...a while
I know - sorry?
some of the stuff that's been going on over here since last posting:
- FINALLY took the B.C. Film/TV orientation course [and passed :)]
- I caught a cold, and spent a few days regretting life, the universe and everything
- speaking of, I re-read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series (as I seem to, around this time every year)
- applied to ACFC west (one of the unions) and met with the sound dept rep from IA 891 (fantastic conversation about the industry) which has led to my application for that union as well.
- I bought Aperture (photo editing program), and had some "issues" installing it correctly (macs are meant to be EASY right?). While "fixing" the issue, I upgraded my RAM to 8Gb and bought a new 2Tb external HDD - happy birthday to me!
- the sun started to come out more often, and I took to skating around the "seawall" of stanley park, logging 2 laps in around an hour.
- still no film work to speak of; and since I don't have an unlimited supply of money - I've been assisting my land-lord, as he sets-up a new brand of Wedding Rings from his jewellers wholesale office downtown. it involves a LOT of counting/labelling (hundreds of rings, and a multitude of metals), and is fairly mind-numbing repetitive work; but hey, it's what I excel at (finding precision in the mind-numbing repetitive stuff)
-stumbled across another film-set, meeting the team on "rags" (kids telemovie); who were doing it tough in the downtown area.
- Last weekend, my room-mate and some of his friends headed out East to the Okanagan (Wine country), for a few days touring around, etc. I tagged along, and discovered that I like wine (if it's sweet and made from fruit, instead of grapes).
Photo-time
fair warning - it's a big'un...
Driving East
Farm-land-stuff
awesome view
town that we stayed in - penticton
massive bike show in town that weekend - fantastic bikes, interesting people, arm-wrestling competitions on the back of a truck
on top of the hill with the sign... technically we were staying at a YHA (hostel)
pretty-view
Room-mate Tom, taking some photos
another angle on the view
boats on the lake
Julia and Emma Jump
another pretty view
seaplanes
ok, so apparently there's a monster in the lake named Ogopogo (much like the loch-ness-moster in scotland), the locals sacrifice their young to prevent any godzilla style rampages
pretty downtown okanagan
wineries are fun?!
tasting is fun
mission hill winery (not open for tasting when we arrived, but amazing location)
Julia checks out the bell, as alison looks on
nice door-handle
sunday morning joggers
Julia enjoys the sun
we almost hit the last one as they LEPT across the highway
see - the locals even collect the ogopogo droppings as souvenirs
Weekly WTF - spied on the journey home
love the layering
BEAR!!!!!! it caused many cars to pull off the highway as the tourists (us included), raced to take photos. He was a little groggy, and looked hungry.
going home over the lions-gate
my haul from the weekend... 3 fruit wines, 1 desert, and a sweet white...
Last week the Vancouver Canucks won the western conference finals of the NHL, beating the San Jose Sharks in a nail-biting final game (tie-ing in the last 14 seconds of regulation time - forcing overtime, which led into double-overtime).
They now move into the final series of the stanley cup palyoffs for the first time in 17 years - this time against Boston.
It's going to be fun - and it all starts on wednesday.
Watching the final game of western conf, finals downtown at canada place with Tom (current room-mate), and Kali (ex-room-mate of Toms from where we're living now)
This weekend, my Roommate had a "groupon" ticket to take a flying tour based north in Squamish - turns out that it was a quasi-lesson (where they let you hold the controls for a bit), and since the two rear seats are available, the price was extremely reasonable.
Photo-time.
takeoff...
Kali and I in the back seats
Tom in the pilot seat
Pilot-pete in the co-pilot seat
receiving instructions on a banking turn to the left
look out below
pretty-view along the sea-to-sky
another angle
so the plan was to fly down Howe-sound, circle over downtown! and loop back over north vancouver *flying over our house...
Ships in the harbour
angle on Kitsilano (near where I was living in 2001), in-fact I'm 80% sure the little beach I used to visit is right in front of the green-patch mid-lower-photo
English Bay, west Van, and downtown
My favorite photo of the past 3 weeks - looking east past downtown
Vancouver public library centre shot - with the still-being-renovated BC place stadium far right
looking South East towards Burnaby? Richmond? true appreciation for the grid-system of roads
sitting pretty in the back
Kali looking for the ultra-mansions she works on (landscaping and gardening maintenance)
looking down on deep cove, before swinging over north vancouver
Home = head UP on the road to the left of the thompsound tag - smack bang middle of the 1st corner on the left; that's us in the white-walled, angled-grey roof.
The 2nd Narrows bridge and interchange off Hwy #1 and mt seymour parkway - for those TRON LEGACY fans out there, look on the lower side of the photo, right between the two bridges - that's where the lead characters "home" (shipping containers) was built
Heading home (can just see the Lions gate bridge on the nose of the plane)
Industrial North Shore Vancouver
hero-shot #2 of Vancouver
horseshoe bay
ferry-terminal at horseshoe bay
Tom taking us home
detail on the control-gagues
hikers on top of "the chief" (2nd largest Granite ROCK in the world apparently) - it's in Squamish, and I'll be climbing/hiking sometime on the weekend of the 11th June...
lining up the landing.
Now's a good time to point out that the flight was unusual... Tom had a little flying experience (farm stuff from alberta when he was a kid), and Pete seemed confident enough to let him fly for around 90% of our journey. He took over when a police helicopter passed us, and looked after the landing, but allowed Tom to: fly downtown, take off (everything but the pedals), and even try a few weightless manoeuvres... (my stomach is still trying to recover).
All in all, Tom did great; we were safe, and got to fly over the city at an altitude of around 2000ft.
after the "weightless manoeuvres" I was glad to have only eaten a bagel and coffee for breakfast, before flying. Post flying though - it was lunch-time, love the yam-fries
stopping in at a secluded cove, on the way home - to skip stones and take some photos
boats out in the sun - next challenge?
So that's about it for the moment - promise I'll try to update a little more regularly; if for no other reason, than to keep the number of photos per post down a bit.
see ya
Ian
