Yearly Archives: 2006

The Winter Schedule

But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slight­ly chilled, why then, indeed in the gen­er­al con­scious­ness you feel most delight­ful­ly and unmis­tak­ably warm.

I save the win­dow-open­ing rit­u­al for Friday nights, after a long, tir­ing week, when the sweaters are all fold­ed, and the shirts all ironed. Before I go to bed, I turn off the lights, square off my desk, and turn the win­dow crank 220 degrees clock­wise. Even though the ther­mo­stat is at 23°C, it’s any­where from ‑16°C to 5°C out­side these nights.

When I wake up at 5:00 a.m., as I usu­al­ly do, my room is filled with the chilly, snow-smelling air.

I do this only once a week to appre­ci­ate it.

I do it on Fridays to enjoy it.

Tremblant '06

Thumbnail: Winding road
Thumbnail: Cabin at night
Thumbnail: Aaron and Karen
Thumbnail: Poker game
Thumbnail: Phil's royal flush
Thumbnail: Old and new skis

Here I am, in a cab­in in the mid­dle of the woods, 160 km away for two short days and a night in Tremblent. Today, we drove the wind­ing roads lined with pine trees and set­tled in. By tomor­row morn­ing, the 10 beds and mat­tress­es are going to be filled with 16 peo­ple, all-round exhaust­ed, cram­ming in as much sleep as they can before the hills open.

In between, Aaron finds a Bubbles action fig­ure that looks just like Karen. Phil is dealt a roy­al flush, which we’ll prob­a­bly nev­er see again in our lives, dur­ing the sec­ond game of pok­er. For this, we drink, and I’m asked to make a print of the pho­to for every­one present to sign.

I’m not here to ski, or snow­board, or par­ty, I’m just here to observe. Nick gave me the use of his lens­es, includ­ing a 200mm prime L, but it was the 15mm fish-eye Sigma that I grew to love. How strange it is to be record­ing my mem­o­ries with some­one else’s glass.

This week­end it feels like I’m run­ning. I’m look­ing for some­thing, but I don’t know what it is or where to find it.

A Stoic Beginning

Sometimes, after pulling your­self out of bed instead of call­ing in late because there’s too much to do, when the walk to work is through ankle-deep snow which is com­ing down in sheets, you give up on avoid­ing the pud­dles because your socks are already soaked through after five min­utes, you can bare­ly keep your eyes open from the pre­cip­i­ta­tion and the exhaus­tion, the cold is giv­ing you a split­ting headache, and the only thing keep­ing you sto­ic is to con­cen­trate on the music in your ears but your iPod runs out of bat­ter­ies and this is the start of your week, you have no oth­er choice but to laugh.

New Year's '06

Thumbnail: Aaron and Rob
Thumbnail: Cheese tots
Thumbnail: Cristina's poker face
Thumbnail: Cuff links
Thumbnail: Lacey
Thumbnail: pass the booze
Thumbnail: Sarah
Thumbnail: Poker table
Thumbnail: Karen

Aaron and Karen’s annu­al New Years par­ty was a fun time in a relax­ing sense, much low­er-key than last year, with few­er peo­ple and casu­al clothes. I don’t believe there was any­one who felt out-of-place, which meant that one could eas­i­ly move from group to group with­out any feel­ings of intru­sion. So that I did­n’t have to wor­ry about catch­ing a bus home ear­ly, they lent me the use of their SUV for me to dri­ve home.

I’m espe­cial­ly pleased with this set of pho­tos. I think I was able to show the mood appro­pri­ate­ly, with­out over-expos­ing the flash too much. My two favourite are with Sarah in her scarf and with Aaron hand­ing the low­ball to Rob. The for­mer because of the pure chance that worked out in cap­tur­ing the moment along with the won­der­ful tex­ture of her scarf, and the lat­ter because of how strong the two sets of hands look, like a firm hand­shake with­out touch­ing.