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Events in Vancouver roundup – Week of June 23

Raul — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:45:49 +0000

One of the reasons why I get so tired (physically and mentally) is because I try to do a lot. Beth Snow said it perfectly, indicating that I do 17 things a day. So I decided that to keep my sanity, I’m just going to do ONE roundup post for what I got up to this past week.

STEAKCAMP (Monday)

Great turn-out, more than I expected. Thanks everyone who showed up. My restaurant review of The Brave Bull is here, Karen’s review is here, Buzz’s review on the 24 Hrs is here and link-love on his review of BabyEats is here and the Unofficial The Brave Bull page is here… Thanks everyone for coming!

VANCOUVER BLOGGERS MEETUP (Tuesday)

Nancy, Carol, David, Monica and I got together for a mockup (dry run) just to get a feel of the place. You can read the comments on the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup site. I like the Blackwater Cafe and am a big supporter of locally-owned, organic businesses. I vote that we stay there for at least the summer/early autumn.

OUR FAVES GATHERING (Tuesday)

I had the pleasure of attending, at the invitation of Candice Spektor from Our Faves Toronto, a nice small gathering of friends at SoMa (the former coffee shop now transformed into upscale, hip restaurant/bar). I had a great time, and had the pleasure of meeting lots of fun people, including Ryan (who right now is technically a friend of mine, given that he is friends with Ianiv and Jarrett) and of course, brief appearances by Karen and Lisa (both of whom Candace also invited to the event). Thanks to Candice for inviting me and for a wonderful time. I’ll be getting involved with OurFaves for sure!

REDWERKS ROOFTOP PARTY (Wednesday)

Too many friends from the social media world for me to list here, I made an appearance even though by Wednesday I was physically exhausted. Great work by Colleen Coplick, Lisa Thomas-Tench, Tris Hussey in the organization (Colleen, it was a blast! – thank you). Great conversation about all-around bloggery AND Japan with Heather (aka Hez). Good times all around with the usual crowd (Rebecca, Monica, Boris, John, Ianiv, Arieanna, Jenn, Nadia, Dave O, Jordan, all my usual peeps) though we missed some of you who didn’t come (you know who you are!)

WEST END BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION SUSTAINABILITY EXPO (Thursday)

Invited by Christy and Dave O from HappyFrog.ca to guest-blog for them, I admit that I arrived late to the WEBIA Sustainability Expo, but managed to still speak with the Executive Director of WEBIA and the organizers. Having already some connections with the people in the sustainability field, I know that I can give you all some insight into what was going on there (posts to come throughout the week).

MODERNE BURGER OPENING NIGHT

I didn’t go even though I wanted to, but Andrew Morrison from Urban Diner did and he offers a quick recap. Since I’m all about the link love, go visit his recap and then come back! I did go to Moderne Burger this week, but restaurant review is still forthcoming.

As for my weekend? For the first time in a long while here at Random Thoughts of a Student of the Environment, I am NOT going to recap my weekend. I am going to take a good break, which I think I do deserve. We’ll be chatting more soon.

[UPDATE - Rebecca will be liveblogging on Monday and Tuesday at the Vancouver Young Professionals Meetup AND NetTuesday - check her blog for updates on both events!]

Wednesday Link Love – Warm and Fuzzy Y’All !

Raul — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:25:05 +0000

I had a really productive evening last night (left the office at 12.20am, just in time to make the last 99 B-Line!) and thus I’m feeling quite excited. Had breakfast already, on cup of coffee # 3 and glad to see that everything seems to be going ok in the blogosphere and twittersphere. So, here’s some link love (and in the case of some of the people I’m linking – your readership is probably bigger than mine, but always nice to do some linkage!)

- Dabbler’s own Angela and Morten tell you all about the slanket! Can I haz a slanket, please?

- Next week seems to be the non-for-profit week in the Web 2.0 world. Kate Trgovac is moderating a panel on use of Word Of Mouth, and she’d like some input. Go, visit, drop a comment on her blog!

- Next week is also Third Tuesday, where Joe Solomon will be speaking about how to harness the power of Web 2.0 (which reminds me that I should write a review of KnowMore.org soon-ish!). And have I told you lately how much I love The Network Hub? I’m thinking I might even show up early just to get in a couple of hours’ worth of work!

- As a scholar and academic, I am always disheartened when I read about the depressing future of would-be professors. Kate attended the same week-long conference I did (but in another discipline), and she shares some of the sad thoughts that were passed on to her. *sigh*

- Susannah offers photos of many beautiful things on her blog, and one of her most recent posts has photos of… starfish!

Monday Link Love – No Time Edition

Raul — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:12:41 +0000

Just had a scrumptious breakfast and I’m on cup # 2 of my daily coffee intake, and even though I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to blog this morning because I already have A LOT of content queued, I have been getting so many heads up, pointers and have so much stuff going on that I just figured “heck, why not”. Besides, I really couldn’t care less about Google Page Rank (which is calculated amongst other things through the ratio of who links to you vis-a-vis who you link). I am a firm believer of the idea that bloggers should support and link to each other (a view that many of my blogger friends share).

So here are some quick pointers for your daily read dose.

APPLE STORE OPENS
- John Biehler, Ianiv and Arieanna, David Drucker and Pam, Lisa and a bunch of other geeks went to the Apple Store’s opening day. I was having migraines all Saturday morning (which also prevented me from Eat Vancouver and made me miss a coffee appointment with Jonathon Narvey), so I was not at the opening but I know there’s a lot of people who went and/or have previewed it (like Derek, and Duane for example). Hat tips to Miss604 (Rebecca) who has a stellar roundup of links to blogs who have talked about the Apple Store opening. Because she’s awesome like that

FOOD IS GOOD – WINNING IS BETTER!

- Via Rob (Kitsilano.ca) I learned about a contest that his blog is sponsoring. Win a package of Spanish lessons! To win, all you have to do is drop a comment on his blog. Since Spanish is my native language (hehehe surprised? Please don’t ask me why I blog in English), I really wouldn’t need to participate. But as a bonus, I’ll throw in a couple of coffee appointments with me to the winner so that he/she can practice his/her newfound knowledge of Spanish. How’s that?

- I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Degan has started her own food reviews blog (particularly focused on ethnic food). We might disagree (in the future) on some restaurants, but for the most part, Degan and I have agreed on every restaurant she’s reviewed so far (link is to her Salsa and Agave review)!

- On that note, Andrew Morrison from Urban Diner and I frequently disagree on restaurants we both have reviewed BUT I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Andrew and I have both agreed on at least one: Boneta – AWESOME PLACE. Finally! (Although we seem to also agree that Tequila Kitchen and Salsa and Agave are good). Boneta’s review forthcoming.

WHILE WE’RE ON THE WINNING SUBJECT

- I won a Flip Video Camera! In a contest sponsored by Reachd.com, I was the lucky winner of a Flip camera, so I’ll be heading over to learn how to use it this Wednesday. WOWZA!

- Congratulations to MemeLabs for winning the PopVox Awards! More coverage of the VIDFest 2008 will be forthcoming soon

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES – JUST ‘CAUSE, WELL – IT’S WHAT I DO!

- Erika Rathje is joining the 350 Challenge (350 bloggers in an attempt to offset about 122,000 pounds of carbon). Worthy cause, so consider joining and putting the badge on your blog. I’ll see if WordPress.com allows me to do that.

- SO IS THAT PHOTO YOURS? OOPSIES

- Outstanding blog posts on the non-attribution of Flickr photos by CTV Toronto, posts written by John Bollwitt, and Keith Murray. (I am pretty sure I read a third local blog that talked about the issue but it’s not coming to me now). I wanted to ask Michael Geist (whom I live-blogged a couple months ago) about this issue, but never got around to it. BUT you’d be surprised to read that apparently Canada’s copyright protection is amongst the best in the world. WOW. If that’s the case, then why on Earth do Flickr photos keep being lifted without proper credit?

PHEW. That was a long link-love listing. Back to work for me.

[SIDE NOTE - I love the neighbourhood-centric blogs, the tech-geeky-centric blogs, the transportation-focused blogs, the enviro-blogs as well as the food-centric blogs. Sometimes I wish my blog had more of a theme, but since it is a personal blog and I write about my random thoughts, well, I will just have to live with it].