Christmas, 2019

Nadolig Llawen!  Merry Christmas!  Buon Natale!

Christmas 2019.

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

Again it is our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over the past year at this very special time of year.  We hope you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2019 saw us simply living as a family with few changes.

Tina continues to enjoy complete retirement from ward nursing. With the new year,Tina continued playing her cello with the Camerata Strings adult ensemble in the VSO School of Music. Although she enjoys the new cello music and playing as part of an ensemble, Tina’s health did make her take a break away from playing with the group midway through autumn. She suffers increasing back pain that limits her general activity. Medical specialists have sent her through several tests and we both look forward to learning the results. Tina does anticipate returning to Camarata with her cello.

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted's health continues as stable although he did experience another bout of atrial fibrillation in the spring that persisted into summer, Again, his heart doctors decided he needed cardioversion to correct it, this time using external stimulation instead of making Ted’s ICD jolt his heart. Otherwise, he is bothered only by occasional colds. Ted continues to use long walks with Angela's dog, Adam as his primary mode of exercise now, walking Adam twice a day, most days of the week.  These long walks allow Ted routinely to exceed the recommended minimum 10,000 steps per day by a substantial margin.

Tina and Ted both remain in wonder at the beauty of Angela’s ceramic creations which range from hand crafted ceramic buttons through cups and bowls of various sizes and exquisitely delicate ceramic  sculptures to large vases. Although they all continue to produce  fine works of ceramic art, the Dusty Babes have not showed their works as actively this year as last year. In the Spring, Angela did show on her own at Surrey’s Darts Hill Garden Park. Angela remains an active member of the Potters Guild of BC.

Angela and her friends in the Dusty Babes Collective continue to work in their ceramic art studio in south Surrey near White Rock. She spends much of Tuesdays to Fridays with her own works at the studio.  Angela continues her part time position as the lead ceramics studio technician for the South Surrey Recreation Centre, working Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and teaching ceramics classes at South Surrey on Tuesday evenings. From time to time she also teaches on Saturday mornings or Wednesday evenings. Angela teaches mainly adult classes which vary from those for absolute beginners to classes in more advanced ceramics skills.

Angela’s imaginative ceramic sculptures in the Dart’s Hill Garden

Tina and Ted both remain in wonder at the beauty of Angela’s ceramic creations which range from hand crafted ceramic buttons through cups and bowls of various sizes and exquisitely delicate ceramic sculptures to large vases. Although they all continue to produce  fine works of ceramic art, the Dusty Babes have not showed  their works as actively this year as last year. In the Spring, Angela did show on her own at Surrey’s Darts Hill Garden Park. Angela remains an active member of the Potters Guild of BC.

Outside of her art, Angela continues her interest in sophisticated board games and computer gaming which she shares with Christy, enjoying relaxing time to play and be together each Sunday afternoon and evening. They both enjoy Adam’s company as he delights in their companionship.

David continued private study on his viola with Robert Hirschhorn Rozek through the spring but did not return with the Fall. He continues as a violist with the New Westminster Symphony Orchestra, really enjoying rehearsing and performing under conductor, Jack (Jin) Zhang and a guest conductor. During the summer, David completed Level Two of the Orff Music Instructor training program. Late in the Fall, he found an opportunity to volunteer  with the elementary school Music program with Mr. Lee at Ladner’s Hawthorne Elementary School. David continues to watch for opportunities in other orchestras, in particular for professional opportunities to arise.

David continues to enjoy writing fiction, with which he extends his imagination. Through the year, he continued his major rewrite of The Stolen Treasure, a novel he had originally developed as a young teen.  His novel, The Sheltered Life of Betsy Parker, published four years ago as a digital copy, continues to draw ongoing interest and responses on the GoodReads literary sharing site. David keeps the second edition available both digitally and as hardcopy on Amazon. Apart from his music and his writing, David continues to enjoy his part-time employment with Meridian Farm Markets at their store in Tsawwassen.

David’s ASD specialist psychiatrist and our minister at Ladner United Church (up until his retirement last June, the United Church of Canada requires retired ministers to completely severe connerction with their final congregations for a full year after retirement), together, continue to give David wonderful support. Tina and Ted feel deeply thankful for such readily at-hand support. He also accepted local support with a counsellor at Alongside You, here in Ladner.

Relaxing lunch at Cusheon Lake with Dick and Lynn

Our only get-away this year was, again, a return to Cusheon Lake Resort on Salt Spring Island for the Canada Day weekend.  This brought us our familiar  enjoyments of the lake, Beddis Beach, Ruckle Park, Ganges, and Salt Spring Island Gelato at Harlan’s as well as the, remarkable for a small community, Canada Day fireworks. During this stay, we were pleased to host Ted’s former schoolmates, Dick and Lynn Zandee, for a fine afternoon get tether.

Beyond the immediate family, we continue to enjoy our extended family. With Ted’s brother Norman, wife Barbara, and son Evan living nearby, we share visits regularly. Evan and his business partner remain very busy with their construction contracting business, Form to Finish Construction. We  had the good fortune to engage Evan and crew to renovate our back deck early in the Summer. Evan’s brother, Gareth enjoys his Assistant Professorship position at Western Oregon University and the responsibility to create a new environmental research laboratory. While well settled in at Monmouth, Oregon, Gareth, his wife Zoë, and baby daughter Rosy take brief opportunities to visit home with Norman and Barbara when we also share in their company. We look forward to seeing them again over Christmas. At Thanksgiving, Norman and Barbara with Evan and his girlfriend, Nicki, joined us before Norman and Barbara left for their Middle Eastern travel adventure that included the wonders of ancient Egypt.

Looking beyond ourselves, we gave close attention through the Canadian federal election last October. Ted remains troubled by the direction Canada’s federal government continues to take. Tina is impressed by the government’s new legislation in support of people with disabilities.

We also remain at unease with the actions of the current President of our neighbours to the south and his insistence on denying anthropogenic climate change. We share with many the shock at learning that President Trump called upon the governments of other nations to interfere in his country’s electoral process by digging up unspecified alleged dirt for him on a potential political opponent. As a consequence, recent efforts to impeach this President impress us as entirely reasonable.

We continue to share many Canadian’s concern for the plight of the many refugees from those horrible civil wars in Syria and Yemen and see in that suffering the first sign of the societal disruption that can result from anthropogenic climate change. Similarly, we recognize that increasingly variable weather into extremes are part and parcel with the changing world climate, giving cause to the substantial wildfires in California and now the even greater fire disasters in Australia.  Our whole family follows Greta Thunberg and her efforts to spur governments into acting on the established science to avoid worldwide climate disaster.

Adam, Angela’s red haired standard poodle, continues to endear himself to us all.  He does not get to see his “friends” as often but he loves to greet and engage in play when he does get together with any one of them. To Adam’s dismay, many of his “friends” still give up on his chase-me game as he runs too fast for them. Adam keeps Ladner well mapped in his head and his chosen routes when we walk are many and varied.

Tina and friends (young male Red Winged Blackbirds at Reifel

As winter returned to us, we are enjoying south Delta’s annual return of Trumpeter Swans and the vast flocks of Snow Geese. Resident Bald Eagles are now renovating their nests but, very soon, trees along Highway 10 will burst into our annual crop of transient Bald Eagles. At home, our bird feeder remains frequented by Chickadees, House Finches, Juncos, Song Sparrows, White Crowed  Sparrows, Spotted Towees, the occasional Nuthatch, Downy Woodpeckers, and Flickers while Anna’s Hummingbirds use their feeder more frequently and Steller’s Jays enjoy our steady supply of peanuts. We continue to enjoy visits to the George C Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. 

Ted has slowed his efforts to seek players to experiment with his invented team sports of Two Ball and Delta.  Lacking sufficient contact of his own among sports minded youth, he tried to approach schools since their Physical Education and intramural sport programs likely offer the best chance of drawing sufficiently large groups of players together.  Ted feels disappointed that no schools have yet taken up either game.  Ted also keeps up his web presence for the games, but has lacked activity to post to the site blog, or on Facebook.  These continue to catch occasional attention world-wide, but he still awaits word of anyone actually playing either game.  You remain invited to have a look and, perhaps, to draw the games to the attention of sport minded people you may know.

And now we look forward to 2020.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Merry and Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

With our Christmas love,

Ted, Tina, David, and Angela.

P. S. That this letter arrives on Christmas Eve is entirely deliberate.  

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!  Happy New Year!  Felice Nuovo Anno!

Welsh National Anthem just before Wales beat England 30 - 3.Saturday 16th March, 2013

Dad was born in Wales and remain proud of his birth heritage for his entire life.

In this Election, Will I Give My vote to My Current Member of Parliament?

Our federal Parliament has now dissolved and the 2019 election has been called. Every eligible voter, all of us, must decide to whom among the candidates in our own federal constituencies we will give our vote. Will I vote for my current Member of Parliament (MP) the return to the next Parliament as my representative? No, I will not.

Why not? Partly for the same reason that I could not vote for her during the last election. At the time I found much about her candidacy that attracted my vote. Yet, to me, the sovereignty-deleting ISDS provision in so-called free trade agreements then under negotiation or pending negotiation had to be a major national issue (see my post from that time). I questioned each of our then candidates on this matter. My then MP, a senior Cabinet Minister in the previous government, easily supported her government’s ready abrogation of our national sovereignty through ISDS and its inherent characteristic of raising international corporations from being subjects of their home nations and welcome guests within other nations to be, in effect, non-territorial sovereign entities (I called them non-territorial kingdoms) equal in stature with sovereign nations. As a candidate, my current MP never answered my question or commented on the issue and that turned my vote away from her. After the 2015 election, I learned why she did not answer or address the issue as, instead of the “Real Change” promised during the election, the new government, of which she became a part as a Cabinet Minister, proceeded to perpetuate the previous government’s support for ISDS. Dismayed at this let-down, I later wrote an open letter to my new MP, made a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade, and an open letter to our Prime Minister with my concerns, all to no avail. Sadly and to Canada’s shame, that the renegotiation of NAFTA into the USMCA removed ISDS had nothing to do with Canada’s negotiating position but resulted entirely from American effort. TiSA, still under negotiation with Canada’s participation continues to include possible “backdoor” access to sovereignty-deleting ISDS. As a Cabinet Minister in our current government, my current MP continues to support subsuming our sovereign right to govern ourselves as a free and independent nation to ISDS.

As a more immediate reason why I cannot give my vote to my current MP, I look at the SNC Lavalin scandal. My MP supports our Prime Minister in spite of his interference in the judicial process, an unethical and, likely, unconstitutional action that, in times past, would have either brought on the resignation of a truly honourable Minister of the Crown or generated a cabinet or even caucus revolt to force such a resignation. Not only that, but my MP then accepted, however temporarily, the appointment to replace Jane Philpott at her Cabinet Ministry when Dr. Philpott took the highly honourable step of resigning in support of former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Reybould’s concerns over attempted Prime Ministerial interference with her authority concerning the judicial case involving SNC Lavalin.

So, to whom will I give my vote? Right now, I simply do not know.

When I vote, I vote the person; I do not vote the party. I will listen to whatever all our other candidates have to say on various issues. In particular, I will listen for strong affirmation of judicial independence from political interference and for strong acknowledgement and support for Canada’s independence as a free, self-governing, and sovereign nation not subject to corporate overrule via ISDS. I will look for commitments to support and/or enhance Canada’s existing health care system. I will also want to listen to candidates thoughts on local issues of a federal nature.

Above all though, and even more importantly in consequence of the growing environmental crisis, I will look for substantial intention to contribute to bringing Canada into a strong role in precluding the impending world-wide anthropogenic climate disaster and ending the currently proceeding anthropogenic mass extinction of living species. I will anticipate learning of intended action to transfer subsidies away from carbon dioxide and methane releasing industries and personal activity, turning those subsidies over to industries and personal activities that involve no carbon dioxide or methane release. I hope to learn of support for an industrial activity that isolates carbon for non-carbon dioxide releasing purposes or sequesters it.

Delta candidates, I await all that you have to say. Please say it with grace and intelligence.

Our Moon Close in Line with Jupiter

Our Moon at first quarter and close to conjunction with Jupiter through very thin high cloud on the evening of 2019, September 5 at PST 9:17:40 pm with Olympus Pen-F at ISO 500 and 1/50 sec. through E.Zuiko-T f=250mm 1:5 fully open at f/5.

Lying low to my south-southwest, the Moon and Jupiter showed very nicely through the very high thin evening cloud. At this magnification, Jupiter appears as a very tiny but definite disk and shows some colour in contrast with the white of the moon. Click on the image to view it in its full sized glory.

Just Our Figs

Fig in the Tree, Ready to Pick

Three Fig Harvest in one of Angela's Falling Blue Bowls

Lunar Detail at First Quarter

A detailed portion of the Moon featuring Mare Serinatis, Menelaus Crater (mid-frame, near the top), the Caucasus Mountains (lower mid-frame, lower right of the mare), part of the Apennine Mountains (upper right of the mare, fading into the terminator), the break into Mare Imbrium with Autolycus Crater, Aristillus Crater, and the solitary Pico Mountain just showing on the terminator, part of Lacus Sominorum (in the bottom left corner), Eudoxus Crater (bottom, left of centre), and part of Posidonius Crater (on the left edge of the photo, just below centre).



A detailed portion of the Moon featuring a heavily cratered area along the terminator. Craters include Werner (on the terminator one-third of the way up from the bottom), Aliacensis (immediately above and just in from the terminator), Stofler (one-quarter down the terminator from the top, with a flat bottom and smaller crater damage on its rim at 10:00), and, just in from Stofler, Maurolycus (over two smaller craters).

These are telescope views, inverted, taken on August 7th with my Olympus Pen-F at ISO 200 and 1/25 sec. on my Dynamax 8, 2110mm 1:10, telescope at f/10 and 20mm eyepiece projection.

First Quarter Moon in Daylit Evening Sky

This is a shortly after sunset, evening view of the first quarter moon taken on 2019, August 7 with the sky still mostly daylit, hence the blue background. It is a fairly large image stitched from 2 exposures taken at (PST) 8:43:21 and 8:41:41 pm on Olympus Pen-F at ISO 200 and 1/160 sec. using my Dynamax 8, 2110mm 1:10, telescope at f/10 and at prime focus.

I did take another, using my eyepiece projection attachment and a 20mm eyepiece for nineteen more detailed images that I stitched together into a single large photo, too big to upload into Blogger.

Second Planetary Astrophoto, Saturn

Saturn, taken 2019, July 25 at (PDT) 12:10:07 am through my Dynamax 8, 2110mm f/10, telescope with a 20mm eyepiece projecting the image into my Olympus Pen-F camera at ISO 2000 and 1/30 sec. exposure. My telescope's RA drive clutch no longer engages, thus this photo was taken without tracking and hence the high ISO leaving the image quite noisy.

Saturn currently sits low in my southern sky in the constellation Sagittarius, so this view is through a lot of coastal atmosphere on a clear moonless night. Click on the image itself to see it in its full-sized glory. This is a telescope's view, inverted; I have not turned it to an upright normal view.

E. David Hopkins own Don't Dwown, Fly

E. David Hopkins: JS Bach Minuets I and II in D minor and D major respectively

E. David Hopkins: Telemann Viola Concerto in G major, TWV 51:G9

First Attempt at Planetary Astrophotography, Jupiter

Jupiter, taken 2019, July 15 at (PDT) 11:20:20 pm through my Dynamax 8, 2110mm f/10, telescope with a 20mm eyepiece projecting the image into my Olympus Pen-F camera at ISO 2500 and 1/30 sec. exposure. My telescope's RA drive clutch no longer engages, thus this photo was taken without tracking and hence the high ISO leaving the image a bit noisy.

Jupiter currently sits low in my southern sky in the constellation Ophiuchus, so this view is through a lot of coastal atmosphere on a clear moonlit night. Click on the image itself to see it in its full-sized glory. This is a telescope's view, inverted; I have not turned it to an upright normal view.   Io, barely visible two-thirds of the way to the margin off to the left, and Europa, also barely visible close against the right margin one-third of the way up from the bottom of the photo, are the only Gallilaian moons in this photo. A pinpoint faint background star, just over one Jupiter diameter towards a "7:00 o'clock" position, demonstrates that the photo is sharply in focus. The Great Red Spot shows at mid-upper left on Jupiter's disk and some of the atmospheric bandings stands out.

Is This a Real and Significant Societal Change?

In reading memoirs from times past or novels set in times past, I have often read of people referring to specific other(s) as, "my enemy." It just seemed a normal part of life at that time for any person to have a living personal enemy with whom to contend in some way or another. Yet, all through my life, I have never known or encountered any person to whom I would ever consider attaching the label, "my enemy." Is this a common experience today or do any among my readers have or have had personal enemies? Is not having to contend with a personal enemy a mark of a significant (and, to my mind, all to the good) change within our society?

A Strange Way to Dream

I had a strange experience during my sleep last night.

Let me set a bit of context: Firstly, for those few dreams that I remember when I awake, I am somewhat of a lucid dreamer. While dreaming, I am fully aware that I am dreaming, that the events I experience have no reality. Secondly, I sleep rather raggedly; periodically awakening to change my position in the bed, varying from on my right side, on my front, to on my left side (on my back is an alert position for me on which I do not sleep). Since, when I sleep on one side or another, I keep a pillow between my knees and another held to my chest, I need to be awake enough to rearrange those cushions as I change position.

Spotted Lake with the peak of Mount Kobau behind it, centre right.
"TV Mountain" is well out of the photo on the right.

With last night's dream, I found we were at Spotted Lake. Who, "we," were remained a bit dream vague but Adam, Angela's dog, was with us. I decided that we should hike the trail from Spotted Lake to the top of the spur off Mount Kobau that I grew up calling TV Mountain because of the television repeater at its peak. As can happen in a dream, the context can change. Instead of following the trail to the top of the spur, we were following a trail to the top of Mount Kobau. Adam and I were enjoying the hike with one other person, sometimes in the dream my brother John and at other times an unidentified companion. It seems our plan was to hike to the top then down above Testalinda Canyon to meet Tina with the car where Testalinda Creek breaks out of the canyon onto its alluvial fan. It must have been early summer as, at one point during our hike, we came across a family hiking down the trail with a small dog that had cherries dangling off its ears. We soon found a wild cherry tree on the right side of the trail with beautiful big ripe cherries, the size of Lapin cherries. Further up the trail, we found another wild cherry tree but its cherries were the size of normal wild cherries. These, of course, are completely out of context on Mount Kobau. We hiked on but the dream eventually petered out as we got to a place where we could view down the other side across the Similkameen Valley but before we reached the top of the mountain.

The really strange bit occurred while I was still dreaming. At some point between the cherries and seeing across the Similkameen, I awoke with an urge to change my sleeping position. I was fully aware of my presence in our bedroom and position on the bed, yet the dream continued to play even as, fully awake, I changed my sleeping position and rearranged my pillows. At the same time, I was aware of myself as both in my bed and on the trail up Mount Kobau.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See - From a High School Science T...

An analysis very necessary for everyone to view: