parker 61, online, manuscript (callig), parker 51, waterman, pelikan, shaeffer “touchdown”
now that is fine dining!
Goodbye Gordie
For years your picture hung on my bedroom wall
In my bookcase, your hockey instruction book
On my record stand, the song they wrote about you
In my drawer, your autograph
In my memory, so much
Goal 544, when you busted the Rocket’s mark
I got out my Brownie to record the event on the TV
Goal 600, sitting with my grandfather in the Montreal Forum
The crowd went wild
For the incomparable
Gordie Howe
1928-2016
with my Brownie Starflash
Filed under Uncategorized
On Tour Sketchbook
We just did the fairly annual week of the Juan de Fuca Festival in Port Angeles, followed by a few days off camping.
Leroy Bell
The festival was great this year; we saw many amazing acts, like Leroy Bell here, an amazing songwriter and singer.
wide beaches
Then we headed off to the wild Pacific coast to camp.
did I mention you can drive on this beach?
June is never particularly warm around here, but we lucked out for a few days with lots of sunshine. I swam in Lake Quinault, which was freezing cold, but after a while I just went numb to it and it was wonderful.
Lake Quinault
There weren’t any good typewriters in the few antique shops I found, but there was an interesting old LC Smith on display in Olympic Stationers in P.A.
LC Smith with right hand return lever
When it isn’t raining the beaches are wonderful.
famous weird tree at Kalaloch
interesting heap of debris
sandpipers
We always love to see restored vintage camp trailers like this one, an old Shasta.
Shasta trailer
Saw a lovely butterfly, too.
I regret not doing more sketching, but with driving, cooking & eating, sleeping late and general laziness I only had time for a few watercolours.
village scene
windmills from the beach
closed but rumoured to be going to open again this year
Coho ferry arrives to bring us home
Filed under Painting, Photography, Sketching, Travel, Typewriters, VW Vans, Wildlife
That gnome, known ‘m?
who’s that new gnome?
Filed under Animal psychology, Birds, Poetry, Sketching, Typewriters
Plein Air Day 2016
Yesterday was the annual Opus Outdoor Challenge, and once again the weather was cool and grey, as is more like normal. Recently we’ve had July-like weather here, which is so rare it’s hard to fathom, since most people know that the earth is really cooling off, due to hell freezing over in the big country south of here. With most of the 50 or so blocks of the city in which we were permitted to roam and do plein air sketching in, I rode my bike two blocks and decided to sit down by the harbour on some rocks and paint a scene with the old bridge in it. Next year it may be gone, but it will remain in countless sketches and memories.
The 90 year old bascule bridge is either a classic or a relic, depending on whom one asks. I say classic, but the city said relic, so after years of debate they contracted with the largest construction firm in the country to build a replacement bridge next to the old one. I think the old bridge has cursed the new bridge, which somehow refuses to ever be finished. The new bridge will cost more than 100 times the old bridge’s price of $720,000 in 1924. Sub-standard (code word for very crappy) steel from China is causing the construction to be delayed while the manufacturer makes improvements to “quality control”. One can only laugh; or cry.
Remembering the Imperial Yeomanry
25 cents, from a bin of old postcards. Trafalgar Square, with an interesting note about Boer War veterans in very beautiful handwriting. But how is it that an English postcard would have instructions for stamps in cents?
Filed under Post cards, Thrift shop finds
To Buy or Not to Buy
Not forgetting National Poetry Month
That is the question, or is it?
Oh that people would pay to read this discontented blog and make it a glorious monetizing scheme this summer. Alas poor blog, I don’t know it, whomever.
As we honor William Shakespeare again, and again, and again – I mean there have been countless writers in the world in the last four centuries, have there not? I take this opportunity, or not, to write a sonnet and accompany it with some more pictures of eagles, which are irrelevant to the occasion, and the sonnet, or are they? Feel free, meanwhile, dear gentle readers, to read my words and feeling inspired, buy my book.
FRIDAY NIGHT
Down the gutters water runs in torrents
Springtime wind and rain returned today
Early heat had lulled us into torpor
When cold wet breezes blew as if to say
Sun or rain, who knows what blows tomorrow
The wild wind is this and here to stay
As rain washed down with sweet cold drafts of ale
Friday night’s the time for pizza treat
Listening to cool jazz tunes on the hi-fi
Sip sauvignon blanc with chocolate sweets
Rapid fire guitar notes set the tempo
Fading sky from blue turns into black
Flying fingers dance upon piano
Resting on the couch, we settle back
Filed under Birds, Photography, Poetry, Wildlife
Vintage Car Show 2
The show on YouTube was up for a day then removed for edits! Here it is again.
Filed under Uncategorized
Vintage Cars of Victoria, episode II
I am the assistant producer of a TV show! The show is about vintage cars here in Victoria BC, and is the brainchild of my friend Joey. I first got involved last year when I designed his book on vintage cars, and we’ve moved on since to doing local TV.
April 18, 2016 · 3:27 pm
nathanguitars 