So, I’m a newbie camper in British Columbia. I have camped extensively in Mexico, and I’m not really afraid of camping (although, for me, camping means hot shower, warm bed and wifi… but I digress). The truth is, I always wanted to explore camping in British Columbia, and I don’t know much about what I should bring, etc. Obviously a tent and a good, warm sleeping bag would be good ideas, plus food and water. I’ve got my eyes set on Squamish (The Chief) though I’ve heard some good suggestions about Golden Ears Provincial Park. I know, it’s the long weekend, and there will be some camping grounds that will be full. So, I’m prepared to just go up for the day (unless we find space and can pitch the tent).
What other obvious points I might be missing? Food, of course. Bug spray? Have at it on the comments section!
I will fully admit that sometimes it takes me a while to get to respond to comments on my blog. More recently, because I have hosted contests and giveaways on my blog, and because I have also done a lot of restaurant reviews, I had neglected to respond to comments on my blog. As you know, I am the organizer of the Vancouver Blogger Meetup, and someone who often gives talks about blogging and building online communities.
Given this, I think I had legitimate reasons to feel embarrassed today as I was browsing some of my well-established blogger friends’ blogs and realized how much I had neglected my own comments. The practice of responding to comments is one of the pillars (as I often have emphasized) of building strong, healthy online communities. So I went back and responded to a number of comments that my readers had left on this blog.
This is a good reminder that, no matter how well-established your blog is, the only way to sustain and grow a robust online community is to pay attention to the most important people who joins you in the conversation: your readers. I would not be where I am (in terms of how much my blog has grown) if it were not because of all of you who continue to read my blog!
It’s August 31st and I am (as usual) planning for the month ahead. Moreover, since the beginning of the academic term is next week (right after Labour Day) I am also planning for the next few months. I But the one thing that I began to think about as I was – when are we supposed to actually take stock and see what we accomplished? On the day of the end of the month? Or afterwards? When do YOU assess what you accomplished over a period of time?
Despite the fact that I’ve been to Lighthouse Park more times than I can remember, I never wrote about it. But today I was browsing through my Flickr set and found a few photos from the very first time I visited WITH a digital camera (I had been before without a camera). To get to Lighthouse Park we took Marine Drive (the North Vancouver version) and followed it Then we turned left on Beacon Lane. You need to hike a short distance to get to the actual viewing points. While the drive took us from Denman and Georgia to the actual park about 25 minutes, this was without driving over the speed limit of 30 km/hr (a bit crazy, if you ask me!)
I think Lighthouse Park is one of those attractions in the Lower Mainland that everybody should do at some point in their lives.
Most people who think about Melissa Manchester seem to recall “Through the Eyes of Love”, the theme from Ice Castles (the movie), a beautiful song indeed. But the one song that earned Melissa Manchester a Grammy for Best Vocal Performance is this one (“You Should Hear How She Talks About You“), which I actually was obsessed with when I was a child, because I could NEVER find out the name of this song. I was lucky enough to be at a cafe where this song was being played, so I asked the barista about the song’s title and while she didn’t know it, she found out that the singer was Melissa Manchester. Google did the rest for me Enjoy!
I grew up in a family of five brothers where all of us were hyper-competitive, all of us were really focused on our integrated goals (arts, science, sports and volunteering). I, as my brothers, am a bit of a perfectionist. I like my work to be perfect. I like to under-promise and over-deliver. But I also have been learning (slowly) to accept that I am only a human.
Last night, JT and I went to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. It’s a beautiful park with an amazing view and it holds really special memories for both of us. We wanted to make sure to hit it at least once this year. As we were hiking towards the view point, I mentioned that I felt that I no longer had my finger on the pulse of the bodies of literature that I had studied before.
I have done rigorous research on industrial clusters and competitiveness. I’ve created game-theoretical models of strategic alliances between biotechnology companies and pharmaceutical enterprises. I’ve done mathematical modeling of firm demographics and applied these models to understanding industrial restructuring. I’ve studied how environmental non-governmental organizations create transnational networks. But you know what I realized yesterday? I no longer know these fields to the extent I used to.
And the fact is, when I got out of graduate school, I basically signed on to a lifetime of projects that would encompass a broad variety of topics. And I can’t be an expert in all of those. So, using a bit of what I learned in Susanne Conrad’s workshop, I am now giving myself permission to NOT be an expert in transnational networks of environmental non-governmental organizations. I give myself permission to NOT know EVERY single new article published in the field.
And giving myself this permission to not be the stellar researcher who knows EVERYTHING is actually key, because it allows me to focus on the two or three fields that I think I’ll be working on for the rest of my academic career. Instead of continuously struggle to maintain my finger on the pulse of every field I’ve ever done research on, I’ll have students or collaborators who will explore those topics. I can guide them at the beginning with what I’ve already done and they can build upon my previous work.
I am slowly, but surely, learning to give myself permission to NOT be “on” all the time. To not have all the answers at all points. And it feels amazingly liberating.
My Dad’s birthday was yesterday (August 29th) and I didn’t get to talk to him until today, Monday, but I’m glad I did, because our conversation is entirely related to SHIFTED. Dad and I were reminiscing about the many times when I have faced defeat and what I have done in the face of adversity. One of those times was, as a matter of fact, having to rewrite my entire doctoral dissertation. FROM SCRATCH.
Quite obviously, I succeeded and I feel very blessed to have the PhD degree. And that’s what’s so fascinating about SHIFTED. When Nathan Tippe told me about the conference, I didn’t actually know that it was a showcase of stories of the good, the bad and the ugly. SHIFTED will showcase how the five presenters (one of them actually who is a good friend of mine, Andrea Baxter) shifted their thinking, confronted adversity and succeeded.
Our world loves to celebrate success, but all too often we focus only on the end result and forget about the challenging journey of choice it takes to get there.
Prepare to get SHIFTED. We’re exposing the gritty truth of achieving success. It’s all about the moments where hard decisions are made and fears are faced head on. These are the moments where we SHIFT into new possibilities and create change that takes us closer to our dreams and aspirations. SHIFTED highlights five people’s success stories – their entire stories, good and bad. They will courageously share their defining moments. Come ready to learn and be inspired. Leave knowing that the challenges you face may actually be the pathways to your own success.
You can follow @getshifted on Twitter and purchase tickets (whose proceeds will go 100% to imagine1day) online. SHIFTED takes place at District 319 (on 319 Main) on September 9th, 2010 at 6:00pm.
I look forward to hearing the stories of these entrepreneurs, CEOs and competitive sports-people. I hope you’ll attend too.
Every so often I grab a Blogthings when I feel overwhelmed and I want to keep posting some content to my blog. This particular one really hit the spot because, well, I speak 7 languages. Probably because I keep adding languages to my bucket list!
You would like to turn your world upside down a little, and there’s no better way to do that than immersing yourself in a foreign culture.
Learning a new language would broaden your perspective and give you an inside look at another area of the world.
Getting to know a new language would challenge your brain as well as your expectations about another culture.
Your opportunities in life would also be expanded. Imagine where you could travel once you had another language under your belt!
I’m a fan of deep house, funky music. And this is perhaps one of my most favorite songs (The Night by Who Da Funk). The lyrics depict the kind of night life I sometimes lead, which is good. And the music is outstanding. Hope you like it as much as I do.
With my recent visit to Parksville and Qualicum Beach, I got to tour both towns by bus and walking. Qualicum Beach in particular struck me as a small, pleasant village. Downtown Qualicum Beach is pretty and has lots of restaurants, small cafes and clothing stores. I was pleasantly surprised that there was even an alternative (bioenergy) centre.
I can’t wait for my next trip to central Vancouver Island!
A few weeks ago, Minna, Jay, Nathan and I went to see Robin Hood (Minna won the tickets I gave away for the ITSAZOO Productions performance). We had a great time, and by the time the play was over, we were hungry so we settled on Alexis (formerly Alexis Taverna, and on FourSquare it reads Alexi’s). It’s a Greek food restaurant I had eaten at many times when I was doing my MBA and PhD.
While the service was really weird (the waitress must have had a really bad day, she wasn’t on top of her game), the food can’t be faulted as it’s always filling and flavourful. The owner is a really sweet guy and he remembered me from the many times I had eaten there. I am particularly fond of Alexis’ souvlakia as well as their melitzano.
I’ll have to come back another time as I don’t think it’s fair to assess the service of this particular waitress on a night when she probably was a bit off. But as I said, the food was good and I think Nathan, Minna and Jay liked it too. More importantly, I am glad that the Cambie corridor is getting more traffic, because honestly it was sad to see during the construction stages of the Canada Line.
I have been doing a lot of cleaning up and getting rid of stuff that I no longer use over the summer (particularly when my mom came, because I wanted to have my place tidy and ready for when she visited me. One of the things I hadn’t really had a chance to use lately was my “MyPlace” laptop workstation (pictured). My cousin M gave it to me last Christmas as she knew that I needed it for when I work at home. Truth be told, because I’m always at the office, I hadn’t used it in a few months.
But this morning, since I woke up early (and I’ve been feeling a bit cold with the changing weather from summer to fall), I decided to dust it open again and use it to do some work (even though it’s a Saturday, I still know that I have work to do, as the new semester starts in less than a week). And I’ve been working from the comfort of my bed. With the MyPlace table, I can sit in an ergonomically correct position and write.
I have used it before while writing on my couch, but I don’t feel the same degree of comfort as when I write in bed (probably because my bed doesn’t have the same degree of flexibility as my couch). The MyPlace laptop table works best, in my opinion, when you use it against a more firm surface. You can use it to raise your laptop to the height you need when working, for example, in your coffee table.
I remember that my cousin M bought the MyPlace for around $30 (plus tax), which I think is reasonable considering what the prices are for other laptop stands. Overall, I love it. And I’m glad I never got rid of it or recycled it!
Boasting the title of the cafe with “the best cheesecake in Vancouver), Trees Organic Cafe is a pretty nice coffee shop. I had been a frequent customer of the Granville and West Hastings location, up until when I discovered that there was another location in Gastown (on Water Street). Minna took me there for cheesecake and coffee. We weren’t disappointed.
The cheesecake (and yes, I know – I’m weird – I *hate* cheese but *love* cheesecake) is definitely to-die-for. The decor at Trees Organic Cafe is pretty nice, and I have enjoyed a couple of evenings there just alone (ironically, always bumping into a well-dressed young blond guy who is reading on his iPad). While there is free wifi, I found it spotty and at times I couldn’t connect. Overall, lovely cafe.
The cheesecake, at $6.50 is pretty pricey compared to other places, but definitely must be consumed with gusto. I will definitely come back.
My good friend Chet Woodside and I had been trying to go to Frenchie’s for a long time. After all, what can be wrong with poutine? Oh, right, yeah. I hate cheese and I’m lactose-intolerant. That would do it. But he does like poutine, and I wanted to try the Montreal smoked meat sandwich, so we went there for lunch. I ordered a sandwich ($8.00 for 8 oz sandwich) and a pop.
Chet seems to have enjoyed his poutine (which was massive).
I’m still not 100% sold on Frenchie’s, although the decor is very cute and kind of 1950s. I had higher hopes, perhaps. The food is good, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not in love with the place. So strange!
It is somewhat ironic that I, an academic, had never been to The Academic Public House. Well, until last night. I had been to other Donnelly Group pubs, in particular The Lamplighter. But not to The Academic. I pondered what the place would look like and whether I would like the food. Last night my good friend Erin McConnell took me there for drinks and dinner, and she said it had been good.
Admittedly, I also was the one who suggested going to The Academic simply because I had never been there. I’m glad Erin and I went there for dinner and drinks, as both were good. I ordered a turkey sandwich with salad that was big, filling and with good flavors. I wasn’t that impressed with the side salad, but I think that’s because I mostly couldn’t really taste the dressing (I added some lime and it went down really well).
For drinks, I ordered a “The Bees Knees” (Tanqueray, honey syrup, lemon juice, orange juice), which was on special but is normally $9.40. If I were to make a quick assessment of what I think about The Academic, I’m quite pleasantly surprised. The service was really good, the server was absolutely friendly, the food was pretty solid and more importantly, the music was excellent and it wasn’t super loud. We did sit on the patio, which was an added bonus. I’ll be back to The Academic Public House, for sure. Thanks Erin for taking me here!
If there is something I love is freebies, and I also love when a company like Best Buy Canada follows up their awesome promotion (like the external hard drive giveaway they recently sponsored on my blog) with other great propositions, including a few hours of GeekSquad free laptop tune-ups and help setting up your mobile devices (on a first-come, first-serve).
On Tuesday, August 31 from 11am – 7pm, at the TD Plaza on West Georgia and Granville Geek Squad and Best Buy Mobile will be on location downtown providing FREE computer system tune-ups and mobile phone upgrade checks. You can bring your phone, or your computer – and they’ll do the work while you get your technology questions answered by the experts of GeekSquad and Best Buy and enter to win very cool prizes.
Below I quote what they are offering.
Free PC Diagnostic Test
A full suite of unique tests using diagnostic software tools will be used to determine the performance of your laptop.
Service takes approx. 30 minutes to complete.
Free System Tune-Up ($39 value)
Startup is optimized. Temp files are cleaned and downsized. Antivirus is updated (if available). Computer is set up to automatically schedule defragmenting the hard drive and scan disked to optimize and verify health. Drivers are updated and critical updates run. OS security settings are configured. Service takes approx. 30 – 45 minutes to complete.
Free Computer Cleaning ($29 value)
The outside of your computer or laptop is physically cleaned. Service takes approx. 15 minutes to complete
The one thing that I am particularly liking about this Best Buy Canada project is the heavy involvement of social media – they are encouraging you to tweet @BBYCanada with the hashtag #BBY4BTS – they will be giving away gift cards and drawing on the 100th tweet, the 1,000th, etc.
While fully admitting that I was coming into Blue Surge expecting it to be a fantastic work (I have seen the work of Sabrina Evertt and her team at Twenty Something Productions before, with Prodigals – read my review here), I always try to enter a new play devoid of any preconceptions. I was definitely not disappointed. Blue Surge explores really tough terrain with mastery, dexterity and depth.
The actors who portray the main characters manage to intensely immerse themselves in their work, so much so that they made me want to slap them (particularly Leroux as Curt and McGeough as the sweet Sandy). I’m not surprised that Evertt and her cast and crew achieve such an intense and in-depth exploration of terrain that is often uncharted. This is no Pretty Woman, don’t get your hopes high. This is intense drama and entangled lives that never seem to fully emerge from their inner misery.
From the official press release:
Blue Surge tells the story of Curt (Jeremy Leroux), a small-town cop, and Sandy (Megan McGeough), the 18-year old prostitute he meets in a raid on a massage parlour. Curt finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Sandy and begins a relationship with her that puts everything he’s worked for – his career, his friendships, and his engagement to his fiancée – at risk. But Curt sees a future with Sandy, an escape from his difficult past. As the two of them chase their dreams, they must learn a skill that is foreign to them both: they must learn to hope. Rounding out the cast is Curt’s best friend Doug (Chris Rosamond) and fiancée Beth (Claire Lindsay) as well as Sandy’s friend and roommate Heather (Tara Pratt).
I adore Tara Pratt, that’s public knowledge. Her role in Prodigals really captured my heart and here she rounds up a supporting role that really adds to Sandy’s storyline (McGeough). Leroux and I had a brief chat after the opening night performance and I mentioned how good his acting was, because he really wanted to make me slap him (every mistake Curt made seemed to add to the already long list of failures his life was). Lindsay was excellent as Curt’s fiancée (with an extreme tolerance for Curt’s shortcomings, in my opinion).
Thanks to Theatre TwentySomething for a great experience, to my good friend Erin McConnell for joining me on opening night as my Plus One, and to Sabrina for offering a pair of tickets to giveaway to one lucky reader of mine. It was a really good performance and the cast deserves a big round of kudos.
Blue Surge runs until September 5 at Studio 16 (a relatively small theatre but very nice, in the francophone building). Check their website for information on tickets.
I am well known for giving pretty damn good bear hugs, and while I’m not someone who eats much peanut butter, I do know it’s a staple of Canadian families’ breakfast. Lots of my friends who were born and raised in Canada (and even my family members in the US) do eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches frequently. So when Kraft contacted me about their campaign, I really liked it.
Kraft Peanut Butter bears Crunchie and Smoothy will be giving bear hugs and donate peanut butter jars, and I think the campaign is sweet and positive (as for each hug, Kraft will donate 1 jar of peanut butter to a food bank, more precisely to the Vancouver Food Bank, which has been in dire need this summer). I was also told that if you can’t share a hug in person, send a hug online and Kraft will make the same donation.
For more information, you can check the Spread the Feeling website. The Vancouver event is at the Vancouver Aquarium from 11:00am to 4:00pm on Saturday August 28th. You can also share hugs online!
The online hug counter started up yesterday and from the information I received, Vancouverites have already given out over 850 hugs (or 850 jars of peanut butter to be donated). Kraft will honour any hugs over the target by providing a larger donation to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. E.g. if Vancouver gives out 10,500 hugs, Kraft will donate 10,500 jars of peanut butter!)
I will definitely try to make it to the Vancouver Aquarium for this event. Sounds like fun!
Last night (thanks, in no small part to my not-so-good ability to pinpoint a meeting location for the Vancouver Blogger Meetup) our meetup was rather small (but it felt so right, at the same time!). Erika Rathje, Jan Karlsbjerg and I showed up (and as he usually does, my friend Jan has a summary of what we talked about at the August 2010 Vancouver Blogger Meetup).
As we were splitting and I was leaving, I received a call from Minna telling me that Ganesh, Jay and her were meeting me at Second Beach, so I waited a few minutes. We played in the swings for a little bit and then watched the sunset and walked back towards the office. It’s probably been one of the most relaxing evenings I had since I went to Parksville and Qualicum Beach with my Mom.
Sometimes, in the whirlwind of life I have, I realize how easy it is to forget that I live a pretty privileged life. I’m glad spending yesterday evening with good friends gave me an opportunity to remind myself of how lucky I am.
Enjoy!
