In just three days, I’ll be heading to the airport again on what will undoubtedly be a great tour of North America. I’m meeting Luciana in Toronto, and her and I will slowly make our way via train to Québec City. From there we are going to head back to Ottawa for a weekend, then off to Banff, Lake Louise and hopefully Jasper. After a brief stop in Vancouver, we’re going to head down to San Francisco for some San Francisco Giants baseball action, and hopefully a few winery tours. Driving in the Canadian Rocky Mountains Many of the places we are heading to are places I haven’t spent much ...

I found a bunch more videos from the Junos. After the Gala on the Saturday night, a few of us headed to some after party. Here’s a shot from the Jam Room upstairs in the VIP room. ...

So, I really don’t know how to describe the last few hours. It was pretty amazing. The thing is, I was invited to shoot photos on the red carpet for some all inclusive event. Unfortunately, even though it was sponsored by a company and they wanted lots of publicity, as a photographer most of us weren’t allowed inside. So after about 20 minutes of taking photographs in the cold, I figured I had better uses for my time, and headed down to this other party downtown (thanks to a girl we met during the night). Anyways, despite not being on the guest list, we all somehow get ourselves into the hotel. ...

I picked up a cab and headed down to the Saddledome to attend the Junos tonight. However, as soon as I got to the front door, I was told that I wasn’t allowed inside by some lady. Of course, I received countless emails that said I had access to this event, which of course I tried to explain to her. Her argument was that those emails didn’t mean anything, and that they were limited by space. Eventually she let me in, but it was a rather big hassle. The media room here is fairly nuts. There are about twice as many photographers as last night, but they are stuffed in about half of the space. ...

First, the Penthouse Party at the Fairmont in Calgary. It was awesome. I put my camera down the entire time and just enjoyed myself, which was cool because almost every Juno nominee at the Juno Fan Fare came and hung out. I sat down and put myself next to this really cute girl (Nadine) from a Toronto Media Company. While chatting with her, the guys from State Of Shock swung by and I chatted with them for a while (great guys). There were Juno nominees everywhere, but I was too busy mingling and drinking free beer to notice. I just got back from a full behind-the-scenes look at the Junos setup for ...

I woke up this morning at around 10am, close to being rested, but not 100%. The stupid alarm clock in my hotel room started going off at 4:30am, and it took me like 10 minutes to figure out how to shut it off. No matter. I cabbed down to the University this morning to check out the Juno Fan Fare. It’s basically a huge event where the fans can line up and get autographs from their favourite groups. Media access to this event wasn’t that great. They had set up two photo pits on either side of the autographing areas, but due to the location of them, the angles on the shots were fairly horrible. ...

It’s 6am, and I’m currently sitting on a chair at the Vancouver International Airport waiting to get on my flight to Calgary. I was really looking forward to having a nice hot eggs benedict at the airport, but the airport decided to close Milestone’s for me, so I’m SOL I guess. My only options right now are unripe raw bananas or my favourite liquid diet, diet pepsi. If I would have had eggs benedict though, they might have looked like this: Photo by lehedonist on Flickr I didn’t get to sleep until well after 2am, so 5am came really early for me. I’m pretty beat, and can’t wait to ...

Well, in exactly 12 hours I’ll be getting on a plane and heading to Calgary for the 2008 Canadian Juno Awards. I haven’t really had time to get excited or to even think about what I’m going to do for three days in Calgary. I picked up a few new clothes today, including that fun black shirt I’m wearing in the photo. All my camera equipment is charging in the other room, and I’m slowly adding stuff to a suitcase (and having a hard time deciding how big of a suitcase to bring). I’m heading over to Miss604’s house in a sec for some quick Thai food, and to borrow some podcasting equipment ...

I just got back from an invite-only press conference inside the Calgary Saddledome. Inside, we got to get our first glimpse of the set for the 2008 Canadian Juno Awards. A Shot Of The Stage At The Junos To be honest, I was a bit worried about being here, given that I’m not really a mainstream media person. But after seeing how everyone else handled themselves, I no longer feel that out of my element. Ben Mulroney, The Host Of Canadian Idol In fact, watching everyone else take photos and set up huge camera equipment, I realized I’m probably one of the only people there that will be able to ...

Here’s another video I took when the lights were going wild on the stage. A couple of questions were fielded with regards to the Saddledome. [blipit id=799870] ...

I currently just flew past Kelowna, and according to the in-seat GPS unit, am hurtling across BC at around 32000 feet. It was raining on the ground in Vancouver, but the sun is shining way up here amongst the clouds. Latest weather report from the cockpit says it’s -6C in Calgary (I should have packed some warmer clothes), so it’s going to be a slight adjustment when I land. I spent the last 15 minutes reading all the emails I’ve been sent from the Junos media committee (something I probably should have done a few days ago). It turns out there’s a lot more going on than I originally realized, ...

I took a quick video of Russell Peters when he came out. The quality isn’t stellar, but you can get a sense of what it was like being inside. [blipit id=799742] ...

At this time tomorrow, I’ll be bouncing around Calgary trying to get my media pass before the press conference at noon. Which means I get to spend most of tonight getting my camera gear ready and packing some clothes. Photo from Russell Peter’s WebsiteMy flight is at 7am in the morning, and I hope to have a few minutes in the airport relaxing with a coffee and an eggs benedict. I’m pretty excited about going to the Junos, and really have no idea what to expect. Russell Peters will be at the press conference tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll get to chat with him a bit — I’m a big fan of some ...

On Friday morning I’ll be flying out to the Juno awards in Calgary. There’s a press conference at noon sharp where the media will get to view the entire setup as well as talk to Russell Peters, the host of the Juno Awards. I was originally going to fly out around noon, but I just got the email about the press conference so I might take the full day off and fly out at 7am, assuming I can change my flight. I’m still waiting on a few image assets from the Juno organization, but I’ve started putting together a page that I’ll use when I’m out there. If you can, please throw some link love ...

It’s getting close. In just nine days, I’ll be getting on a plane and heading out to Calgary to attend the 2008 Juno awards. I haven’t really had time to let the whole event soak in yet, and to be honest, probably won’t figure out where I’ll be all weekend until I land in Calgary. What I really want to do is provide an insider’s view of what it’s like being at the Junos during the entire weekend. I’m not sure what that means yet, but it will most likely involve tons of photos and the odd video. To that end, I really want to go out and buy a new portable camera, something that can ...

The one promise I made myself last year was that I was going to spend more time this summer doing the things I like. Number one on the list is of course my favourite past time, camping. For the first time in most of my working life, I now get *three* weeks of vacation a year, as opposed to two (I should also point out many places outside of North America get four to six weeks of vacation a year), so I’m looking forward to spending more time in the wilderness this year. I sent out a few emails to some friends tonight to try and figure out somewhere to camp. Since I have a few close friends out ...

Yesterday afternoon I placed a few calls and booked myself into the Calgary hotel where all the media are staying for the Junos. It’s right downtown and should be close to all the major events. I actually have a few friends from high school out that way, so I’m looking forward to seeing some of them again on their own turf. I went to Flickr late last night and did a search for Juno photographs. Surprisingly, I couldn’t really find any. I spent some time thinking about what that means and either a) bloggers and new-media type people typically don’t end up at the Junos or b) most photos ...