Utata, Pegasus Awards and updated webcomics

The photo above was taken by Beckett Gladney for a wonderful photo essay she put together for Utata Speaks. From a recent post in her blog:

"It's only a small part of Utata's big annual project, which has gone live just today. Alanna's story is under Social Essays; there are a bunch of other essays under the various categories, and a lot of talented photographers submitted entries. Utata gets quite a lot of traffic to their site, so here's hoping that this little essay helps raise even a bit of awareness of the issues surrounding fostering and adopting children."

Beckett wrote the essay with the approval of both Luis and Alisa Garcia, and Alisa helped with the writing and editing. It's an informative and moving piece; I encourage you all to read it:

Adopting Alanna by Beckett Gladney

Speaking of Beckett, she and I are putting together a blog about our graphic novel project; I'll post more news about that soon.

The Pegasus nominee ballot is online, for those interested. For those unfamiliar with the event, the Pegasus Awards were founded to recognize and honor excellence in filking. You can find out more info at the Pegasus Awards site as well as Wing Words, their new newsletter.

Congrats to all the nominees!

Illustration and comic updates:

Speaking of music, I'm tickled to announced that I've been commissioned to do the cover art for Playing Rapunzel's upcoming CD!

Updated My Life In A Nutshell:



I created the above strip for a comparison of e-book readers for the iPhone that I did for Inkygirl earlier this week.

I also updated Will Write For Chocolate again (trying to make up for all the strips I missed earlier in the summer):





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Full Circle

Had fun at Reid's and Luisa's place yesterday; it was a gathering in honour of a visit from Andrew and Jenny. Andrew's been a friend since our university days, and he now works on the iPhone development team at Apple.

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of iPhone bonding and geektalk during the evening. Thanks to Craig for taking the photo below:



In the photo below, Luisa is playing (or rather, she's just lost :-) a two-player game of iPhone Vector Pong with Jeff.

I still remember the original game of Pong, and how impressed I was back then. It seemed only appropriate that I'd be playing again over 30 years later, but on an 3G iPhone instead of my family's Radio Shack TRS-80.



A survey question: What was the very first computer game YOU ever played?

I never had a group of close friends until I got to university. Back in grade and high school I was somewhat of a loner, with only a few good friendships like my friend Cathy.



At the University of Toronto, I was delighted to find people as geeknerdy as me. I ended up marrying one, and some of us still hang out. Luisa remains one of my closest friends.



Our circle has grown with friends of friends as well as the members of the next generation. Some of the kids even play D&D together, just like our old group used to.




I feel pretty lucky to have a group of friends like this, whose bond continues to hold us together through some of us having kids, marriages and divorces, life crises. We may not see each other as often but whenever we get together, the comfort and caring are still there.



Thanks so much to Luisa and Reid for giving some of us the opportunity to get together again!



Working today; I have a Writer's Digest article due tomorrow. It's always a challenge trying to research and write a year summary of the publishing industry when the year still has four months to go (article is published in December in a special annual issue), so I generally end up writing most of it just before the deadline and crossing my fingers that nothing HUGE happens in the industry before the end of the year. :-)

Hope you're all having a great weekend!



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Wedding (part 3): Friends and family

Wedding report continued...



Above: Erin waits in the women's restroom for the ceremony to begin.



The ceremony itself was simple and beautiful. I didn't have the greatest view of it from my place behind the scenes, but Allison posted some photos in her blog entry on the event. Erin and Rand each wrote their own wedding vows. There were also several readings, and Erin's father sang.

Rand's brother, Dan, was the officiant at the ceremony. Now I know how some people must feel when they meet Ruth; not only do Dan and Rand share some physical resemblance, but also many mannerisms.



I had the opportunity to chat with quite a few of both Rand's and Erin's relatives. Above: Erin's aunt, Erin's mother, and Rand's mother. Finally getting to meet Rand's mom was one of my weekend highlights. She came up to me at the rehearsal and introduced herself, then gave me a huge hug. "I've wanted to meet you for a very long time," she said with a big smile.



In addition to the joyous formal celebration of a couple's union, weddings also bring together groups of people who may not regularly cross paths. Erin's often talked about her college friends in her blog, and I looked forward to meeting some of them.

Like Jen of AllThingsJennifer.com, for example, who hosted a virtual wedding shower for Erin and Rand. Great to finally meet her in person; I loved her enthusiasm and wicked sense of humour, plus it was clear she cares about Erin a great deal.

Here's Erin with Jen at the rehearsal:



Jen seemed to know most of Erin's friends and family at the rehearsal dinner but said she didn't really know Rand's friends. So I dragged her over to meet Allison and Jodi and the others; in return, she introduced me to some of Erin's college pals. :-)



And yay, I finally got to meet Eden (above, on left)! Wish we had had more time to chat, argh.

And speaking of argh, I forgot to ask Rand to introduce me to his friend Celia so never did meet her even though she was at the wedding.



Also great to find people I hadn't seen in a long while, like Dave Lennon, Dave Wheeler, John McClester (sp?), Blogshy, Randy, Wolfram and Rai-Ann. Especially great to see my friends Alisa and Luis again! I met Alisa ages ago before she became part of Puzzlebox, and I met Luis when he was the drummer for Ookla The Mok. Luis has mellowed since those years; for a contrast in physical appearance, here's a photo I took of him when he was recording a drum part for our first CD at Allison's place. You can see him at the far right in the photo below, which I took at breakfast this past weekend:



At the wedding rehearsal, I had a chance to chat with Adam and Thomas again:



I'm glad I had the chance to talk with both of them earlier (at the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner) because both were pretty busy during the wedding reception, though I did manage to snag a dance with Thomas.

Thomas was the DJ/emcee during the reception:



While Adam did caricatures of guests throughout the evening (his wedding present to the newly married couple):



I introduced Jeff to Rand's friend, John Kalisz, and Jeff coveted John's iPhone. I'm excited that John is going to be moving to Toronto for a short-term assignment, and am secretly hoping that turns into longer term.



All three Urban Tapestry husbands attended the wedding, by the way:



From left to right: John (Allison's husband), James (Jodi's husband) and Jeff (my husband) at the rehearsal dinner party. We sang happy birthday to James on Saturday morning and gave him a Chapters/Indigo gift certificate at breakfast. I offered to (loudly) sing him happy birthday again at the wedding reception, but he said that my birthday present to him could be to NOT do that.

:-D



Speaking of loud singing...

Neither Allison's husband nor I had ever attended a karaoke before, but we decided to end our karaoke virginity at the wedding reception. During a dinner we shared at FilKONtario, when Rand and Erin mentioned they were planning to do karaoke at their reception, Walter suggested that John should do karaoke.

I mocked John, saying he was too chicken to try it. He said he'd do it if I would, but that -I- was too chicken. To make a long story short, we ended up deciding to do a song together in a mutual dare...our one and (since neither of us plan to ever do it again) -only- karaoke performance. We decided on Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe."

David Wheeler got a photo of me singing my part. :-) Jodi also participated in the karaoke, doing a smokin' version of "Fever."

Other personal highlights from the reception:



Seeing the expression on Dave Huth's face when he found out that his name had been randomly drawn to be a witness on the marriage certificate. Dave and Rand are longtime friends. Dave is one of the sweetest and most positive people I've ever met, and also one of the most creative. Do check out DaveHuth.com to get a glimpse of just some of his amazing projects.



Hearing Greg Klyma and Tom Bianchi perform a song that Greg had written in honour of the occasion. They passed out slips of paper with the chorus on it so we could all sing along: "Call it luck / call it love / call it anything good you can think of / call it quick / don't let it get away / call it Rand and Erin's Wedding Day." The lyrics were funny, sweet, and ultimately deeply moving.



The table settings were beautiful as well as unique; each table had a card with the name of a famous couple from the media (television, movies, comics). Jeff and I were at the Zoë and Wash table with Allison, John, Jodi, James, Samantha, Greg and Tom. Erin and Rand sat at their own table with a Homer and Marge table card.



Must go work, so will continue in my next post.





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Rand and Erin are married!

I'm delighted to announce that my friends Erin and Rand are now married. 'Twas a fine event, and I'm glad I brought tissues. VERY much enjoyed meeting both of their families, and some of their other friends (especially Jen of All Things Jennifer).

I took 1135 photos over the weekend, so it may take a bit of time to cull through and edit. I'll be gradually posting photos to a public set. My friend Walter took even more photos than I did; he'll probably be posting them in his Flickr site eventually as will Allison, I'm sure.



The photo session I mentioned in my last Blathering ended up being 12 minutes long because of rain and the main wedding shoot spot not working out; the wedding coordinator had given Rand and Erin bad advice; turned out it was on private commercial property, and a grumpy security guard chased us off.

The photo above was taken as we were fleeing the rain. :-)

I'll be posting more photos as well as some highlights/details very soon.

Congratulations to Erin and Rand, and thank you so much for inviting me to be part of your celebrations. :-)



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Pre-wedding excitement

I was tickled when my friends Erin and Rand used the photo above on their wedding invitation page, and flattered when they asked me to do a private photo shoot with them right after their wedding ceremony this weekend, before the reception.

I admit to getting all weepy on the phone when Rand asked me; he was very patient :-). And of course I was more than a bit terrified -- these are going to be WEDDING pics, after all, and I still consider myself hugely inexperienced when it comes to doing portrait shots. What if I screw up? What if both batteries suddenly die?

But then I thought well, in that case they'll have to content themselves with the other zillion photos that the many other photographers will be taking. :-)



Anyway, I'm excited. I love photographing Erin and Rand; they're both so great together. Erin's much more relaxed in front of the camera than Rand, but her presence makes HIM more relaxed (one of the many, many ways she is good for him :-). I'm taking more than one lens but will probably mostly stick with my favourite for portrait shots: my Sigma 30/f1.4.

Very much looking forward to seeing these two get married.

And now I'm getting weepy again (note to self: bring lots of kleenex), so I'd better move on to other topics...



Jeff and I enjoyed having Walter, Trish and their kids over for dinner and astronomy last night. The weather was perfect for night observing. We had dessert at Hollywood Gelato; my current favourite flavour is Roasted Marshmallow. *swoon*



Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Click image above to see a bigger version.

Have a great weekend, everyone!



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