Bloggers Meet in Vancouver

On Friday evening, the lovely Christina invited P and I over to join them in a bbq dinner out on their lovely patio. Since Christina is visiting her family in Vancouver, we could easily meet up since we are only 15 minutes away. Hurray, finally someone comes to Vancouver!

This was actually our second meet up of bloggers. We met TimTom last year in Switzerland while visiting Lausanne. The evening was one of the first evenings of cool summer weather. It was cool enough that all of us were wearing sweaters by the end of the evening.

The meet up was a very relaxing with lots of chatting and very few pictures taken, almost none. We chatted and chatted about traveling and got to know each other much more. I'm sure I'm still kicking myself for not jumping up and taking the photo for the highlight of the bbq "eats", which was the incredible fruit cheesecake which Christina made herself. Holy cow was it Incredible! P is still talking about it but of course that is his absolute favorite dessert. Christina is definitely the queen of desserts!

The boys being camera shy volunteered to take our mug shots for us.

And stay tuned for a special photo post soon!

Photo Practice

I've been busy practicing and learning Photoshop tips and videos.
This website is by far the best site I've ever encountered.


(Just click to enlarge)

I took this photo last night while waiting for the fireworks to begin from Cypress Park.

Owl Soaring

I'm posting the photo hunt early tonight.

Now For Saturday's Photo Hunt 19 - Theme Animals


Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

I took this beautiful photo on Tuesday while up at Grouse Mountain
watching "birds in motion" as they were in free flight.

By the way, Tnchick and I were nominated for photo of the week. Yeah!
RennyBA wanted to know how to nominate, you must visit Tnchicks Site to do so.
Read about the Photo Hunt to nominate each week the best photo (100 participants now).

And I'm working on figuring out the type of owl. I still don't know the answer.

Pick of the Day

I'm Taking it easy today. Here's a pic that I know a few people will love. I do!

Sculptures a top Grouse Mountain. Wolf pack.

Busyness

So I've finally found a solution for my Raw image problems. It's a long and slow process. Maybe I should be working on one photo at a time because it's taking forever! I've finally gotten my Graphic Converter program to stop thinking it can view all of my photos and corrupt them by making them 120x160. That's like thumbnail large but with 6mb of information lost! I'm using Nikon Capture to help curb the problem for now.

In other news, I just got off a 15 minute phone presentation from a company that claims I can get a free vacation to 3 places, all complimentary as long as you listen to their 90 minute sales pitch. 90 minutes is too long. But only if you prepay $200 for your reservation. Well give you back that money when you go to your vacation. Haha - what a joke! All these places require huge travel since they are on the East Coast. Anyone heard of this scam oh I mean great deal?

Oh and I didn't get out to see the fireworks last night although I'm meeting someone tomorrow who might have. Any guesses?

2 Days Playing Tourist

The past two days I have spent playing tourist in Vancouver. My first day was spent down town, shopping a bit, enjoying lunch and people watching. I got in a few funny photos but nothing all too exciting, just lots of sun and blue sky.

I guess my highlight of my tourist sightings was today at Grouse Mountain. I choose to do a bit of hiking to see the views over Vancouver, a bit of watching and a lot of photography. Here are a few highlights.



This is one of the Bears permanently dwelling up at Grouse. This bear was orphaned by it's mother when it was a cub (the mother probably died). Since it has been close to humans, it will always have to stay in a cage environment.


The lumber jack performance. It's mostly a show of strength with a twist of humor on the side.


These boys had a show down in the water which was so funny. Unfortunately many of my raw files were corrupt and I don't know why. This was the best of the bunch that didn't turn out to be 10cm's. I'm hoping maybe Ginnie or CS can help me here!

The beautiful birds were certainly captivating. I was happy I got a few excellent shots in.

I also had a few great views from the top of the mountains but many of those pics are corrupt. I'll see what I can do in the next few days about getting a few more photos up.

Extreme withdrawals

Today is the day that I should be happier, but I guess I'm too much of a creature of habit. I'm going through Tour de France withdrawals. This happens every year when the tour ends and the following day I don't get to watch the beautiful areas the bikers are screaming in and out of.

So let me explain myself more so you understand: It would be the same type of feeling you get when you come back from vacation and you wish that you could keep doing what you had been doing. You were having so much fun and your brain just keeps telling you that it would be better to keep doing what you were doing. You know, getting your way and then it suddenly being taken away from you. Or just like that feeling of having to go back to work on Monday after an amazing weekend.

Well that is what I'm feeling like this morning. I even woke up this morning with my eyes glued shut, said goodbye to P before he went off to work. And I knew that I have 2 days of vacation left. Hmmmm....

So what am I going to do to curb this withdrawal? I guess I'll just have to go out and play tourist today. I'm actually thinking about going up to Grouse Mountain tomorrow because there are great views and I really want to see the wolves and bears up there...

Ok - now if I could only figure out which part of my camera is still dirty, that would make my day much more...

Guess What I'm Doing

I got up early just to watch the FINAL day of Le Tour De France. Floyd Landis has got the yellow jersey and should see the podium today. Exciting stuff for sure. They are already in Paris actually. Why do I choose to get up so early??? 6:41 on a hot sunday morning...

Oh I took night shots last night. I'm hoping at least one came out. Enough said.

Hot Photo Hunt Today

Well I'm slipping a little. I normally put up the photo hunt 12 hours earlier. The heat made me not want to touch my laptop because without air conditioning, it's just way too hot. We have 31C degree heat here near the ocean so it's definitely not a heat wave by normal standards but it still isn't all that pleasant. We are just lucky we aren't in Osoyoos right now where it hit 41C yesterday.

Now For Saturday's Photo Hunt 18 - Theme Action


Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

So why not post an action shot from Penticton of a hummingbird in action. It's nearly a sweltering 38C there today I'm sure.






Okay guys, I'll do my best to go check out your sites but I might be doing it tonight when it's cooler out. Any input on the pics? These little buggers were so hard to photograph.

Nk'Mip Cellars

One of the coolest things about our trip to Osoyoos was checking out all things that had to do with the Indian/Native band Nk'Mip (pronounced Ink-a-meep). Our first stop upon entering Osoyoos was visiting the wine cellar for a great tour. It was quite hot that day, about 30C or a bit hotter so it was well worth going into the cellars.

So here are a few images from this tour.

This first photo is the Symbol seen right outside the Nk'Mip Entrance.


The Nk'Mip believe the turtle is the symbol of perseverance and longevity. It's plastered everywhere. Even the wine cork has a the turtle on it.


P walking into the cellars for the wine tour.

One more from inside the wine shop.

Just one more post to go which was a visit to the Outdoor Cultural Center.

Go Go Landis

Wow - Hexe and I are watching one amazing race on Le Tour today.
This was one nail biting and exciting race.

Landis duped everyone today and finished well over 5:41 ahead of the next person in the race today.

If you notice the map, the tour is nearing Switzerland right now. They are on the border of France, Switzerland and Geneva in the region of Haute Savoie. Looks like this is going to be anybodies race as the tour heads towards Paris.

So now Landis is in 3rd position with only 30 seconds between 1st to 3rd place.
What a great position to be in!

Okanagan Wineries

We learned so much with our visits to the wineries. It was funny because we didn't want to go on a wine hopping tour. What's the point when you know you have to drive? But People who were staying at the same B&B did. One group did 6 in one day.

When they asked us what we did, we went to the best one, got the best tour, got individual attention, and were completely satisfied as a result. We took in the sights, saw more places around the area and got in a small nap. Now that's what I call a good vacation. We purposely didn't do much this time since it was a short trip.

This photo is from the Mission Hill Winery Cellars. We learned about the barrel numbers. The first number states the year of the wine. The last three numbers are just the lot number of the barrel. Each barrel can cost over $1800 CAD for the best oak and about $675 CAD for the cheaper barrels. We could buy a used one for $30 though.


The next photo is of me at the entrance on a very windy day. I tried to get a few pics in of "us" but really I didn't take enough. P hates his photo being taken and I usually hate the way I look.


Here's one last pic from the trip. I think this is the famous peach of Penticton. That's enough for me today...

Our Short Retreat

The vacation time P and I get is rather sporadic and at times not when we'd absolutely like it. But as it turned out, we had a full 8 days of no work. We spent 6 of those days away from North Vancouver which was so nice and refreshing to be away, especially without a laptop or computer. I surely needed that break.

So as it turned out, we certainly did not get off to a good start. I started getting a really bad headache on Saturday night. It turned into a tremendous migrane that was worse than anything I had ever had. I woke up about 1 hour (11:30pm) after I was finally able to get to sleep with the feeling that I wasn't going to hold onto my dinner.

Things just got worse until I realized it was food poisoning that was doing me in. Things finally ended somewhere in the 2am hour when I was finally able to fall asleep. We had a small cup of ice cream that night topped with food colored smarties. I'm deeply alergic to them obviously. I can remember back while I was small that I had this problem. I guess I still have it. I'm sticking to nothing but Swiss Chocolate now!

Lesson Learned - But I assure you the rest of our trip was incredible.

Our first stay was in Penticton at a 4 star B&B. The views were incredible, along with the incredible gourmet breakfast at 8:30am. We didn't do any sleeping in on this trip. But we did lots of relaxing, touring and getting to know more of Canada that P and I have never seen and just enjoying being away from the RAIN!!!! Yes the entire time away, Vancouver was very rainy.

This was the view from our Balcony in Penticton.

We got to see a few t-storms, which I was really looking forward to actually. This pic below is a set of those clouds. I'm still waiting to get a lightening shot though!

I think the highlight of the trip was the 2 wineries we visited.

The first was Mission Hill Winery (more like a castle or villa) found at the below post and in these two pics. We had a nearly private hour long tour along with tasting and learning so much about the wines among the 4 of us.

P already highlighted one of our really cool visits to the Train Museum. We walked a lot in Osoyoos as the weather felt more like Vancouver. We were lucky!

We also visited Nk'Mip Wineries which is owned by the local native people to Osoyoos. It's the only Aboriginal Winery which we were so interesting in saying we had visited.

The highlight for me on this tour was tasting the Reisling ICE WINE. This stuff is like liquid candy, a complete teaser to the taste buds. I'm not sure how much it costs outside of Canada but a standard dessert wine bottle was selling from $59 to $70 a bottle. We decided to go with the $3 sampler instead. The reason for the high price is because the yield is much lower and must be produced at a minimum temperature of -8C. I'd highly recommend trying some if you never have. It's certainly the best dessert I've ever tasted.

The landscape around Osoyoos was incredible as seen above. We always seemed to be somewhere at just the right moment. It was so odd like that but rather cool. I'll save a few more pics for one last post to come.

Frustrated

I went to pick up my laptop right now and dropped it about 6 inches from the floor. Guess what happened? Busted the plug off it. I don't have a battery charger any more. The plug is toast. I'm scared because when I fried that piece, it was $120 to replace. Too much for one simple plug!

Ok - I've got lots more photos. Check out what I have on the side of flickr and also I have uploaded them onto Yahoo but don't know the http address except via emails. I'm pathetic because all I did all weekend was play around on the computer, go for a walk and play some more. At least it keeps me occupied and happy.

Try something like this: Vacation photos

Let me know if you guys can see the album. I'm using P's computer this morning and then I am off later on once the mall hour stores open to see if I can replace my warped plug.

Snow, Trains, and Little People.

ET suggested it might be nice for me to guest-post about some of our vacation time together and I'm more than happy to oblige.

We visited several places but this one stood out for me...

It's the Osoyoos Desert Model Railroad.

A place where grown-ups can become little kids again. For the low, low price of $5, one gets to spend as much time as one likes wandering around a 2000 square feet room packed with beautiful miniature trains, aiplanes, vehicles, boats, people, and scenery!

The first part we saw after we passed the entrance is an alpine setting complete with working ski lift:


A train about to enter a beautifully detailed tunnel:


Oh no! A derailment! Bring in the helicopter to clear those logs!


Vehicles magically travelling along the road without tracks was something I hadn't seen before. The gentleman who built the tracks explained to us that they were following a wire beneath the road. This bus was turning to fill up at the gas station:



What's playing at the movie theatre tonight?

Over 700 houses and 5500 hand-painted little people, definitely a visit to remember.

Photo Hunt After Vacation

So it seems like yesterday that I posted last weeks photo hunt, well my last day online was practically last Saturday so it's quite close.

Now For Saturday's Photo Hunt 17 - Theme Doors

Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

During our Vacation to Penticton we visited a few wineries. Here are two photos of some incredibly large doors from the wineries.



How tall is this door?? I'd guess about 18 ft. This is where you wait for your wine tour.


How many doors are in this photo? Simply a perfectly blue day.

We're Back From Vacation

Ok - first off, major thanks to Ginnie for doing a guest post while we were gone. And yes I love the dog pic. :)

As it turns out, the area that we were in - Thompson-Okanagan, certainly didn't have internet. I was trying to take a good solid break from blogging since I normally never get away from it all. I definitely succeeded since I never once even looked at a computer, nor did I try to find one.

So here are a few quick highlights before I go off unpack and upload the pics. (At least one of us gaining a few extra quarks along the way.)

The weather was incredible.
Temps were from 26C to 30C, and just perfect for our liking.
It was a bit windy but we made sure to leave the majority of the rain behind.
A few beautiful thunder showers (15 mins max of rain at a time).
Pink Clouds and sunsets.
Lots of photos.
Lots of touring.
Lots of walking.
Lots of Relaxing.
And best of all, lots of wine.

And of course lots of time with P to be creative on what to do sans tv or computer. :) I'll be back with more photos to come. So we are back to the land of perpetual rain after visiting Canada's only desert.

Happy Bastille Day to Everyone living in France. I'm sure today was a lot of fun for you all. I got to take part in July 2003 and it was so much fun.

Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks

Okay, I'm an old dog trying a new trick but I'm a new dog in the blogger world and this is my first time to do what's surely an old trick for the rest of you: writing a guest blog. BTW, am I supposed to tell you this is Ginnie from In Soul? I haven't a clue about how this works once I hit that "publish post" button.

When Expat invited me to be a guest on her blog (while she's on vacation, of course), my immediate reaction was to be very honored. Thank you, Expat.

Then I panicked! First of all, I've never done it before. Secondly, our fried DSL circuit is in the process of being replaced and, in the meantime, we're on dial-up. Aha! That would be my good excuse to get out of doing something new.

As you see, there's enough curiosity in me to kill even this dog (me, not Shadow!). I know Expat loves animals and will be smitten with this one. He's just now turning 2 and is still a pup at heart. Donica's mom bought him for Lee, her husband, but as things like this often happen, he (the dog) follows her around much more than Lee. Must be all her good cooking!

Anyway, here's to wishing Expat and P all the R&R they need during this time away. Traveling mercies, nice weather, great photo ops, and all that good stuff. They deserve it!

Photo Hunt Before Vacation

Now For Saturday's Photo Hunt 16 - Theme Signs

Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Here are some of the strange signs that I've come across in my travels. I really found the cutest sign, it's located at Starbucks close to our place and well I didn't have my camera. So these signs will have to do in its place...

And while we are at it. This will be my last post until another week because P and I are on vacation! Yeah!!! We might have a guest post or two while we are gone. I guess that will be a surprise too since I don't think I'll be checking the Internet at all.

Oops, I couldn't resist being a bit nostalgic. Here are some signs with me in them from January 2002 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Somewhere near the UN

And

Goodbye from Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

And I'll leave you with one last strange sign...



Goodbye Vancouver, we'll be away enjoying our short vacation...

Summer Delights

Summer
Originally uploaded by thnkfst.

We are winding down and getting ready to go on vacation. Busy days but at least one more post to go. Thought I'd post a few photos I've neglected.

Last night I broke down and got the remote to go along with my Nikon. This is so I can take a few photos while not being right next to my camera or so that I can walk away for a while at night and come back to see what the world has done.

I'll be sure to post these photos if they ever turn out. I plan on doing a few during our vacation because we will have a balcony with a view. I can't wait. The funniest thing is that the remote weighs less than a key and probably costs less than a dollar to produce. It's very easy to loose or wash!

I'll leave you with a few more photos.

Shouldn't summer be like this?

And one more to come shortly.



This is P above Interlaken at Harder Kulm. We took the cograil/finucular to get up to this point with panoramic views which make you want to gaze forever.