how now brownpau
Ever since we moved and I switched my instrument cluster from imperial to metric, I have waited eagerly for this landmark odometer reading. It rolled over as I drove to work last month, and in my carelessness I missed it, noticing only as I rolled into the parking lot.
Missed it. By one kilometre.
We had a great Thanksgiving…back in October! Canadian Thanksgiving was October 14th — I assume because harvest celebrations came earlier in the colder North. Amy picked up a Butterball turkey breast (not a whole one, that would’ve been a bit much for us) with stuffing and cranberry sauce and other fixings, and we had a nice little Thanksgiving dinner. (Yes, I had my turkey with rice.)
Regular work day for US Thanksgiving (Yanksgiving as some call it up here) so I made a Street Fighter M. Bison-derived meme to celebrate.
Forecast for the day was light rain; instead we got a few inches of snow that tied up the streets all afternoon and evening. Dashcam video of my very careful drive home:
Last bits of fading Fall colour around Halifax South End, over the South Street railway bridge and looking over the water of the Northwest Arm.
(I cheated a bit; these were saturated and warmed a bit in the iOS photo editor.)
For Halloween Ezra and I were an astronaut and a Star Trek redshirt again, same as last year. (The NASA outfit still fits him and we’re in a new place so no one here saw us in these costumes last year anyway. Amy was asked at least once if she was dressed up as Georgie but it was just a yellow raincoat.)
While trick-or-treating around the neighbourhood we ran into a fellow Trekkie at the local Wesleyan church, and spotted a Pac Man pumpkin.
I can’t find my cardboard creeper head anymore, but I know I packed it in the move to Canada. It will return.
Ding! Ezra pulled this out of his toy microwave and handed it to me. “Here’s your lunch, dada.” Ah, that fine delicacy, poisson avec voiture.
“It’s banana ice cream.”
Kid may be a fine chef some day. Or a food stylist.
To commemorate nine months of Nova Scotian unemployment, I collaged all my job application rejections over a scenic photo of the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove. This only covers a fraction of total applications; many other employers never got back to me at all.
As Hurricane Dorian arrived in Nova Scotia on Saturday 7 Sep 2019, I set up my GoPro in the window to record a time lapse of its passage through the Halifax region, capturing 10 seconds per frame from morning till evening. Cloud motion was too fast to get a decent sense of motion for most of the day but around 1m 15s into the video, the eye of the hurricane reached us and the clouds suddenly slowed and reversed direction. (Also watch for a tree suddenly falling over at around 20s, damaging a neighbour’s house.)
We lost power from Saturday to Monday and had a major leak in the basement. Downtown a crane fell, but overall damage was of course nowhere near the destruction in the Bahamas.
Small photoset of our experience of the hurricane in Halifax.
Highlight of Labour* Day Weekend was a Saturday trip to Lunenburg, picturesque historic fishing town and home port of the Bluenose, on Nova Scotia’s South Shore just over an hour’s drive from Halifax.
We spent most of the day at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. Lots more to see and do there than I expected; aside from historical artifacts, interpretive displays, and Bluenose models, the museum had an aquarium with touch tank, two large historic fishing boats to explore out on the waterfront, Mi’kmaq fishing techniques, lovely views of the water, and a little playground with a whale and a sailboat.
Ezra had lots of fun. Tangential to the fishing industry he saw his first movie theatre and typewriter — and also enjoyed the museum elevator.
Lunenburg NS photo album here.
(* I have to spell it with an “ou” like a Canadian now.)
Looking towards Halifax from the tip of McCormacks Beach in Eastern Passage. Purdy’s Wharf, Macdonald and Mackay Bridges, Tufts Cove Power Station, and the Imperial Oil Wharves are all visible.
The provincial park features a boardwalk to the small sandy beach, and sits right near Fisherman’s Cove, where Ezra got to meet a pirate.
This was outside a little cafe called Coffee, Tea, and Sea, which, interestingly, also featured Indonesian food on the menu. Definitely have to try lunch there some time.
Busy sky over us on August 11th: first the Red Arrows (Canadian RAF Aerobatic team, kind of like the USA’s Blue Angels) flew over Halifax for an air show.
Later in the day storm clouds and sunset aligned to form a vivid rainbow in the eastern sky.
