Lost my iPad today

Friday. It's the end of the week. I got off work 1:30 am saturday morning to be able to walk over to the bus stop 15 minutes away from work to take it over to Dufferin and Eglinton where there's a 24 hour subway sandwich place. I figured I'd grab a sandwich and then take a taxi home. Buses were running slow and there was a slight drizzle of rain.

With my camera bag, the subway sandwich bag, the drink and my iPad I entered the cab. Leaving the cab I left my iPad on the seat while making change for the driver. I realized this after I got home and wanted to watch the free episode of the Big Bang Theory. Crap. Also I thought I might have plopped it somewhere, it took me a while to figure out where I dropped my keys, but the email I wrote to some of the R.I.P.D. guys didn't get sent which it would have done once the iPad entered the Wi-Fi zone of the house.

I'm too tired to really be stressed out about this. I've changed my email passwords and other than that there's really nothing on my iPad that hasn't been backed up some where. Maybe my contacts?

Yes, it sucks. But it's not the first time I've lost something. I'm glad it's not my camera. Sure it was not cheap, all those US dollars, plus all the books and apps I bought for the thing. I'll wait to see if anyone attempts to return it over the weekend. My name is on the log in screen. With any luck the person finding it will be able to track me down.

Here's hoping.

Jack and Lois

Cheese Burger!

If moving wasn't making my life hectic enough, about a week and a half ago I got called in to work on a television show to prep it. The show was a lot more work than anyone there really suspected and as a result I've been working full time since.

This is not a bad thing. While normally having work doesn't bother me this is just another thing to make finding and moving apartments that much more difficult. If I am to stay on this job I only have a few weekends left to find an apartment and move. Granted, I have moved in shorter times previously, but for some reason this has been causing a lot of undue stress.

Today was my first day off in eight days. I went to Hamilton to do a food photo shoot for a friend's restaurant. "Jack and Lois", a small sit down place featuring some great sandwiches and exotic coffee. It's the first time leaving Toronto since getting back from Boston. I figured I could even visit some Hamilton friends while I was there. I needed a break.

There's something relaxing about taking photos in the midst of all this other stuff going on. Also getting fed amazing sandwiches wasn't so bad either.


Jack and Lois, 301 James street north, Hamilton, Ontario.



Tomato Soup


A cross section of one of the many selections of large sandwiches.


Sean the head chef and food guy at Jack and Lois





Pile o sandwiches!

Moving... I hate it.

The Lego Fire Station and Shopping Mall (the grand emporium)

Upon returning from Boston, I applied for a new passport, driver's license, finally got around to changing my mailing address and contact info with the bank, the union and my friends. Went through the refrigerator dumping the questionable food and replaced the whole freezer and fridge with new food. Started writing up some concepts for my pirate animation and as a way to relax while uploading the final data to Universal and Image Engine I purchased and built the Lego fire station and shopping mall. It took four days to build these Lego models at a leisurely pace. I figured I'd use them as a backdrop in the pirate animation. Over the course of February I also managed to unpack everything from Boston, get my computer back up and running and put the boxes that the Boston stuff was packed in into recycling.

With a few bucks in my pocket and a vacation in the horizon, it all seemed to be going quite well. I was looking forward to a relaxing month or two off to be creative and productive. Maybe I'd travel for a bit.

The day my passport was ready for pick up all that changed. It was the same day my landlord gave me notice to move out. That was two days ago. I'm now in packing mode again.

All you can eat chili

Vegetarian Chili

Every now and again my friend Al has an all you can eat chili night where the money for the $5 chili goes to some charity organization. While I've been meaning to go to one of these events at Sadie's Diner I've always been busy, at work or some other scheduled thing, and I've never made it out.

You may think that chili should have meat in it to be good. As the token omnivore, as Sadie's Diner is vegetarian, I have to say that chili to be good does not have to have meat. It just has to be good. Al's chili is just that. It's good, as indicated by my five helpings of the stuff. If you're ever in the neighbourhood while a chili night is happening at Sadie's diner, I highly recommend you check it out.


Al Ridley with a bowl of delicious chili


Sadie's Diner workers


Tonight the donations go to the Toronto Vegetarian Association


The appreciative TVA representative with all the donations




Sadie's Diner T-shirt


Yummy nachos with the chili


Some of the happy chili eaters

As easy as One, Two, Weeeee!

Back when you were a kid there was a good chance that you had it good, "Had it good" compared to to your parents that is. To this day I remember my father telling me how easy it was for me to go to school thanks to modern miracle of public transit. In his day, so I was told... and repeatedly I might add, was that he had to walk five miles to get to school and if that wasn't bad enough it was also through hip deep mounds of snow.

The way technology works is the older you were the tougher things were because technological marvels just weren't available to make life easier. To kids now you could say how easy they have it being able to watch TV and switch channels with a remote. When I grew up I had to switch channels by walking up to the TV and turn a knob. In some cases the knob wasn't there so I'd have to use pliers or a wrench on the metal stub where the knob was. Heck, there were times that I didn't even have more than one channel to switch from.

Of course if you talked to your Dad, "TV? We had no TV, we had radio, the theatre for the mind.". It was always a worse off time for older generations. I suppose if you go back far enough there was some dad that said "Plastic bowls? We didn't have plastic, we didn't have bowls!! We had to slice a melon in half!" or "Pants Pockets? We had to wear freshly killed caribou and you were lucky to get the head where you could stash your favourite rock collection".

Every generation has it's newer technology that makes life easier for the bratty, take everything for granted, self absorbed, entitled kids. From TV remotes to the easily accessible porn on the interent to microwave ovens to VHS, laserdiscs, DVDs and Blue Ray. Remember when you missed a TV show on that Friday night how uncool you were at school the next Monday? If you missed a broadcast that was it you were done, you were the social outcast or that poor kid that didn't have a television. Your only hope, if you weren't that poor kid, was to be lucky enough to catch a rerun a few months later. "Big foot on the Six Million Dollar Man? that old episode? Yeah, I saw that."

Remember back when, unless you're too old and you had wooden toys or none at all because you led such a harsh life, you had LEGO and ran into this...


"The nail chipper"

This or some other kind of Lego configuration that in order to disassemble it you had to break fingernails to separate the bricks. If you were lucky had a cousin that you could get to unattach the brick saving your finger nails while breaking theirs by saying how much more dexterous they were than you (and they fell for it).

We can now say that "Kids have it so easy today" because Lego now sells this tool...


Enter the LEGO tool (I'm not sure if there's an official name; I'll call it the finger nail saver)

This is the second generation tool that allows to take apart bricks easily.


Just attach it to a brick


and tilt


What you have a flat brick with no knobs?


no problem! (this is a feature of the second generation tool)

Yeah, kids today have it sooo easy. In my day Lego brick building was blood, sweat and tears. Literally. If your fingers started to sweat you couldn't get a grip on the bricks. There would be a time that you did rip off or crack your fingernail that would bring you to tears. We were made of tougher stuff back then unlike the fat fingered, unimaginative kids of today.

We were tough and we were cool.

Grilled Cheese

Rye bread, Hollandia cheese, onion, and tomato

It's taken about two weeks for me to settle back in the Toronto apartment. Settle in equates to get rid of unknown stuff in refrigerator, replace with new food. I'm not sure why but I've had the idea of eating grilled cheese sandwiches implanted in my head.

I suppose that's why I went out and purchased some good cheese.

Grilled cheese sandwich

Ingredients

• Rye bread
• Hollandia cheese
• Tomato
• Onion

Directions

• On a frying pan place one slice of rye bread.
• Cut cheese into slices. Place slices of cheese onto bread on frying pan. Cover bread but leave space for cheese to melt without leaking off of bread slice (half a centimeter).
• slice tomato. Place slices on cheese.
• Dice the onion. Place onion on tomato.
• Cover onion, tomato and cheese with another slice of rye bread.
• Heat frying pan until cheese melts.

The Girl with the Pivotstar Jacket

On set photographer and pizza lover, Scott Garfield on Milk Street

As the days on set in Boston drew to a close Scott and I decided it was a good time to go to the Haymarket Pizza one last time and enjoy a slice or two (or three). If you're in Boston I highly recommend this place. It's a no nonsense pizza place that's good and inexpensive. Cheap and good how can you beat that?

For all you lazy people out there, here's a link to Google Maps. For the people with GPS devices here's the coordinates (N42 21.689 W71 03.378).


Inhaling pizza slices at Haymarket Pizza.


Scott looks like he's in a food coma


Christmas tree leftovers at the public garden

We had just come out of the Loews Theatre from watching David Fincher's "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" movie, had the pizza and went our separate ways. On the way to the train station I noticed a pivotstar jacket on someone and having not photographed roller derby for the last four months had to go introduce myself.


"Hello, Are you a roller derby skater?"

While in hindsight this seemed kind of creepy, at the time I think the skater and friend were more amused that I even knew what roller derby was. They even entertained me by posing for a few photos. (photos that I would eventually send off to LuluDemon; "oh yeah that's right, I 'know' people")


Skater and friend pose for the "derby photographer"

It was good seeing some derby people after about four months of not being able to photograph any derby what so ever and also missing the world cup (held in my home town of Toronto). So if anyone out there knows who this skater is ,she skates in Canada on the west coast is all I remember and originally from the States, please forward her these photos. Awesome and Thanks.

Congee reversed engineered

Congee version 1.0

While in Boston I spent about 4 months without a kitchen before moving into Patrick's luxurious kitchen equipped apartment to take care of the dog Phoebe (see previous fat dog posts). It was during this great stay at the apartment that I had time to go out to the nearby Macy's and pick up a slow cooker for a mere $17 bucks.

Kitchenware can be pretty inexpensive in the US and at the same time it can be difficult to find a single food storage container (for sale by itself as opposed to buying the mega value pack where you get more than 10 containers at once), or oven mitts made of fabric.

Anyhooo... The last couple of weeks I'd been going to Vinh Sun, a restaurant in Boston's china town specifically to have their congee. This leads us to making congee at home in a slow cooker because sometimes we're just too lazy to go out in the cold and eat it in a restaurant.

So after a few sampling visits to Vinh Sun, I made mental notes as to the taste and consistency of the congee and thanks to multiple tries of making the stuff at the apartment (more than you really want to read about) I am presenting my findings here.

Congee (version 1.0)

Equipment

• slow cooker
• large bowl or food bin that can hold slow cooker contents
• pot
• knife to cut ginger
• cutting board (depending on how barbaric you are you may not need this)
  

Ingredients

• 1 cup of uncooked rice
• 10 cups of water
• 1/4 cup rice wine
• 3 celery sticks
• 1 clump of ginger

optional

• chopped green onions
• crushed peanuts

Rice (you only need one cup for this recipe)

Celery sticks


Rice wine


Clump of ginger

Directions

1. pour the rice wine, rice and water into the slow cooker.
2. Add the celery sticks
3. take the ginger, peel it, then chop the innards into fine thin strands, add to slow cooker.
4. place the slow cooker on low and cook for eight to 10 hours
5. let cool
6. remove celery (the celery has done it's job by adding salt to the mix; you can eat the celery or throw it out. I suggest not throwing it out; why be wasteful? Where's the fat dog when you need her?)
7. pour the remaining goop into a food bin or a large bowl that you can put into the refrigerator.
8. leave in refrigerator overnight.
9. The next day you'll notice a layer of water over the congee. Pour the water out.
   
10. from the bin/bowl scoop out the portion you want to eat a place in a pot.
11. heat pot until glob portion becomes more liquid like
12. pour into a bowl, add chopped green onion or crushed peanuts.
13. eat
    

"Wait! Why not just eat the congee from the slow cooker? Why do I have to put it in the fridge and reheat wasting time and energy?"
As I mentioned before I went through a number of variations at the apartment. The reason you put the congee in the refrigerator is to let the water separate from the congee making the congee less watery. You're welcome.

You''ll note that this congee recipe has no meat. To add meat (chicken, egg, pork, beef, whatever) you can cook it separately then add to the congee when reheating (step 11).

As I get more data on congee making I'll update the recipe for version 2.0 but for now make some congee and enjoy it. Maybe even share it with the dog...


Phoebe gives me the guilty eyes as I eat the congee.


To remedy this I take her for a walk


We end up at the Loews theatre near the park. N42° 21.187' W71° 3.871'


Not wanting to walk back to the apartment I take Phoebe on the 'T'. N42° 21.182' W71° 3.850'


Here we are on the GREEN line heading toward Lechmere (and the apartment) N42° 22.131' W71° 4.313'


Outside the apartment we wonder around a bit. N42° 22.285' W71° 4.466'

The loss of stuff

I dedicate this blog entry to the events that transpired today. I suppose every blog entry I write, now that I think of it, has something to do with that particular day. The focus is on the 'loss of things' because I have friends that are secretly getting rid of their kid's toys to alleviate the amount of stuff collected within their homes. 'Secretly' to the kids anyway, I found out because they posted the getting rid of stuff on facebook. This entry also documents my loss of data today from my iPad2.

Ironically the chain of events that follow all started off from performing a back up, of all things, of my iPad2 because my computer hard drive was getting full.

I had purchased Torchwood the complete seasons of one and two (mistake number one) which take up about 1.5 gigs an episode. My main hard drive sits in a netbook. Not a lot of space to begin with. The idea was to use iTunes to back up my files to an external drive. That was it. Simple. Straight forward.

Unfortunately it was neither. After backing up my files to my 'R' drive and checking to make sure they were all there by comparing it to my 'C' drive I proceeded to delete the stuff off my 'C' drive (mistake number two).

Upon running iTunes I noticed that all the apps were gone. How to solve this? I decided to hook up the iPad2 to the computer and download them (sync them) back to the laptop (mistake number three).

Instead of downloading the apps, iTunes decided to sync the empty laptop back to my iPad. Doing this not only wiped out all my Apps on the iPad, it also deleted all the support files and files created for those apps.

I lost music compositions, sketches, spread sheets, Word documents, game settings (including about a month of fish planet data), and all my sound recordings from travelling around the Boston T just before Christmas. Ugh. There could still be more stuff gone that I haven't discovered yet.

I suppose the part that really sucks about this whole experience is that it took almost 12 hours to get things back up and running properly and still not have those files. The good news is that Apple does keep track of all the software you buy so you can at least re-download everything. That was a small victory in itself. Had I not been able to reinstall the apps I would have probably put the iPad on eBay.

Things could have been a lot worse. Most of the data was only two months old. iTunes managed to back up my contacts and my notes data. This is the problem with a closed system like the iPad. You forget to backup files because they're hidden away. I knew this going into buying the Apple product so it wasn't a complete surprise when everything went to crap.

Whether it's computer data loss, a hundred view master reels your uncle gave away as a kid, that Apple ][+ (with all the software) your mother gave away to your relatives, your best friend dying, or your loss of youth and the ability to bend without grunting, you'll always lose something in life. It's just the way it is.

Wow, as I write this I realize that this blog entry is a big downer. To help pick you, the reader, back up here's some photos I took of Phoebe while I was working on the restoration of the iPad. We went outside when the computer was re-downloading the apps.

Also despite knowing the fact that loss is a fact of life, know this... Appreciate stuff when you have it. The memories of having that stuff in your life will last forever (or at least until your memory fades due to old age). If you buy an Apple product with a close system remember to back up each individual file (see, out of a horrible time consuming experience for me you have taken away some valuable time saving information; life is good)


Here's a photo of Phoebe with the neighbour's newspaper from today (It's the Wall street Journal)


The bridge near the park (again)


Phoebe rolling around on the ground (why? I have no idea)


Phoebe sleeps while I start the iPad's restoration


Phoebe changes beds. My restoration is taking a while.


Position three


Position four


Back to the softer bed (position five)


While the laptop is re-downloading all the iPad Apps I decide to take Phoebe for a walk.


Haymarket Pizza Prices


Phoebe with the statue of Kevin Hagan White, the longest-serving Mayor of Boston


Phoebe waiting for me across the street while I use the bank machine.


Phoebe at South Station


Phoebe near the Children's Museum


Phoebe across the street from the Barking Crab


Phoebe on a bridge connecting Boston to South Boston


Phoebe in front of some Christmas lights


A Boston park display


Phoebe in front of a large Christmas Tree in Quincy Market