Cleveland Dam

The Cleveland Dam

An Old Car

An old car on the beach



So walking along Jericho beach I saw this vintage car parked right on the shore. I couldn't resist getting my Ultra-Zoom lens out to take some pictures.

First Flower

First Flower spotted for the year!

Kathryn on the trail


There's a trail that starts outside Park Royal Mall in West Vancouver that goes up to the Cleveland Dam. Here's Kathryn while we were taking the little hike.

A Ship

A Ship With North Vancouver in the Background

Roses for Kathryn

I rarely give flowers to my wife. I got these on the sly and Kathryn woke up to see this bouquet sitting on the kitchen table Valentine's day.

A Stream

A Little Stream in Stanley Park

Walking in Stanley park are several little streams. I saw this one, and played with the camera settings to create a neat effect with the falling water.

New Shoes!

Kathryn's New Shoes

Kathryn In White

My Lovely Photographer's Assistant


Here's my pretty wife helping me with my photography.

Wedding Flowers

Valentine's

My Valentine's Gift From Kathryn!


On Valentine's day I managed to get off work early and meet Kathryn at her work as she was leaving. We then went out to dinner at Earl's. This is what Kathryn gave me as a gift.

Little Black Box

A little black box


So finally an update! I got sick, didn't take photos for a while, so didn't update the page. I have taken quite a few in the interim, so I'll cheat a bit and post some photos from the last update to now. Luckily I did have a disclaimer in my first post saying I'm not posting a photo from each and every day, after all. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it! :)

February 9, 2006: A Frosty Morning

It's been a few days, now, but I do have the photos for the past couple days: just haven't gotten it together enough to put them up yet...

Since Kathryn got her job at the hospital, both our workplaces are in the same direction. So now we've been walking part-way to work. It's a good opportunity to spend a little time together and get a little excercise in the morning. It was a bit chillier this morning, and there was frost on the ground for the first time in a month.

February 7, 2006: Buffalo Spaghetti

Yeah, I'm at work writing this, so no photo till I get home later!

Tonight is a night for spaghetti and buffalo. There's a supermarket across the street from my house, and they regularly have buffalo meat. I rather like it. It tastes a bit different than beef, and it's quite a bit leaner.

I need leaner food, as it is. I haven't weighed myself lately, but I think I've been gaining lately. I've been extraordinarily lazy in terms of what's been going in my mouth. I'm going to change this now. I need a bit more exercise, too. This is going to have to be a new project for me.

February 7, 2006: Tuesday

Today's photograph will be posted later tonight..

The mystery of the shoulder continues. The pain in Kathryn's shoulder has subsided quite a bit since yesterday morning. I'm glad of that, but we're left a little puzzled what was going on in the first place.

Tonight I'll go to my parent's place again for dinner, and to celebrate his birthday.

February 6, 2006: My Dad's Birthday!

February 6, 2006: Kathryn's Fairy Lamp


Today is my dad's 81st birthday! You wouldn't be able to tell he's 81; I hope to be as sharp as he is when I get to be that age myself. I'm in my mid-30s, so when I was born my dad was getting close to 50. Now and then when I think it'll likely be a few more years till Kathryn and I have a baby, I'll still be 10 years younger than my dad was when I was born.

Frequently we would go to The Old Spagehtti Factory to celebrate, but this year it's being done at my parent's place. Actually, I thought today was when we were going to celebrate his birthday, so I went to their place, and found that since he had an appointment that lasted longer than was expected, it'll be done tomorrow instead.

Kathryn's shoulder is still really bothering her. Because of how the pain seems to work, we're both thinking it's not a muscle at all. We think there may be some bone or nerve damage involved somehow. She's making an appointment to see the doctor, but was unable to book an appointment till Thursday. I've been nagging her about it since yesterday, so I'll try to back off a bit.

February 5, 2006.Sun in Vancouver!

February 5, 2006: Unhappy coffee shop employees!


On our travels, we came across a coffee shop that was closed in the middle of the afternoon. It was covered with letters taped to the windows like the one you see in this picture. All the staff quit at the same time, and left their notices for everyone to see! I edited out all the names that were signed it, and the hapless employer who has a business without staff.

It was a beautiful day today! The sun was out, so Kathryn and I went for a short walk. Not long nor ardent, since there's something going on with Kathryn's shoulder: now and then it gets exraordinarily painful. I'm concerned, because I've never seen her in such pain before. It started yesterday evening. Not sure what the problem is, yet.

February 4, 2006: A working Saturday

February 4, 2006: a messy grill


While BBQ sauce is excellent on grilled steak, it's not pretty to look at on the grill. It's also not fun to clean off after.

This is the last Saturday I'll have to work this month. I'm glad of that! I'm looking forward to having the weekends off again.

February 3, 2006: a picture of the North Shore Mountains

No snow in the city, but lots of nice fresh snow in the mountains overlooking Vancouver. This picture was taken from Kits Beach, using my new telephoto lens. This is the first picture taken with the lens to be posted here. Notice the clouds are coming in after a spell of clear skies in the morning.

I'll tell you about a little qualm of mine that I see on photography sites way too much. The singular of lenses is lens! not lense!

February 2, 2006: A little about Today

February 2, 2006: A most useful tool

You are looking at one of the most useful and impresive implements we have in our house. And no, in spite of appearance it's not a thumbscrew. With but a singlular, smooth movement, it can deftly remove a cork easily from pretty much any wine bottle.

I'm writing this at work. It has been fairly slow, so I was able to take the time to write some comments for all the blog entries for January. I thought a little background, context, and thoughts on the subject would make all the January entries a bit more interesting and meaningful. I might edit them again later, since I just wrote them up quickly in between work. I was surprised at how much detail I remembered while plumbing my memory of the past month. This is one of the reasons I started this project in the first place.

Looking through the entries, the dates are jumbled, and not in very good order. Unfortunately as I was uploading the daily photos through the Picasa utility from hello.com, Blogger was mixing up the order. I'll admit I'm not too concerned by it, as I was mostly interested in simply making sure this blog is complete for 2006.

So today Kathryn is getting some training at her new job. so this means she has an extaordinarily early day: 7AM-3PM. So we're awake at 5AM. And, she still has her tutoring session tonight. The plan is we go to bed early tonight. I don't work till 11:30 tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to sleep in a little.

February 2, 2006: A little about yesterday

February 1, 2006: A walk along Burrard Inlet


So yesterday was Kathryn's first day at her new job at the hospital. Previously she was working for an individual doctor for over 3 1/2 years. It was also my day off, and as the morning saw some nice sunshine, I decided to get out and enjoy the day bufore the rain returns (which it did around noon). Later in the afternoon, I met Kathryn at her work, and she took me out for Mexican food at a restaurant called Las Margaritas.

I was thinking of visiting my parents yesterday, but I didn't. I think my mom's afraid I'm going to forget all about her. Obviously that's not the case. Sometimes everyday life gets in the way of seeing everyone you want to see as often as you want. And besides, unlike many people, I have the neither the energy nor desire to be around family and friends constantly. There's nothing wrong with having a little quality time on your own.

January 30, 2006: Worf, saying goodbye. (His owner took him back minutes after the photo)

So a little about our adventures with Worf: Bruce, (my wife's boss till January 31) asked Kathryn if we could look after him for a while sometime in late November. An un-fixed Devon-Rex, the little guy is a stud. (seriously, he's rented out by Bruce to provide his-services) He was quite a handful, all the more so since he was sick with feline chlamydia while we were looking after him. He could also be a bit of a pain, since he's really, really needy; wanting constant attention. But he is a good little fellow, and I'll miss him...

January 31, 2006: My new telephoto lens

This is a new lens I got a couple days before. It's a canon 75-300mm telephoto zoom. It's a nice lens, to be sure. The construction is not the best, being made of fairly thin plastic: I wouldn't want to abuse this one. Beside this, it's not a 'fast' lens: having a maximum aperture value of 5.6 means that in order to use this, it has to either be in bright light, use a flash, or be set at a slow shutter speed and attached to a tripod. But then, the only time I'll be using such long focal lengths will be outdoors anyway, either in bright sunlight, or in dark conditions, with a tripod. Given all this, I decided it's a perfect addition for the price. I haven't used it a lot yet, but I have to say I'm quite satisfied with the results.

January 29, 2006: A Tulip

So this was a day of experimentation. Fun With Light was the theme. I'm rather proud of this one, and a few others like it. A fair number of interesting and fun experiments were played with. Some very cool but very unrefined shots were taken after a trip to the pub.

January 28, 2006: A bowl of salad

Not particularly interesting, but then this is what happens when you're under a photo-a-day pressures... ;)

January 27, 2006: A JDF action figure


So a secondary little thing I do is collect action figures. I haven't acquired anything new for quite a long time, though. Not quite enough room nor money to expand the collection much more. Anyway, here's a Dragon model of "Ogawa": a modern JDF (Japanese Defence Force) soldier.

January 26, 2006: Pizza!


Pizza! Yes, I like pizza! This is a highly modified frozen pizza, with extra mushrooms and peppers added.

January 25, 2006: Downtown from Lonsdale Quay


This is taken from Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver facing downtown Vancouver. It's ok, but rather... blah as taken from a wide angle lens. This picture really pushed me over the edge in convincing me to buy my new telephoto lens sooner rather than later.

January 18, 2006: By the train tracks

This is a set of train tracks that cuts through the west side of Vancouver. It was used for quite a while for transporting goods to and from a brewery. I suspect the run was primarily used to either fulfil a contract with the rail company, or simply for purposes of tradition, since it takes up a lot of very valuable real estate. Since the run stopped about 5 years ago, the area along the tracks makes for one of my favorite walks in the city. Unfortunately I doubt the entire route is going to remain like this for long, considering its likely value for development.

January 19, 2006: In the dining room


Kathryn has a private flute tutor come over on Thursday evenings. This photo was taken shortly after a lesson.

January 22, 2006: Kathryn Jumps!


Here is the waiting room for the medical practice Kathryn worked up till the end of January. I know it's hard to see, but here's Kathryn leaping in the back...

January 24, 2006: A hand-crafted letteropener


Here's a letteropener my wife got from work somehow. I think it may have been a gift made for her by a patient. I think it's sort of cool perched atop a door sill.

January 21, 2006: Nuts!


Here's a nice clean photo of some traditional Christmas nuts I got back in December.

January 20, 2006: Two Trees on Kits Beach


I like to go out and walk. Quite a bit, actually. This day saw some rare sun, so I took full advantage of the situation and went for a walk. Anyway, this is one of a series of photos I took of these interesting trees that grow right by Kits Beach.