Medicine Hat

Yes, that's actually the name of a place. A real place. And the best part?

The people who live there are called "Hatters". Isn't that fantastic?

Anyways, I went out there yesterday to spend the day with a friend, and had a great time. I associate The Hat with, well, pick-ups, chewing tobacco, and cowboy boots. And we did encounter a bit of that - minus the chew, thankfully - but we also managed to locate a couple of really interesting restaurants, and to find the COOLEST tree to take some pictures of.

The tree was kind of by accident. You see, Medicine Hat is the home of the world's tallest teepee. With, coincidentally, the world's worst paintings on it. In any case, it really is worth a visit, and so we decided, since neither of us had spent much time there before, to visit it. Captivating as it is, the thrill only lasts so long, so we decided to wander down into the ravine/gully/valley thing behind it and take a look.

Definitely worth the look. Hope you like the pictures... there are a couple more here.

Furry

When the little chick and I were on our way home from a weekend in the mountains, we saw some things off to the side of the road. Well, I did... she was engrossed in a Franklin book in the back (for those of you keeping track, no, she's not reading yet, but she wants to be), and decided to stop for a look. I pulled off to the side, grabbed my camera, and tossed her up on my shoulders. We went out and had a look, and they turned out to be big-horned sheep, as far as I can tell. In any case, I think I ended up being more impressed than she was. Oh well. At least she has Franklin, and I managed to get a few shots off.

Here are my favorites:

There aren't that many, but you can see the rest here.

Faces

More pictures... some of my favorite faces from Rome.

I like these ones. Yes, that's partly because I took them, but I like to think that even had I not been the one to pull the trigger, I'd still dig them. I got some new filters for editing, and tried them out on some of these shots... and I'm pretty happy with the results. Let me know what you think.

You can see more here - enjoy.

Body Language

More from Rome... these people just stood out to me for how they moved, how they were standing... something about their physical presence. I hope you enjoy them.

You can see the rest here.

Flowers And Stuff

I called it scenery, just because I wasn't sure what other label would work. Turns out, though, that it's primarily architecture... sorry if you were hoping for anything else. In any case, here are some of the pictures:

The Colosseum and somebody's arch.




The Trevi Fountain. If you plan to use a tripod there, try not to let the police see it. Whoops.




The Forum.

You can see the other ones here. It's probably worth saying, though, that the pictures aren't all up yet - more are loading as I speak...

Devil Is In

Here are some things I noticed while I was in Rome. No particular theme running through them beyond that, but I hope you enjoy them.

You can see the rest here.

Rome Pictures - Couples

Well, I'm back, and the parents and I both survived our Roman adventure. I'll write more in the coming days, but just wanted to get a first set of pictures up for you. It's such a beautiful, romantic city, and so one of the things that I noticed a lot of were couples interacting. I have quite a few pictures that I'll be getting up over the next few weeks, but this will at least get you started...

If you squint just right, their faces almost go together to form one single (though slightly cubist) face. I like that.






No, it's not fair, but that's just the way it goes.

You can see the rest here. Enjoy!

She's Very, Very Quiet

You haven't been reading any comments from my mom lately, because she's here with me. She and my dad are over for a visit, which is also the reason I haven't been writing much - I've been pretty busy with them and with the little chick.

We're going to go to Rome for a few days, and I'm pretty excited. I think it's going to be a pretty nice break from work. And they make the best coffee in the world. And I'm going to take a bazillion pictures. I'll even show you the good ones.

Other than that, I don't have a lot to report. I hope you're doing well, though.

Airport Security

As time goes on, I find myself less and less concerned with who may be carrying a bottle of water onto a plane, and much more regularly affected by people who seem to have missed health class on the day that they talked about why showers and deodorant are a good idea every day.

I'm okay with them making people take off their shoes as they go through the security check. But maybe instead of sending the shoes through the x-ray machine, they could just take that opportunity to give them a good smell; if they fail the smell-check, it doesn't matter what the machine says... they don't get on the plane. They can either take a shower or check themselves into the hold.

THAT I would wait in line for.

Ca Marche Pas

I was going to start by saying that France isn't like a third-world country.

But I've never really traveled in a third-world country. So maybe I should just say it isn't much like Switzerland, Canada, Germany, the US, or the UK, in terms of it's technological prowess.

It all started when I had arrived in the Lyon train station - I was going to meet Korey and Jenny there, and since I arrived a little before they did (train vs. traffic), I wanted to sync up my mails. I had seen signs for the wifi (or, as I learned that the English call it, whif-ee) availability in the station. So I booted up, searched, and, sure enough, there was the login page. It gave me the option to log on with an existing account... as long as it's with a French provider. My Swisscom credit works in other countries, but, I guess, not in France.

That kind of became a sort of theme.

Anyways, they had another link to buy time if you didn't already have an account with one of four French phone services. So I clicked on the link, and this is what I got back:

Le serveur n'a rien trouvé à l'adresse spécifiée.
Veuillez nous excuser pour la gène occasionnée.

A rough translation is "did you make that up? we don't have that web page - better luck next time". Well, I thought, it's probably just because I had tried to access it from the English start page; the English versions generally receive a little less in terms of testing than the French pages. So I navigated through in French, and got the same error.

Okay, no whif-ee.

I eventually did meet up with Korey and Jenny - we found the campground and decided to grab some groceries. We hit the nearby Champion (a French grocery chain), and when we got to pay, I pulled out my Visa card. The card reader was one of the ones that seems to use the chip instead of the strip, and mine has never worked that way. Still, most cashiers feel much better if they've tried the chip first, no matter what assurances I give them.

So, she tried the chip.

Oddly enough, it didn't work. Choking back the instinct to try to remember the translation for "I told you so", I suggested that perhaps the strip may yield a better result. She shook her head, and hit the card reader with her hand... and tried the chip again. And this continued for several minutes - the cashier swearing under her breath, hitting the machine, yanking my card out and shoving it back in.

Well, I guess the good news was that, by the time she got around to trying the strip, it didn't work, either. I ended up trying four other cashiers over the course of our visit, and my card, it seems, doesn't work anywhere in their store.

When I was looking at train schedules to get back to Lyon, to get back to Geneva (more on that in a forthcoming post), I managed to find my way through the French national train site to identify the ticket I wanted to buy, the date, the class, the seat, my address, name, phone number. credit card info, favorite flavor of ice cream (chocolate), turn-ons (long walks on the beach), first pet (a fish... pretty sure he had a name, but I don't remember it)... and hit "process"...

To get a message telling me that, due to a technical problem, my transaction had been canceled. No indication of what the problem may be, what role I may have played in it, or how it could be resolved. I tried several more times, always with the same error, and just gave up. I could buy a ticket at the station before I left... on a much earlier train in case there wasn't room on the one I wanted.

Oh well. They do make lovely wine.

Hey There

Well, I'm in France with friends,and have been internetless; which is why it's been a while since an update.

The French also use a crazy keyboard. It's taken me 18 minutes to type this much correctly, so this will be short. But when I get home, I'll fill you in.

Interesting points so far:

• Another slight timing/date confusion
• Some magnificent cigars
• My first... uh, exposure... to topless beaches
• Sleeping in a tent again - it's been a while
• Being in the French Riviera and feeling vaguely like it's actually Holland

More to come, when I get to a keyboard where you don't need to use "shift" to get to the period. I don' know who thought this one was a good idea...

Oh, THAT Thursday

A chat I had with Korey this evening:

6:45 PM Korey: YOu there?

6:46 PM We are picking you up in Lyon on Thursday morning, correct? Jenny was a little unsure when she heard your message!

6 minutes

6:52 PM me: Yeah - I think we had said 10, which is just when I get in... let me check the ticket again to confirm...

Arrival is scheduled for 10

6:53 PM I was just wondering about electricity... do you know if there are plug-ins at the camp site?

Korey: I don't remember their being plug-ins. One sec and I'll check their web site

6:54 PM me: [tapping foot]

;-)

Korey: Ha!

It says that there is electricity on every plot.

To that sounds positive.

...

7:03 PM Korey: Do we have your mobile?

+41 2131 XXXX?

7:04 PM me: Yeah, in one fo the emails... that number is my office in Lausanne, that I called from today

Mobile is +41 79 506-XXXX

Korey: Right, got it. Just in case, you know?

:)

Okay get packing!

7:05 PM me: Yeah, probably a good idea. Also, what's your car like? Besides having the steering wheel on the wonky side?

Korey: Blue Honda Civic. 2000. Very bland. Beige interior. Small brown moose hanging from the rear-view that goes by the name of Guillaume

7:06 PM 5-door

Sedan, though, not the hatch back.

me: Okay, when I'm outside of the station, I'll just ask for Guillaume

Korey: Like yours was.

Yeah, that'll work awesome.

me: Sorted.

See you tomorrow

Korey: No!

Thursday!

7:07 PM me: Wait... I missed that part... I thought it was tomorrow.

That could be an issue... okay - I'm going to see if the ticket office is open...!

Korey: Tomorrow is Wednesday!

7:08 PM me: Crap, I do this all the time

Korey: We leave here tomorrow morning, take the ferry to Calais, overnight in Dijon and then to Lyon on Thursday!

me: The ticket is correct - for the 19th

I just put it in outlook wrong

Korey: LOL

Apparently, the oxygenated water is going to take a little while to kick in.


Rats.

The Dublin Pictures - Part II

More from the city that Bono's from. Unfortunately, he's not in any of these, but still...

You can see the rest here. Some fun colors here, I think.

The Dublin Pictures - Part I

Okay, I haven't been able to edit them all, yet. But I've done some, and you can see them here.

These are some of my favorites so far.

Rubbish

Well, it's been an interesting week for flying.

I was in Munich for a couple of days last week before heading to Dublin for holidays. There are three flights from Munich to Geneva each evening... at 5 PM, 7 PM, and 9 PM. I booked myself on the 9 to be sure I could put in a full day at the office, first. But it looks like things haven't changed much since I worked there regularly a few years ago. At that point, I would usually book the 7 PM, but the 5 would be delayed enough that I could get on it by changing my ticket at the airport. The 7 would then be very late, and the 9... well, they were lucky if they actually made it.

So it occurred to me as I looked at my 7 AM flight to go to Dublin that, perhaps, booking myself on the 9 PM back to Geneva the night before was not a great move. And it was late... very late. The Geneva airport closes at midnight, and I've had a flight actually drop us off in Lyon, France, and then we had to take buses back because we were too late. Well, we got in at about 12:15, but they kept it open for us.

Going to Dublin (via London) was a worry because my flights were with two different companies, so if Geneva/London was delayed, the London/Dublin people really, really wouldn't care. Or compensate me. Or make sure I get there later. So I was pretty happy when that went okay. And getting from Dublin back to London was smooth and easy, too.

The problem came when Science Nathan and I were sitting down for a burger before our London/Geneva flight. We had checked in, but decided to eat before security. As Nathan was waiting for his food, I sat down and was a bit surprised at the sound coming from the arcade across the concourse... it sounded suspiciously like a fire bell. Curious that they would allow that in a public place like this, I thought - it could be a problem if people heard it and actually thought it was an alarm.

Well, turns out it was an alarm. Before long, we could hear the classic British announcement... in a calm, polite tone: "Please be aware that a fire alarm has been sounded in this area, and you are advised to evacuate immediately".

But there didn't seem to be any fire... and it was upstairs (and we were downstairs - just by the escalators so we could hear it), and there was, after a while, a security guy there who didn't look very concerned. So we waited, and watched.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

The check-in/security areas were evacuated and closed off for some time. And we ended up getting home late... once again, after the airport actually closed. But we did make it, and I'm pretty sure there was no fire. The highlight, though, was the guy sitting just behind us while we waited, talking to a couple of young American tourists.

"Well, it's simply rubbish," he said, "there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to identify the location of the alarm, to determine the nature of the threat, and then to make an appropriate response and announcement in 15 minutes flat". And he carried on in a similar, knowing kind of vein for a good ten minutes or so.

He was, of course, a meteorologist.

I hesitate to even put this in, because it was so, so good, and I am failing so miserably at capturing it. But he was just so... English. It was wonderful. I mean, he was utterly ridiculous, but in a really transporting kind of way. It made the whole delay worthwhile.

But now it's good to be at home... for the first time in a few weeks, I will have a while week here, and I'm really looking forward to it.


Oh, and in other news - I just looked out my window because it sounded like there was a fight on the street. But it's actually my neighbours, who, I gather, are watching soccer. The Euro cup is on again.

Hooray.

Go, Finland.

Hi - My Name Is Darryl and I'm From the Plane

So, I like it here. And by here, I mean Ireland; Dublin, actually.

We just arrived yesterday and, as the myth goes, the Guinness really does taste better here... not as bitter, and yes, I am sure it is not just my imagination. I was expecting that to be a real hoax, but it's true.

But besides that, the people are so, so friendly. Everyone I've talked to (and, when you get lost as much as I do, you get the chance to talk to a lot of people) has been incredibly helpful and cheery. No one has given me wrong directions just for the fun of it. And a lot of them even smile when we're talking. Plus, they have the coolest accent. And really, really good beer.

And not just the Irish are friendly - as I was shooting today, I had a couple of Italian men (one with a very, very small dog) come up to me to ask about my gear. They knew by site the lens I was using (nerds!) and we chatted for a while about pictures, about gear, and about why everything costs twice as much here as it does in the US. And, on that note, one of them offered to buy the lens from me for as much as I had paid for it (well, it and a few other little accesories). It was pretty funny - I thought he was joking, but he kept offering. I didn't go for it, and thankfully they didn't sic the little dog on me. That could have been a problem.

We did have another little dog who caused a bit of trouble later in the day, though. As we were looking around at a church, Katie and Robyn decided (naturally) that they would like to roll down a grassy hill. Which, given the options you may have when faced with the question of what to do with a grassy hill, in general, is not a bad choice. Anyways, they did, much to the consternation of a small and rather aggressive dog across the lawn. He came tearing over, threatening to nip at the heels of the poor girls, until I stepped on him and killed him.

Actually, I didn't - his owners came over and collected him. But it would have made for a better story. Oh well.

Before that, I was in Munich, again. I worked there for quite a while, a few years ago. And you know what? I never thought I would say it, but it was good to be back. I like the Germans... their food, the way they look, their architecture, the language. Yeah... it's been a good week.

Hmmmm.... we have dinner plans and I need to go. But I'll try to update you a little more on the trip tomorrow. Happy weekend, all!

Are You Engaged?

I'm not sure what it is, but the last two times I've been out shooting, I've had people come up to me and want to talk. Now, I'm not opposed to that - not exactly used to it in Geneva (though there were a lot of people who wanted to know more about what I was doing in Stockholm), but it's kind of fun.

I'm starting to think that it could be a good way to make new friends, should I ever find myself in short supply. There have been a couple of guys who have come up, despite my headphones being in and game face on, and talked for a while and then offered to get me a drink at a cafe if I was up for it. In both cases I wasn't - I had some specific shooting I wanted to do with limited time - but it was pretty friendly, I thought.

Now before someone makes a reference to my fellow concert-goers for the Kylie show, let me just say that I'm pretty sure these guys were not Kylie fans. They were in different cities, but both said more or less the same thing - that they really liked meeting new people from different places, and made a habit of just going out to see who they could find, having a drink with them, and just making new friends.

It occurred to me that it's not that different from what I do with my pictures, in some ways. And there are probably some people (like me) who wouldn't feel strange about taking pictures of total strangers, but would be a bit freaked out by just going and starting conversations with random interesting-looking people in the street. There are others who would probably feel the opposite.

Curious.

Anyways, I guess I'm happy to be counted among those who look interesting enough for people to stop and talk to in a language that's not their own. I always feel like I should give them candy or something after, but I'm not sure that's a healthy instinct.

Anyways, what I was shooting for in Geneva (and where I got the title for this post... for those following along at home, I am not, in fact, that kind of engaged) is a local community outreach program called engaGE (since, "GE" is the abbreviation for the canton of Geneva). It encourages people to get involved in helping the homeless, the lonely, and others who need a hand in their city. You can keep an eye on their site, and eventually you may see a few of my shots popping up.

Sheila

I was thinking that a sheila was a female kangaroo, and that made me wonder if anyone was actually named that in Australia.

But I looked it up, and it's actually slang for a woman.

So, my question remains. But besides that, the fact is that the Aussies have the best slang in the world. Take these examples:

Bluey : pack, equipment, traffic ticket, redhead
Bluey : blue cattle dog (named after its subtle markings) which is an excellent working dog. Everyone's favourite all-Aussie dog.
Bluey : heavy wool or felt jacket worn by mining and construction workers.
Bluey : bluebottle jellyfish
Bingle : motor vehicle accident
Bonzer : great, ripper
Budgie smugglers : men's bathing costume


And those are just the highlights of the B's!

Once again, I fear that I may have been born on the wrong continent...

Good Little Traveler

A while ago, I was considering joining a blues band. I don't know what I was thinking... I really don't like blues. I guess I just like to play; thankfully, the band never got off the ground, so it saved me the trouble of having to figure it out the hard way.

Anyways, I thought that "Good Little Traveler" would be a great name for a blues band. And it's based, as you may have guessed, on the little chick.

Well, we're in Canada now, which is what reminded me of this. She did great on the flight, but it was almost a close call. Even though I bought an adult ticket and an accompanying child at the same time, they had our seats reserved for a dozen rows apart.

"Why," you ask? Who knows.

Anyways, the guy at the Geneva airport noticed it, but didn't have access to the Air Canada seat system, so sent a message on to Frankfurt. When I got there, they managed to get us in two aisle seats, one behind the other. I guess if I would have waited, I could have flagged down an attendant to try to change the seating, but I figured I'd give it a go, first. I thought maybe we could sit side by side in the middle section, and the person who had a middle seat beside me would be happy to trade for an aisle in the row in front. Ideally, we could even trade out to a side section where there are only 2 seats... much easier to keep the little chick contained if there's a wall on the other side.

So, it turns out that asking older Germans to trade seats is kind of a pointless exercise. They either didn't understand why I felt I needed to be next to my three year-old daughter, or they grasped that, but failed to see what it had to do with them. I tried a few people, and no one was willing to part with their previously-assigned seat. Alrighty, then.

Eventually, I noticed a woman in the side section a few rows in front of us. I went and asked her if she spoke English... and she did.

Good start.

I explained what had happened, and asked if she'd be willing to take one of our seats. She said "of course" and, in fact, was packing up and ready to go before I even finished explaining. Then I just hoped the other person who was supposed to be by a window would be just as understanding.

Thankfully, she was. She said she was flying solo on this trip, but had had the same thing happen with her kids before, and was happy to help. And the little chick did just great.

So it makes me wonder... when they get two tickets booked at the same time, on the same credit card, do they do some kind of seat lottery to see where to put them? Or was there someone who looked at our names and ages, and figured that I might like to have a break on this flight? Either way, it seems a bit strange. I'm glad it worked out.

We're enjoying being back... and, despite the jet lag, have had a wonderful couple of days so far. I think it's going to be a good week.

How have you been?

Prague - The People

Okay, here's the next (and final) set. The people ones were tough this time... not enough light to really get the sharp focus I wanted with the gear I have. There were some that turned out nicely, though. You can see the rest of them here.