365:39 Bulls Eye

   Monday! Everyone's favourite day of the week no?  Yeah me either.  Getting up this morning, oh that was not fun.  Went to bed at like 1 last night, actually heard my alarm go off at like 7:10 this morning which is pretty early, but just over 6hrs of sleep is not a fun way to start the week.  I had to get up kind of earlier than normal cause we got new flooring in the kitchen/laundry room today so I needed to help move some last minute stuff.  The guy came after I had left for school and finished around 1 and the floor looks pretty nice.  We moved the fridge back into the kitchen from the hallway and avoided scratching/compressing the new floor.
   I picked up three books from the library that came in today. I have read 143 pages of the first one (its very easy reading so that number seems like more reading than there actually was, plus its half pages, pics on top).  The books are all photography related and I still have another 3 or 4 on request but 2 are more Photoshop books.  The titles are The Digital Photography Book (Vol. 1 and 2) by Scott Kelby, and Understanding Exposure by Brian Peterson.  Good book so far, Vol. 2 seems like its dives into more advanced stuff, so far this one has been quite a bit of stuff that I have read before, it just simplifies and explains it a bit clearer than I had previously read.
   On to today’s photo, I took it at like 10:50 cause I realised that I hadn’t taken a picture for the blog today and I didn’t want to go back into my old pictures today.  As you can probably tell this shot is pretty posed :P.  I used a piece of red construction paper as a diffuser/bounce card for the on camera flash because ambient light just wasn’t enough to hand hold and get a sharp shot.  It worked pretty well and gave it a nice even exposure.

 
  My hockey team won our first game of the season tonight with the game winner being scored by yours truly.   We played pretty well but it helped that the ref was calling a lot of penalties against them (we didn't capitalize on the PP unfortunately) and they were a pretty weak team.  We ended up winning 3-0.
   I don’t have class all morning tomorrow because of the High School awards ceremony which is running till lunch and maybe a bit into it.  I think that about wraps up my day today so there isn’t anything else to say.

Ciao,

Dave

365: 38 Setting Sun

   Well its that time of year again when the days are noticeably shorter and the days are cool.  In a weeks time we will be rolling the clocks back one hour, although I think the UK did theirs today or last night. I slept in till about 11 today, and tonight is not going to be fun trying to fall asleep after going to bed at like 2 last night. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but I think that Sunday’s are my least favourite day of the week.  I just have a bad feeling all day that there is little time left in the weekend and that there are things that need to be done.  Now most of the time I just don’t do certain things so its worrying about nothing but the feeling is still there all day.  I end up procrastinating homework and other stuff all day but while procrastinating I just lay on the couch.  For example today I did not do anything of value till about 5, when I showered and got dressed.  I didn’t start my homework till about 8.  Anyways enough of that.
   I did take a few shots today, nothing really of fantastic artistic potential but I did kind of like the picture I am posting today.  I just leaned out the porch door and focused on the light.  Pretty much all of the leaves on my tree have fallen off now so that let the sun shine through the branches.  I put the 50mm back on my camera after it had been rejected for quite some time, it has pretty much resided in the 70-200’s case for the last 2 weeks at least.

 

   As I mentioned last week I requested a few books from the library, and since then I have added one or two more.  Only one is ready for pickup but two more say in transit so hopefully I can get more than one at once, also the one that is ready right now in #2 and #1 is one of the in transit ones so hopefully I can read them in order.
   I was showed this video yesterday and I have watched it probably 5-10 times since then.  Some of you may have already seen it but I think it is hilarious every single time.

   Hope you enjoyed that!  Well it is late and I probably won’t fall asleep for a while but I am going to pack it in for the night.  Apparently I have to get up a bit earlier to help my dad move the kitchen table out of the kitchen for the flooring guys tomorrow.  We already moved the stove, fridge, washing machine and dryer off the floors being done. Anyways

Ciao,

Dave

365:37 Blue and Brown

   Well I didn't get out to shoot anything exciting today.  The weather was pretty crappy all day with it raining at points then misting at others.  This one is from the first time I went downtown with my camera and its of the Library of Parliament, or at least the roof of it.  My mom was not a fan of the blue and gold on the “spires” but I really like it.

 

   Tonight was the second week of Saturday night hockey and we had way less guys out than last week.  Our team had 2 spares and the other team only had 1.  I got extremely tired about halfway through. I don’t know if it was lack of blood or spares or a combo of both but I just had no breath left.

   Tomorrow is going to be a busy day with moving all our appliances in the kitchen out because we are getting new flooring on Monday.  As well I have quite a bit of homework to do :( I’m going to keep this one relatively short and wrap it up here, technically this is an hour and a bit late but it still counts for Saturday’s post.

Ciao,

Dave

365:36 Pink Game

   I (with friends) returned to the Urbandale Center (still sounds weird) tonight for the 67’s game.  In support of Breast Cancer Research the 67’s and the referee’s and linesmen were wearing pink uniforms.  It was pretty confusing from our first seats, which were all the way up, second last row.  I kept thinking we had a player hanging up way down by their blue line but looking closer it was a ref.  The uniforms looked fine and its great that they are supporting Breast Cancer but I just don’t really think it works for an actual game, sure its some nice novelty merch. but beyond that I think it was just additional chirping ground for the other team.

   As I kind of mentioned our seats were less than desirable so for the second period we moved down to behind one of the nets.  Unfortunately neither of these seats were great for pictures, first seats were just too far and high up, second I had to deal with netting and glass/supports.  This one picture is ok, the netting didn’t seem to have as much of an effect when I was at 200mm shooting the far end, it just made the colours kind of washed out.



   The final outcome of the game wasn’t that great either.  We ended up losing 7-4, with their final 2 goals coming in the last 4 minutes or so.  Perugini seems to have found a way to make himself permeable to pucks.  There were at least three that went right through him somehow, it was frustrating to say the least.

   I donated blood this morning and everything went fine.  There were a lot of first timers though that had similar experiences to what I had last June.  There was 5 people that needed additional care by nurses and probably at least 5 more people who were rejected for various other reasons.  My donation took about 7 mins which was pretty quick.  I think it was the hydrating and a full stomach which helped this time go a little better than last.

   I’m technically going to post this one a day late because it is after midnight now but I started on the right day so it’s all good.  I may or may not be doing a haunted wagon ride type of thing tomorrow and I may or may not bring my camera if I do end up going.  I kinda want to get out and get some more new picture but I’m not really sure what to shoot.  Anyways that about does it for about 8 days in a row now I think :D

Ciao,

Dave

365:35 Abstract Light Trails

  Real exciting and witty title eh?  I’m sure I could eventually come up with something but I don’t really want to sit here for a couple of hours trying to think up something.  I am going to try to get this post done in 18 minutes and then head to bed because tomorrow I have to get up earlier than usual to drive my brother to school and in an attempt to not repeat last years blood donor clinic incident of me nearly passing out I am going to try to get as much rest as possible.  I drank a lot of fluids today (2 cups of hot chocolate when I got home from school, and now I just drank about 1.1L of water after hockey.

   Today’s picture is a little bit of a deviation from the norm of what I have been posting here.  I grabbed my camera and turned off the lights and took a shot of the light on the computer speakers.  The length of the exposure and my unsteady hands made a neat little pattern.  I then proceeded to take many more picture in an attempt to come up with something.  Then the darker blue trails you see are from the lights on the computer tower.  The picture you see below is a composite of 5 images.  I did have most of the pictures I took in there but it just ended up being too cluttered so I got rid of most of them.



(7 mins gone)

   We had our second hockey game of the season tonight and we had our butts handed to us by the other team on the scoreboard.  We definitely got outplayed in the first period, pretty even second, and better third period.  The final score was 5-1 but in my opinion 3 of their goals were lucky tips.  We did have less guys show up for our team tonight and I played D so I got much more ice time as opposed to last game.  I got a new stick on Sunday and today was the first time I got to use it and I must say that I really enjoyed it :D.

   Looks like that about wraps it up (and early too, still 6 mins to go).  Hopefully tomorrow will go fine and there will be no exciting stories to tell but if there is, all the better, makes the thinking up stuff to say much easier. 

Ciao,

Dave

365: 34 Repeating

   Back again with a post, 7 days in a row now!  I’m going to keep this one fairly short because its late and I am very tired (even The Dudes weren’t enough to get me out of bed promptly).  With today’s picture (another one from Friday) I was trying to get some sort of repeating lines going on.  I think it kind of worked and kind of didn’t so I will let you decide if you like it or not.



   This evening there was an information night for all the Ontario Universities, I went to the Western one as well as the U of T one.  The only thing that they made me realize was that I am likely not getting any entrance scholarships, and I probably can’t afford to go there anyways :P
   Glee was pretty good tonight and if you are following me on twitter (*read* do it if you aren’t already) you know that it left me smiling :).  Anyways I am gonna head of to bed. 

Ciao,

Dave

365: 33 Church and the Apocalypse

   I contemplated not writing this post today but I figured I was on such a roll, why should I stop.  I think I am a little tired seeing as I set my alarm to go off for 6:30 this morning, I did not wake up until 7:10 and only then because my mom came in to wake me up.  The goal was to be at school for 7:30 but that didn’t really happen, I hopped in the shower and grabbed breakfast for the road and got to school for 7:40.  It was fine though cause Mr. Harvey never starts extra help at 7:30, I still had plenty of time once I got to his class.  The math test went alright first period, I kind of ran out of time and had to rush through a few questions, and one was ridiculously time consuming so that one didn’t get finished.  The rest of the day went ok.  I had subs all afternoon, chem. just for the day, french is going to be for the next month or so.
   On to today’s photo.  Again I am going back to last Friday's stash.  This one was taken from Majors Hill Park near the lower end of the canal.  The church is Notre-Dame Cathedral which is one of the nicest churches in Ottawa that I have been in, if not the nicest.

     
   I ventured on to the Ottawa public library site today for the first time in ages.  I downloaded the Frankenstein audio book because I am going to be reading it next semester in my Literature class.  As well I got in some pretty big lineups for some photography books.  Then by chance I stumbled upon an old favourite author of mine, Bill Bryson.  This guy is the funniest “travel” writer you will ever read.  I thoroughly recommend that everyone reading this reads A Walk In the Woods.  I read this book in grade 7, and I remember that because I honestly nearly broke out into laughter when I was reading this (I definitely had a smile on my face the whole time).  He has a book titled a short history of nearly everything, which is exactly what the title hints at.  My parents both read it and really enjoyed it but I never got around to it for two reasons, 1. The size of this thing is enormous (hmm, just looked and its only 554 pages, but I’m sure its not easy reading), and 2. just the content was probably a little too deep, he describes pretty much the start of the universe in a way the average person can.  I thought about getting that one too, or even going to the library to pick it up because Orleans said it had one checked in, then I though about Frankenstein and Oedipus the king and realized that would be plenty of reading for a while.
   Finally I have two nuggets of internet goodness to share with you all.  The first is the video you see below which was part of a Fox newscast and I just love how angry the guy gets. Secondly still along the lines of oh my god why would you do that we have this link :http://www.topcultured.com/bacon-jam-its-b...you-can-spread/ You can just read the title and pretty much get the idea but there are pictures that are really insightful. 

  Enjoy those? I hope so, cause I know I sure did!  Well now that everyone feels like they ate relatively healthy today (I hope) I am going to head to bed.  I hope that I don’t sleep through my alarm as bad tomorrow.  I think part of the problem was the music choice I had, Amy Milan isn’t exactly wake up peppy kind of music (no offence Amy :P ).  Might have to find some really upbeat music to start the day off.  I’m thinking The Dudes might do it :) Anyways,

Ciao,

Dave