I would just like to take the opportunity to apologize to all of my watchers for not uploading any new photos recently and not doing any journal features in the past month. I have some good excuses, though. I've mostly been on the road for the past month - I went down to Detroit to see Game 7 of Stanley Cup Finals a few weeks ago. Pittsburgh won, and I was cheering for them, so it was awesome. I've been a huge hockey fan my whole life, so being able to witness the Stanley Cup presentation was the closest thing I've ever had to an overwheling religious experience (don't mean to offend anyone, I was just raised to believe in hockey, not God).

After that, I went to Ottawa for a weekend of golf, thenm headed to Kingston (Ontario, not Jamaica) for a week of meetings with various health and utilities organizations as part of a work trip.

I headed back to Sault Ste. Marie for a few days after that, but then quickly headed to Montreal for the 2009 NHL Entry Draft. That's what consumed most of my weekend, but I got more than 80 autographs and had a blast (for the hockey fans, I met and got autographs from the likes of Adam Graves, Joe Nieuwendyk, Victor Hedman, Brayden Schenn, Evander Kane, Dan Bylsma, Ken Hitchcock, John Ferguson, Brian Burke, Larry Robinson, Rick Vaive, Doug Wilson, and Mike Foligno.)

After that, I made my way to Ottawa to hang out with some friends and to experience Canada Day in our Nation's Capital. Canada Day itself was a lot of fun - there were entertainers and fun things to do all over downtown during the day, followed by an excellent fireworks display in the evening.

Today I met up with some friends from Sault Ste. Marie to explore the National Gallery of Canada. We saw a lot of amazing art by the likes of Pollock, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Munch, Kandinsky, the Group of Seven, and many others. They had a few photography exhibits, but I honestly wasn't impressed by most of it. They had an exhibit by Karsh & Steichen of older black & white photos of celebrites, quite similar to what `cweeks does, but to be honest, I've never been all that interested in portraiture.

They also had a contemporary photography exhibit by Scott McFarland that wasn't all that impressive. It was mostly panoramic photos of people posing in gardens on sunny afternoons with nice clouds. They all featured harsh lighting and some of them actually looked like they may have been HDR. Either he is really good with film and filters, or he just uses the same post-processing techniques that most of us amateurs use. You can do a quick Google Image Search if you want to see some of his work. Tell me what you think of it. I honestly wouldn't even most of it if it were posted on here, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I have a few days left in my vacation, and am contemplating heading over to the East Cost (Maine area) for a couple days of coastal photography. If anyone knows of some good spots in that area, please let me know.

Cheers.