I hope my parents are having a good time in Israel this month. I also hope they stay at least 6 miles from Gaza.
La vie au Quebec
My red eye flight with Air Canada was, as is no surprise to any of you that have flown with Air Canada, delayed. I missed my connecting flight but caught the very next one (though my bags did not). Anyway, enough complaining about Government funded private ventures that are bound to fail…
Quebec has been more wonderful than I could ever have imagined. My host, Danny, is a fantastic cook and continues to surprise us with delicious recipes at every meal.
July 1st is known in Quebec as the moving day. People take it seriously and actually do move on Canada Day – there is probably some deep symbolism behind their choice of days – but I prefer not to think about it. My host, Danny, is also in the process of moving, so while he worked to get things transferred to his new apartment, I went for a walk in the old city of Quebec.
The old city or Vieux-Quebec is located beside the St. Lawrence river. The smaller width of the river as it enters the towns of Quebec and Lévis, on the opposite bank, provided the name given to the city, Kebec being the Algonquin word meaning “where the river narrows”. It doesn’t appear very narrow to me, but I guess it’s a relative thing.
Walking through the old city makes me feel like I’ve travelled back in time. Founded almost 400 years ago (1608), the old buildings and French architecture have a magic way of connecting me with my Canadian heritage. I spent the day walking around taking a plethora of photographs of Quebec.
That evening my new roommate and I walked down to The Plains of Abraham and enjoyed a free concert followed by Canada Day fireworks. As a note of potential interest I learned that the Plains of Abraham is the largest urban park in Canada, and repeating this fact at the Welcome Party last night won me a nice red University of Laval t-shirt.
On Sunday Danny took us to see La Chute Montmorency (Montmorency Falls). They were named in 1613 by Samuel de Champlain in honour of Henri II, duc de Montmorency, viceroy of New France. (That area of Canada used to be called New France).
It’s been too long since I’ve been around anything so breathtaking. There is a lot of water moving out into the St. Lawrence over the falls and I had a good time watching the hypnotic motion of the water falling so far down. Apparently early explorers were excited to have found such an abundant supply of fresh water so near the St. Lawrence River.
I’ve started my month long French immersion and I’m loving it! Of course I’m just at the elementary level, but I’m thrilled to have actual conversations with people in French. It’s a lot less stressful when you know the other person is just a nervous about their French as you are with yours.
Oh, and one last thing, the University pool is fantastique.
Off to Quebec
I’m about to embark on the My Explore program, a month long French Immersion class at the University of Laval (or en français de l’Université Laval). Posting may be sporadic throughout July or then again, maybe I’ll find that I have a lot of both interesting experiences to write about and time to write about them.
Au revoir, I’m off to Quebec.
How to Photograph Fireworks
It’s fireworks season in Canada and the United States and for those of you that intend to photograph the pyrotechnic festivities, I recommend checking out How to Photograph Fireworks.
The photograph pictured here was taken on May 10th, 2006, celebrating the 100 year anniversary of Lethbridge. I didn’t have a tripod and didn’t know what I was doing, but even though this photo isn’t the greatest, I still consider myself to have been lucky getting it. I’m hoping that during the celebrations tomorrow in Quebec City, I’ll be able to capture some truly fantastic shots.
Lord of the Rings: Trilogy Movie Trailer
Most of the readers here will have already seen the all three movies, but for a bit of nostalgia, check out the Lord of the Rings Trilogy movie trailer (640×272 MOV) created as if the three parts were one.
Flickr Map GeoCoding Bookmarklet
My new favourite tool to go along with Flickr is the Flickr Map GeoCoding Bookmarklet. It’s a Google Maps/flickr mashup that let’s you easily add geocoding information to your picture and/or see where other people’s geocoded images were taken. Also it’s so easy to use that even my parents could do it.
[The bookmarklet] enables mapping, geocoding and (of course) geotagging directly in your Flickr photo page. It works with all common browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera), so you do not need to install any extension to run it!
Once you’ve got it saved check out my collection of geotagged images.
Cartoon Murals
Cartoon film collector Joe Busam recently posted a slide show of his progress painting a nursery, in the style of a generic early-1930s cartoon, for his soon to be born grandson.
I think it looks really cool! When I worked at the YMCA swimming pool I’d spend a lot of my time thinking about how great it would be to create a masterpiece mural for their wall. (Hey, I can think about artwork and make sure people don’t run at the same time).
Joe gave Cartoon Brew the backstory on this home project:
When daughter Susi asked me to paint a mural for the nursery, she requested 1930s cartoon characters. Specifically she wanted the style of the Harman & Ising WB cartoons. We both have always love them for their style and unique energy. However she didn’t want recognizable characters. Once we established a theme I went to work researching the cartoons for barnyard animals. I then put together the farm kids who are actually the two main characters from Pagan Moon in disguise. Originally the colour scheme was going to be based on two strip Technicolour. As it turns out Susi liked the original B&W layouts so much that when I added colour it seemed anti climatic to her. Full spectrum colour turned out to be too much. In desperation, I added a tint to the original B&W art and that clicked with both of us. Now that I see it enlarged on the wall I think it was a wise choice. More colours would have been pretty overpowering.
Check out the collection of images of Joe Busam’s 1930’s Style Cartoon Mural.
Another fantastic mural I came across lately is this Super Mario World creation that includes green pipes affixed to the walls and ceiling and other Marioworld objects that add dimension.
This is pretty cool whether or not you are a fan of the game.
And to wrap up this post on murals, check out Lindsay’s Satellite Map Mural, a neat “reverse” going-away present by a young artist that wanted to leave something behind for her friends to remember her by.
One of the interesting decisions Lindsay made was how to orient the map on the wall. Instead of doing it with North facing up, she [put] South at the top. At first this is highly disorienting because of how accustomed we are to looking at maps North-up. But then, once you realize that up on the map is the direction you’re facing, everything seems to fall into place.
It’s neat stuff, and it’s got me thinking about a future mural project of my own.
Softies
Lizette Greco creates cool plush toys based on her children’s drawings. She’s got a neat photo collection of her work on flickr.
She also makes custom softies with illustrations sent to her by clients.
BP and Dupont Developing New BioFuel
The next big thing in alternative fuels might be biofuel grown in farmers fields instead of taken from ancient oil reserves. Wired News writes about Biobutonal: The Next Alt Fuel.
BP and Dupont today announced that they will begin selling Biobutanol in the United Kingdom next year. The companies co-developed a fuel that can be combined with gasoline and ethanol. Biobutanol is superior to ethanol because it has a higher energy value and is less water soluble and evaporative than ethanol, so it is safe to transport via existing gasoline pipelines.
The other day I went kayaking with a masters student that works out at the research station near my house in Lethbridge. He works with a gene gun doing experiments on more efficient means to create genetically modified foods.
We were talking about the possibilities for biofuels to take over as the leading alternative fuel source, and, he added, there is a strong possibility that once it’s in use, researchers could genetically modify corn so that it yields higher and higher amounts of usable energy. Genetically engineering crops for food consumption entails a lot of government restrictions to make sure that new plants are safe to eat but given that these fuel based crops won’t be showing up on our dinner tables ever, the time it takes to produce such plants would be greatly reduced.
On the topic of genetically modified foods, he talked about how scientists have come along way in understanding how genes can be turned on and off under certain conditions. He also told me that there are certain genes that when a chemical is added to the plants can react with the plant creating interesting results. One idea was a kind of corn that when it needs watering, will activates a glow gene—the same gene we see in fireflies—so that a farmer could theoretically look out at his field at night and if it shines, he knows he needs to water.
I think it’s safe to say, nothing would turn people off genetically modified foods more than this particular modification. Still it’s a pretty neat idea.
Halloween 2005
Halloween 2005 Originally uploaded by bcompetent.