Author: gfox (old content)

Zipped Information

my first SLR
I found out before yesterdays ride that there was a Camera Swap N Shop running until 3:30. After the ride I zipped home, got cleaned up and headed over to see what was left. While driving over I glanced at my watch and it read 3:30. My heart skipped a beat until I realized I hadn’t set it back yet! :O

As you may have guessed by the above pic, I bought a new camera!

It is a Yashica FX-103, and it came with the original manual. I am going to print out a new one and keep the original in a safe place.

I am pretty stoked about the camera. I got it for a great deal, but it only makes me wonder if the camera is fully functional. Walking in to the Swap N Shop, I wasn’t expecting to buy anything, but I got talking to the guy, and this sounds like a good camera. When I got home I searched the net for more information on it, and I found some people selling it for $200 CDN. I got it for half that, so that further fuels my paranoia about it not working properly. I am going to buy some film today, burn off a roll tonight, and get that developed to see if it works. Cross your fingers for me. :cross:

Swooping Balance

big drop
Yesterday was a great ride out at the dump. Myself, Mike, Shane, Sean, James, Val, and Dave??? headed out for a great ride. The highlight trail was Snakes and Ladders, but we tooled around on lots of different features on several trails.

big air Mike
medium air Shane
After warming up at the TTA, we headed up Skull, Inventive, and up to C-Section. After C-Section it was up the Switchbacks we headed up to Snakes and Ladders, then it was down to Skull, and back to the vehicles.

Skip to the pics.

fall colors
fall colors
fall colors

The temp was awesome, the blue skies spectacular, the trees beautiful, and the trails difficult. Swooping down some of them reminded me of summer times, yet here it is in the waning days of October. Crazy!

skinny Shane
skinny Mike

Mike and Shane tried their hands at riding a skinny, skinny, skinny. I have ridden this one to the end exactly once. It is hard since getting on to it requires lofting the front tire onto it, and lifting the rear on as well. Then you have to negotiate a twenty foot long log that widens from 4 inches wide to about 6 inches wide. The exit is a 2 foot wheelie drop. I gave it a go yesterday, and got about three quarters of the way down the log before I lost my balance and jumped off the left side.

The rest of the ride was too fun for me to stop and take out the camera. We blasted down Snakes and Ladders, then went up the fire road and raced down Skull trail.

skinny cement Sean

Back at the vehicles Sean wanted to give a skinny a go, so he attempted the barrier ride a few times.

Great ride. I totally forgot to mention that Yoshi was with us too. He had fun, but he was pretty pooped by the end. He was tired before we left the lot, so he was pretty slow the whole ride. Being th good pooch that he is, he hung in there until the end.

Haunted Concession

punkins!
Saturday morning was Pumpkin Fest out at Le Coteau farm. What fun!

It started off with a haunted hay ride. This would through a very, very scary haunted building. I think I captured a picture of a ghost!

The hay ride dropped us off at the Festival site. There was a live band, Twiggly Wiggley the clown, a haunted house, goats, ponies to ride, a concession area, mazes, and more!

Very fun place, especially for kids (or adults accompanying kids).

And of course there were lots of pumpkins, gourds, and squash.

Lots of fun. Here are all my pics.

Eventful Hedge

spoooky!
Eventful weekend. It all started with Friday nights pizza eat and Government House Pumpkin Art viewing.

Pizza was good, and the kids were out in full force. Here they all are relaxing on the couch after eating a ton of pizza! It was quite the feat to get them all sitting still there for even a second.

Once it got dark it was time to head off to Government House. Here are my shots from the night.

I found the pumpkin art interesting, and some of the carvings were exquisite, but I found them rather boring to shoot. I had trouble making artsy shots. There are a few artsy fartsy shots there, but most were boring. Interestingly enough many of my shots were ended up being out of focus. I can’t believe I wasn’t paying more attention. Anyway, the artsiest shots I could come up with were a string of decorative pumpkin lights that were strung up in a hedge. I also found a line of pumpkins that was neat too.

It was kind of neat, and I might go back again, specially if Sue wants to go. She wasn’t there cuz she was still on her way back from Seattle.

Durable Ringtones

drying out
I don’t understand the latest rage in cellphones. Cameras. I want my cellphone to place calls. I want my cellphone to place good quality calls. I want my cellphone to be durable. I want basic text messaging. Most of all I want my cellphone to be inexpensive.

I don’t want to surf the web. I don’t want to take pictures. I don’t want to view and modify email. I don’t want to play games on it. I don’t want downloadable ringtones that sound like the latest populare tune. I am not the target market.

drying out the other way

You know what? That doesn’t bother me. The underlying story behind cameras with all the gizmos it the usage fees. Cell companies don’t mention how much it costs when advertising cameras these fancy phones. If SMS is $5 a month, how much are they going to charge for mailing pictures and movies over their network?

Even with a basic plan I pay more than I want to with my cellphone. Some day I am going to sit down and look at my usage of the cellphone, and maybe make the decision to go to prepaid. I can still get the features I want, but it might cost me less.

Why am I like this? Well, my cell phone is a communication device, not a PDA, and definitely not a camera. That is why I have a PDA, and a camera. I like having seperate devices. One reason I like the seperate devices is that I feel no fear throwing my cell into my pack when I go riding. If I had one of the PDA/cell/camera combo units that cost upwards of $650, I would never take it riding. It would lose its usefulness for me. My camera is small enough that I can carry it almost everywhere I go.

Besides, have you seen the quality of the pics a cameraphone can take? I haven’t seen any that don’t look grainy. I prefer good quality over bleeding edge. I don’t view it as a tragedy that I carry multiple devices with me.

Like I said, I am not the target market, even though I love gadgets, and I am a pretty techy person.

Discharged Listings

longing for better days

I am begining to think that I should rename this site to snottylaces.ca. This cold I acquired last week still haunts me. I must have discharged a gallon of snot by now. I was feeling great this morning, but as the day dragged on my sinuses became more stuffed up. Must have something to do with the weather.

To top it off, I set up the VCR to tape the WRC Rallye De France on Sunday. I sat down to watch it tonight, and after rewinding the tape I discovered that I had started taping halfway through the two hour show! Crap! Before I set up the VCR I checked the channel listings. It showed Speed showing it back to back. For some weird reason, I decided to tape both showings of it (I set the VCR to tape for 4 hours). As it turned out, the last hour of my tape had the first hour of the race, and the first hour of the tape had te last hour of the race. Good race too. I love watching WRC racing.

Ginger Turnaround

isn't Yoshi cute?

Today was the SPCA Walkathon that I mentioned previously

in a fog again

It was quite foggy as we left this morning, and that made standing around before the start a little chilly. There were lots of dogs, and even more people. Sue and I were both quite surprised at the turnout. Hopefully it turned out to be a great fundraiser for the SPCA. Sue and I raised $200 thanks in large part to our friends, co-workers, and family. Thanks guys, the pledges definitely went to a good cause.

a frame

Prior to the start we checked out the tents, and watched some of the Capital Comets doing agility. This guy loved the A-frame. He would get to the top, and stop there to look at all the dogs down below.

blast off
in the pack

Soon it was time to go. Holy smokes there were lots of people and dogs participating.

making friends

Yoshi made friends with Ginger and we walked with her for a while.

yay, sun

The Sun popped out from behind the clouds, and warmed everyone up.

river of dogs

It was quite the sight to see that many dogs out for a walk, all at once. The best part was that I didn’t see or hear any dogs not getting along. Absolutely wonderful. A very cute sight was an older woman pushing a baby carriage that contained here little dog. I guess he was too tired!

the turnaround

We started at Ogden Point, and the turnaround was Mile Zero. Since this was in the off leash area, we let Yoshi off to go run around a bit. It was a sea of dogs there. All shapes, sizes, colors, and breeds. Lots of fun! The above picture is of Yoshi and Sue as we were about to start walking back.

It was lots of fun, and it sure felt great to help out a cause that I believe in.

Draining Goodbyes

in a fog 1in a fog 2
Ugh. Have I mentioned I hate being sick? Once again I woke up, and knew I was sick. :grr: I hate that. This time I woke up at 3 am to hear the rain pounding on the roof, the wind tearing through the trees. I was laying on my back, and every time I swallowed I would experience a small wave of pain. I was swallowing a lot since my sinuses were draining down my throat. I tosssed and turned but could not get comfortable. Some time around 5 I think I fell asleep again.

The alarm went off at 7. Closing in on 7:30 I decided to drag my butt out of bed. The shower felt good, but not that good. I was still sick. The magical powers of the shower hadn’t changed a thing.

Sue said her goodbyes, then returned moments later. Dead battery. I think the Cherry bomb needs a new battery.

Wait, back to the topic at hand. I am going to stay at work long enough to determine if anything extremely important needs to get done. If not, I am going home. My head is in a fog today, and I am a walking zombie. Work is not good for Zombies.

Un-busy Walkathon

wild waterfall
Not much happening these days. I have been pretty un-busy. Sue is back now, and I am glad for that, but she has been busy the past couple days, so I haven’t seen a lot of her.

Yoshi and I had a little spin at the park last night.

I need to get out on a bike some time soon!

I also need to come up with some solution for the Photo Club. It is dark too early. We can try doing some night shoots, but I think those will get boring quite quickly. I am hoping that I can get permission some time to shoot with the club, inside the English Inn, which is right across the street from where I live. I still have to go and talk to them about that though.

Tonight we are going out for cake and a movie at a friends house.

This Sunday is the BC SPCA Walkathon. Should you wish to pledge Sue and I, shoot me an email and we will discuss.