There's a little lake in the middle of Burnaby

Met a friend right after work and scooted over to Burnaby's Deer Lake Park. I always doubt that there will be interesting things to shoot in the middle of winter. No vibrant colours anywhere and endless frustrating white skies. I guess it's all in how you look around on a chilly winter day.


Spotted this beautiful reflection of part of the Burnaby cityscape.

I love the way the defused light lit up this green house

Oh, and if you can't decide just
what breed of dog is your favourite, take a walk in any park around the lower mainland and narrow down
your choices - if you can!




And this guy was just floating by minding his own business

It's a sunny Sunday...that means driving practice.

I got the chance to get in some driving practice this morning - highway practice. Not just out to the mall, the coffee shop and home again practice. It was absolutely beautiful out there this morning. Crisp, clear and dry. And there was a strange bright ball in the sky. I looked it up - it's called the SUN.  It's been a 'little' wet around here lately. A random "sun" day is pretty exciting this time of year.

I had no idea where we were going to end up - I was supposed to have decided that before we headed out. Quick thinking and a vague memory made me pick The Reifel Bird Sanctuary out in Ladner. I've been there once before with a photo club and after getting through only a fraction of the sanctuary, I promised myself that I would get back out there somehow - I didn't have access to a car back then. Well, today, I pointed my nose in the general direction of where I wanted to go and stepped on the gas.

I have to pat myself on the back. I got us there in one forward motion - no back tracking or retracing any of our steps - and I got us there in one piece!
However, because this was an opportunity for me to practice my driving, I did not actually spend any time in the sanctuary. I settled for taking a few shots of the ducks stationed just alongside the parking area. We were there just long enough to stretch our legs, we never went inside, then clamoured back into the car and continued my 'driving practice'.

On our way home we got to see Snow Geese, honking happily, as they flew by overhead in 'v' formation. I really wished I could have pulled over to take some pictures of them and the Bald Eagles we saw floating on the thermals looking for prey.

Finding my way home was as important as getting to my destination. I made it back with only one missed exit and in one piece - obviously, I'm making an entry - and now I really want to go back to Reifel and actually go in and stay a lot longer - as soon as I can get my hands on a car.

Random is as random does

Well, not much of a theme to this post. Maybe that's the theme. A few random shots that caught my eye in the last week or so. I *am* going to eventually plan a photography outing to get the rust out of my shooting elbows. There's no excuse for not shooting -even the crappy weather- if you're a photographer, you should be photography-ing. So, I better get it in gear and dust off my equipment. But until I do get out there in all the rain and fog, I'll take random things that catch my eye - like these...

 

The cats got hand made beds from a great little etsy store called weez wear kitty beds for Xmas. Pixel and Dakota have had 'discussions' about who's turn it is to cuddle down for a cat nap. Pixel usually wins....

  

The sky was beautiful behind the Lion's Gate bridge as we headed over to North Vancouver.

These bottom two images are of a friend's paper lamp shade taken at two different white balance settings. I thought they make for cool texture photos, dontchoo?

Snow-magedon ended up looking more like a mocha slushie

So the "STORM OF THE CENTURY" hit last night and dumped heaps of very heavy wet snow over night. The city freaked of course and by noon we were wading ankle-deep through brown slush. *sigh* Anticlimactic is an understatement. But I did cuss-out the stupid 'property owners' who didn't shovel their stretches of sidewalk - interestingly the major offenders between work and home were the 'houses of worship' in the area. Sloppy people, sloppy. And for the next Gawd-knows-how-many-days we can all go back to grumbling about all the rain we get out here. And there are buckets on the way. I'm glad I've got my old-lady rubberized winter boots. Fashion be damned. I'm not sitting at work with pruned toes in chilly, wet, soggy footwear in the name of fashion. Anyway, while splashing home in the mocha slushie I took random pictures. Like these...

 

First real outing in 2011: Surrey's Green Timbers Park

Well, it's too late for Happy New Year's wishes and all that seeing as we're nearly three weeks into the new year - and decade. Can you believe it? The new century is already a decade in. Why does time feel like it's speeding up?
The new year came in very low key. Don't know if it's going to get much better, the remaining three hundred and some odd days will tell. Hopefully issues will improve.
Anyway, managed to get out on the 2nd for an hour or so and boy oh boy, what a stunning day it was! Bright sun, a clear, crisp blue sky and a terrific bite in the air that makes you smile and sniffle.
My friend and I took a short drive and we ended up out in Surrey's Green Timbers Park. I'm not sure just how big this little gem of a park is because we took only a short walk around a small loop and called it a day.
If anyone was looking for where all the snow was should trot over to the park. It was like a post card winter wonderland in there. I took some pictures.

 

The winter storms haven't hit yet - if at all - but hopefully I'll be able to get out again from time to time to take a couple of pictures in and around the lower mainland.

So, welcome 2011, I hope you've brought along a little bit more health, happiness, love and laughter with you than 2010 did.

Spent the weekend in Portland

Vancouver BC to Portland OR is 313 miles one way. 6.5 hours.
Last Friday we headed south mid-morning. The sky was brilliant blue, a rim of impressive clouds hung over the horizon and the sun was shining like crazy. It took forever and a huge part of our gas tank just to get across the flipping border!!! I was ready to stab myself repeatedly in the eye by the time we got to our grumpy border guard's little hut. And You know those 'border notices' giving you the 'wait at the crossing' - they're a massive joke. But anyway. We got across and headed down the I-5.

We stopped in Blaine for breakfast at "Tony's White Spot & Cafe".

Spotted an interesting mural around the corner from 'Tony's'.

 

Got a little experimental after the sun went down and still had an hour or two to drive before we got to our hotel.

 

We stayed in a two bedroom suite! We had a full-sized fridge and a microwave in our 'kitchen' area. Each room had a flat screen TV and each bedroom had its own bedroom. Pretty amazing luxury!!! We stopped for food to stock the fridge and we found goodies like this mocha and whipped cream beauty at "Fred Meyers". Holy smoly!! What a place to shop. And they have aisles and aisles of booze RIGHT IN their supermarkets. One stop shopping. In the morning we had a buffet style continental breakfast in the dining room off the main lobby.

We stopped in a Target on the return trip home, but found nothing. We ate at a Shari's restaurant. OMG You have to try the strawberry/rhubarb pie!!! On the way out of the parking lot and on the final stretch home we stopped to take pictures of this amazing mountain. I believe it's Mount Hood. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

We bought some American beer called "Alaska", some pretty crystals and a few books from Powell's City of Books. I want to be locked in over night in Powell's one day. The place is AMAZING!!! I hope we get back down there again in the future. 

It's fun to go south for the weekend, but let me tell you, it's the greatest feeling to get our passports handed back to us and to roll back onto Canadian soil.

The stink sisters

Okay. So, my buddy Deb pointed out the little orange terror Pixel hogged all the lime light the other night, so I snapped some shots of the 'girls' tonight and made a post just of them. So without further ado, here are the stink sisters.

Agatha and Dakota.

They're not sisters at all. But they're both old bony females and kinda stinky. Dakota came to me the size of a baking potato. That was close to fifteen years ago. Agatha ended up on my doorstep at the ripe old age of thirteen or fourteen because I couldn't bear the idea of her being brought into the S.P.C.A. with hopes of being adopted. Senior cats don't get adopted. So I took her in. And after a couple of years of unpredictable and unprovoked biting, that have thankfully cleared up, we are buddies.

I think she adopted me