Victoria Grid Project - October - Map L31

I seem to be having trouble loading photos today. I guess all the servers are busy.
The tree is on Douglas street, in front of the newly painted dollar store building.
The Buick Eight is from a car for sale at the Munro swap meet. The Waterfall is at the Japanese Garden at the Royal Jubilee Hospital.

I have a few more photos for the Grid for this month to load to Flickr, but I am not going to add them to the pool, just to my set, as I am not sure they are in the grid, but I like them anyway and they are close to being in the grid. The guy dumped my Pemberton Memorial Operating Room photos out of the pool, so I won't be loading any more this month to the pool.

We had moussaka and retsino for dinner last nite. Was very yummy. Today I should make the pie as I have some windfall apples to use up.

Trevor is trying to figure out why my backup thing is not working on its automatic but works on the manual runs. Strange thing.

Cyrus and Steve are in touch now, so I hope Steve can give Cyrus some good pointers on his site set up. This is going to be one cool photo upload site when its up and running.

Victoria Grid Project - October

Victoria Grid Project - October

On the 24th, the day I was out shooting for this project, it was very bright and sunny. I did not think I would have anything worthwhile. Some of them are not too bad, if I must say so myself. I am learning a few subtle adjustments with photoshop too, while preparing these to load to the Flickr Grid group. I could spend more time on Oak Bay Avenue. It has a lot of interesting shops and cafes.

Victoria Grid Project - October

Antique Car Buff Has a Zust for Life

From the Globe and Mail, October 18, 2007 by Brennan Clarke
The Great Race
An estimated 250,000 people gathered in New York City's Times Square on Feb. 12, 1908, for the start of the now legendary New York to Paris Automobile race.
Billed as a race "nearly around the world" the event was seen as a triumph of human ingenuity and a celebration of the seemingly limitless possibilities of auto mobile technology.
Six vehicles and 17 men set out to cover the 35,000 kilometre route from New York to Paris- the 1908 German Protos, the 1908 US Thomas Flyer, the 1906 Italian Zust and three French entries, the Motobloc, the DeDion and a single cylinder Sizaire-Naudin.
The Plan was to drive across the frozen Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia, but when that route was deemed impassable, competitors were allowed to sail to Asia and continue of land.
The Motobloc and the Sizaire-Naudin never made it off mainland North America, while the De Dion crew called it quits in Vladivostok.
The remaining three teams overcame mud bogs, quicksand, frozen tundra, flash floods bridgeless river valleys and harrowing crashes, all the while managing to patch their battered vehicles together in difficult circumstances.
The Protos reached Paris first on July 26, 1908, but the Germans received a 15 day penalty for shipping their broken-down vehicle by train from Idaho to Seattle.
Four days later, the Thomas Flyer rolled down the Champs Elysees and the Americans were declared the victors with an official time of 169 days. The Zust limped into Paris on Sept. 17.
********************
This car is believed to be the Zust, one of the cars that finished in the New York to Paris Race of 1908. The Blackstaffs, who do antique auto restoration at Ladysmith, B.C. are restoring this legendary auto for the 100th anniversary to commemorate the Great Race.
Please see the link above for more information.

Victoria Grid Project

I processed two more for the Victoria Grid Project group on Flickr and the monochrome just because I like it.

I am having a rather lazy day and enjoying every minute of it.

A couple of days ago I ordered 3 books from ABE books on line. Two of them cost a dollar... Attilla the Hun, and a Ghengis Khan, the Visualization: The Second Computer Revolution was about $4., plus shipping came to something like $11. The Visualization on is hard cover. All used, of course, but supposedly in good condition. They should be here within 2 weeks.

Record hot day - October 24

Yesterday, after my appointment with Dr. Donna, I continued on up Pandora Avenue to Oak Bay Avenue into the Grid area for this month. When I left home in the morning I thought it was going to be the usual temperatures around 10 - 15 degrees celcius, and wore my sweater, warmest pants and black jacket. We had a record breaking high of 20 degrees. I was extremely warm on my long long walk around to shoot for the Victoria Grid Project for the month of October. The Map is L31 and includes some of Oak Bay, some of the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The Bay Street Entrance does not appear to be in the grid. The cutoff on Oak Bay Avenue is Davie Street. Its very disconcerting to find that some of my shots might not even be in the Grid, after all that walking. I wonder why they cut things up like that when they decided on the grid. Guess if I don't go to the grid meets to decide these things, I shouldn't complain. I should at least remember to take my Grid map with me. Damn, I forgot to put it in my purse. The sun was extremely bright so my shots are very contrasty. I must have walked at least 10 miles. My legs sure feel like it, anyway. While waiting for the bus, some guy was asking people for change for the bus. I finally gave him the coins. We need the right change for the bus or a pass. The guy got on the same bus as me and got off before I did, so he wasn't panhandling. Most people thought he was. He didn't offer me any paper money in exchange for the coins though. I should have taken his photo on the bus, but somehow felt a bit sorry for him. Not everyone in the world has the same level of awareness or intelligence to cope.

Magritte Exhumed

I had a bit of fun making this in Photoshop this morning. The skelton was in my doctor's examination room, the bowler hat belongs to Dave Proctor. I did not use the layer mask thingy, as I am not very good at it. This is just layers with the clone tool and a few adjustments. I cannot seem to figure out how to make the move tool resize things. Oh well, I learn something new everytime I try to do stuff.. there is just so much to learn in Photoshop.

I loaded this to the Magritte group.

New lady slipper

A couple of weeks ago I bought this new lady slipper orchid at the florist shop in Royal Oak Mall. Its quite a lovely thing. It has finished blooming now. I guess it was in bloom in the shop for a while before I bought it.

We have had some gorgeous Fall colors this year. The virginia creeper is extremely red and very colorful. What a show. I take a bizillion photos of it every year, but don't have one ready for this upload.

Ken F. phoned Pat today and when I answered the phone he again thanked me for the Can-Am photos. Was good of him to mention it. I had fun doing them.

Autumn Orange

Some new stuff

My PC was in the shop for maintenance and cleaning and Trevor found that the hard drive was breaking down. So, I now have a new bigger hard drive 250 GB and a 500 GB external hard drive for backup and storage. The backup system is not working and I shall have to get Trev back here to fix it. I have a new mic and ears, and a new karpinski anti virus that Trev says is the best one out there now.

When I found how the the Hellebore photos appeared I had to find the information on negative / positive space perception. I have written it up on my Flickr group here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/whimsies/discuss/72157602434232057/
I have also done a thread on my group about shooting in contrasty places... like white and dark together... without blowing out the white highlights. That thread is here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/whimsies/discuss/72157602440886952/

I also have a thread done up about Wabi Sabi http://www.flickr.com/groups/whimsies/discuss/72157602395838993/

These things don't have much to do with Whimsies, Flares or Echos, but I wanted them on Flickr to refer to on the site.

I am having trouble with Flickr comments notifications being sent to me but this stuff has never been satisfactory, so I guess I will leave it for now. They suggested changing primary mail to Yahoo but it did not seem to make any difference, and I am so tired of wasting time on this.

I tried out my Skype type chat last nite... too chicken shit to use voice, so far. Oh well.

I have not got out to shoot the grid yet this month and had nothing .. not one photo for last month. Two of my photos appear on Mike's You Tube video of the Grid on Channel A TV; here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHfZBG76Dn8

Since my last photo upload, we have been on the Fuel Economy Run with the RROC and Bentleys club to Vancouver and Pemberton. The road to Whistler is a big mess. We saw Jo and Lloyd the nite before the meet. She is not doing well at all. He is redoing the kitchen and it looks pretty good.

We also went to the Munro, WA. swap meet. I got a few new blue glass pieces and 6 new doillies.

It has started to rain now and then, the temperatures are cooler. There is lots of color in the trees and plants this year.