Between work, side projects, summer, ankle rehab, more work, and more side projects, it’s been a busy last few months. Here’s a recap!

New Toys

Flip – I managed to get my hands on one of these handy dandy Flip video cameras before they were released in Walmarts here in Canada. Highlights so far include documenting parts of my bro running the Scotiabank Half-Marathon (regrettably still to be uploaded somewhere), and uploading samples of my piano playing up onto YouTube.

LowePro Camera Bag – Funny how small details make a big difference, but ever since I got myself a smaller camera bag, my Rebel XTi has been taking a lot more trips with me. I’m still hunting a shot that will be worthy of printing, framing, and hanging up on my wall (it’s a new year’s resolution), but I’m slowly on my way!

I’ve had a couple shots featured in some crowd-sourced websites (like Schmap and NowPublic) , as well as a couple shots scoured to be added to some Flickr groups – nothing too big, but it’s still flattering that someone, anyone, is noticing some of my photos.

Rekindled Hobbies

Piano – Partial credit goes to the Flip for helping me find a renewed interest in playing piano. First project tackled: Death and All His Friends – the last song, and my favourite, from the latest Coldplay album. I thought I’d upload it to YouTube just to see what would happen, and the videos have been getting some pretty positive comments – which is always encouraging.

There have been some requests to upload the sheet music – and I actually went out and bought myself some blank sheet music to start transcribing it – but then it dawned on me that this might be infringing on some copyright issues. Any thoughts on that one? I’ve done some Googling on the subject, and am decidedly mum on the subject right now.

Running! – It’s been so long since I’ve been able to do any real running, that I forgot (a) how much my ankle would probably hurt even before I sprained it, but also (b) how much I love running. If you saw me the first time I realized I could run again, you’d have seen a smile from ear to ear (at least that’s what it felt like from the inside). I was almost giddy at being able to run again. I still have to take it somewhat easy, or at least make sure I rest properly between runs. Luckily with biking to work and going for semi-regular swims, I haven’t completely lost my cardio. I’m still quite a few steps away from being ready to run another half-marathon, though (but that IS the goal!).