185: Pepper!

Last week's grouchiness melted immediately at the sight of Pepper, on display at a local birdfeed and supply store as part of a fundraiser for a local owl-related charity.

On a hot tip from friend Steph, Kerry, my dad and I headed to see some hot live owls, originally slated to include a long-eared owl and a burrowing owl, which I was very excited to see up close (rare as they are). Instead of the burrowing owl though, there was Pepper – a one-year-old northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus).

I have never seen a saw-whet owl – common enough as they are here in the wild – though I've heard plenty during my annual volunteer stint as part of a local springtime nocturnal owl survey. But they happen to be my favourite bird. In the whole. Wide. World. As such, Pepper merely had to bat his big Bat-Boy eyes and everything seemed suddenly alright again.

No disrespect to Nemo (above, top left and bottom right), a long-eared owl also in attendance – you were OK, too. But please view some close-ups of Pepper here, and here.

Not A Great Week

Top row (left to right): Suzie Vinnick, singing her heart out at a recently-attended house concert; a friend, and former co-worker, who left the job to become an RCMP officer. Middle row (left to right): Jeope the wildcat; an offering from Blondie's, home of the city's best burger. Bottom row (left to right): little Bennett, new to the scene; a face at this year's Féstival.

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It hasn't been a great week. It could be the blizzard that just bombed us back to January. Could be the pre-blizzard taxi that soaked me stupid – in white pants, no less – twenty paces from my own house. It could be a number of things. So I decided to gather a bundle of things together that made me feel happier of late (see above).

184: In Like A Lion

A project that's kept me away from my usual sordid activities here has been building the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada e-newsletter for their Manitoba chapter. Previously I had gone whole hog and constructed an InDesign-based layout file and subsequent PDF for download, but the GDC has since made it significantly easier for area communications reps to get their chapters' words out by supplying a ready-made template and system for regional newsletters. But the task of filling them with content will always exist – and well, that's what I've been up to. The first edition under the new system was emailed out to Manitoba membership this past week. Future editions should be popped out every two or three months, with the next slated after a new crop of design students hit the streets later this spring, post-graduation.

Click here to be whisked away to the newest GDC Manitoba e-news.

183: Trois jours à Montréal

Top row (left to right): a poisonous french frog; Death's Head moth (think Silence of the Lambs); living baseball cactus – real name, no foolin'. Middle row (left to right): Kerry is stonewalled by the Montréal phone book; atop the mountain. Bottom row (left to right): face in the crowd at a drum circle; beautiful worn typography; riot police!

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Kerry and I took advantage of a midwinter airfare sale and booked a long-weekend getaway to Montréal this weekend, playing tourists in the country's most cosmopolitan city for three days that felt like a week (always the best sign, in my opinion, that a holiday is working). Our first day out we took the Métro to the old Olympic park grounds to catch my annual glimpse of some penguins at the Bio-dome (Kerry was more transfixed at a display of poisonous tropical frogs), the curiousities of the Insectarium and the surrounding park's extensive network of greenhouses (eventually getting the boot as they closed shop, without ever getting to the much-ballyhooed display of live butterflies).

On Saturday we ventured into Vieux-Montréal to explore, and join the throngs on Saint-Catherine to shop (side note: I outshopped Kerry! Boys rule!). The old city was quite peaceful outside what I imagine the high season is like; only a single street performer was out entertaining a modest crowd, and Kerry found me a small shop chocabloc with Tintin-themed goodies.

Sunday featured our flatlander's exhausting yet successful attempt at scaling the city's namesake mountain, capped with a hazy spring view of the city and much people-watching of countless folks out for the beautiful day. We completed the day's ten-mile trek into Mile-End for some Fairmount bagels, a jaunt down Rue Saint-Laurent and, finally, we witnessed the tail end of another infamous Montréal tradition: a genuine street riot ­ this one, ironically, marking an international day against police brutality.

Kerry will tell you the highlights were definitely meal-oriented, and it is a sublime city to go and eat. We enjoyed tapas at a table with swings for seats, enchiladas draped in spicy chocolate sauce, cheese-stuffed multi-grain crèpes and fall-off-the-bone chicken and duck tajines at a boisterous basement Moroccan restaurant where we snuck in sans réservation thanks to some extremely helpful and coincidental assistance from an off-duty employee.

182: Clobbersaurus Rex!

Aaaaaand introducing in the blue corner… she's a writer and a fighter… a poet who can throw it… dropping bombs and verse that puts opponents in a hearse… ­ rising up from the mean streets of Westwood, it's Kerry "Electrifyin" Ryan, aka Clobber! Saurus!! Rex!!!

Saturday night saw the culmination of two hard months of training, all in preparation of Kerry's first-ever match, held during Pan-Am Boxing Club's "white collar boxing" fundraiser. She's been with the club and attending their rigourous workouts for over a year, but when the opportunity arose earlier this winter to hone skills towards an actual match, she signed up.

All of her work went into a three-by-two, six-minute match that stayed incredibly close. In the end however, by the skin of a tie-breaking technicality, she was declared the champ. And a retired champ, too (more likely than not), boasting an unblemished career record of one win and zero losses.




These shots were taken in a dank basement club bordering on the stereotypical, and using flash carried a penalty of mass pummeling by staff. So what you see here is what you get, though there's a better flow and 10-image story being told in my official Fight Night Flickr slideshow.

181: Puffin

This sketch represents a couple of things that these days I rarely – if ever – do. One, I didn't colour it. Two, it wasn't for any Illustration Friday theme and doesn't have any larger creative connection. Three, I rejected the urge to dress it up in effect (in moderation or otherwise). So, in its little way, I hope it can help push me towards being less compelled by site hits or comments, and being a touch more "sketchy" and directed towards personal gain and joy.

This illo doesn't get off scot-free though. There was a second bird to the left that I wound up not enjoying near as much as this fellow, so I erased it. And a third one didn't even make it past the pencil stage.

This is an Atlantic puffin.

180: Just Like Mom's

A few years ago I asked my mom to send me a written alphabet in her handwriting, with hopes of learning how to turn it into a typeface, and the plan eventually fell by the wayside. But I was inspired by comments in a recent meme that's been spreading through Facebook like a virus, where I boasted I had the world's neatest printing – with my mom's coming in second. Digging up her printed alphabet I realize now I infact have miles to go to achieve her neatdom.

So, using this free online font-o-matic service, I placed my mom's scanned letterforms into a provided template and followed a series of instructions that led to the site popping out a 16-kilobyte TrueType font.

It was almost that simple, but the results were not truly satisfying. The service naturally took each letter as I supplied it, making no adjustments in terms of baseline alignment, x-height and what-not. But luckily my mom kept her lines of text quite level, so only minor tweaks were needed to smooth things out. She also neglected to supply numbers or any other miscellaneous characters, so I searched stacks of postcards (she's a real world traveler these days) and other bits of mail to make up some of the slack. It is not a complete font by any means, but I now have it at my disposal the next time I need a note getting me out of gym class. I could have really used this back in junior high for phys-ed gymnastics and wrestling.

179: My Gut Instinct

Illustration Friday's current theme of instinct made me think of one phrase and one phrase only: go with your gut. There's not a whole helluva lot more to this, considering. But there was one major conceptual change between the original image in my head and what eventually made it to paper – at first, the concept had one man's entire bottom half walking away on him. But a chat with Kerry cinched the deal that the man's gut should be the only part making a break. I said OK, then mebbe the guts should have their own pair of feet, strutting off stage right, but she said no, make it move like an inchworm.

I actually posed for myself with this one ­ using my tripod and remote, thinking I'd draw it in a more realistic manner. Even though I didn't in the end, I thought I'd give that visual as well, despite your pleas; I don't believe I've shown off my gut here on my site before... or have I?

Click here for the obligatory closer glimpse at the spectacle. The drawing, I mean.

178: A Hazy Shade Of Winter

Top row (left to right): Aquila steers us through a whiteout on Highway 67; Kerry's miniature pancakes (and CBC Radio 3's image-of-the-day for February 18). Middle row (left to right): the boy in the box, on Wellington Crescent; attack, el robot!; nothing but blue skies and an inukshuk arm, on the river trail. Bottom row: clutter amidst the roaring game.

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My gift to you – a grid's worth of subtle off-season tones, as I plod my way through the dog days of winter. These were all taken with the macro lens attached, barring the top left corner – that was done with my trusty little go-everywhere PowerShot. A great many of these are already posted up, in glorious detail, o'er on my Flickr page.

The Big Two-Five

I've reached the big two-five.

Not in age, I did that in the fall of the fantastic year 2000. No, I mean the rad fad all the kids are talkin' about on The Facebook. Writing 25 interesting things about one's self takes time, if you want to do it up right (say, like my friend Al). This I pecked at over days. You're supposed to then tag people... aw hell, you know the deal. But I don't tag; everyone who's done this has done this...

1. You'd think that as a kid I was a magnet for abuse with a name like mine, but surprisingly not. The worst I can think of was a customer on my paper route who asked if my parents were potheads when they named me. And I thought at the time, man, that's actually pretty funny.

2. Over the course of my life, my fantasy career has been as follows: park ranger, guy who built Lego Village at Eaton's every Christmas, astronaut, ornithologist, cartographer, sportswriter, graphic designer for National Geographic, park ranger.

3. When I was 10 I saw Labyrinth and became a huge fan of David Bowie. Not too long afterward, I learned he was also a singer.

4. I first (successfully) rode a bike when I was 11. I learned to drive a car when I was 30. Ironically, one of my favourite pastimes is, and has always been, the road trip.

5. In junior high, my friends had posters of Alyssa Milano in their lockers. I had one of Michelle Pfeiffer. Later I developed a crush on Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years.

6. I miss the grunge era, for music and fashion. But not for design. David Carson can kiss my ass.

7. A few years back, friends and I pulled a whirlwind trip to Mardi Gras. While there I saw five boobs.

8. A couple of weeks ago I killed a cactus. Who does that?

9. I'm a bird nerd. And a design nerd. As such, my favourite species share one common trait: an aesthetically-pleasing colour scheme – including my favourite colour, a cinnamon-esque dried-blood red: ruddy duck, ruddy turnstone, northern saw-whet owl, red-breasted nuthatch, American avocet.

10. I run a very tight wardrobe, and hang on to clothes like grim death.

11. I won't spill details as to how, but I can intentionally sneeze. For the endorphins alone it is worth it.

12. My favourite song is "Sexy Sadie", and has been so for years.

13. I have the neatest handwriting in the world. Deal with it. Second neatest in the world is my mom's.

14. I can navigate circles around you. This is because I read maps like books. If I'm riding shotgun, you will not get lost – unless it's yer own damned fault.

15. I do not pull this out of my hat often, but I can belch astoundingly loud and fantastically long. On command.

16. There's a piece of glass I can jiggle around underneath the skin of one of my knuckles, the result of a clutz moment with a tumbler of orange juice a few years ago.

17. I will drink water straight out of Lake Superior, but none of the other Great Lakes.

18. Death Row foodstuff? My mom's baking powder biscuits, newly warm. Possibly with honey, possibly with a bowl of chili – I'm not sure – but I would hope the folks on Death Row would be understanding of my indecision. Mebbe also a roasted duck. Then a brownie, with walnuts baked in and bits of Mars bars in icing almost at a 1:1 ratio with actual brownie.

19. I have not seen a speck of either the Godfather or Fast And The Furious trilogies.

20. Touching a perfectly smooth, dry stone will produce the same effect in me as fingernails on a chalkboard does for others. To touch one I have to first lick my fingers. Funny enough, the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard does not bother me too much, but touching a chalkboard with my fingers will.

21. My top score in Wii bowling is 279. I have never come close to that mark again. There's a small chance I might have dreamed it.

22. I am afraid of mould, and some mushrooms (depending on how icky they look). As a kid I was afraid of fiddlehead ferns (pteridophobia, I'm over it now).

23. I am also often subconsciously – and sometimes-not-so-subconsciously – afraid of screwing up. You wouldn't believe how much that tends to get in the way of things.

24. There are two books out there, in the world, dedicated to me.

25. I first kissed a girl when I was 12. I last kissed a girl a few minutes ago.