Devauld.ca

This past Saturday, I was the host of the next iteration of our high speed photography adventures. I spent some time in the afternoon preparing the shop by straightening up, and light proofing the garage come studio

Ryan was the first to show up, and immediately we started on setting up the shooting environment. Soon after Mike, Jeff and Mika arrived, and we spent some time oogling Mika's new light capture cylinder and setting up before Kyle finished off our entourage.

We had some problems starting out, getting the sensors to line up, which gave Jeff enough time to almost kill my neighbours while Mike hooked up some food. It wasn't long; however, and we were all in the dark trying to capture the exact moment a drop would hit some surface.

This was a painful point of the evening, as Kyle was punching keys on Frankenputer, and we all speculated if the shot was too soon or too late. My switch to digital made it a lot less costly, but we still exposed billions of photosites before we managed to stubble upon the correct Arbitrary Non-Linear Time Unit that we required to capture the good stuff.

At this point we spent a good deal of time perfecting the drops, and the surface upon which they hit.

The real fun came late in the night. Because of our late start, and slow beginnings, it wasn't until close to midnight that we decided to start with the fun stuff. Dropping large fruits into a bowl filled with thick homo milk sure does make some great photos, but it also makes a great mess.

I spent a good deal of time on Sunday washing the gallon of Moo-juice out of my concrete and wood, before editing up my pictures into this this flickr set.

I wrestled with this week's PhotoFriday challenge. Home is one of those topics you can think of hundreds of pictures for. I narrowed it down to this one of Andy infront of a tiny thatch house, this one of where my home will be once my bones get creaky, and the picture I ended up selecting.

I took the Egyptian family because I wanted something just a little different, and this whole family cramed into a brink shack is definitely different.

This May long weekend, is definitely one of the best I ever had.

Friday was a pretty good day, as most of the morning was spent, donating some blood, and having a blast with all the people working there. After work we gathered downtown in part to celebrate K-Lo's birthday, and in part to watch the first of the Oiler's games. Lyle whooped my but at pool, the Oilers won, and off we went for some karoke. I was grinning from ear to ear, as I left. I knew that I still had many days remaining before I had to go back an serve TheMan®.

Saturday was a day for Paintball. We went out to A field just out of Cochrane, but not before some good officers of the law pulled me over to make sure I knew taht I did just execute an illegal left hand turn. Capture The Flag definitely has a racket going, with each of the 200 people there paying at the very least $40 to be there. Our group was just a little over twenty, so we were able to setup our own games, and know everyone on the field. I had an absolute blast, crawling around in the mud shooting at my co-workers. One of the games, I took the USMC angle: Setup in a bunker, and shoot anything that even resembles something that may have moved. I fired off over 400 rounds in that game alone, which I'll admit is very pricey to do, but is a lot of fun.

Upon my return to Calgary, I quickly got cleaned up (I sure needed it), and met up with a couple of the paintballers for some sushi. The food at Towa is exceptional, along with some some polite conversation, and a couple of drinks made for a great end to the day.

Sunday started out with a family get together. I went down to International Ave to meet up with Uncle Vern and Aunti Sue as well my cousins and a couple of people I've never met before. After a nice meal, and some people watching, we sat out on the patio at Melrose and enjoyed the afternoon sun. I wasn't able to stay long, as I had another engagement to attend that evening.

By dinner time, I was at Dave's house for a bit of a fridge clearing BBQ, before we sat down for some poker. I was the first person to get knocked out, but since it was still early I managed to buy my way back into the game. By the end I managed to finish third, out of eight, which won me my money back.

The holiday Monday, started off wth me working on some erratic things around the house. Something simple to begin with, and before long I had spent the entire day mending fences, tending to my garden, spraying for weeds, mowing, raking and organizing. I did get a lot accomplished, so I don't have that usual feeling of not getting anything finished before returning to work.

To finish off the weekend, Sarah and I went to The DaVinci Code. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. Considering what Ron Howard had to live up to, he did pretty well, but a couple of the divergents from the novel got under my skin. If you haven't read the book, go see the movie, if you have, wait for rental.

Now I must prepare myself for some unconciousness, so that I may be ready for the new day. Although, if life starts to get me down, I'll just have another spin through this video

PhotoFriday threw up one of those challenges where it's easy to fit the bill. Care had to be taken to try and pick a picture that wasn't too cliche. This is what I came up with.

The trouble that today has brought me was nothing short of remarkable. I'm just happy that Fate decided to get all three kicks to the head done quickly, so I can get on with my life.

The day started relatively normal. A morning in the office, and before I knew it we were seeking lunch. We decided to head down to Deerfoot Meadows so that Glen could fulfill his geek. While there I couldn't help but play around with a fantasy of my own. It wasn't long and we were finished with the hour TheMan® gave us and we headed back to the office. A few minutes into the voyage, and Mark found that he could not close his window.

Rage took me at this point. I was pissed that I had just dropped enough cash to feed a dozen Africans for a year on this car, and now something as simple as closing the window was going to get me. All afternoon I wondered about it, and ended up leaving early so that I could go home and fix my car.

As soon as I pulled the Le Sabre into the garage and I was after it. I'm no stranger to the doors of these domestics, as my Caddy often gave me trouble. It wasn't long and unsavoury words were coming from my mouth as I covered myself in some amazingly sticky sound proofing silicone, a bizaar window lubricant and an array of cuts and scrapes. I soon found the defect to be a peice of white plastic about the size of my last knuckle on my pinky finger. At this point, I knew I would not be able to just zip to the part store and pick one of these up without signing over my first born and my left leg, so I set myself towards getting my car mobile, if unsecure, and going to a wrecker tomorrow for the part.

I cleaned up the shop, and threw all the tools I had used up until this point into the back seat; I know I will need those bad boys tomorrow to pick apart the donator that will give me parts tomorrow. I closed the offending door knowing full well that everyone in the world is going to notice that half of the inside, including the glass, is missing. I pulled the garage door closed behind me, and proceeded to throw the lock for the evening. At that moment the key decided to break on me.

Disbelief took me at this point. How could something as inconvenient as this happen to me twice in one day? Luckily I hadn't yet completely thrown the deadbolt, and I was able to use brute force and ignorance the door to open the door to my shop. I had just finished throwing the guts of my car into the back seat, so I new it was road ready, but I did take a second to remove anything I would miss if someone did decide to steal my car.

A quick trip to Home Depot, and I was back in the shop ready to change out my lock. I had a very hardened resolve by this point, so the fact that the new lock didn't fit, didn't even phase me as I chiseled out large sections of my door. Lady luck also made sure that I didn't have the lock in there just right when I was done, so that I would have to take it apart and put it all back together again.

Once again, I was happy. I knew that my problems were fixed enough for the moment, and there was a strong desire within me to BBQ up a steak I took out in the morning. I skipped up the stairs and made my way to the bathroom all the time thinking about the smell of the sizzling steak on the BBQ. I couldn't believe how messy I had got. I was mainly covered in whatever black sticky product the General Motors Company used to seal up their doors. Soap didn't seem to make a dent in the stuff covering my forarms and face, but I did manage to soak my hands long enough to get them to a sanitary level where I could cook food. I pushed down on the lever of my newly renovated sink, and the drain didn't open.

Defeat took me at this point. Before I fully acknowleged the problem, I had a plan of attack, but I knew that today definitely was not my day. With the help of a trusty screwdriver I pried the drain open, and before long I had the innards of the sink pulled apart. It was easy enough to fix, but the coincidental spit in the face elightened me that fate can be a real bitch.