Stoked on the feeling in this pic… That’s what today felt like on Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver. The fog was creeping in and out throughout the day, you can see it hanging low in the valley behind the trees.

October happened a little while back – seems like forever now, and I’ve been slacking on keeping up with the photos. Here’s the latest…

• Hwy 99 on the way to the Squamish skatepark. The new Mastadon album was playing, which made the trip that much better. Been playing that album a lot.
• Went to the opening party at the Museum of Vancouver for the Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver show – good stuff. Good to see some of those old signs buzzing like crazy again.
• The fall colours of our neighbourhood in Kitsilano, this street always goes crazy bright red for as far as you can see.
• For Thanksgiving weekend, we bailed on our annual Oregon coast trip because of heavy rains, and so we headed to the Okanagan to catch the last bit of summer. The warm days made up for the –15° temperatures at night in the tent left a little to be desired. We made some hamburgers on the open grill, but only had hot dog buns left over, so we had hamburgerdogs and those delicious potatoes you see wrapped in tinfoil.
• One of the things we did on our camping trip was ride on our bikes on a 25km stretch (round trip) of the Myra Canyon Trestles, which is part of the Kettle Valley Railway Trail (and the Trans Canada trail). I’ve wanted to do that ride for a while, and the trestles were just completed their rebuild in 2008 (many of the 12+ trestles burned to the ground in the 2003 forest fires in the region). Doing this ride at this time of the year turned out to be perfect, because usually we’re in the area during the peak of summer temperatures… This photo is one of the larger trestles on the ride, and has a nice lookout area halfway across. A couple more pictures below are from the Myra Canyon ride.
• I tweeted this picture of this ‘Cooksgiving Day’ cake at work on October 4^th. Our web developer, James, makes special Apple-themed cakes for product announcements, and this was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. These product announcements, formerly know as ‘JobsMas’ needed a new name because this was Tim Cook’s first product launch as CEO. Steve Jobs died the following day. Bummer.
• Camping at Hydraulic Lake, we rode our bikes a good distance down a very underused road, and stopped here to check out the sunset. There’s another picture of that sunset below.
• A couple of carrots that Katie pulled out of our garden – how one can grow so large and the one right beside barely grow at all…
• Halloween night this guy was riding his bike around the neighbourhood, and you could see the glow from half a block away. His ‘Tron’ bike was covered in LED lights (and many, many batteries), and was so bright the colours barely register in this photo.

 

Sunset at Hydraulic Lake.

I climbed up the side of a cliff to get an overview shot of the Myra Canyon Trestles, with this shot looking down in front of the tunnel in the following photo below.

On the trail, there’s a couple of tunnels that are a pretty good length, and it’s definitely dark in there.

 

Listening to:
Mastadon — The Hunter
The Rakes — Capture/Release
Rainer Maria — Rainer Maria s/t (reissue)
Sonic Youth — Daydream Nation (Deluxe Edition)
Snowpony — The Slow-Motion World Of Snowpony
Wagon Christ — Toomorrow
Wavves — Life Sux EP
Rival Schools — Pedals
Karnivool — Sound Awake
The Flowers of Hell — The Flowers of Hell s/t
Feeder — Silent Cry
Anvil — Juggernaut of Justice

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.

 

Hey Rosetta! was back in Vancouver playing at The Commodore on their ‘Yer Fall Tour, so we met up their manager Jason for a few drinks. I watched most of the show from the floor, which is a much better vantage point to see these guys live, but I joined the crew side-stage to catch the last few songs hoping to catch the confetti cannon when it went off. I got a couple decent shots of the leaf-shaped confetti as it blasted out… Pretty epic moment of the show.

The iPhone can only catch so much low-light action… But here’s the confetti cannon going off.

One of their fans made a cake that matched the ‘Yer Fall tour graphic, so I quickly took this photo up in the dressing room before anybody cut into it. People were pretty stoked on it.

More photos after the jump…

Continue reading “Hey Rosetta! at The Commodore” »

I guess this edition of the iPhone dump is all photos from a Denman and Hornby Island trip. My parents did a 60+ day drive from Ontario, up to the Arctic Circle, over to Alaska and then down to meet us for the Labour Day long weekend at Denman Island just off of Vancouver Island. They did the drive in the truck camper (see the third photo)… Close living quarters for the two month journey here, and continued on back to Ontario over the following couple of weeks.

• The sunset from the Ferry over to Nanaimo.
• If you’ve ever been to Hornby Island, you’ll know this pub with the grass roof.
• Here’s the truck camper my parents made the epic journey in.
• This random sculpture was made on the beach out of things that were laying around, it’s about one-foot square.
• Katie and I rode our bikes over to Hornby to hit the mountain bike trails… Fun day. That’s me up at the very top, with a massive cliff just off to my right side.
• Ford’s Cove on Hornby Island have the craziest beach with these rock formations that go on forever. It’s a must see if you ever go.
• The most southern tip of Denman Island at Boyle Point Provincial Park. There was a sea lion hanging out down here and he was making a bunch of noise, but he did his best to elude us.
• Chains detail, on the ferry from Denman to Hornby Island.
• Tribune Bay beach… It’s a pretty epic beach, I’m pretty sure it’s rated Canada’s best white sand beach. It was so nice to jump into after mountain biking for a few hours.

 

Here’s a couple of bonus shots looking across to Denman Island from Hornby Island shot while waiting for the ferry.

 

Listening to:
The Jealous Sound — Kill Them With Kindness
Sonic Youth — Rather Ripped
She Wants Revenge — Valleyheart
Q And Not U — Different Damage
Rogue Wave — Asleep at Heaven’s Gate
40 Watt Sun — The Inside Room
Verbena — Into the Pink
Luna — Lunapark
Poster Children — Junior Citizen

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.

 

 

Summer… Nothing else need be said.

• 3^rd Beach in Vancouver, with the sun just hitting the horizon.
• Picked up a new bike from MacNeil/Ten Pack Distribution. It’s a thing of beauty.…
• Came across this print while I was sifting through a bin at that crazy craft store on Main Street, right beside The 5 Point Restaurant. Also found this gem in a bin full of old slides. That store is magic. Magic junk. Amazing.
• Bonsor Skatepark fullpipe just before the sun goes down.
• The cat, Nik, chillin’ out in front of the house. He loves hanging out on the hot rock walkway after a full day of sun warms them up perfect for him. The sun does it for him. He’s a cat, everything is done for him. He knows it.
• English Bay – riding by one night on a seawall cruise, just had to stop and shoot this. You have too, right?
• Donut Peaches from Jind Fruit, one of our clients. Does anything say summer more than peaches?
• Hanging out in Katie’s new Hammock… so comfy.
• Jones Lake – 2 hours outside of Vancouver, and a great place to chill in the lake with an epic view in the background, that’s me on the left.

 

Listening to:
Collapse Under the Empire — Shoulders & Giants
The Jesus & Mary Chain – Psychocandy re-mastered (and all the new JAMC remastered discs for that matter)
Pigface — Washingmachine Mouth
Throwing Muses — Anthology: Deluxe Book
Sparkmarker — Products and Accessories
X — Los Angeles
We Were Promised Jetpacks — In the Pit of the Stomach
Dub Trio — IV

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.

 

 

Photo shot by Paul at MuffinAndPedal.com. Click the photo to see a larger version.

A riding photo of me shot last weekend at Ron Mercer’s backyard slice of heaven, The Woodyard. Pretty stoked on how this one-footer over the hip turned out. This was shot at the end of a long riding day, the ramp was starting to get busy with some fresh young’ins that had just shown up, and I was pretty tired. I think this shot is from my last run of the day… Psyched. Thanks for the shot Paul. I’ll be poaching this for my Facebook profile pic for sure.

You can see the full story on the MuffinAndPedal.com blog here.

 

 

Summer didn’t really hit Vancouver until about mid-July this year… Maybe later. This summer really feels like it was cut short – really short. Anyway, looking back, it looks like some fun was had in July.

• Sitting on the dock at Weaver Lake, watching some clouds blow by an otherwise sunny day. Our red canoe is hanging out on the other side of the beat up fishing boat.
• Newborn baby goats at a farm, totally forget the name of the place.
• Found this gem of a slug crawling down a tree at Weaver Lake. Biggest one I’ve ever seen in my life – almost as long as my hand. And sick as hell. There was a bunch of slugs all in one spot, and they were all huge, but this guy was definitely the biggest one.
• Wood burning stove at my friend’s cabin near Mt Baker. Sitting down to have a drink after a long days work cleaning up the overgrown yard from the previous property owners.
• Backstage at the Tragically Hip show at Burnaby Lake… A good friend of Katie’s manages Hey Rosetta!, and they were opening, so we took in the show from the side stage. I’m not a Hip fan, but watching Gordy’s crazy dancing antics is sight to behold.
• I was at a grocery store in the US, and found myself in front of a massive wall of brown beans. A crazy amount of brown beans for how big the store was. I was captivated. And then I started checking out all the different flavours. Wow. I bought at least six cans in flavours I’d never had before. I’m going back for more.
• These blue lights lined the very back of the stage at the Tragically Hip show. They were pretty tech, and amazing how much they did for how little space they took off. They’re pretty tall, but they had my attention for a decent amount of the show.
• I was at the back side of Hastings Park for some reason a few days after they opened the new ride at the PNE. This is that new swing ride that goes really high. I’m sure it has a really clever name, but it’s really just a swing that goes in circles.
• I was putting together this massive sign at work that took a few of days to crank out (just because of how large the files were). I forget the actual dimensions but it was 16′ tall, and something like 96′ long. It stretches the length of a large warehouse. Anyway, working in Illustrator, it’s not very often that you’ll see the ‘Reading Image’ progress bar. The progress bar would take forever, and had to load EACH image placed in the file, which took about 50 minutes to open each file. Here you can see the finished sign mounted on the warehouse, and to help you get a sense of scale, click on this and look for the guy sleeping in the lower left corner.

 

Listening to:
In Flames — Sounds of a Playground Fading
The Sword — Age of Winters
Alkaline Tri0 — Damnesia
Amon Tobin — Isam
764-HERO — Get Here and Stay
Asobi Seksu — Fluorescence
Neurosis — Live at Roadburn 2007

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.

 

 

June was a busy month. I was back to New Brunswick for another wedding (I was just there in late February), but this time I was there for more than a couple days. This was my first trip to NB in the summer, so I was pretty excited about that. The weather was a bit grey for a few days of the trip, but we threaded the needle and were able to take the best days for a quick road-trip to the Bay of Fundy and camping at Fundy National Park.

Also, I finally got around to upgrading my iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4, so the pictures should be better. But I’m not promising that the content is going to get any better. Wink.

• A group of kayakers floating in closer to the Flowerpot rocks at Hopewell Rocks minutes after the tide started coming in.
• New River Beach at Haggertys Cove in New Brunswick.
• Found this treat, some kind of decorative toaster at a general store in the back woods of New Brunswick. They had an ‘antiques’ section where we bought some Expo ’86 salt & pepper shakers. Antiques indeed.
• The hip at Ron Mercer’s backyard ramp, hand-crafted, hand-sculpted out of plywood. Smooth as a baby’s butt even if it doesn’t look like it here in this close-up.
• Sculpture in front of ‘Animal Land’ near Sussex, NB. No idea what the hell that thing is, but it’s wild.
• The next 2 shots are just some peninsulas along the coast during our drive to Fundy National Park. I think I shot about 100 of these peninsulas. I’ll add them to the other 20,000 shots I have of ‘trees and rocks’.
• Speaking of rocks, and coasts, here’s a photo from the other coast, our coast. Down on the beach at low tide, looking downtown from Point Grey.
• The last shot is one of the many resident alpacas that are at Kingsbrae Garden, one of the best botanical gardens in North America. I shot a ton of photos there, and of course have yet to go through them.

 

Listening to:
Agent Orange — Virtually Indestructible
Male Bonding — Endless Now
Japan — Exorcising Ghosts
Treepeople — Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment
Doves — The Last Broadcast
The Germs — (MIA) The Complete Anthology
Trivium — In Waves
Boris — Variations

 

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.

 

 

Here’s a special edition of the iPhone photo dump… Katie and I took a hike up in the mountains of West Vancouver, just above the British Properties. There’s a whole network of trails that crisscross the mountains, but we were looking to do something that was going to be fun, but not too crazy. We’d done a variation of the Brothers Creek Loop before, so we figured we’d do a slightly shorter version of it on this day. It was a bit warm, so I didn’t need to be pushing it up there. If you check the link there, the description will tell you it’s about a 4 hour hike, but that’s an exaggeration. We did the whole loop in just over 2, and we were taking our time and checking out things along the way.

Enjoy a few of the pictures from the hike…

And, a photo of my feet looking over the spiral stairs down.

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.

 

 

May seemed to blow by pretty quickly… It was a wet month if I remember correctly. Hard to tell all the months apart this Spring because they’ve all been really wet. We did a lot of ‘sight-seeing’ in Vancouver as we do almost every May as part of the Vancouver Tourism Challenge, as part of Katie’s work at the UBC Botanical Garden (which also just launched a new website).

• These daffodils were looking good on the day we dropped by the market. It was a rainy day, and this was the only bright thing and they stood out.
• Cute stuffed animals in a Seattle storefront of some kids store in Capital Hill. Happened to catch this out of the corner of my eye walking back to Jonathan’s house after the Mogwai concert, and a few drinks.
• A rainy day at Van Dusen Botanical Garden, but was still better than sitting around at home.
• Walking around Jericho Beach Park, looking around to find the baby ducks which were late this year. Nice backdrop looking north from this side of the little lake.
• In the centre photo, this was at the local Safeway in Kitsilano. Somebody put a Metro newspaper box up on the roof of one of the cars in the ZipCar car park area. There were two other people shooting photos at the same time I was, so I wasn’t alone in thinking it was amusing.
• Went to the Vancouver Art Gallery to check out the exhibits as part of the Tourism Challenge. We were pretty underwhelmed with the Ken Lum exhibit, as were many of the people I overheard as we made our way through the gallery. As I graphic designer, I saw a bunch of stuff on the wall I’d never put up.
• My friend Jonathan’s dog Baxter chillin’ on the couch beside me. I drove down to Seattle to catch the Mogwai show after the Vancouver show was cancelled. It was a
• This wig was hanging on the wall at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Can’t remember for sure if it was part of the Ken Lum exhibit or not, but I’m going to guess it was.
• Funny looking tree down at Jericho Beach Park.

 

Listening to:
Stryper — The Covering
The Charlatans — Warm Sounds EP
Desert Sessions — Desert Sessions Vol. 10
Panda Bear — Tomboy
Del Tha Funky Homosapien — Golden Era
Big Country — Fields Of Fire — The Ultimate Collection
Foo Fighters — Medium Rare (covers)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart — Belong

 

About the iPhone photo dump: I shoot a lot of photos in the average month, whether it be on my iPhone (or any of my other cameras). Sadly, most of these photos never see the light of day, and sit buried somewhere on a hard-drive. I’m using this monthly feature to set some of those photos free. You can see my full archive of iPhone Photo dumps here.