November 2005 Archive

***Click on the above link to view the whole November 2005 archive***

November 26th, 2005

Ashley and I went to Montreal this weekend for our two year
anniversary. We decided to go to and see the Penguins at the Biodome and
I have to say that they are the coolest animals in the world!

Usually when you go to a zoo to see animals they are lame and just
sleep or lay around but the Penguins swam, jumped, waddled, frolicked,
nurtured, played, and even….um….did it.

And yet they still can’t fly!

November 23, 2005

This video has been floating all over the net! THE best Christmas light display ever!!! Also check out the site Compfused.com A great place to waste time!

November 17th, 2005

November 15th, 2005

November 13th, 2005

The Backstreet Boys are back….in Chinese form!Hilarious!

November 12th, 2005

Well it took me about a year to get around to it but I copied all the bands from the main page to the bands section that were missing = 46 “new” bands in the BANDS section. Grand Total… over 273 bands ! Wow.

November 10th, 2005

Remember when I used to do this all the time?!
Pictures are up of
The Trews and
Rocketface when they played in
Kingston last night. Enjoy!

November 7th, 2005

November 6th, 2005

Marnie Vaughan looks out of place as she walks out of a
gas station in the bright hot sun of Ventura California. She is on her
way to a figure skating competition with her family from MontrÈal.

November 5th, 2005

Least politically correct
sign ever! And I found it in California of all places….

November 4th, 2005

So as you read before I came to L.A. 24 hours before my friends did for a Sportsshooter conference. I wanted to shoot something cool and different while I was here and luck had it that I was able to. On Wednesday night while I was catching an elevator from one level of LAX to another I saw a Red Hat Lady. Now if you don’t know what The Red Hat Society www.redhatsociety.com is then you should check out their website but basically it is a society of women over the age of 50 who wear purple and red and have red hats. They say “We believe silliness is the comedy relief of life” and the whole philosophy comes from the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph. When I am an old woman I shall wear purple. With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens . . . But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple. I had met Red Hat ladies before in Saskatoon and they are all wonderfully quirky and exciting people so a light bulb went off in my head that I could make a cool photo story from a convention like this. I found out where and when the convention was and on Thursday I made the best of my 24 hours and went to Disneyland park where the convention was and shot a 50’s sock hop dance —->

See The Sock Hop Enjoy!

November 3rd, 2005

So long story short I am going to a Sportsshooter conference this weekend in L.A. I had booked the flight several weeks ago and was all set and had my calendar marked as leaving on Thursday.My friend Aaron and I were going to drive to Detroit and fly to L.A. (for only $220US return airfare might I add!!) only when I received my confirmation e-mail from the airline a couple days ago I saw that I was booked to leave on the Wednesday … not the Thursday…. hmmmm. I double checked and yes… I accidentally booked to leave on the wrong day! Wow… I call the airline and it is going to cost me $200 US to change my flight from Wednesday to Thursday — not worth it. SOOOO… I bought a train ticket to Windsor, bummed a ride from my friends’ Dad to the Detroit airport and now I am in L.A. … 24 hrs before my friends are going to be here to go to the conference. I have nothing but time to do nothing… so what am I going to do? Catch Up! If you haven’t noticed below I have posted some updates from the last week that I have been meaning to put up. I have 24 hours, a few cans of Red Bull, and free Wi-Fi. Time to get everyone up to speed on the life of Ryan!

So What’s new with me you ask? Well something that hasn’t been
new is this site. I have only updated it a few times since I moved to
Ontario which is pathetic, yet I have never received sooo many visits
per day! I have been receiving 1300-2000 visits a day and my bandwidth
(75GB data transfer of pictures) is through the roof! It’s
funny how I am always afraid that if I don’t update very often I will
lose visitors but it is the opposite!

Remember when I wrote about how all my friends (and me) are addicted to Lost!? Well the funny thing about the picture to the right is that same night, after Ashley and I had a “Lost Party” with some friends over to watch the TV show our 80 year old landlord pounded on our door after everyone left and FREAKED OUT at us!

“Goddamnit! Did you have half of Loyalist College up there?! Your
shaking the whole Goddamn house!” He yelled. “I just had some friends
over to watch TV” I said “Do it somewhere else! I told you not to have
parties when you *PUNCH THE WALL* MOVED in here! *SLAMMED THE
DOOR*

Ashley and both had our jaws dropped. We had been in love of our cute
80 year old landlord who seemed charming and his lovely wife but then
all of a sudden we saw his mean side…. We certainly
weren’t having a party that night (we were just watching TV!), we
weren’t loud, yelling, or drinking but for some reason our landlord
constituted that as having a “party”.

Ashley and I didn’t have anyone over for two weeks after that. We
felt kind of uncomfortable (for obvious reasons) as we felt we had to
tiptoe around our own home for fear of our “crazy” landlord.

Then one night I had ONE (yes only one) friend over to help
edit a documentary she had shot in New Orleans last month. There were
only three of us (Ashley, Alexandra, and myself) and all we did was talk
and go through pictures. Alexandra left our place at 12:30am and tiptoed
down the stairs….. the next morning there was an eviction notice!
in our mailbox saying that we had been warned of “partying” before and
that the previous night (when I had ONE friend over) we were
unnecessarily loud and yelling and partying!!! 80 year old landlords
suck! I guess when he had asked us not to have parties in our
place he meant NO GUESTS AT ALL! That is completely unreasonable
and a landlord can’t tell a tenant (especially if they are paying
$850/month!) to not have guests or “live their lives” so we left!

If we had really wanted to stay at our place we could have fought the
eviction and stayed (since he didn’t have a solid case for kicking us
out according to our lawyer) but we decided to leave anyways. We didn’t
feel comfortable in our own home which isn’t the way it should be with
any rental property.

Luck also had it that there was an available
apartment above the place where
Ashley works which was in a better location of town, closer to the bus
terminal, more modern, AND $200/month cheaper so it was all a blessing
in disguise.

Moving all of our stuff was super smooth. We pretty much had all of our stuff moved out of our old place and into a moving truck in half and hour and then moved out of the truck and into our new place in half and hour.Ashley and I went to a thrift store and bought a matching green couch and sofa chair for $10 and we even found that the cable TV wasn’t disconnected when the last tenants moved out = free cable for us! (or until we get caught *knock knock*). Anyways I’m still in LAX and starting to get really tired… maybe I will take a nap…. everyone else around me is doing it so I will too! -Ryan

November 2nd, 2005

One of the worlds busiest
airports and I’m the only one here!

Passengers were asked to stand outside the LAX terminal while a bomb squad checked a suspicious bag.

The threat turned out to simply be a suitcase accidentally left unattended. The terminal was reopened shortly after.

So after my adventures of last week for the Eastern Canadian News
Photographers Association (longest name ever) convention I am now going
to Los Angeles (or well I guess I’m already there)

I was out of the LAX terminal for not even 5 minutes taking pictures
and two police asked me to leave. I first thought “damn homeland
security!” then they told me it was due to a situation… I looked over
and there were a dozen “bomb squad” cars lined up!

I investigated and there was a suspicious package left in a terminal. I
shot a bunch of pictures but then the threat ended as it turned out to
be a false alarm. I only got a few shots in before the terminal was
reopened but wouldn’t it be awesome if I paid for this conference with
freelance spot news too!

November 1st, 2005

I miss the good olí daysÖ Where I am living right now in Belleville Ontario there is no ìscene.î I took a job working at a bar (The Shark Tank) in hopes of shooting lots of bands but its really just club nights with a band once in a while. Next week I am going to see The Trews in Kingston but it wonít be the same. It wasnít until I left Saskatoon that I realized how great a city it is for music. Our scene was small, but you got to know everybody and that made it strong. There are always shows going on (at least once a week or so) and a lot of bigger names have been coming to Saskatoon which is great. Something I have always loved about Saskatoon shows (and Regina) is access. Since we are ìsmallerî we typically get to see bands in venues like Louisí and The Bassment that often play in much larger venues in bigger cities. We get to stand closer and be more intimate with the bands even at Prarieland Park and Credit Union Centre. I look super forward to coming home for Christmas. Hope too see you all then! I really miss the music….

My friend Tom actually took this picture of the menu at a
restaurant we were in last weekend.I don’t even know what
“kind” of restaurant it was, and we could hardly understand the
waitress, but it was the best “kind” of food I’ve ever had.

Didn’t try the dish on the left though…. when I order
chicken I want the meat…not the bird!