photos, games and food
Day 2
The morning started with a 3.5 mile walk complete with photos of the puppies using my new Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens.
Back home and it was time to make my Christmas presents aka the doughnuts! We had glazed, cinnamon sugar dipped and an experimental eggnog glaze. They didn’t last long and these were the only photos I got. Can’t take photos… eating…
Game night
We started off with a heated game of Ligretto Dice and then moved to a hilarious game of Do You Mind.
Jeff took Connor and I took Katy. She was great at finding treats but couldn’t roll over to save her life. They must’ve been wondering what the heck Jeff and I were laughing at but they didn’t care because they were getting plenty of treats 
Photos photos photos
I got to bust out my photo geek equipment and take some family Christmas shots. I even managed to get a few photobooth-style shots
Food food food
We finished the night by diving into a box holding a giant Danish filled with almond paste. What?!
152 days ago
Let my vacation… begin!
Day 1
The first day of my month long vacation. I was pretty good at not leaving everything until the last minute but I still spent the day rushing around thanks to tasks that needed to be done and reassigned before I left for a month.
One thing I had decided to put off until the last minute was wrapping up the last of my Christmas presents. I was at the airport 1.5 hours early so I sat down and spent an hour wrapping sticks of chocolate with their raffia ties and tags. It was one way to pass the time and it meant that I didn’t have to hole up once I got to Kat and Jeff’s.
Flying when sick
Ugh, the loss and gain in pressure wreaked havoc on my sinuses. It was not a fun flight. I hope my sickness is gone by time I have to board my next plane.
Portland
Nothing much changes. Whenever I visit it always feels like coming home. The puppies are always happy to see me and there’s always food
Christmas presents were swapped and doughnut dough was made for the morning. There was also a game of Don’t Drop the Soap – the most politically incorrect board game I’ve ever played.
Let the festive season… BEGIN!!!
153 days ago
fat scale: check point before a month off
Unfortunately the fat scale printer wasn’t working today so I only have my numbers to go off this time. I weighed in at 59.6kg and dropped to 25.1% body fat. Only a 0.9% drop but a drop nonetheless. And now I am ready for my month off where I ditch the calorie counting and the gym and wander around North America.
My stats so far are:
28 March 2012: 59.5kg, 5’2″, 22.2% body fat
26 July 2012: 62.9kg, 158cm, 29.3% body fat
6 October 2012: 60.5kg, 158cm, 26.0% body fat
20 December 2012: 59.6kg, 158cm, 25.1% body fat
154 days ago
Help-Portrait Vancouver 2012
I first found out about Help-Portrait just before their first one in 2009. I didn’t make it that year and the following two years I was travelling so didn’t make it to them either. I was adamant I’d make it to this year’s and I did.
I always wanted to volunteer as a photographer but knowing nothing about lighting I figured it was better to just go along as a runner. I ended up working the volunteer sign-in table along with another person counting attendees.
The time just flew by and I met friendly people and saw some great photos come out of the day.
As always I don’t think these kinds of events should be restricted to just the holiday season. Any time is a good time to help people out.
172 days ago
The Kraft Dinner Challenge
The Kraft Dinner Challenge was born after I posted this video on Gabriel’s Facebook wall and Bryce commented on it leading me to comment back and say, “We should have a Kraft Dinner Off and see who can come up with the best variation of cheesy goodness”.
The rules:
- You must use the entire contents of the box
- The contents of the box must consist of 80% of the final product, eg. you can’t serve filet mignon with a side of KD
Preparation
Never have I used so many dishes in making one meal, let alone one consisting of mainly Kraft Dinner – that’s Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to those of you in the States.
This photo doesn’t show the cream or the paprika that I also used.
I had Jay on Skype while I was doing this and when I busted open the “cheese” packet in the KD I shrieked at him saying, “Why is it so orange?!”
The rain in Vancouver has started and Evan was lovely enough to give me a lift to Glenda’s. I really wasn’t looking forward to schlepping 20 minutes in the rain carrying pimped out mac & cheese.
The contenders
Once again, a picture is worth a thousand words so here are the final results:
Glenda: lobster and white truffle oil
Bryce: pepperoni, mushrooms, spinach and arugula
Evan: sundried tomatoes, olives, tomatoes and pancetta
Mine: chicken, mushroom, artichoke hearts, garlic, sour cream and cream
The winner
Let’s face it, when you’re pimping Kraft Dinner, everyone’s a winner!
Next up: The Top Ramen Challenge
200 days ago
Canadian Halloween
This was my first North American Halloween and it was a slap-up one. Rather than the usual dress-up-and-party Halloween we opted to (read: ran out of time for costumes then ended up) get a bunch of kids dress-up stuff from the dollar store, have some drinks, eat some poutine and gluten-free cookies and take faux photobooth photos.
We all forgot the booze so we ended up eating the poutine and cookies, being all girly and doing our hair and make up and taking some photos. I was comfortable, I never had to queue for the toilet and I was warm all night. Success!
Our dress-up options were:
- princess tiara
- fairy wand
- fairy wings
- fireman’s hat
- green St Patrick’s Day hat
- SpiritHood bear hat
- trucker cap
- witch’s mask
- medieval axe
- glasses, big nose, moustache
- Halloween decorations
- Australian flags
207 days ago
Instameet – October 2012
Today was the third edition of our Vancouver Instameets. I made chocolate diablo cookies using the Tacofino recipe. I would’ve liked them to be fudgier. Next time I won’t bake them for as long. Me and Winston got creative and got a little carried away stacking them…
I ended the Instameet by splitting an oyster po’boy with Glenda from The Kaboom Box. Sweet Moses it was delicious! The oysters… the slaw… the bread… perfection. Yeah, paleo goes out the window on cheat days!
Glenda and I ended the evening by adding each other to WhatsApp. What started as a simple, “Let me take your photo for your profile on my phone…” lead to… well… this:
Enough said.
214 days ago
my first Canadian Thanksgiving
What better way to spend a Thanksgiving Saturday before I fly out to Hawaii than with friends around a dinner table? Glenda, Sebastien, Raewyn, Allison and I all got together for a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner. Side dishes were done by colour and the meal came together amazingly well given that we didn’t really coordinate beforehand. A picture’s worth a thousand words so here are eight of them…
I was particularly proud of my cream of cauliflower soup. Who woulda thought that cauliflower could be so tasty?!
227 days ago
fat scale: check point
My present to myself before I leave for Hawaii was a weigh-in on the fat scale again. And I am pleased to report the results:
My stats so far are:
28 March 2012: 59.5kg, 5’2″, 22.2% body fat
26 July 2012: 62.9kg, 158cm, 29.3% body fat
6 October 2012: 60.5kg, 158cm, 26.0% body fat
That’s right, I lost 3.3% body fat. That has put me in a great mood!
What I did
So the changes in my life weren’t too drastic but they certainly made a difference.
- Standing instead of sitting for work – since 10 August
- Counting calories – since 7 August
- Exercising every weekday – since 11 August
- Continuing paleo
I went to the gym 40 times in 57 days. Unfortunately I got sick and missed 6 days in a row but what can you do?
I was right to ease myself into paleo. If I’d gone cold turkey with no cheat days and calorie counting I probably would’ve given up. But I added in the calorie counting after I was already used to the paleo and it seems to have worked. I was eating a shockingly high number of calories when I was on paleo before I started counting – I’m talking around the 2,500 mark. And now I eat under 2,000 a day. My actual numbers fluctuate but it’s around 1,500-1,800.
Thanks to losing a bit of weight my BMR went down so my daily calories went down too. Not sure if I’m happy about that 
All in all I’m happy with those results. For the next few months (my next weigh-in will be on 21 December) I will continue with what I’ve been doing but maybe give myself a day off exercising on Wednesdays to recover and stretch. My calves have been killing this year, it’s so strange.
Ending the self-fulfilling pat on the back
229 days ago
flourless chocolate cake
Lately I have been experimenting with gluten-free baking recipes. It has to do with spending a lot of time with Instagram folks and the fact that Raewyn is gluten-free. Yup, I’m a feeder.
Saturday was Raewyn’s birthday and Sunday was the Dexter party – the season 7 premiere episode that lead to screaming in unison by everyone but Bryce who just laughed at us.
So how do you possibly make a birthday cake for someone who is gluten-free and not have it taste gross? Flourless chocolate cake to the rescue! I hadn’t made one of these since 2005 when I would bake and take one into work every day for a week. It was so chocolate/cocoa/sugar-ladened that I actually gave myself headaches by eating too much. I think I even ended up using the same recipe adapted from allrecipes.com
It was definitely too sweet but could’ve been counteracted by some vanilla ice cream (if I’d managed to actually buy some). Next time I might skip the brown sugar and see how that goes… or maybe lose a quarter cup of white sugar… watch this space!
Ingredients
100g 70% chocolate
100g butter
½ c white sugar
¼ c brown sugar
½ c cocoa powder
3 eggs, beaten
1 t vanilla extract
Method
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Pop liners into a muffin pan.
- Melt chocolate and butter together, double boiler-styles.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients.
- Fill the liners about two-thirds of the way. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
These turned out super sweet and super fudgy. I have no idea how I’d get them out of the pan if I didn’t use the liners. Maybe the magic of cocoa powder will do the trick?
233 days ago
