Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Unimpressed at the racism.

In the group camping section of  Parc National Plaisance group camping, there is a picnic table with racist remarks on it. 

I was unimpressed. Not at the park people, because they probably didn't see it, or if they don't read English, they might not have understood it. 

I'm unimpressed with the multiple idiots who felt it necessary to add their comments. This has no place in this day and age. 

I did sent a complaint to the park with the photo attached the night I got home. I did not get any reply but I don't expect to. I would hope that they do something about it.

Racist remarks have no place in public parks!



More animals from the camping trip

Blue Jay

Great blue Heron

Unidentified ducks

Another unidentified pair of ducks
Yellow bellied Sapsucker

Some type of gull

Pair of Turkey Vultures

The parc was full of animals

Beaver

Painted Turtle

Grass snake

Osprey

Muskrat

Groundhog

Monday, April 29, 2013

First camping trip of the season

Canadian Geese flying in
The only park opened for camping this early in the season was Parc National de Plaisance on the Ottawa river  between Montreal and Ottawa.  It's not my favourite park, too many fields, not enough forests, but it is close enough to home and it was the only one opened.


We saw a lot of wildlife. The mammals included groundhog, muskrats, beavers and chipmunks. Saw and heard dozens of different birds. We even heard at night dog like sounds. But that could have been dogs from the few property owners left on the islands.
Canadian Geese in a farmer's field

The Canada Geese were still arriving in full force and they are quite noisy. Farmers fields surrounding the park were just filled with Canadian geese.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Since when is Facebook a Dating Site?

Some clueless bastard just sent me this message on Facebook

"Found your profile really sparking, a wonderful smile you have here,i must confess it tickled my fancy....short, precise and wonderful.Your photos are also very nice as well..I find you very attractive and i earnestly look foward in getting to know you better..I am Philip ,am new to the website and am giving online dating a first try.I read your profile and it is amazing. Take a moment and glance through my profile and if you like what I had to say or you like who you see, write back to me when you get a chance, or better still leave me your regular email address so I can be in touch with you, i don't think i would get on here much,find it difficult getting around and I am not used to this,plus too much work.....Please Kindly write back when you get a chance dear.Have a great day"

 Where does he get that Facebook is an online dating site?   It's very nice that he's giving online dating a first try, but how about going to an online dating site where people will actually be interested in hearing from him. Hitting on a random woman on Facebook isn't going to get him a date. It's going to get him blocked, and reported! 

The paranoid part of me thinks he's just pretending to be clueless to be able to do what he wants to do, hit on women. Appearing to be clueless does work with some women. I wonder if he would just hit on a random woman he met in real life or if he grew balls because he's online. 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Full pink Moon

This is all I managed to capture of the full moon, but it has a pink halo :)

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Touching photo

Considering the war going on in Syria, it's amazing they know what is going on outside their country!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

After the departure of the snow in Bois de Liesse

Great crested flycatcher?

The pink line is where I walk to and then back to work.

Moss nice and green despite snow just melted

Fiddleheads?!?

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Ah the trolls of the internet.

Was trying to establish the validity of a hit on my blog and did a search on the link name, and came across Tech Lore By Igor. Catchy title :)

He told me all I need to know about the internet address that is giving my blog fake hits, in this blog message.  It's one of them he refers to, but I won't even mention the sites name. Why give them publicity.  I'll be checking his blog from time to time.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Lol Cats?



Oh UEFI systems, how I do love you. {end sarcasm}

So I've been arguing with a few UEFI systems that came with Windows 8 pre-loaded, and with secure boot.

For instance so far I've been setting up new machines with Windows 7 64 bits, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 64 bits and Server 2012 on one drive and configuring the system to Boot UEFI for this drive, and the drive is partitioned GPT.  On the Dell 7010, that came with Windows 8 , was never able to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode. It just hangs before even installing. Even with secure boot disabled.


So I figured I'd use the Windows 8 drive it came with and add Server 2012. So I boot the DVD and before I even get to a menu where I can start installing I get the following error "The product key entered does not match any of the Window images available for installation. Please enter another key". I tried again, got the same message. That left me perplexed and discouraged. 

So I moved on from that Dell 7010 and started setting up the Lenovo M92p. I manage to install W7-64, S2008 R2, W8-64 [enterprise] and once I get to Server 2012, I get the same error about the product key.  This is when I went to do research. Turns out that the key it's talking about is embedded somewhere in the UEFI BIOS.   I guess no one ever considered that you might want to install an OS different then the one the system came with.  In the end the solution was simple. Instead of using a 'retail' version of Server 2012, if I used the Volume License version I did not run into this issue. 

I would have ran into the issue with Windows 8 if I had used the Pro version. But because I used Enterprise, I got around the built in serial number.

If you do not have access to Enterprise and Volume License versions, there is a way to by-pass this problem, by adding a .PID file to the install media, this article explains it. 

No one deserves to be blown up

My heart goes out to all the victims of bombings yesterday. 

That includes those who lost limbs, or their life at the Boston Marathon.

That includes the Syrians around Damascus being blown up by their own government.

That includes the Iraqi's all around Iraq yesterday that suffered a series of blasts. 

What is wrong with people who feel the need to blow up their fellow man??????

Monday, April 15, 2013

Driving for the women of Saudi Arabia?

Saudi  Prince Alwaleed bin Talal makes a good case as to why women should be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Good for him. Hopefully someone will listen and Saudi women won't be the only ones in the world not allowed to drive in their country!

More birds from my yard....

Blue-Jay

Downy woodpecker female

Robin

Crow

Woodpecker flying away

Downy woodpecker male

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

How to avoid foot in mouth and kvetch at the same time!

Really interesting article that can help clods like me avoid saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Dusk


Birds of my back yard

Cardinal
Pileated Woodpecker

Cardinal


Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

Dark-eyed Junco

Pair of dark-eyed Junco's

Ringworm

It is a fairly common fungal infection which ends up looking like circles on your body. I had what I thought was a scratch mark from a cat, but eventually after almost 2 weeks of it just not healing, I clued in from the way it started to look, that it was ringworm.

The only time I caught ringworm before was from a cat, who had a fairly severe infection. Here I cannot find that any of my 3 cats are infected, but perhaps their foot carried it?  It also looked about the size of a nickel with definite red circle and white middle. This originally looked like the end of a catch scratch. The rest of the mark healed, but one tip didn't and as it continued to fester, only then did it start looking like a circle.

I finally clued into the fact it was ringworm last Friday and stopped at Pharmacy to get an anti-fungal cream. By the time I got it home, I had 3 other small circles that had formed lower on my arm. They looked more like horseshoes then circles. Two applications of anti-fungal cream on those made them go away.  The original spot however is different. It's healing, but each time I put cream on it, there's a burning sensation for about 30 minutes. I will have to cream it for about a month to make sure i does not come back.

Sunday, April 07, 2013

Saturday, April 06, 2013

Visit to Ottawa

Going towards the downtown core

Dusk

With the sun very low, downtown Ottawa was all aglow


Mural by Shawn McInnis on a building on Richmond road.

Mural on the side of a Subways on Wellington street

Canadian Parliament buildings at night.