moar funny pictures
Category: Grab Bag
Stuff about stuff
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Garbage Mosaic
While listening to a podcast this morning I noticed that the “Album Art” in iTunes was a mosaic of a photo that I was quite familiar with, which inspired this effort, my first photo mosaic. After a very quick search I randomly selected AndreaMosaic as the first tool I’d try. It’s easy to use, fairly fast and seems to have lots of options to explore for controlling the output. Perhaps I’ll try a few more.
Of course I was working out while listening to the podcast, which is my normal pattern. Get up, head down to my home office/gym, fire up the Daily Source Code, and do a routine of crunches and Bowflex. Well, with the current tennis elbow issues, most arm exercises are currently off my list, so it’s primarily a leg workout. This is good for cross country skiing and keeping in shape for the cycling season. But even holding onto 20lb dumbbells while doing squats aggravates my right arm. I hope I can get this resolved soon, but it’s taking quite a long time so far.
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Therapy
Physiotherapy! What kind of therapy were you thinking? After several visits to my MD, with no results for my self-induced weight lifting “Tennis Elbow” injury I called up my physiotherapist Chris and got an appointment. Of course after he heard my story he wanted to know why I waited so long to come and see him and indicated that things were really “messed up” now and the road to recovery might be a long one. But then he proceeded to get on with the treatment.
So, these little BandIt braces will be my buddies for the next who knows how long in addition to various exercises and treatments. So far it’s the braces, anti-inflammatory drugs before bed and first thing in the morning, stretches – palm down on the left and palm up on the right, twist a hammer to the left and right in each hand, and ice as many times as possible for 15 min per elbow, and no lifting or strong gripping for 2 weeks.
I’ll let you know how it goes. So far, the braces are feeling a little weird.
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Message to Earth
I’m a fan of the Blue Man Group, so after viewing this from a Facebook link, I had to give it a post.
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More Photos
This year I think I’ll take more photographs. One reason is that I’d just like to improve my skills and capture more of life and the other is the sweet new Olympus 790SW that I received for my birthday. Most days, as I leave the house, I’ll slip the camera in my pocket. It’s just so compact that having the camera with you at all times is so convenient. This I believe is Step #1 to working on my photograph – always having a camera at the ready.
Here is a case in point. I was out for a walk yesterday and of course I had the camera in my pocket. I must admit I set out with the idea of taking some pictures on the walk, which I did. But as I returned to the house, down the side of the bay that I normally never travel on, I noticed a huge ramp in a neighbors back yard. The surprising thing was that these folks live across the street from us and I had no idea about this ramp until yesterday.
Two young guys were working the ramp and this guy was honing his boarding skills. After I took the photo and was walking by I heard him say to the other guy that he was going to try a 360° next. Perhaps I should have hung around to see that!
Anyway, without the camera readily at hand and the mindset to take some new pics, this opportunity would have been lost, and only lived on as a brief memory.
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Cutting Corners
Actually, more like cutting curves with my new
toytool that I received as a Christmas present. With Scott & I taking up cross country skiing I decided we needed a ski waxing bench. With a little searching I located this simple design and the new jig saw made quick work of cutting out the form from a 2×4 that I had hanging around in the shed.Here is the resulting waxing bench.
I think I’ll put it to work shortly and wax up the skis for an outing this afternoon.
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New Family Member
Last night we were introduced to
Cooper, Dez and Eric’s new dog. I think we all fell in love with this cute little girl. -
Cross Country Rockets
I took my new cross country skis out for their first “spin” this morning. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been on cross country skis. Needles to say my old equipment is really “old”, so these are the new kids on the track, and they are very nice. They are Solomon Equipe 8 Classic Skis, and on the Solomon site they are classed as racing skis. Whoa there, racing? Perhaps I bought a little over my ability, or perhaps I’ll just grow into them. Needless to say, they are fast.
They will be even faster when their owner gets them under a little better control and technique. Perhaps a few brush-up lessons are in order. Fortunately, the cycling conditioning helped out, but of course my legs are “discovering” some new muscle groups.
I cruised around the easier Green Trail to warm up and get the feel of the skis. I seems I put on the wrong wax as there was a lot of slip sliding going on and not the good kind. After waxing up again I tried out the more challenging Blue trail and got quite a good workout with the trail going up and down the banks of the river bank wanders through the golf course.
Bottom line, it’s still lots of fun and a good outdoor workout. Who knows, perhaps a little racing is in the cards.
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Empty Cube
This has been my work home for the last year. It’s a cube, just like so many other cubes in the corporate work environment these days. If you think it looks a little sparse for a guy who’s been there are year, it’s because I’ve just moved out.
Moved out might not be quite the correct term, perhaps bugged out would be more representative. I got a call from my manager late of Friday afternoon, while I was at home on Christmas vacations, requesting that I clear out all my personal and corporate property from the client’s site. You see there has been some turmoil on the project and now there are contract issues. So, until they are resolves I’m now a displaced person, one of the corporate homeless in and in between state. Not quite jobless, but without a project. It’s a weird feeling of just suddenly leaving an assignment without completing, without transitioning off to a successor, without saying goodbye, just vanishing in the night.
I’ve had this happen one other time in my career. The contracts were successful resolved and I went back to the assignment, actually for several more years. I hope things get resolved favorably and I can complete the assignment and finish on good terms with the client. We’ll see what happens, but for now I’m on vacation and enjoying the Christmas Season.
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Things you Grandparents never told you
My Grandparents were Icelandic but his was something I was never told. In fact I just heard about the Yule Lads on CBC Radio a couple of days ago. Perhaps it’s a good thing, these guys sound pretty scary, and a little wierd with names like Pot Scraper, Sausage Swiper and Peeping Tom! My Goodness!
Christmas Lads at the National Museum of Iceland
The Icelandic jólasveinar (Yuletide Lads) have absolutely nothing to do with the international red-clothed Santa Claus, who is a version of St. Nicholas. The Yuletide Lads are descended from trolls, and orginally they were bogeymen who were used to scare children. During this century they have mellowed, and they sometimes wear their best, red, suits. But they still tend to pilfer and play tricks.
