I woke up this morning feeling even worse than I did when I went to bed last night, so I bit the bullet and changed my flight — I’ll be coming home later this evening. If I’m to get any more sick, I definitely want it to be back in Canada where I can hit a clinic up and not have to worry about costs or insurance. I’m pretty sure I have health insurance down here through my work insurance, but I can’t imagine the hassle with trying to actually use it.
My car is at the airport, so I should be all set when I land. It works out well since I have a lens to return to Leo’s camera in Vancouver. ...
I have a wedding to shoot in a few short months, so I’ve been asking friends if they’d let me shoot them to get some practice. Today I met up with John, Keira and Rebecca for a quick photo walk in the park. To be honest, after doing this shoot, I think I feel comfortable shooting outside now. I sort of always assumed my 70-200mm f/2.8L lens would be pretty useless in poor lighting or in a wedding environment, but when I used it today with my speedlight, it was actually pretty awesome. Every time I pull that lens out of my bag and put it on (which isn’t often enough I’ve decided), I’m ...
That’s right. Yours truly finally got his butt off the couch long enough to go outside and get some exercise. I’m happy to report that I managed to rollerblade at a pretty good clip for a whole half-hour without puking or anything. I guess you could say this officially kicks off my getting-in-shape thing (please don’t search the archives for the last time I said this).
I’m going to be attending a pool party in Las Vegas next Friday, and I’m hoping that with enough effort I can lose twenty pounds by then and look absolutely smokin’ with my shirt off.
A guy can dream, can’t he? ...
Last night I pulled my camera off the shelf, blew a layer of dust off of it, and headed down to gastown for a quick photowalk. Kris Krug has done a pretty stellar job of organizing these from time to time, and it’s a good chance for people to get together, learn a few tricks, and hang out with good company.
We strolled around the tracks is Gastown, then made a loop around and came back through Blood Alley. Afterwards, we stopped at the Six Acres for some beers, and then eventually went to Kris’ house for a little wine.
I took tomorrow off, and I’m heading up to Cultus Lake with a few friends ...
Jesus.. My apartment wasn’t made to survive the summer.. It’s currently 26C inside, and I’m sweating to death despite having all my windows and patio door open.
I made the big mistake on Friday night of heading down to Bryght for a little party, and ending up drinking myself into a coma. I didn’t wake up until around 3pm the next day, which is surprising considering how hot it was inside.. I guess all one can really do in this heat is crack a few beers, kick your feet up, blare some music and take it all in stride..
Last night at around midnight, while in the middle of watching a pretty ...
On Friday, I met up briefly with Rebecca down at the Six Acres in Gastown for a few drinks on a patio. It was a good way to start a Friday afternoon, and since I had only woken up a few hours prior, I was definitely in the mood to drink and grab something to eat. Afterwards, we went down to the west-end for some pizza, and to hang out with John, who was busy playing with Dave Olsen’s new microphone on his computer.
A bunch of my new blogger-type friends (most of which I originally ran into down at Northern Voice) were down at DemoCamp the other day, but unfortunately I wasn’t feeling up to ...
After I broke up with my ex-girlfriend, I decided that for the first time in a long time, I wanted to live relatively close to work. Some people argue that if you had to choose, you should always choose to live where you play (as opposed to living where you work). But, I spent the last few years having nearly an hour commute in each direction to go to work, and I was just sick of it.
So, I found a place downtown, and here I am, after nearly two years. I have a pretty sweet deal down here – I pay $1200 for an 800 sq. ft. apartment about 20 steps from the water, in a relatively nice area of downtown. ...
Ok, so this is super geeky, but as a kid I used to love playing Transformers. For those of you who don’t know, Michael Bay (Armageddon) has been working on a full length action movie about the transformers, and it’s coming out July 4th.
The new exclusive trailer was just released a few minutes ago on Yahoo, and it looks pretty wild. It will probably suck as a movie, but it should be entertaining.
Check it out here.
** Update — I have a new posting up about The Transformers Movie, so check it out. ...
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I know I said I wouldn’t post again until after my surgery, but I took a few shots tonight, and liked this one the most. So enjoy.
The countdown is officially on — I had that exciting call with the nurse today, and got the green light from Houston to go ahead with the launch. I find out tomorrow afternoon the exact time of my surgery, and will spend part of the day cleaning up and getting ready for it.
Take care of the internet for me for a few days while I’m gone. Talk to you soon guys. ...
Photo by Kris Krug
Starting at 1pm this afternoon, a group of internet enthusiasts will be gathering down at the Bryght offices for some food, drinks, Nintendo Wii and lots of fun. It’s going to be a chance to mingle with like-minded people, enjoy some music, and even catch up on whatever internet-related project you currently have on the go.
I’ll be meeting up later tonight with Kris, Kim, Boris, Rebecca, John, and a whack of other people I haven’t met yet. I think Kim even challenged me to a drinking contest, something I’m sure she’ll regret tomorrow. ...
When I first started my current job, the COO and one of the founders was a guy named Erik Lagerway. During the time he was at our company, we shared many a beer and even a plane ride or two together (the most memorable being the one to Phillidelphia where we got to witness first-hand drunken broomball in Horsham and Whatchamachukinchunk).
His current brainchild is a service called Gaboogie which was designed in an attempt to simplify conference calls in the enterprise environment. Most conference calls today are setup via email, and involve participants calling into a conference bridge at a specified ...
Tonight I found myself down in the gastown area, having a few beers with old pal Boris Mann down at the Bryght offices. He was nice enough to invite me to some of the Thursday night BBQ lovin at his offices, and introduced me to the ever-sought-after “Save On Meat” store around the corner from the offices.
Photo by Roland TanglaoAfterwards, I stuck around and hung out for the Drupal monthly Vancouver meetup and learned both about Drupal 6.0 and some of the Install Profile work that the guys at Bryght have contributed back. I’m in the process of setting up a new website with a different ...
I’ve been messing around a bit more with photoshop in the evenings, and one day soon I’ll read the huge 1000 page book I have on it as well. Here’s something I was messing with a bit last night. It’s a shot from my patio looking easy towards Yaletown. The bridge is the Granville Street Bridge.
The whole image involved work on about 5 different layers in photoshop. The rain was a bit trickier than I imagined, and it’s not entirely convincing, but it’s a good start. ...
I’ve been experimenting with high dynamic range (HDR) images for a few months now, and so far I really love the effect that you can get with photos. At least in my eyes, HDR images generally seem to look a bit more natural than a typical shot that doesn’t have a large dynamic range. Unfortunately, this whole field is more of an art than a science currently, so getting the perfect HDR shot is a bit of trial and error (and in a lot of cases, the end result isn’t always appealing).
My tool of choice right now is undoubtedly Photomatix, and I use it almost exclusively when generating HDR shots. ...
On Friday night a bunch of us from work took Jari and Seppo out for one last night on the town in Vancouver. Since we basically accomplished everything we set out to do this week, we started drinking at around 4pm Friday afternoon at work. From there, we made our way to the Yaletown Brew Pub for dinner and some more drinks. I wasn’t really sure what these guys would like to see (apparently at the end of the night it turns out they kind of wanted to see a strip club, affectionately called “The Titty Bar” in Finnish), so I sort of did a mini pub crawl with them. After YBC, we decided to hit ...
Most people who know me nowadays would probably be a bit surprised to learn that I used to be a big literature buff, particularly with old english poetry. I guess it all started back around grade 10. I had done pretty well in school, and had been recommended to take advanced placement calculus and physics. Because of that, and of my high marks in english I guess, I was put on a list that recommended I be enrolled in a new AP Literature class at our school. So for kicks, I said “why not”?
And to be honest, looking back, it’s probably the class I enjoyed the most. I studied some of the greats ...
Did a quick HDR off my patio before bed. And before I drop off, here’s one more bit of info — my dad and step-mom are getting on a plane at 7am to spend a week near Cancun relaxing. They usually spend most vacations every year in the RV camping somewhere, and this is the first trip that they’ve taken to a far-away place (except of course when they came to visit me out in Ottawa). So, I hope they have a really awesome time down there.
Also, Jari and Seppo should be stepping off a plane any time soon to spend the week up here in Vancouver. These are the two Finnish guys I got loaded with ...
So as the sun went down over downtown this evening, I thought it might be a neat idea to try and make a HDR panorama. I’ve done this a few times using my PC, but never using my new Macbook Pro. I took a series of 20 shots and merged them together using the Mac panorama software DoubleTake. Afterwards, I created the final HDR using Photomatix.
Here’s the end result.
The HDR process went smoothly, but DoubleTake did a rather poor job of aligning the images. Part of the reason may have been that it thought the focal length of my lens was 26mm, even though it actually was a 17mm lens. However, ...
Neil, a friend of ours who we have worked with for the last three years or so, decided it was time to move on and has taken a new job in West Palm Beach, Florida. Last night we all got together at his place to have a few drinks and say goodbye to our pal.
Good luck Neil. ...