aaron schwab

… with my brand new van! (well, it’s a ‘99, but you know.)

i invited some friends over to pose with it; that’s me down in front, me hanging out the passenger side, me on the back and, if you look really closely, that’s me behind the steering wheel. now i can be the soccer mom i always dreamed of being haul band or photo gear around if need be, not to mention the fact that i finally have a vehicle under my own name. woo! coming soon: fuzzy dice.

i finally finished the gamut of from-home work i’ve had to do over the past couple of weeks and, several hundred burned proof CDs later, i’m free from the obligations of Newschool until early next week. not that i mind being bound to the company i work for, mind you; it’s just odd to have a gap of more than 12 hours during which my involvement with the company isn’t needed.

speaking of photos, i managed to edit and post all of the photos from last Friday’s show today — 77 photos edited and posted, four days after the event. my turnaround time and overall laziness appear to be switching places! please enjoy my photo sets of Set Anchors and Kingdoms, as well as the few pictures i managed to get of Gracefield.

Tim called me up this afternoon looking for someone to accompany him to the mall, and i figured it might be a worthwhile endeavour to surface from Photoshop for a while and look for new pants, so i tagged along and did just that at Bluenotes (which is where i also tried on a black pair of skinny, skinny jeans. seriously, they would’ve made a pair of tights feel like Hammertime.)

on the way to the mall, however, Tim had to stop in at his work for some reason or another, and i decided to kill a few moments in the Christian bookstore a few doors down. upon being warmly greeted on entrance, i made my way over to the creationist literature, where i managed to covertly snap photos of a couple titles on my phone:

i read a few lines from the top book pictured there — so the earth came to be six thousand years ago; a fact that takes precedence over scientific theory because geologic records are inaccurate and untrustworthy. lest we forget the fact that every organ in the human body has an exact purpose, which allegedly further bolsters creation theory’s claim to the truth (except for, y’know, the coccyx, wisdom teeth, appendix and baby toes. but i guess the fact that each human body carries physical vestigial remnants of the evolutionary process and natural selection isn’t a strong enough argument to contend.)

…

i’m so sick and tired of making calls of immesurable bullshit on religious theory that i’ll let you decide on that one for yourself. the fact that “information” of this nature is being published for classroom use is really quite unnerving to me.

anyways, back on the photo note, i’ll be eyeballs-deep in Photoshop again tomorrow for the 130-something photos i have queued up from Pawly and Laura’s engagement shoot. i’m stoked to post them when i’m done and even more stoked to show the happy couple their photos!

as if the show on Friday wasn’t enough excitement, Saturday and Sunday were two back-to-back bar nights; Saturday at Starlight (which is slowly becoming as much of a regular thing for Cagney and i as Phil’s) and last night for a Phil’s retro Sunday night.

we accompanied Cagney’s friends Ashlee and Nikki — a pair of twin sisters — on blind dates at the Starlight, and last night at Phil’s was a bit of a repeat in that regard. i’m all for making new friends, as always, and Ashlee and Nikki are pretty rad girls, it seems, and i’m sure it’ll be a blast to see them again when we all head out for Hallowe’en (which will likely be another Phil’s night and not trick-or-treating. “too old for free candy” my ass.) Cagney’s affection for red wine also seems to be rubbing off on me.

these two nights went very well overall, i’d say, with the exception of me being a little off my usual game for the first little while of last night, not to mention an asshat of a cabbie who not only took Cagney and i home via the longest possible route from Phil’s, but also smoked in the car. the girls said they didn’t mind, but still — “this ride is free or i’m reporting you” are words that sprung to my mind a little too late.

after seeing Cagney to work this morning, i dropped off a DVD of promotional photos i did for a new Waterloo band called Had Me At Hello at the bassist’s house and made my way home via bus. i deleted all the music off of my phone and packed a book to read on the bus, which is hopefully a trend i’ll continue; i have far too many books sitting around that i still need to read, yet i dedicate a shamefully small amount of time towards it. though i enjoy reading very much when i get into it, it’s motivating myself to do exactly that that i suck at.

today has been one whirlwind after another; i feel like i haven’t had a second to catch my breath since eight this morning, which is when Cagney and i woke up at her place and did a little laundry and ate bagels and had OJ before she went off to work.

straight from dropping Cagney off at her salon this morning, i hopped on the bus to downtown then strolled over to Victoria Park to meet up with Pawly and Laura to take their (and my) first set of engagement photos. since it was my first time doing engagement shots, i did them on the house — if a pita for lunch and change for bus fare qualifies as “on the house” — but i’ll likely get to shoot another set of them next week once Laura’s ring is back from being sized, which i’m looking forward to, as these two are a blast to work with and be around in general.

300-odd photos later, i bused myself home and got ready for tonight’s LS:M show at the King Street Theatre, where i’d end up firing off another 200 or 300 pictures. i’d almost claim to be sick of my camera, but i know that feeling will be right gone by morning.

the Kitchener-Waterloo music scene has felt rather lackluster of late, but i have a feeling the show tonight will be remembered as somewhat of a pivotal one, as it introduced three brand new KW bands who all played their first shows tonight — Gracefield, Set Anchors (who have received promotional photos from yours truly) and Kingdoms.

what sets these three bands apart from other new bands is how none of these bands’ members are new to the scene by any means; at least some of the members in each have served time in previously-beloved area bands — Gracefield features members from previously active area bands such as A Bitter End and War Against Amy; Set Anchors contains parts of Of The First Born Son and Rivera Wide Awake; and Kingdoms has perhaps the most extensive and impressive pedigree among its members, with ties to Straight Reads The Line, Dead And Divine, Shai Hulud, Race Well Run, Skylight Drama, A Satellite Connecticut and Take Victory. come to think of it, i think Chris Taylor alone was involved with all but one of those bands to some duration.

needless to say, these three new bands were born of quite the 519 scene clusterfuck, and i’m largely glad they’ve all come to be (especially Kingdoms; never have i seen a crowd go that balls for an area band, let alone on their first show. and if you haven’t downloaded their free debut EP yet, kindly get on it.)

i appear to have a boatload of photos to edit over the next couple of days, starting with the promotional shots i did of Had Me At Hello almost a week ago and then on to what i shot today. my Flickr account is going to love the multi-gigabyte influx!

today was somewhat of a lackluster day, with the exception of some exciting news — more on that as details are confirmed. Joe dropped by to drop some forms off with me and bring me a 4×4 small Tim Hortons coffee, which was probably a 50-30-20 cream-sugar-coffee split. it was gross, but i drank it out of spite and gratefulness. other than that, i sat around and did grad photo work all day, which isn’t all that bad in itself, plus it helps to plow through a lot of what needs to get finished.

Tim, Anuj and i had a band practice scheduled for this evening, too (Matt’s out for Wednesdays this semester due to a strenuous academic schedule), which Tim ended up being unable to make due to mounting obligations regarding his own schooling, so Anuj and i had a little songwriting session ourselves. outside of a period of a couple weeks about three and a half years ago during which i filled in for his then-band’s absent bassist, i’ve never really had a proper jam session with Anuj. it felt good, though, to hear and follow along with some parts he’s been working on — he’s really a fantastic guitarist and is very musically inclined, and i really hope plans for him to him join the band pan out.

i wrote rough bass parts to a couple of Anuj’s riffs and — with the permission to use the kit of one Chris Taylor — some drum parts as well, if you can believe it. i don’t know where my ability to string together drum parts came from — they’re nothing terribly complicated, mind you — but it was loads of fun to bash out something that was at least suitable in contrast to what Anuj was playing.

jamming with Anuj was an uplifting end to a day that otherwise dragged along. i’m looking forward to tomorrow, though; i’ve got a couple errands to run in the day, probably some more work from home to get off my chest and a cute blonde to entertain into the evening hours. and she’s fun to cuddle and drink vanilla chai tea with. yes she frigging is.

i finally got my wireless router back up and running — it wouldn’t work for the longest time but it seems to be working now for some reason, so i’m able to get online and do things on one of Joe’s Macs, which i’ve brought home for the time being, while my PC chugs away at grad photos with a Photoshop action.

in celebration of my victory over my router and my capability to get online wirelessly with this Mac, i’ve taken an obligatory pop art picture of myself with Photo Booth:

okay, that’s quite enough of that.

among the usual daily activities i’ve been enjoying with my weeks off in between shooting engineering and science grad portraits — burning proof CDs from home, seeing Cagney and being at the jamhall as often as possible — i’ve actually managed to get some Christmas shopping done recently. this is baffling to me, knowing that it’s only October and i’m usually a huge procrastinator when it comes to this sort of thing. oh well; i guess if there’s another thing i’m going to do right this year, it’s my shopping!

my evening tonight is a little more of the same of what i’m used to — visiting milady — but that’s never really been a bad thing!

Sara’s birthday celebration at Phil’s last night, featuring myself, Cagney and Jeff, was excellent — one of the better Phil’s nights i’ve had that i can remember. before last night, i hadn’t been in what must’ve been weeks, so it felt good to be back where everybody knows my name — a theory that was corroborated by the fact that i still don’t get carded when i go.

though alcohol consumption generally makes for a poor bragging point (“oh man, i got so wasted last night,” etc.), i feel it bears mention that i was pretty buzzing by the end of the evening, if only for the fact that i’m 22 and this is the first time i can really say that. quite frankly, i’ve always been afraid of what kind of drunk i’d be, be it abusive or rude or the type to say things i’ll regret, but as it turns out, i’m actually quite loving. no real surprises thus far, i suppose! i’m happy to say i stayed within my limits of physical and mental equilibrium, and i knocked back lots of water so as to ensure feeling fresh as a daisy this morning. in short, it feels good to know i know myself well enough to know my limits and be in control of myself at all times (though my craving for Pilot Pita, which is high on a normal day, seems to skyrocket once i’ve got some booze in me.)

after waking up at Cagney’s today and having a breakfast of bagels with her, Sara and Jeff, i came home to work before my photoshoot tonight. i’m heading back to Waterloo in a couple hours to shoot some outdoor promos for a band called Had Me At Hello. i’m a little nervous, as i’m not entirely sure how the evening is going to pan out, but i’m excited to try shooting with two off-the-camera flashes simultaneously; an SB-800 master and an SB-600 slave. the final shots will, as always, go up on Flickr when i’m done and they’re in the band’s hands, hopefully within a week or so!

woo, two blogs in the last week! let’s hear it for keeping on top of things, Aaron.

i had a long-overdue afternoon of hanging out with Steph yesterday afternoon, which consisted of a couple DVD episodes of Kenny Vs. Spenny, lunch at Niko Niko and a couple more bouts of KvS before i headed home. i saw Chris briefly when he stopped by on his way home from work and gave me a lift to Cagney’s salon to meet up with her after she got off work, from where we just went back to her place for the evening.

this morning, we woke up nice and early (in spite of my phone’s battery dying two minutes before my alarm was to go off) and got breakfast at Angie’s Kitchen; Cagney had a bacon and egg wrap and i had two pancakes that were each the size of my head. and i ate them. and i somehow had room to consume a helping of living death after band practice this afternoon.

this evening will have Cagney, Sara, Jeff and i hitting Phil’s and possibly Starlight for Sara’s Waterloo-centric birthday festivities before another evening of crashing at Cagney’s, with Sara and Jeff in tow. but until then, i’m going to burn CDs for work like mad; i want to get these done, pronto.

i really wish i had the focus to put more creativity into my most recent blogs instead of basically making a point-for-point of recent goings-on. i need to sit down at my keyboard sometime soon and wax poetic or something; my legions of readers deserve it.

i just had an extended weekend (Saturday evening until Wednesday morning) in Stratford with Cagney at her folks’ place again, this time on cat-sitting duty while her parents and sisters were off on their annual Thanksgiving shopping trip in the States. in short, i had a fantastic time spending four days with her and being out and about on the town every now and then, and i ate like a vacuum. here’s a rough breakdown of what i remember of my weekend.

Saturday: got into Stratford via my wonderful mother and headed to the LCBO on foot to pick up some festive potables for the evening before heading to The Attic to dance and then to Bentley’s to sit and be lazy with the likes of Sara, Jeff and Caileigh. i was also introduced to three brews this weekend that i was previously unfamiliar with; Pabst Blue Ribbon (currently in my top spot for best cheap beer), Grolsch (which is consistent with Matt’s theory that some of the best beers come in green bottles) and Guinness (which filled me right up and is absolutely delicious. i kind of like the notion of a beer so dense that light can’t pass through it — the dorky side of me thinks it would be fun to backlight a pint of it for a photograph.)

Sunday: took a lovely walk to Giant Tiger, the likes of which happens to be Cagney’s Achilles’ heel, where i found a nice, thick lumberjack shirt for myself for cool weather. later that evening, we headed to her brother Jasson and his wife Laureen’s place for dinner. i was excited to hear we’d been invited over there for Thanksgiving, seeing as i didn’t expect to consume turkey at all this past weekend, so i’m happy that i got to. it was delicious, as i’d expected, and the stuffing and potatoes were worth writing home about, too. after unwinding and digesting with a movie on TV, Cagney and i walked home and lounged around before promptly succumbing to that post-turkey drowsiness we all know and love.

Monday: Monday was a bit of a rare bird for me; it’s rare that i wake up on a given day with absolutely nothing on my schedule, so Cagney and i left it exactly that way and spent the day vegging in front of the TV. colossal waste of time though it may have been, it felt great to not have to do anything that day (aside from some laundry and washing dishes.) we managed to mow through a couple flicks i hadn’t seen in years (Detroit Rock City and Sleepy Hollow) and a couple i, surprisingly, hadn’t seen at all (Dutch and So I Married An Axe Murderer.)

Tuesday: we were up nice and early to head to Features for breakfast with Sara, where i had, without hyperbole, the best buffalo chicken wrap and best homefries i’ve ever had — and i’ve had some good buffalo chicken wraps and good homefries before. after parting ways with Sara, Cagney and i did a little idle shopping, during which i found myself a new flat-brimmed hat. i also sampled a Peruvian coffee from Balzac’s, which i was rather impressed with, and even moreso impressive was the fact that they roast their own beans on-site. Stratford has a gorgeous coffee shop with Balzac’s and with Sputnik as well, where i treated myself to a jasmine tea before having a round of checkers with Cagney at a roadside checkers table — you know the citizens and tourists of Stratford are the considerate and docile type when you see checkers tables out in front of downtown storefronts with no missing pieces. after stopping off to drop off our bags and extra carryables, i slung my camera around my neck and we took a long walk through the forest, through an old glade, across and along the river, past the cemetery, through a subdivision and up a long country road, at which point i learned that Stratford has the outer edge real estate to facilitate a gigantic “rich” neighbourhood. photos from this on-foot expedition will be up on Facebook or Flickr or both soon.

and now Cagney’s at work and i’m at home, from where i’ll be working my ass off for a few days, making proof CDs and the like. woo!

on a post-Canadian federal election note, it appears the Tories have held onto their minority government. well, my nod for the Green party probably went largely to waste, but goddammit, i like big trees and clear streams.

of the 700-odd engineering students registered for grad photos, i have all of two left to photograph before we pack our gear up, load into the van and head home for the thanksgiving weekend, the likes of which lasts 25 days in my case and includes sweet, sweet pumpkin pie, baked by Cagney’s generous, loving and appetite-appeasing mom.

today has been unbelievable, though; it being the last Friday that we’re in the engineering department to shoot the class of 2009, the schedule is packed full (with the exception of the break during which i’m typing this), and naturally there were some scheduling errors that resulted in double-bookings and the like. it sucks, but i had to power through it and shoot as many people as i could. this upcoming weekend — band practice, followed by three days in Stratford with Cagney — is going to feel that much sweeter for it.

i’ll likely spend tonight bathing, eating and holing up in my room to unwind and get some of the proof CD burning that i have coming due soon done, with the possibility of a quick excursion to the Whale for a pint with Tim, in the event that i feel like stepping outside again after getting home.

i feel like i’ve been on the run constantly for the past month; last night, i literally got home from work, dropped my stuff off and headed immediately to band practice, after which Tim and i joined Matt, Karolina, Todd, Josh and a couple of Josh’s friends at the Rum Runner Pub for some drinks in celebration of Matt’s birthday. fun was had, Matt got a Wii from Karolina and i started a round of intra-band bagtag. but aside from that, it feels like, outside of work, i’ve only had time to get together with the band and see Cagney as of late. even so, i can’t complain too much; even though i’ve found myself missing various friends as of late, i love my job and i understand the dedication it requires, and same goes for my band. factor Cagney in as the one person who deserves the bulk of my attention, and that’s about all the waking time i have for any given week. and i can’t even complain that much; my time seems to be allocated to the things most important to me right now, and as such, i’m rather content with my current position. and as for the friends i’ve found myself missing and wanting to visit or go out with, that’s another place where this bulk of upcoming time off is going to come in handy.