park with my camera in hand. I didn't spend long there, but I was rewarded with some photos that please me well enough.

The snow began to fall again for this picture of the pond and footbridge.You can see snow snow on the lens, but I don't mind the effect.

I took a similar, vertical shot.

Looking the other way, I was able to find a composition between a house on the left and the road on the right with some interest from foreground to background. By focussing tightly it rather looks like I could be deep in a woodland, which I certainly wasn't.

Even the houses that rimmed the park (how lucky for these people!) didn't look bad in the conditions.

I have a few more from the outing, but I think that I leave them for tomorrow.

PS: Just a reminder that you can click on any photo and see it bigger and then just quickly click through the whole lot of them. Some photos deserve that. Not saying that these do, of course. :)