21-1-15

 I rode my bike past this today. No note. The back right wheel up on the curb. I can't imagine waking up and finding your car like this. I've had the bumper ripped off my car by a garbage truck. He left a note. I got a new bumper that they paid for. 6 months later a recycling truck traded white paint for my blue but didn't leave a note. I watched a person scrape by my car on the street and chased them down. They didn't know. They honestly didn't know. Pretty sure whomever drove into this car knew. Though maybe they didn't remember in the morning. If you know what I mean.

21-1-14

 I need a fork. So I'm going to weld up a fork. But to weld up a fork I need a jig. So I'm welding up a jig. That's reasonable, right? 

21-1-13

 90% effective after your first shot. 2nd shot in 35 days. Good for about a year or maybe longer. I'm now part of the process. It makes you feel like a superhero as you walk through the world.

21-1-12

 

21-1-11

 Art. Probably. It's probably art. 

21-1-10

 Sharks on the backs of watches. It's a shame it never gets seen normally.

21-1-9

 

21-1-8

 

21-1-7

21-1-6

 

21-1-5

 2021. Everything is going to be better, right? 

I've spent too much time on the SocialMedias™ and TheTwitters™ and, well, I do pay for NY Times access so I peppered some of that in there too.

Here's something; if everyone were to shelter in place, and not go out, and wear a mask if they needed to go out, and took extreme measures to social distance and not interact in any way, Covid would run out of steam in about 6 weeks. No vaccine necessary. And thousands of lives would be saved. Proof? New Zealand.  (I'm not sure how a live link to a current status will live on in a static blog entry, so more information here, and here.) I won't make you read all that. What you need to know is there are 62 active cases in New Zealand today. 62. Yeah, there's only 5 million or so people living in New Zealand. But when you do a "cases per million" population comparison, they have had 437 cases per million people over the duration of the pandemic ranking them 183rd in the world. In comparison, Canada has had 16752 cases per million people living here ranking them 81st in the world in cases per million population. And the USA is at 66600 cases per million people ranking themselves 7th in the world. 437 cases per million people looks pretty good in comparison. And Canada has 80288 active cases as of today vs. those 62 in New Zealand. Per million? Because that's the statistic needed to make the comparison properly, right? Canada has 2136 active cases per million and New Zealand has 13 active cases per million. Pretty stark difference.

How'd they do it? No vaccine. They shut down their border and everyone stayed home for a bit. Easy, right?

I'm writing this after the riots and domestic terrorist activities in the US Capitol, but that won't stop me from mentioning this one little thing because even though the storming of the Capitol hasn't happened yet, certainly the underlying tones of what Trump has laid out has been a theme for a while now. My favourite Tweet this week? "Is American Great Again yet?" 

I took a picture of a sink I might buy for my bathroom. That's the only picture I took today. It's white and ceramic and it looks pretty great. It's on sale; $16 off regular price. It's an efficient photograph that captures the bar code, the price, the dimensions, and the sink all in one image. The whole story is there. But it's not a picture worth looking at. I could probably post rationalize some artistic merit into it, but I'm not that interested in doing so. 

So no picture today. 

It's good to get the flaw of the year out of the way earlier. Means the rest of the year can only be better, right? Most mornings lately when I leave the house I will involuntarily say out loud, like a crazy person, "you can do this. it's going to be alright." I wish I was exaggerating.  But 2020 is in the past. There's a vaccine. Trump's days are numbered. Heck, he might even be in prison by next year. So, everything is going to be good from here on in, right? Sure. Why not? I've missed a day. The pressure is off. The rest will be easy. Right? 

21-1-4

 

21-1-3

 

21-1-2

 We bought her an 8" kitchen knife for Christmas. Proper handle, handmade in Germany, lifetime warranty, it's a pretty amazing knife. I'm at an age where I'm buying things like it might be the last of that thing I might buy in my life, or at least that's what I aspire to. But this kid, I like the idea of giving her things she will have her entire life. She will have that knife her entire life, assuming she doesn't pawn it for drugs, or has it stolen by a roommate, or does whatever it is people do to make ends meet down the road. If that's the case, she'll get my knife. It's 10 years old. It will outlast me. So she's allowed to fuck up and lose this thing. I hope she doesn't. Not worried if she does. 

Tonight she made short work of onions, green peppers, mushrooms, garlic. I'm making pasta from scratch. We talked food theory. We tasted before and after seasoning. She gets it. 

21-1-1

 

20-12-31

 Like a period at the end of a sentence. It's been a long year.

20-12-30

 This building has been painted. The weather was shit today. I liked the first photograph I took. I like this one more? Maybe. I should, right? Because I've honed my skill? Or maybe it's like a great record; the sound quality diminishes with every playing....

20-12-29

 And then her house was scraped away from the planet. Gone. No more. 

I guess that's what they call a metaphor.

20-12-28

 

20-12-27

 I remember shoveling her walk when she was 92 or so. Never knew her name. One day she was dead and I shoveled her walk not knowing she had died. The asbestos drywall has been removed. The house will be removed soon enough, too. 

20-12-26

 "Photographs create the beautiful and – over generations of picture-taking – use it up". Thus, "the image-surfeited are likely to find sunsets corny; they now look, alas, too much like photographs". - Susan Sontag

20-12-25

 Does this count as time lapse photography? 

20-12-24

 Not a white Christmas. But white-ish? Got cold enough anyway.

20-12-23

 Self portrait.

20-12-22

 The best Christmas presents are home-made. And not tennis bracelets.

20-12-21

 

20-12-20

 Some million years ago I taught my kid how to jump in puddles in this spot. Reflections... Literally and figuratively....

Same spot. 2008.

20-12-19

 nearly 50 years later and some wires are sorted by cable ties. This photo doesn't do the effort justice. But it's all I've got for today. 

20-12-18

 A grounding element. Otherwise it might have appeared as a simple greyscale image. Vancouver feels like a greyscale image these days. And so a metaphor. Or something like that. 

20-12-17

This was the only photograph I took today.
 

20-12-16

 I'm not collecting typewriters. But maybe I should.

20-12-15

 Hunting and foraging.

20-12-14

 I didn't take a photograph today. Pandemic. Politics. Weather. It's all so heavy. It's sometimes hard to find inspiration. I sometimes forget to take a photograph but find something on my phone. I found this on my phone for today. It's not a photograph that I took, but it's a screen capture I took. Does that count? No, probably not, and I won't do it again. But I thought it important to share this at a time when so much seem so bleak. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the future of politics in the United States, or at least I hope she is. What an incredible, intelligent person. 

A pandemic vaccine has arrived. Trump has been voted out of office. The days are getting shorter still, and will for another week, but there's still light some days. This morning it was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shining that light. She gives me hope, and, wow, do I respect her. 

20-12-13

 Stories. You sometimes find then in the places you least expect. And I'm grateful for that. 

20-12-12

 A short drive from Vancouver, it felt good to get out of town. Jone's Lake. It's manmade, and powers a BC Hyrdo generator. I would have thought that by this time of year there would be less water in the reservoir and more of the stumps would be visible, though I guess we've had some good rain. When the water is low, there are way more stumps showing. 

Like many of us, covid has me feeling a bit stir crazy. Google tells me where I've been all year, and it's not been far from home. The first of the vaccines are arriving in Canada today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, and the light at the end of this miserable tunnel is getting brighter. Not a moment too soon. 

20-12-11

 

20-12-10

 He's found the amplifier. It's usually on. And it gives off some heat. It can't be comfortable but the vantage point is good and it's warm up there. I'll need to get a cover for it now to keep the cat fur out of it. 

20-12-9

 

20-12-8

 

20-12-7

 

20-12-6

 

20-12-5

 

20-12-4

 Oldsmobile. 

20-12-3

 

20-12-2

 

20-12-1

 5 sandwich boards. 2 businesses. 

20-11-30

 1996. I took a picture of this sign the first time I lived in Vancouver. Not sure why. It's old? It's old. It was old then. It's older now. And I took another picture of it. I'm sure it's been on here before, this blog; many photos are making third and fourth (tenth?) appearances.