On the Road with Nadurra

My friend Rob works at Nadurra. They're an eco-friendly hardwood flooring supplier. Last Friday he wanted to go out and shoot some places that the had supplied flooring to. In hindsight maybe we should have called first.

Our first stop was the Ontario Science Centre. They had ordered some reclaimed wood flooring for one of their projects there. It was while we were waiting for one of the department heads there that I bumped into my former colleague, Reay, and his daughter. They have a yearly membership to the Science Centre and Reay takes his daughter fairly regularly because there's a kids' section there that she likes.

After a short wait the Science Centre contact met us. He told us they were using the flooring in the Banting and Best display they were setting up. Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin in the early 1920's. It was used to treat diabetes.

Unfortunately the display (which was supposed to be a recreation of their lab) was still under construction. The only thing that was finished was the flooring. Rob mentioned it normally should be installed last so it wouldn't get damaged by anything else falling on it during the construction process.

While we didn't get to take pictures here the department head (whose name escapes me) took us on a behind-the-scenes tour of his department. It was a large workshop area where they made all the displays for the Science Centre. They had all sorts of woodworking machinery and a graphic design shop. They do everything in house. In fact they even make displays for other museums or galleries and ship them overseas. Neither Rob nor I had any idea they did any of that stuff there. It was so neat to see. The area was huge.

Our next stop was a Regent Park condo project called Paintbox (by Daniels). Unfortunately after speaking with the onsite property manager we were informed we would have to submit an application requesting permission to shoot whichever areas we were interested in and the board of managers would have to approve it.

Next we headed to the University of Toronto Mining Building at 170 College Street. They had installed some flooring on the fourth floor in one of the public areas of the student lab.

At first we tried taking the elevator up. But, you needed a card to access certain floors. So we tried the stairs next. Same deal. As we turned to leave down the stairs from the fourth floor one student was on his way up. Rob asked him how we could access the floor. He told us you had to sign out a key fob that would allow you entry. He mentioned he didn't have one either. But, he was going to call a friend (who was already inside) to open the door for him. Before he did that another one of his friends opened the door and we followed him in. We spent about 20 minutes there taking pictures.

Next stop was a private residence in the Bloor and Christie area. A young couple was in the process of renovating their house and had used some of Nadurra's reclaimed flooring. It looks great, but costs an arm and a leg (at $9-$10 a square foot).

While they were still living there, again they were still in the process of renovations. So, like the Science Centre, they weren't finished either. The couple had installed the flooring both on their main floor and upstairs. Rob and I moved some of the clutter around and I got a few reasonable shots of the dining room/kitchen area. We may return later after they finish completely.

Walk at Edwards Gardens

After lunch (and coffee at McDonalds) I parted ways with my friends and went over to Edwards Gardens to take some pictures. I hadn't gone there in a while and wanted to take a few shots.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great. It was overcast with spotty showers. Every now and then I had to scoot back to my car until the rain stopped and I could get back out.

The cloud cover actually wasn't that bad. It toned down what would have otherwise been a harsh sun. Not that shooting in direct sunlight isn't good either. It's just different.

I spent a couple of hours in the park. Part of it chasing a Monarch butterfly with beat up wings around (mostly unsuccessfully). Part of it trying to photograph a cute bunny rabbit who was munching on grass (again, mostly unsuccessfully). But, mostly, I was shooting the wide variety of flowers they had there.

Fun.

Flashback to 1989

Look what I found... it's a picture of me and my classmates from my graphic design class at George Brown College back in 1989 (I believe). I took these photos with my father's old, Canon AE-1 SLR using black and white film. It was part of a photography class we had back then. We did everything ourselves. From processing the film to printing the pictures in the darkroom. No instant, click and view on the back of your digital camera back then. You took your shots, waited until you finished the whole roll. Developed them (either yourself or took them somewhere to do it) and got to look at them days or weeks later. Oh, how the anticipation built! When you finally got your pictures back you were either pleasantly surprised with how they turned out or kind of disappointed that they didn't look as nice as you thought they would. The thing is, you never knew until sometime later. There's no suspense any longer. I guess, depending on how you look at it, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Anyway, I've sort of drifted from my original intention of talking about my former classmates. I currently have some sort of contact with four of the five in the picture above. I'm in the top row in the middle. Anne-Marie (top-left) actually lives two doors down from me on the same floor in my condo. Isn't that a coincidence? I've been here since the end of 2001. She moved in about three years ago. Before that we hadn't had any contact since we graduated back in 1990. What are the chances of that? Lawrence (top-right) lives in Hong Kong. The last time we e-mailed each other was at least five years ago. I just wrote him a few days ago. No response yet. I don't even know if he still uses the address I have for him. Philip Luisi is on the bottom-left. He was one of funnier guys in class. I always liked him. He's the person I most recently reconnected with. Phil's currently working at an ad agency in Toronto. He's living in Etobicoke and has been married for 10 years and has an eight-year-old daughter. I just found Norbert (bottom-middle) on Facebook few weeks ago. He looks different. I suppose we all do. He's still quite thin like before. But, his golden locks are nowhere to be found. Rob Lee is still in the city. I just talked to him about a week ago. We usually talk about once a year. It's been quite a few years since we've actually seen each other face to face. That's too long as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to have to do something about that. After graduation we traveled Europe together for 2-1/2 months. My biggest and longest adventure to date.

Anyway, it was cool digging up these old shots again. I believe the original prints were buried somewhere in my parents' basement before. I scanned them and stored them on a CD quite a few years ago. That lay hidden amongst all my other junk until just recently when I was going through some of my stuff again. Old treasures, once lost, found again. Makes me happy.