It’s be ages since I last updated you, my dear internet!! I got carried away with my life in glorious Australia and need desperately to retroactively chronicle my adventures. Expect me to do so in the semi-near future! In the meantime, the gist of it is this: Australia is awesome. I’m now in Vancouver working at Digital Domain on some live action goodness, and I’ve got a metric crap ton of chores that need to be done. Relocating my plot of interspace was a priority as my lease on it expires in 3 days, but that has now been taken care of so I must cross off some other priority items.

I’ll be back soon! And I’ll bring photos!

My wife and I decided to head out to the Blue Mountains for Valentine’s Day, and so I can now say that I’ve finally ventured further outside of Sydney than the airport! We picked up a rental car and ventured out on Saturday to spend the night in Richmond, giving ourself lots of time to relax and just be unrushed with our trip. Figured that this would be a good idea as I have never driven either in a city or on the left side of the road, but it also ended up being a good idea as not 30 minutes on the road we ended up with a flat tire! When that was all resolved however, we continued on our way, and arrived in Richmond after sunset, had ourselves a great dinner at a placed called Embers Wood Fired Pizza, and tucked ourselves into bed for the night.

On Sunday, we continued on our way up to Mount Tomah. I’ve had a new reversal ring for a while that I’ve been meaning to try out on my broken 50mm 1.8 II lens and this proved to be a pretty good day for it. I have to say, that I quite thoroughly enjoyed the Botanic Gardens, and am pretty happy with the photos I took. I heavily recommend checking out this place if you ever have the chance. We’re looking forward to scoping out more of the Blue Mountains when we get the chance.

Happened to be out in the Humber Valley in Toronto in May 2010, around the time that this white floaty stuff was in the air. I’m assuming that it’s seeds of some sort. Gave a very calm, magical type of feeling. Reminded me a lot of some keep alive effects that I was currently doing at work, and is kind of nifty reference imo.

This is an older video that I took, from May of last year, but I think it’s cool visual effects reference for water running down glass.

Welcome to the New Allegro Digital! Make sure you update your RSS feeds! I was a little later than expected with bringing this new layout live, but I’m pleased with how it is working. In my last post I mentioned that I had gotten a flickr account up and running, but now I’ve got a better connection between that account and this site so that I can automatically update images in the gallery as I update flickr. Things aren’t so automatic with the video section, however I do intend to update regularly as I’ve currently got a backlog that I want to process and add each week. I’ve just added four more videos to the VFX reference page in the Multimedia section. This is a section where I hope to share some random video that I capture while out and about. There isn’t much from a narrative point of view in this footage, but rather I want it to be a library of live action footage that will help visual effects artists figure out effects that they may be working on.

A new year always seems a time for reflecting and looking forward, so to the side you’ll see my new list of goals for the year. Last year I met the majority of my goals. It was a blast getting back on stage and doing some live music again. It’s something I want to keep doing when I get the chance, and while I fell short of my musical goals last year; I think that it’s worth trying to be a bit more practical about it this year and rather than setting out to record x number songs to focus on improving in general.

Participating in a Competitive Tournament for Left 4 Dead 2 was also a fun experience. Team Awesome (my team) ended up losing to the team that won 3rd place, unfortunately partially due to having only 3 teammates present for the match, but also largely due to the fact that you have to play these games an insane number of hours to know all the ins and outs required in competitive play. I still love L4D, and of course all games in general, but I think I’ll stay out of competitive gaming in the future. It’s just so much of a time sucker and can feel more like a chore than a game.

Speaking of gaming, the downside to being a consumer I guess is the tendency to buy things. I sometimes find a game I want and buy it because it’s on sale though no time to play it. By the time I do get time, it isn’t necessarily my first choice to play. And so I have built up a small collection of games that I’ve either never played or have only just barely played. Assassin’s Creed, Drake’s Fortune, Dragon Quest V, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, and Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus are all games that fit into that category. I decided to make my way through these games last year, but after participating in the L4D2 competition, I also tried to just have fun and play games that I was in the mood to play rather than just forcing my way through games because I felt obliged to. Loved all these games by the way, but once I accomplished the final goal in my list by moving to Australia, it seemed that my options for completing my collection of games were suddenly limited. I got part of the way through Twilight Princess, but made the decision to leave all my video game systems in Canada when I moved and so have not gone though TP, or the two Final Fantasy games on the list. Some other games that I ended up playing (and loving) last year include Scott Pilgrim and Megaman 10 on PS3, and thanks to my laptop finally beating River City Ransom and Act Raiser. But I’ll have to wait until I’m back in Canada before I can touch my GameCube or PS2 again or finish my munny. I must say, I’m somewhat partial to the lack of clutter now that I have fewer possessions with me.

I did get the Wheel of Time re-read done though in time to start and finish The Gathering Storm before my move, and have picked up Towers of Midnight and read that here too. I thoroughly enjoy this series and kudos to Brandon Sanderson for picking up quite excellently where the late Robert Jordan left off.

I did end up making a triptych though and a bit of other printed work late last year. For those interested, I can have prints of any of the photos in the gallery made and shipped internationally. The price is largely dependent on the size however, so if you’re interested in having a print, hit me up and we can work out the details. The ones that you see in this triptych for example are 12″(~30cm) by 18″ (~46cm) each and start at $150 US per print for canvas prints.

First thing’s first: I opened a Flickr account! So now you have even more ways to stalk me! I’ve had a growing interest in taking photos for quite some time now; photography is an activity that I’ve been interested in for years, but couldn’t really afford to get into. It can be a rather expensive hobby for those who want to get real slick control over how their photos will turn out. Over the years I’ve had a few consumer level cameras and was never happy with the results. When I went on my honeymoon I had to borrow a point and click camera from my mother in law as my camera had broken years ago. I got some snaps on that trip that I was happy with largely because they were capturing memories, but was rather frustrated both with the fact that it was a borrowed cam and that I just couldn’t get the fine tuned control I wanted to get when it came to focusing on specific objects or the shutter speed. I decided that I didn’t want to go on more vacations without getting a “proper” camera of my own and so in November 2009 after doing my research, I splurged on a Canon 7D.

Fast forward to September 11, 2010. I’d just looked at about six apartments in my quest to find a more permanent place to lay my head at night and decided to stop off at Bondi Beach for some photo ops. I’d gone by briefly one day but hadn’t had the time to really stick around. This time I brought my 50 mm 1.8 II, as well as my EFS 10-22mm lens. I started at the south end of the beach, and did a little bit of climbing on the cliffs looking for some interesting features on the rocks to photograph, and then eventually worked my way to the northern end, stopping about halfway along the beach to get some photos of the massive kites that were flying in anticipation of the kite festival that would take place the next day. I then continued on my way toward the cliffs at the northern end and eventually out onto the rocks. Bondi is a rather impressive beach in my opinion. Nothing really compares to the sand dunes of Prince Edward Island’s beaches, but there’s a reason that this is such a well known beach. I really do have to recommend you take a look at the photos I’ve made available at the very least, but you should also pack your bags and go see it for yourself. Aside from the cliffs, there are some fantastic splashes that happen on the rocks at the northern end that are a pretty impressive spectacle to bear witness too.

The thing that you need to keep in mind however, is that water is a force to be reckoned with. Many people fall victim to these splashes each year… mostly unaware tourists who don’t really get how quickly the swells can grow in size. This unfortunately includes myself. While I was getting closer and closer to these splashes getting video and photos, I hadn’t realized that the swells were getting larger too. I thought I was safe enough, but eventually a wave came in that instead of splashing against the rocks, swept right over it. This brought just enough water over the rocks that it was impossible for me to retain my footing and I was swept backward, over the rocks, and into a pool of salt water. I got only some minor wounds… some surface cuts on my legs, belly, arms, and feet… and in fact appear to have fixed an injury that I’d developed in my knee earlier in the year. Unfortunately my new iphone that I’d purchased not a month earlier, my canon 7d, and my two lenses fell victim to the salt water. I attempted to flush everything with spirits and fresh water… but the electronics had all been on at the time, the lenses aren’t weather sealed, and I wasn’t able to get any of it properly taken care of before the heat had already caused the parts to start drying. It was a very expensive day for me with little consolation but that my memory card still worked and I was not seriously harmed.

Now, for the happy ending. November 23rd was my last blog post, but it was also when my wife was en route to Sydney to join me, and with her, she brought a brand new Canon 7d. Huzzah! I’ve now decided that photography is too expensive for it to remain purely a hobby. With that new 7d also came me having to replace my 50mm 1.8 II (which I “upgraded” to a 50mm 1.4) and repair my 10-22 mm lens. Cameras and lenses are expensive, and I can’t justify all this expense unless it’s more than just me enjoying the photos. This is the reason why I’ve started my flickr account, and this is why in the near future I plan on redesigning my site again to have more of a photo centric point of view. There are more lenses I want, and I’d really like to be able to pick them up by selling prints of my work. I’ve done a few for myself, and one for my parents for Christmas, and would like to think that there are people out there that would like some for themselves. In the meantime, I’d also like to point to some sites out there where people can go to find information on photography if they’re interested in getting more into it. I haven’t taken any courses in it, and have either found these sites to be very helpful, or am looking forward to looking at them some more as I need them.

1. Canon EOS Beginners FAQ – Wow. This one is intimidating. It’s very comprehensive, but I can’t tell you how amazing it was to have something like this to read when trying to figure out what all the camera jargon is, and how lenses differ. This is the mother load of information right here, and it’s not for the weak of heart. I learned so much from this FAQ.

1. What lenses for my digital SLR (Canon) – Some short and simple suggestions of what some lenses are that you may want to pick up if you’re shooting with a Canon DSLR.

1. The Best Canon EOS Lenses – Bob Atkins Photography – Another great resource if you’re looking for some quick suggestions for the best lenses available.

1. Photography-on-the.net – An invaluable resource, the link in particular that I’ve linked to, where you can really see what type of photos a given lens will provide. These forums are a fantastic place to go for info and while I’m essentially just a ghost on there, looking but not contributing, I can’t stress enough how useful I find this site.

1. Canon & Nikon Digital SLR Camera and Lens Reviews at The-Digital-Picture.com – While the above link may be fantastic as a forum, and for meta-review, I find that this link is another great place to go for a more detailed, coherent review on various equipment. Personally, if I’m spending hundreds of dollars on a piece of equipment, I like to know what it is I’m getting myself into. The more info, the better.

1. Lensplay – Find A Lens – While the sites listed above will talk generally about what lenses are the best, this is more of a database that lets you search based on focal length, aperture, or price. Lenses have a reasonably detailed description and will specify whether the lenses are weather proof or not and are user rated so it’s a pretty decent resource when you know you want to start looking for a specific type of lens. Also helpful since you’ll be able to find lenses from lots of different manufacturers.

1. LensHero | DSLR Lenses – This one is a brand new website, but it seems like it is also quite useful. I own a Canon and so of course tend to look at Canon centric sites for my information, but this is a handy lens centric site that will allow you to see what’s compatible with your camera whether it’s a Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Fujifilm, Olympus… the list goes on. You type in your camera body, specify your budget, and a broad style of lens that you are looking for. The results are a little odd to me… I can’t figure out why they’re listed in the order that they are…it doesn’t appear to be alphabetical, or by price, or by the field of view… but the results are useful if you’re constrained to a particular budget and want to find a lens that you can afford. Each result comes up with a small blurb and some ratings, and you can click on it to get some more detail. My personal opinion though is that the site doesn’t have detailed enough descriptions about the lenses to make this worthy of being the only place to look for info. I feel like I’d rather search for a lens based on my needs and worry about the price later… but perhaps that isn’t the same agenda that everyone has, and it’s always nice to have a few sources to go to to find information since this is an expensive activity.

1. Great Colour in Blurb Books – A Terrific hour-long video that a friend of mine sent me just last week that details how to predict what your colours will look like in print.

1. Gizmodo Photo Challenges – Love these. I’ve only presently had the time to participate in but a single one of these challenges myself, but it’s fantastic seeing the results each week of these challenges. I certainly hope to participate in more of these in the future. They’re very inspiring and I hope Gizmodo keeps it up.

The first thing to be aware of, is that housing in Sydney can be expensive. You typically pay every other week, and if you need space be prepared to pay for it. I looked at many bachelor apartments (here referred to as studios) which had no space for a fridge or oven in the kitchen, and otherwise was effectively enough room for a bed for as much as $400 a week. That said, I wound up getting a place only slightly more a week with much larger space that included dishwasher, oven, and laundry. The key is be prepared to look at as many places in a day as you can, and be prepared to fill out your forms and submit them on the spot. Unlike in Toronto, when you view an apartment here it will most likely be shown by a real estate agent at a half hour scheduled time with about 15-20 other people. The best deals seems to come when you find a landlord that cuts out the middle man and skips the real estate agent. The best tools I found for house hunting were realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. To counter the expensive rent (at least for us foreigners on long term visas) you will be eligible for the Living Away From Home Allowance. Now while more than one of the ads I responded to on GumTree for apartments appeared to be scams, it can be a great place to find used crap. The 106cm LG TV I got for $300 for example. On the note of ads, one thing that I find a little confusing is the way phone numbers are listed. I’m used to the North American way. All numbers are (xxx) xxx-xxxx. In Sydney however, it seems that there is a different format that is expected between the listing of mobiles and landlines despite the fact that they both have the same number of digits. Lets say you’re listing your landline for someone, the format for this would be: 02 xxxx xxxx. Conversely, a listing for a mobile phone would be: 04xx xxx xxx.

Now that I’m started on small silly things, lets mention that the city is filled with wandering spiders and large flying roaches, yet there are no screens on any of the windows. “Get used to the roaches.” I’ve been told, “When Summer hits, they just fly into your apartment”. It seems to me that they’d have much more difficulty “just” flying into my apartment if there were screens on the window to keep them out. That said, Summer hasn’t hit yet, and from what I understand the missing screens are meant to improve the ability to channel the wind through one’s unit to help cool it off. Maybe I’ll happily trade roaches for a good strong breeze when it’s 40° on Christmas Day. Also be aware that your neighbours will most likely leave their shoes in the hallway. And that sandals are known as thongs. And that raisens are known as sultanas.

When looking to get your phone and or internet (naked DSL is certainly an option) hooked up, be aware that it will most likely take a while. There are a couple of folk I work with who have been in the country a few weeks longer than me, and are still trying to get their interwebs weaved into a working state. I was luck in that it only took a month and three technician visits to get it working. The last technician that visited told me that while my Main Distribution Frame (MDF) is not even close to the worst he’s seen, but I should be considered lucky that he didn’t do the the same as the previous technicians and simply leave since it was unsafe to work on it. You see, the “box” portion of the MDF was non-existent. The wires were just kind of poking out of the wall in the emergency exit stairwell, precariously placed over the stairs themselves so that the way to get at them was by climbing onto the mysterious stairwell mattress and leaning over the precipice. Now that my internet is working however, I am getting roughly 8 times the download speed that I had in Toronto. This means that my lag during Left4Dead is roughly identical on North American servers, and practically non-existent on Australian servers.

What’s the worst part about flying halfway around the world? Well, for me it was taking inventory so that if my crap burned down while in storage I’d have an iota of a clue what to claim and all the stuff that I used to have. But for everyone else, ostentatiously, it’s flying halfway around the world. All that tedious boring sitting, lack of leg room, and jet lag I gather is not terribly fun. Well minions, if anything a life invested in video gaming and digi-computer-stuff has given me, it’s the ability to sit still for long periods of time. Pish-posh I say to you athletes out there, you may live longer than me: but I can and will sit longer than you. I also made it considerably less boring on myself with three core strategies. Gaming, reading, and more gaming. Never go anywhere where you will have to sit still for hours on end without a copy of Civilizations. It’s a game that normally takes hours to play… but somehow I managed to finish up a game within 30 minutes of turning on my laptop. So for the rest of the flight from Toronto to Vancouver, I read up on some of Sun Tsu’s Art of War. In Vancouver, I had a brief moment to stretch my legs while the plane refueled, and then having left my PS3 (and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) back in Toronto hopped back on for some River City Ransom using (and I have no qualms pimping this thing two posts in a row) GameEx.

Now as to the latter of the two demons: lack of leg room and jet lag. Well… when you’re 180+ cm tall like me, leg room can indeed be an issue. But showing up early and getting yourself a decent seat can go a long way toward alleviating such worries. Sit behind a bulkhead, or near an emergency exit if you need to sprawl. And jet lag? Took the advice here for sleeping as though I were already at my destination and experienced absolutely no jet lag when I arrived down under.

That said, as I write this, tonight was supposed to have been the last night before my wife arrived in Sydney. So my freshest tips for the travel inclined? For starters, if you’ve got a long haul flight like this I heavily recommend trying to ensure that you have no connecting flights. For me it was a quick get off for the plane to refuel, and then back on the exact same plane. No rushing through the airport to find my connection, and minimal time waiting around going nowhere. Failing that, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got a good cushion of time between your connections so that you don’t miss said connection. My wife’s Los Angeles bound flight on United Airlines was an hour late due to strong headwinds. That had her landing at the same time that the connection was boarding. Now for some reason, UA decided that even though both flights were UA, there was no need to give her both boarding passes. After deplaning, she had to wait in a line to get her next boarding pass. She was directed to the wrong line. Twice. She missed her connection. Note that airlines will sometimes try to avoid taking credit for their tom foolery. Give them credit. Give them credit, and then take their credit: in the form of vouchers for accommodations.

I’ve been living down under since the 3rd of September now, and have had a number of experiences, both good and bad. This is where I shall spew some of the tidbits that have stuck in my brain thus far. May you benefit from my ways and see the light; for “many wild monsters are said to be lying in wait in the dark below, but remember! The magic of the Southern Cross is always on your side“.

The first thing to note, is that the flight to Australia is a long one. The second thing to note, is that there is a lot involved in moving: the fewer the items you can bring, and the smaller those items are, the better. I made an executive decision not to bring my workstation with me as it’s large and I’d still need to buy a monitor when I got here. This means that I had to find a computer that would suit my vfx, demo reel editing, photography and entertainment needs. Due to the vfx needs this meant I needed nvidia, lots of ram, 64 bits of processing, and a good solid processor. I definitely wanted blu-ray as it would mean I could continue to watch movies in Oz (DVD’s have regions, Blu-Ray doesn’t) and could get away with leaving the PS3 in Canada. I also wanted bluetooth and hdmi so that I could easily use this thing as an entertainment system in conjunction with a tv. I’m addicted to the numpad so I wanted one of those on the keyboard too… and since I’d be doing a lot of work on this thing I needed a decent sized screen too… no smaller than 16 inches. Surprisingly finding a system that could suit my needs was pretty tricky, especially if I wanted to get the system without it costing an absolute fortune.

It grits on me to admit it… I had a little bit of resentment toward Sony after they decided that their customers are not allowed to use Linux on their PS3′s anymore, but I just couldn’t find a system that had a decent price and all my specs without turning to Sony. I ended up getting a Sony Vaio: i7-740QM (1.73GHz), 16.4 inch Display (1920×1080), GeForce 330M GPU (1GB VRAM), Blu-ray Read and Write, Windows 7 Professional x64, 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3. Came to just over $1800 w/ tax and shipping. I have to also admit that so far the system has served me well. So glad that I got Windows 7 instead of Vista too. My only complaints? Well, Windows has some issues still. At first I couldn’t get my computer to shut down. Additionally, after spending mucho amount of time on this one, it seems like Windows 7 is shit when it comes to sound recording. You cannot use external usb interfaces with Win 7 at the moment. Basically, there is no way to do a hardware loopback so that you can hear yourself/record at the same time because the default driver (which 99% of interfaces use) doesn’t expose this option.

You can do this with *some* sound cards, but it is obfuscated with an option called “listen to this device” that is in the sound options for your recorder. This “listen to device” is a red herring and should *NOT* be used. It does not monitor in realtime, and was not designed to do this. Instead, you need to go into the speaker options, and unmute your microphone there. This option may need to be revealed either by editing the windows registry…. or through your audio drivers. On laptops, this is of NO use if you are using the onboard mic. You HAVE to use a plugged in mic, and it CANNOT be via a USB/firewire soundcard but rather through the line in or mic jacks. I cannot verify if this is true for pc based usb mics, or bluetooth mics. For more info, go here. Also, before I go on, I want to mention that the program you see on the monitor of that laptop there is GameEx. A fucking awesome front end for running emulated games on your computer. I consider it to be particularly ace for those times you plan to be on an airplane so long that multiple dates will pass between the start and end of your flight, but altogether lovely for just kickin’ back at home with your pc connected to a big screen tv. With this program I was able to substantially calm my nerves in regard to getting rid of linux on the ps3.

I also ended up picking one of these. Took the two 1 terrabyte drives out of my workstation, and ripped apart a terrabyte western mybook drive that I had kicking around to fill it up with. I feel justified in giving these guys a little bit of grief for not labeling on the BOX that your Motherboard’s SATA port MUST support Port Multiplier in order for your computer to recognize multiple hard drive if the unit is connectd via eSATA. It’s not a concept that I was familiar with before buying this set-up, and so it took me a while to figure out. At first I could only actually make a single drive register on my computer. That said, I bought an expressport to usb3 adaptor and am now getting great use out of this RAID set-up… not quite usb 3 speeds… but still faster than usb2. I definitely recommend it.

Be aware that any electronics you take to Australia must be compatible with the voltage (240V) which most modern devices will be. I got a good scare that I’d fried my hard drives when I first plugged them in. I’d blown a fuse and saw a small wisp of smoke come from the plug for the Probox. What was the problem? I’d made sure to look at the device and make sure that it could handle the voltage. What I hadn’t paid attention to was the fact that the PLUG itself wasn’t compatible with the voltage. I luckily didn’t cause any harm to anything, but here’s a word of advice. DO NOT PLUG your devices in until you make absolute certain that not only the device, but the plugs you’re using themselves can handle the higher voltage. If the voltage all matches, and the plugs all are ok voltage wise, the only thing you’ll need is a simple plug adaptor. If the plug isn’t ok for voltage, you’ll need to buy a replacement plug if possible and use it instead. If your device cannot take the voltage? Leave it behind! Otherwise you’ll need to buy a very expensive power converter. Generally not worth it. The devices I’ve brought with me that can handle the voltage fine include: The laptop, the raid set-up, the Canon battery charger and plug to connect the 7D directly to a wall, my Zoom H4n, my wife’s Yamaha keyboard, my PSP, my Nintendo DS Lite. Oddly, Nintendo claims the DS Lite can’t accept the voltage, but someone on the net (pardon me for not keeping the link) did some extensive research on their own DS and found that the internals are identical around the world. The voltage is ok, but you do need to buy a new plug once you get here.

Despite my annoyance at the cell phone culture, and extra annoyance at the Mac Cult… I found myself looking at the benefits of getting my first cell phone plan when I got to Oz. With a smart phone, I’d be able to check maps and weather on the go. Incoming calls in Oz are free. I gotta say, I’m even more unimpressed with Apple after actually having a phone in my possession. I’m disappointed with companies that feel it’s their prerogative to tell their paying customers what they can’t do with the devices that they’ve purchased. Anyways, long story short, I jailbroke that thingamabob. Not only because it was MANDATORY to jailbreak it if I wanted it off Toronto’s Rogers network but because it meant that I’d be able to use Skype over 3G to make free calls to my wife back in Canada who won’t be here for another week as of the posting of this particular discussion. Note that Google Voice doesn’t seem to work outside of the US for cell phones…

The last big step of preparing to come to Oz for me, was figuring out what to do with my guitar. In all honesty, for this particular model of guitar it may have been more cost efficient to simply buy a new one and be prepared to leave it when I depart Oz rather than ship to and from Australia (keep in mind that moving will be expensive because you are shipping possessions TWICE!), however for sentimental reasons I wanted *this* guitar, and I wanted it to be in solid shape when I was ready to play it here. Youtube, as always, came to my aid. I also was able to get a good sized box for free thanks to the awesome folks over at Metro Sound and Music on Yonge near College in downtown Toronto. Thanks to that box, I was able to pack my mic boom, mic, guitar safely into some NOW Magazines and clothing, and everything arrived in perfect condition. I will point out that it’s key to detune a guitar when taking it on a plane if you want to make sure that there won’t be too much tension on the neck.

Wow! Here I took all this time to do a new layout for my site, and replace the Blogger format with WordPress and what do I do? I disappear for more than half a year with no explanation! Well true believers, the time has come for an update. Where do I begin? The end? The middle? Between the middle and the end? The Big Bang? Well… to be frank I don’t think I can explain the Big Bang well enough to really get into that, so perhaps I’ll skip forward a few eons to where I last left off; July, 2010: The Distant Future. What’s that you say? The post below is from April? I already said I’ve been gone for half a year? Well dear reader… I sometimes say things and then later recall that other things happened.

Back in July I posted a bunch of photos from my Canada Day holiday to Prince Edward Island. They’re over in the image gallery right now if you want to take a gander. I have to warn you though. I have taken many photos in the meantime that I haven’t gotten around to doing anything with. In the not too distant future, I’ll be uploading them and then your world will once again be confusing. Do yourself a favor and look now so that you can keep on track and not be lost in the Chronosphere. Speaking of Canada Day though, why did I make said trip to PEI? Well, it was quite a simple decision you see. I knew it would be rather expensive to fly to PEI for Christmas, and so figured that Canada Day would make a far better time to visit my folks. And just why would it be so unusually expensive to fly at the end of the year? Well… aside from the usual airline gouging, it’s because to fly to PEI for Christmas, I would no longer be flying from Toronto, but Sydney. Australia.

Ok, let’s back this gravy train up a bit. In May a few things happened. I did some outdoor rock climbing at Rattlesnake Point, had a surprise visit from my best friend from elementary school who I hadn’t seen since said school, bought the lovely Canon EFS 10-22mm USM lens which took both of the above photos, turned 26 and went to see Luke Moore’s Houdini Python Master Class the same day, had a movie night with some great friends where I watched Curse of the Golden Flower for the first time, had a great birthday dinner with my in-laws where I had an amazing Baked Alaska, went to see a roller derby game, made an amazing ostrich dinner and dove into the remainders of our wedding cake for my first anniversary, had a wonderful anniversary weekend staying at The Old Mill where we were married, were late for dinner reservations due to someone getting killed in the subway and the entire Bloor subway becoming a zoo, saw some of the most terrifying mannequins in my life at a vintage store in Queen West, and was offered a job at Dr. D in Sydney Australia. In other words, stuff happened like crazy.

June saw me doing some Urban Exploring at a park near Dundas Station. The first scouting attempt netted me some cool photos, but the actual time I went to take photos, I forgot my battery and wound up with nothing but memories. I also tried out True North Climbing Gym, which I heavily recommend for its awesome bouldering, cracks, constantly updated walls, and slack lining. Went to see some Burlesque, and wound up with a rather unfortunate knee wound at a Togakure ryu seminar. Wasn’t until the day after that I even realized I was injured. I don’t blame anyone, and would train again with Dr. Kacem Zoughari in a heartbeat.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, July saw me in Prince Edward Island for Canada Day, where I saw Bachman Turner and Great Big Sea. I also rediscovered some buried treasure. Went to my first Caribana parade too. Much more disappointing than I figured it would be. It was also at this point that my contract ended with Starz and so while I had assumed I would have more spare time than ever before, it ended up meaning that it was time to start taking inventory of possessions for insurance, and packing things to go to Australia or to go into storage. August was a maelstrom of packing, watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and getting in those last goodbyes before my departure. I got to see my Aunt and Uncle who despite living only a few hours away I had neglected to see in a good number of years, tried my hand at some timelapse videos, saw the fucking awesome Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and then flew 15849 km to Sydney.