or maybe a gerbil
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

I went up to Bill Rickard’s yesterday to have Hugh Hunter tweak my banjo. Unfortunately Bill wasn’t there; he father died earlier in the week, and the memorial was later in the day. My condolences to Bill and his family.
Hugh was busily turning a banjo-uke block rim on the lathe when I arrived. After a little setup work (file the second string nut to kill a buzz, reduce the head tension to get the tubaphone sound), I looked around the shop.

Tone Rings and rims - including Bill’s new Dobson tone ring

Hardware - bracket bands, Whyte Ladye parts, etc.

The work in progress rack

Whyte Laydie at rear, Tubaphone up front.
For a banjo and engineering nerd, Bill’s shop is amazing. Get yourself invited up there if you get a chance.
In which Catherine menaces my ca phe sua nong:





At Wallack’s in Ottawa. They are Faber-Castells.

(it’s the back of an ocarina.)
… and is unimpressed.

We encountered a raccoon last night. It was somewhat surprised to see us. Almost as much as we were to find it on top of the steps to a wind turbine.
On our fence just now:

You can tell I’m a towny when I get all excited about a blurry picture of a Hawk Owl:

It was kinda windy, and it was taken at maximum digital zoom. The Wikipedia link has a much better picture.

Decided to give away my favourite picture of the WindShare/Toronto Hydro wind turbine under an open licence.
Here are the file details:
File size : 719263 bytes File date : 2003:02:23 16:25:10 Camera make : NIKON Camera model : E2500 Date/Time : 2003:02:23 16:25:10 Resolution : 1200 x 1600 Flash used : No (auto) Focal length : 8.9mm (35mm equivalent: 58mm) Exposure time: 0.0007 s (1/1451) Aperture : f/3.4 ISO equiv. : 100 Whitebalance : Auto Metering Mode: matrix Exposure : program (auto) Jpeg process : Progressive GPS Latitude : N 43d 37m 54.98s GPS Longitude: W 79d 25m 32.4876s Comment : WindShare / Toronto Hydro wind turbine Comment : Exhibition Place, Toronto Comment : taken on opening day, 23 Feb 2003 Comment : licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons by the Comment : creator, Stewart C. Russell / scruss.com - 23 March 2008
It’s also on flickr and Wikimedia Commons.
It’s probably as well that the most basic digicam that CHDK runs on is just too expensive to be an impulse buy, else I’d be doing all the weird and wonderful things you can hack your Canon digicam to do.

Two windows are pretty much all that’s left standing at Bishop’s Block, which was one of the oldest buildings in Toronto. It would seem that the façade is being kept for the new Shangri-la bourge hut, but the way the workers have been wrecking old bricks, it would be a surprise if much of the outer wall can be rebuilt.


