Home again.

Back home again. It’s about as strange as I expected. Dollar bills, instead of one, and two, dollar coins (though we have four different types of dollar coins; none of them are in common circulation). The suddenness of going several hundred miles south. When I got to Ottawa it was as if I’d gone back about three weeks, in terms of how much daytime there was.

Skip ahead to now, and the suddenness of the longer days. Everywhere is the sound of birds. This has, it seems, been a tolerably moist winter. Everywhere is the reek of fresh growth. Green, and earthy and nothing rank in it. Hints of mustiness, but nothing is tired or worn out. My plum is getting ready to bloom. The not-jonquils are getting ready to bloom, the freesias are starting to bloom and the roses are springing from the canes.

Weeds are trying to take over the front parkway.

And it’s warm. It was -17C in Ottawa, and it’s about +17C here. A small difference. I, having no body fat, still want a sweater in the evenings, but I can sleep with the windows open. The light is less blue.

Right now (1400) the clouds have come back, and a south wind is blowing. I’ve done some of the “make and mend” needed (most notably cleaned the camera sensor), and am still working my way through the photos taken in Ottawa.

The lessons, and workshops went well enough (the client was happy, and the incidental audience seemed interested in what was said). Teaching, and working with the vagaries of the new subject (snow and ice have been, at best, an occasional subject. Having a month to look at them, and time to make return trips; improving on the lessons learned, was really nice, fun too.

Tried to get some chocolates at Stubbe’s, but they aren’t open on Mondays. Instead we stopped at Timothy’s, where I bought some, “Presidential Blend No. 44.

In the things I really wanted to do dept. was curling. I got to, sort of. I got a lesson. If we had found the Ottawa Curling Club sooner, I could have joined the starter league, but as it was I got to shove a 40 lbs stone, and listen to it roar. I wasn’t awful. I only fell twice (the “slippy” shoe, isn’t. It’s a bizarrely slick thing. There is no resistance, in any direction. Ice skates have control, the edge constrains... not so the slippy shoe, only balance keeps one’s kiester off the ice).

With some practice, I could be ok. With a lot of practice, who knows? Olympic dreams anyone?

The brass ring

Microsoft and Lenovo are having a contest.

I want to win. No, really. Not would be happy. Not think winning would be swell.

I Want it. With that hunger which is a quiet fire in the belly. The kind of thing which ferments in the mind and makes one think of what one could do with it.

It's a really simple contest, one which is tailor made for me. More to the point it's tailor made for me right now. Right now I can afford to win this thing, and in two years it might be much harder.

It's a photo contest, sort of. It's a contest in which the winning lets one take photos. All one needs to do is come up with an idea and get people to vote for it. The top twenty vote getters will be evaluated (idea, the ability to take a photo and... the ability to blog).

The winner gets 50,000 USD to make it happen. The winner has to pay taxes on it, so the working budget is more like 35,000 (state and feds). Knock out 5,000 for a new camera body, and I have a pretty good working budget.

I don't know that this links to:


The most original idea, but it's one I can do well. It's one where I can strech the budget some. pindar I will have time to drop in on you. I'll have other people to look up too.

But I can live out of my rucksack with a camp stove, and something from Tesco. I can use Hostels. I will rent a barge, and travel the canals. I can, in short, be a tinker, and a gypsy.

Think of Toad, and Mole and Ratty; without, one hopes, the pitfalls and disasters.

I can write descriptive travel writing, even when there is a lot going on.

I can take photos

I can write about taking photos

I can do this.

So, please, vote for me. Link to this. Tell your friends to vote for me. Send e-mails to anyone whom you can beg a favor from to vote for me, if you can, make a comment explaining that you like the idea, my photos, my writing, what have you.

If I win, you get the trip reports (I'll be pubbing my ish as I go). You'll get to see the photos.

I can have three projects. I think they can all be voted for. If you have any ideas, for an alternate project, let me know.

(addendum: It has come to my attention that actually voting for My Dream Photo Assignment is a bit of a trial.

The problem, so it seems is figuring out how to register, and then refinding the project for which one want's to vote. Since I wasn't trying to vote on something, but rather write one, this wasn't plain to me.

The easiest way to negotiate the process seems to be:

1: Go to the link above. After the page loads, copy the URL from the address bar.

2: Click on the button which says, "Submit your idea now"

3: Fill out the registration form (the ticky box about wanting e-mail is optional; if you aren't planning to submit a proposal, feel free to fake the phone number).

4: Follow the link in the registration e-mail.

5: Load the copied url into the address bar.

6: Vote (a button marked, "Pic").