It's slow, but the sun is slowly going down out here in Vancouver, which means we're not only past the half-way point, but it'll soon be dark. I imagine it'll be a lot harder to stay awake when it gets dark here, but who knows. Here's my current view in Vancouver: I'm going to venture down to the Lamplighter in a bit and grab some beers. I probably won't crack any until the wee hours of the morning, mainly because my stomach feels like it's about to burst from all the food that's in it. But it would be nice to have a beer or two at the end of the night in celebration of a very long day. In terms ...

My camera is a digital SLR, and by default captures color instead of black and white images. That being said, once and a while I do take the odd photo that I think would work well as a black and white photograph. I actually converted this photo into a black and white, but didn't really think that much of it. After uploading it to Flickr though, it became one of my most popular photos -- currently 43 people have indicated it's one of their favorites. Based on the response, I ended up printing out a copy for myself and put it on my wall at home. It should also be noted that the image has a square ...

Years ago I came across a poem called "Vancouver Lights" that I really enjoyed. Since I've down a few Vancouver centric posts, I thought I would also bit a few bits of Vancouver literature up as well. So without further ado, here is "Vancouver Lights" by Earle Bidney: About me the night moonless wimples the mountains wraps ocean land air and mounting sucks at the stars The city throbbing below webs the sable peninsula The golden strands overleap the seajet by bridge and buoy vault the shears of the inlet climb the woods toward me falter and halt Across to the firefly haze ...

While I was taking a quick break from blogging, Keira Mellis decided to help me out by writing an entry. So, this is a guest-entry by Keira. You can read more of Keira's writing over Keira-anne.com Jordy and I have been at Workspace for several hours now, bringing candy and cheer to Duane and Rebecca as they blog for their respective charities. The space is quiet - almost too quiet - as everyone keeps their heads down, writing at frantic paces. Despite being so focused, it's hard not to notice the view out the expansive windows facing north. Living in BC, and Vancouver in particular, it's easy ...

I took a quick 20 minute break from blogging, mainly to lay my head down on the couch here at Workspace at try to rest my brain. Compared to the noise levels nearly 12 hours ago, when Blogathon began, one might think that it's basically over here. People are still blogging away (so much so that when I closed my eyes briefly all I heard was the tappity-tap-tap of fingers scurrying across keyboards), but I think at this point most people are rather exhausted. Most people probably think that writing entries every 30 minutes is fairly trivial. The truth is the opposite -- it is extremely demanding, ...

I moved into a new apartment in January, and for the first time in ages, had a decent sized patio. Since my patio faces south (and subsequently, receives a lot of afternoon soon), I figured I would try growing a few different vegetables. When I started, I had just a few planters, and it looked something like this: When things started sprouting, I got excited and decided to plant a few more things. Here's a shot a few weeks after I started: I haven't taken any photos of it in a while, but here's a shot I took a few weeks ago. Since that time, a lot of tomatoes have formed on my tomato plants, ...

I posted a photo of a cruise ship this morning surrounded by the mountains: I was just reading the news though, and apparently that very same ship ended up killing a baby whale: What appears to be a baby minke or fin whale has been impaled and killed on a cruise ship that docked in Vancouver Saturday morning. The whale, about 20 metres long, was wrapped around the bow of the ship in full view of tourists at Canada Place. A worker from the cruise ship, who didn’t want to be named, said he was not sure when the whale had been hit. The boat — the Sapphire Princess — had come in from Alaska ...

We just had a pile of Dairy Queen here, which was awesome and much appreciated. So thanks Dairy Queen, for the food, and thanks Rebecca, for organizing it's delivery. Things definitely seem a bit less active around here right now, probably because everyone's stomachs are all full of food now. I wouldn't be surprised though if people are losing a bit of stream -- we've all been at this nearly 8 hours already, and still have 16 hours to go. If my brain were a car engine right now, it would probably be firing on only one cylinder. I've been having a hard time constructing complete sentences in blog ...

I was one of the first people in Vancouver to experiment with HDR (high dynamic range) photography a few years ago. I definitely wasn't *the* first, because I actually got a bit of inspiration from a few other photographers in Vancouver who had been dabbling with HDR. For yucks, I thought I would include the very first HDR shot I ever put together. It's a shot of Vancouver on a really storm day. I shot it from my balcony using a tripod, and merged three photos together using a tool on the Mac called Photomatix. Here's the end result: ...

My friend Kelly sent me along this information, and I wanted to share it with everyone. Apparently Shaw Cable has been aggressively trying to hurt Novus in the Vancouver market. Here's some information from the 10buckstoo.com website: Shaw has been offering residents in buildings wired for Novus wildly aggressive rates that it’s not offering anyone else. This appears to be an attempt to eliminate Novus, its only local cable TV competition, which is unethical and unfair. One of these offers is selling their Shaw Digital TV with: Two months free 200 digital channels $9.95/month for 10 months One ...

This entry represents post 18 out of a total of 49. So, I still have a fairly long ways to go. To be honest, I was pretty beat when I woke up, and feeling pretty worn out around 9:30am or so, but thankfully I seem to have gotten another wind. I've been consuming diet pop like it's going out of style, so that might have something to do with it. Or perhaps, it could be the big bottle of water I also started drinking in an effort to rehydrate myself. Whatever it is that's keeping me going, I sure hope it lasts for a while. Photo by John Biehler Various friends of ours have been swinging by and dropping ...

Without a doubt, one of my favorite events to shoot is a sunset. I used to live a stone's throw away from the Pacific Ocean, and walking down and watching the sun set was pretty much a weekly or a semi-weekly event during the summers. I know that many photographers think that sunset photos are a bit cliche, but I've never thought so. To me, watching the sun set highlights some of the real beauty of this world, and reminds me of all the great things that bring me joy in it. So, here are a few of my favorite sunset photos that I've taken over the years: ...

I just wanted to personally thank everyone who has donated to my Blogathon campaign so far. I'll list the people who have indicated that they don't mind their name being given out. Right now, I'm sitting at about the $750 mark $1,000 mark, which is great considering I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the event. Here's a list of the current donators: Tia & Richard Everitt Darren and Nicole Johnston Tom Storey Raised on Indie Cathy Webber Jane Smith Lorraine Toor Kimberley Schellenberg Jamie Billingham Peter Andersen Kasia Finkelstein Paul Schaap Keira-Anne Mellis Austin Paul Eileen Good Amanda ...

A lot of my fellow bloggers around here have installed WordTwit today so that they can have their WordPress posts automatically show up on their Twitter feeds. While WordTwit doesn't officially support hashtags yet (those crazy things that look like #someword on Twitter), there's a quick little work around for events such as Blogathon. First, navigate to the WordTwit administration panel. Typically you'll see something like this under general options: The trick is to edit that text such that the hashtag you'd like to be added is automatically inserted after each post. So for the case of Blogathon, ...

A bunch of us are currently hanging out down in Gastown at a little place called Workspace. Because of how important Blogathon is and the amount of dedication involved by the participants, several organizations have offered to sponsor the event, namely in the area of food. The first sponsor of today's event is Dairy Queen, and they'll be supplying all of us with burgers, fries, chicken strips, sundaes, blizzards, and onion rings. Back in high school, I had a bit of a crush on a girl who worked at Dairy Queen. Given that we went to different schools, and the only chance I'd have to run into her ...

I'm no old timer yet, but I'm definitely past the point where'd I'd consider myself a spring chicken. This year is really the first year where I've noticed any grey hairs, and is also the first year where I'm starting to recognize the odd pain. One in particular, a sharp pain in the heel on my left foot, tends to cause me some grief. Years ago I jumped off a big wall and landed pretty hard on my feet. I never got it looked at, but I'm fairly certain I cracked my heel bone, since I basically had to limp for around four weeks. Unfortunately, I now wake up with a sharp pain in the same area, one ...

Another great city that I'm fortunate enough to spend a lot of time visiting is San Francisco, California. I was recently down there in June for a big WordPress conference, and will probably be down there again in a few months I imagine. Here's a shot I took of San Francisco about a year ago from just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. I also just picked up a few diet cokes. Which means that today so far I've had three coffees, and one 500ml diet coke. Here's a shot of the current carnage: ...

When Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS, they added a new piece of hardware: a magnetometer. That little do-dad can pick up magnetic field lines, and basically act as a virtual compass. While kind of a neat feature, I don't think it's very practical. I mean, pretty much every iPhone 3G user I know has the data plan, which basically means they can access Google Maps whenever they want. Yes, you can't get a real time indication of your direction using Google maps, but if you move around you can obviously watch what happens and see which direction you are facing. But to be honest, it's pretty rare I ...

A few months ago, another event occurred that was intended to help raise money for the BC Children's Hospital Foundation. That event was the Chip's Not Dead Yet memorial mile. Here's a little quote from the BC Children's Hospital Foundation as shown on the Chip's Not Dead Yet site: The Chip’s Not Dead Yet Memorial Mile supports BC Children’s Hospital and the uphill battles faced by children who are trying to get well, and the medical staff who are trying to make miracles happen. Children are precious and the most vulnerable members of our society. They rely on us to care for them. We also ...

A bunch of us are currently down at Workspace in Vancouver, which is a shared office space situated right on the water in Gastown. I have a rather great view of the North Shore mountains along with the cruise ship terminal at Canada Place. One of my favorite photos is this next one from Gastown I took last year from the lookout at Harbour Center: I actually shot the photograph through a window, so it's surprising that you can't see any glass. But I've always liked all the angled lines in the photo, and of course the film-noir type lighting. If you're ever in Vancouver, make sure you head on up ...