I can’t stop look­ing at it. It’s so…big. http://twitpic.com/23jrfz

1 month, 3 weeks ago
July 7, 2010

This is the part where I explain where I’ve been for the last week

I decided to work on Canada Day and take Monday off instead. It was strange to be pro­duc­tive when it seemed like every­one in this city was out cel­e­brat­ing in the stran­gling heat. At this time of year, I can’t help but think of euca­lyp­tus oil first kisses blue blan­kets shy embraces, con­stantly unsure of whether the mem­o­ries made me happy or sad. Canada Day will never be the same.

I was left feel­ing com­pletely dis­con­nected from the world. In my room, I won­dered what Aaron was doing at his place this year. The fire­works pop­ping out­side my win­dow were so loud it was as if they were going off in my back yard. I didn’t bother to look. It was still just another day.

cat in bag

Dolly can never resist sleep­ing on unfa­mil­iar objects, such as John’s duf­fel bag.

The sec­ond plot was John pass­ing through Ottawa for a bach­e­lor party. It ended much ear­lier than expected after two days of debauch­ery that got too much for even him.

So we had a lot of extra time together over the long week­end though we didn’t do any­thing spe­cial. It was mostly games, sun­shine, dri­ving, three sea­sons of the IT crowd, pop­corn, and duets. Also, three movies were watched: The Hangover (which I agreed not to watch until we saw each other again), The Prince of Tides (to switch gears a bit, and my third time see­ing it this year), and The A-Team (which is what we decided on for a movie in the the­atres, and the likes of which is gen­er­ally only pal­pa­ble dur­ing the sum­mer in the com­pany of other male friends).

I sort of…unplugged. Drifted off in the haze and lost my mind for a lit­tle while.

ginger rose tea

Ginger rose tea. Delish.

I also invited Heather and Sergey to pho with us because they had yet to meet John, and every­one got along swim­mingly. I shouldn’t be sur­prised; Heather and Sergey are type to find some­thing inter­est­ing about any­thing, and John’s the type to say inter­est­ing things.

John explains

John with his sher­bert and hol­i­day scruff, say­ing the kinds of things that make him pop­u­lar to everyone.

Now I’m catch­ing up on work and sleep and alone time.

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Holy fuck, I need a blue cardigan.

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Dear @zen­for­lunch, it was nice dri­ving by you and yelling your name like a dork today.

2 months ago
June 29, 2010

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Why thank you for favourit­ing one of my pho­tos on Flickr, Mr. hkbuttcracklover. I assume it’s safe to say you enjoy butt cracks?

2 months ago

Is it weird that my elbows are so double-jointed that I can stretch my biceps just by flex­ing my triceps?

2 months ago
June 27, 2010

Bobby’s number two

I’ve been itch­ing to play around with some new footage lately cause I love edit­ing and it’s been a while since I had a good story to tell, so when Tiana invited me to Bobby’s sec­ond birth­day party, I couldn’t resist. I also recently pur­chased some new gear in prepa­ra­tion of a wed­ding I’ve been hired to film in the Fall (with a sec­ond one poten­tially lined up), and I’ve been look­ing for an oppor­tu­nity to field-test a new bag, shoul­der strap, and monopod.

I tend to get really shy at Tiana’s par­ties cause I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know any­one else there, but she does a good job of mak­ing sure I’m never left alone for too long and included in most con­ver­sa­tions. She’s also the only other per­son I know to actu­ally design cus­tom invi­ta­tions. This time, how­ever, she was sport­ing a perky new hair­cut, and no longer a veg­e­tar­ian (for now). Such is the power of St. Hubert.

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Weird habit I just realised I have: touch­ing the pro­tec­tive seal of my juice car­tons to my tongue before throw­ing it out. #ocd

2 months, 1 week ago
June 25, 2010

Space Station

The International Space Station hap­pened to be pass­ing by when I was out doing some astropho­tog­ra­phy. It’s a very high-profile object because it’s a lot brighter than any stars (it’s light com­ing from the solar pan­els reflect­ing the sun at us), and it blazes across the sky at an amaz­ing speed. This last point is made obvi­ous by the fact that all the stars appear sta­tion­ary in the photo1, while the ISS made a bril­liant streak.

Also vis­i­ble near the bot­tom of the pic­ture are two low-flying air­craft. The one in the bot­tom left cor­ner had blink­ing lights, which is why it appears as a series of dots in a line.

International Space Station

16mm focal length, f2.8 aper­ture, 13 sec­ond expo­sure, ISO1600.

I only had about two chances to take this shot at this shut­ter speed, not because the ISS dis­ap­pears behind the hori­zon, but because it even­tu­ally flies into the shadow of the Earth while it’s in the sky and is no longer illu­mi­nated by the sun.

My astropho­tograhy teacher once showed me a pic­ture he got of the ISS where the fins of the solar pan­els were vis­i­ble. To put into per­spec­tive how dif­fi­cult this was, he explained it like this:

At it’s longest dimen­sion, the ISS is only about 109m wide, which is roughly the size of the nee­dle antenna on top of the CN Tower. It’s also orbits about 400 kilo­me­tres above the earth, which is roughly the dis­tance from Ottawa to Toronto. So to cap­ture the ISS in a tele­scope at that mag­ni­fi­ca­tion is like being in Ottawa and point­ing a tele­scope at Toronto and see­ing the antenna on the CN Tower…as it’s mov­ing at 8 kilo­me­tres per sec­ond. In American terms, this would be like stand­ing with a tele­scope in Las Vegas and resolv­ing the char­ac­ters of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles if it was mov­ing at 17000mph.

  1. They do move, but at a wide focal length of 16mm the streak­ing is min­i­mized. []
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Made a clean, dark wall­pa­per for my iPhone cause the default iOS4 ones are too busy for me: http://bit.ly/aJgrMY. Feel free to download.

2 months, 1 week ago

That candy tasted like a cus­tard infused with methane. Made me gag at first, then turned into a mango taste. #not­sureifwant

2 months, 1 week ago

GASP. There’s durian candy in that bag of good­ies Pat and Jen gave me. #dun­dun­dun http://yfrog.com/8680rj

2 months, 1 week ago

Aww, not only did my cat not com­ing run­ning when I got home, I also found her cow­er­ing under my bed. Guess the earth­quake really spooked her

2 months, 1 week ago

Also, all my Ottawa peeps are tweet­ing about it.

2 months, 1 week ago