London Sunset

If you can ignore the mosquitoes, as this couple obviously can, the Thames River in London, Ontario, offers a beautiful spot to view a Southwestern Ontario sunset.

Bruce Cockburn at Home County

For more pictures see: Rockin' On: Photography

Bruce Cockburn is the biggest name to hit the Victoria Park stage at the Home County Folk Festival in years. Mix the Cockburn name with a fine summer evening and the result is a huge turnout.

The crowd had filled the paved space directly in front of the bandshell stage early in the evening. The audience then spilled onto the grassy areas off to the sides with these areas quickly filling with folks on lawn chairs and with others relaxing on blankets. Even areas having no clear line-of-sight to the stage filled as Londoners arrived to hear, if not see, Cockburn perform.

And no one was disappointed. Cockburn's distinctive voice and guitar playing gently rocked the park with such hits as: Slow Down Fast, Child of the Wind, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, How I Spent My Fall Vacation, and Strange Waters.

In the moments before Cockburn appeared on  stage the open walkway in front of the stage filled with amateur photographers and late but bold spectators. Both developments carried surprises. First, the general rule at concerts is photos are only allowed during the first two or three songs of a performer's set. Cockburn allowed the shutterbugs to stay rooted to their spots in front of the stage for the whole concert --- very generous. 

And the audience members behind the last minute interlopers, who had claimed positions at the very front, were also allowed to stay. Being so close to the stage, these intruders did not block anyone's view and wisely it was decided by all to just leave them be.

It was a very mellow, Cockburn evening.

Barrett Breaks Special Olympics World Record

Photo credit: Doug Brown, Special Olympics Photo Volunteer

London, Ont.: Saturday morning, power lifter Jackie Barrett broke a Special Olympics world record lift in squat at 265.5kg. The packed venue at the University of Western Ontario in London Ontario gave the mighty competitor a standing ovation.

 Barrett has been with the Special Olympics for 23 years and has been training in power lifting for the past 15 years.

About this impressive, record breaking accomplishment, Barrett said, "It felt great. I felt I almost didn't get it, but I did." When asked when he decided he'd go for the record-breaking lift Barrett explained, "I decided after my second attempt. I felt I had enough left in the tank and then I went for it."

Later Saturday, Barrett may attempt a new Special Olympics world record in the dead lift. That category of the competition takes place in the early afternoon.

Daniel Reid, a coach with Team Newfoundland, was ecstatic. "I think it's super. He was undecided if he would even try to do it because he would have to do it on his third attempt, but he did it, and he made it look easy. We're all very proud of him." 

About the 2010 Special Olympics Canada Special Games: The 12th national summer competition was held in London Ontario from July 11 to 17. More than 1,400 athletes, coaches, and mission staff representing all ten Canadian provinces plus the Yukon and Northwest Territories attended the seven-day sporting event. More than 1,000 volunteers and event officials worked to make the event a success.

Athletes competed in eight official sports, including athletics, five and ten pin bowling, power lifting, rhythmic gymnastics, soccer, softball and swimming. This national competition serves as the qualifying event for athletes to become members of the national team that will compete at the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece.

Blogger reader in training

It is being widely reported that children, and older kids, raised reading books rather than pointing and clicking around the Internet are brighter with better concentration spans. I find this hard to believe. There must be more going on than simply Internet vs. printed words on the page.

That said, my little granddaughter seems to have taken to books. And I'd say she was a bright little thing. Maybe there is something to all this book stuff after all.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Geek Dinner

This was the "Thank you" Geek Dinner for me. You see, it was at a previous Geek Dinner that I learned about SSDs and how these are faster and more rugged than the traditional hard drives found in notebook computers. As I was planning an almost six week driving adventure across North America in a 42-year-old British roadster, a Morgan Plus 4, well known for its rough and bumpy ride, this was great to know. The Dell notebook I eventually bought had a 256GB SSD and it withstood the weeks of bouncing tucked behind the seat of my Morgan very well.

I also had a chance to thank the young woman who recommended the Fuji brand of cameras to me. She was using an earlier model of the Fuji camera I eventually bought for the trip. It proved to be a solid performer and very well built.

I brought my notebook to the dinner and when I ran into a problem showing someone my blog page, the screen carried a message saying there was a server problem, this person removed the incorrect information which had been entered into the DNS fields of my computer during the trip.

I had to bring out my "Thank you," again.

The Vacation Continues

We are now in Thessalon and winding down. This was the shortest drive we have had in quite awhile. Tomorrow we only have to drive three hours to a ferry and then we can relax. After the cruise, we have only a one hour drive.

The next day we drive home!

For more info see my post on the Digital Journal.

The Vacation Continues

The stuff you see driving down the TransCanada highway over Lake Superior.

I'm blogging on my vacation on the Digital Journal.