Free Christmas Music from Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Stevens has released twelve songs of the fifty eight songs on his Silver and Gold Christmas box set via Noise Trade.  Email + postal code = download.  Sweet.

- Peace

Free Snow Angels

If you like your Christmas music on the folk/bluesy/jazz/torch end of things then Snow Angels by Over the Rhine will be for you. OtR has released the album for free on NoiseTrade. Give them your email and you can download the album. No you have no excuse for not having excellent artful music for Christmas. - Peace

Breath Moon at 2100km

Hit the 2100km mark on the way home after watch to Grey Cup with friends. Was in Fish Creek park, with the only light being the moon.The moon the flash and my breath created the most interesting shot.

About a day behind the pace to hit 2200km by the end of Nov, but that shouldn't be an issue.  Weather this week looks good and I have reasons to ride Mon, Tue and Wed.

- Peace

Blood and Chrome, the future of TV?

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome is a prequel to the reimangined Battlestar Galactica. Set ten years into the first Cylon War, it follows a young William Adama on his first mission after joining to Galactica as a hot shot pilot.  Very coll for those of us who enjoyed the first Galactica remix.

The above video isn't a trailer, it's episode 1 of what will be a full blown movie on SyFy in Febuary 2013.  They're released six episodes so far. Just follow the link at the end of episode 1 to see the rest.

It's an interesting approach.  We're used to being able to watch TV episodes online the day after they're released, but releasing it to the web before TV, and releasing it in chunks to build interest is a gutsy experiment.  No doubt this will build interest in the series.  Will it lead to higher numbers of people watching on TV or buying the episodes?  Will it generate enough online ad revenue to make this the new model for TV?  SyFy will have interesting data to ponder when this is done.

This is a high profile instance of content providers bypassing the typical channels to release content to directly to fans before it goes to the traditional channels.   No one is worried by one example.  As trend, it threatens everyone from traditional media empires to netflix.  While not as flashy as Bill Adama vs the Toasters, the fight for the future of TV will be just as interesting to watch.

- Peace

It's a small world..

Today on my Twitter feed:

Karen Jiang (@karenjiangles), who I know from Calgary Church, was surprised to see my name mentioned on Jordon Cooper's blog.  Jeremy Klaszus (@klaszus) piped in to say he didn't know that Jordon and I knew each other. Karen was surprised to learn that I know Jeremy.   As Jordon (@JordonCooper) and Jeremy are much cooler than I, her surprise is understandable.

Thing is knowing Jeremy is connected to knowing Jordon, though Jordon wouldn't know that.  So for Karen, and anyone else who cares here's the short (but too long for twitter) version: 

I met Jordon back in 2003, as I had started blogging and was interested in Canadian bloggers talking about faith.  Jordon's blog was the first to come up for those search terms.  Getting to know Jordon lead to a group called Resonate.  Reasonate lead to me meeting Warren (author of The Year I Shot Myself, Got Arrested and Lived to Preach About It and the pastor at Xalt.

I joined Xalt in 2005 and connected Xalt with the Salvation Army mobile kitchen. For a couple of years the folks from Xalt would take the mobile kitchen out once a week to serve soup and sandwiches down by the drop in center. Jeremy was recruited to help serve with the mobile kitchen by Julie Kaye (@mysoci) who was at Xalt and is now connected to Calgary Church.

Small world.

- Peace

Winter Stream @ 2000km

 Rode the Spray Lakes trail loop on Saturday while Kim was at a Science conference in Banff. Hit the 2000km mark, and stopped to take a picture of this mountain stream.

I'm a couple of days off the ideal pace for hitting 2200km by the end of Nov. Won't be an issue as long as I make the most of the two days of warm weather before the next cold snap.

- Peace

Collaboration with Lisa and Tim.

My favorite shot from Tim and Lisa's Wedding. We didn't have much time to shoot, but when I saw the swing set at the church, I knew I had to ask. They went for it and really got into it. Lisa wanted a shot of her pushing Tim and that became the shot above. Collaboration is my favorite part of shooting. When one idea leads to another that leads to a great shot.  Makes for a fun day.

- Peace

Fish Creek Pathway at 1900km

Hit the 1900km mark yesterday, just ahead of the next wave of winter. I'm at the 100km/week pace that I need to hit 2200 km by the end of Nov. Three 30+ km rides, not big deal other than the cold toes. I'm thinking I'll need to do more rides with fewer km as the fresh snow will slow things down this week.

- Peace

Paris Top 5 Shots + 1

Took over 3200 shots in Paris.  Published 195 of those to Flickr.  Of those 195 12 have made it my Most Interesting of 2012 set. Here at my top 5 shots from Paris and the one I thought would get more attention but didn't.

	The underside of Paris' most famous arc at night. I wish I had centered this shot better. Other than that I love it.
	The cconic sign for the Paris Metro with other signs. I'm quite sure this was shot from the top of a tour bus.
	Moved the tripod thinking the shot had finished when it still had a second to go. Oops.
	Quite happy with capturing the beacon light at the top of the tower.
	A more traditional shot of the Arc de Triomphe
	I thought this Lensbaby portrait of the young woman with the flowers in her hair would genergate more interest. Oh well, I still like it.

1800km and a Revised Plan

Hit the 1800km mark yesterday on a nice ride in Fishcreek Park. Winter riding is a unique challenge and one I've enjoyed this week. It is much slower than summer riding, changing from 23mm slicks to 35mm treads on my commuter cost me 10-20% depending on the road conditions. Trail riding on various forms packed snow yesterday was a hoot, but not fast.

I'm 200km short of where I wanted to be at the end of Oct. So Nov and Dec will need an extra 100km each to reach 2500km in 2012. That means 100km/week until Christmas. That's about the pace I did this first week of winter riding, so it's do able.

- Peace