Anthony on , , , 17 Oct 2009 08:56 pm


Mud, mud, everywhere mud., originally uploaded by AnthonyFloyd.

Today, as part of a local Dad’s support group — DadCamp — we took a trip to the Richmond Country Farms Pumpkin Patch. Aidan was actually there yesterday with his preschool class, and it poured rain the whole time they were there. He went back today with me and it poured rain the whole time we were there. Still, he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

I’m testing posting photos to the blog from Flickr. You can see more photos from the trip (just a few, didn’t take many) here.

Anthony on , , , 20 Jun 2009 08:43 pm

Today was the “Chip’s Not Dead Yet” Memorial Mile.

For every dollar in net proceeds of registration or sponsorship, Chip Wilson, the founder of lululemon has pledged to match that amount with a contribution himself up to $150,000 in support of BC Children’s Hospital and all kids who really know what an uphill battle feels like! Chip’s three-year plan is to raise $1 million dollars.

You may remember the video that was made with 24 Hours Vancouver and Yoyomama (that included Gwen and Aidan).

Aidan got dressed up in his awesome magician’s cape, a fire helmet, and a pirate shirt. Obviously he was participating in the family-oriented Superhero Wave.

First, he did some warm-up — both running and mugging:

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While the wave was queuing for the start, a marching band kept the kids entertained.

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And they’re off! These kids were some pretty serious runners:

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Here’s Aidan in the crowd (another in our series of Where’s Waldo pics):

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Here’s the view up the hill that everyone was running:

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And, the end. Note the little kid in the orange. He walked the whole 1/2 mile up the hill. Couldn’t have been any more than a year old.

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The weather held out and everyone had fun. Aidan even went in a bouncy castle (usually he’s afraid of these) and tried to go up Provident Security’s inflatable slide — but ended up back out about half-way up climbing to the top of the slide. Ah well, maybe next year!

Anthony on , , , , 21 May 2009 08:57 pm

This past weekend we didn’t go to Victoria. To be clear, it was Victoria Day, we just didn’t go to Victoria even though Aidan was convinced we had to. Instead we took a day trip and went up the Fraser Valley.

The plan was simple. We’d head towards the Othello Tunnels without any schedule or firm plan. And it started fine — we packed a picnic lunch, the kid-carrier backpack, the all-terrain stroller. I loaded up the GPSs and off we went.

Things started going a bit sideways in Abbotsford. Gwen has some new glasses and didn’t have sunglasses at the time. She wanted to stop by a drug store to pick up some clip-ons so we looked up pharmacies in the GPS and headed to one that wasn’t too far from the TCH.

The GPS, of course, led us to a farmer’s field near the Sumas border crossing.

So, we hit up a nearby Zellers. Gwen went in to check for the clip-ons while I checked for nearby geocaches. And the GPS told me “No geocaches found”. Of course, this is *exactly* what I wanted to see while sitting in a parking lot in Abbotsford at the beginning of a day meant for geocaching.

Zellers, of course, didn’t have the clip-ons. In an amazing stroke of luck, I’d brought my netbook (which has GSAK and up-to-date geocaches on it) and attempted to rectify the problem with the Oregon GPSr. Gwen and the kids went off to the Tim’s that was in the parking lot while I repaired the GSAK database (grr) and reloaded the caches. Disaster averted, I went over the Tims and met the family.

We headed out, but I had to stop by the washroom. I wasn’t in the bathroom more than 30 seconds when I heard Aidan calling out for me in the vestibule outside the washrooms. This was surprising because we’d asked him to stay with his mother. Anyway, we did our business and went back out into the restaurant to find a very unhappy Gwen. Turns out Aidan had come to the bathroom when his mother’s back was turned to Quinlan. As a result she had no idea where he was.

We almost went home there and then.

Instead we drove on to Bridal Falls and had a picnic.

Which is really the point of this post. Quinlan seems to like the outdoors, wouldn’t you say?

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So, the picnic was a success. Time was marching on, but we did manage to grab a cache in the park. It should have been a quick grab, but in the shadow of the mountains the GPS wasn’t giving us great accuracy, and there were a number of potential hiding spots. And a rushing stream nearby. And it wasn’t clear which side of the stream the cache was on.

Traversing the stream was not an easy feat.

The cache was, of course, on the easy side.

So, we left Bridal Falls and headed up to Hope. An uneventful drive except that the GPS tried to get us to arbitrarily cross the Coquihalla River where the was no crossing, and Aidan fell asleep in the car. He never falls asleep in the car and this was the second time in as many weeks! He must be coming up to a growth spurt.

Eventually we found our way to the Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park. The park has a trail that leads to the Othello Tunnels, built back in 1914.

We all enjoyed the tunnels, which were a reasonable walk along the reclaimed railbed. Aidan was thrilled with the tunnels, and the canyon was pretty awesome too.

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The big reason for coming to the Tunnels, however, was to get the geocache located there.

It seemed to be up the side of a cliff, near a fallen giant tree.

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I say “seemed” because in the end, we DNF’d it. Frustrating, but we’d had an excellent adventure despite how the day started, so it was all good.

Anthony on , , , , 04 Dec 2008 09:17 pm

Aidan's 2008 Preschool PhotoSo as you can see in the previous post, we bought prints of the pictures taken of Aidan at his preschool.

I’m of two minds about this, but mostly I’m not happy about it.

First, pricing of the prints is a scam. Let me back up a bit. *First* you get to see the final product. No proof, no selection of poses, they just hand you the whole package of prints, fully printed, full package (8×10, some 5x7s, multiple 4x6s, many wallets + full class shot). At the classroom. You cannot take them home, you cannot show them to a spouse. Instead, you get a peek at the whole package and they hand you an order form.

The form shows that for a single sheet of prints, the cost was $20. For two sheets, the cost was $32. For 3 sheets, $48. The whole package (already printed mind you) was $50 and contained 5 sheets + the class photo. So, they pretty much guarantee that everyone will go for the $50 package, since at a minimum you want the class photo plus two sheets, and if you’re doling out $48, why not $50.

Hello, what? These prices are crazy. To not be able to consider a proof is unconsciencable. To preprint a full package and dangle it in front of you is high-pressure sales.

And then there’s the copyright issue.

We did not sign a contract. We did not sign a photo release. The school invited this photographer into the class to take pictures of the children.

Who has the copyright?

The photographer claims that he does, and has stamped everything with copyright notices. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a commissioned photography of my child and nobody has the right to use the image of my child except me (unless I explicitly grant permission). Further, I have the right to do with what I will with the image, although I will grant that I probably should attribute the photograph (but of course I have no idea who the actual photographer is).  As such, I have no problem scanning the print and posting it to this blog. As such, I do have a problem with the idea that the photographer can do whatever they like with this image. Fortunately the photography company recognizes some of these issues and included a notice with the prints that if you did not want images of your child to be used elsewhere you could call the company and specifically direct them not to. Which Gwen promptly did at my request. It turned out that it meant they would use none of the photos from the entire class as a result. I expect fan mail.

Copyright assignment for commissioned photography is a contentious subject.  See http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4229 for example.

And you know what else? It’s not even a good picture! I mean, the pose is great but the processing of the photo is awful! His hair colour is actually might lighter than the picture shows, and the colour range is awful. It should be properly balanced, sharpened, and the saturation punched up a bit.

I only seem to remember school pictures in elementary school. Great, only another 7 years of this to grumble about for Aidan. Oh yeah, Quinlan’s 3 years behind. 10 years I guess.

What do you think? Is it all just a racket?

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