Dessert!

The stitching job is not great, but it's hard to do when you're taking photos in a circle of a square subject, and you don't really know the real proper panoramic taking techniques! It looks WAY better large, so please click on it.

Dear Blog

feels like ages since I've posted, and I feel I've been neglecting you, poor blog. I hope you haven't missed me too much. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything interesting recently; your insides must be feeling quite tired of the same boring diet all the time. In any case, I just thought I'd apologize for the lack of interestingness...unfortunately I don't get the feeling it's going to change any time soon! But there are a few morsels for you to digest on.

On Saturday I will be working at my first wedding! Although I'm not getting paid for this one, hopefully the photographer dude will realize I'm not a moron and will hire me afterwards...so if anything it's a bit of pocket money, and some photographic experience. Oddly enough he and I have some stuff in common; he used to rock climb and now road bikes...and obviously the photography thing.

As usual at this time of year the University Cup is going on, and this time aorund I'm pretty out of shape. I've been doing what I can to fitten up (if that is even a word), mostly by riding up a lot of hills...and it seems to be working. I should really do this all summer. It seems to be a very time-effective way of getting stronger!

A final little morsel: I went on a date the other day. With someone I met online no less! It was alright. I was fairly nervous, since it seemed like we had TONS in common, which we do. I'm not sure about the chemistry though, I think I will have to give her a few more dates and see how things go. I think chemistry is one of the most important things for a relationship, if not THE most important.

Anyway, Blog, I hope you are not as starving as before.

Bon Appetit
GSM

Balconies

MTB BBQ

Last night was the mountain biking Rookie Night BBQ, which I organized, since I'm the social coordinator. The burgers were delicious! nice and thick and juicy, and cooked on a coal BBQ, so extra tasty. I think everyone had a good time. We were supposed to go to Karaoke afterwards, but it was kinda far, so we all decided to go to a regular bar instead, and then call it a night.

Also yesterday, some time during the day when noone was home, Mel came and dropped off a box of moon cakes, and this weird chinese tea that is supposed to make me sleep better. That was kinda nice. I went to drop off some stuff at her place this morning, since she's leaving at 4 pm for France for 7 months. I am still kinda sad that she's going, and still wish it would have worked out. I recently did this personality questionnaire for an online dating site (I know I know, silly), and then it tells you what it thinks your ideal partner would be like...and Mel matched REALLY well (not that I really needed to be told that).

And no hash...she kinda forgot :-(

insomnia, biking, photos, and hash

It's been a while since a boring update of my life; I have nothing very amusing to tell. I still have insomnia; I sleep well once in a while which prevents me from going absolutely insane. The rest of the time I feel quite unproductive and don't get any work done. Other than that, my life is peachy!

The university mountain biking season has started up again, and I am the social coordinator for the team. I'd been having trouble getting out on my bike, since I was kind of bored of it and felt burnt out, but I realized it's because I wasn't going riding just for fun...it was all boring commuting. Now that I've been out for fun a bunch since the beginning of the school year, I feel so much more motivated to ride. I even went out and did some hill repeats today! :-P

In other news, I got an interview with a photographer for tomorrow morning! The guy who was taking the photos at one of my friends' wedding recently told me I could send him some of my work because they're looking for a new assistant. So I did, and a couple days later I got an email back telling me to call and book an appointment to show him my portfolio. SO COOL! If I could shoot weddings on the weekend and make a few extra bucks, that would be awesome! And increase my portfolio at the same time! But, I don't want to get ahead of myself, I think I probably won't get the job.

Yesterday I went climbing with Mel...she is finally back from Indonesia and Vancouver, and is in Toronto until Friday, at which point she leaves for France for seven months. We climbed for a bit, and then we went back to her new apartment where she lives with her brother, and just talked and watch the Daily Show for 3 or 4 hours. After that I realized I still need more time apart from her. It was so much fun, and such a relaxing conversation; if anything we had better chemistry than before she left, and she is still just as cute as ever. She was apparently talking about this whole thing with a good friend of hers who said that he thinks that it might have worked out if she were 30, or at least more settled and with a better idea of what she wants to do with her life. I think he nailed it on the head! What a wise man. Anyway, hopefully during her time in France I will get over her completely, and she will figure out what she wants to do with herself! She also said she's going to give me her left-over hash...which is really nice! heeheehee...now i just need a hash pipe, because I can't do the tobacco-hash mixture...if only I'd bought one from that 'functional jeweller' in Spain...

Balloonie

Another carnie at the Ukrainian Festival

Bored Carnie

At the Ukrainian Festival a few weeks back. She was bored stiff, and was asking if it was 11 pm yet (it was about 3 PM I think). Hence the cigarrette to pass the time I guess!

PODL: Seen in Toronto

I couldn't believe I was seeing this when I went to the Toronto Islands a few weeks ago. A beaver, practically in downtown Toronto! I thought the juxtaposition of this animal with the snow shovel was interesting, even though the photo itself is pretty crappy.

New Acronym on my site: POD

This is a view of the Lush soap and bathroom stuff store, at night after all the employees and customers have left (actually, the employees were just leaving as I set up and took the shot). It looks better large.

photo test

Ok, so if I link to the photo on my flickr page directly in the 'Edit HTML' tab of the blogger publishing thing it works, but if I use their dumb upload tool it doesn't. Why can't we have the old blogger back? :-(

PS: That is Toronto's Mayor Miller .

Why can't I add an image?

I seem to be having trouble adding an image tonight. WTF?! let me try again...

...

guh...still doesn't work. Guess I'll try tomorrow. sorry people.

update: umm, is anyone else having this problem? it still doesn't work today.

The Crazy Weekend

Last weekend was the most tiring weekend I've had in a while, probably since my 24 hour race (during which, if I haven't mentioned it before, we won! heehee...still can't get over it!). This time though it was a marathon of weddings. I had two to attend, one on Friday, and one on Sunday. It would have been fine, except that I was a groomsman for the Sunday wedding, which meant lots of work, and wedding party activities. Thursday night was the Jack and Jill party, Friday all day was the first wedding, Saturday was the wedding rehearsal and various other preparations, Sunday was the second wedding (whose ceremony was at 8:30 AM! ugh), and Monday was a party thrown by the grooms mom. And I didn't even know that I was going to have to do all this work as a groomsman when I signed up! It was incredibly tiring, but also great to see good friends on their day. I'm sure they will be happy for decades to come, and it is a nice feeling to see them finally married.

On another note, I finally visited a mall in north Scarborough called Pacific Mall. That place is great. It's full of Asians and also really cheap DVD rips. I got Kill Bill 2 for $7! The quality is really really good, besides the fact that all the menu screens are in various asian languages, and finding the English subtitles is quite a challenge. I just finished watching it, and I have to say that I thought it was a great movie. I really enjoyed the first one when I saw it on the big screen, but I didn't like it as much on my home TV, whereas I think the second one lends itself better to re-viewing, since it's less about the action and more about the plot.

Finally, the answer to my photo riddle is (and some people have already guessed it but not on my blog)

A REVOLVING DOOR!

Thank you to those who participated in that game. I think I will try and find some other stuff to do that again! It was kinda fun. Probably with a digital camera though, as opposed to wasting valuable film.