Tuesday, November 27, 2001
Rotten night’s sleep. Tasty as it was, the dinner I had last night (or perhaps it was my sushi lunch?) upset my stomach, and Annie was restless, so I stayed up with her until about 12:30am, and I couldn’t fall back asleep when she woke up for a feeding sometime after 4am.
It was in this tired, disheveled state that I boarded the train to Oakville this morning.
I was reading my copy of BBC History magazine when I was approached by a towering young man. I thought for sure he was going to ask me what the heck magazine I was reading (I had just turned to an article about the role of the Victorian Nude in art of the time), but it turned out that he wanted to sketch me while I was reading. I was quite happy to oblige, especially since I didn’t have to do anything other than what I was already doing anyways. So between Milton and Oakville, he sketched me as I read.
I saw the final product just prior to getting off at Oakville. It was a pen and pencil sketch, and was smaller than I expected it to be. There I was in profile, head bent towards the magazine, relaxed-looking, wearing my battered leather jacket. There was a busyness to the lines, almost implying motion.
Turned out he was getting off at Oakville too, so I asked him about what he did. Turns out that he is an animation student at Sheridan, and at the moment taking is classical cartooning. I asked him about the program, and told him that I understood that Disney has hired a lot of Sheridan students. I gather from him that that is history, and that while Disney still hires students from Sheridan, it’s much less than it used to be. Presumably because other institutions have gotten into the act now – for a while Sheridan was certainly ahead of the curve in terms of computer animation. It’s an expensive program he told me: about $11,000 or so. Ouch.
If I run into him again, I’ll ask if I can purchase the sketch from him.
Taking a Half Day Off
Funny how holidays can end up being the busiest days...
In order to help out Erika somewhat while her father’s over to visit, I offered to take a half-day off. It was just as well, as I am getting over a cold, and wasn’t relishing the usual early-morning trip to Oakville.
So I worked at home, much of the morning taken up producing the Internal DV newsletter as well as formatting the PanelX newsletter, along with fixing a sales mechanism on the DV site that was pointing to a test email address, instead of the intended sales address. (Doh!)
Originally, the plan was that I would most-likely join Erika and Josef on the Xmas shopping spree. But I guess Josef wanted Erika to himself, and that was fine by me, as I figured he wanted to get in some father-daughter time. So, with Vanessa at school, Annie at Jean’s plus Erika and Josef out on the Xmas shopping trip, I headed downtown to do some long-neglected errands at noontime. I got off just across the street from Henry’s just to see what digital cameras they had available. Erika mentioned previously that she’d ask her father if they could go there to pick one up for me as an Xmas present, but since I was in the area, and I figured there was no guarantee that I’d necessarily be given a new digital camera, I thought I’d go in an visit just to see what they had. My goal: a 2+ megapixel camera with a USB connection, preferably an Olympus (I like their optics, and I was very happy with my previous Olympus digital camera. My colleagues at worked suggested a Canon digital Elph, primarily due to its small size, but Erika and I agreed that this only meant I was more likely to lose it. ;-)
After browsing in Henry’s, I headed to the Eaton Centre, and slowly made my way north. I searched the Museum Store briefly for gift ideas, then made my way to Birks where I picked up some jewelry of Erika’s that had been appraised. Then I went to HMV and picked up a copy of Dumbo on DVD for Vanessa, and afterwards, visited Mind Games where they were able to replace the copy of Quarto Jr – which was missing pieces and many of those that were there were broken – with another, intact version. I sat down and had a sushi lunch at the food court, and then headed over to The World’s Biggest Bookstore. I wanted to pick up the latest copy of KMT – which I have only been able to find at that bookstore – but they were out, so I ended up only buying a copy of BBC History instead. Then I made my way to the subway, headed home, and then went to pick up Vanessa from school.
Annie was at Jean’s so Vanessa and I both went there. I had stopped at the local Starbucks the block before Jean’s place, and picked up several boxes of Tazo’s liquid chai tea, an iced frappacino for myself and a Xmas tree-shaped lollipop for Vanessa. (“What flavour is it?” I asked her. “Xmas tree-flavour” she said with a grin. ;-) I chatted with Jean for a while, catching up on things, and downed my frappacino in peace. Erika called soon after, saying that she was on her way to Henry’s in order to buy me a new digital camera as an Xmas present, so I might as well take the kiddies home, which I then did.
Once we were settled, I gave Vanessa the DVD of Dumbo, which she got all excited about. So I proceeded to open it up – and lo and behold, the sealed case was empty. Thank you oh so much Disney quality-control guys... I told a now-teary Vanessa not to worry, and that I’d get a replacement, and we settled down to watch a couple of Wallace and Gromit shorts.
Erika and Josef arrived soon after, and we all headed out to dinner at Sauvignon down the street. A very pleasant meal. I had my usual orecchiette, Erika had a pork tenderloin, and Josef had the steak. Vanessa ended up playing a bit with a young boy called Mathew, who was himself very interested in a sleeping Annie. I asked about the shopping trip, but they were tight-lipped about it, so I got the hint that I wasn’t meant to know anything about their purchases just yet. Erika did tell me she is going to get her dress watch -- relatively plain, sans diamonds, and art deco in look, so it will be certainly be classy. Erika does have good taste. ;-) As it was beginning to get late, I took Vanessa back to the house and promptly put her to bed, while Erika and her father finished off their drinks and dessert. When they returned we all watched a taped episode of the last Junkyard Wars, which I think even Josef enjoyed (he’s not much of a TV watcher really). Then, to bed... all of us exhausted.
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