Photo Memory of the Week
Backyard Blog
2026 May 22: Here's the backyard this week:
- an iris up for what seems like just a few minutes (and technically in the front yard)
- the lilac making its own short showing
- the crabapple, also technically in the front yard
- the magnolia past its prime but still lovely
Tag Archives: Technology
A Trial Separation
It’s the equivalent of at least three full flights up to the airport lounge, but I head to the stairs. As I round the first landing, it hits me. I’m all alone on this climb. I mean, I knew it … Continue reading
Clams Got Feet: Do Computers Cheat?
It isn’t that I mind losing fair and square. Yeah, yeah, OK, I absolutely detest losing under any conditions, but I accept that I will lose sometimes if the game is hard enough to be interesting. Continue reading
We Appreciate Your Business
Thank you for calling the blank-blank-blank. All of our associates/agents/technicians are currently serving other customers. We appreciate your business. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. In the … Continue reading
We Know Where That Information Is
Have you seen a blue binder? From his glassed-in perch, the bulldozer operator frowns for a moment at the note in his hand, looks down suspiciously at the guy with the mop of curly hair who is looking up at … Continue reading
How Long Has it Been?
Thanks to databases and nifty analytics, targeted advertising is almost magic. But nothing is perfect, as some notable clunkers make clear. Isabel: University of Ottawa I glance at the apparently personalized subject line on the email from my professional … Continue reading
There’s An App (er, Site) For That
A chance observation of a billboard for a personal-injury law firm launches deep thought (OK, maybe just a rant) about personal injuries and website proliferation. Injured in a hotel? If a billboard can blare, this one does. Injured in a … Continue reading
One of 55 Million
Ten years ago, on 14 August 2003, and less than two years after 9/11, a power outage affected 45 million people in eight US states and 10 million people in Ontario. There were 55 million stories in the darkened cities. … Continue reading
Computer Illiteracy
The inherent challenge of relying on a machine so complex that I neither understand it nor can repair/maintain it. Waking at zero-dark-hundred, I see the glow of the screen in the otherwise darkened room: my computer is quietly defragging … Continue reading
One for the Road
Anthropomorphizing our GPS would be unreasonable if she weren’t really a person. Continue reading