October 2008

Moving from the east coast to the west coast of Canada wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. Yes, I hate being away from my family, but the environment isn’t too bad. The familiarity of being near an ocean, all of the national stores, restaurants and customs. However, there are some things which are different across this true north, strong and free. Groceries are one difference. This one is mostly related to Vancouver’s huge international population. Fortunately the vast diversity in the types of restaurants and cuisine available here outweigh the odd fish-smelling supermarket. It isn’t the content of the stores per se, but the feel of them. They feel tired.

The biggest blow for me came today however. I had a craving for cheesies for a few days and at one point over the weekend I was in a drug store and stopped in the snack section. It wasn’t a huge selection and I was disappointed but not surprised they didn’t have exactly what I was looking for: Humpty Dumpty Cheese Sticks. So I left thinking I would have to go to a proper grocery store and pick a bag up at some point. So today I went down into the mall to the “Great Canadian Superstore” in order to pick up a bag. They had a huge aisle dedicated to potato chips and related snacks, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Nothing Humpty Dumpty at all in fact—no Party Mix or Ringalos. A dark fear started tugging at my mind, very subtly. I went back up to the office and told my friend Ken that I couldn’t find any Humpty Dumpty products.

“What’s Humpty Dumpty?” He replied.

So that answered my question. Humpty Dumpty is available in Ontario and points east, but not west. It turns out Old Dutch, which is quite popular out here, bought out Humpty Dumpty last year. Some of their products have been re-branded and released out here, but mostly just the potato chips. I have seen Party Mix out here somewhere, IGA I think. The buzz online is that Cheese Sticks are hard to come by and most people have friends and family bring them out from the east coast. I guess that is one more thing I can look forward to when I go home for Christmas, along with reasonable cheese prices, donairs and good pizza.

At work this past week, there was a need for someone to take some photos around the office with some of my coworkers as models. Long story short, I ended up being asked to help out with the photos. So I brought in all of my equipment which included my off-camera flash setup (light stand, umbrella, PC-sync cord, etc.) in order to a somewhat professional job of it. At the moment I have a long cord which I run between my camera and my flash unit. This isn’t a problem when I have things setup in my apartment as I tend not to move my stuff around all that often, and when I do, I am not in any hurry.

However, when shooting people in an office environment, it was somewhat inconvenient to have to connect and disconnect my cord all the time to move around. Most of the off-camera strobe people tend to advocate the use of wireless triggers for their flash work. The big player in this field is Pocket Wizard, but they are a tad pricey with the receivers and transmitters all being over $200. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some cheap triggers known as the eBay triggers which work in the same way, only not as reliably. I decided that I wanted to go wireless too, so I compromised with something in the middle, the CyberSync from AlienBees. When I was ordering those, I realized that I would need an adapter between the receiver and my flash unit. Their site recommend FlashZebra for all of my cord needs.

And I’m glad they did. It is like a flash cord mecca. If you need any sort of lighting cord or adapter imaginable, then they likely sell it or can get it for you. And above all, their customer service is great. It is a small startup company, but it delivers great quality cables at a great price—quickly. Definitely recommended.

Things have been quite busy at work lately, with 14 or 15 hour days not being uncommon. I have finished up one particular project which was causing a lot of that, and I am now focusing my energy on another project which I find if not more interesting at the moment, certainly more enjoyable.

And there is a light—I’m not going to say at the end of the tunnel, but perhaps a crack in the side of the tunnel. I have booked a trip to Edmonton for a few days in November. I’m really looking forward both to the break from work, but more importantly visiting Mike, my friend from Dalhousie. I was also born in Edmonton and the only time that I’ve been back since I was less than a year old was for a week in 1991. Yea, I was nine and I certainly didn’t appreciate it as much as I could have. So this is my chance to soak it in. That soaking may well take place through a camera lens, but so be it. It may well take place in a series of restaurants and pubs as well, and so be that too. :)

So if I don’t post anything before I venture into the heart of coldness that is Edmonton, know that I’m still kicking, but also working away diligently.