Savage .17 HMR

I picked up a new rifle over a month ago, and finally had a chance to start sighting it in today. It's a Savage .17 HMR. Very small caliber rimfire cartridge, but very accurate. This round is the sniper of rimfire cartridges. Paired with a .17 specific scope (it took me a while to find the scope I wanted, hence the delay in shooting it for the first time) and it's looking pretty good for a rough sight-in. After a bit of tweaking, I had all my groups in a 2" square at 150 yards. And that was without a bench-vise or bi-pod. After about an hour of fiddling with it (not quite done sighting her in yet) I put it away and the boys and I walked around with their bb guns.

Yesterday was -19C (-2.2F) and today we warmed up to 10 degrees C (50F) so we took full advantage of the warm and surprisingly windless Sunday afternoon. It's odd to be walking outside with only sweaters on and no snow, in February. We'll take it.

The .17 HMR round. It's almost cute.

 A nice heavy Stainless Steel fluted barrel on my new gun.

 The boys sitting in the van behind me made for safe spectator seating.

 This gun comes with a fully adjustable accu-trigger. Aids accuracy immensely.

 With the balance of the gun and the pistol grip stock, this gun feels great in the hands.

 Not sure who had more fun, my boys or me. 

Spending afternoons like this with the boys that I love and the men I am raising, that is a fine life to be living.

Moustache Grower's Guide | Movember Edition

I finally received my Movember Platinum club reward. I was sure our mail lady must have stolen it. Seeing as it was a surprise, I didn't know what to accuse her of stealing, but I suppose I just needed to be a little more patient.

The wait is over, and now as a member of the MOVEMBER platinum club, I've got a Moustache Growers Guild! Yes, exciting stuff. I also receive a certificate welcoming me to the prestigious league of hairy upper-lipped men. Ah indeed. Prestigious.

I'm perusing the guide, reading the growing instructions and putting my MOVEMBER game plan together for next year. 'Stache just got serious.

Fuji X100

I picked up a X100 (for the second time) this past weekend. Those who may have followed my make life well blog might remember a write up I did on the camera, and why I ended up selling it.

A few things have changed since then, mostly the fact that I no longer owned a digital camera of any kind (switched to shooting only film for a few years to really learn photography) and I wanted a good quality go everywhere camera that wasn't as big as a DSLR, had full manual control and a fast lens. The X100 meets those requirements. And with an APS-C sized sensor (same size as say a digital canon rebel) it has some pretty great image quality. I may write a more in-depth review later, but since the camera's been around for almost a year, there's already heaps of info on the web about it.

All in all it's a great camera that I'm glad to have back in the tool box.

Ice Fishing

Yesterday's forecast was supposed to be +2C(36F) and sunny. Earlier in week my buddy emailed to see if I wanted to head out ice fishing with the kids, and seeing as yesterday was the day it was supposed to warm up, I thought it would have been a great idea.

Weather forecasters are often wrong as was the case yesterday. I think the warmest it got was -12C (10F) but we dressed for it and had fun. We also never caught any fish (we were going for Pike) but that didn't really matter either. Just good fun on a frozen lake in the winter. For northerner's it's just par for the course.

I brought along my Canon EOS 3 and shot off a roll of Kodak Ektar 100.

On Social Media

It's become such a huge part of modern life these days. Twitter, Facebook, Google plus, Linkedin, and on and on. In a way it's become the new mall, the new place to hang out. It seems everyone is there. At first, I was so excited about this change in the way we interact with other people, the way we see what they're doing and what's going on in their lives. But now, I'm not so sure.

As a generalization, everyone is awesome and their lives are awesome according to their social media presence, and by this I am mostly referring to Facebook and Twitter. "I just rocked a 2 hr run, what a great start to the day!", "Crap, my BMW SUV has a flat. Again. FML!", "Just booked the most awesome wedding couple for next summer in Venice." And on and on and on. It's easy to see these and say, "I slept in today, don't drive a BMW and I just lost a potential client. I must suck at life".

When you start reading these, it's easy to fall into thinking that these status updates are the whole story of what's going on in their lives. It's easy to begin to think that everyone else is better than you at almost everything. They're life rocks. But when you're only getting part of the stream of what's really happening, they're basically bullshitting you. They're only revelling the parts of their lives that will make them look good. Social media has cleverly created a subtle way for people to brag. And it's effective. And, I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. When you first log on, you see how others use these sites, and say, "oh, that's what you do here, let me try." 

Now, obviously people you don't know aren't going to share every part of their lives with you. Why would they? You don't know them. It's not a real relationship. And if it's not a real relationship, what's the point of spending much time on it in the first place? These are the questions I've been asking myself.

I decided in August of last year that 2012 was going to be the year I deleted my Facebook account. I had 336 "friends" on there. At least 80% of them I'd never met in my life, or if I had, I wouldn't know who they were if I bumped into them on the street. My real life friends that I actually care deeply about I see on a regular basis. And, we never really interact on Facebook anyway. No, we get together and catch up over coffee or a meal. We share the highs and lows of our life, and when we need help or are struggling with something, we can share it because we care to the point that we'll do something about it for each other. It's what real friendship is about.

Now blogging is a little different. I follow blogs that are typically subject driven. I like bikes, coffee, photography, outdoor life, guns and motorcycles. People who publish blogs that are based on subject matter, typically do it to share knowledge and experience on the particular subject. They can become fairly personal which is nice and makes the blog not so clinical and corporate. But I rarely find them to be bragging. Someone is building up a bike, they'll tell you the problems they're having. This isn't working or that part they ordered doesn't fit and now it's for sale. It's educational, and almost always they bring enough of their personality into it that it's feels personal and like genuine sharing. I'm  a huge fan of blogging and bloggers.

Twitter is alright. I really like the 140 character limit. There is none of this "see what questions so and so answered about you", or "you've been invited to waste half your life on farmville" and that crap that is so rampant on Facebook. On twitter you can follow people, and people can follow you but it's not obligatory. I can be followed without following that person back and visa versa. It's great. And the biggest thing I like about Twitter over Facebook is that on Twitter, you're followers to each other, not "friends". Facebook has abused an important word and cheapened it. While it was maybe a nice thought at the time to make the site feel warm and fuzzy, a friend is so much more than an online interaction. 

It's 2012. I've had my dating period with social media and now realize what it is and what it isn't. 2012 is going to be more social and less social media. It's time to reclaim the term, friend.

Welcome 2012

As is tradition for the last several years, we welcomed the new year in at the condo in Fernie. I love it here. The more I'm here, the more I love it. Temping to make our time here permanent....

We hauled up our cross country skis, but there is very little snow here. Last year at this time, there was several feet on the ground. This year, barely several inches. Oh well. We're turning it into a weekend of lounging, just like the last time we came up here. 

Good food, coffee, reading, drawing and hanging with the family. A great way to bring in the new year. 

And on the subject of coffee, there's something that I meant to blog about last year but never got around to doing. I've been roasting my own coffee for almost a year now. If you've never had fresh roasted (and by fresh I mean within a few days) roasted coffee, you're seriously missing out. I've gotten my system down, my roaster figured out, and I'm not too humble to say that I roast some darn good coffee. I'll get working on a detailed post to share with you this year. 

Here's a batch I roasted two weeks ago:

Here's to a great start to a new year!

patience

this, is what I call patience.



Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.

instax project

This summer while my sweet wife and I were in Fernie celebrating 10 years of marriage, we picked up a cool little sign in a cool  little shop. Instantly I knew what I wanted to do with it. We've turning it into half of an ongoing display where we stick current instax photos of fun parts of everyday life. It's hung between our living room and kitchen, and a fun way to make art. When friends come over, it's always a fun little conversation piece.

Don't let your photos grow up to be jpegs. Shooting instant film is an easy way to ensure that never happens:)

My Parent's Farm | Film

From earlier this summer. Expired C-41 B&W shot while testing a 1969 Konica Reflex T that I found and repaired.

Movember | Day 20

Well, 2/3 through my mustache growing season and it's finally starting to fill in. Believe it or not, I sport a one thousand dollar mustache. That's the dollar figure I've raised so far for Movember. Hoping for more, kinda looking forward to an upper lip shave (although the 'stache will always be the manliest patch of face hair). And here's where I hit you up for a donation:{) - see that, that's a mustache smiley;{)

http://mobro.co/jeremygoertz

Fernie | Film Photography

From our chill weekend in Fernie. Kodak Portra Professional 400, and the last two images were shot on  Kodak Gold 200 that expired in 2002. I love the colour that comes from film. And with no post production what-so-ever, it's a winner.