幾鬼秘的部落格

So as everybody who attended my wedding banquet knows, I was extremely unprepared for the thank you speech.  So here, in no particular order, I’ll try to make it up to the people whom I (or Chris) missed in our speeches.

Andy and Eugenia, for going the extra mile.  You were the first ones at the ceremony and at the banquet.  What you’ve done was way beyond what we expected of you, especially Andy, running around the whole day and night making sure that everything went smoothly.  And of course, delaying your vacation just for us.  Hope you’re enjoying Paris.

Josephine, for organizing the surprise video montage.  That was very
thoughtful of you.  Dom and Emily, for gathering the videos.  And Matthew
(my new brother-in-law), for putting it all together.

Maverick, whom I’d thanked at the banquet, but forgot to emphasize
that he’d worked 2 long nights prior, and was getting through the day
with Tylenols

Charles, not only for being my photographer, but also for putting together my slideshow with very short notice.

Vincci, for sharing your story of my storage rental business :)  And for being the biggest contributor to winning the Q&A contest for table 10.

Jeff, Annie, Sharon, and Jimmy, for taking care of decoration and sound at the banquet.  All your hard work is behind the scene, but it’s just as appreciated.

Emily and Monica for MC’ing for us, and thinking up all those questions.  I heard that there was supposedly another game that was planned but was skipped due to time constraints.  I wish we could’ve played it.

CC for bringing us the floral arrangement to the ceremony - not the easiest job with low vase full of water.

Thank you all for making our big day a success.

Last night a bunch of us went downtown to check out the Chinese Lantern Festival.  It was quite a hellish drive towards the Ontario Place, as there was a dragon boat race as well as a Black Eyed Peas concert taking place there.  As if that’s not enough, they charge $19.82 for the parking, making either the drivers scramble for $19.82 or the cashiers scramble for 82 cents change, creating the long backup of cars on Lakeshore in both directions.  If someone can tell me the reason behind that pricing I’d love to hear it.

I sent my friends my photo album from the night, and many of them were quite impressed.  But I think it’s because they’re mostly closeup shots with the lanterns filling the whoe frame.  These lanterns truly defy my understanding of what lanterns are.  In fact, the most interesting ones are the few "untraditional" lanterns that are made of porcelain china (plates, bowls, spoons, etc.).

The event goes on until the end of the month.  I’d recommend it if it wasn’t for the steep parking and entrance fees.  Try to get discount tickets if you do go.

This past weekend I went camping at Bon Echo with 6 other friends.  Thanks to CC we got a huge campsite (Hardwood #422) that was able to accomodate our 4 tents, with plenty of space around each.  Our cars were parked conveniently close by, but far enough to not be seen.  We had some surprisingly well-prepared meals, played games, did some kayaking/canoeing and hiking, watched the stars, and had a wonderfully fun time in general.  Here are some highlights:
Most memorable moment: searching for our cars parked <100 meters away under complete darkness, and almost getting lost in our own camp site
Most regrettable missed photo op: an owl in our camp site
Best-equipped camper: GL
Cook of the weekend: IC (CC gets honourable mention)
Most close calls: DF (frisbee missing MJ’s nose by inches, kayak paddle missing CL’s head also by inches, missing a softball going by a beach-goer’s head)
Best record in games: DF and me, undefeated

Last Friday evening CW and I drove up to Muskoka to photograph a wedding on the next day.  We arrived at the site of the ceremony, a cottage, just after dusk.  Catering had already come and set up a big tent.  We tried to check out the site in the dark with our PDA and cell phone as the sole source of light  As we wandered around our eyes adjusted and began to see much better.  Stars filled the clear sky and we made many attempts at capturing them with our cameras.  I was almost going to give up after getting nothing but black images after numerous attempts, but finally managed to capture the Big Dipper, albeit with excessive noise.

It was almost midnight by the time we drove to the cottage where we were to spend the night. We
didn’t realize how nice of a view we had until the next morning.  We quickly snapped a few photos of the lake before rushing to the resort where the bride and groom were staying, about 15 minutes away.  After taking photos of the couple preparing, we drove to the site of the ceremony to take some photos of them by the lake.  Taking wedding photos at a dock of a cottage is definitely something new to me.  But riding a barge out to a floating platform in the middle of a lake to do it is utterly incredible!

The ceremony itself took place on the dock, under the most perfect weather.  After an early dinner many of the guests changed to their swimwear and one by one dove into the lake.  This was followed by them gathering around a bonfire, waiting to see the meteor shower.  To say that this wedding is different is an understatement.  And to get paid photographing it too? Amazing!

Besides my bowling league, bowling practices, bike riding, weddings,
dinners with friends, etc., here’s how I’ve been spending my summer so
far…

• Quebec City and environs - Canada Day weekend getaway with CL
• Cherry picking - farewell event for VC
• Strawberry and raspberry picking - with CL, EL and mom
• Brownies - good result for a first attempt!
• Kayaking - on Grand River with ST and friends.  And I got to drive an RX-8 back
• PDI (a real and a false one :)) + house cleaning
• Bday dinner and BBQ with CL’s friends
• MJ’s Bday K party
• Dinner, movie and poker night at my place with CL, DF, MJ, CC, and IC

And here’re the plans for the coming month…

• Rogers Cup
• LOTR
• Taking wedding photos in Muskoka
• Weekend party at DF’s place in Waterloo
• Camping in Bon Echo

I’m particularly looking forward to camping as I haven’t done it in ages!

Last weekend I had lunch with a whole bunch of friends from UW.  A couple of them had just had kids a few months ago.  It was MW’s first one, and he flew his whole family to TO for a visit.  WM just had his second one; his first being 2+ years old already!  Congrats to the 2 dads!

Last Sunday was of course LT+JY’s big day.  They couldn’t have picked a better day weather-wise.  It was all sunshine throughout the day.  I even got a tan from taking photos all day.  The location was just as perfect.  The ceremony took place in a cosy chapel @ Oakview Terrace, and the banquet at a beautifully-decorated banquet hall at the same location, overlooking a lake.

Being Chinese and having mostly Chinese friends mean that I don’t often get to attend such western style banquets at such "exotic" locations.  Gastronomically I personally do prefer Chinese style banquets because of the wider variety of food served.  But the photographer in me does not because of their usually boring locations.  For a wedding, I definitely think that the photos are more important than the food.  So L+J, good choice :)  And congrats on your marriage!

I think this is it for me as far as photographing weddings is concerned for this year.  Who’s next?

Sunday morning was gloomy and cloudy, but still dry enough for me to ride my bike to CL’s to pick up her car and drive EK and her to the airport.  Self-proclaimed 大頭蝦, neither of them knew which terminal the flight was to depart from.  I automatically assumed that it was T1 just because they were flying on AC.  Fortunately they were early and had plenty of time to take a shuttle bus to T2 when they found out where they were supposed to go.  Ooops

I went back to CL’s to pick up my bike.  On my way back home, I was stopped by a cop for no apparent reason.  Immediately after I pulled over, she stepped out and asked if it was a new bike and how I liked it.  Hmm…. a strangely friendly cop, I thought.  After I gave her the documents, she came back shortly to tell me that she just wanted to check that I have valid insurance.  I hope this is a good sign that all my future encounters with cops on this bike will be just as friendly

Once I got back home, CW and I IM’ed to discuss where to ride later on.  I wasn’t too keen to do it since I was dead tired from no sleep the night before.  At the same time I haven’t had enough of riding since I got the bike, and we’d already planned to do so the day before.  After a short discussion, we decided to pass, as the weather looked iffy.

I went back to bed and slept until late afternoon, woke up, made "lunch", and got ready to ride to L+J’s wedding helpers party.  I was debating whether I needed to get gas.  Since my bike’s odometer had been out until recently, I’ve had to manually keep track of the mileage I’ve put on the bike since I last gassed up.  I calculated that there should be plenty left for one trip to Mississauga, where I could gas up later that night for much cheaper.  Everything was fine and dandy until I got on the 403 from the 401, when the bike completely gave up on me without warning.  Luckily traffic was very light - I had to pull cross three lanes to the shoulder coasting @ just around 50 km/h!  My first instinct was that I was running out of fuel, so I was a bit surprised that turning the fuel selector to "reserve" did not help.  I tried to start the bike back up but it made no sound at all.

I called auto-assistance planning to get my bike towed to a gas station.  After a long chat with them beside the noisy highway, I was told that my subscribed service does not cover motorcycles! Dang! 

Still believing that the bike was simply out of gas, I called JY + CW to bring me fuel.  But after I checked the tank, I called them back to tell them that that was not it.  I went through the manual while I waited for my rescuer-friends to come.  Of the many things that I went through, engine oil looked to be the most probably culprit as the sight window showed no oil at all!  Even though this didn’t make complete sense, since the engine oil light never came on, I called CW to bring me some engine oil just in case.

I didn’t have to wait long until CW+KL showed up.  CW agreed that my bike seemed to be out of engine oil, until he levelled the bike off the kickstand, when we saw through the sight window that there was plenty of oil.  Out of ideas, we decided to call CAA with AT’s membership, which turned out to lack coverage for motorcycles as well.

$100 later, my bike was sitting in Cycleworld’s parking lot and we were finally on our way back to the party, where more than 10 people were waiting on me to plan the wedding, and 2 people starved because they were helping me :$.  Sorry guys.

Looking at the bright side, this could’ve been a lot worse.  I could’ve been stranded in the rural areas where CW and I were planning to ride that afternoon.  Or on a much busier 401 during the commuting hours on my way to work today.  What a lucky guy I am :S.

This past weekend began with the arrival of the third largest purchase of my life (after my house and car).  After checking out a 2001 Kawasaki EX250 Thursday morning, I decided to buy it despite the damages to the body.  I had it delivered to my house Friday afternoon, and had it certified for safety the same evening.  Later that night, I decided to take the bike out for a spin around the neighbourhood.  This was the first time that I’d ridden a motorcycle on real roads, and it went quite well.

I was too excited to sleep that night.  I woke up at 6:30am unable to go back to sleep.  So soon after 7:00 I finally decided to get up to wash my car.  I went to the MTO @9 to get my license plate and came home ~9:30, and decided to ride to my parents’ house ~15km away, confident about my ride the night before.  Instead, 15m from my house at the first stop sign, I pulled in the front brakes too hard, lost balance, and dropped the bike after fighting hard to keep it vertical.  I almost couldn’t get the bike back up.  Having my confidence shot down, I decided to just cruise around the neighbourhood instead.  After half an hour of that, I tried going on a "real" road (ie. 60km/h limit).  At that speed the wind felt intimidating.  But now that I’ve gone on the highways a few times, I think the fear is more psychological than real.

The next day was a full day of riding.  I rode to Yorkmills/Bayview to have brunch with some friends, then to Cycleworld in the east end intending to buy some gears, but found it closed :(.  Then I rode back home via the 404, the first time I went on the highway on the bike, before heading out again to World Bowl to practice.

All in all, it was an extremely tiring and packed weekend (and I haven’t even talked about the doorsopen sites that I visited on Saturday!). 

Last Saturday I attended G+C’s wedding, as one of the groomsmen and photographers.  I can’t remember the last time that I attended a wedding without taking on at least one of these roles, if not both.  This was probably one of the easiest wedding days that I’d photographed.  The day started relatively late, just before 9am.  And I carried only one camera with me.  As tiring as it is, I’d still much prefer participating in this capacity, than being just a regular guest.  No offense to the newly-weds, but when you’ve been to many weddings, as a guest, sitting through the 1+ hour ceremonies can be a little… dare I say… boring :)  And what about the hours that you have to kill between the ceremony and the banquet?

One important advantage of being a photographer while also being a 戥穿石 is of course being able to escape many of the silly tests that the groomsmen are forced to endure :)  My 竹升-ness also helps me excuse myself from at least a few of these tests.

Weddings can feel like reunions sometimes, and that is especially true this time.  I met up with many ex-coworkers whom I haven’t seen in years.  And from time to time, in this small world, you discover that the newly-weds and you actually have some mutual friends that you didn’t know you had!

After the wedding, I discovered that out of the few gigs of photos that I took that day, I could find myself in only one of them.  I’m sure that I do appear in other photos taken by the other photographers.  But until I get those pics, here’s the one precious photo of me…

Looking forward to L+J’s next month…