O Canada, home of the oil sands, plus other obvservations I've just recently stumbled upon while staying with my parents a couple days.

Yes, it was my parents who informed me that the Conservative Party gathered the most votes on election day, Jan 23, making Stephen Harper the new Prime Minister. I remember him running in '04 while we were there. He lost, Paul Martin, Jr. won. Now Canada is fed up enough with the Liberal Party that they decided to put a Conservative in power.

So I was curious what this Mr. Harper was all about. Besides finding out that he is something of a Canadian George W., I discovered that the U.S. depends on Canada for oil more than any other country (yes even more than the House of Saud). I thought that was interesting.

N.B. I hope that I have not insulted any Canadians who voted for Harper by calling him a "Canadian George W." I realize that Bush is something of a swear word to many of you. I simply mean that what I read of him in a few articles made him sound like a U.S. conservative a la George W. Bush. Please correct me and inform of the facts. Cause darn it, I'd frankly like to know.

Found sound in a sweater vest behind daylit lazyboy that makes frequent appearances in my photographs; plus bonus pic of us being ultra-cheesy.

Jude wanted to listen to U2 "In God's Country" from The Joshua Tree (happens to be my favorite song on the album). However, Esme' was sleeping so Elise had Jude throw some cool big earphones on to listen. He was sitting in the chair so cute, and then I had to take a picture, but he of course mutinied. He then went behind the chair. I also went behind the chair to snap this delicious photo. Don't you love the sweater vest (and such a tastee word too).

Elise and I have a cheesefest with some thinmints (Girl Scout Cookies, that is; you Canucks don't have those but do have Girl Guide Cookies, right?). Taste-tacular!

Elise makes two appearances but simply by accident: the original intent is hidden in the foreground subject and general aura of the photo.

Hm. Let's see what we have here (and make sure you click on the picture to see a large and beautiful version):


Elise's comment on this: That's so cool: I'm nursing with an attitude. Indeed. I didn't intend to capture this in particular. I have this weird obsession of taking pictures of my legs and shoes and floor or sitting down with my shoe crossed over my knee looking out at the world. This is what I came up with.


Experimental landscape shot: that is, I used the landscape setting which puts everything at same focus which I found out means mostly out of focus. Oh well. Also I forced the aperture to stay open to get more light (I simply despise pictures with the auto-flash: it is always washed out and unnatural looking).


I liked her outfit so I had to snap a picture. I love her little scrungie face. What a beaut. Elise makes another cameo.

Surreal windows.

There is no message or comment here, just so you know. But still I can't hold myself back from saying something.


Elise took this digital photograph. Cute kid, hey? This kid has so much spunk it scares me. Mr. Passionato. And what an actor.


And okay, aren't these kids just too cute. They love each other. They is best of friends. Jude especially loves it when Ezzie destroys his puzzles or games or something. He freaks out sometimes.

Episode number 65: Filmed moments before the snow spontaneously melted and caused a minor flood in the nether regions of the prairie state.

Here are some real great recent shots.


The family chillin' in the snow. Elise and Esmé matching like the pros. We had lots of snow a couple weeks ago. It was beautiful. Jude had fun throwing snowballs. But then his hands got cold. And then I took this picture. The sour look is his reaction to frozen fingers.


The kids are lovin' life here. How do you like my sepia-tone treatment? Yes, that is me in that background. It's all you get. No face for you.


I like this one of Jude after church. He seriously looks like he's posing for an album or magazine cover or something.