Sports

Not made a post in a while, no picture just a link. This kid is one of my best friends, an old soul. I don't know anything about sports not even 1/8 of what this gentleman knows, but I know a lot about enthusiasm. He has it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-02sc998Ruw&feature=player_embedded

Wisdom and Washing Dishes

My father once told me a story of how when he was a little boy he stood watching his mother wash dishes. A question came to his mind, he was about four or five years old at the time. He wanted to know, why, if they ate their food only from the face of the plate, was it necessary to wash the back. His mother went and opened the cupboard where the plates were stored and explained how as the plates are stacked, back resting upon face, a dirty back would make for a dirty face. My dad told me that at that moment he became sure that his mother was a very smart person.

I never got to meet my grandmother on my fathers side, she had died before I was born, but I had the opportunity to spend a little time with her kin. This past Saturday was the Tschirhart Reunion. Held this year at the lovely little cottage of my Uncle Earl and his family. The cottage sits high atop a cliff overlooking lake Erie, just outside of Port Dover Ontario. It was great to see everyone, they are all such fantastic people. I got to meet my first cousins granddaughter Katie. I guess that makes her my third cousin or something, but when it comes to being a sweet little girl she is definitely first.

Our ages ranged, I think from just over three to perhaps just shy of ninety years old, four generations stretched out on a beautiful summer afternoon,sharing food and drink, games and stories, laughter, smiles and hugs. Its so wonderful to be among a group of people linked by blood and marriage, by a common story, shared memories.

I wonder how many times little bits of wisdom have been past down this family chain through time. Wisdom like the the story of plates and their washing. Stories that tell us that as a child you can find an answer to a simple questions using the tools reflection and logic, that as an adult the same tools help us find the answers to questions more complex.

What It Is

I built this pergola for a customer in Waterloo, it turned out rather well I think. The owner did the design. He’s the kind of guy that has a real sense of the way he wants things, the way that things should look. He insisted on using cedar despite the added cost. We made changes as we went along, as the structure took shape. The customer has an, “It is, what it is” attitude and remained very flexible. Early on we decided to use two upright post instead of the first conceived three. and after all was done we saw that the two posts framed the garden beautifully.

The project set me to thinking about order in the way we live. I’m kind of a unorganized person my only saving grace is that I can put shoulder to it and pull things together when need be, bring order out of my chaos in a way.

I like the way that my wife folds the laundry. I like the way it looks when I open the closet and the crisply folded linens present a wall of order to the eye. I like the look of my neighbours freshly trimmed lawn, the walkway swept, borders snipped, hedges clipped.

I could tidy up some things of mine, and I will, I’ll get around to it. For a while things will have order, but then after time, I’ll start just dropping things in drawers or worse just leaving them on the counter. “Oh well”, as my customer with the beautiful pergola and garden would tell me. “It is, what it is”.

Supper

I made this tonight for supper. No recipe, totally extemporaneous. I was going for a chicken cordon blue kind of thing. I had no smoked ham so I stuffed the chicken with chorizo sausage. Yes I'm the kind of fella that would have no ham but still posses a link of chorizo in the fridge. I love those little potatoes, anything that a tired cook doesn't have to peel is a godsend.

That's fresh Ontario asparagus under a sauce of Parmesan and Swiss, all herbs used were fresh from my garden. Tomorrow Kraft dinner.

Underwater Wellheads, Depleted Uranium, All of that Stuff

I can't remember where first I saw it. It must have been when I was a boy. A medicine cabinet with a mirrored door and behind the door a small slot an inch and a half or so wide. When I found out what it was for I was astonished, it left my mind unsettled. Of course the slot was the disposal chute for used razor blades, and I realized that it was probably the best way to get rid of them, but it bothered me. To think that in your home, while you slept, there lay behind the plaster, between the studs, a rusting pile of sharp danger.

We do good things as people and as societies. We plant flowers and grow food, we build schools and paint lovely pictures, but we also leave hazard in hidden places.

camera obscura

camera obscura : dark chamber, a dark box, with a light sensitive element within. Thats what I lost, but found again. Then, well... Listen to the story... Last week I was having lunch with my wife Elaine, she had the day off and I had no work. The kid, Connor was in school and this was one of the rare times we get to do something together, just the two of us. Lainy excused herself and went to the restroom. I used the time to check my emails on my phone. {Email from Brandy S- Peter, did you perchance lose a digital camera at 32 University ave E.? } Thats where it was, on a job site, 5 weeks or so ago I was replacing a broken door at a student housing complex. My Camera was found by a student who brought it to the administration office, Brandy, who looks after me when I work there, scrolled through he pictures on the memory card until she saw a blurred image of a man sitting on a couch in his living room. The person in the picture was me.

I took the picture above at the Riverside Rails skate park in the Preston section of Cambridge. This is for sure the last picture that I will ever take with my little camera. Shortly after my Cannon Powershot, suffered a fatal lens error. A speck of dust or a misalignment of pins has rendered it useless, all forms of remedy suggested by an in-depth internet search have come to no avail...She's dead Jim.

My head: camera obscura : dark chamber, a dark box. My brain : a light sensitive element within.

Bottle Cap

If you find a single bottle cap on the beach you would have a treasure, a reminder of a wonderful day in the sun. If you find a dozen bottle caps you would have a hand full of litter. That is sometimes the way that I feel about blogs, about photography. I wonder about my adding to this litter of words and images, I wonder to what end. I lost my little camera, it can't be found. I must have set it down on a job or in a cafe. It is most likely in the hands of another.

I feel content not taking pictures, taking a break from it. My wife wants me to buy another camera she says it's part of who I am... I think that I would like to be someone else for a little while, think about other things.

I baked the most amazing loaf of bread today and hung a new door on my front closet, a carpenter, a baker, a prose writing faker. Work is a little slow but I have plenty of the nonpaying variety to do around the house.

I'll cut this short, I'll press just one bottle cap into your hand to take away and stash in that shoe box in your mind, to remind you of a happy day.

The Soft Skeptic

I've miss placed my camera, I think. It's small, about the size of a package of cigarettes. It's very portability caused me to take up photography again, unencumbered by a huge gadget bag and a leather strap around my sweaty neck. Oh well it will turn up in a drawer or my glove box, maybe in the pocket of my heavy coat. No matter.

I've been thinking a lot about belief lately. I've heard interviews with some writers, writers who charmingly put forth the idea that religious belief is not only wrong, it is harmful to humankind. Rather then simply not believing and and being an atheist they feel compelled to be anti-theists and point out the harmful absurdity of the believer.

What am I then? Certainly not an atheist, nor a true believer either. I'm what I call a soft skeptic.

The soft skeptic at his core admits that all things may be. He knows that there is no proof so absolute that he can totally discount anything. He does however, pay little attention to those things that are not supported by solid evidence, a firm testable theory. He does not demand proof of other peoples beliefs, only his own. The soft skeptic has in the past blown and will most likely in the future blow again, upon a pair of dice.

It does not matter to me what you believe as long as you have a good heart. Even if you don't believe in Heaven or Hell it would be helpful if you could suggest to me... Where in the hell did I leave my camera?

The Solace of Snow

Boy, February is beating the heck outa me. Work is slow, I hate the cold and the snow. We've all been sick and I have a cough that just wont quit. Tonight I'm trying to bust out of my funk. I'm cooking Tuscan Chicken, peasant food at its best. I'm drinking a little wine, past sunshine caught by the grape and stored in a bottle. I hope that you, my northern hemisphere crew, are hanging in there. Spring is just around the corner, fellow children of the light. Days will become longer the warmth will return.

The Solace of Snow

The snow has fallen, it covers both king's barrow and peasant's grave.

All stains of sadness lie hidden beneath. From pain, our hearts it does save.

A white illusion of newness, of purity, gives hope, an escape from the past.

It insulates us from bitter, troubling reminders that happiness will never last.

Flowers and earth, and sprouts of green, the Spring brings life to the land.

I say keep the snow covering all, It is sadness that the Spring has planned.

This is the mood that February brings, melancholy through lack of light.

our limbs seem like lead and we cannot move, inaction is our plight.

Keep the path and plod along, know that what you're doing is good.

Spring will come whether we wish or not, it will elevate our mood.

Sadness comes I know not why, it seems like it has no reason.
Sadness will past in three months or so, just like any season.