Ianiv took the ferry this afternoon, and will be getting here shortly. Arieanna and I sweet-talked our way onto the fireworks barge later, so we’ll have press access for that as well. I haven’t really taken photos since the Junos, so today was a good warm up day for me. Here are a few shots I took:

Also, here’s a video I took when the helicopter was taking off:

[easyvideo video="http://blip.tv/play/tyXGiE8A"]

The other day Arieanna contacted me via Twitter and asked if I wanted a photo pass for the festivities this weekend in Victoria. Since I haven’t been to Victoria in a few years, I thought it might be a good opportunity to sample some island beer and take some photos.

Sometimes photo passes just let you get your camera in the door, and aren’t really anything special. However, Arieanna just got confirmation that our passes include access to the front-stage pit, as well as backstage and potentially interview access. I’m more of a photo kind of guy, but I’m sure Arieanna is anxious to get a few interviews for b5media.

Shooting the Juno awards was obviously a pretty big highlight in my photography career, but truth be told, it was a rather challenging shooting environment since everything was inside and dimly lit. I’m actually really excited to shoot an outdoor concert, since the photos always turn out awesome. Plus, I’ll be able to use my sharpest lens, my $1500 70-200mm f/2.8L, which will hopefully give me some fairly awesome shots. In addition, I’d love to try a few HDR shots of the inner harbour, assuming I can figure out how to take a HDR with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other.

Some of the artists performing are Sarah McLachlan, Leslie Feist, Jim Byrnes, Alex Cuba, Colin James, Jessie Farrell, and more. Should be a great time. I wonder how the nachos are in Victoria?

I was right next to Leslie Feist at the Junos, but I never had the opportunity to talk to her. So maybe this time I’ll have a chance to say hi. I’m probably heading over on Sunday, and will be back Tuesday morning in time to go to work and detoxify.

If I remember correctly, Feist snagged five awards at the Junos, which is as close to a landslide as you can really have at an event like that. I unfortunately didn’t get to meet her (she was rather popular that night), but I did get to hang out a few feet away from her and snap a few photos.

I was doing some reading in my RSS reader this morning and came across this cute video of Feist that was recently on Sesame Street over on my friend Kasia’s blog. I used to watch that show a lot as a kid (I’m sure most of us did), and I found myself smiling and counting with the video. So, considering this big kid likes it, I think lots of little ones will as well.

[easyvideo video="http://www.youtube.com/v/9fciD_II7NI&rel=0"]

Not only is it a pretty catchy tune, but the video is actually pretty awesome from a technical perspective. You’ll notice that the entire two and a half minutes is essentially one video take. That’s tricky by anyone’s standards, more so given that she’s interacting with puppets throughout the entire piece.

Also, compare the Sesame street video with the video for 1234.

[easyvideo video="http://www.youtube.com/v/p8Z-DIAthbM&hl=en&fs=1"]

There are some obvious stylistic similarities between the two, which is actually kind of cool that they integrated a few concepts into the Sesame Street piece.

Now I have that song stuck in my head. Hopefully you will too!

Before I get into my hacking attempt, I want to give a quick review of what I think of Apple TV so far. To be honest, I really like the idea of what Apple TV is supposed to be. Unfortunately, it’s not really that yet. The main problem is there really isn’t enough content on it. I check back every week, hoping for a massive change in titles, but for the most part there’s just not much to watch. There are so few in fact that Apple has resorted to duplicating the same title multiple times on the page so as to make it seem like they have more.

The main part of the Apple TV hack that appeals to me is the ability to access an external storage drive. With that functionality I can basically rip all my DVDs to my hard drive and watch them whenever I want on my Apple TV.

The actually hacking procedure was really straight forward, so I won’t go into any detail. The hard part for me was making Apple TV talk to my 1TB drive over on my Linux box. I messed around for 90 minutes trying to mount the Linux drive as NFS, but just had so many problems with it I eventually gave up. I then managed to installed an Apple File Protocol (AFP) daemon on the Linux box, which ended up solving the problem. So now I have my Apple TV connected to my Linux box over AFP.

I haven’t played around with this too much yet, so I really have no idea what to do next. I tried streaming a MPEG2 file from my Linux box using the MediaCloud functionality in the hacked Apple TV navigator, but it barfed on the file content for some reason.

Over the next few days I’ll try and figure out some way for my setup to be useful. Check back then.

** Update — actually, the Apple TV NiTo program works well for all content. All the folders it shows are in /Users/frontrow/Movies. So to use it, I just created a symbolic link to my mounted Linux drive, which caused Apple TV to automatically show all that content in NiTo. That’s not as nice as a streaming solution, but it seems to work well enough. I just downloaded one of the m4v files I took at the Junos onto my Linux drive and watched it in Apple TV without problems, so I’m good to go I think. The next step will be to try and get a DVD ripped. Maybe I’ll try that right now.

*** Update 2 – I ripped a few chapters of Star Wars Episode III to a mp4 file using HandBrake and tossed that on my Linux drive. The quality was actually surprisingly awesome. Unfortunately, the video is a bit choppy in Sapphire for some reason, but seems to work fairly well in nitoTV.

Today I sat down to see if I could figure out where it all went. The key application I used was Disk Inventory X, a great little tool that graphically displays where all your space is being used. In my case, it ended up being the following:

• 20GB was stuck in a Previous Systems folder from when I upgraded to Leopard
• 10GB was being used by Apple mail, since it was storing local copies of everything on Gmail
• 10GB in random movies on my computer
• 10GB in various random download folders

So, in about 30 minutes I managed to free up a little over 50GB, which now makes my laptop far more usable. I’m also going to pick up a miniature external hard drive for it at some point so I have extra storage available when on the road.

I watched that video once earlier today, and once again the moment this posting went live. To be honest, while I think he makes amazing points, I have a hard time watching it, mostly because the frustration is so evident in his speech. As far as he is concerned (along with most of the scientists out there), everything he is stating in so amazingly obvious it’s hard to fathom how there hasn’t been a huge movement to correct these issues. And I completely agree.

Real change takes passion. It times time, energy, and sacrifice. But that does not automatically imply that real, meaningful change has to be hard, just that it takes determination.

To clarify that point, I want to make mention of a blog entry I did a few weeks ago where I talked about how Google was giving every homeless person in San Francisco a free phone number. I approached Google about helping pull that off in Vancouver, but I never got a reply. So instead of giving up, I gathered a group of people together in Vancouver and pitched the idea of doing it ourselves. With luck, next week that system will go live.

I mention that not to toot my own horn, but to show that not all change is hard to obtain. In this case, the system will hopefully help people in this city, give hope to those who need it the most, and will serve as a demonstration that not all big ideas take big effort. All it took was the collective efforts of a few people, and a little drive. That’s all most things ever take.

Last weekend I attended the Junos in Calgary, and went in the capacity as a photographer with the media. My blog, which doesn’t really ever get a lot of traffic, was on the front page of results on Google for the Junos, often above CTV and other mainstream news outlets. And who am I? I’m just a nobody — a computer dork that hacks away at PHP in my spare time, sets up blogs, watches movies, and sometimes treats myself to a helping of nachos. But that’s the point.

Our generation is really the first one that has the capacity to rise above politics, above media censorship, above lies, and have our voices heard whenever we want. Some of us have blogs, some of us get Facebook traffic, and others undoubtedly know someone that does. Some of you are writers, some painters, some singers, some photographers, all with a medium available to voice your frustrations with the world or inspire the change you want to see in it. And if you believe in something enough, whether it’s climate change or something else, there’s really nothing stopping you from making a difference or making yourself heard.

A single drop in a pond, no matter how small, will still cause a ripple.

I started getting a tickle in my throat yesterday which has somehow exploded into a full-on sore throat today. So, while I’m at work, I feel like I’m on the verge of getting sick. It’s most likely related to being on a few crowded planes and shaking hands with tons of new people last weekend, and I’m hopeful it passes. I’m going to use this weekend as a chance to catch up on sleep and put my body back on schedule.

I’ve been working on a few projects on the side, one of which involves the homeless community in Vancouver. While not for certain, we might have something to show regarding it next week. So, I’ll keep everyone in the loop.

And finally, thanks to all of the people who sent me some link love on my birthday.

One of the best things I heard him say all weekend was his response to a question a reporter asked him during the press conference. They asked him what he was bringing to the Junos this year that was different than what previous hosts have brought.

He responded “talent”

On the plane today I ran into my old high school friend, Laura Street, and we spent the flight chatting about old times. I think there’s a camping trip in Banff on the horizon for all of us. But until then, thanks so much.

Tomorrow I’ll write about all the Junos stuff I haven’t talked about yet! But until then, thanks to everyone who took a few minutes out of their day and wished me a happy birthday.

I actually had the perfect photo to put up here for this entry. It was a shot of me with a bunch of other photographers at the Junos, all hanging out with Russell Peters after the awards. I thought it would be a fun shot, and would sort of sum up this weekend for me in a photo. But when I approached the photographer who took it and asked for a copy, he turned me down.

I’d be lying if I said that event didn’t bum me out a bit, because it did. But ultimately it just made me thankful that I am the person I am, and that the world I normally live in doesn’t contain any people like that.

But in terms of birthdays, it’s funny how fast time flies. Some days I wake up, and for a brief moment, think that I’m somewhere else. Some other time, some other place. Like when a summer breeze takes you back to a bike ride as a kid, or the sound of the surf to the thoughts of an old vacation. A creaking floorboard that reminds you of footsteps that once walked there. The traffic lights streaking across the room at night, like memories of dancing candlelights.

I never really knew my great grandmother. Because my family is Ukrainian, and our grandma is known as Baba, everyone got used to calling my great grandmother “Baba Grandma”, which I guess the adults figured would confuse us kids less. Before she died, years ago, she had a conversation with my dad, one that he still talks about today. She told him that every day she woke up and felt like she was a 16 year old girl again, a girl that loved to play with dolls, run through the fields, and play outside with her friends. It was only her reflection in the mirror that gave her age away.

I have so much to be thankful for. I have great friends, loving family, and the person I’ve become in my 31 years is someone that I’m proud of. While I’m not perfect, I do the best with what I have, I admit when I make mistakes, and I try to move two steps forward for every one I fall back. And despite the bumps in the road, especially over the last year and a half, I really have been blessed with good fortune my whole life. I mean, here I am, a computer dork, at the Juno awards taking photographs. It’s a rare opportunity, and I’m really thankful that good forture has blown in my direction more often than not in my life.

The next year will be different that the last two. It will be a year without surgeries and without hospitals. It will be the year where I move past the ugliness of the past and restart the engine that stalled a few years ago. And in that regard, I’m really looking forward to it. Part of me feels like it’s a chance to start over again, to put things right that somehow went wrong, to make new friends, and to have a little fun along the way.

I have a plane to catch in the morning, so I’ll leave it as that. But I just want to thank all my friends and my family for being there for me during the last thirty one years.

Also, as an added birthday present, Google is featuring the last plugin I wrote, WordPress Without Borders, over on their coding blog. It will end up over at BraveNewCode in the near future.

The media room here is fairly nuts. There are about twice as many photographers as last night, but they are stuffed in about half of the space. I went down and looked at the photo pit in the stadium, but I think it’s just going to be too crowded, and I’m not going to bother. I’ve even a bit concerned getting photos in the media room since they are just so many people here, all trying to get shots.

While I like taking photos, I’m not a big fan of having to fight to take a photo. But we’ll see what happens. The actual event doesn’t start until 6pm, which is two hours away. So for now I’m just going to surf the internet and work on some photos from last night.

I just got back from a full behind-the-scenes look at the Junos setup for tonight (it’s fairly unreal). Unfortunately, the two photo booths are basically so far away as to render most shots impossible (every photographer here is amazingly upset about them). I’m a little more optimistic, since I can do wonders with photoshop, but it’s a hard shot, even with expensive gear, so I have no idea what’s going to happen.

I’m stuck in a back room at the Telus Convention Center, and soon I’ll be able to get a runner to take me downstairs to the Junos and shoot some photos. I met a really great photographer named Barry, and I gave him my perspective on New Media (things like Flickr etc), that he whole heartedly agreed with. I commented that a shitty cell-phone photo published within 30 minutes of an event was sometimes worth more than an award winning shot published days later, and he agreed. Which makes it kind of sad that none of the photographers here are happy with the setup for taking photographs.

But whatever. I’m here, I’ve had free beer, and I have my camera. I’ll do the best I can, and then go drinking later at the bar. This town is on fire with pride, and it’s amazing to be a part of it all.

I’ll post some more shots later.