My Enthusiastic Curb Appeal

By | April 17, 2010
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Going from a show about nothing to a show about people yelling at each other is quite the leap but after watching all seven seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm I can see Larry David’s work all over Seinfeld.

After hearing about the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm I watched “The Table Read”, laughed a lot, and decided it was worth it to start from the awkward and uncomfortable beginning. Jenna and I started at the beginning and loved it. It was awkward, embarrassing and hilarious all in one. Curb Your Enthusiasm is far from work safe, but you get so emerged in the dialog that you may not recognize vulgar language until some says something incredibly offensive and then you realize what you are watching.

Classic moments were Larry’s drawn out “pretty good” and whenever he would stare someone down hoping to see the truth in their eyes. Surprisingly, both moments were in a single scene here. Nearly every episode would have us performing some variation of a face palm or head hold while we questioned Larry’s actions. For the most part Larry David was put in terrible circumstances by doing what he thought was right or fair, but it was never seen that way.

The show would bring socially accepted situations or behaviors into question. Things that are accepted “as is” for most of us would get Larry involved in a shouting match with a complete stranger. The show does have a lot of yelling, which is mostly due to not having a script, but that’s how real life goes. You don’t pause for crowd reaction, you continue talking and if you are trying to make a point you just talk louder and force the other person out of the conversation.

In a lot of ways Curb Your Enthusiasm mirrored Seinfeld where nothing would happen. With the exception of a few seasons (The Producers, Seinfeld and restaurant opening) the others carried on without incident and would follow Larry and his friends around various stories and antics. Richard Lewis needing a kidney was a big story but I can’t remember what else happened in that season or how it related. The problem with binging on a show, especially one where the seasons just happen is that you can easily forget what one season was about to the next.

One thing there was never a shortage of was celebrity name drops and appearances from a familiar face. After a while you get used to seeing Ted Danson around or just expect Ben Stiller to be in the next episode, and it was refreshing to have other actors just show up, similar to Entourage but in greater quantity.

After Curb Your Enthusiasm I may venture into It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to continue the comedy against heavy dramas like Deadwood or Mad Men.

My Heritage Farewell

By | April 16, 2010
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On Thursday April 14 I said goodbye to an old friend. My Heritage H-550 Custom had been with me since December 2004. I still look back at the email thread with Jay Wolfe from Wolfe Guitars and smile because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The instruments craftsmanship was superior, the attention to detail was amazing and the sound was fantastic.

Still, I was using an instrument way out of my league and only reinforced the adage that the musician makes the guitar, not the other way around. This is something I have had to remind myself when I look at cameras with a several thousand dollar price tag.

I had been contemplating selling the guitar since the middle of 2008, and when I was unable to find anyone I knew to buy it the guitar was posted on Kijiji. Perhaps as a way of saying I shouldn’t sell it, it took some time to find a serious buyer.

I had several offers for a trade but only had two people show actual interest in buying it for money. The ad was on Kijiji for thirteen, maybe fourteen months, maybe more. Every three months I would get an ad expiration notice and I would repost it, bumping the ad to the top of the pages, receive the random email of interest here or there but that was it. Selling a $2,000 instrument in Edmonton was quite a challenge, but it’s a high end instrument that has a niche market so I understand that it took a while for the right buyer to come along.

I didn’t need to sell the guitar, but I wasn’t playing it and I could put the money towards other areas. I originally wanted to sell the guitar to buy a DSLR and a Playstation 3. Both of those items sorted themselves out before the end of 2008 so the sale of the guitar would go towards paying their purchase off or other bills.

The gentleman who bought the guitar gave the H-550 a workout, something it has been deprived of for too long, and it sounded amazing. Hearing a guitar you love perform a swan song was incredibly bittersweet. I thought that I had made the wrong decision, but in the last year and a half the Heritage never sounded as good as it did then. It is going to a better place and to an owner who knew the level of craftsmanship the instrument had and treat the guitar right.

When I closed the Kijiji ad I noticed that I had 1337 views, which felt like a nice way to end the sale.

My Beard Return

By | April 15, 2010
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Canucks Playoff BeardDay two of the playoffs mean day one of the playoff beard. Vancouver starts their series against sixth seed Los Angeles tonight and I am hoping this will be the start of a beautiful thing and by June I will have a disgusting and shameful beard.

Again, the word ‘beard’ is used loosely, I don’t know if I will be able to better the growth I did last May. Perhaps I can last more than 27 days? Time, and my face, will tell.

My Real Estate Miracle

By | April 14, 2010
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I have a few other posts in draft status but this one is worthy of being pushed out the door promptly.

For the last four months, nearly to the day, Jenna and I have been thinking about houses. We look at For Sale signs when we are driving, we watch any property hunting or home renovation show we can on TV and we constantly check MLS.ca for homes and new listings. In the last sixteen weeks we have considered building a house, moving to Beaumont and living anywhere from Terwillegar to Tamarack.

In the last four weeks we have listed our condo, sold it and have an offer accepted on a house both of us love. The 24 hours leading up to the offer acceptance was amazing and is nothing short of a real estate miracle.

Wednesday April 7 we met with our Realtor in Sherwood Park to look at a few houses. The first house we saw caught our attention and became our favorite of any we had seen in the month prior (between Open Houses and tours with our Realtor). There were things that needed work but it was a strong candidate. The second house we went to immediately caught my eye and before walking into the house I was in love. You could argue the proximity to Little Caesars Pizza and being on the same road Gord lived on were factors, but they just sweetened the deal of a house that was amazing.

I raved about the house for the next few days and built it up so much in my mind. Both houses that appealed to us would require a second showing, but we used Saturday April 10 as an opportunity to see additional properties and see if those houses still stood up in our mind. They did, and on Monday April 12 we returned to Sherwood Park to see the two houses we liked. Our Realtor broke the news outside of our first stop that the house I loved most was not available, because an offer had been made on April 10th and that we should move on to find that right place for us.

It may have been the crushing news outside of the house, or that the house didn’t appeal to us on a second viewing, but the place didn’t speak to us the same way and we continued looking at properties on Monday night. At 9PM on Monday we got home and felt deflated about everything. The houses we liked were unavailable or weren’t as good and after 20+ viewings we were back at square one.

Tuesday morning I received a text from our Realtor saying the offer on the house had fallen through and we had a second chance to view the house and see if it was worth making an offer. This house had been on the market just over a week and had a lot of foot traffic so we knew time was important and arranged for a viewing four hours later at 2PM. I left work early, picked up Jenna and critically evaluated the house I loved a week prior. It still looked good and as we went room to room we started building our future, imagining coffee on the deck, working on the kitchen island and living on a quiet road.

We were still in the house at 2:30PM when another Realtor showed up with clients, we finished up our viewing and decided to make an offer. Over a cup of coffee we prepared the papers and our Realtor drove the offer to the sellers agent. When he arrived their agent was on the phone with the Realtor we had seen at 2:30PM and was interested in putting in an offer. When she found out an offer was in place she backed out for not wanting to get into a bidding war, something we were hoping to avoid too.

A few restless hours went by and at 8:34PM we received a call from our Realtor, talked numbers on our counter offer and ten minutes later the house was ours. 24 hours prior we were going through the break up process of a house we loved to owning it.

Our Realtor said the right house comes along when you are ready, and had told us that offers do fall through and there could be a chance for us to get this house. We were doubtful about any of that working out, but it did. It was the perfect ending for a house we loved and a story that him, and us, will share for years to come.

My Black Math Masterpiece

By | March 28, 2010
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In early December I received a White Stripes newsletter announcing the Under Great White Northern Lights boxset containing a documentary detailing their performance in Canada, the complete concert from their 10th anniversary performance, a CD and LP of live music, a photo book and other exclusive goodies. In short it was going to be awesome and I had to own it.

I have seen the Under Great White Northern Lights documentary several times now and there is something powerful and haunting about how the movie concludes. Ben Blackwell tells Jack and Meg that after a decade together they can still pick up their original instruments and be as if nothing has changed. Then Jack looks over to Meg who returns the look, they share a glance and then Meg looks away and fade to white, the interview is over.

The piano performance of White Moon to close the documentary is amazing. The story goes that after their 10th anniversary show in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, after the celebrations and after parties Jack found a piano and started playing it. I was amazed at the passion that came across and how the song ends. It was a surprise to me and I certainly don’t want to spoil anything, but after a powerful, loud and intense 90 minute movie this quiet and intimate end was stunning.

On my re-watch of the documentary I continued watching through the credits and when they got to the ‘thank you’ all but four cities from the 2007 tour were thanked, including Edmonton.

I was a big fan of the Under Nova Scotia Lights concert. I had listened to the audio rip of the DVD prior to watching the video so I knew what to expect, but this just goes to show that seeing is believing. What I thought were average performances of songs on the audio were elevated to another level when I saw the video. The several minute tease of Death Letter made more sense when you saw Jack tuning the Kay guitar. I will never tire of seeing Jack and Meg interact on stage, the glances and nods signalling when one song changes into another.

A nice moment happened between the person doing bagpipes on Prickly Thorn was after his solo he looked at Jack as if to say “I’m good, your turn” and Jack gave him an approving look back. The subtleties, the things that an audio recording can never show made this concert really special. If a show has Astro, Death Letter, Black Math and Boll Weevil it is guaranteed to be good, but when you include Aluminum, Brick House Wood House and Lafayette Blues then it goes into a different category of awesome.

Enough of that, let’s talk packaging! The way this boxset is put together deserves a Grammy in the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package category. Everything about this is top notch and puts my Battlestar Galactica boxset to incredible shame. The 208 page hardcover photography book is amazing and captured the on-stage and off-stage moments so well.


One thing is obvious: the amount of vinyl I have I need to add a record player to the stereo system as soon as we relocate into a house so I can experience all of this in a new way again.

My Manual Exposure

By | March 18, 2010
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No image stabilization, no auto focus, no ability to preview a shot after it was taken and when you start a roll off at a certain ISO you are stuck at that speed until you’re done. All of this sounds like a negative but after using a DSLR for 18 months I decided to take a step back and see where photography came from. I am comfortable with the manual mode on my camera but have constantly read that the basics are learned from old cameras and I thought I would give it a chance.

I am using my Mother’s Canon FTb 35mm camera with a 200mm f/4.0, 50mm f/3.5 macro and 50mm f/1.8 lens. It came loaded with film but I have ISO200 and a roll of black and white that I will try my hand on.

My initial reactions to using the SLR was that it was a challenge but exciting. The way I approach photography on a DSLR is drastically different than on a film camera. With a DSLR I would adjust the settings, or not at all, point and shoot. If the image was blurry I would adjust the aperture, ISO and shutter speed accordingly and try again. If my hand was a little shaky I could rely on stabilization to save a shot. An infinite amount of processing power was available to me on a DSLR to save a shot.

None of that applies here.

After I dial in, literally, a proper exposure I tweak the focus ring and press the shutter I hope that after the fwwwhhiiik sound goes I got a good photo. At this point I am not looking to take profound or engaging photos, I just want something that is not underexposed and out of focus. Both are key fundamentals to photography that I have been able to easily ignore with a DSLR and it is a humbling experience to adjust all of these settings manually and still not know if the shot worked.

If I put the camera down and picked it up an hour later I don’t remember if I advanced the film. This is likely an instinctive process for some but it has not become a habit yet. I also find myself instinctively chimping to see if the show I took turned out…and see nothing but the back of the camera.

I never found a use for the DOF button on the DSLR, but completely understand why it is around now. I prefer seeing the shot lighten or darken depending on aperture and goes to show how much going from f/4.5 to to f/5.6 can really make. I never sought out the DOF button on the XTi or T1i but I will be more cognizant of its presence when I set up shots with the T1i in the future.

The ergonomics of the FTb are a little awkward. I thought my Rebel T1i/500D had much to improve upon and preferred the feel of higher end models like the 50D or 7D. Little did I know how easy I had it with the Rebel compared to the hard rectangle shape of the FTb. It has an uncomfortable grip, difficult to adjust shutter speed dial and yet those force me to concentrate on the photo more, making sure the camera is steady, focus is tight and the subject is in frame.

Roll #1
This roll was in the camera when I got it, so it could have been anywhere between three and eight years old. I didn’t expect the film to develop at that age but I put in the effort to use that roll of film. When I finished off the roll I realized that the camera had been set to ISO400 but the film was actually ISO200 and immediately doubted if anything would develop. To my surprise the age of the film didn’t make all the exposures void, and the underexposed photos were passable.

Roll #2
I was going to develop my first roll at the same time I developed the second so I wouldn’t know if there was a problem with the camera or lenses until it was too late. I took the cautious route and before installing the second roll of film (the first roll of film I have installed in a long time, if ever) I cleaned the inside of the Canon to make sure there were no spots or errant specs that could affect the results. I took a photo with each of the three lenses and then got to work.

I had finished strong on this roll of film and when I took all the exposures I confused the steps for removing the film and opened the back door leaking light onto a few of my shots. Sadly the photos I was most proud of were not developed (they are visible on the negatives) but it was a hard lesson learned to properly rewind film first and then open the door second.

All photos developed from both rolls are available in my Gallery here.

Advancing Forward
I know that the body and lenses all function so I am going to take my time on my third roll of film and make every shot count. To ensure that I stick to this I have put in a roll of black and white and will take photos outdoors (people, buildings — things that stay still and don’t require precise focus pulling).

This has been a fun experiment and I am glad I did it. Stay tuned for updates as they develop.

My Olympic Breaks

By | March 1, 2010
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Like millions of fellow Canadians I enjoyed watching the 2010 Olympics from Vancouver. It was a fantastic seventeen days and I was able to see a lot of memorable moments play out live. I am going to miss switching between three Canadian networks and one American to get complete coverage and regardless of the day or time you knew something from the Olympics would be on.

One thing I am going to miss the most is the commercials. Advertisement is a necessary evil but I never felt one commercial overly annoyed me, even when played repeatedly. Some commercials still managed to excite me, get my blood racing and induce goosebumps. If you were lucky enough you would see the longer version of a commercial and feel a new surge of emotions all over again.

Here are some of my favorites from February:

Molson Canadian – Made From Canada (YouTube – 1:00)
It has great shots of Canada, inspirational words and as the commercial comes to a close you hear the powerful and always motivating music from Clint Mansell. I saw this commercial several times while I had a MGD in hand and felt a little guilt.

Visa – Go World
The “Go World” campaign was amazing. The commercials would change based on current events (like when Canada won its first gold, YouTube – 0:32) and as the medals accumulated the first names of the athletes would be added into the commercial. These were never dull and even after seeing the Dan Jensen (YouTube – 0:30) or Sara Renner (YouTube – 0:32) ad spots multiple times I still got emotional over it.

More TV spots available at YouTube or on their Facebook page.

Coca Cola – Whose Game They’re Playing
The first time I saw the “Whose Game They’re Playing” (YouTube – 1:02) commercial was in a movie theater in January and the way I felt then is how I felt all the way through February. It’s a great commercial, one that would always force me stop what I was doing and watch.

I have noticed that video montages have been appearing on networks as the Olympics came to an end, but one that really stands out was Stephen Brunt’s emotional discussion about being Canadian and celebrating as a nation. Even after multiple viewings it’s still good.

Thanks Olympics for giving us Canadians something to feel and cheer about, it’s been a fantastic seventeen days.

My Two Month Tubes

By | February 16, 2010
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I had a pretty good week with hot dogs. It has been over two months since my last tube steak and in the span of a week I had three meals of dogs adding to my count by 8.

My dream of getting to 52 (again) is still alive.