Archive for the 'News' Category
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Back Online after 6 month Downtime
So my website went down for 6 months this summer. I’m not to sure what happened but I believe it was a issue with my web server being attacked by a huge spam infection due to having no defined e-mail addresses. Basically anyone could send any e-mail to “whateveryouwant”@waz.ca and I would receive it. Some not so nice people started sending thousands upon thousands of e-mails to those random address and blew up my server while I was away. I didn’t have time over the summer to deal with the issue but now that I’m home after a amazing summer of working for the Ministry of Forests I’m getting the time to deal with such issues. Expect some more updates in the near future to the blog and the site!
p.s. if you sent a e-mail to me at my @waz.ca account in the last 6 months I never got it. So you can try resending the e-mail to justin@waz.ca.
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Mexico
Long time no update; I just got back from a week in Mexico, specifically Mazatlan. It was nice to get out of the cloud, snow and cold and enjoy the sun and the warmth for a while. I’ll have all my pictures up soon on flickr or Facebook but here is one for now:
Right after I got back from Mexico I spent the last 3 days ski touring around Nelson, with 2 days around Whitewater and 1 day up at Kootenay Pass. The snow on the North facing slopes was pretty good considering the year and I got some pretty good turns in and fell off one cliff. It sure was different going from surf and sand to skis and snow within 1 day.
Thursday, January 8th, 2009
Happy New Year
I could have sworn I wrote an entry in December, however I recently upgraded the database, and upgraded to Wordpress 2.7 so that might have gotten lost in the update. So it is a new year, new database and now a new update. December was just a amazing month for me, this year I started backcountry ski touring and over the holiday break I got so amazing days of skiing in. All my time was spent in the West Kootenays, hitting up hot spots such as Retallack, Kootenay Pass, the Bonnington Range, and Whitewater. Good turns, good company, good life. January isn’t shaping up to be a great month for skiing with the avalanche danger being high due to unseasonal warming and rain.
With the lack of skiing I finished off Fallout 3 which turned out to be a awesome game. I had some doubts about it at first but I stuck through the beginning and really enjoyed the experience. I have now started on Dead Space which is looking to be amazing with a great atmosphere and sweet graphics. The awkward camera angle started out as annoying, however it leads to some very scary oh crap moments. Dead Space is defiantly a game that needs to be played on a surround sound system, in a dark room alone.
I’m looking forward to 2009 and what the New Year will bring and I wish everyone the best in the New Year.
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Fall Update
So I haven’t updated the blog since I got back from Montreal and for good reason. My 1st day back in Nelson I sprained my wrist on a bike ride, a week later I left for Kelowna where I resided for the last 2 months. While in Kelowna I had limited access to the internet having to go into town to PC Bang to get online. While there I got a chance to play the new game Left 4 Dead which was great fun. Defiantly a game I’d pick up if it goes on sale but for $50 I think it’s a bit steep considering I paid that for the Orange Box last year which had way more gaming material in it.
I have update the Now Playing / Reading section as well as fixed a link to the GFW podcast, which changed in the last couple of months losing some key personalities and gaining some new ones. It is still a great podcast to listen too. In Kelowna I had an old laptop that could play some older games and I started playing through Grim Fandango, I’ve almost finished it and have to say it truly is one of the greatest games of all time. Games really aren’t made like this anymore. Old adventure games made you really think about the puzzles presented to you, and some just don’t make any sense. The last time I had to use a walkthrough was Zelda: Oceania of Time another older game that is awesome. Now that I’m back home I need to finish the last chapter in Grim Fandango, and get started on some new games that I’ve been looking forward too such as Fallout 3, and Dead Space.
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
The Last 2 Weeks Recap
The Weekend before Adapt
On Thursday I caught a ride up to Calgary where I flew out to Montreal arriving a few days early to explore and be a tourist for a while. I got in Friday morning at 7:30 and had to make my way up to the place I was staying. Not speaking French I was worried it would be difficult to find my way and communicate with people; however that was never an issue as everyone spoke English. Friday during the day I got settled in and took a tour of downtown and Mount Royal. On Saturday I spent the day in Old Montreal taking pictures like crazy for future textures and reference. I stayed during the night to grab some nice night shots as all of Old Montreal is lit up at night and super busy. It helped that the weather was fantastic. Sunday was spent at Mount Royal taking in the ‘Tam Tams’ (A drumming session in the park) which made me feel at home.
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
Adapt is Now Over
So I forgot the cable to upload pictures from my camera and not having a laptop I don’t have access to Photoshop at the moment. But the Adapt conference is now over and later this evening I’ll be on a plane to Vancouver, back on the West coast. Montreal has been fantastic and the folks at Adapt put on a really good show. When I get back home to Nelson I’ll write up a nice long post with pictures and everything that has happened in Montreal.
Thanks again to Montreal, Adapt, and the Softimage crew for Thursday night. Now off to Vancouver for a bit of hiking and a meet up with the folks from Polycount.
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
On the road to Adapt 08
Tomorrow I leave on my way to Montreal for the Adapt 08 conference. I hooked up a ride from Nelson’s rideshare website to Canmore where I’ll hitch hike to Calgary and fly from Calgary to Montreal, arriving at 7:00am Friday. With the weekend before Adapt to take in the sights and sounds of Montreal it should be a great time.
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
Shambhala 2008
After sleeping all of Monday I can now finally write about Shambhala this past weekend. I only ended up getting there on Saturday and spent Saturday and Sunday up there driving back Monday morning after getting 3 hours of sleep. This was my second time at Shambhala so I knew more of what to expect and the event didn’t disappoint with strange weather and even stranger people. 10 000 people flood into Salmo for this music festival and every single person I met all raved about how awesome Shambhala is. If you haven’t been make sure you make it for the 2009 show.
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Batman
I got a chance to go see the new Batman movie and I must say it was awesome. I was listening to a podcast from the guys over at fx-guide.com on how awesome the IMAX version of the film is and tried to find an IMAX close by that was showing it however I had no luck. I had to settle for viewing it at a theatre in Kelowna tucked away into a corner seat front row as even after the film was out for 2 weeks and on a Wednesday night the place was packed. After 2.5 hours of contorting my neck I still came away blown away how awesome the movie was and highly recommend going to see it.
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
July 1st Update
Today is July 1st and again it’s been a bit more then a month since I updated the blog. I just got back from a long weekend of house boating on the Shuswap Lake and have decided to spend my Canada Day taking it easy and trying to catch up on some things that haven’t been done because I’ve been busy with work. So updating the blog a bit and writing some long forgotten e-mails is on my list.
June was a nice month for photos for me. I uploaded 5 more shots to my flickr page so take a look. The most recent one was from my trip house boating. I missed some spectacular shots of a lightning storm that ignited a few fires. Getting the timing write when mother nature has it’s own schedule is pretty tough.
