Facade (with the slightest shade of stubble)

Halloween Drag Queen -- Church Street, Toronto.

Global Warming and Hand-Held-Camera Shake

A purple flower on a vine growing though an iron fence in Toronto's Cabbagetown neighbourhood this morning.

I had the macro lens on -- was a windy morning, but I'm an optimist I suppose. No way to get a crisp macro shot with the subject moving as it was, and I was too lazy to set the tripod up, as well, so there was added movement with hand shake.

However, the shake produced a beautiful halo effect in the middle of the flower, quite more lovely than the crisp detail of all the hairy pollen laden inards I was hoping for.

Oh, and what the heck are there still loads of blossoming plants around for in almost November?

Climb [insert picture of CN Tower here]

I clilmbed the 1,776 stairs of the CN Tower this morning -- the 30th anniversary of the United Way's climb. I thought I had done the very first climb but I'm pretty sure I did that in '79 so I guess my memory, as usual, is faulty :)

My time was 17 min. 32 seconds. I got there for the 6 a.m. start so there were no people around me on the climb so it was an enjoyable 20 minutes--especially given that when leaving I had to walk past a (at least) 40 minute line up to sign in. The stairwells are quite narrow so it would have been shite to trudge up packed in with folks. Average time is 30 minutes. Record time is just under 8 minutes.

Some not quite dried puke on one landing didn't bode well after the fact for the earlier-in-the-week corporate challenge group.

Another feature was some very snacky EMS personnel... Hmmm, walkie talkies, uniforms and blue latex gloves...

Up close and personal

Three frozen blueberries stuck atop a banana, prior to liquification, on the way to smoothiedom, in a blender...