a little diversion this Tuesday morning...

Which famous photographer are you? Helmut Newton: Known for fashion and nudes illustrating themes of mass media, glamour, sex, and theater "I get inspired, in America, by a certain kind of sleaziness."

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

I finally uploaded some photos from the various networking events that I attended as both the official (also click here) and unofficial photographer.


If you're viewing in this in your feed reader, make sure to click through to view the embedded slideshow from the most recent events.


Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

I'm trying not to censor myself... as I've started several posts in the past few months that have gone nowhere. I got caught up in trying to make sure that I was writing interesting things, but I don't exactly have an audience for these things so I really shouldn't care.

I'm a bit frustrated since I've recently taken on some new responsibilities in my life but without any external compensation. I feel a bit under acknowledge for the initiative I'm taking, but I don't feel like really forcing people to take notice. At least not at the moment. Personally, I'd rather be concentrating on my photography, which I do not get enough time to do nor do I take enough time to do. I read a lot of design blogs and I often find myself caught up in the romantic notion of how wonderful it would be more actively involved in that world... either as a graphic or interior designer or architectural photographer. These things don't happen all on their own of course and I'm trying very hard to figure out what I can do in order to involve myself more in these creative fields. I have family coming to visit over the next two weeks so perhaps this will be a good time to experiment with some unwilling models.

No excuses, no complaints...

Aryn and I attended a friend's wedding on the weekend where I got to play dual role as guest and photographer. It was a lot of fun, despite the intense heat (which ended up getting me in the end). The ceremony took place at the Riverdale Community Hall, a picturesque part of the city that I had never been to before. Although I continue to cling to the dream that Aryn and I will one day be able to move back to BC, whenever I come across an area in Edmonton that I find appealing I make a mental note that this is an area that I wouldn't mind living in. After reading an RBC Economics report today that said that in order to afford to live in Vancouver you must spend 70% of your taxable income on living expenses and live off the remaining 30%, I'm starting to think more and more that my vision of a coastal future is well beyond my reach.

But I'm not without hope... things change with time and for now I need to concentrate on the present. I spent the majority of Sunday working on edits from the various weddings I've shot recently. Aryn busied himself with different projects around the condo, installing the remaining kitchen cabinetry and the dishwasher (just in time for our guests who will be arriving shortly).

More photos to come as I continue on this publicly productive streak.

My birthday is fast approaching...

Those of you that are searching for a present idea... I would like this book. Find it and other books on my assorted amazon wish lists.

From Apartment Therapy...

The future of outdoor living here in NYC belongs in part to The High Line. The elevated railway has been in disuse for decades and is now being given new life by the initiatives of Friends of the Highline.

This looks like a fascinating project. I'd like to visit New York to see it once it has been completed (or once some portions are open to the public).

My sister is staying with me for a month until she gets occupancy of her new apartment. It's been nice having her around because I've been able to borrow from her wardrobe. Unlike one of my other sisters, despite my being the most sturdy and rubenesque of all the Loro girls, she doesn't complain that my curvaceous figure will stretch out her clothes. Considering the amount of lycra and other materials with such elastic properties I am not that worried either. A good launder and her shirts will snap back to fit her serpentine figure. Shoes on the other hand are another matter. My feet are what my mother would describe as those belonging to Cinderella's stepsisters... and of all the girls my feet are the longest. I borrowed a pair of flats from my sister, but wisely decided to carry them to work and allow my finger-like toes the ability to breathe rather than assume a bunion inducing curled up position inside the shoes. If only my office had a more flexible footwear policy then I might wear my flip flops freely and not have to endure the struggle of carting office appropriate footwear to and from work. Some shoes are made for walking you see, and others are made for sitting. Boring stuff I know... pointless musings... but what else do you expect from me?

It was looking to be a productive night. We cooked our first meal in the condo/apartment/house/loft (haven't decided what to call it yet), a simple meal of spaghettini and bolognese sauce (my own special concoction) and some kind of caesar salad that my sister had picked up from the grocery store the other day.Still without a fully plumbed kitchen sink or stone countertops we made do with the fine pine plywood countertops that Aryn "installed" on Tuesday and the bathroom sink. The first dinner was a real step forward for us... at least in the sense of making us feel like we're living in the loft rather than just sleeping there. We've been making minor progress towards unpacking all of our boxes, mostly due to Aryn's stellar organizational skills. Although I am still extremely wary about his choice to put the tupperware and rubbermaid containers in the drawer below the stove... somebody please weigh in on this and give an impartial third party opinion on whether or not this is a good idea. Despite the ability to microwave plastic I do not think it's the wisest idea for it to be stored beneath a hot stove. Slowly but surely more and more of the floor is being revealed and boxes are disappearing (to the hall) from the giant pile in what will become our living room.

However, after dinner the feeling of progress diminished as we encountered a slight mishap in our pursuit of bedroom privacy. Over the weekend we had installed a tension wire to hang some curtains that would allow us to close off our bedroom area from the rest of the space. We didn't have enough curtains to go across the 15ft. divide initially, so we just hung the two panels that we did have. On Tuesday I dug out the two curtain panels we had from the old apartment and added them to the line so that we could close off the entire bedroom. The wire sagged a wee bit under the weight of the curtains but the line remained intact for the next day. Yesterday Aryn picked up the additional curtain panels we required and we set about switching out the old set with the new (I'd just like to add that had I known we were getting the other curtain panels so quickly I probably wouldn't have bothered hanging the old ones). Everything seemed to be going fine until Aryn stepped down from the ladder and heard some suspicious cracking noises that seemed to be originating from the fitting on the wall. At that point there wasn't much we could do. So we all stood back and watched as the weight of the curtains tore the fitting from the wall leaving a small but rather unpleasant looking hole on our wall. I was not impressed, but we were surprised that the curtains had stayed up for as long as they had anyhow. Aryn spent the rest of the night putting around fixing the problem (thanks to a much appreciated tip from our personal construction expert) with some toggle bolts and leftover MDF. The resulting installation seems much more sound and the curtains and wire are intact.

After spending the day feeling less than terrific (Aryn and I were up until two in the morning finishing moving from our apartment, many hours behind schedule) I am finally allowing myself to be really excited about our new space. We've owned the loft for almost five months but the prospect of living here has always seemed more dream than reality. I had a picture in my mind of what the space was going to turn out like, but as we tore up the floor and knocked down walls, I became more and more disillusioned with the idea of picking up from the apartment that I was comfortably settled in, moving to this new living area that we had tore apart.

But now, as I'm sitting here enjoying the evening sun through my west facing windows I'm glad that we took the risk and went through with buying this place and renovating it. Thanks to all of my friends (and my friends through Aryn as well) who helped us tear this place apart and put it back together. Without their help I don't think I would be able to enjoy the evening sunset as much as I am now.

I'm sitting on the one remaining cushioned chair left in our apartment after a full day of moving. Despite having moved most of the large items into a storage room in the new building, our apartment still appears to be rather full. Nearly fifty boxes sit full of books in the other bedroom and our closet is still jam packed with clothes. It seems like we are never really going to move into the new place, that we will forever be living divided between two houses.

I spent a lot of the day driving though parts of the city that I don't normally get to see. As a pedestrian living downtown, my view of Edmonton is usually limited to a several block radius around where I live and work. I suppose that's not unusual for anyone. We tend to spend our days trapped in the regular pattern on going to and from work... maybe occasionally venturing outside of our safe little sphere to attend some social function of purchase something that is otherwise unavailable in the little world that we confine ourselves to. The ordinary can sometimes become boring, and boring can quickly become ugly. It was good to shake up the regular routine today. At no point could I claim to be bored or really lament about ugliness surrounding me. Instead I got to imagine the lives of the people who live in these neighbourhoods that Aryn and I passed on our drive to and from the various U-Haul locations across the city (long story short, we arrived at the south location only to discover that our reservation was in fact for another location across the city). I suppose imagining what sort of people lived in these houses helped me to ignore the increasing levels of stress related to our move.

I’m afraid though that I can find no coping mechanism for my increasing levels of stress related to my computer right now. My wireless connection is being very finicky and I can’t seem to stay connected for more than a couple minutes at a time. I think I will have to put off what I’m trying to finish today until tomorrow. I will do tomorrow what I would rather do today.