Coach Terry (the Other One) Murray

Mon Dieu! Quel surprise! Terry Murray (one of the other Terry Murrays) has been (finally) named coach of the NHL's L.A. Kings!

If you think he and general manager Dean Lombardi look less than thrilled here, take a look at the picture on - and have a read of - the post on Greg Wyshynski's blog. And you can see more clearly in the picture there that the jersey seems to have pulled from a remainder bin, with its zero and eight numerals of different sizes.

More about that other Terry Murray

Well, well - good luck to you, Terry, on your imminent appointment as coach of the L.A. Kings. The news, and the apparently protracted nature of the announcement, has driven literally hundreds of visitors to this site. (Yesterday there were more than 200!)
I can mostly thank Greg Wyshynski whose Puck Daddy blog on yahoo.com has linked to this one. He says, after a review of Murray's career, "So that's Terry Murray. And so is this [link here], and boy is he [crossed out after corrected by a reader] she happy about the extra Web traffic. Bottom line is that either of them is going to be an improvement over Marc Crawford."
So when I wash up in medical journalism and gargoyle hunting, I'll try for coaching an NHL team.

I'm not THAT Terry Murray

I noticed that yesterday my blog had 65 hits! Sixty-five! Virtually all were from California and few visitors spent more than a few seconds.
I suspect it's because Terry Murray was in the news. Not me, but the Terry Murray who is the the former hockey player, who spent parts of eight seasons in the NHL, mainly with the Philadelphia Flyers but also with the Washington Capitals and the Detroit Red Wings.
He's probably better known as a coach than as a player - and now it appears that he's about to be named coach of the L.A. Kings. And all those fans thought this might be his blog, but they found out pretty quickly that it's not.
For today, at least, it will be even easier to tell.

I know there are a lot of Terry Murrays out there - a surprising number (well, it surprised me) - including the retired CEO of Boston's Fleet Bank and an Australian musician. There used to be a Terry Murray selling real estate here in Toronto, and a Terry Murray who worked in the Ontario Fire Marshal's office. And others.
And then there's me.
I guess when I run out of ideas for posts, I can run pictures and bios of all the other Terry Murrays.

Gargoyles of Washington, D.C.

No, no, not Bush and Cheney and Co. And actually, this guy isn't strictly a gargoyle, but wotthell.

A friend and soon-to-be-former colleague is moving to Washington, D.C., shortly, and in her honour (and since I have no specimens from Victoria), I am posting this fellow who I shot on Connecticut Avenue in 2002.

From the street, I noticed what looked like several Atlases on the roof of a 1920s apartment building in the Dupont Circle area. They seemed to be holding the earth over their heads. But when I looked through my 300mm lens, I saw that they had horns!

The building manager let me go to the roof to get a closer look (which surprised me, given that it was so soon after 9/11, but I guess I didn't look like a terrorist and there were no major U.S. government installations in the immediate vicinity), where I shot two rolls of film (back in the film days). She also showed me the building's entry in "Best Addresses: A Century of Washington's Distinguished Apartment Houses," which described the figures as demons getting ready to drop boulders on intruders. Very welcoming...

There goes the neighbourhood (part 7)

Too whacked tonight to do much more than post this picture, taken two days ago of the current state of construction of the two houses on the Woburn side. Not my best photographic effort, but the better camera is still ailing. More later, but ... must...sleep.

Trafalgar Square, Canada Day 2006

Yesterday I was listening to "Q," yet another in a series of oddly-named CBC Radio 1 programmes. The largely pop culture show was being broadcast from Canada House in Trafalgar Square in London. Normally I actually can't stand listening to Q (and find its host a little too much in love with the sound of his own voice), but it gave me an idea. Two ideas, actually. The first idea... more of a thought actually... was Hey! I was in London on the 1st of July two years ago, and Trafalgar Square was all kitted out in Canadian flags and maple leaves and whatnot. I guess that wasn't a one-off event. The second thought was, after not being able to bag me (photographically) any gargoyles in Victoria, I could resurrect my now two-year-old pictures from London. Which actually are not all that spectacular because I was trying out my first digital camera - a point-and-shoot - at the time.

Then I had a nap. Which is why the pictures are appearing here a day late.

More Victoria

I have posted so little this month that I decided to make up for it in the last days of June. My camera decided to function today (of course - not when I needed it for the pediatrics conference), so I took some pictures in my hotel room. Here, for instance, is my travelling buddy* studying a map of Victoria.

*This does not mean I am taking up hunting garden gnomes and giving up gargoyles.