Tag Archives: personal

My wedding speech about Panda Astronomy

The PolyBlog
October 30 2016

I’ve been promising myself for some time that I would go ahead and start uploading some of the stuff I’ve written, including papers, personal stuff, short-stories, etc. Under the personal category, if you exclude commentary on writing / news / civil service / etc., most of it is already on the site in terms of eulogies or tributes. One thing that is glaringly absent considering how much time I put into it and how important it was is my speech at my wedding dinner. My wife and I divided up some of the thank-yous, and so I didn’t have to cover everyone in the universe, but I also had a challenge. Talking about heavy emotion, particularly when it comes to someone like my wife, would completely wipe me out. So I had to keep it light, short in some areas that were a little misbalanced, and with enough pause areas and flow to get me through it.

For those in the know, my wife and I have initials that spell out “P and A” i.e. Panda. It’s our nickname for each other, and we organized our wedding around a panda theme — a panda logo, for example.

Logo

And I wanted a theme that would allow me some flow to the speech, I like astronomy, and a couple of the sub-sections lent themselves to talking about stars and universes, so I force fit it into a larger “panda astronomy” storyline. Here it is…

Introduction

I’d like to begin by saying I’m a man of few words.

No, seriously, it’s true – I have a small vocabulary, I just tend to use the same ones over and over a lot.

Instead, I do need to begin by telling you that there is something that is not in any of the speeches tonight, and that is reference to my father. After seeing Aunt Marnie wipe out an entire room at Bruce and Jenn’s wedding with a warm and loving speech, and the fact that I cried all through my father’s eulogy, there is no chance that I will get through the speeches tonight if we refer to my father. Instead, my brothers Mike and Will are going to help us out with a toast later to those who couldn’t be with us tonight. Thanks guys!

So, as I start the speech,  I want to introduce you to a little known field of study called PandA astronomy. Little is known publicly about it, and tonight I will reveal all. If you get bored, well, unfortunately, it’s my wedding.

I’ve got the microphone.

I aspire to be a writer.

You’re trapped on a boat.

In summary, it sucks to be you.

Chapter 1: Stars that dance in the sky

As you prepare for a wedding, you all know there are hundreds of decisions and one early one that is quite fundamental.

And it is quite difficult. I mean, you know how you feel today, and what your choice would be. But how will you feel months from now? You have to decide, but some doubt remains, it’s only natural. It’s a huge decision.

So you consult with friends and family, those who went before you. How did you know? When did you know? Did you both know at the same time or did one help the other make up their mind?

Even after the choice is made, you must wait. But if there is one thing that Sadler men are known for, it must be patience. I’m sure Sadler women would agree? So you’re patient, you trust in your instincts. You may even take a test drive, kick the tires as Uncle Rod described it. But eventually, the test drive ends.

Then the big day arrives. You’re standing there like a deer in the headlights. The big question looming before you:

Carrot or lemon cake?

Fortunately, Andrea and I got to have both. I hope your cake was as good as ours, and feel free as you mingle around afterwards to thank our two bright stars that dance in the sky, Izabella and Natalie, who made all our cakes tonight. Thanks to them, and to Bill, for putting up with us stealing them away for the last couple of months.

Chapter 2: Black holes

There are Black Holes in PandA astronomy. Black holes of responsibility. Gravity wells that suck in all the blame. The black hole even has a name – Stephan.

It was Stephan who…

  • was already friends with Andrea;
  • who got to know us both, worming his way into our confidence; and,
  • who decided that both of us were nice and that nice people should lunch together.

It was all Stephan…we were puppets controlled by the puppetmaster.

So, from now until eternity, everything is Stephan’s fault.

  • If I don’t do the laundry for a couple of weeks, blame Stephan;
  • If I forget to put down the toiler seat, blame Stephan.
  • If Andrea accidentally noggins a power bar, blame Stephan; and,
  • If Andrea hipchecks me on the side of my leg where I already have a giant bruise, blame Stephan.

So we want to thank our black hole, Stephan, for allowing us to blame him for everything. It really does make life much easier in general.

Chapter 3: Orbiting moons

There are moons that orbit and affect the main planets in the Panda universe.

For example:

  • today we had escort moons – Bruce, Don and Liam – who helped seat everyone;
  • we have speaking moons – Sharon, Mike and Bill who are helping with toasts;
  • my sister Marie is a moon with a somewhat elliptical orbit, intersecting lots of other moons, as she has been helping out with things from the beginning;
  • There are Carnivore Moons who joined me for golf and steaks! The poor cow never stood a chance;
  • We have also had a lot of friend moons who advised us, put up with us, and who are still speaking to us!

While Andrea has already thanked some of you, I just want to say that your pull on our orbits is definitely felt and appreciated.

Chapter 4: Star Clusters

In PandA Astronomy, we have star clusters – ones that almost always appear in groups.

First, there are the Hortons:

  • Doug, it’s been great getting to know you over the last few years, and I hope Andrea and I can follow your path to happiness;
  • We saw Aunt Barb last night, but we don’t see her near enough;
  • Some others like Beth and Jim, Matt and Kerry couldn’t make it;
  • But Keith and Jenny are apparently insane and think that a drive from BC to Ontario is an afternoon jaunt.

Then there are the Malcolms:

  • A quiet, unassuming family.
  • Shy almost. Withdrawn even.

My family got to meet most of them at the engagement party that the uncles and aunts put together for us, with great food and guests and presents, oh my!

But you can’t talk about the Malcolms without talking about the cousins – let’s see, I need to check my math here:

  • There’s the old cousin, the tall cousin, the younger cousin, three Inglewoods;
  • Multiply by the teachers, add in a doctor;
  • Carry the Whitaker, start a new Paige;
  • Double check Snuffalupugus;
  • Tick off a few more names;

So, if my math is correct, I’m not sure, but I think it comes to …

a CRAPLOAD of cousins.

And like star clusters, you never get one or two, you always get a bunch of them. And most of them are all quite sporty.

  • Down-hill skiing, water skiing;
  • Bicycling, marathons, swimming, kayaking, canoeing;
  • Rafting, rowing, ultimate, rugby; and,
  • Some more extreme sports like adventure racing or teaching.

But I know what you’re thinking: Paul should have no trouble fitting in. Because when all of you met me, I’m sure the same word went through your mind… athlete.

Oh, sure, there were other words. Like “Non-athlete” or “Not much of an athlete”. But athlete was in there, somewhere.

And I met them all at once. At a wedding, no less. Bruce and Jenn’s wedding to be exact. As an aside, for the friends who were disturbed to hear me talk about great bridesmaids dresses that I saw at a wedding in Toronto, those were Jenn’s attendants. So I want to say a special thank you for Bruce and Jenn…Six years ago, you had a tight venue with an equally tight guest list. When Andrea wanted to bring me, I’m sure someone asked “Who is this yahoo? He works at CIDA? Holy crap, he’s going to be some granola-eating Birkenstock-wearing hippie!”. But in true Malcolm fashion, you overlooked those challenges and found a way to include me.

Tonight even marks a special occasion for Bruce, one he probably doesn’t even know. After years of being teased, he no longer has to be the oldest of the group of cousins. Just don’t trip over my walker when you’re dancing. So, for Bruce & Jenn, we have set aside our fourth dance tonight and invite anyone who has gotten married in the last six years to join them.

Thanks to all the Malcolms for finding room for one more.

Chapter 5: Orbiting Planets and Dwarf Planets

As I look over the new extended family today, I think one of the phrases that comes to mind is, “Oh, great. More siblings”.

For my brothers, I admit I’ve been pretty lucky and each has their own unique story:

  • For Don, it is one really long weekend at the cottage where the radio only seemed to get one song – “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles;
  • For Mike, it is having dinner at the Elephant and Castle, having a long emotional conversation about family, and meeting his Base Commander with tears rolling down our faces;
  • For the brother formerly known as Bill, it would be doing stockings for Mom and Dad – or dart guns, or the elephant gun that shot those red balls, or just the fact that you let me tag along with you when I was a kid and never sent me home;
  • For Ken, it would have to be the shark dive, hands down; and,
  • For Bob, oddly enough, it is simply walking back to the store to get a package of gum that we didn’t even need on the day of my father’s wake.

Feel free as you mingle later to ask them about those stories.

I get another brother today, and the bar is pretty high, Dean. But you know what? You get to be the smarter brother. Oh sure, there’s a long odyssey about Dean, Andrea and I heading to the cottage one weekend with Dean navigating, and us ending up at the Haliburton Family Restaurant. But that’s not the story that I’m going to tell. One day, we were driving down the 417 with me in the backseat and Andrea in the front seat beside Dean, and like all good brothers, I was razzing him. We were talking about dating the Horton girls, and I teasingly said, “Yes, but I got the better sister.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, and then he stopped. He said, “Dude, there’s nothing I can say to that. I can either slam my girlfriend or my future sister!”

I can tell you, most guys would not spot that trap. They would have walked into it flailing wildly. But Dean, the smart one, said nothing. And that is the reason we wanted him to be MC tonight. To show he’s plenty smart.

Just don’t ask for directions or how many letters there are in the alphabet. But he’s plenty smart.

He did, after all, manage to snag Becky, my new sister.

When Becky and Dean got married, Andrea talked in her speech about how Becky was crazy, emotional and violent. And I remember thinking, “Wow, now that’s efficient.”

I too have sisters who are crazy, emotional and violent, but they’ve divided up those responsibilities. I won’t say which is which, because Megan and Stephanie may not know that their mom Marie is crazy. And the emotional one Carolee is in Europe tonight and so she can’t cry in her own defense. And well, the old violent one Sharon who started the toasts might come up and swat me.

I’m happy to have Becky join the rank of sisters, including as our sister-of-honour today, but unfortunately, Becky, well, you get me as a brother. And I just want to say, “If you’re talking to my sisters, don’t believe them! They lie!”

Sure, Andrea got the better deal having Dean for a brother, than you do getting me, but well, I promise I’ll be the best brother you ever have! So, in that vein, Becky gets to be the sister with low standards for brothers!

In the PandA world, all these siblings are like orbiting planets. Sometimes leading, sometimes following, but always around. They’ve even added a dozen or so dwarf planets, with the extended family of nieces and nephews who helped out with a variety of tasks today like decorations and photography.

And let’s not forget the newest addition to the nieces, Grace, who was in charge of cuteness at the ceremony! Of course, with Grace around, there’s a reason why we didn’t ask Dean to help out with photos – we were kind of hoping Andrea and I would be in a couple of them – and he doesn’t take pictures of other people anymore.

So, thanks to all the orbiting planets and dwarf planets swirling around.

Chapter 6: Binary Star Systems

For those who don’t know, this means TWO STARS in the same system. For most prospective suitors, meeting the bride’s parents and getting to know them might seem intimidating. After all, these are your future in-laws.

But Ron & Marney are not much older than my sister Sharon. Not old enough to need to break a hip yet, but not likely to start wrestling me if they don’t think I’m good enough for their daughter.

Marney, you’ve welcomed me into your home and your family. You’ve raised a beautiful daughter who inspires me everyday. And if that weren’t enough, you even take me as a bridge partner.

Ron, I appreciate that you have never tried to intimidate as my future father-in-law. I have, after all, seen you golf. But as Andrea and I formalize our lives today, I don’t want you to think of it as losing a daughter so much as gaining space in your basement. Some day. And I promise not to beat you at golf until you qualify for the seniors’ tournament.

Chapter 7: An Anchoring Sun

Like any solar system, the “P” system includes an anchoring sun in the centre, my Mom. When I was writing my speech, I considered a lot of things to talk about…

  • The way my Mom makes tenderloin when I come home.
  • All the times she’s made pumpkin pies or peanut butter cookies.
  • Playing euchre
  • Garage sales
  • Salt and pepper shakers
  • Needing on-ramps into conversations.

Or the fact that I’m the golden child, the baby, the spoiled little brat that…oh wait, I think that’s Mike’s speech I’m reading. Hmm.

Instead, I’ve decided to tell you a different story. Some of the friends here are part of my monthly movie group called “Mid-Month Movie Madness”. It’s a group that I organize to go to the movies once a month, or at least I do when I’m not organizing a wedding! And I do it because my mom gave me a love for movies.

The year was 1972. I was four! And my mother took me to see a movie. A classic. It isn’t even available on DVD. Most of the actors, directors, producers never worked again. But in the summer of 1972, my mom took me to the theatres in downtown Peterborough.

I had to hold her hand as we walked down the busy street …

I know I got a drink. I think I even got popcorn.

We sat down and the lights dimmed.

And we watched…wait for it…The Lives and Times of Grizzly Addams.

Do I remember the plot? Nope. But you know what it had? BEARS! And not just bears, GRIZZZLY BEARS! And not just grizzly bears, but BIG ASS GRIZZLY BEARS that went RARRRRR!

Let me tell you. When you’re 4, and you can go to the movies with your mother, sit in a theatre, eat popcorn, the lights go down and you can see bears, you think it’s a pretty cool universe.

Thanks Mom for this, and a million other things.

Chapter 8: The A Solar System

For those who are wondering how we ended up on a boat tonight, and if this speech will ever end, we are coming to the close. We are on a boat because Andrea and I went on a boat cruise for one of our early dates. We cruised around the Parliament buildings, over by the Museum, and up the Gatineau River.

As we got close to the bridge where this boat left from, Andrea was sitting on my left, and we were watching the sunset. The light was streaming in from the side of the boat, and it was shining through her hair. I looked over at her, and it was like an electric jolt. I suddenly realized I was in love with this woman. And while I couldn’t have spoken then if I tried, Andrea noticed the look on my face during that same moment, and as she describes it, she went all melty inside.

From that moment on, my desire for Andrea has never been a secret. But what I didn’t know was what it also meant in the way of transformation.

Before, I was a PolyWogg. And most tadpoles turn into frogs or toads.

I must be the first to ever turn into a PandA.

But Andrea has that kind of effect on me.

She taught me to speak PandA. Words and phrases like noggin, fin, Bougainville, Moohaha, power bars, Rosedale/Rosemount, silly songs we sing to each other, “it’s a dog”, Orange!, bean and other bean…all these words come from the A Universe and now fill my world.

I can’t imagine my life without her influence; her presence is the atmosphere I need to breathe.

I’d love to go on and on about Andrea, but there’s no chance of doing that coherently.

Conclusion

So I’ll finish with a toast:

To bright stars, black holes, orbiting moons, star clusters, orbiting planets and dwarf planets;

To binary star systems, anchoring suns, and big ass grizzly bears that go RARRR;

and,

To the woman who reminds me each and every day that it’s a pretty cool universe, just because she’s in it.

To the PandA universe!

Day 2 / 75 – progress on my goals…

The PolyBlog
October 20 2016

I’ve got a working tracker finally going again, a two-part one that has my work stuff in a single page that I can work with by hand, and another that I had hoped to put on my tablet but then found out that Excel online/cloud/Android doesn’t allow form controls. Fortunately I did *not* spend hours and hours trying to make it work before discovering (a) it was overkill and (b) my tablet wouldn’t let me do it anyway. The page is still a bit tiny font to make it all fit on one page, haven’t solved that problem yet, although I have an idea or two.

The top part of my daily tracker has a full 27 items that I am tracking, and admittedly some of them are no brainers. Like using my sleep machine. They are part of my routine, but one of the frequent failures of trackers is they only track “new stuff” which is bound to have a lot of failures on it. Instead, I’ve learned enough from my reading and own experience on goals to know that some of the “quick wins” should also be listed as it helps balance the storyline. Counting, so to speak, what I’m already doing right and taking credit for it. But some of them are just simple stretch goals.

The bottom part is my developmental area, and ironically or at least coincidentally, it also has 27 items on it. Obviously those ones though are not ones that I’m going to do every day. Like photography learning, it might only be once in the week. But it’s on as a desire. And while the top section I’m trying to get closer and closer to 100% of my goals, the developmental ones are more about balance overall, and so working on even 30 or 40% of them in a week is likely to be considerable effort.

Looking at today, I would say I did about half of the routine ones, an off day, and only about 2% of the developmental ones. I did manage to do some work on finance (ordering my credit report, making some calls) and honey do list (dealing with tires at Costco). I even managed to get a bit of Xmas shopping done.

Not a bad day, not a great day, somewhere in between. Which I’m happy is simply something other than continual slippage.

Day 1 / 75 – progress on my goals…

The PolyBlog
October 19 2016

So I posted yesterday that I’m sucking on my goals writ large, and I’m trying to find a carrot or a stick that will let me whip myself back into fighting shape and get back to working on them. Today marks 75 days left in the year to January 1st when I normally set my goals for the new year and take stock of the old year. I’m curious — if I work hard for 75 days, can I make some progress on my goals that will let me think that the year wasn’t a wasteland of slackerdom?

I’ve been struggling with a good tracker that will let me focus on some of the mechanical tick box items like making sure I make my lunch instead of buying it, take proper snacks for mid-morning and mid-afternoon, try to have breakfast with Jacob in the morning (I often end up showering while he has breakfast with Andrea), and get all of our collective butts where they need to be in a reasonable time in the morning. Equally though, I want to be able to make sure I’m tracking some of the “bigger” ticket goals when I have free time at lunch, or after supper, or on weekends.

Today I did okay, although I have no tracking metrics (so to speak) to validate my feeling. I handled the snacks and lunch thing for instance, and ticked off a few steps on the home front with booking an appointment for someone to look at part of the roof on Friday, rescheduling a dentist appointment to November, and with the help of crowdsourcing on Facebook, figured out where and what tires to buy for the winter. Which I did tonight.

Unfortunately, that is where my grand plans went sideways. I tried to use my MC to pay, and it was declined. I thought maybe I glitched the purchase, but no, still declined. Weird, I used it yesterday. Paid with interac instead, no biggie, got home, called MC. So about three months ago, they offered us a deal if we upgraded our cards. Which of course changed our numbers. Again, no biggie, and we could take our time switching over. Andrea did some basic triage of our past purchases to identify all the pre-authorized debits that had to be updated, and since they happen through-out the month, I hadn’t sat down to figure out which day of the month was the best to switch over to avoid having a problem with parking at work, or a half-dozen IT-related companies for example.

But they neglected to tell us that the old cards would stop working at 90 days, even if the new ones weren’t activated. Guess when the 90 days were up? Yep, yesterday at midnight. Colour me singularly unimpressed. Which I expressed to an agent and then a supervisor to ask PC Financial why they would deactivate the first card before the second was activated, since as of that moment, I was no longer their customer for the interim. Considering how much we pump through those cards, and that we have direct deposit of both our pay cheques to PC Financial, I kind of pointed out that ticking me off wasn’t in their best financial interest, which she agreed (she did do a nice obsequious impression of a fawning CSR). She verified there was nothing she could do about the now defunct card, and that nothing was scheduled to go through in their automatic history, but it did mean spending a lot more time than I wanted to tonight suddenly updating billing info on multiple accounts and services. It’s relatively organized, just time consuming. And I have to do parking at work tomorrow in person and on paper.

When I was just about done, there were two other changes I wanted to make on accounts, and lo and behold, they didn’t go through. WTF? I ended up calling again, working my way through to an agent, only to find out security had put a hold on the new card. Waited in the queue for them (surprisingly not long for either, just annoying) to find out that one of the transactions was declared “high risk” when they saw it. From Google. For my subscription to Entertainment Weekly. I pointed out to them Google was hardly a high risk, but whatever. He worked his way through it, unblocked it, all done. When he tried to explain the rationale, I told him bluntly I didn’t care, and if he didn’t unblock me soon, the account was walking out the door and he might want to look at the volume per year that goes through the account since we use it to pay for just about everything except our mortgage. When he looked at the account, suddenly he was a lot more helpful. I felt a little divaish, but they are making decent money off our business, I don’t feel like being “grateful” for the opportunity to use their services.

I confess I can also be a principled jerk with bad service for somewhere I go regularly. I won’t rant or rave or call them nasty names, I’ll just point out the size of the account and that I’m walking. I did that at Subway back when I was at CIDA. The guy was a tool who couldn’t do basic math and Subway has a system that defies basic logic most of the time. It’s actually relatively famous in franchise circles as being the least forgiving of systems for updates, and theoretically, the most fool-proof. I didn’t know that at the time, or I might have been a bit more forgiving, but the first time was when they had a special on, giant sign on the wall, I ordered it, and the resulting price was about $2 more than it should be. Not a big deal, but when I pointed it out, the guy got snippy and started suggesting I was trying to rip him off. Now, I was going to that Subway a couple of times a week for two years. Call it $25 a week, $1300 a year, $2500+ over two years. I pointed out his math, he tried to show me on a calculator and he got the right answer ($2 less than what he was charging me) and then he said the calculator was wrong. He could not accept his system was charging the full price, not the discount, because he wasn’t entering the special when he punched it in. And even still, no biggie, it’s $2, I don’t care. But then he started getting rude and aggressive, and that was when my principle kicked in. So I pointed out that I hoped his $2 was worth his attitude as I was now going to avoid his restaurant for 3 months. Which I did. And several times he saw me in the food court and wanted to chat to apologize, and I refused. Just waved and passed on by. Not my problem.

The second time was equally trivial. They sell cookies, 3 for $1.99. They also have an option for 12 for $4.99. One day about a year later, I was there and I thought I would take a dozen back to the office for a team meeting. I didn’t have much cash on me, but I had enough left to cover the $6 it would be with tax, so I bought a dozen. Rang it in, came up to over $9. I said, “That can’t be right, it’s only $4.99”. So he got huffy again and showed me…he rang in $1.99 and pressed enter 4 times i.e. 4 x $2 plus tax. I said, “Oh, sorry, no, it’s just the dozen price”. He saw it on the menu and then got rude telling me that it was the same price. I looked at him and said, “Okay, well keep your cookies. And remember last time you acted this way with me and I didn’t come in for three months? It will be six months this time.” He got really upset and started trying to apologize, offering me the cookies for free, and I just said, “Nope, sorry, I don’t like the way you do business. Your system is showing the wrong price and you can’t even be bothered to listen without getting rude. So I like the subs, they’re relatively healthy choices in a food court of terrible choices, but I’m out.”

I do the same regularly lots of places. I am a creature of habit and I will go the same place regularly, partly as I’m a strong blue. But once I have a bad experience, one where they aren’t simply wrong but aggressive or rude, they’re dead to me! I don’t care how good the place is or the price or the location, or whatever. They’re dead to me, Jerry, dead!

And I totally feel that way about PC Financial right now. This isn’t the first time they’ve messed up stuff on the credit card. I’ve had other experiences where they cancelled the card, I contacted them to find out why it’s not going through, they tell me “security flagged it”, security tells me there was some sort of breach, but they won’t give me any info about it or what happened or anything. Total BS, and I told them they had a choice last time. Either get it fixed fast or I walked. That was major strike 1, this is major strike 2.

We recently renewed our mortgage, and while they claim they have great rates, they weren’t even close to the ballpark of our existing bank or another one that was wooing us. And honestly, I simply wasn’t willing to trust them with a mortgage if they can’t get credit cards right. I know, I know, different groups, but still. One more strike and they’re dead to me!

So I just did a major amount of work tonight to fight to a standstill i.e. get me back to where I was the day before. I fixed a couple of small setup issues while I went (PayPal phone number info, switched another account from Visa to MC, etc.), so I’m a little ahead, but it sure ate up the night.

But I did get the tires all done, plus some medication from Costco for Jacob.

Not as much productivity as I would like, but more than I have been doing of late. I also made a shift on some career stuff, maybe I’ll talk about that a bit more tomorrow for Day 2 of the 75 remaining in 2016.

2016 – Progress on my goals

The PolyBlog
October 17 2016

This is kind of a tough one. I am so far off my game it isn’t funny.

2016 – The Only Way Out Is Through
GoalsJFMAMJJASONDCurrent Status
Live Blue or Die!
Astronomy
Moon
Filters
Photos		xxxxxxxxxxxxAlmost nothing for this year
Courses
Video games
Psychology		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much to date
Reading
Kindle Unlimited
Reading challenge		xxxxxxxxxxxxI might be a little unfair to myself on this one as I have finished a few books in there, mainly Stephanie Plum, a book about the music industry, some more CS Lewis, etc. but nothing that would go green, maybe just a few yellows in June or July perhaps
Writing
Blogs
HR Guide
Non-fiction guide		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much happening as I had to move my blog and completely rebuild it on a new hoster
Photography
Course
Setup cards		xxxxxxxxxxxxCrickets chirping, that’s what I hear
Reviews
TV episodes
Book reviews
Season reviews
Movie reviews		xxxxxxxxxxxxIf it wasn’t for my reviews of TV premieres, it would have been red throughout
Organize
New apps
Redo bucket list
Family passport		xxxxxxxxxxxxApps are working well, particularly for shopping, calendar, but not quite up to speed on personal to do yet.
Cyber
Sort photos
Scan photos
Sort music
Backup options		xxxxxxxxxxxxPhoto sites are up to date, and not bad on backups…nada for scanning or music
Honey do list
Establish list
One item per week		xxxxxxxxxxxxNada
Stick To The Knitting
Andrea
Date nights out
Game nights
Family trip		xxxxxxxxxxxxNada
Jacob
Boys nights
Video games
Summer excursions
Sports “practice”		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much, regular “busts” between trying to find something we can do together vs. just things he likes to do on his own,,,he’s been enjoying golf the last month, so I guess that’s something
Website support
Briargreen PS
Astropontiac		xxxxxxxxxxxxAstropontiac has been fine, albeit limited, and I did a bunch of work on Briargreen for a resource library, but not much else (nor have they asked, I guess)
Focus Your Energy, Be Prolific
Writing
Fiction
Posting
Creativity challenge		xxxxxxxxxxxxVery little, partly by the wipe-out of the website and the rebuild
Cooking
Wings and sauces
Mom’s recipes
Dad’s baking
Friend’s recipes		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much for the year, new baking attempts this month
Photobooks
Year in review
Targeted themes
Astronomy		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot sure what colour this one is as it is a mish-mash with the website which is fully up to date, some work on photos for Doug’s 90th birthday, etc. but not many actual books ordered
Be Bright, Be Bold, Be Direct
Stretching
Muscle groups
Yoga
Chiro and massage		xxxxxxxxxxxxNada
Exercise
Walking at lunch
Martial arts kata
Weekend excursions		xxxxxxxxxxxxBits and pieces, mostly nada
Career
Re-certify french
Publish guides		xxxxxxxxxxxxMade a decision about my future, that’s about it, not enough to take it off red

Overall, well, I suck: 11 red, 5 yellow, and 2 green, albeit a bit generous. May through September was a wasteland of non-productivity, and it disgusts even me. I knew I was dropping, so I restarted seeing my counsellor. No clear answers as to what is going on with me, partly as the middle of September saw a sudden boost in approach, energy, etc. I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. For a week. Then I got a flu bug, which is par for the course for me. I need to recommit, but I’m working on a new tracking list hoping that somehow I can hold myself more accountable.

Fingers crossed, as I have no confidence in my ability to re-commit without a lot of luck. We’ll see how far I get.

Fundamentals of Photography – Class 02 – Camera Equipment: What you need

The PolyBlog
April 17 2016

As I mentioned earlier, I started watching videos on Fundamentals of Photography – Class 01 – Making Great Pictures from The Great Courses company. Class 02 of the course deals with camera equipment and related accessories. While the host is a National Geographic photographer, and has been for much of his career, he basically suggests getting equipment that fits in a backpack. No more, no less.

For the bag, he recommends soft shoulder straps so that you can lug it around for the day, and room for:

  • camera body;
  • a lens or two;
  • memory cards;
  • batteries;
  • battery charger;
  • lens cloth;
  • external flash + batteries for it; and,
  • a sync cord for flash.

I confess I don’t really like my camera bag setup. I had one that came with the combo I bought, and it is a hard bulky near cube-like format. It would hold everything above, but it only has a shoulder strap, and it’s kind of blocky. The interior design isn’t the best either, and I often felt like I was trying too hard to shift things around. I had another camera bag that I had bought for astronomy stuff, and I’ve repurposed it back to its original purpose, but it’s not great either. It is very hard to get things in and out of without taking it off, setting it on its side, etc. At some point, I need something better, just not sure what that it is yet as I haven’t quite figured out where/when I will use my camera the most yet. It’s a different setup if I’m doing astrophotography vs. hanging out at the cottage vs. going on a hike. Or, as the host puts it succinctly, “What do you want to do?”.

He prefers a photography vest, as do some astronomers. Lots of little pockets to hold everything, distribute weight equally, and freeing your hands for adjustments, etc. It is also harder to steal your equipment if you’re basically wearing it.

The Chapter doesn’t spend much time on the actual camera equipment, mostly as he wants to hold that back until he gets into the various features and what he uses them for…his only real advice is that his favorite lens is a 24-70 mm lens, mostly as it is comfortable, not too heavy, allows him to mostly support the entire camera and lens in his left hand, freeing his right hand to snap and adjust easily.

He does, however, heavily recommend three things:

  1. A decent view screen, although he has a cute story that professional photographers call it a “chimping” screen (i.e. so people can look at it, and sound like a chimp, saying ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh);
  2. A solid tripod for longer exposures and to reduce any shake; and,
  3. A cable release to also eliminate shake.

The Canon T5i has a good screen, I like it. Sure, some of the new ones that come with Android built-in and that have WiFi are great, but this is a little more traditional and meets my needs. The only challenge I have is that in bright light with my transition sunglasses on, it’s hard to see the screen.

I picked up a used Manfrotto tripod from a camera store on Bank Street, and it is pretty rock solid. Not the best options for heads, etc., or quick change setups, but I haven’t used it much either to get used to it. I also have a lighter one that I had for my previous cameras, including the video camera, which would work with short lenses (i.e. not too heavy), and a monopod for hiking, although I’m not convinced it works as well as some people seem to claim. Could just be a lack of practice too.

I have two cable releases — one that supposedly works remotely, that I could never get to work, and one that is wired. I’ve toyed with the idea of adding the bluetooth attachment that would also connect to my phone or tablet, but outside of astronomy, I don’t know when I would use it that much.

What I found really interesting this week though is that he blew past the intro to equipment and covered the basics of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Those three pieces work together on your photos, and I confess that while I have read multiple explanations of them over the years, I have never really “gotten it”. I could regurgitate what the shutter speed was, mostly aperture although sometimes a little off in technical details, and on ISO, I often described it more as the speed of the “film” from our old pre-DSLR days. And how the three worked together, I really had no idea. I was constantly confused. I would get some of the pieces, I could duplicate other shots if I had the technical specs, but the real relationship between the three and how the three worked together? I really didn’t get it.

For the first time, watching this host, a light came on. The example he used was the idea of a faucet filling a sink with water. The aperture is the size of your faucet — small faucet, small amount of water; large faucet, large amount of water. The shutter speed is how long you have the faucet running — longer duration, more water; shorter duration, less water. And the ISO, although the metaphor is a bit weaker here, is how strong the water pressure is pushing through the pipe.

Translating that to the camera, the biggest piece for me is that he ignored ISO. He focused almost entirely on aperture and shutter speed. So a big aperture lets in a lot of light, while a small aperture lets in less light. Pretty straightforward. It’s the same concept for astronomy, and I think that was the hook for me. Large light buckets bring in lots of light, small light buckets bring in smaller amounts of light. If I think of it as Aperture, instead of focal length (which is how it is measured), it becomes much clearer to me. Maybe part of what was confusing to me previously is that astro stuff works heavily with focal length, and you even have some basic math to figure out magnifications, etc.

I was also confused by the focal length because as you “decrease it”, you’re increasing the opening and increasing the amount of light; because it is a ratio, the number works in reverse to the size of the opening. The focal length is on the bottom of the ratio, so as that number goes higher, and the focal length gets higher, the aperture gets smaller. So f/1.0 is the biggest aperture with the most light coming in; f/8-11 is a moderate setting; and f/22 is a small amount of light. It’s also why you frequently see wide-angle lens having the f/2.8 settings — because they are designed to give you wide shots with lots of light. Also making them good in low light too, because they are pulling as much light as possible at those settings. Most of my lens stop in the f/4.0 range and that’s pushing them to their limits.

For shutter speed, I’ve never really had any trouble understanding that…it always made sense to me in terms of longer exposure. But I didn’t think of it like I do astronomy i.e. I only thought of it as related to night photography. Longer shots to get the stars, to gather lots of light. I didn’t think of it as gathering more light for the day time too. Hence the trade-off with the aperture — if you go to a small, small, small aperture, you need to adjust to longer exposure times. If you have a large aperture, you need faster shutter speeds or you’ll get nothing but white — you’re controlling how much water is coming out of the faucet into the sink and how much light is coming into your camera.

The trade-off has never been clear to me on that. Particularly when you start with shutter speed — if I’m going with a faster shutter speed, for example to capture somebody doing sports, I also need to adjust my aperture in order to open up the “light hole” (aperture) to make sure I’m still getting lots of light in. Hence why small f # lenses, like 2.8, are called fast lenses — because they allow for the fastest shutter speeds.

I couldn’t see those two as the trade-offs as I always threw the ISO in there just enough to confuse me. I remembered that ISO 100 was considered “normal” speed film, and that ISO800 was considered “fast” film. So I figured if you were jacking your shutter speed to be super fast, you must have upgraded your ISO at the same time. Almost like they *always* went hand-in-hand, and hence could be considered almost the same.

I knew that ISO stood for the International Standards Organization, so the acronym never helped. However, once he started talking about it as the light sensitivity of the camera, kind of the reverse of how much water is being pumped into the sink, more like how hard or how much is hitting the bottom of the sink, it clicked for me. I understand sensitivity of sensors, and how important it is for their ability to register photons, just like the old plates (not that I ever used them, but I understand the physics of it). Particularly in terms of astronomy, so it suddenly became clear why jacking my ISO during the day was like flooding the camera with super sensitive light. Just like taking a photo of a bright moon with high ISO, and seeing it just completely wash out the details.

I know I’m supposed to see them as a triangle — aperture, shutter speed, and ISO — but it works better for me to see aperture and shutter speed as trade offs, and ISO more as just the sensitivity to the amount of light controlled by the other two.

After that, it was more simple note-taking:

  • shutter speed normally in the 1/60 or 1/125 range;
  • f/16 has everything in it tack sharp, f/2.8 is mainly the centre;
  • low light needs more sensitivity;
  • “aperture priority” is great for setting aperture, and the camera does the rest on “auto”; and,
  • “shutter speed priority” is great for setting fast or slow and letting the camera handle the rest on “auto”.

He concluded the intro by noting that he frequently sets up beginners in AP mode, shooting as close to 2.8 as they can get, and letting them rock out on composition after that. The assignment was basically to just to play with settings, which I’ve already done, so wasn’t part of my main focus afterwards.

I’m just ecstatic that I finally understood aperture and shutter speed trade offs, with ISO in behind. I finally “get it”. That alone is worth the price of the course (maybe not full price, but certainly with the discount that is always available).