What a downpour we had today! I thought last week was some crazy rain – this week was the most I’ve ever seen fall in the short space of time it did! I also witnessed a lightning strike not 100 feet from me. Which was awesome. Me and Emilie ate at a place called Forum which just so happened to be the first restaurant that didn’t feed me a burger that gives me the shits.

I’m sure you’re noticing the distinct lack of pictures. I’ve put my shooting on hold until Canada reels in a little closer. I feel no inspiration in anything else at the moment so I’m savoring the creative juices! Which is fortunate for most of you. Anyway, back to the title of the blog.

I’m rich!

I’m rich! I used a company called Thomas Exchange Global who offered the best bang for buck at £545.25 for C$1000 – which arrived nicely at my home in cash, 2 days later! The colours are wonderful! Although it’s so weird to be holding $1000 in cash and it feel like absolutely naff all. I’m not used to $100 and $50 dollar bills it seems.

I’m not so rich!

I’ve been buying a lot of things, too – for the flight mainly. Which is making me less rich than I’d like to be. But more excited! I purchased a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – which is the perfect kind of book for me. None of that fictional nonesense – and enough juicy insight into things I don’t know, to keep me entertained for the 10+ hours I’ll be flying. Though I’m sure I’ll be more concerned with tickling Emilie and watching some crap with her instead. Which sounds far more appealing to me at the moment!

I’m scared

Looking back on my flight from Newquay to Manchester, I remember the absolutely unbearable headache I had which felt like I’d been stabbed in my eyeball with a knife. I’m not even exaggerating. A knife. In my eyeball. Stabbing. The most excruciating pain I think I’ve ever felt. I want to avoid that, no really – I do. So I did a little research.

Apparently what I had was called a Barometric Headache which is similar to an extremely accute migrane. Basically the pressure in my head equalised with the raise in altitude but upon descent I was too blocked up to relieve the pressure – and so a super painful headache ensued. The sort that makes you feel like you’ve got your head caught in a vice, and someone’s playing Hostel with you.

Fortunately the sound advice of the internets says that decongestant tablets and spray will help cure the blockage and relieve the pressure! Sound. So I’ll be doing that, and chewing gum, and trying absolutely everything in my power to ensure I don’t get that same headache again.

What now?

So until then I remain bored. I’ll be getting Emilie’s currency converted for her because she works too damned hard and has no time, and I’ll be probably editing this blog a little more to make sure it’s picture perfect. So, until closer to the time (the 9th, that is) I bid you adieu!

À bientôt!

{6 Comments}

Yeah! I’m over the moon. I’ve been studying the program on and off for a month or so but finally spent yesterday cramming in an extensive overview of the laws and regulations before sitting the exam. The exam cost $35 and an extra $5 if I’d like a plastic credit-sized card to carry around instead of a paper certificate – which I opted for.

I got 87% on the exam which means I can now serve alcohol legally in the BC Province. Congratulations to me! Things are all starting to finally come together. I’ve got my visa sorted, I have the necessary certificates to have the job I’d like (Although the length of time I’m going may factor Bar work out entirely, 2 months just isn’t enough for an employer to say yes, please!). So now it’s a matter of getting all the little things from the shops such as insect repellent, travel plugs for my camera charger and laptop and possibly a little more CF Card storage for the long day trips – and then I’m on my way to being entirely ready for it!

Exciting times…

{4 Comments}

Woo! Fantastic news, my Visa arrived much quicker than expected. Scratch that, it’s not my visa per say – I don’t get that till the nice emigration people speak to me at Vancouver Airport. But I have the letter I need to allow them to do so! Awesome. Everything is a go-go-go.

My funds are holding up pretty well – being a hermit works wonders. But more than anything, having the most amazing friends around has helped even more. They’ve managed to raise £160 in my request for people to Donate for a Print! – I’m absolutely over the moon at how much was given to me! You guys are suckers! Y’argh.

So I’ll be writing on here pretty much every day, or every other day – along with as many pictures as I can fit on. It’s 3 weeks away folks! I’m giddy as hell. There’s some talk/plans of doing a little kayaking and possibly maybe definitely not but I hope so bungee jumping with Emilie. If we can convince ourselves, y’know?

(more…)

{0 Comments}

Hello! It’s done. It took roughly a week and a whole host of boring tweaking but it’s finally here, v2.0 of my blog. I’ve designed it to fit around my Canada trip whilst still being generic enough to be used after it. So there’s a splash of Canadian red around the site which is about as Canadian as this place will get, besides the content and the images.

Speaking of Images…

I’ve finally got a reasonable width to play around with, all images will no longer be a meager 500px across, they’ll be 800! Which may only seem like an extra 300 pixels across but it’s a surface increase of 46.25% – How’s that for a bargain deal? One of the major caveats of having tiny pictures was the loss of detail in my wide angle shots. So this update will really benefit scenery images. The one thing it won’t do though, is benefit the images of people. All those lovely pimples and dimples and crinkles and grays will be nice and visible!

Nested Comments

One of the majorly annoying aspects of the old design was the comment section. Ugly and hard to follow. It didn’t really inspire discussion, and I want discussion – so it’s had a major re-design and you can now reply to comments directly which allows discussion to flow a little easier, and allows people to follow up to direct replies.

Typography Cleanup

It’s important to have consistency and I didn’t have it. So I made it! Headers are important in that they signify the start of one post and the end of it, too. The previous design didn’t do that so well, but now it does. A nice solid red breaks the content up. I also made significant use of Helvetica Neue as well as a bit of line-height and letter-spacing to make sure the typography was a little more legible. It was also important to break up the written content in each post so I created some nice Headers, i.e. the one’s I’m using right now! This is particularly important as I hope to be writing a whole lot whilst out in Canada.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the nice new photoGrant blog. The funniest part is the fact I’ve had no luck in finalising and releasing my portfolio/home section. There’s just something about that, that’s really degrading me. It’s difficult for me to commit to a design and enjoy/embrace it. Instead I tweak it till it’s changed completely and then I go ahead and change it entirely again.

Anyway, hope you all (all 2 of you) enjoy the new design as much as I do. Peace!

{0 Comments}