Web, photos and assorted geekery
Hey, who wants to see shots of the PNE dog show, the ferris wheel, and a spider flashing its privates at me? You came to the right place.
Hey, who wants to see shots of the PNE dog show, the ferris wheel, and a spider flashing its privates at me? You came to the right place.
It’s a bit sad, in a way, because going to the PNE means the end of summer. Yes, it’s still (mostly) warm but the rain is coming and going, the days are getting shorter, and—horror!—the leaves are turning red.
But hey, that’ll be fodder for more photos, right?
A week ago I came back from a trip back east to visit family. It was tons of fun—flitting back and forth between Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City—and I got to see some relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Plus, I hadn’t been back east in the summertime in ages. As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, going outside without freezing my tail off is nice too.
Our mountains are very pointy
Our prairies are not
The rest is kinda bumpy
But man do we have a lot!
—The Arrogant Worms, Canada’s Really Big
A week ago I came back from a trip back east to visit family. It was tons of fun—flitting back and forth between Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City—and I got to see some relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Plus, I hadn’t been back east in the summertime in ages. As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, going outside without freezing my tail off is nice too.
The best part about my flight? I had a window seat, and since the weather was excellent for the most part I got to take pictures of this fair land of mine, from the Rockies all the way to Toronto. After that the weather got too bad, with too much turbulence. And I’ve got to admit: it’s not nearly as boring as I used to think. Sure, the Prairies are flat as anything, but they contain some interesting lakes, rivers and towns. Towns I’d never heard of and probably will never visit, but that’s what makes them interesting. Manitoba and Western Ontario, for their part, are a chaotic maze of lakes and rivers that, well, got a bit boring after a while though I never stopped taking pictures.
I felt like I was exploring Canada with Google Earth, except I couldn’t control where I was going. On the bright side, there was no server lag and the landscape was clear as a bell. The real fun came later, when I looked up my photos on Google Maps. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you spent hours desperately hunting for weird lake formations in western Ontario.
Doing the tourist thing in Quebec City was awesome. I hadn’t been there since that trip I took shortly after coming out almost seventeen years ago (gawd, time flies), and I’d forgotten how beautiful the city was, from the ancient stone buildings of Vieux-Québec to the bucolic Île-d’Orléans… and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. Which will be the subject of another blog post soon.
For the last week, I’ve been taking advantage of the nice weather to get some more exercise done. On Tuesday I decided to get off the SkyTrain at Science World station and use my own two feet to get the rest of the way home. I’d done that just once before, taking a direct route through Yaletown.
Wow. This is what Bike To Work Week must feel like.
For the last week, I’ve been taking advantage of the nice weather to get some more exercise done. On Tuesday I decided to get off the SkyTrain at Science World station and use my own two feet to get the rest of the way home. I’d done that just once before, taking a direct route through Yaletown. This time I stayed on the Seawall, taking in the nice view of False Creek, the bridges, the parks, and all the pretty yuppies out for their daily constitutional.
For extra fun, I also decided to jog as much as I could. I’d been getting in some cardio on the Burrard Bridge stairs a couple of times a week for the last few weeks, but this was a bit more of a challenge.
Then I did it again on Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday. Hell, I may do it every day as long as the weather holds. As exhausting and sweaty as this was, I had a hell of a time. And hey, it’s never too late to get that bikini body, right?
This actually works out better for me because whenever I get home, I tend to laze around for a bit and have to psych myself to work out sometimes. This way, it’s easier. I’ve got no choice but to go home.
The Amazing Randi was invited to UBC to give the keynote address for Science Week 2009. I decided to attend even though it was a weeknight, and really out of my way. And the map I printed out from Google Maps still didn’t keep me from getting lost. Health Sciences Mall is a street, my ass.
The Amazing Randi was invited to UBC to give the keynote address for Science Week 2009. I decided to attend even though it was a weeknight, and really out of my way. And the map I printed out from Google Maps still didn’t keep me from getting lost. Health Sciences Mall is a street, my ass.
But it was totally worth it. Randi is well in his seventies now, I think, but still going strong, and as a great showman as always. He demonstrated a few tricks (both sleight-of-hand and mentalist) to educate and entertain, and of course went over the old standbys: Peter Popoff and Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne. I’d read about all that, of course, both on his site and others, but it was a different experience to hear about it from The Man himself, in an auditorium full of other skeptics.
Nice job as always, Mr. Randi. Here’s to many more years or debunking frauds.
I took the day off sick. No, I really wasn’t feeling well, this wasn’t so I could watch the US Inauguration live—though that was a nice bonus. And I’d like to say that, as Barack Hussein Obama took his oath of office, that the damn fog that’s been hanging around downtown Vancouver for the last, oh, ten days at least, miraculously parted, letting the daystar shine down on my light-hungry eyes.
I took the day off sick. No, I really wasn’t feeling well, this wasn’t so I could watch the US Inauguration live—though that was a nice bonus. And I’d like to say that, as Barack Hussein Obama took his oath of office, that the damn fog that’s been hanging around downtown Vancouver for the last, oh, ten days at least, miraculously parted, letting the daystar shine down on my light-hungry eyes.
Not so much, though. But I did go out for a bit this afternoon and shot some pictures around Sunset Beach, something I’d been meaning to do for a while but there just wasn’t enough light before or after work.
Back to the Inauguration, I loved Obama’s speech, stressing the familiar themes of unity, service and hope. And how, with impeccable class and without naming names, he repudiated everything the Bush/Cheney administration did and stood for.
But I have to give a shoutout to Reverend Joseph Lowery, who gave the ending benediction. Yes, I know, I’m not happy with invoking gods in what should be a secular ceremony, but… seriously, this guy’s awesome! Humility, humour, great timing and delivery, true dedication to his brothers and sisters. Washed the bitter taste of that blowhard bigot Rick Warren’s prayer right out of my mouth.
And, as long as I’m posting videos, here’s the great Maya Angelou reading a poem at Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration.
This has been a pretty interesting year, with lots for me to be proud of. Let’s run down some of my achievements, in no particular order:
This has been a pretty interesting year, with lots for me to be proud of. Let’s run down some of my achievements, in no particular order:
Here’s to 2009!
For the Culture Crawl this year, I decided to do things a little differently. Instead of visiting just two buildings, I’d try to wander around, hit as many studios as I could and get a broader feel of the whole festival.
For the Culture Crawl this year, I decided to do things a little differently. Instead of visiting just two buildings, I’d try to wander around, hit as many studios as I could and get a broader feel of the whole festival.
The journey began Friday after work, at Main Street SkyTrain. I headed north up Station Street, briefly stopping to watch a drawing class—Crawlers were invited to join in, but I declined—and shoot a few photos of the neighbourhood. It’s not the prettiest, but I’d been meaning to try my hand at night photography, especially since a co-worker had invited me to his photography club (the latest meeting theme, as it happened? Night photography.) Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a tripod, so I had to improvise.
My first major stop was 901 Main Street. What used to be sleeping quarters for BC Electric Railway motormen is now home to five floors of art (Favourite piece: Dick Stout’s Madonna of the Lake, and another painting probably by Dick Stout, which I forgot to identify because I was just mesmerised by it: a huge painting of a teenage girl on a pier reaching for seagull flying overhead, with an old lady (I think) fishing in the background, and a dog jumping over the pier. Then you take another look and realise everybody’s flying: the girl, the bird, the dog, even the fishing lady is hovering a few inches above the pier. It’s an indescribable feeling of joy, and freedom.)
Various newspaper clippings in the lobby told me of plans to convert the building into high-end apartments, and that many artists’ studios in and around Vancouver were threatened by gentrification and rising rents. One of the articles mentioned a petition to protect the building, which I was totally ready to sign. It turns out the article was a year old, so that was moot. However, I was told development plans are on hold for the moment. That’s good, at least.
Then I headed off into Strathcona. And I have to admit, it was a new experience for me. Hell, I’ve only ever driven through it a couple of times, along Prior; I usually take either First or Hastings to get to or from the boonies. And I’m sorry it took me so long, because it’s a lovely neighbourhood. The oldest residential neighbourhood in Vancouver, apparently, with a rich history and ethnic diversity and lots of heritage homes. Homes like Matthew Freed’s pottery studio on Jackson Avenue. I went through many other studios that night, ending with the Old Church. Most of them were either live-in studios or the artists’ private homes.
On Saturday I walked around Strathcona for a bit, visiting a couple more studios. By that time I was more interested in looking at the community and how the art (and artists) fit into it, than just the art by itself. I headed further north, into the Downtown Eastside to visit some studios on Railway St (favourite artist: Galen Felde). A few of them were also live/work areas, too. With a nice view of the trains and the harbour, if you like that sort of thing, though I can’t say much for the rest of the neighbourhood. Heading back into Strathcona, I was glad to leave behind all the signs warning drug users and dealers that their descriptions will be sent to the police. I toyed with the idea of heading even further east to check out the studios I’d seen last year… but it was late, I was tired and still getting over a cold, so I decided to cut it short. One last visit to 901 Main on the way back to the SkyTrain, and that was the end of my Crawl.
But it’s inspired me to nurture my own art, such as it is. Photography, and Web design, but also drawing, which I’ve been practicing on and off (mostly off) for the last few years. And it’s given me food for thought: how art and culture are not separate from life, or community, or skyrocketing rents. How Vancouver needs something like the Culture Crawl, even though I’ve been happily ignoring it 362 days out of the year so far. But if it were to go, if more artists are forced out of their studios, this city would be a much poorer place. And I need to find out if the West End has something like this.
President-Elect Barack Obama. It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
President-Elect Barack Obama. It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
And I gotta say, McCain’s concession speech was pretty nice. Too bad it was marred by dickwads booing Obama’s name and shouting… stuff I couldn’t quite catch (probably just as well). McCain tried to shush them, but let’s face it, it’s too little too late. You ran your campaign on hate and paranoia and lies, you withered old gnome, and tried to foist a useless piece of fundie eye candy as VP just to energise your base, you don’t get to take the moral high ground now.
In contrast with the lily-white faces in McCain’s audience, the crowd listening to Obama’s acceptance speech in Chicago ran the full spectrum of skin tones, young and old (a lot of young people, actually); I saw at least one rainbow flag. That’s what the future looks like: people for whom race, gender and sexuality are just not that big a deal. It boggles the mind that this is the same America that voted for Bush twice (and before that, for the elder Bush, and Reagan), but I guess Leonard Cohen was right when he called America “The cradle of the best and of the worst”. Let’s hope this really marks a turning point in the nation’s history. But I couldn’t think of a better President to usher in this new age.
Boy, I hadn’t been to the Parade of Lost Souls in years! Sorry to say, I almost forgot about it. But no more!
Boy, I hadn’t been to the Parade of Lost Souls in years! Sorry to say, I almost forgot about it. But no more!
It’s changed, though, I think. Oh, some things were the same: all the excellent costumes of robots and ghosts and vampires, a Blackberry, the cast of Futurama (Fry, Zoidberg, Leela and Farnsworth), the black & white spies from Mad magazine, at least one Sarah Palin, a headline announcing John McCain’s victory (shriek!!!), the aroma of wacky tobacky in the air, glow sticks and those little plastic flashing antennas (I’ve actually got a pair of those, too, but I forgot them. Maybe it’s just as well, they’re really uncomfortable).
But… there wasn’t any actual parade. Or maybe we missed it? That was pretty disappointing to me. Years ago, I loved how the whole neighbourhood got in the game, individual houses or apartments staging their own little monster plays as the Parade passed by. It wasn’t just a few people putting on a show, it was a whole community event. And then, at Britannia High School, there’d be huge shadow puppets and fireworks and the spooky, otherworldly festival.
Still, Grandview Park hosted the festival, with shrines to the dead and the lost. That’s an important part of the event, too. Hallowe’en isn’t just about trick-or-treating, it’s a time when the veil between the worlds is thin. And, hard-nosed atheist though I am, it’s a time I allow myself just a little bit of spirituality…
Following up on my last post: after two weeks, my scrapes and bruises are healing nicely. Some deep bruising in my side and lower back is still bothering me, though only in the morning when I get up. And even then, I only go “Ow!” instead of “OWOWOW MOTHERF***** OW!” like I used to do for a few days after the accident. So it’s all good.
Following up on my last post: after two weeks, my scrapes and bruises are healing nicely. Some deep bruising in my side and lower back is still bothering me, though only in the morning when I get up. And even then, I only go “Ow!” instead of “OWOWOW MOTHERF***** OW!” like I used to do for a few days after the accident. So it’s all good.
But here’s the best news: my wrist isn’t broken after all! I had it re-x-rayed this week, and saw a doctor yesterday to confirm: no sign of a fracture, it’s just a sprain. Yay! No spending months in a cast! I’m not out of the woods yet, though. Gotta work to recover my strength and flexibility. Hell, after just two weeks in that splint, my wrist and forearm were noticeably skinnier–and I’m no Mr. Universe to begin with. But the doctor said those squeezy stress-relieving balls are excellent for building up strength, and I just happen to have a couple lying around. At this rate, I should be back playing volleyball in a few weeks.
Yes, this has been a painful and inconvenient interval, but there’s been no permanent damage. This too shall pass.