Motorcycle Trips and Assassin Bugs

Above: Brian Parkinson's speedometer, after he drove his motorcycle across Canada.

You can see a map of Parki's trip and pics on his site -- just click on any point in the map, and you'll see some of the photos he took at that location; what a great way to present pics from a cross-country trip. Some really gorgeous scenery, too! I want to go to Labrador someday, for instance, and the Queen Charlotte Islands.



My favourite place name in his trip: "Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump." :-)

You can read Parki's trip report for the Labrador leg of the journey at Adventure Rider.

Speaking of amazing trips, my friend Craig has posted pics from his two weeks in Italy on Flickr, along with text commentary. It was fascinating for me to revisit (through Craig's photos) some of the places that Jeff and I visited during our trip last year plus pictures of places I have yet to see. And now I'm angsting to go back...

But now for a less pleasant photo:



Jeff picked this bug up from the upstairs hallway, thinking it was lint, and it stung him; Jeff said it felt like a bee sting. As I prepared to call 911 if Jeff suddenly keeled over and/or turned purple, I took a macro shot (with my point and shoot) and e-mailed it to my biologist friend Peter, who identified it as a Masked Bed Bug Hunter (Reduvius personatus) Family -- Assassin Bugs (Reduviidae).

The term "bed bug" freaked me out, of course, but Peter reassures me that it isn't a bed bug; the name is a misnomer and doesn't imply that we have bed bugs. Anyway, it eats insects, not people, and will inflict a painful bite if accidentally handled. According to info I found online, it's usually found outdoors; Jeff theorizes it got in when he was cleaning the window screens on the weekend. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Assassin Bug was sent in by the local squirrels in their ongoing world domination efforts.

Once I got past the freak-out part, I was fascinated to hear from Peter that the bug purposely accumulates fluff etc. on its body as camouflage. Jeff and I have been looking all over but haven't seen any others. However, I'm still looking suspiciously at every piece of lint...

Link O' The Day

Crumpler: bags of all sorts. I came across this entertaining site while looking for a shell for my camera that would allow me to put it in a regular backpack (for when I'm also carrying a laptop). There is also a Crumpler Canada and Crumper Australia, each of which is slightly different (esp. soundtrack/effects).



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Levitating fire trucks

Above: one of Toronto's famous levitating fire trucks, on Simcoe St.

:-)

Thanks so much for all the anniversary wishes, everyone! Here's one from Lyanne, who created the following card using only a mouse and Appleworks Paint:



Jeff and I had wonderfully laid-back anniversary day, which included book-browsing, seeing The Bourne Ultimatum (good, but the hand-held camera shots made me queasy with motion sickness), and dropping by Buskerfest to check out the live performances as well as get some more practice on my new camera.

You can find Ryan Couldrey's report on the Toronto Buskerfest at blogTO.



Like Ryan, I was a bit annoyed by some of the photographers who had no qualms about walking into the performer's space to take a ton of photos a foot away from his or her face. Very distracting for both the performer and audience, especially for small children trying to see. And then they didn't even donate any money to the performer afterward!



I had decided on the Canon 17-85 lens for the day because my Sigma 30/1.4 wouldn't be good for distant shots and the Canon 70-300 wouldn't be good for closer subjects, and I didn't want the added weight of the extra lenses. The 17-85 gives me a bit of zoom as well as the wide angle option. I found my Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW bag hugely useful:



My friends Ray and Iain inspired me to buy this bag, and I love it. It holds my camera and accessories as well as few personal items; when I want to take a photo, I can easily rotate the bag to the front and quickly get out my camera without having to put the bag down. This enables me to enjoy an event like Buskerfest without having to have my camera out all the time. I also don't have to worry about the risk of having my bag stolen or rifled through while it's on the ground and I'm distracted.

Speaking of photos, here's a photo I've added to my Candid Photos collection:



My first photo shoot with a baby as the main subject! I like this photo, and was kindly given permission to post it. The background is distracting, but the photo was taken outside on a woodsy beach in a very short timeframe so I was paying more attention to the baby than what was behind him. I'm going to experiment with blurring the background some more.

Anyway, I had fun and also learned a new appreciation for baby photographers. It also made me all nostalgic about when my nieces and nephews were that age; I'd almost forgotten how completely disarming a baby's smile can be.



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The Last Original Plot For A Novel

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated, and I've added a new comic called Satanic Frustration to Inkygirl.

I've started the outline for my next novel, using Scrivener. I'm also using Scrivener to organize my Year End Review article for Writer's Digest magazine. LOVE this program!

Very excited about my next novel. Some writers find the process of talking about their plots helpful; for me, however, the less I discuss it ahead of time, the easier the writing process. The joy (for me) is in mostly in the telling, so the more I talk about it before I start, the less motivation I have for writing it down.

Link O' The Day:

Funny Student Exam Answers: found this in Coe Booth's LJ via Lisa Yee's blog. Definitely worth checking, especially if you've done any teaching. :-)



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Monsters, NaNoWrimo, Sims and massages

Above: Rob Rummel-Hudson liked my Little Nightmare series, and commissioned me to create one for his new book site. See this entry by Rob in his blog. I'm a fan of Rob's blog and am looking forward to his new book: Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with his Wordless Daughter. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how the illustration came out.




I'm delighted to announce that I'm going to be doing cartoons for NaNoWriMo again this year. "NaNoWriMo," for those of you who don't know, stands for "National Novel Writing Month," which is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

This year, I'll also be doing some cartoons specifically for young writers as well. Like last year, some cartoons will be revamped from Inkygirl while others will be created specifically for the event.

The novel that I recently sent out began as a NaNoWriMo novel. I've promised Chris Baty that I'd let him know when it gets published. :-)



Thanks for all the feedback re: my selfish-time survey; it's clear that people "recharge" in a wide variety of ways. Some prefer being with people; others (like me) need time alone.

I was amused by Tony's comment:

"Who are you kidding? You of all people can't possibly have time for yourself. Unless you possess some kind of temporal technology, as I have always suspected..."

I do find that I have to purposely schedule "recharge/selfish" time or it just doesn't happen....too many other things tend to take priority otherwise, things I feel I should be doing: tasks (big and small) and obligations to people. As a freelancer, I sometimes struggle with being able to take time off without feeling guilty, but I've learned how essential that time is to my productivity and mental health.

To show you how nerdy I am, this reminds me of the old SimPeople game, which attempts to emulate real life; I only played the first version years ago so I'm not sure how much it's changed since then. Anyway...if you didn't give your Sims enough "fun time," then they started getting cranky and ill. I can so sympathise.

Yesterday afternoon, I indulged in a massage at Sutherland-Chan. I am a HUGE fan of professional massages and Sutherland-Chan is my favourite. It's a decadent luxury for me; I hadn't had one in over two years, and promised myself a massage once I sent off my book.

My next massage? When I sell my book, or when I send off another. Hopefully the first will happen sooner than later! Fingers crossed...



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Astronomy pics with a DSLR

Today's Blatherpics were taken by Jeff; he used the Sigma 30/1.4 lens on our new camera on a tripod. He said the photos are blurry but they look pretty good to me, considering they were taken with a DSLR not attached to a telescope. Jeff did try our other lenses, but they weren't nearly as good at light-gathering.

I like the fact that you can glimpse the tops of trees in the lower right corner of the photo above.

Other updates:

I've posted about Scrivener in Inkygirl. It's a really wonderful outlining and organizing tool for writers, and I'm using it to plan my next novel.

I've posted about Sweet Gallery in blogTO.

Link o' the Day

Editor Cheryl Klein has posted her theory about why the Harry Potter books have succeeded so well in her blog entry, Seven Reasons Why People Love Harry Potter (WARNING: plot spoilers!)




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