All of us has a story, and perhaps multiple stories.  Eckhart Tolle has some interesting thoughts on that in his book Practicing the Power of Now. I highly recommend you check that out.

So ignoring his advice, for now, I will tell a story.  I have had allergies since my days of youth, some of which are quite severe, food and environmental allergies.  A recent trip to an allergy specialist got me some advice to avoid using sulfites in my diet.  Now if you look at most anything in a grocery store, just about everything contains this preservative.  In fact most things you buy have a long list of chemicals and additives that no one in their right mind would willingly ingest. Many of these things are not “green” and loaded with additives.

Still they feed it to us authorized by the various governmental bodies and agencies.  Also the food we are fed is laced with chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and well as many plants being altered genetically.  The soil for the food is dead of almost all the natural microorganisms that keep the soil healthy and the plants used to produce the food for us.

Who is behind this?  Well companies like Monsanto.  Who are they, from Wikipedia, here is an excerpt:

Monsanto’s development and marketing of genetically engineered seed and bovine growth hormone, as well as its aggressive litigation and political lobbying practices, have made the company controversial around the world and a primary target of the anti-globalization movement and environmental activists.

In a recent news item, Michelle Obama was planting an organic garden at the White House so they would enjoy some good fresh vegetables.  So who would object to that?  Well, guess who. Pesticide Lobby Group lead by Dow, Monsanto and DuPont. Talk about WMDs will ya! Totally insane.

No wonder that that allergy sufferers are on the increase.  Of course there are a number of reasons for this.

I started using soap nuts to do my laundry and find them highly effective for me. I react to strong scents, soaps and chemicals.  So this natural tree product is great for me.

Happy 4:20 Day. Or is is Happy 420 Day?

Ok, getting to the 4:20,  I knew what it meant in general terms.  Here is an article about it.  All ready to toke up? Some point to this as the Origin. Seems like this ties in with all this natural stuff.  There are lots of legal drugs around, alcohol and such and the powers that be take issue with marijuana, which is much less of a problem overall.  I am not recommending it just believe it should be legalized and they can regulate it and then the governments can tax it for use just like the other legal drugs.

Ok I will get off this for now and leave you with a few photos I have taken lately.

Cheers,

genes creative waves

I have always had an interest in photography, of sorts.  Yet I had not taken up the hobby.  I recall in high school there was a fellow student who went around taking all kinds of pictures and even had a dark room at home to process the photographs.  His parents moved around a great deal so he was getting to see the world and play with his hobby and no doubt made it into a profession.  I did manage to get to see the dark room with photographs hanging all over the place but that is as far as it got.

Later on in my adult life at times I thought about taking some courses in photography but being a busy father with 3 children and having a demanding career, taking business courses and doing other things on the side, I never got around to doing anything about this interest that I had.

As for my interest, I suppose being male and as some would label me to have a tendency to be somewhat visual, but certainly not exclusively so, this may make some sense.  I certainly did not have a great appreciation for artistic things, although some paintings do appeal to me and also some things of a feminine nature would catch my eye at times! For sure, that I cannot deny.

In any case, late last year in 2008,  I bought a point and shoot, Fujifilm digital camera .  Not that model.  Hey maybe I will upgrade one day.

It turned out to be a real point and shoot experience.  I took a trip to downtown Victoria, BC , Canada, where I currently reside.  Victoria is situated on an island, Vancouver Island, quite close to Vancouver, BC.  The reason I say a real point and shoot experience is that it was a bright sunny October day and I could not see anything in the camera viewfinder.  So I was really just sort of aiming at what I wanted to take a picture of and pointing and shooting in that direction.

This seemed a bit strange, having not used the camera before and never a digital camera at that.  I was a bit exasperated at first, then became resigned to the fact that this was just the way it was. I just accepted the situation.  Like reading the book, Practicing The Power Of Now – Eckhart Tolle, as seen on Oprah, as Eckhart Tolle would likely suggest doing.  So I proceeded to take the pictures with the belief that they would, somehow, turn out fine.  And if they did not, so be it.  I certainly did not know how to use the various shooting modes and I still don’t.

I showed some of the photos to a few folks and got some positive feedback. I attribute it to the camera, the guy in the sky or whatever else may be lurking behind the camera lenses and helping me shoot.  I can see more now as I found a way to adjust the light inside for the viewfinder.

So that is where I am now, just dabbling a bit, taking some photos and enjoying doing so.  I have put together a pictorial video of some photos I took in downtown Victoria near the inner harbour, the Empress Hotel and the seawall.

****I have removed the video, please use the link below to view it instead.****

I will likely keep doing this for awhile.

Cheers,

genes creative waves

PS. I have also posted the video at  4Shared for a full screen version,  and may take the above one off if it keeps loading slowly or I just may choose to do so.