Vancouver, Day Five: All Done

October 9, 2007

When I got up Sunday morning it was all over. There were no tasks, nowhere to be, nothing to do. After some contemplation I decided on the cluster of museums over the bridge that included the Vancouver Museum, The H.R. MacMillan Space Center, and the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

The Vancouver Museum was fairly interesting but panders a bit to the MTV generation. I would have liked a bit more solid information, history, etc. There was, however, an interesting temporary display about a Japanese Canadian baseball team that was broken up by WWII. Also interesting to see that Canada was a little bit more unforgiving once the war ended and forced their Japanese immigrants to scatter across the country instead of going back to Vancouver.

The Space Centre was disappointing. There were some cool artifacts of the space programs, but it was mostly about America - no mention of Canada’s big arm on the shuttle, although there was a replica in this little theater where they did a presentation about bodily functions in space. Snore. They also appear to have spent too much money on a ridiculous motion simulator that had a sad storyline about delivering a power actuator to Mars. Shouldn’t have bothered. Even the Museum attendant seemed kind of embarrassed by it.

The planetarium was nice, they had a beautiful Zeiss star projector like the one at Boston’s Museum of Science. The show was about light pollution - they did these cool 360 panoramic shots to simulate different cities and their effect on stargazing.

The highlight of the Maritime Museum was easily the report they kept of all the big shipping vessels out on the water. I didn’t take the time to try to match them up, but it was intersting to look over the ports of call and the likely cargo contained within. The exhibits were interesting - lots of ship models, and even a workshop where you could unnerve the ship model artist-on-duty by staring at him while he was working (needless to say I steered clear). Also went on a “rare” tour of the St. Roch’s engine room in addition to the regular tour.

Oddly enough I ran into Andy and Joanne at the Maritime Museum - they had rented bikes and by chance had stopped in at the museum to use the bathroom! We tried to get them onto a water taxi but no bikes allowed. So I waved goodbye and they went on their way. After a light dinner I walked back across the city and down to the water facing Victoria. Took some photographs down by the water. The one below is actually part of the big swoop-y convention center on the water. Take the plants away and it looks like the set for a Cronenberg movie ca. 1981. Pretty cool. The other is a fairly generic sunset - had I been in Stanley Park it would have been spectacular. Live and learn.

After all that I headed back to the hostel. Settled into my bunk for my only quiet evening in Vancouver.

That’s where the story ends. I got up the next morning, tidied up my things, and jumped on the airport shuttle. Rummaged around the shops for some candy bars to empty my pockets of change with and climbed on the plane. Flights uneventful, especially from Montreal to Boston - as soon as the plane stops climbing, it starts to descend! Odd.

When I got home I opened my bag to find that my sunscreen had blown some of its contents all over the inside of my new suitcase.

How nice.

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Vancouver Day Four, Pt. 2: Reception

October 9, 2007

I’ve been slowly making my way through the disposable camera images. They all have basically the same problems: too much contrast, over-saturated, underexposed. Tedious to fix, but then again also conducive to getting into a rhythm and slamming through a stack of them. I must admit that my “run” only lasts so long, though, before my interest wanders to more arty topics.

I’ll get there, I promise.

As the evening progressed I started running around gathering up the forgotten cameras. Not wanting to waste any film I snapped off pictures almost at random, which every now and then would result in an expression like the above. Hey, I had fun, and it did result in some good memorabilia.

Note to self: desserts, Andy, and Joanne are a bad mix (see Vancouver Day Three for more antics)

One of the polls conducted was “bird” or “fish” (didn’t I already decide my entrée?). It was only revealed later that you were voting on what you wanted to be. Hmm.

This one came out totally bizarre - almost completely useless, true - but there’s something interesting about it. When pressed for a file name all I could come up with was “PostmodernMikols.PSD”.

There are about 45 total images that made it out of the disposal cameras with any kind of quality or interest level. Here’s ten. I want to clean up the rest of them and then go through the rolls again to make sure there’s nothing I missed.

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Vancouver, Day Four: Married!

October 3, 2007

As it was a rather low-key evening the night before I found myself climbing out of bed at six on Saturday morning. It may also have had something to do with the 8am breakfast, or the fact that my body was still thinking that I was 3 hours forward, or a combination.

I walked back out to the water to look at the sky. A wise move:

This one is facing downtown.

Facing west. I love the clouds in this one.

After I got myself together I jumped on the bus for the ride into town. Fairly uneventful, and this time I got my bearings together and got off the bus on the right (north!) side of town. That had screwed me up for the first few days: what’s the ocean doing in the west? I went past the Vancouver train station on my way to the Westin, and grabbed the above shot.

Early again - it was only me, Diana, and Warren who arrived at the breakfast at 8am sharp. The rest filtered in over time. I took the opportunity to take some hotel pictures, one of the two worthy ones appearing above. Amusingly, this recalled a much, much earlier hotel shooting expedition that Brian and I did in Florida - but that, I think, is a story for another time.

There was something strange about the scrambled eggs. They were delicious, but about one half- egg’s worth was plenty - they were heavy. Are scrambled eggs ever made with heavy cream instead of milk? Because if they are, these most certainly were.

After breakfast I was on my own again. I decided that I would check out the Vancouver Art Gallery. Unfortunately, two floors were closed, but I did get to see work by Emily Carr and Andrea Zittel. Both intriguing, although for vastly different reasons. Conveniently the Gallery was right next door to Sears - I had forgotten my tie and needed to do some quick shopping. Rummaged around a few of the record stores (deliberately did not look at what was in those huge stacks of LaserDiscs) and then headed back towards the hostel.

A quick bite, a thorough scrubbing, all dressed up: ready for a wedding.

The pictures I’m posting here are going to seem a little thin. I’m not posting everything and prefer to reserve some of them to send out to Brian and Teresa. However, above is Brian and his best man Andy Glode. Andy and I would have been roommates our junior year at NMH, but alas things worked out a bit differently.

The setting was absolutely beautiful. There was some panic about a cherry picker that had been left on the grounds, but it could have been a lot worse I suppose. Somehow the musicians decided that I was their go-to person. What on Earth did I know about what was about to happen? Some running-around and data gathering later and they seemed to have it together enough to play and leave me alone.

Everyone in the wedding party looked wonderful.

Brian’s sister Stacie - whom I also hadn’t seen since my high school graduation - doing one of two readings.

The signing. The light was so great, and from what I’ve seen so far the official photographer got some very nice images.

The officially married couple make their exit.

I was milling around after the ceremony and pictures were taken care of. This couple looked tremendous in the light and I absentmindedly shot a picture while someone else had their attention. It then came to the surface that there was no more room on their memory card, so I offered to take one and send them the files.

As for the reception, I admit I didn’t really take any pictures then. Lots of people (myself included) took pictures with the disposable cameras, though, and those will go up soon. Just have to clean them up a bit more.

A beautiful sky on the night of Teresa and Brian’s wedding… the city of Vancouver is lurking there behind the trees.

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Vancouver, Day Three: Sleep and Rehearsal Dinner

October 1, 2007

After Thursday evening’s festivities I spent some long quality time sleeping. I felt guilty about being in such a beautiful place and snoozing away quality daylight hours, but so be it. I was tired!

Got up and went into the city from my outlying hostel to the downtown hostel. Confirmed that I had a bed for Saturday and Sunday night and then got cleaned up and dressed for the rehearsal dinner. Arrived to find the proceedings winding down and everyone almost ready to head over to Sequoia. Like a chump I forgot to bring the disposable cameras that I was putting on all the tables, but in hindsight it made more sense to bring them directly to the Stanley Park Pavilion the day of the wedding. One less thing to keep track of overnight.

The little room they gave us in the Sequoia was beautiful. We had the strangest waitress who would mumble and mutter as she passed by to fill your water glass. Never did quite piece together what she was going on about, but it didn’t impact the meal - the food was absolutely amazing. A wonderful stuffed chicken breast with vegetables.

It was fun meeting even more people. Weddings are great like that. This is Marley doing some performance art for the crowd - she never sat still. Ever.

I carefully tucked myself at the end of a very long table, back in the corner. Sometimes I feel like a fifth wheel at these kinds of things, but I probably do that to myself. In between the meeting and the greeting I sneaked in one of my typical arty corner shots:

After dinner the groom’s cake(s) appeared. The themes did not surprise me in the slightest (though as I’ve mentioned on Brian’s blog I would probably have guessed BMW from back in the day), but what did surprise me is how they got them so accurate. The proportions, curves, everything: perfect logos. I always worry that these things will turn out like those bad Snoopy cakes you sometimes see with the nose too big or things like that.

Andy’s wife Joanne took off with my camera at one point and came back with some cool images :

Warren and Diana Mikol. I had to fight the urge to call them Mr. and Mrs. Mikol the entire time. Hey, I met them when I was twelve. Incidentally, they have not changed a bit in all that time. How can some people never age?

These two were amazing. Marley on the left there would run around with these drawings that she made that were actually very intriguing - there was one of a giant mouth and teeth with the caption “Teresa will you marry me - Brian Mikol”. It was hilarious. She had the most amazing pen name (!) that she had come up with for herself and I couldn’t help but remark that she already was on a Postmodern road that would easily have impressed the faculty at my art Grad school. I have already forgotten the pen name; with any luck Brian or Teresa can post a reminder in the comments - I do remember that it was spectacular.

Simone, on the right, was a little more subdued (you’d never pick it up from this picture). They made a good tag team, though, as they worked the crowd with drawings and odd proclamations. One of their big projects was to get everyone to sign these cute “FlowerGirl” t-shirts that they had. Marley wanted everyone to sign on the front, Simone all on the back. Unreal.

Dessert had some kind of odd berries on top. I’m not exactly sure what they were, but they were orange and somewhat reminiscent of cherries. More earthy, though. Gave me that same feeling I get when I bite into an under-ripe banana. Anyway, despite not having particularly much to drink (no, really!) we began to entertain ourselves a bit at our far end of the table.

I forgot that wedding guests often arrive in waves. After dinner it was announced that everyone was getting together for a drink at the Westin. I groaned a bit to myself: more drinking? Well, nobody was forcing me to come along but I did pause to reflect on the amount of meet-n-greet that a bride and groom have to do at their wedding. Lots of Teresa’s extended family had only just arrived Friday, though, so it was a good time for them to be social before the big day. Of course I came along. Why not?

On the table there is Teresa’s big binder chock full of all the pertinent wedding info. The only picture I regret not getting from this whole trip was the look on her face when Brian grabbed it to look something up.

Why exactly are you touching the binder?

The hostel was but a cab ride away and I went back to sleep - big day tomorrow!

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Drat!

September 28, 2007

Busy lunch hour. No time for more bloggy business. So, to tide Brian and Teresa through the weekend, how about a big sloppy kiss?

I’ll have much more for all on Monday. I’ve even been working on the disposable camera stuff the last few days - there’s some good ones (but damn those things take forever to correct, and they still look iffy.)

Thank you to my early bird print buyers! I’ll think of all of you when I’m obsessing over my new camera!

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Vancouver, Day Two: Sleep, Bachelor Party!

September 26, 2007

Thursday morning I awoke rather early. I wanted to make sure that I got the evening’s accommodations settled before heading in to the rest of my day. When I stepped out on to the sidewalk I was greeted by rain. Not too surprising, I guess - Vancouver is notorious, much like Seattle, for being a little soggy. Despite this I decided to walk to the other hostel - about 4 miles. It was a nice walk, and served to get my legs a bit more up to speed for the rest of the trip. Along the route there would be an occasional opening between houses, and I would take a couple of pictures much like the one below. Overcast, low-flying clouds, water, mountains. Welcome to Vancouver!

After I was all checked in it seemed like a great time for a nap. I slept the afternoon away, and got up just in time to get cleaned up and head back to the city for the evening’s festivities. Before I did I checked out the view from the water - there were some noisy gulls hanging around, but otherwise very quiet. It is hard to see from the below image, but this very gull is yelling directly at me for not bringing some snacks.

Edit: I couldn’t resist. The bird is pretty funny.

As I headed back to town the clouds started to break up here and there. I took a couple of pictures from Teresa and Brian’s hotel - the first is in the preface to these blog entries, and the other is below. It doesn’t take much talent to get a nice image out of such amazing surroundings!

Once everyone was gathered up we headed out for the bachelor festivities. First stop: The Yaletown Brewing Company. I had a very pleasing IPA here, and we also enjoyed some nice appetizers.

Considering that it was, indeed, a bachelor party I could label the below photo in a very interesting way. What are they both looking at with such expressions? What are the hand gestures trying to describe? However, I will let you come up with the story yourself while keeping in mind that: this is the very same location as the above photo - a simple, harmless brewpub. Sometimes timing is everything.

Once we were done with appetizers it was time for dinner. We headed to a very nice place called Glowbal. The beer selection left a bit to be desired, but regardless we had a splendid meal. I had my first encounter with truffles and did not regret the experience in the slightest…

After dinner the camera took a rest as we continued on our way. Further drinking and merriment. The last-callers stuck it out until 3am (myself included), and we then stumbled to our respective shelters - there’s a rumor afloat that Brian had some trouble with proper bed orientation, but you didn’t hear that from me. A well-earned sleep followed.

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Vancouver, Day One: Arrival

September 26, 2007

As I had gotten home around 10:30 the night before I was to fly and had a lot of packing and leftover junk to do, I didn’t really get much sleep before I had to get up at 3:30am and get to the airport. I don’t fly much these days, so the excitement and anxiety of air travel usually keeps me up a bit.

The flight was uneventful. Air Canada, while not terrible, seems to be having financial problems here and there - the in-flight entertainment lagged far behind even Lebanon’s own Middle East Air, and we were treated to an aging 767 complete with ancient three-tube movie projector. Food was purchase only, and I made mistake of asking for the roast beef sandwich. I instead received a sad BBQ beef brisket thing that was soggy and revolting. Live and learn.

Landing was without incident, and it wasn’t long before I was able to connect with Brian and Teresa. After the usual luggage-gathering and rental car-retrieving we were on our way. We got them all checked into their hotel and proceeded to lunch at Sequoia - a very nice restaurant situated in Stanley Park. It was the destination for the rehearsal dinner, and they wanted to stop by to make sure the choice was a good one. Here we are seated at the lovely patio, which was shielded on all sides by plexi (a bit windy out there!) and even had a nice fireplace. This image doesn’t do much to show you the view, but…

After lunch we headed out to take care of some errands. Oddly enough, you pick up your marriage license at a local chain called London Drug. Also stopped by Costco for some other needs, and I took the opportunity to get a box of Crunchie Bars. Excessive, I know, but they were so cheap in bulk compared to our import price of $1.59/bar here in the States. Now I just have to be careful about rationing them… both for economy and my waistline.

I then headed over to my hostel. Unfortunately, there was a bit of confusion and it appeared that my reservation did not really exist! Oops. They “allowed” me to stay in the one single room they had left, but I had to figure out something else for Thursday night. The best bet was the Jericho Beach hostel, about 20 minutes away by bus. Ah well, about half my normal morning commute so no big deal all things considered…

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Returned from Vancouver

September 26, 2007

Got back Monday night. What a trip! The wedding was beautiful, it was great meeting Teresa at last as well as all the other friends and family, and Vancouver is amazing.

I learned a few things on this trip:

1) My love affair with Boston is fading fast due to me liking every new city that I visit. Vancouver definitely encouraged this problem. Is it the lure of the new and unfamiliar? Possibly. But there’s other concrete reasons too. I won’t bore you with them here.

2) I need a big-deal digital camera. Badly. I shot about 200 images with the little Panasonic, and about 50 with the Nikon. I have already reworked the 40 best images from the digital camera, but the rolls of film from the Nikon are still in my bag, waiting to be processed. Then scanned. Then, and only then, can I start working with them. What’s wrong with this picture (no pun intended)? Maybe the new Nikon D300… but damn, $1800 is a lot of money. (plus more for a new lens… ugh!)

3) Could I make it as a wedding photographer? Without trying particularly hard I would up with some great images. Well, images that a client would like - not just my arty nonsense. Hmm.

The concrete details of the trip are forthcoming. In the meantime here’s a lovely image taken from the bride and groom’s room in the Westin - it had been raining that (Thursday) morning, but started to break up towards evening, resulting in high image drama:

(p.s. the boating roundup will appear as well, but I thought I had the image files on my iPod - alas, they vanished so once I bring them in from home that will go up too)

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