Rebecca just dropped me off and now I am headed down to the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup. Since I’m the Organizer now, I guess I should show up 🙂 I am so exhausted. I don’t think I’m going to blog anything other than thanks to Rebecca for all her hard work for National Digital Media Day ’08 and for inviting me along. Now she’s off to another event and I’m off to VBM. See you there.
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 🙂
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 🙂
Our friends Kris Krug, Nadia Nascimento, Jenn Lowther, and Anthony Nicalo are here still sharing some wine (courtesy of Farmstead Wines) with Rebecca and myself. We had a great time at Salt Tasting Room, and Tris Hussey was kind enough to take a few photographs for us. Anthony is taking us all for lunch, which we thoroughly appreciate (and the wine was absolutely fantastic!). We are probably going to head out to Dave Thorvald Olson’s place to bring him some soup and try to cheer him up, and then we’ll head to do some shopping and bring stuff to the Vancouver Food Bank. And then, probably going back to Vancouver. Hope you all are tuning in!
Our first stop for the Metro-Vancouver-wide National Digital Media Day (NDMD ’08) is Ricky’s in the Central City mall, in Surrey (downtown Whalley or so I am told). Sis604, Miss604 and Nephew604 are all here. We are having brunch, but as I was mentioning to them, I’ve already had dinner here so I think it’s valid to have the review as both brunch AND dinner.
I’ve ordered the 2×5 and Rebecca ordered a Blackbowl for breakfast. I’m looking forward to the food 🙂 The food is really good, although slightly pricey for the equivalent that I would get at The Nice Cafe. But I do still like Ricky’s. I had their burgers for lunch the last time I was at the one on Dunsmuir and Georgia.
While we made it one hour late, I am sure the rest of our trip will be uneventful. We’ve already crossed 4 cities (Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster and Surrey). We will come back downtown at around 1pm for lunch with Anthony Nicalo from Farmstead Wines.
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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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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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.
My friend Kulpreet (who is a WordPress wizard and has presented at both previous WordCamps, Vancouver and Fraser Valley) asked me whether I could highlight an upcoming event, the movie premiere of the movie “The Widow Colony”. The film examines the events after the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre that took place right after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
“The Widow Colony — India’s Unsettled Settlement”, borrows its name from the settlement in Tilak Vihar, on the west-side of New Delhi, which is locally called the Widow Colony or Vidhva Colony. The film takes the viewer to the streets of Trilokpuri, Kalyanpuri, Himatpuri, Sultanpuri and Mongolpuri, the same localities that suffered the major brunt of the Sikh killings in November of 1984. Director Harpreet Kaur, uses the testimonies of the widows and subject experts, along with images of the killings and destruction that followed after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to convey the trauma of the widows, their battle for justice and their struggle for survival in India.
[The Widow Colony website]
The film is showing at 2,4,6:15 and 8:30pm on October 3rd and 1:30pm, 4, 7, and 9pm on October 4th at the Surrey Arts Center (Bear Creek Park). Tickets are $10 and can be ordered by phone at 778-319-1699. Further details can be found on the movie website.
I will be going to the October 4th, at 7pm showing if anyone wants to join me. This is a very worthy charitable cause and I would seriously encourage my readers to buy tickets and attend. Also, feel free to reblog, re-tweet, etc.
My good friend Tanya (aka NetChick) is organizing a fundraising event (comedy night at The Jupiter Cafe) on Wednesday October 8th, 2008 at 8pm. Tickets are only $10 and you can purchase them and register through EventBrite directly. This should be a great event, and it’s for a great cause. Two of my uncles currently are afflicted by diabetes, and my Grandpa died of complications caused by diabetes, so I will certainly be there and hope you will too! For more information on Tanya’s Team Diabetes cause please check her blog. Thanks in advance for your support!
As many of you know (both my offline and online friends), I absolutely adored The Crime Lab in its previous incarnation. The restaurant was sophisticated, had great food, an amazing list of martinis and everything in the restaurant was crime-themed (but with a very posh flavor, if you can believe that!). The decor and ambience were those of a Paris night bar, yet the food and drinks had a crime theme. Apparently, or so does MartiniBoys say, the former location had previously housed a police crime lab.
One day, someone woke up with the great idea that the spot where the Crime Lab was sitting (the strange convergence of Pender and Georgia, which normally run parallel) was prime spot for condos and thus my beloved Crime Lab disappeared.
There is also a story behind my love for this spot, as my very close friend JT and I had a really important conversation there, and I asked what has become now “The Crime Lab question” (it’s a synonym with tough questions now).
So when I learned from Jeffery Simpson that The Crime Lab was coming back, I knew where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner. The new location is in Coal Harbour, at 100-550 Denman St. The place is very much like I remembered it, great decoration, affordable food, amazing list of martinis (also dangerously sweet) and most definitely, the same flavor they had before, with the crime theme.
The food is definitely affordable, with a range between $17 and $25 for a main course (abundant portions, and very tasty). I chose the risotto with chicken and we all shared a vegetarian platter (for 7 people, nobody really left hungry). There were varied choices for dinner – from burgers with fries AND salad to ravioli to salad with salmon. Very nice menu. The dessert menu is also amazing, in my humble opinion.
There were many details that made my experience very good. While at some points our server struggled a bit with too many tables (I think they were understaffed for a couple of hours), I never felt that we were left down. The service was excellent, and at the end, a very classy gesture by our server: since it was my birthday, she offered to comp my dessert. While I was afraid that if I chose one that could be shared amongst 8 people (the chocolate fondue) they might not see me with good eyes, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that she didn’t even blink. She smiled and proceeded to bring me a “Happy Birthday” chocolate fondue. Now, THAT is classy 🙂
Admittedly, we did consume abundant alcohol, but the martinis are also in good price range $ 8.00, actually slightly less expensive than other Coal Harbour spots. But don’t raise the prices! Keep them there! 🙂 I have to say that I had a fantastic experience at The Crime Lab, and if it sounds as though I’m gushing, I actually am.
If I had to rate my experience at The Crime Lab, I’d say it was pretty much a 9.5 out of 10. I can’t wait to come back!
So I’m faced with a relatively serious dilemma. Last night I started showing symptoms of what appears to be food poisoning. EDIT – According to the Wikipedia definition of food poisoning, this wouldn’t exactly qualify. Particularly because I can’t prove exact causation and I really can’t tell that I have some sort of bacteria, etc…
However, I still I couldn’t hold my dinner from last night in my body, and I still feel rather ill. Now, I noticed that the food we were eating last night that C and B took me out to dinner for my b’day was definitely not of the same quality that has always been at this particular restaurant (whose name I won’t reveal at the moment).
Admittedly you could say that I was already feeling not too well from the night before but I did have breakfast, and I held it rather well. It was the dinner that really hit me, I think. And now I am faced with a doubly-hard choice. First, I was going to write about the poor quality of the food anyways, in hopes that the restaurant owners may read my review and try to make adjustments (my pasta wasn’t well cooked, it was still rigid and not ‘al dente’, and C and B’s pizza was EXTREMELY SALTY). But with this turn of events, I am feeling slightly queasy. I don’t want to blame the restaurant for my current state of apparent food poisoning, yet I don’t see any other variables influencing the outcome (that I basically had stomach problems all night and right now).
What would you do in my case? I can always just keep it to myself and/or tell the restaurant privately, and that would probably be a good idea. In the mean time, I feel awful 🙁
EDIT – Decided against naming the restaurant, I’m just going to talk to them privately and tell them about the episode.
Unfortunately the video is most definitely, NOT safe for work so I am not going to embed it on my blog, but the song is absolutely amazing. Last night a few of my closest friends (of my offline life) and I went for dinner to The Crime Lab (restaurant review forthcoming) and then karaoke on Robson Street (they weren’t all that excited to sing, but hey it was my birthday on Friday so…) … yes some CH3CH2OH was consumed, so I feel really unwell now. But that’s another story.
One of my very good friends suggested this song and I have to say, I LOVED IT. “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness is definitely a mood upper 🙂 I feel a bit better even if my head is still very much in pain 🙂 And now I leave you with this song. Video not safe for work, and courtesy of youtube.
Have you noticed how most movies and TV series show sets of four friends? Most successful movies I’ve seen about friendships (both all-male and all-female) are based on four friends, whose connections and linkages are usually super strong amongst all of them. For example, Stand by Me (4 boys), Sex and the City (4 women) and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (4 girls).
Also, have you noticed how the houses in trees (tree houses?) are always perfect in these movies? I was just watching “Now and Then” (with Melanie Griffith, Demi Moore, Rita Wilson and Rosie O’Donnell) and the tree house was amazing! I wish my parents had built one like that for me!
When I was in high school, I had a group of 7 friends whose relationship was really strong with me, but theirs was not really all that strong (although some were really close friends as well). As time has gone by and I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that it’s not necessary to have the exact same intensity of friendship amongst all the friends who are now in various groups. For example, my usual Friday night group (C. B. L, JN) are all good friends amongst themselves and with me, and my offline gang are also good friends with each other, but it’s not a requirement. I don’t need a set of four 🙂
At Green Drinks Vancouver this past Wednesday, people asked me what my blog was about. It was kind of hard to describe what I write about and to describe myself to an audience that (a) knows VERY little about blogs and (b) doesn’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that I undertook a PhD but that I also do a gazillion other things.
I am not the only academic blogger out there. As a matter of fact, some of my best friends (who have PhDs) also have blogs. But apparently, this is not a pervasive phenomenon in Vancouver, and much less in Vancouver’s environmental community.
People seemed to be taken aback by the fact that I blog about myself. On the other hand, some of my friends wonder if my blog is becoming “too techie” and “too impersonal” and less about me.
I am a mixture of personas. Anybody who knows me, knows this. I can write serious stuff, I can do research, I can write consulting reports, I can write blog posts that are funny (some) or critical. The thing is, having a personal blog allows me to have a freedom and flexibility that few other outlets do.
However, for those of you who might be potential employers, fear not. I also know how to write about other things that are not me. See for example my public policy or water policy posts. I can harness the power of Web 2.0 to disseminate my research findings to a much broader audience.
My blogging has in no way hurt my academic career and I would seriously hope it won’t hurt my environmental consulting career. I hate it when people want to place me into defined, shallow boxes. I am not *just* a blogger. I am not *just* a researcher or an academic. I do lots more than what people think I do. Just give me the freedom to be creative and you’ll see great things. I’m not being overconfident, I’m just being honest. And this, as you can see, was a very personal post.
We are already at Launch Party Vancouver 5 (LPV5) and while I sincerely doubt we’ll be able to liveblog, I thought I’d at least start a blog post about it. I know, I’m a keener. But hey, I’m here alright! 🙂 Looking forward to seeing my friends from Vancouver’s tech/PR/social media community. Being away for a few weeks has meant that I haven’t seen all of you, and can’t wait to see y’all!
Rebecca is here editing a podcast of an interview she just did for RadioZoom – she interviewed “Less than Jake” (a ska/punk band) at The Commodore and it went really well. I am not sure how much battery my laptop has, so if you don’t see any further text from me, it means I ran out of power.
Hashtags are #lpv5 and I am assuming Flickr tags too, lpv5 although I’m going to tag mine too as “Launch Party Vancouver 5”
UPDATE – 4.40pm – Tris Hussey, John Biehler, Marco Batilana, Jordan Behan, Maura Rodgers, Danny Robinson are all here 🙂 Jonathon Narvey just arrived and opened his MacBook, which is kinda neat. All three of us are now blogging.
UPDATE – 4:50pm – I don’t think my laptop’s battery is going to resist, so I might end up not liveblogging. That’s ok, as I got a few photos. I’m going to see what whether I’m going to have my photo taken and also, take some photos… 🙂 Everyone, see you soon!
I had a chance to see a few of the booths (the launched entrepreneurs!) – hence the name of Launch Party! 🙂 Thanks to Maura, Dimitri, Danny of Strutta. This looks like it’s going to be a great evening. I am loving Unwine’d already!
UPDATE – 9:10pm – We are still going strong at LPV5 (see my Flickr photos)
Karen and I hadn’t seen each other in ages (well, not really… only since she invited me to brunch for Pride) and even though we are both involved in the Vancouver tech community, for some reason sometimes we don’t coincide at the same events. At any rate, she wanted to meet before the BarCamp Vancouver 2008 organizational meeting (SIDE NOTE – BarCamp happens this coming Friday/Saturday, Sep 26/27) and so we decided on a downtown meet place.
While I rejected any sushi for about three years while I recovered from a painful breakup, I am now again a fan of sushi, as you can see from my posts reviewing Kirin Sushi in New Westminster, all the Kishu’s in town (Kishu Mountain and Kishu River), and Kaide Sushi in Yaletown, to name but a few.
I had never been to Sushi Maro but since Karen suggested a Yaletown location (and that works fine with me as the BarCamp meeting is in Gastown) I thought “heck, why not? …. a chance to meet a good friend and a potential restaurant review”.
We both had the $ 7.00 special (18 pieces of sushi and a miso soup). While some people may think that it’s not such a great idea to eat at those “hole in the wall” kind of sushi places, I really enjoyed the sushi, it’s great food and I am definitely not going to complain. I would come back to Sushi Maro any day.
To all my dear readers: A very close friend of mine works for The BC Women’s Hospital in Vancouver and they are now looking for women to participate in the study. Please direct them towards this post if you know of any pregnant women who might be interested in participating in this study. Thanks! The information below is taken directly from the email they sent me.
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Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) is a national five-year research study that is recruiting about 2,000 women from Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.
The Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) study has three main purposes:
(1) to measure the extent to which pregnant women and their infants are exposed to chemicals;
(2) to measure some of the beneficial elements of breast milk;
(3) to assess what health risks, if any, are associated with chemical levels measured, with a focus on heavy metals.
To learn more about the MIREC study visit: www.mirec-canada.ca
The BC Women’s Hospital in Vancouver is now looking for women to participate in the study.
To participate you must be:
– 19 years or older,
– planning to deliver at BC Women’s Hospital in Vancouver, and
– less than 13 weeks pregnant.
For more information about the MIREC study in Vancouver, please contact the Research Coordinator, Sarah, at (604)875-2253 or squelch@cw.bc.ca
Funding Agencies:
* Health Canada: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/contaminants/mirec
* Ontario Ministry of the Environment: http://www.ene.gov.on.ca
* Canadian Institutes of Health Research: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca
The MIREC study is a collaborative effort among Health Canada scientists, the Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, and clinical researchers from the other participating cities. Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal is the coordinating centre for the study.
This post was inspired by and augmented by suggestions from Derek K. Miller and John Biehler, when I tweeted that I was annoyed at Flickr for not providing a chance to favorite my own photos. Here are Derek and John’s suggestions, which I have started to (slowly) implement on my Flickr sets.
Derek – Add a tag “yearfave” so that you can search easily on Flickr.
John – Create a set of “Favorites” so that you can add your favorite photos to that set.
I’m grateful to both John and Derek for providing these hints, as I am still not self-hosted and therefore, can’t use Flickr plugins yet that are available for WP.org. For example, Rebecca uses a really easy-to-use plugin that she uses when she writes her blog posts, and that allows her to quickly search photos and credit people for use of Creative-Commons-licensed photos. She presented about that topic on WordCamp Vancouver 2008 and you can read my notes of her talk here.
Since 2008, I navigate in two worlds all the time. On the one hand, I am the academic and technical guy who works in the environmental studies and policy fields. On the other hand, I’m the blogger and social media guy who writes about Vancouver and the stuff that happens around his life in the city. Molson’s Brew 2.0 Vancouver gave me a great opportunity to enjoy both worlds to the maximum.
As properly indicated by Colleen, I tried REALLY hard not to nerd out during my visit and tour to the Molson Brewery in Vancouver. Given my entirely technical background (chemical engineering, graduate degrees in environmental studies), I was fully prepared to ask questions regarding the specifical details of plant operation, safety and risk management, the issue of being an industrial plant in a growingly residential zone (Kitsilano), the history of beer production, what environmental measures had Molson implemented and
all sorts of other technical things.
On the other hand, and as noted above, I was also fully prepared to ask the tough questions on the campaign design, blogger relations, the outreach and community strategy at Molson. I *am* both people, the social media and the environmental guy. And I love it. Had a great chat with Tonia Hammer and Adam Moffat, from the Molson’s Community Outreach team and with Meghan Warby and David Jones from Hill and Knowlton, who helped Molson create this fantastic event.
I would like to think that I didn’t nerd out a lot, because I was really positively impressed with the technical details, with the chance to actually see the brewing process from the inside, and with the environmental consciousness of Molson. Did you know that they reduced 75% of the water consumption they were exerting when they first started producing in Vancouver? On the social media and outreach side, I absolutely enjoyed the company of everyone involved in the campaign. Tonia, Adam, Meghan and David made us really feel at home. It was also simply outstanding to be poured a drink and given a full tour by the designer of the Rickards brew himself! Moreover, as I told Geoff Molson, the 7th generation heir of John Molson, for me, the definition of Canadian was always Molson (truthfully, because when I moved to Canada, the VERY first beer I drank was Molson Canadian).
I would like to believe that I do good event recaps, but so far I’ve read some that I think will give you a lot of insight into what transpired, so I’ll let my friends give you the full 411.
– Arieanna
– Tanya
– Ryan
– Tris
– Rebecca
I will be updating this post with recaps from all my friends (so feel free to drop me a comment if I haven’t linked to yours yet!).
My head had been spinning with lots of ideas and thoughts about all the right things that I think Molson and Hill and Knowlton did on this campaign. It’s going to sound like I am gushing, even though everything I say is very true and very well deserved. Here are some highlights:
– We are bloggers and we love that you make our job easy. Give us swag that (a) we will appreciate and (b) helps us write awesome reviews of your event.
– We appreciate kindness and elegance. It was VERY classy to give us a “thank you for coming and hanging out with us” gift (beer glass, USB key and a case of beer with a HANDWRITTEN thank you note).
– We appreciate personalized invites. I loved that my invite mentioned several posts I had been writing. I also appreciated the editorial freedom of “you don’t even need to write about it“. I had a great time, OF COURSE I’m going to write about it.
– We appreciate personalized attention. The tour, the pairings of beer and food, the presence of Mr. Rickard and Mr. Molson, the conversation with the Molson and H&K teams. Everything hit the right note.
I would have filled this post with many, many more photos but you can enjoy them all on my Flickr set.
I was planning to do a round-up, link-love post, but decided against it because this is too important to be overshadowed. Airdrie, whom I am honored to call a friend, is writing a series (read part 1 and part 2) on her experience as a depression-afflicted individual. Airdrie contributed a really amazing post to my Blogathon writing about her experience as the wife of a cancer patient, and in this series, she reveals some of her struggles with depression.
Beth also linked to her post and agreed with Airdrie that Student Health Services often provide counseling services, and anyone who needs help should definitely look into that. I wish I had received the help from Counselling Services much faster when I broke up with my ex and was really down, but at the end of the day, I was ok. If you, dear reader, ever think you might need help with depression, don’t hesitate and contact the myriad of services available.
Depression has been surrounded with stigma and it’s feared. People don’t want to talk about it, and it’s often spoken about very lightly. But that’s just stupid. Depression IS real, and it is a mental health illness, and should be talked about, blogged about, spoken about. Thank you Airdrie for helping shed some light on this thorny and often-stigmatized topic. By sharing your struggles and how you’ve faced them and you are still going strong, you help us, the general public who may not know what to do when dealing with depression. Thank you, Airdrie. I really applaud you.
Credit: Junn on Flickr.
I used to be a fan of pageants. If you wanted to test my photographic memory, you could have asked me the names and countries of each Miss Universe winner since the late 1980s up to about 1997. Right after the Mexican contestants lost very close races (with Laura Elizondo being a very worthy winner when Canada’s Natalie Glebova took the title) I decided to stop watching pageants.
But there’s a couple of pageants I still follow, and one I will be following closely will be the Mr. Gay Canada pageant.
The primary purpose of the Mr. Gay Canada (MGC) is to identify leaders who will take responsibility not only in his own community but on a global stage speaking out for equal rights. MGC is a positive role model and will work on humanizing being gay in the media both queer and mainstream.
PLEASE NOTE: The Mr Gay Canada Competition is a 3-day, indoor/outdoor series of events to help our judges identify a strong spokesman or Ambassador to tell the world about our mission. The Competition includes physical tests and interviews with a panel of international judges. Only 15% of the judging points are assigned to appearance, which means 85% of the points are for qualities other than appearance. [Mr. Gay Canada website]
There are some very relevant and note-worthy elements to discuss here, but there are two that I will just highlight here. First, the fact that 85% of the points are for other qualities. This is an important element for a competition amongst a stereotyped community. Queers, and particularly Vancouver queers are more often than not perceived (even by their peers) as being shallow and just focus on the appearance (six pack abs and perfectly manicured hands). So, this element is perhaps being brought as a way of legitimizing the contest.
The second element is the fact that the contest serves as a way to showcase the diversity of Vancouver and Canada. Why is this relevant? Well, because as you may recall if you’ve read my other posts about queer events and milestones, in other countries, being gay is a crime. In Vancouver, having a gay friend is almost as common as wearing an umbrella (given our rainy weather!).
The Vancouver delegate, Aaron Ursacki, won the 2008 Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model. And you may ask yourself, how did I end up covering the event? Well, at Third Tuesday on a Monday, one of the promoters pitched the attendees and ended up giving the tickets away to the first person who raised his hand. Even though my dance card is full, and I’ve got events every single night of the week, this was too good a chance to pass, so I’ll be going there on Thursday. I am slightly shocked that they didn’t invite me to the Whistler thingy (given that I *do* indeed cover some queer events), but whatever 🙂 But trust me, if they don’t link to my posts in their Media page, I’m definitely going to be very unhappy 😀
It is a rare occurrence that Third Tuesday does not happen on the actual third tuesday of the month, but since David Jones from Hill and Knowlton (Who by the way are running the bloggers campaign for Molson, with Brew 2.0 Vancouver, an event to which I’m invited too) was organizing the Tuesday night event, Tanya and Monica decided that it would be better for him to speak on the Monday. So we had a Third Tuesday on a Monday.
I will let Rebecca’s excellent liveblog give you the 411 of the talk, but just wanted to stress one particular element that I think is key. The bi-directionality of Web 2.0, which should transpire to any PR firm that is doing blogger relations. I think that this is an under-estimated, and often assumed element of social media – the bi-directionality.
I also tweeted this : “Dave Jones is saying almost “darn if we do, if we don’t” re: not being able to pitch EVERY single one of the bloggers.” Well, that’s a problem that probably needs to be addressed in the campaign design. For example, I know that not everybody got an invite to Brew 2.0 (and yes, I’m one of the lucky ones who did). I think that it would be probably a good idea to make it sorta kinda explicit why we were chosen. For example, my blog does do a substantial amount of Vancouver-centric posts, particularly restaurant and bar reviews. I am known for knowing “the local scene”.
Thus, it makes sense for a company that manufactures beer to have me attend an event where social media and beer intersect, even if I’m not a big beer drinker, but I do hang out where beer is served. Probably not the same if your blog is techie (I somehow don’t expect to get invites to EE Road Show). In speaking of transparency, I think it would do wonders for some marketing campaigns to be more explicit about the way in which participants in promotions are chosen.
You can read some of my notes on the Cossette Convergence talk that Darren, Kate and Rebecca gave, although I already had a PR post queued for later this week precisely on the bloggers relations issue. Anyhow, it was lovely to see many of my peeps and I look forward to catching up *slowly* with each and every one of you
Ever since I moved to Canada, I have rarely hung out with the Mexican community, not for lack of interest but simply because I am used to having an international, global friendship circle, and thus I don’t *just* hang out with any particular community. However, every year I get the same question and I figured I’d find out some scoop before I get asked “so do Mexicans celebrate the Independence Day while they are away?”. Last year I found some information (see my posts here and here) and this year, I remembered that “September is the month of the homeland”
The answer is yes, and many events are being organized in Vancouver. I used to attend the official “Grito de la Independencia” ceremony that the Mexican consulate organized, but lately these have become more social parties and less of a patriotic celebration, so I’ve stopped going since 2002. But that should not stop any of my readers! Here’s what I could find as far as scoop goes.
– The Mexican Consulate in Vancouver (who by the way entirely dissed my efforts to harness the power of my blog in helping victims of the floods in Tabasco last year) organized a “Mexico Week” from Sep 11th to 16th. They are calling it “Mexico Fest”. Sadly, even though they organized a lot of really fun individual events, I couldn’t make it to pretty much any. However, if you can make it to the following two, you should:
Tuesday, Sept 16 th “Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan” – 8:00 – 10:00 PM
Place: Orpheum Theatre
884 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC
Tickests: www.ticketmaster.caWednesday, Sept 17 th Tequila y Mezcal Tasting – 5:30 – 7:30PM
Place: Las Margaritas Mexican Restaurant
More info: Veronica Tietzsch at vtietzsch@shaw.ca
1999 4th Avenue West, Vancouver, BC Vancouver, BC
By invitation [Mexico Fest Contacts Page]
There was even a Callejoneada on Granville Island last Saturday! (my parents live in the state of Guanajuato, whose capital Guanajuato is also the host to lots of Callejoneadas). Sometimes I do regret not being more involved with the Mexican community and the consulate, if for nothing else, because these events are really fun and more importantly, they showcase a Mexico that is different from all the negative press that it’s been getting lately, both in Canada and elsewhere in the world. Maybe next year I’ll be an official media sponsor.
The official dish for Mexican Independence Day is “chiles en nogada”, which my cousin prepared last Saturday (and my Mom prepares them every year). Here is a photo for your viewing pleasure.
I never thought I’d be so happy to be back in Vancouver. I loved my time in Mexico with my Mom and my cousins and uncle, as well as a chance to hang out with three of my brothers. However, I did miss my apartment, my life here, my friends and now that I am back, I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am to be back. See you all soon 🙂
