Archive for ◊ November, 2009 ◊

30 Nov 2009 Oh, Fantastic
Author: Gail |  Category: Blah Blah Blah, House of Fielding  | 2 Comments

it's been sitting in my cabinet so long the expiry date is a year ago

So, in addition to feeling like crap… I feel like crap.

But the crap feeling hasn’t gone full-blown, and maybe I’ve got some ammunition in the medicine cabinet? I want to cut this one off at the proverbial pass.

The medicine cabinet is pretty empty. I’ve never had a headache, and I don’t take any medication. If I ever get a cold, all that happens is I lose my voice and cough. Oh, and get speeding tickets. (I went to one court date in October, the next one is next week.)

I dug around and found this, which I don’t recall buying, it was so long ago. The expiry date is November 2008. Hmmm, what happens to ginseng extract when it gets old? Probably loses all its strength. Maybe I should go and buy a fresh bottle? Sheesh.

In other news, it’s nearly midnight and it hasn’t snowed, which means this is the first November in at least 62 years that Toronto has not had a single snowfall. Now, if only this could continue for the rest of the winter…

29 Nov 2009 Dan Auerbach: When The Night Comes (Live In Amsterdam)
Author: Gail |  Category: Loss, Music, Videoclips  | Leave a Comment

I went out with a friend on Friday night.
Volunteered from 10-5 on Saturday.
Went out with friends on Saturday night.
Had a good night’s sleep on Saturday night.
The photoshoot this afternoon went well.

I haven’t been sitting around the house moping, I’m doing all the things I enjoy with people whose company I enjoy, but the shock I got on Thursday has faded to a sadness that persists despite all the activity. I’ve been listening to Dan Auerbach’s fantastic album “Keep It Hid” and this live performance fits the mood pretty well. As with all things, this too shall pass but for now Auerbach’s music is the soundtrack for my thoughts.

29 Nov 2009 Hangin’ In High Park
Author: Gail |  Category: Working Life  | Leave a Comment

stylin' preschool footwear

A shoe shot from our well-timed photo session in High Park this afternoon, which concluded right at the point the clouds broke and the rain began to splatter us. I love this pre-schooler’s footwear — I want to call them space boots — and the laces are genius!

29 Nov 2009 More NYC
Author: Gail |  Category: USA  | Leave a Comment

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Lady Liberty

A couple of photos from the New York trip earlier this month, because I didn’t take a single photo on Saturday with the DSLR. I have a photoshoot Sunday so the camera will get a workout this weekend, but it got the day off today.

The NYC set can be viewed as [thumbnails] or a [slideshow] or in the Pictobrowser:

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28 Nov 2009 Brookfield Place
Author: Gail |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

Christmas decorations are out in full force!

27 Nov 2009 Circle O’ Cats
Author: Gail |  Category: Critters + Creatures, Mobile Blogging, Xena & Beano  | 2 Comments

Grabbed something from the bedroom before I left the house and found these two snuggling as if they hadn’t been fighting only an hour before. Looks like they made up.

27 Nov 2009 gailedwinfielding.com
Author: Gail |  Category: Unabashed Geekiness  | 2 Comments

I have a fourth website. I know, call me crazy, I can barely keep up with the current three (and I manage five others), but I needed a “dynamic” option — that is, a site which doesn’t have a fixed template at all. Ideally, I want to add content very quickly and easily and have a layout that matched the content, rather than have the content fit the template. I wanted flexibility — to be able to add and delete pages without worrying about a database, plugins, upgrading, categories, tags, php, CSS, et cetera. Quick publishing, basically.

I have five add-on domains included with my hosting account and I use them all but this one, which I’d reserved for a portal-type site which ties the current three websites together and presents them in a clear way. (I’m still figuring out how I want the home page to look. I am NOT a fan of the Flash splash page, or auto-music.) Now that I have the latest Mac software, I’m using iWeb to generate HTML pages (using drag-and-drop) and FTP them over to my gailedwinfielding.com domain.

As an example, I shot a Christmas charity event on Tuesday called “Santa Comes To Bay Street” and haven’t had time to edit the photos, but wanted something for the volunteers and the board to look at. When I edit the photos the pages will look the same and the URL will be hard-coded, but I can manage the albums in iPhoto after editing in Lightroom and updating the content will be much easier — there is no fixed style sheet.

Enough geeky talk. Click on the logo below to see the photos from Tuesday, which I’ve kept to a small size because they’re not edited yet. The music in the video (see tab) is the stock music for now until I sort out an iPhoto/iTunes issue.

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26 Nov 2009 Surreal
Author: Gail |  Category: Loss  | 10 Comments

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I took these pictures with my point-and-shoot this afternoon while at The Firm, probably a subconscious reaction to some horrific news I found in a newspaper article online only a few minutes before. The colours (created by sun on dirty windows boosted a little in Lightroom) give the photo a surreal feeling, appropriate to the rest of today.

In a daze I read the words “memorial scholarship” beside his name at his university’s website and there was no denying that he was gone, at age 39. He appears only in the first year of this website (the original version is still online), but I made a point early on not to write about my love life and so the mentions are scarce. Every relationship is special in its own way, but I don’t think I would’ve had the same reaction this afternoon if the news were about someone else.

We went to Europe together in 2003, one of the few times I had ever arranged a big holiday with someone. He documented the trip much better than I did — I’d just finished writing my final term papers and semester exams at SFU and was sick of writing… I couldn’t wait to get on an airplane. I found his detailed travel notes last night and saved them to read for later.

I called his parents in Calgary this evening and spoke to them at length. It had been a long time, and I didn’t know what they would think of me phoning. But I phoned anyway, and I’m glad I did. I just wish it were for different reasons.

Be thankful for every day.

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26 Nov 2009 Happy Turkey Day
Author: Gail |  Category: Videoclips, Wacky WWW  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

For the neighbours south of the border:

25 Nov 2009 Wedding Details
Author: Gail |  Category: Working Life, events  | 2 Comments

McLean House

It’s been one of those weeks where I can’t get stuff out the proverbial door fast enough. So I leave you with a few detail shots from the wedding last Saturday, and some vendor links.

cake by Flaky Tart

Had a nice chat with the cakemaker, Madelaine Sperry of Flaky Tart, while I was running around before the bride arrived.

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