Save some steel, ride a horse or a cowboy

Tonight I was out at the Lonestar restaurant on Fisher and Baseline and I saw this saddle in the corner. The restaurant just got a makevover and just reopened tonight. The place looks much nicer compared to before, a good upgrade. The added addition of the saddle just made me laugh, especially when I saw staff drag this metal contraption with a saddle strapped onto it. Here's a dude riding the saddle for his birthday. He seems quite content to be on the saddle. Happy that it was him and not me. Qualifies as good ole Friday entertainment. What can I say, I don't need a lot to make me laugh.

After game hydration

The title of the post and the photo says it all. It was a hard and long game, we lost, but ah well, there's always next week.

Japadog!

This is my second trip out to Vancouver and I've seen this twice, but still haven't committed. Tonight, if I had realized that it was just across the street from where I had dinner, I probably would have just tried it. Next time I visit Vancouver, I'll be trying a Japadog. How could you go wrong with a hotdog that has teryaki, seaweed and Japanese mayo? This company, which I imagine is more than just this stand, has a Twitter account, which really surprised me and added to the reason why I wanted to capture the hot dog stand. I had a good chuckle when I saw the sheet of famous people who have had Japadog and saw Steven Segal's name on there. Surely made me laugh. I was also surprised to see Ice Cube and Anthony Bourdain to the list of notables. I wish I wasn't stuffed from my dinner as I'd like to really try one of these dogs.

Stepho's Vancouver

I had some of the best Greek food I've ever had tonight! Stepho's Souvlaki Greek Taverna had some really good food. We had noticed this spot on Saturday, and by notice, I am referring to the lineup of people outside the restaurant. There was easily 12-15 people on Saturday around 2pm, waiting to get in. We wondered, could the food be that good. Tonight, we were walking around and figured we would find a good spot to eat. We ended up making our way up Davie Street, 2 blocks north of Burrard, and the lineup outside the restaurant caught our eyes again. We decided to go see what was all the fuss about! Theresa went in, and asked if the lineup would go down in a few hours and the front person said not really. We decided to wait the line. Surprisingly the line went pretty fast. It was the first time that I went into a restaurant waiting area to be moved to a secondary waiting area, almost like at the hospital where you go in, check in and then get to see the nurse and then wait again to see the Dr. Well we waited to be seated. Here's a few photos of the outside of the restaurant, the inside followed by shots of the food plates that were very generous! :)



The menu with the blue and white checkered table cloth.

We decided to start off with some tzatziki and pita. The tzatziki was nice and spicy with a good garlic flavor. Some of the tastiest tzatziki that I have ever tasted! The pita was also very special and tasted really fresh. It felt like they just came out of the oven! Really good!

As you can see, the portions for this plate were really big! I ordered the souvlaki, it was a chicken and lamb skewer. It came with rice, potatoes and greek salad. All was very tasty, the lamb was delicious! The whole plate was really good and I would definitely recommend it. The image below is the mousaka. I had never seen anything like it, as you can see from the photo, it's HUGE! Theresa said it was also tasty. There was a good amount of eggplant which she liked very much. Overall, we were both really happy with the selections, and on top of getting good and tasty food it was relatively cheap. It only cost us about $33 without tip, but that also included two soft drinks. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Vancouver!

Evening room view...

I didn't focus on trying to capture a shot during the day, so I had to find something at night. I decided to play with my bigger camera, my 20D and see what a long exposure shot would give me. Here's a few attempts at different shots :)

Visit to Seattle

Today, I went on a road trip to Seattle. I've selected a bunch of photos that I fee represent the best of my day. I joined my friend Theresa and we drove down to what seemed like a pretty rough weather day. There was lots of snow, saw a ditched van, and from the photo, I hope you can see the crappy weather. The snow covered road and sign. However, when we got to Seattle, it was nice and clear. Our day was mostly a little drizzle of rain, but during some parts of the day, it was falling harder than just a drizzle. Glad they have awnings that protect you from some of the water.


The following photo is a road sign that made me laugh. Especially when you consider the person who calls in to be a "hero". I must say that it was entertaining and it did lead to a few laughs during the ride, and don't forget to report violators! Hahahaha.




The following images were taken around The Pike Market. The first was a 3 person band. They were selling CD's at $5/each. I picked up their three cds. We listened to 2 on the way back and I like it. A bit of an East Coast sound but stemming from the West Coast. Other photos are shot around the market,








This was then followed by a visit to the very first Starbucks, established in 1971! Weird that I took so many photos of the place, considering I don't drink their coffee! I did get a few gifts for selected friends who are Starbucks addicts (wondering who is going to get a surprise?).






After our Starbucks visit, we walked down to the Waterfront in hopes of getting a water taxi to Alki, but the taxi doesn't run on weekends. That's not very practical! Anyways, we ended up walking back and noticed a store that I had heard of through my cousin Mat. It's called Utilikilts. They make kilts that aren't just regular kilts, but rather have functional pockets etc. We went in, and found out that that this is their only store, all other retail sales are either done online or at various festivals. Here's a few photos (Check out Theresa who went looking for the bell!):

Theresa found the bell!

The Kilt that holds the beers!

The guy was drinking beer on the job, pretty sweet gig!

Welcome to Vancouver!

This is my second trip to Vancouver :) My first trip to Vancouver was last November, and I had a really good time. A good precedent was established with the first trip, thus giving me high expectations for this city. After touching down at the airport, I went to pick up my luggage, and I was met with a wall of carts (see photo below). When I first saw these carts, I was thinking, wow, how inviting! It reminded me of my football days when I was younger and made me think, if I want my bag on the conveyor on the other side, where's the weakest link and how can I get through! I did the more civil thing and just walked around, but at first I wasn't sure how I was going to approach it. After getting our bags, Theresa got her rental car (nice upgrade, a Volvo S40), she drove me to my hotel where I checked in and dropped off my bags. Theresa waited for me in the car and then we went to Kisha Poppo sushi. Last time I was in Vancouver, I had some pretty good sushi, but this was awesome! This was the biggest pieces of fish for the most affordable price and it was quite tasty and fresh! Check out the photo, the pieces of salmon and tuna were so big, I had a hard time eating it in one bite! Also note the IPhone in the pic, compared to the pieces, they were HUGE! I was quite impressed by this place, and since it's only about 2 blocks away from my hotel, I imagine I might drop in again, as it's well worth the short walk and a good deal on food!

Wall of carts:


In perspective with this shot, it's an IPhone in the upper right corner. Look at the size of the fish vs the IPhone! And the sushi in the photo is not just mine, Theresa ordered two of the plates and I had the plate closest to the bottom. I also had some gyoza before my sushi came :)

Hard at work

This is the first time that I really include myself in one of my photos. Since some people who don't know me well maybe wonder what I do, I figured I'd post of a photo of me at work. Some people may say that I don't work, well this should maybe prove them wrong. It doesn't show me all gritty and dirty (as I can sometimes be when I'm at the farm in New Brunswick), but rather dressed up and moderating a panel. Today, I was moderating a panel on social media. The other panelists were talking about best practices, guideline development, official languages and privacy. It was a power packed panel that was well attended, to a sold out audience in the room and had over 140 people watching on the webcast! To those who were attending and those who watched, I hope you enjoyed the event.

Baby Piracha

Usually my photos try to highlight the best part of the day, well today's photo is definitely a big highlight! Today's experience was a true first for me. I had never held a baby that was less than 24 hours old. Sameya is really tiny. She weighs all of 7lbs and 1oz. She is very pretty, and incredibly quiet. I held her for about an hour and she fussed with her hands and legs, but as soon as she was bundled up again in her blanket, she became super quiet. This is definitely the highlight of my day and the highlight of my week and probably of my month! Here's a few photos of Sameya:

Hanging up the laundry

I didn't get out of my apartment today. I wasn't feeling well and took a sick day. As I am heading out of town on the weekend, I figured I had to do some laundry and thought I'd catch a part of my laundry cycle in my photos. As to save some energy, I use a drying rack to hang up my laundry. Normally, my clothes are dried within 24hrs, depending how much water they have retained. I also do not add any extra heat or doing anything extra.

#W2P Mania...

Tonight I was at a #W2P event that I was co-organizing with two great colleagues. The event was at Milestones on Wellington, near the Rideau Centre. It was one of the most attended events we've had so far, I've only seen maybe 2 or 3 events that had more people. However, I noticed something really interesting about tonight, I was surprised to see a lot of new faces, people that I had not met before. It was nice to see people coming up to me and saying thanks for organizing this event. I worked the room and talked to a variety of people. I am very happy, as my two other organizers should be about this event, as it was truly a social networking event! I figured I'd add some images from the evening, including my favorite name badge, aka Twitter handle and three random facts about yourself. At the last meetup, it was suggested that people add three random facts about yourself. These are nice as they are possible conversation starters for people moving around the room and not just wondering who'se that person via their Twitter name. Here are my photos:



I like my buddy Cameron is waving hello in this one!





And my favorite photo of the evening was a friend, who had the most creative way of adding her Twitter handle, and notes, with a nice little bird, quite stylish!

Out of port

Tonight I was out for a work meeting and ended up hanging out with a friend and we talked about my photo blog, her photo blog, taking photos, etc. Along the booth that we were sitting in, there was this lineup of empty port bottle and I figured I'd take a photo of the bottles as I like their alignment, and figured it would be a nice shot. However, a little irony in this photo, I've never really liked port, for some reason I can't seem to like the taste. I was once told, it will be something you grow into as you get older and as I look at those bottles, I still think: it's not for me!

Watch out for the ice

Yet another sign, this one was taken during another trip at a Winterlude site this afternoon. It's not the best pic, as I had forgotten my P&S at work, and didn't bring my bigger camera out as I wasn't expecting to make it out there, so this was shot with my IPhone. I figured since I had a mini theme of getting unusual signs, this one fits the bill. I kind of reminds me of the signs you see when people are washing floors, warning you about the wet floor and slipping. This is is related, but because of icy conditions.

Icy flow

The weather change from yesterday to today was quite harsh! We had 11C (52) and today it was -12C (9F), but really -22C (-8F) including the wind chill, so any way you look it, it's quite the change and probably explains a bit why I have a runny nose! So today, I hoped to catch a display of how the weather changed and I took this shot which isn't the greatest, but gives a bit of an idea of what can happen when things melt and freeze: