More Sunken Ships and a Wedding Party

It's been an interesting and annoying little while lately. :/ I had been not feeling so great the past little while, feeling sick on and off and it was driving me insane. But I tried to join Steve when I could when he wanted to go out to film and go swimming, but I found that to be hard at times. Steve wanted to check out another sunken ship, Weehawk, after finishing with the Contesgona ship. He went there, and jumped in the water after driving there. The area was pretty busy with kids swimming and jumping in the water and just having fun, so I went walking to Steve to see where the Weehawk was, and when we found it - it wasn't very far from the area where the kids were, Steve wanted to go explore it. I was already feeling so tired from being outside in the sun a lot in the past little while so I decided to just sit back and watch him swim and explore. We were on a high ground so Steve had to climb down the wall to get in the water and swim to the Weehawk.

He swam, said that the current was really strong in the area, and had a tough time swimming it out. He filmed some, but found that it wasn't as interesting as he thought it would be, so he was like, oh, nah. He only filmed it for 10 minutes and then came back to where I was and climbed out of the water up the wall.

He said it was dull, but wanted to try again where the current wasn't as strong. Of course. His first video is here:

Freediving The Weehawk from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

So he went out and tried it again and said he found more parts of the ferry and was more interesting so he was filming more and more. *smile* We just went to the area yesterday and he found that it was more interesting and he had found an area where I could sit in the folding chair and just put my feet in the water. It was nice, though very, very hot under the sun. He got to swim a lot and explore a lot more so he enjoyed it this time. We had a bit of a picnic there while he finished up with his swimming. Here's his second video on the Weehawk.

Freediving The Weehawk v.2 from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

The past little while has been pretty crazy for me healthwise, I was feeling really off lately, and not feeling so great. My kidney was driving me crazy, in a lot of pain and I was feeling very uncomfortable and going to the bathroom was hurting a bit, so I was afraid I had an infection, and since I had it for a while, after going swimming all the time into rivers and lakes I was afraid maybe I had something odd. One day I found that I had a yeast infection, which I was surprised at, so I got some treatments to get rid of it, and was hoping it would get rid of it, but I was still in a lot of pain, so the next day Steve decided to take me to the Brockville General Hospital (since I didn't really have a doctor yet, I'm in the midst of transferring doctors at the moment which sucks! *laughs*) so I went there, and we spent most of the time waiting. I think we went there around 3:30-4 in the afternoon and waited, and waited, then was told I had an ear infection while they checked me over, then waited, then we got in a room, then waited, then was taken for an x-ray, as I had told them I do get kidney stones sometimes, then waited, then had a bunch of doctors come in and out. They said I probably had an urine infection as I had bacteria in my pee. So whatever then. By that time I had been in the hospital for 7 hours waiting, I was okay with a prescription for antibiotics and went home at around 11pm in the night. I was really, really tired and very hungry as we didn't get supper in the hospital. It really did suck. We got back home and ate, and then the next day picked up the prescription for the two infections.

I started taking the pills, and then realized that once the pills were done, I still had pains in my kidney and midway through the antibiotics, I found that I did have kidney stones as the pains were moving along my kidney to my bladder. *sigh* The stones never seem to show up on any of my xrays though. It was a pain in the friggin' ass. But at least they are moving through so the kidney is feeling less painful now. Oh well. But at least my ear infection was cleared up so that helped a bit.

I tried to avoid swimming for a little bit until my yeast infection was gone, but after the treatment was done I realized I still had it, so I was all, hey, what's wrong with me? So I decided to make an appointment with my new doctor and hope she would give me some help for my yeast infection, I wasn't even sure if she had my records yet, so I met her for the first time, and she was surprisingly young. I think she was probably younger than I was! *laughs* It was a little weird, but she was a nice woman so oh well. I got checked over and I did still have it, so I got some medicine for my infection so hopefully it'll be better soon. Not fun being sick in the summer, that's for sure. Ugh.

At one point in July I was thinking I needed to renew my passport before I couldn't anymore. My passport had expired in the beginning of the year, and I wanted to renew it before I had to get it all over again. You had to renew it within a year after it expires so that's what I wanted to do. Oh well. So I had to get my pictures done, and Steve and I decided to go to Walmart to get them done. When we got there we had found out that they had a special going on, when you get a passport photo done, you also can get a photo session free along with one picture for free. So Steve and I went ahead and had pictures taken of us. I really wasn't expecting it so it was a little weird for me, but it was a little funny having it done though. *smile* We got a collection of 7 photos done, five of both of us and one of each one of us. It felt a bit cheesy to have pictures taken of us, but we got some good photos though. We ended up with a huge photo of us both, a 10x14 photo, so that was crazy. *laughs*

Anyway, I had been invited to my brother and Kelly's wedding party that was coming up in the end of July, so I was going there. It was on the 28th of July, and it was interesting. It was a wedding party, in Presqu'ile Provincial Park. We all got to hang out in the sun, heat and water, and just enjoy ourselves. Because Steve had been so tired and always busy at work and stuff like that, we decided to carpool with my mom and John to save on money, especially for parking as we had found out that it would cost 14 bucks per car for parking, so yikes! Steve didn't like that part at all. Wow. So we agreed with mom and John that we'd carpool with them. It was interesting, because Jase had asked me like a few days before the weekend to take Christine with us, and I was like, but we're carpooling with mom and John? So I wasn't sure so I asked my mom and she knew that the car would be full of stuff that we would bring to the park, so she said no, wouldn't be any room. *laughs* So I had to let Jase know and Christine know. So that she could join someone else who lived in Ottawa to the party.

The party itself was interesting, pretty fun. When we first got there, we said hey to everybody, and then Steve and I went to check out the lake but the first thing we laid eyes on when we went to the beach was a dead carp on the shore of the water. It was gross, but I was used to them, as I see dead fishes every time I go swimming in a lake or river. They are just gross though. Oh well, so Steve and I went swimming and it was different. Later when one of Kelly and Jase's friends went swimming there, Karen, actually picked up the dead fish with a stick and threw it out of sight. That was a little gross for me but it was better anyway. The water was all rocks but very smooth and big rocks so it was different. *laughs* The water was really warm so it was nice swimming in there.

We had arrived early in the day, so we were there before most of the people and just said hi to Jase and Kelly and Kelly's family. We swam, had some food, talked and once people started arriving, I began meeting different people, a lot of them I grew up with at school so I was catching up with them, such as old friends like Brenda and Ken, and their son Brandon, along with Christine, who arrived a little later. It was nice seeing them again and just talking.

We had a potluck dinner and just talked and relaxed and ate. After dinner Jase and Kelly started opening presents and just talking, and thanking everybody. Mom, John, Steve and I left soon after the gift opening. It was an interesting day, long, but an interesting day. My mom ended up really liking the park and wants to go there again herself and just enjoying the beach and the water. There were less people there than the beach in Sandbanks that she often goes to, so she liked that part. Heh.

I've also been looking up on different kinds of lenses I could get for my camera, the Canon 7D, and my EFS 18-135mm lens. I wanted to get either a wide-angle lens or a macro lens. I especially wanted a macro, because my lens itself doesn't get that close to things I want to photograph, I wanted to get a macro so to zoom in things even more. And I've been looking in stores and the price range for lenses for me would be between $200 to $1500. So they were pretty pricey. :/ There's a macro, wide-angle, and telephoto lens that I would love to get, but they are all really expensive. I don't mind getting them eventually, but still too expensive right now for me to get. But the funny thing is I was looking up other methods to get things zoomed in and stuff like that, and there were talk about turning your lens in backwards, and stuff like that. I thought that was a little...crazy. *smile* Then Steve found this one site online, for Opteka lenses. The lenses were between 20-100 bucks, that's it. I was confused. You just use your current lens and put the lens over it. I thought that was really different, but looked at samples online with people who uses those lenses, and they are quite nice, that's for sure. Quite nice. So I decided to try a macro - it was only 30 bucks with shipping and handling - it may have some duty on it, but I'll find out when it arrives, may be like 5 bucks more. But that's...cheap! *laughs* Hopefully it turns out to be just as good as it's shown to be. If I end up not liking it, then okay, it's only 35 bucks. If I end up liking it, I may get the other lens they have, the wide-angle lens and the telephoto lens. That's pretty cool. Something to try for now, that's for sure. I don't know when it'll get here, but when I do get it it'll be something to experiment with. It'll be a lot of fun. Heh.

The Start of Summer

Wow, it’s been so busy it’s been unbelievable! Lots of going out to take photos, and I’ve been really slow in uploading them, but I have some up. I’ve been going out taking pictures, exploring different places, and playing around with different photographic methods.

I even went to an abandoned prison in the end of May. Steve had been seeing it a lot and kept saying he wanted to go and explore, and the thought actually scared me. It’s an abandoned prison...too creepy! :/ We went, and it was pretty scary. I didn’t know what to expect, so it was really nerve-wracking, that’s for sure. We walked through a lot of the property and just took pictures, though there were a lot of dead animals in the interior, which surprised me. That was the scariest part for me actually. We went through the cafeteria, the barracks, the infirmary, a lot of different cells, prison rooms, and different things like that. It was pretty disgusting as it was really falling apart, but at the same time, pretty cool. You could see all those dark moldy marks from where the inmates rested their heads on and of course there were mold growing in those areas, showing where the inmates slept or leaned against on the walls next to the beds.

It’s funny because I was going around some buildings, and some of them had plagues on them, and a lot of them said 1985. It was surprisingly new, and it was really falling apart. Ew, is all I can say. I have actually not been to a prison inside, so I was kind of curious (and at the same time, not really) what it was all like. The only time I have seen the inside of a prison cell was when I was in elementary school and getting shown what a prison was all like, but it was mostly just seeing a room, a cell for prisoners and the such like, and that was a really long time ago. It was just interesting, but jeez, I really didn’t need to be surprised by the dead animals lying on the ground in the prison. Yuck! Oh well. It was interesting but pretty appalling for me. I have some photos of it on my photos page. And Steve has a video on it:

Prison from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

I’ve also gone to Kingston occasionally – I had to go and pick up my summer shorts at one point as it was getting hotter and hotter by the time May came around, so I went to my mom’s to pick them up and was surprised by Jase and Kelly with their baby Zaiden; so it was a good visit just catching up with all of them and just talking about stuff. Zaiden keeps growing every time I see him, so it’s funny.

Steve then dragged me out to go do HDR photography in the countryside outside of Brockville another time, and it was a bit weird trying to figure out how to work the whole thing, but it was actually pretty cool. I got some pretty god pictures and I do love the colour that turned up by doing the HDR settings, really vivid. Heh. We were mostly in the countryside and out in the farms and the fields just taking pictures, and one exciting part about it all? I got bit by a tick. Ouch! I didn’t even feel it come up my leg and bite me...I just noticed there was a bug stuck on my thigh when I went to the bathroom after I got home, and tried to flick it off, and it wouldn’t go. I was like, wow, it’s really stuck in my skin? I didn’t know what it was to start with, so I just had to actually grip the bug (that was an eww factor for me! *laughs*) really pull it out of my thigh and the whole idea that it was right into my leg kind of freaked me out that I threw it across the bathroom. When I got out I told Steve about it, and he was like, oh, it isn’t a tick, is it? I had no idea, so he had to look for the bug and check it, and said it was a tick, and told me I had to bring it in the doctor’s and have it checked to make sure it didn’t have Lyme Disease. I was confused, it’s a bug, and now I have to get it checked? Grr. It wasn’t much fun, and it sure hurt to peel it out, it really bit down hard on my leg. Ouch...but once it was out, my leg got better. Steve then put the tick in a plastic baggy and put it in the fridge, to keep until we had to go to the health clinic to get it checked. We finally brought it in and I got a letter a few weeks ago which told me it was just a dog tick and it was all good. Thank god...but it was just gross. I do not want to be bitten by a tick again...ouch! The funny thing is I grew up in the country most of my life and never got bit by a tick...though my dad did twice, and my mom was telling me about how gross it was, as she had to help him take the ticks off his skin. Heh...it really is gross anyway. *laughs* You can see Steve’s video here:

Country from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

You can see me in one shot in the video, and it's likely it's where the tick got in my leg, as I was standing in very long grass that reached up to my hip, shooting pictures.

As the heat got hotter and hotter, Steve finally found it was hot enough for him in June (it was way too hot for me starting in the beginning of May! Haha...) so he took me to his favourite swimming spot in the St. Lawrence River in the beginning of June. I have gone there a few times but not to swim yet, so it was interesting. I went there for one of Steve’s videos, Wind. The water was not too bad at all, cool but still pretty nice for so early in the summer. We have been swimming there a lot this summer. And he finally was willing to let me get one of my A/C’s from my mom’s garage to use in the apartment, as he generally doesn’t like air conditioners, as it’s too cold for him normally. Sheesh...but he finally was willing to let me bring one in and pay for it myself...it’s been so helpful here, that’s for sure. It’s been a really hot summer this year. Yikes.

In the end of June, one weekend, Steve and I went to Charleston Lake for camping, I had booked it to hang out with Kat and her family, but unfortunately the day before they were to leave for camping Kat was feeling really sick and was unable to make it, and went to the hospital to see what was wrong – and they told her that she had to do surgery for her gall bladder, as it had a stone blockage. I hate stones, I know what they feel like, as I get kidney stones occasionally, but not a blockage, thank God...so I just went there with Steve and camped. It was just okay, it was really hot though, but we were right next to the lake so that helped, we went swimming a bit, though the beach was public and shared with everybody, and I wasn’t a big fan of that part. Heh...funny. We did a lot of exploring on some of their hiking trails there. The first night was fine there, but the next night was a Friday night, and my God, how noisy was it? Steve was unable to sleep. Wow. I do remember that there was a lot of people arriving on Friday, lots of people talking, and all that. Our campsite was too close to everybody’s so Steve could hear everything and all that. There was one campsite across from ours and Steve was hearing them having sex while we were having supper over the fire, and he was uncomfortable with that along with me, and then later that night when we were sleeping, Steve said that he could hear someone arrive on the campsite next to us and setting up camp. What? It was like 11pm at night so they had air compressors running for a long time and it was loud. He was so mad, that we just decided to go home a day early, as it was way too noisy there. *laughs* He hated it majorly. When we got home, he actually crashed. Funny. It was pretty bad there, that’s for sure. Wow. He still likes the Sharbot Lake campsite better, as it’s much more private and quiet. Here’s the video for Charleston Lake:

Charleston Lake from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

It’s funny when we got home, and I was cleaning up the bedroom. I was vacuuming in the bedroom and the vacuum somehow hooked on my bookshelf and I was trying to move the vacuum so it wasn't stuck anymore, and then bam! My bookshelf actually collapsed and broke. Wow. *laughs* Yes, there were a lot of books in that shelf, but still! Haha...I had to take all the books out, take apart the shelf, and go to Walmart to find another set of bookshelves to use, and then went through all my books to get rid of books I won’t read anymore and just sorted through it all and tossed a lot. The new bookshelf looks a lot better now, that’s for sure, and there’s a lot less books in there now. *laughs* I really don’t need a bookshelf to just collapse on me again!!

It’s funny, once Steve’s holiday started, in the beginning of July, we went to my mom’s for Canada Day’s dinner and saw Jase and Kelly again along with Zaiden, so that was good. All Steve wanted to do was buy a bunch of new stuff, so he got himself a new water videocamera, where he could film underwater with, and a couple of new Blackberry Playbooks just to play with. I picked up some swim goggles and snorkel so I could use it for swimming, as Steve already had himself a set, so I was becoming pretty poor already with all the purchases. *laughs*

We also tried different restaurants and places to eat at, the first one we went to was Buds on the Bay, that was interesting, not bad at all...we have been to that restaurant twice...the first time we stayed indoors as it was so hot outside, and the second time was just the other day and we were up on the patio just enjoying the view on the St. Lawrence River, so it was nice just eating and looking at everything. The last time we went, Steve was having his kicks on watching the parking cop put tickets on cars parked in the parking lot next to the restaurant, so it was a little funny, seeing the people come back and react to the tickets they had just gotten. Heh.

Steve also wanted to do a lot of swimming, and he was talking about checking out some sunken ships and I was a bit surprised, like, really? I have never dreamed about exploring sunken ships before so it was a little weird for me. I went with him to one ship he read up about online, the Conestoga, and it was something that made me a little nervous. But then again a lot does! *laughs* Well, it also didn’t help that when we first got there, and while Steve was putting on his fins and swim masks and snorkel on, and started to go in the water, when he was faced with a dead fish with its insides coming out. on the bottom of the shore of the river. *laughs* That was gross! *L* I could see it standing up but didn’t notice till Steve jumped up and moved around it...ew! He did some exploring and then I was half-willing to try the exploration as well...I wasn’t sure about exploring it, in case I accidentally hurt myself around the sunken ship or something, so I was a little weirded out by it. Steve helped lead me around the ship and showed me different parts of it...the ship had a bit of it sticking out of the water, so I knew that part was high, but the rest of it wasn’t too bad, all way down there, and pretty disintegerated, that’s for sure. I just stayed up on the surface, while Steve did some diving with his breath held to explore with his new water camera. I didn’t do very much swimming over there, I was a bit uncomfortable and the current around the boat was pretty strong and it was easy to get swept up with the current if you got distracted and looking at the boat...I really had to swim to stay in one spot in the lake, which was nuts. At least it was really, really close to the shore, so it wasn’t too bad really. I didn’t do much exploring, just a little bit, and when I really felt myself getting tired swimming against the current a bit, I stopped and went back to the shore and rested and watched Steve explore more and more. He was so excited about it all, that he kept wanting to check out different sunken boats. I think he went to the Conestoga three times to explore, which was insane. *laughs* There was also another sunken boat, Weehawk, further away in the same area, but Steve didn’t get much good footage, and the ship was less interesting for him. I know he was really into the Conestoga ship for sure, he kept freediving in the water to film more and more parts of the boat...I don’t know how he didn’t get tired, but it would have killed me, that’s for sure. He has two videos, the first one of him holding his camera by hand, but the video ended up looking rough. Here it is below:

Freediving The Conestoga from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

The second video actually turned out better, he used a different method of filming underwater and it turned out better. You can see the result here:

Freediving The Conestoga v.2 from Steve Savage on Vimeo.

It was pretty tiring keeping an eye on Steve while he went there diving...he tried diving in the night, but couldn’t get enough light to really see the ship in the night, so that didn’t work out, but it was crazy seeing Steve try so many different methods for that ship, that’s for sure!

I still had the gift card to go to the movies that I got from Jase and Kelly last Christmas, and Steve finally said he wanted to see a movie – The Amazing Spiderman, that I could watch. Normally we don’t like the same sort of movies, and don’t watch movies together, which sucks. So we went out to Ottawa to watch the movie with captioning for me. It’s funny because the last time I went to theatres, they had rear-window captioning, but this time it was more done electronically in my own tablet, so that was cool. It was all computerized now, and there’s captions for most movies now, so that was a plus, for sure. I didn’t know that they had changed it recently. It was a lot better for me, because when I used rear-window captioning I had to make sure my window was aimed right to where the rear window captioning would be, which would be the back of the theatre. Sometimes I’d miss parts because people would get up and walk, and block my window from capturing it...this time it was a lot different, I could understand the whole movie and sit comfortably, so it was a lot better now. Definitely a plus!

We also have gone bowling at Brockville Bowling Centre – haven’t done that in a while, so it was fun. I lost two games out of three, which wasn’t surprising...I suck at bowling! *laughs* We had some poutine while bowling so it was nice...a nice way to get out of the apartment, that’s for sure. We then went swimming at Centeen Park, which was interesting… I’m used to swimming at the spot that Steve likes, but it’s quite a distance away, so oh well. So checking out Centeen Park and swimming there was different...there was just way too many people there, and of course I get a bit nervous when there’s a lot of people around when I go swimming. Steve likes it as he gets to go diving there. Not for me, so nah. It’s a good spot if you want to jump in the water, but I haven’t tried. I did go swimming though, and the water was definitely colder in that area than it is in the shore that Steve likes going to. I thought that was a little weird actually. Oh well!

It’s funny too, because I decided to renew my passport recently, and as I was reading up on it, I had to renew it within a year after it expired otherwise, I would have to do it all over again, and I didn’t want to...so I decided I should get my pictures taken and send in for my passport to be renewed. It had expired like six months ago so I figured I should get it renewed and get it over with, so I had to find someplace that would take my passport photos, so Steve and I went to Walmart to take them, and for some reason they had a special on where if you wanted a passport you could pose for a few pictures free for yourself, to put up at home. I wasn’t expecting that, so we went ahead and did that. I took my passport photo, and then one of the women took us in the back to the studio and took some pictures of us. Some of them turned out good, one I didn’t like, but generally got some good photos. *laughs* I know we both weren’t expecting that, I didn’t even know they were having a special on! Funny. We’ll be picking up a couple of photos in the end of July. So all wait and see.

Thinking...

Hi everybody…I’ve been asking all over the place whether I should keep my blog. After all I don’t update it as much as I should, as Steve has mentioned to me, as I’ve been really busy. I still have to add one or two more entries but I’ve just been so slow in doing that, unfortunately! Oops. Heh. So I’m just wondering if I should even keep it – I know family tends to like to read it so to stay updated on me and my goings on, but what about anyone else? Friends or people who barely know me? Just wondering about that.

Let me know! Leave a comment if you want. Thanks a lot! I may just keep it for family, which is just nuts. Heh. I just need to find something else to talk about and the such like, so if anyone could help me out, it’d be great! And I’ve also updated the pictures page which I have been so slow on doing – I still have to add the camping photos but I’m still working on them though. *sigh* Just so busy these days!