Miscellania

Miscellanea

As the title indicates, a mixed bag of photos of family, friends, nature, personal interests, etcetera. Please click on thumbnails for larger picture.

For starters, a blast from the past…literally. A shot of my closest relatives; grandparents, aunts and uncles on my dad’s side taken in the late 40s. Dad is third from the left in the top row. Mom wouldn’t enter the picture until the mid 1950s:

Great shot of my brother Mark:

Shot of mom and dad, me and son, Jason, summer 1991. I had won four free tickets, a limousine ride and picnic basket full of food and soft drinks to the National Capital Air Show by simply sending my name into the Ottawa Sun newspaper:

Jason at age 4:

Me and Jason taken in 1999 at my birthday party:

Jason at age 21:

Neighbourhood friend, Helena, and her pet Shetland taken in 2000:

Part of the Sasquatch Writers’ Literary and Arts Performance Series board, circa 2002. From left to right, Chris Sorrenti, Maureen Glaude, Lynne Alsford, Juan O’Neill, and Jacqueline Zena:

Poet friend and mentor, Marty Flomen, circa 1993, who passed away in 1997:

Me reading a couple of poems at The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS) event here in Ottawa, June 2002:

Same event, outside shot of Nepean Library with two ducks swimming in man made pond:

A rose among the roses, artist friend Liisa at one of her many BBQs at her cottage near Perth, circa 2003:

Same event, more flowers, Maureen Glaude and Jackie Zena:

Same event; the poets pick up their cue to read:

My brother Mark likes to collect and play guitars. Included in the next two photos are a few from his collection:

A gingerbread house my mom made one Christmas during the 1990s:

Christmas candle taken sometime in the early 80s:

My parents’ Golden Retriever, Jazz, as a puppy, sometime in 2002:

One of two cats, a brother and sister named Puff (in photo) and Ginger, my ex and I had in 1981. Sadly, Puff was killed by a car while trying to cross busy Heron Road here in Ottawa not long after this photo was taken:

Another cat photo, this time of one of my brother’s. I like this photo because of the shade of blue in the cat’s eyes:

Chipmunk up at Baskin’s Beach trailer park:

My brother Mark is also an avid photographer.

Here’s an excellent recent shot of a Blue Jay on his back deck,

taken with a digital camera, worthy of National Geographic magazine in my opinion:

Shot of the front end of a Rolls Royce one of my cousins borrowed for her wedding sometime in the early 80s. The fleck of white visible over the RR emblem is due to a scratch in the negative:

Downtown Toronto in 1978 taken from the CN Tower:

Haunting look at the west end of Ottawa in mid winter from Hull, Quebec, when I worked on the 25th floor of 10 Wellington Street, Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere:

Another shot of the same orb weaving spider that appears with my poem November Gift:

The sunset taken from a train when I was heading back home from a seminar in Montreal:

The moon taken in early evening:

Taken at the same location as my hummingbird series, Lac En Coeur, lily pads zoomed in:

Great shot of poet friends, Bonnie Adams & Juan O’Neill in April of 2005.
Taken at Rasputin’s on Bronson Avenue here in Ottawa in which Juan was the featured reader.
It was one of the last times the three of us would be together, as Juan passed away the following March.

These next two photos are from a new series taken on my trip out west to Edmonton to visit Bonnie Adams; April 2007.
The first night I got in, we picked up fellow poets Tissi German and Dave Morris, and headed for a Greek restaurant called
Kosmos, where as you can see a certain someone couldn’t resist getting up to bump hips with the resident belly dancer.
I plan to get more of the Edmonton/Banff/Jasper series up, eventually giving it its own page when I can find the time.

For many years, I was an avid scale modeler, my favorite subject being warplanes, thanks to the childhood influence of my father’s days as an aeromechanic in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).

Below are a few examples of the many models I’ve built over the years. More photos will be added in time. I’ve also got a respectable collection of aviation related photos, having attended numerous air shows, here in Ottawa and abroad, of which I’d like to eventually makes separate pages for.

Model of A-10 Thunderbolt II tank buster, better known as the Warthog:

Model of MiG-23 Flogger, Soviet front line interceptor during the 1980s.

U-505 German WWII U-boat model, based on the type VII, made famous in the movie Das Boote. The real sub was in fact a type IX-C, one of the few U-boats actually captured intact by the allies, the U.S. Navy in fact. It’s now on permanent display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago:

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