ACFairbank Consulting

27 January 2010

Burning Man 2001

Filed under: Final Cut Pro, film — Tags: , , , — admin @ 4:36 pm
This past weekend I took another film course at Langara College, in Vancouver, BC – this time an Introduction to Final Cut Pro. Below is the result of my post production attempts. Hope you enjoy it.

31 December 2009

2010 Calendars for sale with original travel photography from 2009

calendar2010

2010 Calendar with images from French Polynesia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Quebec.

Design and photography by Angela Fairbank.

Twelve calendar months inclusive of Canadian holidays with full colour photos on each page. All images taken in 2009.

I also take this opportunity to wish all my blog readers a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2010.

23 December 2009

Pantanal Jaguar Expeditions Website is up

caracara

Join Pantanal Jaguar Expeditions on an unforgettable adventure. Your Tour Guide, Elionil, with 12 years of experience leading tours in this region, will provide you with a memorable safari in the heart of the Brazilian Pantanal.

In order to serve our customers best, we offer two main types of package tours. Our first, Ecological Tours, includes the observation of nature (flora and fauna) in the special ecosystem of the Pantanal. You will stay in comfortable lodges with private rooms and ensuite bathrooms and be provided with delicious local cuisine at breakfast, lunch and dinner. With a plethora of activities at your doorstep, you can choose from ecological walks, canoe and motorboat rides along smooth rivers, horseback riding, piranha fishing, jungle hikes and both sunrise and sunset safaris.

Our second package, is our Jaguar Safari. Here you will stay in higher-end lodges for four to five days and we will take to you to the best places in the Pantanal to see and photograph the elusive jaguar.

For avid fishers, we also offer Fishing Trips in the Cuiabá River.

To learn more, peruse our website www.pantanaljaguarexpeditions.com where we have plenty of information (including bird lists and multilingual glossaries) as well as photos to tempt you. Booking information can be found on our Contact page.

3 December 2009

Vicwood Mineral Board

Filed under: Vicwood Group, wood products — Tags: , , , — admin @ 4:45 pm

mineral board

Vicwood Mineral Board is a panel composed of agricultural by-products and mineral compounds.

Vicwood Mineral Board is not only decorative and functional but also cost efficient. It is an environmentally friendly and health-conscious product because it is free of toxic substances such as benzine, asbestos, formaldehyde, etc.

In one product, it provides:

- High dimensional stability
- Structural strength
- Flame resistance
- Impact resistance
- Termite resistance
- Moisture resistance
- Acid and alkaline resistance
- Mold and mildew resistance

With a density close to 1, Vicwood Mineral Board compares favourably to normal plywood, MDF and particle board in terms of strength, nail-holding ability and machining.

Vicwood Mineral Board is available in the following dimensions:

- Thickness – 3 / 3.6 / 5.2 / 6.5 mm
- Width – 630 / 1250 mm
- Length – 2200 / 2500 mm
- Custom sizes are also negotiable

Vicwood provides the following decorative surface options:

- Melamine laminate
- Vicwood engineered veneer.

For more information on this and other Vicwood products see our website

2 December 2009

Vicwood Eco Energy Doors with Mineral Wood Door Skin

Filed under: Vicwood Group, doors, wood products — Tags: , , — admin @ 5:24 pm

Vicwood door

With a core of Vicwood Eco Energy Panel, consisting of a sandwich-structure of XPS between Vicwood Mineral Board face and back, Vicwood Doors are not only light weight but also flame-retardant, impact-resistant and provide acoustic, moisture and thermal insulation all at the same time.

Vicwood Eco Energy Doors with Mineral Wood Door Skin include lock boards and hinge boards. The edges are sealed with solid wood.

We offer the following dimensions, but custom-made sizes are also negotiable:
Thickness – 35 / 38 / 40 / 45 mm
Width – 700 / 800 / 900 / 1000 mm
Length – 2100 / 2200 / 2440 mm

Vicwood Eco Energy Doors with Mineral Wood Door Skin can be purchased as:

  • door cores without decorative faces
  • semi-finished doors with decorative faces

Choose from the following options for decorative faces:

  • Vicwood Engineered Veneer or Natural Veneer, which is available in a wide variety of designs and can be ordered as unfinished or pre-finished with UV or PU coating.
  • Melamine
  • CPL
  • Direct painting

Vicwood can provide you with veneer and lumber in matching grain and colours for door jambs, lintels and frames.

If you prefer, you can order Vicwood Eco Energy Doors with plywood face and back instead.

For more information on this product or to link to other products manufactured by Vicwood go to our website page.

27 November 2009

Cuiabá and The Pantanal, Mato Grosso, Brazil

cuiaba

Getting out of Bogota international airport is a nightmare. You go to the usual line up to check in to your flight, but if you’ve been in Colombia for less than 30 days, you are told you can leave your suitcases with them but you have to go clear across the airport to get your passport stamped so that you can be exempt from paying part (half?) of the airport tax, which you can pay in USD or local currency (which comes to thousands of pesos). So you get that done and you extract the exact money from your money belt and line up at your airline desk again. You are then told that, in addition to the airport tax they mentioned before, you also have to pay a second tax. So you pull more money out of your money belt rather grudgingly. You will get two receipts, one for the first tax, and one for the second. Why can’t they just tell you the full amount you will have to pay when you reach the desk in the first place? I was in a foul mood by then so by the time I got to the desk where I got my ticket and handed over my bags, I think I put fear in the airline staff and was not in fact asked to pay the luggage overweight penalty. In the coffee shop, as I was having a cappuccino after customs and security and before walking to my gate, I overheard an American comment on all this constant harassment for money and checking of bags to his Colombian girlfriend and she told him, yes this is the land of “Qué más?”, literally “What more?” or “What next?” implying that the corruption of this country is even worse than the others I had been through – perhaps you’ve already read about my experiences in Mexico City.

In any case, my next flight was to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and this being about my fourth visit there, I was well familiar with less expensive transportation options to my hotel. For a great deal of the flight, we were flying over the Amazon River with its wide, chocolate brown meanderings, surrounded by dense, dark green forests. I could not understand the concerns for disappearing trees in this region, they all looked present and correct to me and working in the wood business this is a question I am often asked (about the growing scarcity of Brazilian species). Unfortunately, as there was a slight haze (or perhaps the airline window was too dirty) none of the photos I took, look the same way as I saw it.

I had six business contacts to visit within two full days in Buenos Aires, but as I have photographed here plenty before and have several web pages dedicated to this area of the world already, there was no need for me to plan another tour. As it was, I did not even have to chance for a walk round the streets of my hotel. My flight the next day was at 5:45a.m. so that meant I had to get up at 2:00a.m. to take a taxi to the airport as the airport bus does not travel there at that hour.

Tired and bleary eyed, I flew to São Paulo and waited for my connecting flight to Cuiabá in Mato Grosso, one of the main timber areas of Brazil. There is no properly protected area in this airport, in the most populated city in South America, to take a safe rest (I had been hit on for money in this airport during a previous visit), so I ended up walking around to keep awake and moving, trying to find a money changer at a decent rate (impossible – money changers, yes, but decent rates, no) and putting up with the inevitable pungent odour of pão de queijo. This curiously enough reminded me of the, contrarily, deliciously sweet pan de queso (cheese buns) that I’d had in Merida and loved – the ones in Brazil are savoury and the sweat-like smell permeates the entire airport!

Having finally left São Paulo, although I was dozing in and out of consciousness on the plane, I woke up sufficiently to witness our landing in Campo Grande among lush green fields full of crops and livestock, and then took off again to land finally in Cuiabá, gateway to The Pantanal, around 5:00p.m. However, there was a time change somewhere between São Paulo and Cuiabá, which meant that we were now in the same time zone as Santiago de Chile though we were still in Brazil.

My business contact came to my hotel in the evening for a meeting and kept me up until midnight (after I had been up since 2:00a.m. that day!) Incidentally, it was Hallowe’en night and as Brazil is famous for its flamboyant Carnaval, I was expecting to see elaborate costumes, dancing, and hear a cacophony of noise, but there was nothing. A young Australian tourist I compared notes with a couple of days later as I was leaving Chile for Dallas and he was leaving Chile for Sydney, told me that he had been in Quito, Ecuador on 31 October, and the entire city had put on a splendid party. Absolutely all ages were in costume and dancing and drinking went on into the wee hours. He also told me that their Presidente was visiting Russia at the time and had banned such celebrations in previous years so I guess it was a question of “While the cat’s away…”

The next two days (Sunday and Monday) were family holidays in Brazil to celebrate All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and as it was my first time in The Pantanal, I again asked at the reception desk after breakfast what tours they could organise for me. Once again I was told it was the off season and it was better to be more than one person, but there was nothing I could do about that, so I had two different receptionists working on the case for me. Once again I lucked out, for instead of getting the recommended tour agency linked to the hotel I was found a perfectly respectable and educated tour guide who actually spoke English! I was sufficiently impressed as I listened to the various phone calls that were made by the receptionist on Sunday morning as one person referred another and that one another until they found someone who was free and willing to take me on a tour around his city (mirroring my experience in Guayaquil). My Portuguese is not my strongest language, but I can get by (I had gotten by talking a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese with my business contact for several hours the evening before) and I had offered the information to the receptionists that I also spoke French and Spanish fluently if they couldn’t find an English speaker – they seemed to think finding a tour guide with English was necessary, though I never requested it specifically.

I then spoke to Elionil, the guide whom they had found to take me on a tour of the city, on the phone myself to see how his English was, to negotiate a price and to arrange a time to meet. When we finally met around 1:00p.m., I was delighted by his smiling face and friendly personality and (almost immediately) booked him to guide me into The Pantanal the next day. The receptionist had actually put me in contact with another guide, so that I could save a little money and travel with two other people, but that guide spoke only Portuguese, and, as it happened, he had to cancel the tour, because the other two people never showed up! Could the gods be smiling on me again?

For the continuation of my adventures in The Pantanal, go to http://www.acfairbankconsulting.ca/cuiabapantanal.htm.

26 November 2009

Pasto, Nariño, Colombia (and its neighbouring areas)

pasto

After Monterrey, Mexico, I flew to Colombia, arriving in Bogota at night, and experienced the first of my hair-raising taxi rides in this country. The hotel I stayed at this time, as this was my third visit to Bogota within the past 16 months, was three months young and its wood work – wall panels, room furniture, etc. – was all made by Vicwood’s Bogota importer, using our engineered Walnut veneer. It was so easily recognisable and made me glad that I had chosen to stay here.

However, my euphoria was dashed the next morning when the hotel reception desk failed to make the requested wake-up call and, as I had another early flight, this put me in a black mood for most of the day, never mind that I was actually up an hour earlier than called for and working on my computer as usual. The check-out, despite being labelled “Express,” was moreover inordinately slow, I found, and the taxi driver – who was in fact a good driver and I complimented him on the fact – delivered me to the international terminal instead of the national terminal so we had to do another round-about in the airport. Nonetheless, I still managed to arrive at the departure gate in plenty of time and was not charged for any overweight luggage this flight.

I wished I had had my camera beside me on the plane but the seats were small and I had a large businessman sitting beside me so I missed my chance, but the arrival by air into Pasto airport, with craggy hills, cliff faces and waterfalls rushing down their sides, must easily be one of the best experiences. And the clarity of the air made everything appear at its best. Next time, I promised myself, next time.

I was not prepared for the fact that the town of Pasto, at 2500 metres altitude, the capital of Nariño department and near the border with Ecuador, is about 45 minutes to an hour away from the airport (35 kilometres) and the taxi driver took full advantage of the winding roads by driving fast and letting his tires squeal lustily around the corners. I held on for dear life, but didn’t dare to complain. It was more important to me that he had kicked out a businessman who had crept into the front seat of my taxi with his bag while the driver was putting my suitcases into his car boot and, more importantly, he knew where my hotel was and delivered me safely.

The small hotel itself was perhaps less opulent than those I had been staying in over the previous 25 nights, but it had been recommended by my Pasto business contact, was clean and fairly quiet and the staff was kindness itself. Run by a Frenchman, all the hotel staff were young Colombian men who were eager to fetch coffee (which they called a tinto which means “red wine” in other Spanish-speaking countries so I was somewhat surprised to be offered this at 11:00am but accepted gladly), to find me an adaptor for my computer plug and to arrange a tour for me the next day.

The rest of the story can be found at http://www.acfairbankconsulting.ca/pasto.htm.

25 November 2009

Matthew Presidente – “This City’s Colours”

Filed under: 2010 Winter Olympics, Music, Vancouver — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:40 pm
To give you a break from reading stories of my recent travel adventures, I thought I’d post a student video I made last July since I finally learned this weekend how to upload to YouTube.

Here it is. To enjoy it fully you will need to turn on your speakers!

Matthew Presidente “This City’s Colours.” Interview with Matthew Presidente and his music. Langara College student film. Filmed in July 2009.

Director: Angela Fairbank; Assistant Director: Stephen Emery; Director of Photography: Stephen Emery; Cameras: Angela Fairbank, Stephen Emery, Lee, Wendy Havers; Sound: Stephen Emery; Lighting: Angela Fairbank, Lee; Musicians: Matthew Presidente, Hazen Rice; Interviewer: Wendy Havers; Post-production: Angela Fairbank. A Langara College Student Production. All rights reserved, July 2009.

23 November 2009

Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico

Filed under: Mexico, Monterrey, Travel, photography — Tags: , , , , , , — admin @ 3:06 pm

monterrey

From Merida in Southern Mexico, I flew to Monterrey, capital of Nuevo León in the North East of Mexico and the third largest city in this country. First of all, I found out that I had chosen the wrong hotel. I always try to stay in the same group of hotels whenever possible (to accumulate points toward free nights) and book ahead on the internet. My top priorities, if there is a choice of hotels within this group and if prices are similar, are 1) free shuttle from the airport, 2) free wi-fi internet in the room and 3) close to the business contacts I proposed to visit. The hotel I had chosen and booked in Monterrey claimed on its website to be closest to the airport and to have a free shuttle, but when I arrived I found this was not only untrue but it was also the farthest one of its group from the airport and was in fact on the complete opposite side of the city from the airport. You can imagine my disappointment. Nonetheless, in case I had made a mistake about noting my booking, I waited patiently for the free shuttle of the airport hotel of the same chain. In fact a shuttle from another hotel chain offered to take me to my chain’s airport hotel and that hotel was in fact happy to put me up but did tell me I would probably have to pay twice as the time limit to cancel the booked hotel had expired. I opted instead to keep my original hotel and paid the taxi fare out there (luckily now reduced to about 2/3rds the price I would have had to pay, had I taken a taxi directly from the airport).

The next day, after visiting my business contact in the centre of town, beautifully surrounded by mountains on all sides, I booked the same, kind, taxi driver at a reasonable taxi price, to take me to the airport, again for a reasonable price, two days hence. I then set about finding out what tours were available from my hotel reception desk. Well, I was told, this was the off-season so there were no tours available for a single traveler on her own. So what other options were there for me, I asked. They suggested I take the metro into the city and explore some man-made steel park, but this sounded like a drag so I asked what else was available. Well, there was a glass museum within walking distance…So I asked, what is there I can see downtown? Finally they pulled out a map of a walking tour in downtown Monterrey and again they explained I could take the metro. This sounded more my thing and to my delight the next day I found that the metro was dirt cheap (about 36 cents a ride anywhere on the system). I therefore arrived downtown at the Macroplaza and started walking along the route indicated on the map. The first stop was The Fountain of Life with Neptune and eight other figures and the walk then continued on through a grassed area called The Sunken Park containing the statues “Children in their early years” by Ponzanelli and “Maternity” by Federico Cantú among others. At the end of this park nearing the Heroes Esplanade in front of the State Government Palace (which was free to visit but you had to pick up a ticket) was a bronze horse by Colombian Fernando Botero weighing 3306 pounds or 1.5 tons and with a height of 11 feet or 3.4 metres. Then I stopped to take photos of three statues honouring Lorenzo Garza, a Monterrey native bullfighter (photos 1 to 9).

For the rest of the story go to http://www.acfairbankconsulting.ca/monterrey.htm.

19 November 2009

Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

merida

After Costa Rica, I travelled to Panama and due to a late arrival at night and an early morning departure I had only one full day in Panama City and the morning was devoted to visiting a business contact. The afternoon came on to heavy rain so I was glad I had not made any plans to tour. However, my hotel overlooked the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal, so what a great way to watch the comings and goings of the canal whilst staying both warm and dry, and working on the computer at the same time!

After Panama, I went on to Mexico City for another Fair (the CIHAC, reportedly the largest in Mexico and Central America). It was quite amazing to see all booths filled, when, due to the economic downturn, major trade shows in my line of work in the United States of America this year were barely half full. I had no time to tour around, or in the outskirts of, Mexico City either. I might have been able to fit in a tour on the Sunday at a pinch but I had a flight in the evening and time was tight, moreover, the prices I was quoted seemed rather steep, so I contented myself by filing reports on the trade show I had attended and then arguing about my laundry bill with the desk clerk. I was billed US$5.00 a piece to wash T-shirts (T-shirt washing cost more than to wash my blouses!!!) How utterly ridiculous when I could have bought a new T-shirt for that much. All I got were blank stares from the reception desk and no offer at all to reduce my bill to a more reasonable price. Had they not heard of the phrase “the customer is always right?” I did not at that time mention the ten small, dead flies I had found and removed painstakingly from my drink at their restaurant the evening before. Well nine of them were dead, one moved after I had removed it and placed it on my napkin so I squished it, but apparently not with enough force because it tried crawling away again. Third time lucky (for me). I had pointed out the napkin spotted with dead flies and red wine drips to the waiter at the time, but all he said was “No me digas!” equivalent to “You’re kidding!” and again no offer to replace it. Something was rotten in this city I decided. Moreover, every time I had to fly through Mexico City’s airport during the next seven days I was charged for overweight luggage. This did not happen when I flew directly from and to other cities in Mexico!

It was a pleasure to land in Guadalajara, my next stop. Happily, the Guadalajaran people I met in the business of looking after visitors were the direct opposite of those in Mexico City. Friendly, courteous, happy to make me happy. They had indeed heard of customer service, unlike their capital city counterparts. Furthermore, taxis, the hotel and restaurants were all very fair pricewise. Again I had a short time here so I was not even able to fit in a walk around the historic city where my hotel was located after visiting my business contact in the morning as I had more reports to write up and e-mail off. Instead, I treated myself to a lovely, leisurely dinner on a patio overlooking a main street and watched the tourists being ferried around in horse and buggy.

However, it was in Merida down south that I had a day off to do some sightseeing again. My business contact took me to a lobster lunch on my first full day at the port of Progreso. It’s certainly worth a visit; it reportedly has the longest pier in the world and cruise ships stop here. Then on my day off, after doing my e-mails, I took off on foot for a 45-minute walk to the downtown core in the humid climate, first visiting the Monument to the Flag carved in pink limestone by Rómulo Rozo.

For more of this story visit http://www.acfairbankconsulting.ca/merida.htm.

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress