Steven's visit and the various animals that ensued

 Kathryn's brother Steven was in town over a weekend recently and while showing him the sights, we managed to fit in several animal related photos worth sharing. With only a few days in town and an existing familiarity for much of the city, we spent most of the time at Granville Island or English Bay with a little visit to the aquarium tucked in. First off is the obligatory "Everyone Loves the Cat" photo in which all guests must smile as though pleased with the animal while he is digging his claws into their arm.

 The dolphins, belugas, and otters get all the mainstream love, but my favorite things at the aquarium are always the weird little fish tucked into corners that nobody notices. Like this Warty Frogfish, which I did not even know was a thing. Modern marine biologists have yet to quantify how much this creature sounds like Gilbert Gottfried, but hopefully someone is doing their doctorate on the topic right now.

 The baby geese are all hatched and their parents are both fearless and belligerent, but it was still surprising to see this sizeable family step into the busy traffic of Granville Island and stroll across the street. I even had a trace of my faith in humanity restored as all the drivers stopped and let the entire family cross.

Prepping the balcony garden

Every spring there is a big plant sale at the VanDusen garden, and every few years we manage to make our way down to take advantage of it (and fight old ladies over the last kale). This year we went with our gardening aficionado friends Ginna and Travis, and even managed to snag a friend with a ride of theirs, making it far more pleasant than taking the bus.

We were quite early so there was plenty to see and choose from. Kathryn was even sweet enough to pose with all her new acquisitions for a little photo in the checkout line. I unfortunately underestimated how much space we had available on the balcony so she didn't get as much as she might have if I wasn't along, but we still have a lot of nice new things in our little garden. All told we now have tomatoes, rosemary, fuchsias, tomatoes, miniature rose, kale, and a sundew now adorning our apartment.

Kathryn has been making so many nice little pots in her ceramics course that I wanted to be sure to highlight at least one of them with a plant. Neither of us are huge cactus fans, but they had a goodly assortment of succulents, so I picked one out to perch on the living room window and put some of her hard work to good use. 

Three Very Different Nights Out

After months with few performances of interest in town, we had 3 nights out in the space of 10 days recently. We started off with Metric, who we saw open for Imagine Dragons last year and were totally taken with. Kathryn is not tall enough to enjoy floor tickets at concerts, but she got us some great seats to enjoy the show from. David Suzuki showed up as a surprise guest and the picture below captures the intensity and energy of the evening, even if the performers are almost impossible to make out.

 Shortly after that, we went to see Chris Hadfield perform with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra doing a mixture of songs and anecdotes about his time in space. While he mostly plays smaller guitar pieces, there were also several classics by Holst and modern composers on a space theme which made the whole night quite fun. The Orpheum Theatre is quite striking in its own right as well, and I thought a picture of the venue is more distinct than the performers in this instance.

 Rounding out our trio, we saw Noel Fielding live at the Vogue theatre, and while I will totally admit we forgot the camera at home that night and the picture below is not ours, it is representative of the weird nature of his act. He starts out normally enough with a bit of standup comedy, but the show gets gradually weirder until the end where a member of the audience dressed as a night, Fantasy Man (played by Noel) and a harlequin (think deranged jester rather than romance novel) travel to the plasticine world to fight a minotaur (and a reverse minotaur with a human head) and a lecherous triangle to save Noel the dark side of the moon. We really enjoy his work in the Mighty Boosh and it was fun to see him live :)

Pinawa Wildlife

We spent a few days in our recent Manitoba visit back in Pinawa, and while it's too early in the year to see many of the insects or amphibians that live in the area, there are a few iconic mammals and birds which are either easy to find or striking enough that I thought we should share a few pictures. First off, there are white-tailed deer EVERYWHERE in town, much like this little fellow wandering along the ice by the beach. These guys seem to know very well where they can and can't be hunted, and subsequently congregate in town where they eat people's gardens and generally wreck havoc in the most adorable way possible.

 Great grey owls are very striking and impressive birds, despite the fact that a sizeable proportion of that bulk is made up of fluff and feathers when compared to smaller owls such as the great horned. Regardless, they are often obliging birds that perch out on telephone poles at conveniently observable heights. This fellow was out during a snow flurry so we didn't get as much time to watch it was we would have liked, but it was a great sighting all the same.

 Rounding out our set with admittedly a bit of a cop-out, Kathryn and I always enjoy seeing my parents cat Darwin. He's a very friendly little fellow, and while he has his own heap of weird kitty quirks, he is very good about being picked up or having his feet patted. Every time we visit, we make sure to get our kitty feet fix before returning to our own reprehensible animal who in no way tolerates such things.

And apologies to anyone who has noticed our 6 week gap in posts lately. I have had a particularly punishing tax course lately which ends in 10 days and took up a disproportionate amount of my time. Regular weekly posts to resume shortly for both of our loyal readers ;)

Frosty Forms

 While we were out enjoying our walk along the riverside dykes in Squamish, I couldn't help but notice the stunning blades/feathers of frost which had formed. I expect it was some combination of wind from the sea picking up moisture from the open river, but if anyone out there has a better explanation I am all ears. Even to the naked eye the ground looked like a little forest of ice.

 Luckily I had both my macro lens and my wife's patience, so I took a few minutes to hunker down and get some close ups of these shapes at the same time. Between the bright light of the sun and the contrasty highlight nature of the frost itself, I was able to shoot handheld with a high aperture and capture some very interesting images that would be invisible to average passerby. One thing I have truly learned to love about macro photography is finding the surreal or beautiful in day-to-day events we take for granted.

 There were lots of twigs and grasses poking above the snowline, and a totally different type of columnar frost had formed on them, radiating out at every angle. These shapes really remind me of the crystal plinths in Superman's "Fortress of Solitude." So for any of our snowbound readers out there, remember that even though you're sick of the snow by now and ready for summer, there are some pretty spectacular aspects to it if you only take a minute to stop and appreciate them.

Recreational Winter

 Over the holiday break, Kathryn and I rented a car (after a bit of a fiasco with a less-than-reputable car rental agency) and drove up the sea-to-sky highway to Squamish for a bit of seasonal winter. I'm sure we'll get a lot of sympathy from our Manitoba readers on this one, but living in Vancouver we have to make an effort to see snow, and thought we should fit in a few hours of winter. Below is a picture of Kathryn walking along the riverside dyke in Squamish with Mount Garabaldi in the distance.

 Truth be told, there was more snow and ice than we were actually expecting, and being delicate West Coast flowers, we forgot to dress appropriately for as much white stuff as there turned out to be. We took a little hike up to the base of Shannon Falls which were in the perpetual shadow of the mountains and as such were incredibly slippery and had no direct sun. The frost and snow across the rocks and trees was very nice though.

 We finished off our day with a walk along the river and I took the photo below which has become one of Kathryn's favorites almost instantly. I stopped down the exposure quite a bit and (happy accidentally) left my colour balance compensating for incandescent, so only a little direct light was let in, and it was tinted even more blue than would be expected. All in all a very nice day out and a chance to enjoy a few hours of snow before hurrying back to clear streets and civilization.

Traditional and Unexpected Glowing Objects in the Neighbourhood

 It's the festive time of year full of holiday cheer, final exams, and bright lights. The first two items have been consuming more than their share of my spare time lately, so we're a little late bringing you this update on the third item. The west end of Vancouver gets some pretty nice lights, as we have mentioned in the past, and this year was no exception.

 The middle of December had a festival called "Lumiere" which featured some nice light sculptures, the highlight of which is the life-size orca sculpture by a Slovakian artist which is covered in tiny LED lights and turned on nightly. It's a very pleasing addition to the area and we're both hoping it becomes a permanent installation.

 But winning the prize hands down for "Most Unexpected Glowing Object in the Neighborhood" was A-Borgg who decided to do a photo shoot in the park near our home on the same night as my work Christmas party. Yep, that is a 9-foot tall robot covered in LED lights. He is available for all your rave party/wedding needs, and apparently has a giant gun that shoots CO2 over the crowd... because of course he does. I love our neighborhood...