Making Commitments

Short 'n sweet:

Last weekend S and I decided to get married have a commitment ceremony. Our ceremony will be next July/August. We're planning a rather intimate affair with only family and close friends attending. It's going to be one helluva party! :)

Our album is FINALLY available online!

I am happy to announce that you can now purchase "Things That Do Sound So Fair" online through CD Baby or if you prefer, through the iTunes store (album format is Itunes Plus - higher quality and no DRM).

A quick 'n dirty update

It's been quite some time since I posted anything here - nearly a year. Eek.

A lot has happened since then...

In October of 2007, I finally moved out of my tiny 500 sq ft suite after being there for 10 years. Stephen and I now live in a lovely 4 bdrm house with over 2000 sq ft of space. We're located a few doors up from the beautiful Gorge waterway in Saanich, which is still close to downtown Victoria. We love it here - we have a HUGE yard (nearly 1/3 acre) and it also boasts a garage that has been converted - which is now my music studio. The house boasts 2 bathrooms and 2 fireplaces - so much to enjoy and I must say that nearly seven months later I am still a bit overwhelmed by all of the space we have!

A view of our backyard - that's the studio to the right

I continue in my position with the government. Still no sign of a permanent position, but I continue to keep an eye open for new opportunities.

On May 15th, S and I are making our way to Montreal for a five day vacation. We're looking forward to it.

Banquo continues to putter along; I have been on hiatus for the past few months while I try to get my workload at the day job and home under control.

I could write a ton more, but I'll leave it for now. I'll see what I can do about adding more, but blogging is pretty low on the priority list these days!

Pender Island

A starfish at Welcome Bay

I was over on Pender Island last weekend for a working holiday. Banquo was performing at the community hall on the Saturday, so Stephen and I rented a beautiful suite in a waterfront house located on the top of a cliff. We had our own private deck with a beautiful view - it was stunning!

Friday morning on the deck.

We didn't do much other than spend our mornings on the sunny deck drinking coffee and reading. The weather was perfect.. very sunny and 20-26° C. Welcome Bay was a five minute walk from the house and is only accessible during low tide. It was great for Woody (Stephen's dog) to play fetch in the water. We BBQ'd the first night, but ended up having the rest of our meals at the Hope Bay Cafe which was only a few minutes walk away. The food was very good and they immediately got two thumbs up for having eggs benedict on their menu - I love eggs benny!

Stephen and Woody playing fetch in Welcome Bay.

While the vacation part of it was wonderful, the concert did not go as well as we had hoped. We only had 10 people in our audience. Eek. We later found out that small audiences are normal for Pender. I'm not all that keen to play there again as we obviously lost money on the gig. It felt so odd to go from a sold out house on Mayne to almost nothing on Pender! We still gave those people a good show. After the show we all went to the place where the rest of Banquo were staying. It was one of the neatest places I've ever seen.

Springtime Haiku

Ah, the signs of spring!

These signs were posted outside the hotel that my office is located in. I'm guessing that some of their guests were getting attacked (heh-heh.. the crows don't like tourists, either).

May 31, 2007: One of the said crows decided to try to attack me today.. it almost got me! It came up on me from behind.. sneaky bugger.

Mayne Island show sold out!

Playing some tunes on the ferry deck on the way to Mayne Island!

Our show at the Mayne Island Folk Club last night was a complete success. Much to our surprise, the show was completely sold out; they were turning people away at the door! The audience enjoyed the show.. we got a standing ovation at the end of the show as well as the "foot stomp" after our encore. We were paid a percentage of the door sales -- it was well worth our while to do the show! I'm looking forward to visiting Mayne again; it's a lovely island.

How could we NOT get a picture with the sign for our show? :-)

The venue with the tour van parked out front.


Banquo in action!

Famous Puppet Death Scenes

"Death"

Last night Stephen and I went to see Old Trout Puppet Workshop's "Famous Puppet Death Scenes" at the Metro Studio. If Edward Gorey wrote puppet shows, this is probably what he would have come up with. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend getting out to see it (it closes here in Victoria on Sunday). The Old Trout website is here and information for Victoria performances is located here.