Celebrate the New Year with Paulo Henrique

Well, it would be nice to ring in the New Year with 21 year old Paulo Henrique, born on January 16, 1987 in Campinas, Sao Paulo/Brazil, but for most of us looking at his hot likeness is going to be the closest we can get to that. So, here we are with a mere few hours left in 2008, here on the west coast of Canada anyway, and 2009 coming at us very, very fast. I hope these hot pics of Paulo provide you with some inspiration to improve your own physique in the coming new year. On the otherhand, if you've perfected yours or even if you haven't, then you can safely drool over these photos while admiring the beauty of his hot body and the work that went into perfecting it. There are many more of him (94) at "Cisoto" (see link in sidebar) plus Bodhi at "Tres Fab Sweetie" has posted some as well. Happy New Year! Have a safe and prosperous 2009!

Cell phone

Well, the cell phone I got for Brad on my cell phone plan is charging, so I can take it in to work Monday and call the cell phone provider to activate the phone before leaving work. Then it will be ready for when Brad arrives. The phone has a built-in camera, the ability to play downloaded music, a Bluetooth device to talk on the phone hands-free plus a number of other features. Its far better than my own but then what do I need a built-in camera for?!?! The phone is internet ready as well with the option of sending the images taken directly via email. I know its been a challenge to set-up seeing as I'm farsighted and am having difficulty focusing on the fine print in the instructions. Brad should love the phone, of that I am certain plus we'll easily be able to keep in touch where ever either of us happen to be to discuss business or just to chat!

So what is the next piece of equipment, probably a Flip camera and/or the new webcam I mentioned about some time ago. Have a great week!!!

Junior Rodrigues

In 2009 the plan is to branch out into taking photos of hot guys, not just land and seascapes plus wildlife. Let these pics of Junior Rodrigues from Gatoscariocas.com give you some inspiration and an idea of what is to be in the not too distant future.

Getting organized

I've been spending the last couple of days getting stuff sorted and I am finally making some headway. The clock and some other things were unpacked Friday evening. More has been sorted and set aside for the auctioneer. In the end, the plan is to have all the things to go to auction in one place and everything else where it should be, i.e. in the kitchen, dining room, bathroom and bedroom. The living room will end up as a living room/studio with some storage as things get organized over time.

Well, I may be out for part of the afternoon to meet up with a friend of mine from Vancouver. He is currently in Whiterock to check in with his mother but said he wouldn't be there all day. If our meeting falls through, I certainly have plenty of other things to occupy my time. There is no end of work that needs doing! Have a good Sunday!

An update

Some of you may have been wondering why Brad's not here with me at the moment or where he's at right now. Well, we've been in regular communication for the past few weeks via email mostly but also msn. To set your minds at ease, there's a logical reason why things have turned out this way.

First off, his grandfather passed away, and those of us that have had to go through the greaving process know mourning take its time and is different with each person. Just check out my "Emotions" post from earlier this month and you will see, its not easy. For someone that's had to deal with the death of someone real close for the first time, it cannot be easy at all. Under those circumstances, our thinking is not clear, logical and may lack reason but everything in its time will lead to closure.

So, here we are with Brad ready to move forward but other family members have not gotten through to closure. I mentioned to him last night, you cannot control the emotions/actions of others but you can control your own. At his request, I am helping him get here by air, so that we can get on with what we had planned personally and in business. Its the best action for all concerned. Brad will have to post his own thoughts on all of this to give his own account but this is the gist of it. For the moment he's still in Nova Scotia going between his home town and Halifax but things are looking brighter for both of us!

My concern for his health and well-being was logical, and now knowing the reason, all is well. Brad is safe and very much alive. More good news to come!

View

This was the view outside my bedroom window this afternoon, minus the robin, of course! I didn't manage to get a shot of the bird in this photo. Perhaps another time. But all this reminds me, I should take some birdfeed with me to feed the birds at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park. They must be starving! And I intend to take a special someone along to help, and he knows who he is!!! More to come!

Changing temperatures

This was the scene in New Westminster's Queens Park last Sunday and most of the week until temperatures changed overnight. It was snowing yesterday but that changed during the night. When I looked outside my window this afternoon, I could see water dripping from a Japanese maple outside my bedroom. A robin was perched on one of its branches. I managed to get a shot but the robin had disappeared by the time I showed up at the window again with my camera in hand. I'll keep you posted.

Friday evening I was turning off the Grundig radio I keep in the kitchen and turned off the power switch on the electrical cord when the switch sparked and a flash came out and blackened my finger. I guess I was lucky enough not to get a shock! I immediately unplugged the radio. This morning I checked to see if the radio was working but found nothing. The switch is gone at the very least and perhaps the entire cord will have to be replaced to get the radio working. There's a lot of history in that radio. I used to listen to shortwave radio back in the early 1970s with my brother and often spent hours on my own listening to radio stations around the world, such as from Radio Netherlands from Hilversum, or Voice of America from Washington, DC/USA, Radio Moscow, Radio Japan, Radio Australia from Melbourne, New South Wales, or Radio KUSW from Colorado/USA and so on. The furthest away station was one from a transmitter north of Perth, Western Territory/Australia where I caught a variety show early in the morning after returning home from work. The sound was so clear, as if it was from a station in the city where I lived. I continued to listen to the radio for years after my younger brother passed on. Like I said, lots of memories! Let's see if I can get this thing working again!!!

Meantime, I have been busy today sorting stuff and separating that which is to go to the auctioneer apart from that which I am to keep. Its a chore. More coming, including photos!

Merry Christmas - Frohe Weihnachten - Joyeux Noel

This afternoon I took about an hour or so to go on a walk over to nearby Queens Park. As you can see, the snow is coming down once again. There is also another snow warning out on the Weather Network from now through Friday. I've no idea of the amount but we'll have to see. Meantime, children are playing on a hillside in the park and if we remember back to our own childhood, we would have been out in the snow for hours with boundless energy!

The trees in the park had a fresh coat of snow on them. The photos would have been better with some sunshine but I guess that's not coming today. When the sun does shine, you'll see some bright photos but these pics give you an idea how much has fallen!

Next year's cones are ripening and waiting for a visit from bird and squirrels. These condos are near home, covered in fresh snow, as even more of the white stuff comes falling down. The lower photo shows the condos along McBride Blvd near home with Queens Park in the background. Enjoy the photos! There will be more!!!

Delays

Wednesday morning I was off to work as usual. The bus was not as crowded as would normally be the case on a weekday morning. The students that would be on were off for two weeks. When I got to Braid SkyTrain Station, I took the escalator up to the platform to catch the train into Vancouver but found a two car train waiting. People were getting on but that train was packed. Then I saw another train with the usual number of cars sitting outside the station waiting for this "short" one to leave. I got on the second train when it entered the station. The ride into town went well and the train was less crowded than would normally be the case.

Now the SkyTrain system had been experiencing delays because of the snow and cold weather. It had snowed again overnight and was snowing all day Wednesday. Later in the afternoon I check the website at work to find that a tree had fallen on the eastbound track between Nanaimo and 29th Street Stations bringing traffic in both directions to a halt. It would be hours before the debris was removed from the tracks. Then there was a problem with frozen switches. Trains had been kept running during the previous night to minimize these issues.

When it came time to leave work and head home, the system was still experiencing delays. I got up to the train platform to find it filled with people and the eastbound train full. I got on but learned that the train had been sitting there for over an hour. So, I went back downstairs to see if I could catch a bus to Metrotown and then proceed in some fashion from there. The buses were arriving full, packed to the doors, and not even my route (I was looking for the 19 bus). That was a waste of time, so I went back to the platform to get on the train taking my chances. The train left some minutes later with me on it but by the time it did leave, it had been at the station for an hour and a half. The debris from the tree had finally been removed allowing the backed up system to function again. From there it was smooth and without incident. I got off at 22nd Street to catch the 154 bus further into New Westminster. The bus arrived some minutes after arriving at the station and I got home faster than if I had taken the usual route. Despite the weather and the problems with the SkyTrain system, I still managed to arrive at work and return home without too many problems. Others were not so fortunate but such is life!

I read in the paper Tuesday that a manager had misread the instructions left for him, so a truck was not sent out to de-ice the overhead trolley wires in Vancouver. Needless-to-say, only a small fraction of trolley actually went into service and diesel buses were brought in to pick up the slack. Extra trains were put in service to handle the larger crowd expected. I encountered some unhappy people coming into work who had to walk because their trolley buses were not running. Its amazing how one action, or lack of one, can have a domino effect to negatively effect others throughout a city. Did everyone learn something that day? I hope so!

So, here it is Christmas Day with a "winter wonderland" waiting for me outside. Now that I've had breakfast, I'll get dressed and go for a walk with camera in hand. Expect a post with a few lovely photos later today. Meantime, Merry Christmas! Have a safe and enjoyable holiday season!

Zoo

Well, it seemed like a zoo though I didn't visit one in actuality. I took the SkyTrain home and stopped at Metrotown on the way to do some grocery shopping. The train was packed as would be the case before Christmas. The platforms were busy too. People were in a good mood generally, though some insisted wearing their backpack in a crowded train which caused atleast one person to vent his frustration. There is far more of that (wearing backpacks on the train) than you would ever find back east. Having lived and worked in Toronto for six years, I can't remember ever seeing such a thing and people there stand aside to allow people to get off the train before they enter. Here it seems they stand right in front of the door blocking people's exit, or worse yet, enter while others are trying to get off. Such are the frustrations of using mass transit here in the Vancouver area. You'd think after using this form of mass transit for a decade they would know better but they don't. I even spoke to a SkyTrain person over a month ago and she agreed, they are rude and inconsiderate. They're not at all like that in Toronto, Montreal, London (England), Berlin (Germany) or Stockholm (Sweden), just to name a few places I've been.

After I got off at Metrotown, I walked through the mall and over to Kingsway where I thought the grocery store was located. After a detour, I realized that the store was on the south end of the mall facing Kingsway and not across the street as I had thought. Some walking for nothing. Well, I used the gift card I got from my employer to buy groceries, and before you knew it, I was through a hundred dollars. The supplies will last me for two weeks and some of it longer than that. I settled on turkey wings to either bake in the oven or use as a base for a soup. I'll decide on that on Christmas Day, my next day off work. I also bought some cold cuts, cheese, marmalade, bread, cake and other necessities. The small basket was filled but its amazing how quickly a hundred dollars disappears!

Traffic on the transit was also affected by the snow we had over the weekend and particularly last night. More is expected. The main roads were fine but the side streets were a nightmare driving and sidewalks were a real challenge for those walking. It wasn't overly cold, just below freezing (-3 or -4). I guess as the temperatures warmed from the arctic-type temperatures last week, the snow came along with the change. I guess all of Canada is expecting a white Christmas this year. For the Vancouver area, its the first in a decade or so. When I first arrived here in 2006, the winters were rather green, except in the higher elevations where you would definately expect snow.

I read about the extreme weather with snow and hurricane force winds in Nova Scotia. Quite a number of households were without power as a result. Here some had to do with frozen water pipes and thawing snow on the stove top to heat for washing dishes and such. I hope you had better weather where you are and if the weather was severe, you weathered it without too much disruption.

Well, after I getting home and sorting everything away, I had supper and then got to the computer for a bit. Time has flown and now its time for bed. Tomorrow is another day. You have a good one!

More hot dudes for a Sunday

I thought perhaps you have all been missing some pics of hot guys, so here are a few to spice up your Sunday evening, or later depending upon where you live in the world. All have a healthy set of abs and pecs. So whether its Kyle Lederer, Taylor Burford, Benjamin Godfre, Kevin Gould, Rodiney Santiago or Bryan Thomas, I'm sure there is someone that may inspire you to improve your physique or at least one or two that are worth looking at. These are all off the net and are all hot-looking as far as I'm concerned. Hope you had a great weekend or for those that are into their work week already, have a good one week!

Anton Antipov

With Christmas fast approaching, Bodhi and Anton are on to something. Anton has been photographed by photographers such as Peter D. Brown and Jon Malinowski. See Bodhi's post on Tres Fab Sweetie plus Anton Antipov's blog for more interesting pics. The links are in the sidebar. I hope these spice things up for you and put you in the holiday spirit. Perhaps they'll even motivate you into improving your own physique. That would be a plus! Meantime, enjoy the photos!!!

Stuff moved in today

Today was the big day! The movers arrived with a truck loaded with my stuff. It was all unloaded in a few hours. They arrived near 11 am and were done before 2 pm but I was busy checking off things as they were brought into the apartment. Now the work of sorting what remains and what goes to the auctioneer starts. That should keep me busy for the next couple of weeks or so, unless I end up having some help, in which case, it'll all move faster. The auctioneer returns from vacation on January 7th, so I hope to have much of this sorting completed by that time.

The bedroom is somewhat organized but when you come out to the entrance to the apartment, you can see the work that is ahead of me. The photo below is of the curio cabinet which is going to the auction but you'll also see me as a mirror image in the glass of the cabinet.

The living room may as well be considered a storage room for the moment until all this sorting is behind me but the kitchen in the image below is likely the most organized at this point. You can see the dining room cabinet on the left. I found one of the legs loose, so I'll have to re-glue that first before loading up the cabinet with china, platters, cutlery and such. Its a good thing I noticed the problem first. This piece of furniture was originally made by my father back in 1958 and its starting to show its age after years of use (and several moves).

The kitchen has a basket where I keep tubers and fruit. There are plenty of potatoes plus some ginger. The fruit needs to be replaced with fresh fruit which I buy weekly, some more frequently than that. Then in the dining room I have a GT (Gay Times) calendar hanging on the wall. The calendar is open to the December page which is shown in the photo below. Ah, I could use the help but I'll have to be content with them looking on. More later!

Lifeguard

This post is for bribri and anyone else interested in seeing a closer shot of the lifeguard in the previously posted photo. He's wearing a jacket in 30+ weather (Celsius). If not, I would have gotten up closer. Some of the lifeguards are women as well, not all being guys!

Thoughts of warmer weather past

If you are not used to the cold, arctic-type weather we are currently having here in the lower mainland of British Columbia, here is a scene from one of the beaches facing English Bay in Vancouver. The photo was taken in early August during the height of our summer during much warmer weather. Perhaps this will serve as a diversion if you're suffering the winter blahs!

Christmas on the home front

So, I am getting ready for Christmas slowly. In the photo above you can see my small tree not yet decorated, along with gifts I have received so far (kitchen). Once my belongings come out of storage, the plant goes on the dining table as a centre, the tree gets decorated and the place becomes organized over a couple of weeks. The auctioneer is back from vacation as of January 7th, so the items to be auctioned should be ready for pick-up shortly after that date. Right now though, the place is rather baren but for a short time. Take it easy and enjoy the season!

Christmas lunch

The work day went rather routine just like any other day except today was the Christmas lunch held by the client's facility department at a venue in Vancouver. We all had a salad to start. Mine was a mixed salad with escarole, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and dressing. Then came the main course, salmon on mixed rice with asparagus and snowpeas. Others had turkey, mashed potatoes and such, so there were options. Desert was fudge brownies in my case. I just had water but others had beer and other drinks, but since I was returning to work after the lunch, it wouldn't have been good form to return under the influence.

So, what has been happening your way as Christmas approaches? More news and photos to come as we get closer! By the way, the tree was outside the room where the lunch was being served and the snow was falling nicely the whole time. Merry Christmas!!!

Bloom - Blume - Bloem

The word "flower" originated from the Norman French "fleur", which with the Norman invasion of England in 1066, is how that word and many others of French origin came into the English language. Another word for "flower" would be "bloom" where "Blume" and "Bloem" are the German and Dutch equivalents. English, German and Dutch are all Germanic languages, a sub-group of the Indo-European languages, which accounts for the similarity of the words.

The last post, entitled "Flowers", included the middle photo in the set below. I asked if anyone knew what flower this might be. Well, bribri suggested it might be the arnica montana, or Leopard's Bane in English (Arnika in German). The illustration above is from the book,
Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz (1885) by Otto Wilhelm Thomé (1885 Ort: Gera-Untermhaus), which shows the arnica montana, a wild flower native to central Europe (check out the link on "Haliaeetus"). Compare that illustration with the three photos below to come to your own conclusion. The bright yellow flower below would certainly appear to be a Compositae, of which the arnica flower is a part, but I've decided to take some more photos of these flowers next spring into summer in order to take a closer look at the flowers, leaves and stems. The illustration, by the way, appears here under the GNU Free document license (source: http://www.biolib.de/) and can also be seen on Wikipedia (Google search for Arnica montana).

In case you're wondering, the photo below shows a bumblebee (Bombus ssp.) busy doing what they do best, gathering nectar! So have a close look and draw your own conclusions! In the meantime, I plan to post some more photos of the trail from Kitsilano to Point Grey Beach in Vancouver on my companion blog, Haliaeetus. That post should include photos of the scenery plus flowers and wildlife. Meantime, enjoy these!

Flowers

During a walk from downtown Vancouver to Point Grey Beach, via Kitsilano, Jericho, Locarno and Spanish Banks Beaches in early August, I saw these bright flowers along the trail but have no idea what kind they are, though they remind me of some I used to grow in my garden back east. However, the flowers are a bit different and of course, these plants are shorter where as mine were over six foot (ones known for the tubers: Jerusalem Artichokes). They're lovely but anyone have any idea what variety these might be?

Lean & good-looking

Its not only the tall muscular guys that turn me on but also the lean, good-looking ones as well. Its that plus the hair style and what they're wearing that makes it all work. A pleasant personality helps a lot too, like Brad's!!! What are your thoughts? What turns you on in any one, especially someone special in your life???