Updates, updates...

Hrm... Updates? 'Kay:

It's been an interesting week.

On Saturday night, Brian and I got all dressed up and went out for dinner at the revolving restaurant at the top of the Calgary Tower. I hadn't been there in probably 15 years, so it was a new experience for me. They've renovated recently, and they have these horseshoe-shaped booths facing outwards... Really private and beautiful - you just sit there and watch the city slide past... The food was fantastic, from beginning to end - perfect atmosphere, all of it. Also, my little sister and her boyfriend had reservations there for the same night, so it was cool to see her and chat for a bit. They didn't get a wicked booth like Brian and I did, but they didn't really seem to care.

On Sunday, Brian and I went wandering around taking pictures. He rented a Nikon D200 for the weekend again, so I was able to use his Nikon D70. We decided there might be some interesting stuff in the East Village, because they're tearing so much of it down - it's in this state of transition...

So, as we were taking some shots of the outside of the recently shut-down St. Louis, a guy in a truck drove up and asked what we were up to. We explained that we were just taking photos. He said he was the guy who takes care of the building - then, to our surprise, he asked if we'd like to look around inside. We were both a little stunned, but were able eventually to enthusiastically respond - "Would we! Could we? Awesome!!!" so he drove around front and opened it up for us - Turned on the lights, and wandered around with us for about 3 hours. We got to see every room in the building, top to bottom. It was breathtaking, in so many different ways. It was so heart-wrenching, such a different world than I'm in from day-to-day. The filth, the dark - This sense of hopelessness. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here... If those walls could talk, you probably wouldn't want to hear half of what they said. Every corner of the building seemed to whisper secrets, stories, dark and sad memories. We got lots of photos, of course - and you can see mine here.

On Monday, I received some potentially scary health news. It's one of those "nothing to worry about... yet" things. I just have to watch and wait and see what test results say in 6 weeks. In all honesty it's probably nothing, but Monday was hard on me. Not a good start to the week. I felt ill (probably a combination of nerves, phantom pain, and PMS cramps) and so I left work around lunch time. That evening, the fabulous Cara came over to my place and we ate chocolate fondue and she did a fantastic job of cheering me up and calming me down. She's gone through the EXACT same thing, and so it felt good to talk to someone who knew first-hand what she was talking about.

On Tuesday night, Brian and Nathan and a bunch of their friends shot a Big Rock commercial for the Eddies. They've had the idea floating around for a few years apparently, but just managed to make it work this year. The Rose and Crown was nice enough to block the upstairs off for them. I got to be an extra - I sat in the background and drank beer. It was really interesting to be witness to the process, though. Editing is still being done on it, but I'm really excited to see the finished product. I hope it does well - they deserve it. I don't know what the competition is like, but it'll have to be REALLY tough, for these guys not to nail it.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting into my car after work, I noticed that my glove compartment was open, and everything that had been in it was pulled out all over the passenger seat. I froze, I looked around, tried to figure out what could have happened. Could it have just popped-open on its own? But then everything wouldn't be strewn ALL over. Could someone have broken in? But none of my windows are broken... Did I lock my car? I'm SURE I would have... What on Earth? Then I saw my little change bin - empty, pulled out of it's pocket. I had $20 or $30 in there... Totally empty now... I must have been broken into. What? How can that be? I got out of my car, I checked my trunk - some snowboarding gear, a couple blankets, yoga stuff - check, check, it's all still there. Tried to think of anything else of value I may have had in there... My CDs didn't seem to have been touched... Insurance, check. Cheque book, check. So - nothing's missing but $20 or $30? Okay - good. No, NOT good. You FUCKERS! How DARE you intrude on MY space? This is MY car!!! What makes you think you have ANY right... I kinda went into shock. It's not that I care so much about my random change. It's the invasion. It's the thought that nothing is safe. What about my house? If someone will break into my car, they'll break into my house. They'll take whatever they want. It makes me feel so vulnerable. So - victimized. YOU ASSHOLE. My dad always said "don't be a victim". He taught me that victims allow themselves to be victims. So I'm trying to figure out what I did to allow this. But I know that's not what he means - it's more like, how I react to it. If I become afraid, then I'm the victim. But I AM afraid. Fear and anger alternated. They still are, but to a lesser extent. As opposed to yesterday, today I had no urge to randomly drive into anyone who MAY have broken into my car. Part of the awe of it was - if I go into shock to this extent over this, what the Hell would happen to my psyche if someone did break into my house? Or actually steal the whole damn car? After I called Brian, and sorted out my brain enough to drive, I pulled out of the parking lot and saw a police van about half a block down. I pulled up by them, and told them what had happened, just as an "FYI", incase it was useful background info for anything else in the area. One of the cops said, "Actually, a car was stolen out of this lot today. A Mazda 3." What the Hell??? On my way to Brian's place, in my side-view mirror, I noticed a dent in my door. Brian figures it looks like they Jimmied my lock. Fuckers. When I bought my car, I was told that it wouldn't start without this computer chip in the key. Brian figures whoever it was had a key programmed to work on some Mazda 3s - so basically he would have broken into random Mazda 3s until he found one that had a code in it matching the chip in the fake key. So - it seems that someone likely broke into my car, couldn't start it, stole what money he/she could find, and moved onto the next Mazda 3 in the lot. So - I suppose it could be said that I was really lucky - because the fucker didn't get my whole goddamn car. I did some searching on the internet to try to see if Mazda 3s are a big target for car thieves right now, and found nothing to that effect - Hondas and Toyotas still seem to be at the top of the list. But I did find a few articles from the last few months, detailing how apparently Mazda 3s can be easily broken into by hitting the passenger-side door in just the right spot. Unsettling - though it doesn't look like that was how mine was done... Bah. Getting too pissed off to keep typing about it. And I think y'all get the gist.

Today I had my chimney swept - hadn't done it since I moved in a couple years ago, so figured it was a good idea - plus, I've been getting birds in my fireplace, and wanted to deal with that. In the past, I've gotten a bird in there every few months, but in the past couple of weeks I got like 8 of them. He cleared a nest from RIGHT above my fireplace, and another one closer to the top. Swept the whole thing, and put up screens so no more birds can get in. So that's good.

Hrm... I've been typing for a long time. I have other things I need to do tonight... So off I go. I'll be back at some point, with more stories from the life of Brandi...

I'm baaaaack, with my new iMaaaaaac!!!

So, I know this took longer than I said it would, but... You'll forgive me, I know it. So what's gone down since last I was here? Plenty. Lots of adventure, as well as plenty of same-old-same-old...

The weekend after my last post, Brian DID indeed rent a camera and lense for himself to play with, so I was able to play around with his. And it was awesome.

On Saturday morning, we decided we wanted to head out to Banff. We phoned up CAA, and got them to book a hotel room for us. We stayed at Brewster Mountain Lodge, and it was awesome. We wandered around the Banff Springs Hotel taking photos, and then went to the hot springs. On Sunday we went to the Cave and Basin, and did some other random wandering around with our cameras. We each took hundreds of photos - which may make their way online one day, if we ever find the time to go through them all.

The following week, I think (going by my rather poor memory), was a typical run-of-the-mill week for us.

On Saturday the 10th, we went curling with Brian's company and had a blast. Again, many more photos were taken - and again, they may make it online one day.

On Sunday we attended the March flickrmeet, which was held this time in an actual professional photography studio. It was an opportunity for some of the photographers to try their hand with studio lighting, etc. Some of us (like me) are not really at the point where a studio makes any difference. I have to get FAR more comfortable with my SLR before any of that happens.

However, Brian and I did volunteer to model for a shoot Thorinside has had running around in his head for almost a year...



It was a lot of fun - I've never really felt so much like an ACTUAL model before. It was insane. The studio, the lights, and there were quite a few photographers there. Since it was Thorinside's vision, we took our direction from him, and he reserved the right to post his photo first, but there were quite a few other photographers there - So there are quite a few different variations on that photo. If you're interested, search "calgary flickrmeet" on flickr, and flip back through a few pages, and you'll see most of them. Pretty fun. I showed my little sister, and she was like "Yay, you're famous!" - I laughed and was like, "yeah, me and all the other millions of people on flickr" and she replied "whatever - I'm telling all my friends you're famous."

This past weekend, as we were trying to decide what to do on Saturday, one of Brian's friends (who's a photographer for a city paper) called him up to ask if he would model for a shoot he needed. I don't know how much detail I'm allowed to give out about this, considering the photo hasn't been published yet, but will be... I'll find out what I can say, and give some details when I can. It was pretty fun, though. You'll see.

And this week, my beautiful new iMac arrived:
2 gigs of memory
500 gig harddrive
2.5 ghz dual core processor
20" Monitor
*insert Tim Allen-esque 'grunt' here*

It's been so long since I've had my own home computer, and I've never really had my own NICE computer. So this is huge. So much fun. I just got it home last night, and so I'm still figuring it all out, but it can only add up to WAY too much fun...

Today is Ostara/Vernal Equinox/Spring Equinox - Happy spring everyone! Those of us who live in Calgary got a little bit of all four seasons today. Early this morning, it was so foggy it was eerie. Around 10 this morning, it was blizzarding. Blowing snow so thick I could barely see the other skyscrapers from my office. At lunchtime, I was walking around outside without a coat on, and didn't feel cold at all. Although I didn't SEE it, Brian says it rained this afternoon, and this evening it was windy, windy, windy! One of the many reasons I love this glorious city of mine.

What else is new? Oh - I finally bought myself a fancy gym membership. I've been going to the gym each weekday either at lunch or (once) after work. I've mostly been using the cardio machines - for some reason I've been craving cardio like mad lately. But when my muscles get too sore for that, then I'll swim lengths for a day or two - still getting a workout, but somehow remaining gentle on my muscles. It's awesome. I'd also forgotten how therapeutic swimming can be. It is calming, so relaxing, so cleansing. I always come out of the pool in a fabulous mood.

Okay, I have some stuff I'm going to go play with and explore on this new beautiful techno-toy of mine. I still don't have Firefox, and I think I agree with everyone else, that it's far better than Safari. Besides, it reminds me of Foxfire, which is the movie that made me discover the Goddess Angelina waaaay back in 1996. Good times. Ahahaha. What else - Oh, I'm going to download the free trial of Aperture, to see how I like it. Brian uses Adobe lightroom for his photos, but I'd like to compare it to Aperture. Can't hurt, right?

*sigh" okay, I think that's all the rambling I can do for now... I'm too distracted by all the other wonderful little bits on this machine... But I think I'll manage to update more often again, now that I have a home computer, and don't have to feel like a bad employee everytime I want to say something here. Ya know?

Hrm... One other thing I may play with - Other blogging software. Blogger looks quite different now than it did before, and I'm not sure I like it... I could do better. And I think perhaps I shall. Stay tuned...

BRB...

This is one of my favorite photos of Brian's. It's best if you can see it bigger than this, but as I've mentioned before - Blogger has its limits. For optimal viewing, go here. You'll notice the "I LOVE" scratched into the wall... It intruiges me to no end. Was it an interrupted procclamation of love to someone? What was the interruption? How come it never got finished? Or was that all? Was it simply that statement - "I love." So many questions in this picture. Beautiful, haunting. And of course, blue.

It is my lunch hour, and I've been mostly working through them lately (apart from my yoga classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which I have actually been faithfully attending for a few weeks now). I am about to get a beautiful new computer at home, so I feel like I should do no blogging until then.

And this is my post to say "I'll be back when I can blog from home!".

I suppose I can give some little updates though -

- My birthday was on Sunday. I had a really great 'birthday weekend', largely thanks to the amazing Brian. I was really impressed when he came home with a Dairy Queen cake for me, but little did I know that was the least of what I had waiting. He gave me a card, which led me to the back of his car - where I found the kitchen table I've had my eye on for some time. Tucked between the boxes was another card, leading me upstairs to my spare bedroom where I found a pair of Lululemon pants and waterbottle. And again, there was yet a 3rd card (good things happen in threes, he says), which indicated 3 months of fine cheese delivery from Janice Beaton. :) I'm thrilled. Apparently some people find that 3rd one to be a little odd, but I am really impressed - so I suppose that means we're a good match. :) We spent 2 and a half hours putting the table together, and JUST as we were moving the complete table into position, Cara and her husband and friend showed up - complete with beer and munchie food. Sweeeeet. We had fun, the 5 of us - chatted, played some Wii, etc, etc... On Sunday I had dinner with my family, which was good too. I tend to be horribly nervous and uncomfortable around my older sister, but I felt really brave and calm. Brian finally got to meet the rest of my Calgary relatives (he'd previously only met my dad) except for my Grandma, who doesn't really do the 'restaurant' thing. We went to Open Sesame - which is always a good time.

- This weekend the weather is supposed to be nice, and so I think Brian and I are going to take our cameras out on some sort of adventure. He's been thinking of buying a new camera lately, so he's considering renting one this weekend, to try it out before making the decision. If he does that, then I can use his current camera, and continue to work on getting more comfortable with the DSLR thing. I am actually at a point where I'm excited to make the switch from film to digital - I resisted for so long, but as with many other things, Brian's managed to show me the light.

- Work's still crazy and awesome. This afternoon my boss is interviewing someone for a 3-month-contract under me, and I'll be sitting in on that - It's exciting, the first job interview where I've been on the OTHER side of the table. Woo!

Aaaaand... Now it's four minutes past one, and so I need to get back to work, like a good little employee.

Ciao!