Photo: my home office environment in Vancouver, October 2004. I’d had my PowerBook G4 less than one month. Four-plus years later, it’s still going strong!

I’ve been doing so much computer work lately I’ve returned to my former practice of switching my mousing hand from my right to my left (I’m generally right-handed with some ambidextrous tendencies for odd things like sweeping). I had this problem some years ago, when I was also working from home in Vancouver during the time this photo was taken, this problem being shoulder and arm strain from too much mouse work. My solution was to train myself to mouse with my left hand to prevent repetitive strain injury and fire up some neural pathways for motor activity in the other side of my brain. It’s been about four years, but I need to do it again because I can feel my right arm begin to ache a bit.

I started looking into Wacom tablets today as an alternative to the mouse. I think using a pen would be moving in the right direction, motion-wise. I actually wrote a LETTER yesterday (wow, remember those?) with a pen and it felt so foreign that I knew it had been too long since the last one. Over the weekend I bought special paper on sale with a pattern of an antique map on it (a favourite thing of mine; I’d like to make it my header background) to get myself back to writing with a pen again. My penmanship has taken a dive, and I bought more postage stamps yesterday in anticipation of ramping up my letter-writing. Yes, I am one of those stationery nerds.

(ALSO — I recently retrieved my photo printer’s power cable that I left a Birds’ and Fleecie’s place in New York City last year. I told them not to mail it because I was going to pick it up, but for some reason it took a whole year to make it back to their place. Imagine, after four years of printing photo-sized postcards on my little Canon photo printer and mailing them off to people, I went for more than a whole year without printing a single one. No one wonder my letter-writing took a dive, it just wasn’t the same without being able to send a photo along, too.)

Anyway, I need to try out some Wacom tablets (Bamboo, maybe?) to see if I like it. I know it will decrease the repetitive movements I make on a daily basis, and maybe it’ll make my editing faster. I don’t like using the trackpad on my laptop because it lacks the precision I need for photo editing. If you already use a Wacom tablet and you have some advice for a first-time user, I’d love to hear from you — either by email or in the comments section.

Looks like autumn decided to hang around my neighbourhood a little longer. Last year I seem to recall it SNOWED in November and was absolutely FRIGID by the end of the month, but at this same time last year I was just about to set off for Morocco and preoccupied with the trip rather than the weather. Wow, was that a year ago??? I still have photos from that trip to go through…

Anyway, the weather’s been unseasonably warm (18C/64F) and the trees are far from completely bare so I stepped out with the camera to do some neighbourhood shooting before the temperatures drop — which, according to the forecasters, will be in a few days.

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Begging to sit in my lap, as per usual. The problem is, he doesn’t lay down — he likes to sit up and watch the screen and totally get in the way. It’s cute, but not productive for me.

Half an hour later…

The Beano-cam. He sat quietly in my lap for about 15 minutes, watching the screen while I worked around him. Still in the way, but at least he didn’t move around. I think he got bored of graphs, he wanted more news and pictures.

Source: ABC News online

Call me a cynic, but I hope nothing goes wrong with the polls.

Via a link from The Window Seat, a comprehensive USA Today article that would be interesting for any other travelmongers out there who are concerned with the future of travel and how the two U.S. presidential candidates differ on the issues:

USA TODAY online, October 28, 2008: Evaluating McCain and Obama on travel issues

The intro:

The pollsters say there are still quite a few undecided voters out there, so if two wars and an economic crisis aren’t enough to sway your opinion, maybe it’s time to evaluate both candidates’ views on travel and aviation.

It’s easy to argue that how a president addresses the nation’s economic woes directly affects the travel industry. As do a host of other campaign topics—national security, energy, global warming, employment, taxation and dozens more. But what follows is a rundown of specific travel and aviation issues, with the stated positions and track records of both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.

Being a bit of a rail fan, it’s interesting to note that VP candidate Joe Biden (who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania) is an outspoken supporter of Amtrak. I’d love to see train travel become a more viable transportation option in all of North America, the way it is in Europe. Canada doesn’t have the population density across the country to compete with air travel for the same routes, but the U.S. does.

I think this was David’s kindergarten or Grade 1 photo, taken sometime in the early ’70s.

Apart from the obvious reasons, I really really wish David were alive to see today. He was a patriotic American who was frustrated with the policies of the Bush Administration. I accompanied David during the last federal election when he went to the polls on November 2, 2004. Of course, I couldn’t legally vote, but I was interested in seeing how it’s done in the States.

David was deeply disappointed with the outcome of the 2004 election, and wanted to move with me to Vancouver when Bush was elected for a second term. But David’s mother refused to leave Pennsylvania, so we decided we would live in PA as long as his mother was alive and move to Vancouver later. That later never happened.

David’s maternal grandmother, who died of cancer when he was 16*, was a political campaigner for the Democratic Party and was a major influence on David when he was growing up. (It’s his grandmother’s diamonds in our wedding rings.) He often told me stories about how his Orthodox Jewish grandmother bucked tradition by sitting with the men in temple to talk politics instead of sitting with the women, and how they couldn’t walk 20 paces in town because Rachel Schneider knew everyone and would stop and greet one and all. It was because of her that David was a proud Democrat.

In late 2005, David was impressed by Senator Obama from Illinois, and was of the opinion that Obama had the intellect and ability to lead the Democratic Party.

David, how I wish you were alive today to see how much American life has already changed in the nearly three years since you left us and how far Obama has come…

* I couldn’t help but feel sadness when I heard that Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him, died of cancer over the weekend — only a few days before this historic occasion. (His mother, Ann Dunham, also died of cancer, in 1995.) Madelyn Dunham voted early, and it was made official in the state of Hawaii that her vote for her grandson counted.

On Sunday evening I got together with the three guys who make up Pixel 3 Photography to discuss photography and all things Nikon, which is why I dubbed the evening ‘The Nikonics Shoot’. I’m still very new to the Nikon system, with two months and about 4,500 photos under my belt thus far. These guys have been shooting Nikon for much longer, but all of us own a range of equipment to try out and test various lighting scenarios. Between us we had SIX flashes: four SB-600s and two SB-800s that held enough power to blind the two resident cats… or, at least piss them off permanently.

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It was hardly a dog day in terms of heat (or, in this case, lack of it), but I saw a LOT of dogs today. This one’s a real cutie. [View On Black]

At noon today I had a meeting with a dog owner at one of the coffee shops in my neighbourhood (I didn’t take Moose’s picture, though! Shame on me!), and afterwards I took us all for a car ride and the poor dog got sick in the backseat. Moose’s owner was very apologetic, but seeing as I live with a chronic vomiter named Beano, cleaning up animal regurgitation is par for the course at the House of Fielding. At least I’ve got detergents for it — and I don’t usually sit in the back seat! (Ewwww….)

As for the rest of Saturday, I took a rain check on social activities in order to work on some terribly geeky projects such as updating the firmware in my camera and building a client website. And, if I have any energy left over, I will continue editing photographs. I have a photography-related meeting tomorrow, so I really should do something a little escapist before then so my weekend resembles more of a weekend than a weekday.

(Aside: whoever coined the phrase “working like a dog” obviously hasn’t been to a dog park lately. Or my neighbourhood.)

It occurred to me today that I wasn’t even supposed to be in Toronto this weekend, I was due elsewhere (see the “Where” section, if you have the password), but that trip has been postponed to a future date to be determined. Awww… I was really looking forward to it, but the anticipation will build again once I have a new announced date to work with. That’s about all I can say at this point, but I guarantee there will be lots of photos!

Gummy letters courtesy of Birdw0rks and Fleecie. Mustard courtesy of the catsitter. The plate was left behind by Sinful Ways after my sangria party. I only had one A, so I had to use an upside-down V.

As seen on a quick grocery run for last-minute candy and dinner supplies.

Lo and behold, a high-strung Halloween bride.

Saving on plot fees in a tight economy, the neighbours multi-purpose the front yard.