Merry Christmas World!

Dear World,

Merry Christmas!

Let love and peace enter your hearts at all times, not just during Christmas. Put aside your differences and look for common ground with your "enemies"

Sincerely,

Me.

A tale of two dogs, pepper spray and a one legged woman

Only in East Vancouver!

Yesterday at lunch, I was walking back to work from the restaurant and my co-worker and I passed a man and his dog out in front of his apartment block.  The young german shepherd seemed to be enjoying the snow.  We commented that his dog really seemed to love the winter snow.

About 40 feet away we passed a woman clearing the snow from her car. Her dog was around her.   We noticed the dog started running toward the young shepherd.  The woman called her dog back a number of times but dogs will be dogs…  Next there was some barking and some growling…  Things deteriorated. 

The second dog clamped down on the shepherd and the owner of the shepherd was trying to drag his dog back into the apartment.  He was cursing and laying the boots to the other dog.  We had passed the scene a bit by now but had stopped when we heard the noises.  We noticed that the second dog was a pit bull and was not planning on releasing from this other dog’s leg. 

The man’s girlfriend handed him some pepper spray (who would have pepper spray handy like that you ask? – East Van residents, I guess) and he started spraying the pit bull.  No effect.  He wasn’t letting go.  They have a long genetic line telling them to “HOLD ON!”   The woman started to head over from the car to the dogs and we notice that she’s on crutches and only has one leg.  She’s “running” as fast as she can in the foot of fresh snow, and wipes out about 10 feet short of the action.

I decided that I should help.  Things had deteriorated severely by now.  I ran over to help with the dogs.   The fallen woman had been using crutches so I grabbed one of her crutches and gave the dog a few solid whacks to the throat to try and induce a cough reflex.  The shepherd owner was still trying to get his dog in the apartment while peppering the pit bull (note… they don’t care about pepper spray) At the threshold of the apartment, I managed to jam the pit bull’s neck between the door frame and the crutch.  He let go of the other dog long enough for the other dog owner to get his dog into the building.  With the crutch and our feet, we managed to get the pit bull out of the building.  The shepherd owner is laying loose a string of curse words aimed at the dog, the woman… He was not happy.(justifiably so)  He didn’t seem to be overly concerned about the one legged woman on the ground in the snow.  Her dog having happily trotted off to try and wipe the pepper spray off seemed to have forgotten the whole incident even happened.

With pepper spray residue on my hands, I got the woman back her crutch, made sure she was alright and told her that she had better have much better control of her dog in the future.  I didn’t even bother to listen to her answer.  I wanted no more part of this whole mess.  My friend and I decided we had best be on our way before the shepherd owner decided to come back out with something more lethal than pepper spray. 

Definitely an eventful walk back to work from lunch.

Later that afternoon, after having washed my hands 5 or 6 times already,  I rubbed my eye as it was itchy.  Now I know what pepper spray in your eyes feels like!!!  Thank God I work in a lab… It was right over to the eyewash station and a LONG LONG rinse.  The pepper residue stays on you for a LONG time.  When I got home and showered that evening, I could STILL feel the burn where the pepper spray had been on the back of my hands.  Not nice.  (Note to self – Don’t piss off a cop either… they carry pepper spray as well!)

That was my day yesterday.. how was yours?

Technorati Tags: East Vancouver, Dogs, Pepper Spray

Hello Winter!

We don’t usually get snow in Vancouver, let alone LOTS of it.  This weekend we saw about 18” of the white powder come drifting from the sky.

It was a winter wonderland!

Of course it wasn’t so wonderful for some people as they left their vehicles abandoned:

 

But apparently for others it was great:

Looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas this year.

More pictures can be seen at http://www.slacker.ca/brian/webpics/showpix.aspx?20081222Snow

 

Technorati Tags: Vancouver, Snow storm, photography, Canon 50D

A Cornucopia of Birds!

With apologies to those with a slow internet connection……

It was cold, sunny weather this past weekend (Note – cold in Vancouver is denoted by below +2C).  I had some great opportunities to go out and shoot some birds.  Down at Burnaby Lake on Saturday morning and then back at the house for the rest of the weekend…

I’m going to break down the birds into a post per species to make it a bit easier

Downy Woodpecker
Spotted Towhee
Red Breasted Nuthatch
Oregon Juncos
Pine Siskins
Various Ducks
Green Winged Teals
Various Birds

Enjoy them!  It was fun getting out and shooting!

Technorati Tags: Downy Woodpecker, Spotted Towhee, Red Breasted Nuthatch, Oregon Junco, Pine Siskin, Ducks, Teals, Birds, Photograpy, Canon 50D

Assorted Birds at Burnaby Lake

Various Birds at Burnaby Lake

Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

1. Male Red-winged Blackbird

2. Male Red-winged Blackbird

3. Song Sparrow

4. Fox Sparrow

5. Black Capped Chickadee (with a teeny, tiny band)

6. Song Sparrow

7. Glaucous Winged Gull  enjoying a fishy meal

Technorati Tags: Canon 50D, Photogrpahy, Birds

Green Winged Teals

A few Green Winged Teals from Burnaby Lake
Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

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Technorati Tags: Photography, Canon 50D, Green Winged Teal

Various Ducks

Down at Burnaby Lake – the ducks and birds were a plenty on Saturday morning.
Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

1. Male Wood Duck

2. Female Wood Duck

3. Male Mallard – coming in for a landing

4. The multitudes – enjoying the sun.

5. Duck Bums

Technorati Tags: Canon 50D, Photography, Ducks

Pine Siskins

We were invaded by a flock of about 20 Pine Siskins.  Cool!
Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

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Technorati Tags: Photography, Canon 50D, Pine Siskin

Oregon Juncos

Dark Eyed Juncos (Oregon Variety)
Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

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Red Breasted Nuthatch

A rare on-branch appearance of our little Red Breasted Nuthatch.
Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

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Technorati Tags: Red Breasted Nuthatch, Canon 50D, Photography

Spotted Towhee

Male Spotted Towhee – All taken with the Canon 50D and 100-400USM IS L  (EXIF available on larger size)

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Technorati Tags: Spotted Towhee, Canon 50D, Photography

Mr Downy Woodpecker

Shot with the Canon 50D 100-400mm @ 400mm mostly.  EXIF is available on the full size (click on the one you see here to get that)

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Technorati Tags: Downy Woodpecker, Canon 50D, Photography

White Christmas?

With the impending snow this weekend here in Vancouver… it made me think of this little gem from a year or two ago… I LOVE it….   What a GREAT rendition of “White Christmas”

Props to Mesa Software for hosting it… the free site in France that hosted the original is unfortunately dead and gone

So, get your groove on and start tappin’ your toes, because it’s a DOO WOP White Christmas!

http://www.mesasoftware.com/merrychristmas.htm

Technorati Tags: Doo Wop Christmas, White Christmas, Flash Animation

Manning Park Winter Scout Camp – Warm WEATHER!!!

We went out to Manning park – Lone Duck Campground on the weekend.  If you were one of the couples camping up above us, you no doubt knew we were down there.  We had the 40th Scouts and the 28th Scouts from Vancouver up.  All in all I think we had 45 kids up at camp.  It was fun – we weren’t exactly quiet.  The weather was warm for December – I think it may have made it down to –2C one night but for the most part it stayed just above 0C.  We hiked, practiced firelighting skills, outdoor cooking skills, and had a big warm campfire on Saturday night.
 
We all had a great time and the Venturers from both groups did a great job helping with the leadership of the Scouts.

Thanks to all that made the camp go so smoothly!

The entire collection of photos (40thcentric) are available at:
http://www.slacker.ca/brian/webpics/showpix.aspx?20081206Manning

I’m sure the 28th Scouts will have a selection of pictures up soon as well.

 

Technorati Tags: Manning Park, camping, Scouts, 40th Marpole Scouts, Winter Camping, photography

Vanity Fair’s top 25 news photos

I know that they posted this a while ago (October) but I just ran across Vanity Fair’s top 25 news photos of all time.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/11/25best_slideshow200811?slide=1#globalNav

As with almost all compelling news photos, there are MANY that are hard to look at.

Not for the squeamish.

 

Technorati Tags: Vanity Fair, News photos, top 25