There is a lot of people now who are part of flickr. So, nowadays, it is really hard to have many views without posting in a group and making real effort for it. Most of the time, your pictures just remain viewed only by the really few real contact you have or close friends.

Well, that it's no problem for me, i am posting picture for myself, to keep my favorite pictures at hand. Some works i am really proud of and i know, there are a lot photographers out there who are better than me, but, i know there are a lot more people not as good as i am.

What amazed me thought, is that i have a few pictures posted a long while ago that keep being seen. I don't know why and how, but, i am really proud of my second one that hits the 1000 views. It was took when the pier in front of my house was still standing. I always though that it gave something special to my daily landscape. Yes, it's beautiful without it, but, with this pier, each day had a different feeling. The pier, was part of my landscape for the past 30 years, well, in short, my entire life, i miss it, and i thought it was a great honor that this picture was seen my a lot of people.

Polar bear always been one of my favorite animals. And lucky me, we have one of the best zoo for artic animals. I am sure they are not so unhappy into this environment. They are 3 of them. A male, Inkusuk, that belongs to the Ontario Zoo, he has 5 years old. And 2 females, that belong to us. They are twin sisters and they were found in the north of Canada when they were babies.

This is the very beautiful Aisavak.


Gorgeous and Sweet Frima

Nastassja Kinski would be my actress of the month. I went back into the past and watched some of her best performances. I miss seeing her on the big screen but I can’t help but admire her to have made choices always considering her children.

Music is a part of my life. I lately got back to old love rediscovering, among other, the French singer- pianist- musician - composer- Veronique Sanson. I’ve always been impressed by the artist, so genuine.

I’ve been spending my free time watching movies. My latest discovering would be Stardust, a fairytale movie of the best kind. I really really enjoyed it. There is a little bit of everything into it and the cast was great.

Like they say: no news, good news! This proverb is almost 100% true for my part since the last time I wrote here.

We are having a winter with a lot of snow but, with rain to. The road are often icy but they weather is not especially cold so, it helps! We did have several -20 ° Celsius even – 30° but it wouldn’t be Quebec if we didn’t have any.

I’ve been quite busy at work. Even thought some days were tougher due to the fact that there are so much happening around me, most of them were really productive. I still don’t know how much my job will be affected but for now I keep my hope high.

Also, aside my usual Sunday morning playing bowling, I added a day and practice it for fun on Tuesday evening. I’ve been playing very good lately and I just thought I would like to be even better.

I’ve also been playing badminton for a couple of week with a bunch of friend. It was suppose to be twice a week, on Monday and Wednesday but, there is always a member of our group that can’t make it on Monday. I guess it is hard to join 4 people all together more than once a week. Am I good? Well, since the last time I played it seriously in College, I am awful. This is so different then playing tennis and I guess making the switch is not that easily done, but we are having fun.

Here's my first picture having at least 1000 views. Strangely, not even a few months ago, this picture didn't have more than 200 viewers.

I thought of you all day!

It is usually a really stressful day, and if I would have been alone, I would have more relaxed. But funniest thing that happened is that the bus which was taking us to their airport, didn't have enough full to drive us there. Just out of the driveway, bang, the bus stopped because the gas tank was empty. Really, this couldn’t be serious?

We left Miami around 8h30am and arrived home around 10.30pm. It wouldn't have been a long day if my mom wouldn’t have been such a hard traveller that day. I can understand a part of it, she caught a cold, and some digestion problems, but guys, this woman was a real pain in the ….

Well, it is over then, and fortunately, the 3 last there was really nice. Thought that we all agreed that I should have had my own room and, we should have pursuit on what was first the agreement: do our things on our own (well, if not, not be mad because the excursion isn’t what we expected) and at least, have diner together.

Well, I did enjoy waking up everyday with a different landscape in the front of me. I would do another cruise, not alone. There would have lot more fun for me and was tempted to add that I won't ever travel with my parents again but, since we all seems to have learn from that, we'll see… But then again, I am a lot more fun without them. Seems that i can't be myself when they are around.

If you have no idea of what paradise is, this is the first impression you got when you put your feet on the white hot sand of this private island belonging to the NCL cruise line.

I don't like beaches but this one was one of the most extraordinary I've seen in my entire life. Not only the water was clear for miles, but fish were swimming right next to you.

You don't have to worry about where to sit, what to eat, what to play, where to walk, and most important, where to pee, everything was taking care of and quite safe to do. And there were only the 2 boat there. The beach was quite full, but, they were all tourists and of course, the crew, who was working really hard to provide everything that everybody needed.

It was also easy to escape the crowded beach: I walked for hours discovering the surrounding. I saw fish, shells, animal, reptiles, birds, vegetation and walked in turquoise water: I was looking for a tower that I knew was there but It is just when we left that I saw it on the other side of the island. There was no time to go back there. Damn!

It was a very nice day. Of course, if I was with someone special to me, that would make it perfect, but it was very very nice… Anyway, not everybody would have stood by a cameramanic all day. Thought that I kinda forget to take picture there.. I was too much In a aw, I think. I wanted to see everything by my own eyes!

No excursion today. We are stocked in the boat for a whole day. It was sunny thought, but then again, lying on the Pool with loud music isn't really my thing. There were some important meeting I had to attend to but I stopped at a presentation of the movie done from Disney and Dali cooperation. And I won a beautiful raffle. I had to choose among 4 and it was a tough choose. The guy said it worth 6000 thousand but I think he talked about the original painting. We also went to have dinner at the Salsa restaurant, which was Mexican food. Spicy and hot, it was delicious.

Since the day before, mom wasn't happy of our choice of excursion, I choose one among those offered on board… A lot more expensive and I can tell you now, a lot less worth it.

The city tour was crappy, but the garden was pretty. It could have help to save the day, but, we passed there only 30 minutes. The shops could have help to, but then again, the atmosphere was wasted by something I don't need to mention again.

I was really disappointed to have not seen the Virgin Gorda's bath. Well, I don't regret it, but I would have like to see it. I heard it is a wonderful place to see, with caves and all.

I played some money to the casino this week. I didn't play much, but I wasn’t lucky until today. Won 105$ bidding on the #8 at the wheel. Well, I spent a part of it, and it pays my other evening, but it was fun.

Today, the deal was, we found an excursion out shore and we do it. So we did! The tour brought us to the top of the highest mountain while on our way there, stopping here and there discovering along the way the Megan's bay and some precious landscape. The Megan's bay is supposed to be the best place in St-Thomas, but we were left at the Coki beach which was quite nice to, to me, even better… Sister in law wanted to stay there for 4 hours. Lucky me, there were Coral World next to it so, I could spend sometime there taking picture of Turtle, Iguana, Birds, fish, trees and more. On our way back, we stopped at what St-Thomas is famous far: the shops. We didn't have much time, but I managed to gather a few souvenirs.

It was the day we stopped at Samana, in Dominican Republic. From there, since my mother and father weren't ready and weren't sure of what they wanted to do, my bother, sis-in-law and me left for an adventure. From the shore, we took an excursion from some guy called Sam that brought us into the center of Samana.

Everything weren't pretty. Some parts were really poor. We stopped at a Cigar factory, but I made my own cigar. Then, we stopped at a private beach for 40 minutes and it was really lovely. I took there my best pictures of beaches, I think. Then, we left to discover a small rainforest with a little waterfall, nothing as pretty as in the brochure, but it was a nice walk into the forest and quite impressive to see those young boys jump form the highest tree into that small water space.

Then, we returned to the place we arrived and walk along the shore. My bother and sis in law stopped in a bar and I went shopping for little souvenir. She eventually joined me and I shopped for her, in Spanish.

Some of my favorite pictures. More are displayed on my flickr page if you wish to see more.

In it was a day on board with no excursion shore. Brother and Sister-in-law were already into the pool area enjoying the wave pool and the SPA there. These, and, beer to. The sun was still hiding behind clouds but it made his way our around 11.00.

I had breakfast to the Garden Coffee, which is a 24 hours buffet, which was nice, and turned out Mom and Dad joined Bro and Sis-in-law next to the pool area and joined them into their beer day. I don't like beer and don't drink at those hours, so, I left them there I went to explore the boat, and quite frankly, I spent a bit of time on the back on the ship, where I could have some peace from the loud and awful music in the pool area. I past by there quite often thought, make sure they were all right.

I had some stressful time that day because my parents were affected by all those drink they took to try to follow bro and sis-in-law into their debauchery. I am sure I want to give details about it, but let just say that it was clear at then that having my own cabin will have solved a lot of problems.

We left early to take the plane from Quebec to Fort Lauderdale. Everything happened there normally: the waiting line, the security, the waiting to get into the plane. It was raining in Fort Lauderdale. A bus was waiting to get us to the Miami Pier where we got on board normally, I guess, since it is my first cruise. I was the only English speaker so, it was really stressful to make sure everything was all right.

A day traveling is never easy and once on board, it was almost time to leave and we had to do that emergency drill for security and safety matter. Normal, and it had to be done but really, a shower before would have been nice.

The Norwegian Dawn was big, probably the second biggest from the enormous boats on the port that day. "Princess of the sea" was bigger. Our room had a patio door so, I could finally take some good photos of the City. The weather was turning out nice when we left the port so, it made pretty pictures.

We had dinner to the dinning room "The Venetian" which offered 5 different menu (everyday, they got different menu) but since we were all tired, that evening ended not too late. Or did it?

We left Chicoutimi in the direction of Quebec, where a Hotel Room was waiting for us. The road to be there weren't too bad. The condition weren't the best, but brother was following me and we made it there safely.

The hotel room was too small for the 5 of us, so, we had to change it for 2 communicative rooms and my roommates were my brother and his girlfriend. Last time I sleep in the same room than my brother, I threw him over his bed because he was snoring.

While waiting to go have diner, they took some wine. I was the dedicated driver, so, no wine for me. However, I didn't see it too bad since I don't like too drink, especially on a long journey like that. What I didn't like too much was mom drinking a little too much and get a little crazy at the restaurant, having fun at almost everybody while waiting. She finally calmed down but it took a little too much time to my taste.

And as a matter of fact, we waited for almost an hour because Dad forget to make a reservation, so, just guess how long it was to ask ourselves when somebody will have enough of her comments and say something.

Not that the food weren't good, but I turned out sick. I won't give you any detail on that but that was a hell of a way to start vacation, and periods started to. And that not all, the cherry on the cake, as we would say here was that at the end, my brother didn't snore but his girlfriend did.

I hope you all had a good start of year. If not, well, these first few days don’t influence the rest of the year, and if they do, well, things should turn out positively, I am sure.

2007 was a good year for me, which it is why I felt a little nostalgic when it was time to turn the page on it.

Work offered me new challenges and I dive into it head first, not before a good look at what were my options before taking a decision and some uncertainties afterwards, but everything turned out well. I’ve been travelling for it and it lead me to France, and from there, I made a little stop in Madrid, Spain, to hug a dear friend to me.

Vacation was a bliss, but I admit, maybe a little too busy but, we got to see it all, didn’t we?

My personal time was dedicated to photography and movies, let aside the home chores and such. Those things had to be done to.

2008 started slowly, I took it easy even thought I am leaving soon for the Atlantic sea on a Cruise in the Caribbean coast. Should I feel guilty about it? I don’t know, and I don’t want to.

I took some resolutions this year, will they be followed or not? Especially that I had a lot of them last year and, I think i did good respecting them.

First of all, I need to stay motivated at work. I know from experience that when you give it all, a lack of energy might occurs and possibly complicates something that could have been so simple.

Second resolution and this one might be harder to do: take more time to review what I am writing. I tent to do too many typing mistake. Not that I don’t know how to write, in the contrary, but those mistakes make it looks like it. I guess if I take more time to think and read myself, I’ll eliminate most of them.

Another resolution is to stay cheer up, take what life is giving me without feeling guilty and trust myself a little better. Is life beautiful? Yes! Even thought I don’t have everything I want? Yes. Can I go without remorse on vacation? Yes! Am I a good photographer? Well, I am making progress and I love taking picture so, who cares?

I’ll be posted my favourites pictures so really soon, to immortalize my work someplace. I think I will also start ranting on the movie I am watching. But till then, here one of my favourite since winter begins:

I wish to all a great years 2008.

*hugs and kisses*

I have not been much around lately, would be too long to explain it all to you right now, but i am trying to stay update with you all even if i don't comment. Have a safe year 2008 full of health, love and everything you wish for...

Be safe...