It may not seem like it, but there is usually a reason for me to post something here. Stop laughing, mullet head, I'm being serious.
And I never said it had to be a good reason, or even interesting. Heaven forbid.
There is usually a reason I make a video; sometimes to tell a story, sometimes to record a memory, sometimes illustrate a piece a music that inspired me.
Sometimes I don't need a reason. Sometimes all I need is a sunny late summer day, a rocky beach in Kingston Ontario and Miss Terra, hunting driftwood.
Enjoy.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
THE C.N.E. DAY TWO: THE AIR SHOW
It is still on the lake today. A light offshore breeze ruffles the water, sun beats off the waves like silent hammer blows, birds describe lazy circles in the sky. Then you begin to hear it, faint at first, off in the distance, a sound that is like a vibration, heard and felt at the same time. As the sound builds the birds soar quickly away and the water trembles and you feel it in the bones of your chest. You look up, shading your eyes against the sun, and you see it off in the distance: A small speck that quickly grows as you watch, moving towards you, moving incredibly fast and in only seconds it takes shape and passes over you, the thunder of its sound following, washing over you ...
Our second day at this year's Canadian National Exhibition saw us huddled on a grandstand on the shore of Lake Ontario to enjoy the 62nd annual air show. The Canadian Forces (sorry I'm never going to type "Royal Canadian Air Force" because it's just damn stupid) Hornet was just the start. This year all the military jets would be from our country as the U.S.A. would only do fly bys, due to budget cuts or disinterest or stamping their feet and holding their breath .. or something
Who needs the Americans anyway. Besides the Hornet, Canada pulled out the T-33 Mako Shark, a sleek, prettily painted fighting jet
The plane by itself was quite exciting but they also paired it up with a Harvard, Canada's venerable training prop plane whose huge radial engine always provides me with one of my favorite sounds at the Airshow
I love the Harvards, these big yellow, noisy airplanes that in their day helped trained hundreds of Canadian pilots. Besides the plane that flew with the T-33, we had a Harvard flying alongside the Beechcraft T-6 Texan, the turboprop plane that has replaced the Harvard as Canada's primary jet training aircraft.
Wait, we're not done yet! If you are interested in the Harvard and you read this post right now (because we don't have all day) I'll offer you one massive Harvard fly by absolutely free . . .
. . . and as a special bonus, completely free (you just pay extra shipping and handling) I'll throw in the Harvard Formation Team, that's a nine million dollar value!
I always enjoy watching this team fly. The Harvard is a WW 3 era trainer, it is not a stunt plane yet these pilots defy that logic by putting these big prop planes through an impressive set of aerial maneuvers.
These were not the only military aircraft that flew over the lake. The Canadian Forces CP-140 Aurora made its annual appearance. This is not stunt plane and it is no fighter plane. It is a maritime patrol plane and sub hunter, a big multi engine prop plane that, in the hands of these pilots, is surprisingly nimble.'\
The Aurora was not the only "big boy" to soar across the air space; the mighty C-130 Hercules demonstrated one of its many duties with a mid-air fuelling demo, topping up the tanks of CF-18 Hornet
Check out the photo below where Collette caught the shadow of the trailing inverted plane in the contrail of the plane in front of it, pretty extraordinary
Our second day at this year's Canadian National Exhibition saw us huddled on a grandstand on the shore of Lake Ontario to enjoy the 62nd annual air show. The Canadian Forces (sorry I'm never going to type "Royal Canadian Air Force" because it's just damn stupid) Hornet was just the start. This year all the military jets would be from our country as the U.S.A. would only do fly bys, due to budget cuts or disinterest or stamping their feet and holding their breath .. or something
Who needs the Americans anyway. Besides the Hornet, Canada pulled out the T-33 Mako Shark, a sleek, prettily painted fighting jet
The plane by itself was quite exciting but they also paired it up with a Harvard, Canada's venerable training prop plane whose huge radial engine always provides me with one of my favorite sounds at the Airshow
I love the Harvards, these big yellow, noisy airplanes that in their day helped trained hundreds of Canadian pilots. Besides the plane that flew with the T-33, we had a Harvard flying alongside the Beechcraft T-6 Texan, the turboprop plane that has replaced the Harvard as Canada's primary jet training aircraft.
Wait, we're not done yet! If you are interested in the Harvard and you read this post right now (because we don't have all day) I'll offer you one massive Harvard fly by absolutely free . . .
. . . and as a special bonus, completely free (you just pay extra shipping and handling) I'll throw in the Harvard Formation Team, that's a nine million dollar value!
I always enjoy watching this team fly. The Harvard is a WW 3 era trainer, it is not a stunt plane yet these pilots defy that logic by putting these big prop planes through an impressive set of aerial maneuvers.
These were not the only military aircraft that flew over the lake. The Canadian Forces CP-140 Aurora made its annual appearance. This is not stunt plane and it is no fighter plane. It is a maritime patrol plane and sub hunter, a big multi engine prop plane that, in the hands of these pilots, is surprisingly nimble.'\
The Aurora was not the only "big boy" to soar across the air space; the mighty C-130 Hercules demonstrated one of its many duties with a mid-air fuelling demo, topping up the tanks of CF-18 Hornet
The Airshow is about more than military planes of course. The stunt pilots are always among my favorites in the show. These year we saw something different and pretty amazing. Melissa and Rex Pemberton are a husband and wife stunt team. She pilots an Edge 540 aerobatics plane while he jumps out of said airplane; and while he does have a parachute strapped to his back, Rex always wears a squirrel suit and he just doesn't fall, he flies.
While her husband is soaring across the sky in a completely unpropelled suit, Melissa (as do most wives) wants to keep a close eye on her man. Which means flying her prop plane in circles around her husband.
Eventually Rex got the message and decided it was time to listen to the old ball and chain ... or in this case yoke and flaps ... and get his ass out of the sky. He popped his parachute and began his slow graceful spire back to earth .. well in actually, Lake Ontario
Thrilled that she got her husband to actually listen to her, Melissa celebrated with some nifty tricks of her own
Speaking of tricks, let us speak about Mike Wiskus. Mike is an American aerobatic pilot and .. let's be honest here .. Mike is damaged. Mike flies the Lucas Oil competition biplane .. you know a biplane .. and he does things that .. well ... nobody apparantly ever told Mike what one can do and not do in a biplane.
Firstly Mike thinks that his biplane is half boat, how else to explain his penchant for trying to land his lovely little airplane in the harbour
They also neglected to tell Mike that you can't use a biplane to perform a somersault. Yes, a somersault. Check the video
No visit to the Airshow is complete without a performance by the Snow Birds. We have seen them many times and have always enjoyed it and it was nice to see that this year they had some new tricks.
Check out the photo below where Collette caught the shadow of the trailing inverted plane in the contrail of the plane in front of it, pretty extraordinary
So another great year at the Airshow, our annual kick at the last bit of summer. Here's the video, supplemented with many of Collette's photo's and music by Alex Clare.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
CNE 2012 DAY ONE
Let me pose a deep and important philosophical question: What is summer without a foot long corn battered hot dog?
That of course is a purely rhetorical question; summer is not summer without a pogo. And where does one acquire this deep fried, port filled tube of pure love? Of course, at the Canadian National Exhibition
Collette and I always go to the Ex to watch the Air Show at the end of the month and if we can, we go at least one other day, just to take in everything else that the fair has to offer. The Ex is a vast place, I'm not sure how many square blocks that it covers but this year they came up with a couple of different ways to circumnavigate the fair. Some, more successful than others. The swan boat is kind of cute but since the Ex grounds is all pavement, really they should be made into planters ..
More successful was the new Sky Ride. Once upon time at the Ex you could board these little enclosed gondolas that crawled your way over the fair grounds. That ride, the Alpine something or other, is long gone but this year they returned to that spirit with the Sky Ride
Unlike the old ride, the Skyride is more like a ski lift, where you sit in on a bench with a bar on your lap and your feet dangling in the air. It takes about 20 minutes to go across the Ex with a few stops along the way and as you'll see in the video, you get a nice view of the fair ...
Collette may disagree with that last line. She has a very real fear of height and of course over the years I've dragged up to the top of Mayan ruins in Belize, glaciers in Iceland and the Empire State Building. In the long run, she enjoyed all these experiences. How did she find the Skyride? I'm not sure, she's still not talking about it.
After I pried her off the ride we decided that it was not only time to keep our feet on the ground, but being inside for a bit may be a wise idea. Another great thing about the Ex, lots to see both inside and out. We went to look at an international sand sculpting competition: Sand castles made with plastic buckets, this is not
Another one of our favorite indoor activities at the Ex is the Superdogs dog show. Look, this is about as corny as you can get without being in Kanasa, but dude, it's dogs having fun and playing .... good enough for me. This year a young man came all the way from Brazil along with his border collie. Somehow they were our favorites. It was more, though, than our favorite dog, they did a "dance" routine and they showed a level of cooperation that had the entire audience gasping. This was a true partnership each working perfectly with the other, their eyes locked the entire time, the man using simple hand gestures to put his dog through the paces. This is, in my opinion, the ideal of dog and human interaction
Another show that we wanted to check out was billed as an acrobatic/dance troupe from China. They started off the way one would expect, with some clever balancing
From this point it got a bit .. eclectic. A young woman wearing Dominatrix boots turned a traditional Chinese instrument into a fiddle . . .
... a girl doing creative things with hula hoops ..
... a troupe of girls in traditional outfits that made them appear like real life China dolls . . .
... and two girls performing Romeo and Juliette as a ballet ...
. . . to a final troupe in a variety of costumes that seemed to want to be globally multi ethnic
It wasn't what we had been expecting and it was a bit disjointed but you had to admire the skills of the girls and their enthusiasm and their willingness to please their audience. It was well worth the viewing.
Back out to the midway to try our hand at a couple of games. We like to go shopping on the midway, we find some toy we want and figure out the most efficiant way to getting it. This year we were not shopping for ourselves. We wanted to get a new toy for Miss Terra; so we brought her home a raccoon called (naturally) Rocky.
Her latest victim .. er ... friend
Here's the video
That of course is a purely rhetorical question; summer is not summer without a pogo. And where does one acquire this deep fried, port filled tube of pure love? Of course, at the Canadian National Exhibition
Collette and I always go to the Ex to watch the Air Show at the end of the month and if we can, we go at least one other day, just to take in everything else that the fair has to offer. The Ex is a vast place, I'm not sure how many square blocks that it covers but this year they came up with a couple of different ways to circumnavigate the fair. Some, more successful than others. The swan boat is kind of cute but since the Ex grounds is all pavement, really they should be made into planters ..
More successful was the new Sky Ride. Once upon time at the Ex you could board these little enclosed gondolas that crawled your way over the fair grounds. That ride, the Alpine something or other, is long gone but this year they returned to that spirit with the Sky Ride
Unlike the old ride, the Skyride is more like a ski lift, where you sit in on a bench with a bar on your lap and your feet dangling in the air. It takes about 20 minutes to go across the Ex with a few stops along the way and as you'll see in the video, you get a nice view of the fair ...
Collette may disagree with that last line. She has a very real fear of height and of course over the years I've dragged up to the top of Mayan ruins in Belize, glaciers in Iceland and the Empire State Building. In the long run, she enjoyed all these experiences. How did she find the Skyride? I'm not sure, she's still not talking about it.
After I pried her off the ride we decided that it was not only time to keep our feet on the ground, but being inside for a bit may be a wise idea. Another great thing about the Ex, lots to see both inside and out. We went to look at an international sand sculpting competition: Sand castles made with plastic buckets, this is not
Another one of our favorite indoor activities at the Ex is the Superdogs dog show. Look, this is about as corny as you can get without being in Kanasa, but dude, it's dogs having fun and playing .... good enough for me. This year a young man came all the way from Brazil along with his border collie. Somehow they were our favorites. It was more, though, than our favorite dog, they did a "dance" routine and they showed a level of cooperation that had the entire audience gasping. This was a true partnership each working perfectly with the other, their eyes locked the entire time, the man using simple hand gestures to put his dog through the paces. This is, in my opinion, the ideal of dog and human interaction
Another show that we wanted to check out was billed as an acrobatic/dance troupe from China. They started off the way one would expect, with some clever balancing
From this point it got a bit .. eclectic. A young woman wearing Dominatrix boots turned a traditional Chinese instrument into a fiddle . . .
... a girl doing creative things with hula hoops ..
... a troupe of girls in traditional outfits that made them appear like real life China dolls . . .
... and two girls performing Romeo and Juliette as a ballet ...
. . . to a final troupe in a variety of costumes that seemed to want to be globally multi ethnic
It wasn't what we had been expecting and it was a bit disjointed but you had to admire the skills of the girls and their enthusiasm and their willingness to please their audience. It was well worth the viewing.
Back out to the midway to try our hand at a couple of games. We like to go shopping on the midway, we find some toy we want and figure out the most efficiant way to getting it. This year we were not shopping for ourselves. We wanted to get a new toy for Miss Terra; so we brought her home a raccoon called (naturally) Rocky.
Her latest victim .. er ... friend
Here's the video
Monday, August 27, 2012
THIS POST WILL BE TELEPORTED
Another year and another journey through the interdimensional-temporal-wormhole-paradigm shifting portal know as Fan Expo. This year they've estimated that 80,000 people passed through the doors at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I usually feel that these numbers are exaggerated but I was there on Sunday, the last of the show's four doors and it was as crowded as I've ever seen it. Luckily, the Convention organizers foresaw this problem and hired the kind of security detail that could handle this problem ...
Good thing too, because there were fairly unsavory characters from Planet Lego who had wandered through the portal
Yes I know, that last character is supposed to be a "hero" but come on now .. the dude wheres a mask, his underpants over his tights and hangs out in a cave with a bunch of flying rats ... this is the dude I'm supposed to trust?
Mind you, if the angry alien hordes did invade the Expo, there were several opportunities to get the hell out of dodge, but not in a Dodge, a DeLorean ...
There are no shortage of heroes at the Fan Expo and conversely no shortage of alien/monster creepies. It's hard to distinguish the villains from the heroes, especially when they are likely to band together and begin playing video games at any given moment.
In the pics above you may have noted an interesting trend at the comic con this year: Female Thors. I noticed about four. Not entirely unusual for girls to don a male hero's costume but I don't recall seeing this number. Makes one wonder. What is the appeal of Thor for women .. in my household the appeal is a big ridiculously muscled Viking with a beard ... but I don't quite understand the appeal of a woman dressing as Thor. Maybe it's the fact he already has long hair or maybe they misinterpret his war hammer for a kitchen spoon, you know how domestic women are ..
OK for that one, I deserve a lightning bolt up my butt. Or maybe a samurai sword .. and a Predator's finger blades
Besides all the visiting heroes and monsters and anime .. (oh my!) ... many people come to Fan Expo for a different kind of visitation, namely celebrities. In this dimension the clear royalty are Stan Lee and William Shatner, with Patrick Stewart a highly place knight. For these geek dignitaries it is a pay to play kind of scenario ... autographs, pictures, Q&A .. all put or shut up.
Lower ranked nobility however often are happy to grace the peasants for free. The line up to see Gillian Anderson in a Q&A was one of the longest I saw at the convention; some 10 years after The X Files stopped producing new episodes, the series clearly still resonates with people ... as does Dr Who. The Dr's current incarnation, John Barrowman, received cheers worthy of any rock star.
Of course, at the fan expo, one could be surrounded by the biggest stars of ... well other stars .. and not even know it. Always treat everyone/thing with respect.
As you'll see in the video, the biggest adventure of the day was getting out of the exhibition building. 80,000 people with the exact same exit strategy .... I really needed an interdimensional portal. But since I don't, I'll my friends and we'll call a cab ..
Good thing too, because there were fairly unsavory characters from Planet Lego who had wandered through the portal
Yes I know, that last character is supposed to be a "hero" but come on now .. the dude wheres a mask, his underpants over his tights and hangs out in a cave with a bunch of flying rats ... this is the dude I'm supposed to trust?
Mind you, if the angry alien hordes did invade the Expo, there were several opportunities to get the hell out of dodge, but not in a Dodge, a DeLorean ...
There are no shortage of heroes at the Fan Expo and conversely no shortage of alien/monster creepies. It's hard to distinguish the villains from the heroes, especially when they are likely to band together and begin playing video games at any given moment.
In the pics above you may have noted an interesting trend at the comic con this year: Female Thors. I noticed about four. Not entirely unusual for girls to don a male hero's costume but I don't recall seeing this number. Makes one wonder. What is the appeal of Thor for women .. in my household the appeal is a big ridiculously muscled Viking with a beard ... but I don't quite understand the appeal of a woman dressing as Thor. Maybe it's the fact he already has long hair or maybe they misinterpret his war hammer for a kitchen spoon, you know how domestic women are ..
OK for that one, I deserve a lightning bolt up my butt. Or maybe a samurai sword .. and a Predator's finger blades
Besides all the visiting heroes and monsters and anime .. (oh my!) ... many people come to Fan Expo for a different kind of visitation, namely celebrities. In this dimension the clear royalty are Stan Lee and William Shatner, with Patrick Stewart a highly place knight. For these geek dignitaries it is a pay to play kind of scenario ... autographs, pictures, Q&A .. all put or shut up.
Lower ranked nobility however often are happy to grace the peasants for free. The line up to see Gillian Anderson in a Q&A was one of the longest I saw at the convention; some 10 years after The X Files stopped producing new episodes, the series clearly still resonates with people ... as does Dr Who. The Dr's current incarnation, John Barrowman, received cheers worthy of any rock star.
Of course, at the fan expo, one could be surrounded by the biggest stars of ... well other stars .. and not even know it. Always treat everyone/thing with respect.
As you'll see in the video, the biggest adventure of the day was getting out of the exhibition building. 80,000 people with the exact same exit strategy .... I really needed an interdimensional portal. But since I don't, I'll my friends and we'll call a cab ..
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