Speaking of Gifts

Slate has cobbled together their (well educated) idea of the best in space photography for this year still in progress:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/bad_astronomy/2013/12/the_universe_in_pictures_the_best_space_photos_of_2013.html

Enjoy it when you can...

Christmas Day

So...keeping my mind off the sadder anniversary, hm?

I took a walk this morning. The kind of walk I take less often than I should these days, according to several of my past GPs as well as my current doctor. The weather was clear-skies bright, cold enough to notice without being overly painful about it.

Others travelling about in that included a few in cars trying to either visit someone or get home from visiting. I saw a car with a BC license plate; They must be a long way from home, or perhaps just trying to settle into a new one. Two joggers, several dog-walkers as well.

Have you ever noticed that when dogs are walked in pairs, should you approach them as a stranger? One will be curious, the other defensive. Guaranteed, almost without fail.

Also, security guards in their company cars watching the parking lots of the local malls. Not police. Private security. I wonder sometimes what it's like doing that job. Remembering also that when I was taking animation classes at Algonquin, we shared the building we were in during those years with Law Enforcement as well as maybe at most a dozen other programs, not all of them obviously connected to each other: Graphic Design, Journalism(Print), Nursing, Museum Tech...and Algonquin's added a few more buildings since then, as well as tearing down the one we were using.

Convenience stores being the only ones open within walking distance. Everything else was closed up today.

All in all, a good walk. Quiet. Not enforced quiet either, but relaxed quiet. Quiet that was comfortable in its own skin. A good thing for this day in this part of the world.

When Christmas is Hard

As mentioned before, there have been years when it was hard to get through the Season. And such years will no doubt come again, on whatever schedule suits them.

ms_danson just pointed out something worth looking at for those times when it does, for whatever reason(s) end up applying in your respective cases.

Please have a look. Just in case.