Archive for category Work
Globe and Mail Christmas Parté – 2009
Once again we attended the Globe and Mail Christmas party at the Liberty Grand down near Ontario Place. The kids start looking forward to it a month a head of time. They get to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus. Not some old guy in a red suit, but the Real Deal, as you’ll see below. This year, they brought their Christmas lists with them and presented them quite seriously to His Lordship. I carefully scanned their originals earlier in the day, and they presented excellent copies.
Owen was mightily pleased with his racer car (remote or manually zoomable) and had an excellent area with which to put it through its paces:
Owen also became be-snaked, as happens each year as well:
Finn giggled with her Mama and loved her present too (a bear):
Finn charmed all and received a unicorn on her cheek to show for it:
…and was thereafter hugged (in a rare opportunity) by Owen for a nice Christmas photo:
And what is a Christmas party without a little clambering around on things?
It went by very quickly overall, quicker than previous years. Not sure why that happened, except that we saw and chatted with fewer people than we have previously. I think its great the Globe puts on this kind of thing for the kids, right through a global recession. There must have been 300 or so people there all told. We managed a quick thank you to the Publisher on his way out the door.
Ottawa Budget 2009
Yes, it was *that* time of year again: Budget hand down day in Ottawa. I posted about it last year.
I took fewer images than previous years, but came away with better stuff perhaps because I took an hour to walk around the Hill and snap a few in what was incredibly bracing weather. I think it was somewhere around -23C. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was coming up and throwing that orange-yellow winter light we know in Canada, steam was rising off the river and coating gates and trees with rime and there was hardly anyone around the Parliament buildings.
I’m trying out a new WordPress image gallery system:
[Gallery not found]Ottawa Budget 2008
Previous years budgets:
This year? More of the same, but a couple of twists.
Miscommunication: ” Cc everyone on this list with these 12 Word files. What? You mean you cc’d everyone on the list with those Word files?”
Confusion: ”The absorption system will accept doc, rtf and body text files, but I’m sorry the absorption system will not accept doc files.”
However, I swaggered around and shot some picsh of the same kinds of stuff again as in previous years: Journalists interviewing journalists. Journalists concentrating incredibly hard. That sort of thing. I was really paying attention to the video and sound guys this time, with those poor sound guys looking like little hang-dog puppies tethered to their mummies holding the betacams. I shot a lot of those guys:
But there is always other cool stuff going on. This year the biz was held in the old train station in Ottawa, which had these great columns on sides of the main room that were basically for display, and unintentionally useful for coiling cables:
Trouble was, the columns turned out to be HOLLOW. Figures….
And here is a Ken Danby homage:
This was, I thought, a particularly egregious use of public funds and hugely misleading in an emergency, until I noticed it referred to the 40 foot long painting above my head and not the fire alarm. I especially liked that the piece was called “Escalation” and had a fire alarm beneath it.
I thought this guy in the Global TV room had the right idea by reading Stephen King. The whole event’s a bit of a horror show anyway:
The Globe and Mail always has a scrum for its people, about 2 hours into the budget to see where the ground lies and who is going to focus on what story:
This guy told me I couldn’t take pictures in this area. But this was after I watched him sit like this for five minutes and had the sound of my shutter wake him up. I suggested he sic the RCMP on me if he felt like it:
And just what the heck does this thing do?
Your CBC tax dollars hard at work in the CBC video control room. Note token arty type in the rear, complete with major grump on. The vets were cheerful anyway:
And here is a pano of the main room full of journalistic fervour and Canadian earnest…itude:
Enroute to Ottawa by train… Well, don’t you wonder what happens if that lever gets pulled?
Chillin’, literally. The space between the train cars was more comfortable than the too-warm first class car.
Federal Budget media lockup – 2007
In the interests of continuity and showing colleagues themselves on the web, I present here some nearly year-old images taken while sequestered in the media lockup in Ottawa during the budget hand-down in the House of Commons. I posted some images from the 2006 hand-down here, and was asked about last year’s images by a colleague and present them, rather hastily, forthwith.
I didn’t take nearly as many as the year before, 2006.
I go up to the 2008 hand-down this coming Monday, taking the train. The paper sends us first class on the train, which works out to be cheaper than cattle class on the plane, and the train terminal is closer to Ottawa’s downtown than the airport anyway.
This is what the government in Canada thinks of you: You have to aspire to the greatness of yourself, instead of respecting who you are right now.
The lockup is a big room for 200-plus journalists. once you go in, you can’t come out until the embargo is lifted because you are presented with the full text and graphics of the government’s budget plan hours in advance of its tabling in the House of Commons to allow journalists to write their stories and make graphics about the data. This allows a even keel for all journalists to file their stories and graphics at a single, common moment – 4pm.
I could enlarge that type for you, if you like…
Bad idea to interrupt your boss when he’s reading the house organ.
IT tech Kathy working out the byzantine network model for PCs.
IT tech Susan waiting out the 6 hours of jaw-dropping boredom, but mentally tense for the 10 minutes of panic right at the end as the information embargo is lifted.
Never, ever, interrupt a Flash artist at work on budget stuff while in the throes. He might bite.
Crib notes from a journalist to a graphics editor.
The RCMP using binoculars to keep an eye on all us journalists – the great unwashed. Fuckers.
Parliament buildings, as seen from the window of the Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau.
