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Restaurant review – Salt Tasting Room (Gastown) – NDMD ’08

Raul — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:18:36 +0000

As you can gather from Rebecca’s NDMD 08 – Gastown post, we had a great time at Salt Tasting Room. We got there only expecting to see Anthony Nicalo, but we were very pleasantly surprised to find Nadia, Jenn, Kris, Tris too. We had ordered two meat platters to share, and we then followed those with two cheese platters (of which, I have to say, despite my hating cheese, I did eat a tiny, tiny, tiny bit. It’s been captured on Anthony’s camera, so I can’t deny that yes, I’ve tasted cheese this 2008).

While I recognize that the location may be perceived as somewhat sketchy (in Blood Alley), we didn’t feel any bit unsafe, and the place is really beautiful. The service was fantastic, and Anthony brought wines to pair with all the meats and cheeses. I would mention here these cheeses and meats, but I forgot to bring the cheat sheets.

The company was really good, it was also a treat to just hang out for a little bit. I got an opportunity to see Salt’s wine cellar and I got some video too, which I hope to post really soon. It was a real lesson in wine, I tell you. More photos in my Flickr stream.

Salt is definitely a great concept, as a tasting room. The platters are not really all that expensive, considering the concept (around $15-17 for a cheese and for a meat platter). The butcher platter was great, most definitely. We were treated to delicacies in both realms (cheese and meat) although as mentioned above, I’m not a cheese eater

Digital media content creation – impromptu meetups :) – NDMD ’08

Raul — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:54:29 +0000

We are now in North Vancouver, pretty close to Lynn Valley, at Dave Thorvald Olson’s house, as he is recovering from a surgical procedure. We are then heading back into Vancouver, I need to get some stuff done before Vancouver Bloggers Meetup and I *might* show up at the New Media BC mixer (I don’t have an invitation but since we’ve been liveblogging throughout the day, I am sure they’ll understand that we’ve been working hard to highlight National Digital Media Day ’08, so I would doubt they’ll turn me away

We are hanging out with Dave, and it’s nice to just do an impromptu NerdCamp Dave has been a mentor to me, as well as Rebecca. Both of them have taught me a lot about digital content creation, particularly when it comes to attribution, sharing link love, being ethical about how we blog. Dave was the one who invited us all to be part of his FrogSquad for EPIC, which was really fun (you can read my EPIC posts by searching for epic08 on my blog).

Good times, indeed

Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ’08

Raul — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:50:02 +0000

This is my inaugural National Digital Media Day ’08 post, and by the time you read it, Rebecca and I have already finished breakfast in Surrey. As I wanted to write all my blog entries with the theme of “mixing digital media and sustainability”, I think the first post should ask the question – just how miscible are these two?

Given my recent (2008) increase in readership and rise in the Technorati rankings, for a while there, I gave serious thought to the possibility of getting a job in the social media and sustainability realm. I know that Dave Olson‘s hard work with HappyFrog has been very fruitful. I understand that both Rob Cottingham and Alexandra Samuel do some work with firms in the sustainability realm. I have heard of the work of Communicopia, and of some work that Darren Barefoot has done with DeSmogBlog and IKEA Canada. Joe Solomon works on some of these projects (social change and Web 2.0)

But the thing is, I have found that job market kind of hard to crack. I told this to Rebecca, Tanya and Monica. Truth is, geeky as I’ve become, I’m not a full-fledged developer/programmer, so I am not sure I can get a job there. However, I am very much now an analyst of the way in which environmental organizations and government agencies are working to reach to the communities (and in some cases, not very impressed with the results!)

For example, the Take the Tap Water Pledge. This would be a wonderful tool to reach to communities, if Metro Vancouver knew how to use Web 2.0. Given my research background on water, I would be (I think) in a good position to help design this type of campaign. I think sustainability and digital media can be friends, it’s just a matter of finding the right person for the job. Someone who can speak both languages fluently (either knowledge translator or inter-mediator).

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This post was written as a free contribution to National Digital Media Day ’08.
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National Digital Media Day and Vancouver Bloggers Meetup 2008

Raul — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:41:26 +0000

Visit National Digital Media Day September 25

Rebecca kindly invited me to join her through her tour (and live-blog) of Metro Vancouver celebrating National Digital Media Day (September 25th, 2008) which is tomorrow. We’ll be liveblogging and visiting several municipalities along the way. I really value these kinds of “day trips”, and it’s actually the realization of something we had talked about a long while ago – going on a Metro-Vancouver-wide day trip.

So, we’ll be starting at 9:00am with breakfast in Surrey, then we’ll head throughout the Metro Vancouver area, I think we’re hitting Salt Tasting Room at 1pm for lunch with Anthony Nicalo of Farmstead Wines who has kindly agreed to sponsor drinks, and then another destination before Rebecca drops me off for my 7:00pm appointment with the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup at Isabella’s house.

There will be wi-fi and a potluck at Isabella’s and most certainly, a number of bloggers. Then on Friday it’s the BarCamp Vancouver 2008 party and on Saturday, the event itself. And on Sunday, I plan to take a Raul day and not blog at all. Hope you all enjoy our liveblogs tomorrow. Be sure to check Rebecca’s posts and mine as both will be tagged/categorized “ndmd08″. Furthermore, I will be blogging about environmental issues in Vancouver throughout the day, so feel free to drop suggestions and comments.