More from Peter Li Photography

True to his word, Peter Li stopped me on my ride home and gave me a CD with the full-resolution photos he took last week - 28 altogether. I shared a few received by email in this post "Random Act of Kindness". 

This was my favourite from last week. I love the background framing.

After reviewing all the photos, this one is my absolute favourite. I love how he captured both the action and the joy of my daily commute. 

Thanks again to Peter Li for sharing his talent with these photos. 

Be the first to comment - click on No comments: below.

Random Act of Kindness

Riding home from work yesterday, I received a Random Act of Kindness from a stranger. I noticed a man in the park and thought he looked familiar. When he called out, I stopped. Turns out he looked familiar because I see him all the time while riding home.

Peter Li is a professional photographer. He rides his bike through the city and parks and captures the most amazing photos. He showed me some of his work on i-pads he carries in his backpack. I especially love his bird shots. When I got home, I looked up his portfolio. It's impressive.

Yesterday, Peter asked to take some pictures of me. He often sees me riding and liked my colourful LCW jersey and cool bike. I was so happy to be asked, I couldn't help smiling for my mini photo shoot. 

Peter sent me copies of all seven photos. I love them. I feel differently about my Costco clunker now. It is performing above and beyond expectations. I wanted a 'worry-free' ride to work and I got it. 

The bottom bracket clicks and clunks with each pedal stroke, yet works just fine. I actually welcome the noise, as it reminds me why I no longer fear my bike will be stolen. Thanks to a Random Act of Kindness, I can truly appreciate and celebrate my Costco clunker. 

Thank you Peter Li for generously sharing your photos with me.

Be the first to comment - click on No comments: below.

meo my Shutterfly

This week I have been busy putting together a Shutterfly book for our new granddaughter. I love writing and assembling these books on-line then getting a proper hard cover book as a keepsake. I especially like writing personalized stories with our family in mind. It makes me so happy to record childhood memories in this way for our grandchildren.

The other cool thing about these stories is that I do not think of them in advance. This is the fourth book I've written since my grandson was born just over 3 years ago. Each book idea just "popped" into my head and was written and completed within a week. I love that they practically write themselves and produce such fun little treasures. 

I already talked about the making of Boyington Bear and Buddies - Book 3 in this post. It showcased a selection of Amigurumi I had made for our grandson. I wrote it as a children's storybook and really had fun with the whole process.

The first two books were called Mavid Logan Boyington (book 1) and Mavid Is (book 2). Book 1 was a labour of love for our new grandson. I wrote a long, rhyming story starting with the news of our daughter's pregnancy through the birth and first few weeks with her new baby. It told the story of how Mavid came to be. I loved writing this story going into great detail ensuring everything rhymed. I also enjoyed going through all our photos picking out just the right ones to illustrate the story. 

The first story also had a LOT of text since I wanted to include ALL the details surrounding the arrival of our daughter's first child and our much anticipated first grandchild. When I decided to create a book, I researched a few different websites and ended up choosing Shutterfly. It was a perfect choice providing a variety of options with plenty of flexibility for adding text. Just to compare, a standard photo book with Shutterfly is 20 pages but this book was 57 pages with many of the pages being just text. The text no longer displays on the shared link which is not a problem as very few people have the patience to read the whole thing anyway. Even so I am happy to have done it and wouldn't change a thing. 

I decided the rest of the books should be more photo focused.  I have kept the text relatively short but continue to incorporate rhyming. I love playing with words and rhyming is just so much fun.  I think the books are visually appealing and a great way to celebrate our growing family. 

This fourth book is called Evie Sweet Evie and is all about our new granddaughter and our love for her. The title describes her temperament perfectly. Although we live ~2,200 km away, I am completely happy to have two wonderful grandchildren. I'm sure my daughter and I can continue to combine our talents; her photography (see Sweet Maple Photography) and my writing to produce a whole series of personalized books for her children. I can hardly wait to see what other books we create. 

Until then I think I will get back to another one of my favourite creative outlets ... crochet. I am ready to start another bear and will be sure to take a photo to share when it is done.

Travel Talk

I have to tell you all about our trip to Boulder on Friday, January 31st. It was a long day of travel for my Mom and me but we had a terrific time together. My Dad took us to the Robert Q station at 9:30 a.m. to catch the 10 a.m. bus to Detroit. This bus was scheduled to get us to the airport with lots of time to kill but was recommended in case bad weather or potential problems at the border made us late. 

Our bus ride was fun. The weather was good, the roads were clear and the driver was very friendly. He assigned "co-pilot" duties to the nice young man who sat in the seat next to him. We sat behind the driver and thoroughly enjoyed talking to our "co-pilot", Tony Autin for the length of the drive. Tony travels to London from Louisiana frequently as he works for InnoSoft Fusion which specializes in Recreation Management Software. He is also a foodie and made us both hungry telling us about various southern recipes and restaurants he enjoys. He is into "nose-to-tail" cuisine which I think is healthy. I can hardly wait to try grilled bone marrow now that I've heard about it. He was also telling us about an infrared oil-free deep fryer which sounds interesting. 

We had no weather delays but we did have a bit of excitement at the border. Everybody had to get out of the bus and line up for luggage inspection outside in the cold. At least we were able to watch as they went through our luggage and nobody failed so we were soon on our way. The bus got us to the airport right on time at 1:30 p.m. We were quick to get in line at the Southwest luggage counter but were turned away as it was more than 4 hrs until our scheduled departure at 6:25 p.m. Since we couldn't check our luggage, we sat and had our first snack of the day.

Mom waiting patiently for check in time

At 2:25 p.m. we got in line again and checked our luggage then headed over to security to wait in another line. Mom was very pleased to discover her Business Select ticket came with perks almost worth the extra cost. She enjoyed a short line, got to leave her boots on and collected a coupon for an alcoholic beverage on the plane. I went through the long line, removed my boots and sorted my stuff into bins. My backpack was stopped and I had to wait while they swabbed my jar of nut-ball mix. Who knew you weren't allowed to bring any type of nut butter through security? Luckily my jar passed the swab test and the nice young security officer allowed me to keep it. Phew, almost lost my yummy snack full of expensive organic ingredients. On the other side Mom was waiting all relaxed and pleased about keeping her boots on.

We checked out our gate D21, wandered to the end of the terminal checking out restaurants and headed back to the Coffee Bean for a cappuccino where a nice young lady took our photo.

Cappuccino at DTW

 After enjoying our cappuccino, we checked out some shops then decided it was time for an early dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. We asked an airport employee how to access the free internet and learned you have to go to boingo.hotspot.com for 45 mins free wi-fi. I was able to connect and chat with my daughter while we had dinner. My time ran out just as we finished our meal so we moved on to our gate and used Mom's laptop to Skype Dad. Their chat was cut short to start boarding. I love the Southwest boarding system where you get a spot in line and can pick whatever seat you like once you get on the plane. It's very efficient. Mom's Business Select ticket got her the first spot A01 so she was able to pick a really good seat by the window.

Selfie on the airplane

Our flight was smooth with only a very little bit of turbulence at the beginning. We sat with a nice young man who had been in Detroit for an interview. He finished Med School in L.A. and is currently looking for a residency position. We wished him luck with his search. He sat in the aisle and was very patient as I must have bugged him at least 3 times to get up and use the toilet.

We landed in Denver with about 50 mins to find baggage claim and figure out where to catch the Airport bus to Boulder. We followed signs to find the shuttle to baggage claims. Luckily, we are not shy about asking directions as it was a bit confusing. Also Mom's Rogers phone did not work in the US (bit of a surprise that she'll sort out when she returns home). Luckily we were able to borrow a nice young man's phone to call both my daughter and her hubby but nobody picked up. Oh well, we decided to head to the airport bus station with our luggage. At baggage claim we talked with a man who was also taking the bus to Boulder so we knew we were in the right place when we saw him chatting on his phone. He even let us borrow his phone to try calling again. This time we reached my daughter and told her what time we expected to get in. The bus arrived at the airport right on time at 8:43 p.m. We sat in the front, took another Selfie and then talked with the driver all the way to Boulder. 

One more Selfie on the airport bus to Boulder

The driver was very entertaining and nice so we enjoyed our trip even though the weather was terrible. Apparently, environmentalists have convinced Boulder area to use no salt on the roads. Once we left the airport road, it was slippery and there was an accident every couple of miles all the way to Boulder. Our driver was very competent so we made it to the Boulder bus station safe and sound and my son-in-law arrived right on time to pick us up.

When we arrived "home", our grandson heard us and asked to come greet us even though it was 10 p.m. and well past his bedtime. He came downstairs and gave us both a big hug and a kiss. It was a perfect end to a long day of travel. We were both exhausted but very, very happy. 

Congratulations if you've made it to the end of this post. I know it's a long one but I want to keep a detailed record of this trip with Mom as we have not traveled together since I was a young teen which is a very long time ago. 

Our week is going famously although there is no baby here yet and it is already Monday. We'll have to take my daughter out walking or something if we hope to see this baby before we leave. You can read my daughter's post on our arrival and fun first day on her photography blog here.