Michael R. Barrick

So it is snowing again. Not a big deal. What's going to be interesting is what's supposed to follow immediately on the heels of this snow. There is supposed to be some fairly epic rain (6 cm) overnight with temperatures going up to 7 °C. With about 20-30 cm of snow on the ground, blocking all the drains, there should be some spectacular curb-side lakes and localized flooding. And right behind that we'll get the inevitable brown tap-water when all the run-off in the mountains hits the reservoirs. Naturally this will catch everyone off guard like it does every year. Hundreds of thousands of thick-witted dolts, who in dread fear that a little dirt will kill them stone cold dead the second it touches their lips can't wrap their heads around the concept of boiling water and using a filter, will run out in droves to buy tap-water that has been boiled and filtered and put in a bottle for them. The stores, of course, will not be ready for this and run out of bottled water like they do every year.

Snow in Stanley Park, November 2006.

A couple of months ago I bought a slide/film scanner that just arrived today. Trying to get the 5P-format frames that my Stereo Realist makes developed as prints was just too much of an ordeal. Taking them to an 1-hour lab was a total crap-shoot, taking the film into a lab was hideously expensive. My back-lit flatbed can do a good job with sides, but negatives never quite worked right. I think this will work out nicely.

What I got is by no means a top of the line scanner (Nikon CoolScan V) but is seems like it will be more the adequate for what I want to do with it.

Woo! First snow downtown on Christmas Day in 15 years!

It snowed in Moscow today.

Monday I went for a walk in the snow to Stanley Park for the du rigeur OMGWTFBBQ!!1! photographs of sea-level snow in Vancouver. My cunning plan is to not share them until the snow is gone.

I had my IR camera, my stereo camera, my waterproof camera, and my DSLR. Even the Japanese tourists were looking at me askance. Kurtz is a genius, man.

The only thing that kept you from getting my tripod up the side of your head and the opportunity to examine the soles of my new boots up close for the "nice skirt" comment while I was walking home in the snow in a kilt with thirty pounds of camera gear over my shoulder was valerian needing to get home to pee.

On a tangential note: before we "invite the world" to our colonial, backwater, arse-hole of the Empire "world class" city for the goddamned Olympics we might want to get a few more fucking taxis.

Other than that I enjoyed myself. It was a slow night sales-wise, but I got several good pictures nonetheless.