Team Broom

 

Soil Sphere

Soil
Sphere
Contains
Infinite
Mysteries within
Orange boundless borderless wall
 

Sgt. Prestown and Bark

I've been painting many minis lately, and Canada Day seems the right time to show off Sgt Prestown of the Yukon and his trusty Husky, Bark - so named for the sound and the skin of trees, of which there are many in the Yukon. It's a pun! 

This miniature set was created by Bob Murch of Pulp Figures, a Canadian company based in Kelowna, BC. Bonus points! 


 

Baby Yoda at Kootenay Lake

Last week, Sylvia and I took Baby Yoda to Creston, British Columbia to enjoy some time in the forest. It was a brief but necessary respite from Alberta. 
 

Baked Bean Soup

While Sean, Sylvia, Mom and I were driving down to Kelowna to visit Mom's sisters, we had a discussion about the merits of beans. During that discussion, I came up with the concept of baked bean soup. Here is the recipe: 

BAKED BEAN SOUP

Ingredients
One can of baked beans
Two whole new potatoes
One rasher of bacon
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cilantro
1 basil leaf
1 sprig dill
4 dollops sour cream
2 cups shredded cheddar

Preparation
Chop new potatoes into small chunks. Chop bacon into small squares. Pour all ingredients into stewpot and boil for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool for five minutes, pour into serving bowls, and add sour cream and shredded cheese. 

Enjoy! 

Susanberry

Beside the Rock

Hidden in plain sight
She stalks her prey
In the forest deep
(Pay no attention to the logging road)

Mini Golf Monologue

Mini golf. A child's game. A sad parody of the real thing.

Putters only. Mine is clutched tightly in my fist. No silly chicanes or cartoonish windmill arms will stop me from shooting nine straight holes-in-one.

It's hot. Teeth clenched. Sun beats down, mocking me. Grip sweaty. Hole out of focus. One simple bounce off the east boundary and I'm in. Just the right angle. Just the right amount of force.

I swing. Gently. But firmly. "Clack" goes the ball as it leaps forward, off my club. "Click" goes the ball as it caroms off the wooden boundary.

It's heading right for the hole. Simple. A child's game.

The ball hops over the hole, petulantly. Comes to rest against the back wall. My face turns red. I hurl the putter, screaming. It bends in half against a tree.

I fall to my knees.

It's beaten me.

Again. 

The Retirement Dream and the Waking Nightmare

Assuming I remain employed for the next 15 years and climate change hasn't quite destroyed civilization yet, I plan to retire at 65. Having now seen most of Canada, here's my short list of retirement possibilities:

Vancouver Island
Prince Edward Island
St. John's (or somewhere on the Avalon peninsula)
Some little hamlet in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia

All of these places offer natural beauty, lovely people, plentiful entertainment and relaxation opportunities, better weather than the Prairies, and proximity to larger cities should the desire for metropolitan experiences ever hit.

In all honesty, though, these feel like fantasies. For some time now I've felt a sense of impending economic doom on a personal level, perhaps because I feel like I've used up all the luck I have to get to where I am now. I've often told people how incredibly fortunate I feel to have enjoyed a comfortable living for the last couple of decades, but during that time I've survived several layoffs and I can't help but feel that eventually my number will come up. Sylvia and I have planned carefully enough that we should be able to avoid homelessness, but the pace of technological change, climate change impacts, and potentially catastrophic political upheaval over the next couple of decades make the future extremely uncertain.

I'm very aware that I live a life of incredible privilege compared to 95 percent of the world, and it feels incredibly selfish to worry about our personal destiny when the fate of billions is at stake.

I wish I had more of Sylvia's confidence that everything will be okay.  But I find it hard to be consistently optimistic.

On the other hand, there's always a chance that the forces of good will triumph over the sociopaths, or that the singularity will come and solve all our problems by means unimagined. Here's hoping...

A Fan of Hangers

Check out that lens flare!

Sylvia and the Lilies

From our trip to visit Jeff, Susan and Steven in 2010. 

Bug on a Leaf

I shot this  while  visiting Jeff and Susan in Port Coquitlam in 2010. Not bad! 

Unhappier Accidents

Here's another collection of photos that went wrong. Poor lighting, bad focus, bad composition, underexposed, overexposed...how many photographic sins can you spot? 

Canada Place as Seen Through a Ferry Window in 1991

Look, there it is. I went to visit Parvesh after we finished university; she was staying with relatives in Vancouver for a while before returning to Singapore. We were on the ferry to visit North Vancouver. It was a good trip! 

Road Sheep

Here's a photo of a road sheep of some kind that I shot while on my ill-fated trip down the Alaska Highway. While I lost a car in the Yukon, I gained quite a few half-decent photos. I encountered a lot of wildlife on that trip; the buffalo were the most imposing. I didn't really understand how large they were until a few lumbered across the road in front of my car. They probably weighed as much as my vehicle. 

The Narrative Engine

The HBO television series Westworld features a giant machine that seems to be in the process of excavating and terraforming vast swaths of the titular theme park to serve the needs of a mysterious new narrative. The machine is the centrepiece of the creepiest moment in the show to date, and I'm sure it will turn up again as this season proceeds.

Back in 1986, I shot this photo of a similar machine. It's not nearly as large as the one in the show, but it does have the same techno-horror flavour, at least in my eyes. 

Butchart Tree

I shot this at the Butchart Gardens on a trip to Vancouver Island in 2009. It's a beautiful spot. 

Descent of the Jellyfish

I shot these jellyfish photos at the aquarium in Vancouver. I find the colours and forms quite striking.