Fort Langley and Filming of Super Natural

January 20th, 2012 Thomasso

For the last couple of days, during the little freezing weather stint, the sleepy little town of Fort Langley has being the epicenter for the television science fiction/horror show, “Super Natural.” They have being filming here for most of all day and night over the last two days now, mostly taking up the down town area between Mavis Avenue and 96th Avenue along Glover Road.

I just found out that this was “Super Natural” being filming here from some of my Twitter friends a couple of hours ago. Thanks @DearHeartxoxo !

At first I thought they were nuts shooting in these frigged temperatures that we have been getting for the last week. But it appears that minus ten is nothing for these guys -  they can handle just about anything.

Today has ended the freeing period that I hated so much, marking the end of five solid days straight of minus degree weather. Now it is above freezing, but rain, or drizzle, is plaguing us, and all of this melting snow is just soaking everything. There is a storm warning, but I fear that that will hit us tomorrow as wind and rain will rule the day tomorrow. But it is warmer out, and that makes me mildly happy.

The filming normally does not bother me except for the odd traffic snarl; however, last night the flood lights that were lifted on top of two huge cranes, that bothered me as the light shown into my bedroom window. They were shut off around ten thirty last night, but I still had to force myself to sleep, with the curtains drawn, but it still looked light daylight outside. Tonight is more of the same. They have the same two cranes up, and again the light is shinning onto Glover Road, one block over form me. They are very bright, so the spill-off from them makes it look like the light is shining right at my windows.

You can see the tree on the left is lit up from the crane on 96th Avenue, and the light that you can see is over at Glover and Mavis Avenue – one block away. These are massive lights, and they are bright!

Fortunately, it is Friday, and staying up late tonight is an option.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, Events, General, Humour, Photographs, Socail Media, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Ice Box World

January 18th, 2012 Thomasso

Since we are on the topic of ice, I thought I would continue on with my photographic journey into Ice Photography. We seem to have a lot of it lately with the onset of a super cold snap that has hit the Metro Vancouver area. This is day three of freezing below zero Celsius weather, and tonight and tomorrow it is going to be worse yet as the daytime hight in Fort Langley only got up to -3C. So, tonight, we could see -11C! We are not used to this!

OK, ice. I was only outside for a short ten minute walk to the end of my driveway and back. This was as far as I dare go with only running shoes on. Not very winterly equip foot wear for this type of frigged weather either – but I managed to snap a few shoots off before I tip-toed back in side – running. So here is what I got:

I will add more text later when my fingers have blood circulating back in them again.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Photographs | No Comments »

An Icicle in Mid Drip

January 15th, 2012 Thomasso

It was such a picturesque day in wintery Fort Langley that I could not resist shooting an icicle melting away in the sun, as water dripped downwards from it like a leaky faucet in a down town crack-house. They were pretty, and neat, to watch becuase we do not get icicles that often here in the Metro Vancouver area, so it was a “stand and stare” moment for me.

Capturing the dripping action with a digital camera had its moment too. Close the aperture, shorten the shutter, up the ISO for that high speed catch. My only limitation was time becuase I was already freezing from my little walk around town. Dress for winter if you want to take outside photographs in winter. Lesson learned!

ADDED: I was going to go outside again after I warmed up to shoot some more, but ended up not going out becuase of other things popping up that needed to be dealt with–then it got too dark. So I just went through my photos again, and found another image that I think has some good qualities.

I guess now I have to master too the art of high speed photography. The ISO and shutter speed have to really be quick to catch these drips! Shooting with the camera set to Automatic, The drips would never be caught. I think two things were happening. First, my timing was lousy. Being so close into the subject, and waiting for the drip to happen, then pressing the shutter button, timing was everything – I had to be quick. Second, my shutter speed was just way too low for this type of capture. I needed a super fast shutter speed to catch the drip in mid flight after it left the icicle.

I know I tried a bunch of times, but everything I was doing was just too slow.

The image above I cropped to give it better positioning, but was shot at a wider angle as compared to the image at the top of this post.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | 3 Comments »

Stupid Says, “I’m Stuck.”

January 15th, 2012 Thomasso

Here we are in mid January, living in South Western Canada, at a time of year when snow sometimes falls, and stays on the ground, and creates these winter like environments that are talked about during Climate Change conferences. Although, over the last few years, snow has become a foreign concept to most, snow does fall, and blankets the ground every once in while. We are living in one such moment in time when snow has invaded our land, and it appears that it will stay for at least the next few days to come.

Even though we do not get snow often, we are responsible for keeping ourselves prepared for it.

We cannot depend on our governments to keep the roads the clear, as they themselves are mired in debt, resources shortages, and in some cases, exercising austerity measures through limited snow clearing operations, or just to clearing the main roads only. So it is up to each and everyone of us to have proper snow/winter equipment, and to be able to deal with these types of weather on our own. Hey, we all voted for this, so now we must deal with it.

It never ceases to amaze me at just how forgetful some people can be when dealing with snow. Take for example, my neighbour who drives a Honda Accord. He drives with summer tires on his vehicle all year round. He is currently stuck, in his own driveway. He is angry, upset, blaming everyone and anything at his own stupidity. He will only be satisfied when the snow melts and he can drive once again with his Honda Accord bearing summer tires.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Events, General, Humour, Social economics, Social Justice | 2 Comments »

It Was Bound to Happen: It Snowed!

January 14th, 2012 Thomasso

It was bound to have happened sooner or later. The snow finally came last night with a muffled but consistent rate that when I looked outside this morning, there was about 5cm of it sitting on the ground. The snow was the wet, packey type, saturated with rain as the temperature was well above freezing. In the back of my mind I thought, “cool,’ becuase I own a 4 wheel drive vehicle that can easily take on snow on the road without getting stuck. This was always a problem in the past for me when owning small vehicles. So, I am happy with the change of scenery, and will embrace the snow knowing full well that by Monday it will all melt away – I hope?

I waited for the day to get brighter before I went outside. I wanted to desperately take photos before the rain washed all of the snow from the branches and bushes. By the time the light was good enough, the rain was just starting to change the snow, and it was melting away fast.

There was the snowplough too. “Why,” I thought, “did the park hire a snowplough today when no one had to go to work, and it was raining?” I had to get out first before the snowplough wrecked the natural scenery.

The snow was nothing in terms of the amount, but it pleasantly changed the world enough to make it look like a different world than the one we were use to. I used a lot of wide angle, close up, shots to express the little amount of snow we had on top of objects like branches and RV awnings.

Looking close up, the image looks like we had a huge dump of snow, but I was shooting, the above image, from behind a fence that was taller than me, and the tree was just behind it and was only a meter taller than the fence. Looks like a lot of snow, eh?

My wide angle shots looked cool too. Using my 55mm zoom lens, as the trees were just starting to loose all of the snow collected on the branches, I caught it just before most of the snow fell off. Yes, I should have set the white balance becuase the sky looked way too blue/gray, when really it was not. Hey, I am learning – this is a learning curve.

I will post these shots, and all the rest I took today in my photo gallery soon. For now, enjoy the snow if you live in the Vancouver, Fraser Valley area!

Added: one last one becuase the Sun came out, and it stopped raining.

I call this one, the above image, “Snow on my Pathfinder.” Yay, sunshine!

Posted in Bitching about weather, General, Photographs | 4 Comments »

Doing Some Night Photography in Fort Langley: Part 2

January 10th, 2012 Thomasso

It was a spur of the moment when I decided to grab the camera and stand out in the middle of the street while people were walking by staring at me as I was shooting my camera at night scenes. Also, there was a very awesome looking (almost) full Moon out too, and people were asking me If I was shooting that too. “No,” I replied, ” I do not have the right lens for that.” But people were out too shooting with their point-and-shoot pocket cameras at the Moon – too funny.

One young women even told me that this Moon was the Harvest Moon? I thought that was during the month of October, but I just agreed and looked enthusiastic.

ADDED – Jan 12 2012: If you want to see all the shots for this set, click here, GALLERY 18. 20 photos taken.

So I walked through town, armed with my camera on a tripod, taking long exposures of anything that reflected, or emitted light. It was great! Here are some of the twenty shots I took:

Above, is the famous Fort Langley Community Hall. I just missed the x-mass tree as it was taken down the day before: it had lights on it!

Above, looking South on Glover Road, at 96th Avenue. Yes, that is a Sushi Shop there on the right, “Iron chef,” or something, but that is what the sign says?

Above, North on Glover Road, at Mary Avenue. Many Movies have been shot here.

Above, looking North on Glover Road towards the old “Frontier” Hardware Store.

Later on in the week I will post the whole load of photos in my Gallery. For now I need some sleep, as I have a long day tomorrow.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Photographs | No Comments »

Breaking News: Changed My Twitter Pic!

January 7th, 2012 Thomasso

Breaking: I just changed my Twitter image, the image that is used as your avatar when you use your Twitter account. After almost six weeks having the new camera, it dawned on me to shoot a better looking image for my Twitter Identity with it instead of the web-came one I had before. So keeping with the theme and tradition, I used the same pencil that I have always used.

I have kept the same general image because I find it is hard to follow when Tweeps (Twitter users) keep changing their images around, especially when they use obscure alphanumeric names as their handles which are almost impossible to keep track of. I am now at just over 800 followers, and I am following the same number on my Twitter Account. Keeping track of that many people with weird names, I need all the help I can get, so changing your photo throws the whole memory game out the window for me.

After having the new camera for almost six weeks, I finally just got around to taking a good quality image for my Twitter Account today. Below is the stock image that I cropped and edited my final image from.

Regrettably, using Twitter, you are limited to an image size of only 700k bits, so any edge on image quality is a boon once you start reducing your image size down to this small 76 x 76 px size area.

Posted in Art, Diatribe, Events, General, Humour, Photographs, Socail Media, Twitter | Comments Off

OK 2012 – 1st Day, So Far So Good

January 1st, 2012 Thomasso

It is almost nineteen hours into 2012 and so far the new year is going great for me. I spent a lot of time today cleaning, catching up with friends by email and working on some projects that I am getting into over the next few weeks. I want this year to be a productive one, but the productivity part I want to keep under control, as oppose to everything controlling me such as time management. I also know that this year may mark a possible move for myself as somewhere in the next fourteen months I have to move.  I expect that 2012 will be busy one towards the end in the last few months, but I am hoping that nothing freaky happens like unexpected unemployment or  something alone those lines does not happen.

Today, I went shopping down a Walmart in Langley City first thing. Yes, they were open, right a 7:00am. With most of the city sleeping in from last night’s festivities, the roads we perfect for driving this morning, and finding parking, well, I thought I was dreaming. Within forty minutes, I had completed the round trip and was back home unpacking all of my groceries.

I emailed about twenty friends also today. This was more or less a means of keeping in touch with everyone. Most of the contacts I made were friends from university, and some colleagues, and some were old work buddies from years ago. I doubt that I will get replies from some, as I am sure their email accounts hove long since went delinquent, so this will be test to purge them from my address book. There are also some family members that I seem to have lost contact with too–hopefully I was hear back from them?

I have an agenda for my volunteering efforts too this year. I am hoping to get that under way very soon. I want to do more time with some programs that are with Corrections Canada. Also, I want to do some time with my alumni friends. I really want to keep in touch with my old school, so helping out, I feel is the best way to do that.

I know this year is going to be one of endurance and harsh times as the world economies try and sort their messes out and hopefully do not take me down with them. I am very thankful that I do not have any debt towards anyone while all of this is going on. I have so many friends that are slowly being swallowed up by debt that I worry about them. It is a given (and so obvious)  that costs are going up, and that I will have to adapt to the changing economy – buying less with the income that I have with be the challenge for 2012. So, hopefully I will still keep my current job and not have to look for another one, (know on wood) as the Canadian job market is looking really bleak right now. Yes, I worry about that becuase I know how “on the edge” everyone is living these days.

So, here is to a good year, and one that I hope we will all get through without too many battle scares.

Cheers and Happy New Years!

Posted in Diatribe, Events, General, Holiday, Social economics | Comments Off

Looking Forward for Next Year: Higher Costs and Austerity

December 31st, 2011 Thomasso

The writing is as a plain as day on the wall, and it says that the new year is shaping up to be the “year of inflation” from my perspective, a lone soul living in a small village on the outskirts of Vancouver, BC. We all knew that government was going raise the income tax and implement other payroll punitive measures on us working class types eventually, and that most services too are mandating increases in costs as well. But, the triple whammy is fossil fuels, electricity and food. Adding it all up, I estimate that my cost of living is going to jump up by 11 percent for 2012!

I have been planning for this for the last year. I can pass most of these costs back to the consumers and other sources of income that I generate. I have no morals about increasing my costs as well, in the business sense, as long as I know that the government is dishing out the same punitive measure to the rest of the country equally. I am also in a great position where I have no ties to any financial institution bearing any encumbrances, all thanks to my “Cut Out the Middle Man and Parasite” initiatives back in 2004. Lastly, no dependants, or payouts in terms of creating my Sue-ability Scale to the lowest point possible.

I am ready for the 11.2 percent jump by ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia) and the $20.00 per month increase in MSP (Medical Insurance Premiums) as stated by CBC News Dec 30th, 2011 in their story called, “2012 to be More Expensive for BC Residence.” I am also ready for the ever growing food and fuel costs as well as I have changed my buying patterns to reflect the souring economy. For my vehicle needs, driving that extra few kilometres to fill up with lower taxed gasoline is paying off in the long run. Also, buying from local farmers and markets has also started to pay off, although it is hard to avoid shopping at the big-box retailers for the savings.

The message for 2012 that I am giving is one of money restraint, and fiscal caution. Do not make that large money purchase of which you will have to finance from a money lender, if you saved the money then fly at it. Save what you can, be it pennies, twonies or fifty bucks here and there, but have that liquid pool of cash close at hand, and spend it when absolutely necessary, unless you have lots and see the sliver lining in the clouds. The “Cash is King” economy is flourishing at my work as I am starting to see a mild upswing in cash transactions. This is a sign that I see as people are starting to, either bypassing their debts with their financial institutions, or they are finally working in a cash economy, but cash seems to be back in style again. However, I still see credit card buying as the number one method of buying, which is more than likely fuelling personal debt like we have never seen before becuase I highly doubt that most Canadians are using these credit devices as they were meant to be used. Also in my message, I encourage people to shop on-line becuase the deals that are available from down South in the U.S. are incredible. “Shop and Save and only buy what you need,” is the message that I am sending out for 2012.

I consider myself a low income earner. I do not claim to be that all knowing economist and prognosticator of Doomsday Sayers. I only know where I stand, and based on this, I can say with certainty that many who are in my income bracket are feeling the same way too.

Moreover, there is one pressing issues that I hate above all else, and that are parasites, be it government, Banks or commerce. I really see the need to think in ways that means changing my lifestyle and critically thinking my way through long term money planning to avoid, or rid myself of those parasites. They make me itch and scratch too.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, Events, General, Social economics | Comments Off

Another Shot At Orion – Night Time Photography

December 31st, 2011 Thomasso

Finally another evening with some clear skies that I can just walk out into my back yard and start shooting the stars.

I focused on focusing, becuase this seems to be my biggest issue with this camera. The wide angle lens that I have, is the kit lens that came with the camera, and it does not have an infinity mark on it, so focusing to infinity is difficult. Focusing is frustrating when set up at night with only the stars to focus upon.

The image is 30mm, ISO 200, F2.3 for 20 seconds. Using the 600 divided by focal length rule, I was just outside of the star trail effect with respect to the Earth’s rotation and my exposure time.

Setting stuff like the ISO and F-Stop I have down. Using the timer on my tripod is a huge bonus since I still do not have a remote switch for it yet. But, my night time photography has come along ways since my first night with the camera, just need more time and money.

On my wish list, I really want a wide angle lens, say, something like a 25 or 30mm macro that I can do a vast amount of sky with it. I am really liking this Sony a33. Learning new stuff with it everyday.

Posted in Astronomy, Bitching about weather, General, Photographs | Comments Off