Fahrenheit 9/11

I just finished watching Fahrenheit 9/11 with Mas. I do recommend that everyone sees it. Do be sure to acknowledge the facts are presented from a specific view, and in such a way as to highlight that same view. But, just from the facts presented in this documentary you just have to shake your head at what has happened (and still is happening). It almost makes one sick to the stomach.

And I'll leave with single question: "How would our world be different if the votes in the Presidential Election of 2000 were counted correctly?"

I shed a tear for the people of America and Iraq.

The Results are In

Well they aren't results but we have all been waiting to find out. I just got confirmation that I'll be coming home for Christmas...erh Labour Day ;). I don't yet have the flight information, but it should be the standard flight times for to & from Phoenix. I'm scheduled to fly back on August 26th, and then back to Arizona on September 6th. Yippy! I can't wait to see everyone again.

I'll keep everyone posted.

Weekend of Adventures

Well actually it really hasn't been extremely eventful. Friday Caroline had the pleasure of heading home to Ontario (lucky girl), and Mas will be arriving here Monday mid-day.

So what have I been doing with my weekend? Not a whole lot. A lot of my time has been spent playing World of Warcraft. The exciting thing was dinner. Went a got a very nice piece of tuna from Whole Foods. With this fine piece of fish I made myself some seared tuna. It was extremely good, if I do say so myself. ;)

And that is about all I have. Not very exciting I know.

Well one other thing. Just thought I'd put a couple cents in for the Joel Plaskett. I suggest you check him out, a good Canadian artist from Nova Scotia (he and his band are on on the Maple Music label...maybe I should check out some of the other artist on the label). And just to let you know I can thank the CBC Radio 3 podcast for bringing him to my attention.

Those Crazy Americans

Well I got my pictures back today. They all turned out quite well. So what were the mystery photos? They were photos of the PEER Group Christmas party & a party in Saltford.

But one that I'm going to share with you now is one George and I just had to take since it is deep look into the American mind. Be sure to look close at the picture.
For those of you who didn't look close the bumper stickers read: "I hate foreign cars" and "Smash a foreign car for Christ".

New Toy/Photo Accessory

Well I got myself a new toy, erh...photography accessory... Well, what I actually got was a scanner. I got it with the primary intent of digitizing and sharing film. So I got it for all of you. ;) So what did I get? I got a CanoScan LiDE 500F at the price of 130 USD.

The scanner comes with a film scanner, so if for some reason I don't have access to the print I can scan the negative. But from some initial tests scanning the negative doesn't yield the best results; this is consistent with other flatbed scanners I have tried (in particular Dad's HP...correct me if you have discovered a technique for scanning negatives well).

So, I really don't have any good photos to try it out with yet, as I left the film/prints from the various trips back in Kitchener. But the good news is that I am getting 3 rolls of prints back on Tuesday afternoon. One roll from recent time (I think it has some pictures form South Mountain, and from July 1st weekend), the other two are some of the mystery ones that I had waiting to be developed (I think they could be from some time in 4th year of university), and I still have another 4 of the mystery rolls to develop. So we all will have to wait until Tuesday until we get to see how well it works.

Atom Feed

Just a little FYI, I have enabled Atom Syndication feed. You can find it by clicking on the image. If you have no idea what I am talking about then, just ignore this post.

Lightning Gallery

Well today we headed east of Phoenix to see a lightning photography gallery at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. So at about 11:30 Akash (friend of Lacey's), Caroline, Lacey, and I headed out for the relatively short 50 mile drive.

So we get there and it isn't what we had hoped. We didn't find a gallery but more a room with maybe 20 photos. Well that was a bit of let down. :( To the photographer's credit, the majority of the photographs were very impressive...just not near as much as we expected.

So after our short viewing of the photographs we wandered through the gardens--it is a arboretum. The gardens were full of various desert plants.

So it was a neat little trip, but not as spectacular as I had hoped.

SUVs

I just came across this blog entry, and thought most of you would enjoy it.

"Famous" Elmo 

Los Angeles Follow-up

As promised, I am writing to let you know more about the trip Caroline and I took to Los Angeles, California. Yes, I am actually doing it this time; I know that there have been previous occasions with empty promises of more info, but not this time (don't you guys feel special).

It all started about a week and a half ago, when Caroline and I thought (well mostly Caroline) we should go for another road trip out of the desert--it isn't exactly the most wonderful place to be here. We were thinking of going to San Diego, but a quick look into hotel prices and we quickly changed our minds (200 USD per night being the cheaper of the available hotels). So instead we thought Los Angeles would be something good to see (ocean, Hollywood, etc). We booked our hotel room for Friday & Saturday nights (at a much more reasonable 90 USD per night).

Now the thing about Los Angeles is that it isn't exactly close to Chandler...it is was about 650 km from the apartment to the hotel. And we didn't exactly get out of the greater Phoenix area in record time either. We left McDonald's at 5pm (now lets not go into whether that was a good choice as to eat there or not) and eventually got out of the GPA an hour later; so far, not so good.

So at about 11:15 we get into Long Beach (where our hotel is)...oh almost forget to mention not to stop at rest areas in California, they are extremely sketchy. But back to finding our hotel.

This is where we learn the lesson that addresses and directions are not fungible. You see Caroline didn't think of writing down the actual directions to the hotel. And as it turns out there happened to be about 3 Domingez Streets in Long Beach area...oh and that didn't include the one that the hotel was actually on. So we started to go through the possible streets, with no luck. We eventually found someone's wireless internet connection. :) So we go and check Caroline's email (which had the location clear as day). So after about an hour of driving around Long Beach we finally find the hotel. :)

Saturday we found ourselves going and checking out Hollywood Blvd with all the stars. :) Oh, and don't forget all the people who have left their mark on the side walk (in front of the Chinese theatre).

Afterwards took a tour down Sunset Blvd towards the ocean. Of course we took a quick detour through Bel Air to see how all the rich people lived. Mostly on narrow roads up very high hills. :)

Oh I forgot to mention the visit to the Wax Museum and Guinness Book Museums.

A waxed copy of Charlie

Ryan with the cast of Sienfeld
A poor representation of MarilynRyan and the King

As I was saying, we headed towards the ocean and found ourselves on the very beach that Baywatch was filmed. Doesn't this look familiar?
Well that was about all there was to day one. On Sunday the only real tourist thing we did was to go visit the Getty museum. Now the Getty was a very cool place. It had extremely neat architecture! I'd love to go back. The highlight of the art was probably the photo exhibit of Frederick Sommer, and the architecture itself. They also had some Rembrandt paintings, which I'd have to say were quite interesting, but still enjoyed the photo gallery more.

Back in the Desert

We made it back safe and sound to Arizona. Only about 1500 KM driven this weekend--good thing it is a rental. ;) Well I just finished downloading all my pictures to the computer, and I think I'll be off to bed.

Here are a couple photos from The Getty in Los Angeles (I'll upload some more tomorrow, along with some details of the weekend):