I was surprised how close the owls were to the trail (and tons of people) and we were able to see at least 8 in just our field of view…with many more further out. There was even a barn owl hunting nearby but I wasn’t able to get any good shots of him.

No shortage of photographers doing the same thing I was, except with much better (or at least more expensive) gear:

This is what $12 million gets you…the estate overlooking the owls and the bay:

I also managed to capture one of my favorite sunsets yet:

View the full photo set on Flickr.

If you want to check out the owls for yourself, head out towards Ladner via Hwy 99. Turn left onto Ladner Trunk Road and then right at 72nd Street (follow the signs to Boundary Bay Airport). Stay on 72nd until the end of the road and park where ever you can (likely along 72nd but there are a few parking spaces at the very end). There is a trail you should stay on that gives you plenty of viewing of owls. Don’t disturb the owls by getting too close…there are lots of signs saying as such.

Conveniently, they have a regular 3d printer night on Thursdays and that happened to be the night I had free to visit.

Upon arriving, I was greeted by Matt, the owner of Metrix and he gave me a tour. It’s definitely a maker’s dream space with lots of room, tools and even a sushi place upstairs that delivers to nerds in need.

There is an array of cool tools to use including 3d printers, a laser cutter, a giant CNC machine and lots of soldering/laptop workstations.

One of the things I had read about Metrix is that they have been making clonedel parts for 3d printers which are basically molds that you use to create objects out of whatever material you pour into the molds. It was cool to see the setup in person and check out the quality of the parts:

There was also a couple of reprap printers built with the clonedel parts:

They also have a vending machine filled with arduino microcontrollers and other geeky toys, snacks (including MREs!) and electronic kits. I ended up buying a bunch of things for myself from the machine:

Since this was a 3d printer night, Matthew brought down his CupCake:

(aka a FakerBot since it was a copy of Makerbot’s open source design that they made at Metrix) which he had modified to make it quite similar to my beloved Thing-O-Matic in how the Z stage operates.

I brought some of my prints and we compared parts. His modified CupCake was printing incredibly well…just as good as my Thing-O-Matic and much better than the output I had seen from stock CupCakes, thanks to his mods (which he posted on Thingiverse shortly after my visit).

I love how the CupCake has all the electronics and wiring on the OUTSIDE…so much more accessible:

It was a very fun way to spend a Thursday night in Seattle…I highly recommend checking out Metrix if you’re in Seattle as they offer lots of interesting workshops and a really cool atmosphere.

It was a good place to try out the new zoom lens (a 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR) I recently picked up. I normally wouldn’t consider this kind of lens since it breaks my lens purchase rule of nothing slower than f2.8 but I’ve been doing more and more outdoor photography lately and the price was just too good to pass up.

Here’s some of my favourite photos from the visit:

Not the best photo since it was shot through glass, but I think it was funny that he was licking his lips as he approached me and then turned around and peed directly on the window in front of us…

View the full set of photos on Flickr.

A quick day trip to Seattle met with great weather as my girlfriend and I took in the Underground Tour of Seattle. It’s been on my list of things to do in Seattle for as long as I’ve lived on the West Coast and just never got around to it.

Meeting up in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, we started off with a brief bit of history at the tour’s base of operations and museum. We then headed out into the square and proceeded through the streets and into nondescript doorways and passages which lead us to stairwells that took us to the underground.

I don’t want to give away anything but the tour focuses on the parts of Seattle history that have been ‘swept under the rug’ and tells a fantastic tale of the city’s early days. It reminded me a lot of the Sins of City Tour in Vancouver…it’s amazing how many cities are built by some very colorful characters.

Our guide, Teri-Lyn was outstanding and she really made the tour come alive. It truly is a unique tour that I highly recommend checking out. I love the fact that so much is hiding behind and below those hidden stairwells and doorways throughout Pioneer Square.

Then, once back in Canada, I headed down to Vanier Park on Saturday for the Winter Wander. It was basically a $5 open house to all the attractions at Vanier Park. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’d never been inside the Maritime Museum so it seemed like the perfect time to change that. I then proceeded to climb all over the St. Roch with my camera in hand.

After passing a little yarn bomb between venues,

we headed to the Museum of Vancouver and the Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver exhibit which I had been wanting to check out.

Also couldn’t resist checking out the Smilin’ Buddha sign in the permanent exhibit side of the museum either.

A couple of great photo walk days for sure. Check out all the photos from the Seattle Underground Tour and the Winter Wander on Flickr.

A few nights before halloween, I figured it was time to carve up a pumpkin down at my local indoor shooting range:

and practice for the upcoming zombie apocalypse with a 9mm and shotgun.

Of course, this was all preparation for me to shoot real zombies, however instead of with a 9mm handgun, I used my DSLR to cover the annual Thrill the World Vancouver event. They set a new record for the number of zombies simultaneously dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller – 434! They also raised over $4400 for the food bank.

This year’s event was at night which presented some photographic challenges but that’s what giant LED light boxes are for.

You can view my full set of photos from the event on Flickr.

At the end of September I visited Fairmont Hot Springs, BC. and did a couple of guest blog posts over at Miss604.com. Easily the highlight for me was the hidden natural hot springs waterfall:

and I used my GoPro to capture the salmon run that was happening underneath my kayak while on a sightseeing tour:

I also got up close and personal with a bear cub on the resort grounds:

I had actually just finished in the spa and was following the bear cub around in my robe and flip flops. The momma bear wasn’t in the area…we saw her the next day and she was as big as a VW beetle.

Speaking of furry animals, I also got a new kitten recently. A female orange tabby that I’ve named Pixel:

She’s adorable…and is growing up quickly. She’s a Mac fan too!

And lastly, this year I’ve decided to throw my face into the ring (?) and participate in Movember. I’m actually going to grow my facial hair, even though I can just print a mustache on my 3D printer:

I’ve lost a number of people I care about recently to cancer and figured it was time to endure a month of awkward looks with a creepy janitor-esque mustache. Although I may try and do a fu man chu if my follicles play along. If you’d like to donate, please visit my Movember page. I thank you in advance for your support.

It’s an indoor trampoline park but I can only describe it as an adult sized bouncy castle (kids are allowed too) as this place is HUGE!

The House of Air has a number of different rooms or zones that have different features. When you first arrive, you are greeted by a number of large trampolines with an assortment of cables and wires for pro athletes can practice tricks on their snowboards and skis as well as amazing flips and jumps.

Beyond this area is The Matrix and the Colosseum.

The Matrix is the main trampoline room where you can bounce on one of the many trampolines that comprise the floor and walls of the enormous room.

The Colosseum is where frequent dodgeball matches happen. Let me tell you that dodgeball on trampolines adds a whole new layer of challenge and fun.

Here’s a little walkaround video from one of the walkways (sorry about the poor audio):

Unfortunately, I just had my Nexus S cameraphone with me…check out the gallery of much better photos and video on the House of Air website.

If you’re ever in San Francisco and want to get REALLY sweaty and have a ton of fun, you should definitely check out the House of Air.

Earlier this year, I also got to briefly drive a production Volt during SXSW as part of their ‘Drive a Chevy’ promotion where they basically offered taxi service to all attendees in Austin and let you drive the car to your destination.

This time though, I got to really try out the production model over the course of the better part of a week. As soon as we landed in Anchorage, Alaska, we were given our ‘own’ cars for the duration of the trip.

I’m actually a target consumer for the Volt. My current commute is just under 70 kilometres roundtrip from Port Coquitlam to North Vancouver each day. With the Volt’s electric range being around 86 kilometres on a single charge, I could easily go to and from work without charging and still have some range for some shopping trips on the way home.

Once the electric battery is depleted, the Volt will seamlessly switch over to power the electric engine using a conventional gas engine where it can continue for nearly 400 more kilometres. Unlike some hybrids, the switchover is unnoticable since the Volt just maintains the electric batteries with the gas engine and doesn’t directly drive the vehicle.

There are more and more options for charging an electric vehicle. Many hotels now offer at least a couple of stalls with power in their parking lots and recently in Vancouver, local parking company, EasyPark announced a pilot program to have a handful of electric outlets designated for electric vehicles in their lots around the city.

While it is possible to charge the Volt via a regular household outlet, it takes about 10 hours to fully charge a depleted battery. If you have access to a 240V outlet (like what your washer/dryer would use), you can charge the battery in about 4 hours. A 240V outlet can easily and cheaply be installed in your garage. The trunk of the Volt has all the connecting cables you need to plug in anywhere using the outlet on the opposite side of the vehicle from the gas tank.

I really enjoyed driving the Volt while in Alaska. As you can see in this short time-lapse video of the road trip, it’s a beautiful place and reminds me quite a lot of BC:

The roadways around the peninsula were surprisingly flat considering we were in quite a mountainous area. So while the Volt has a number of drive handling modes, I couldn’t really tell much difference between them considering the roads were pretty consistent the whole trip.

I’m looking forward to the chance to check out the Volt again once it launches in Canada later this year…and seeing how it really stacks up on my own daily commute. According to GM Canada, the costs of operating the Volt in BC is 1/5 the cost of a comparable gasoline only vehicle. That seems to be a pretty compelling reason to look into this technology closer, not to mention the environmental impacts of using less gas overall.

Apparently, they rarely get sun in Alaska as the crew kept (jokingly) apologizing for the amazingly warm weather. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt but also brought a rain jacket and fleece as instructed.

Heading out from the surprisingly beautiful Seward harbour, we headed out for open water.

Then the trip started to feel like a put on. Kind of like how a cruise like this would be at a Disney resort. “And over here we have our friend, the sea otter, playing in the water” – and presto, a sea otter appears and does many little rolls in the water for the adorning crowds on the boat:

Then, as if on cue, we had our first (of many) whale spottings:

I wasn’t able to get any ‘good’ shots of the whales (there were at least two at this location) other than lots like this as they never really broke the surface…at least from my vantage point.

The wildlife highlight of the trip (for me) was definitely the half hour visit we had with these dolphins (I forget their exact name) which looked like mini-orcas. This was shot from the bow of the ship and apparently there were lots along side the ship as well:

I’m not sure exactly how many there were but my guess was at least a dozen (they are hard to count!). Even the ship’s crew commented they haven’t seen that many at once before (usually only 3-4 at a time). They probably tell all the tourists that.

If you want a sure fire way to make over a hundred people really, really happy, invite dolphins to the party…everyone was euphoric during and after this encounter.

We then headed toward the main event: glacier ice on the water:

I’d never seen a glacier up close like this before and it was spectacular:

The sounds the ice makes as it breaks up is unbelievably loud…like being front row for a thunderstorm.

This guy shot photos and video of the whole cruise with just his Blackberry Playbook:

After spending a fair bit of time at the glacier, we headed out again and then came across a ton of stellar sea lions:

We weren’t as close to these guys as I got during my zodiac tour earlier this year but close enough to hear them fighting each other for prime sunbathing spots.

Then, after a brilliant day at sea, we headed back to Seward harbour. I still can’t believe the amount of wildlife we saw on the cruise…the brochure really didn’t lie as others on the same trip which took the same cruise the following day confirmed the amount of wildlife they saw as well.

I had heard good things about cruises in Alaska but really wasn’t expecting them to ‘deliver’ in this way…it was an incredible experience. One tip though – you may want to bring some gravol with you. Out of the 6 of us in my party, apparently, I’m the only one with the stomach for the Alaskan seas as everyone else was a little green for parts of the trip. I guess I can submit my application to the Deadliest Catch now!

Here’s a slideshow of all the photos I took during the cruise:

Disclosure: GM Canada paid for this activity as part of the media tour of Alaska that I was on.

One of the activities our group chose to do was glacier ice hiking. This involved meeting up with Exit Glacier Guides in Seward, Alaska where our guide, Julian, outfitted us with crampons, trekking poles and backpacks and gave us some introductory tips for hiking on the glacier.

We then took a van (powered by bio-fuel!) to the local airstrip a few minutes away where we got on a helicopter for a 7 minute flight up to the Godwin Glacier.

Much to my delight, Sean, our helicopter pilot already had a GoPro mount on the front of the helicopter and offered to let me shoot footage of our flight up to the glacier…so enjoy the breathtaking scenery in Alaska:

I also had the GoPro mounted to my helmet the entire time we were hiking shooting still photos so here’s some of the best shots combined with ones taken by my Nikon D7000:

View the full photoset on Flickr.

My huge thanks to Adria, Veronica, Garry and Lisa for making this trip possible and the rest of my hiking crew Kathy, Alex, Jason, Garry and our excellent guide, Julian.

The guys at Exit Glacier Guides were fabulous and I can’t recommend them enough if you every want to check out this experience for yourself.

Definitely the trip of a lifetime!

Disclosure: GM Canada paid for this activity as part of the media tour of Alaska that I was on.

Since the weather was perfect, it seemed fitting to strap the GoPro to the trunk and make a time-lapse of the trip up:

The video starts in Burnaby, through downtown Vancouver where I pick up Kris Krug in Gastown and then over the Lions Gate Bridge and up the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler.

More videos soon from the Big Air competition!