I think this will be my last pre-China blog.

I’ve been hideously busy lately, shooting, editing, working, flying, doing improv, socializing, trying to get ready for the trip, etc. It’s almost a good thing that I got this new toy from work. I have never wanted a Blackberry, mainly because I feel that they tie you to work, never letting you unplug. But, I’m required to carry it now, even if I decide not to respond to the constant stream of email that comes to it. After some serious mucking around with it, I discovered it’s actually not too bad. I’ve got it configured with my personal email now, it runs Google Talk, and I have customized the desktop with one of my own photos. I downloaded fun ringtones to it too (mine now plays the Charlie Brown theme song). I can now understand the argument that it doesn’t necessarily tie you to your desk, but frees you from it, since you don’t have to run back to the office/home to read your email. Glass half-full, glass half-empty.

I had a fun shoot the other day. I shot a Latin jazz band in the middle of the Humber river. Aside from having to be on location at 7am on a Sunday morning, it was highly entertaining. It was very peaceful when we got there, but a bit chilly.

After a bit (lot) of coaxing, we got the band set up in the water. Aside from the leader of the band, most of them were reluctant to get into the water. But, eventually we were ready to go, musicians ankle-deep in river muck, and instrument stands and stools somewhat firmly supported by rocks.  It was interesting to me that the steel-pan player had recently wrecked his knee, and had only a few days before underwent the ACL surgery that I need. He needed a lot of help from the other band members to get down to the river, and to get himself set up in front of his drums, but it was encouraging to see that he was actually functional and getting around.

When we finally got to shooting, the band was great. They played a few songs, and soon enough, a crowd was gathering on the riverbank, cheering and clapping and whistling at the end of each song. The guys were really getting into it, goofing around, switching instruments, having fun. As the sun came up, it even became quite pleasant to be standing in the river.

Anyway, we shot for a few hours, until the sun was too high to shoot any more. Here are a few of those shots.

I decided to embrace the lens flare, since it was impossible to avoid anyway. In a couple of the shots, I had to hold my hand out in front of the camera, in the frame, to block the sun when the flare got too extreme. I used Photoshop to remove the hand from the photo afterwards.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, this will be my last pre-China post. I’ll be flying out on Monday morning, and I need all the time until then to get ready. I am actually excited to the relative peace and quiet of my 13-hour flight to Beijing. We’ll see how I feel 8 hours in…

I love these ads for online poker, even though I think online poker is ridiculous.

By the way, I wish someone would fix Wordpress so it doesn’t mess up your embedded video if you try to edit a post!

I had a fun shoot today. I’d been planning this for about a week with Misha, Sarah and Amanda, a few models I met shooting fashion shows recently. The shoot was for my good friend Lissa, who is a wonderful designer. I’m glad the weather was more or less good. It was a bit hazy, but it worked out ok anyway. The girls were a bit freaked out by the number of crickets jumping around their bare legs and feet. Modeling is dangerous work!

We had very little time to shoot, because the sun was going down fast. However, the girls did great, and I think we got all the shots we needed.

Well, Montana is known for having wide open spaces. That’s what it is to me, anyway. I’ve been tracking the traffic on my portfolio site for about a month using Google Analytics, and out of all the states, only Montana and Kentucky haven’t sent anyone to see me! What’s up with that?

I find Google Analytics pretty entertaining, although I’m no sure how accurate it is. My other stats package (Webalizer) shows much higher traffic, probably because it also counts people who are linking directly to my images, whereas Google Analytics requires people to load the whole page, and run Javascript too. Those direct linkers will be invisible to Analytics.

It should really be called Not Labour Weekend. But I guess that’s awkward. Anyway, it was a great weekend. A lot of it was consumed by my former roommate Chandler’s wedding. Whenever I’d start a sentence with, “My roommate Chandler…” people would say, “You have a roommate named Chandler?!” It was really annoying. Thanks Friends.

Friday night was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Because I was an usher in the wedding, I had to attend these things. Fortunately, it was mostly painless. Dinner was good too, at a Thai restaurant in Burlington.

Saturday was a banner day. I went to the Burlington Rib Festival, which is the largest rib festival in Canada. Thankfully I’m on a caveman diet right now that allows me to eat ribs sans guilt. It was hilarious. There were about 12 different places to get ribs. Each of them had a huge facade with posters and trophies claiming their wins from previous years. At least five of them claimed to be “Defending Champions!” The best ribs were from Bone Daddy’s. The worst were from some place that sprayed Jack Daniels on them after cooking. The idea sounded good, but the execution was not. They were dry and tough like rib jerky.

Sunday was the actual day of the wedding. It seemed like there was endless picture-taking, ceremony, and more picture taking. The reception was really good. The MC was hilarious, and there were a lot of stories about our past. We had a good time and lots of laughs.

Monday I got to take it easy a bit. Nothing major happened, which is just how I like it. In the evening, I did three improv shows in a row. First was The Bat, which I entirely love. We had a lot of fun with this one. Next was the Big in Japan set, which, again, was fun. By the time Munchausen rolled around, I was all improv-ed out. I think I’ll try to limit myself to a maximum of two shows per night from now on.