I am so behind that I am finally getting around to looking at some 2700 (that number is a little high because there is a bunch of coaxial in Stop motion in there) photos that I took on our scooter camping trek to Salt Spring Island way back in July 2007 (and yes I am aware that it is 2009)

These two stuck out so I will blog them.This is a long exposure of our beer fridge

This field ruined all our shoes and socks

In other news Snowboarding was the Suck today as there was all sorts of crazy rain coming down on Cypress and it was so foggy out that while riding the chair lift i couldn’t see the chair in front of me.  It took me forever to come down a green run because you just couldn’t see anything so I bailed and came home instead. I tired to get all the people that i was meeting on the hill to come and eat Enchiladas and watch snowboarding videos but the rain kept the snowboarding portion of the North Shore Crew at home.  Your guys loss really the Enchiladas were the awesome! :)

So I know from past experience that I will build up calluses and will be able to stop whining about how much my pain my fingers are currently causing me! However till then I am going to bitch and complain about it!

Last night ‘the band’ meet over at D’s place and we jammed it up acoustically for a few hours. While there was probably more chatting then playing we did manage to hash out a few things, like the start of what could be a really good song.  I felt so cool strapping my guitar case on my back and jumping on my scooter to motor on over to D’s, like I was the eccentric character in some crazy indie movie that would predictably love, and would insist that everyone around me watch not even once considering if it would be the type of movie that they would enjoy or not.  I came home and tried to come up with something else for a tough part of the song that we were working on. I fumbled in vain for a few hours and eventually had to give it up and go to bed, only to wake up this morning with the fingers of my left hand screaming at me about what a mean inconsiderate ass I am, and thus far they have continued to bitch and complain about what I had done to them and even now they continue to plead with me to not do it to them again!  They’re bitching at me so I will bitch to the internet mostly because my wife is tired of hearing about it!  All said and told I had a blast yesterday and I am super stoked for Wednesday when we all jam again!

So I know that this is both cliché and a day late but I thought I would do a best of, worst of plan to do more of, list for 2007 mostly because I am not very exciting and not interested in working today. So let’s get started shall we.

Music

Best New to me band/artist discovered in 2007 – Well I would have to say that this is a hard one! I will have to say it’s a tossup between Tokyo Police Club and You Say Party We Say Die! (who are playing in Jan BTW) I will say You Say Party We Say Die as because …
Best New album of 2007 - …Tokyo Police Club’s Album A lesson in Crime truly rocked! Even if it’s not much of an album more of a seven song EP!
Best Show of 2007 - Well hands down I would have to say The Arcade Fire show at Deer Lake Park! The Arcade Fire didn’t really come up very often in my play list before this show. They were a good band but for some reason I really just couldn’t get into them! Then in a whirlwind of other great shows at Deer Lake Park that month Arcade Fire came along and showed them all how it was done!

Movies

Best movie - well considering that I haven’t really watched more than 5 movies this will be skewed. I would have to say Sarah Polly’s Movie Away From Her. Awesome movie that really sticks out in my mind!
Worst Movie – Well I haven’t watched a lot as I said and nothing is really sticking out in my mind as an obvious stinker, I will think about it and get back to you!

Camera/Photo

Top 5 Favorite blogged photos of 2007 - Well these aren’t necessarily the best photos that I have taken just the 5 best blogged ones!

Best photo shoot – Well I have to say that they are all great! I know that this is a copout answer but I and supreme dictator in these parts so that is what you get!

Best New Camera

• Film - hands down the Limited Edition Seagull TLR. This was a pretty camera that really surprised me with awesome photos.
• Polaroid - The SX70 has been the most entertaining, mostly because you are never really sure what you are going to get! Is is always a surprise!
• Digital - Well I only bought one camera so it wins by default! The Canon 5D Nice small camera (I decided against the battery pack) that is full frame and has wicked detail. I like it even if the colour is nowhere near as vibrant as our Mark II’s

Other stuff!

Wish I had done more of - Both photo wandering, and photo processing. I know that the second part sounds funny to those that know me being that my year was spent 96% in front of Photoshop and DPP but hear me out. I have about six to seven hundred gig of photos taken over the last few years that I haven’t even looked at not once! I have taken them and placed them neatly in folders on my computer, but I have never seen them not once!
Wish I had done less of - Fighting with computers! I lost probably the better part of a month this year fighting with computer issues. That a lot of time, and Microsoft I would like it back!
Silliest thing I bought this year - Well hands down that would be my kayak! Yup I am an owner of a 3000 dollar Kayak that I have used once! I bought it in the spring when I still had delusions that there was going o be time in our lives! Well that didn’t really go anywhere! This year for sure!
Best thing that I bought this year - Well Hands down Sassy Sally Scooterson! For sure that has provided me with the most joy one can have in 2600km’s.

So yesterday we had my first real Sally scare. NOT to worry there wasn’t and accident or anything (although the car’s track record isn’t so sparkly! We have been dangerously close to mowing down a few pedestrians in the last two weeks and we haven’t really even been driving it.) by scare I really mean Sally had what at the time seemed like a catastrophic failure on the lion’s gate bridge last night. So the story goes like this. Last night was sushi night at Zen Sushi on Marine in West Vancouver. The North shore crew including a couple of Calgaryians that qualify as honorary north shore crew members were meeting Miranda and I at the sushi place and we opted to scoot there mostly cause scooting kicks ass. It was also the first time that I had Sally over the Bridge since the CDI was done by Jiang Wayne, in fact I haven’t really had the opportunity to have sally on the open road since it was done.
I was overjoyed to learn that sally did over 60kph up the south side of the Lions Gate Bridge and the speedo was buried on the way down, which is until it felt it needed to stall. I coasted to the end of the bridge and pulled into a pull out. I tried to start it again but there was a loud clunking noise that comes from the engine area although truth be told with all the road noise going on around me, there could have been a caterwauling cat trapped in my seat and wouldn’t have known. Luckily the north shore crew were driving cars (ick) so I coasted to the tourist booth on marine and they meet miranda & I there. I then tried to start it again and it works! It fired right up!! OK….. I go to spin it around it the parking lot to see if it has power and it stops and won’t start again. OK …..there is a nasty burning smell that wafts in from what we presume is the scooter. Ok….. sounds (smells) broken….We best just go for dinner.
All throughout dinner I am wondering what could be wrong and based on what I know at this point I am sure that the engine has blown or something that was as equally devastating. Diner was good but all I could think about was Sally is dead I am going to be scooter less could I afford to fix her right away or would it be smarter to go for a new sally? Could I afford that?
After dinner Josh and I come back to where it was parked and prepare to tow using Josh’s ruckus and a hunk of rope! (which we were actually quite excited about) While we were hooking up I decide to try to start it once more, and what does it do? it starts up no problem and sits there happily idling! No burning smell no loud clunking! just happy idling, We played around some more till we discovered that it runs till you sit on it. We listened closely now that traffic noise is less and you can hear a snap when you sit on it just before it stalls. WTF……..
When we pulled the seat bucket out and looked with the lights off you could see a spark when weight was added to the bike!! Looking deeper we realized there was a broken wire the goes to the distributor and when the bike flexes with weight the wire would come loose and stall the bike. We repaired said wire and sally rocks on!!
The loud clunking noise and the burning smell really made us think that the engine was in serous trouble. Turned out the burning smell was a campfire and we are working on the hypothesis that the loud clunking noise was because the engine basically stopped at 75/80 km’s and coasted down the hill all in all Sally is a happy camper once again.. Big shot outs to Josh for helping me figure out wtf and Shan & Kimli/Ed for helping cart us around and junk!

Yup dropping her off at Jiang Wayne this morning to get the CDI upgrade done . She will be smokin fast i expect!!!

So over the last two days we have been slowly driving back from Alberta the long way around. Instead of going the most direct way that would get us from Edmonton to Vancouver very quickly we thought we would make the drive fun and go the longest possible way that we could. We went south to Red Deer and turned west at Sylvan Lake where we found the neatest little scooter company that is actually based in Langley BC – Volano Scooters – although we are sure these are the “cheap P.O.S’s” that Jiang Wayne was talking about one time. We thought that it was hilarious that we went to the middle of a field in Alberta and discovered uber urban things that come from our home.

Stopped on the highway to take photos of this old house in the middle of a canola field.

We actually were going to go through the field and check it out, but the canola was so thick we couldn’t even walk. The best we could get is a long lens shot of it from the highway. We stopped in Rocky mountain house on our way to the parks. We took the ice fields parkway south to the Trans-Canada and we stuck on that till we got to Revelstoke where we decided that we would spend the night. We ended up staying at the campiest place ever just for the heck of it! We didn’t set out to stay at the campiest place ever but it just sorta happened that way. Check out the floor in the bathroom! A word to the wise, Round Beds suck!

In the morning we hit the road early but we didn’t make it far before we found a place that we had to check out. This is an old abandoned motel right on the side of the road. We only had to hop one fence to get to it!

So we wandered around with cameras for 20 minutes. After that we weren’t on the road for more then 10 minutes before we found the next abandoned place. This is an old sawmill that looks just like it shut down one day and never started back up.

There is everything still there and not even badly vandalized (probably because it’s in the middle of nowhere.) So we wandered around that for about an hour. We stopped next in Sicamous for breakfast. We found a country breakfast buffet that wasn’t half bad. Because we like to drive places that we haven’t seen before we took the long way home. We went though Vernon and Kelowna as apposed to the quick route via Kamloops. We didn’t really stop anywhere except this.

I have never been to Osoyoos or Princeton so we took the 97 and the 3 home. Fantastic scenery and we found a few more scooters on the way! There is a town called Keremeos that is about halfway between Princton and Osoyoos that was filled with old beat up tractors and well worn Vespa’s as well as wicker scooters!

Because i am Polaroid crazy you get a Polaroid of a Vespa! Again!

Because i am polaroid crazy you get a polaroid of a Vespa!

Tonight we went to IOCO and here is a polaroid to prove it!

So its a photo from our scooter trip to Salt Spring Island! An uber long exposure with me swinging a flashlight around like a mad man!

Miranda on her new Jazz!