that ring of confidence

The ring is the thing and other terrible titles

Lydia was away for the last two weeks at her parents.  They've recently sold their motel in Bracebridge Ontario which served as both their home and business for the last five years and so that meant moving homes.  With Lydia's mother going to Mexico to visit family for a week they needed Lydia's help to get everything packed up and ready for the move.

While she was away I lived the bachalor life, which mainly consisted of being less tidy and staying up all night to play Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart.  With her back today I dragged Nathan down to Bellingham to pick up the engagement ring [ial] that she had picked out a few weeks ago.  We had not been able to take it at the time, because it was off getting resized, and I wanted to have it for when she got back.

Having picked the ring (pictured above) yesterday, I picked her up from the airport today.  I had debated pretending to not have already proposed and doing a big showy thing where I got down on one knee in the arrivals area of Vancouver Airport, but decided instead to give it to her in private.

Less romantic perhaps, but also less chance of airport security deciding that we were acting suspicious and roughing us up.

Flickr video

As you might have notice I've been playing around with Flickr's new video feature. Some people, such as Matthew Good [fkr], have been using it to do short form videos and screen casts. That's something I might do in the future, but for now with a few exceptions I'm more interested in using it to do video photos.

Limited to 90 seconds I'm finding it better to capture motion and sound on a subject that I'd normally take a photo of. For example Winger above. The Vancouver Whitecaps mascot would make a good photo, but a very short video of him trying to rally the crowd behind the home team captures it a bit better. Similarly the video of the steaming noodles two entries below [jks] makes for a much more interesting video, as the bonito evaporates, than it does a still shot. That's not to say some short videos won't be something that I'll do, it's just that right now I'm digging the video still shot idea.

Test of a banner maker

An hour with Flickr video

I've been playing around with Flickr's new video service today and I quite like it.  It's better than YouTube because it's not ugly, and it's more private than YouTube's garish clusterfuck of a site.  The 90 second limit has yet to be a problem, since I've mainly been playing around with short clips that I've recorded with my Canon TXi as opposed to a dedicated movie camera.

Above is a short video of Nathan, and below is some noodles steaming with bonito on top that I ate at Guu in Richmond.

Tags: video, Flickr, Vancouver, Guu

Why I use a Mac: Reason #273

This is an internal company video made by Microsoft to help energize their sales team for selling the, flagging, Microsoft Vista.  Now Rogers Wireless has some cheesy internal training stuff, as do most companies, but this has to take the cake.  It feels like it was made, I don't know when Born in the USA was released in 1984.

Originally posted on jazzlawyer.vox.com

Some days I just wish I were a sea otter

IMG_4207

It's been one of those weeks where being a sea otter would probably have been a lot cooler than being me.  I started off the week with an interview with a company that I've wanted to work for nearly my entire life and ended it not only not getting one of the 100+ jobs on offer, but also barely holding onto the job that I've got now.  Top that off with the fact that Lydia is gone for the next two weeks to Ontario, and things are certainly not coming up Me.

In a measured attempt not to get myself into any more trouble, or burn bridges or do anything silly, I'm keeping mum on things for a bit but I'll be offering some explanation soon.  Until then I can just wish that I were a sea otter, because let's face it that's gotta be a pretty sweet life.

Originally posted on jazzlawyer.vox.com

Nothing to report... except a Mario Party!

Sean Tamaki and I went to a group interview for the soon to be opened Apple Store at Pacific Centre [mbv]. It was mainly a meeting telling us why we should work for Apple, which I already knew I did. I've not heard from them since, though Takamki's gone back for a follow-up interview and looked certain to get a job. I'm starting to feel like I'm not about to get a call, which has left me a little despondent today.

How to cheer up? I suppose the only way to get happy is with a Mario Party, and that's what Lydia and I are doing right now. Later on we'll be heading to her house so that she can pack for her two weeks in Ontario visiting her parents.

That means I've got two weeks without my fiancee. Anyone want to be my friend? I've got Mario Party.

Live blogging Arsenal versus Manchester United

If you care I'm currently sat on my couch live blogging the Arsenal versus Manchester United match [av].  Go check it out.  And if anyone wants to stop by with a full White Spot breakfast, feel free.  I'll even mention your name on the internet.

Money and the lack of money

That's right, I'm going to be on Robson Street in a Mexican wrestling mask challenging people to arm wrestle for money this summer the way things are going.  Between the pay-cut at work, and the upcoming wedding I'm quite a bit poor.  My second job at the comic book store [jks] has yet to start, and I'm pretty much broke.  You know the sort of broke that when I reach into my wallet a moth flies out and tries to eat the shirt off of my back.

It's time to start living frugally, which means that driving is a luxury and public transit is my new pimped out ride.  It means that an eight pound bag of rice is my new lunch, dinner and desert while breakfast is an old box of Safeway house brand Grain Os' that I've been trying to eat.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly I'm no longer eating at the food court while at work, and certainly not drinking Starbucks on a regular basis.  I'm even thinking of cancelling cable, and if it had not been for the return of The Office this week I would probably have been making the phone call very soon.

Meanwhile if any of you have a free weekend it would be most appreciated if you spent those free days sitting at your computer and clicking on my Google ads.

From film to digital: concert photography

I was taking pictures at the Bell X1 show that we went to at The Plaza last week [mbv], and I realized that it was the first time that I had been at a show with the powers of an official photographer since I've switched from film to digital.  Which says a lot both about how long it's gone since I've had a photographer's pass, and also how quickly the world has moved from film to digital.

I used to feel bad about how many photographic fuck ups I made while covering concerts, until I saw some professional photographers running through an easy dozen rolls of films per song.  The fact that I spent $50 on film and development might have hurt my wallet, but seeing what the rest of them use the fact that I could get a few great shots from that was a nice ego boost.

For the Bell X1 show I ran through about 500 shots easy, most of which spent about five minutes in iPhoto before getting deleted.  The bulk of those were either out of focus, blurry or just plain terrible.  Then I ran through those that were left and cut them down to just the best ones, the ones that if I had a page to fill I'd be happy using and those were the ones that made it to Flickr [fkr], which according ot Lydia was way too many.

The one legacy I have from the film era is a few photo albums of pictures in storage that need scanning in, so that I can get them onto Flickr.

Edit:  The first two pictures in the slide show above are actually from my film camera and were scanned in.  The rest were from various digital cameras including my two Canon Rebels, various cell phones and other smaller digital cameras.