LIGHT IN THE LEAVES

After I brought the children back from school we went out into the garden.  Iain was working on his joinery bench.  I sat on the wall with a cup of tea ... then went back inside for my camera in order to catch the light (3:30 pm) shining through the lime tree leaves.

Ishie and Alastair run around outside (which certainly saves on the clearing up inside!)

A IS FOR ARCHITECT

We had the 2 children for a "sleep-over" last night.  Now 5 and 4 years old they are very good about getting ready for bed, teeth brushing etc.

Mairi brought us a pumpkin last week so today we had a go at cleaning it out and making a face, i.e. a face on one side for Ishie and a face on the other for Alastair.  Iain pointed out that it is always a good idea to do a drawing of what you plan for the final construction.  So here they are sketching out a smile.

We were very impressed with Alastair's fine motor movement now: he holds a pen or pencil very well and executes his first letters he is being taught very neatly with even spaces in-between.

 Ishie helped me make soup in the pressure cooker.  When I asked her to toss in some chopped vegetables while she was stirring the pot she pointed out that she couldn't do the 2 things at once.  There began her first lesson in life!  ""Ishie" I said, "when someone asks you to do too many things at once you simply say to them 'I only have 2 hands' !"

She made us laugh, later, when we were discussing the pros and cons of what to do about a Christmas card this year.  From the floor where she was drawing she pipes up "Now you two are simply going to have to work out how you are going to do this together" (or words to that effect)!!

Lastly, I thought I would share this photo of Alastair's drawing of a pumpkin.  "Alastair, aged 4 years 8 months".   I was greatly struck at the very symmetrical circle he drew!  I wonder if we have an architect-in-the-making here?!!!

SKULL WINE

When Mairi came back from Vancouver she brought back with her a bottle of wine from a box that I purchased last Christmas for Alastair and Dawn.  I got it in the only place you can buy wine: the BC Liquor Store in Oakridge Mall.

I recall buying it for the label ... sure ... the wine is going to be good because it is an Australian Shiraz 2008.   It is from South Eastern Australia (is from 20-60 year old Barossa vines and raised in American oak) and produced and bottled by R Wines. 

At lunch on Sunday it was John who pointed out to me the intriguing artwork.  Yes, I had been attracted to it, enough to purchase the bottle, but I did not notice the Escher-esque figure in the drawing.  The original artwork is an illustration by the Hungarian graphic designer Istvan Orosz entitled Ship of Fools.   When I look at it I see a MacBeth-like country setting with a boat hanging from a tree and some kind of figure caught up in the vines of the tree.

Look again..... and you see a skull!

 

Using Photoshop on the digital image I shaded out the bits to show what I mean.  It is what is called "An anamorphic image".  There is a lot of information on this and other forms of mathematical art on this website  here.

iDESPAIR

Technology is fine as long as it works.  The trouble is than when software is updated, usually automatically, things are not only changed around (which I find as I get older, more bothersome) but often simply do not work.

For example, I have a wonderful iPhone which does 101 things which I absolutely love.  But recent updates on the phone ... or maybe the Mac computer... or both ... left me in a situation where the iPhone was not syncronizing with the computer.  This showed up when I tried to download photos from the iPhone to the computer.  (I know it's a phone but I use it as a mini-computer/camera most of the time.)

So ... how do you sort this out? Basically, you have to "google" and fine out what others are doing about it.  And, yes, lots of people are having the same trouble - reassuring.

I spent hours and hours trying first one thing then another, always keeping in mind to change one variable at a time.

Alastair helped me on Skype to guide me to reinstall iTunes as this seemed to be the source of the problem.  Wrong.

I finally cracked it!

So ... the problem:  unable to synchronize my iPhone 4S (May 2012) with iOS 6.0 with Mac 10.7.5. Helpful search sites related to: "device not showing up in iTunes" or "Mac 10.7.5  not recognizing iPhone".

The answer: Reset the iPhone.  (You do that by holding the sleep/wake button at the top right of the device and the home button at the bottom center of the face at the same time.  Hold them both until you see the screen go black. In some cases, you may need to keep holding them even after the red power off slider appears. If it does, just keep holding it. Wait until the white Apple logo appears.)

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Photo of man and canoe:  I took that at Kip Marina, at the edge of the car park, this week.Both figures are of wood with a laminated glass-fibre finish on the boat.  Don't know sculptor.  The iPhone in his hand was made with the aid of Photoshop.