CaptainOrange

Okay, so you know about my New Zealand trip and my ongoing coffee obsession, but now that I am off G+ and Facebook, has my daily life stopped? Nope. Work The most straight forward part of my life is work. At least I feel that it has the fewest subheadings ;) I continue to work part-time at the library . Mostly, I am based out of the JS Wood Branch, but I find myself doing story times or special projects all around Saskatoon’s nine public branches. Much of my time is spent doing preparation and training for some of our newer programming staff and the rest is working with the public as a facilitator for paint nights, story times, robotics interactions, etc... I am currently working on a couple of special shows. One for the Remai Modern. I am doing a puppet show for them in September and the following week I am doing a workshop on shadow puppetry for teens. Another is for the Festival of Trees . The library will provide feature storytelling and puppetry at the end of the ...

If you don’t mind spoilers (the photo stream is a day or two ahead of the blog posts), don’t forget that you can find better quality versions of all these photos elsewhere . Except for my awesome drawings, that is. They are one of a kind ;) 

There aren't a lot of melt days during February in Saskatchewan. When it does happen, given my proclivity for being down in the dumps this time of year, I usually sprint for the door. In this case it ended with supper not being ready on time for the hungry hordes. But, it also ended with some awesome pictures of icicles. They are edible too, you know. Well... some of them are. On the left is the modest fellow that was clinging to my eavestrough. At 18 inches, not much to get excited about, but the sun was hitting it just right. It was enough to make me grab my camera. As I was driving Wendy to her office, she suggested that I stop by our old rental home. On the right, 518 Albert Avenue. Despite it's several rounds of renovations, it continues to have fabulous ice "problems" (if that's what you call it) in the winter. Unfortunately, the sun was too low on the horizon to give me the look I was going for. Downtown, the store fronts were clear of ice, but there...

Normally I prefer not to follow through and, if I do, I like to make sure it isn't in any timely manner. Nobody is perfect. I've been off work during the last week. Too much time on my hands means more creating and blog posting. Here is the set up for my creative process. You can see the 1st generation of the tripod mount in action--on top of a jar of whole wheat spaghetti. My iPhone 5 was mounted there while recording the video below. The setup Like me, this video isn't for everyone. It will likely be very boring. However, if you would like to see 12 minutes or less on how easy Shapelock is to use (no I don't own stock) or just how I go about doing one of my DIYs, this is the video for you. I will also accept "loves the soothing sound of Mike's voice" :) I'll put a few highlights for casual observers: "Finished" 36s is a description of parts for the project 3:44 shows some of the shaping process 5:23 is a knife safety mess...

Wendy suggested I record the kids debating this week. She wants to debrief them to enhance their skill development rate. To me, it just means sore arms as I hold my phone steady for 15 minutes at a time. So, in this case, Wendy really is the "mother of invention." And she has encouraged me to combine my love of four things: Shapelock , my iPhone, photography and creating It took me a while, but I eventually realized that I didn't need two rare-earth magnets to hold my phone in place. Now I just have a stainless steel disk on my phone attached with a really awesome two-faced tape. No the tape doesn't dry out. Yes, it's easy to remove. I suppose if you were a bit of a wimp or using a phone case already, you could just mount the disk to it. I like my phone sleek and scratchy. Going with a shorter bolt next time Parts:  Disk, Magnet and housing from Lee Valley 4" bolt - 1/4" threads Spiffy long nut - 1/4" threads Shapelock. I don't...

I've been completely beside myself with envy whenever I notice a new post on Dave's blog . There is a really great chance that he has been somewhere excruciatingly beautiful, learning some crazy new survival skill, or just enjoying the opportunity to appreciate skiing under the full moon . Despite living in Canmore, a city where people are always ready to leap into an extreme adventure, it seems as though there is a shortage of people who will just wander into the mountains (and I use the term wander  very loosely) if there isn't some obvious and lofty goal to pursue. That leaves a niche for someone like me and a couple of others who simply enjoy the journey -- that struggle of getting from one spot to another -- to go along for the ride. But, not this time :( Dave spent the spring equinox learning advanced glacier survival skills (his blog, again). With the crevasse of learning between us, I'm sure he would have never consider taking me on this kind of journe...

Feeling beaten by my experience with Anwyn the other day, I seared the time of the sunset on the insides of my eyelids and made it out for a few shots last night. I started at the University bridge and then decided I should run the 1km to the Broadway bridge instead (carrying my camera and lenses). The evening joggers thought I was pretty funny and a couple of young women cheered me on and tried to make conversation as they overtook me during one of my frenzied clicking sessions. I ended up climbing up the pioneer memorial at the corner of the bridge to take most of my shots. I won't bore you with all my pictures again (though the link is here ), but I did get a couple that I was very happy with.

I can't say much for the weather lately. Or, maybe I will. At least it stopped raining long enough on Saturday for us to get a chance to burn our Christmas tree. While the endless cloud cover may make Vin happy as a... er... sun-hating clam, it doesn't do much to improve my mood. Oh, I get out in the weather and enjoy myself. Just last night I went for a 10km in my 5-fingers out in the pouring rain. Even there I was thwarted (by asbestos, no less). But, the twinkle in my eye lasts exactly as long as the physical activity. One thing I can  say is that with just a few breaks in the endless grey, I can get to see a lot of my favorite colour -- at the right time of day. Leora was away at a friend's birthday/sleepover (the second in two weeks) so Wen and I decided to go to a movie with Anwyn to help alleviate the sting of boredom. The clouds had been flirting back-and-forth with blue sky all day and I knew there was going to be a great sunset. We saw How to Train Your Dr...