Thailand bound

I guess this is my last post before I leave on vacation. As I've reapeated a few times during the past few weeks, this is my first real trip anywhere. I mean, a trip where I go alone to a strange country, not to mention across the world. Honestly, I'm a bit scared but very excited as well. During my 3 weeks out, I will try to document my travels in a notebook I'm bringing. When I return I will transcribe them all here, or at least, that is the plan.

I couldn't be leaving at a better time. I kinda feel an itchiness build up in my throat, which only means that I'm starting to come down with a cold. In a few days, I'll be in a warm country surrounded by sights and sounds that I've never experienced before. My cold will wither away like melting butter, well, the beginings of my cold at least.

A few days ago, I replied to a call for volunteers to the Alpine Club of Canada. I taked with the person responsable of rounding everyone up. I got a position (I think) of social events coordinator. The duties of this position include for me to plan social outings for the club. I don't know how well I'll live up to the task, but I will try my best. For now, I have some ideas, like a monthly bowling night. Depending on the quality and quantity of pictures I bring back from Thailand, maybe I could also host a slide show showing all the pictures. When I return, I'll put my head to the grinder and come up with some ideas, right now, I am not in the mnindset of planing anything concrete. Besides, I don't have the position as of yet. That will come at their General Meeting held November 29th.

Right now, I'm off to MEC to get some last minute items like chalk and a Lonely Planet guide book. Funny thing, I was told to bring extra amounts of chalk as they don't sell the good stuff there. Good thing to know!

Tonight, or this afternoon, I plan to visit the gym one last time. I met a new girl at the gym the other night and she is pretty cool! At least she has a great attitude about climbing, with is a huge improvement over my travel companion slash climbing partner. I have to give her a call later on.

With that... I'm off. I'll see you in 3 weeks!

The smell of vacation!

This is my last work week before my vacation. I am pretty excited, and a little nervous. I keep trying to run things over in my head to see if I have everything, if I've not overlooked something, but so far, everthing seems to be in order. I take off this Saturday at 8 am.
I talked to a friend who will be driving me to the airport (hopefully) so there at least I'll save on my cab fare.

Over the weekend, I went to do some night photography with my coworker, er, manager. I had managed to borrow the company's D70 to play with. The guy in charge of it lent it to me in hopes of convincing me that digital was better than conventional film photography. Not a chance! Although, I managed to get some shots that I'm pleased with, I'm not overall happy with my exposure. I realized that from all my time shooting with slow film during long exposures, I had been accustomed to really long exposure times. The result was that I got an over exposed negative. Almost too dense to be scanned by my film scanner (the piece of shit it is). I am sure, where I to have access to a conventional darkroom, I could print something worthwhile. I got very, very good shadow detail captured but the scanner is not powerful enough to penetrate the highlights. It seems that thing will scan better if I tell it that a color negative is being fed instead of a black and white one. Anyhow below is one picture that I'm happy with:

nicely surprised

As I walked into the office this morning, my manager was already in the office. My first reaction was: "What? Someone fell out of the bed this morning?"
Apparenly, he's gotten the conscious bug in him again. At least he cannot say anything towards my hours as I've been actually pulling a 40 hour week today. Granted, I did take 1 1/2 lunch hour today but hey, they (manager and coworker in my department) were pulling 6 hour days all this week so far.

On another note... Here is another picture of Max that I like:

Some pictures

I guess it has been a while since I've posted pictues.
Here are two that were taken last weekend. One of my cat, the infamous Max, and the other of a bench near Old Montreal. I guess on the eastern side of Old Montreal almost on the outskirts of it. Boy would I like to live in that area. One day.
Without further ado:

Max posed on my (or his, depending on who you'd ask) desk chair. You have no idea how hard i is to get him to pose. Everything is done on his terms and if I was able to get a somewhat good shot of him, it is because HE let me.


A park bench in Old Montreal. A new perspective on something that most people would not give a second glance to. I like this style of photography.


A broken window. Walking along some where in the Old Port, I came by this window. I found it pretty interesting but I'm not convinced of it's photographic value. What do you think?

A late post

I tried to write this a few days ago but circumstances which I'll explain prevented me.
So, here are the news... Break out the pop corn... As if you cared.
Anyhow...
Last Friday our office got some very distressing news. We were told we had to vacate that office and move to the office in the south shore. This is following some TV interviews and some unwanted publicity that has been going on for some time. The result is that we (the people that used to work in our former office) have all moved to the south shore building and are sharing a conference room. We've arranged the tables around to make use of as much space as possible and we are all crammed up in an 8 foot by 12 foot office, all 8 of us. So, as you can tell, I've not the time to pull up blogger and start ranting like I used to. Besides, I don't want people to know what I write here, it's comforting to be able to write this anonymously.
So how do I feel about the move? I actually think it's great! Not the cramped quarters though but the fact that I'm closer to my user base and I can write better applications for them. Besides, I get less bored at the office now that I actually have activities to do, activities as going to talk to people on a face to face basis and find out what their needs are for software development. On the downside, I have to actually do an eight hour day, no exceptions. Since I don't drive, I rely on the office's shuttle service which picks people up from the metro station at 8:30 am and drops me off at that same metro station at 5:15 pm. I do get home generally about 15 minutes earler so that I a good thing, although I kinda miss getting to work at whatever time I got into work. I've yet to figure out what to do when I have to go pick up films at Corlab though, but I doubt that will be a problem as I could just leave the office at 3 pm. The rest of my department is barely pulling in a 6 hour day. I can't help but to think back to a certain "talk" my manager had with our department (all of 2 people) about coming in early. One guy is coming in past 11 am and my manager, how lives 10 minutes away, only comes in maybe 30 minutes earlier than him, meanwhile, I've already put in 2 hours at the office by the time they show up. Ironic, isn't it?
So, that is what has been going on at work... I guess more news to come.
But, not before I leave for my vacation. As of now, I have 8 days to go until I'm in Thailand. Since the last attitude fit my climbing partner pulled, I've lost any respect of us being a team. Now, I'm getting into my head that I'm going alone to Asia and I'm determined to make the best of it. I am sure to meet other climbers while I'm there, so I'm not worried. And If I don't make any climbing, my secondary goal is to take pictures. That I don't need anyone to be with me, in fact, I prefer being alone to be able to do that. It will definelty be something I will remember. My first vacation abroad! Certainly not my last, I so want to go see Germany. So far, my biggest worry is once I get into Bangkok, how do I get to Krabi from there? I will soon find out.
Hopefully, (but realisticly not likely) I will find a way to post something on here while I'm abroad. If not, then I do plan to keep a handwritten journal. When I come back, I will data entry all of those stories on here. After all, this is supposed to be a chronicle of my life. Is someone reading this?