I'm MARRIED NOW! So THANK YOU to all who came and made it happen!

Damn I'm happy! I finally made an honest woman out of that sexy chica DOVELISH! Everyone that came and lent a hand, I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH! YOU ROCK!! Without a doubt the BEST day of my life! Dove looked stunning! The music was great! DJ Wicked tore it up! The piper was amazing! My groomsmen need a special shout out! You guys were the BEST gofers of all time! Many many photos will be posted here as soon as I get them, watch this space! i love you all...THANK YOU!

much love

Currently listening : Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band By The Beatles Release date: 1990-01-01

1:58 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

We open the only B100 Biodiesel pump in Vancouver
Current mood: inspired

The Vancouver Biodiesel Co-op, of which I am a board member, has just installed the only B100 public-access pump in Vancouver, BC. It was a great day. Lots of new members signed up and the press came. Check out this video of me pumping biodiesel on CBC news. (use VLC as your media player if you have problems with the link.)

http://www.cbc.ca/video/popup.html?http://www.cbc.ca/ondemand/newsatnight/vancouver_sat.asx

Thanks to the co-op, and to Recycling Alternative for all the hard work. An extra shout-out to Jean-Michel Toriel for toiling for long hours with me in the hot sun to get the shelter built in time!

Now any time day or night you can fill your diesel car with 100% RECYCLED Biodiesel. We get our fuel from recycled waste oil so NO FOOD FOR FUEL AT OUR PUMP.

5:21 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Whistler Ski and Snowboard Fest 2008!

So Dove and I had so much fun at the fest last year seeing Bassnectar and checking out the big air competition (thanks Hanzo!) that we had to go back this year. On the menu for Sunday 420? None other than Michael Franti and SPEARHEAD! Fucking SICK show! People of all shapes, sizes, and ages were PARTYING at the base of Whistler gondola rocking to Spearhead! They played covers of Marley, Nirvana, all their best shit and they played the fucking SESAME STREET THEME!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Franti even did the rainbow connection song by Kermit and...best of all, the C IS FOR COOKIE song by cookie monster! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wicked man, truly sick. Big ups to the guy wearing the elf hood laughing his ass off next to me.

11:06 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Austin Texas man!!

I don't care what you've heard about Texas or anything in it. I want y'all to know right now that Austin Texas is the MOST BADASS CITY IN THE WORLD to party in! I had the pleasure of being smack dab in the middle of sixth street (yeah Rachel you know it!) for a few nights and had my mind totally blown! Thousands of people going to bars, clubs, and pubs of ALL KINDS. ANY kind of live music you want ANY night of the week! They call it the live music capital of the world and THEY AIN'T KIDDING! I had so much freaking fun I gotta go back soon. On night one we went to a pub with 100 beers on tap from all over the world including, but not limited to:
Black Butte Porter!
Spaten Optimator!
Some organic shit from Vermont!
Widmer!

AND they have OREGON BEER IN THE FREAKING GAS STATIONS! THESE PEOPLE KNOW AND LOVE THEIR FREAKING BEER!

Forget all the bollocks, Austin Texas is PRIMO and I loved it. Best city south of the Mason-Dixon line!

Thanks and much love to Rachel and Christine for letting me fart in their house for 3 days! Love you guys!

REMEMBER THE BBQ AND THE TURTLES! AND THE PETER PAN PUTT-PUTT!

you guys rock

C

10:59 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

house hunt
Current mood: anxious

So we are about to move...for the third time since moving to Vancouver.  Friggin rent is SPENSIVE in dis town.  1 bedrooms go for 800-900.  Job is aiight.  Just went riding for the first time this season the other day.  Just watched Cirque du Soleils Journey of Man film last night.  Some amazing acts on there let me tell ya.  This one pair of people looked like 2 statues that very slowly picked each other up and held each other in the craziest poses.  Check it out. 

  Still planning wedding full-on.  Lots to do there.  Eating lots of salad with cut-up bits of prosciuttino all over it.  Also eating lots of hard-boiled eggs.  The other day I ate nine eggs.  That's two fried for brekkie, two hard-boiled at lunch, and five in some egg salad that I made.  I am so addicted to eggs its not even funny.  I go through almost three dozen a week. 

4:44 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Major updates due if this is still going to be called a "blog"
Current mood: content

Well it's definitely been a while since I've blogged so here's whats new in Canuckistan.

Hockey season has begun so of course anytime I turn on the radio the pundits are furiously debating the merits of the Canucks forecheck. I've been doing lots of work at their arena so I feel *teehee* a little closer to the action lately. Oh, I should get on with the big stuff then go back and fill in the details.

So, after school ended in May I was working part-time at Chapters, which is this bigass Borders-style bookstore in downtown Vancouver. 2 weeks after school ended I got a call from the admin people there. They had a few job openings they knew about and had recommended me for. So big ups to them cuz I was able to get 2 jobs straight after school, after I thought I would have to languish in the dusty back rooms of Chapters for months on end as I lusted after unattainable Pro Tools editing jobs with prestigious video game companies. HAR!

My main day job is for a company called Allstar Show Industries. They do lots of things from installation of large audio/video systems and other stuff like sound system rental. I started in the shop doing rentals for a few weeks, then they started sending me out to job sites to do install work. Install work is much more fun and interesting than shop work. Usually its 2 or 3 guys doing things like pulling cable for speaker and video runs, setting up control racks and hooking it all up, hanging projectors, screens, and tvs. I've been going to some sweet job sites like UBC. Dove works at UBC so when I have a few weeks of work there we can have lunch together every day which is sweet. GM Place, (the canucks arena), was one of the most fun. Our company put in new speaker and projector systems in 2 clubs on the executive suite level that were being completely remodelled. They had a plywood wall up in between us and the ice for the first few months. (We've been going there off and on for a long time). They took it down the last 3 days before opening night, which was last Friday. I got to watch the Canucks and Sharks practice on game day while I worked. Wicked little glimpse inside the velvet rope, as it were, for a mad sports freak!

The most beautiful job site I work at is a new small university being built in Squamish. Squamish is about an hour north up the sea-to-sky highway towards Whistler. The site is up on a ridge a little ways up a mountain from the valley. The views are so amazing there! Google image search Squamish BC and check it out. That place blows my mind. They also have the best beer I've found in BC to date! The Howe Sound Brewery is a wicked little brewpub that I try to visit every time I head up! I haven't seen their beer down here in Vancouver yet though. Truly a microbrew!

So that's been my day job. I'm digging it so far and there are only about 4 people in the office plus maybe 6 installers so its nice and small.

Some nights I do live sound at a few venues. I get sporadic work at 2 bigass casinos called the Boulevard and the River Rock. Wear all black and a name tag.....nuff said.

I've been doing sound at a cafe called Cafe Deux Soleils. Groovy little joint that would not be out of place on Alberta or Hawthorne. They have live music 3 or 4 nights a week and a hella popular open mic night on Thursday. My former teacher Craig gave me the gig after school got out. The people are the best and I meet tons of wicked artists. I also get to drink on this job! No name tags here... Speaking of the Cafe I have started a monthly downbeat night called Downbeats on the Drive. The strip of Commercial Drive that the cafe is on is called 'The Drive.' Full of wicked little bars and restaurants, with a sizable woog selection for our fragrant friends. 3rd Wednesday of every month so if any of y'all Portland peeps need an excuse to come up make it a Wednesday and stay all weekend!

So that's whats new on the job front. Various other gigs have popped up. I did lights at a place called Richard's on Richard's for Daniel Wesley band a few weeks ago. Apparently this cat's career is in overdrive, I hadn't heard of him before the night but after that night when I listen to music stations I hear mad Daniel Wesley. (In between the forensic analysis of the ratios of goal-production from the second and third power-play units). Last spring I got a job doing sound design for a stage play called Remnants. The theatre group was called Pacific Theatre. I knew their production manager from my first job in BC working at the mac store. (He was a custy). Here's the page on the play. http://www.pacifictheatre.org/productions/2006-2007/remnants/index.htm

So Dove and I got a new ride. We now drive a 2001 blue V-Dub Jetta TDI. After one tank of petrodiesel we've been using 100 percent biodiesel made from recycled restaurant oil. It feels so good to finally be able to switch over from gas after researching and dreaming about biofuels for years now. The car gets wicked mileage, about 650-1000 km per 50L tank. That's anywhere from 35-60 mpg, and it smells like fried chicken! HA! We'd like to do a greasecar conversion so we can run on straight veggie oil. Then we can raid the oil dump bins of fast food restaurants for our car fuel! Free fuel yo! Check out the kit here. http://www.greasecar.com/kit_detail.cfm?prodID=23 The kit is about a G so it will take a bit to save for.

Which is a wicked segue to my next topic! Dove and I are putting wedding plans together like mad. Suffice to say that there will be memories made!

I'm listening to my fave baseball team kick ass right now so I must pause....

Okay they won! Sweet.

But I digress...

Oh yeah Dove's birthday is tomorrow! Send her some e-love!

Snow is falling on the mountains and they are calling to me! If anyone is feeling sassy why not join me for some wicked snowboarding up here! Check out this hill... http://www.grousemountain.com/ Need I say more?

Jobs, ride, weather, sports, diet...oh yeah!

We are doing a candida cleanse to get to the bottom of my....ahem, *sensitivity*, to beer and bread. For all of October we are abstaining from bread, sugar, fermented anything, wine, vinegar, citrus, peanuts, grapes, and tropical fruits, as well as staying away from my usual suspects like dairy. We're eating lots of curried veggies and rice cakes. HAR! Rice cakes are silly....yet somehow addictive.

I think that's about it.

That is all.

8:19 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Done with school! And the play opened this weekend.

Wow! Lots has happened this past week!

Well, it's finally been one year of school for me. My last final exam is on Wednesday, and there are NO MORE NOTE-TAKING DAYS! I'm very excited to be done with school and start working in the audio industry up here! I got a call a few weeks ago from the administrator at my school saying there was a business down in Richmond (southern suberb) that has a job and I should call them. I got referred by him after I did sound at the last 2 PAVI (school) events. Also, one of my teachers works as a live sound man for several companies in town and I asked him about a job at the River Rock Casino. ( a huge and swanky venue with several theatres). He referred me to them and I dropped off a resume. Turns out they are looking for a live sound guy! So I have an interview there on Wednesday after my last final exam! Wicked. So I'm pretty stoked that I have job offers coming in before I even graduate.

So about this play I've been working on...

For the last 2 and a half months I've been working very closely with a theatre company called Pacific Theatre here in Vancouver that hired me to do sound design for their end of season play, "Remnants." The play is a re-telling of the biblical story of Joseph and the coat of many colors, but this version takes place in Europe in the 30s and 40s. The main characters are all jews and the main story is about Joseph coming to Canada after his brothers try to kill him. He ends up being the prime minister's adviser because of his dream-interpreting abilities. I basically either picked traditional jewish music for cues or wrote whatever music was necessary for the different scenes. A very exciting and challenging project altogether! A great learning experience for me because I had never worked in theatre before. The last week before opening is especially hard. All the designers..(set, lights, costumes, and sound), have to be there for every second to make adjustments and fine-tune the play. I must have been there until 1 am for 3 or 4 nights in a row! The week kicked my ass because I also had final exams and projects for school, as well as working 3 nights a week. So it was a very stressful time. I got a stiff dressing-down from the director after the dress rehearsal for some late cues...but that's theatre! Opening night I brought Dove to see the play, and it was fantastic! The acting was the best I've seen it so far, and everything else went off without a hitch! I had so much fun working on this play, i hope they bring me back next year!

SO!

I'm FINALLY done with school and I'm ready to start work! Please excuse me while I go get shit-faced now...

7:02 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

YESSY McYESSERSTEIN!! IT'S TRUE!
Current mood: ecstatic

Dove and I are ENGAGED!

Oh damn it's about time I reckon! Not that I was worried about the outcome (throat dry as hell) but YOU try asking an absolute GODDESS to be your, dare I say, WIFE! Holy fwiggin cwap I need to get used to saying that!


I reckon I need a beer, getting a bit... *mmmPPHHHPHHPH* exCITED!!


(hard to emote the noises I'm making atm...)

So nothing firm yet but we are thinking next July or August so prepare yourselves loved ones!!

Currently listening : Vulgar Display of Power By Pantera Release date: 25 February, 1992

1:38 AM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

New pics of sweet outdoor excursions up!
Current mood: cheerful

So I just posted some of the best shots from hikes Dove and I have done. I promise I'll write a real blog later. Right now I need to go move a dresser.

9:30 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thieves prey on Americans!

So my bike was just stolen out of our apartment buildings' locked undergroud garage. It was locked to a metal railing as well. It must have been a tenant, no one else has access to the garage. Now my car AND my bike have both been stolen in this town at one time or another. Thieves run rampant in Vancouver! I am now considering methods for catching them in the act of another theft......



stay tuned.

2:13 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment