Comment Moderation: ON

Due to the increased number of idiots posting spam comments, I have elected to turn on comment moderation. I hope this isn't to big of an inconvenience to any of you fine folks who leave legitimate comments. I'm sick of others using this blog as a venue to sell their wares.

I certainly do appreciate and encourage comments left by real people as a form of real interaction. It's great to have people comment on your post. Unfortunately, the morons of the world go ahead and make it a little more difficult for the rest of us decent people.

Spamming is a low form of low, and when companies think it's a good idea to promote their businesses by leaving comments that are links to their site, they're STUPID. Plain and simple.

Have a good day.

Alex Wetmore continues to amaze

If you've never been by Alex Wetmore's site, you need to check it out. This guy is truly gifted. But more than his giftedness, he actually does stuff. Something that I'm realizing "creative’s" seem to get in a lull about. Creative’s sometimes thing that having great ideas, or possessing great skills, somehow negates the requirement to actually go and do things. Behance network has realized this, and has coined the term, "99%". That meaning that creative success is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. I agree. Alex seems to have no trouble getting around to the 99%

photo from Alex Wetmore's site.

He has built up some amazing bicycle racks, and some great bikes. His latest that he's been working on is the Gifford. It's pretty much complete now, and man is it impressive. You can find a link to his smug mug gallery on his site and check out all of the build details. I had a chance once to buy a modified Bike Friday Tikit from Alex, and I keep wondering what that bike would have been like to have a bike that he's modified to make it better, as he saw fit.


Nice work Alex, very inspirational and I admire your craftsmanship.

When I don't commute by bike....

....it's like being in a rat race

Frosty Walk in the Park

Just had to get out and test my new lenses. A 70-200mm f2.8 IS USM, and a 17-40mm F4, USM. Good fun for sure.

I have an announcement to make...

Well, you may have noticed it's been a little quite around this old blog for a while now. There is good reason for that, so I'll dig right in.

First of all, I am make a huge change in my career. Switching careers actually.

It's been something I've contemplated for almost two years now, and the decision has been a firm decision for about 6 months. Since this blog is linked to my facebook page, I couldn't really say much of it here, until I made sure that my co-workers all knew of the news. They now know, so I can officially go public.

February 28^th will be my last day as an employee of G&S Airport Conveyor. March 1^st will be my first day as a full time professional photographer! Huge leap isn't it! Scary? Yes. Wise? Time will tell. The right thing to do? I think so, and as such I am acting on it.

Until the last year or so, I've never ever in my life know what I wanted to be when I "grow up". I followed my dad's lead, became a Millwright, stuck with G&S for a while and the last 5 or so years I've been a Sr. Project Manager. It's a sweet job. It's for a sweet company. The people I work with I think are some of the best people in the world one could work with. I can go home for lunch, I've got huge flexibility in my schedule. Basically as long as the job gets done, it's up to me how I go about doing it. Why on earth would I give that up?

Well, there are several reasons, but the biggest is this. I don't have passion for what I do. I don't get excited to come to work every day. Being a project manager as you could imagine involves a huge amount of details. I am not a detail oriented person. I see big pictures. When there is a task at hand, all I care about is getting it done. How we go about getting done, or ever step along the way, is irrelevant to me. All I care is that we start moving. Now this is a good quality to have. However, when you're dealing with several million dollar projects, involving many different parties, and overseeing installation crews that can be as large as 8-10 men, you kind of need to have every little thing sorted out. If not, profits dwindle fast when you've got a large crew of men spinning their wheels on site. It takes great effort to force myself to do the detailed work required to be successful. It grates on me, and it's a chore the whole way through. Some people thrive on figuring every little thing out, documenting and organizing it all. Not me. I like to do as my dad always said while I was growing up, "head down, bum up". I like to just do stuff. Obviously there is a level of personal organization and keeping track of details that every person much posses to make it through life with any sort of success and have a decent reputation, but what I'm talking about is making sure that the 1,054 3/8" X 1" bolts that are being packed are going to be enough. Spread sheets, spread sheets spread sheets. Argh! They torture me!

Peter Drucker said that it is a waste of time to try and develop a weakness. I agree. We are all give different strengths. Those are what we must spend our time developing. If I were to classify myself, I would say that I am artistic more than anything. Some may argue with that, some may not, but that is how I see myself. The things that are important to me, music, writing, sculpture, photographs, design, are artistic. I once saw a dread-locked, chain dangling, black trench-coat wearing kid with a huge patch on the back of his coat that read, "Music is my religion". While I don't make that statement myself, I do identify with him in the power that music plays in my life. I obsess over creativity. I could spend my entire days looking at photographs and drawings. I have passion for that realm of society.

Based on this, I am taking a huge risk, sticking my neck out there, and I am daring to make a living doing something that I love. Photography.

Now, I understand that it's not a matter of taking a picture, put it up in the air and people will open their wallets and pay me massive amount for that photograph. No, I understand that primarily it is just like running any other business. In fact I've calculated that less than 5% of my work will actually be taking photos. I've put some very real numbers together, skewed them to be a little on the pessimistic side, and then decided that yes, I would indeed try and make this work. I've been putting legal documents together, registering my company, legalizing my basement studio, and working on all of the other details that are required to have a legitimate business. This has eaten up many of my evenings and weekends over the past while which is a huge part of why I haven't been blogging her much. I've been pouring my energy into this new venture. Most everything is in place, the hammer is cocked, and now I simply need to pull the trigger. March 1^st baby! March 1^st!

It is a huge challenge that I am diving into, with potential of huge reward. Imagine, a life spent doing what you love. The payoff is big enough for me to believe that it is worth the risk. Further to all of this, I am so incredibly excited to be doing this. I'm stoked. It always helps to have an excitement to give you the energy required to do the huge amount of work that is involved with starting a business. Excitement is oozing out of me right now! Let's go!

www.jeremygoertz.com

403.901.3892

The driest part of the commute

Snow does,nt remain snow when temps are 10C (50F). It turns to water. Lots and lots of water. The planet bike cascaidas do a great job of protecting me from that former snow.

I'm having to take the whole lane was I enter the industrial park in this little town of ours. There are simply two wheel ruts, and the rest is sloppy coated ice. Nice and brown. It's okay though, with only water on the pavement in the wheel ruts at least I can sustain a decent clip and keep the motorheads from getting too ticked at me. Besides, if the motorheads are sick of being behind me......blame the town. It's their roadway and it's their job to clear it. I even pay them handsomely to do so. Strathmore is becoming notorious for not clearing roadways when it snows. At least that makes me not feel so bad about holding up traffic.

Still enjoying the warmth

With all this nice weather, we've been making sure not to waste it. As a family. After church today, we headed into the backyard and enjoyed some of the greatest (in the minds of a true-blooded Canadian) game on earth. My second son is blowing me away with his second day ever on skates. Little buddy can send the puck sailing across the ice while still remaining on his feet. Lately, for some reason, I've been looking at everything through the eyes of someone who has never seen it before. Maybe it's my precept ion that I've developed from interacting with folks in other parts of the world via the blogosphere, and maybe it's just cause I've done this my whole life. Every now and then, I'll look at something, and for some strange reason put myself in the shoes of someone completely new to the situation. Today, I did it again. As someone who has never witnessed skating and pond hockey, I imagine that it would be quite an observation. I only can imagine that those who are not familiar with such activities must think it's very difficult and dangerous. But yet, it's just a part of everyday life for us. It is something that we start young, and never forget. I'm sure those who have never ever ridden a bicycle before (gasp) feel the same way when they see folks whizzing around, in perfect balance, on an object who's wheels make a straight line while in motion. Odd to some I'm sure.
Today, as I was photographing my boys skating, I was trying to capture something that I've never seen before. I've been in a photography funk for a while and today, I threw caution to the wind, and just started messing with the camera. My trusty old 20D. Sometimes you just keep doing things the same way, and you need to really switch it up and go crazy with different settings just trying to get an image that you've never seen before.
Today I accomplished my objectives. First of all, my boys and I had a blast out on the ice for a few hours. Second, I was able to do things with my camera that I've never done before. The feel of these photos I've never yet produced. Feels good, and we had fun. Life is good.

Finally some warmer weather

The outside temperature has made quite a swing in the warm direction the past couple of days. My sweet wife and I were lucky enough to have a completely kidless evening (not that I'm not crazy about my wonderful children, but when you've got 3 of them under 5, there is very little time for us to just hang out, without dealing with the minor crisis that seem to make up daily life with children) and we took advantage of it. When we left the movie in Calgary, it was a balmy -6C (21.2F) but when we finished the half hour drive to our house in Strathmore, it was -28C (-18.4F).Ah, the wonderful effects of a chinook. Today, it was 7C (45F) and we finally got out on the backyard skating rink. This was my very first attempt at building my own ice rink and I learned a lot. I'll do things very differently next year, but I did manage to get this one to a state that isn't all that bad. Certainly it'll help my oldest practice his puck handling skills and some of the finer points of ice skating. Skating backwards, sharp cornering and hard stops. All those skills that make a big difference in a hockey game. The boys and I were out for about 2 hours today, and I even stripped down to just jeans and a t-shirt.

This weather is supposed to hold for a while, and I think I might just head out for a warm weather bike ride tomorrow. Maybe drop the pressure right down on the KM and see how she does on some of the old canal trails I rode during the summer.

Cheers.

Another teaser...