It's one thing to bitch about a problem, but I find it a lot more useful and rewarding if you can provide a solution to go with it. Below is an email I wrote to the Executive Chef, Andrew Gass, of the Metropolitan Grill on Stephen Avenue.

Hello Andrew,

I was a guest at the Metropolitan Grill on Stephen Avenue this evening, coming in for a quick meal before starting a late nights work on a large project. I've enjoyed meals at your restaurant before, which is why I chose it - aside from the fact it's also a mere block from the office.

After being seated, my server took my drink order of coffee and water, and asked if I wanted cream and sugar. Typically I drink my coffee black, but only if the coffee is good. So I asked the waitress how old the pot was. Her response of 30 minutes or more prompted me to ask for the cream and sugar, and frankly, it didn't help in the slightest. I've honestly had better coffee at Tim Horton's and Mac's, and their coffee sucks.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that coffee at 6pm is not likely a big item for you guys. But this is really a lot more about quality. The waitress should have realized that a patron actually asking how old the coffee was is a sure sign they're interested in it's quality. I'd have been willing to wait for a fresh pot.

A fresh pot however is probably not the best answer. She'd have served the two cups I managed to drink, and the rest would have likely gone to waste. Waste is something to be avoided, and is just an unneeded cost.

Perhaps a good solution would be to keep a few French presses on hand. This eliminates the problem of a pot of coffee going stale, provides a great personal touch as the server brings the unpressed carafe to the table, and results in a much better cup of coffee. Pretty much a win all round really. No wasted coffee, much higher quality product delivered to the customer, and a personal and higher class experience.

You may already be aware of the growing number of niche coffee companies in Calgary like Phil & Sebastian's, and Kawa Cafe - I'm sure they'd be happy to talk with you about getting a properly ground coffee for French press, and perhaps provide some options on even higher quality coffee than you presently stock.

The Black & Blue Angus burger served with the risotto was excellent - but the bad coffee was a serious distraction from what could have been a great dining experience.

I just hope on a return visit, the coffee problem will have been fixed! I'll let you know what happens and if I get a response :)

So the other night while taking shots of the c-train I had an odd thought.

And the thought just wouldn't go away, it just seemed like so much fun!

Typically when you see a light stream shot it's a stationary photographer shooting something moving with lights on it.

So I reversed it! These are all extended exposures taken from my car :) Generally I had the camera braced on the dash, or against my shoulder.

The last shot is of a lit elevator button as I moved the camera. None of these have been processed, these are straight from the camera.

Despite my utter lapse in posting, I still make time to get out with my camera and find things that capture my imagination.

Watching R and her fiendish compatriots in crime in K-Country light up jack o'lanterns with alternative fuel sources for Halloween for example.




Short series of shots of the crosses on Memorial Drive




Initially attracted by the shiny flashy lights, I noticed the cool reflections I was seeing on the BMO window fronting 7th Avenue.




And this is my first foray into black & white photography. There are some challenges unique to this style, and it's going to be fun mastering.

I have been seriously negligent and slack in updating lately.

Ok, who am I kidding. It's been more than a little while since I last updated with anything. It's certainly not for a lack of things going on, or topics that generate a strong response that I'd normally blog about.

Like this.

The whole H1N1 vaccine fiasco in Calgary with Alberta Health Services? Ye gods and little fishes that was a cluster and a half, and the way the media positioned the story was absolutely shameful. The Calgary Flames went through what they considered an accepted route to arrange a private clinic for their players and staff. A perfectly reasonable and normal thing to do, something which is done every year by private companies who wish to innoculate their at risk staff. And make no mistake, the Flames are at risk and a risk to others if they are unvaccinated. They spend a vast amount of time in close quarters with the team, and they travel extensively. Even if they weren't specifically sick, the chance of them spreading it in airports and planes is huge.

From their stance, it was all above board and approved. Public clinics were open and the government had indicated very clearly they had enough vaccine for everyone in Alberta and that there was no prioritizing of the flu shot.

Shortly after they had their own clinic, the same day actually, the story breaks that there isn't enough vaccine to go around and that the clinics are being closed.

That the media sold this as a story about privileged players queue jumping was just enraging. This was an absolute failure on the part of Alberta Health Services and the Minister responsible. It's been reported that AHS has fired two staffers as a result of the fiasco, and I'd go so far as to describe that as some of the worst scapegoating I've seen in Alberta recently.

I sincerely hope my fellow Calgarians and Albertans won't buy it, and they'll demand Ron Liepert's head on a pole for this abysmal failure. Liepert was responsible for this absolute public policy failure, and deserves to be out on his privileged ministerial ass for it. Dealing with a pandemic is a well researched and documented subject, and Leipert chose to ignore *all* of that. Worse than ignore, he threw the plan out and implemented a last minute devil may care type measure.

A little while ago I saw the following on Twitter:

How many of you bought a newspaper today?....just what I thought. Thanks. Now my kids don't get Christmas.

I'd be hard pressed to tell you the last time I bought a newspaper. These days even if there is a free one kicking around in a coffee shop I can't be bothered. Why flip through page after page of advertising and get newsprint all over my fingers? The most interesting thing a modern newspaper has for me these days is the comics, and I get better ones in better quality online. Free. Local events of interest? I can find those on twitter and facebook assuming a friend hasn't already passed it on. Local news? Yeah, if I want so much spin on it that you're dizzy for an hour.

I'm not being facetious here folks. Newspapers are so irrelevant to my life I can barely explain it. They want to tell me things that happened the day before. I don't need to know that, I already know about it. I especially don't need to pay for the privilege of stale news poorly packaged between one oversized ad after another, and to have to carry the damned thing around with me.

These days I get people from Metro and The Calgary Herald trying to hand me a free copy of their newspaper at every downtown c-train station, and I never take one. It's so bad I'll actually swerve *towards* a panhandler to avoid the aggressive people trying to force their stale dead news into my hands. Back off! When I want news, I know where to find it without having to kill a tree to get it.

And $261.53 for a subscription to the digital edition? That's so much fail I can barely speak. $261.53? Really? Do you know how much digital content I can legally access for free? Look into it. I spend less than that a year on data charges to my blackberry accessing the news I'm interested in, never mind what the local newspaper *thinks* I'm interested in.

When newspapers make themselves relevant again, you can have Christmas back. Sorry man.

If you don't find yourself in that set, check here!

This was just to ... *right* to not just repost in it's entirety. Kudos to opaqueplanet for sharing the love ;)

Did you know that Trafigura dumped toxic waste off the Ivory Coast and Carter-Ruck tried to cover it up?

See what happened was Trafigura dumped toxic waste off the Ivory Coast and Carter-Ruck tried to cover it up. A British MP thought this was a little fishy, so he was going to ask about it at question period. But when Trafigura dumped toxic waste off the Ivory Coast, Carter-Ruck tried to cover it up so hard that they put a gag order on the British press saying that they couldn't report what elected representatives were talking about in Parliamentary question period, nor even make reference to the question number, the MP posing the question, who he was asking, or why they weren't allowed to report it. (The answer to all of these questions of course is that Trafigura dumped toxic waste off the Ivory Coast and Carter-Ruck tried to cover it up. Also tax evasion.)

Eventually common sense prevailed, the gag order was lifted, and the poetic irony of it is that more people will know that Trafigura dumped toxic waste off the Ivory Coast and Carter-Ruck tried to cover it up than would have ever known or cared had not Carter-Ruck tried to cover it up in the first place.

You could do a Google search for more info, but damned if I can think of an appropriate search string...

A little while ago I posted about a very cool water filtering system called the Lifesaver Bottle. A number of people expressed an interest in either purchasing one for themselves, for donation to an NGO or both.

Now's the time to step up ladies and germs, I'm making the order at the end of the week! So if you were serious, let me know ASAFP which of their products you want, and how many. Then just email transfer me the money to cover the purchase. Anything left over after placing the order will be donated to an NGO providing clean water to a disaster area or third world country.

If you know someone that was interested as well, feel free to either point them in my direction or have them bulk in their order with yours. I'll be having them shipped to a very cool friend in the US who will then ship them forward to me.

I've also sent a letter to MEC about carrying this in combination with a campaign to donate a portion of sales to getting them to NGO's and areas in need of water purification.

I'm still working out my wording for the email/letter I'm going to send to Members of Parliament, but for anyone who wants to make their own stab at it there's a list of the current MP's email addresses here

I'd decided to take this lazy holiday Monday easy, and figured a wander around the neighbourhood photographing various bits of graffiti would be a great way to do just that. After a mere couple good finds though, I kind of ran dry and just wandered down 17th Avenue.







Which is when I discovered a cool and rather timely event taking place in Tomkin's Park courtesy of Artists for Quality of Life. A Cut-A-Thon in support of AIDS Calgary. Timely because I'd actually planned on a haircut today! This happened to save me a trip down to Chinook though, and I have to give Kevin props for a great haircut. He's probably the second person in the history of haircuts I've had that didn't use clippers. The fact it only ran me $20 didn't hurt my feelings either, and I'm happy to see that modest amount go to a great cause.




Even better, he's apparently just relocated to a new salon which is within spitting distance of home, which is hella cool.

www.chromehair.com
Suite 100, 933 17th Ave SW
403.802.5868

Calgary police were on scene this Labour Day in Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary after the discovery of a body near the road entering the park off of Bow Bottom Trail SE.

I can't recall where I heard about Lensbaby, but I'd never actually been to their site or seen one before. Having rectified that, I am now in a state of lens lust. I'm also more than a bit happy that they are a Canadian company.

Want!



Double Glass (Multi-coated Optical Glass Doublet) included
Focal Length: about 50 mm
Focus Type: Manual
Aperture Type: Interchangeable, magnetic aperture disks
Apertures: f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22
Minimum Focus: about 18" (45cm) / Maximum Focus: infinity
Size: 2.25"(5.7cm) h x 2.5"(6.35cm) w / Weight: 3.7 oz (104.9g)
No electronic communication between the lens and the camera body
Available in mounts for Canon EF (EOS), Nikon F, Sony Alpha A / Minolta Maxxum,$
$, N70, N75, N80, Kodak 14N and ProN, & Fuji S1, S2, and S3.

The photos from these lenses are also just too cool for words, I recommend checking them out!

So now I have a Lensbaby *and* the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM on my drool list. Of course, with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM running in at about $1900 US, I suspect the Lensbaby will be the first of of the two I actually manage to get my hands on.

Mortal combat!

This shot leaves me nigh speechless. The chance of snagging a photo like this? Wow. So many things have to go right...

This may be the best rant about 'Nice Guys' I've read to date. Effing EPIC.

Firearm safety fail!

Source : Stanford




They discuss a lot of cool features, but this one in particular impresses me.

The process of high-dynamic-range imaging is to capture pictures of the same scene with different exposures and then to combine them into a composite image in which every pixel is optimally lit. Until now, this trick could be done only with images in computers. Levoy wants cameras to do this right at the scene, on demand. Although the algorithms are very well understood, no commercial cameras do this today. But Frankencamera does.

It could be seriously damned cool to run linux on my Canon EOS 40D. The ability to script a lot of possible features is *very* attractive.

Source: JON GAMBRELL (AP)

It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn't hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.

The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.

And to make it even more fun....

Prosecutor Lindsey Fairley said Thursday that he didn't plan to file any felony charges against the officer or Payne. Fairley, reached at his home, said Payne could face a misdemeanour charge stemming from the scuffle, but that would be up to the city's judge. He said he didn't remember the name of the officer who fired the shot.

Doesn't remember the name of the officer?! Are you kidding?!

I am frequently astounded and amazed when I watch TED presentation, but never so much as by this one. With the expenditure of 2/3's of what the UK spends in a year on foreign aid, all of the third world could have immediate access to clean drinking water. One year.

No more walking for 4 hours to get water. So not only does this invention resolve the myriad problems of bad drinking water, the associated health risks and expenses associated with *that* - it gives back 4 hours a day to hundreds of millions of people.

I am going to find out when/where I can get one of these myself. I am then going to buy 4. One for me, one for my sweetie, one to keep in the car at all times, and one to a foreign aid agency. If they're inexpensive, I'll buy one a month or more.





In addition to what I can do on my own, I also fully intend on pressuring Canadian agencies and aid organizations operating out of Canada, to provide these. The difference clean drinking water can make in the quality of life can't be overstated.

I'm not looking for drama, just an explanation.

$person_you've_known_for_over_10_years has removed you from their Friends list.

Out of the blue too. No idea why.

Nope, not dead yet. Primarily tweeting and uploading stuff to flickr, and I broke my blog. It'll be fixed soon, or at least available - I may end up retaining my inexplicably not working backup and start from scratch.

But yeah, if you want to see a great sunset, or a weird plant by the railway tracks, or the oddest and funniest missing pet poster EVER!11one!1eleventy then check out my flickr.