Punk Goes 'Round And Back Again

Punk Goes 'Round And Back Again
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

Short entry this time: I was trying to sneak in a photo of these young ladies but couldn't pull off a decent one. One of them yells "Stop taking pcitures" so naturally I went over to show them that the pics were crap. Then the one with mohawk says "We'll pose for ya for smokes or money". Done deal. You can't tell with this photograph but the one in the middle would have trouble making it through an airport metal detector. She had a lot of piercings on her person.

Ambulance on the scene...

Ambulance on the scene...
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

First time I've ever called 9-1-1. A woman crossing the street here got knocked down by a GMC Suburban driven by a fellow making a left turn. I didn't see it hit her. I was walking away from the vicinity of that crosswalk. I heard a short scream and I turned around to see a pedestrian falling backwards onto the street surface.

So yeah, I called 9-1-1, got asked a bunch of questions and then waited to the ambulance to arrive. A police cruiser, fire engine and ambulance were dispatched. The victim wasn't bleeding or in anguish. She was obviously shaken by the experience and one fellow, a total stranger to her, kept her company and comforted her.

So there you have it. My incident of the day...

That Photo Was Taken Yesterday

Snow On Pine Needles
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

The reason why I didn't get to upload it was because my ADSL modem conked out on Monday. I phone my ISP's tech support line and from his end things looked okay. We went about testing the modem and had no luck with it. So he booked me an appointment with an onsite technician on Tuesday.

Well Tuesday came and went. I wasn't contacted by the tech who was supposed to make a housecall at my place after I got home from work. So today I phoned tech support and stated that I wanted to get my hands on a new modem. I said I intended to ship the modem back to them. That resulted in my phone call being transferred to their LNR (Loyalty and Retention) department. The end result of my conversation with the agent there was that they were going to send me a new modem (which I requested that I send to my work address). It's supposed to show up in 3-4 days.

So tonight, I headed back from work and stopped off at a co-worker's place to borrow a spare modem he had on hand. When I got home today I found a parcel delivery notification from my local Canada Post service counter. So I went to claim my package. What the clerk brought out was a plain white box. Then she said another package for me had arrived at the store and brought out a package which looked more like what I had been expecting to receive. Off I trundled back home...

It turns out the mystery package contained a modem and a letter from my ISP explaining that they were going to do a network upgrade on Jan 26th and my old modem would no longer work. The modem in the package was the replacement. Great. So why hadn't the tech I had phoned on Monday known about this? Who knows. All I can say is obviously the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing there...

Checking Out the Scene

Checking Out the Scene
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

I just couldn't find the camera setting to get what appears to be blue lights to show up in the photographs as the mauve colour it was to the naked eye. I obviously lucked out with this photograph. The light fixture on the left hand side reads "MARKET". This area is part of the shopping plaza area of the new Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Vancouver. The hotel officially opens tomorrow. The shopping complex has been open for about a month.

Today was a rough day: Was awakened by a phone call from work at 3:40am. I worked from home until 10am, went to the office, had a 15 minute lunch break, worked until 5:45pm, had a half hour dinner and then plugged away until 9:30pm. I got home at 11:30pm because I spent an hour or so wandering around taking pictures. I just got engrossed in finding things and scenes to take pictures off and lost track of the time...

After Work Photo Shoot

Window Display - Hudson's Bay Company Department Store
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

I was just going to get some video images of the Scotiabank tower. Instead I ended up with about 90 more images taken from around the Hudson's Bay Company department store, up Granville Street, up Smithe Street and then up Burrard.

I hardly ever walk by the HBC building and even then I don't pay too much attention to their window displays. But I found the current displays to be quite different and well done from a point of creativity. So I took the time to snap a few photographs of them. After I got home I realized the HBC's display windows are a bit of an oddity, if not a throwback to an era long gone by. The Sears (formerly Eatons) store basically looks like a giant bar of soap and as such doesn't have the large window display areas the HBC has. There are no other department stores downtown.

Anyways, the set for the photos from tonight is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8936205@N02/sets/72157612885185060/. Right now it just contains the ones I took of the HBC displays. I'll be uploading the remainder of them tomorrow.

A Row of Lights

A Row of Lights
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

I wasn't thinking of taking many photographs on the way home tonight but things changed after I had a burger (with yam fries - very tasty!) on the way home. The fog started getting thicker and things started taking on an eerie look. I haven't opened up all the results of the efforts in Flickr. I'll do that in a few days time. But up front I should say I was trying to capture images of things that don't look quite the way they usually do. I did speed up my exposure time so I lost a couple of shots, especially the one of a guy and gal carrying a sofa. She obviously didn't have as much strength as he did so they had to stop while she tried to get a quick breather in. I did take a photo of them sitting in their sofa when they had set it down on the sidewalk but I fell short on two points: 1) the flash from the camera reflected off the fog and 2) I took a dead on shot when I could've gotten a more interesting shot if I taken the photo from one end of the sofa. Oh well. Them's the breaks.

Icebreaker Outrigger Race

If You're Still Looking for Nemo...He's On Your Head.
Originally uploaded by d.yaro

I suppose it was appropriate that one our crew members was wearing a toque with "Alaska" emblazoned on it. Because it felt cold enough. Today was the day for this year's Lotus Icebreaker Outrigger race. It's a short (less than 6km) V-12 outrigger canoe race hosted by the Lotus Paddling Club in Burnaby, BC.

The one thing I enjoy about the Icebreaker race is the simple fact that it's held in the dead of winter. It's nice to get out and paddle when the temperatures are in the single digit range and there's snow on the ground. I think if paddlers from warmer climes found out we do this sort of thing they'd have us all committed to an asylum. There they are paddling in sun and surf while we're running the risk of being numbed by hypothermia.

Oh yeah...I don't think outrigger paddle makers would be too interested in advertising their wares using photographs of paddles sticking out of snowbanks...

Now Where Was I?...

Had a good laugh at work today: We noticed that calls were being recorded for one of call centres where the call monitoring software is running but supposedly there are no calls being routed to its switch. Turns out there are calls being routed to it...and out of it. I looked at one such call in the list of monitored calls and I said to my co-worker "I bet you that's a call to our conference call number". He gave me this incredulous look as I clicked on the recording to play it back. Yes, it was a call to the conference bridge number ("Please enter your passcode followed by the number sign"). We're so easily entertained.

Missed getting a photo of all the firefighters milling around in their dress uniforms outside of a local firehall. I was going to take a shot when a bunch of cars turned in front of me obscuring my view. When I was ready to take the picture my camera shut itself down telling me its battery charge had run out. I was not happy about that....

A Glimpse of 2009 Vancouver Polar Bear Swim

This year is the first time I've ever gone down and watched the insanity which is the annual New Years Day Vancouver Polar Bear Swim. I read somewhere that this year's edition is the 89th one. Last year we cruised off the beach in a double hulled outrigger canoe ("V-12" canoe) but went back in when we realized we'd be waiting for another hour. We didn't have enough coffee and Bailey's to keep 12 people warm that long!

Anyways, I had no wish to go in the water. I got unceremoniously dumped into English Bay of Kits Beach in late November when the solo outrigger canoe I was on "huli-ed", i.e.: flipped over. I had no time to tell if the water was really cold because I didn't spend more than 10 seconds in it! Mind you, the temperature then was about 5-6 degrees Centigrade warmer then than it was today. But it certainly wasn't as warm as the water in Hawaii!