Zoology

Our annual pilgrimage to the Calgary Zoo turned up a couple interesting shots. I'd write descriptions for you, but I've caught Anita's cold/ infection/ flu/ 'insert other illness here', so I'm going to pound back some vitamin C and hit the sack.

Off to Medicine Hat for the next few days. Maybe I'll liveblog my wild adventures while I'm there.

-G

The Fruit of Love

Mother , originally uploaded by iHeartDimSum.

As promised, more photos from my cousin's wedding this past weekend. I'm not terribly happy with the photos of the ceremony portion because I opted for the reach of my 18-200mm Nikkor (which I am starting to hate more and more) rather than the speed and unbelievable sharpness of the 17-55mm f/2.8 Nikkor. But then I switched glass after the ceremony, and got much better results that I'm very happy with. Oh, I just realized I missed taking photos of the first dance because I was busy doing a round of prairie fires...

Obviously, I didn't take the last photo as I'm in it. My bro snapped this one for me. Alrighty, the Puk clan should be arriving for the weekend visit any minute now.

Cheers,
-G

Parting is such sweet sorrow

An uncle, aunt, and four cousins flew home to Belgium tonight via Calgary airport. And while I barely had a weekend to spend with them, it was lots of fun, and I'm really sad to see them go. They say parting is such sweet sorrow, and it truly is. I used to think that crying in the airport was for sissies, but as I grow older I realize that the time that we have together is limited by all those little things that life throws at you, and I start to feel more emotional about my family. I wish there was some way that we could all live closer together so that seeing each other wouldn't involve passports, 'random' patdowns at security, 9 hour transatlantic flights, and all that other jazz that travelling involves.

Enough with the sappy, on with some snappy. As promised, a few photos from my last day in Vancouver, spent with our good friends Ray and Yasko (unfortunately, Yasko had to work). The feathery looking debris is some dead bird carcass we found along the seawall. The bokeh shots of the creepy cocoon things are from an art piece we saw on Granville Island that was inspired by silk worms. And aren't those asparagus cement trucks just rad?
























Photos of the Lee-Tang wedding to come perhaps... tomorrow? G'night folks.

Teaser

To absolutely no one's surprise, procrastinator Mach didn't get around to posting the other promised Seattle/ Vancouver photos. Those are yet to come, truly. Except I'm bagged right now, and just wanted to give a big thumbs up to my cousin Anne's super fun wedding last night. It was a great time! Photos will be forthcoming soon, but for now, a teaser:


Okay, I'm gonna fall asleep at the wheel. G'night.

-G

Cheeseburger Smoothie

While watching my friend Yasko struggle to masticate a salad (she recently had 7 chicklets removed, and braces installed), I suggested that she ought to look into a portable blender and straw. She could carry the thing around everywhere, blend up her solid food and sip away. How awesome would that be? Chicken Caesar salad beverage, anyone? But then I got thinking, this isn't just for newly dental worked folks and white hairs with no teeth... this could be a revolution in fooding for everyone! Why hasn't someone tried blending up a steak, putting it into a can, and selling it in a vending machine along side those vegetable cocktail drinks? "OOH! 3 servings of meat/ 355ml can! How healthy!" It'd sure beat drinking a gritty tasteless protein shake. And then I thought, why stop there. Why hasn't someone thought to blend up a Cheese Burger, or a Big Mac, and drink it? It mixes in your stomach anyways, so what difference could it possibly be to ingest it premixed and save your stomach the effort?

I think I may have to try this sometime. Or if you're feeling up to the challenge, you do it, and send me photos of you blending, consuming, and (likely) puking the burger-shake back up. That would be awesome.

I had originally intended to post more photos from Seattle/ Vancouver, but my stupidly unreliable internet from 'Telus the Future is so NOT friendly' stopped working for a few hours. I'll post them maybe tomorrow.

G'night folks.

-G

Seattle, WA

The rest of the trip to Vancouver and Seattle was fantastic, if a bit on the hellishly hot side of things. On the other hand, I probably shed a few pounds in sweat alone, which is good considering I was like a fat hibernating bear for the first 6 months of this year. I'm not going to bore you with details of the trip itself, but instead, will leave you with a series of photos. Here's a bunch from our time in Seattle. There are no photos of the Space Needle because frankly, it wasn't very impressive and we didn't feel like paying to go up it.