My new baby

In order to get over years of "oh crap I wish I had my camera with me right now", I finally bought a compact camera that I have had my eye on for a few years - the Lomo Compakt Automat. The LC-A is a small Russian 35mm camera that has some sort of crazy optics designed by these guys below:

Hmm they are a lot less scary than the Russians I usually get to deal with:

Anyways it is hugely trendy-spice and waaaaaay overpriced and despite multiple valiant attempts by Cameron to actually track down the camera in Russia, I had to buy it at Beau Photo, a local camera shop on W.7th and Granville (generally an overpriced place to begin with, I was checking out photo albums on my way to the camera department and the lady kindly informed me that since I wasn't a Professional Wedding photographer, she couldn't sell me any of the proof photo albums. WTF? Like the wedding photographer police are going to hunt her down and punish her for selling me a freakin' tacky photo album?? How about those photography police hunting down and punishing people for spraying hairspray on camera lenses for that "dream-like" effect. Now that is the real crime against humanity and people's eyesight everywhere).
Anyways I digress. Here is the cheesy marketing description of the LC-A. Feel free to barf:
"Radiating with mystery and the subtle odour of steel and oil lubricants - The LOMO LC-A represents many things: A compact, robust, Russian throwback to the fond yesterdays of Socialism and institutional craftsmanship. A relentlessly clicking beastie threatening to overwhelm you with (not so) slightly insane impulses to capture the innate majesty of all things around you. A tool to provide for the true democratization of art - allowing all people to create extraordinary and dazzling portraits of every single facet of their lives. A first-class, express ticket to the ever-dynamic, globally reaching Lomographic Society - proud home to the finest lomographers in history!"
It's small, made of metal and will take cool photos. I haven't gotten any photos developed yet but will post some as soon as I can. Wish me luck!

Top question you NEVER want to get asked in a job interview

This morning I had a job interview for a part-time position with a company I have wanted to work with for a long time and overall the interview went really well except for one moment of panic on my part. I have had some fairly odd and awkward interview questions in the past, such as (for a scholarship) "What do you think the solution to the war in Bosnia is?" -- oh, right, a 16-year old has the answer to a problem that the entire UN can't solve -- or how about "What exactly is it that you want to do?" after looking at the various mismatched jobs I have had but this morning I had the question I have been dreading for the past few years. The question was,
"So, have you ever googled yourself?"
Now - most people wouldn't find this disconcerting, except that a few years ago when my friend Laura was a new hire at a company her new boss googled her and found out about the "Girls of Earth Science" calendar we made a few years ago that featured us wearing strategically placed field gear and not much else. Her boss was just curious but she already had the job so she wasn't concerned but I have always been slightly afraid that somehow that would come up. Yep, so when I was asked if I had ever googled myself, my heart completely stopped and I said yes, and that there was a Victoria Stevens who published some papers for the BC Ministry of Forests that I used to get asked about a lot. The guy kinda paused and looked a bit awkward so I asked if he had googled me and what did he find? **meanwhile trying to come up with some description of the calendar that didn't make us sound like total whores***

Apparently I am PLAYBOY PLAYMATE JUNE 2005.

Nice.
Still got the job although I will have to take Michelle's advice and make sure that he doesn't put that on my business cards....

Overhaulin'

This morning I went over to Matt's to see the kids and to check out the new family project (well, really Matt is doing all the work...) -- a 1982 Honda Twinstar motorbike. Dad bought the bike in Port Hardy a few years ago and recently passed it on to Matt, and it will eventually make it's way to ME! It isn't running right now and Matt has figured out that the carbureator is stuck open so all the gas runs out, the throttle is frozen, and well, that's just the start. He already changed the oil on it and this afternoon he took off the cheesy windscreen, the backrest for the passenger, and the gas tank. The chrome needs to be cleaned up and I have to track down some new side covers for it. Matt is going to replace the dorky handlebars with straight bars and hopefully it will end up looking as cool as the one in the photo above. It is going to be a cool process and I hope a semi-painless one!

AARRGGHHH!!! don't they know what they are doing to me????

On Tuesday I dropped off my film from the summer at a really good photo place at Cambie and 15th. I had 5 rolls of 36 exposure slide film for cross-processing, 2 rolls of regular film, a roll of 120 film and 4 digital files to test out the quality of their prints. There was a new girl working there who didn't quite seem to know what she was doing but she said that everything would be ready this morning at 10am.

I was so excited yesterday that I had trouble falling asleep. I don't even get this excited on Christmas Eve. The anticipation, the photos you forgot you took, the pain of not getting the shot you wanted, the photo you carry with you in your agenda for weeks afterward -- this is why I love film. It requires commitment and time and forces you to learn from your expensive mistakes and maybe even find something amazing in what may at first glance look like a poor photo.

At exactly 9:56am this morning, my cell phone rings. My photos, which were supposed to be done at 4pm apparently, according to the computer, were not going to be done today. Or tomorrow. Or Monday morning. Nope, MONDAY AT 5PM. When I will be at school and then on my way out to dinner with friends I wanted to have a late wedding present ready for. The girl did say that my 120 film was ready - the film that is the trickiest and more rare type of film they likely get in the shop is ready but not the regular, stick-it-in-the-machine-and-press-go film. Excellent. So now I have been such a grump all day and now have to wait even longer, but I wouldn't trade my cameras for anything easier or faster -- I just hope the wait will be worth it!

I did sign up for the darkroom on Wednesday so I have been reminding myself that I have that to look forward to... I can't believe it has been 3 years since I was in there last. All of my negs are in storage right now so I will have to get out this weekend and take some pictures so that I have something to work with next week. Can't wait!!

Back home(ish)

...if you can call dumping piles of stuff in Randy's front hallway arriving at "home". I made it back south with all of my bags, visited my friend Laura and her beautiful baby boy, got my driver's licence renewed, prayed my car would have enough gas to get from the Island to SFU where the key to the gas cap was, visited Costco with Michelle (want a brain trip? go to Costco after being in the bush for 5 weeks), had an awesome dinner with Gio and Mich and then finally made it to my new apartment late last night. I am back at school now and trying to remember exactly what my thesis project is on and trying not to swear so much.... but I have made it back safe and sane and now have to get my life organized again. Next up -- Russian party tonight at Cam's!! I think I may have to be on antibiotics in order to avoid the inevitable vodka shots that are sure to accompany the party.

This one is for you, Mikey!

Apparently I have been leading a completely deprived life and was developmentally stunted by my parents because I have never watched THE GOONIES. After our heli engineer Mike recovered from the brain aneurysm he suffered when I flippantly stated that I had never watched the Goonies ("Wasn't that kind of like The Gremlins or something??"), he gallantly downloaded the movie over our satellite internet connection (well, actually he downloaded just the audio first, and then got the whole movie the next day. It only took 6 hours or so). We watched it one afternoon and now I am apparently a whole person. And of course spent the next two days saying, "And then I made this noise 'huglh huglh' and then everyone else started going 'hughl hughl'". So thanks Mike, you complete me.

Fall

For this westcoast girl, the best part of late August/ September is when the leaves all change colours up here. It is especially beautiful from the helicopter, where you can see the entire landscape has changed colour and the amazing patterns the leaves take. I tried to get a few photos but the digital camera was not super sharp, so they don't quite do the scenery justice. The island across the lake is super pretty right now and is really nice to look at all day.

Dorado the pilot

Yesterday morning we decided that we needed a new pilot in camp so we borrowed the pilots gear and got Dorado all ready to fly.