All my animated gifs are here.

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I flew on Friday, was at the Nashville airport very early.

My flight was delayed, and it was the weirdest checkin ever; employees were whisper-y, eyes everywhere, pretending to be calm. There was a ground-stop issued, and tweets for both the Nashville (BNA) and Chicago (ORD) airports were missing.

There was a bird strike that grounded a plane, but that was in NYC’s JFK?

I find it best to be quiet during times like this, keep my nose clean.

Was it because it was Hitlers birthday? Evil has arrived on April 20th before. The Columbine massacre was on this day 13 years ago.

Or was it because there was a New Moon the next night?

Even YouTube had a bad day.

Or maybe this was all because it was National Assuming Day? (what a dumb thing to give a whole day to).

Meanwhile, the Trayvon Martin trial reached a climax in the courtroom on TV.

Then the riots started.

Below is the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and shockingly, the top photo is Montreal.

Come on Canada, that’s not us; be better.

Then the weirdness got real close to home.

Come ON. That’s my old neighbourhood, I lived there for 3 years, and that doesn’t happen. I always felt safe all times of the day.

We rarely have amber alerts around here?  And Hamilton News accidentally broadcast hardcore porn?

All this before noon.

My internet failed around then, and that’s probably good because I was OCD-ing out, compulsively checking, watching, looking for a pattern.  There is always a pattern. 

Instead I made a Flixel I titled, “Ruminating”.

Weird strange day. Let not too many of those happen.

Spent the morning at the laundromat. Living on the road, you end up in places you’d otherwise not.

When I pulled in, see those guys standing there?

They all waved and yelled at me, real motivated. I smiled back. Always smile, even if you are unsure what’s happening. Keep your face pleasant. That’s your security tip of today.

I put my clothes in, then went back outside to watch. Ahhhhh got it, they’re day labourers.

Basically I could drive up, say “Get in let’s go!” and in they get. Now I have a car full of willing workers.

I should return tomorrow, “hey, any of you know how to video edit? Final Cut?”

Settled in with my book.

It’s the last in Queen & Country series, ‘The Last Run‘ by my top 3 favourite authors right now, Greg Rucka, and starring spy Tara Chace. I am Tara Chace.

Debated playing pool, because by now the guys outside have moved inside to the tables. I’m watching with my peripheral and I could best them all. Nah.

Then I made this animated gif, it’s a Flixel.

So cool, eh?! Even cooler – it was made in Toronto, and it’s really taking off. Get it here.

And now I’m home, well, my home for one week.

Gotta run! I have email to catch up on and a city to drive around.

Beautiful.

In late November and December, whenever possible, I cut through the Eaton Centre to walk past the Swarovski tree.

It’s 7 stories tall, covered in crystals, and it spins.

The bows and red balls are new this year.  I’m curious to know the reaction, usually it’s only crystals. Being a minimalist, I like the latter.

I also like their sunglasses, which I didn’t even know that they make sunglasses, learned that a few weeks ago at an event.

Oh hi hi.

(I dedicate this gif to Allison )

At that same event I met Christine in real life… in 2009 we’d both entered a contest to win a trip to the Olympics.

At that time, she was a student and I was ‘The Canadian Explorer’.  Then out of school and tada, she’s working for a top PR firm, nicely done missy!!

The Contest: they were looking for mobile explorers (I know come ON), so you had to create an original video showcasing your blogging and social media skills, and the 5 entries with the most votes were sent to cover Vancouver 2010.

This was my entry.

Remember when we all had Olympic fever?  The excitement and camaraderie and patriotism?  Awesome.

And remember when Canada threw ‘The Party Olympics’ while SIMULTANEOUSLY winning more Gold medals in the history of all time?

GO CANADA GO!!

PS – I won the contest, here’s the proof, and yet I didn’t.  That day, I declared contests dead to me.

Did you know Swarovski family-owned-and-operated since 1895?  No wonder I’ve always liked them, I’m a big fan of the generations-of-success thing.

They were in a room at the Four Seasons, and you know how I feel about jewellery.

They were showcasing their Wings of Fantasy fall/winter line, as well as their couture collection, as in: all one of a kind, you can’t buy them, it’s their only stop in Canada, these were my favourite pieces:

I dedicate this animated gif to Allison.

Hi Casie!

It was productive, there were a lot of loud laughs, a few rolls of the dice paid off.

Remember to occasionally swing for the fences, and it’s called a dream for a reason.

All my blog photos are here, in these albums, if you’d like to peruse.

That’s my Google+ account, circle me on in.

What the text says.

(Photo by Rannie)

Did you see Casie on eTalk?!?

She spoke about the Royal Family Canadian visit as a Social Media Expert, and she killed it. Click here to watch.

Well done, missy!

I won #CreepTuesday this week!

#CreepTuesday is a game of stealth smart phone using. Taking a secret picture of a poor, unfortunate soul, and posting it online. Karma’s going to be a b-tch to us, but hey, it’s entertaining our friends all over North America - CreepTuesday.wordpress.com

You can play too, send photos to: @Shankell @Kristikenn @Chris_Huey

My winning photo.

I’d like to thank the Academy.

I love this photo of me.

Do you ever visit my other blog?

Posts are mostly a title and one photo.  I think you’d like it.

Examples:

Recent highlights include:

- I kinda want to see inside here, kinda not
- sports teams had funny names in olden times
- we’re getting new $100 bills, Canada
- tactical jewellery
- we’ll all have wallets like this soon #RFID #security

That’s So Meta!

Casie tweeted the one of the left.

That’s the iPad they give you at e11even, it has the wine list on it (600+ wines).

In Notes I found one, someone had written, “I hacked this!“.  No, you didn’t.

Beautiful place, and what you wanna do is order from their $11 menu; that’s the trick.

I’ll leave you with this.

Have a great Saturday night!!

There’s a reason I’m doing this.

I’m trying to rank for “cycling animated gifs”, because very few exist.

I like to see if I can rank for things, for kicks.

There’s the Barking Fish Cafe (7th), Skynet Becomes Self Aware (28th), World Planking Day (12th), and Big Mac Virus (3rd).

These are my SEO Experiments.

I have some things to say about SEO these days, I’ve got a half drafted blog post here, coming soon.

PS - if you’d like to see some REALLY nice animated gifs, meet From Me To You, they’re gorgeous.

PPS – Hope this didn’t load too slow, I made them small, I’m thinking about your load time! I always do.