I'd gone to transfer the Grouse Grind photos the night previous - only to discover my memory card, in the time it took me to move it from the camera, to the computer...had gone blank.
Gripped with terror, I scoured the internet for a data recovery solution. I managed to find a little piece of freeware that had been highly recommended, and set it to run overnight, hoping for the best. When I awoke, I had a brief surge of false hope, as I glimpsed many files were recovered. Unfortunately, it turned out to be about 50% of the videos, and zero photos. A whole day, climbing a mountain, interviewing Alex atop the elevator...gone. Disaster. I spent the morning doing some more digging, and after a hectic search, and more than a few dollars, I bought some data recovery software that managed to recoup everything i'd lost, including things from a few formats ago. I was relieved.
It took up most of my morning however, and now I can't trust that CF card to hang on to my data, so I had to pick up another and send that one back for warranty-swap. Yeesh...nothing scares me like lost data. I've got two hard drives with all the content i've shot so far and I fear even that isn't enough. But what can you do.
After my morning/early afternoon data scare, I managed to link up with my good friend Ryan Anderson, who also expatriated to Vancouver from Aurora. He lives right in the downtown area, so I drove into town to meet him.
It had been a while since I'd seen Ryan, last time he came to Aurora for a visit we'd managed a brief chat, but it had been ages since we'd gotten any quality hangouts in. We lounged around his apartment for a bit, he introduced me to his girlfriend and we sipped beverages. Having lived both in Aurora and in Vancouver, he was kind enough to offer me some insight on Canada, and what his thoughts were on happiness, and success. Shooting with someone who shoots video is excellent, as he was totally cognizant of lighting throughout the interview, and managed to shift in his seat so that he was best lit. Most excellent :)
He'd been told there was a screening happening at the beach later. I took this to mean a few of his friends were screening a film, but little did I know it was far more intense than just that.
The city had been putting on free outdoor movie screening events over the last little while, and now at Second Beach down by Stanley Park they were showing Spaceballs on a huge 60 foot inflatable screen outdoors for all to see. A few of Ryan's friends, one of whom was kind enough to lend me a bike, got together for a ride down to the beach through the centre of the city.
I took this photo from the halfway mark of the crowd....so for every person you see in front of me, there is at least one behind me.
THOUSANDS of people turned out for Spaceballs, and spread so far across the park that you could see shadows of people-less ground behind trees, where the screen wasn't viewable. It was intense.
Spaceballs is one of those great movies you can watch a thousand times and never tire of. People quoted along, cheered for their favourite moments, and laughed heartily. It was a lot of fun.
We biked down to a bar called The Cobalt for some free pinball after the movie. I wasn't really feeling the whole bar atmosphere, and it had already gotten pretty late, so I didn't stay long. Took a quick walk back up to Ryan's place, got in my car and headed back to Coquitlam. A brief, but fun day, in spite of the terrors of data loss that started it off. Tomorow's my last day here in Van City, and I expect it'll be mostly filled with preparing for Japan...currency to pick up, rail passes to receive, itineraries to print, laundry to do. The next two days of blog may not be altogether too exciting...but I promise to follow it up with an Okinawa dive blog as soon as I get in the water on the 21st.
The time difference will make for an odd update schedule also...it's sort of dependant on whether and how often I have wifi. Most of the hostels we're staying in offer it, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find a moment and write an update, but in Japan the time is 13 hours ahead + 1 day. So if it's 9am in Toronto, it's 10pm tomorrow where I am. Very strange thing, crossing the international dateline. I've got a lot of travelling to do in not a lot of hours...i'm going to have no idea what time it is or how tired I should be....better get prepared.
Talk to you soon!
-Jeff
nice info
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