Double Ouch!

 

One week ago I began to suffer a sever gout attack. I have been taking steps to relieve the pain and swelling and also making lifestyle changes in order to prevent future attacks. Prior to this incident, I had three occurrences that I thought were bad. It kept me off my feet for a few days and felt like shingles or a sever ingrown toenail.

When this recent attack hit, the pain started to build and much surpassed anything I had previously encountered. The pain and swelling in my right foot precluded any walking or going up and down stairs. When I did walk, it was very gingerly on my heel and on the right side of my foot.

Now having hobbled around for 7 days in this unbalanced and unnatural way, I have developed a really good (bad) back ache. It has made me forget about my foot, for sure. Today, when I concentrated on the state of my foot, I was pleased to note that the swelling is down, the redness is much less, and I can almost walk normally.

I was so anxious to try going back to work today. I promised myself if I could get my shoes on, which I could not yesterday, I was going to spend a few hours on the job. Now I cannot even bend over to attempt the shoe placement.

Ah, yes. The process of growing old is hitting me hard. The recovery times are longer, and getting back to where I once was is only a pipe dream.

Hypocrisy

 




Have you noticed the leap of logic and the hypocrisy?

By the end of this month, the legal society of BC, also known as the 'Benchers' will have the results of an internal referendum on their website. The referendum's purpose was to give all members of the society a chance to vote on the controversial issue surrounding the Trinity Western University's own law school and their requirement of all students to sign a 'community covenant'. The covenant states that they promise not to engage in sex outside of heterosexual marriage.

If the referendum passes, there will be a legal challenge because the graduates from TWU'S school will not be allowed to practice law because they will not be able to join the law society. Some legal societies from other provinces have already declared that TWU legal graduates will not practice in their jurisdiction. The community covenant has already stood the test of the courts and has been deemed legal under freedom of religion.

Now lets jump over to the mosques in Canada which are essentially schools where Islam is preached and taught. There is nothing wrong with this. The Sikhs, Christians, and Hindu's also have such establishments. It is obvious, and has come to light many times, that some mosques and their Imams (teacher/preachers) are preaching hate. Hate, as described under the law of hate crime legislation, is directing negative attention that may result in discrimination or harm to a recognisable group. This teaching is very effective as we have seen in Canada in recent days and in the recruits that ISIS gets from western Canada. The recognisable group or groups are Jews, Christian, lapsed Muslims, and now Canadian armed forces personnel.

The lawyers find it worth their time and effort to go after celibate single young people, but why are we not hearing from our Government, judiciary, and law enforcement about the blatant breaking of our treasured hate laws when they result in death and terrorism?
Apparently a community covenant is more dangerous than a jihadist on a murderous rampage.

Hate Crimes

 

This is a photo of Nathan Cirillo, a young man who was a victim of a hate crime today. He was gunned down as he 'guarded' the national war monument on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. There was no simmering conflict, no harsh words, no disagreement, but a gun was drawn and a life was lost, for nothing.

His crime was that he was a very small part of Canada's national defence and as such was a representation of Canada's military and by default a representation of Canada's stand against radical Islamic actions abroad.

Why was he killed? Some guy who was taught to hate was fulfilling a figment of someone's imagination. He was taught that it is an honourable thing to strike at the infidel (that would be any non-believer or any non-Muslim) and kill him. It would mean that he would get the approval of Allah and be ushered into paradise forever.

We have hate laws in this country which for the most part are expressions of political correctness gone bad. But when someone is taught hate to the point of murdering some innocent and unsuspecting citizen of this country, action must be taken. The source of this hate is almost always traced back to some mosque somewhere, and there are many of them that are of this ilk in Canada.

It is time to root this out at the source. I would even go so far as to say that banning all speeches, prayers, and teachings at any mosque, that had to do with "striking at the throat of the unbeliever" should be enforced. The immediate penalty, without appeal, would be deportation to the nearest Muslim dominated country.

Jim Keegstra was a school teacher from Alberta who claimed that the holocaust never took place and that the Jews were out to destroy Christianity.  He was found guilty of a hate crime, stripped of his teaching certificate, fined, put on probation, and had to do 200 hours of community service. He was a nut case and should have been ignored. What he was disputing (the Holocaust) was indisputable.

 

Now we have Imams teaching young impressionable Muslims that they should kill Christians, Jews, and lapsed Muslims, and nobody is going after them. This has got to stop.

Launch

 

Available for purchase at my new website.

 

The posts on this blog have been scarce of late. I have had a sense of urgency to finish a project I have been working on for several months now.

I have been greatly encouraged, by those who enjoy my photographs, to offer them for sale. I researched a number of host websites and finally decided to build my new business on the Smugmug platform.

There was a learning curve to be sure, but I finally designed and set up my own website on which to display and sell my photos. I am pleased with the results and the great thing is, I can re-design, change, add, delete, and tweak the site at will.

I have based my idea for a photography business on the '100 mile diet' in which a person eats only food grown or produced in a 100 mile radius of his home, thereby reducing excess transportation and encouraging local business. My research taught me that people generally appreciate local art depicting local culture, scenes, and landmarks, over art content from unfamiliar locations. It must be recognisable and of good quality.

My site offers a variety of products, from digital downloads to all sizes of prints, to canvas wrapped reproductions, to mugs and tee-shirts. When ordering on the site, all prices are in $CAN and the product is shipped right to your door, similar to any other on-line shopping.

I would be honoured and thrilled if my readers of this blog would drop by and take a look at the site and especially thrilled if some product was ordered.

Here is the web address for 'Terryography100'

Just click here and thanks for being one of the first visitors!

More Glory

 

Each morning as I look out our bedroom window, I see a bit more deterioration of these beautiful blooms. They do not like the cold night of Autumn and it is only the warm days that keep them hanging on. This morning they were wrinkled and had dark blue veins running through the petals. Varicose veins of old age?

 

These are perhaps the last Morning Glory photos of the year. These flowers have brought us great pleasure and joy as they do every year. Having them in a spot where we see them as we rise in the morning was a bonus. There is no other flower that plays with the light like these do. Their clean lines and rich blues and mauves are highlighted by the inner light in their center.

 

There are multiple spiral buds left on the vine, even though the vine itself is old and dry, the leaves crumbling and falling off. A picture of life? There can still be beauty in age if your light shines through.

One Liners

 

 

A few years ago, the phrase 'sound bytes' was originated. It refers to short bursts of information, a type of communication that seemed to be the only way to convey information effectively because of the shortening of attention spans.

My observation is that this problem of shortened attention span is increasing, for a variety of reasons. It started in large part, when we strayed from reading, to watching TV. The newspapers of years ago had lengthy articles and in depth research, so that the reader was well informed. The TV reduced the amount of time spent reading a book or a newspaper because it condensed all the facts into a 2 minute story.

Then the internet and easy access to information of all kinds shortened the time even further and often only headlines were or are read. The internet spawned the iPhone where information was at our fingertips any where and any time. What followed was texting and tweeting where the information bytes were reduced in size even more. The texts because people did not bother with the awkward keying in of letters on the text or were limited to a certain amount of characters on a tweet.

I have spent enough time on Facebook now to see it happening there too. It has taken the form of posters or graphic one liners. Someone shares a cute or funny or profound poster and it hits the timeline of everyone of their friends. It gets shared and re-posted and soon goes viral. It is a short-cut of communication that, on the surface, lets our 'friends' know what we like, how we feel, and what we are thinking.

Many of these posters are good, some are bad, and some just need to be challenged. When I see and read one, unless it is brainless and just funny, I think about it and if it I think it needs to be challenged, I will challenge it. This is difficult for some people to handle, but if you put something out there with your name on it, you should be willing and able to stand behind it.

I have been accused of 'phishing', I have been challenged for challenging, and I have been unfriended for challenging. It seems that very few people want meaningful dialogue on Facebook.

I am always very careful to never get personal in my challenges, but only challenge the statement made in the poster. However, if you chose to put the poster on your timeline, it becomes personal and so the challenge takes on the appearance of a challenge against your person.

What I am trying to do is to get people to think about what they let others say for them, and also to create some meaningful and helpful dialogue.

The poster above is one that I challenged recently and the person who posted it defended it by reading something into it that I had not thought of. I like that. What I challenged was the hypocrisy of Isaac Asimov by putting down those where not intellectually elite like he deemed himself to be. To me, he was implying that democracy was not safe in the hands of the ignorant masses but leadership should be left to those who were intellectual. That is dangerous ground to stand on.

The poster below, shows even better where Mr. Asimov stands. He is assuming, by his statement, that he and his ilk are the only ones who know how to properly read the Bible. Talk about intellectual superiority and arrogance! I like his ability to write science fiction and he should have stuck to that.

In My Studio

 

The Autumn leaves are coming late this year. The few trees that are 'turning' are dropping too many leaves before they change colour. It may not be a great year for Fall photography. Yesterday I turned to my tried and true studio, my back yard, for some photos. Our Red Delicious tree is bearing fruit this year and there are quite a few apples that are not scabby and diseased as in other years. We ate one of the above apples and it was sweet, crisp, and juicy, just like an Okanagan apple.

 

The conditions were ideal yesterday, for a few choice mushrooms to pop up. I am intrigued by the underside of a fresh mushroom so that is what you get in this photo.

 

And then there are the Morning Glory blossoms, so fresh and magnificent every morning. A fresh batch of up to 20 blooms greets us as we open the blinds on the bedroom window. I think I have more photos of Morning Glory than any other flower except Tulips. These are very photogenic flowers and I never tire of trying to get a new angle or shed some unusual light on one or two of these.

 

They have no battery to power the light emanating from the center of the blossom, but it certainly looks that way.

 

Placing a bit of unfocused autumn colour in the background gives testament to the fact that these, for us, are Autumn flowers. The texture, shape, colour, design, clean lines, and delicacy are what make them such a marvel. The fact that they renew themselves every morning gives us a life lesson.

Rainbows

 

When holidaying in Oroville this past August, we were fortunate to have a variety of weather. It can often be hot hot hot for the whole week but this time we had a really mixed bag of weather. On three separate occasions we even had sunshine showers which can provide rainbows if the angles are right.

 

When photographing landscapes, I always use a polarizing screen on my lenses. This circular filter will eliminate reflections when turned the right way and the light is more or less 90 degrees to the angle of the shot. It makes sense, but I discovered, much to my surprise, that when the polarizer is at full effect, the rainbow totally disappears. The reason is because a rainbow is reflected light and the filter eliminates reflections. By turning the filter in the opposite direction, the rainbow suddenly appears. When it is at its most colourful, that is the time to press the shutter.  

 

Everybody loves a rainbow!

 

 

Purdy Nice

 

It was 44 years ago today. I had just flown into Vancouver from Ocean Falls and was suffering from culture shock, and fatigue. (The city was overwhelming after having lived in the bush for the last 1 1/2 years.)

There I was, standing in the front of a church, wearing a brand new suit and shoes that were too tight. The day was a blur, and now there was a man in a white collar asking me a question. In my sensory overloaded state, I was sure he was asking me ,"Do you like chocolate?"

 I said, "I do!" 

And thus began a life that has been like a box of chocolates with apologies to Forrest Gump.

We pulled out the chocolates, at first, without considering what was inside. Sometimes it was wonderful, sometime it was some of the awful ginger gummy stuff. Sometimes it was nuts that were hard to chew, and sometimes toffee that pulled your fillings out.

But as the years went by, we discovered that through experience, and by following the legend that was provided with the box of chocolates, that we could pick and choose just the ones we liked.

We also learned to know which was each other's favourites and what brand of chocolates our friends were having good experiences with. We observed and remembered our parents who ate chocolates together for all their lives and we were determined to have the same kind of staying power.

Now, 44 years later, there are still a lot of chocolates in the box and we are looking forward to sampling them together, and enjoying them, sharing them and not hogging them.

Neither of us could even imagine eating chocolates with anybody else.