Thursday, October 8, 2009

An Uplifting Job







There are a lot of reasons why I love working at Grouse. Of course, you would have to love you job to be there for sooooooooooooooo long. This winter is #21!!




I have to say that over the years, there have been a few projects that I find facinating. And this one is just that, facinating. Grouse has installed a single energy generating wind turbine.




The "Eye of the Wind" will generate 25% of our current power needs. And not only that, it will provide an additional attraction for our mountain by having a viewing pod located at 57 meters above the mountain. The pod is serviced by a seven passenger elevator and makes it one of a kind in the world.


I was lucky enough to hop on a helicopter twice in the last week to take photos of the before blade / after blade turbine. Just spectacular. The whole thing. The process of the build, the complexity of the structure, the whole deal.


The "Eye of the Wind" will open to the public early 2010, and will (I am sure) be a must for everyone visiting Grouse Mountain. I am very excited to get inside the pod and enjoy and even better view of the mountain and city I love.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Follow me through October - week 1

Each time I sit down to my blog, I get nervous. I'm behind. Again. Where do I start? What do I skip? Well, who really cares. So here I go (again).

On www.skrapnchat.com I issued a photo challenge. Here is the gig. One photo per day. Within each week, there is a mandatory photo to take. Week one, show the change of fall. At the end of the month, we need to create a LO with all 31 photos.

Since I can't remember where I put my keys each day, I thought I better track what the photos are / why I took them / what I might want to include in the actual LO.

Day 1

My beautiful daughter Kaylee. She loves to follow her big brother, but I love it when I see her doing independent things. For the longest time, she just watched Braydon on the computer. Sat ideally by and let him do everything. But once she figured out HOW to make things work, well she loves to play on sites like kids CBC and Disney Playhouse. She does things like math, spelling, shapes, but doesn't even realize she is learning along the way. You can see her concentration in this pic, and I love that she loves to learn.

Day 2

Braydon loves sports. All sports. All the time. He loves riding his bike. On this day, he went with me to pick KJ up from school, and wanted to ride his bike. It scares me how comfortable boys are with just hopping off curbs and going up steep hills. I hold my breath and let him be him. I love it that he is so active and healthy, and hope that he chooses this as a lifestyle forever.

Day 3

This photo is the challenge photo. Show fall. We have these beautiful marigolds in our front yard. They come out in the summer, but are the last ones left in the garden this time of year. The richness of the orange is just so October, and so fall to me.

Day 4

Cuteness 100%. Took KJ Halloween costume shopping, and this is what she picked up. When we hit the store, she wanted to be like Braydon, and be a Star Wars figure. In fact, she wanted to be what Braydon was last year, Darth Vader. Again, in my effort to show her her own independent world, we went without big bro and she decided that she would make a cute Panda. I think she may score some extra candy this way.

Day 5

Ok, this is my "artsy" photo. I walk by this to get KJ from school. Yes, it's a fire hydrant. But I just love the vivid red and white against the green. I love the different aspects of how it is put together. I love that I love something as boring and mundane as a fire hydrant. Maybe I need more of a life, but hey, I document what I like.


Day 6

My sweet fur child. Takaya turns nine this year. Nine years of this big beast being right in the middle of everywhere. Nine years of companionship. Nine years of fur. Nine years of having a warm body to put my feet on. Nine years of good times.

Day 7

Today is day seven, and I will admit that this photo cost me chocolate. I came home from work and wanted everyone to come out and take a photo for me. No one felt like it, but I'm not above bribing. Hey, I got a shot with my three crazy family members. They were all in goofy moods (got some ridiculous shots of Chris not smiling for me), but these are the moods that make me laugh after a long day of work. These are the laughs that make me happy.

There we go. Seven days, seven photos, seven stories. I love this type of project. It gets me to stop and take photos of my everyday world. Maybe not the all time "perfect" pics, but things that I want to remember later.

Stay tuned for Week #2!!