Smoke on the Water

Today provided a hard-to-resist opportunity for photography. There are some pretty big brush fires across the harbour (which unfortunately are apparently also consuming some houses) which are creating some pretty impressive smoke plumes. They can be seen all over the city, including from my office and from the beach at the end of our street. So, Loki dog, my roommate and I went down to the beach to a) enjoy the unseasonably summery day and b) take some pictures of the smoke.

Loki didn't seem fazed by the smoke; she was just happy to be running and chasing seaweed and digging in the sand and running. Here's hoping they get the fires out soon.

Last Thursday was one of the biggest events of the year for the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, the Spring Dinner. While I am not techincally part of the events team, on days like this I get to indulge my event-coordinator side and help out. We spent most of the morning tying chair covers onto 600 chairs in the room. It's impressive to see the room come together from bare tables and uncovered chairs to a fully set, green-and-champagne, film-themed spring "zen garden," as I called it. And the food and speaker were pretty good too - with a beer company sponsor, everything was cooked using beer, and Steven Brandman was really interesting talking about the film industry in Halifax. Unfortunately, he didn't bring Tom Sellick with him (Brandman is the procuder of the Jesse Stone series which shoots in Hali). But, RBC did bring the real Olympic torch (right)! It is admittedly a great advantage of my job that I get to try and experience such a variety of things. Not many jobs offer you the opportunity to get experience planning and executing large events without that actually being your job! More photos can be seen on the Chamber's website.

And as an ending point, as a follow-up to my last post: today's sporting event on tv as I write is Canada vs Czech Repubic World Championship hockey, on repeat on TSN.

Jenn of All Trades Was Taken....

When I was in Europe studying for six months in 2005 I blogged about my trip. I had built-in things to write about since there was a field trip of some sort almost every weekend and I was seeing and doing new things every day. Since then I have missed writing regular updates, even if the only people reading them were my family members. So, at the encouragement of a blogging coworker (check out With Bite!), here I am.

I have been musing recently about the direction I would eventually like my life to take, and have been spending a lot of time making mental lists of the things I enjoy doing and/or am good at. The problem is that the list of things I'm interested in is long and hugely varied, from writing and jewellery making to database management to a burning desire to drive a rock truck before I die. These things are pretty hard to successfully combine into a career (unless you manage to get a job as a tv show host on the Discovery Channel), which is probably why I went into university as a Bachelor of Arts student not knowing what I wanted to take, and why I ended up with an honours degree in German and History (do you want to hire me now?).

A huge advantage of my current job is that I get a chance to do and try a pretty decent range of stuff and no two days are really ever the same. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that most of the things I enjoy can be successfully pursued as hobbies, and hopefully some of the stranger 'bucket list' items can be accomplished through my rapidly expanding and varied network.

So, that is what I hope to write about here: the miscellany of things in which I am interested and my efforts to pursue, engage in, and learn more about those things.

In that spirit, here is how I spent my creative energies today:

This necklace of ribbon, freshwater pearls, faux pearls and various sizes of chain was inspired by a design in Nathalie Delhaye's book beads buttons and bijoux which my parents surprised me with as an "I couldn't resist it at the bookstore" present the other day.

I often spend the evening either watching, ignoring or pretending to ignore sports on tv (depending on the sport: if it's Ottawa Senators it's watching; everything else is ignoring or half watching) while spreading my beading supplies out over the whole sofa. Today my boyfriend was watching the Toronto Blue Jays lose and I was working on this.

This is part of the collection I am trying to build up so I can sell some of my jewellery at a) my hairdresser's salon, since she so kindly offered to let me put a display there, and b) at Christmas craft sales next fall. So far I have 3 necklaces and 2 pairs of earrings - a slow start, but it's coming along!

Phew. I thought this was going to be a short introductory post. So much for that!