Not talking about humans… but ants and birds.
Categorynature
I’ve returned from India, land of organized chaos. Somehow I managed to avoid being cursed by the cross-dressers or trampled by a pack of wild cows. However, the mosquitoes were not so kind to me and the doctor believes I caught Dengue fever. I spent a few days with a fever over 100 degrees and a horrid stabbing pain in the back of my neck. At least I experienced the medical care in India, including paying $1.50 CAD for 2 separate blood tests.
Luckily, I was healthy for a greater portion of the wedding. I think India’s weddings make even our most elaborate weddings feel like overnight trips to Vegas (pronounced “Wegas”).
Unfortunately, due to the nasty fever, I missed out on a few of the site-seeing portions of the trip in Jaipur, including the temple monkeys! That being said, here’s the photos that I did take with my camera, most of which were taken in New Delhi.
Recognizing and accepting the ups and downs is tricky. I don’t have any trouble recognizing them and labeling them, but accepting them is a different story. By “accepting”, I simply mean that I’m always reminding myself that life isn’t always an upwards trend. However, unless you can look at all the challenges as kicks in the head that may make you aware of alternate paths that might remove you from habitual loop. Kicks in the head help you learn, and learning is progress… so I guess it IS an upwards trend. Huh!
Last week I went to the waterfront to listen to some music and get some sun, but within minutes a storm started to roll through. I saw it coming, so I quickly ran under a tree for shelter. Under the tree I was forced to hide my music away and just gaze at the darkened view of the lake as large drops of collected rainwater snaked their way around the leaves, dripped onto my head and ran down my neck. Eventually a certain peace came over me and I wasn’t concerned about being wet. I saw some people stressed out by being rained on, and yet others seemed to welcome the cooling wetness. After the storm passed I looked at my hand and noticed a small spider had joined me for warmth and shelter from the rain. I looked up through the branches and the sun appeared unusually sparkly. After a few minutes, I returned to my bench by the lake and relaxed in the silence. To exaggerate the dreamy state that I was in, the wet concrete was warm enough to steam, forming a light fog that crawled across the sidewalks and into the grass.
You can bet that I appreciated the sunshine more, after the rain came through.
The difficult part is keeping the energy up and remaining positive through the challenges. For me, it’s a matter of remaining optimistic or, better yet, just being grateful for where I’m at. I think it’s pretty easy to find these positive gems in nature… but it’s a bit of a pain when stuck behind a laptop.
There’s still much to do this month, but in thinking back to last week’s trip to the boardwalk, I can start to feel where something good might come of all this. I will make something good come of all this. Life is pushing me and I will roll with it to see what direction it’s leading me to.
*takes deep breath*
I just completed Week 1 in downtown Toronto. All these years of loving this city, yet this is the first time I’ve actually stayed her for an extended period. No more 4 hour drives to just party on the weekend. Instead, I can visit nearly all my friends via a 15 minute ride on transit. My place is small… “tiny” actually, but it’s starting to grow on me. I’ve never lived in such a small space before, which is proposing challenges to me. So far, so good. I can now truly appreciate Apartment Therapy. I also now have my workstation built. It feels good to again be using Linux. I suppose it must sound crazy for a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer to say that he’s happy to be using Linux. Just consider it an educated decision. Won’t be getting any work using open source software, any-time soon, but I’m on break and building new skills. Been loving this time off.
They say that Parkdale is the creative hub of Canada (at least, “one of”). Last week I ran into a mixer right in the middle of Liberty Village. I met a few people in marketing, animation and information technology. Areas I’m familiar with, so there was much to talk about. I feel like I’m following the right path and I find it funny how everything fell into place. Not interested in “work”, but it was good to connect with a familiar vibe.
A few weeks back I brought my camera out and took some footage in High Park, and here’s one of the highlights. One squirrel chasing around another squirrel, with a cameo appearance by a bird. These little guys feel a little bigger when running around in slow motion, but their personality really shines through.
Unfortunately, I decided against doing my own voice-over. Next time, I promise.
Although some pretty impressive stuff is coming out on CSS3, there still seems to be some Adobe Flash applications to discover, particularly these powerful weather maps.
WeatherSpark allows for an animated weather radar with 6 hours of history.
Special thanks to Jonathan Voigt for Buzzing this one. Apparently Wunderground (Weather Underground) is another similar app.
If you have an Android device, I recommend playing around with the Rainy Days app.
Living in the Midwest for so many years, yet I never visited Niagara Falls. A few weeks back, this changed. It was pretty cold and rainy, though this didn’t take much away from the spectacle, besides my camera getting dangerously wet.
Here’s a link to entire photo album.
Untouched photo taken of the sun, through the tinted glass windows of a moving van.
A few drinks before bed and sub-zero temperatures kept me sluggish this morning, before I pushed myself into the sun for a 10km walk through the trails.
The sun is shining, which kept me warm while the winds tried to push the cold into my hoodie.
After a wonderful night of dancing, we woke up at 8am to a thunderstorm. The dark skies motivated me to grab some more colorful moody sky pictures and put them up on Flickr. All three photos taken from a moving vehicle.
Thx to Jon Voigt.
Some are familiar with the Fibonacci sequence, but if you’re not, I can’t think of a better example of it’s existence in nature.
Last week I spent some time in Vancouver. An important trip, to say the least… and I got tons of great photos. Unfortunately, I left my drive back in Vancouver, so I only have the photos from the end of the trip.
Here’s a couple I took while walking with Angus to and from Commercial drive.
photo by Leon Baas
Why must they show me what I cannot do with my camera. What makes it worse, is how well they do it. More of these incredible photos can be found on Smashing Magazine.
Welcome to planet earth.
Thanks Dan L. for this one!
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