Crazy shoes and a haircut

Two random pieces of news to report:

1. I'm still in the market for a new pair of crazy shoes. My clown-shoe Adidas Originals are getting a little worn out from overuse, and it's time for a pair of crazy Nikes or Star Wars Adidas shoes. The latest insane one I found is called Baby Bear Low, and it's so insane I should probably get it. Let's hope no one else is crazy enough to bid on these on Ebay :)

2. Haircut! I've been rockin' the crazy long hair for quite a while and I've been thinking about changing it up for a while. I still kept it reasonably long-ish, but lost a lot of the rocker look for the time being :)

And now for photographic evidence of these two news-worthy events...



Nike Baby Bear Low


Wow, so crazy


Me with less hair

Only in San Francisco

Seen today near Market St.

Last few Ottawa videos

Here are the last few videos from my trip to Ottawa in August. Awesome times!!


Biking along the Ottawa River near Parliament



Awesome changing of the guard ceremony at the Parliament buildings



Mosaika, an amazing Canadian-themed video projection onto the Ottawa Parliament buildings



Bagpiper at Rideau Hall

Big Basin Camping

Last weekend we went camping at Big Basin in Boulder Creek, CA near Santa Cruz. It was freakin' amazing, and the first self-planned camping trip we've done in California!!

We really enjoyed it and it worked out amazingly well. We didn't forget anything super important, the food was amazing, the people were awesome... we went on a sick hike and had a great time away from the city.

Word

My crazily huge new 6-man tent!!!!!!

Michael doing some verbal kung-fu

Cabernet

haha

The Brothers Parrott

Tree head

Awesome Frank & Jess Photo #1

Awesome Frank & Jess Photo #2

Awesome Frank & Jess Photo #3

Men of consequence

Spiderwebs

Another crazy spider web

At the top of the hike

Camp Awesome!!!!!!!

We are cool

O-Griz

Grits and Chiewe

Legendary

Ottawa 2010 Day 3: Rideau Hall, Museum of Civilization

Thankfully this only took a month to post all my photos from the last trip (as opposed to Japan which took 7 months) ;)

This is the last set of Ottawa pics, what an awesome time. This was from my last major wandering-around day, and I had a great time checking out Sussex Drive, Rideau Hall and the Museum of Civilization.

Parliament

Blue Skies

Park behind the Chateau Laurier

Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica

Arret!

Glorious

Spider

I'd never seen 24 Sussex Drive (the Prime Minister's Residence). Now living in 'merica, I assumed that it would be HUGE and you could probably take a tour, a.l.a The White House. Turns out, in very true Canadian understated-ness, the Prime Minister's Residence is LITERALLY the Prime Minister's Residence. There was a cute stray cat wandering around which the security guard was petting. So funny. The best part - there was a trampoline in the front yard for his kids to jump on!!

Beautiful gardens at Rideau Hall, office of the Governor General of Canada

Sweet

Cool Inukshuk

Guard at Rideau Hall

Native Canadian art at the Museum of Civilization

Awesome canoes

There was a history of Canada exhibit and they had a replica printing place with some Winnipeg Jewish Community prints

A replica of The Wildcat Cafe in Yellowknife, NWT

View of Parliament from the Museum of Civilization

The Unseen Sea

UNBELIEVABLE.

View on ExposureRoom

Star Wars R2D2/C3P0 shoes

These might be the craziest shoes yet. A "droid" pack of R2D2/C3P0 combo shoes. I want to go to there.

Alias Toronto "Happy, Healthy Workplaces" segment

An awesome segment from back in 2004 when I worked at Alias in Toronto. Avery Haines also has a discussion with David Wexler about what it takes to be a MacLean's Top 100 Employer in Canada.

Keep an eye out around 2:00 minutes in of the Part 1 video to see an excited Co-op-student-version of a certain Mike Jutan :)


Part 1


Part 2

Biking Mt. Tam

Last weekend I biked up Mt. Tam with Ollie from work and it was amazing!! Heck of a ride - about 2.5 hrs up, a short break and Clif bar at the top, and then we zoomed back down in an hour!

Ollie had a super cool GPS-based bike mapping app on his iPhone, and we got some cool data back from it. Here is the map of our routes up and back overlayed on a Google Map. Note the trip up we didn't re-start it at one point so there is a break in the trail, but you can connect the lines I expect. :)

Bike up Mt. Tam
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/3335/a670/4c4c/9898/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20100829-1427.kml

Bike down Mt. Tam
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/3335/a670/4c4c/9898/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20100829-1658.kml

Giant Stinson Beach Bubbles

beautiful...

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 - E3 2010 Trailer

I don't think I posted the E3 trailer yet for Force Unleashed 2... here it is!

Dave Matthews show #16

Last night I went to my 16th Dave show (I think, I've sortof lost count by now)... and it was one of the best... EVER. I know I say that every time, but this time it literally was. Last year at Outside Lands it was awesome to see them of course, but the new members (Rawshawn, Jeff, and to some extent, Tim) were amazing in their own right but it felt more like a bunch of really talented musicians rockin' it on stage instead of an absurdly tight ensemble.

This show was MUCH different and AMAZING. First off, the band dynamic was blazingly awesome. The music was really tight and really fantastic. They were really pushing the boundaries, playing songs in what seemed to be very unusual time signatures and jazzing it up somethin' fierce. The solos were amazing as usual but WAY more integrated and connected with each other and the band as a whole. It felt like one big, group effort, and they were playing with some wild crazy abandon. In fact I thought the show was so frickin' good that I was really wondering if they were recording this show for a live album. It was NUTS.

The other part that rocked was that Josh and Jaclyn from Waterloo were visiting and it was awesome to run into them there and hang out and enjoy the show all together. Also, they played pretty much my ideal playlist - hitting Stay or Leave, Pantala Naga Pampa, Digging a Ditch, 41, Crush, Seek Up, Two Step and Sister, pretty much the list of my favourite Dave songs. I told Josh and Jaclyn that my head could possibly explode from the amount of awesome if they played "Baby Blue" so thankfully they didn't cause that would have been a mess. A "hot mess"?!! Anyway holy craaaaaaaap it was great. Like BEYOND GREAT. I love this band, I loved the venue, the weather was perfect, and I got to hang out with some great friends and enjoy the show together. What more could you ask for?!!

I've seen a ton of Dave shows by now, but man was he ever into this one. The rest of the band too was just at the top of their game, in top form. The drum solos were insane, the bass solos were out of control, the sax player was mental and absurdly good, the trumpet player couldn't have been better... man. Tim Reynolds on electric was disgustingly good too. That man can play some MEAN guitar. Jeez. The video caught him playing some crazy slap-guitar at some point, and his slide guitar was perfect as usual. WHAT A SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the setlist. Let your jealousy begin now. I really hope this somehow makes it to a live recording, this show was ridiculous.

-----------------

Saturday Aug 28 2010
Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View

Last Stop *
Seek Up *
One Sweet World *
Stay Or Leave *
Crush *
Seven *
Pantala Naga Pampa *
Rapunzel *
Digging a Ditch *
#41 *
Write A Song *
Spaceman *
Corn Bread *
Jimi Thing *+
Shake Me Like a Monkey *
You and Me *
Time Bomb *
All Along The Watchtower *

__________________

Sister ~
Black Jack *
Two Step *

Show Notes:
* Jeff Coffin
+ Raphael Saadiq Horns
~ Dave, Carter,Tim and Rashawn

indicates a segue into next song

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

Interesting article:

NY Times Magazine

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

By GUY DEUTSCHER

Published: August 26, 2010

The idea that your mother tongue shapes your experience of the world may be true after all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html

Ottawa 2010 Day 2: Parliament and Mosaika

Day 2 in Ottawa was great. I headed to the Parliament buildings and went on a tour inside, seeing both the House of Commons and the Senate which was super awesome. The architecture was really impressive. When the tour finished I headed outside just in time to see the changing of the guard. Then a wander through ByWard Market for a beaver tail (don't worry my American friends, it's not an *actual* beaver tail) :) and then to the Royal Canadian Mint.

In the afternoon I went to the National Gallery of Canada, they had an awesome pop art exhibit which had a few Andy Warhol paintings but was mostly about all the pop art that was influenced by Andy Warhol. There was some cool stuff by Keith Haring too.

In the evening we went to see Mosaika, a light and sound show projected onto the Parliament Buildings themselves. It was soooooo cool.

Norm along the Rideau Canal

Terry Fox statue and the Parliament buildings

Parliament

Entrance

Cool roof

Wall sculptures describing Canada's history

The "Prime Minister's Stairs" right outside of the House of Commons.

The House of Commons!! Whoooaa!!!!!! Pretty crazy to be there.

Beautiful stained glass windows

Weird roof that rocked

More cool arches

Another interesting tiled situation

Royal paintings

Coat of arms of provinces

The Senate

Cool archways

Changing of the guard 1

Changing of the guard 2

Changing of the guard 3

Haha, "tail + drink". I didn't know you could get all these crazy flavours. I went with the standard cinammon + sugar, but with added lemon juice. It was FREAKIN' AMAZING.

This was so good

Inside the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica

Stained glass and silhouette

Royal Canadian Mint

I got to hold a gold bar worth $500,000! It was really heavy and there was a guy right near me guarding it. It was so heavy I pulled it up very quickly and the chain made a loud noise! I am laughing because I made a joke about trying to run off with it right in front of the guard. :)

Fairmont Château Laurier

Laura excited for the Mosaika show

More Parliament buildings

Test patterns

Landscape

Whale

Butterflies

Snow

Native Canadian history

Maple Leaf

Amazing!!

Crazy!!!!!!!

Oh, Canada :)