Richard the spam king

If I have ever sent you an email, you probably got some spam in your inbox this weekend from me. Somehow my gmail account got compromised and somebody from China sent out email hawking fake electronics. I believe I've rectified the issue; please let me know if you get any more suspicious emails from me.


As for how it happened, I don't' have a good answer. My local machine is clean, so it's not a virus. I haven't been super vigilant about keeping strong separate passwords online so maybe somebody at another site sold my password and it was close enough to guess my gmail password. However, last weekend we sent Tara's Dell back to Dell to get it repaired. It seems like a awfully strange coincidence. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.....

Thank you all who let me know something was amiss.

Long time no post

A few unimportant updates from the past couple of months.

For the past few half a year our washer was telling us it wanted to die. After every load a little more grease, oil and water was leaking out from under it. Our dryer was also taking longer and longer to dry clothes. So we bought a new pair a couple of weeks ago. Cool new frontload, electronic, LG appliances. I've never had new a new washer or dryer; it almost makes doing laundry fun. Both the washer and dryer play a little ditty when they start up and when they shut down. Plus they have cool LED lights. I'm not convinced that the washer takes any less time but it definitely uses less water.

I went up to Lake Memesagamasing for the deer hunt in November. It was the first time that I have been hunting with a rifle. I'm not use to walking through the bush with a 8lb rifle on my back; I fell over more than a few times. The hunting party was a little smaller this year and we only bagged one deer (a joint effort between my brother-in-law Tim and the cottage neighbour and all-round awesome guy Mr. Mathews). The deer were scarce this year - I didn't even take my safety off. But as always a great time was had by all. Plus I only got lost once this year (and technically I wasn't "lost"; I knew where I was I just didn't know where I needed to go).

My parents came down for a quick visit in October. It's been a while since we had some time to just visit together. We hit the farmers market Saturday morning and just relaxed in the afternoon. It was good to spend time with them.

I haven't been taking hardly any photos lately. It's been a combination being busy and not making the effort to get out and shoot. I want to get out and shoot more, I just need to make the time. I'd like to get more into portraits and have been considering making a concerted effort to find subjects to practice on. Let me know if you want to be such a subject.

We got one of our retaining walls redone in October. It was built by the previous owner of our house and was basically stacked flagstone. That might be good enough for a fence but not for a retaining wall. The new wall  was done by Black Diamond Landscaping (email address - no website). It was built in less than 5 hours and looks really solid. If you use them, let them know I sent you.

We got a small amount of snow yesterday. Seamus couldn't get enough of the stuff. He ran and ran and rolled and rolled. He even started digging in it (which quickly turned into digging into our grass - that behaviour won't be tolerated). Here's a quick pic of the dog in all his snowy glory.

I think that's all the important stuff. I'll do my best to keep this blog thing more up-to-date.

On a swiss hillside...

This past weekend Tara and I went to a horse show out Orangeville way. Tara and Lego were supposed to be in it, but Tara is still out of commission from her fall a couple of weeks ago.  The horse show is inconsequential except that we met up our friends from the barn, Laurie and Ian. Laurie and Ian weren't riding in the horse show either. Like us, they were there to cheer on Jeanine who is also from the barn and the only from the barn competing. But Jeanine competing is inconsequential as well. I only bring up the horse show for context.

Ian, who along with my lovely self, were the only ones from the barn at the show that don't ride. And Ian is a photo buff like me. Only he is much better at it.

While we were chatting and waiting for Jeanine to start riding, Ian offered to lend me a few lenses to try out. Nice lenses. Nicer-than-I-have lenses.  I took him up on his offer and very carefully attached them to my old camera body and took a few shots.

70-300mm. The rider was at least 150ft away (large version)

The first one he lent me was the 70-300mm 4.5-5.6 IF-ED. I took a few shots and noticed how much quicker if focused than my cheap 70-300mm G lens. It also has vibration reduction which results is much sharper photos. At less than $600, I'd consider buying this lens, if only for photos of Tara riding.

  

70-200mm. Wide open. (large version)

The second one he lent me was the 70-200mm 2.8 IF-ED. The famous 70-200mm. This lens was bigger than I thought, and I really had to be careful using it without a tripod. It handled beautifully and even wide open it was still sharp. This is a lens I would love to have, but it's currently out of my budget (at $2400, I'd need to take a lot of photos to justify it).

However, the last one he lent me stole my heart. The 85mm 1.4D. This is the lens I want. This lens made my dinky little D70s, my 6 year old camera, work like I had always envisioned cameras to work. And the image quality, well it is like butter. But not factory farm butter, more like a fine European butter, from a Burlina cow grazing on the side of a Swiss mountain. Butter that makes day-old baguettes taste divine. But don't take my word for it, take a gander at the photo below (click the link for a larger version).

My hottie and a 85mm (large version, flickr)

With the announcement of the D7000 today, the smart money is on upgrading my body from old and out-of-date to shine and new. But the wise money may be on the 85mm if I can hold off camera envy for a little bit longer....

Bees!

Busy month

August was a busy month.

August 1-3 was spent in Buffalo.

Hot and hazy was the name of the game

A week after that we headed down to Raleigh, North Carolina (Aug 10-15). This was for the second part of Tara's residency examinations (the practical part). We gave ourselves a couple of days to drive down and a day to adjust before the Friday exams. We are glad we did; the weather was very very hot. We're talking 38°C at 8:00 pm hot with a humidex in the mid 40s.We ate outside one evening; it was like being in a sauna.

We spent our adjusting day visiting with other optho residents and trying to chill out before the Friday exam. On Friday, Tara had her exam in the morning and then we drove up to York Pennsylvania to stay with one of Tara's good friends and fellow resident Mitzi.

The visit with Mitzi was really great. It was good for Tara to chat about the exams and get rid of some excess stress. Saturday evening we spent at Mitzi's parent's country club. It was pretty swanky; we took part in a wine tasting for Mitzi's upcoming nuptials. We tasted quite a number of great wines included a Heitz Cabernet Sauvignon, 2001 which was divine! It was back to Ontario on Sunday for us.

Tara was up in Caledon on Aug 16-18 learning how to do a surgical procedure involving the eye and anti-inflammatory implants. I don't really understand it all, but Tara had a good time.

Tara and her mom headed to Ireland Aug 19-28.This was a long awaited Mother-Daughter trip to the emerald isle. Tara had a great time. I was left at home to take care of the dog :). I got a few things done around the house, but not nearly as much as I had hoped.

A few days after Tara got back from Ireland, she put in a few days working at a vet clinic in Toronto (Aug 31-Sept 1). Time to start paying off the trip.

The plans for this long weekend were to head back down to York for a wedding. Unfortunately Tara had a rather abrupt meeting with the ground this past Thursday at the barn. Tara and Lego were jumping the cross-country jumps when Lego clipped one of them and stumbled. In his effort to right himself, he dislodged Tara and sent her flying. She hit the ground rather hard and an ambulance had to be called. Tara is sore, but doing OK. No bones were broken and nothing seems out of place. Her fall did cause the cancellation of our weekend plans.

So that was our August; a little too busy if you ask me. Oh, and in case you were wondering, we found out on Wednesday that Tara passed all her exams. No real surprise, but a welcome relief from the waiting.

Inception

We just came back from Inception. Excellent movie - best I've seen in a while. It's kind of a cross between the Matrix and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Sort of.

It's one of those movies that I you need to watch a couple of times to get everything out of it. The DVD extras have the potential to be outstanding.

Go see it.

Preview

Two days in Buffalo

The irony that Tara was writing a othptomology exam
at a center for the visually impaired
was lost on the staff at the center

Tara and I spent a couple of days in Buffalo New York this past weekend. Tara was writing the first part of her Veterinary Ophthalmology board exams. These exams are at the end of her residency and she needs to pass in order to become a ophthalmologist. The exams were on the long weekend; the organization Tara is involved with (American College of Veterinary Ophthalmology) is North America wide, but centered in the US where they don't have a holiday in August. Consequently, Tara got to spent two 8 hour days in front of a computer and I spent some time wandering the city on the long weekend. Yipee.

There are no two ways about it; Buffalo is a bit of a dump.Nearly every other building is abandoned. The sidewalks are all cracked and broken (although the curbs are all cut stone, which was surprisingly classy). Windows and doors are boarded up. Graffiti is prevalent. There are few stores, few restaurants, few parks. Even around the HSBC center where the Buffalo Sabres play there is nothing to do. The city is in decline.

Bricks everywhere

In it's hay-day, Buffalo would have been a beautiful city. Nearly all the old buildings are brick with lots of windows (now boarded or bricked up). There are both wide and narrow streets. Being so close to both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the city would have been swimming in money. It's too bad things have gone so far down hill. Interestingly, there were much much fewer street people in Buffalo than other American and Canadian cities I've been to.

Tara's exams went well and she gets the results in a couple of months. Besides 1.5 hours at the border and a couple of wrong turns looking for the hotel, the trip was a success. We even took in some shopping. That said, I'm hoping we don't need to go back any time soon.

I bet this old office building would be interesting inside

W and R with a Xed-box was on a number of buildings - I wonder what it means?

Tara celebrating at home

T-Shirt Sorrow

"I don't think I shall ever see,
 A shirt as lovely as a T."

A moment of silence please: my favorite shirt has gone to the great laundry basket in the sky.

A couple of weeks ago when I was getting ready for bed, my favorite T ripped as I was taking it off. Ripped beyond fixing, beyond salvaging. The shirt wasn't in great shape to begin with, but it was good enough to wear around the house after a long day of work. It was light and comfortable. Comfort clothing.

I bought the shirt in Ithaca when I was visiting Tara the summer before we got engaged. Tara and I went shopping because I had somehow managed to forget to bring short sleeve shirts with me. I picked it up at an American Eagle, back when they had decent quality clothes. Tara was never really crazy about the shirt, but I loved it and we were in that phase of the relationship where we still a little afraid of speaking frankly with each other.

As silly as it sounds, the shirt always made me feel cool. I don't really know why; it was just a plain mustard yellow T. It's funny how clothes can have that effect on you. You can go from feeling down to feeling great just by slipping into your favorite shirt or jeans. And you can do the reverse when you need to wear that shirt to work that doesn't really fit you properly.

I am on the lookout for the next great T.

Summer treat

Presenting my new favorite summer treat. Super easy: angel food cake, custard, and strawberries. Go to the store; the three ingredients will be there for the purchase. I'm using PC's Devon Custard; it's not super sweet and it lets the strawberries shine through. And get the little mini angel food cakes are nice for individual servings - you could use a regular sized one for a larger gathering.

Go and make one for you and yours.

So you want to get an Afghan Hound

It's been a little over two months with Seamus now. I didn't grow up with a dog, let alone an Afghan, and I've learned all sorts of benefits to owning such a dog. If any of the points below resonate with you, it's time to consider getting an Afghan of your very own:

1. Your floors are too clean. If you have a house where you feel your floor are too clean, get an Afghan. With hair that grows between toes, Afghans collect dirt like it's nobodies business. And that dirt stays with them until they come inside where it magically leaves the body and lands on your floor. Be prepared to sweep multiple times a day and to wash the floor several times a week.
2. Your counters/sideboards/tables have too much food stuffs on them. The Afghan head comfortably rests on the kitchen counter and dining room table. Afghans can pick out two slices of cheese from a full plate and they can very quietly slide a bag of buns off the counter and carry it to the living room, conveniently out of your sight. If you have a glut of food around your house, an Afghan is for you.
3. You don't have time to pace in your backyard like you would like. Afghans will run the same route in your backyard, shadowing it's perimeter, over and over and over, leaving behind a nice worn path for you to pace on when you are deep in thought. There won't be any pesky grass to ruin your concentration as you walk the same route (although you may need to watch out for doggy do).
4. You don't have enough hair of your own to brush. If you are like me you don't have hair long enough to brush. If you ever have that yearning to brush a long mane of hair an Afghan is for you. They require constant brushing and they even have their own hair products that are required. Bald men - forget hair plugs; Afghans are cheaper  less painful  hairier.
5. You don't have enough wet spots around your house. With their shaggy beard, Afghans soak up more water into their fur than they get in their belly during their drinking sessions. This water then drips off the beard into the floor, counters, books, shoes and cats. This will be great in the winter to increase the humidity in the house.
6. You have too much free time. Two 20 minute walks a day (three if Tara isn't home), three 15 minute feeding sessions, time spent rescuing inanimate objects from Afghan jaws, time spent rescuing cats from Afghan noses, time spent brushing, time spent sweeping floors and washing walls and time spent trying to train the crazy thing all add up. If you find yourself with too much time on your hands consider an Afghan!

 There you go - six good scenarios where having an afghan will be a benefit to you and your household!

Walking shoes

I had my first really nice experiance with Seamus yesterday morning. I took him out for a walk at 8:00 with a coffee in one hand, the dog leash in the other and a nice breeze blowing. It was nice going for a walk that early on a Saturday. For the first time this week I thought to myself "I could get used to having a dog around."

But of course for every yin there is a yang.  At 4:20 today we walked in on Seamus chewing holes through my work shoes. 4:20 on a Sunday. Not impressed at all.

Dogs

A few months ago Tara's brother announced that he and his wife were thinking of getting a dog. Not just any dog, a Vizsla puppy. They had a lot of questions for Tara and she did her best to answer them.

A couple of weeks ago they got their puppy and brought him by (photo - warning: cuteoverload material). He is a bundle of energy and a lot of fun. At only 10 weeks, he requires a lot of work and training and patience and ear plugs.

Tara got the dog bug; she and I have been talking about getting a dog for the past month or so. I blame Tim and his cute puppy :). Tara grew up with dogs and she had one when we first got married (it lived at her parents place and in the end was really their dog). Tara brings treats to the dog at her barn and at her friends house. Tara loves dogs.

I, on the other hand, didn't grow up with dogs. I sneeze when they are around. I have no desire to wake up in the morning with walking the dog as my first thought. I like the freedom you have with cats; dogs require more forethought into your day's activities.

Tara likes dogs that need exercise, love to be around people and look pretty. I like dogs that are lazy, obedient and don't smell. We didn't get asked about dog breed preference in our pre-marriage counseling.

Last month Tara got in contact with an Afghan Hound breeder outside of Orangeville (Candyland Afghans). The breeder thought that she just might have a dog that would fit us both. After many long talks and a brief meet-n-greet, we decided to get him for a 3 week trial. I present to you Seamus:

Seamus is a 10 month old Afghan Hound (wikipedia link). He was going to be one of the breeder's studs but deveoped some confirmation traits that preclude him from winning in the ring. He's really hairy. He's a bit whinny. But he is house-broken and he mostly heels. He doesn't really like to fetch but he does like to run around like his tail is on fire (which is fun to watch).

If we continue to like him and if our cats start liking him he will be ours at the end of the 3 weeks. If not then it's back to the drawing board.

We picked Seamus up on Friday. Saturday we took him to the barn. Below are a few snapshots:
 

Wish us luck.

Camera update

Quick update on the camera situation. Black's eventually replaced my camera after some arm twisting and forceful reading of my warranty in the store. Surprisingly they found another D70s in their warehouse somewhere; while I was hoping for an upgrade, I'm just happy that I have a camera that works.

Lessons I've learned:
1. Keep all your documentation in one place. They asked for it often.
2. Keep on top of the store personnel - they already have your money and don't have much intensive to work in your favor.
3. As much as a pain as it was, buying the extended warranty was worth it for me. For $50 I got three trips to Nikon and then a replacement.

Photography with an end result in mind

Warning: this is a photography post. Tldr: I talk about the process of going from a vision to a print. If you want to see a pretty picture of mine, scroll to the end.

Photography is fun. With a few hundred dollars you can get yourself a nice kit that lets you take some great photos. It's exciting to walk around, take photos and get a few good ones. In the beginning you feel lucky when you capture a great image. If you are bitten by the photography bug, you want to keep your camera on you at all times and you are eager to share your photographs with your friends. The next stage moves from a reactive motivation to a proactive motivation. This is where you seek out or pose your environment for a greater chance of getting a great photo. You travel to fun locations or you starting telling your spouse or friend to pose just like so. This is also a fun stage. This is the stage I'm firmly set in.

But also I'm trying to move forward, past begin reactive to my environment and past setting up my environment for maximum chance of getting a good photo. Now I'm trying to pre-visualize specific photographs I want and then going out and making it happen. I'm not doing it all the time because, frankly, it's a lot more work with a lot less results that meet your expectations¹.

With that in mind, I took advantage of some flowers I got Tara to celebrate the fact that she had only seven and a half weeks of clinics left. The vision I had in my head was a triptych of monochrome closeups of the flowers. I wanted something with detail. More realism, less impressionism. Something with an 'art' quality to it. Not art as an highfalutin ideal, but art as in a piece of art; something I could make presentable and something I would want to hang on the wall. After a hour or so with my macro lens and my trusty D70s (which still don't have back yet), I had some good source material. And after another 2 or 3 hours of processing and editing, I had something I liked.

I got my photo printed at Black's. In Kitchener-Waterloo, we are lacking a high quality developing and printing lab (if I'm wrong and there is one hidden somewhere in town, please let me know). The last good one was Heer's in downtown Kitchener, but they folded a few years ago. So I went to Blacks to get it printed. Instead of me just handing them my CD, they made me sit down at one of the printing kiosks and submit the the photo from there (lame, really - if you know if a lab and printers in town, please let me know). A week later, I got an email from the lab that was printing my file. They couldn't open the TIFF I had uploaded from the kiosk. The file opened just fine at the kiosk, so I don't know what happened. After converting the TIFF to a JPG and emailing to the lab, things were on track. The print arrived a few days after that and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. It's printed on Black's Pearl paper at 12" x 24".

Finding a frame was another fiasco. I had no idea framing was so expensive. The three quotes I got hovered around the $175 mark for a frame in the size I needed. My lovely wife suggested I look for an existing frame and print and just get a new mat. A $40 frame from HomeSense and a $30 mat from a nearby framing shop and I was all set. It did take me a couple of hours to remove the old print from the frame and to mount my photo properly and without dust and cat hair, but my time is pretty much free.

So here is the final product. I'm happy with it. It matches the image I had in my head early on and it's something I feel good about putting on my wall. What else could I ask for?

¹ There is one more stage of photography that I want to get to, past the pre-visualization. And that's the stage where my photography moves beyond about being centered on subjects. It's a stage where I can take a photograph that evokes emotion. In my mind, this is the stage a photography moves from being a craft to being an art and producing something that can be called Art. Even though I have rare glimpses, I'm not there yet. No where near there.

Too much to hope for

My camera is back in the shop. Apparently the second time I sent it into Nikon they just sent it back without doing any work; this doesn't 'count' towards my three repairs before they consider the camera a lemon.

Hopefully my camera comes back in one piece or they decide to give me a new one; my extended warrenty runs out on the March 31.

The Blacks manager said that the repair could take anywhere from 6-8 weeks although last time I got my camera back in 3. I guess I'll be shooting film or borrowing Tara's camera until then...

It's like deja vu all over again

Boooo!

I was taking some photos this afternoon (for a blog post about me deciding to get in shape) and between frames, the viewfinder in my camera got really dim. At first I thought I had something on my glasses, but a quick examination of the camera and lens indicated that the camera was no longer controlling the aperture of the camera. And since the aperture blades have a tiny little spring to help the camera close them, they stayed closed on the camera.  This in-effect, makes the camera useless on all of my newer lenses (which don't have a manual aperture control).

Boooo!

This is the third time I've had to take the camera in to the shop for repair (1st, 2nd, 3rd). I bought the extended warranty which means Blacks should replace my camera this time; I'm heading in tomorrow to talk to the manager. I'm hoping I don't have to go through the whole rigmarole of sending it in to warranty again, but given Blacks' track record, I'm not holding on to more than a sliver of hope.

Boooo!

Comfort food - chocolate cake

I don't know about you, but chocolate cake holds a special place in my heart. When I was young, my mom used to make a chocolate cake recipe. It was baked in a 9x13 cake pan. It wasn't too light (denser than a angel food cake) and wasn't too dense (lighter than a brownie). Most of the time my mom didn't put any icing on it. It was cut into 2" x 2" squares, the perfect size. Perfect.


Chocolate cake is comfort food. It's not pretentious. It's not expensive. It can be eaten warm or cold, with icing or without. Like I said, perfect.


A couple of weekends ago I made Devil's Food Cake for a good friend's 40th birthday. As you can see, there wasn't much left of it after the party. I got the recipe from the February/March edition of Fine Cooking. The recipe is fancied up a bit; it's layered and has been given a ganache icing treatment. But take those things away and it's pretty close to my mom's recipe.


I repeated the recipe the following weekend, splitting the cake into two smaller ones. One for us and one as a gift for one of Tara's co-workers (who went way out of her way on a Friday afternoon to help out with Tara's studies). I made a few tweaks the second time and I think it came out a little better. I used four 6" pans for the two cakes. But it you want to be a purist, you can find the original recipe here.


I'm sure each and every one of you can do a better job with the icing than I did. I wanted to get it really smooth, but the more I tried, the less smooth it got. I'm sure there are many tricks of the trade for icing a cake, but it's never been a skill I could master.





Devil's Food Cake with Ganache Icing

The Cake
(all ingredients at room temperature)
3/4 cup butter plus 2 tbsp for buttering the pans
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour plus 2 tbsp for flouring the pans
2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa power
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cup butter milk
1/3 cup mayonnaise

1. Preheat the oven to 305F
2. Cut out 4 circles of parchment paper to line the bottom of the four pans. Place the parchment in the pans and butter the parchment and sides of the pans. Dust with flour.
3. With a mixer, whip the butter, sugar and vanilla together for a minute or two (until it is light and fluffy). Add the three eggs to the mix, one at a time until they are completely incorporated.
4. Sift the dry ingredients together into a separate bowl.
5. Whisk the buttermilk and mayonnaise together in a third bowl (or large measuring cup).
6. Alternating between the dry ingredients and the butter milk mixture, add the two mixtures to the butter/sugar a third at a time, mixing until fully incorporated.
7. Divide the batter into the four pans and bake for 40-45 minutes.

  
The Ganache
2 cups whipping cream
1 pound chocolate chips (semi-sweet)
1 Tbsp butter

1. Boil the cream in a medium pot.
2. Pour the cream over the chocolate chips in a bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes.
3. Gently mix the cream and chocolate until homogonous. Stir in the butter.
4. Let cool to room temperture.

Put it all together

1. Slice cakes in half.
2. Assemble 2 cakes as such: cake slice, ganache, cake slice, ganache, cake slice, ganache, cake slice.
3. Apply a thin coat of ganache on the sides and tops of the cakes. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to let the ganache set.
4. Apply a thicker coat of ganache to the sides and tops. Re-refrigerate to set the ganache. Remove from the fridge 60 minutes before serving.

Winter Webster's Falls

This past Saturday my good friend George and I headed down to Dundas on a photo excursion. Our destination: Webster's and Tew's Falls.

We wanted to get there for the sunrise, but a short delay at Tim Hortons proved to be our undoing. By the time we arrived at Tews Falls, the sun was up ready to warm the world. She had a lot of work ahead of her. It was -20°C when we stepped out if the car. C-o-l-d. That cold has a few unexpected consequences on (digital) photography:

1. Your battery doesn't work so well at these tempertures. To combat this, carry a spare inside your jacket and swap them out frequently. Your battery isn't drained, it just needs to warm up a bit.
2. Don't get your lens too close to your face lest you accidently breathe on it. I found this out the hardway when I blew a piece of fluff off my lens. I had to wait a few minutes for the frost to clear.
3. The same goes for your LCD screen; your face is already close to it so try not to breath on it.
4. Cameras have lots of fiddly little knobs and dials and such that are hard to use with your gloves. Hand warmers are finger-savers.

The cold notwithstanding, Saturday was beautiful. The sun was out, the wind was calm and the people were sparse. George and I spent a hour or so at Tew's Falls and then a couple of hours at Websters falls. We then headed to Tiffany Falls, but there wasn't much to see there besides a few ice climbers. A quick trip to Henry's to replace a lens cap that went over the falls and a bite to eat and we were done.

Head over to my flickr page to see a few more photos of Webster's falls. And take a look at George's photos; he is much more talented at this photography thing then I am.