RICHMOND OVAL SPEED SKATING

I went down with a friend (who had free tickets) to see the olympic trials for speed skating. Competitors from all over Canada. Speedy stuff! 

That would be great to try. Maybe my cycling background would help... now if only I could still skate...

SUMMER IN WINTER...

With 2 feet of snow on the ground it seemed a bit funny to be shooting inside a client's space and making it try to feel summery. fun shoot with full complement of models, makeup and crew. Good day... just felt bad making people be in t shirts on outdoor entry way shots while people watching wore parkas and toques.

Images to follow later.

MODELS MODELS EVERYWHERE

Filled this place with shooting today. 14 models spread around... some relaxing in kitchen waiting for their turn, some in studio, some in makeup upstairs. Great to have all the comforts of home on this shoot. I loved that the clients at one point did an hour long conference call upstairs without noise disruption from us down below.

Photos to add soon.

MANLY BIKE FROM CRAIGSLIST NYC

Bike for sale

What kind of bike? I don't know, I'm not a bike scientist. What I am though is a manly guy looking to sell his bike. This bike is made out of metal and kick ass spokes. The back reflector was taken off, but if you think that deters me from riding at night, you're way wrong. I practiced ninja training in Japan's mount Fuji for 5 years and the first rule they teach about ninja biking is that back reflectors let the enemy know where you are. Not having a rear reflector is like saying "SCREW YOU CAR, JUST TRY AND FIND ME".
The bike says Giant on the side because it's referring to my junk, but rest assured even if you have tiny junk that Giant advertisement is going to remain right where it is. I bought this bike for 300 dollars from a retired mercenary that fought in both World War 1 and World War 2 and had his right arm bitten off by a shark in the Philipines while stationed there as a shark handler. When he sold it to me I had to arm wrestle him for the honor to buy it. I broke his arm in 7 places when I did. He was so impressed with me he offered me to be his son but I thought that was sissy shit so I said no way.
The bike has some rusted screws, but that just shows how much of a bad ass you are. Everyone knows rusted screws on a bike means that you probably drove it underwater and that's bad ass in itself. Those screws can be replaced with shiny new ones, but if you're going to go to that trouble why not just punch yourself in the balls since you're probably a dickless lizard who doesn't like to look intimidating. The bike is for men because the seat is flat. You're going to love this thing because it doesn't try to penetrate your ass or anything. I've topped out at 75 miles per hour on this uphill but if you're just a regular man you'll probably top it out at 10 miles per hour. This thing is listed as a street bike which is man-code for bike tank.

The bike has 7 speeds in total:
Gear 1 - Sissy Gear
Gear 2 - Less Sissy Gear
Gear 3 - Least Sissy Gear
Gear 4 - Boy Gear
Gear 5 - Pre-teen Boy Gear
Gear 6 - Manly Gear
Gear 7 - Big Muscles Gear

I only like gear 6 and 7 to be honest.

Additionally, this tool of all immense men comes with a gigantic lock to keep it secure. The lock is the size of a bull's testicles and tells people you don't f**k around with locking up your bike tank. It tells would-be-thieves "Hey a**hole, touch this bike and I'll appear from the bushes ready to club you with a two-by-four".

Bike is for $150 OBO (and don't give me no panzy prices)

AMAZING COMPUTER PHOTO TECHNOLOGY

Wow. Truly Wow. Well worth seeing and wait till you see the section about what he compiled with images from the Notre Dame Cathedral.

I would love to go to the TED Conference, but apparently it is virtually impossible to get a seat.

Hope you find this as intriguing as I did...

MEMORIES

I'm having Deja-Vu and Amnesia at the same time. I think I have forgotten this before.

BICYCLES

I was riding my racing bike yesterday (errands) and noticed that the silly people without helmets are often the same ones with ipods cranked loud enough that they cannot even hear me say hello. Accidents waiting to happen!

CARS AND COPTERS

Crazy shoot day. I did a shoot of a hybrid vehicle with Olympic 2010 Logos on it. Needed to be shot today (Friday) and final file required in Toronto on Monday ideally. Plus the file needed to be huge. This would be used on a billboard kind of display inside a sports venue where it would be seen up close as well. The final file went out at 1.2 gigabytes. That is really gig… 96 inches (8 feet) at 300 dpi. I shot it in parts to ensure I would have huge amount of information there. FYI you will see that the close up section of part of the license plate holds up well enough that you can see the 5 olympic rings that are only about ¾ inch tall.

The same day I had to do an aerial photo that not only required the door off but needed me to hang out and point downwards to get a certain angle for some photos. I had be able to shoot downwards without the skids being in the shot. As it turned out, sitting outside of the door with my feet on the skids was more practical, but this leaning out photo (which was tried) looks much more interesting.

SUBMACHINE GUN ON HASTINGS

I had the great opportunity to ride along with Vancouver Police tonight. Really interesting. The most shocking call for sure was the “man shot in face and woman with gun still in the building” call...

We arrived at East Hastings and there were at least 10 police, 3 of whom had machine guns. The most dangerous part of the call was that the woman with the gun was reputed to still be there… that means either she was going to

 kill herself, try to have the police kill her or take more people out. 

All guns were drawn and movements were very methodical for obvious reasons. As it turns out room 210 had the door wide open and no body and no blood. Perhaps someone trying to mess around with tenant(s) in the building by making that call. They must know what would have elicited the most intense response. Who knows if it was done to get back at a woman living in room 210, or what, but it certainly was successful. Other calls included Break and Enter on Georgia, 20 kids fighting (was less than that, but that was the call), and other small incidents. Fascinating late night experience. Got home at 3:30 am.

PEMBERTON FESTIVAL HIGHS AND LOWS

1) - Tragically hip (I love that Gordon Downie acts insane on stage. Performers need to put on a show beyond the music and I feel the Hip do that well.)
2) - Working in the lost and found. People are pretty darn happy if you have their stuff. Shocking amount of Drivers Licenses and combination Passport/ DL/ Birth certificate together (What were they thinking bringing all that). We were trying to coax people that we reunited with their stuff to “pay it forward.” Do something nice when you least feel like it. Especially in traffic!
3) - Flaming lips put on a good spectacle, but Wayne Cody needs to stop demanding love from an audience. Earn it don’t demand it.

LOWLIGHTS:
1) I got a $598 ticket from Police on the way back since I didn’t know my insurance was not up to date. Ouch!
2) - Poor Rebecca in the dish pit for 6 hours... - - this bad volunteer shift led to a great one of doing security for Coldplay (in the pit)!
3) – Transport mismanagement by Live nation. A fiasco. I calculated that people leaving "right after the gig" would not get home till 7 or 8 am Monday.

**** My friend NARDWUAR was on his way up to interview Jay-Z after getting an email at 10 am Sunday. Long drive for a 6-minute interview. He left right afterwards too to drive back!

GRAHAM CHAPMAN'S EULOGY

I Always thought the Monty Python troupe were savvy gents and this Eulogy is really well done. 

Note there is some profanity in this, but just by saying that I almost spoiled the joke.

NARDWUAR'S BIRTHDAY

What a hoot... and a good excuse to eat that the Tomohawk grill. No I didn’t have a skookum chief burger! Yes this is the place where Bryan Adams toned up his fingertips in the dishpit.

The celebrities just keep coming!

"HOUSE TO GROUSE"

Each year it seems a few of us ardent sillies (ok three of us) tend to continue with our tradition of running from "my house to Grouse Mountain." This is a bit of a trek... not sure of the distance but it goes mostly uphill. Starting around Main and 18th to the top of the grind took 2:53:17 this time. I think last year was faster. Oh well. It is great fun though.

JOE STRUMMER

Saw the “Future is Unwritten” about punk rock legend Joe Strummer. He was such a kind and thoughtful gentleman - - The Clash were the only band I ever met whom you could invite to your party after the concert and they would probably come! I remember partying with them at the Montgomery café.
In the film he has a great quote that also exemplified my take on the punk / alt scene of the 80’s - - might surprise some of you…. “Punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow man.” “Greed isn’t going anywhere. Without people you are nothing... that is my spiel.” - Joe Strummer

That is s a photo of me (with hair) when I first met Joe at the Kerrisdale Arena in the 80's. Great memories.

PACK MULE AND MARILYN MANSON

Two disparate and absurd events on this one Sunday…
A) Big hike BACK from an overnight hike at Elphin lakes with a friend who got really sick. I snowshoed down 3 hours carrying TWO packs! Made me feel like I was a Nepalese Porter. My sick friend thought he either had pneumonia or worst case it was renal failure (he had a kidney transplant 20 years ago). Once at the car he was not much better so we drove quickly back from Squamish and dropped him at the hospital in Vancouver where they ended up keeping him for 3 days.  

B) Same day (but at night) went to photograph Marilyn Manson in Vancouver for the Georgia Straight. First time EVER shooting a gig where I was allowed only ONE song to shoot. That is 4 measly minutes! The job was made tougher by a security bully who would randomly push me hard within my 4 minutes. 

Marilyn had a knife-mic and I got a shot of "Marilyn" holding the knife-mic in one hand and touching my camera lens with the other. Sadly the securi-jerk shoved me again before I could get another without Marilyn's thumb blocking his cheek.

STEVE JOBS SPEECH

Great speech by Steve Jobs (the founder of apple)