Archive for October, 2005

A summary of things in the past

Thursday Oct. 27th, 2005:
My U&I Magazine launch party was a big success as I had many people come and see me throughout the evening. It was great to see familiar faces and even faces that I haven’t seen in over a year! The Gypsy Coop lounge was a good place to hold it as the open couched area made it for a relaxed atmosphere. People were free to wander around and talk to others. Although my appetizer order for the crowd never showed up in time, it was OK as the owner gave me a discount on what he gave me at the end of it all.

I made some contacts, which is always nice. Someone actually said that I had one upped JPG Mag on so many levels that they were so very impressed with my magazine! That is an amazing compliment, considering I feel that JPG Mag is one of my primary competitors. I haven’t actually seen any of their magazines but I am glad to hear that others who have, actually like U&I Magazine much more.

The Toronto Star photographer came and did a photoshoot with me inside the Gypsy Coop, which was neat. My first time actually being in front of a professional photographer! He managed to make a spectacular mess by spilling a bottle of olive oil on the ground.

I had made a few signs to post up on the wall to let everyone know about the story behind U&I Magazine, however, the people at Gypsy didn’t let me post them. Urgh. And finally, that evening I was a little more organized than the week prior since I had a helper with me, to help me with my sales. It was nice of her to do that for me.

Saturday Oct. 29th, 2005:
I went to a Halloween party at my friend’s house last night. It was the first Halloween party that I had attended in a long time. I dressed up… as a mother. I went with 4 other friends, 2 of which dressed up as my daughters and one as my hubby. It was a whole theme concept. And people loved it! My costume – although quite plain – was voted as best costume of the evening. I have to say it had largely to due with my breasts. I mean, who wouldn’t vote for a man with big, bouncing breasts?! I won a pair of tickets to a movie. Yippee for me!

The evening turned out to be quite fun… people fondling my breasts all night long. Some things didn’t turn out the way I had liked, but that’s ok. I have to believe that it was never meant to be from the start.

Tonight, I’ll be at Yorkdale Mall at the Apple Store, where they have a seminar on New Photography. U&I Magazine will be mentioned there in a presentation and I was welcomed to sell it there as well. Great stuff!

U&I Magazine will also be featured in this coming Tuesday’s I.D. section of the Toronto Star, and I was also invited to sell my magazine at the first ever TPMG photo exhibit, which will take place in December-January.

Lots of promotion opportunities that I am greatful for! Woohoo!

Thank you everyone!

Finally, I have temporarily disabled all commenting on this site. I have been getting too many spam messages, and database error messages lately that I would like to keep this site clean from all of that. I’m hoping by disabling commenting, those nasty spams will forget about my site and move on to another one. In the meantime, feel free to post your comments on my shoutbox on the left hand side of this screen. I have yet to get any spam on that one!

2005
10/30
CATEGORY
Thoughts
U&I Magazine
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U&I and the Star!

After work today, I met up with a friendly reporter from the Toronto Star. We met at the food court of Yorkdale Mall and talked for over an hour about my magazine, its inception, how it’s made, the process of buying it, and so on and so forth. It was good. I talked a lot. I hope she got all the details down correctly.

I also talked a little bit about Europebound as this is my original baby. Being the first magazine that I made by myself and really, being the inspiration behind U&I Magazine, it deserves a mention.

Isabelle, the reporter, complimented me dearly on the magazine, saying how she wished she could do something like this as well. I gave her a sample copy of the magazine as she said she will show it to Carl, the Editorial Design Manager for the Toronto Star – someone that I had met and showed Europebound to earlier this year. I can use all the promotion I can get so I gladly gave her a complimentary issue. A small price to pay.

If everything goes smoothly, I should be featured in next Tuesday’s issue of The Toronto Star, in their I.D. section. It will be my first time being publishsed in a newspaper. How exciting is that?!

2005
10/25
CATEGORY
Thoughts
U&I Magazine
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First taste of success of U&I Magazine

I am so pleased with the outcome of tonight. It blew me away when I first walked into the patio of Tortilla Flats and saw the entire room filled with people walking about, talking and chatting it up with everyone else. I looked around to find some familiar faces, and familiar faces I found!

The entire room was filled with the Toronto Photography Meetup group, which must have been close to 80 people in all. I had no idea this many people were going to attend.

I trotted in with one box half full with my U&I Magazine, thinking I would give away the couple copies that I owed to the contributors. Stupidly, I should have brought in the entire box filled as I had people coming from all directions wanting to know more about my magazine, and to purchase the copy, hot off the press.

The group organizer, Adam, was even kind enough to announce my new mangazine launch, which was a big help. Thanks Adam! I wanted to talk to many people tonight but as it always seems to be the case, I run out of time so quickly. For the bulk of the time, I was busy trying to keep track of my sales and sample copies. I have a sneaking suspicion that I already lost one copy somewhere. Lesson #1: be organized!

Coming straight from work, I had no time to prepare for any of this. I also wasn’t expecting this many people to be interested either. It was a resounding success as I got kudos from everybody in the room.

And to think that my opening launch party is not until a week away! I reserved the couchy area of the Gypsy Coop Lounge today. Just so everyone knows:

U&I Magazine Inaugural Issue Launch Party & Flickr Meetup Group will be Thursday October 27th, 7pm at the Gypsy Coop (815 Queen Street West).

Anyone interested, please feel free to come and enjoy the party!

2005
10/21
CATEGORY
Thoughts
U&I Magazine
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TPMG and the Canadian Idol

That’s what I like about the TPMG. Whenever we plan to do something, something else more exciting always happens in the aftermath.

A rather large group of us headed over to the Elora Gorge Conservatory Park today in hopes of taking some nice fall scenery. I was actually quite disappointed as the colours were not at their peak. Either that or most of the leaves had already falled off the trees.

I got to the park and met up with 3 others only to find that the rest of the pack were waiting at another location. We eventually all got together and did our requisite shooting at the trails and at the gorge.

After gorging ourselves out, most of us headed to the town of Elora where we were going to go get something to eat. However eat we didn’t do. We ended up walking around the town, chatting about and being almost paperazzi like as a large mass of people, each with a camera in hand, stormed the tiny, quiet town of Elora. Where did everyone in this town go? We never found out.

The pack got smaller and smaller as time went by. We kept losing people while some people decided to head back home. After doing everything there is to do in Elora, the core TPMG folks, including myself, decided to go grab some food in a slightly smaller town of Fergus.

At this point I had changed my mind and told the pack that I was going to head home since I had to do some grocery shopping for my baklava that I was planning on making tonight. It was 3pm.

On a whim, I changed my mind and started following the rest of the TPMG pack to Fergus. As we were walking around town, we spotted a 5 pin bowling alley where we just had to go in and… bowl! The 7 of us went inside – 30 min. before closing – and grabbed 2 lanes. Nicknamed Smaky (a misprint on the fault of the bowling alley staff), I came in second place with a score of 145. I think that must be a first for me for 5 pin bowling (at least in my most recent memories). Pepe came in first with a whopping 218 and he claims to not have bowled in years. He even got a turkey (3 strikes in a row). We presented Pepe with a trophy for his great effort. And Kiki of course received the consolation prize as she was dead last at 46.

After bowling we were all hungered up. Asking the bowling centre guy, he recommended Horizons Family Restaurant just around the corner. And so the 7 of us went there, still with our cameras in hand.

We sat down at the table and ordered our food. The room slowly cleared of customers and we were eventually the only table there. Shifty ordered the lasagna, Pepe and MrBarrie ordered the fish and chips, Maureen ordered souvlaki, Koko the spaghetti with chicken, Kiki with a cheeseburger and Smaky (myself) with an open-faced beef sandwhich with mashed potatoes and gravy.

As we waited and waited for our food, a spiky haired fellla came in the front door. Koko looked at us and jokingly said, “hey, that guy looks like Billy Klippert from the Canadian Idol.” And what do you know, it was him.

It took all of us by surprise. What in the world was Billy Klippert doing in Fergus? Heck, what were we doing in Fergus eating at a family restaurant? Our order came in and that blew us by surprise again. These dishes were massive. Each plate was huge beyond belief and nobody managed to finished any of their food (except for me I suppose, but that’s because my sandwhich was a lunch portion). Even Billy looked at our orders and got scared.

We chatted with him for a bit, and even asked him to record a voicemail message for Kiki’s cell phone. As luck would have it, it didn’t turn out as planned but still, he was all cool with it. He posed for some photos and gave us our very own personalized autographed card. Sniff, sniff. We had him write down our bowling nicknames just because that makes it more fun. So now I have an autographed card of Billy Klippert that says, “Smaky rocks!”

After we finished our meals we said goodbye to Billy and left the restaurant. These unplanned events are always the more fun part of TPMG outings. And to think everyone else missed out on these spur of the moment things.

Our next stop was to be the OPP office in Fergus, however apparantly, the police do not work on Sundays in Fergus. All the doors were closed. We had high hopes of going inside the jail cells to take photos of them. Maybe next time, Fergus!

That was the end of the day for 4 of us, as we headed back to Toronto. Kiki, Koko, and Pepe stayed behind to wander off to another town.

And so what was only supposed to be a day of shooting leaves, turned out to be quite the day, filled with bowling, grossly huge meals, and a Canadian Idol Top 10 finalist encounter.

To top it all off, I got back to Mississauga just in the knick of time. I went to Loblaws 3 mintues before closing and got my rosewater and nuts. I filled up at 89.9 cents/litre as well! It all worked out so perfectly today.

And now, I will go and make my baklava so I can take some to work tomorrow for my coworkers. They’re my guinnea pigs. :)

2005
10/16
CATEGORY
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Light painting at the Brickworks

This past weekend was great. Since I didn’t really have to work too much on my magazine, I actually had some time to play with my camera. I went out on Sunday to the Toronto Brickworks, which is an abandoned warehouse/factory that once housed the production of bricks.

I didn’t know what to expect… and it turned out to be lots of fun. I met up with fellow photography meetup people and the 4 of us went inside to the closed off areas of the buildings. Some areas pitch black, while others had holes in the walls, allowing for the sunglight to seep through. It was indeed a sight to see.

I loved the atmosphere of the entire area with its eerieness. Climbing up broken ladders, holding on to hanging railings and running through old tunnels with train tracks, it was all in the name of getting some good photos! hehe…

We equipped ourselves with some flashlights, tripods, and hand sparklers. Those sparklers were a great idea as we were able to get some wickedly awesome light painting photos. I will post mine this week once I get the film developed.

I was actually somewhat tired out after that day since climbing all over the place, looking around dark corners and crevices takes a toll on you.

Photography is just so much fun!

2005
10/03
CATEGORY
Thoughts
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