Wandering Around

I work in a building built 20 or so years ago. I only know how old the building is because I used to bank in it back when I was a student and the building was a bank. My second work placement (co-op job for those in on the University of Waterloo lingo) was with a small company that specialized in remote sensing.

Moniteq was the company name, and they had two main "divisions"; one centred on designing and building remote sensing hardware and one was dedicated to remote sensing data analysis. I was a UW Physics Co-op student at the time and worked in the software group. I worked there for three 4-month terms while a student and also for 2 years after I graduated. I find it somewhat comforting to work in the same physical area again after so many years although that bank branch pissed me off and I'm glad they're gone.

JH, one of my friends and co-workers at Moniteq who worked in the hardware group, is now one of my co-workers in the new company currently occupying the former bank site. It is a very, very small world indeed.

Our company (check out Spectral Applied Research) designs and builds optical instruments. We are currently working hard at making and selling a Laser Merge Module which is a box that combines the output of between 2 and 5 diode lasers into a single beam which is fed into a fibre optic cable. The most common use of the light produced by the Laser Merge Module is to illuminate samples being examined with Confocal microscopes (and possibly with other types of microscopes). If you are crazy about light I highly recommend you contact our extremely smart and charismatic CEO, Richard Berman.

All of this is a really damned boring prelude to today's pictures. I went for a walk on one of the nature paths in close proximity to Spectral and discovered how incredibly mundane the wildlife
is that can stand being that close to bustling humanity. Basically you can narrow it down to two animals ...

Sparrows


... and Groundhogs


... neither of which strike me as anywhere near the top of the animal kingdom's mensa admissions list.

I did, however snap a dragonfly.


I particularly like dragonflies because they eat mosquitos. I also have an affinity for them as they seem to have an affinity for me. On several occasions dragonflies have landed on me and were not in the least disturbed by my moving around, seemingly feeling completely safe in my care.

That's it for today. Until next time,

Don