Pat & Walter

More Astrophotography

Tried some more astrophotography last night and decided to upload some photos. It was clear for about an hour, and since it was cold last night, that was more than enough time for me. First shot is the half moon. Second shot is Saturn. Third shot is an over-exposed Venus. Jupiter was also out last night, but was behind a tree. Mars was out, but I totally forgot about it.

Enjoy (heh).

Geocaching

Jim and Joanne (and Stacy and Stephanie) came to visit for a few days last weekend (April 15th to 18th). They decided to go geocaching and took Pat along. They tried a cache in a public park, but they thought it had been removed. Next they tried a more complicated cache and I joined them where they parked their car and were about to start hiking on the Bruce Trail. The first searching part of the cache was kinda tough since it was only a 35mm film canister. It was on a older unused part
of the trail that I knew about because we had mountain biked in the area a few years ago (Limehouse). Jim located the film canister just after Pat had decided to decipher the clue. Jim thinks he would have found the cache anyway, but we were worried it would start getting dark. The second cache was easier to find since it was a lot bigger (old ammo box) and there were fewer areas to search.
-Walter

Leafs!

Synopsys had a seminar in Ottawa April 17th and 18th. The location was the Brookstreet Hotel which is a popular spot for visiting hockey teams to stay since it is close to the Corel Centre. It's a very nice hotel. Turns out the Leafs were staying there for their playoff game with Ottawa. So I made sure I had my Tie Domi jersey with me when I flew in for the second day. I was a little concerned when I found out my room was 1313. But I knew it was going to be a good stay when I saw Joe Nieuwendyk walking on the 13th floor in his pyjamas. And when I went down for dinner and to watch the Boston/Montreal game, Pat Quinn was in the bar watching the game. I also saw Harry Niel, Scott Oak, and Jim Ralph (radio guy).

The next day the Leafs were having multiple meetings in meeting rooms next to ours most of the morning. Coaches and managers seemed to be in one room, and the players kept walking in and out of another room. Everytime a player walked by that I could recognise and could remember their last name I tried to get their autograph. "Pardon me Mr. Kaberle, could you sign my jersey?","Pardon me Mr. Tucker, could you sign my jersey", and so on. All in all I got 11 signatures, and a photo with Pat Quinn. Most of the players were too busy to talk, but Tucker, Domi, and Roberts, as well as Pat Quinn were very friendly.

I was so proud of all my autographs, I wore the jersey through the Ottawa airport when I went to catch my flight.

Me and my buddy Pat Quinn



Tomas Kaberle on the front



On the back... Matt Stajan, Tie Domi, Brian McCabe, Gary Roberts, Bryan Leetch, Darcy Tucker, Owen Nolan, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eddie Belfour, Pat Quinn

New saltwater fish

Added some new saltwater fish over the past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd upload some pictures. Oh, and the baby Cichlids are doing fine... the mother has been put back in the main tank.

In order: Purple Basslet, Purcula Clownfish, Blood Shrimp

Click to enlarge.

New Canon Lens

For anybody that cares (probably only Steve Martin), here's a shot of my new lense I picked up today for my Digital Rebel. It's a Sigma 35-135. Seems to be nice, and it was used so I got (I think) a good price. I have not yet tried to find more info on the lense on the web. Apparently the Canon compatible lenses are getting harder to find due to the popularity of the Digital Rebel. It's a lot heavier than my original lense since it is all metal. Maybe I'll take some pictures with it someday. :-)

Update: It doesn't work! :-( Gives me Err99 when I try to take a picture. Guess I'll have to try to send it back.

Baby Fish!

We've had some excitement over the past couple of days (and a bit of a disappointment). We lost our oldest fish the other day. Not sure why. He (she?) was one of the original fish we started with, and has been through three different size tanks... 10 gallon, 42 gallon, and finally our 55 gallon. I think I'll miss him.

On a happier note, we noticed a few days ago that one of the smaller yellow fish (Labidochromis caeruleus) looked to have eggs in it's mouth (they are mouthbrooders). We weren't sure what to do, but did some reasearch, and most recommendations were to separate the fish from the others so the other fish would not eat them. So we spent an hour trying to catch the little rascal before finally getting it into our recovery tank.

Today we noticed new fish!

I guess the eggs finally hatched, or she was keeping a whole lotta fish in her mouth, maybe ten in total. Check out the pictures to see all the new fish. An amazing number of them really.

-Walter

Click to enlarge...