Posts in category "Photos"

The Keys To The House

Thumbnail: Keys to my house

The trans­fer of keys is the very last step in buy­ing a house. Aside from all the steps involved in actu­al­ly pur­chas­ing one, to get a set of keys means the com­ple­tion of many things. A con­sol­i­da­tion of one’s funds (deposit­ed in trust, post­ed on file, ver­i­fied by accoun­tants). The pay­ment of all par­ties involved (lawyer for legal fees, gov­ern­ment for land trans­fer tax, insur­ance com­pa­ny for title insur­ance, as well as the sell­er for the full amount of the house). A record in the munic­i­pal min­istry of the trans­fer own­er­ship (once the lawyers of both par­ties involved have paid for an exe­cu­tion clear­ance cer­tifi­cate).

The keys sig­ni­fy that the deal has been closed, and noth­ing has gone wrong between the time of pur­chase and the day of trans­fer. Usually, I wor­ry about things going wrong, even when there’s only a mar­gin­al chance, and I have a com­plete under­stand­ing of this fact. When some­one shakes my hand after an inter­view to con­grat­u­late me on get­ting the job, I’ll wor­ry for days, right up until I get my name on the con­tract. This was no excep­tion. Anything could go wrong — sell­er chang­ing his mind, hid­den law­suits or liens, or even a fail­ing of the final inspec­tion — from the day I made the bid to the last min­utes of the clos­ing date.

Yesterday, I walked into my lawyers office. I car­ried with me a cer­ti­fied cheque that was most­ly my down­pay­ment, but also includ­ed his fees and tax­es (I’m for­tu­nate enough to not have go into my line of cred­it to pay for the lat­ter two). I signed sev­er­al doc­u­ments, received my sta­tus cer­tifi­cate and con­do papers, as well as oth­er let­ters of con­fir­ma­tion.

Today I picked up my keys, and now I own a house.

Fatness In Stereo

Thumbnail: Large Dolly in stereo

I’ve tried many times to cap­ture the actu­al size of Dolly’s cur­rent girth, but the cam­era does­n’t real­ly do a good job of it. I fig­ured that the only way to accu­rate­ly show how large she’s got­ten is with stereo­scop­ic images. That way, one can actu­al­ly tell how much Dolly is com­ing off the couch with a bit of depth per­cep­tion. It’s nev­er easy to take stereo­scop­ic pic­tures of a cat. Usually they’ll move or twitch when the alter­nat­ing pho­to is being tak­en, so it almost always has to be done while they’re asleep. Even a twitch of the cam­era strap, or a shuf­fling of feet will be enough to pique the curios­i­ty of a cat

Dolly’s head looks small in com­par­i­son to the rest of her body, but her head is actu­al­ly nor­mal for a cat her age, and it’s her pot bel­ly that’s grown out of pro­por­tion. Every time some­one comes over, I usu­al­ly get a com­ment on how much she’s grown. Outward.

Heavy Snowfall Warning

Winter view from my apartment

A strong Alberta clip­per will track south­east over south­ern Ontario today into upstate New York tonight. Snow heavy at times has spread right across the Ottawa Valley into Québec and will con­tin­ue through­out the day.

Snowfall rates have often been 2 to 4 cm per hour with this very strong clip­per.

Freezing rain and ice pel­lets have moved into the St Lawrence Valley area east of Brockville late this after­noon. A sharp Arctic cold front will blast through the regions this evening as the clip­per sails into north­ern New York state. Temperatures will plunge up to 10 degrees to well below freez­ing with­in the first hour after the front goes through. As a result: rain in the regions east of Lake Huron and south­east of Georgian Bay will change sud­den­ly over to snow or flur­ries with untreat­ed sur­faces quick­ly becom­ing icy and very slip­pery.

Elsewhere the snow and freez­ing rain will pull out of the regions this evening as the clip­per and sharp Arctic cold front moves into north­ern New England and south­ern Québec. Snowfall amounts of 15 to 20 cm are like­ly in the snowsqualls along with white­out con­di­tions from blow­ing snow.

Dangerous trav­el­ling con­di­tions are expect­ed due to very low to at times nil vis­i­bil­i­ty in heavy snow blow­ing snow and icy con­di­tions. All trav­ellers should exer­cise extreme cau­tion and adjust plans accord­ing­ly.

My most vivid mem­o­ries of the spring are from high school. About a month before exams began, every guy would start spend­ing a min­i­mum of thir­ty min­utes look­ing out the win­dow every day. On the south­ern side of the main build­ing would be a small foot­ball field, and two soc­cer fields, as well as the ten­nis courts, hock­ey rink, and large swim­ming pool. Three more fields used for var­i­ous oth­er sports, such as lacrosse, crick­et, and field hock­ey, could be seen on the west­ern side. At the north was the base­ball dia­mond, as well as the small pool, and more ten­nis courts. The main gates of the school prop­er­ty, what many con­sid­ered a tri­umphant walk away from the main build­ing after a day with no spares, was at the east.

What male teenag­er would be think­ing about any­thing but run­ning through the wood­en halls, throw­ing off their tie, and rolling in the lus­cious­ly green, well-man­i­cured grass? In a school with a lack of females, no less. Add to the fact that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of alum­ni pride is put into a well-fund­ed sports pro­gramme, and the result was class­es of boys bot­tling testos­terone, encour­aged by teacher and coach alike to be released in the form of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. (I find sports metephors very use­ful for mak­ing veiled sex­u­al ref­er­ences.)

I could see it in every one of them, how dif­fi­cult it would become to con­cen­trate in class, instead of imag­in­ing how the hours after school were to be spent. But it was nev­er like that for me. While every­one else was wait­ing for the fields to thaw, I’d be wait­ing for the snow the fall. It’s days like these that make it hard for me to con­cen­trate.

All I want to do is stay at home wrapped in a blan­ket, watch the snow col­lect, and write.

Paint Chips

Paint chips 1

Paint chips 2

Paint chips 3

Trolley and I went to get some paint chips. It was­n’t too long since my last ses­sion before we left. In the store I was sur­round­ed by colour, a pedestal of float­ing gra­di­ents.

We move in a lit­tle over a month. I think I’ll do my room in a dark blue, and two walls of the liv­ing room in light beige. Trolley’s think­ing either light grey or deep red for his.

Winter City Nights

The back of Social

A shot of the rear entrance of Social, a restau­rant I’ve only dined in once, but have passed by, wish­ing I was inside, many times. I like how the mood in the shot is warm, against the implied cold from the Christmas lights. One could sit here at any time of year and soak up the seren­i­ty, where a song by Sigur Rós (at night, when it’s com­fort­ably crowd­ed) is as rel­e­vant as a song by Edith Piaff (par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fall, when the skies are grey) is as rel­e­vant as a song by Iron And Wine (dur­ing the ear­ly days of sum­mer, when it’s still cool in the evening).