Saturday, November 30, 2013

Modern Day Customer Service

So I go to London Drugs, Olympic Village Store at lunch to get this smoothie maker, it's like a drink bottle, but there are blades in it so you just shake and can make a smoothie where ever you are. Great for healthy snacks when traveling. Anyways, I can't find it with the other shakes and drink bottles, but that store is a freaking maze so I seek help.
I finally pull a guy aside and ask him if they have it in stock - he's nice and polite, although was definitely not going to go out of his way to offer help until I interrupted him to ask for it. He doesn't know about this shake, so he goes to find someone to help. That's cool with me. THANKYOU.
Right then a chick that works there walks past and he asks her if she knew about this fabled item and if she could help out. She immediately gives so much attitude asking "IS IT ELECTRONIC OR NOT" and looking at me and him like we are retarded for asking such a question.
So I respond, no, like he said you just shake it and the blade is inside it and that does the chopping for you. I should have then gone to say "sorry for asking and wanting to buy something from a store that you work in in which it is your job to help customers". But I didn't.
I don't get it, you ask for help and get attitude. That's why they work and are paid in CUSTOMER SERVICE. To serve customers - what a novel freaking idea.
Anyways, she abruptly tells me that all the other london drugs have them, except for the particular one I'm in. Oh, gee thanks, plus she gave the response in such a way I'm sure she knew what I was asking for all along, but just wanted to give some attitude.
Anyways, rant over. It just boggles my mind how often you get service like this. What is the world coming to?

Friday, November 29, 2013

Building a Stiff Levain

Up until this point in time I have only been working with a liquid levain sourdough when baking. This weekend however, the bread I'm baking requires a stiff levain. To fast track this I converted a postion of my liquid levain into a stiff levain by calculating the correct amount of flour I needed to add to bring the ratios from 100% hydration, down to 60%. Initially I was super dubious as to whether this would actually work. 60% hydration felt really dry and I wondered whether the levain would have enough "breathing room" to actually live. It proved me wrong and went mad. It has been growing way more actively than the liquid levain, it's quite exciting. Last night I fed it again, and this morning it was bursting at the glad wrap seams, so I broke some off to store in the fridge for next time, and fed it up again to incorporate into my build tonight for my Fig and Hazlenut Sourdough for thanksgiving.
Stiff Levain Evening
Stiff Levain 12 hrs later

Countdown Stop # 7 - Forage

Today is another day for a conut down stop. We have wanted to check out Forage for some time now and decided that it would be a great breakfast stop. Forage is a really nice looking restaurant, albeit a little cliched in terms of it's decor choices. First up we got some coffee, Kate got filter and I got an espresso. The espresso sucked. The guy couldn't make a good coffee to save himself. Seriosly why offer to do espresso if you cant make a good one. So immediately this got me off to a bad start as for me, when I'm going out for breakfast, the coffee is as important as the food. The espresso shot was watery and astringent. Not the thick sweet espresso shot with rich crema that you should get. Anyways, I got over this and moved onto the food.
The food was great, and fairly generous. Everything appeared to have been made / baked fresh right then and there which was nice. I got hot steel cut oat porridge with foamed milk and cinnamon, blueberries and apples. Kate got eggs benedict and a honey butter scone, which was nice and fresh. The steel cut oats was a very generous serve, the fruit was nice and over all it was exactly what I was after. Kates benny looked amazing and was cooked perfectly, from the reports the hollandaise sauce was bang on, and the scone was amazing and fresh.
It's amazing that this is the only place that we could find to go out for a breakfast other than a shitty diner. I wish more cafes would open early for those of us that like to get the day underway nice and early. This was a thoroughly enjoyable morning watching the city awake and the traffic on Robson St. We had to take a nice stroll through the West End to get to and from Forage, which made for such a enjoyable start to the day with Kate.
Forage Breakfast
Steel cut oats
Eggs Benadict
Forage Breakfast

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Christmas Pudding

My Christmas pudding project is coming along nicely, and I figured it was time to cook one of the mini puddings up so that I could check that they were working correctly. ie not going mouldy or tasting terrible. However I couldn't just cook the pudding, I had to do the whole setup with custard, and not having brandy I made a bourbon custard, and it was amazing.
The pudding turned out so well, the home dried variety of oranges and tangerines made such a broad citrus flavour, an then all the extra fruit and nuts just made it so Christmassy. I was totally stoked at how well it turned out. Big reps to the Maggie Beer recipe.
Ready to serve
Pudding Cross Section
Pudding and custard

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

365 Project - Take 2

The question that has been churning over in my mind recently is whether to do another 365 project. I am so stoked that I did my first one, it was a great learning experience and in hindsight I now have an amazing photo journal of that year.
The reason I was thinking it may be time to do another one, is that this year is a year of change. It will be a year of a lot of exciting moments in our lives, but a year with a lot of unknowns, and I think it will be fantastic to document these moments with photography.
The one question I am having though is should I set a theme. I didn't have a theme last time I did this project, and at the time, I would have found a theme very limiting and it would have possibly removed some of my creativity that was found due to the freedom of the project. However, this time around, I don't want to end up with the same project, just in different locations and of different events. I want the whole project to have a different feel, and maybe by setting a specific theme or rule to base my photos on, I will be forced to be creative in situations where the rule is hard to adhere to.
Next is coming up with a good theme or rule. My first idea was one colour per month, and maybe this could cycle, so red, green, blue, repeated four times? maybe each photo has to be of an activity that I am partaking in each day, so there is a very good visual representation of what I was doing every day of the year.
I'll keep coming up with ideas and post back here once I have a final theme for the project. Stay tuned, but for the time being, here's my original project.

0 mm Heel To Toe Running Shoes

I have been using the same running shoes now for a few years, and just recently Asics changed something with them and they went from being my favourite shoes, to sucking miserably. I blame my injuries partly on this change mid marathon training. This shoe was the Asics Gel DS Trainer. They are so uncomfortable. I have also in recent reading realised the detriment of having a large heel to toe drop, but this is obviously not something that I wanted to mess with in Marathon training, however now that I am slowly getting back into runing after injury, now is the best time to make this adjustment.
After reading a few reviews I settled on a pair of shoes that I ws keen to try. The thing that attracted me the most was that this shoe was super light like a minimalist show, but provided a bit more padding under foot than a minimalist shoe, and had the 0mm drop. This sounded perfect as I don't want to go down the whole barefoot runing route. I still want to be comfortable, and p[referably wanted a marathon racing shoe. So the Saucony Verrata sounded perfect.
Immediately when I tried them on my foot felt really balanced under the ball, and it felt like this was where the shoe was allowing my to naturally strike. The shoe was feather light and looked nice too.
After the my first run I love them. They feel so natural on; to be fair I am only running short distances, but I don't want to go out in new running shoes and run long distances straight up anyways. I think this will be a great move to developing a more efficient running stride, lets hope anyways.
saucony

Run Coaching

On the weekend Kate and I got some professional run coaching, just to do a check over to see if our gait was looking ok. Seeming we have never had any professional run coaching before, this could have been interesting.
So generally both of us looked good. Kate killed it. Her form is very balanced and looks like she is at easy. Myself on the other hand, I have some work to do, and from what he noticed I think this gait problem could be what caused my last injury. Something is causing me to twist more from right to left each time my right foot strikes, causing a large amount of twisting on my planted left leg but also causing my right foot to land in front of (ish) my left foot. I can't believe I never noticed it before, but it must have been going on for a while as trying to alter it feels super weird. So for me it's back to the drawing board, but it's a perfect time for this as I slowly build up from injury so I should hopefully be able to make some adjustments during this time.
My goal is to get this sorted and on the road so I can enjoy some pain and injury free running for Adelaide Marathon next year. It gives me a good goal to work towards at least. Along with this analysis we got some good pointers for form coaching and refining, including the running ABC's warmup drill, some of which I already did, some which I didn't.

November 2013, bike riding and reminiscing

On average November is the wettest month in Vancouver. Not this year. We ahve been treated to the nicest autumn days, and only one or two days of rain. It's been amazing for bike riding. I think I have got more riding in the dry done this fall than I did all summer!!
The last week has been pretty chilly, with nights going below freezing, thus making the roads a bit sketchy, however I have still managed to get some nice rides in around Stanley Park and UBC, and haven't encountered any black ice yet. Fingers crossed, touch wood etc.
All of this beautiful weather has led to some amazing sunrises. I know this as I am up ridiculously early each day, but it is great as I have had the opportunity to be outside riding my bike and immersing myself within the beautiful scenery around Vancouver, or I ahve been out on our balcony taking photos. I hope you like. I can't believe we have been lucky enough to have a view like this for the last two and a half years. We'll look back on this apartment and time of our life with fond memories.
West End Sunrise
English Bay
English Bay

Monday, November 25, 2013

Asset Management Tool

I have been starting to prepare for some downtime once I wrap up at Image Engine and return to Australia. I am really hoping that I can sort out a new position, but in the case that I don't I want to be ready for some freelance work. SO I have started developing my own asset management software. I have got some cool ideas about what I want to do, and have been recently cleaning up my pose manages tool, and realised that it wouldn't take "too much" work to convert it to the basis of an asset management tool.
The code is coming along pretty quick, and currently I am at the point of developing my default folders and shot structure, methods to add new shots, add new assets and tie all this into the pose manager too.
Versioning will be the next pass which should be pretty easy. It's been cool as I have had to learn some new python which is always interesting, and I am getting to develop on my rigging pipeline too so that I can develop how my assets tie into this tool correctly.
It's going to be a great tool to have as it should make my asset tracking at home so much cleaner and more manageable, but also it's going to be a great tool to demonstrate my pipeline ideas to potential employers. Screen shots and working videos to come.

Suit Shopping

I have a wedding to attend in a few months, and given that I have two suits in Australia that I never wear, and that I very rarely wear neat clothes I decided I didn't want a new suit, or expensive neat clothes. Also with moving back to Australia on the horizon, I didn't want anything bulky, or worst case, I didn't want aything so expensive that i wouldn't want to part ways with it if we couldn't fit it in for the move home.
The brief: Spend less than $200 on some clothes neat enough to pass at a wedding, but that I could also wear in a semi casual situation so that i will actually get use of them again, and maybe add to my wardrobe so that I can start building some nicer clothes than just t shirts and hoodies. It also has to work with my light violet shirt so I don't need to buy another shirt.
First stop, Top Shop. Yes these guys had some really nice looking clothes, but nothing that came all together just right, and it was too expensive. Left feeling bummed out as I had just wasted a hour trying clothes on and got nowhere.
Weekend two and shopping day two. Inquired about suit hire - too expensive. Pretty much blew my budget. Second stop I begrudgingly tried H & M. I always diss this place about being cheap and shitty. Funnily enough this day, there was so much stuff that worked for me. Yess cheap, but shitty; it probably wont last for ages, but I found some clothes that fit me really well and the price was right. $150 for a pair of pants, vest, and blazer / jacket. Super stoked and it looks pretty good, totally wedding worthy, but I can also dress it down to work with jeans. The best bit is that the whole outfit works with my Adidas kicks so no need to buy new shoes :-)

Sourdough

Yay. It was finally time to bake some more bread. A friend was having us over for dinner so I wanted to cook an epic loaf of bread. I made another sourdough using my three month old culture. I matured the culture over 3 days, mixed the dough with the levain culture on Saturday morning, folded and fermented for 2.5 hrs, then shaped and let rise for a final fermentation of 2.5 hours and then baked the whole dough as one massive loaf.
This was a big loaf as it was meant to be shaped into two loaves, but like I said, I wanted to make an epic loaf. Unfortunately this huge loaf extended cooking time, and I ended up with a slightly too hard of a crust. I'll know for next time. However, there was a beautiful sourdough flavour and it raised really nicely, with some beautiful little air holes and a really nicely textured crumb. The crust was nicely coloured and the score marks worked really well, creating a very nice looking loaf of bread.
Next weekend I'm excited as I'm going to be baking a fig and hazlenut levain.
Sourdough
Sourdough

Countdown Stop # 6 - Vij's Rangoli

We have wanted to Vij's Rangoli this place for a while, and were craving Indian as we haven't had it for a long time. We headed here with our friend Fred, who has spent some time living inn India so is a good critique.
So the menu wasn't traditional by any means. I had been craving Palak Paneer, which they had, but called slightly differently, and tandoori chicken, which they didn't have, which I was a bit bummed out about. You also couldn't order sides of rice or Naam bread which was a bit strange, and I would have really appreciated this to just pad the meal out a bit. The staff were also useless, and it was obvious that they had some feud going on cos the tension between some staff was totally noticeable.
This aside, the food was really great, a nice modern interpretation of Indian food. A classic situation of the wait staff totally letting the kitchen down. The chai tea was also delicious.
Overall, I wouldn't go back. I am a sucker for the traditional dishes, and the large servings that come with the traditional dishes. THis experience was tasty, but small and expensive, and just not quite Indian enough for me.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

New Coffee - Rwandan roasted by Rocanini

Rocanini has got a bunch of new coffee in recently, and I just picked up a bag of their new Rwandan varietal. It is delicious. We first brewed it this morning, using a pour over setup, and wow, so good. I found it to not be a very fruity coffee. It's what I would call a classic coffee. Milk chocolate, caramel and toffee flavours. No bitterness, a nice lingering sweet finish. Needless to say I hope Rocanini keeps this one on the menu for a while!

Running - On the road back from injury

Today was a big day! My first run since the Victoria Marathon. I have had the last 5 weeks off repairing an injury and focusing on functional strength building. Finally my leg was feeling strong enough for a test run. Unlike my usual self I am going to take it very easy and build up to training, hence this mornings run was only 10mins. I figured just go for a tiny run and make sure that there are no unforeseen niggling pains during the run, or afterwards. The verdict, the leg still doesn't feel 100%, but it is the best it has felt for a long time, so my goal is to run twice a week, slowly ramping up intensity and distance with the goal of a marathon mid next year and iron man in Feb 2015.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Revolver Coffee

I tried out a new coffee shop on the weekend. Revolver Coffee in Gastown. Wow, they can make a kick ass latte. So that is awesome. What is not awesome. It is way to hipster. Dammit isn't everyont sick of this hipster thing yet? It's super expensive and they dont roast their own coffee. Would I go again, yes. But I wouldn't go out of my way to go there, I would go out of my way top go to Rocaninis instead.
Revolver Coffee
Revolver Coffee
Revolver Coffee

Elysian Coffee

I love this place. They make delicious coffee, and roast their own beans so you can take a bag home with you. It is situated right between my work and Kates work so it makes a good morning or lunch break meet up place. If you like coffee and are in Vancouver, it's only one of the few places I know of that makes consistently great coffee.
Coffee
Elysian
Coffee

Countdown Stop # 5 - Naam

We were cheeky this weekend and took the opportunity to get a few of our countdown restaurants off our list. It was also a good opportunity to catch up with our good buddy Ed. This time we headed to the Naam, well and truly a staple in Vancouver food culture, as well as being one of my favorite restaurants hands down. The Naam would be my most visited restaurant in Vancouver, it is always delicious and healthy if you choose the right thing :-) For me, a wicked Mexican Dragon Bowl. Pretty much rice, vegan cheese, steamed veg and fresh grated veg with guacamole, salsa and miso gravy with a side of tempeh. YES! So amazing. Then to top of this feast I got a little Vegan date slice for take out, so we could eat it down at Kits Beach as we watched the sun set and the city lights turn on. As always the Naam rocked and served up some delicious massive servings :-) !
The Naam
The Naam
The Naam
The Naam

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Countdown Stop # 4 - Meat & Bread

So time is flying, and we are at countdown stop #4. Next on the list was Meat and Bread in Gastown. Pretty much it is just amazingly roasted meat, on bread. The best pork crackling since getting to Vancouver. The only disappointment is that they don't bake their own bread? What, you don't bake your own bread but it is a main part of your name? Anyways, super tasty lunch treat, and although it was super crowded they had a great way to deal with everyone very quickly and everyone got a seat easily :-) Another one off the list.
Meat & Bread
Meat & Bread
Meat & Bread

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Stanley Park

On Sunday we decided to do a good walk through Stanley Park with our buddy from Adelaide, Ed, with the aim to hit a lot of trails that we have not yet ventured along. It was a beautiful walk and was so great to see the park properly. I always see it when running or riding, so i never get the time to take in the views, sounds and smells. I also enjoy taking photos of fungi - and there was a lot of fungi about. It must be the season for it.
Fungi, Stanley Park
Fungi, Stanley Park
Kate and I, Siwash Rock, Stanley Park
West End From Stanley Park

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Countdown Stop # 3 - Fable

Wow, the weeks are flying by. We are already at countdown eatery # 3. We headed to Fable because of amazing reviews, and they did not disappoint. As I'm eating healthily at the moment I got a beet salad, and their take on falafels. Both were amazing, and the salad was the most interesting thoughtfully pieced together salad I've ever bought out! A complex mix if different delicious sauces, rocket, perfectly cooked beetroot and some popped wild rice which added an amazing texture comparison. The falafels were amazing. A great mix of blended chick peas and whole chick peas for texture, some nice greens on top and an amazing sauce.
Fable
Fable
Fable

Friday, November 8, 2013

Updated Showreel

I have finally got some new footage to add to my showreel. In this latest update my work on RIPD has been added.

Rigging Reel 2013 from Tim Forbes on Vimeo.


For any more info shoot me an email at: timforbesdigital@gmail.com

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Swimming

After having a tiny bit of quite time after the Marathon, I'm trying to get back into swimming again - I know this is one I'll lose quickly if I drop it. So today was my second day in the pool this week. I'm going to try to stick to twice a week, and I'll mix up my sessions to try and keep improving. My first session is a long slow session. I guess equivalent to a long slow run in running training. For this I'll just swim out 3-4kms non stop, at a slow and steady pace. Easy right ;-). Session two is my medium session, it has a total of 3kms, but is comprised of 1km of warm up, followed by a 1km pyramid session, with a 30sec break between each stint, allowing me to push out a higher pace for each leg of the pyramid. This runs 50m, 100m, 150m, 200m, 200m, 150m, 100m, 50m. This is then followed by another 1km pushing a decent pace, but by no means threshold.
My final session is based on drills and works out to be 2km-3km in length with a mix of 100m and 50m sprints, pull laps, and drill laps such as lay out kicking, catch up, extended doggy paddle etc. These drills go for 1km and are structured as 50m drill, 50m front crawl making sure to focus on what the drill was teaching.
This setup trys to keep it interesting, but obviously ensuring a decent distance every session with the long triathlons coming up in the new year.

Baking

Wow! It has been quite a weekend of baking. I must have felt like I needed some carbs after my 3km swim this morning! Anyways I baked two sourdough loaves, 2 Country loaves, one free form and one in a bread tin.We are also having friends over and I have made pizza dough - which is going bonkers! The two sourdough loaves were a bit of an experiment. So they both started from a 16hr levain build, I then mixed the final dough and let ferment for 2.5 hrs, folding twice. After this I shaped out two round loaves and these went two ways. Loaf A had a final fermentation for another 2hrs and then was baked. Loaf B was retarded overnight in the fridge, so that fermented for another 12hrs or so.
The results of this in terms of visibility are obvious. The one that spent some time in the fridge didn't rise as much, the one that was baked straight away is by far the best sourdough loaf I've done in terms of crust texture and rise, however the sourdough flavour is more subtle. I am yet to taste loaf B, but will review more when I do.
The second bread I made was the country loaf. This loaf comprises of a poolish, built 16hrs before the final build, and utilises 50% of the final flour so you have a high percentage of pre-fermented dough - giving a stronger flavour in the final bread. This loaf was amazing. The crumb is really light and spongy, a total delight to eat, it almost feels like you aren't eating anything, but you get this delicious yeasty flavour, and could quite easily demolish a whole loaf in one sitting. The crust was super light and crispy, and just crunched when cut, sounding similar to deep fried tempura batter. This was one of the nicest loaves I've made and it will definitely become a staple loaf in my repertoire.
Fresh out of the oven
Sourdough
Country Bread
Sourdough
Saturday Baking