while watching tng, i noticed fireworks out in the sky, for the chinatown 100 fireworks grand celebration. (there will be some more fireworks soon, due to a fireworks festival.) i grabbed my camera as well as my tripod, and started taking pictures.

fireworks.

here are some impressions from the fireworks. shot with iso 6400.

some night shots.

when the fireworks were over, i played around a bit more. here are two nice shots.

star trek – the next generation. memories: old memories, and good memories. i used to watch that when i was a kid. probably the most influental science fiction series for me. i also read a huge amount of tng books, before later starting to read also a lot of star wars books. unfortunately, except the movie appearances of the tng crew, i haven’t seen any of the series for a long, long time. until a few days ago, when i noticed all seasons sitting in the dvd shelf. well, guess what i’m doing now. :) i guess that will keep me busy for some time…
one thing which is funny is that before, i always saw star trek movies and series in german, and never in english. which makes a huge difference, the voices are completely different, most notably the one of captain picard, played by patrick stewart. in most of the series and the movies, he was dubbed by rolf schult. the combination patrick stewart/rolf schult also appeared in the x-men movies, and everytime i hear and see it i have to think of captain picard… and now, i’m watching the series in english, i see patrick stewart playing captain picard… and it sounds so alien to hear his real voice. well. after a few seasons, i guess i will have adjusted.

for the third time, i visited calgary’s zoo on this weekend. this time, i bought an annual pass, so i will go there a few more times this year. this is a very good opportunity to try out my new toy, a 400 mm telephoto lens.

red panda.

i began by visiting the red panda, watching him for quite a while.

siberian tiger.

after that, i went over to the siberian tigers.

black swan.

on some pond, a few black swans were floating.

snow leopard.

elephant.

an elephant, bathing himself with sand.

giraffe.

lion.

the lions were pretty sleepy. but at some point, one lion got up and walked around a bit.

grizzly bear.

the grizzly bear was sleepy as well, and so was the black bear which was more brown than black. but i got a nice paw shot

wolf.

the last times i was at the zoo, the wolves were rather sleepy. but this time, they were running around, playing, having fun. so i took the chance to take some pictures.

mountain goat.

miscellaneous.

some random impressions.

last weekend, it was rather cold outside, and pretty white. i did a walk to the nose hill park, enjoying the beautiful snowscape as well as the icy wind. here are some impressions.

it’s white outside. for a couple of days now. after a few white days during october, and rather warm temperaturs during most of november, the coldness finally returned, and with it the whiteness. an unfortunate companion of snow is ice, and by now, there’s plenty of it. mostly on sidewalks, sometimes on the roads. let’s see when the next chinook is coming.