I fake drank and drive, got in a fake accident, and got really cut out of a vehicle

The other day, I participated in an exercise with one of the local fire departments. It was awesome. I had to pretend I was in an accident, and then the fire fighters had to actually cut me out of the vehicle using jaws of life and all that fun stuff.

I started out with me pretending to be impailed by a stick.Then I waited around for the fire fighters to ask me what's up and help me out, while a girl in the backseat died, and I sat there being impailed.

There was also a guy in the back seat who they had to cut out.

After the got him out by ripping apart the car, they had to get me out.In this picture, the glass is exploding from them prying open the door. It was awesome. I'm also glad I got it caught on camera.

Anyway, after a long time they got me out.
It was sweet. Good for the guys for learning a little more about how to save people, and good for me for getting a few sweet pics.

Cheers

adventures in saving money

Since this whol trip thing, I've been trying really hard to save money. This month I reached a milestone that I've never hit before. It's modest to those on the savings train, or much older but for me, it's a big deal.

MY FIRST $10,000!

That's right! At some point in time this month, probably towards two weeks ago I passed this milestone.

It's a temporary thing because this month is long. At the benning of the month, I'll lose about $1000 to expenses, but hey that's ok with me.

The best thing is that it all happened slowly. I literally got rich slowly.

I have to attribute most of the effort to the fact that I want to go travel the world, which has allowed me to save most of my money for that goal.

Currently, this is how my loot works out (roughly)

-$1000 in RRSPs
-$2000 in Emergency funds
-$4500 in trip savings
-$2500 in my chequings account.

The money in my chequing account, will be going towards things like my rent, my insurance, my cell phone bill, my credit card and my car repair deductable. So it's not, as they say, unencumbered, but hey, it's a milestone for me!

So how'd I do it? These few steps and tidbits of advice.

- cut down on expenses
I stopped eating out as much as possible, drive like a slow jackass, walk to work, changed all my bank accounts to no-fee ones, got a long distance plan on my cell phone. The biggest thing to help this along is to TRACK YOU SPENDING. I literally know every penny I've spent since my birthday because I've tracked it. Since then, I've only gone out for food 4 times. Imagine how much money you'd save if you cooked food. Plus, it's way more nutricious, AND ballin as heck to cook for yourself.

-increased income
I got a second job at my gf's work. That's helped me almost double my income. Literally. With the tips I make and the cumulative wage, it made my incomem almost 50 per cent higher. At best, my frugality cut down my expenses by maybe 20 per cent. That's good, but alone wouldn't have helped me get to where I am now, or where I want to be in the future.

-automated my savings
As soon as I get paid, I automatically get money taken away to cover my expenses, go into my savings, go into my RRSPs, which happens at ING Direct, the best, easiest way to save your money. As well, my cellphone bills, insurance and credit cards are all pre-authorized so that I just automatically pay them. It's easy. Any I never worry about penalties or, worse, not saving money. It adds up quick. Since I started working in Athabasca, I've just been saving slowly, which leads me to my last tip:

-learned to be patient
Saving takes time. It doesn't just happen. Right now, I save $50 a month to my RRSPs. Since starting working here, it's now $1000. That's crazy! and $50 a month? You could spend that much in like junk food if you don't watch it. I've got $4500 for my trip, just by saving half my paycheques since March, as well as saving things like my Income Tax cheque.

Anyway, I don't mean to brag. I'm just proud of myself. Anyone can do this, and more importantly should. Somehow in the worst economic downturn in recent history, I've been able to save my personal highest.

AND, I'm a nobody, some of you people are way smarter and can invest and whatnot and earn way more through business, or whatever, so if I can do this you can too.

a walk in the 'skeg, DFP 4

Danielle and I went on a full-gear walk around the town's Muskeg Creek Trails. It's a closed loop of about 10 or kms of trail and it's good to walk on because it has ups and downs and is in the forest.

Our packs are about 20 lbs each so it was a work out.

As an added bonus, it rained. That may not seem like a bonus but it was because we tried out the rain resistance of our camera bags, our clothes, our packs and most importantly, ourselves. And we did it, thought it was a lot harder with our packs.

But that's ok, we may have to at some point have to run through the rain uphill to catch a train... or something like that.

Anyway, here are some photos of the adventure.

The trails go near, and may even be maintained by Athabasca University. So there's some nicer parts before it goes into the forest more.

Danielle near the bridge before the path. D40, 10-24 mm. Automatic chose 1/15, f3.5.

Before we got to the trails, the sky was already pretty gnarly, looking like it was ready to rain. But we were more concerned with the looming darkness. Danielle was, I was all like "don't worry." It was dark when we were done. Almost pitch black.

Danielle checking out the cool sky. D40, 10-22mm. Auto chose 1/50, f/3.5

Detail of the cool sky. isn't it cool? D40, 10-22mm. Auto chose1/100, f/5

The path takes you across the University's Aurora Borealis and general near earth magnetism observatory, which is just a little building surrounded by a barbedwire fense. It has some of the standard dome things you'd expect an observatory to have, though not very big.

Cool barbed wire. D40 10-22mm, auto chose 1/50, f/3.5

This was the coolest shot. I purposely left out the observatory because it didn't look as cool with it in it.

Anyway, the coolest part of the walk was that when we first got into the forest, a hawk, or other bird of prey swooped near us and screached. It kind of scared us and we tried to take photos of it, but it just kept flying away.

As we walked through the forest, we'd keep seeing the bird flitter in front of us from tree to tree, just far enough away that we never knew where it was landing. Keep in mind we walked the 5 km trail and it makes that fact pretty cool.

So as it gets darker and darker, it gets to the point where it's almost impossible to see and see the hawk for the last time. As we walk to where we last saw it, we see a white beacon just falling perfectly from the sky. No wind, no spinning, just falling perfectly. We get closer and it's the hawk's feather.

I'm not one to believe in signs, but that's as close to one as I'll ever believe. I'll take it to mean the bird, or Hawkey as Danielle named him, thinks our trip idea is awesome and fully supports it.

I don't have a pic of the feather, which I have, or the bird, but here's another oddity I saw on the trek.

albino berries. D40, 10-22mm. Auto chose 1/6, f/3.5.

Lastly, I'm sure you've noticed, or maybe you haven't, but all these photos we're shot on my wideangle lens, allowing for cool effects. But does that matter? Not really, as long as the pics are awesome.

Anyway, enjoy

finally, a photo

ever since I've started trying to take artistic photos, I've really begun to notice the optical limitations of the lenses I'm using. Well... the 18-200 mm 3.5-5.6 is the lens I most often use. It goes without saying that 18-200 is ridiculously versitile. But the trade off is sheer optical quality. It's worth it for photojournalism, where I have to capture the moment, but not necessarily when I'm looking for quality.

What do I mean? click on the above photo and look at the drops towards the bottom. The lens has the property where things on the edges loose sharpness. Oh well, it looks cool to me.

Here's the same image with my other wide angle lens. It's not really the best use of the lense but still kind of cool.

It's my windshield because I got these cool Reflex windshield wipers that had some chemical in them making the water bead all cool like.

wow... my bad

I suck at keeping promises. Oh well bite me! It's really that I'm not creative enough or have the time to take photos... Don't worry. I'll try to post them as I can.

In other news, the clocks ticking towards the deadline for my trip. It's just about 2.5 months away before I should have all my money and everything prepared.

Today a I sent my passport application to my sister to find people to fill out the holes where they need to be filled out.

Earlier this week I got vaccinations for Typhoid Fever, Hep A, and Polio. I also got a test for TB. I thought I had it because the test site bruised, but no, it's supposed to rise, no I'm TB free!

And aside from that, I've got to really hunker down and essentially not buy anything other then neccessities in order to meet my goal. I'm a little scared, but I'm also proud of myself that I've managed to save more than $6000! (that includes my $2000 come-back fund).

Besides, if I don't make that money by then, I'll make it in probably another 2 weeks, so it's alllll good. The point is that I

- got out of debt to start saving
- got real with my spending habits
- cut all unneccessary costs
- developed savings habits
- saved a bunch of money

Even if I, i don't know... lost a leg or get some sort of debilitating disease, I'd still be satisfied that I accomplished that.

Anyway, I'll update you with what's happeneing with that, and also try to produce a video soon, since I've not go some material.

Cheers

Daily Photo Project - Day 2

I'll try to post these photos as early as possible so that people can see them. I know when I check blogs I get bored if there isn't something new the first thing in the morning. The only problem is that for you Ontario people, I'm two hours behind.

Anyway, here's today's uploads. Today's theme is FARM LIFE. They were taken at Danielle's Parent's farm.


This first photo is of Jessica, Rayannan, and Donovan (Danielle's nieces and nephew) and another kid Sterling.
This is Bugs the horse. He pretty much just hangs out the farm, since he's not saddle broken and he's actually not Danielle's parents. Anyway, when he's out the field, you can call him and he'll hear you, whiny and then come running from wherever to eat grass you give him. He's like a giant dog, or that horse in the Legend of Zelda.


And here's a radom old building on the property

Daily photo project Day 1

I'll try to post photos every day if I remember as I said I would, so here is DAY 1.

Today's theme is TEXTURES. I just walked around town and took some pics of things that caught my eye. Mostly walls...

Further to photos...

I've decided I will post one picture a day as some sort of continuing art project.... be ready.

photos from the past

I'm writing an article for my newspaper that needed a file photo and the one I found is one of my favourites that I've put out at this paper and that I had forgot about until now.

So for your viewing pleasure:

grasshopper

While HDR photography is the bee's knees, sometimes good old nature provides all the colour a photograph could need.

Though, one can't imagine what it'd be like in HDR! There's currently a grasshopper plague going on in Athabasca. That combined with the lack of rain and the cold weather (as in frost warnings in July) have lead to my new found home to be in a state of agriculture disaster.

How saving for my trip will help me save from now on

Saving for my trip has been the driving force for most of my thrifty, frugal ways but it's important to realize that the habits I'm developing are very important.

Most of what I'm doing will directly translate to what I plan on doing once I'm back.

And since I've got nothing else to write about, i'll delve into my plans. Their simple but sometimes you don't realize the obvious until it's pointed out.

So anyway here's my plan.

When I get back, I plan on maintaining my savings ratio whatever my income happens to be (hopefully it'll be higher :) ).

This is how I'll divide that savings.

20% to emergency fund:
This is something that is extremely useful. Last month my car was hit and I had to pay the deductable on the repairs. I had $2000 in my fund so I could afford the $500 deductable without fearing I'd be out of a place to live or food to eat or a knock on my credit. 20% is a good amount because as I get older and own more things (probably a house) I'll need larger amounts of money to fix or deal with things that would otherwise kill me money wise

20% to the next trip
Right now I'm saving 50 % of my money for the trip. When I get back I'll have more time to save and therefore can save less but still have the same amount in general. This ones obvious. I need a dedicated fund for simply travelling because well, that's a priority for me.

10 % to retirement saving.
Self-explanitory. I want to retire comfortable and lazy. The more I put away, the more I can be lazy and comfortable. But in all seriousness, of all the things you save on RRSPs and other retirement funds are the best because one day you'll be too old to work and you better pray you put enough money or your going to be suffering at a time when you be signing off gracefully.

10 % to toys
Thus will be my fund for more expensive things that would otherwise fill up my credit card. This way, I can buy my expensive camera equipment and still do everything else I want, with cooler camera stuff. A fund like this is a good idea because that kind of purchasing is what people like to spend money on and, if spent wisely tend to be things you actually enjoy the most. At least much more then a thousand useless things you forget about in a day.

10 % to tuition
I plan on slowly continuing to get my Athabasca University degree and so I'll need money to complete courses. Further, if I wan to do things like take flight lessons or art classes or whatever I can. This fund is obvious. I don't need THAT much money in it, but it's a much better investment because it's an investment in myself. Plus something like a degree will help me earn even more money to save or spend. Plus, just because you graduated doesn't mean you should shut down your brain. You should be a life-long learner.

2.5 % to gifts
Thus would be my fund for birthday parties, weddings, anything that comes up that deserves to have more money dedicated to it but shouldn't break the bank. That way you can get what you want to get that person and everyone wins. Also useful when you remember anniversaries on the day of.

2.5 % to charity
This one is two-fold. First I want to help various causes for obvious reasons and I'd like to give more than $2 for say a choclate bar. As a somewhat greedy reason, in Canada you get tax breaks for donating more than $200 to registered charities. So anything that gets me more money back is alrigt with me. In all seriousness, I feel semi-selfish to put so much money for self away and not help others that need it much more and this is a way of giving back.

So this is my plan. It'll come from about 50 % of my income from when
I get back.

And if you think it's crazy you'd surprised how easy it is. As a tip,
consider your savings a bill you have to pay, only it's a bill to
yourself!

Cheers

dispersing the fog

Here are two photos I took the other day at the Athabasca Golf & Country Club.

The first one reminds me of those crazy Japanese fog pictures, don't ya think? Both are HDR photos


But god damn I love photography. The first one alone is enough to inspire me to keep taking photos (even though I get paid to do it, I sometimes don't want to do it outside of work because I'm lazy).

enjoy!

An update on saving

I'm sure it's gotten old that I've been talking about saving money, but I'd like to take a minute to recap the journey since today I was proud of myself for what I've done in almost no time.

It all started when back in March, Danielle and I were watching Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantamo Bay. Towards the end of the movie, they finally make it to Amsterdam.

Seeing all those sites, I turned to Danielle and said "We should go to Amsterdam."

Quickly, the conversation spiraled out of control. Next we decided we'd just have to see all of Europe, then finally the whole world if possible.

The problem with attaining that was several fold. The first was that I was about $1000 in general consumer debt, and Danielle had some problems of her own, namely having a relatively new $40,000 car she was still paying off.

Once we made the decision we put it on the backburner of our minds, finding inspiration in the dancing of Where the Hell is Matt, the runimations of Karl Grobl, the advice of Dave at GoBackpacking and the more "real-life" experiences of people like my cousin Alan at praxis pictures.

At one point, driving home from Edmonton (I don't remember why we were there), we came to the conclusion that the magic number for the adventure was $10,000 saved.

Well, Danielle already had that much money because she's a super saver, but I was far from it.

However, I've done everything I can to get there. I've quit smoking and drinking. I wasn't addicted to drinking and I haven't really quit, I just haven't gone out to get drunk in so long that I honestly don't remember. I've got a second job and I've moved to all no-fee things so I can save every penny I can.

And now here we are today. I've saved a whopping $4000 for the trip alone. But I've also saved $2000 before that as an emergency/come back home money for like when my car was smashed or when Danielle and I come home and we need some rent and food money.

So that' means I've saved $6000 since March! That's awesome! And the thing was, it wasn't that hard!

I just switched my priorities. You'd be surprised how easy it is to save money when you're not spending it. Before I was just blowing money, and you know, I've got almost nothing to show for it! I wish I had that money now...

But oh well, two things you carry with you for life are LESSONS and REGRETS. You decide what is what, but remember, lessons weigh less than regrets.

Anyway, there's still alot for us to do. We still need to finalize what we're going to do and when. We've come up with basic ideas, but we still need to figure it out for sure and when that day comes. I'll let you know.

Until then, save up for your dreams!

Drew

the results so far

Well I wore everything for a day, and then tried to wash them. I used a random, clothes-pin-not-required clothesline that I bought from Canadian Tire and some easy to use laundry soap I bought from Camper's Village. It comes in little leaves that you dissolve in the water.

Anyway, here are the results from my attemps.

Underwear
brand: Icebreaker Beast relaxed boxers with 3-button fly
colour: black (Jet)
weight: almost nothing
material: 100% Merino Wool (sheep in New Zealand)
price: $32.99 on sale at Camper's Village
marketed as: natural, sexy, wicking, odour/moisture resistant, climate contorlled

Day 1 notes:
-Initially very comfortable. More supportive and hugging on the legs than regular boxers. Soft against skin. Feel "cool" as if air is flowing through them. Waistband not noticable. I "feel" that I'm wearing them because they're tighter than my usual underwear.
cleaning attempt:
-They seemed to clean very well, though I've never cleaned things by hand before. They were dry by the morning.
Day 1 tests:
comfort: 10
cleaning: 10
drying: 10


Socks
brand: Smartwool Adrenaline Multi-Sport light cushion
color: white with designs
weight: heavier than regular socks
material: 72 % wool, 26 % nylon, 2 % Elastic
marketed as: sporty, odour resistant, wetness wicking
price: $21.99

Day 1 notes:
-intially very comfy. Cusion is quite noticable compared to regular socks. Feels like my feet are slightly sweaty, not to the touch, but to my feet themselves.

cleaning attempt: These aparently got the dirtiest in that they, well, made the water dirty after washing them. But they seemed to wash well. However, they weren't dry after more than... 8.5 hours of hanging. So that's pretty weak. That being said they were hanging in my bathroom. Maybe they just need to be blowing in the wind. I tried putting them on for a bit to see if that would help them to dry but to no avail. I gave up and wore regular socks today.

Day 1 tests:
comfort: 10
cleaning: 8
drying: 0 (this time anyway)

Shirt
brand: Exofficio Eco
colour: blue
weight: regular shirt
material: 40 % soy fibre, 60 % cotton
marketed as: wicking, odour resistant, natural, eco-friendly
price: $19.99 on sale

Day 1 notes:
- feels like a regular shirt. It's a medium, and it fits my body as such but it's longer than regular medium shirts. Seems to stay dry when the suns beating down on me.

Cleaning:
-effort to clean because it's a shirt, but cleaned well. Hard to hang up to dry because it's much bigger than underwear. It fell during the night so in the morning it was still a wet heap on the floor. Tried putting it on for the morning routine to see if that would help it dry but it didn't, just made me cold. I put on a nother shirt.

Day 1 Tests:
Comfort: 6.7
cleaning: 6
drying: 2

In conslusion, the underwear was the best. The socks and shirt were wet after a whole night of drying. That could be a deal breaker for them. The underwear lives on (me) for another day.

wide angle awesomeness, testing the products,

Danielle and i bought a wide angle lens – at heart-stopping expense when it comes to trip savings. but it'll pay for itself because lenses potentially last for forever... right?

here's a few shots from it. (the first one's an HDR photo)
To make REALLY good photos you with a wideangle, you have to try to distort perspective, not squeeze everything in. That's why the last one looks cool. That's just a regular lens, but Danielle was so close that it made it look huge!

Anyway, I'll walk around town experimenting with the lens and hopefully it'll prove itself worth it or i'll try to sell it!

And here's another random photo I took in Edmonton. The sun was setting and casting a deep red light on this already red random chimney.

That's it for photos for now

TESTING THE PRODUCTS

I sort of ran out of things to write about so I've decided the most logical thing is to test and review my adventure clothes.

I've decided on a few factors based on what I know/learned to expect from travel. They have to be comfortable. They have to be cool (temperature) in the long run. They have to be hand washable. They have to be worn for extended periods of time without becoming smelly and gross, and a few other things.

So to test them, I'm going to wear them for extended periods of time (gross, eh?), try to hand wash them, and wear them continuously to test the above and then give a report. That way, you guys can laugh at me wearing the same underwear for a few days in a row, and I get to see if they'll be good come clutch time, when I can't just change them.

Haha. The be honest. I'm not going to wear the same underwear over and over. I'm going to wear it, attempt to clean it using what I've got in my pack and wear it again. That way I'll know if it's a good idea to do so or if I should change to different brands.

I'll set up a basic test against which everything will be graded, 1-10, ten being the best.

1. How comfortable are they after all day
2. How well do they clean by hand
3. How fast do they dry
4. How comfortable are they after two days
5. Do they ever smell (this one is for underwear and socks)

With this, and some other basic factors, like weight, colour and whatnot I'll post and let you know.

Currently, I'll triple team a bunch of stuff, since I'm already wearing them.

Those are my ICEBREAKER BEAST JET relaxed boxers with fly, my SMARTWOOL MULTISPORT light cushion grey socks, and my EXOFFICIO soy fibre/cotton blend blue shirt.

let's see how they stack up and god, hopefully they don't stink!

Drew's Reality Check just got better :)

Andrew has talked me into making my first adventure post to the blog. Please remember that he writes for a living and I do not.

Today we went to book appointments for our first round of vaccines (not going to be cheap) and we went on another trip to Edmonton to go shopping for more adventure stuff. We came home with a Nikon 10-24 F/3.5-4.5 lens, shirts, sleeping bags and other little necessities to add to everything else we previously bought.

Most everything we've got so far is laid out in the picture.

It looks like lots of stuff but knowing how many clothes I own and that's all I get for six months scares me!

Most of what we've bought is designed for backpacking. The shoes are hybrid runners/hikers (amazing I might add), the pants convert to both capris and shorts, jackets have hoods and are water resistant, socks are wool with temperature regulating, moisture managing, odor control features. The shirts are also part wool with water wicking fast drying qualities. I used to buy clothes because they looked cool now there is all sorts of technology I didn't even realize existed.

We've also got most of our other necessities such as first aid kit, ponchos, water bottles, electric convertors, toiletry kits, medicine, locks, sleeping bags, hats......... I could go on with more but I think you should get the picture. It's weird to think of all the things that I've neglected having in my house on my night stand in my cabinents, I've learned to appreciate the convienience of it all as I try to pack all I'll need for six months into a 55L backpack.

Well, that's the first of what will probably turn into many of posts.

Cheers,

Danielle

A sample HDR

Here's a little sample HDR I made. I'm at work and frying bigger fish so this is just a shot in the back alley of my office.

You'll notice that it looks "different" than regular photographs. HDR photos are essentially 2 or more photos put together so that you can see the detail at every amplitude. This is more how your own eyes see, but cameras can only see one level of light at the time. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the lower examples, which were merged to get all the detail. I'll try to create cooler ones in the future, but in the meantime, look at the leading website on the it: www.stuckincustoms.com

You can see from the orginial photos, how the camera saw the scene in different ways, and then how I used a program to make it look cool.












you can see the difference, and the result is quite cool!

I'll try to make cooler ones, but first I've got to do the job I'm paid to do, that is make a newspaper.

Cheers

what to do

Hello,

Sorry I haven't been writing about stuff recently. I've just been busy with working my two jobs and saving money to really have anythign new to talk about on a regular basis.

What I will do is try to add more photos to my site as I take them, and talk about plans for my trip as Danielle and I make them.

In the meantime, here's an AWESOME photo site. It's uses HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos, which is basically taking all the visible elements of several photographs and sticking them together. I'll try to make one today perhaps and post it.

Check it out! www.stuckincustomes.com