Good Luck In The Playoffs Mark!
My cousin Mark is the assistant coach for the Dallas Stars of the NHL. I hope they do well in this year's Stanley Cup playoffs that are about to start in a week's time......unless of course they face the Toronto Maple Leafs in the finals. With me, the Leafs always come first! (sorry Mark)
Mark played professional hockey for 16 years and won the Stanley Cup in 1990 while playing for the Edmonton Oilers. He scored a HUGE overtime goal against Winnipeg in their run for the cup (I always enjoy going down to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto to see the family name engraved on the Stanley Cup....thanks for that Mark!).
I have the front page of the Edmonton Sun framed and on my office wall showing Mark celebrating his OT goal with Mark Messier behind the Jets' net. Jarri Kurri passed the puck to him and he went in alone on the net and scored on a backhand. I'll never forget it!
To find out more about Mark's playing and coaching career in the NHL, visit Mark's Dallas Stars bio page.
My First Try At Photo-Journalism A Success!
The Toronto Sun (a major Canadian newspaper) ran my photo of the bus crash in today's Saturday Sun. I think I did pretty well, considering that this was my first attempt at photo-journalism. It's a nice big photo too. It takes up about a third of the whole page. Click HERE to see it.
My First Attempts At Photo-Journalism
There was a pretty wild bus crash today here in the city where I live. It smashed into a building in the downtown area. To see the photos I took, click HERE.
My Favorite Spam
One of my favorite spam email messages that I get on a regular basis has to be this one:
The subject line says: "Our church will ordain anyone who asks"
The body of the email: "Become a legally ordained minister within 48 hours
As a minister, you will be authorized to perform the rites and ceremonies of the church.
You can perform weddings, funerals, perform baptisms, and visit correctional facilities.
Want to start your own church? Press here to find out how "
Who could resist such an offer! Doing funerals and visiting correctional facilities? Where do I sign up!?!
Don't You Just Love A Blue Sky?
Although it was cold out for this time of year (-5 C), the sky looked like it could be from a nice warm summer day.
Words
I find it doesn't always work, but it is interesting.
You Gotta Love Bill Murray
(It's a 3 minute clip, so it might take certain people some time to download)
Funny TV Commercials
The funniest (root)beer commercial lately. Click HERE for the commercial.
I Hate This Time Of Year
This is the part of the year I hate the most. It's rainy, cold, snowing sometimes, and the snow on the ground is slushy and dirty. There is very little around here that is interesting enough to photograph. Everything is bland and seems to lack colour. It's a depressing sight.
Hurry up, warm spring days!
Entertaining The Little Ones
My niece and nephew came by yesterday with my parents. It can be hard sometimes to keep them fully entertained, but with my nephew, all you have to do is show him some volcanoes on the internet. After he saw them all, we went on to another subject, but he was happy to just watch volcano videos.
Time-Lapse Photography
He (Sam) used his laptop to control the camera and store each shot (1500-2000 exposures over 13 hours. One photo was taken every 20 seconds).
My New Wolf Photographs
I finally managed to get up north to photograph wolves. It's been a couple of years since I've been back there. I'll be posting a couple of new photos each day on my online photography gallery. I've also created a new photo album just for wolves. You can find the link on the left menu of my gallery as well.
Camera Body For Sale (Canon EOS)
Looking for a great film camera?
Mine is for sale on Ebay.
It's a Canon EOS Elan 7e (with eye-control focus).
To see the auction click HERE.
UPDATE: I sold the camera already! Only a few hours after posting the auction someone from Barrie saw it on Ebay and made an offer on it, so I ended the auction early. I was surprised it happened that quickly, but it's nice and hassle free to sell to someone here close by.
The Mark Of Jane Simpson
A few days ago, it was International Women's Day. I wanted to post a photograph that could represent such a theme. I couldn't find anything that I could photograph to do this, until today. I have a large document that is framed and on our dining room wall. It is a land transfer document from England in 1753. At the bottom is a signature of one Jane Simpson. She could not read or write and had to sign her name with just an "X". Education was not something that was deemed important for women back then. Even for a world power such as Britain.
Women have thankfully come a long way since then and have almost reached an equal footing with men (at least in most modern nations, anyway). But it is not far enough in my mind, and I predict that a woman (most likely Hillary Clinton) will have a serious shot at becoming president of the USA in the 2008 elections. It's about time, because the men in charge around the world haven't exactly done an acceptable job. It's time for someone else to take over.
My First NBA Experience
Final score:
New York Knicks - 109
Toronto Raptors - 103
These are a sampling of some of the shots I took:
The Halifax Cooler
Stocked with only "Alexander Keith's" of course. Thanks to Trevor for passing this one along.
A Nice Surprise Today
I picked up my new camera today. I was told the other day that I had to wait possibly 2 weeks before I could get my hands on one, but I got the call today that a few were now available. It's a Canon EOS Digital Rebel. It has far exceeded what my expectations were already! I've only had it a few hours now and I love it. I had to post a picture of something, anything! So I chose this:
I plan on posting all my new photographs on my new photoblog (I've decided to keep this blog you're on now as my main everyday yakking blog). You can access it by clicking HERE.
Many more to follow.......
The 30th Anniversary Tour
I managed to corral me some Rush tickets yesterday (a pre-sale online) for their show at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto. And they are AWESOME seats! The show is on August 22nd, 2004. I saw them a couple of years back when they managed to get back together again after a gap of about 6 years where the drummer (Neil Peart) suffered the tragic loss of both his teenage daughter (car accident) and wife (cancer) within a year of each other. It certainly looked like the end of Rush and almost the end of Neil at one point. He was choosing between life and his own death.
After realizing that his life was nearly at an end, he hopped on his motorcycle and left home with no intention of where or how long. It turned out to be over 14 months and 55,000 miles in a search for a reason to live. He travelled west to Alaska and then down to Mexico and Belize and finally back home to Quebec. He recently published a book about his journey that he documented in his diary. It details his progress and setbacks in his grieving/healing process, and the pain of constantly reliving his losses. The book is "Ghost Rider: Travels On The Healing Road". It is incredibly well written. It is his second book. He wrote a book detailing his adventures while cycling in West Africa in the mid 1990's.
Since all of this occurred, Rush returned to the studio in 2001/2002 to record a new album, they toured again in 2002, released a new live CD/DVD in 2003, and are embarking on an "anniversary" tour this summer. Even after all of the tragedies and aging (they are all approaching or are at 50 now), they sound better than they ever have!
I'm taking my wife who is not a Rush fan at all, but she wants to listen to all of their music and try to become a "fan" so she can enjoy it. I wish her well (besides, I get to listen to Rush around the house more!).
I Hate Delays!
I'm a very impatient person. I was supposed to get my new digital SLR camera in a day or so, but now it could be a week or two. I hate to wait for things. I feel like a little kid who has just been told on Christmas eve that Christmas has been pushed back until the second week of January. Sorry kid.
In the meantime, I'll be working on a new blog, possibly to replace this one. It gives me 100-200mb of space for my photos. I want a site I can use as an all-in-one. One that I can blog away on as well as use as a gallery for my photography. The photos that I have on it right now are not very good at all. The scans are terrible and don't really show the colour and clarity of them. My new digital photos will be head and shoulders above these old things.
I've been building it over the past couple of days. It looks like a good start, but I find it is really slow. Let me know if you find it slow too.
The link for it is HERE.
About Me
My name's Kevin.
I live in Canada.
I have many interests, most of them deal with history and wildlife. I love to photograph nature and I love to collect historical items. You will find most of my everyday posting here (dealing with Canada, nature, photography, history, etc., along with the everyday goings on in my life.)
Feel free to leave a comment (there is a link for them after each posting). I also have a few other sites which you can find below on this menu.
Going Crazy.... (Wendy)
The Eyeranian
