It's Garage Sale Day

Saturday morning and we are garage sale-ing.  Was a very successful morning for the wee ones.

We stopped and watched this guy (or is it a gal?) along the way.  You can see he is losing his winter fur.

Big Bun came with us (but stayed in the car while we looked at the goods for sale).

Especially worth looking at is the FREE stuff.

Then the fun continues once home as they get to play with all the new acquisitions --- that is after I disinfect everything and throw Alanna's Princess dress through the wash cycle in the washing machine.

                   

Later this afternoon it was time to go to a birthday party.  June turns 4!  So Alanna wears her Beauty princes dress and feels like a million dollars.  Above,  her dad is trying to figure out how her new Transformer transforms.

Made it to Skagway

I never tire of this drive.   It was a beautiful sunny day.  Some of the lakes still had ice on them and of course the mountain tops were still in snow but the temperature was warm with a slight breeze.

Didn't realize that this was the only photo I took while in Skagway.   The Skagway Fire Department sponsored a fundraiser, a car wash, and had this unique way of washing the vehicles. It was fun to watch. 

Only two ships in this day... one large and one small, so the town was not that busy.  Went to buy my favourite boots and guess what ... they didn't have my size.  We talked a lot to the "rock" man and I did get some special rocks for Alanna and Emerson.  We didn't leave till we had a beer and a halibut burger down by the pier.  Was a great day all in all.

Skagway Bound

I enjoy stopping at the Commons.  I like everything about it from the small pod shops, the totem pole, the boardwalks, the seating areas, the blankets they have available for those who are chilly, and today, the entertainment that it offered.

Dropped into Shelley McDonald's pod.  She was there. I ate a free cupcake from her shop.   If you do not know her work, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge wore Shelley's earrings while visiting Carcross last year.

I thought the Duchess purchased them herself, but her personal buyer purchased them then Kate wore them during her visit.  

We stopped the car at the summit to stretch our legs and take in the wonderful view.  I never tire of the ride to Skagway.

Carcross

First trip of the season to Skagway.  Stopped at Carcross for the season opening of the Carcross Commons, the beautiful little area they made with shops, eateries, tourist info, etc.  It was busy busy with music, dancers, and almost all of their shops opened.  Below is some dancing with the Carcross Tagish First Nations.

Forgotten Photos

Here are a few pics of my trip I found on my iPad.  This lovely cake at our family gathering.  I questioned the word "home" and we never did come to a consensus about it.  But beautiful cake in any case.

My youngest sister and youngest niece.  

And sister Teri.

All were good photos, so wanted to include them on the blog.

May 8th

Home once again.  Was invited out for dinner and we ate out on the deck, the weather was so lovely.  After dinner two helpers were cleaning up the dishes.  I'll have to show them how eager they were in this picture when they are teenagers and are grumbling about doing the dishes.

The Currency of the Future

It's 2018.  Times are changing.  You know about Bitcoins, or at least have heard the term.  It is one of the many Crypto Currencies now on the market.  

According to Wikipedia:  A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets

From Britannica.com:   Cryptology. Cryptology, science concerned with data communication and storage in secure and usually secret form. It encompasses both cryptography and cryptanalysis. The term cryptology is derived from the Greek kryptós (“hidden”) and lógos (“word”).

This is the field my nephew works in.  He has set up what are called mining rigs, shown below, and he mines.  According to him, "People call it "mining" but it is actually verifying transactions for the currency you are mining".  He doesn't mine bitcoins but does mine ethereum which is one of many of the crypto currencies.

The Webopedia definition:  Cryptocurrency mining, or cryptomining, is a process in which transactions for various forms of cryptocurrency are verified and added to the blockchain digital ledger. ... In order to be competitive with other cryptominers, though, a cryptocurrency miner needs a computer with specialized hardware.

This is the way of the future.  I doubt if I will every become a miner but I may eventually become a user.  I am trying hard to understand it.  I have just sat through the video below and will have to do it again another time or two before I understand it.  If you are interested in how this currency works, here is an introductory video.  It takes about 30 minutes so sit back and absorb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=bBC-nXj3Ng4&t=8s

Family

Visiting family on my trip.  Above is Deb's family.

And 3 / 5ths of Teri's family.

We Face-Timed my family back home and everyone gathered round the computer.

Imagine, not that long ago we were so careful about phoning long distance.  Now we not only phone anytime anywhere but see each other as well.  It's Star Trek come true.

Mom, who turns 95 this year.   Still living on her own in her own apartment. 

And got to visit Kayla's apartment too.  

Niagara-on-the-Lake - May 2nd

The girls outing on this trip to Ontario was to the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.  It is a beautiful little town (500 residents in the historic area) where the Shaw Festival takes place. No, we didn't see any plays for dis walk around the town, poking into little shops along the way.  As this was our special little trip, we decided to take a horse and buggy ride around the town.  This was like a very slow hop-on hop-off.  The driver was full of information about the town.

It was a beautiful sunny spring day, perfect for a ride in this carriage.

I like this picture.  I can see the beginning of a suspense novel in it.

After our ride, we popped into this soap store where this pretty young girl tried her hardest to sell us $500 skin serum.  And it came with $250 cream and $125 cream.  And she wanted Teri to be their product model.  Unfortunately for her, she did not make a sale this day to us.  I do have to admit their soap was nice though.  

On our carriage ride, we were told that that is Youngstown U.S.A. across the river.  We had a hard time believing it, but apparently it is true.  A little too close to Canada in the War of 1812 if you ask me.

Here is a closer look of the USA fort that looks across the river at Canada!

Infinity Mirrors

 “After all, well, moon is a polka dot, sun is a polka dot, and then, the earth where we live is also a polka dot.” 

I was so lucky.  Lynda was able to get (through hard work as the website was NOT co-operative) tickets to the world famous exhibit Infinity Mirrors.  The only city it was held in Canada was Toronto.  All of the reviews I read were exceptional so I was eager to see her works.

We took the subway to the Art Gallery of Ontario.  The walkway to the street was Dotted!  

The exhibit is made up of Yahoo Kusama's works on the floors and walls plus a number of rooms that you can enter, experience for 20 seconds, then exit.  Above is the first room.

Twenty seconds is longer than you would think.

This was one of my favourite rooms.  One of the balls is actually another room to enter.  I loved the feeling of standing amongst pink balls.

I also liked to experience INFINITY.  This is a difficult concept for me to grasp and in a few of the rooms it was infinite no matter where you looked, up, down, forwards, backwards.  It went on forever.

In some rooms I took photos in others I merely experienced the views.  

Throughout was Yayoi's art work and story.   She was born an avant-garde  artist.  It was interesting to follow her life and works of art as well as visiting each of her "rooms".

In the final section of the exhibit you were able to participate in creating a work of dots.  There were two rooms which were (originally) completely white ... white floors, ceilings, walls, furniture, etc., etc.  On entering the room you were given a small sheet of dots to place wherever you wanted to place them in this room (just not on each other).  As you can see from the photo above, quite a few people had travelled through this room prior to our entrance.

Lynda & I rested on a dotted couch, were going to take a selfie, something I very rarely do, when someone asked in we wanted them to take our pictures.  We did. 

I thought this was interesting.  Looking through a dotted window to a building full of squares.

And a view through this dotted window shows which city we are in.

I so enjoyed this exhibit.  Thank you Lynda for your perseverance in obtaining tickets to this event.

April 25, 2018

My trip to Ontario began in the west end of Toronto with my ol' bud Merv!  She drove me wherever I wanted to go and took me to many of her current haunts.  I bought a new pair of shoes ... and I love them, love them, love them.  We also bought a brooch in her friend Mario's jewellery/antique shop, her's with clear glass and mine with blue glass.

Mario is going to see if he can get information on this brooch. 

 It was great to start my journey by spending a day with my friend.

Almost forgot.  Merv gave me my birthday gifts while we rested for a coffee.  The bird I am blowing is made of clay and sounds like a real bird.  And the glasses are pretty special as well!