You do not have to do those things that others have taught you that you need to do because they thought they needed you to do them so that they could feel good.
Did you ever notice that when someone calls you selfish it is because they didn’t get their own way?
Petting my very first reindeer!
Back by request is an appreciation list from November 2012.
Gelding reindeer.
I always seem to happen along at just the right time to get to see and learn something interesting! This day was nice and calm enough to learn about Flying formwork tables (Flytable for short). A Flytable is a pre-assembled table used to form a concrete floor that can “fly” to the next level with the use of a crane. The desirable quality is that the table does not need to be disassembled on the lower level and reassembled on the next level thus saving time and labour.
I appreciate the communication and choreography that goes into moving a table from one to the next level. There was so much going on at once that I found it a little difficult to capture and translate into something coherent for people like me that are just learning about flytables.
To get a better view and story, I recommend clicking on the first photo to enlarge it and then click through to see entire photos and read additional comments on some of the photos.
Special thank you to Tom P and George from Elite Formwork who answered my many questions about this process! 🙂
You can see more construction photos by clicking on the construction tag and in my Flickr construction set.
Shantelle loving life at the site where she is the project coordinator for Graham Construction.
I was lucky enough to meet Shantelle on my first official visit to a local construction site (April 2012). I was looking for someone to photograph the lower part of the site and learn more about the project. Shantelle, a Project Coordinator for Graham Construction, happily took some photos for me and answered many of my questions.
What Shantelle enjoys most about her work as a Project Coordinator is that every day is different. The most important thing to her is the interactions with her co-workers. She appreciates that the interactions naturally lead to good communication and friendships.
Shantelle’s dream is to travel throughout Africa for four months – she would like to backpack and work her way along. She wants to not only see life in Africa but also live it! I wonder if she knows about Engineers Without Borders? 😉
Another dream Shantelle has is to live in Kellowna, BC surrounded by fruit trees. This past summer she had planned to travel for a couple of weeks with her gentleman-friend eating fresh fruit and barbecuing throughout British Columbia. They plan to go white water rafting and possibly try bungee jumping and maybe hang gliding someday. I am very excited for them!
Shantelle’s recommendations on how to live a happy, joyous life?
She finished off by saying, “I love life!”
The photos are of the first and second foundation walls for a parkade in the bottom of Centre Square Place. The walls were applied by Structural Shotcrete Ltd from Calgary, AB. You can view the entire photo (and much larger) by clicking on it.
You can see more photos of/by Shantelle on my Flickr and on this site using the construction tag. I really enjoyed visiting with Shantelle. I was surprised to learn we even have similar life dreams. She is such a smarty-pants with a great sense of humour (IMO) and best of all she loves life!! 🙂
I really appreciated that she always brings the best out in those around her.
Thank you Shantelle, you are definitely on my thankful list! 🙂
After some thought (okay plenty of thought) I decided to let these photos tell their own story. I am leaving it up to you to fill in your own wonderful details.
Now on to Hannah, Karen and Victor’s story about Hannah’s first time sailing in a Martin16!
Karen watching Hannah sailing.
If you are new here you can have a look at The List from last week or the previous two years worth of Flickr Appreciation Lists.
This is a very condensed version of my thankful lists from 2 – 8 August 2012.
Thank you for you and all that you already are. I am enjoying catching glimpses of you as you come more into who you really are. It truly is beautiful to behold. Have a peek sometime, I think you may be surprised in a very good way. I appreciate all of you. All you have lived has brought you to this place. All of it is useful, remember that as you go forward.
By the way, have I mentioned just how much I enjoy your laugh? I love the way you throw your head back and laugh all the way from your toes! I hope you have a great week filled with slightly more humour and laughter than you can handle! 🙂
Take care of you and love your loving ones with plenty of humour too! 🙂
I have been publishing a thankful list every Wednesday for just over a couple of years now. I have been thinking of migrating it over here for a while. Here we go! 🙂
The trick is to keep breathing and finding thoughts that feel better, better and better still. Trust. You will know when to put one foot in front of the other and when it is time to sit a spell. How you feel speaks to you, remember to listen Sweetie.
You are loved, loving and loveable .. remember? 🙂
Take care of you and your loving ones.
While out finding the beauty in construction I chatted with a few of the people that work in the construction industry. One of the people I had the good fortune to meet is Peter Kucia. Peter works for a company out of Calgary, Alberta (Canada) called Structural Shotcrete Ltd.
The first time Structural Shotcrete was in Regina it was a cold blustery April day. I am impressed by how well Peter’s photos turned out*. I found out later that Peter actually has training as a photographer! Awesome! 🙂
Here are a few of the photos Peter shot. I recommend clicking on each photo so you can see the entire thing. (Shantelle and my photos were automatically added to the Gallery when I made it. I am still learning.)
You can see more photos of and by Peter on my Flickr site and by searching construction tags here.
Thankfully Peter and Shotcrete crew were back in Regina to finish up the south and west walls on the structure. I took advantage of the beautiful weather to ask some questions. He spoke a lot about how important working with friends and family is to him. Did you notice that theme in his photos as well?
When I asked about what his dreams are he told me that he would like to own a sports bar or sports restaurant or a sports team! I encouraged him to dream big and go for all three! He would like to own basketball team Seattle SuperSonics and bring them back to Seattle. Dreams come true every moment of every day! 🙂
Mercedes?! Peter would like to remind you that you are loved! In fact he asked me to tell you, “I love you Mercedes!”, on his behalf. To quote him, “She’s amazing!” .. so yeah! Now you know what he really thinks about you! 😉
I heart happy stories!
Un-posed Group Photo
I have this secret. When I am out and about, especially in a green space, and I see two or more people that look friendly and interesting I offer to take their photo with their camera. I have been doing this for a few years now. This past Saturday 12 May 2012 was the first time I asked if I could take their photo with my camera as well. They were visibly cautious, as you can see on some of their faces, but they did consent to letting me take their photo. In return I agreed to email the photo to them and let them know where my website was.
Posed Group Photo! 🙂
This is what I learned during my short conversation with the spokesperson of the group. He is the tallest gentleman (3rd from the right) with the white shoes and the biggest smile!
He lives in and attends University in Vancouver, BC. His family is visiting him from Beijing, China this summer and they are travelling across Canada together! They planned to drive to Saskatoon, SK on 13 May 2012. I told them Saskatoon is beautiful and wished them well on their journey. 🙂
Now to WHY I like offering to take people’s photos for them:
The cool thing I learned this time was how to pronounce Thank you in Mandarin! 🙂
I am very excited to have Shantelle’s photos, as well as some others I thought she might like, burned onto a CD! As a thank you , I wanted to make a collage for her to keep. This is the first draft of it.
If you worked on this construction project and are somewhere in the collage you are welcome to download and print the image. You should be able to simply click on the image which will take you to a new page with a larger image that you can right click and save the image.
Even if you don’t want to print the image, I recommend viewing it large! There are some fun things to see! My favourite thing so far is the man with the great smile on the middle right side. I had tried several times to get a photo of his face. She not only captured a photo of his face but also a great smile! Rock on Shantelle!! 🙂
I appreciate all of the people that let themselves be in the photos! There will be more construction themed photo essays over the coming year. I am thankful to Shantelle, Jack Radu and Peter Kucia for helping me get several photos I would not have been able to get without them!
