Yesterday was my last day of work at Multimatic. I'm headed back to school for an MBA at the Queen's School of Business. I'd only been at MTC (Multimatic Technical Centre) for a year...a year and two days exactly. It's a decent place to work, there a lot of highly capable people and I got along with almost everyone. In terms of Mechanical Engineering, there aren't many other places that have the capabilities that they have. Their core business is automotive hinges, but they're also into race cars, high end sports cars, and the occasional sailboat.
I got to work on an interesting project relating to European automotive standards for head impact protection in the event that a car hits a pedestrian or a bicyclist. The basic idea is that the hood of the car would be designed to absorb the energy of the impact of the victim's head as a method to reduce head trauma or fatalities. You can read more about it here.
In terms of design, there are two ways of achieving this goal. You can design a passive "soft" system where the hinge, supporting structure, and the hood buckle under the impact of the victim's head. The other method is to design an active system where the car has sensors on the front bumper to detect a collision and an active lift system where the hood is raised by about 50-150mm at the hinges. This youtube video shows the implementation of the system on a current Jaguar vehicle (EUMatic is a European division of Multimatic and they produce the hinges for Jaguar).
The project I worked on was an active system that was already in development, but I was tasked with designing a hinge system proposal for a future European version of the Chrysler 300. Instead of airbags or other pyrotechnic devices for lifting the hood, the system I was working on used gas struts. The central idea is that in the event of a false deployment (faulty sensor or impact with a garbage can or other inanimate object), the driver could just manually reset the system by opening the hood and continue driving. Currently, a false deployment with the Jaguar system would mean that the driver would have to call for a tow truck and have the hinges/hood/airbags replaced...pretty costly. The Multimatic system would protect against that.
I can't go into details about the project, but it was a really good learning experience. The workload was heavy but interesting. I did some pretty neat kinematics on the design side (something akin to this), had three quarters of the analysis department work on the strength and dynamics of the system, and got to be part of a technical review at the Chrysler Technical Centre in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Unfortunately, even though the Chrysler engineers loved our system from a technical standpoint, the price tag was a little to high for their liking. The last I heard was that our system was around US$50 more per system than the next competitor. That came out to around US$6M more for the entire vehicle program. They went with a supplier that offered a non-resetting pyrotechnic system.
My last design task was to design some demo fixtures of the GM Tech World show where GM invited a select number of suppliers to show case their technologies. One of the demo fixtures was for the active system using a Saab 93 hood. It was really cool seeing the system in action...the fixture literally jumped of the floor. Pretty dramatic! It'll be interesting to hear about the reactions of the GM people.
In the end though, as interesting as that work was, I decided that it was time to move on to something different. Pursuing an MBA was a step that I need to take to get to do the kind of work that I'd grown more interested in. I'll write more about the thoughts that went to that decision in another post...
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
About Biodiesel...
I've been reading a lot about Biodiesel lately in terms of an alternative energy source. It's attractive since it's a closed loop cycle type of fuel. Vegetable oil from plants like Rapeseed (Canola), Peanut, and Soybean can be converted into a fuel suitable for running in diesel engines. Rudolph Diesel, the German inventor of the engine, initially ran his engine on peanut oil in the very early 1900s. With the advent of cheap petroleum, diesel fuel extracted from crude oil was more cost effective to run in these engines.
You can read about the benefits of a diesel engine here.
Biodiesel seems to be gaining in popularity with the current rise in gasoline prices (As of today, crude oil goes for about US$120 per barrel). There seems to be a grassroots movement for home made biodiesel fuel, a Youtube search for biodiesel shows a lot of instructional videos on how to make it.
CBC Marketplace has a good article about the fuel. Canada Clean Fuels is a Canadian company that distributes biodiesel and their website has a lot of good information about the benefits and drawbacks of using the fuel. Other good resources can be found here, here, and here.
As I understand it the main benefits and drawbacks are as follows:
Benefits
Drawbacks
In a previous post about Tim Flannery, I mentioned a Canadian company called Dynamotive and their process for producing Bio-oil through pyrolysis. I started wondering if the Bio-oil could be used to make Biodiesel. That way the process has a double effect on removing CO2 from the atmosphere: carbon sequestration and reduced tailpipe emissions. Maybe that was their original intent with their business idea.
I also started thinking that a series hybrid vehicle with a small efficient diesel engine generator would be a relatively simple car to develop. This sort of solution has already been implemented for locomotive engines and buses (see here and here).
Maybe it's just a matter of time before this type of solution is implemented economically for passenger cars. I guess we just have to be a little more patient...
You can read about the benefits of a diesel engine here.
Biodiesel seems to be gaining in popularity with the current rise in gasoline prices (As of today, crude oil goes for about US$120 per barrel). There seems to be a grassroots movement for home made biodiesel fuel, a Youtube search for biodiesel shows a lot of instructional videos on how to make it.
CBC Marketplace has a good article about the fuel. Canada Clean Fuels is a Canadian company that distributes biodiesel and their website has a lot of good information about the benefits and drawbacks of using the fuel. Other good resources can be found here, here, and here.
As I understand it the main benefits and drawbacks are as follows:
Benefits
- The carbon contained within the fuel is extracted from the atmosphere by the plants harvested for the fuel. No carbon is transferred from underground storage (petroluem) to the atmosphere.
- Pure bisdiesel (B100) burned in a diesel engine has significantly lower CO2 emissions that current gasoline engines.
- Engines run with biodiesel run cleaner and more efficiently. They also last longer and require less maintenance than when run with petro-diesel. Biodiesel does not contain the substances that can gum up an engine.
- Lower cost fuel.
Drawbacks
- Increased NOx emissions. These can be offset with good catalytic converters.
- Poor cold weather performance. Biodiesel becomes very viscous and can freeze at the cold temperatures that Canada experiences in the winter. Blending biodiesel with petro-diesel can alleviate this problem.
- Large areas of agricultural land will need to be devoted to growing the plants needed for large scale fuel production.
- Not readily available at gas pumps
- There aren't a lot of passenger vehicles that have diesel engines. Volkswagen is at the forefront with the Turbo Diesel Injection engines (TDI)
In a previous post about Tim Flannery, I mentioned a Canadian company called Dynamotive and their process for producing Bio-oil through pyrolysis. I started wondering if the Bio-oil could be used to make Biodiesel. That way the process has a double effect on removing CO2 from the atmosphere: carbon sequestration and reduced tailpipe emissions. Maybe that was their original intent with their business idea.
I also started thinking that a series hybrid vehicle with a small efficient diesel engine generator would be a relatively simple car to develop. This sort of solution has already been implemented for locomotive engines and buses (see here and here).
Maybe it's just a matter of time before this type of solution is implemented economically for passenger cars. I guess we just have to be a little more patient...
More on politics...
Since I my last post was about politics and I criticized a website making fun of Stephane Dion, I figured it's only fair to post something from the other side...
I came across this site while searching for recent politics news:
www.gettingthejobdone.ca
While the site isn't as bad as the one mentioned in my previous post, it still lacks integrity and class. Considering that no one has taken credit for the site other than a link to an obscure email address, I can only assume that one of the opposition parties put it together.
If you are going to say something bad about someone and publish it online, have the courage to sign it and own up to it. It will be refreshing to get a sense of accountability and integrity from our political leaders...
I came across this site while searching for recent politics news:
www.gettingthejobdone.ca
While the site isn't as bad as the one mentioned in my previous post, it still lacks integrity and class. Considering that no one has taken credit for the site other than a link to an obscure email address, I can only assume that one of the opposition parties put it together.
If you are going to say something bad about someone and publish it online, have the courage to sign it and own up to it. It will be refreshing to get a sense of accountability and integrity from our political leaders...
Sunday, April 13, 2008
In bad taste...
I follow politics fairly closely and I've tried to avoid getting too political on this blog. I recently browsed through the website of the Conservative Party and found this:
notaleader.ca
I find this distasteful, lacking originality, and an example of poor leadership.
Devoting a whole website to criticize and make fun of a person is something that losers do. It also shows poor sportsmanship and lacks class.
Any monkey can criticize (I'm doing it right now). I don't understand how this sort of stuff attracts people to your point of view. Using the same bad picture for Stephane Dion over and over also shows laziness and a lack of creativity. The dog blog isn't even remotely funny.
I agree that Stephane Dion and the Liberal party have been disappointing thus far, but this sort of thing shouldn't be tolerated for very long. Trashing somebody else isn't good leadership. Coming up with a coherent and thoughtful vision for Canada's future and getting the voting public to buy into that vision is true leadership. So far, I don't see any of that in any of our political parties.
notaleader.ca
I find this distasteful, lacking originality, and an example of poor leadership.
Devoting a whole website to criticize and make fun of a person is something that losers do. It also shows poor sportsmanship and lacks class.
Any monkey can criticize (I'm doing it right now). I don't understand how this sort of stuff attracts people to your point of view. Using the same bad picture for Stephane Dion over and over also shows laziness and a lack of creativity. The dog blog isn't even remotely funny.
I agree that Stephane Dion and the Liberal party have been disappointing thus far, but this sort of thing shouldn't be tolerated for very long. Trashing somebody else isn't good leadership. Coming up with a coherent and thoughtful vision for Canada's future and getting the voting public to buy into that vision is true leadership. So far, I don't see any of that in any of our political parties.
Review: Tim Flannery in Toronto
Since I posted an ad about it here, I went to the Tim Flannery's lecture here in Toronto with a couple of friends. I read his book a while ago so I was looking forward to hearing him speak in person.
Bridget Stutchbury spoke first about how pesticides in South American countries affect the birds that migrate between North and South America. I have to admit that I didn't find her lecture all that interesting. It seemed like she wasn't used to speaking in public and was a little nervous. Focusing on such a small aspect of the overall environmental problem seems a little short-sighted to me. Helping South American farmers produce healthy and profitable crops without the use of costly pesticides is a solution that will save the birds as well as help poorer people prosper. Ms. Stutchbury didn't touch on that aspect other than saying that people should drink shade-grown coffee. It's a good idea, but it seems a little shallow to me.
The after effects of dinner and this first part of the lecture got me a little drowsy. By the time Mr. Flannery actually got up to speak I was ready for nap. I did get a little shut eye at the beginning of his lecture but kept listening to what he was saying. I woke up from my little power nap when he got to the pithy part of his lecture. He touched on a few interesting ideas:
Electric Cars
He noted an interesting project in Denmark regarding electric cars. It's something to keep an eye on to see if it really works or not. The cars being used seem to be production cars retrofitted with batteries and an electric motor. He mentioned the idea of a removable battery pack to work around the long charging time of the batteries and tax holidays for electric vehicles (no tax for a certain amount of time).
Carbon Sequestration via Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis is basically the process for making charcoal where organic matter is heated with the absence of oxygen. The particular application that Mr. Flannery talked about was regarding biochar. You can read more about it here and here. This is how I understand the process:
A Canadian company, Dynamotive, is involved in this process; although the focus seems to be the production of biofuels where the biochar is a waste product. I should also point out that hydrogen is one of the gases produced in the pyrolysis of organic matter. It could be siphoned off and used in a fuel cell to generate electricity for use in the pyrolysis process or for feeding the electricity grid.
Political Leadership
Mr. Flannery didn't have much good to say about the environmental policies of our current government. He criticized their approach in promoting emission intensity caps rather than overall emission caps (see here for a brief description of the difference). He mentioned that he was at the Bali conference but was more critical of the American efforts and didn't really touch on the performance of our current government. He went on to explain the political change in Australia and how the environment was a central theme to the election and played a part in defeating the government lead by John Howard (see here or here).
He also mentioned the political leadership in China where the government is starting to see the economic benefits of a more sustainable energy system using cleaner energy sources. He highlighted that China is on its way to developing auto emission standards that were stricter than the US CAFE standards. The potential implication is that cars made in China could be sold here in North America, but North American cars could not be sold in China simply because they wouldn't meet the Chinese emission standards. He also pointed out that the different levels of government there are starting to be measured by their societal and environmental performance along with their economic performance.
It's rare to hear praise for China these days, but as I mentioned in my review of the PBS E-squared series, once the Chinese political leadership decides to do something, they don't take very long to go about doing it.
not so great ideas...
Mr. Flannery briefly talked about a concept where some villagers in the Amazon belt could be paid for not developing their land as part of some sort of carbon credit trading system. I just don't see it happening. Basically, those villagers would end up getting paid for doing nothing...can't see many people agreeing to that.
Alberta Tar Sands
He confessed that he didn't know much about the topic. He did say that it didn't make much sense that we only pay around $1.10/litre for gasoline when it gets extracted from Alberta, trucked down to Texas, refined there, and then trucked back up here. He just said that if a free market approach was taken and subsidies for oil companies were removed, renewable energy sources would provide a very real and competitive alternative to fossil fuels.
The question period at the end of the lecture was interesting as well. Some of the members of the audience mentioned switching to Bullfrog Power for the electricity. Incidentally, my buddy Alex was there with me and he works for Bullfrog in business development.
Overall, the lecture was pretty good, well worth the $25 ticket price. Mr. Flannery's passion for the subject is easy to see. From my engineering perspective, the ideas he presented were intriguing and I started thinking about how they could be successfully implemented in practice. It'll be interesting how some of technologies develop and if they actually get adopted by governments and industries.
Bridget Stutchbury spoke first about how pesticides in South American countries affect the birds that migrate between North and South America. I have to admit that I didn't find her lecture all that interesting. It seemed like she wasn't used to speaking in public and was a little nervous. Focusing on such a small aspect of the overall environmental problem seems a little short-sighted to me. Helping South American farmers produce healthy and profitable crops without the use of costly pesticides is a solution that will save the birds as well as help poorer people prosper. Ms. Stutchbury didn't touch on that aspect other than saying that people should drink shade-grown coffee. It's a good idea, but it seems a little shallow to me.
The after effects of dinner and this first part of the lecture got me a little drowsy. By the time Mr. Flannery actually got up to speak I was ready for nap. I did get a little shut eye at the beginning of his lecture but kept listening to what he was saying. I woke up from my little power nap when he got to the pithy part of his lecture. He touched on a few interesting ideas:
Electric Cars
He noted an interesting project in Denmark regarding electric cars. It's something to keep an eye on to see if it really works or not. The cars being used seem to be production cars retrofitted with batteries and an electric motor. He mentioned the idea of a removable battery pack to work around the long charging time of the batteries and tax holidays for electric vehicles (no tax for a certain amount of time).
Carbon Sequestration via Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis is basically the process for making charcoal where organic matter is heated with the absence of oxygen. The particular application that Mr. Flannery talked about was regarding biochar. You can read more about it here and here. This is how I understand the process:
- Plants (agricultural crops) absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.
- The carbon is used up in the plants cells.
- Waste plant matter is then collected and put through pyrolysis.
- The resultant charcoal is then buried in the agricultural soil to help retain moisture and nutrients.
- The net result is that carbon is taken out of the atmosphere and put into the ground.
A Canadian company, Dynamotive, is involved in this process; although the focus seems to be the production of biofuels where the biochar is a waste product. I should also point out that hydrogen is one of the gases produced in the pyrolysis of organic matter. It could be siphoned off and used in a fuel cell to generate electricity for use in the pyrolysis process or for feeding the electricity grid.
Political Leadership
Mr. Flannery didn't have much good to say about the environmental policies of our current government. He criticized their approach in promoting emission intensity caps rather than overall emission caps (see here for a brief description of the difference). He mentioned that he was at the Bali conference but was more critical of the American efforts and didn't really touch on the performance of our current government. He went on to explain the political change in Australia and how the environment was a central theme to the election and played a part in defeating the government lead by John Howard (see here or here).
He also mentioned the political leadership in China where the government is starting to see the economic benefits of a more sustainable energy system using cleaner energy sources. He highlighted that China is on its way to developing auto emission standards that were stricter than the US CAFE standards. The potential implication is that cars made in China could be sold here in North America, but North American cars could not be sold in China simply because they wouldn't meet the Chinese emission standards. He also pointed out that the different levels of government there are starting to be measured by their societal and environmental performance along with their economic performance.
It's rare to hear praise for China these days, but as I mentioned in my review of the PBS E-squared series, once the Chinese political leadership decides to do something, they don't take very long to go about doing it.
not so great ideas...
Mr. Flannery briefly talked about a concept where some villagers in the Amazon belt could be paid for not developing their land as part of some sort of carbon credit trading system. I just don't see it happening. Basically, those villagers would end up getting paid for doing nothing...can't see many people agreeing to that.
Alberta Tar Sands
He confessed that he didn't know much about the topic. He did say that it didn't make much sense that we only pay around $1.10/litre for gasoline when it gets extracted from Alberta, trucked down to Texas, refined there, and then trucked back up here. He just said that if a free market approach was taken and subsidies for oil companies were removed, renewable energy sources would provide a very real and competitive alternative to fossil fuels.
The question period at the end of the lecture was interesting as well. Some of the members of the audience mentioned switching to Bullfrog Power for the electricity. Incidentally, my buddy Alex was there with me and he works for Bullfrog in business development.
Overall, the lecture was pretty good, well worth the $25 ticket price. Mr. Flannery's passion for the subject is easy to see. From my engineering perspective, the ideas he presented were intriguing and I started thinking about how they could be successfully implemented in practice. It'll be interesting how some of technologies develop and if they actually get adopted by governments and industries.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Linux Coolness
If you think Windows Vista or Mac OS X is cool, check this out. Considering that linux is free, it's pretty amazing compared to the other two operating systems.
It's not without problems though. The guy who made that video posted his Ubuntu 7.10 installation procedure for the Thinkpad R61.
Some vendors are starting to offer linux pre-installed on their hardware. I read somewhere recently that Lenovo will be offering them with Novell Suse Linux (don't remember where I read that though...). Dell now offers systems in Canada with Ubuntu already installed (They offered it in the US for a while now, but just recently made them available in Canada. Not sure why the delay...). System76 sells Ubuntu systems on what looks like Lenovo hardware...the laptops do anyway.
You can always buy an Apple machine and run Linux on it too.
It's not without problems though. The guy who made that video posted his Ubuntu 7.10 installation procedure for the Thinkpad R61.
Some vendors are starting to offer linux pre-installed on their hardware. I read somewhere recently that Lenovo will be offering them with Novell Suse Linux (don't remember where I read that though...). Dell now offers systems in Canada with Ubuntu already installed (They offered it in the US for a while now, but just recently made them available in Canada. Not sure why the delay...). System76 sells Ubuntu systems on what looks like Lenovo hardware...the laptops do anyway.
You can always buy an Apple machine and run Linux on it too.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tim Flannery in Toronto
Tim Flannery is the author of The Weather Makers. I read his book and wrote about it in an earlier post.
I got an email the about a lecture that he'll be doing here in Toronto next week at the Bloor Cinema (April 3rd, 7pm). I'll be checking it out with a couple of friends. Here are the details:
RSGC Guild Sponsored Speakers Series
A Focus on the Environment
Tim Flannery and Bridget Stutchbury
The Weathermakers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change
NSW AOTY Tim Flannery.jpg
Speaking at the Bloor Cinema ~ 506 Bloor Street
April 3rd, 2008
Doors open at 6:30 pm ~ Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
Followed by book signing ~ Books available for purchase
Tickets are $25
General Admission
Purchase tickets online at www.rsgc.on.ca
https://www.netdirectories.com/~rsgc/oler2.cgi?1054
World renown explorer, conservationist and writer-scientist, Tim Flannery has written many bestselling books, including The Future Eaters, The Eternal Frontier and of course the #1 international bestseller The Weather Makers. Tim Flannery was director of the South Australia Museum and professor at Harvard and the University of Adelaide. He was voted Australian of the year in 2006 and is now professor at Maquarie Universty. His new book, An Explorer's Notebook, Essays on Life, History and Climate, will publish in Canada Spring 2008.
Short-listed for the 2007 Governor General's award for non-fiction, Silence of the Songbirds follows birds on their 10,000-kilometer journey from Canada to South America, and charts the threats. Tim Flannery claims, "this book is a must-read for anyone whose heart has thrilled to the song of a bird." Author Bridget Stutchbury completed her PhD at Yale , was a fellow and research associate at the Smithsonian and is now an Associate Professor of Biology at York University.
I got an email the about a lecture that he'll be doing here in Toronto next week at the Bloor Cinema (April 3rd, 7pm). I'll be checking it out with a couple of friends. Here are the details:
RSGC Guild Sponsored Speakers Series
A Focus on the Environment
Tim Flannery and Bridget Stutchbury
The Weathermakers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change
NSW AOTY Tim Flannery.jpg
Speaking at the Bloor Cinema ~ 506 Bloor Street
April 3rd, 2008
Doors open at 6:30 pm ~ Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
Followed by book signing ~ Books available for purchase
Tickets are $25
General Admission
Purchase tickets online at www.rsgc.on.ca
https://www.netdirectories.com/~rsgc/oler2.cgi?1054
World renown explorer, conservationist and writer-scientist, Tim Flannery has written many bestselling books, including The Future Eaters, The Eternal Frontier and of course the #1 international bestseller The Weather Makers. Tim Flannery was director of the South Australia Museum and professor at Harvard and the University of Adelaide. He was voted Australian of the year in 2006 and is now professor at Maquarie Universty. His new book, An Explorer's Notebook, Essays on Life, History and Climate, will publish in Canada Spring 2008.
Short-listed for the 2007 Governor General's award for non-fiction, Silence of the Songbirds follows birds on their 10,000-kilometer journey from Canada to South America, and charts the threats. Tim Flannery claims, "this book is a must-read for anyone whose heart has thrilled to the song of a bird." Author Bridget Stutchbury completed her PhD at Yale , was a fellow and research associate at the Smithsonian and is now an Associate Professor of Biology at York University.
Book Review: The Assault On Reason, Al Gore
I initially found out about this book last year by reading an excerpt of the book on commondreams.org. The excerpt talked about a lot of issues that I was interested in regarding society and democracy. I even posted an entry here about it.
I got the book as a present this past Christmas and only got around to reading last week. Here's a list of the contents:
i. Introduction
1. The Politics of Fear
2. Blinding the Faithful
3. The Politics of Wealth
4. Convenient Untruths
5. The Assault on the Individual
6. National Insecurity
7. The Carbon Crisis
8. Democracy in the Balance
9. A Well-Connected Citizenry
10. The Rebirth of Democracy
The book starts out fairly well. In his introduction, Mr. Gore talks about different areas of the brain that are activated while one is reading versus the areas that are activated while one is watching tv. The main idea is that reading is an active process where the reader processes symbols on a page and mentally creates images and abstract concepts. Watching tv, on the other hand is a more passive activity and the brain activity is mostly focused around the visual centres. He doesn't get too technical, but manages to convey the message fairly well.
There are some unexpected nuggets of information here and there like how to hypnotize a chicken, but overall a lot of the content dealt with stuff that I already knew about. He mentions Edward Bernays and the BBC documentary "Why We Fight", topics that I wrote about in my previous post.
I found the middle sections of the book tiresome to read. It seemed like he was blaming everything that went wrong with America on Bush, Cheney, and their cohorts. I agree that it seems a little surreal that so many Americans were duped into agreeing to the Iraq war, but the blame doesn't entirely rest on Bush and company. In a democracy, the people rule. It's up to the citizenry to stay well informed and hold their elected officials accountable. The American citizens have to shoulder some of the blame for being so apathetic to what's happening to their government and country and buying into all the false information that was thrown at them (e.g. Saddam Hussein/ Al Qaeda link, Saddam Hussein playing a part in WTC bombings, WMDs in Iraq, unexpected levy collapse in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina, etc.). We have the same problem here in Canada, but the repercussions of the apathy of Canadian citizens don't have such a massive global effect.
In any case, Mr. Gore's book was long on blame and short on solutions. He tries to explain that the internet will be key in re-activating the populations' interest in their government, but doesn't really offer up any ideas on how exactly that could happen. He draws a parallel between the advent of the printing press and the current development of the internet in that almost anyone can publish something online at very little cost without having to pay huge sums of money for a national newspaper ad or a 30 second commercial. I understand that logic, but people surfing on the internet have to be interested in a topic before they can search for information about it. I think most people will be just as disinterested as they were before the internet, but instead of watching tv, they'll spend their time on facebook, youtube, and albinoblacksheep, among other places. (By the way, Mr. Gore sits on Apple's board of directors and is a senior advisor to Google).
I was hoping that Al Gore would have some brilliant insights into how people can combat the massive marketing and propaganda type campaigns being thrown at them, but the book didn't offer much in that area. So while I'm fairly disappointed with the book, I still recommend reading it. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from it and if Canadians are aware of how the current situation in Iraq came about, maybe that will help us gain some clarity on what exactly we are doing in Afghanistan.
I got the book as a present this past Christmas and only got around to reading last week. Here's a list of the contents:
i. Introduction
1. The Politics of Fear
2. Blinding the Faithful
3. The Politics of Wealth
4. Convenient Untruths
5. The Assault on the Individual
6. National Insecurity
7. The Carbon Crisis
8. Democracy in the Balance
9. A Well-Connected Citizenry
10. The Rebirth of Democracy
The book starts out fairly well. In his introduction, Mr. Gore talks about different areas of the brain that are activated while one is reading versus the areas that are activated while one is watching tv. The main idea is that reading is an active process where the reader processes symbols on a page and mentally creates images and abstract concepts. Watching tv, on the other hand is a more passive activity and the brain activity is mostly focused around the visual centres. He doesn't get too technical, but manages to convey the message fairly well.
There are some unexpected nuggets of information here and there like how to hypnotize a chicken, but overall a lot of the content dealt with stuff that I already knew about. He mentions Edward Bernays and the BBC documentary "Why We Fight", topics that I wrote about in my previous post.
I found the middle sections of the book tiresome to read. It seemed like he was blaming everything that went wrong with America on Bush, Cheney, and their cohorts. I agree that it seems a little surreal that so many Americans were duped into agreeing to the Iraq war, but the blame doesn't entirely rest on Bush and company. In a democracy, the people rule. It's up to the citizenry to stay well informed and hold their elected officials accountable. The American citizens have to shoulder some of the blame for being so apathetic to what's happening to their government and country and buying into all the false information that was thrown at them (e.g. Saddam Hussein/ Al Qaeda link, Saddam Hussein playing a part in WTC bombings, WMDs in Iraq, unexpected levy collapse in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina, etc.). We have the same problem here in Canada, but the repercussions of the apathy of Canadian citizens don't have such a massive global effect.
In any case, Mr. Gore's book was long on blame and short on solutions. He tries to explain that the internet will be key in re-activating the populations' interest in their government, but doesn't really offer up any ideas on how exactly that could happen. He draws a parallel between the advent of the printing press and the current development of the internet in that almost anyone can publish something online at very little cost without having to pay huge sums of money for a national newspaper ad or a 30 second commercial. I understand that logic, but people surfing on the internet have to be interested in a topic before they can search for information about it. I think most people will be just as disinterested as they were before the internet, but instead of watching tv, they'll spend their time on facebook, youtube, and albinoblacksheep, among other places. (By the way, Mr. Gore sits on Apple's board of directors and is a senior advisor to Google).
I was hoping that Al Gore would have some brilliant insights into how people can combat the massive marketing and propaganda type campaigns being thrown at them, but the book didn't offer much in that area. So while I'm fairly disappointed with the book, I still recommend reading it. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from it and if Canadians are aware of how the current situation in Iraq came about, maybe that will help us gain some clarity on what exactly we are doing in Afghanistan.
laptops of the future
I'm looking to get a laptop computer and I've been doing a ton of research about them lately. I'm not keen on buying a new laptop with Windows Vista on it. It seems like such a bloated OS to me with a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles. The cheap deals on some of the newer laptops are hard to beat though. I'd buy an apple macbook but they're too expensive for what you get. Nice machines but so what. Anyways, enough about that nerdy topic and onto some cool nerdy things.
I came across a computerworld article about laptops of the future. Not too distant future...more like 2015. They concept renderings look amazing. Not too rugged looking though, except maybe the solar powered one. Check them out for yourself.
I came across a computerworld article about laptops of the future. Not too distant future...more like 2015. They concept renderings look amazing. Not too rugged looking though, except maybe the solar powered one. Check them out for yourself.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Riding the Subway
Every time I ride the subway I see something that I'd like to take a picture of. I always wonder about how some people are going to react and most of the time don't bother taking a picture because I don't want to provoke a scene. I'll have to get over that feeling sometime. Here are a couple of pictures that I managed to take recently:
Interior Design Show
I checked out the Interior Design Show with a couple of friends just to see what it was about. One of my friends is really keen about the show and does some part time work designing rooms for people.
There were some neat ideas for condo living and some interesting artistic pieces. We got there fairly early in the morning and it didn't take long for the show to get really busy. With the real estate boom that we have here in Toronto, it's not surprising that there's a huge market for furnishings and other stuff for the home.
While there some really neat things there, I was floored by the pricing of the majority of items. It seems that there are a lot of people with a ton money to spend and no clue as to how what it takes to make furniture and how much it should cost. The markups on some pieces was insane. I did hear a few people asking about how some products were environmentally friendly or somehow green. One company said that they planted a tree for every furniture product that they sold. There were a bunch of companies with green sounding names like "Erth Coverings". Their main deal was that they sold natural products, but there was no mention of a closed system where they treat and recycle their waste water or if they have a solar panel bank supplementing their electricity usage. I mainly got the impression that consumers were more or less looking for an answer that said that the companies were environmentally friendly but rarely asked how.
There were some pretty neat items and some slick materials for countertops and tiling. Overall, though, I left there thinking that it would be a good idea to start a home decoration company with a truly green manufacturing cycle and some unique products...could make a lot of money. In any case, here are some of the more interesting pictures that I took:
(stuff made in China wouldn't cost a lot...these guys must have had a huge markup on their price!)
There were some neat ideas for condo living and some interesting artistic pieces. We got there fairly early in the morning and it didn't take long for the show to get really busy. With the real estate boom that we have here in Toronto, it's not surprising that there's a huge market for furnishings and other stuff for the home.
While there some really neat things there, I was floored by the pricing of the majority of items. It seems that there are a lot of people with a ton money to spend and no clue as to how what it takes to make furniture and how much it should cost. The markups on some pieces was insane. I did hear a few people asking about how some products were environmentally friendly or somehow green. One company said that they planted a tree for every furniture product that they sold. There were a bunch of companies with green sounding names like "Erth Coverings". Their main deal was that they sold natural products, but there was no mention of a closed system where they treat and recycle their waste water or if they have a solar panel bank supplementing their electricity usage. I mainly got the impression that consumers were more or less looking for an answer that said that the companies were environmentally friendly but rarely asked how.
There were some pretty neat items and some slick materials for countertops and tiling. Overall, though, I left there thinking that it would be a good idea to start a home decoration company with a truly green manufacturing cycle and some unique products...could make a lot of money. In any case, here are some of the more interesting pictures that I took:
(stuff made in China wouldn't cost a lot...these guys must have had a huge markup on their price!)
Toronto Autoshow
I went to the Toronto Autoshow with a group of my colleagues from work. Being an automotive company, they gave us free tickets and an afternoon off to go check it out. We walked around for about 5 hours looking at all the different cars. Being a hinge designer, I took the time to check out some of the ways that the different car makers design their hinges for the side doors, hatches, and hoods. It was interesting to see the various implementations, but I think most people wouldn't even notice.
There were some interesting concepts but, sadly, no electric cars. GM had their Chevy Volt car there, but it was pretty obvious that it's still in the early development stage. They had a cover hiding the interior of the car so you couldn't see the console or the controls. I suspect that the interior is largely unfinished and the cover was there to hide the ugly prototype functionality that they had in there. I'm not even sure if the car could be driven or not. Here are some pictures of it:
I recently read an article about how the GM head of product development believe that global warming is a farce so I really don't think that they're taking this car too seriously. I think it has more to do with marketing than anything else. I'll be surprised if it makes it to production by 2010.
There were some other interesting cars out there like this one:
We also checked out some of the products that our company makes like this step on the Ford F150 tailgate. Naturally, we had to stop and take a few pictures:
Describing the versatility of the MultiPole:
The Lamborghini exhibit showing the history of their line of cars was pretty cool. It was interesting how the styling has changed over the years. I managed to get this picture of one of their newer models:
There was also a neat little motorcycle section showing some slick Ducatis and other bikes:
I had a thought of having a small truck as my next vehicle so I decided to check out the Chevy S10. I stepped on the rail they had on the truck and felt it move. I took a closer look and found that it was loose and kept getting looser the more I put weight on it. I pointed it out to some of the guys...you show a bunch of engineers something and they jump on it like kids on a jungle gym. One of the GM show people came over and said that it was show quality rather than production quality. I thought it was ridiculous that they showed something that flimsy at the premiere Canadian autoshow. Here's a video showing how flimsy the thing was.
Overall, the show was pretty good, but after 5 hours of looking at cars I was beat and ready for some dinner.
There were some interesting concepts but, sadly, no electric cars. GM had their Chevy Volt car there, but it was pretty obvious that it's still in the early development stage. They had a cover hiding the interior of the car so you couldn't see the console or the controls. I suspect that the interior is largely unfinished and the cover was there to hide the ugly prototype functionality that they had in there. I'm not even sure if the car could be driven or not. Here are some pictures of it:
I recently read an article about how the GM head of product development believe that global warming is a farce so I really don't think that they're taking this car too seriously. I think it has more to do with marketing than anything else. I'll be surprised if it makes it to production by 2010.
There were some other interesting cars out there like this one:
We also checked out some of the products that our company makes like this step on the Ford F150 tailgate. Naturally, we had to stop and take a few pictures:
Describing the versatility of the MultiPole:
The Lamborghini exhibit showing the history of their line of cars was pretty cool. It was interesting how the styling has changed over the years. I managed to get this picture of one of their newer models:
There was also a neat little motorcycle section showing some slick Ducatis and other bikes:
I had a thought of having a small truck as my next vehicle so I decided to check out the Chevy S10. I stepped on the rail they had on the truck and felt it move. I took a closer look and found that it was loose and kept getting looser the more I put weight on it. I pointed it out to some of the guys...you show a bunch of engineers something and they jump on it like kids on a jungle gym. One of the GM show people came over and said that it was show quality rather than production quality. I thought it was ridiculous that they showed something that flimsy at the premiere Canadian autoshow. Here's a video showing how flimsy the thing was.
Overall, the show was pretty good, but after 5 hours of looking at cars I was beat and ready for some dinner.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Lens hack and the Toronto Zoo
Ever since reading an article about homemade tilt-shift lenses like this one, I've wanted to build one and try it out. I browsed through ebay for a while and eventually settled on a Xenar lens from an old Korelle SLR for about $75.
I kept my eye open for some sort of bellows and even researched building one. One day though, one of the guys at work had some rubber boots for car suspension struts lying around and he donated one to me. I found some time a couple weeks ago and hacked something together using electrical tape, cardboard, and the base of a busted teleconverter.
Here's what the monstrosity looks like:
I got a chance to try the thing out recently at the Toronto Zoo. Focusing was a little tricky and I was worried about it falling apart. It held up well with the snow and dampness. I used a roll of Kodak C-41 black and white film. The pictures turned out fairly nice for the most part. Here are some:
I really like this one though:
I really like the lens...there's some dirt in it too that adds to the antique soft focus look to the pictures. I used it again at the Toronto Autoshow last week too with a roll of colour film. I noticed that it started to fall apart after a while and probably let in some extra light so I don't know how well the pictures will turn out. In the meantime, I'll have to think of a more robust method of building the lens.
I kept my eye open for some sort of bellows and even researched building one. One day though, one of the guys at work had some rubber boots for car suspension struts lying around and he donated one to me. I found some time a couple weeks ago and hacked something together using electrical tape, cardboard, and the base of a busted teleconverter.
Here's what the monstrosity looks like:
I got a chance to try the thing out recently at the Toronto Zoo. Focusing was a little tricky and I was worried about it falling apart. It held up well with the snow and dampness. I used a roll of Kodak C-41 black and white film. The pictures turned out fairly nice for the most part. Here are some:
I really like this one though:
I really like the lens...there's some dirt in it too that adds to the antique soft focus look to the pictures. I used it again at the Toronto Autoshow last week too with a roll of colour film. I noticed that it started to fall apart after a while and probably let in some extra light so I don't know how well the pictures will turn out. In the meantime, I'll have to think of a more robust method of building the lens.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
PBS e2 Documentary Series
I caught an episode of the e2 (e squared) PBS documentary series one night and found it intriguing. That particular episode dealt with renewable energy and how it can be implemented in different ways. I kept an eye out for it for a while but never managed to see it again. So I decided to buy the DVDs from the PBS store as a Christmas present to myself.
I've been watching the series over the last few weeks and its a really good documentary series. The first two seasons have mainly dealt with architecture and how to design sustainable buildings. It's a little surprising, but it turns out that buildings account for about 48% of greenhouse gas emissions. There are some neat ideas presented in each episode about managing water and solar energy in buildings.
A whole episode is even devoted to renewable energy efforts in China. One vision they shared was about bringing agriculture into urban areas through the use of rooftop farming. China definitely has bad environmental image on top of a bad image in terms of human rights. Dirty smog-filled urban areas come to mind. Even with this image though, one architect made the point that once a totalitarian regime gets hold of the idea of relying less on fossil fuels and implements more sustainable energy systems, the whole country can be transformed very quickly. They even built a test building that implements numerous ideas for sustainable design that developers and architects can visit, learn about these ideas, and put experiments into place. It's not all pleasant though; there are some alarming numbers about rural to urban migration and coal consumption. It'd be interesting to see how China develops in this regard.
India, Tibet, and Columbia are mentioned in addition to American cities. No Canadian content so far. It seems that we're lagging behind in innovation in the area of sustainable development even though the environment gets a lot of air time on the news here and politicians seem to talk about it a lot.
The only downside is that each episode starts with an ad by Autodesk. They sponsored the series so I guess it's not a bad thing. You can always fast forward through them.
Anyways, the e2 website has previews of episodes and worth going through. It's a fairly new series so most libraries probably don't have it yet. I'm definitely going to pass my copies around, but the DVDs are not expensive and definitely worth the money.
I've been watching the series over the last few weeks and its a really good documentary series. The first two seasons have mainly dealt with architecture and how to design sustainable buildings. It's a little surprising, but it turns out that buildings account for about 48% of greenhouse gas emissions. There are some neat ideas presented in each episode about managing water and solar energy in buildings.
A whole episode is even devoted to renewable energy efforts in China. One vision they shared was about bringing agriculture into urban areas through the use of rooftop farming. China definitely has bad environmental image on top of a bad image in terms of human rights. Dirty smog-filled urban areas come to mind. Even with this image though, one architect made the point that once a totalitarian regime gets hold of the idea of relying less on fossil fuels and implements more sustainable energy systems, the whole country can be transformed very quickly. They even built a test building that implements numerous ideas for sustainable design that developers and architects can visit, learn about these ideas, and put experiments into place. It's not all pleasant though; there are some alarming numbers about rural to urban migration and coal consumption. It'd be interesting to see how China develops in this regard.
India, Tibet, and Columbia are mentioned in addition to American cities. No Canadian content so far. It seems that we're lagging behind in innovation in the area of sustainable development even though the environment gets a lot of air time on the news here and politicians seem to talk about it a lot.
The only downside is that each episode starts with an ad by Autodesk. They sponsored the series so I guess it's not a bad thing. You can always fast forward through them.
Anyways, the e2 website has previews of episodes and worth going through. It's a fairly new series so most libraries probably don't have it yet. I'm definitely going to pass my copies around, but the DVDs are not expensive and definitely worth the money.
No Ads
I checked the Google Adsense account for this blog and found that no one had even clicked on anything...ever. I decided to remove the feature; thought it was a bit of an eyesore anyways.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Booo! on Flickr
I tried showing someone at work some pictures from my travels only to find out that Flickr would only show the latest 200 or so pictures unless I signed for an account with a fee of around $25 per year. When I transfered my pictures from Yahoo!Photos to Flickr, they didn't mention this deal.
I'm a little miffed about it. In know it's not a lot of money, but I'd rather pay for online hosting and setup my own web gallery. Time to do it is the primary issue.
In the meantime though, you can see some of the pictures in this blog here (a lot of the photos from India were not included for some reason). I also replaced the link to my Flickr photos with the same link.
In the meantime, I should slowly start on the web albums...
I'm a little miffed about it. In know it's not a lot of money, but I'd rather pay for online hosting and setup my own web gallery. Time to do it is the primary issue.
In the meantime though, you can see some of the pictures in this blog here (a lot of the photos from India were not included for some reason). I also replaced the link to my Flickr photos with the same link.
In the meantime, I should slowly start on the web albums...
Book Review: The Unexpected War, Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang
In the fall, I read "The Unexpected War, Canada in Afghanistan", written by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang. I'm not sure but I think Mr. Lang is a journalist who writes for the Globe and Mail. Ms. Stein regularly appears on tvo on The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Mr. Painkin's show is excellent and really worth watching if you want to know more about the world and the major events that happen in it).
When this book was published, it got a lot of coverage on the news. It got a lot of fanfare and some good reviews. The authors were interviewed on the different news networks. I'd been following the news about Afghanistan and its effect on our Canadian politics so I was curious about the book and decided to read it.
The book is a story on how Canada got involved in Afghanistan. The authors interviewed the principal people involved in the decision to go there from the politicians to the military personnel and even former prime minister Paul Martin. .
The story has some surprises. In 2003, when the US was getting ready to invade Iraq, a lot of Canadians (including me) were proud that our government made the decision not to go along and be part of the invasion force. It turns out that the American military didn't really want or need us to help in a military way, but rather was looking more for public moral support and help in convincing other countries to join. Apparently they didn't think our military capability was sufficient enough be much good to them. Other surprises in the story regard the way the decisions regarding Canada's presence in Afghanistan were made.
When Jean Chretien did not play along and declared that Canada would not be joining the invasion force, there was a lot hand wringing in the military and political circles around Ottawa that relations with the US were being damaged and we would suffer economic and political consequences. The book argues, with some interesting quotes, that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily a way to placate the US and show that we support them in their response to the airplane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
The big surprise to me was that, according to the authors, the decision was made to go to Afghanistan without knowing anything about the country or it's people, an idea of the exact role that we would play, nor the real military capability to be effective in that area.
The initial strategy was "early in, early out"; meaning that Canada would be part of the initial push to set up in Afghanistan but would rotate out after a year or two. A fairly short term commitment, but politically beneficial for relations with the US. This is very far from the current idea of a brave noble mission to bring peace and democracy to a people ravaged by 30 years of war and oppression by a militant group of fundamentalist muslims. The book paints a picture of an exclusively European effort in a more peaceful region in northern Afghanistan telling the Canadian group to find their own mission somewhere else. It seems that there were no plans at the time for the Kandahar region so that's where our military and political people decided that Canada would play a lead role. That decision was made before anyone from the government or military had even visited Afghanistan !
An interesting chapter in the book is titled "We Don't Know Anything About This Country" in which the authors briefly explain the history of Afghanistan and describe some of the tribal relationships in the area. They also used this chapter to illustrate that the decision to go to Afghanistan had more to do with make people in Washington happy than helping poor impoverished Afghanis.
There are some interesting side stories. I've always thought highly of Bill Graham and the book shows that he was an excellent foreign minister. You wouldn't know it by watching news clips of him, but the story also describes John McCallum as an excellent defense minister. General Rick Hillier also gets a good mention.
Overall, I found the book to be a good read. It helps that I'm interested in the topic anyway, but I think that anyone with the slightest interest in Canada's role in Afghanistan would find the book interesting. I also think that the topic of Afghanistan will play a major part in the looming federal election. Given that, I think that the general Canadian public should be aware of how we got to Afghanistan, what exactly we went there to do, and how that differs from what we are doing there now. Reading this book is one way of gaining this awareness.
Highly recommended reading.
When this book was published, it got a lot of coverage on the news. It got a lot of fanfare and some good reviews. The authors were interviewed on the different news networks. I'd been following the news about Afghanistan and its effect on our Canadian politics so I was curious about the book and decided to read it.
The book is a story on how Canada got involved in Afghanistan. The authors interviewed the principal people involved in the decision to go there from the politicians to the military personnel and even former prime minister Paul Martin. .
The story has some surprises. In 2003, when the US was getting ready to invade Iraq, a lot of Canadians (including me) were proud that our government made the decision not to go along and be part of the invasion force. It turns out that the American military didn't really want or need us to help in a military way, but rather was looking more for public moral support and help in convincing other countries to join. Apparently they didn't think our military capability was sufficient enough be much good to them. Other surprises in the story regard the way the decisions regarding Canada's presence in Afghanistan were made.
When Jean Chretien did not play along and declared that Canada would not be joining the invasion force, there was a lot hand wringing in the military and political circles around Ottawa that relations with the US were being damaged and we would suffer economic and political consequences. The book argues, with some interesting quotes, that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily a way to placate the US and show that we support them in their response to the airplane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
The big surprise to me was that, according to the authors, the decision was made to go to Afghanistan without knowing anything about the country or it's people, an idea of the exact role that we would play, nor the real military capability to be effective in that area.
The initial strategy was "early in, early out"; meaning that Canada would be part of the initial push to set up in Afghanistan but would rotate out after a year or two. A fairly short term commitment, but politically beneficial for relations with the US. This is very far from the current idea of a brave noble mission to bring peace and democracy to a people ravaged by 30 years of war and oppression by a militant group of fundamentalist muslims. The book paints a picture of an exclusively European effort in a more peaceful region in northern Afghanistan telling the Canadian group to find their own mission somewhere else. It seems that there were no plans at the time for the Kandahar region so that's where our military and political people decided that Canada would play a lead role. That decision was made before anyone from the government or military had even visited Afghanistan !
An interesting chapter in the book is titled "We Don't Know Anything About This Country" in which the authors briefly explain the history of Afghanistan and describe some of the tribal relationships in the area. They also used this chapter to illustrate that the decision to go to Afghanistan had more to do with make people in Washington happy than helping poor impoverished Afghanis.
There are some interesting side stories. I've always thought highly of Bill Graham and the book shows that he was an excellent foreign minister. You wouldn't know it by watching news clips of him, but the story also describes John McCallum as an excellent defense minister. General Rick Hillier also gets a good mention.
Overall, I found the book to be a good read. It helps that I'm interested in the topic anyway, but I think that anyone with the slightest interest in Canada's role in Afghanistan would find the book interesting. I also think that the topic of Afghanistan will play a major part in the looming federal election. Given that, I think that the general Canadian public should be aware of how we got to Afghanistan, what exactly we went there to do, and how that differs from what we are doing there now. Reading this book is one way of gaining this awareness.
Highly recommended reading.
Neglected Blog...
I've been meaning to post something on here for a while but haven't gotten around to it until now. I've been busy with work on a project for Chrysler and a lot of work needed to be finished before Christmas.
I thought I'd have time to sit down and write something over the Christmas break, but I was too busy eating cookies and watching tv...the couch had a deathgrip on my butt too.
I've got a bunch of thoughts and ideas that I'd like to put here, so I'll try to make habit of posting regularly on here this year.
I thought I'd have time to sit down and write something over the Christmas break, but I was too busy eating cookies and watching tv...the couch had a deathgrip on my butt too.
I've got a bunch of thoughts and ideas that I'd like to put here, so I'll try to make habit of posting regularly on here this year.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Buggin'
A bug got caught in one of my lamps the other night. It seemed like it was on its last legs and wanted a warm spot to stay in. It caught my attention while I was watching Spiderman 3, funny enough. So I decided to pause the movie and take some close up pictures. It stayed still for the most part, but started buzzing and flying when I got too close with the lens. It's a little startling when you're looking at a bug up close. It's a harmless insect but still freaky. Here are some of the pics...I think the eyes are the freakiest part:
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
It's been a while...
I've been pretty busy over the last few weeks and haven't really had anything to write about so this blog's been neglected for about a month.
The weather's just starting to turn cold after a balmy Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian thanksgiving weekend is in October). So I may have more time to ponder stuff and write about it.
My photography hobby is pretty much at a standstill. I haven't explored Toronto nearly as much as I would have liked to, but hopefully the pace will slow down a bit soon. I did manage to capture some good moments of our thanksgiving dinner in Fort Erie like this stitched panorama:
It's a good one of the after dinner mood. My brother made it in from Vancouver, my aunt from Florida, and my uncle and his family from Toronto. It was a good time and I think everyone thought so too. Good memories, hopefully we'll have more family members join us in the coming years.
The weather's just starting to turn cold after a balmy Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian thanksgiving weekend is in October). So I may have more time to ponder stuff and write about it.
My photography hobby is pretty much at a standstill. I haven't explored Toronto nearly as much as I would have liked to, but hopefully the pace will slow down a bit soon. I did manage to capture some good moments of our thanksgiving dinner in Fort Erie like this stitched panorama:
It's a good one of the after dinner mood. My brother made it in from Vancouver, my aunt from Florida, and my uncle and his family from Toronto. It was a good time and I think everyone thought so too. Good memories, hopefully we'll have more family members join us in the coming years.
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