Pink flamingo

Cranberry bread is out of the oven, the train is getting ready to leave the station.

Morning chocolate covered cherry delivery is next up.

Photo taken on no flash while sitting braced in the chair across the room.

Huge tech upgrade

Tech support was here today and by golly, did we ever need her.

First she put together the annual nativity scene.

It is quite a bit more geology themed than in most recent years, lots of my favorite rocks made it into the scene.  Those pesky aliens are out and about again this year, R2D2 on the quartz from the Cuyuna, Einstein on the Rose Beach big round granite bit, and over there on the right, just in front of the BIG rose quartz are four of my really, really favorites sheltering evidence of the tech upgrade.

Lots of people will know that we keep the tree on a Clapper.  Who knew that those things have a shelf life?  Apparently they can wear out. The one we have been using since our original cross over to the Clapper side was starting to be a hassle.  It was at the point where you could hardly move around in the tree area without shutting down the lights.  Everyone loves the clap-clap to turn things back on of course but if you have to do it three or four times each minute it can get a bit tiresome.

Tech support was trying to rally the old one by moving from the two clap setting to the three clap setting.  I mean, why wouldn't that work?  She had gone so far as to crawl under the tree to reach the clapper at the plug in.  The tree is pretty close to the floor, it was a tough crawl of about five feet under an overhang less than 18 inches off the floor.  But she had reached the appliance and had moved the plug to the three clap setting.  She was under the tree clapping, we were standing around in front of the tree clapping but alas, the darn thing still didn't work.  I knew that we had some sort of fall back in the basement still in the tree box.  I knew that at some time or another in the past we had acquired a replacement Clapper.  We never needed it until now so it was still in the tree box.  I asked tech support not to move and went and fetched the upgrade from storage.

Indeed.

Not just Clapper.  Clapper Plus.

With Remote Control.

Artist's note:  Everyone please note the capitalization.

And here it is over in the rocks of the nativity scene, the Clapper Plus with Remote Control remote control.

There is a button for the two clap plug in and a button for the three clap plug in.  You don't even have to clap, you press the button and the tree turns off.

Well!!!!!  Who wouldn't see that as an upgrade?

Further there has been an upgrade to the basic technology that allows you to dial down the sensitivity if the Clapper is responding to room noise at too high a level.

Zowie, this new Clapper Plus is a huge tech upgrade.

And those are pretty much five super fave rocks of all of my rocks.

Top, Rose Quartz from the rock drainage area around the foundation of my sister's house where she had discarded it because, well, ask her.  I took one look and said, WHOA, way, WAY too nice a rock to be sitting around outside.  She said if you like it that much you can have it.

She didn't have to say THAT twice.

Counter-clockwise from there, a rose quartz, quartz and granite outcrop rock from near Carlton, the place where a major quartz outcrop occurs underneath the highway bridge.  This rock is not actually from under the bridge but I did pick it up within about two miles of that spot.  It is a visually striking rock which includes at least three different rock types, a pretty rare beast.

Below that, a chert (aka flint) and mostly white chalk mixture from the beach and representing the surrounding cliffs of Veulettes sur mer, France.  This is the middle of a sequence of rocks representing the changing geology along La Manche, the northern coast of France.  I note for reference purposes that la Côte d'Albâtre est située sur la Manche.

To the right, a very similar rock but from Dieppe, further to the east along the coast.  The background rock there has a much higher iron content and the stone while very similar in rock type is brown from the iron oxide.

And above the last of the grouping, much further along down the coast where the chalk has nearly disappeared and the basic bedrock stone is dominated by cherty granite with only veins of the chalk.

So you go from heavily iron content mixed with chalk, down the coast to the same sort of mixture but without the iron in the hard rock, finally to a place where the chalk while present is no longer the dominant part of the rock.

That last rock I picked up on Omaha Beach.

My favorites of favorite rocks with the Clapper Plus with Remote Control remote control on a day highlighted by a huge tech upgrade.

Cheese pie

I have been satisfied with but not crazy about the crescent roll crust.  This time I bought a frozen pie crust to see if a full scale pie offered advantages over tartelettes.

I didn't have enough cheese, had to use some $4.99 for half a pound not quite up to snuff domestic supermarket camembert to fill the pie shell.  Even so, most of the cheese was French and I remain optimistic.  I also added a bit of orange bell pepper, quite a few more mushrooms and a significant increase in the amount of spinach.

Spinach, by the way is great.  I put about half a bag of that supermarket spinach for salad into a largish bowl, stuffed it into the microwave and two minutes later had some freshly cooked spinach, about enough for a cheese pie.

I used more of the green onions, I wish I had had a little bit more bacon.

Again, as is our intention with this dish, it was baked today for consumption tomorrow.

I like the way it looks but next time I am going to get enough of the good cheese and I am going to try to arrange the layers to get a bit more of the spinach on the top (for presentation purposes).

This one was baked in the aluminum tin that comes with the frozen pie crust dough.  I know we have a tart pan around here somewhere, I believe that next I will try some of that frozen folded dough in a box and the tart pan.

Life evolves.

Survivor of the flood

When the power went out and the back up from the sump pump came above the level of the basement floor we tried to rescue a few things, knowing full well that it would only be a few things.

The bicycles and the big box containing the Christmas tree took up most of the available space on the floor immediately above the flood.

I did this last year as an homage to Christmas bush. This year it is an homage to one of the very few things we had in the basement last year at this time that we still have.

I should have tried to include the Clapper in that one but too late now.

At this point TOPWLH swings into high gear.

Oh, Christmas bush
Oh, Christmas bush
How lovely are thy branches.

So we are now officially ready for TCWUTH to show up and assist TOPWLH with the final decorative touches.

And assist with the delivery of the chocolate covered cherries.

Camembert tartelettes inspired by . . .

The last time I made these they were very good right out of the oven but by consensus much better the second day after the flavors had had a chance to blend.  I made tartelettes today but never intended for even a single second to consume them today, they are for tomorrow.

The young person with the blue tartelette pans did inspire me to make a couple of small changes to my recipe. I added some spinach for color mostly. I also spiced up the egg/cream combo that gets poured over the tarts before they go in the oven. The dish that I am making here is a cheese dish, not an egg dish.  It does have an egg though and when I do eggs I believe that you almost always want way more dill than you think you need. So I added some dill.

It is a small pie, baked to be eaten later.  No doubt there will be some report or another tomorrow about how they came out.

Brrrrrrrrr-icycle content

But even colder tomorrow apparently.  Predicted high for tomorrow has a minus in front of it.  Of course, that is minus F, today's high was about -15C.

It was so cold that I didn't go out at all (except for bread) and so didn't notice the UPS package delivery until on a whim I checked the tracking information in the shipping confirmation e-mail.  It said 3:08pm at the front door.  I looked.  Brrrrrr.  But the package was indeed there.

It is bicycle content and at least a story.

I get my tires on line at a vendor which provides free shipping and a point system which provides me 10 percent of what I paid for these tires discounted off my next order.  I typically get a bit under 2,000 miles on a set of tires.  I ride more miles than that MOST years so I typically need four new tires per season.

On Black Friday I received an e-mail notification of sale from my preferred vendor.  My preferred tires usual MSRP $75 at $48.  I ordered four.

On Cyber Monday I received another e-mail notification of sale.  Same tires, now $37.  I e-mailed them and asked if this was fair and they responded with a $45 credit to my previous purchase.

Four for the price of two, plus 10 percent credit on my next purchase.

Too cold today for any actual bicycling.

Mandela

Another relevant question

Today the relevant question is most likely how is my snow blower fitness.

It is still snowing, ever so lightly.

The answer to the question is that my snow blower fitness is just fine, totally adequate, thank you very much.

It helps that I took the opportunity at that early winter scare back in November to purchase gas for the humongous machine and that I have electric start.  It may not be a Toro but I filled it up with gas and it fired up first time, no problem.  The city crews were here shortly past noon and created that fearsome windrow of plow remains across the end of our driveway which if not dealt with promptly hardens into near concrete.  My Craftsman blower and I were out there shortly thereafter.  Probably there is going to be another round of plowing and another round of snow blowing but for right now we are reasonably well connected with civilization.

In other news, the most technologically advanced member of the NaBloPoMo circle has been transferring her old Xanga blog posts to WordPress.  I am certain that I myself will be totally on that any day now.

In the meantime she came across an oldie but goodie and sent a link to us.  We laughed out loud, perhaps you will too.

Basement season

Just a reminder that this is NOT a Jimmy Fallon fan blog, this is a bicycle blog.  Flurries again today with the promise of end of the week really really cold moved a couple of bicycles out of the garage and into the basement.

Here's what the bicycle corner of the basement looks like this afternoon.

For those keeping score there are still three bicycles out in the garage.

December Q&A

The relevant question seems likely to be how is my shoveling fitness?

The somewhat evasive answer is that I paused halfway through this quite smallish job declaring a photo opportunity.

In my defense there isn't much but what there is is most definitely extremely heavy heart attack snow.

Fancy camera, no flash mode.

Is there anyone left who doesn't think Hannah is a BIG star?

One last video from Fallon to get to the end.

On this go ahead and answer these questions:

Can she sing? Can she dance? Can she make you look? Can she make you not look away?

Is there anyone left who doesn't accept the obvious fact that Miley is a BIG STAR?

Cleaning up the leftovers?

I suppose most people probably are.

Time passes so, so quickly.  There were some young moderns at Thanksgiving who had never even heard of Bob and Doug McKenzie and their epic ground breaking Canadian content television series, The Great White North.  To be fair, in checking into this I read the Wikipedia article that says they were popular in 1982 and 1983.  Which was, of course, before they were born.

We were explaining to them about the party game popularized by this show, "Beer Hunter".  It turns out that "Beer Hunter" was not a bit on the show, it is a cut on the comedy record album released at the height of the faux brothers popularity.

They also had a movie, Strange Brew.

I already knew the song (and the capitol city) but most of my Canadian accent and slang came from Bob and Doug.

So, take off, eh.  Nice toque hoser.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

The meal was very fine, the stories were entertaining, a good time was had by all.

Meanwhile it appears to me that the Fallon series probably continues right to the end of the month.

For this one you can watch Bruce after if you want to, lots of people love Bruce.  And at a certain point in history who is going to deny that Bruce doing Born to Run was a classic signature moment.

But time passes, Bruce starts to show his age and then he does that really embarrassing too old to do my slide moves Super Bowl half time show.  And after all, Born to Run IS about being young.

So after a while.

Jimmy leads a really good send up.

Are there pants for this?

Just one of Bruce's many versions.

Jimmy saves again

With the POTUS, person on top . . . what is it?

Anyone who can slow jam the news is probably way too cool to be President of the United States.

And by the way, that goes for you too, Chris Christie.

We had turkey day prep here this afternoon/evening (when it is dark by shortly past 5 afternoon/evening seems an appropriate moniker).  Here are the architects/builders of cranberry bread cleaning up after spaghetti squared getting ready to finish the whole bread process.

I tried a couple on the no-flash setting.  The flash worked better this time.

Saved by Jimmy Fallon

So for this first one you might enjoy it more if you have already seen the Harvard baseball team parody.  But don't watch the Harvard boys if you have already seen them.  Just go ahead and jump directly to Jimmy and the original artist.

Harvard baseball.

Jimmy and Carly Rae put the baseball boys to complete shame.

I missed you so, so bad.

That's a real band playing toy instruments.  I particularly like the two guys on kazoo at the end.

A different take on going to the archives

This is my very first blog post on Blogger.  Back when I published this on March 21, 2007, I called it "Vernal Equinox".   The only change I made is that in line with current practice I went to extra large with the photo.  As a result focus seems to be an issue.

Darn cheap pocket camera.

No flood control ditch in 2007, that spruce across the street is a LOT larger now, there is now a varsity softball field including fence down at the far end of the field.

"VERNAL EQUINOX"

The first ride of the year is a long ride, no matter the actual distance.

There is still a fair amount of snow hanging around the end of my driveway but the field in the background is more indicative of the incipient springtime. It is warm enough to ride and has been for a while but the state of the roads has kept me from actually heading out. I hate riding in the slush and as evidenced by the still receding puddle on the cul-de-sac, the snow melt isn't quite over yet.

This is my former winter bike but as I did not ride this winter (or last), it is now my early spring, late fall, bad road conditions bike. It is a Bianchi Axis, a cyclocross bike featuring a higher bottom bracket, aluminum frame, and wider tires, qualities which make it more appropriate for riding on roads still covered with the sand put down for traction purposes during the heart of winter.

On the road again.

EDIT:  I still have that photo on my computer (in a folder called Bicycle07).  I went back and uploaded the photo from original and voila:  focus issues disappear.  The message is beware of relying on image quality of images stored on Blogger.

Scoreboard video intro

Completely out of material.

Weekend sweep of Yale, 15-1.

Next weekend, Princeton at home.

The true north, strong and free

I follow a hockey message board to try to keep up to snuff on information about our favorite hockey team. I don't know if it was actually on that board or on something related but I am sure that it was during hockey related surfing that I came upon this.

I knew that one.  So did the young woman from Canada.

France 3, Ukraine 0 on Tuesday at Stade de France in a European playoff game for qualification for the World Cup Brazil 2014. France advances 3-2 on aggregate.

Sunday night football feature tomorrow is AS Monaco at FC Nantes.

Hot spot

I was looking out the window this morning.  There was a car parked in the cul-de-sac, not outrageously out of the ordinary in the big scheme of things but usually on a Friday morning when a car parks in front of my house I know who it is.

A person got out of the car, produced what at this distance appeared to be a tablet device, fired up a heater and then . . . well, and then just sorta stood there gazing at the screen and having a smoke.

Curious is what I says to myself.

By the way I may have been premature with yesterday's declaration of winter.  The precipitation let up and we really didn't get anything like snow cover.  On the other hand, it was most definitely winter cold out there today.

Also by the way, Friday is trash day.

So we contemplated the scene for a bit and here is what I decided.  She was using my not password protected wireless internet.

We are a hot spot.

That's it for today.

Paradigm shift

It isn't sticking on the street or the driveway yet but the top of the picnic table may be in the process of disappearing from view for the next several months.  It is night out there now, the temperatures are descending, the precipitation is continuing.  It has been cold enough long enough now that the residual summer heat of the ground has dissipated meaning that the only way this stuff leaves now is if the sun can somehow muster the energy to melt it.

November.

This is when it usually happens anyway so no surprise but the seasons are a'changin'.  Welcome to winter.

Technical notes: just standard no flash mode with the outdoor lights on.

If it's Wednesday it must be pot roast

Well, not actually.

We really do not do it every Wednesday.  But, on the other hand, it is definitely the season of the year for pot roast.  The weather gets cold, pot roast comes around several times before it gets warm again. It must be pot roast.

In something of an upset, considering the exigencies of blogging every day for a month, I do not have a photo of the pot roast.  However, I suspect that something about the pot roast may appear elsewhere on the internet in due course.

About yesterday's photo, I am now totally prepared for very low light photography with the fancy camera.  The first option for just ordinarily low light is the no flash mode and hold the camera really steady.  I have done that plenty of times before.  The camera goes to pretty much full automatic mode but there can be a significant delay between the sound indicating that the sensor has begun gathering details until the sound indicating conclusion of data intake.  If you don't hold the camera steady you get blurry.

Yesterday's attempt was in light so low that no flash mode declined to participate.

So here's what you do.

Go to "M" mode.  "M" for manual.  In manual you first rotate the command dial to set the shutter speed.  This can be for anything from 1/4000 of a second to 30 seconds to "bulb" which is indefinite.  In "bulb" you press the button and the sensor continues to gather data until you release the button.

After setting shutter speed you set the aperture by rotating the command dial while holding down the aperture button.

Nothing to it.

But today was pot roast day so I got this photo in regular no flash mode to commemorate the occasion.

First off, as a by the way, I have decided to follow the lead of today's Cautionary Tale and go with the extra large photo format.  I mean, why not?  Especially considering that I am already paying Google $2.50 per month for essentially unlimited storage.  Bigger.  Definitely bigger.

The photo seems unrelated to pot roast but as I said earlier something is probably going to appear elsewhere on the internet soon enough.  And she did eat some of the pot roast.

The picture is of an important step in the replacement of her broken phone.  The replacement got mailed here, she is going through the SIM card, memory card, battery blah blah blah before deciding which of those five cases she will be using to safeguard the new phone.  There was a slight glitch in the set up which meant she had to go to the nearby phone store to get either the SIM or the memory or the battery deal cleared up (SIM I am pretty sure).

The pot roast was good, the phone works, all systems return to go.

And on with the show.

Experimental photography

I tried with my good camera but the circuitry just would NOT operate at these light conditions.  At least not until I read another part of the manual.

So I tried my cheap pocket camera and voila:

My story is that I took that at quarter after five.

OK, that's hyperbole.  But it DOES feel that dark at about quarter after five.

*sigh*  November is long.  And cruel.

Streak ends at 62.

I was at the last one they lost before the streak, I was at 39 of the 62 games of the streak, and Sunday I was there when they finally lost.

The team captain said, it's not that we are now 62-1, all that counts is what we are trying to accomplish this year and this year we are 13-1 and that's pretty good.

Here's some photos taken in France before the streak started.

We have eaten at this Greek place at least four or five times.

Alternative elevator photographer.

The head and hand sculpture at Saint Eustache.

Only in the lower 30s today, too cold for bicycle cycling, plenty OK for a walk to the library.

Ride photos

It was dusk by noon yesterday, not quite as early today, but a couple of November days in the middle of November reinforces my pleasure with my November bicycle ride.

It was a great day on Friday and I hadn't ridden for a while.  Probably things that in mid-season wouldn't have seemed as photo worthy seemed pretty darn photogenic on this late season ride.

So here's the clean-up, the rest of the pictures I took that day.

I had already toured the Fairgrounds and mindful of the end of the season wanted to revisit at least one lake on my bicycle.  The one easily within range was Lake Como.

It is late in the season for pedestrians too which meant that the whole dual path thing at Como actually seemed to be working pretty well, something which it most assuredly does not do during, oh, for example, late April, May, June, July, August, September or early October.  The pedestrian path is closer to the lake and therefore nominally more scenic.  On this day there were few enough pedestrians (and zero bladers) so that the only person on the bike path was moi.  I did something I do not believe I have ever been able to accomplish before.  I rode completely around the lake on the bike path.

So I got down to the far (south) end and I was looking for that bicycle tool station.  Instead I found this nice view of the lake looking north over the fishing dock.

That certainly looks like fall to me.  Like late fall in fact.

I was looking for a spot to photograph my bicycle near the lake when I was able to sneak around a rock and get a relative close up of the wildlife.

Wildlife photography can be pretty tricky.  You try to line something up and the wildlife just won't cooperate.  But then every once in a while you find yourself standing there with your cheap pocket camera instead of your nice camera and the wildlife decides to put on a show.

I had found a nice spot for the bicycle photograph.  I was taking multiple exposures, fooling a bit with the zoom and the settings, on the theory that it isn't film, it is just memory and I would later on submit whatever exposures I had to a rigorous selection process to decide on the best one for publication.  At that moment without any advance warning whatsoever the wildlife decided to put on a show.

I tried and succeeded I think in getting one with both my bicycle and the wildlife in the shot.  They look pretty good just rising off the lake in silhouette against the lake.  I got another shot that fails aesthetically as they had bare trees as a backdrop.  But as they came by my photo spot and started to put the startling sky behind them I had to leave the bicycle mostly out of the shot.

There is still just a hook of a drop bar down there in the corner but the geese are starting to fly.

It was a fun moment on a day of very nice bicycle cycling.

It really seems like fall over there but the light seemed like the best I have had for a long time to get an across the lake shot of the pavilion.

So, that's that.  I am out of photos from Friday's ride.  The weather forecast for tomorrow indicates walking but upper 40s for Tuesday and Wednesday.  I am hoping for at least one more, two would be nice.

Three would be outstanding.

Despite my prolonged abandonment of the bicycle exercise form, I am pleasantly surprised to discover that the season may not be over.

The real reason

It wasn't so much the weather.  There was another reason why I was pretty certain there would be at least one more bicycle ride this year.  I knew that at the end of one more ride that I would come to this:

That photo and the next were taken at the bottom of the driveway.  A couple of clicks on the bicycle computer selector switch produces a reading on a display that only goes up to 1,000.

About seven revolutions of the front tire later at the top of the driveway just before entering the garage I got to this:

It only comes around about once every 1,000 miles, it is worth taking note of.

Three bicycles with at least 9,000 miles, two LOOK brand bicycles with a combined total mileage of  29,202.

And counting.

A day nice enough for bicycle cycling

I was pretty sure I would get at least one more ride this year, I just didn't know it would be on a day as nice as today was.

I have ridden very little for the last month so I was pretty uncertain about my bicycle fitness.  I decided to keep the ride pretty close to home, just in case.  Good pavement close to home always includes a thorough examination of the Fairgrounds.

It is amazing the stuff that goes on over there without me knowing about it if I just let my attention wander for a month.  Earth movers, construction fences, torn up pavement and a horde of men are currently quite busy over there.  A former door prize winner at Teen Age Danceland might be surprised to see that the successor attraction at that location, Heritage Square, has been razed.

The construction project extends all the way around that northwest quadrant of the grounds including complete removal of the last vestiges of the race track.

The signs warning bicyclists and others to stay out of the construction areas refer to the construction project by name as the "West Gate" project.  That makes it my guess that there will be some sort of new entrance portal over there.

I was in the neighborhood and I wanted a photo of my bicycle so I rode up to where I knew there would be a tree I could lean the bicycle against.

My bicycle fitness was not excellent but it was still pretty good and I can report that riding to that location on my bicycle was considerably less taxing than walking over there.  Something to do with chain drives and mechanical advantage, I think.

Actually, I have several more photos from today but November is a long month and with the infrequency of actual rides in my current schedule I think I am going to embargo a few and publish probably a three day report of this November ride.

So, more on all of that later.

1932 Ford Coupe

Widely known by another name, the 32 Ford occurred instantly to me when I looked out into the field this morning.  And it wasn't because I saw John Milner driving around in what the Harrison Ford character in American Graffiti refers to as a "piss yellow deuce coupe".

Nope, what I saw out there was this.

I don't think anyone should plan on any activities out there until at least spring.

Those cows are about two miles from here on the route I followed.  Two miles is well within my range, I was fine on the way out.  Four miles is slightly beyond my range, I started to bog down on the way home.

Cows on foot

It was a really, really nice day for November today, nearly 50 with the sun doing the best that it could from that oblique angle caused by its location down towards the Tropic of Capricorn.  I almost rode my bicycle but it seemed too windy while that was still a possibility.

But I set out to walk into that brisk south wind.  That led me over towards the farm campus and I ended up deciding to try for the first time ever to visit the cows on foot.

My walking fitness is pretty good but . . .

The cows are probably just a teensy bit outside my comfort zone.  I mean I want the exercise but . . .

So there they are, the cows as viewed from out in the middle of the mall, a place I have never been on my bicycle.

It DOES look like a nice day though, doesn't it?

Water solid form

We've had some snow so this isn't like the first appearance of the season of water in a solid form.  Snow, as most of us know, is water falling from the sky in a solid form.

 *pause*

Most of us DO know that, right?

*pause*

OK then, on with the show.

This is the first time this season for me when a little splish of water along the edge of the street has been transformed by the conditions at ground level into something more solid.

*sigh*

Oh, well, on with show.

I thought I might be able to help with this quest but on closer examination I find that I have launched off in a completely new direction.

The new direction is plastic decorations left on the door step long after the holiday season is over.  I believe that I may be able to expand further in this direction with relative ease because I cannot help but notice that there are plenty of people around about here who never take down all of the Christmas lights.

On a related note, considering the first photo and the condition of water at ground level, I wonder if that household is going to regret not having taken that hose in yet.  That hose and whatever residual water it contains is probably every bit as solid as those fake jacks up on the porch.

Walking around money

I am old enough to remember when one cent pieces were still money instead of whatever it is they are now.  I always stoop down to pick up those or any of the other coins representing portions of a dollar whenever I spot them on the ground.  I can remember when doing so could result in a gumball.

Today I was out walking on Eldridge near Hamline when I was confronted with this.

The wind blew so hard the last couple of days that that dollar could have been just about anywhere west of there by at least a couple of miles the last time it was in the custody of a human being.  So I have absolutely no idea where it came from but I stooped over and picked up some walking around money.

I might be able to buy a gumball.

Actually, about pennies, I am pretty sure that they are now pocket chaff best left behind in that tray next to the merchant's cash register.

Here's another take on my relationship with a dollar.  This is from 2010 in France.

That year I took a bunch of dollar coins with me to Paris.  There frequently are buskers in the Metro and less frequently on the streets.  Instead of the Euro or half Euro which most of the other music appreciators were leaving behind, I left dollars.

Canadian content

Okay then, it is periodically necessary to update my license to comment on all things north of the border by including content which if broadcast by CBC would qualify as "Canadian content".  This post is going to qualify as that even though, as most of us know, the Wilson sisters are actually from (south) of the border.

Doesn't matter, Ann and Nancy are officially Canadian content.

And here they are at the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors.  Honorees for 2012 included Led Zeppelin.

So with the three surviving members of the band, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in attendance and with Jason Bonham, son of the deceased original drummer John Bonham sitting in on drums the Wilson sisters and a cast of apparently hundreds absolutely kill the Zeppelin signature "Stairway to Heaven".

In the midst of the crowd the POTUS appears appreciative if just a tiny bit stiff (editorial comment here, that's a lot like his performance at his day job) while his wife seems to be a tiny bit more genuinely rocking it.

And in the honoree's box, both Plant, the singer (center), and Page, the guitarist (white haired gent on Page's left), appear to tear up at the quality of the tribute performance.

The original band in 1973.

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

Elevator music

Small elevator with a mirror on one wall.

Really small elevator.

Plenty of room for three.

After a while everyone had to take an item for recycling every time we left the apartment.

 This one has to be after Roland Garros.

Because the alternative was this.

I didn't take any of those pictures.  I think that is my hand on the bannister down a couple of floors which means that I am in all of them.

First Friday in November which is not November 1

We road tripped again although today's trip was only about 70 minutes, to Saint Cloud.

I tried the "P" mode again for a couple of shots during warm ups.

Work in progress.

Gophers 4, Saint Cloud 1, 60 in a row.

When we visited France in 2010 I brought along my computer.  I didn't know for sure before we went what the state of internet access would be.  It had been four years since our last previous visit.  During that visit in 2006 internet was mostly pretty much totally NOT available.  I was taking a chance.

It turned out that in 2010 we had excellent wireless internet and as a result not only did I post regular blog entries but two other members of the traveling party posted regularly as well.  I had the computer, they downloaded their pictures to my laptop to make the photos available for posting.  As a result I have ALL of the photos from France 2010.

So, I am going to the archives but I am going to archives probably not previously published by me.  These are other people's photographs.

This one is pretty familiar around here, the person foreground used it for her Facebook profile for a long time.

One of the reason she likes it so much is that the rest of her little family is standing back there in front of Esplanade St Eustache.

And so to reverse the where's Waldo find the guy who took the above photo in this photo taken by Wireless.

Expect a theme day based on these archives coming soon.