Photographic Adventures

Last week I went out and bought a new camera! I decided to make the switch to Digital SLR technology. Now don't get me wrong, I loved my old camera but I think I outgrew it. Sometimes I see the opportunity for a really great, creative photograph. When I try to take the picture with my little "point and shoot" sometimes it turns out relatively nice, but most of the time it lets me down. Well hopefully now when I see these opportunities things will be different.

Now the story about buying it. The model of camera I bought is a Canon Rebel XT. This isn't exactly a top of the line camera anymore as the Canon Rebel XTi has been released. But for me, the 10 MP (as opposed to 8 on the XT), and the slightly larger viewscreen on the newer version of my camera was not worth the extra $350. So since the XTi came out, the XT prices have decreased significantly since stores are trying to clear them out. So I found it on sale at Best Buy and decided to order one online for store pickup later on that day or the next. On the website it said that it would take about 3 hours to process my order and once they sent me a confirmation email I could go to the store and pick up my camera. 21 hours later I received my confirmation email saying that the store had been sold out (even though it said it was in stock on the website). Well, I was thoroughly displeased with my shopping experience and I had my heart set on getting that camera! Then an idea crossed my mind. Perhaps Futureshop would match Best Buy's price. So I dragged Kim along and went to Futureshop. I showed them the ad and they said they would only match it if Best Buy had the camera in stock. Well the sales associate proceeded to call all the Edmonton stores. Sold out. No price matching here. Luckily, my friend informed me that London Drugs would perhaps match the price. So we headed over to London Drugs and I showed them the ad. Success! They were more than happy to make a sale. I was so impressed with the service there. The salesman took the camera out, inspected it all, looked over the lens, gave me a DVD on digital photography (with lots of coupons), recommended a lens filter, and gave me a gift certificate for the store (a small one, but hey it's free money). He then noticed us looking at camera bags and recommended certain features to look for in a camera bag.




So there you go, Futureshop, instead of making a sale (a big one at that) and satisfying a customer, you fail! London Drugs has my business now and for all camera related purchases in the future.






Last weekend I also bought a book on photography and am eager to try out some of the techniques I learned. Too bad it's too cold out to actually go out and get some pictures. Look for some "creative exposures" in the future!

Verticular kittenous skirmish

Now, I know I write about my cat a lot, and perhaps I find her funnier and more interesting than all of you out there, however she is constantly good fodder for blog entries. Take today, for example. Garrett came over this afternoon, and because it wasn't super cold out, we let Pumpkin go outside for a little bit. As soon as Garrett let her out the door, though, she took off like a bat outta hell. This is because the neighbour's little white kitty (aka Pumpkin's arch nemesis) happened to be just outside the door when the hound was released. Woosh! These two crazy kitties bolt off behind the garage, whereupon Garrett hears hissing, mrowing and the usual cat fight noises that we are all familiar with. Garrett came to grab me from inside and we headed out to survey the situation. Not only had the cats ran behind the garage, they had CLIMBED up a tree as well. And not just a little tree. Oh no, Pumpkin was only about 8 feet up the tree, however little white kitty was about 20 feet up, clinging to a teeny little branch. We were trying to grab Pumpkin and bring her down, because she was sort of stuck, when for some reason (I still can't fathom why), the little white kitty started climbing back down the tree...passing right next to Pumpkin who clung to the same tree trunk. As you can imagine, the cat fight resumed, in a vertical-kitty-tree position. It was really quite hilarious to watch, as both cats tried to hang on to the trunk and get at each other. The engagement only lasted several seconds before little white kitty jumped (er...fell) to the ground and took off outta there.

In the mean time, Pumpkin was still stuck in the same spot, so we watched her for awhile until she was farther down the tree and we deemed her capable of making her way out on her own. Garrett brought the camera out to take some pictures of her, but she was almost extricated from the tree by this time, so what you see below is what we got: The next photo is a funny one of her walking through the snow, with a very displeased look on her face. She seemed to have forgotten that if she went the other way around the garage, she could walk on the cleared path...instead she trekked through the snow. We've never really claimed that she's a smart cat, after all...

Happy Birthday Trevor

You lucky people you, you get an extra posting this Sunday! That's because we went to a very cool bar last night to celebrate Trevor's birthday. The bar is called the Ivory Keys and while they are quite new in town, they have become very popular very quickly. Their selling point is their 'Deuling Pianos' gig that appears to run almost every night. Basically, they've designed the bar around a central stage where two grand pianos rest. Two pianists play requests all night from the crowd, singing and playing for hours on end. 'Deuling' is a bit of a misnomer, since they actually play together most of the time, so Harmonizing Pianos is probably more accurate (to use Bonnie's apt descriptor). It was really quite fantastic and super fun - they played songs by modern songs like 'Smells like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana and 'Lips of an Angel' by some Nickelback clone band, fun songs like 'Pirate of the North Saskatchewan' and 'Home for a Rest' by Spirit of the West, as well as classics like 'Sweet Caroline'. People sing along and dance around the pianos. It was super fun! We had the 'young' pianists play all night while we were there, but Bonnie has been before and said that she also saw an older pair that played more classic songs. We had a great time and recommend those living in Edmonton to check it out if you get the chance!

Some new stuff

On Saturday, Bonnie and I went on a brief shopping expedition, during which I was very successful at purchasing. I managed to buy five shirts, none of which cost more than 25$ apiece - in fact, several were only 10$! Three of said five shirts are below. I was wearing another when I took the picture and the last one is dirty already (I wore it last night). Snazzy, no? Well, they look better on, but you get the idea. My other stupendous find was a new pair of boots, on sale for half off:I'm not certain if they are real leather (I suspect not) but they look really nice and fit quite well. Plus, they are warm, practical and just in time to replace my old boots that I've almost worn out. So rather than shopping next fall for full-priced boots, I've preempted and bought sale boots. Score!

Billy Talent

Last night I went on a date with Joelle to the Billy Talent concert. She actually treated me to the concert, because I've helped her move recently and am storing her stuff in my garage, but it was really nice of her to take me along nonetheless. The concert was really good, but the most eventful part of our evening occurred before we even left for the concert.

As I mentioned, I'm storing some of Joelle's stuff in my garage. However, she has been going through a difficult moving process (due to a breakup) and has stuff stored in several locations. She thought that the concert tickets were in a box in my garage, but we couldn't find them there at all. So then we went to Bindi's house, where Joelle has been staying the past little while, hoping the tickets were somewhere there. No luck. Lastly, we went to the lab, where Joelle had some mail in her desk that might contain the tickets. Again, not there...seems that she may not have gotten them from the ex after all...

We didn't give up though! We called Ticketmaster, and after being on hold for 15-20 minutes, we eventually talked to a person. Easily enough, they put replacement tickets on hold for us at Will Call, so we headed off to the concert, arriving an hour late. This wasn't a big deal, since we didn't know either of the two opening bands that we missed.

Once at the stadium, we had a little trouble finding our seats, but in the end figured it out. Turns out we were seated across from some drunk 16-year olds - oh wait, they were ALL drunk 16-year olds! Either that, or inappropriately dressed 14-year olds. Now, I'm only 25, but I felt a little aged in this crowd. Interestingly, I didn't get ID'ed when I bought a beer...

We watched the third opening act, a band called 'Rise Against'. Now, maybe if I were young and hip still, I would know who this band was, but I didn't. I did enjoy their music to a certain extent. It is punk rock after all, so it's sort of screamy and fast - hard to dance to, especially if you don't know the song at all. But they were entertaining and weren't on too long, so that was nice.

When Billy Talent came on, you could tell right away why they are very popular and mainstream as compared to Rise Against - the difference in the music style, the performance and the acoustics were profound. I ended up knowing even more of their songs than I expected, since I own their older CD but not their new one. My ears were definately ringing when we got out of there, and my right ear continued to be partly sound deficient this morning as well. It is better by now, though!

We were on the second level of the stadium, but the seats were really good and not that far from the stage. I had a hoot watching the crowd surfers playing around on the floor below - they had security personnel at the front of the stage, and those surfers that got too close would be helped down and sent around to the back. However, often the security personnel would drop the surfer or they would both go down at an awkward angle. I'm sure they were all fine, so it made it pretty funny to watch. Other than that, numerous people threw shoes onto the stage. Why, you might wonder? I wonder too. I mean, now you're walking around with one shoe on. Can you get the other shoe back after the show? Or do you walk home without a shoe? It was cold and wet in Edmonton last night, so I wouldn't have wanted to walk home with only one shoe. Maybe I'm just getting old and lame...

Dodgeball destruction

At our game last night, Je Dodge Bien came on strong and kept the heat on throughout the whole match. We played a team called 'Crotch Shots' (hey, I didn't make up the name - note our team name is very clean), over which we held an extra 20 feet of height, with all our players combined. Compared to their Asian roster, our team looked like giants, with male heights of 6'4", 6'3", 6'2", several 6 footers and a few just under. Joelle, Mel and I are by far the shortest on our team, with heights of 5'2", 5'1" and 5'4", respectively, however we were comparable in height to the men on the opposing team.

It wasn't simply that we were taller than the other team - they just weren't very good at DODGING. I think a lot of them were rookies, since they would often turn around when the ball was coming towards them. Now, in real life, if something is flying at you, turning around makes sense so as to protect your face. However, in dodgeball, you are out whether you are hit in the front or the back. In order to be effective at dodging, you must move laterally, which this team hadn't really figured out.

We ended up with a score of 12-2, or something thereabouts. They were a fun team to play, but hey, it's always fun when you're winning, right?

Not just one, but three

Tonight I played ultimate in the late time slot - 10:25pm start time until 11:30. This means I get home around 11:45 or so, once all is said and done. It's hard to wind down after being physically active this late in the evening, so I often shower, snack and read once I get home, further delaying my bed time and reducing the length of my sleep. At this particular moment, it is 12:16 and I am eating a poptart while typing this blog entry. However, the lateness of my bed time is not the focus for today, nor is my poptart (yum yum, smore flavoured).

Tonight, I broke three fingernails while playing ultimate. If you have ever played the sport, you will know that it is very easy to hit your fingernail with the frisbee while catching it, creating a break. The first fingernail I broke tonight was worse than usual - it's broken down quite far and it will take awhile to grow out. The subsequent other two are on the other hand and aren't as bad, however all three are perfect for catching in my hair when shampooing etc, further enhancing the breaks in the nail. All in all, it's quite annoying and I will have to baby them for at least a week so they can grow back to normal.

Most amazing snow ever

This past weekend, Garrett and I went down to Banff with a few friends. We all rented a cabin in Canmore through the Edmonton Alpine Club. The cabin was super nice and completely stocked with dishes, towels, showers and more. It was a clean, cheap place to stay, however the highlight of our weekend was the day we spent at Sunshine Village snowboarding.
I'm sure most of us have heard how great the snow is this year in the Rockies, however I didn't truly realize how wonderful it was until we got to the top of the hill for our first run. It was so amazing! I've never seen snow as nice! We went down on angel light powder nearly the whole day. Sunshine is a really good ski resort - it has a ton of ski lifts, so there is rarely a line to get up the slopes. The runs are wide open, so they aren't crowded with people and you don't have to watch out for people flying by you all the time. As well, since the ski hill is so huge, the numerous runs provide lots of diversity throughout the day.
I'm really proud of how much I've improved at snowboarding in the past few months. We have been up to the mountains 3 times this year and I've been getting significantly better each time. I can now keep up with Garrett on the ski hill, in terms of speed, and I went on my first blue runs ever at Sunshine! I am looking forward to skiing at Fernie in a months time!
The other interesting part of our trip was the celebrity ski event/fundraiser occurring at Sunshine while we were there. Garrett had heard about it on the radio, so we knew that Alec Baldwin, Kelsey Grammar and Christie Brinkley were all supposed to be there. When we arrived, we could tell where the celebrities were, based upon the media crowd at the bottom of the slalom runs. We didn't really try to check it out, but happened to be taking the chair over the event in the afternoon. They were announcing names and people were racing each other down the slalom run, however we didn't recognize any of the names - B-list actors, I suppose. However, when we were halfway up the chair, we heard them announce 'In the blue, Alec Baldwin' as a man in blue jersey skiied down the hill below us. ALEC BALDWIN! Yup, we saw him ski by. He was slow. Nothing much else interesting about it, really. I wanted to see Kelsey Grammar, but no such luck.
In any case, it was a good day snowboarding and a nice getaway from the city. Now we're hard at work again, back at the grind!

Je Dodge Returns!

Tonight was the first game in our new dodgeball season! We have a modified roster but the same old name (Je Dodge Bien) - we just switched up some of the old french players for some new french players. It all works out! We showed up a-blazing tonight and had a good game in our new, middle of the road, division. We were much better matched to the team we played tonight and ended up tying them. Unfortunately, the game coordinator (GC) wouldn't let us play one more round in order to settle the game with a win or loss.

The team we played was composed of mostly rookies and were fairly good sports, although they were a little lacking in knowledge of the rules. There was one incident that really annoyed me: we had three players on our side and two on their side, and the GC paused the game for a second to clarify a rule. When the game came back into play, there was only 1 player on the other side. I asked 'How come they only have one player now?'. Right then, this jerk (who turned out to be the captain) jumped out from hiding behind the GC and hit me with a ball, to get me out. I couldn't believe it! 'Can you do that?' I asked, because he was nearly out the door and out of play when he did it. The GC said 'There isn't really a rule against it.'

So I was out. But quite angry about it. It really just comes down to bad sportmanship. Too bad the spirit scores in dodgeball can't relect that. It's a -1, 0 or +1 system, and if you give anything other than a +1, you have to write up a written report. Darn.

Failed donor

That's me. Today I failed at donating blood. My iron was too low! I spent a bunch of time organizing a group of us to go down to the blood donation clinic, and of the five of us who went, I was the only one who didn't qualify to donate. Ironic, I think? Get it, IRONic? Ha ha, I'm witty.

Anyway, I can't really top that terrible pun, so that is my entire entry for today.

Rush out for Dennis

Tonight a group of us went to see the Edmonton Rush lacrosse team play against the Calgary Roughnecks at Rexall Place. We actually all got free tickets, because another grad student's husband plays on the team and got us a bunch of tickets. So we trekked through the cold weather and went to see the game - which was totally fun!

There were cheerleaders and mascots and the music is played throughout the whole game. Unlike hockey, music can be played even when the game is on, which meant we had tunes to dance around to the whole time we were there. Our mascots were two sasquatches, who rode into the arena on some kickin' motorcycles. As well, they had DENNIS RODMAN (that's right, the basketball player) at the game! Now, who I am to judge the direction his career has taken him since retiring from the game of ball, but still, I wouldn't think that a lacrosse game in EDMONTON is that prestigious. In any case, he was there helping to announce at the game start and the half time show, although he didn't do anything that interesting and I couldn't really understand what he said that much. He's tall.

I was hoping that Dennis might do a slam dunk for us at one point, because they brought out a freestanding hoop at the half time show. However, when Dennis walked out with cowboy boots on, I knew it wasn't meant to be. Instead, some members from the crowd played a basketball game to win prizes. Dennis didn't even touch a basketball...oh well...The Trailor Park Boys are coming in a few weeks for the next lacrosse game - maybe they'd be more interesting?

Now, I don't know the rules for lacrosse very well, although I do remember a few of them from highschool when we had a unit on it. However, I don't remember it being as rough and tumble though! Lacrosse, is a tough game. They can basically whack each other with their sticks anywhere except the head. As such, grown men run around hitting each other with their lacrosse stick, pushing and smacking and swinging and whapping - it's a little crazy out there!

Speaking of running, it was very strange to see the players running down the field at the start of the game. Having watched hockey for my entire life, you don't realize how much you expect people to be skating when you watch a similar sport. It only took awhile to get used to it, but was still pretty strang at first.

Edmonton was ahead for most of the game, scorewise, however in the last quarter Calgary caught up and tied the game. A few minutes before the game was over, they scored again to take the lead! Edmonton played hard in those last few minutes trying to score, even pulling the goalie, however no luck. We did score in the last few seconds, however the buzzer had already gone and the goal didn't count, so we ended up losing. It was a fun evening, which we topped off with a beer at the pub before heading home.

These are a few of my favorite things

My Christmas presents! On the left, my new dresser drawers/cupboard that my dad made for me to go with my desk. It's very beautiful and very functional. I totallly love them.A close up of my new stereo (from Garrett!), and some of the new pictures/frames on top of my drawers.My new blanket (from Mom and Dad), which is so warm and snuggly, and has been being used a lot lately, since it's chilly out here.My GORGEOUS new purse (from Ray and Amanda), which I absolutely adore.There are a number of other items I received that I really love too, although I didn't take pictures. Of note, my crockpot (from Kyle), my fondue set (from Mom and Dad), my spice rack, slippers and wool socks (from Garrett's Mom and Dad), some novels and DVDs, and of course, chocolate (from many)!

BLIZZARD!!!

Well, it was all over the national news, not to mention the local news - A BLIZZARD WAS COMING! I'm not really clear on why the news casts were so excited about it. There was so much hype about its arrival, it was as if someone really famous was coming to Edmonton.

Sure enough, this morning I woke to a blizzard outside. A good four inches of snow had accumulated on my steps and walkway by the time I left for school this morning, with more snow falling and piling up for half the day more. In addition to the snow, there was a fierce wind blowing and sending the falling snow all over the place. The wind accompanied plummeting temperatures and dire windchills.

The walk to school today was one of the most uncomfortable ones I've experienced so far. It wasn't so bad for half the walk, but once I reached the major intersection flanked by a large field and open spaces, things got distinctly unpleasant. The wind was blowing so hard and frigidly that I had to slide my toque down and my scarf up, exposing just my eyes and covering my stinging cheeks. I could barely open my eyes, except to glance down at the ground every few seconds to make sure I was still walking in the right direction. I was shocked by how little I could see! As well, I became completely coated in snow, as the swirling flakes stuck to me from head to toe. My eyes were watering and my legs were frozen. Luckily it was a fairly short walk to get inside!

Tomorrow the blizzard will be gone, but the cold temperatures will be even worse. They are predicting temperatures of minus 30 in the morning with windchills of minus 42. I'm going to wear my snowpants in to school!

Cypress skiing

Subsequent to Garrett's golf day, we went up the mountain to Cypress Ski Resort for a day of snowboarding. Cypress is half an hour from downtown Vancouver (with no rush hour traffic!) and has a fantastic view of the city below:
We headed up in the morning of a very clear day, so visibility was great! This is another shot of me in front of a viewpoint on one of the ski trails down the mountain.
Cypress is a decent ski resort, although it fell a little short of our expectations. It is definately cheaper than Whistler, but has more ski trails than Grouse or Seymour, thus we felt our choice was obvious. However, apparently EVERYONE else also thought Cypress was a great place to go too.

We stood waited in line to park, we stood in line to buy our lift passes. We waited and searched for a spot to leave our snowboards on the racks (they were all full). We stood in line everytime we took the lift up, except for when everyone else was eating lunch and the line was a little shorter (about an hour span). We stood in line for food, for somewhere to sit and to use the bathroom. There were SO MANY PEOPLE!! It was crazy. I guess that's what happens when ski hills are 30 minutes from an urban centre.

In any case, we had a pretty good day and got a lot of snowboarding in. I improved my snowboarding skills, which I always hope to achieve each time I get to the mountains. We also took a few more pictures, as below.
Me snowboarding towards Garrett:The view from the chair lift, looking out towards Gibsons. You can see Bowen and Keats Islands on the left, and Gambier and Turtle-shaped Islands on the right. Gibsons is at the far left edge of the picture:
The view of Vancouver from the chair lift:

Golfing on the west coast

Last year my dad went golfing a few days before Christmas, which was a few days before Garrett made it down to visit. Garrett, being an Edmonton boy, thought it was amazing that people are able to golf in December out in Vancouver, so this year my dad was hoping to take Garrett out for a round, provided the weather cooperated. Well, the weather sure did cooperate, as we had a nice sunny day in the midst of rainy ones, as seen below: You can faintly see Vancouver Island in the distance:Dad and Garrett hit a round of golf, and then enjoyed a beer on the deck of the clubhouse. Since it was so nice out, they called the rest of us out to enjoy the sun with them.Days like that are one of the reasons people love to live on the West Coast - even in the middle of winter, a nice day appears to surprise you! As well, being able to golf one day and then go skiing a few days later (as Garrett and I did) is another bonus.

Welcome back!

Well, I'm back from holidays. I was sadly negligent over the holidays, in terms of writing on my blog. Although I won't post anything grand tonight, I am planning on updating you all on the highlights from my holidays in the next few weeks, so keep watching!