More Tinkering with Concentration

I’ve been tinkering again with my Concentration game.

It started the day after Thanksgiving. I was stuck at the car dealership, waiting while they fixed my car, and decided to scratch a couple of long standing itches, and then, as I’ve been playing with it, I’ve been noticing things and fixing them.

There are now styles for larger screens. On my laptop, the default puzzle size was starting to feel small. When I created the Angular version, I added responsive styles directed at mobile devices; I’ve now added another size class for bigger devices — the puzzle is larger, while the prizes stay the same size.

I had a dickens of a time adding this, partly because there are a lot of off-by-one (or two) issues due to the gaps between trilons, and partly because I’d forgotten how the trick of laying out trilons worked. I got it working, and then a couple of days later, reworked it again, setting up a couple of Sass mixins to handle it.

Next, I improved the game end transitions. One sore point — it’s even been pointed out to my by an end user (Hi Glenn!) — was that when the board was resetting itself from the puzzle state to the number state, it passed through the prize state. This was a consequence of the way the trick worked.

The number face has a rotation of 0°, the prizes a rotation of -120°, and the prizes are -240°. The turning of the trilons is accomplished via a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) transition — you specify the property that will be changing, and tell the browser how long you want the transition to last. The browser then animates the change, gradually changing the value of the property over the specified time from the starting value to the ending value.

This works fine when moving in normal game order; when a number is clicked, it animates changing the rotation from zero to -120°, making it look like the trilon is rotating clockwise. And in the case of a non-match, there is no intermediate state as it rotates counterclockwise back.

Unfortunately, at the end of the game, we would prefer to continue going clockwise from the prize state to the puzzle state, but the transition from -240° to 0° is a counterclockwise one, taking us through the prize state.

I tried fixing this before, by temporarily making the number state -360°, which is visually the same as 0°. Unfortunately, the transitions made the trilons spin like whirling dervishes.

This time, it occurred to me that what I needed to do, in addition, was turn off the transitions first, pause for part of a second, and then make the number state be -360°. I then pause for another fraction of a second, re-enable the transitions, and then set the trilon state to number. The transition from -240° to -360° is the desired clockwise motion. I then wait for the transition to complete, turn off transitions again, restore the number state to 0°, wait a fraction of a second and re-enable transitions. This gives a smooth reset to start the new game.

I’ve been tinkering with puzzles and prizes. I’ve added a couple more puzzles — there are now 12 — and added more prizes, both good prizes and bad prizes. I’ve been playing the game a lot myself lately, and the same prizes do repeat. There’s not much to be done about that except to add more.

I’ve been tinkering with the innards of the style system — repetitive code has been replaced by Sass mixins. I’ve also been playing with the speed of the rotation. Previously, the animation was linear, running at a constant speed. I’ve added “easing”, so that the rotation starts slow(ish), speeds up, then slows down again; this better reproduces how the physical trilons worked. This necessitated changes to the overall trilon speed — for a while, it was too fast, then it was too slow. Now it feels about right… just about the speed of the Jack Narz board.

Speaking of the Jack Narz board, I’ve more closely matched the colors. It’s hard to match the colors exactly, since I’ve been picking up the colors from YouTube videos that are full of compression artifacts, but it is closer, It will never be an exact match since the font is different, but it’s closer.

Finally, I noticed that there had been a regression between the jQuery and Angular versions of the board. I was idly playing with the old version, and noticed a pronounced perspective effect on the turning trilons that wasn’t present in the Angular version. It was supposed to be there; I’d copied the perspective and transform-style properties over. But it wasn’t.

It turned out that the problem was an artifact of how Angular renders components. Unlike React, which only renders the HTML elements within the React Component, an Angular component will render a custom HTML element representing itself. So, the rendered Angular source for a trilon looks something like this:

<ca-trilon _ngcontent-ndj-c21="" _nghost-ndj-c19="" class="ng-tns-c21-0 ng-star-inserted" style="">
   <div _ngcontent-ndj-c19="" class="trilon state-number row1 col2">
      <div _ngcontent-ndj-c19="" class="face num">
         <div _ngcontent-ndj-c19="" class="inner">
            8
         </div>
      </div>
      <div _ngcontent-ndj-c19="" class="face prize"><!---->
       <!----><div _ngcontent-ndj-c19="" class="inner ng-star-inserted">
        Green House
             </div><!----><!---->
       </div>
       <div _ngcontent-ndj-c19="" class="face pzl" style="background-image: url(&quot;/assets/puzzles/pzzl-005-2x.gif&quot;); background-position: -302px -98.5px;">
      </div>
   </div>
</ca-trilon>

What this means in terms of the style system was that there was an intervening element — the <ca-trilon> element — between the element that had the perspective on it, and the <div class="trilon> that had the preserve-3d style on it.

This required massive changes to fix. I had to apply styles to the <ca-trilon> element — height, width, and the preserve-3d property, as well as make it display: block. This threw the layout of the board totally out of whack. Previously, each trilon had been placed absolutely with a fixed top and left position; I removed this, and changed it to a simpler flex-box arrangement. I then had to fudge all the measurements until there was the proper amount of space around each trilon, and the puzzle as a whole… and then repeat that for the other two sizes. Happily, in the end, I think I’ve wound up with simpler code in the end.

Although I did successfully get perspective working, I found that the effect as implemented in the jQuery version was too strong. It was especially noticeable at number 30 — the corners of the rotating trilon appeared to be moving through its neighbors. You control the perspective effect by specifying a number — think of it as specifying how far away the vanishing point of a perspective drawing is. The smaller the number, the stronger the effect. The jQuery original used 700px; I’m using 2800px for this. Number 30 doesn’t seem to clip, but there is still a bit of a perspective effect as the trilon rotates, making it look more like the back edge is receding.

Finally, a couple of housekeeping items. I used ng new to create the original shell of the Angular application, giving me an Angular favicon. I’d also set the document title to “Concentration/Angular” as my original intention was to also create a React version. I’m not so sure anymore that I want to do that. So it’s now just “Concentration”, with the classic “Mystery Logo” as the favicon.

Flooding on the Charles

We’ve had a ton of stormy weather over the past few weeks, and a lot of water has fallen, so it was not a surprise to see a river flood warning on my phone the other day. When I took a closer look at it, though, even though it was tagged for this town, it was in reality for Norfolk county, specifically the Dover-Medifield area.

I’ve become familiar with that area, first from rides on the motorcycle, and also from a number of kayak trips. My first drone flights were from the grounds of the old Medfield State Hospital. So I decided to head down and take a look. The alert mentioned some road flooding, but I figured I could always stop short and turn around.

My first destination was the Charles River Gateway at the old State Hospital. It overlooks a bend in the river where the state has restored wetlands. The wetlands were completely flooded.

Here is a view from the same spot in November of 2015:

Wetlands like these are an important part of flood control, as they allow the water to spread out horizontally, and be discharged gradually.

From there, I took a short walk along the footpath, then returned to the car and drove over to Route 27, about from the far end of the river in the picture above. By that point, the clouds had started to return; some parts of the sky were clouded over, while other parts were open, spotlighting the trees below.

I ended the day with a cup of tea at a nearby Dunkin Donuts. As I came out, it started to pour briefly, and then I noticed a fantastic rainbow.

Hindsight, Regrets, Recriminations and Wistful Wishes

It was a long four years between my mother’s first set of strokes, and her death. While I do feel that overall, we did our best to take care of her, I would not be human if there weren’t things that I regret, or would do differently if I could.

She spent the first couple of years back here at home. She returned after four months of rehab in January of 2020, right before the pandemic started. Overall, she did well for the first year, though it was unfortunate that she lost some outpatient rehab time due to COVID shutting down the rehab hospital.

Things went downhill after her May 2021 stroke. It impacted her majorly, and after it, she could not be left unattended. We tried keeping her home for several months, in the hope that she would recover some, but it never happened, and we had to put her into assisted living in February of 2022 at Cornerstone in Canton.

Overall, I feel comfortable with the quality of care she got there. They realized fairly quickly that she wasn’t doing well in the main population, and moved her into the Compass memory unit. She never did fully cotton to being in assisted living, but she did enjoy the activities and the music there. The individual aides were kind of up and down — some not so wonderful, some were very attentive and helpful, but I always felt that the people in charge were paying attention.

My first regret is kind of on Mum herself. I would have liked to have had her back home for Christmas of 2022, but we had taken her to the Cape that summer. She’d greatly enjoyed herself, but was super upset when we brought her back to Cornerstone, which made it obvious that we could not bring her home for visits.

She was becoming increasingly disabled at the start of 2023, having increasing difficulty swallowing, with a couple of choking episodes. At the beginning of the year, we met with the folks at Cornerstone, who told us Mum was becoming unsuitable for Cornerstone. Unfortunately, the way elder care facilities are regulated, at least in Massachusetts, assisted living facilities are organized around a “social” model. They can provide help with the activities of daily living, but they are not set up to provide medical care. They were concerned about the choking, and Mum was also requiring more care than they could provide.

They had two recommendations. The first was to move her to a nursing home, which is set up around a medical model. There would be more assistance, and the medical staff there would be better equipped to deal with issues like her increasing inability to swallow.

The second recommendation was to hire a private duty aide, dedicated to her care, who would supplement the care the Cornerstone staff would give her. They suggested we could do this either on an ongoing basis, or temporarily, until we could find a nursing home with an open slot.

A big consideration was frankly cost. On the private duty aide side, they were recommending a twelve hour shift for the private duty aide, and the cost was around $32 an hour, with a shift differential on the weekend. On the nursing home side, there were two considerations — first, that it was more expensive than Cornerstone, though less expensive than Cornerstone plus an aide, and second, there would be less choice once Mum’s money ran out. The folks at Cornerstone suggested we might have a better choice of facilities if we got her in before she was reliant on Medicaid.

So we decided to go the private duty aide route temporarily, until we could settle on a facility. Given what we knew then, it was the best decision, but it is the one thing I would like a do-over on, for a couple of reasons.

First, the private duty aides were good, and Mum did well with them. We went through an agency, Celtic Homecare by Catherine, and the aides they sent were good. They were there from 8 to 8, and took care of getting Mum to the bathroom whenever she needed, keeping her entertained, and helping her eat. We did have a little trouble with the Cornerstone staff — some of them thought they were completely off the hook for helping with Mum, whereas the reason we hired the aides was that she was becoming a two-person assist case.

Secondly, as it turned out, Mum’s finances were in better shape than we appreciated, and we could have afforded the private duty aides, at least for a while. Whether Mum would have lived longer enough that finances would have become a problem is impossible to say. But I think she would have done better and been happier.

Thirdly, the nursing home we ended up with was not particularly wonderful.

Cornerstone gave us a list of facilities to look at, and one of them was The Ellis Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Norwood. They had an immediate opening available, Mum’s primary care physician had also said good things about them previously, and several other people had had good experiences. My brother and sister checked them out separately, and I went over as well. Overall, we felt thankful that we were able to get her in there so quickly.

That feeling dissipated as soon as we got her in there. I’d had reservations beforehand, as I’d seen a woman calling and calling for help while I did my tour. I allowed myself to think that that kind of thing was normal in a nursing home.

When we first got her there, a nurse came by to check her over for wounds, but then we were on our own. They kept her isolated for a couple of days (COVID precautions) just stuck in her room with nothing to do, and nothing to interact with.

While there were some good staff there — the speech therapist who worked with her on eating was helpful, and Marie and Fiona were great, but overall, the feeling one got was that institutionally, they just didn’t give much of a damn for the residents. They tended to keep all 20 or so of the unit’s residents jammed together in one not-so-large room, with nothing to do but watch TV. When I spoke to the staff, they would yes me to death, but I never had the sense that my requests, observations or questions were followed up on. It never felt like the aides were checking up on residents in their rooms.

I remember visiting one afternoon, and Mum asked if we could get her to the bathroom. I’d been able to do this by myself at Cornerstone, as there was a grab bar in her bathroom on her strong side, but it was on the wrong side at Ellis, so I needed the help of an aide. I could handle getting her out of the wheelchair and on to the toilet, but I needed another set of hands to get her pants down. The aide on duty had a nasty attitude and informed me that they had taken her to the bathroom once already, and that she was incontinent anyway. Nevermind the fact that my mother wanted to go on the toilet, and just needed help.

The capper for us came in November. Brian and Pam had gone over there, and ended up spending the day there, as we were considering hospice, and they wanted to see the hospice nurse. They were there for hours, not one aide came by, despite the fact that she had a severe bedsore, to turn or move her.

If anyone is reading this, and wondering if they should send their loved one to The Ellis, don’t.

My final wistful wish is the manner of her death. The nurse on duty checked her around 9:30 on Monday, and noticed her condition had changed since the weekend. He did call my sister, but didn’t realize how bad the situation was, and told her there was no reason to come right away. He was wrong, and Mum died alone.

That bothers me. It bothers me that she died alone with no one to comfort her. On the other hand, if I’m being honest with myself, could I have held myself together if I had been there? I don’t know.

I was talking about it yesterday with my sister-in-law, and she pointed out that Mum may have wanted it that way. Up to the end, she was protective of us — she acknowledged to others that she was dying, but refused to talk about it with us. She did hang on long enough for all of us to come and say goodbye. Even until the end, there was some part of her that was Mum.

LEDs Redux

There’s been an noticeable improvement in the quality of LED based Christmas lights this year, They still have the supersaturated blues that the first generation had, but while those had relatively dim yellow and red lights, the newer sets are coming with more and brighter warm colors. With brighter yellows, oranges and reds, I can tolerate the deeply saturated blues.

I went into Boston this evening for the First Night “Pipes and Pops” concert at the Old South Church. I decided to walk through the Common looking for ice sculptures. I found out after the fact that they’d been moved to City Hall Plaza, but I did get to see the city’s official Christmas tree. It was quite nice. It seemed to me that there were a lot more red and warm white lights, and fewer greens and blues. The effect was quite pleasant.

(The concert was really good too, starting with Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and ending with the Radeztky March.)

Just Another COVID Christmas

(With apologies to the Bangles.)

It turned out Mum’s funeral was quite the super-spreader event.

Tom returned to California the day after, and texted us from the Denver airport to say that his friend Rich has COVID.

Since then, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and nephew definitely have COVID, as do my cousin and his wife. While we’ve tested negative, Tom and I have both been quite sick, and I would not be surprised if we actually had it. I’ve now filled a couple of wastebaskets with spent tissues.

In light of this, Nancy and I deferred our Christmas plans until Friday. I’m now in the goopy mucus-y stage, so I’m thinking I may go for a drive in a little while and see some Christmas lights. I expect to be feeling sound by the end of the week, and definitely non-contagious by then. In the meantime, for the next couple of days, I’m keeping to myself.

Making of a Christmas Card, 2023

There was a fair amount of uncertainty with this year’s card; when I started thinking about it, in late November, Mum was in hospice, with a fairly large bedsore, and confined to bed. She could still talk somewhat, though she wasn’t saying much. So, since a tradition is a tradition, I started looking through my old photos, and found one I’d taken at First Night 2019 at the Old South Church. The corner of the altar had a big bank of poinsettias. The only trouble was that behind the poinsettias, there was a woman standing, and a stack of books.

Original photo

So off to Photoshop I went. First, I duplicated the background layer, for safety, Then I used content-aware fill to remove part of the woman. Then used the clone stamp, bit by bit, to extend the wall panels above her lower and lower, until she was gone.

Next, I used a Gaussian blur and a layer mask to throw the area behind the poinsettias out of focus. At this point, I noticed the books behind the flowers, and dealt with them too.

Background cleaned up.

Next was the question of what size card it would this be this year. This also encompassed the question of what I would say this year. At this point, we had been told that Mum was possibly starting to “transition” — the hospice euphemism for beginning the process of dying, but had been told it would possibly take a few weeks. Clearly, it would be an uncertain holiday season.

I did the initial layout the evening of December 10. Nancy had been by in the afternoon, and said Mum looked comfortable and peaceful. I thought I was dealing with half-fold stock, so I laid the card out with the poinsettias on the front and a collage of pictures of Mum on the inside.

Original flyleaf of half-fold version. Pictures are from top, the five of us and Mum on Christmas of 2007, Mum and her sisters-in-law Diane, Anne, and Dot, a Christmas picture from a few years back, Mum and I in the COVID Christmas of 2020, a portrait from 2002, and Diane and Mum on their eightieth birthday.

For the text, I chose “Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a Happier New Year”, figuring that those who knew would understand.

So I ran off several sheets, and then tried printing the inside on one. It looked gorgeous —except for the perforation running down the middle of it. While I thought I was running half-fold stock, I was actually printing on quarter-fold stock. The card would either have to be re-laid out, or I would have to buy new card stock.

Mum died the next morning. Brian and Nancy came down for mutual support and to go over to the funeral home to make arrangements. I showed the card to Nancy, and she loved it. In the meantime, the funeral home had asked us to provide them with an 8 x 10 of Mum, so we decided to bring two — the portrait above, and another portrait taken Christmas Day of 2007, which is what we used.

I’m not sure why, but it was important to me that this card get out. I wanted to explicitly acknowledge her memory to friends and relatives. I re-laid it out for quarter-fold stock, which meant I could only have three pictures on the flyleaf.

Final flyleaf, with three pictures.
Final card front.

Remembrances

I’d like to post a couple of items here that I created for Mum’s wake and funeral. The first is a video I made for the funeral home; it played during the wake.

I made it via Apple Photos; I have face recognition set up, and I went through the pictures it had tagged as having Mum in them. From there, I added in some slide scans, including a few taken when she was three or four years old. I chose the “Ken Burns Effect” for the transitions; it got me close out of the box, and then I viewed it, and edited the starting and ending zoom and pan for certain images to better suit them. I ended up keeping the default Ken Burns effect music; I’d been thinking I’d use “Firefly” by Over the Rhine, but found that (A), it didn’t match the movement of the slides well, and (B) it was too sad for my frame of mind right then.

The second is the eulogy I read at the funeral. I was fine while I was writing and rehearsing it beforehand, but as soon as we started wheeling the casket down the aisle, I broke down, and really couldn’t hold myself together while reading it. It contains a statement from her brother, who was unable to attend:

Hi. 

Mum would have loved to have seen you all here. She wasn’t morbid, but she did like funerals. 

I remember one time, she’d been to a funeral and was talking about the music she’d heard at dinnertime, and what kind of music she’d like to have for her own. 

It turned into one of those silly dinner-time conversations, and Karen wiped us all out — including Mum — with “How about ‘Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead?‘”

(She got a kick out of it, but for the record, sorry Mum, but we’re not gonna do it.)

The two things that first spring to mind when I think about my mother was her devotion to family, and her strength. 

Mum loved being surrounded by her kids and grandkids. When she went to the Cape, she always wanted to have the kids with her. 

One of Brian’s kids called her “the fun grandmother”, because she liked doing things with them. 

She liked to entertain, but it was almost always for family. Easter dinners, birthday parties, big birthday parties for the whole extended family, and of course, her Christmas Eve parties every year.

It’s appropriate that she died during the Christmas season. 

Mum loved Christmas. She loved riding around looking at the lights, the decorations, the hustle and bustle, the activity. 

She loved giving gifts. 

Every year, she would make dire predictions about how she had to cut back, and that she couldn’t believe how much she was spending on Christmas.

And every year, there was a big stack of presents. 

In hindsight, I don’t think she could help herself — she just loved gift giving, and doing for other people. Any time there was a new baby in the family, she’d send out a package for the baby.

Mum was always the disciplinarian of the family. I’m not sure she actually relished the role, but she never shirked it, and never wanted to dump any problems onto Dad. 

So she was the one who yelled at us, and Dad got to be the good guy… courtesy of Mum.

While she could be very critical of us, she didn’t have self pity. She was widowed young, but she never complained about that. And when she did talk about it, in retrospect, it was more along the lines of “I was widowed, and I had to raise five kids… but I did it.”

And while she could be critical, there was NEVER any doubt that she loved us and would support us. 

Mum liked being in the thick of things. If I was going for a ride up to Rockport, say, or the Seashore Trolley Museum or Nantasket, she’d want to tag along. 

(I never did get her to go along on the motorcycle, though). 

I need to tell you the My Dead Body story. 

Back in my Photo: Hour days, there came a point when I was the only person who could set up our new store in Medford. 

This was well before cell phones. So I couldn’t call to say I’d be late, and I ended up being later than I’d intended.

I’d taken the train in, and the owner promised to get me back to the station. Through a series of disasters, it was about 1:30 in the morning when we got back to the station. 

I was parked on a deserted road near the station, and I was walking back to the car, when I saw headlights. 

Uh-oh. Who was it? 

Was it some teenagers come to find a secluded place to mess around? Was it the police? 

No. It was Mum, with the dog in the back of the car, looking for my dead body. “Get in the car,” she snarled. 

Mum was accustomed to being the strong one.

She much preferred to help US than to have us help HER, and the last few years were galling to her. It embarrassed her to tears when I had to help her get dressed and into bed.

But if anything exemplifies her strong family feelings, it’s the fact that she (and Dad) managed to instill in all of us that family is important, and that we need to support each other. 

The one good thing about these nightmarish last four years, the ONE good thing, is the mutual support my siblings have given to her, and to me. 

People have complimented us about how we’ve taken care of her over these past four years. We had to. It’s what she taught us.

And so, while I’m impossibly sad right now, this is not a tragedy. It’s just time.

I’ve been looking at pictures of her from the past twenty years, and up until the last couple of years, she really did enjoy her life. 

She loved to laugh, and she loved being the center of her family.

Mum’s brother Kip was not able to come, and sent this message:


I’d like to share only a couple things about Darrell, though I could say a lot more and a lot slower in getting it out. 

Darrell was a special sister who was fierce about family. On two occasions she exemplified this. 

When my father remarried, she and Eddie did not hesitate in taking me under their roof so I could be more comfortable. 

Once again I needed their help. 

She and Eddie opened their doors to my family when we were displaced for months due to a fire in our house. Four adults and eight kids in that house on Ponkapoag Way. 

When she and Joanna were having kids, Eddie was working a lot of Sundays. 

So, I would go to Mass with either Joanna or Darrell and the 5, 6, 7, or 8 kids. A woman who often sat behind us eventually asked which lady I was married to and where all the kids came from. We were so close. 

I hope over time I showed that I followed her lead with my family and Darrell’s children who are a gift and for whom I’m forever grateful. 

For over 80 years you have been
more than a big sister to me; you’ve been a friend.

I love you dearly, Darrell, and I’ll miss you so much. 

Thank you all for coming, and thank you for being with us.

Mum, 1937 – 2023

Mum

My mother died this morning. She was one month past her eighty-sixth birthday.

The two things that first spring to mind when I think about my mother was her devotion to family, and her strength. Mum loved being surrounded by her kids and grandkids.

I remember once, one of her grandkids referred to her as “the fun grandmother” because she liked doing activities with them. She loved playing miniature golf with the kids. Any time she went to the Cape, at least a couple of the kids would go with her.

Family was super important to Mum. She liked to entertain, but it was always for family. Easter dinners, birthday parties, big birthday parties for the whole extended family, and of course, her Christmas Eve parties every year.

It’s appropriate that she died during the Christmas season. Mum loved Christmas. She loved riding around looking at the lights, the hustle and bustle, the activity. She loved giving gifts. Every year, she would make dire predictions about how she had to cut back, and that she couldn’t believe how much she was spending on Christmas, and every year, there was a big stack of presents. In hindsight, I don’t think she could help herself — she just loved gift giving, and doing for other people.

Vienna Teng wrote a song called “The Tower”, about one of her friends, “The one who survives by making the lives / Of others worthwhile”. Mum was the Tower. She was the one people came to for help. She was the one who provided a place to stay (and a hair cut for a job interview) when one of Dad’s brothers needed help. She was the one who took in one of my sister’s former roommates when she was doing an internship nearby. She became the family matriarch who was the center.

Mum loved spending time with her cousins Carol and Julie, and her sister Sandra. Later, she became close to her sisters-in-law, especially Diane, Dot, Anne and Phyllis. She and Dad would double date with Diane and George, and she would often get together with Dot for walks and tea, and several times a year, they would talk a trip out to western Massachusetts to see Phyllis.

Mum spent most of her life in this house, the one she grew up in, aside from a couple of years right after she married, and the last couple of years, when it became impossible for her to remain here. She much preferred to help us, than to have us help her, and the last few years were galling to her, to have us taking care of her, rather than having her take care of us. For some reason, it did not amuse her when I told her, “Payback’s a bitch, Mum”.

But if anything exemplifies her strong family feelings, it’s the fact that she (and Dad) managed to instill in all of their children that family is important, and that we need to support each other. The one good thing about these nightmarish last four years, the ONE thing, is the mutual support my siblings have given to her and to me.

Despite what she used to say (“I’m perfect, just ask me!”) Mum was not perfect. She had a sharp tongue and a quick temper, and did not suffer foolishness gladly. Patience was just something she never had. Never did, and she never developed it when she became ill. But her temper also blew over quickly, and she didn’t hold grudges. While she could be very critical, she never had self pity. No matter how angry she could get, I always felt I could come to her with my problems.

The past four years, and especially the past several months were hard on Mum. For someone who was used to being strong and in control and independent, losing the ability to walk, or rely on help for all the activities of daily life drove her to tears.

And so, while I’m impossibly sad right now, this is not a tragedy. It’s just time. I’ve been looking at pictures of her from the past twenty years, and up until the last couple of years, she really did enjoy her life. She loved to laugh, and she loved being the center of her family.

Again, Sunrise at Castle Island

Today is once again, the last day of Daylight Savings Time. Just as the days have been ending earlier, they’ve also been starting later and later. With Daylight Savings Time, sunrise was at 7:20 this morning. So, just as I did last year, I decided to head over to Castle Island to see if I could see the sunrise.

Of course, dawn begins a lot earlier than sunrise, and as I learned today, it’s often more interesting than sunrise itself.

The forecast was for clouds overnight and today, but I woke up at 3 and could see the moon overhead, so I went back to bed and dozed for a little while. When I woke again at 5, I decided to take a chance, so I crawled back into my clothes and headed out for Castle Island.

I got there in the just past six. It was quite dark out, so I did the morning’s Wordle, then decided to get out of the car and see if I’d wasted the trip. As I came around the corner of the fort, I saw it — a faint glow of pink to the east.

Gradually, the glow grew and got brighter. It became apparent that the clouds covered most of the sky, but there was a narrow clear band right at the eastern horizon. As the sun approached the horizon, it lit the bottoms of the clouds brilliantly. I could see layers and textures in the clouds. The color shifted from pink to orange as more and more green light mixed with the red. Finally, the sun rose, behind some light haze at the horizon — I never did see the actual disk of the sun — and the colors faded as the sun climbed behind the overcast.

Just as it had a year ago, a tanker came into the harbor from the east. When I first got there, you could just barely see its lights, and then, just as the sun was rising it swept down the channel, made the turn, passed right in front of me, and then into the harbor. It turned out to be the very same tanker I’d seen last year, the Iver Prosperity. When I checked, it looks like it shuttles back and forth between Boston and St. John, Canada.


I was shooting with both the Nikon and the iPhone this morning, and it struck me how disparate they are. Neither one fits the bill completely. During the early part of the dawn, the SLR was nearly useless, as I’d neglected to bring the tripod, and I couldn’t hold it still enough not to blur the images.

The images out of the iPhone more resembled what I was seeing straight out of the camera, but it also tends to flatten the scene in a kind of paradoxical way. The iPhone shoot High Dynamic Range pictures, but then it maps the range of values into the gamut of what it can display. Granted, it can display a much wider range of values, but the end effect is a less contrasty image.

The Nikon, on the other hand, especially since I’m shooting RAW, just records the light values directly to the sensor. The end result is that, especially for a scene like a sunrise, is that it is impossible to record the highest highs and the lowest lows, and the pictures look more contrasty because the shadows are darker and the light areas lighter. You can pull some of the values back in in post-processing, but they’re still more contrasty. Compare the pictures of the clouds shot with the iPhone vs the ones shot with the Nikon — the Nikon better captures the textures of the clouds, while the phone did a better job with the colors. In addition, I have a longer lens available to me on the Nikon, and I tend to use it.

The other trade off with the Nikon is that since I am shooting RAW, I have to correct every damned picture. Apple Photos does not render Nikon RAW files well by default, especially ones like these that were not shot in the noon-day sun.

Once again, I’m impressed with the quality of the pictures coming out of this new phone compared to the ones shot on my old iPhone 12 Pro. Those pictures always looked over sharpened and sometimes had artifacts; I’m not seen it to the same extent with the new phone.

One other thing I have noticed in the new phone is a level indicator when shooting. I’m not sure if it’s new, and whether it’s an iOS 17 thing, or an iPhone 15 pro thing, or whether I simply never noticed it before, but it’s very helpful — when I think to use it. I keep grid lines turned on in the Nikon’s viewfinder, but I still find, when I look at what I’ve done, a lot of crooked horizons — and they’re particularly noticeable with a visible horizon line.

I think the next time I do something like this, I’ll bring the tripod. It was annoying not being able to use the Nikon during the earliest phase of the dawn. I know it’s capable of longer exposures if held steadily enough.

Despite the fact it was quite chilly, it was a good morning. I probably shot too many pictures, but I enjoy the process of shooting, and I had fun.