Vexing Laundry: the Soap Opera

February 5th, 2012 Thomasso

There are advantages to starting early and getting the bulk of your work done before the onset of everyone else starting their’s. This morning was laundry time, and as a rule, I start mine every Sunday morning right when the laundromat opens. Some of my close friends kid around with me about my laundry hardcore attitude, but when you have gone through some of my adventures and of laundry Hell that I have gone through, you would then appreciate my attitude.

I start my laundry right when the laundromat opens. Every Sunday, just before 8:00am, the doors open, and I quickly run in and start my task of laundry. My vantage point from my home is such that I can see the owner of the laundromat leave their office doors, and walk towards the laundromat. This is huge for me since many times they are early, and sometimes late, and their starts times very from one week to the next based on if they sleep in or not.

My early Sunday morning starts were never part of my normal routines, as I was never like this back in the old days. I used to do laundry whenever I felt like it, or when there was the stinky need to do it. However that all ended on one occasion when I had my entire load of clothes stolen. Yes, you heard me, a batch of men’s pants, underwear, t-shirts and socks, gone, just after I threw then into the dryer. Later that week I did see my pants again, though on someone else, a young man. Then later on, one of my t-shirts worn by his girl friend. How sick is that?

What do you do when someone has stolen your clothes?

The hardship for me was when I had to wear the same pair of pants for the following Four days until I got my next pay cheuque, then this meant having to forgo my food budget because it was also rent time too. There were also the many times that I wanted to tear a strip off these two people, but how do I justify the violence towards them when the police could not even help return my clothes – I needed to have witnessed the event, and I was not able to stand guard over my laundry during the whole time. I mean, it is not like I sew my name into every garment I own either?

So, since that time, and many other times of lesser laundry mishaps before and since, I do it when most of the population is still sleeping. Sundays are the perfect time to do laundry here in Fort Langley, first thing in the morning.

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Revisiting the Moon – Photography

February 5th, 2012 Thomasso

I am going to revisit the Moon. As we are on our third crystal clear night in the middle of winter, the Moon was calling me, again. This shot was just only one of five that I took of it. Using the same setting as I did from Feb 2nd, 2012, I just cranked up the shutter speed as the Moon is now almost full.

The Waxing Gibbous Moon, almost full:

Compared to the last set of shots I took of the Moon, this one is a lot better. I see that the thin layer of clouds from the February 2nd, 2012 shots were darker becuase of it, and having the clear night really makes a difference.

Posted in Astronomy, Bitching about weather, Photographs | No Comments »

A Sunny Day to Shoot For – Photography

February 4th, 2012 Thomasso

Oh glorious sunny days, even in mid winter, days like this cannot be missed by staying indoors. My enthusiasm dominated my lack of sleep from the work week, teasing my body to get up and get out, taking the camera with me outside as the Sun had no clouds to block its shine. In Vancouver, days like this are rare, or are in short numbers in the grip of the West Coast winter, as clouds and rain seem to last for months. From November to March, days are gloomy and dull for picture taking, and drag the soul down with it too.

The survivor of winter, a raspberry plant taking on the frost, short days, and attacks from a weed-eater machine by the local grounds keeper. Its leaves perked up, as we are now on “day two” of a sunny spell of weather.

The Fort Langley Airport seems busy also, and could be blamed on the perfect flying weather conditions.

I call this shot, “Tie-Die Clouds” becuase the clouds seem to have the same pattern as a sheet coloured with the tie-die method.

More of those “Tie-Die” pattern clouds. I know, my aviation friends are going to comment, and make say what the technical names are for these clouds. So, guys, for now, just enjoy the blog, and do not wreck the experience for everyone else.

Last one. The old pine that is near by. This poor tree as seen a lot of action over the years since I have lived here. From a near by house fire, to a couple of ice storms that broke most of its branches, I am amazed that it still lives. In just over a year, its days will end as gentrification will mean that it will be chopped down to make way for the next wave of development in Fort Langley. Enjoy its peace until then.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | 1 Comment »

Getting Better Moon Photos With My Sony A33

February 1st, 2012 Thomasso

I have a better understanding of my camera now, and it is all starting to sink in–after further reading the owner’s manual. I had a golden shot of the Moon today, as it was almost overhead, and past the First Quarter position of its month long cycle around the Earth. Within five shots, and about ten minutes of waiting for a small cloud to pass by, I had my money shot of the allusive Moon with my 200mm telephoto lens.

I switched the camera to “M” mode (manual shutter and aperture) and dialed the shutter to about 1/40 to 1/60, and set my shutter to f11, and I was getting really awesome contrast, colour and sharpness in my images. Now, it is too easy to set everything up, but I am still far from being at the point where I can just instinctively adjust the camera to the best settings. The above image is taken at: 1/100, F11, ISO100, 200mm, using a Sony DT55-200mm F4-F5.6 SAM telephoto lens on a Sony A33 camera.

The funny thought I had the last time I was trying to shoot the Moon was I had forgotten how to switch back and forth from Shutter to Aperture settings in “M” mode on my SonyA33. Now, I see the right buttons, and have everything set up and ready for the next time I go Moon shooting. But it was frustrating the last time, trying to figure out why I could not adjust my F-stop. Now seeing the switching button on the outside of the camera, I feel kind of stupid, in a humorous way.

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Growing Old in Canada: 2035

January 30th, 2012 Thomasso

Although at first when I was bombarded by the media of what the Harper Government was hinting at for the future generation of Canadians and their retirement benefits this week, I was angered, and despised every word that came from every Conservative M.P.’s mouth. But, after some cooling off time, and a full day’s worth of work, keeping my mind off it, I revisited the retirement issue and came to a different understanding of what is in store for myself, and other Canadians, when it is our turn to retire. My change in attitude also made me reflect on what the Harper Government is saying about the need to restructure the government on the huge shift in Canadian demographics that is ready to hit the country, like an avalanche of snow traveling down a very narrow valley. No doubt change is needed, and fast, as supporting so many Generation Xers with so little Y’s and Z’s, is a sure thing for disaster waiting in the wind to happen.

Like taxes and death, Ben Franklin also needed to include growing old, and becoming dependent once again in the cycle of life. It is going to happen to all of us who live a full and natural life. In Canada, before these social programs, like the Canadian Pension Plan, (C.P.P.) and Old Age Security, (O.A.S.), families had to shoulder the burden of looking after their elderly parents, as many did not have the luxury of saving up enough money to support themselves in retirement. These social programs were set up to help people with their retirement, while reducing the burden on their children to support them in this time of retirement.

But what do you do when the next generation of tax payers will be reduced to two-thirds of what the tax base is today?

I have to hand it to the Conservatives in their method of presenting their future legislative initiative of retirement onto Canadians like this. With a majority government, and stacked Senate, they fear nothing as they are only less than a year into their four year term of rule until the next election. It is no secrete that the Babyboomers voted towards the right, while a very large group of the population never bothered to vote at all. So keeping the largest demographic of the Canadian population “happy,” is good business. The Conservatives played this hand very smart. As the media will turn its sights on other issues, this issue of retirement will fade away, and Canadians will forget and worry about the here and now as retirement will just be part of the background noise amongst the bombardment of our daily does of information.

What I see when I look into my crystal ball?

I see a lot, and it is not pretty. I see more Canadians voting Right wing in the Future. I see Country music being the dominant music, defining our Canadian identity. And it gets worse.

The money that I am paying right now into the C.P.P. and O.A.S. is me supporting a broken system that when comes my turn to benefit from, the money jar will be empty, and I can put the label, “sucker” on my forehead afterwards. To add insult to further injury, the expectation of Canadians living in a devolving society means that the children beyond Generation Z will be far worse off than anyone could ever imagine, when they are expected to fully shoulder the burden of supporting their parents just like Canadians did back before these social programs were first implemented. The realization that all retirees will be working well pass the age of retirement, and the extension of the age of retirement from 65 to age 67 means a very crowded labour force for the Generation Z’s and beyond.

At this point I turn off my crystal ball becuase I want to throw it across the room, and crystal balls are not cheap now days.

Am I disgusted at this whole situation–of course I am–growing old scares the living bejesus out of me! However, can we blame it on any one person, or thing? No, no we cannot! All we can do is try and mitigate the problems the best we can. There are several solutions to this problem, we just need to have the guts to implement them, whether through immigration, or just leave it and let the total collapse of these social programs happen; it is up to us to change and adapt to this new environment.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Humour, Social economics | No Comments »

Tax Time: Feels like Punitive Punishment to me.

January 28th, 2012 Thomasso

Yes sir, it is that time of year again, when my frustration from doing my annual income tax return comes out from the usually four hours of pen, paper and calculator, game I have to play. This year was not that bad compared to “tax pain sessions” in the past, but the feeling of just how much I got “raked over the coals,” from paying the MAN, really sinks in when you are grinding away at these tax forms.

There is one great feeling I have this year, and that is my income was lower this year compared to the last five, and this means that I paid less to the Man than I normally would have. The silver lining is that I contributed less to a government that I have ethical reservations with. Sadly, my thinking is flawed because governments in general, and this one in particular, can create deficits and debts, that they can pass on to our children long term. So the pain of a bad government can have future repercussions far into the future. However, this year, they had less of my money to play around with, so I see that as a good thing from my perspective.

I should strongly point out that I have no objections to paying taxes, as I understand full well the necessary function that this money goes towards. My objections go towards governments that squander this money on frivolous things and functions that do more harm than good. Corporate welfare is just one of my pet peeves when it comes to seeing how my tax money is spent. Then there is this whole equality thing that I see so wrongly laid out to the different income classes.

Anyway, I have done my rough work. Most of my calculations are done, and it all looks good in terms of completeness and accurateness. Tomorrow when I am not so frustrated, I will transfer my calculations of the final draft, and go over them one last time. Monday I will snail-mail my paperwork off to the boys over at the tax department. I am expecting a refund this year, so I will see how well my calculations stack up to the Revenue Agency’s final tally on me goes.

Posted in Diatribe, Events, General, Social economics, Social Justice | No Comments »

Melt

January 26th, 2012 Thomasso

Today was a good day for melting snow. The snow is almost gone now, with just a few piles of it left over from the deep-freeze weather period we had from last week. It melted fast considering that the last few nights have been dropping below freezing. We had two days of huge rain storms, so that in itself got rid of most of the solid water left over from the snow dump. I hope that this is the last of the severe weather that winter will deal us for this season.

I have been hiding out inside the house for most this week, and spending more time at work than normal, staying well inside from the elements, becuase of the gloomy non-stop rain. Dull, grey, rainy weather is not good weather for getting outside and taking photos with the camera. This is all that I have on my mind lately during my private time, and I want to get out and take pictures in good light. I struggle with early winter nights that give very low light when I finally get home, making outside photography suck, unless I want to do more long exposure scenes, or inside photos?

Today was like a spring day as the Sun stayed out for most of it, and the temperature hovered around 10C. It felt nice, like spring, but sadly, I spent it working, trapped behind glass and solid walls. And as usual, when I got home, it was to dark to take good photos.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Photographs | No Comments »

Fort Langley and Filming of Super Natural

January 20th, 2012 Thomasso

For the last couple of days, during the little freezing weather stint, the sleepy little town of Fort Langley has being the epicenter for the television science fiction/horror show, “Super Natural.” They have being filming here for most of all day and night over the last two days now, mostly taking up the down town area between Mavis Avenue and 96th Avenue along Glover Road.

I just found out that this was “Super Natural” being filming here from some of my Twitter friends a couple of hours ago. Thanks @DearHeartxoxo !

At first I thought they were nuts shooting in these frigged temperatures that we have been getting for the last week. But it appears that minus ten is nothing for these guys -  they can handle just about anything.

Today has ended the freeing period that I hated so much, marking the end of five solid days straight of minus degree weather. Now it is above freezing, but rain, or drizzle, is plaguing us, and all of this melting snow is just soaking everything. There is a storm warning, but I fear that that will hit us tomorrow as wind and rain will rule the day tomorrow. But it is warmer out, and that makes me mildly happy.

The filming normally does not bother me except for the odd traffic snarl; however, last night the flood lights that were lifted on top of two huge cranes, that bothered me as the light shown into my bedroom window. They were shut off around ten thirty last night, but I still had to force myself to sleep, with the curtains drawn, but it still looked light daylight outside. Tonight is more of the same. They have the same two cranes up, and again the light is shinning onto Glover Road, one block over form me. They are very bright, so the spill-off from them makes it look like the light is shining right at my windows.

You can see the tree on the left is lit up from the crane on 96th Avenue, and the light that you can see is over at Glover and Mavis Avenue – one block away. These are massive lights, and they are bright!

Fortunately, it is Friday, and staying up late tonight is an option.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, Events, General, Humour, Photographs, Socail Media, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Ice Box World

January 18th, 2012 Thomasso

Since we are on the topic of ice, I thought I would continue on with my photographic journey into Ice Photography. We seem to have a lot of it lately with the onset of a super cold snap that has hit the Metro Vancouver area. This is day three of freezing below zero Celsius weather, and tonight and tomorrow it is going to be worse yet as the daytime hight in Fort Langley only got up to -3C. So, tonight, we could see -11C! We are not used to this!

OK, ice. I was only outside for a short ten minute walk to the end of my driveway and back. This was as far as I dare go with only running shoes on. Not very winterly equip foot wear for this type of frigged weather either – but I managed to snap a few shoots off before I tip-toed back in side – running. So here is what I got:

I will add more text later when my fingers have blood circulating back in them again.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Photographs | No Comments »

An Icicle in Mid Drip

January 15th, 2012 Thomasso

It was such a picturesque day in wintery Fort Langley that I could not resist shooting an icicle melting away in the sun, as water dripped downwards from it like a leaky faucet in a down town crack-house. They were pretty, and neat, to watch becuase we do not get icicles that often here in the Metro Vancouver area, so it was a “stand and stare” moment for me.

Capturing the dripping action with a digital camera had its moment too. Close the aperture, shorten the shutter, up the ISO for that high speed catch. My only limitation was time becuase I was already freezing from my little walk around town. Dress for winter if you want to take outside photographs in winter. Lesson learned!

ADDED: I was going to go outside again after I warmed up to shoot some more, but ended up not going out becuase of other things popping up that needed to be dealt with–then it got too dark. So I just went through my photos again, and found another image that I think has some good qualities.

I guess now I have to master too the art of high speed photography. The ISO and shutter speed have to really be quick to catch these drips! Shooting with the camera set to Automatic, The drips would never be caught. I think two things were happening. First, my timing was lousy. Being so close into the subject, and waiting for the drip to happen, then pressing the shutter button, timing was everything – I had to be quick. Second, my shutter speed was just way too low for this type of capture. I needed a super fast shutter speed to catch the drip in mid flight after it left the icicle.

I know I tried a bunch of times, but everything I was doing was just too slow.

The image above I cropped to give it better positioning, but was shot at a wider angle as compared to the image at the top of this post.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | 3 Comments »