Khatsalano Street Party

 For the 4th year in a row (and somehow the 1st year we actually heard about it), part of Kitsalano shuts down for a massive street party 10 blocks long with a typical turnout of over 118,000 people. Below is a shot up the hill into the crowd from one end of the street party. Note that there is an equally large party happening on the other side of that hill, so quite the shindig.

 Any event like this attracts its fair share of buskers and street performers, but we were particularly delighted by this fellow who was blowing  enormous bubbles for donations in the middle of the crowd. He was quite talented and able to blow smaller bubbles into the larger ones as they formed. There was also an excited gaggle of children hanging around waiting for any bubbles to stray into their reach.

 Another main draw for the street party is the collection of music stages which have a variety of performers which change every hour. We had never heard of them before, but Kathyrn was particularly keen to see 'I, Braineater' shown below. They are a group of artists/aging punk rockers who put on a pretty good show and were certainly all involved in the show. The chap in the creature costume on the left was playing the drums 20 minutes later and singing as we left, so they certainly keep things varied.

Canada Day Highlights

 Kathryn and I both really enjoy Canada Day and while it has long been a staple of our summers together, we have had a rough time getting our schedules to line up and enjoy it together the last few years. That said, we were delighted to both have the day off this year for a nice outing and visit with friends. The shot below is a fraction of the crowd downtown at the main music stage near the convention centre.

 On the other side of the convention centre we caught a Lumberjack Show and, while it was very similar to the Lumberjack Show at Grouse Mountain, it was never the less a good time out watching some woodworking hijinks and log rolling tomfoolery.

 On our way home from the family-friendly portion of the day we make a quick stop off at Vancouvers subculture festival 'Canabis Day' which happens every year at the Art Gallery and seems to be getting bigger and more popular with each passing year. I always enjoy seeing public art dressed up for holidays and it was fun to see this Rastafarian lion watching over the crowd.

We ended our day off watching the sunset on the beach with a good group of friends and thoroughly enjoyed having a chance to visit with people and relax and have a nice day together as well. Happy 147th Canada!

Squamish Peak Gondola

 In early June, Kathryn's parents came for a nice visit and we took a day trip to Squamish to ride the very new gondola up to the peak of a nearby mountain. This is in the same area as 'The Chief', but does not share that peak or impose on the people that are out for a hike rather than a day trip.

 The top has a very nice new building with a restaurant/gift shop and that hallmark of standing in high places in BC, a suspension bridge. Kathryn is noticeably more comfortable with suspension bridges than our first visit to the Pinawa suspension bridge and now gamely trots too and fro hundreds of feet in the air.

 The view is certainly worth the effort with a selection of viewpoints out over the valley and Howe Sound. You can click on the panorama below to enlarge it. There were also some very talkative but hard to photograph Sooty Grouse up in the trees and an assortment of short but pleasant hikes around the peak.

BCIT: Year One Marks and Thoughts

 Final marks have come in and the first year of my two year diploma course at BCIT is officially over and passed. While it was a pretty intense workload I would totally recommend going back to school for any of my friends in vfx that have long since lost the love of the art and don't know if they can keep up the routine for another 30 years. Its terrifying for the first few weeks because its such a huge change, but its also exciting to be learning new skills and fun to meet new people and maybe realize you're not as old as you sometimes feel.

 So I thought I'd share my marks AND newfound statistics skills with everyone via the box plot below, which aggregates the marks from my 17(!!!!!) courses in the past year and breaks them up into quartiles according to distribution. I won't bore you all with each and every one, but my lowest mark at 84% was a tie between Communications 1 and Principles of Management, both of which have a heavy group project mark which I will attribute at least some of the slip to. At the far end of the spectrum, due to a generous marking system I got 101% in Computerized Accounting, and all averaged out I managed a 92% (weighted) average for the first year.

 I'll round out this post with a few common questions I've had from people in the last year:
Q: Can you do my taxes?
A: Weirdly enough there is more to accounting than mastering the Canada Tax Code. Going in I was sure that I'd be doing everyones taxes by this point as well, but there's actually a lot more to learn in there and I've really only scratched the surface with a ton of introductory courses. So I can technically do your taxes, but probably not much better than you can ;)

Q: Do you miss vfx?
A: That I do not. Not the work, not the clients, not the hours, not the environment, not the constant pressure to line up my next gig. I miss many of the fine people that work in the industry, but have kept up with many of them, and with summer and weekends I hope to be a little more accessible for maintaining friendships better than the last few years.

Q: Wouldn't it be funny if you ended up doing accounting for a film company?
A: Funny how things work out sometimes, but I just do 9-5:30 and my weekends are my own. haven't opened Nuke or Maya the whole time but log a lot of time in Excel and Simply Accounting, both of which the past term prepared me for.

Thanks to all my excellent teachers, my loving wife, and all my supportive friends over the past hectic and amazing year. Looking forward to September and all the challenges that will come with it.

The Ordeal of Finals and the Catharsis of Bowling

 So last week was the end of first year and concluded with a battery of 5 finals in 4 days (2 having been written the week before) to wrap up the current batch of courses. All 5 were written in the gym and given that you can probably all visualize a school gym full of desks, I decided to skip a picture of it entirely as part of the healing process.

 On the friday after the last exam (Working Capital Management) a group of the people from my set headed out for some bowling and escape from the financial education system. After a week of quickly trying to retain information to churn out answers, having a chance to drink beer and lob heavy objects around to knock down pins seemed like an excellent idea. I had never done 10 pin bowling before and did alright considering.

 Below is a picture of everyone that came out, given that our set had only 26 people or so we had a pretty good turnout and it was nice to visit and joke about with people outside of school and without the spectre of exams hanging over us any more.

Killer Whale Highlights of 2013.

Over the winter Geordie put together a lovely highlight reel from the footage I took over April through to October of my days on the water.  Working at Wild Whales Vancouver I got lots of opportunity to show off these animals and take their pictures.  Not only killer whales (both Bigg's and Southern Residents) but also humpback and minkes whales, harbour seals, steller and california sea lions. I need to work on my bald eagle footage.  Geordie really liked the jumps that I was lucky enough to get, especially as I don't see that kind of activity every day.  They are a bit statisticaly overrepresented in the video.

I hope to take lots more footage of orcas and all the animals out there.  I already have started on a collection for 2014 showcase.

Vancouver Enbridge Protest

 There was a protest in Vancouver this weekened against the proposed Enbridge pipeline. A crowd of 1500-2000 people waved signs and made speeches about preserving the traditional ways of life and fighting the fatcats at Big Oil and Steven Harper. Its easy to photograph a crowd and make it look bigger than it was, but I feel this is a pretty representative shot of the turnout.

 Across the bike lane was a much smaller (and honestly unexpected by myself) rally of people that were in favour of the pipeline. They were representing a handful of tribes that presumably stand to benefit from transportation rights and potential jobs, so I got a photo of them in the interests of equal representation.

 Regardless of which side of the arguement you find yourself on, you must agree that this woman's owl spirit outfit was as fantastic as it was Miyazaki-esque.

 

While I am personally opposed to the pipeline and hope to preserve the current state of the BC coast, I also recognize that we live in a global society which depends on oil to an outlandish degree. I laud the efforts of the organizers to preserve their culture and piece of the world, but doubt that the vast majority of Vancouver supporters would be too keen on the lifestyle changes required by all of us to truly change the modern world's oil addiction.