…I think. Maybe it’s hoarfrost, though it came from a freezing fog last night.
Blog
Moonlit aurora, Dec. 1, 2023
The moon was up by the time I got out, so the lights were a bit washed out. The clouds rolled in and I left. In between I snapped a bunch of photos of the northern lights and heard a coyote howling in the distance.
The Just City
This line in Jo Walton’s The Just City struck me hard, and so I share it with you.
“There isn’t an end point to excellence where you have it and you can stop. Being your best self means keeping on trying.”
Apollo, in The Just City by Jo Walton
Overnight snow
Yesterday morning the snow lay heavy on the branches. I snapped a few photos before it all melted away.
You might think these photos are black-and-white, but I assure you, they’re colour photos.
Goals, Nov. 2023
Hoo boy, I haven’t done one of these in a while.
- Attack NaNoWriMo, though I don’t think I’m going to go for 50,000 words
- If the weather and space weather permits, get out for some aurora photos
- Set a good example for my mentee
Yep, I’m a mentor again. Good luck to us both.
Hollow Bean 2023: The Costumes
We had 17 Halloweeners[1]Halloweenies? ring our bell last night, which is two more than last year. A pleasant surprise, especially considering how cold it was.
The costumes:
- Iron Man
- Pretty Princess
- Unicorn (these three were very young; the princess was mostly being carried by Mom)
- Mermaid with a hand-knit Pikachu toque
- Sparkly Witch
- Kid in Parka (he might have had a costume under there; hard to say)
- Kitty Cat
- Plague Doctor in a fleece unicorn onesie
- Another Unicorn (fleece onesies might be the new parkas)
- Witch
- Skeleton (x2)
- Men in Black (x2) (I’m just glad they didn’t neuralize us)
- Shark
- Zombie in a fleece bathrobe
- Clown in a fleece bathrobe
At 9:15 we turned off the light, since there hadn’t been anyone at our door in over 45 minutes.
Seems we bought juuuust the right amount of candy; there’s only a couple bars left over for us. Phew.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Halloweenies? |
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Hollow Bean 2023
Happy Hollow Bean, everyone!
“Who holds this celebration?”
“The children, who actually rule the Blue Planet of Earth. They are more intelligent than the older people and outrun them on bicycles.”
—William Kotzwinkle, E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet
Aurora, Oct. 20th, 2023
I was out from about 10:30pm till midnight, which—judging from some of the other photos I’ve seen—was too early for the real show. Regardless, there was a haze at the horizon and I set up my cameras.
In the video, one second is one minute of real-time. The first minute and a half is from a camera pointed straight north; the remainder is aimed northwest.
Sunset, Oct. 18, 2023
The clouds caught my eye, so I grabbed my camera.
A moody Manitoba morning
It was a bit misty out this morning.
I snapped a few photos. The nearest trees in the photo are quite close; the furthest visible tree is less than half a block away.
Nerdy details: HDR composite image, 3 photos: 50mm, f/22, ISO 100, exposures of 1/25, 1/6, and 1/2 second for the three layers.