focusing in

I decided to have fun today. Below are a series of photos that are focusing in on a shot. Playing with light and focusing in.

Slushy Sparks Street

Yesterday we received about 20cm of snow and today it's raining! Here's a photo of Sparks Street during the lunch hour. You can see the slushy ground. What a mess, not looking forward to this freezing tonight! I guess that's winter here in Canada and more particularly in Ottawa! I am looking forward to warmer weather.

Il Piccolino

Tonight, I went out for dinner at a little Italian restaurant just down the street (in Little Italy) called Il Piccolino. Surprisingly the restaurant was empty, maybe it was the weather as a snowstorm was a brewin'. I had been there a few years ago during lunch and remembered that the food was good, but couldn't remember how good. I have to say that I was pleasantly impressed. I ordered the "esotica" which is a rich creamy curry linguini with shrimp and mushrooms. It was quite tasty, lots of flavour and I would definitely recommend this plate. My friend ordered the "gnocchi" which was even better if you asked me. I was a lot richer and tastier compared to my plate :) The gnocchi was made with a garganzolla cream sauce with roasted garlic and prosciutto. I would have traded plates if that had been an option. Both plates were quite scrumptious, and I would recommend this spot to others. Here's a few photos of the food and resto.

The linguini

The gnocchi

I surely will be back!

New toy

This isn't anything special, geeky or super fun. Well it was still fun. I bought myself a fabric shaver. I had always wondered how these things worked and if they were really worth it. I decided to try it on my scarf, as it was piling like wool normally does and was full of fuzz. After 3o or so minutes, I did both sides of the scarf and pulled out quite a bit of pill/fuzz as you can see on the image. It's a neat little working tool that I purchased for about $10 and works great! Nothing fancy, all practical!

Quick and easy dinner

I decided to highlight my dinner. I got home and went right to doing some cleaning, did a load of laundry and vacuumed the apartment. I figured I had to make myself a quick dinner as I play volleyball in a few hours and supposed to meet a few friends at a bar down the street before my game. I figured I'd cook something quick and easy. Here's my dinner :)

Warehouse retro-fit

On Sundays I've been playing 5 on 5 coed soccer with a new team called The Rebels part of the Ottawa Footy Sevens League. We play on a gym floor which took me a while to get used to compared to where I play on Thursdays which is turf. I'm slowly getting used to the floor and the smaller ball. I had played in the foundry (centre multisport) before, but on their turf fields. The old warehouse has three pitches, two with turf and one with a gym floor. The gym floor is also used for basketball, badminton, volleyball and I've also seen roller-derby being practiced on the space. Definitely a great re-use of an old space. I really like the floor the ceiling windows. It's great during the day, as the natural light fills-in the space. On a bonus, tonight I scored my first goal with the team which felt great!

Team shot of tonight(missing a few players)

Glowing balls

Tonight, I was bowling at the Merivale Bowling Centre. Having not taken any photos yet today, as the weather was pretty crappy, raining all day. I stayed inside pretty much all day. I didn't take a shot of the scoreboard, as I bowled a pretty brutal few strings. So I decided to take a few shots of the bowling balls and my shoes. The light in the room was a bit strange to take photos in as it was a black light lit room.

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!