Rockinon is on vacation!

One of the geyser basins in Yellowstone National Park.

By now you know Rockinon is on vacation. The Morgan has put Yellowstone National Park behind it and is on its way to Providence, Utah. What's in Providence? A wonderful B&B, I hope. But this is just a stop before the next major place to visit: Yosemite!

I'll be back covering London, Ontario, come some time in July.

For more info on the trip see the Digital Journal.


Cheers!

Why this blog is on hiatus

A B&B breakfast!

Why am I not blogging? Because I am traveling!

My wife and I are booting about the United States and Canada in a 42-year-old Morgan. It seems ancient until you realize that I bought it new and I am now 21 years older than the Morgan. We grew old together.

Yes, those are people along the bottom left.

I have been posting daily updates of our travels to the Digital Journal. Just look in the blogs area and you will easily find them. I am starting each blog title with the day and the number. e.g. Day 08_Sheridan, South Dakota.

We left Canada and entered Michigan a week ago. We took a ferry from Michigan to Wisconsin and then we started west. We are now in Wyoming and tomorrow we will be in Yellowstone.

For me, the high-point of the trip may be the two days that we are staying on a military base in a former residence built by William Randolph Hearst. The place is known as the hacienda.

Sometimes even my Morgan needs a break.

Welcome!

Hi! This blog is officially on hiatus until sometime in July. But Saturday The London Free Press published my letter (Restoration story was a facade) on the 'stunning' restoration of the Capitol Theatre and neighbouring Bowles Building. With that publicity I thought I better put out the welcome mat.

As you may know, my name is Ken Wightman and I worked for the past thirty some years as a photographer for The London Free Press. A little more than a year ago I took a buyout and I am now retired.

After decades of running about London taking pictures, I thought it might be fun to do the same thing in retirement. The big difference is there is very little money in blogging. I wouldn't recommend blogging for retirement income.

When I left the paper, they took most of my camera gear. This was fair as they owned it. I now shoot everything with a seven-year-old Canon SD10 digital ELPH. I am rather proud of the quality that I have been able to achieve with such a basic, single lens, no telephoto, slide-in-you-pocket camera. Please check out the images that I have uploaded to artwanted. To get back here:

1. Please click the Alternate Website Link at the bottom left.
2. You'll be at Rockin' On: London Daily Photo. Click Rockin' On: the blog at the top right.
3. You're back.

Now as I was saying, I was a photographer. I was not a reporter. I wrote a photo column some years ago. I also did Celebrate the Thames a few years later. But that does not make me a writer. I used to have some excellent backup in the form of some fine editors: Susan Greer, Gary May, Al Chater and others. At times, if I had a question I had folk like Bill Eluchok, now also retired, to run to.

I'm somewhat on my own now --- a one man band. If you find a grammatical error, no surprise. The same goes for spelling. I can be quite creative or careless depending how you want to look at it. I take criticism well, but don't use naughty words. I'll just delete you, well at least your words. (Oh, I use my commas poorly but there is a bug in this software that makes it a lot of trouble to clean up the comma errors. If I get enough complaints, I'll try and do something.)

Now, if you want to read more of my thoughts on the Capitol Theatre and Bowles Building facade rehabilitation, please check out the following links:

London lost its theatre district to the 'burbs

Irreplaceable Buildings: can't be made today

There are more, but really haven't you read enough on this. At least we have two handsome facades. It is time to move on.

I'm the photographer who had the open heart surgery done robotically by da Vinci. Dr. Alan Menkis was at the controls as he performed the first mitral valve repair done robotically in Canada. Because of this, I think about death now and then and smile. If I had not had the surgery, I do not think I'd be here. I'm on overtime and it feels good. Read my post, Something to look forward to..., on facing death with humour and strong wine. The winery in Australia that I featured liked the piece enough to place it on their Facebook page.

Or do a search for Fizzies, or spurtle (there's a search field at the top left of the blog) or check out the cute baby and listen to the taste-corrupting music to which I have been subjecting this child.

If you are still with me, I'm not with you. I'm sorry but it's late and I do have a life --- honest. If you like, you can check out my YouTube video, Giggle Me Baby (Very poor quality but a lovely moment. Listen for the little girl's squeal of delight as the video fades out.)

Or check out some of the food stuff that I've begun uploading to Group Recipes.

Or check out my post on Paris Hilton, or don't, but do watch the YouTube video. Just love the arrangement of Big Spender that they use. (This video is becoming difficult to find. Many copies have been taken down from the Net.)



Cheers!
Ken Wightman
(Rockin' On)

Other blogs to tend

Hello!

A little more than a year ago I took a buyout after working for more than three decades as a news photographer. It was a shock to the system. No job. No daily demands. I had to hang up my cameras as I walked out the door.

A year ago, the economy was in tatters along with my retirement portfolio. Both were bleeding oodles of green; This was serious financial hemorrhaging. I kept enough money to weather the financial disaster and then I dumped all my spare retirement change into the market. If the financial world was coming to an end, I wasn't going to miss it. We were going down together.

Never spend more than four percent of your retirement portfolio in any given year --- this is an oft repeated rule of thumb which has some validity. Note the word some. This is a very conservative approach and as one gets older, one can comfortably get bolder.

I'm up almost 30 percent since retiring --- the world didn't come to an end --- and I'm well prepared mentally and financially for the next correction. I'm not that old but I am that bold. I'm grabbing a babe, my wife, strapping a suitcase to the back of my Morgan and heading west come the end of May. I'm sure our daughters, son-in-law and granddaughter will keep the home fires burning for us --- then maybe not; It'll be summer.

Come July, maybe earlier, this blog will be revived. It has just been too much fun. But long before that, the end of May, Rockinon: Travel will carry a day by day account of my adventure crossing the States and Canada by English roadster.

This blog was an experiment and in some ways it has failed. It gets thousands of hits and has been linked to by a small but eclectic mix of websites. I'm still getting referrals for my post on preparing for the inevitable after my post made it onto the Anvers Wines Facebook page.

I now have a bottle of Anvers fortified shiraz gathering dust in my 'wine cellar' waiting for the moment. I figured a very good, and also very strong, drink might be in order. (FYI, a friend read my piece and insisted on sampling a bottle. I went back to the wine store and bought a second bottle. It is a very nice wine. I served it before dinner with some cheese.)

But blog visits do not translate into money if the folk doing the visiting are not also hitting the ads --- and you are not. I don't blame you; I rarely hit ads on blogs. But there have been some good ads and those have attracted attention. My best day times 365 would be a very nice sum for a retired blogger but it is not happening. It is much closer to my worst day times 365.

And so I am turning my attention to my photography blog, my financial blog and my travel blog. All will be fun to tackle and all may attract a better, more focused class of ad. The blogging experiment moves into its second year. My goal is to pay the insurance on my two cars with the return from my online stuff. We'll see.

My 'London Daily Photo' has been picked up by two sites tracking the daily photos posted by bloggers all around the world. This has made LDP worth continuing. It gets enough hits to make it worthwhile and it gets me out walking, running, exercising. LDP is good for my health.

One thing I must say before ending this is thank you to all those who have made this year a gas. I do hope we can connect, at least world wide web-wise in the future.

I cannot get over the immense number of comments that I received, and am still receiving, for the stuff I posted to Art Wanted. This is a site for selling art but I just display my stuff. Everything I shot in the past year was done with a little point and shoot; The file sizes are too small to make large, good quality prints.

And I have also enjoyed posting to Group Recipes, the food social network. After one posts enough recipes, the site starts suggesting visits to

other foodie bloggers with whom you appear to share food interests. The algorithm seems to work well as I have found some good recipes in this manner.

I have also learned why journalists like Paul Berton, editor-in-chief of The London Free Press are pulling out their hair. I file stories occasionally to the Digital Journal. I posted a silly little story about a fellow being ejected from a Jazz flight because he had such awful body odour. This little, silly piece of fluff is outdrawing every other news item I have posted. We're talking more than a thousand hits in 24 hours! Aaauuugghh!

As Digital Journal pays better than any of my other online endeavours, I'm going to be devoting a bit more of my time to citizen reporting. I'm slowly building up contacts and getting on various local mailing lists. It's fun.

In closing, if you are new to this blog, please check out some of my favourite posts.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Where were you when . . .

I'd love to get this post out to journalism schools everywhere. It is a good story.






To big to succeed. This one has been hit regularly by newspapers. I wonder how they find it.

Your meet the nicest people on a Honda.

That's me on my Honda. It was a killer machine with a 305cc twin cylinder engine pumping out 33 hp. I rode this bike down to Daytona Beach one Easter break. I have pictures from that week in a box in my basement.

My blog on I.F.Stone was a pleasure to write. Don't know I.F.Stone? Read my post.

More red is redder than less red. I believe this post was hit by governments around the world. Their computers thought it was a post on communism; It isn't.






My post on the factory farming of pigs is still getting a steady stream of hits. Although it got the most hits when the H1N1 flu was on the front pages of the world's papers every day.

Newspapers get so many stories wrong. This should not come as a surprise; Newspapers are simply the daily reports of a staff of fellow human beings. But it does come as a surprise doesn't it. And it will get worse before it gets better as the media giants show more and more staff the door. I like this post on a story that got so mangled and so consistently that the story will never be straightened out.

Lastly, the video, Giggle Me Baby, is terrible. It just screams out for decent lighting. But the moment is beautiful. Don't view this critically. Just view it for the pleasure of watching a baby laughing with pure, innocent pleasure. I love the little squeal of glee as the video fades at the end.


Cheers,
Rockinon

Why no post?

I got a call from a follower who thought I might have posted to London Daily Photo in error. I'll confess I was reaching with my telephone stories in sneaking a picture of my granddaughter onto the London Daily Photo site but the stuff I found was interesting. Yes?

I thought the picture of the little girl ripping off a snack, dining on the yellow pages, was kind of silly. The child is quick but I'm quick too. I got the picture and then both mom and I got the paper from the little grasping fingers. The kid's too young for solid food.

Sorry about the blur but the picture was shot available light at night.

Cheers,
Rockinon

p.s. I posted a couple of stories to Digital Journal if you're interested.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/287819
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/287785

Bread owes flavour pluses to addition of olives

Using the simple bread machine recipe I posted to Group Recipes, the above bread machine loaf is easy to make and delicious to eat.

This bread is very moist, with a lovely mild flavour. It does not taste strongly of olives, despite the addition of three dozen pimento stuffed green olives. It goes very nicely with a light lunch of salad and roast chicken.

This is just one more example of how today's modern kitchen appliances encourage the home preparation of healthy foods.

Microwave and Food Processor Make Soup Simple

There are some advantages to well-equipped modern kitchens. A hundred years ago kitchens were large rooms designed to handle lots of activity. When I was a boy, kitchens in many homes had shrunk to vestiges of their former selves. Today, kitchens are on the rebound. People, both men and women, are cooking again.

This potato and cheddar cheese soup was made using our microwave and food processor. And my wife advises using baking potatoes; She says they make a creamier texture.

In a three litre microwave safe casserole dish, she cooks two tbsp of butter with a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves, and one chopped yellow onion, from two to three minutes on high. Then, she adds five medium potatoes, peeled and diced, along with two cups of low-fat, low-sodium chicken stock. She seasons the mixture with a quarter teaspoon of dried thyme and some freshly ground pepper to taste. This is cooked uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes on high or until potatoes are tender.

She adds no salt as, between the chicken broth and the cheese, there is enough salt in this soup. If folks insist, they can always add some salt at the table.

She purees half the mixture in her food processor and then returns it to the casserole dish, adding two cups of milk. She microwaves this uncovered on high for up to four minutes. This should be well heated but not boiling.

She removes the casserole from the microwave and stirs in one cup of grated, medium-aged, Canadian cheddar cheese. Before serving, she garnishes each bowl with chopped chives, green onions will do in a pinch, and a little grated cheddar to kick up the look.

For the lunch shown, she also served fresh avocado spread on low-sodium crackers. A dribble of fresh lemon juice adds to the flavour.

If you're serving this as a light lunch to company, I always serve a simple white wine. (I don't need much of an excuse to open a bottle of wine --- or crack open a box. Just don't let your guests see the box.)

If you'd like to serve some fresh baked bread with this, try the simple machine bread recipe I posted to Group Recipes. I have also posted this potato and cheese recipe to Group Recipes.

Cheers,
Rockinon