Moon over Rumble St. in SE Burnaby, BC, early this morning as I waited for a ride to a Stream of Dreams Murals Society project.
And here’s a tight crop. I’m impressed with my wee Canon SX730HS. Not bad for handheld shots before sunrise. . . Of course you don’t get the quality of a DSLR, but not bad, not bad. . .
These American Coots were fun to watch as they bobbed up and down, sometimes walking on ice, sometimes in the water
American Wigeon
Female and male Bufflehead
Male Bufflehead
Lesser Scaup
It’s fun to be walking along and say “that hummer tree is around the next bend.” and sure ’nuff . . . : -)
I ought to go into IT consulting.
Wife cannot log into her computer. Help!
I go to her room, and while she’s getting a cup of tea, I jiggle the mouse, pull a USB drive out of a USB port, pull a hair out of my nose, and voila, computer is awake and responding.
I would normally charge $200, but because I’m not sure how I fixed the problem, it must have involved some element of wizardry, so I think the bill ought to be $400.
Not to mention the sacrifice of a nose hair. . . 
The morning started out with huge snowflakes filling the sky in SE Burnaby, but later on much of the fresh snow was washed away by rain.
But streets and sidewalks could be treacherous as temps fall toward, and perhaps below freezing again.
I gave it another six months, but my aging ASUS UL30A notebook computer is getting flakier. I’m the secretary for an org at which the ASUS was recently connected to a projector for 3 days of meetings, presentations, and note taking, and it barely survived, crawling along.
I’ve considered doing a fresh backup, reformatting the HD, and reinstalling everything, but I’m feeling that would just be a waste of time. It would still be a poky machine with limited screen resolution.
I got it in November 2010, so over eight years out of a notebook computer is pretty good.
I’m now vacillating between shelling out for a Lenovo machine (I’ve always liked Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad keyboards), or perhaps going for an iPad with a Smart Keyboard.
The iPad combo would be super portable, the other would have more storage, more connectivity options, etc. I want an IPS screen for photo work, which the iPad has, and which you can get on Lenovos.
Decisions, decisions.. .
UPDATE (2/18): Ended up ordering a Dell G3 8GB/1TB with FHD IPS screen for about 2/3 the price of a similarly configured Thinkpad or less than half the price of a Macbook Pro. It’ll do for me.
I love the sight and sound of snow sliding off trees in the forest in Byrne Creek Ravine Park out our back gate in SE Burnaby, BC.
I had an errand to run on the north shore, so I took Skytrain and Seabus, and then walked about half an hour to my destination, and about half an hour back to Lonsdale Quay.
It was a gorgeous day for a stroll!
UFO over Canada Place : – )
UPDATE: 2/16 — I couldn’t bring myself to share on that day, but this north shore stroll was to pick up Choco’s cremated ashes.
As I was heading home, I got a text from Yumi as to how the pickup was going, and I said: “we’re just getting on the SeaBus to come home.”
I like that auto-thought. The reflexive “we.”
And Choco is home, in her little cedar box.
And we shall love her forever.
Tonk!
That’s the sound a larger bird makes when it lands on the feeder suction-cupped to a window on our balcony. So I knew there was something attracted to the food on this snowy south Burnaby day other than chickadees and LBBs (little brown birds : – ).
I grabbed a mediocre photo with my cell phone, then went downstairs to get the DSLR with Big Bertha mounted on it.
Of course the flicker was gone by the time I got back, but. . .
I snoozed by the fire with Big Bertha in my lap, er, I mean I watched vigilantly, and success!
This is about the comfiest wildlife photography I’ve done : – )
Had a blast in the snow with an eco group from a local elementary school today. Great fun walking down to Byrne Creek, chatting about nature, salmon, and streamkeeping. Great bunch of kids!
Just got home from three days of SEHAB (Salmon Enhancement & Habitat Advisory Board) meetings.
We had several excellent presentations from both federal and provincial staff, and a renewed sense of optimism that DFO and the province are making progress toward working together to build momentum on some longstanding fish and habitat issues.
It was also great to hear from SEHAB members from across BC who represent their DFO Community Advisors’ geographical areas, and collate reports from stewardship groups to take to DFO Regional Headquarters in Vancouver.
SEHAB is an amazing crew with a wealth of knowledge and experience, and it’s been a privilege and a huge learning experience being on the board.
I’m exhausted, but it’s a satisfying exhaustion 
.
Ya gotta eat, and a lot of discussion and knowledge sharing continues over meals