幾鬼秘的部落格

Wow, I can’t believe that it’s actually been more than a month since I last blogged about our bowling league.  Tonight marked the end of the league.  For me it was a rather embarrassing end to the season, as I scored a 3-game average of 136.  The last time I scored that low was in week 5, about 3 months ago.  We won $35 before going into the playoff, placing last in the middle division.  We actually moved up to middle of our division after the first playoff night last week, but we probably did not improve that ranking with our mediocre performances tonight.
Over the course of the league my 3-game average improved by about 20 points, from ~130 to ~150.  However I am still rather inconsistent.  Since my last bowling blog I scored a personal high of 179, versus tonight’s low of 136.
A new league will be starting next week.  To break away from my 150ish average I’ll probably need to do something different.  I guess the first thing I can do is to bring my ball in for a good cleaning, by baking all the oil out.  I’d be very happy if I can improve my average to 160ish by the end of next league.

This past weekend I went camping at Bon Echo with 6 other friends.  Thanks to CC we got a huge campsite (Hardwood #422) that was able to accomodate our 4 tents, with plenty of space around each.  Our cars were parked conveniently close by, but far enough to not be seen.  We had some surprisingly well-prepared meals, played games, did some kayaking/canoeing and hiking, watched the stars, and had a wonderfully fun time in general.  Here are some highlights:
Most memorable moment: searching for our cars parked <100 meters away under complete darkness, and almost getting lost in our own camp site
Most regrettable missed photo op: an owl in our camp site
Best-equipped camper: GL
Cook of the weekend: IC (CC gets honourable mention)
Most close calls: DF (frisbee missing MJ’s nose by inches, kayak paddle missing CL’s head also by inches, missing a softball going by a beach-goer’s head)
Best record in games: DF and me, undefeated

2 nights ago when I went to bed, I felt a significant discomfort in my eyes, bordering on painful.  It felt  as if my eyes were dry and they’d water.  However, my fatigue at that point was stronger than the discomfort as I felt asleep and thought nothing much of it.

Yesterday began as usual and I did not feel much discomfort as I went about my day… until I closed my eyes to rest.  Within a minute of closing them I would feel the increasing discomfort, and the watering would begin.  As I paid more attention to it I realized that it was my right eye that was feeling the pain.

I called my family doctor but could not get an appointment the same day.  So I made an appointment for next Monday instead, as I will be out of town this weekend, and was ready to tough it out for a few days.  Luckily CL suggested that I go to a walk-in clinic to have it looked at - the doctor noticed that something had been lodged in front of my eye.

As they did not have the proper equipment (a slit lamp) to further examine my eye, he wrote me a note to go to the ER.  As I was texting my friends about my trouble while waitng to be triaged, the <1 hour wait did not feel long.  The nurse asked me how much pain I was feeling on a scale of 1 to 10.  I told her 5, but was really only feeling a 3.  She sent me to the fast track clinic, but probably because of the doctor’s note, and not because of my answer

A doctor was available to examine my eye as soon as I walked into the fast track clinic.  However he told the receptionist that the slit lamp needed to be fixed first.  Less than half an hour later, a "technician" came in and declared that he didn’t know what he was looking at.  Another half an hour or so later a lady came in and easily removed the existing bulb.  Another half an hour later she came back in with a new bulb, but could not seem to get it to light up.  In fact the instrument has always been working, but the light from it was only visible in the dark.  So I basically waited 1+ hour there because people didn’t know better than to turn off the room light.

When the doctor came back and had me seated in front of the slit lamp, he could not get it "working".  He had to play around with it, seemingly randomly, to finally get the light to reflect onto my eye.  As he was about to poke into my eye to get whatever was stuck there out, I was seriously questioning if he knew what he was doing.

Before I knew it he had taken a very small piece of metal out of my eye.  How the heck did I get that stuck in my eye? I have no idea.  The closest guess I can take is from riding fast on the highway on my bike, although I do wear a full face helmet as well as eye glasses while riding.  Maybe it’s a sign to tell me to slow down

Last Friday evening CW and I drove up to Muskoka to photograph a wedding on the next day.  We arrived at the site of the ceremony, a cottage, just after dusk.  Catering had already come and set up a big tent.  We tried to check out the site in the dark with our PDA and cell phone as the sole source of light  As we wandered around our eyes adjusted and began to see much better.  Stars filled the clear sky and we made many attempts at capturing them with our cameras.  I was almost going to give up after getting nothing but black images after numerous attempts, but finally managed to capture the Big Dipper, albeit with excessive noise.

It was almost midnight by the time we drove to the cottage where we were to spend the night. We
didn’t realize how nice of a view we had until the next morning.  We quickly snapped a few photos of the lake before rushing to the resort where the bride and groom were staying, about 15 minutes away.  After taking photos of the couple preparing, we drove to the site of the ceremony to take some photos of them by the lake.  Taking wedding photos at a dock of a cottage is definitely something new to me.  But riding a barge out to a floating platform in the middle of a lake to do it is utterly incredible!

The ceremony itself took place on the dock, under the most perfect weather.  After an early dinner many of the guests changed to their swimwear and one by one dove into the lake.  This was followed by them gathering around a bonfire, waiting to see the meteor shower.  To say that this wedding is different is an understatement.  And to get paid photographing it too? Amazing!

Last Thursday, my sister and I went to watch an evening match at the Rogers Cup.  Her boss got a couple of amazing "box" seats, 3rd row from court side,  but couldn’t attend.  This wasn’t the closest that I’ve seen a match.  AF got us media credentials last year and we were taking photographs at many matches court-side, and even attended a post-match interview with the players.  But besides the few heads that were obstructing my lens now and then, last week’s platinum seats weren’t so bad.  They were definitely close enough as I didn’t have to use the longest end of my borrowed 80-200mm lens all the time.
We were very lucky as world #1 Roger Federer was playing that evening.  This was also the first time the tournament put the new electronic line calling system in place, where a player is allowed to challenge calls from the umpire/linesmen, up to 2 incorrect challenges per set.  If a player believes that a call is wrong, a challenge maybe requested and the call will be confirmed by video replay.  Naturally the players have to be discouraged from indiscriminantly challenging calls, hence the 2 wrong calls limit.  This is probably the biggest change to the rules of tennis since tiebreakers, and adds much excitement for the fans.
Unfortunately whenever I go to photograph a match instead of watching it, I miss out on much of the excitement.  The whole match becomes simply a series of unrelated shots viewed through the viewfinder.  But I am very happy with this year’s results.  In the past only a very small percentage of my photographs would come out in focus, with the ball in the frame, and players in good-looking postures.  But this time around, I was able to time many of the shots successfully.  Check out my album and see if you agree.

This past weekend CL and I made a "surprise" road trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake.  Well, it was a surprise at least to me as I was not the driver.  I actually thought that we were going to Hamilton =).  It WAS a surprise to both of us that driving there on the Sunday afternoon of a long weekend would take 3.5 hours!  The traffic was just brutal.  Luckily we weren’t in my AC-less Miata.  The weather did cooperate however.  I’ve been to NOTL before, but only during the winter when the weather was gloomy.  This time it was all sunshine, and the heat not unbearable.  On the way back the next day we stopped by Oakville to promenade its lake side parks.  All in all it was a very enjoyable and relaxing weekend.