New Lens, Photos.
Leaving for my first ever time-off-work vacation today. Going to Europe: England, then Poland.

Having procrastinated buying a 200 or 300mm lens for the Canon for much too long, I decided to go out and get what is considered to be one of the best general-purpose lenses Canon sells: the Canon EF-S 17-85/f4-5.6 IS USM. It's a lens that costs almost as much as my camera's body itself, but I think it is well worth it. While the aperture isn't the widest in the world, the zoom range is good. There are barreling and distortion issues at the 17mm mark, but I can live with those. The focusing is fast and quiet, and the image stabilization is awesome. It's a solid, real lens.

Speaking of photography, it's interesting that in the last month or so, I have had three requests to use photos from this log in two books and a company's promotional material. I am flattered. Does this thing rank high in Google's database, or do I just take photos of things no one else bothers to?

"All I ask is a tall ship..."
The past several weeks have been exciting as I nearly became the proud co-owner of an abandoned O'Day 27-foot yacht. Not much is known about it, it even lacks a name; the closest to a name is a large painted snowflake. "Snowflake" it is.

The story starts a month ago, when I found out that the Nepean Sailing Club was trying to get rid an old abandoned boat. Upon contacting them, they made it out to sound as though it was in really rotten condition. When I went to see it, it just didn't seem that bad. The Club was convinced to allow the boat to remain until next year, provided it gets launched by next summer.

This all sounded really good: a 27-foot boat, with sails in relatively good condition, an inboard engine, a full kitchen suite, a full washroom, a bedroom, and a total of five berths. Sure, lots of it would need replacement, but it was still all very exciting.

To make a long story short, we paid a nice man a decent sum of money to survey it and tell us what is wrong that we cannot see. The hull itself was in fantastic condition. Unfortunately, the top deck was soft, with about 75% of it having rotted. While a worthwhile project, there is no way that kind of work could be completed by next spring.

So, sadly, Snowflake will be heading to the scrappers at the next convenient time. It truly is unfortunate.