Snow! Finally!

The running pictures will have to wait. It snowed today in London and tonight it's still snowing.

We are expecting possibly 20cm of snow. To keep ahead of the storm, there were numerous men pushing snow blowers around the John Labatt Centre, known as the JLC. The JLC is the home of the London Knights, our OHL Junior A hockey team, but the JLC is a multi-use facility. Many entertainers, many famous, have performed there.

For instance, Cher has been there twice. The first time it was her farewell tour and the second time it was for whatever comes after a farewell tour. Who knows, may be someday we'll see her again. Cher just doesn't seem to be able to stay away.

It's a Runners' Choice_2

I love shooting runners. They give me an excuse to run. And I love running. It was so much fun shooting the Runners' Choice runners that I'm going downtown Monday to see about joining a running group --- something for aging men who, over the past year, have spent too much time blogging and not enough time running.

One runner told me that many in the group were going to cover 18 miles Sunday. I'd be happy to run 5 km.

I understand that there were about 90 runners out enjoying the brisk morning air. As is clear from the picture, by the time the runners were at the southwest edge of the city, they were well dispersed. But even though some were faster than others, over the time that I was shooting pictures I didn't see one runner stop and start walking --- unless you count me.

It's a Runners' Choice

18 miles --- That's the distance many of the runners out pounding the pavement in the southwest of  London Ontario were running Sunday. About 90 long distance runners from Runners' Choice on Dundas Street in the southwestern Ontario city were out enjoying, I think I can say enjoying, the cool late-winter temperatures accompanied by a warm, spring-like sun.

It was a fruitful photo morning. More pictures from the run tomorrow and the day after.

Cheers,
Rockinon

...and the lion shall lie down with the lamb

It is not exactly a lion; It's a tiger. And the tiger, sculpted out of snow, is lying beside the driveway of Peter Lam, no 'b', a well respected London Ontario artist.

. . . and the tiger shall lie down with the lam. Close enough.

Every year to celebrate the Chinese New Year, Peter Lam sculpts the appropriate work of art from a block of snow placed in front of his west London home. This year, 2010, is the Year of the Tiger.

The tiger had been on display for sometime when I discovered it. The warm February sun can be hard on snow tigers, the ones actually made from snow. To see Lam's creation when it was still fresh, check out his flickr page.

Cheers,
Rockinon

The telephone: invented in Canada

I know, I know, the Yanks brag the telephone was invented in Boston. In fact, there's a marker in Boston commemorating the birthplace of the telephone.

But Canadians also have bragging rights when it comes to the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell himself once stated Brantford, Ontario, was where he invented the telephone. He developed the concept at his family's Southwestern Ontario homestead.

Scotland, not to be outdone, also claims the invention of the telephone with pride; Bell, the inventor, was born in Edinburgh Scotland in 1847.

But one thing unites Boston, Brantford and Edinburgh - they all agree that in 2002 the U.S. Congress made a big error recognizing Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant to the States, as the true inventor of the telephone. 113 years after Meucci's death, the American Congress re-wrote history and declared the little-known mechanical genius the father of modern communications.

No one argues about the yellow pages, they were created in 1886 by Reuben Donnelly, a printer in Cheyenne Wyoming, when he ran out of white paper and used yellow instead.

At one time London, Ontario, had a strong connection to the telephone business. A massive Northern Telecom (Nortel) plant employing more than a thousand area workers was located beside highway 401 immediately to the south of the city. Today Nortel, the former stock market high-flyer, is gone, bankrupt, its shares dropped from a high of about $124 to a bit more than a nickle when trading stopped.

In our home we still use a Bell landline telephone. It is electronic but it emulates a dial phone. Our phone does not work on the touch-tone system. Alexander Graham Bell would be comfortable using our phone - not too high-tech.

In London it is only possible to have a dial phone if you've always had one. No new dial numbers are being assigned. A lot of folk have stayed on the dial phone system as it is costs less than the touch-tone one.When Bell tried dropping the service a few years ago, more than a 100 thousand customers complained to the CRTC and Bell dropped the plan.

For finding telephone numbers, we still use a phone book with both white and yellow pages. And it appears the yellow pages also taste quite good, at least if you're five-months-old. A moment after this picture was snapped, mom took notice and removed the tasty morsel from the fingers of our budding telephone book connoisseur. She isn't allowed to have solid foods, yet.

Kids!

How a child can lose a glove when the weather has been below zero for the past week is a puzzle. I can see a kid slipping off a glove while possibly feeding the ducks wintering in the pond at Storybook Gardens, but to walk away and leave it is curious.

Maybe someone chanced by and the kid had to make quick tracks; Feeding the ducks is frowned upon by those in charge of the park.

Merry-go-round in winter

I've noticed that many of the other pictures posted by photographers around the world as part of the daily photo movement are very artistic images. Some of these shooters set a very high standard. Shooting in London, Ontario, and not London, England, I've got to work just a little harder.

There is a merry-go-round in Springbank Park. I ran a picture last year shortly after the carousel horses were reinstalled in the spring. At dusk this evening I noticed that the framework of the ride made an interesting image with the fading blue sky, the clouds and the colours of the coming sunset.

Cheers,
Rockinon