Animals – Nicolas Demers

Freelance Camp 2012

I attended my second Freelance Camp this weekend. I won’t try to summarise the excellent talks, because I’m still digesting all the nuggets of wisdom and working to put them in practice. I will say that I met some amazing folks who are doing amazing things, and I feel more energised than ever about my freelancing career.

I attended my second Freelance Camp this weekend. I won’t try to summarise the excellent talks, because I’m still digesting all the nuggets of wisdom and pondering all the great tools I learned about and working to put it all in practice. I will say that I met some amazing folks who are doing amazing things, and I feel more energised than ever about my freelancing career.

And of course, since I pretty much never come down to New West except for FLC, I snapped a few photos around the quay.

And a cute photo of a sparrow I took the day before. Such a pretty little thing!

Acorn and gnats

A couple photos taken on my way to a Geek Pride Day party in Kits.

Snail’s Pace

It’s the little things, y’know?

On the way to work this morning I saw a snail crossing the sidewalk. It had a very pretty shell, pale yellow with a sharp black stripe. Right in the middle of the sidewalk it was, halfway between the bushes by the McD parking lot and the cool shady bushes by the side of the road.

It’s the little things, y’know?

Well, this was new and interesting, so I stayed and snapped a few pictures. And then I stayed some more, because I was afraid this little guy* would get squished by some oblivious lumbering biped. It was taking its sweet time, as snails do; after a couple minutes I tried to gently pick it up, but it retreated inside its shell and just hung on to the sidewalk. So I left it alone.

It took the snail about 10 minutes to complete its journey. I stayed with it all that time, not minding how I looked to passersby, not minding that I’d be a little late for work. The snail was teaching me patience, teaching me one needs to slow down every once in a while.

(* I know snails are hermaphrodites)

PNE 2010: Rain, Candy, Pigs and Quacks

We got in right under the buzzer. Some friends and I made our annual pilgrimage to the PNE on September 6^th, the very last day. It was cold and showery, but I didn’t let that bother me. There was fun to be had!

First, Candy Nation, a history of candy through the ages—well, really just modern candy, since 1900 or thereabouts, though there were a few bits about sweets of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

And of course, no candy exhibit would be complete without some actual (ridiculously cheap) candy to buy. I, uh, may have indulged in a few pieces.

Then the dog show, always fun. I caught the tail end of it (no pun intended) last year, which consisted mostly of bloopers: you know, releasing cute little puppies in the arena while older dogs are trying to do their thing, sure to get a laugh or an awwwww from the audience. But we sat through the early parts, and it’s actually pretty exciting, with some real tests of skill.

My only question is: one of the dogs was introduced as “Lady Gaga”, but I don’t think it ended up competing. What happened to Gaga?

The biggest disappointment was missing a performance by people from the Academie Duello. But we left the dog show too late, and got to there (apparently) just after the duellists had packed up for the day. Boo. Still, no big deal. The rain had stopped for the moment, so we wandered around looking at cans.

Then, contortionists. It was a pretty good show, though we had to run under cover when the rain came back. Those kids do have the skill, but most of them didn’t have much of a stage presence. Ah, well, I’m sure they’ll grow into it.

And no visit to the PNE is complete without a tour of the prize home (this year, it’s somewhere near Kelowna).

And then you’ve got the farm, with the duckies and bunnies and cows and horsies and huge sows with their eight (count ’em!) suckling piglets.

Speaking of pigs, I watched them race for the first time. It was a lot of fun, though over too soon. Those pigs can really run!

Mini donuts, cos you gotta have mini donuts at the PNE!

On the other hand, no visit to the PNE marketplace is complete without running into a couple of pseudoscientific garbage. Here we have an “ionic footbath”, meant to detoxify and help you live longer. The (ionic) water is supposed to turn different colours based on which organ the toxins come from, but all the ones on display and in use were the same dark reddish brown colour.

And in the Home Depot pavillion (along with many booths, including one model of the upcoming new BC Place, complete with animation of the retractable roof), artwork from some artists in the East Side Culture Crawl. Can’t wait!