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This week’s Photo Friday Challenge theme is “…is in the details.”
I took this picture on Botanical Beach last June.
Our visit to Botanical Beach was one of the highlights of the trip out to BC, however it was the one aspect of the trip that also caused the most post-trip stress. Imagine our surprise when Budget just went ahead and put a $1500 charge on Laurie’s credit card for “damage” to the rental car we used to get out to Botanical Beach. The alleged damage was that the display in the Prius we rented wasn’t working properly. Well, since neither of us had driven a Prius before we weren’t sure how the display panel was supposed to look/function, couldn’t figure it out and ended up switching it off so that we could, instead, focus on the lovely scenery around us.
It still infuriates me that car rental companies can get away with this kind of crap — google it, you’ll be amazed at how prevalent these trumped up “damages” are!! The good news is that Laurie had insurance through her credit card that covered this for us, the shitty thing was that it was our word against theirs and that this all took place a month after the fact. By the time we even found out about this we were back home, about 4500 km from the car rental shop and there was little we could do.
So, yeah, “…is in the details” is a relevant theme for this picture for more than one reason.
The theme of this week’s Photo Friday challenge was “Debris.”
This was taken at Gyro beach near UVic, the remnants of someone’s campfire. I’d love to know the story of Iris.
I’m back home in Ontario but my mind is still in Victoria — such a wonderful conference, such a wonderful location. I want to blog about the conference in more detail, but first I need to unpack, do laundry and get some sleep.
After spending several days on the UVic campus I became quite used to seeing all the bunnies. Now that I’m back home it seems strange not to see bunnies hopping all over the place when I look out the window. (For those of you who have never been to the UVic campus, there are dozens and dozens of bunnies running all over the place!) I realize that they do present a number of problems, but as Andrew Revkin (who was a plenary speaker at the ASLE conference) asks, “what can be done about a pest that’s cute?”
I’ve blogged a bit about the graffiti I encountered while at the ASLE conference, so it seems fitting that just as I was leaving the UVic campus I spotted this piece of bunny-themed artwork. Excellent!
I have always considered myself to be a fan of birds. I keep a bird feeder and a bird bath in my yard, I am delighted if I happen to see a nest when I’m out for a walk, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never grumbled about the sounds of chirping birds waking me up in the morning. However, I have never really done any “birding” until very recently. I’m still very much a novice birder with so much to learn, but I can already see the appeal.
I have learned that early morning is a good time to go birding and since I’m a bit of an early riser anyhow, it hasn’t been too difficult to head out for a birding walk before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. There is something really peaceful about going for a walk at that time of day, and the possibility of spotting bird activity is an added bonus.
Paying attention to the birds has taught me to slow down and to see things in a different way. Before I used to walk for walking’s sake, for exercise. When we head out on a birding walk, we go a lot slower. Sometimes it takes hours to cover a path that we’d normally cover in 30 minutes. I’m not normally a patient person (once during a yoga class I actually thought “we could speed things up if we didn’t hold these poses for so damn long.” Clearly I have a lot to learn about yoga too.), but the slow pace we’ve adopted on birding walks has a wonderfully soothing quality to it.
I’m on Vancouver Island this week, taking part in the ASLE conference (affectionately known as the “Friendly Greens” by some of my blogging friends). Before the conference began we spent some time outside of Victoria. Our adventures have included some birding, and it has been so much fun! At Buttertubs Marsh in Nanaimo we saw several American Wood Ducks, a few Spotted Towhees and an Osprey. We saw a Kingfisher on Gabriola Island, many Stellar’s Jays during our jaunt to the Pacific Rim National Park and some California Quails just outside of Nanaimo. While I was sunbathing on the beach on Newcastle Island, Laurie went for a walk and saw a Black Oystercatcher. I’m sorry I missed that one, although I did enjoy my snooze in the sun.
I’ve also discovered that birds generally don’t hold still and pose for pictures and, since I’m still figuring out all the bells and whistles on my new camera, I’m not the quickest photographer in the world. Still, I did manage to get a few shots of some of the birds we’ve encountered on this trip.
UPDATED: I finally did see a Black Oystercatcher! Yeah!
I’m currently on Vancouver Island, taking a most scenic route to the ASLE conference. I love this place!
My friend Sarah has just informed me that one of the baby ducks from Nancy Schön’s sculpture in the Boston Public Garden, Make Way for Ducklings, has been stolen. A ducknapping, how awful!! (More on the theft in this article).
Visiting these ducks was one of the highlights of our recent visit to Boston. I hope that Pack the duckling finds his way back to the rest of his family soon!
When I fly I often play a little game. I don’t pack a book in my carry-on bag but, instead, wait to see what I can find for reading material at the airport shops. I know, I know — for a book-a-holic this sounds like a risky approach to travel. The fun part, however, is that by doing this I’ve often come across books I wouldn’t think to look for in larger, more diverse bookstores. And for all the flying I’ve done in the past few years there was only one time where I just couldn’t bring myself to buy any of the books for sale in the airport.
On my recent trip to Boston I played this game and bought a book at the Buffalo airport. I bought Lisa Genova’s debut novel, Still Alice. I’m not sure if it was the striking cover design or the fact that the book was set in the location I was about to visit, but something made this book jump out at me from all of the others that day. I hadn’t heard of this book before and, like all books bought while playing the airport book game, I had no idea if it would be a waste of money and time or not. As it turned out, I really liked this book. I finished it a few days ago and am still thinking about it (always a sign of a good book!). I don’t want to give away too much, but the novel is about a Harvard professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. While, of course, this subject matter means that the book does have some heart-breaking scenes, the story is not as bleak or depressing as it might first sound. In fact, I found myself looking forward to getting back to the book each evening as I wanted to know more about the characters and how they were learning to live with this major change in their lives. Quite a compelling read!
Last week I took my first-ever trip to the state of Massachusetts — I traveled with some colleagues to the ACLA Conference at Harvard. The format for the conference was pretty cool, and unlike anything I’ve experienced before. The presentations are grouped into seminars, and the seminars meet each day throughout the conference. So it really is like a bunch of small conferences going on at once, which allows for really in-depth and focused conversations on the topic. I was part of a panel that my colleague Linda organized. Our panel was called “Dead Things” and all the papers looked at cultural representations of death.
We also had time to be tourists in Boston. What a fabulous city!! Everyone we met — from the MBTA transit workers to the people working in the stores and restaurants — was incredibly friendly and welcoming. We enjoyed delicious food and the beer was exquisite!! (I don’t think I’ve ever tried so many delicious varieties of stout) Before we left I had made a list of the places I wanted to visit. Of course, we ran out of time, but some of the highlights we did manage to hit included: The Museum of Fine Arts, The Gardner, the beautiful Central Library, and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. We had pretty good weather while we were there (only one day of pouring rain), so we enjoyed walking around places like Boston Common and the Public Gardens as well.
Last week I attended the Ontario Library Association’s Super Conference in Toronto. It was very different than the conferences I normally go to, but I enjoyed it very much. Even though I have a secret dream of being a librarian I was at the conference to talk about some current work I’m doing — I co-presented with our Department’s liaison librarian, and we talked about the challenges of teaching research skills in large lecture-style classes. It was an interesting opportunity to really think about the approaches we’ve been taking in the classroom and to think about what we’d like to do to build on these things for next year.
There were some very interesting keynote addresses at this conference, and I was glad I had the opportunity to hear Justin Trudeau, Michael Enright and Richard Florida speak during this event.
A few days in Toronto also gave me the opportunity to engage in some non-conference activities. I finally made it over to the new-and-improved AGO and also found a few hours to visit the ROM. We also went to see a performance of “East of Berlin” at the Tarragon Theatre — an absolutely amazing experience!
