Reading is cool.

I'm really behind on slideshows so if you like to see what we have been upto for the past couple months check back here often. Remember, you can comment below anytime, if you need to reach me please email me, it will be faster, and if you are looking to book for next year call Marianna at 905-326-9622.



http://www.excellencephoto.com/2006site/couples/2007/Bianca_Kane/



So I've finished all the books I had but thanks to my complete addiction to Amazon I;m receiving new books in the mail daily. Right now I'm in the middle of fascinating book on the life of Albert Einstein. Wow do I have to improve my writing skills. As I read his letters I can't help but think how poorly the writing of today actually has become.

Even the way we speak has become so watered down by cultural and colloquial speech that half the time the person talking isn't making any sense. Yesterday on the new there was the communications office for the Toronto Police being interviewed. So she trying to sound educated using big words. Problem. She has no idea what she is talking about.

I love this one.

It's Miss South Carolina, who tries desperately - and painfully - to answer the question on why so many Americans can't even find the United States on a map. It's one of the great TV moments of the year. Host Mario Lopez must have been thinking about something really sad to keep from laughing.

If you can decipher what she says, please let us know in the comments. I predict she'll have a big future in modeling, or maybe as a model/TV anchor!




OK Ok that was a joke below is the real one.

What a fine day - I played my Bugle

Remember Click on the photo to see it full size!!










The Cadets

Nine Time World Champions
The Cadets, a program of Youth Education in the Arts, are one of the oldest and most honored marching music ensembles in the world. Formed in 1934 as the Holy Name Fife and Drum Corps, the Cadets are 9-time
World Champions and 20-time National Champions.

When I was younger I was part of a group of musicians called the Oakland Crusaders. From the time I was 15 till I left the group when I was 20, I would get together with about 60 friends and instructors, support staff and travel around Canada and the USA. When I was 20 I join The Cadets. (see below, they came in second this year :(




Click here to see more about DCI - drum corp international

Anyhow,

Today I got given to me a Baritone. Seriously, I used to sleep with my horn. I immediately looked at the dents and started to push them out, I wanted to stop and pick up of valve oil and white gloves. I think I'll stop at Sobey's tonight and see if they have Silver polish.

So when I got home the first thing I did was go into the basement, search for a mouthpiece (yea I know - insert joke here). I ran upstairs to play for Marianna, who was not impressed.

So then I played for the kids, who thought it was cool for about 2 minutes. Then the neighbors kids came home and they took off.

In the end I ended up playing with myself (yea yea funny funny). So much fun until Marianna told me to be quiet she was making phone calls, and the neighbour came out and politely asked if I could play softer her baby was sleeping.

hoohum the life of a musician/photographer.







Division I

Blue Devils	98.000
The Cadets	97.025
The Cavaliers	96.350
Phantom Regiment	94.850
Santa Clara Vanguard	94.175
Carolina Crown	94.150

Road Trip

Well the trip is almost over. We're sitting in a Sushi bar in the Byward market in Ottawa. After 3 day 2000 km I'm completely bushed as I write this on my BlackBerry.

Sunday
After a great wedding Saturday I woke up and drove to Kingston, met some friends on the beach for a few hours then off to Montreal. Sushi in Pointe Claire really great, the name of the place is Wasabi and for the past 7 years we alway stop there at least once, then we were off to Laval where we stayed at the Shereton. Pool was great, and since they screwed up our stay the last time the room was free. Nice.

Monday
Meeting went well, once things are confirmed I'll write more. Spent the afternoon in downtown Montreal. Actually ate at the best food court I've ever seen. Looked like an underground Paris market. We ate at a Lebanese place where the chicken was sooooo tender. Boy do people smoke a lot in Montreal. Everyone even 3 year olds puffing away.

Traffic was a disaster. We had to look and some properties to rent in East Montreal for TorontoHomeMovies.com and it took 45 minutes to get out of the traffic and onto the highway.

Quebec

The drive took forever, but hotel was gorgeous (on the outside) it was late after 9 , but we were starving so we went into Old Quebec. Since my family is from the Quebec area, I know it very well. In fact, the restaurant we went to was a place I brought Marianna to the first time we ever visited there. It's call Les Vieux Cannon. The old cannons. There's a long story about how I know the owner and he knows my grandmother, I'll tell it another time. Lets just say, its a place that feels like home. Food is amazing!!! Marianna had lobster and I had salmon.

The next day was spent walking around until I had to drive around looking for the best place to open a new location for THM. Then we drove straight to Ottawa. Yikes.

Ottawa

So all was going fine until we got close to Montreal. We once got stuck in Montreal rush hour traffic for 2 hours and didnt want that to happen again. So I took a by pass. Sort of like the 407 with no toll. The problem was I had no map and kinda had to hope it took us back to the 40 and then onto Ottawa.

I was doing fine. In fact after at the Hotel I saw that had I got off on exit earlier then I would have saved 45 minutes. But as you can guess I didnt. We ended up in a small town just outside Oka. Oka is the place where the Indians there blocked the highway in the 1990s.

Have you ever had something unfortunate happen that turned into something cool? Well the best way to get back to the highway 40 was to take the ferry across. ( See map below)

View Larger Map



What a blast!!! Too bad Isaac was sleeping. The ferry took 4 cars over the lake on a 2 km trip. We got out and it was so warm, and fresh. Definitely the highligh of the summer. And after I asked one guy how to get to the highway he said to follow him, he would take right there. Nice people the french - merci!

So we finally got to our hotel, swam in the coldest indoor pool in history. Next day (today) checked out and went downtown. After business was done, I wanted to show Sammy the portraits by Yosef Karsh. Of course Marianna and I have visited the Hotel Laurier many times and I have a collection of Karsh images that I have purchased over the years. There are 3 main collector of Karsh portraits (I'm not one of them, since a 16x20 goes for over $5000 and a portrait of Winston Churchill is worth over a million) One is the weston family, Shelton Chen a friedn of mine from Avenue rd has of 2 million worth of images and Sherman Hines has a pretty good collection. One day I hope Sammy is collecting my images!!!

Anyhow Road Trip is over. :(

The excitement continues

With Alex and Vitali in Florida going to the beach everyday, its kinda hard for us to work at our usually fast pace. So yesterday I took the boys (Aaron, Anton and Ervin) to Mandarin. Serious, Ervin weights like 90 pounds - he ate more than all of us combined.

I met a very interesting man today. I'll post the website as soon as I get it. Basically, his wife is a writer, and so is his sister in law. They own a company that specializes in writing speeches for Brides, Grooms basically anyone who has to get up and talk. They even will coach you and help you practice.

It got me to thinking how many times I've heard " Well I did't really write anything but I plan to wing it'

Damn gained 2 lbs -

Alex and Vitali are in Florida. Lucky dogs. I got a real cheeky email about it being 41c as they drove through Georgia. Meanwhile, its August and I had to put on a sweatshirt as I walked outside in Thornhill, yuke. As we expand in Florida I will be forced to travel there regularly - what a pain heheheheheh. So if any Excellence or DGVideo customers are in Miami West Palm Beach this winter let us know. I would gladly shoot your Engagement Photos on the beach.


If your a Boca ExcellencePhoto customer, we are looking for cool new places to shoot. Here is our current list, if you can suggest some more it would be greatly appreciated.

• spanish river park
• south beach park
• Mizner Park Mall
• City Place West Palm
• MoriKami Museum Park and Gardens
  

I'm in a pickle. I need to find a new series of books to read for pleasure. I have tons of business books to finish. I read 75% business and 25% pleasure, but I cant read only one at a time. I just remembered that I ordered a bunch of book online at Amazon - You can see my favorites by clicking the link on the left of this page. I'll update my reading list soon.


Guys. Seriously. As most of you know, I am extremely busy. PLEASE email me if something is not done correctly on the site, or if you are missing something, or just want to talk. You can tell Marianna and I guarantee she will tell me, but I will likely forget it. But if you email me I ALWAYS respond. I hate it when couples come in and the first thing they say is something that they need fixed on the site, or emailed to them that could have and would have been done in second had they just emailed me when they thought about it.

I've nearly finished something cool!! Next week there will be an announcement look for it.

In the meantime, we have many couples bringing in their photo and video orders. Remember that ALL Excellence and DGVideo customer save %50 off the final cost of any services at TorontoHomeMovies.com and FloridaHomeMovies.com.

If you are coming in to place an order bring us your 8mm, Super8, 16mm, old video tapes, Records and Tapes, even 35mm slides and we will convert them to DVD or CD. This would give you and your friends/family a discount from retail of over 67%!!!!!

Bye bye Harry. Wow I'm a geek

I finished the last Harry Potter book late last night. I actually stayed up until 2am reading to finish the book. I've got so little free time that I cherish what I call "me time"

I'm really a little depressed. I bet someone has a name for the feeling you get when you say goodbye to a series of novels. It's not just that you finished the book(s). You are saying goodbye to all the wonderful characters in the books. Its the same with movies series. When the last Matrix movies came out or the last Star Wars movie it was the same. But in this case I'm feeling it way more.

Post tramatic evolutio - I'm making this up, but it sounds right.
latin word for reading a scroll evolutio : unrolling and reading of a scroll, reading of a book.

I dont have my all my book available to update my reading list. Basically finished all but Blink. I bought a bunch, need a new set of pleasure books.

I read 2 types of books.

Self Improvement - Business, Photography, Investment, Mind expanding self motivation, Videography, web development, weight control, Food, etc

Pleasure Reading - Fantasy, romance, spy, action all types of Fiction. Stuff that really makes me happy.


JUST A REMINDER.

We are out of the country next week from Sunday-Thursday. If you need to reach Marianna or me email!!

I love to play my Tuba

Lately I've been dreaming about playing my Tuba. Seriously. It seems that during the summer months as I spend a large portion of my day being creative, I long for days of music. Even yesterday as I spoke to a fantastic bride (she reads this blog) who was picking up her engagement portrait, I couldnt help but remember the good ole days of making music.

Music is a lot like photography. I mean you have to be technically proficient in your craft but the fundamentals are the same.

Music.

The event is the performance. Yet if you don't practice you are not likely to have a successful performance. You need hit every single note with confidence while understanding the nuances of pitch control, volume and intensity.

Photography

The event is the moment of capture. Yet if you don't understand the event you are not likely to have a successful photograph. You need to expose the image perfectly, not too much light and not too dark, at the same time understanding the nuances of exposure, depth of field and colour balance.

So who knew that while I was training to be a musician I was actually learning to master photography?

Well its starting.

Today I offically call to order the Fall season. With 4 inquires regarding our availabiliy for next year, and even one for this fall, it looks like I will be back to spending my nights at the studio. The team has started to work on www.saveyourmemories.ca

Soon you will be able to learn how to take your parents old negatives and turn them into digital photos you can then share in facebook. Fun huh?

The crazy time is about to begin

Have you ever had that feeling that something is going to happen and you can't control it. Like grade 11. When you had that math test and even though you were sure you knew all the answers and would do fine, you could wait for it to be over?

Well thats the month of September for me. Wake me up when September ends.

• 10 weddings
• kids go back to school
• 2 bridal shows
• 15 videos due
• 15 photo packages due
• 100 evening appts for new and exisiting customers
• taxes taxes taxes
• need to book December trip
• THM begins to get busier and need to update summer staff
• lose 1 editor back to university
• at least 10 engagement shoots
• at least 10 family
  
• Vitali goes to winter hours leaving us 1 manager short
• WORK every single day minimum of 630am to Midnight - yikes

On the other hand. 30% of our yearly sales for Excellence happen in September. Would you call hanging out at the Bridal Show meeting nice couples, hangin out with cool competitors work? Its not like I have to carry bricks up a ladder all day like one of my grooms. Now that guys works hard. His art lasts for hundreds of years.

It all about planning.

About months ago I made a list of my dreams. The idea being if I put it in writing the chances of them coming true inceases. Lets see how I've done.

1. Buy a house in Florida -- Still looking - The Florida real estate market is crashing and we will be ready to buy when it hits bottom.
   
2. Make 2000$ us a month FHM - Not yet, but we have had some really good nibbles. We will continue
   
3. lose 40 pounds and hit 200 lbs - I'm down to 205 from 246.8 - I'll get there
   
4. Make 10,000$ a month THN - WooHoo did it. For the past 2 months.
   
5. get my eyes done - I'm waiting until November
   
6. Buy a new laptop - Got it!! I'm sing it right now.
   
7. Buy new video cameras _ Got them - New Sony and Panasonic
   
8. get an audi truck or Lr3 - Waiting for the lease of my Jag to run out
   
9. pay off my credit cards - Hoo Hum does anyone ever do this?
   
10. get control of my accounting - WooHoo - new bookkeeper, accountant is done, GTD yippee
    
11. get a hd camera and tv, home theatre system - :) still waiting
    
12. buy a cool pinball machine-- :) still waiting

So not bad! Here is my new list

1. Book the Disney Cruise for December
2. Buy a house in Florida
3. Make 2000$ us a month FHM
4. lose 25 pounds and hit 185 lbs
5. get my eyes done
   
6. get an audi truck or Lr3
   
7. pay off my credit cards
   
8. get a hd camera and tv, home theatre system - :) still waiting
   
9. buy a cool pinball machine
10. GPS for my car.
    

Long weekend blues

Nice to have a day off. So I've decided to try and get caught up with my GTD list. Its down from 600 items to around 300.

So it you are one of the wedding couples who are waiting for your wedding or engagement slideshow - please email me. I want to get up to date by the end of the week.

FloridaHomeMovies.com was hit by Turkish hackers last week. Aparently they target American companies who sell online. I wonder if they would have bothered us if they knew we were Canadians who sell in the US?

As most of you already know, I'm the kinda guy that rewards good service and product with loyalty. For example: I have eaten twice a week at a Hong Kong restaurant on Hwy 7 and Leslie called Big Mouth Key for nearly 8 years. Its not just the food that makes this place such an enjoyment, but the people. I know that if I come in at 10pm or 3am they will say "Hey Jean! with a smile and will remember that I only eat squid on Tuesdays (Its deepfried and I have a whole week to work off the extra calories) If you look behind the girl in the photo you can see live lobster, fish and crab. At the bottom is live snakes and eels. ewweeewweewewe

wow. Just writing about it is making me hungry. But tomorrow is Dr D day so I have to resist!!



BOOKS:

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Paperback - April 3, 2007)
• The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin (Hardcover - May 10, 2007)
• The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
• Winning by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch

MAGAZINES

• Men's Health
• Digital Photo Pro
• Canadian Business
• Videomaker
• PhotoShop User
• Entrepreneur
  

Yesterdays weddings were great. Alex and Natasha spent the day riding in golf carts and Vitali and I went to the grand chalet and then to a movie.

Because we finished at 10 and Natasha and Alex didnt finish until 12 vitali and i went to see The Bourne Ultimatum. Of course we had all the equipment so we had to get the manager to come to the front desk. I didnt want anyone thinking we were going to tape the movie. She was so surprised, and really nice about it, thanking us for being honest. Wierded me out. Do that many people sneak into movies with $50,000 worth of photo/video eqipment?

Movie kicked ass (hehe) then we went back to the studio to meet Alex and Natasha. Back up cards, put away tapes etc. Meanwhile alex beat us there and was watch entourage while burning his backup. By the time i got to sleep it was just before 3am. 3 hours later Isaac was sitting on my chest and asking why I have hair in my nose.

Ran 3 miles in 30 minute at the gym this morning( well sort of ) My trainer told me not to run for a few weeks to use the elliptical machines. Almost made my personal best of 5 KM under 30 min but was short by 26 seconds.

Sore all over

Well I'm slowly getting used to being sore all over. After 4 sessions with my personal trainer Mike I've come to the realization that working out is a lot of work. But its kinda nice to have an objective eye (as opposed to an ObjectiveEye hehehe - if you dont get it read more of my blog or click on the link)

Turns out he reads a lot too. I really didnt put my faith into the work of personal trainers until DesignerGeek built a site for the National Association of Body Fitness. After reading through all of the material they provide I was convinced that if I would ever meet my personal physical goals I was much more likely with professional help.

I've received tons of email requesting my reading list. I'm sorry I don't have the time to put a list together (I've read thousands of books) but, starting today I'll list what I am currently reading and will try to update with each post.


BOOKS:

• Losing My Virginity: How I've Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Paperback - April 3, 2007)
• The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin (Hardcover - May 10, 2007)
• The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell

MAGAZINES

• Men's Health
• Digital Photo Pro

Dvořák Drum Corp and The Simpsons

Yesterday was a wierd day. I started off going to the gym. When I reached the 40 pounds lost mark I decided to reward my hard work with more hard work. I've hired a personal tranier. Its been a dream of mine for nearly 2 years. So after putting away pennies for the past few months I waited until I reached my goal and went for it.

I write about how I think I doomed myself to pain by being me another time.

Anyhow. As we are (well I am) working out we get to talking. I had a memory (I wonder if I every mentioned the memory game Marianna and I play).

I remembered 1990 I was at the Ramapo College campus in New Jersey training for the 1990 Drum Corps season with the Cadets of Bergen county. Every Tuesday we would have a 5 mile run. Anyhow, as I was telling him this I was immediately overwhelmed with incredible memories of the past. Travelling throughout the USA, pushing myself to the limits. I couldnt help but think about how soft I have become. Well, I'm feeling the pain of the gym today.

Drum Corp involves performing music on the a football field. An 11 minute show with Brass instrucments, drums and Dancers. You can only be a member until 23 I believe, but it used to be 21. At 21 you age out and cannot be a member anymore. Its one of the most painfull memories I have. In fact, on the night of your last performance we always leave our shoes on the field and walk off in socks.

Im actually tearing up. boohoo.

Anyhow the day wa crazy at the office with one appointment after the next. I[m working on a new project I cant discuss but it involves several multinational companies and online advertising.

Finally everyone was a sleep and I though I would wind down by going to see the new Simpsons movie. I wont ruin it for anyone, its a good movie. But I had a terrible experience. I got there early and got to sit in my favorite seat - front row centre. I had to wait 20 minutes and the place filled up. At the last second these to guys sat to my left. They wouldn't shut up. The one guy close to me made comments on every scene. I too nice to say anything but it completely ruined the movie for me. It was watching the baseball game with the radio on to describe what I'm seeing. By the end of the movie I was falling asleep in my chair.

Cant wait for Friday - The new Bourne movie comes out. I've read every single Robert Ludlum book.