Copied & Pasted from Jim W.’s “Latest News From Aerendel”
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— Monday, March 21, 2016 — // -4˚C / +24˚F & snowing ‘lightly’ @ 11:11 am in Atlantic Canada on the Second Day of Spring, 2016 🙂 —
I have become almost magically optimistic about the future lately — Hmmm? Have I clued into positive trends in the world of Spirit? Or is this not so early onset Alzheimer’s? 😉
Bare Ground beneath our local species of Cedar tree as the Nor’Easter begins – this was at about 8:37 am today, March 21st, 2016 -jrw-
— The Weather Network said we should expect between 15 and 25 centimeters of snow today ( um, six to ten inches? ) The local CBC channel told us this morning they expect we should get about 10 centimeters / 4 inches? – then later amended that to say we might get another 5 centimeters later tonight, after the evening commute home?
— This is a view of the ‘Deer Hill’ that I haven’t ‘published’ here yet – The hill is actually somebody else’s property. Cathi says she wishes we could own it- She’s got ideas concerning gardens and safe passage for deer forever and maybe even a swimming pool.
— My novel keeps growing in my mind faster than I can get it out and into word processors – In that manner I work out a lot of stupid dead ends before they waste time? At least I’m not wasting paper –
— At about 10:30 am. The spot beneath the cedar tree is now covered by ‘new’ snow. (I had to walk out to this area to bring back the garbage can the garbage guys usually leave upside down, but today they left it right side up, so it was filling with snow.) — shrug —
— I realized before I began to write this, that at about this time last year, I didn’t want to know anything about any more snow falling from the sky and building up on the ground- Today I pretty much knew it was coming – um, part of this is trusting teevee and radio weather people – and I still felt like the world was okay, that Spring is coming, that people are will be nicer to each other – That even nasty people will realize they don’t like being nasty? — I don’t know – Maybe something on a nearly sub-conscious level has become more optimistic since Canada elected a new ‘government’ that at least claims to value human beings over the principles of greed and divisiveness.
— And I think this is the photo that I took around 10:30 this morning that I thought best showed the developing snowstorm. -jrw-
— And I guess none of the photos I’ve put up here today do anything to explain the odd optimism I’ve been feeling. As a matter of fact, the day is kind of grey and brooding – and the snow that is falling doesn’t feel particularly friendly or compassionate – But the world still feels like it is becoming more friendly, more loving, more welcoming? So, of course there will be set-backs and dark moments – But I still feel like something deep down and subtle has changed for the better.
— Sunday, March 20th, 2016 — // -2˚C / +27˚F in brilliant sunlight reflected on very white snow at 12:06 pm in Atlantic Canada — // — I believe today is Dona ( née Flynn ) from my hippy days in Brattleboro’s birthday —
One of Jim W.’s photos that he couldn’t load yesterday, I reduced the size from 3,000 + by 2,000 odd pixels to 1024 b less than 768 and it looks like ‘No Problem at all” here – I also painted the license plate blank for ya, Jim – —jda—
— Yup, looks good to me –
— Jim & Cathi’s House, Jassper’s ‘dog run’ – Funny – Jim calls this the ‘Front Yard’ because it faces Canada Street and that’s the face most people see – Cathi calls it their ‘back yard’ because they come in the door on the other side of the house. I don’t know, If that’s really the biggest disagreement these two have, I’d say they have an amazingly good relationship. —jda—
— Jim & Cathi’s East Side Yard At Sun-Up.
— This is the second of two photos Jim took Friday Morning, of the Deer and the Hill they feed on, he had to take this from a distance, and if his cell’s phone has a telephoto function, somebody should tell him how to use it. 😉 – I would have cropped this photo closer in and used it instead of the one he started yesterday’s post off with. —jda—
— Today dawned almost as picturesquely as yesterday –
— To prove a point, silly me, I cropped the photo from directly above this cropped version – Jim’s 2nd “Deer on the hill with great backlighting” photo – and did not reduce the size / number of pixels – The deer are so far to the left you can almost miss them in their lower corner there – Reminds me of Taoist Chinese Art – where the scenery is huge and the people are tiny? – And loading this photo did take so long at 2308 x 1766 pixels that I thought it just might crash WordPress’ interior workings. But it didn’t and it’s here, and I’m glad. —jda—
— yup, magic happens, isn’t it great when things work out better than you expect them to?
Hi – Jim W. Is having problems with his WordPress Theme or his connection and asked me to see if this works in my ‘blog’ – :
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I went outside to photograph the sunrise after I brought a little bit of oats out to the Deer Hill, and was surprised to see a family of deer already there having breakfast – Then I tried to change the settings on the sizes of the photos & ‘Media’ for this WordPress Blog and it seems to want to over-ride my changes. Grrrrr- But anyway, This is a cropped photo with the deer and the wild backlighting in effect. I’ll try to load this at full size and see what it says. —jim w—
— Saturday, March 19th, 2016 — // -10˚C / +14˚F & Clear & quite bright out there at 9:00 am Atlantic Daylight Savings Time — I think today is my grammar school friend, Donald Hanichek’s Birthday. I could have the spelling wrong – and the last time I bumped into him we were in our twenties and both shopping at an art supply store where my friend, Kim, worked. I think Don was picking up art supplies for the place where he worked, and he pointed at me, smiled and said, “This is what I like about living here-” (bumping into childhood friends) —
— This week’s Media News included a bit on how consumers brought a complaint to the CRTC (Canadian Radio & Television Commission? — expanded to include cable and satellite etc. ? ) About the way Cable ‘Provider’s are handling things. The CRTC ordered cable companies to provide a cheap, stripped down ‘basic’ package that had to include the major Canadian Networks and possibly a couple US networks — I’m not 1,000 % ‘up’ on the details – But – They were also supposed to ‘provide’ single channel options, and not just offer channels inside ‘Bundles’ that a lot of people were complaining contain a bunch of channels they never watch and have no desire to pay for. & Now it seems that the cable ‘providers’ – “jacked” the price of all the single channels they offer – up as high as they could get away with – and people are complaining now that it would cost them more to get just the few channels they want than all the channels they didn’t want before.
— & Now, Yesterday, Our local CBC Morning News Program reported that a new complaint has come to the CRTC regarding one of the major Media Providers and the way they charge for Cell Phone ‘service’ – They made it very easy for anyone on a family’s plan, including the minor children, to go past the ‘Data Transfer’ limits on their family plan – As in Testing and connecting to radio and YouTube NetFlix and stuff like that. The woman who brought this one complaint in question to the CBC reporters discovered that her minor son was able to go to a ‘screen’ where the warning “You are about to exceed the monthly Data Transfer Limit associated with your family plan – If you wish to continue receiving the program you are attempting to connect to you must verify that you will pay for the additional Data transferred. Do you wish to continue? If So Type “Yes” – ” The woman got her bill for that month, opened it and nearly fell down. The additional data transfer the company said she owed amounted to over $1,700.00 Canadian. After she complained to the CRTC the Cell Phone ‘Service’ was ordered to pay most of that back to her. The reporter told us that some complaints reported much higher amounts the ‘provider’ claimed the consumer owed, whether a minor child or the actual bill payer ‘okayed’ the extra data transfer or whatever –
— The CBC reporter identified the company in this case as ‘Rogers’ who may now own the iconic tower in ‘Downtown Toronto’ and might even own the Toronto Blue Jays. I could be wrong on this point. But anyway. The love of my life had a family plan with Rogers and needed to watch her bills extremely closely because the company tried to bill her in accordance to one plan after numerous long phone calls complaining and explaining that she had the plan that allowed her teenaged daughter either unlimited or close to unlimited data transfer every month while holding the rest of us, who didn’t text much, or in my case, not at all – And every month they tried to tell her that that was not the plan she had and every month she fought and argued and said, “Yes it was the plan she agreed to-” And they would get those details correct and the company representative would say that ‘these are your contract’s terms’ – and read her what she wanted to hear, and then the very next month the bill would come in as if those conversations/complaints had never happened. She was close to tears every month over this nonsense. It seemed ver much like the company had a policy of: “Charge them whatever we freakin feel like charging them – and threaten them with legal action for breach of contract if they don’t pay our version of this- and to hell with what they think they want or what they think they agreed to-” And then they made their customers service complaints so contentious and maddening that they hoped their ‘treasured customers’ would just shut up and pay whatever was on their bills.
— Schnarr! —
And Now back to pretty pictures:
— “Wide Shot” of the deer that surprised me this morning – Here they began to run away as I was walking up close to where I had just stood and tossed cups full of oats up to ‘their spot’ on the hill. —jim w—
— Okay, this blog doesn’t like full sized photos, let me publish what I have here and see how it comes out and maybe edit some more later.
— Jim W.’s photo of his cat, Moe, Messed with using stock ‘artistic filter’ “Rough Pastels” – He was talking about not wanting to mess with the wild and crazy add-on plug-ins that a lot of people spend a lot of money on and use when they’re messing around with PhotoShop.
Below is Copied & Pasted from Jim W.’s “Latest News From Aerendel” Blog:
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I felt compelled to make sure the deer had oats this morning, so at about 6 am I went out with my pail and five scoops of whole oats and tossed the oats in several smaller scoops to their spot. But the pre-dawn colours and lighting effects were amazing, and I actually had my camera in my pocket. Of course, you never get what you see when you take the photo. But sometimes what you get is pretty close, and sometimes it comes with surprises- The flash was ‘on’ when I took this shot, and captured several orbs looking like they just might be odd moons rising. Or maybe they’re orb creatures coming to check up on what the heck I’ve been up to lately?
– Early Morning Musings? –
— Saturday, March 12, 2016 — // -3˚C / +26˚F @ 8:31 am under cloudy grey skies with small ‘ground squirrels’ running around inside the dog’s area – which really isn’t very bright- ya know? in Atlantic Canada (or anywhere else – for that matter) — // Larry Thomases’ Birthday.
The white deer was here around 6:30 am, with one other friend. Yesterday, around 7:20 – the whole gang was in attendance, and a couple of the motherly types were kicking the white deer around and driving her away to make sure their yearlings got the most of the oats that were there. I wanted to go out and give the white deer her own abundance of warm fresh oats (warm from being inside the porch, not cooked) But I just stood there and watched her glumly and stiffly walk away. If she is the same white deer we saw last year and the year before, she had a mottled white and brown yearling that must have been the white deer that was reportedly hit by a bus and killed last winter, 2015 – 🙁
— Another thing that happened yesterday, well, we had about half an inch of snow that had started out wet and froze to a weird hardness that was not easy to brush and scrape from the van so Cathi could drive to work free from the anxiety that chunks of hard snow might fly from her roof and hurt somebody or smash their windshield – and the whole time I was struggling with the brush and scraper one youngish deer that I thought was a new guy, who’d either come alone or was so freakin hungry that he or she stayed after the others ran away and ‘he’ kept on eating and scratching for any oats that just might be beneath the snow – I told Cathi about him, and said he must be starving, then told her I thought I would bring him out a cup full of fresh breakfast oats – and she said, “Well, if he lets you get near him -” And I reiterated, “I think he’s starving -” and I went out with a cup full of oats and he took a couple steps away and prepared to dash away toward safety – I tried to tell him in a nice calm voice, “Hey, don’t go too far away – and showed him what I had and tossed it while he eyed me warily – Then I tried to bow, or dip my head slightly, which is something I’ve seen the deer doing, and we’ve been anthropomorphizing that that’s the way they say ‘Thank you-‘ He just looked at me like that was weird and came back and was gobbling up the new warmish oats before I took ten steps toward the house.
Okay, this was probably five minutes after the first photo at the top of this article here – What I saw was something more like nicotine coloured sky just above the horizon, but it came out reddish purple here. It’s still striking, but it isn’t quite what I saw –
— I gotta try to change the setting in the ‘editor’ here to see if I can get the captions to left justify. Me – getting typically over wordy here – it looks bad and I think it might be hard for some people to read the center justified captions. & Sometimes I think I’d have to be grossly over-confident if I thought that anybody out there would want to read any thing I post here.
– And this was maybe twenty minutes to half an hour after the first shots. It came out a little closer to reality, and then I did a little tweaking in photoshop (not the heavy duty really creative stuff you need special plug-ins for) But this really caught the feeling –
— Was it yesterday I spent a couple of paragraphs describing Moe’s linguistic peculiarities? — I couldn’t avoid posting a photo I took of him between a couple of his lectures on how not to neglect the cat if you know what’s good for you —
And here he is – hoping that I’m not about to blind him with the flash he knows can come out of the thing that I’m holding so close to him – And why I’d hold anything that wasn’t edible that close to a cat will probably forever remain a mystery – ( “And why does that thing make noises like “Ka-jickk” either when it blinds you with light or doesn’t – I like this human, but jeeze – there’s no way a reasonable cat can understand these peculiar characters, -And why the Creator gave them opposable thumbs and not us? – Well I’ll be charitable, and say that must have been an oversight, probably an operation delegated to underlings on the animal design assembly line -” )
— Enough damage for one day? Am I stealing somebody else’s line here?
~~~~~ Jim
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This is Jim’s Sun is Rising photo messed with using the ‘Neon Glow’ photoshop filter.And this is the same photo as above – Messed with Using the “Poster Edges” PhotoShop Filter.— And — The white deer photo, messed with using the “dry brush” filter. Looks just a bit like a painting.
— I thought I messed with another photo while I was at it, but I guess not-
— Maybe I should say “Copied & Pasted, lifted and PhotoShopped?”
Copied & Pasted from Jim W’s “Latest News From Aerendel” Blog:
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“Zen Corner Through Glass And Plastic” – This photo was taken at about 9 am this morning through a porch window and its interior plastic shield – using a Samsung Galaxy II phone – not my usual Olympus Camera. —jim w—
— Tuesday Evening, March 8th, 2016 — // — Dark and -1˚C / +30˚F @ 7:45 pm in Atlantic Canada —
— I guess you can tell you live in a ‘Civilized’ area when last night’s Television News included the following:
— Tonight a Woman in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia went to her Compost Bin and it Growled at Her —
— The culprit was a young and scruffy looking raccoon.
— I tried to find a photo of the scruffy young raccoon in the green plastic recycling bin via Twitter and became severely distracted by too much positive reinforcement going around – like:
I used to think Steve Jobs was a guy with a nasty temper who made fun of virgins and went to Apple Board Meetings barefoot and snarled at everybody. That’s the way he was portrayed in a teevee movie about the computer revolution – Just recently I discovered that he was a follower of Paramahansa Yogananda – a Yogi who gave away copies of “Autobiography of a Yogi” – Or did I just come here from a parallel world that’s not quite as positive as this place?Michael Moore voted for Bernie Sanders in a primary – Sounds good to me.
— There is way too much positive stuff in the ‘Tweet-Us-Sphere’ tonight. Most of it concerns women’s safety and equality – with a hashtag #InternationalWomensDay –
“We are the [Daughters and] Granddaughters of Witches You Couldn’t Burn”PG Rated Message? 72% of equal wages for equal work might warrant a frustrated cuss word or two – & not everyone know how to say “Schnarr!”Nice, Positive Quote? — Unless you’ve been messed with to the point where you can’t stand anybody suggesting you should see the world their way, positive or not – But, hey, I got over that attitude years ago. 🙂
— And I left a lot of stuff out. There’s not enough room here to fill with all the good stuff on the internet tonight. Now that’s different –
Cathi standing near bank of the wind-whipped St John River – gazing through the bitter cold toward the South Side of Fredericton.
— Thursday, 03 March, 2016 — // -10˚C / +14˚F With Bright Sunlight and Bitter Cold Wind in Atlantic Canada @ 4:59 pm // Ian Punnett’s Birthday 🙂 —
— We had a busy early afternoon here in Atlantic Canada — The sun looked warm and the air was clear. But the wind – coming from the South West ahead of a winter storm blowing this way from Ontario and Quebec – was very damp and cold – the kind of cold that cuts right through you –
— We took a break in the middle of our tasks and appointments to gaze at the beauty of the river with its very bright reflections – And stepped out of the vehicle to take a couple of photos – But — Brrrrrr! Cathi gave up trying to stand outside and take a video of the wave action causing the built up ice to undulate near the edge of the solidly frozen ice. I took a couple of my own photos and ran back to the warmth, grabbed my warm insulated gloves, wore one of them and pulled my right hand up inside the cuff of my jacket so I could push the camera’s shutter button and not watch my fingers freeze and drop off my hand –
This is looking almost due south from the north side here. I didn’t notice the sunbeam streaking in from above when I took the photo.
— Yeah, so we got all our stuff done and hurried back home to thaw out and catch up on the news that Mitt Romney is warning his fellow Republicans not to vote for Donald Trump – who he called a Con-Artist and a Fraud. A friend told us that photos of Mr Trump as well as transcripts and excerpts from some of his television spots were used by a Psychology professor to describe the look and characteristics of a “Narcissistic Sociopath”.
