The Rolex Learning Centre ("EPFL Learning Centre") is the campus hub and library for the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it opened on 22 February 2010.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition of December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects and even some Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.

The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors (Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA).

The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Learning_Center

You know that romantic notion that all the garbage and the pain is really healing and beautiful and sort of poetic? It's not. It's just garbage and it's pain. You know what's better? Love. The day that you start thinking that love is overrated is the day that you're wrong. The only thing wrong with love and faith and belief is not having it.

i wish i didn't feel like someone was always trying to push me under. i guess you gotta hit rock bottom, before you can ever come up again.

i hope all you lovely flickr-etes are doing fabulous! *muah!*

For the video, click here .

"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow."

(Anthony J. D'Angelo)

Strobe:

- Sb910 right side,

- Full power,

- Through umbrella soft box hand hold by my buddy Philipe.

- Triggered with two cactus V5.

Press L

The Rolex Learning Centre ("EPFL Learning Centre") is the campus hub and library for the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it opened on 22 February 2010.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition of December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects and even some Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.

The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors (Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA).

The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Learning_Center

And if you complain about it, the riding crop will be used as well!

"A soul in tension, is learning to fly

Condition grounded but determined to try

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies

Tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I..."

(Pink Floyd)

I thought a beer had finally been named after me, but closer inpsection proved otherwise. (See the one on the right)

A "cold snap" has descended on Brisbane, but the Sunday morning here is cloudless so sunny, and as soon as the ice melts it will be a lovely day.

Imagine these copper coils as my neck perhaps.

Grolsch Brewery is a Dutch brewery founded in 1615.

Starts With G Challenge

Containers Theme - Contains Beer

For the learning challenge. Used water coloring pencils (as taught by Hero Artist Lisa). I also stamping on acetate with Staz-on (as shown by Jennifer McGuire during week one of the blog). Also included stitching and used Versamark, two things I hadn't ever done before the Hero Arts blog. Thanks to Hero Arts and the wonderful artists for all the inspiration you provide on a daily basis.

VERY loosely based on this card: www.flickr.com/photos/25252212@N04/2380939904/ I used the same colors, Thinking of You stamp, buttons, and acetate. Other than that I completely changed things around.

HA:

Thinking of You

Raindrop Background

DB Scattered Flowers

CD Thoughtful Messages

Clear Card Buttons

Hit 'L' to view on large.

This castle has it’s rumours. There are the stories about the man in the jeep and his accomplice on the scooter watching over this castle.

The castle was built in 1860 by an marquis who lived in the town and it still is in Royal’s hands. Apparently, the owners cannot agree about a plan to preserve the heritage and therefore the place is left abandoned without having anybody to care for it.

The impromptu 2 day tour with camerashy and host to France and Belgium, with some new places, a lot of travel with minimal sleep and some goals being accomplished by getting to a certain school.

Full set here:

www.flickr.com/photos/timster1973/sets/72157633897345028/

Also on Facebook:

www.Facebook.com/TimKniftonPhotography

My blog:

timster1973.wordpress.com

online store: www.artfinder.com/tim-knifton

The Rolex Learning Centre ("EPFL Learning Centre") is the campus hub and library for the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it opened on 22 February 2010.

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition of December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects and even some Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.

The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors (Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA).

The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Learning_Center

In the Ars Electronica Center's Machine Learning Studio visitors can use computer vision and machine learning applications to discover how machines learn and perceive their environment. Working with tech trainers, they can build and train self-driving model cars here, program robots with facial recognition, and gain insights into how they can teach these devices a wide variety of activities. Step-by-step, they can experience not only how these technologies function, but also that everything the machines know is determined by us.

Ars Electronica Center Linz

Ars-Electronica-Straße 1

4040 Linz

Austria

ars.electronica.art

Credit: Ars Electronica - Robert Bauernhansl

White stork with three chicks. Leiden, Vogelwijk, 2 June 2016.

Little asian girl with computer at home

Well I started out down a dirty road

Started out all alone

And the sun went down as I crossed the hill

And the town lit up, the world got still

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings

Coming down is the hardest thing

Well the good old days may not return

And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings

Coming down is the hardest thing

Well some say life will beat you down

Break your heart, steal your crown

So I've started out, for God knows where

I guess I'll know when I get there

I'm learning to fly, around the clouds

But what goes up must come down

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings

Coming down is the hardest thing

Tom Petty October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

[Ed. Note: This image, "The Learning Pyramid," is NOT based on any verifiable research; perhaps, no research at all (see this and that). This pyramid is widely cited yet it is, as Christopher Harris shared in an email, a hoax. You can learn even more about the origins of the Learning Pyramid hoax here. Nonetheless, I stand by the idea that the marriage of teaching and content creation is a powerful pedagogical practice (see this).]

(Fictitious) research from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel Maine summarizes the impact different teaching strategies have on learning retention rates.

Anyone who has ever had to teach anything will tell you that teaching others leads to the deepest learning and greatest likelihood that the content being taught will be retained by the "teacher."

This fledgling bluejay today was being shown around by his parents. Among other things, they introduced him to the peanuts we put out for them and, as it happened, to my presence on the deck taking pictures.

with Zombies. O,H,V and R....I.P. See them?

It has been said that every generation has changes to adjust to and I don’t believe ours was much different than the changes prior generations coped and adjusted to. World War II children had all that murder and trauma, the children of the depression had the poverty and uncertainties of life, children like my grandfather at the turn of the century witnessed the evolution of things like electricity, the coming of age of gadgets to make life easier in certain ways. This is just the nature of the species to be in a constant change. Perhaps for my life this change was in the types of recreational items we consumed in pursuit of what? Happiness, experience, wisdom, knowledge? Time will let us know the results of this experiment.

This age, the now, is this the computer age, the beginning of the computer age as it seems those machines change, improve, and expand almost daily. There was a need for me to plug in an old computer system, one with Windows 3.1 as the operating system, it was probably ten years old, and it was like driving an old frail car on its last legs. How quickly the new becomes old and discarded. My current computer gurus laugh when I say I am comfortable in Windows 95, the benefits of 98, 2000, and XP being so superior to this old program I write in. When I was recently forced to examine the possibility of purchasing a replacement unit for this sick PC the number of options was incredible. I had to choose between so many computer variables, memory, ram, hard drive, video cards, speakers, size of screen, wide screen or regular and this was just in the low end category of notebooks. Processors were confusing, I had to chose between, Celeron and Pentium and Centrino all of this with the knowledge that what I purchased was going to be somewhat obsolete in a year or so.

Shift back to 1968, the summer of. Hi-jinks continued and one high led to another as young entrepreneurs were everywhere marketing pot and hashish, mescaline, LSD, and MDA, along with speed, heroin, and cocaine. We were still juiceheads having done our time learning this pastime the other items slowly got some of our dollars as we became more knowledgeable of their attributes. There was an acid trip I took early that summer when on getting off I thought I had shrunken to the size of an infant and I tried to get under the bed of the rooming house we called The White House. The guys had never seen this behaviour before, the idea of a “Bad Trip” was something the press always harped on to advance the cops theory that all drugs are bad. We didn’t like cops. That summer a groovy coffee shop opened in the basement of Vic’s’ Meat Pie store that faced onto Weston Rd, Vics was next door to the Black Cat Variety Store named after a brand of cigarettes popular at the time. Vics backroom was a dingy place, poorly lit with several tables set with single candles in coloured dishes giving off a red glow The owner served coffee and cokes and bags of chips. We dropped something, it could have been acid who remembers. Big Vic the owner had a CLOSED sign in his window out front, so we went to the back doors through the laneway that ran behind the shops and found half the kids in the neighborhood down there. Younger kids too, all high on something or the other grooving to some tunes. Two local plainclothes coppers come walking in dressed in ridiculous costumes, a lumberjack shirt for one burly goof named Criscoe and a ball cap and jeans for his side kick Smith, we spotted them right away and razzed them even though we were ripped. It was the original Mutt and Jeff show. We just left and the place emptied everyone had somewhere to go and listen to tunes, and not be disturbed.

We hung out at the Place Pigalle on Avenue Road. After the Place closed we’d go to this spot this guy from the States had opened a funky coffee shop on Dupont St not to far from the bar and we would go there half pissed and sit around listening to his eclectic tunes. This spot we called Rocheyz, but if you were to spell it correctly it would be Roches. The owner was like a Vietnam Vet kind of guy who looked like Ginger Rogers, his red hair tied in a pony tail. He was always talking about shitting in a hole, made a good mockery of consumer life and in his small way turned us on to the coffee shop ideology of former beat types like Ginsberg and Kerouac without actually preaching their names. He served weird stuff like tofu and beet juice tea, the lighting was real dim so you could just hangout forever, we heard somewhere that he was a junkie.

Most of the guys were still in High School at York Memo except for Billy, he worked somewhere maybe for the firebrick company, everything was going to change for everyone, guys were getting serious about chicks, I just wanted to party, Pete was going to St Lawrence College in New York State on a full hockey scholarship, the brothers Frank and Jack were off to Peterborough to study at the newly opened Trent University. Count was top of the class and doing quite well at U of T. I had my own directions to follow.

One day I was servicing the fire equipment at a place called McPhar Geophysics; this was located in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto with an area that had streets full of small manufacturing plants and warehouses. Don Mills is thought of an upper middle class area of very sharp homes. In the receiving department at McPhar there was a lot of exploration gear, things like, snowshoes, canoes, axes and I guess it was like going on a movie set for me, as my eyes bulged. The closest I’d ever gotten to a pair of snowshoes was by watching the show Eric of the Yukon and His dog King, or something like that. A big swarthy guy with a beard and coveralls ran the shipping department and I wasn’t shy, I asked what this company did as he packaged neat things to be shipped to addresses printed in big lettering on the parcels, exciting names like, Rouyan/Noranda, Quebec, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Sao Paolo, Brazil. This outfit was the leader in geophysical surveying in Canada, maybe the world as the founder of the company had invented this piece of machinery for use in WW-II to detect submarines underwater or something like that, when things get technical, remember Science class I get edgy. They found a use for the discovery in the mining industry, locating ore bodies.

Here’s how it worked. A typical set up would consist of six people, in the woods in an area, a remote area, near a mine site or a potential mining site. The party operator would put his Receiver on the ground, it was like an electronic sending unit, full of numerous incomprehensible to me buttons, switches, graphs and toggle like switches. This operator we’ll call him John Parker cause that was the guys name I trained with at the first place in Val D’Or Quebec in early January 1969. From Parkers’ receiver a number of wires with crocodile clips, each wire about twelve feet long, were unrolled and hooked up to my piece of machinery, the Transmitter. This little baby was my (the second in commands) equipment. It also had a lot of buttons and switches and a place for Parkers six wires to attach to. Maybe there were three positive and three negative wires. The transmitter was supplied power by a portable generator carried on some bodies back in a rucksack type fashion. In turn the wires were attached to longer wires, some a hundred feet long at six stations, three in front of the set up at certain intervals and three behind the set up at similar intervals. These wires were attached to eight foot steel rods which had been pounded into the ground by staff hired locally using big sledge ended axes. The gas generator was fired up and Parker would play with his buttons and ask me to change the frequency on my piece of equipment, like a parrot I would take his directions, then he would take numbers, called readings and write them into a book. Electric current was sent through the wires into the ground and our machinery somehow measured the results and this would give mining engineers the information they needed as to what direction the mineral they were mining was in or if there were any minerals worth mining for. At night it was our job, Parker and mine to take the days numbers and put them on graph paper, we had to use a slide ruler and this was a little tough for my grade nine math, especially since I’d told the owner/boss Ash Mullan that I had grade twelve which he bought since I showed up for my interview in my nice Invictus Football Team jacket, crew cut and all. I winged the night work for quite some time and thought I had invented a better way of doing the radius work, which we’ll get to in a while. After the mining engineers received these reports which I suppose they paid big money for they, if interested would send in a crew to drill the earth and take out what they call core samples that could be studied to determine the worth of the project.

For some reason this was a big thing, me leaving town to work away. It was like I was going to war which I tried to do twice, once a few years earlier the Canadian Navy turned me down for service after my final interview when they asked me my opinion on the Americans in Vietnam, I said, “they shouldn’t be there,” oops so much for saying the wrong thing about your allies, and that year 68 Bill and I tried to sign up for of all things the United States Marines. One time when we were down in Niagara Falls getting drunk at the Johns Club, a place where you went in and they took your order and like a man you’d say, “I’ll have a tray please,” and a waitress would bring you thirty small glasses of beer, and in less than an hour you were so pissed and you’d go for a leak and come back to your table and Bill had changed his name to something like Steve McQueen and he was actually on a movie shoot in the Falls and just taking a little time off for R&R and the ladies fell for it a few times! The following week after sobering up we headed back to Niagara Falls on a mission. The marines recruiting office was in a warehousey part of town in an old factory or something and they told us to go sign up for our own armed forces. I removed some kind of emblem, like a bomb shelter sign off the building and along with my other collectibles stuck it on a wall in the White House.

So it wasn’t as if this was the first time I tried to leave, it was the first time I actually got to leave. Close to my departing there was a big drunken go away, everyone was there, all the chicks we hung out with, Barb, kind of my date but we never did anything, Debbie , soon to be Jacks wife, Mickey who Pete was spending a lot of time with on the hood of his little mini car, Phyllis this Italian chick who was hounding Frank, Herbie’s girl, beautiful Ruth Hope the ministers daughter, Bill was still stagging it, it was a big thing, a big party. Mom had moved the family up to an apartment on Weston Road near Cadet Cleaners and Sid’s barbershop. Prior to that we had lived at 26 Victoria Blvd forever, the landlord, a Mr.Gowland must have sold the house. Alex was away on some secret mission we don’t really know where, rumour had it he was in the States on a football scholarship, another rumour was he was in Montreal. The younger kids were there, Kevin, Shane, Sue and Barb as well as mom who loved the teenagers coming over. The party got a little loud and out of hand, I recall the yellow cop cars parked on Weston Road, their red flashing roof top lights, then the cops coming in the front door and all of us running out the back door, and through to Buttonwood Avenue or was it Bartonville and then all of us hiding in the hedges at Bala Avenue school. We left the cops with mom who were busy asking her who was still drinking there, we all got away, we were all underage, and that’s just how it was then.

McPhar was a generous company, a few weeks prior to Parker and I leaving for Val D’Or they had me in for an afternoon, had me open up a new bank account where my cheque of $900.00 a month would be deposited, gave a start up expense cheque of $300.00 from which I was to purchase, felt lined snow boots, waterproof pants and a below zero parka. This was way before high tech clothing was available. Down on Yonge Street I found an Army Surplus shop that had neat war stuff and I bought a knee length grey parka, down filled, with a piece of dead fur on the hood. Some of the air force crests and badges were still on the sleeves. For pants I picked a pair of blue nylon jobs that were about half an inch thick with insulation. I should have spent more on boots though as the cheap dark blue zipper up snowmobile feltpaks I purchased were no match for eight hours trekking in snow at times six feet deep. My co-worker, trainer, boss John Parker met me midtown, he had rented a brand new olive coloured Pontiac four door for the drive up to Quebec, we didn’t get to far that first night as a winter storm forced us off the road in Barrie where I had a taste of a company bought motel room and a nice steak dinner, I knew right then I was going to love this gig.

Next day the snow still fell and I drove for a while giving Parker a break, it was rough driving up around Sudbury and when we turned right up towards Kirkland Lake this was the first time I’d truly been north. Prior to that us southern boys would think of Barrie as being north I would quickly discover that the North was a large area comprised of incredible terrain, long views, kind people, and a coldness that was not at all like the cold of Toronto. We made it to Val D’Or Quebec not to far from the Ontario border, perhaps an hour’s drive. Our hotel was an old two storey wood framed structure a few blocks from the centre of town which was about the size of Gravenhurst. The streets were covered in snow like a postcard. For meals there was an arrangement with the hotel to make us breakfast and a packed lunch, we would tell them how many sandwiches of what type, peanut butter(beurre d’arachide) and jam, or sliced ham(jambon), and so on. Dinners we went in to town and had a hot meal, anything within reason, no alcohol, and the company paid for everything.

Walking into town you could better understand the quietness of this village, as some kids skated and played hockey at an outdoor rink with boards, the heat from their breath coming out of their mouths, a pair of incandescent bulbs glared under round aluminum hoods illuminating the ice rink at each end. Nobody was on the streets, thick smoke poured from the chimneys of the tiny homes, some cabin like in size. The smell of burning firewood filled the air with that type of sweetness which a log of apple or some other such wood gives off. In town, I looked inside a few drinking establishments, now and then, had a couple of beers, spotted the older hookers plying their trade at the front of the bars dressed in obvious get ups, black, torn fishnet stockings, rouged cheeks and their breasts busting out from clothing that was meant for younger smaller ladies. In Ontario towns you would not see such flagrant prostitution, Quebec was more lenient, more accepting of mans need for comfort. Being on my best behaviour I mostly observed as I was learning a new trade and I did not want to jeopardize this by acting up.

Our first day in the woods was a Sunday our day off and Parker took me to a field to practice snowshoeing, I caught on immediately after falling a few times. It is quite a neat experience as the body is suspended above the snow which was quite deep, perhaps three or five feet deep. Your feet do sink in a few inches depending on the crustiness of the snow but then they stop and you learn quickly to walk like a penguin, that is with your feet intentionally pointing left and right instead of straight ahead so your snow shoes will not catch each other. To me this was like a new sport. Going up hills was a skill as was descending hills and making turns, after a while it became natural. As the day began the leather harness was easy to use as it was warm and pliable. After a day’s work it could be frozen solid and difficult to manage. Complicating matters was the fact that we wore packs to move our gear through the woods, my transmitter weighed in at ninety pounds so the effort required was high and often this would test the abilities of any man. Whoever led the party through the pre-staked areas of survey would have the added burden of breaking fresh snow so the followers had a bit of an easier walk.

Our gig in Val D’Or was not very lengthy, about three weeks. I was for the most part able to do the work with pleasure and discovered these long days out in the snow, in nature were much to my liking. There was an eerie absence of wildlife for some reason, I guess I expected to see deer and moose and bears around every corner but this was not the case. Nights in the town were so much like a Cornelius Krieghoff painting, snow covered cabins with smoke pouring from the chimneys the joie de vivre of the townsfolk. My limited French vocabulary was a valued asset as I could in short time communicate my needs in very rudimentary terms, ham of course was jambon, beurre d’arachides was peanut butter, what I then had difficulty with as I do today is the rapidity of the conversations, a smile was always available as well as at times a questioning look.

There was a short furlough in Toronto for a week while the next gig was being prepared for, it was to be in Kirkland Lake with a few days here and there in Timmins. These towns were gold mining centres from earlier times. I was flush with cash as there was nowhere to spend money in Val Dor except the occasional biere at one of the many French pubs. My finances had always been precarious. There was the matter of a small loan in the amount of about seven hundred dollars that I owed HFC and I had no intention of ever paying it. Those dupes had loaned me money for Christmas presents one year at their ridiculous rate of twenty percent. Like I was going to buy presents, I drank all the money in about three weeks. A goofy manager at the HFC office in Weston, upstairs from a shop took me in to sign some forms, swear allegiance to pay this debt, he was a Canadian version of Snidely Whiplash, an English born chap who would have been more suited to being a prison guard. Besides this debt I was in the clear and once I left Dyer and Miller and I changed addresses the loan to HFC was not a consideration and I highly recommend every body do this at least once in life, that is get a loan from some rip off organization and stiff them. Get a bogus birth certificate or something, and get a loan.

There were parties of course on my return you would have thought I’d been away for years. The following Sunday I was to make my way to Kirkland Lake Ontario via train. I’d never been on a train ride except for the time we came home from Parry Sound all drunked up on the warm Labatt 50s. At the station Frank came to see me off and at the last minute I said why don’t you come along for the ride as I had a bag of grass to smoke and he had nothing to do. It wasn’t long before we were smoking the joints, I had pre rolled them, there were about thirty, the dope was pretty mild, not like today’s killer weed. We smoked between the trains cars. Back in the coach someone was reading a book called Five Easy Pieces and if you stared long enough you could make the letters interchange sort of a mini hallucination. Six joints later and a couple of sandwiches we were in Kirkland Lake. Getting off the train we noticed the temperature was 35 degrees below zero and this was a big thing for us city boys. Parker, the boss met me at the train, I introduced him to Frank and he hired him on the spot to work on the crew which was to start soon.

Frank was kind of gangly at the time, going through a growth spurt, he was always bent over because he was taller than everyone else, he had a gentle manner and enjoyed the usual stuff, like, beer, tokes and women. I loaned him some money and he bought a suitable work outfit, some clothes as he had nothing but the clothes on his back. I recall he purchased a better pair of felt pack boots than mine, the ones with the leather uppers bonded to heavy rubber bottoms that were more waterproof especially if you put Dubbin on them at night. At the Parklane Hotel we shared a room, we had management give us an extra roll a way bed and the cost was quite minimal, they ran a tab for Frank. Meals were taken in the hotel dining room and lunches were prepared for us. As I recall the room was quite small we literally had to crawl over each other to get to the can.

We had a day off before work started and that first night in downtown Kirkland was like magic. The Beatles new recording Hey Jude was broadcast live around the world and we caught this in an empty shabby store front bar. Outside it was freezing cold but the coldness was different, it was a dry cold, the wind not holding the same sharp bite as a Toronto wind blowing off of Lake Ontario. The women were looking pretty good and I had a new pick up line, “mon petite serpent” at this the ladies would almost instantly run and hide. Doctor Doolittle was playing at the local theatre and one night we went to the show ripped on our mediocre weed, leaving the theatre singing the songs that were sung in the movie.

Work was difficult as it was cold and there was a lot of snow. Town was exciting, our hotel had a Tavern in the basement where a stripper appeared in the evenings. Her name was Patty and we affectionately called her the Portuguese Pig, I don’t know why because we never got any where with her, she had a room in the hotel and we’d always be sneaking peeks at her boobs as she changed before shows. A friend of hers named Candy was around now and then and I thought she was pretty special but again it was like we were all Toronto outcasts and this alone made us buddies. Somewhere down the line Patty the Portuguese Pig knew Bil and she had a crush on him. Nights would find us in the Tavern listening to crappy groups who kept playing a Credence Clearwater Revival song called Proud Mary and the Tom Jones tune, Green Green Grass of Home. Parker was sorry he had hired Frank because we didn’t ever have our minds on the job and we were always hung over. Bill would call regularly he was ready to escape his reality.

One night we borrowed the company car and drove to Rouyn Noranda for beers with these French Hippies, a guy and his chick whom we met the week previous at the Kirkland Winter Carnival. Rouyn was not far maybe fifty miles and while there we smoked some nice hash that they had and Frank was making a move on the chick. We got pretty high and it was time to get back to Kirkland. Frank started to drive while I was napping, we were half way to Montreal when I woke up and noticed a road sign that said Montreal ahead 150 miles, this was before the metric system had been imposed on us. We assessed the situation and turned around we were about three hours from Kirkland Lake We got back just as the sun was coming up. The boss, John Parker never had a clue. Another time we were hung over and it was bloody cold, we didn’t feel like working, I dropped my receiver climbing over a farm fence and called Parker over, he turned the machine on and had to take it to the little airport and ship it out to have it repaired. That was good for a couple of days off. Of course there were times when we had no days off, we would work fourteen days straight if the crew was willing so it all worked out.

A job near Timmins not to far away needed us so we drove over got rooms in some el cheapo hotel where Patty the Portuguese Pig and her friend Candy were working and this was great because the girls had now let us tie their bikini tops on before shows and apply the glue to the pasties and then watch as the girls pushed them on over their luscious nipples, still no touching, just looking. This trip would be my introduction to snowmobiles. At seven in the morning we left the rooms and piled into the company car, the same four door Pontiac, Parker always drove. We drove to a remote area, parked the car then a few men would show up with ski doos and drive us the final half hour into the worksite as we sat on sleds pulled by the ski doos. It was a far cry from the glamour and hot rodding associated with today’s snowmobilers. Our work was done on a frozen lake a new experience for me, there were long views of barren landscapes, tree lined lakes not a bird or animal insight. Timmins had more bars than Kirkland as unlike Kirkland it was still a thriving gold mining community while Kirkland had began to lose its roll as king of the gold mining towns. Sid Bernstein an old Jewish waiter I met later in life at the Seaway Beverly Hills Hotel had been to Kirkland in the 1930s and he talked about the boom days, the Gold Rush Fever.

Work was an endless day of carrying gear over strange moonscape like terrain, areas where no trees existed; as it was snow covered you never got a feel for the land. Parker took care of the night work being a real stickler for accuracy and a dedicated employee, he seemed content to work all day have a meal, go to his room and do the calculations with the slide ruler and chart the results inked on the special roll of graph paper for this purpose. It wasn’t ever necessary for him to socialize, have a beer with the guys, he was work oriented, I’d never met anyone like this before. John Parker came from Saskatchewan, had a degree from DeVry Tech a technical school and when he wasn’t working he had his head in some learning type book, never a novel or something fun. Yet this mismatch of personalities did not deter us from getting the work done, it was hard work, perhaps the hardest I would ever endure and I have to respect that man from Saskatchewan as he never complained always was a good leader. Later on the job I learned that the preferred employee came from a farming background as this type of person was used to long hard days in adverse conditions, and did not suffer the need of rest and relaxation. The job ended and Frank headed back to Toronto with a few dollars in his pocket and this bonding would keep us friends forever.

13 months old and ready to rule the roost.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVhNCTH8pDs

I had wolfed down my supper, grabbed one DSLR and one lens to go along with it, and soaked up the still-warm, still-summer evening. The sky was overcast, trapping a layer of humidity on the ground like a suffocating blanket. Still better than freezing to death in the winter, I suppose.

Nikon D700

AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G

DURHAM RIVER

DSC06066

Daniela

13th - 19th Feb 2012.

There are words that I must speak and maybe one day I will say them. I am learning to have faith in you. I am learning to put my trust in you. And maybe one day I will understand.

This week has been endings and beginnings. I worked my last shift as assistant manager. I started my first week of classes. I met lots of new people, I got a lovely bunch of roses from work on my last day (which also happened to be on valentines day ha!), I stood outside one late afternoon as the storm broke and the pouring rain began to fall and I embraced being alive. It feels strange to be a student again, and I'm not a fan of sitting down all day in a room but I am learning to handle it and I am learning to concentrate that much. And I have to say it is all very exciting, I cant wait to use the darkroom and the vintage large format film camera and to just get into the practical stuff. I am trying to soak up all of the technical info first though, because being completely self taught I really have no idea. It is surreal to be talking about photos and cameras all day and I am loving it.

Learning..

by stockerre

There are many diverse techniques to hypnotize. That entirely depends upon the range of hypnosis process you utilize takes hold of the individual who you’ve hypnotized. For example, you have witnessed numerous instances on television or additional staged platforms, the most ...

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By Idel Ianchelevici. Liège, Belgium.

I'm learnin' to fly,

But I ain't got wings.

Comin' down

Is the hardest thing.

Well the good ol' days

May not return.

And the rocks might melt,

And the sea may burn.

Tom Petty

Calgary, AB

learning...

Cardiff - Betty Campbell: Statue for a Heroine

Betty Campbell (1934-2017) pioneered an inclusive approach to education, including devising her own multicultural curriculum and helping to create Black History Month.

A young cowboy learning to rope.

For workshop info, or to view my portfolio in a much better space please visit my website found on my profile page.

"And I will stumble and fall

I'm still learning to love

Just starting to crawl"

Say Something - A great big world ft Christina Aguilera

--

Another from Erica's shoot! Really love this photo .. imperfections and all

Follow me @ www.facebook.com/brianasolerphotography

and on instagram: brisoler

Processed with VSCO with e5 preset

Hey guys, I'm in vacation mood, enjoying summer, I promise to go back soon with lots of pics!

BTW, My friend Isa interviewed me, she made me very nice questions, if you aren't too lazy to translate it ( Spanish) I invite you to read it!

Big hugs to everyone, "see you" soon, guys! xoxo!

More pics of my vacation on my BLOG

Find me

Portfolio l Françoise Rachez Photographie l Le Blog Secret l

Facebook I Twitter I Google +

A Greater Manchester Police cadet stands on the junction of Market Street and Oldham Street. This is one of a series of images of cadets on patrol and learning the basics of traffic control.

We think this image dates to the late 1970s.

Please visit Greater Manchester Police Museum to find out more about our history.

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit

www.gmp.police.uk

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

You can access many of our services online at www.gmp.police.uk

Woodie, transitioning from bottle feeding to hand feeding.

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Meet Woodstock! ♥

Woodstock (Woodie) is a pigeon found by a friend of mine when he was 10 days old, no feathers, no mommy, alone.

My friend called me asking if I could shelter and care for him, and I've accepted the adorable challenge, since the timing was perfect, as I had plenty free time back then!

As I kept finding out what to feed him, and feeding him, caring for him, I thought that as soon as he'd able to fly, that he'd fly away and become a normal pigeon... But I was wrong, so wrong.

Instead, he decided to adopt our family and stay close. Our friendship grew every day!

I get to have breakfast with him on the balcony every day, and play with him along the day, and he gets his food bowl always filled, his nice and cute little house we built for him - as it was a cold winter, and much love and care.

It has been a lovely adventure! ♥

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Pigeon's facebook page: www.facebook.com/woodiefriendlypigeon/