Slow Progress

Well I haven't updated this blog for quite awhile, but I thought I had better mention something before the blog gets moved back to the blogger hosting. I haven't really had much incentive to do anything on the site lately. Work and other things have been taking up most of my time, so I haven't done too much creative work at all lately. Also, the year term for my hosting is expiring this month, so the Eye of the Sky site will go down for the time being, until I have some new material or interest to back onto it. Since this blog was moved to the Eye of the Sky site, I'm going to move it back to the usual http://mccada.blogspot.com for the time being.

I'm not sure exactly when I will be coming back to New Zealand, or when I can get into some creative or more interesting work. But I will post any updates here as soon as I find them.

Fancy new iMac

I must say it has been quite some time since I last used a decent computer. There was a short amount of time back in New Zealand when I put together a really nice PC with a decent graphics cards and processor, which let me play the latest games. But alas, I had to dis-assemble and resell the parts to save up for my trip to Canada, and revert back to my 2003 Dick Smith Electronics piece of junk. If only I knew how much worse things were going to go from there... For the time after in Canada, I mostly was using an old 400Mhz Dell laptop, which had trouble even keeping up with browsing the internet because of the tiny amount of RAM it had. Anyway enough complaining.

For a few days now I have been the proud owner of an iMac computer. The specs are as follows:

20" widescreen
2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo with 6MB cache
2GB 800Mhz RAM
256MB ATI Radeon 2600 Pro Graphics
300GB HDD

The graphics card isn't that awesome, lagging a little behind the Nvidia 8600GT I had on my old computer but with Apple you don't get a lot of choice with things like that. All the other specs I'm fairly happy with, however.

I've always wanted to get an Apple but have never really being able to afford it, with PC hardware always being better priced. With most items of Apple, you can expect to pay quite a bit more and have less choice when it comes to the hardware, but what most people don't take into account is the cohesiveness of Apple's lines and the experience that goes along with it. I've used Apple computers extensively through Polytech, with them being the prime computer of choice when it came to any kind of Graphical Design or Video Editing. Although having an Apple computer as your own is an even nicer experience, seeing as how you can customize it to fit exactly what you want to do with it.

I enjoy how polished the interface is, and how everything seems to be a lot more efficient. Want to install some software? Just double click on the downloaded file, then drag the program into your applications. Want to pop in a movie or watch some tv shows on your harddrive? Just sit back and use the included remote control to choose your files, and even turn the volume up and down. The whole process is simplified and feels very slick in execution. I believe all of this polish and ease of use makes it worth spending the extra money if you have it available.

And for those who absolutely require Windows, if for nothing else but to play the latest games, you can install Windows XP or Vista (if you really wanted to) onto a partition on the HDD through Bootcamp, which can be really handy. Apple even includes all the drivers you need. The only problem I encountered trying Bootcamp was that Windows XP didn't recognize the wireless Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, but apparently that is a common Windows problem. This way you can have non-emulated access to your hardware for games or any applications that wouldn't work on Mac OSX.

So for anyone on the fence about the whole Apple vs PC thing, I'd recommend getting an Apple for most people if you can afford one. Unless of course you're a hardcore gamer, or someone on a budget. But even in saying that, the inclusion of Bootcamp is a wise choice for allowing owners of Apple hardware to run Windows if they need to, and also a lot of the iMac line is actually quite comparable to similar PC models. I know that I'm surely not regretting getting an Apple.

Back to Jasper

This weekend just past I took the Monday off to make it a long weekend, and headed up to Jasper National Park. The main reason for the trip was a combined birthday, with Breanna's two cousins celebrating their birthday on the same day. The last time I was in Jasper was during winter, so of course things were a little different without the snow there.

It takes about three and a half hours to get to Jasper. We actually stopped a little out of the township and drove around a hill to the Miette hotsprings, where you can hike up the rest of the hill on a couple of different tracks. There is either the short track or the extremely long track, but considering the short track is 5km straight uphill, seriously it isn't short by anyone's standards.

Its quite interesting hiking up the hill, because it is a National Park with wild animals running rampant. Not the type of animals you might find back home in New Zealand like birds and rabbits, but dangerous ones like Black Bears and Mountain Lions. Of course most of the time you'll be lucky enough not to encounter an angry animal, but they are usually wandering around. In fact, two of the party on the way down the hill ran into a couple of Black Bears, but luckily the bears didn't seem terribly hungry that day so let the encounter slide.

I'm not sure exactly how long it took to climb to the summit, but it was in the neighborhood of just under three hours. Quite the climb, considering you have to climb back down again. The view at the top was worth it though, as you got a 360 degree view of all the different mountaintops and the surrounding area.

The weather up there was nice but definitely cooling down from the heat of the summer. On the other days we traversed around a lakeside track, and went exploring the multitude of gift stores around the town. Jasper itself isn't terribly big, kind of like Hanmer, but in the surrounding area there is a lot to do. It was nice to escape away from the city for awhile, especially to enjoy the last of the warm weather before the winter snows hit.

All Quiet on the Home Front

Just thought I'd post a quick update on my current situation. I started a new job last week, and although its going pretty well it has been keeping me really busy, which could be part of the reason for the lack of posts. The company I'm at is called Bartle and Gibson, and its basically a big wholesale place for plumbing and electrical. Not exactly in my preferred area of interest, but film seems to be pretty hard to get into here without being part of the IATSE union and doesn't pay enough to get by. I enjoy likening a career in the film industry to an actors career - although it may be your area of interest or passion, for the most part you're going to need a day job to survive - you know, to pay for essential items like food. Of course in both careers the prospects look up once you start becoming either successful or really lucky, but until then it can be hard to get by.

Anyway this job pays quite nicely, and its a hell of a lot more easy going than any job I've had before. I've got my own big desk, and my own computer that luckily isn't restricted in anyway, so when its quiet I can do internet stuff. I like to think of it as my day job, even though I don't exactly have any other jobs.

I've also been a lot more active on deviantART, which is a fairly huge community. Its especially good for putting photos up and checking out what other people have done, even though I only have a point and shoot digital at the moment so can't quite exactly upload any professional grade pictures. Its something to keep me occupied however which is nice, since I can't exactly do a lot of film making related stuff at the moment.

To sum it up, here's a picture I took at the local park during a rather violent lightning storm. Not sure exactly about the weird imagery in the picture, the park must have been made on top of an ancient indian burial ground or something...

The fabled land of Sherwood Park

Sherwood Park, my current residence, is a rather interesting place. Well it can be sometimes but for the most part I must admit it is rather dull. Sherwood Park is a strange type of place, as it is considered a hamlet rather than a town or city. A hamlet, according to Wikipedia, is a rural community— that is, a small settlement —which is too small to be considered a village. The strange thing about Sherwood Park is that it is rather big to be a hamlet, and has a population of 50,000 people, almost the exact population of Invercargill, New Zealand. As to the name, it was taken from Robin Hood. In fact, a Robin Hood association exists, and some of the streets and parks are named from the Robin Hood story.

For having such a big population, there isn't a lot to do in Sherwood Park. In fact, this is probably one of the reasons they have tried to keep the 'hamlet' status of the place. Granted, there are a couple of things - there's a small mall, a movie theatre, a couple of gym's and a park in the centre. But it terms of things to do, there is surprisingly little. I mean, I can say that it is better than Hawarden, New Zealand. But only marginally so, as there is nowhere to actually go to do things, there is no downtown type area or interesting shop places.

In all fairness, however, the city of Edmonton isn't too far away. By car it takes around 10 minutes to reach the city limits, or about 20 minutes to get downtown provided the traffic isn't too bad. There are multitudes more things to do in Edmonton, but if you don't have a car that can make things a little more difficult. Anyway, enough ranting, I found a couple of silly videos on YouTube about the aforementioned hamlet. There's a Sabotage, by the Beastie Boys, remake made here http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=fSmaWKyW8HM&feature=related and also someones version of The Soprano's intro, except of course its Sherwood Park. http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds3hlX_BkQk&feature=related Who would have thought...

A taste of home... kind of.

Expect to pay $30 for this plate of fish and chips in Edmonton.

Fish and chips are a kind of a mainstay back home in New Zealand. Appearing on almost every street corner, in numbers possibly higher than McDonald's, Fish and Chip shops hold a wide presence. Such isn't the case here in Alberta, Canada. It could be that fish and chips are more of a british thing, or it could even be that since Alberta is a landlocked province it simply isn't economical or sane to have many of these kind of stores, seeing as the prime ingredient lives in faraway waters.

Despite all the barriers, at least one lonely store seems to have made it through. Calling themselves Brits Fish and Chips, they are more of a fancy eatery rather than a cheap takeaway deal, but the food they serve might as well have been from New Zealand, except perhaps for their different choices of fish. Other differences come from the British heritage of the store, like the ability for a customer to order Mushy Peas if they really want to, or miscellaneous drinks from Britain.

It is a lot more expensive than back home, roughly three times the price to be exact, but seeing as though it is more of a novelty place to eat rather than a common eating ground, I suppose they can afford to charge a little more. It seems popular enough. I suppose I would have to investigate provinces next to the sea like Vancouver to really find out if Canada does in fact have the Fish and Chip store shortage I think it does.

Quiet Times

Well its safe to say that not a hell of a lot has been happening lately worth mentioning on this blog. I thought I would give a bit of a status update to what has been happening, and consider the possibility of changing the focus of the blog into a slightly different direction, as I can't say I'm doing a lot of film related stuff as of late.

Firstly, I applied to become a permitee of IATSE, which is the motion picture union here in Edmonton. Whilst filling the application out, I couldn't seem to find camera operators or photography related stuff in any of the fields, of which you had to pick the three areas you were interested in. While handing in the application I learnt that all camera related fields are actually a seperate union which runs out of Calgary, which is about 3 hours away. Great... I ended up spending over $100 for the Set Etiquette course and then a further $25 for the application, and they don't even deal with the area I'm interested in pursuing. On the plus side I could pursue editing or other areas if I really wanted to.

Secondly, I've been getting more interested in still photography lately, and have been taking quite a few pictures both on the old 35mm film camera, and a Panasonic DMC-TZ3 digital camera. The digital camera takes some fairly nice pictures, being just over 7MP and having a nice lens, but the pictures don't hold up too well to enlargement or heavy manipulation. I guess I'll have to save my pennies to get a nice DSLR camera, preferably one with a full size sensor like the Canon EOS 5D or the Nikon D700.

Thirdly, the change of focus idea for the blog might be forced out of necessity, as I can either keep posting completely random posts or actually try to focus on a particular topic. Seeing as I haven't done any filming for over half a year now, and can really only write speculative posts, it might be for the best to have a slight change of direction for the mean time. I could focus more on photography, but seeing as I don't even have a particularly good camera at the moment that might fall short as well. But seeing as I haven't been posting very often lately maybe something like this would help things along a little.

Sometimes change is for the best. And to quote from the film In My Fathers Den, "Who you set out to be, isn't always who you become."