EclectEcon

What is it about these things that makes them look so... erotic [Jack says "anatomical" but he's a retired socionomologist-physician, which probably explains his clinical perspective.]??






Let's hear it for macro lenses! BenS says,

You can raise orchids or kids.

Jonathan Tan was a student in my introductory economics course 7 or 8 years ago. Since then he has gone on to do very well on stage as a singer and actor, including the challenging role as emcee in Cabaret.

Imagine my surprise and delight when he approached me after a recent graduation ceremony at The University of Western Ontario, where his brother was graduating and I was playing my usual role, Esquire Bedel.

An anonymous correspondent did a Google image search of "EclectEcon"+"John Palmer" and obtained some... well .... interesting ... results.

I have no idea how the top-ranked picture reached the number one position. Thank you SO much, Rebekah!

I was delighted to see that the photo of my Elvis impersonation made the top ten. But what is that sketch of Milton, above Gabriel's name, doing in the top ten of THIS search??

Somewhere, My Love....

Granddaughter #5. I claim she came out smiling.

The other day, Tony Romo was a guest on the Chicago Cubs telecast (and a truly horrible singer). Mystery was unimpressed.



Meanwhile Max satisfied his "return-to-the-womb" complex by climbing into our latest batch of cardboard boxes the minute we put them on the floor.

One of my favourite places that we visited during our trip to the Maritimes was Cheticamp, on the western coast of Cape Breton Island. The landscapes and seascapes seemed as if they had been painted.

When we were planning our trip to The Maritimes this spring, The Interpreter said she wanted to visit PEI, so we looked into various places to stay there. It turned out that all the places we contacted along the north shore of the island were not going to be open until June. And then we discovered that all the hotels in Charlottetown were booked up for a hockey tournament.

Ex post, all we can say is, "Thank goodness!"


We ended up booking rooms at the Georgetown Historic Inn in Georgetown, which is on the eastern end of the island. We stayed in two spectacular suites that shared a deck off the back of the establishment. I call them suites because they had wonderful large beds and spacious sitting areas, along with en-suite bathrooms. They were clean and well-appointed with spacious closets as well.

Joel, the proprietor, has only recently taken over the Inn. He is a certified chef who sold everything in Alberta and moved to PEI for a calmer way of life. He was gracious and very hospitable, providing us with off-menu dinners both evenings we were there, in addition to wonderful breakfasts both mornings.


During one of our walks around the town, we met the Mayor, an affable and intriguing person who gave up a senior corporate job to retire to Georgetown and do rock and shell sculptures. He's talented, interesting, and a lot of fun. Later that evening, the first day of the legit lobster season there, we had fresh lobster at the Inn, and the Mayor, who happened to be dining there as well, gave us lessons in how to eat lobster. We had a ball.


Joel was concerned when we booked the rooms that we might not have anything to do while we were there, but we drove around a bit in the morning and then hiked along a beautiful boardwalk in the afternoon. There are no fast food places in the town, but the general store is reputed to make excellent burgers. We ate all our evening and morning meals at the Inn.

Also, Buddy Wasisname And The Other Fellers (see this and this) stayed there just a few weeks before we were there -- what better recommendation can there be than that?

The Georgetown Inn was Ms. Eclectic's favourite of all the places we visited during our trip, but it might not be for everyone. The rooms are splendid, with nice Victorian or quasi-Victorian decor, and the food is delicious; but the floors slant a bit in places (as one might expect in buildings that are over a century and a half old) and Joel still has some organizing to do as he points his business in a slightly different direction; also, Joel's tastes in cooking might not appeal to everyone (though we certainly liked what he did for us — e.g. a shrimp and brie omelet our second morning).

If you think you might want to visit the Inn, we recommend it highly, especially if you like older but spacious rooms with excellent service. And if you go, be sure to visit the Mayor (Peter) and his craft shop.

We happened to end up in Caribou, Nova Scotia, the first day the lobster fishers were allowed to go out to drop their traps for the season. They would load their boats with traps, take them out to the choice areas, drop them, and then return to the harbour to load up more traps.






The big grey tub in the foreground of the photo on the right has little orange bags of bait for the lobsters. They put a bag in each trap as the trap was being loaded.

As you can see, the lobster industry is undergoing some technological changes. Slowly, the operators are replacing the old semi-cylindrical wooden traps with metal rectangular traps.

This next boats below are preparing to carry all metal traps. The one in the left looks as if they have a separate buoy for each trap. Sometimes they string several traps together all attached to one buoy. The buoys are different for each fisher so they can readily identify their traps.




The harbour was busy. The boats cannot hold all the traps to which the licences entitle the fishers, so they rush out with about half their traps, set them, and then come back for the rest. After that, they are not allowed to retrieve any traps until the next day, but they can bring back a few lobsters “for personal use”.

These last two photos were taken from the Wood Island Ferry (which you can see coming into dock in the background of the above photo on the right), as we were crossing to Prince Edward Island. I might have had a chance to go out on a lobster boat while we were in PEI, but given that they leave at 5am (no problem for this early riser) and work hard (still not much of a problem) and stay out from 5am until about 3pm (way too long for me when I’m on holidays) and I don’t know how I’d cope if suddenly afflicted with mal de mer, I opted out.

During our recent trip to The Maritimes, Ms. Eclectic, The Interpreter, and I visited The Hopewell Rocks, an amazing geological site along the western edge and near the top of the Bay of Fundy.

The rocks are red sandstone aggregates, but the tides in this part of the Bay of Fundy are among the highest tides in the world (sometimes greater than 40 feet!), and the movement of the tides has eroded portions of the rocks to leave wonderful, awe-inspiring rocks along the coast and shore.

We went to the rocks one morning at low tide so we could walk along the shore among the rocks. Here is a famous one, the Lovers' Arch (as usual, click on a photo to see it larger and in better resolution):


And here are some others. The one on the left made me think of those tubes of Pillsbury biscuits that you can (could? I haven't had them for years) buy from the refrigerator case at the grocery store; each "biscuit" is about twice the height of a normal adult. The one of the right reminded me, depending on the angle from which I viewed it, of an old iron or (more majestically) of a Phoenix rising from the earth.











Here is a close-up of the rock type that is in these formations:


It looks as if the bits of granite should be easily dislodged from the red sandstone, but that material is very hard and erodes only slowly, over a long time. The rocks stretch for about two kilometres along the shore, but these are among the better known formations.

That afternoon, we returned to Hopewell Rocks to view the rocks at high tide. Here is the Lovers' Arch (from up on a cliff) at high tide:



The tidal swing was only about 35 feet that day, but look at the contrast between the first photo and this one. Simply amazing!

[h/t to Gail and to The Interpreter for suggesting we visit this place. More acknowledgements to follow.]

It was cold, snowy, icy, damp, yet beautiful when we visited the Bay of Fundy National Park last week. Here's a photo that will be in my next exhibition, this coming November:

On a recent trip through the Bay of Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, we were struck by fields of various burgundy colours (not to mention the frigg'n snow that was falling during the last week of April!). It turns out these are blueberry bushes.

Much of south Texas avoided the housing bubble experienced in other major markets. I suspect that one reason is land is plentiful and the expressway system is well-developed, so people think nothing of living 20-30 miles outside the beltway, where land is quite inexpensive.

But in missing the bubble, one might have expected that Houston would also miss the downturn in the housing market being experienced elsewhere. But, then again, maybe not. This photo was taken earlier this week while I was visiting my son in Houston:

The final bonspiel of the season, the Spring Thaw:



Update: The top two photos were from Friday night's draw. The next two are from the Saturday morning draw. Note the morning coat and burgundy (vs. black) cummerbund and tie; the shirt is pink, but was washed out by the flash.



Update #2: And from the evening draw, my Hawaiian dinner jacket.

I didn't take it. I don't know who did, or I would be happy to give credit. Jack sent it to me, and I thought it was fascinating.

There are cheerleaders for flag football?

Well, I guess I can imagine there might be, given that this sign was along the highway in Texas, the high school football and cheerleading centre of the universe.

At Pavilion 6 in Tom Bass Park, south of Houston, TX. An unusual shape for a "stainless steel" urinal.

Soon we will be visiting my son, Adam Smith Palmer, who lives in the US. In anticipation of that visit, we have ordered a number of things that are less expensive there.

To prepare us, he wrote that we should bring at least one empty suitcase, and he sent this photo of himself, standing next to the pile of boxes.

The incremental shipping costs, added onto our trip costs, are essentially zero, so stocking up while we're there provides a net benefit for us.

Last week we had a combination of very cold weather and a fair amount of snow. Then the sun came out while it was windy. From my office on the 7th floor of the building where the economics department is housed at The University of Guelph, I looked out and saw hundreds of snowflakes, dancing in the sunlight. They looked like diamonds floating in the sky.

Here is a photograph of some of the diamonds on the ground, but it is not the same thing.



Some things I just cannot capture in a photograph...

My older son, David Ricardo Palmer, used his cell phone to take this photo at a local grocery store last weekend. He is warning people not to shop there...

The same two scenes (see previous posting), in the gray-blue of an overcast dawn:





The University of Guelph has many interesting sculptures in this general vicinity on its campus. Here is one of what I take to be a groundhog (though I could easily be mistaken) standing near a bus stop on the main street going past the university. Someone kindly gave it a glove to wear and left an apple for it. The Stonehenge-like work can be seen in the background, across a small parking lot.

Two photos from the University of Guelph campus.

First frost. Then snow. And then more snow yesterday:



When he first saw the photo, BenS asked what that praying mantis was eating.

Answer: snowcones.

Do you remember the sunflowers that were covered with frost last week? [here's a link to those photos]. About midnight on New Year's Eve, the snow started here. The weather report said we received about 10cms of snow. Looks like more than that to me!

We were fogged in on Christmas night, but the temperatures were so cold that the fog settled as frost in the early morning. And then the sun shone. Boxing Day in Clinton was absolutely gorgeous. The frost was so strong that it attached to MADD ribbons and even stayed adhered to radio antennas of vehicles driven to Tim Horton's

When I was in Edmonton earlier this month, the temperatures were often down below minus 20° C. (remember, C stands for Canadian, F stands for Foreign). Here is a photo of the thermometer in our rental car at 9 o'clock one morning:



It occurred to me as I walked to our car and passed a Coca-Cola delivery truck, that they must have to heat those trucks in the cold winter weather to keep the Coke from freezing. I asked the driver about it, and he pointed out that the heater on his truck had not been adequate for such cold temperatures:



It was so cold that our hosts put their dogs in thermal jackets with hoods:

One danger of ending with a preposition: it might be mistaken for a noun.



Taken during a recent visit to Edmonton

... the cats will sleep. How's that for an amended cliche?

Actually, what happened is that while I was away, Maxwell and Mystery took over my spot on the loveseat.



[photo courtesy of Ms. Eclectic]

Ms. Eclectic asked me to trim this tree because it was blocking the sunlight to her other plants. So I decided to cut it into the shape of a cube:



It looks like hell from the side and back, though:



Sort of a 3D Edgeworth Box? Not really.

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, Ms. Eclectic and I have been married 25 years. We recently picked up some matching rings we had designed and produced for us to celebrate.

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The rings were designed and made by Brenda Roy in Alliston, Ontario.

I've noticed that this site gets numerous visits from people looking for pictures of kidney stones. I posted one such picture back in July, but here is perhaps a better photo of two more stones that I got rid of a couple of weeks later:



Several people suggested that we have them set into matching rings for Ms. Eclectic and me... You know, sharing a bit of myself as a symbol of our togetherness. For reasons that escape me, both she and the jeweler refused.

Last weekend we visited my younger son, Adam Smith Palmer, and his wife. They live near Houston, Texas, where both are studying/working. On Labour Day, they took us to Brazos Bend State Park.

While there, we saw smallish alligator (we were told it was maybe 4-5 years old)



and tonnes of Golden Silk Spiders.



It's a nice park with a great hands-on programme for touching snakes and baby alligators, and for learning more about golden silk spiders.

It is my shoulder bag, in which I carry my computer, books, and other supplies when I commute to work. It is usually standing up in that place, but she pulled it over to investigate it, at which time she decided to make it one of her many beds.

I am about 6-feet tall. I have heard of sunflowers as tall as these (and much taller), but until this year I had never seen them "up close and personal". Now we have them in our yard. We have staked them in two places, but I fear the next really strong windstorm will take them down.

Stuart insists that when I return to the Yorkshire Dales, he will accompany me on a walk up and down Ingleborough Peak (live webcam shot here)and Whernside Peak. These peaks make up two of the famous Three Peaks Walk. The goal is to make the 24.5-mile walk up and down all three peaks in under 12 hours. Well, I walked up and down Pen-y-Ghent (the third of the three peaks) last June, so I figure if I do the other two before this coming June I'll have met some kind of criterion for having completed the three peaks in under 12 months ....

Stuart has no idea how slow I am. He may regret having made the offer and having insisted that he meant it.

Oh well. Over a year ago, Jay said that if I returned to England, he would drive me up to Scotland on his motorcycle. He was pretty chagrined when I actually showed up last April and reminded him of the offer — and he was greatly relieved when I told him I didn't really believe it was an offer (as in "offer and acceptance" in contract law). Similarly, I won't hold Stuart to his offer.

But I will try very hard to return to the Yorkshire Dales. They were absolutely spectacular.

Way off in the distance in this photo, you can just make out Pen-y-Ghent, which I walked up and down (and back to Settle) the following day.

The above photo was taken while I was walking to the small town Settle from the small town of Malham via Malham Cove (shown below):



Along the way, I passed the aptly named Rye Loaf Hill. This is another place to which I feel inexorably drawn, another must-visit when I return to the area. The photo below on the left is from the NE, and the photo on the right is from the west:



Note: because my cameras were out of commission, these photos were taken with my cell phone; not bad, eh?

In Alliston, Ontario, as you go into town from the west:



I wonder if they learned to do this from the folks in Herstmonceux.

Last winter, I wrote about a black rabbit that had been marauding Ms. Eclectic's garden (see here, or here, or here). After soliciting suggestions from readers here, I decided his name should be "Zeke". I figured he was an escaped domestic pet, and I did not really expect to see him again after a few weeks.

But he was back several times last week, bigger and fatter than ever:

I still think it is an eyesore, despite the fascinating lighting of this photograph. Maybe, some year, I'll actually go around in it, but don't hold your breath.

One of the interesting field trips I went on while teaching at the International Study Centre was to the town of Rye and then about a two-mile walk to the remains of Camber Castle out in the levels, some distance from the town.

In good weather, this would be a fantastic trip. The town of Rye is chock full of history, and Camber Castle is a good example of 16th century castles that became next-to-useless when the sea level receded.

In bad weather, though, ....

First, the walk to Camber Castle is across a number of sheep pastures. The sheep and lambs looks so cute... until you realize you have to trudge through miles of sheep manure (see photo on right, taken expressly for Anita). And the poor students had to form "rain scrums", huddling under umbrellas to avoid the massive downpours while we waited a half hour for someone to show up with a key to let us into the castle grounds.



It was still an interesting field trip, but we'd have enjoyed it much more in better weather!

View from the track on the way back:

If you live in the London (Ontario) area or expect to be passing through London sometime during the rest of this month, you might try to stop at the Starbucks in Masonville, attached to the Chapters bookstore there. For the month of July, an exhibition of my photography, "Lines, Not Queues", will be on display. From the introduction to the exhibit,

The unifying theme of this exhibit is the dominance of lines in each of the photographs. From the way the sunlight strikes a building to the convolution of lines in a theatre structure, lines emerge as a prevailing force.
Lines are nice; queues less so.

Previews of some of the photos can be seen here. Here is another:


Inside the Sydney Opera House

The price of gasoline in England is roughly twice what it is in North America. As a result, people drive smaller cars and drive less. Many people have chosen to take the train and ride bicycles, as is obvious in this photograph taken at the bicycle parking area of the Oxford train station:

While in Ayr, Scotland, I took this photo at high tide as Ms. Eclectic, The Chauffeur, and I were strolling along the river. We were staying in an apartment in one of those taller buildings off in the distance.

Later, we visited the cottage in which famous Scot poet, Robbie Burns was born, at the southern edge of Ayr.



At the museum next door to the Burns Cottage is a painting of the bridges of Ayr, sited not far from where I had taken my photo earlier that day.

The kidney stone that sent me to hospital a few weeks ago was originally reported to be 6mm x 8mm, but after lithotripsy (a non-invasive sonic process to smash up kidney stones), I was told,

"It is very hard, but it is beginning to break up."

That procedure lasted about 15 - 20 minutes, whereas some sources say the procedure should take as long as an hour. No wonder a hunk this size (5mm x 4mm) was left inside me.

It finally made its appearance yesterday afternoon. We're thinking of having either a christening or a coming-out party.

It would have been nice had they broken this up a bit more, along with the biggie that's still in there somewhere, but it is good to have this piece gone.

For the background, should you be interested, see this, this, and this.

A bar door in Brighton says "Pull", but has push plates on it. I thought it was a pretty amusing joke.



But then I saw the knob down low, under the window.

At a restaurant in Prenton on the Wirral.

Several people in Bath told me that there had never been any love lost between Queen Victoria and the people of Bath. Supporting evidence of this view is that while I was in Bath, I so no mailboxes with "VR" on them, despite having seen several of them in other towns. I did, however, come across several mailboxes with E-VII-R on them, placed during the reign of Victoria's son, Edward VII, in the early 20th century.



By the time I left England, I still had not seen any mailboxes with ER VIII on them, even though I guess at least one exists.

And from a distance, I continued to mistake these things for mailboxes:



Fortunately, I never tried to mail a letter in one of them.

In a shop window in the Mayfair District of London:



At the Carnegie Library in Ayr, Scotland:



Notice the padded backrest in the lower model. I confess to having looked for a pistol behind the tank [cf Godfather I].

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And while we're on the subject of toilets, here is an amusing sign on the public facilities in Newhaven, UK.

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Addendum: At the Cliffs of Moher in western Ireland:

One Tuesday in late May while I was in England, I decided to go for a walk on The South Downs, just west of Eastbourne. The Downs stretch a long ways, and there are many trails to take that are gorgeous, with nice views and pleasant breezes. Here is a view of The Downs (those hills in the distance) from my apartment window in Bader Hall at Herstmonceux Castle.

As I was walking up one of the paths to The Downs, I turned around and could see the old Newton Observatory, along with several smaller observatory domes at the Science Centre, all of which are located on the Castle grounds at Herstmonceux. Bader Hall is barely visible as a low brownish brick building to the left in this photo. [You will probably have to click on this photo to see the domes, etc.]



One of my favourite activities when walking is to take a break and fly a small parafoil kite that I carry with me. It has no frame, is sturdy, and it rolls up into a very small package that is easy to carry around. Here it is, in the air over The South Downs.



This type of kite needs a fairly strong and steady wind, but there is something idyllic about sending it up, lying on the grass, and dreaming....

I had been just over this hill when I was flying the kite.
And, of course, there are the usual sheep everywhere.

It all started less than a year ago. I had nice, handy Minolta digital camera that I carried everywhere in my shirt pocket. While wading, I leaned over and dropped it into the Irish Sea.

Then I dropped my first Canon 750 into our hot tub.

Next, a little over a week ago, I was carrying my second Canon 750 in my pocket when, as happened several times before, something bumped the on-off switch, turning the camera on (and, unfortunately, opening and extending the lens away from the camera body). It seems that the heavy bag I was carrying on my shoulder then smashed into the camera in my pocket, destroying the mechanism. Another camera bit the dust.

Results:

1. all my photos from Yorkshire and from the Eastbourne hospital were taken on my cell phone (low resolution).
2. I think I will wait awhile before purchasing yet another piñata digital camera. I really want quality photographs, portability, and convenience, but I guess I have to alter my lifestyle even more in my use of a small digital camera. I had already stopped carrying it in my shirt pocket, having lost two of them into the water from my shirt pocket. But carrying the camera in my pants pocket is how I destroyed the last one.

Maybe I just need to take a bit more time to think about different options at different times. I'm not too good at that, it seems.

The name seems so apt when you take the pedestrian walkway between the Embankment station and the Charing Cross station:

What better gift can I send to my daughter for her birthday than a t-shirt from the French Connection, United Kingdom, on which the initials of the firm are emblazoned, in-your-face-style, across the front?



I guess this clothing is more than passe, but she'll be getting stuff actually from the UK, unlike all the items in Trono that get students sent home from their schools.