aaron schwab

i wpoke up this morning right at 7:00 and, much to my surprise, i was wide awake. i made it to Cagney’s building by 8:00 so the two of us could sign our leases, hand in our first month’s rent cheques and get our new apartment keys. i was so excited, i could barely contain myself; we got our keys this morning when our first official day in our new apartment isn’t until next Wednesday! the two of us wasted no time is heading up to the seventh floor to check out our new unit, and it looks immaculate; brand new sinks and countertops in the kitchen and bathroom, new bedroom floor and new paint on all the walls and cupboards. we hand-bombed a few items up from Cagney’s old apartment before she had to head off to work at 9:00, at which point i headed home, removed the back two rows of seats from my van for the sake of maximizing cargo space, loaded a few tables and boxes into my van and met Cagney’s dad back at the building by 10:00.

from there on out, it was an almost constant back-and-forth trek between the second and seventh floors, taking rolling skids of boxes and baskets up to the new place and unloading them in the living room, with a brief Subway and coffee lunch break. after Cagney was done work, we brought her back to the new apartment, and we started unpacking and organizing things while waiting for our Swiss Chalet delivery to arrive.

and now, i’m at home (as in “my parents’ house” home) to pick up my TV and some bedding for Cagney and i for the night, as well as take a shower, as i seem to be coated in a fine layer of dust. tomorrow morning, Cagney and i will wake up bright and early so that she can head to the Voila school to work on Christine’s hair and i’ll come back “home” to pack up my lights and camera gear. once i’ve set said lights up at the school for Monday’s model photoshoot and Cagney is done working on Christine’s hair, the three of us will be off to Toronto before nightfall so we can wake up super duper early on Monday for the ABAs, after which will be my shoot of all the models who represented Voila in the school.

if the preceding few paragraphs make it sound like a lot has been going on lately, they’re right — things have felt pretty hectic lately, to say the least. Cagney and i are actually consciously planning a Phil’s night for next Saturday, just because it’ll feel excellent to be able to go out for an evening without any time constraints or thoughts of the next day’s pressing matters. something as seemingly trivial as going to Phil’s actually feels like of a big deal when it feels like we haven’t had the luxury about not thinking about the next day for quite some time.

as for right now, i’m going to go take a badly-needed shower then tote some blankets and sheets over to our new apartment so we can crash in it in peace! i’ll be in Toronto (or otherwise somehow occupied) tomorrow and Monday, plus the interwebs isn’t being piped into the new place until next Wednesday, so this might be my last blog for a few days. look forward to a stupid amount of photos after the ABAs!

yesterday was my lovely and astute girlfriend’s birthday — her name’s Cagney, you may have heard me mention her name in this blog once or twice before — and we celebrated with a birthday breakfast at Mel’s Diner. Cagney ordered their breakfast burrito and i, by a stroke of luck and good timing, managed to get a pack of candles into our server’s hands, and her plate arrived at the table with fifteen lit candles. despite this signifying that she’s seven years younger than she actually is, i’m impressed that a dozen candles fit into her burrito (two were in the side of sour cream and one in the salsa.) as a bookend to Cagney’s morning surprise, i brought her home with me before she had to work so i could give her one of her gifts, which i’ll say she looks pretty sharp in!

after dropping Cagney off at work, i headed out to Joe’s place for our long-awaited “camera bag packing party,” as he’s been calling it; basically, it meant laying out the contents of the camera bags with which we shoot grad portraits and assessing what goes where and how it goes where it goes. after getting everything consolidated, doing some clerical work and sitting down to a wonderful homemade lunch with Joe and his family, i headed out and got ready in time for my hair appointment with Cagney, which i scheduled under a fake name so that i could surprise her with flowers at work. i’m a sweetheart; what can i say?

Cagney’s request for a wash and cut from a Mr. Stanley Davidson was a legitimate hair appointment for myself in addition to a sly set-up, and she did a wonderful job of making me no longer resemble one of the Beatles. she cleaned up and thinned out the front, back and top while leaving it as long as possible, and took the sides in rather substantially, resulting in solid groundwork for growing my hair out some more while masking the fact that i have a bulbous head.

after my sorely-needed mop-chop, we grabbed Chris and Candice on the way to the theatre to see I Love You, Man, which ended up being pretty fantastic — there are some parts i’m still laughing at today. also, Paul Rudd’s character, Peter Klaven, turned out to be amusingly biographical of Chris in terms of some of his mannerisms.

i ended up heading back out to Joe’s place in New Hamburg today after dropping Cagney off at work and making a couple dropoffs at the university to pick up a black muslin backdrop for next week’s Voila models photoshoot — it dawned on me during a conversation with Cagney in which she asked me about backdrops that i’ll need to block out the floor-length windows at the institute where i’ll be doing the photos, so i’m glad Joe had something i could borrow for that purpose. speaking of that shoot, i’m getting extremely excited to do it; i’ve been overthinking how i’m going to light the set, and i’m confident in my ability to make the models look super sharp. let’s hope that Voila’s owner agrees!

moving day is, just as before, creeping ever closer, and it turns out Cagney and i might be receiving our keys as soon as this Saturday. with that in mind, i might end up taking my bed apart tomorrow afternoon after the errands i have to run, which include heading to the Generations thrift store in Waterloo and picking up two matching bedside tables that Cagney bought today for all of $8 apiece. thrifty shopping rules, and legitimate vintage is so much cooler than the faux alternative.

i finally got a chance to try out my “new” 20-year-old 55mm f/2.8 AF macro lens. i got it from Joe last weekend but only got a chance to try it out last night; after taking the green tape off of the focus ring, which Joe epoxied together for me due to it having broken off, i discovered that the cement had worked a little too well. after telling Joe that the lens’ focus was immobile and hearing from him that some glue was probably just jamming it up, i applied a little elbow grease and got the focus to move freely. i gave it a few test shots today at f/5.6 on a pair of my shoes in the midst of shoveling through my clothing drawers.

as it turns out, this lens focuses extremely close (as a macro should, by all definitions.) i’m not at all familiar with the optical properties of macro lenses as compared to normal ones, but it was interesting to learn that the lens’ maximum aperture changes throughout the focal range, which is apparently a property of all macro lenses; i could open it up to f/2.8 at infinity focus, but only up to the peculiar in-between limit of f/5.3 at the 1:1 range (interestingly enough, i found myself able to stop this lens down to f/57 at 1:1.) if i were into macro photography for any serious or heavy work, i’d probably spring for the 105 2.8 VR micro, but for casual use and fun or neat effects, this old 55mm AF lens is more than suitable, and is still optically superb.

cleaning out my current dwelling is coming along nicely, as i went through the rest of my dresser drawers today. after sorting through which shirts i still wear and which ones i don’t (due to them being too large, of all things), i seem to have gone from two drawers full of shirts to half of one. purging old clothing feels somewhat cleansing, though, and it removes space constraints as a factor in determining whether or not i want to buy any new clothes. i’ll likely hit up my closet on Thursday, as i’m sure it contains a backlog of sweaters that might go to better use on someone else’s hangers.

tomorrow is Cagney’s birthday, and i’m currently looking forward to being able to wake up to her tomorrow morning to take he out to breakfast, which’ll be a nice alternative to taking her to dinner; she’s more of a morning eater than an evening one, whereas i could put away food whenever i’m hungry, regardless of the time of day. maybe there’ll be photos after tomorrow evening to accompany tales of her birthday surprise, whatever it may be.

this evening, Joe and i knocked out our third formal gala event for a university department in as many weekends, and i think it’s fair to say we’re both pooped. they got easier and less strenuous with each passing week, however, much to my delight — the engineering department soirée had us out until past four in the morning; last weekend’s science event until two; and tonight until almost midnight, which is unprecedentedly early for such an evening. i came home with a couple new bayonets for my rifle, so to speak — one to keep and one to borrow for a very special occasion.

the keeper is my new 55mm AF Micro Nikkor f/2.8 lens, and by “new,” i mean new to me; this particular macro lens was made from 1987 to 1989, so i myself am barely older than it. i can’t wait to give it a whirl, which i’ll likely do tomorrow, as it’s got a strip of green tape around it to hold the cracked focus ring in place while the epoxy that’ll hopefully hold it together sets. i’ve taken the liberty of artificially antiquating this photo of it as to express its old age (it predates many of Nikon’s technological lens advances, including gelding and internal focusing.)

the other lens i walked through my door with this evening was Joe’s own 24-70mm f/2.8, which he loaned me so that i’d have something razor-sharp with which to do my shoot for Voila after the hair competition next weekend. i know i’ve waxed poetic about this lens before, but i spent all night shooting with it at f/5.6, and i can’t get over how sharp it is; if i didn’t know better, i’d swear this lens somehow defies the physical laws of optics. it’s just that perfect. and, being that it feels like an immaculate hunk of metal, it feels as good in the hands as one would expect from an f/2.8 midrange zoom.

anyways, off of the camera jibberjabber again. after waking up at Cagney’s place today, i had a couple hours to kill before heading over to Anuj’s place. the original plan for this afternoon was to jam with Kyle in full-band mode, but Anuj and i just got together at his place to start bass tracking for our initial practice demos since Kyle had to work this morning. since my bass was (and, hopefully, still is) locked up at the jamhall, i got a chance to use Anuj’s Warwick Corvette Rock Bass, which is Warwick’s more affordable product line, similar to Fender’s Squier. it’s an excellent-feeling bass, especially since it’s a “discount model,” so to speak, but it wasn’t enough to convert me away from wanting to play a Jazz regularly. still, after re-realizing how goddamn frustrating recording to a click track is, i managed to nail a take or two of our first song (tentatively titled “Song 1″) before heading to Civilian to pick up mine and Cagney’s wholesale AA order that we placed through Curt. say what you will about AA being a goofy trend or fad or whatnot; their clothing is super-comfortable and just seems to fit where other clothing bags out too much (do keep in mind that i am a toothpick.)

as is the norm with my blogging habits, it seems to have become unreasonably late again, and i have to be up early (if you consider 11:00am early) to go to Guelph with Katie to be her subject for a portraiture projeft she has to complete. it’s not often that i’m on the “subject” end of a camera, so i think i’ll bring mine along so as to photograph my photographer. how deliciously po-mo.

though it pains me to admit this, i all but totally botched the photos i took of Stevie for his modeling portfoli last week; i was having issues with overexposure and such and it was a crummy day overall. i intend to treat Stevie as a professional would, however, and i’m excited to re-do his photos right. it goes without saying that the finished product from take two will be posted to Facebook once that gets done; take one can sit in the vault forever, however.

i was feeling eager to do a reshoot with Stevie today, but his philanthropic self was busy doling out goodwill at a soup kitchen, so i decided to set up a 125-watt head with a softbox on a master stand with boom and handy-dandy counterweight and call Paul over to my backyard from across the street for some test shots, the likes of which he shivered through for a couple quick minutes.

ideally, it would’ve been warmer out and i would’ve had a couple other lights set up with umbrellas, and i probably would’ve used a 750-watt on the boom. the effect of the light on Paul was noticeable but largely overshadowed by sunlight, overcast though it was. still, it’ll be a fun little lighting technique indoors or closer to (or after) dusk — a smaller aperture than the f/8 i was using will likely be a good idea, too.

this evening, Cagney and i decided to rent and watch Religulous on the recommendation of a few friends, plus Bill Maher is usually a good idea. i loved the movie, i love Bill and i agree with the movie’s overall message. Religulous is also peppered with clips of old movies and bits of subtext for the sake of dramatic effect, irony or simply humour, and i appreciated these elements of the movie as such. oddly enough, this exact tactic was one of my criticisms against Expelled, but i have a clear bias in Maher’s direction over Stein’s. though the device is the same, i almost felt Stein used it as a scare tactic while Maher was simply employing his dry sense of humour, but as i said, i have an unavoidable bias in the matter — that being that i think Bill Maher, though one-sided, makes an important and very critical set of arguments, while Ben Stein is just a fucking idiot.

more excellent, moving-related fun lies in store for me tomorrow; i have to call my new landlord regarding when we get our new apartment’s keys and i have to arrange to meet with a couple people to make some transactions — in going through and attempting to organize my stuff to see what i’d be taking and what i’d be leaving behind, i came across an old printer, wireless router and guitar wireless that i don’t need. the printer was taken off my hands today and, with any luck and a bit of timing, the other two items will be out the door tomorrow. then, it’s deep into my closet and dresser drawers to thin out the herd of clothes that i actually don’t need anymore. huzzah!

it’s a gorgeous day again and i’ve got nothing to do around the house today except for cleaning, sorting, packing and other miscellany (like watching zombies in the midst of all of it and writing a blog thirteen hours before the usual time that i do so), so i’m wearing shorts. cutoff Quiksilver jeans, to be exact. when i bought them as brand new pants about four years ago, they fit me just fine, or so i thought; i’m far from a 34″ waist. oh well — i guess i’ve only been keen on my clothes fitting in recent years.

as moving day inches closer and closer for Cagney and i, i’m starting to notice more and more that i have to do to prepare, although it feels like there isn’t much to do at all, at times. for example, packing should be at the top of my to-do list, but the most essential items i need to pack are the ones i’m going to need to leave until the last minute (my bed, dresser and computer come to mind, as well as the couch and chair that my folks donated to Cagney and i, since all they’ve been doing is collecting dust in the basement.) at least i’ve gotten most of the preparatory items checked off of the list recently — the cable and internet technician is booked, i have a wireless router on order, my home internet is scheduled for cancellation and the landlord already knows who i am (due in equal parts to formal meetings, phone calls, run-ins and probably my unforgettable visage. yeah, that’s got to be a factor.)

as for tonight, Cagney and i are likely headed to Stratford to see Kingdoms play at Café Behaven; it’s apparently pretty rare for outside bands to play in Stratford, so it’d be a shame to miss such an event in Cagney’s home town.

Saturday night’s science gala and last night’s Underøath/Norma Jean concert seem to have flown by, and both were done with me getting through my obligatory cold for the season.

the science gala wasn’t nearly as intense as last week’s engineering department event — less than half the amount of people through the doors at the science one — so i got to huddle up in a corner and sort while Joe did all the shooting. we were out of the venue by one in the morning, which was a nice change from last week’s 3:30. next weekend’s AHS gala will be the third and final one of the year for Joe and i to do, and its level of intensity should fall somewhere between these previous two.

the concert last night was fun in spite of my cold, but i wish i’d been totally with it. Cagney and i hung out in the bar area for the sake of a good vantage point, plus, as much as i like Underøath, i just didn’t feel like getting into the pit (which was rife with circle pits and not hardcore dancing, much to my delight.) i made a remark to Cagney and a fellow who was standing with us about how i feel old now that i’ve become the guy who enjoys concerts by hanging out at the back with crossed arms and a bobbing head instead of getting into the pit. it all depends on my mood on the day of, though, and who’s playing.

nevertheless, Norma Jean — as unfamiliar with them as i am — put on an awesome set, and Underøath was damn near perfect. Spencer is almost hypnotic to watch onstage, and Aaron is one of the tightest drummers of heavy music i’ve seen play; he’s also one of the hardest hitting drummers i’ve seen live. his drum parts seem to focus more on heavy grooves than technical proficiency, which leaves him free to beat the stuffing out of his drums (i almost felt sorry for his ride cymbal at a couple points.)

after Underøath’s second encore, Cagney and i dropped by Phil’s to mingle a little before heading back to her place, stopping at Shopper’s on the way to get some breakfast bagels and cream cheese and some no-name Ny Quil to aid in knocking both myself and the remainder of my cold out. after waking up this morning to Cagney waving toasted bagels under my nose, we checked out some cheap couches at Worth A Second Look (and by cheap, i mean $30 or $40; methinks we’re going to head back there soon to pick one up; $40 for a comfortable old couch is an unbeatable price, even after the cost of upholstery shampoo is factored in) and perused the St. Jacob’s antique warehouse before dropping Cagney off at her school so she could meet Christine for some extra-curricular prep work. speaking of that, i’m getting really excited to take Cagney and Christine to the competition at the end of the month; as it turns out, i’ll be shooting portraits of the models back at the Voila Institute the evening after coming home from Toronto, so i’m excited to get some modeling shots under my belt.

as for the rest of my afternoon, i’m going to go shower the antique warehouse must off of myself, finish editing Stevie’s modeling portfolio photos and perhaps start packing up CDs and books. with all the hustle and bustle of moving swirling about my head, i periodically forget that i’m actually moving. funny how that works, sometimes!

disclaimer: unnecessarily nitpicky and nerdy blog entry ahead.

it’s a new year and spring is upon us again, and, along with nature and the planet as a whole, Facebook too has undergone a rebirth of sorts. perhaps i’m making this sound more epic than it actually is; realistically, all that’s happened is a few minor, site-wide aesthetic changes — such as thumbnail photos having rounded corners instead of square ones — and an overhaul of the home page to make it function as a singular, real-time stream.

i’m predicting a full-on assault from people who can’t adapt to changes that have ultimately streamlined the site and made it easier to use in the form of snarky status changes and invites to groups that promise that some Facebook overseer will heed the call of a group of one million strong who wish to have Facebook reverted back to its “old” form (which is a trend that, upon Facebook’s overhaul of yesteryear, prompted my blunt, sarcastic side to form this group, which is seeing a need for a resurrection of activity as of this year’s changes.)

all in all, Facebook is still Facebook, and it’s still worlds ahead of MySpace (which is kind of like saying driving a Bentley is worlds ahead of driving a vacuum cleaner, although said vacuum cleaner retains a fleeting shred of usefulness in the form of music streaming. if Facebook ever decides to merge with a music streaming website that also promotes social networking, MySpace might have something to compete with, but it’s not like that’s ever going to … oh, wait.)

people are still going to use Facebook ad nauseum, and those that complain about the changes to the site will get over it, just like they have in the past; those that can’t accept the change, however, are free to stop using the site altogether, which probably has some sort of positive consequence in terms of overall health. not me, though; i’m on Facebook and i intend to stay there, though i may overhaul my friends list and start canning people i never talk to or barely know. then again, i have a hard time bringing myself to delete people sometimes, even if they’re total strangers — every single person on that list is a potential client or link in a word-of-mouth chain when it comes to trying to promote my photo-taking abilities.

but enough Facebook talk; i have a computer-related grievance to air. there’s something to the right of me presently that’s emitting a high-pitched squeal. at first, i thought it was simply my eardrums finally quitting on me, but it’s only where my computer is, and i’ve deduced that there’s either something wrong with my speakers, there’s a loose wingnut in my computer tower somewhere or i have crickets.

this irritating trill, when considered along with the fact that my computer, along with monitor and speakers, isn’t readily portable, is slowly turning me off from the idea of owning a desktop PC (especially considering the fact that i’m moving in a little over two weeks and aren’t particularly looking forward to packing up my speakers.) i’ve actually thought of getting myself a laptop, even though that means sacrificing a monitor over 17″ (unless i use the video out on a laptop) and my 5.1 surround sound (unless, again, i use the audio outputs on the laptop and keep my Logitech speakers.) realistically, it would be nice to have a computer desk at home that i could “dock” my laptop at and plug my speakers in and still have the option of picking up my computer and getting up and going if need be, which is an alluring thought as far as having a portable photo editing station goes, especially considering that my new camera bag has a laptop pouch.

the obvious suggestion from many people would probably be to “get a MacBook!”, but i don’t know if i could bring myself to. as nice as Apple computers and laptops are to use and as functional as they are when it comes to media applications, i stand by my opinion that they’re ridiculously overpriced for what you get under the hood. plus, as much as i’m not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, i do indulge in the occasional computer game and, while i could technically boot up a copy of Windows on a MacBook, i’ll restate my point that MacBooks are far too expensive for what you get (yes, i know that OSX uses system resources differently than Windows and that a 2GHz processor in a Mac means something different than a 2GHz processor in a PC, but it’s not enough to convince me.)

for the sake of satisfying my own dorky curiosity, i custom built a Dell laptop and a MacBook on each company’s respective website for the purpose of ordering one:

my piece-by-piece comparison blew me away (i chose a MacBook Pro over the standard MacBook for the sake of having a comparable screen size to the Dell laptop i built.) both systems have an Intel Core 2 Duo processor at 2.66GHz and 4GB of RAM, but i upgraded the Dell’s hard drive to 500GBover the MacBook Pro’s stock 320GB one; the Dell has a Blu-Ray reader/DVD burner optical drive to boot, and it’s orange (not to say the MacBook Pro’s brushed aluminum doesn’t look slick, but who’s to argue with orange?)

the pimped-out Dell laptop comes in at a full $960 less than the stock MacBook Pro. i don’t care how much smoother Macs run or how touted they are for their photo, video and audio applications; the difference wouldn’t be worth a grand to me. what really blows my mind is how Apple charges $250 per additional gigabyte of RAM. seriously, what would you rather pay for 4GB of Apple RAM; $1000 or $70?

anyways, i don’t know when i’ll be able to afford a new computer, but a laptop from Dell is looking like it’ll be able to provide the specs i want and need and give me the portability i’d prefer without requiring me to sell any internal organs to make the first payment.

anyways, now that i’m done musing over computers and stuff, i should probably point out that This City, Divided won tonight’s tenth and final preliminary round of the ARC battle, and deservedly so. although i probably won’t be able to make it to the wildcard date next Friday to judge, i think i’ll be hard-pressed to miss the semis and finals. as for now, though, i should probably crawl into bed, quite possibly with the book i just started — because i finally finished the other one — and try to get some rest, as Joe and i have another gala to shoot tomorrow evening.

what a wonderful feeling it was to get together with Stevie today for the modelling portfolio photoshoot i was doing for him, only to discover my light heads weren’t talking to their battery packs. at first, i thought it was the biting cold outside that was hindering something with my equipment, but apparently i missed a memo about something. luckily, i got by with my SB-800, and the photos seem to have turned out okay; i’ll probably spend a good chunk of time tomorrow editing them.

coincidentally enough, as we were gearing up to take photos in an alleyway between King and Regina in Waterloo, the manager from Magic Mountain poked her head out the back of her store (which backs out onto the aforementioned alleyway) for a smoke, asked what we were doing, then asked if we’d like to take some photos inside her store. surprised and delighted at such a random opportunity, the manager and i stuck Stevie inside one of the store’s display windows with a couple of headless female mannequins. for a final touch, we went to the Symposium for some chocolatey desserts, intense conversation and casual, wideangle, super-grainy, avaiable light-lit indoor photos.

after heading back to Stevie’s place and taking a tour of his house — which included dinking around with his iPhone and Macbook and trying on a pair of his jeans because i wanted to see how the brand fit me — i headed home so i could unwind and freshen up before picking Cagney up from work and then going to band practice shortly thereafter. (on an iPhone note: as fascinated as i am by the applications and general aesthetics of the iPhone, the fact that it can’t send MMS texts is a big handicap in my eyes, plus i’m too enticed by the notion of a QWERTY keyboard i can actually feel beneath my thumbs. maybe i’ll get one one day, when and if i slide down the slippery slope of Mac fanboydom, but until then, i think i’ll treat myself to the new Curve 8900 when my contract is up for renewal this summer.)

as for tomorrow, i’ll be heading to Steph’s place around noon, possibly with Tim in tow, to hang out for awhile, and i’ll likely spend the evening eyeballs-deep in photos, be they today’s shots of Stevie or helping my mom sort through her vacation pictures.

my photoshoot today (modelling portfolio photos of Stevie) got rain-dated until tomorrow afternoon, and i’m still in pyjamas, which probably isn’t good for the “up and at ‘em” motivational attitude i usually exude. oh well; i can be lazy this morning, or afternoon, or whatever time it is.

Liam’s birthday gathering at Laser Quest on Sunday wasn’t what one might expect for someone turning 20, but it was awesome, regardless. i came in sixth place in the first of the two rounds i played (largely because Tim and Chris are better than me) but i won the second one (largely because my codename was TOMCRUISE. and because Tim and Chris sat it out. and little kids make for sitting ducks.)

Chris and i spent a good chunk of yesterday hanging out while our ladies were clothes shopping, during which time he regaled me, out loud, with several chapters of my copy of Sex, Drugs And Cocoa Puffs, the likes of which he started reading yesterday and i’m sure he’s going to finish reading today. this realization truly puts my capacity to motivate myself to sit down and read to shame. i really should be finishing the last four pages of the book i’m currently on so i can move on to the next one on my to-read pile, already.

as for today, i think i’ll just putter around the house for most of the day. with my photoshoot bumped back to tomorrow afternoon, there’s nothing terribly pressing to attend to until this evening. but as for now, i’m going to go put some actual clothes on.