How cold is it?

Pigeons get warm

After sitting around with the cats for a bit reading the morning newspaper I headed downtown to customs Canada to declare my photo gear, do some banking and pick up some dual layered DVDs. Holy cow it was cold.

How I tell it's cold in Toronto...

• I can see my breath


• my hands are cold with gloves on


• second guess my decision to NOT bring a scarf


• my coat seems to not be working


• wearing ski googles no matter how silly people think they might look on me doesn't matter any more


• see sewer gratings emitting steam


• see pigeons sitting around sewer gratings to get warmth


• camera shutter doesn't seem to work


• It's not the camera it's my index finger that's frozen

After finding out that my favorite media selling store (CCBC) didn't have anything in stock that I wanted I decided to meet up with Emmanuel for a late brunch at the Stem.


Emmanuel at the Stem. Exposure calculated using my Sekonic duel master

The Humbert Files - Day Seven

Humbert purrs to today's picture with Wednesday's newspaper

Today Humbert was pretty much back to normal. Very affectionate and very talkative (if cats can be talkative, lots of non stop meowing). No surprise cat barf any where, at least not that my feet noticed. Looking for that thing you dropped, be it a pair of glasses or a thumb tack? Chances are my feet or foot will find it before my eyes. Crunch. "Ah... found them... whoops."


Quilty the catsquatch

Today I even managed to get a picture of Quilty. Quilty has for the most part been pretty skiddish this week, running out of the room whenever I walk in, and giving me a wide berth when doing so. I think Quilty is usually hiding under a table or behind a chair or around a corner. Today the cat watched my actions from on top of the staircase. Taking a picture of this cat is right up there with taking a picture of the Sasquatch running through the forest.

Needless to say both cats are doing fine. To celebrate I ate another Jelly log. Hey, am I the only one eating these things?


Insulin, the miracle drug

For those of you that don't know what a bottle of insulin looks like, here's a photo. As much as I hate needles and the thought of jabbing the cat on a daily basis I have to say I like the bottle technology. You don't have to untwist a lid you just insert the needle into the center of the cap that's made of rubber, take out the desired amount, a pull out the needle. Wow.


Humbert enjoys sitting in the sun

At around 11am the sun was coming in the main window. Humbert took a position on the coffee table to warm up. The house has been pretty cold the last few days.

The Humbert Files - Day Six

Police stop a streetcar. What's going on?

On the way to Rick and Sabrina's place our streetcar stopped behind another streetcar with police wandering around it. Three cars of police. What was going on? Maybe they were cracking down on the perp that had a hand in yesterday's brick throwing at a bus. Probably not.


Humbert seems a lot better and is meowing in front of Tuesday's paper.

Humbert seemed more lively today and was a lot more audible than in recent visits. Maybe Humbert is a morning cat? I jabbed the cat with the needle of insulin then ran out to do some errands and have lunch. I returned later in the afternoon with a new bag of clumping kitty litter (scented).


A goat dinner at the Roti Palace on Bathurst.

I thought I'd spend time with the cat today. I brought my laptop to do some blogging and photo work. One thing led to another and I found myself sleeping on the couch. I woke up around 4pm to find Humbert looking at me from the coffee table. Maybe checking to see if the allergies had kicked in yet. Was the cat rubbing it's paws together? "Ex-cell-ent."

The Humbert Files - Day Five

Cold today and the rest of the week.


Humbert as of Monday (today)

Humbert pictured here with today's paper is an example of watching too many police TV shows /movies where some little girl is taken hostage. The kidnappers, in order to prove that the girl is still alive shoot a video with the girl and the current newspaper. They send the footage to the freaked out father that doesn't know what to do, the weeping mother who usually says "They've got my baby"and the police officer who's usually around to listen in on the other phone extension (probably dirty Harry as I loved watching those films). Who says you don't learn anything from movies?

So yes, Rick, Sabrina, as of today your cat is doing well. Humbert actually seems better today than yesterday. More alert. Although I did step in a pile of cat barf which in turn stained my sock. Eeeuw.

In other news it turns out that Zee managed to buy WoW (World of Warcraft) thanks to my salesmanship talents at the lunch this last weekend. You'd think I'd get a cut from Blizzard to hook friends? Crack dealers usually give free samples to the "friend" to encourage more help in getting others to "sign up". I guess this is where TV and movies differ from real life.


Zee, the Warcraft newbie (sorry Juley).

The Humbert Files - Day Four

Humbert "guarding" the cat treat bag

There was cat barf on the foot rest in the living room. Humbert looked kind of wobbly and there was still food in his dish. The water dish was empty. I've left a message for the other teams not to feed the cat so much.

London Fashion Sneak Peek

Today's fun was shooting some images for a look book for Andrew Majtenyi's fall/winter 2007 collection. These outfits, along with others, will make their official debut in London next week and then perhaps reappear during Toronto Fashion week in March (minus the tub).

The Humbert Files - Day Three

Humbert seems a bit out of it.

I managed to get a ride with Kyoko, Chris and Hilary to be dropped off at Rick and Sabrina's. Checking on Humbert I thought he seemed a bit sluggish. Not as active as he was the day before. I'm a bit concerned.

My next visit will be tomorrow night.

Stuff me silly

The neighbourhood is still growing.

12:30pm, Marc and I made our way up to Zee and Juley's place somewhere on the edge of nowhere (just north of Canada's Wonderland). They invited us over to socialize and eat with our other comp sci friends.


Catching up in the kitchen

The food started off with small appetizers, very yummy appetizers. I stuffed myself. The food was placed and replenished right in front of me by Juley the busy kitchen worker. Sort of like a bag of potato chips sitting next to you. It's easy to keep going until the bag is finished. I didn't realize how much I ate until the actual lunch was served, a Moroccan chicken dish. It was around that point that my stomach said "no more." or at least "slow down".


One of the small appetizers

After slowly making my way through the mound of food put on my plate we sat around drinking coffee, tea, and stuffing ourselves with Renata's homemade brownies and cookies. Holy cow! I felt like I was going to burst. That and I felt rather sleepy.

Moving very sluggishly to the living room I made a bee line to the couch. It was there that Zee showed me some kids program on DVD that they had gotten for Michaela to watch. Like a lot of kids programs there were puppets, colorful stock footage, quirky sounds, all with some theme. Water, shapes, colors, math, monkeys with bananas, that sort of thing.

Michaela was watching the monkeys with bananas when Zee (her father) changed the video to shapes and some real bad computer graphics animation. She instantly burst into crying mode. I thought that was hilarious.


"What kind of low quality stuff are you trying to make me watch?"


Nancy learns her shapes... while improving her hand eye coordination.


Juley reads to her daughter


Zee blows air causing Michaela to laugh

For the evening it was off to Kyoko and Chris' place to help Kyoko with her computer imaging skills. It's difficult training a newbie to use a computer over the phone without seeing what's on their screen. It was something I was trying to do earlier on in the week.

"What's the difference between the windows interface and a program?". Yikes, This will require sitting in front of the computer and showing them what's what. So tonight that's what happened. I figured out where I was messing up in about a second once I saw what she was doing or rather wasn't doing. With the problem solved it was on to more eating. Cheese, sausage and crackers.


Pumpkin is not impressed


Sausage meat.... mmmmm.


Hilary looks bewildered


Photo taken by Kyoko of Chris


Kyoko laughs

By the time I left to go and see Humbert (our favourite diabetic cat) I felt like I wouldn't have to eat for a week.

The Humbert Files Day Two

Humbert looks up for a kitty snack

I woke up at 5:30am today. I had crashed rather early last night and today I had a bunch of things to do on my plate. The first was to go over to Rick and Sabrina's to inject Humbert with his daily insulin dosage and retrieve the emptied garbage cans from the curb.

Because I got there at 7:30, the garbage cans were still full. The cats seemed awake and were awaiting food. Although it still freaks me out, that is stabbing a cat with a needle and injecting him with the life saving drug, Humbert makes it pretty easy as he seems to want to concentrate on eating as opposed to running away or scratching me.

Once the medical procedure was over I picked the cat up and dragged him over to the living room so the other cat could eat. The other cat is pretty skiddish and runs whenever I even come close to entering the same room. Humbert capitalizes on that, stays in the room, and eats the other cats food. My worry is that the owners wil come home to a fat tubbo of a cat and the other dead of starvation.

While sitting watching the non-satellite TV, I haven't figured out the controls for the satellite thingy yet, I noticed this fat grey cat sitting on the window sill looking in. Maybe I'm doing this cat pampering thing well after all. I'm attracting more customers.


"Can any cat come cover?"

I had to leave by 8:30am and the garbage was still not picked up. A return trip was required. I figured I'd go back after my photo gig at High Fidelity HDTV, between the drop off off equipment at home and the pick up of equipment from Vistek for Sunday's fashion shoot.


Hartley at High Fidelity HDTV

When I showed up, I think it was around 4:00pm. The green bins had already been moved back. I brought the garbage can back to it's resting position on the porch. Then I went inside to check on the cats.

Some guy was already in the house. I didn't recognize the name. He wasn't on the "Team" list. He identified himself as being a friend of Rick's and then showed a picture of him on Rick's refrigerator.

The renting of equipment took a long time. I was waiting for 40 minutes for them to put together the four studio flashes with softboxes. It came in three bags about the same mass as that of a dead body. Why do they make bags so cumbersome that they're too big to walk with them comfortably?

Once I got home I dropped off all the stuff then went over to Emmanuel's to watch Groundhog Day and drop off my portable drive so he could backup his laptop.

Happy Groundhog Day!

All's Well

Yummy Jelly Logs with close captioning

Today I saw two movies. One at the Bloor Theatre the other on DVD. From both, I've managed to pick up two things. Being obsessed is is bad (the Prestige) and being emotionally detached is also bad (Equilibrium). Somewhere in the middle is the ideal place of being.

So why bring this up? Well to be honest it was just to mention that I'd watched two movies (which I thought were both pretty good) and to segue, although a bit clumsily, into taking care of Humbert. You see, the owners, Rick and Sabrina are probably in Paris (France) right now wondering if the cat is still alive. So this entry is to say that "Yes, the cat seems to be doing fine." and there's a picture to prove it.

Going to the house almost felt like watching a pop up video or watching close captioning. There were small post-it notes all around the house with information on how to use the product or item it was next to. Take the TV remotes for example. The Post-its told which one did what and how to access the satellite TV. On the kitchen counter, a cat time table with three bottles of liquids for us. Us being the three groups of volunteers on rotating shifts for the next week. (Thanks for the large bottle of non-diet Coke by the way).


Humbert, doing fine.

I will be going back to the house tomorrow morning before my photo gig to check up on the cats. It is my intention to post something every day until friday morning of next week.