Those roses along the median at the mall

I took one from the roof deck of the mall the other day, but this is a closer view.

Transportation

A little of everything - land, sea, and air, as the Coral Princess leaves for Alaska and others are heading home from work.

Nice sunset

Thanks to Telemark Systems and their KatKam for this nice picture. You can find a link to this website in the right-hand margin of this page. If you scroll down below the picture, you will find other links on it to other webcams around the area and beyond - such as Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains. So do give it a look.

More pictures

Top photo: Canada Place, the cruise ship terminal, with parts of downtown behind it.

Bottom photo: Another part of downtown, with Stanley Park in the foreground. If you notice a few thin spots in the trees, that's because we had a near-hurricane in December of 2006 which blew down large numbers of the mature trees, and these had to be removed.

Saturday at the Mall....

From the South Mall at Park Royal, West Vancouver, B.C.

The ski report....

Ski slopes in summer always look rather sad. This is part of Grouse Mountain's ski area.

I went to the doctor the other day, to get a prescription renewed, and as usual, we got talking motorcycles. He's on his third one now, a Yamaha sports bike. When he got his first one a few years ago, I gave him a book that has all the best advice and hints in it about how to do all that without becoming a statistic, and he actually read it, and it seems to be working well for him.

More local scenery

Upper photo: Part of the downtown skyline viewed from the park on Grand Boulevard in North Vancouver.

Lower photo: The Lions peaks, with a lot of wires in the way, also from the park on Grand Boulevard, in North Vancouver. These are the peaks for which Lions Gate Bridge is named.

Another useful program for you....

It's called Neat Image, and it cleans up noisy older images in just a couple of clicks, and you can find it here.
It also works on Windows 7 for those of us who are using the newest Windows. There's a Demo version which is a freebie, so give it a try if you want to clean up older images.

Things that fly....

Upper photo: An Eagle, looking for lunch.

Lower photo: One of the commuter planes making regular flights between here and Victoria on Vancouver Island.

More this and that....

Above: Roses and other flowering shrubs along the median at Park Royal Mall - the first shopping mall built in Canada, back in the 1950s, and still going.

I went for an eye test a couple of weeks ago, and it turns out I don't need new glasses yet - but when the lady looked at mine, she said that the coating was coming off, and she would like to send them back to the lab, because they are still under warranty. Yesterday, she asked me to come and get my glasses, with new lenses in them.

The other day, I emailed Alwil Software to tell them that their Avast Anti-virus works well with Windows 7, unlike some others I've tried, and that more people need to know this.
Here's their reply:-

Dear Ray,

Thank you for your email and your feedback. We are glad that avast! is working so well with Windows 7 and we will put more attention on it before the launch of Windows 7.

Kindest Regards,
Martin Zima
ALWIL Software a.s.

The Lookout at Prospect Point....

...as seen from Ambleside Park in West Vancouver. This lookout is in Stanley Park, on the west side of the southern end of Lions Gate Bridge, and overlooks Burrard Inlet and West Vancouver.

From one park, looking at another....

The Stanley Park Seawall Promenade with Siwash Rock on the point at right, as viewed from Ambleside Park in West Vancouver. Taken with a Canon G9 using a doubler on the zoom. Click on the above image to enlarge it.

Celebrities who are part plastic....

I thought I'd better not include a picture of a typical example here, but the list is very long, and you can read all about it, with pictures, on this website of the encyclopedia of plastic surgery right here.

A look at West Vancouver's waterfront

Today it looks like our stretch of really nice summery weather is giving way to clouds and maybe some rain, so while I'm thinking of it, here's a shot of part of the waterfront along West Vancouver's shoreline. At the water's edge, there's a seawall walkway similar to one in Stanley Park, which runs for many blocks, and terminates at a very nice restaurant further out along the shores of West Vancouver. Unlike the Stanley Park seawall, however, they have no provisions for bicycles, so bikers have to walk it. Too bad, because it's a nicer way to go than on the city streets, without the cars or hills.

Boats - big and small

Top picture: Speedboat near the Stanley Park Seawall Walk.

Middle picture: Sport fishing in Burrard Inlet near Ambleside Park.

Bottom picture: Sailing near the 'parking lot' for ocean freighters in Burrard Inlet.

More duck hunting

At Ambleside Park this afternoon.

Two birds with one shot....

These ducks almost blend in with the rock they are sitting on.

I just received the latest Microsoft Technet Newsletter, and it mentions that the Vista Service Pack Two is now available. How do I tell them that I don't need it, because I removed Vista when I installed Windows 7 when it first came out? I should also add that I've never been sorry for doing that. In fact, I think Windows 7 is the best Windows I've ever seen or used, and even though this is the release candidate version that I'm now using, it's already a better and more stable product than some of its predecessors, and I won't name those, out of respect for the feelings of the folks at Microsoft. If you haven't yet tried this new version of Windows, I can only ask, "Why not?"

I was reading on a forum today about some guy asking how he could remove Windows 7 so he could go back to Vista. Personally I can't imagine why he'd want to do that. I sure wouldn't.
I think his problem was that his security program didn't work well with Windows 7. That's because most of the major security companies weren't really on the ball when this new O/S was coming along, and they weren't ready for it. I've found ( by trial and error) that some of them don't work well, but others not yet approved work fine. I'm using Avast 4.8 Home Edition, and it works fine with Windows 7. It updates automatically, and does the usual things we expect of a good anti-virus program. And for those of you who are wondering, Yes, it does catch the bad stuff - in fact, it even warns me if I'm trying to connect to a site that has malware on it, in time for me to abort that and avoid the problem. I think that's just great.
You can find it here.

A blooming pine tree... and other stuff

We don't usually think of pine trees as having blooms, but they do, and these are those. I haven't a lot to rant about today, but a nice young lady who once wrote a blog about how to do your blog advised us that if we want to get it noticed, we have to do it regularly. It seems some bloggers will start one, and then only update it every few weeks, and of course those die on the vine rather quickly. Even when contributing to it regularly, and using a service to ping various blogger sites, it can still take quite a while to get some regular readers. So if you are one, thanks for visiting.

The last couple of days, many of us have been following the story of the Air France jet which mysteriously vanished over the Atlantic during the night on Sunday. Latest reports say that there have been four separate patches of debris spotted in the area where it disappeared. This seems to suggest that it broke up in mid-air, and fell into the ocean in pieces.

If it flew directly into an especially violent tropical thunderstorm, in which there can be balls of hail the size of bowling balls, and violent up and down drafts, could that explain it? And why didn't they see it coming on their weather radar, and go around it? We may never know.

More pictures....

Need a fresh background 'wallpaper'? One of these might just do it.

And today, it's official - the retail versions of Windows 7 will be available October 22nd, so for all of us who have been using the beta and now the RC version, we will never have to switch back to anything else. Welcome to the future, Folks. This RC is already so good, I wouldn't be able to tell it wasn't the retail version if I didn't already know the story. When we say this promises to be the best Windows ever, we aren't kidding. Many of us have wanted a Windows like this for a long time, and now we've got it.

Microsoft's answer to Google....or is it?

Google News has an article from CNET about this today, and I decided to have a look for myself. How did I find it? I Googled it, of course!

The secret to good answers is to use the right questions, and good key-words.