nonamedufus

There was a time when I really enjoyed bicycling. I'd bike for hours following the bicycle paths throughout our region. But those days are gone and I kind if miss it. I'm not giving you the gears. Lest you think I mis-spoke, I wouldn't do that. However, given my health these days I'd probably tire just biking around the block. And I'd be so thirsty I'd never be able to pedal past the pub. After all, I know how to handle bars. Get a grip. I'm just kidding. I wouldn't wheelie stop at the pub. When I bike I carry an edge tool with me. Seems odd I know but you can never be too sure when an axle come in handy. This post has kinda run out of puns, hasn't it? I guess we've sort of derailed here. Oh, well. It would't be the first time I've back-pedalled.

After having read 9 books in August I slipped somewhat to 7 in September taking me to a total of 85 books I've read this year. I started the month completing Margaret Atwood's so-called dystopian trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake and ended with MaddAddam. I must say I enjoyed these books and was pleasantly surprised by this futuristic tale from Atwood, not having read her before. I then read Nina Simone's autobiography. I have several of her CDs and a concert I watched on TV moved me to go searching for more about her. She was truly an amazing woman. Not just in the sense of a great musician and singer but also as an active participant in the human rights movement in the States. This was a short but interesting read. Apart from the short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - yes, on which the movie with Brad Pitt was based - I fell into a Kurt Wallander jag. Wallander is the protagonist of the police detective novels by Swedish writer Henning Mankell an...

I live in Aylmer, Quebec across the river from Canada's capital, Ottawa. Here, the temperature's starting to drop, the leaves are starting to turn. All in all a magnificent backdrop to P.J.'s monthly photo challenge for September, with the appropriate prompt of "outdoors". The first two pics, this month, are from my backyard where fall is taking hold. I'm not sure what the flowers are in the second picture but the bees love it. The third pic is of the street I live on. This was a couple of weeks ago as the leaves just started to turn. The fourth pic is one I took in conjunction with the just completed 30 Days of Photos Challenge. It's a local bridge, over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, where lovers attach padlocks to demonstrate their love for one another. Great idea, eh? The last picture is of gardens in a park where, in the spring, the beds are full of tulips. It's a beautiful, magical place even in the fall. Drop ...

Yeah, yeah, 2 posts in one day. On some days it was hard enough just to come up with one. But this was what first hit me when I saw today's prompt, and I couldn't let it go because no one else did it. This song and video are from 1967. Some of you may not even have been born then. The rest of you might enjoy this blast from the past. I dedicate this to all the participants. Because, for 30 days,  we were all so happy together. Keep rockin' you guys.

'Nuff said. Bob on over to Ziva's hot spot and see what others said.

This is the same park where I found The Man With Two Hats for my photo on Day 18. It's near Dow's Lake and in the spring is full of gorgeous tulips from one end to the other. But the tulips are long gone in the fall. Nevertheless the gardens are full of gorgeous flowers. In the centre of the park is this circle garden. Hey it's round. I took the picture. I met the prompt. Now leaf me alone. Don't walk around in circles like I did. Take a straight line over to Ziva's garden and see what everyone else planted today.

In Ottawa, the Corktown pedestrian bridge spans the Rideau Canal linking the city's Somerset Street with Ottawa University. Since it's completion in September of 2006, the bridge has become famous worldwide. Why? Local lovers have taken to demonstrate their love for one another by attaching padlocks to the bridge. Some couples use a Sharpie to identify their locks. Others have gone so far as to have their locks engraved. Talk about having a lock on someone's heart. Click through to Ziva's blog and share the love.

North, South, East, West. The four corners of the world. The four points of a compass. The four directions of a weather vane. Oddly enough it has nothing to do with N.E.W.S. And I always thought it did. I could have sworn seeing a newscast when I was a kid with an opening with the letters N E W S spinning out from behind a rotating globe. I went to You Tube to see if I could find it but alas I couldn't. What I did find was a short clip from one of my favourite movies, Network... Yeah that's exactly how I felt not being able to find the clip. Anyhoo. Turns out news is a 14th century word that is merely the plural of "new". Oh well at least I covered all the bases with my picture. It's a shot  of the Market Media Mall, a building in the local Byward Market that houses several TV and radio outlets. Above the building is a broadcasting tower and at the very tip is a weather vane. So whether it's NEWS or NSEW, I've got it! ...

This is the view from my room in the Hull Hospital Emergency ward where I spent a little over 12 hours earlier this week. (See my feet?) You see my blood sugar was rising so high at dinner time the read out I was getting on my doo-flicky wasn't even a number. All it said was "Hi". So after a consultation with my pharmacist it was off to Emergency about 8:30 Monday evening. 12 and a half hours and 30 units of insulin later they let me go. Not a moment too soon. Why do they call it emergency? That word to me conjures up something a little quicker. They should call it something like Emergency, Not. Needless to say, when I got out my blood sugar wasn't rising anymore. But my anxiety was. The lengths I go to for this challenge. Nip on over to Ziva's where she's probably got a picture of a cake or something else I can't eat.

A Sausage Egg McMuffin and a coffee. My breakfast of champions once a week or so. I know. I know. I'm bad. At least that's what Mrs D keeps telling me. And as I pack on the pounds I come to realize... This stuff's poison. But it tastes so damn good. What's your poison?  Ziva's got the linky thingy going so we can all find out together.

I was really stumped over this prompt. We don't have a local carnival anymore. Where the local exhibition used to be is being revamped with a reconstructed football stadium, condos and shops. So what to do? I took a little trip into the music room and, voila! Does this sound familiar? You can walk on the water, drown in the sand   You can fly off a mountaintop if anybody can  Run away, run away--it's the restless age  Look away, look away--you can turn the page  Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheap  Here on the street  I got six on each arm and two more round my feet  Life is a carnival--believe it or not  Life is a carnival--two bits a shot  Life is a carnival, believe it or not. The Band believed so. This was the opening track of their 1971 album Cahoots. And it was the sixth track on the second CD of their farewell album - and Martin Scorsese directed movie - the Last Waltz. The Band of c...

Tolstoy? I thought maybe MikeWJ had just come back from the dentist and was trying to say Toy Story. That prompt I could have handled. You know Buzz and Woody? Yeah. So Tolstoy, you can call him Leo, was this Russian writer best known for the epic novel War and Peace . I hear it's pretty good. A little on the long side but interesting nevertheless. Among other things, Leo had a great beard. But few people know how religious the man was. He was a devoted Christian and his religious leanings influenced such figures as Mahatma Gandhi. Where am I going with all this? To the Blessed St. Xenia of Petersburg Cathedral in West-end Ottawa, a Russian Orthodox Church. Leo was Russian. This church is Russian. And rumour has it the parish priest at St. Xenia has a great beard. Don't you love it when things come together? See what kind of tall story my friends in this challenge are telling over at Ziva's place .

Hmmm.... It's Sunday. Do I play golf... or watch NFL Football. Talk about frustration! Head on over to Ziva's Inferno and see how frustrated the rest of my pic pals are today.

I took this at my doctor's office this week. Gee, looks like I'm back on #teamlame. And I was doing so well, too. It's like me on the inside. You don't want to see me on the outside. Really. Now get on over to Ziva's and check out her anatomy. 

You know it's amazing what you find in your own backyard. Until this photo challenge I really didn't know the significance  of some of the things around town. Look at this, for example. It was installed in 2010 in nearby Hull, Quebec by Montreal artist and architect Hal Ingberg. The structure is called "Papa" (not bad for a prompt of trans-parent, eh?) and it is an enclosure created with large multi-coloured, transparent glass walls. I've often driven by this and never given it a thought. In fact from the street it doesn't look like anything special. But yesterday I parked the car and went around to the other side of the structure. I was blown away by the colourful shadows caused by the morning sunshine. I decided to share it here with you. See how transparent my photo-blogging buddies are today by peeking in on Ziva . She's as open as a book.

Canned peas? Never! My dear departed mother used to make what she called tuna casserole for the family when I was a kid. Usually every Friday because like the good Catholics that we were we didn't eat meat on Friday. It consisted of Kraft Dinner (mac and cheese to you Americans) tuna and an additional ingredient: canned peas. Why? I don't know. She didn't call it Tuna and Pea Casserole. Me, I'd eat the KD and the tuna but I hated vegetables, especially peas, I'd spit the peas into my glass of milk while pretending to drink it. Clever, eh? I hated canned peas. Still do to this day. And I haven't had KD since my university days when I'd round out my nutritional requirements with fried bologna. I won't even eat them in her memory. Sorry, Mom. This picture is of French peas or pois. In Quebec grocery stores they usually turn the labels French side out. But they can't fool me. No matter what language they use they're still i...

I drive by this statue several times a month. Until I stopped to take a photo yesterday in the early morning sun for today's prompt I never knew what it symbolized. "Why the hell does that guy have two hats," I'd always think as I passed by. Turns out it's a twinning effort with the Netherlands and there's an identical statue there. You can find out more about the two statues of  The Man With Two Hats here . It's pretty much as I expected. If the Man With Two Hats loses one of them he'll always have another! And we'll always have Ziva to stop by and see what the rest of our photo friends did with today's prompt