Saturday, October 3, 2009

DAY 25 - Sat Oct 3 2009

A few years ago decided to disguise the pipe and tap coming up out of the ground at the far end of the yard. I got the idea from something similar that I saw while living/working in Japan.


DAY 24 - Fri Oct 2 2009







Red light in the pouring rain.


DAY 23 - Thurs Oct 1 2009


I'm glad that I work right in the city. One of my favortie places to go is to the waterfront.

I have been experimenting a bit with HDR photography and this is the result on my photo of the day.
HDR - High Dynamic Range.


DAY 22 - Wed Sept 30 2009


On my way to look at a possible car to buy. There are not a lot of these particular models around so I had to travel about 45 minutes out of the city to a place called Cayuga. This is a farm I passed along the way.

DAY 21 - Tues Sept 29 2009



A small town just outside the city that is growing quite rapidly. My guess, it will eventually be part of Hamilton as they grow toward each other.

DAY 20 - Mon Sept 28 2009


I stopped in to visit my father in law after work today. He is entertained on a daily basis by the neighbors cat play chasing the squirrels that he feeds outside his door.

A snapshot a day....


I promise, I have been taking my camera with me everywhere I go since my decision to do 365 days of photos. I have been taking photographs every day but it takes me a few days before I find the time to post them up on my blog. Please be patient with me. Most shots are right out of the camera, but the odd one might need a bit of cropping, afterall some are taken from a moving vehicle or at least while I'm stopped at a light. It's not like I can just move over a few feet to get the shot I really want.
Life......
I guess I should be thankful I still have a job as the employment in my area is quite bleak at the moment. Our department at work saw a reduction from over 20 employees to just 6 of us trying to stay afloat. In the last 3 weeks or so we have gone from no work to more jobs than we have people! The biggest problem is that all of them are small contracts, and all have to be completed by mid November. So no more Fridays off. I found that by having this extra day off on a weekday was so helpful. Life has a way of speeding up more as each decade passes us by.


My car.....
I must start by saying that my licence plate has more rust on it than my car. I named my Mazda MX3 Pepe when I brought him home 14 years ago. I know, cars are supposed to have female names right? I figured that was something held over from the old days when women didn't drive cars, so I am trying to change that one car at a time. Pepe replaced my demon car, a 1985 charcoal grey turbo coupe Ford Thunderbird in 1995. I'm mentioning my old car as someday I should write about some of the unbelievable stories that happened while owning him. Up until now I have not wanted to as I'm afraid it could turn into a book, seriously.

So Pepe has been a faithful little car since day one, a couple of hiccups along the way but nothing serious other than regular maintenance type repairs.

A new exhaust at 3 years old that was more my fault. I got a contract to work in Japan for 6 months with only 3 days notice to get my affairs in order and leave. So I parked Pepe in the garage and left. Almost as soon as I started him up 6 months later the exhaust blew. I was told it was because of the moisture laying on the bottom (inside) that had 6 months to chew away at the metal. I should have known better, growing up with 2 car buff brothers. So off to the Dealer I went. I didn't know about these louder after market exhausts that were all the rage with the kids at the time. It must have started while I was out of the country. So the kid working on my car says to me" hey do you want us to put this blah...blah... exhaust on your car for the same price? It will look so sick" I should have had an alarm go off in my brain when someone refers to something good as "sick" So I drive off with my new exhaust system and I'm thinking that it sounds rather loud compared to what I remembered my car to sound. When I got home I called my man and mentioned that it seemed louder than what I thought to remember. He assured me that yes , after market exhausts are a tad bit louder. Well when he came by later and saw the two fat shiny pipes sticking out from under the bumper he started to chuckle. I asked him what was so funny about a muffler and he proceeded to explain to me that all the young kids were putting these "chimney pipes" on their cars and yes they are loud. Everyone still mentions that they can hear me coming from a distance because of the low rumble of thunder they hear in the distance as Pepe gets closer. All I can say is one muffler and pipes in 14 years is still pretty darned great!
The year before last the battery finally died. Yes folks the original battery died at over 12 years old. I can't count how many guys told me that batteries don't last 12 years. Well folks mine did, so there!

The last couple of months Pepe has finally started to get hardening of the arteries... in car speak....wiring problems. Ok now this is a biggy because the battery is fine and we changed the alternator just in case. We checked all the grounds and cleaned & tightened everything in sight. I can drive along for days and everything seems fine and then it starts. The radio will sputter & cut out, so I turn it off. Then all the needles on my gauges start jumping up and down and then the battery light comes on. At this point I know now to be pulled off the road and parked in a spot where I can easily get a boost. I have been driving around with a voltage tester so I can check to see what it has dropped to. (not that it matteres at this point)

So to make a really long story shorter, we can't seem to resolve the problem, so I have been car shopping online as well as test driving some newer cars. I just can't decide what to buy, although I am really leaning toward another Mazda. I have always loved he RX8 but.... everyone keeps chiming....it has a rotary engine.


And your point is.................

Sunday, September 27, 2009

DAY 19 - Sun Sept 27 2009


Beauty in my own backyard.

DAY 18 - Sat Sept 26 2009


Today was a boring rainy day and I still have no wheels....
I cleaned Cheetah's ears and then he decided that he should keep the cotton swab and snatched it from me.
Me being the bigger cat... I got it back from him no problem, before he got a chance to tear it to shreds.

DAY 17 - Fri Sept 25 2009


A shot of the railway tracks right beside my office. I'm walking today since my car has decided it does not like to go to work on Fridays.